THE NEW SCIENCE OF ECONOMIC STRUCTURALISM

n A Poet’s View of the Global Financial Crisis

"For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."

Newton's Third Law of Motion

For every Inflation there is an equal and opposite deflation.

By

Michael J. Clark

House 35a

Alley 31/46

Xuan Dieu Road

Ho Tay District

Hanoi, Vietnam

Tel 84 04 2219 2210

Cell phone 01219069743

mclark7@ mindspring.com

INTRODUCTION

The thesis of this book is that Nature ‘thinks’ (and acts) in geometric patterns. Nature’s governance of Earth involves two forces: the Day Force, which is a time of action, of civilization-building, of expansion into a seen or imagined Future, of physical evolution, of inflation of the cost of physical assets; and the Night Force, which is a time of (or a non-Time of) rest, germination, deconstruction of the reality built during the day, contraction, deflation, dreaming the next dream that will be built by the Day Force when the Dawn returns.

Two Forces govern the evolution of the Earth. The Day (heat) expands; the Night (cold) contracts.

The Day makes the Man large, large with success (and resulting Ego inflation), large with technological advances, large with pride, large with city and civilization.

The Night makes the Man small again, small with sudden failure, small with the failure of technology, small with regrets; the ruin of dreams. The man is forced to down-size; he loses what he gained, his wife and family, his house, his stockpile of wealth, his physical prowess, his youth, his hope for the Future; his belief in technology is questioned. The Night emphasizes the Past and blocks out the Future; and is rural by nature. The Night is about Nature and Space, as the Day is about Man and History and Time. On the other hand, it is the Day – when the physical eyes regain a comprehension of the physical landscape – blocks out the Past and emphasizes the Future.

In Greek myth, one drinks from the River Lethe at the end of the night-passage, which allows one to act through the primal act of Lethe, forgetting.

From the Book of Revelation, it is during the Night-Cycle that the book of revelation is unsealed and can be read, the Book of Nature, the metaphysical Laws of Nature -- that is, the seals are broken; during the Day-Cycle, the Book of God is sealed again. During Night, during the Dream, man gets closer to God again; during Day, during the active period, man gets further away from God.

We see how the Earth and Humanity on Earth are governed by Day and Night, two forces that flow into one another, are in the fact two aspects of the same source (Light, and Light’s Shadow) – this process is symbolized by two heavenly powers, the Sun governing the Day, and the Moon governing the Night. Golden light during Day; milk-white light during the Night.

Plato said that ‘God geometrizes’. The thoughts of God (the Laws of Nature) are manifest geometries. What does that mean?

One of the things it means is that repeating cycles govern Earth and govern Man’s history. This does not mean that history repeats in a literal sense. Metaphorical thinking, and writing, is not literal in the same sense that science is literal. Metaphor is non-literal, and non-linear, connecting many things at the same time, but resisting literalism, as dreams resist literalism.

History does not repeat literally; but the patterns of history repeat. The seasons of history repeat. The archetypal structure of history is based on the twelve gates of the twelve seasons, each of which is ruled by a different god, persona, idea, or force.

If all things on the Earth expand and contract, then do they do this arbitrarily, or is there a time-order to it?

Looking at the Earth’s Day and Night Cycles in American history (remember, when it is Day in America it is Night somewhere else, and vice-versa when it is Winter in the Northern Hemisphere it is Summer in the Southern Hemisphere; so this is not a simple subject;), I recognize discreet and distinct cyclic patterns of expansion and contraction.

Let me be clear about this: The Day-Cycle of expansion, of inflation, that lasts 18-years (from 1947-1965 for instance; or from 1983-2001) is NOT caused by economic expansion. The Day-Cycle causes economic expansion – and other forms of social expansion as well, surface expansions, evolution of technology, military adventurism, psychological quest for empire, greed, lust, ego-desire for gain and worldly success.

The Day-Cycle of expansion is not caused by positive thinking – although the expansion does engender positive thinking. During the expansion almost everything goes right. Of course this engenders a sense of power, a sense of ego-grace, a feeling that God has blessed one and given one grace, light, wealth, power. Positive thinking did not cause the Day-Cycle of expansion. The Day-Cycle of expansion caused positive thinking. Hence, the Night-Cycle of deconstruction, that ALWAYS and inevitably follows a Day-Cycle of Expansion, cannot be 'fixed' by positive thinking. The contraction cannot be fixed by anything, not by more inflation, spending the future's money to protect the present from the inevitable reaction. Only Time can 'fix' the problem of Nature's completeness (two-sidedness, Light AND Shadow). Time is reborn in history magically (it seems) as Time is re-born each day at Dawn, as the world wakes from its sleep.

All the tricks that worked during the Day-Cycle to improve living conditions don’t work during the Night-Cycle. Once the light switch is turned off, no amount of positive thinking (or lowering of interest rates and borrowing costs, which are a financial form of positive thinking) will fix the problem.

When the Day-Cycle ends (2001 in our most recent experience), the light switch being thrown off – think of the Arab militants’ attack on America, the destruction of the Twin Towers, the attack on the Pentagon, and the intended attack on the White House, as being the light-switch being turned off – there is nothing that can be done by anyone to make the light come back on again. Until 2019.

In 2019 the light will come back on again.

The title of this book is somewhat misleading: The New Science of Economic Structuralism. How is that for an academic title? Of course, I nod to Giambatista Vico when I mutter this title, thanking him and others (Oswald Spengler, John Milton, John Donne, Leo Tolstoy, James Joyce, all true poets in truth) for the work he did in revealing the nature of spiritual dualism as an historical causality.

This book is about ‘natural structuralism’ and how it reflects into the worlds of human society and economics.

Economics (the world of man and money) does not come first, does not impel evolution and devolution as a primary, but as a secondary, force. It is an effect or a more primal force. Think of this primal force as a wave or water, as a breath of wind, driven forth by some unseen law. Think of this primal force as being emblematic of the White Hole in nature which spews out matter resolutely until this 'Breath of God' is emptied into the world, and then reverses direction, becoming the Black Hole that collapses within and destroys all the matter that has been expelled by the White Hole's power of spending.

The White Hole is an emblem of growth and spending and building; the Black Hole is an emblem of the end of material growth and saving and the destruction of the built-world.

This book focuses discusses both the primary and the secondary forces.

Most of the time when I use the word ‘inflation’ in this book, I am speaking about primary expansions, Day-Cycles, and not monetary phenomena -- Growth -- Growth in my lexicon is Inflation. In this book I propose we change the language of finance and designate ‘inflation’ as Day-Cycle (the Business Cycle) expansions (1983-2001) and ‘deflations’ as Night-Cycle contractions (1965-1983; 2001- 2019).

I am fond of the religious metaphor of the chalice, the cup, the womb, and its reference to primary Day-Cycles and Night-Cycles. Day-Cycles fill up the empty cup of Nature (ancient religion used the term ‘God’s breath’ – God’s breath filled the world, then emptied the world). This began in 1911, 1947 and 1983 during the Twentieth Century. Again, we are focusing on American experience – however, the 18-year cycle will work when applied to other nations; we must remember that this process moves from East-to-West, the same direction that the Sun ‘moves’.

In the 1930’s, fascism came to Asia, then to Europe, and finally to America – although America’s fascism was quelled by the horror of what fascist forces had already done across the globe.

The Day-Cycle is a process of filling up the cup; the Night-Cycle is a process of emptying the cup, ‘emptying out’, downsizing, retrenching, falling to one’s knees, seeking the power of God to resurrect one’s will and fortune again. The Day-Cycle fills up Man to the point he believe he is a god – and this is the original sin that caused man (and woman) to be kicked out of the Garden of Eden.

Deflation, indeed, is the kicking of man out of Paradise, caused by Pride, of Man worshipping himself, putting himself first (“I am Number One’) and forgetting one’s true place in Nature, beneath God.

From 1983 to 2001, the Day-Cycle filled the chalice. In 2001, the cup was full. This is when Alan Greenspan needed to lead the charge against the full cup (the full cup means that debt is too cheap) by raising interest rates and making debt more expensive. But this would have required Alan to recognize that ‘death’ as being built into the system. He would have had to ‘die quietly’. He was not able to do this, for obvious and pretty universal psychological reasons. The Hero does not die easily, quietly. Had he begun raising interest rates, all the imbalances that the global economy has incurred and experienced since 2001 would have been mitigated. Yes, we would have had our deflation; and the pain of deflation is very real, for it is a spiritual death experience. It is the Tree of Sorrow. It is the Old Age, and the heroic inflation was the Youth of the cycle. But nothing can keep this deflation from happening. But we would not have had the current magnification of government-and-bank-sponsored debt that has brought about another Deluge to the Earth. Or the current magnification of government-led transfer of money from the poor and the middle class to the wealthiest corporate patrons, rulers, oligarchs all over the world.

When you continue to fill a full cup, you get a flood.

Warnings of a flood come to the world, and God seeks out Noah – and God gives Noah a chance to save the whole world, if Noah can find a man worth saving – and Noah seeks that one man worth saving, finds none, and returns to God with the conclusion: go ahead and let the waters rise.

The Flood is the symbol of Night-Cycles. The Flood is not only about what happens in the economic and monetary sphere, but also in the human and social sphere -- when God 'breathes-in' the world again. The social chaos in much of the world (Thailand, Arab states, Greece, soon coming to all the countries you know and love, coming closer to home with each successive wave) is a form of the Flood – during the Night-Cycle watery emotion is the primary driver, no longer detachment and abstraction, as is true of the Day-Cycles. Nothing likes increased poverty to sharpen your sense of fear and outrage.

Noah is the Spirit Principle – the God-in-Man – and the Ark is the Soul Principle. Only this Monad survives the Night-Cycle. All the other principles in Man are stripped away during the Night-Cycle. Man stands naked before God, as the Monad, the original Man.

The Day-Cycle is about adding layers or skins on top of the primordial Monad. The Night-Cycle is about subtracting those layers, returning back to the original naked man, man as God created him.

Man is technology. Day-Cycles are technology. The Day-Cycle 1983-2001 was an expansion dedicated to and powered by computing technology.

The Day-Cycle 1947-1965 was an expansion dedicated to and powered by television technology.

The Day-Cycle 1911-1929 was an expansion dedicated to and powered by automobile technology.

Each Day-Cycle has its primary technology that powers it.

Man’s first technology (defined by interconnected parts) was the wheel, an extension of his foot. Computing technology is an extension of man’s brain, top of the world.

Is it possible that this ‘climbing’ -- Day-Cycles honor ‘climbers’ , in fact, many Day-Cycle personas will climb over their own mothers to get ahead, climb mountains to prove their will and acumen – is a process described by Jacob’s Ladder? If so, then the world is at the top of the ladder.

What new technology in 20019 will lead the advanced world’s animated advance into another Day-Cycle expansion?

The most telling visual evidence of Day-Cycle Night-Cycle transformations I have found is the Gold-Dow Ratio. The price of Gold (anti-Man) rises during Night Cycles; the price of stock prices (Man) rises during Day-Cycles.

We have a lack of concrete data here – we cannot follow this chart back to the 1700’s. But note the PERFECT adherence to my described Day-Cycle ‘tops’ during the Twentieth Century.

Day Cycle ‘Tops’: 1929 1965; 2001.

The bottom process is a little less dramatic, and usually more of a ‘rounding’ process.

Day-Cycle ‘Bottoms’: 1911; 1947; 1983, 2019.

Here is a list of historical Day-Cycle and Night-Cycles through American history:

Period A. 2001 – 2019: Night Cycle Deflation, Social Fragmentation, Chaos

Period B. 1983 – 2001: Day Cycle Inflation, Higher forms of Organization

Period C. 1965 – 1983: Night Cycle Deflation, Social Fragmentation, Chaos

Period D. 1947 – 1965: Day Cycle Inflation, higher forms of Organization

Period E. 1929 – 1947: Night Cycle Deflation, Social Fragmentation, Chaos

Period F. 1911 – 1929: Day Cycle Inflation, higher forms of Organization

Period G. 1893 – 1911: Night Cycle Deflation, Social Fragmentation, Chaos

Period H. 1875 – 1893: Day Cycle Inflation, higher forms of Organization

Period I. 1857 – 1875: Night Cycle Deflation, Social Fragmentation, Chaos

Period J. 1839 – 1857: Day Cycle Inflation, higher forms of Organization

Period K. 1821 – 1839: Night Cycle Deflation, Social Fragmentation, Chaos

Period L. 1803 – 1821: Day Cycle Inflation, higher forms of Organization

Period M. 1785 – 1803: Night Cycle Deflation, Social Fragmentation, Chaos

Period N. 1767 – 1785: Day Cycle Inflation, higher forms of Organization

Period O. 1749 – 1767: Night Cycle Deflation, Social Fragmentation, Chaos

Period P. 1731 – 1749: Day Cycle Inflation, higher forms of Organization

Period Q. 1713 – 1731: Night Cycle Deflation, Social Fragmentation, Chaos

In my book Turn Out the Lights I examine thoroughly historical evidence of American Day-Cycle and Night-Cycle transformations.

This book focuses on PRINCIPLES through ‘poetic observations’ about this Day/Night phenomena and about how this phenomena manifests in the world of politics and economics.

The structure I herein present comes from Nature. I am not ‘inventing’ it. This structure is the basic structure of Life on Earth and presents us, for the sake of simplification, 4 major human personas as symbols of history’s manifestation.

Midnight-Winter: the Black King, Dark Ages: a return to Nature and to the religious Nature. North.

Dawn-Spring: The Renaissance Man. Moving into Science, Reason, away from Religion, into technology and technique. Governed by the Sun Hero myth. Worships the Sun. East.

Noon-Summer: the White King, Civilization, the City, Humanity defeating Nature. Science defeating Religion. South.

Dusk-Winter: The Romantic Man. Moving away from the City, Science, Reason – rebelling against the Father’s World – going ‘back to Nature’ (the Mother’s World) – the Womb. Anti-Technology. Worships the Moon. West.

To think of it another way: Midnight is the seed (and the root) in the Womb. (‘Contractions’ are in fact both returns to the seed and signs of a coming rebirth.) Dawn is the plant flowering. Noon is the plant fruiting. Civilization is the fruit of Man. Dusk is the harvesting, and the rotting seed-in-the-fruit falling back toward Earth.

Renaissance – Empire/Empiricism - Romanticism– Dark Ages.

Escape from Religion - Reason - Escape from Reason - Return to Religion

There is nothing we can do to make the light switch (the Future, and Positive Energy/Electricity) come back on before 2019. But there are things we can do as a nation to work with this process and prepare for our rebirth in 2019. The job of the Deflation Season (2001-2019) is to destroy bad debt, to collapse the part of the world that is build on decay (bad debt), and to reward saving so that citizens (all citizens) can successfully build wealth for the future through relatively riskless investment -- and high interest rates help to ensure this.

Critics will argue that high interest rates deter growth. Remember: interest rates are high during the Non-Growth Season and are lower during the Growth Season. When no growth is possible, then investment growth through saving money -- and strengthening the local currency -- is necessary.

Inflation/Growth seasons always result in a weaker local currency, as more money is circulated to stimulate growth and debt growth.

Balance is the key-note of this vision of the unity of this process. Spending (and debt spending) at the apex of the Growth Cycle is unbalanced (...1929, 1965, 2001...). Saving at the apex of the Non-Growth Cycle is also unbalanced (...1947, 1983, 2019...). This system seeks to move coherently between periods of Spending Extremism and Saving Extremism to engender an approximate balance of these two forces.

The Global Economy is the potent image of the climax of the Growth Cycle (1929, 1965, 2001) much as protectionism, nationalism and national self-sufficiency (the 'island' image) is the climax of the Non-Growth Cycle (1947, 1983, 2019). Understanding that this is the case, we know into which imagery we will be sailing over the next decade or so.

One World is the emblem of the Day-Cycle unity of growth and evolution, movement into the Future; secession from the One World is the emblem of the Night-Cycle disunity (divorce) of regression and de-evolution, movement into reflection on the Past. Empire dominates the Growth Cycle; Civil War dominates the Non-Growth Cycle.

But becoming aware of these necessary movements gives us a certain amount of power to, while not controlling these movements, at least assisting them, and flowing with them, and understanding their approximate durations.

Remember, 2019 is Midnight. It is Winter. 2019 is when the Sun-Hero is reborn as a baby, as a thin hope, as a small particle of light. Hope. The entire period 2019-2028 will be a difficult growth period, similar to 1983-1992.

Eden is Spring, in this system. Eden, in the Twentieth Century, occurred from 1920-1929, from 1947-1956, from 1992-2001. Eden is the time of bliss when everything grows and when almost everything goes right. 1928-1937 will be our next Eden.

We can shout about our leadership – and I do shout in this book on occasion – but there are no miracles possible unless God makes them possible (the Laws of Nature).

Generally speaking, Business interests – Conservatives, Republicans, the materialists – rule the Day-Cycles [note: they do not cause the Day-Cycles, they are empowered by the Day-Cycles – they do not make the plant grow, but they generally take credit for the plant growing]. The humanists – Liberals, Democrats, the anti-materialists – rule the Night-Cycles.

The Will-to-Power governs the Day-Cycles. Love and Compassion govern the Night-Cycles. This is the way that God created it.

The Old Testament (the Religion of the Father) governs the Day-Cycles – fundamentalist religion. The New Testament (the Religion of the Son) governs the Night-Cycles -- the Soul religion hidden inside the husk.

Day-Cycles are examples of the Biblical saying “the Lord gives”; Night-Cycles are examples of the Biblical saying “and the Lord takes away”.

Day-Cycles are about Man abusing Nature in order to fulfill his personal and cultural dreams and ambitions. Night-Cycles are about Nature getting even. Note the violent and devastating floods, tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, wars, revolutions, civil wars during Night-Cycles.

I am a poet, a philosopher, a fine artist. I am not an economist. I do not hold a Ph.D. in economics.

Why should you read this book? Well, we have listened over the past decades to very learned and well-educated economists who are all coming up empty as they stare into the abyss today trying to figure out ‘what went wrong’ and ‘what didn’t work’. Perhaps we need a new perspective, a new philosophical understanding.

Scientific thinking focuses on nuts-and-bolts, on details of causality -- this causes that. This is a very powerful tool for controlling and using the details, the outside of the material world. What science loses by isolating phenomena in the laboratory to study it is the patterns of inter-relations of the processes of Nature, the macrocosmic picture.

Knowledge without philosophy is dangerous. Knowledge shows us how to manipulate the world for our own ends; but philosophy shows us how the world works, beyond our own private and public manipulation of the world for our own ends.

Philosophy is the bridge between the Microcosmic View of the Individual and the Macrocosmic View of Nature.

Professional economists will tend to dismiss this book out of hand. We deify ‘experts’ in the modern world, tending to think that genius comes with hard work and accumulation of degrees and titles. Genius does not come from hard work. Genius works hard; but genius does not come from hard work.

Having a high degree makes one an expert in attending school, nothing more.

In every profession, dismissing for the moment education level, you will have 3% genius; 40% intelligent hard workers; 20% satisfactory plodders; 20% inept practitioners; 10% frauds who know they are faking it; 7% thieves and cheats. This is true for auto mechanics, dentists, professional football players, truck drivers, architects, stock brokers and bankers (although the thieves and cheats percentage goes up dramatically in these last two categories).

For rebirth to occur, for spiritual regeneration to happen, the Soul must be willing to look at the world from a new perspective, through a new set of lenses. This book is a new lens. This poetic lens is the lens that the ancient world used for millennia, which the modern world has willfully put aside, associating it with ignorance and superstition -- whereas, in reality, the poetic view is taught through a language that the modern world no longer knows how to speak.

The poetic lens shows the world from the inside out. The scientific lens shows the world on from the outside -- the measurement of bodies moving in space. As such, our modern scientific world has no soul because we do not possess the machine by which we can measure the powers of the soul. Science does not believe that the world has a soul, because it cannot measure the soul. Science is a victim of the limitations of its machine-making. The Soul experiences the world directly; Science experiences the world through a measuring machine. We need both views. Both views are powerful. But to understand the poetic view, the world as seen through the poetic lens, the world must re-learn the poetic (metaphorical, analogical) language.

I think the real reason all the economists are all at a loss is that they all went to same schools and learned the same creed -- either the pro-creed or the anti-creed -- which is all still the same creed.

One needs to look at the problem from a fresh perspective. One needs to look at the problem through this new lens. I suggest we look at the problem through the 'poetic lens', a lens of natural philosophy, which 'twists' the reality into a different paradigm, therefore, offering a new perspective.

Economists are trapped in the same language that does not allow for seeing from outside the box. Growth is good; Deflation is bad. Growth can be perennial if we only learn enough so that we can trick nature, defeat death, defeat economic exhaustion. But we cannot defeat economic exhaustion. We can treat it with rest and conservation of energy. The Deflation Cycle is about conserving energy. The Growth Cycle is about ex-pending (spending) energy.

Our concept of GDP is a trap also, since it does not measure actual economic growth per se, as much as it measures spending, assuming spending is growth and growth is good; but spending borrowed money may or may not be growth; and borrowing more money that one can service easily may not be good, although it is generally speaking good for bank profits. Spending borrowed money is only growth if it creates capital expansion, increases profits, on the money being borrowed. If borrowed money does not lead to increased profits, it is merely throwing money into the Black Hole of Deflation.

NOTE: This book is a relatively unstructured (amorphous) montage of ideas about structure (financial, historical, social, political, with an underlying metaphysic). It is elastically ordered by date; in terms of themes it is merely ordered much as a dream is ordered, by an underlying often invisible connectors. Nearly all of this book was published as 'conversations' between users on the website Seeking Alpha, from which I was later blackballed for nearly two years [charged with overuse of 'religious metaphors', being 'long-winded' and being too committed to 'winning arguments' -- I was not charged with being argumentative however], between the years of 2010-2012.

MJClark

Hanoi 2011

THE NEW SCIENCE OF ECONOMIC STRUCTURALISM

n A Poet’s View of the Global Financial Crisis

OUR CUP IS FULL

Our cup is full. We need to destroy our debt so we can start over again. This means we have to accept the DEFLATION the Fed has been spending trillions to avoid, to deny.

INFLATION is filling the cup.

DEFLATION is emptying the cup.

July 1, 2011

FOR GOD’S SAKE, LISTEN TO NOAH: WE DON’T NEED MORE WATER

Fed Plans for QE (however many generations of this toxic euphemism): sink the US Dollar to force assets priced in US Dollars higher and use the Fed to buy US Treasuries at the same time to keep TBond prices from falling with the Dollar and keep TBonds from becoming Junk Bonds. Does it work? Well it generates inflation in stocks, in the price of oil and grains and food products and produces riots and revolutions around the world.

Why are we still barking up this same old tree?

The ONLY thing that will bring back organic economic growth is to 'dry out' the economic world. This means: make money more expensive, not less expensive. More of the same policies -- to the ones that pushed the economy over the edge -- will not bring us back to economic growth. We had 20 years of economic inflation (along with economic growth) -- now growth is over; the economy is resting. We need to drain all the excess (worthless) money out of the system (and by this I really mean to focus on all the toxic loans we are still trying to protect).

Painful? Yes. But there is no other solution. We've tried lying about it since 2001 -- and we're in a deeper quagmire now than we were then. QE just keeps us digging in the mud, giving us more mess to deal with, more water; we are drowning, and the doctor is prescribing more water. We need LESS water.

4 September 2011

WHOM DO WE TRUST, BIG BUSINESS OR BIG GOVERNMENT

Actually, I don't especially trust ANYONE in power. But we have to follow some people in power if we are going to be a society. I really think we have to have a system where business and individual initiative and the desire for success and profit are balanced by a government that sees its job as regulating and balancing this business power-center. We do not want Business and Government in bed together. That is the political structure of fascism: state capitalism.

Day-Cycles (in my terminology) are about Business winning, the individual winning, technological development winning and innovation winning. This is the fruit of civilization. Night-Cycles are about the fruit rotting on the tree, falling off the tree, the seed crawling back into the Earth, and going through a long gestation period before it springs back to life. 18 years up; 18 years down.

Humanity ‘grows up’ when it builds civilization during Day-Cycles. Humanity ‘grows down’ when it rests during Night-Cycles.

Day-Cycles are about Business winning; Night-Cycles are about Business losing. Day-Cycles are about government getting out of the way of Business; Night-Cycles are about government taking over some of the roles of business and attempting to keep the society intact while Business, the Practical Man, technological development, suddenly impotent, goes into hiding, into de-leveraging, into psychological and spiritual dissolution, prior to recreation.

I don't agree that I can't have it both ways. I think we MUST have it both ways. From 2001-2019, Business is going to hide and produce no jobs in America. Business will need to be re-regulated and cleaned up. From 2019-2037 (which was true also from 1983-2001), Business should be taken off a leash and turned loose. Evolution depends upon individual freedoms to pursue dreams. However, time runs out; and we all have to rest, sleep. Dream time comes back in 2001-2019. Expansion stops. In 2037, Time and Expansion will also stop.

2001-2019, in my view, will be about the emptying out of debt, must be about the emptying out of debt -- government, yes, but also corporate and personal/consumer debt. Government needs to cut spending but also collect more taxes to try to pay off debt more quickly. Debt is the enemy of growth. Higher interest rates will destroy debt, make new debt more expansive to take on, and reward Americans who save money.

I think business needs to be made smaller and government needs to be made smaller -- and the need to no longer reward debt will accomplish both of these tasks. But it won't be easy to accomplish this because it means that Americans are going to get poorer in the process.

During the Expansion Season that follows every Deflation, Business gets larger, Government gets larger, and debts get larger. Until they don't any longer. There is a Big Crunch out there for every empire, every civilization. Rome's Big Crunch was the European Dark Age. There is an American Dark Age out there also, waiting to take hold when America's empire runs out of creative energy.

Jun 26 2011

WHY BEN BERNANKE WANTS TO SABOUTAGE THE DOLLAR

Sounds like Mr. Bernanke is convinced that without QE 3 he will not be able to drive the US dollar down indefinitely. No wonder he is sad. No asset bubbles unless he can continue to sabotage the dollar. The commodity bubble is dependent on a weak US Dollar.

Of course, Ben can always pump money directly into the Housing Market to try to create another housing bubble by buying mortgage bonds that no one else will buy.

Jun 24 2011

THE FALL OF BEN BERNANKE

The message is that stimulation will continue, yes. But OVERSTIMULATION will end. That is, the world's number one dollar-basher is saying he has lost his religion.

Bernanke was depressed. He admitted what I and many others on this board and elsewhere have been saying for years: He doesn't have a clue what to do.

He was flying by the seat of his pants, making things up as he went alone, praying that he would be able to stall long enough for organic business growth to kick in and render the debt issue moot.

Didn't happen.

Now that the West's lead voice of optimism (dollar destruction being used to inflate assets again around the world) has lost his religion, who is the West going to fall in line behind now? Who is going to be the new mouthpiece of Western capitalism's magic lantern mantra: "Everything will be fine, everything will be fine. Just go out and shop. Just go out and shop..."

How will history remember political leadership that found 'shopping' as the highest function of humans in a democratic civilization? If everybody just bought more stuff, took on more debt, everything would be fine. If that isn't a definition of moral and philosophical bankruptcy I don't know what is. I had an aunt who believed that everything would be find if she just had more money to spend on suff she didn't need. And I always considered it a form of madness.

When we let businessmen run the world, shopping becomes our highest value. That's what is wrong with us. Our spiritual natures have been pulled down in to the mud where dollar-value is the only thing that matters.

Definitely, however, Bernanke's performance and message is bullish for the dollar, bearish for commodities and stocks. Bernanke looked like he wanted to cry or commit suicide. ("Shall I order cyanide or champagne...")

Jun 23 2011

CAPITALISM AND/OR CULTURE?

HOW MUCH CAPITALISM CAN OUR CULTURE AFFORD?

What we have here is the HUGE political dilemma of the present and future. How much capitalism can we afford? How much are we willing to destroy the world in which we live so we can have more condo castles, gated communities, country clubs and golf courses, second, third, fourth and fifth houses? How much greed can the world afford?

Is the American Dream doomed to always remain the Philistines' delight of obscene personal wealth for a few without consideration of true quality of life for more than a few. How many Disneylands do we need? How much development is too much development? Does greed work as the new theology? Is it God or the Devil that drives us to demolish our back yard woods so that we can live in splendid MacMansions and other vehicles to glorify how rich we've become?

It's time for a real philosophy to come to America. But I'm afraid true philosophy will only come after Rome has been destroyed by its own pursuit of extravagant self-worship....and after the Visigoths and Ostrogoths have appeared in Washington DC and New York.

June 23 2011

HOW BEN BERNANKE FAILED THE LIBERALS

What happened to him? What happened to you democrats who lied to yourself in order to believe that Ben Bernanke was on the side of workers in America? What happened to Barak Obama to make him believe that funneling billions of taxpayer money to corrupt and bankrupted Wall Street banks and corporations and re-nominating a Republican Fed Chair committed to 0% interest rates and re-inflation of toxic asset bubbles would help the working and now non-working poor of America and the world? The anti-dollar policy was going to help the poor how exactly? Higher prices on everything from food to gas to education to medicine to industrial materials -- how was that going to help the poor in America? The transfer of trillions of dollars from the US Treasury to the corporate elite all over the world -- how was that helping the world's poor and future-poor?

If the Fed Chair's loyalty is, first, to Wall Street and the banks, which has been clear it is, for many years now -- isn't that part of its charter? -- how in the hell could you believe that Ben Bernanke was ever on the side of America's working poor? Shame on you wishful thinkers who lied to yourself in order to believe that taking on more debt was the answer to a catastrophe of too much debt.

The answer? Bernanke has to resign. We need a fed chair dedicated, first, too elimination of debt at all levels through repayment, default, bankruptcy. How will that help America's working poor in the short-run. It will not. There is no short-term cure to what has become a lethal spate of financial irresponsibility by individual Americans (working poor included), corporations, and government. We need to become sober again. Sober implies the pain of 'drying out'. We need a Fed Chair dedicated to drying America out. We need a president dedicated to the cause of debt destruction through lower prices (deflation), higher interest rates (more Americans saving and not borrowing), higher taxes and lower government spending. If Wall Street doesn't like it, so what. If the American Ruling Class doesn't like it, so what -- although this WILL bring the specter of political assassination back onto the American political scene. If the American voter doesn't like it, so what. This is where leadership and statesmanship separates itself from professional politicians and lawyers for hire and the lobbyist culture that has perverted the American Democracy.

Spending money you don't have is immoral. We pretended that it wasn't -- and now we are waking up to the realization of what 'sin' does to a people and that the path out of 'sin' is dark and perilous and painful.

Higher taxes, higher interest rates, lower government spending: put on your helmet. This crash is going to shake us to our boots.

Jun 23 2011

ECONOMIC PUZZLES TROUBLE THE FED-CHAIRMAN

Night-Cycles last 18 years -- no matter what. During Night-Cycles economies CANNOT grow. During Night-Cycles DEBT needs to be emptied out. That is the whole point of a Night-Cycle. Economic contraction, in fact, is caused by the Night-Cycle. The Night-Cycle is not caused by economic contraction. Night-Cycle contraction occurs on all levels: economic, political, social, personal, psychological, emotional -- and this represents the empting out, the getting small, the downsizing, the Winter Season, the returning to the soil, the seed season, the "God takes away" season, Milton's Paradise Lost, Dante's Inferno. Night-Cycles are essentially anti-man and anti-patriarchal and represent the destruction of the built-dream, much as Day-Cycles represent the building the dream, the climbing of the mountain (social and financial 'climbers' dominate), the covenant with God, the 'God gives' season, Milton's Paradise Regained, Dante's Paradiso.

Bernanke clearly has no deep understanding or he would not be keeping interest rates on the floor. The economy is a cup we filled from 1983 to 2001 (Day-Cycle); the economy is a cup we need to empty from 2001-2019 (Night-Cycle). How do we empty this cup. We raise interest rates. We make debt more expensive and less attractive. We reward savers, the core of society, the 'salt of the earth' of the society, since we are returning to earth in the Night-Cycle. The next Day-Cycle will need investment -- and savers should be the ones to fuel the next expansion. Using debt as a fuel comes later.

The Fed should have led America OUT of the debt-junkie stage in 2001, and should still be tightening. Debt is like body fat. You get too much you can't move. You get fat; you get thin. You breathe out; you breathe in. You borrow money; you pay off your debts. You have Day; you have Night. Night is for dreaming the next stage of the Dream, of the Reality, which always comes in the mind first, as a dream or as a form of fantasy. The Day is for building the next dream, the one you have in your mind when you wake up.

Midnight is 2019. 2011 is about 7:00 PM. We are just going to sleep. We have a lot of transformations still to go through. But the Patriarchs don't know this world. The Patriarchs know only the straight line world, the build, build, build world. The Patriarchs can't save us (Ben is trying to be a Patriarch) because they don't know this Night-Cycle terrain. They despise art, poetry, philosophy. They are can-do men, not lazy dreamers. But it is the lazy dreamers who get a society through a Night-Cycle. Patriarchs have two eyes and can see physical reality. Lazy dreamers and artists and women and poets and prophets and shaman and priests (as the society sinks down to the aboriginal level) have the one eye (the Mind, used as a tool of vision instead of a tool to crunch numbers and reality) are the only ones with the map through the Night-Cycle. One can't keep using expansion logic and expansion techniques during a primary contraction. Day Cycles are for individuals to get rich; Night-Cycles are for societies to share their wealth. Both capitalism and socialism are SUPPOSED to have their seasons of dominance. They are not enemies. They are like husband and wife, each with a different time of strength and vision.

Jun 22 2011

LAMENT OF THE SUN-KING WHEN THE NIGHT-CYCLE FALLS

Today I was listening to the radio. A Coldplay song came on.

I could not believe how clearly this song expresses of the overthrowing of the Day-Cycle King -- and the sudden casting out of Eden that the Soul experiences as the Night-Cycle falls.

Night-Cycles are essentially anti-man -- the man, as engineer, as builder, as governor, as banker, as Practical Man of the World, being no longer needed, dissolving in the Flood, vanishing.

Viva La Vida –

Coldplay

I used to rule the world

Seas would rise when I gave the word

Now in the morning I sleep alone

Sweep the streets I used to own

I used to roll the dice

Feel the fear in my enemy's eyes

Listen as the crowd would sing

"Now the old king is dead! Long live the king!"

One minute I held the key

Next the walls were closed on me

And I discovered that my castles stand

Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand

I hear Jerusalem bells a ringing

Roman Cavalry choirs are singing

Be my mirror, my sword and shield

My missionaries in a foreign field

For some reason I can't explain

Once you go there was never

Never an honest word

And that was when I ruled the world

It was the wicked and wild wind

Blew down the doors to let me in

Shattered windows and the sound of drums

People couldn't believe what I'd become

Revolutionaries wait

For my head on a silver plate

Just a puppet on a lonely string

Oh who would ever want to be king?

I hear Jerusalem bells a ringing

Roman Cavalry choirs are singing

Be my mirror, my sword and shield

My missionaries in a foreign field

For some reason I can't explain

I know Saint Peter won't call my name

Never an honest word

But that was when I ruled the world

I hear Jerusalem bells a ringing

Roman Cavalry choirs are singing

Be my mirror, my sword and shield

My missionaries in a foreign field

For some reason I can't explain

I know Saint Peter won't call my name

Never an honest word

But that was when I ruled the world

Jun 17 2011

WHILE I AM DISCUSSION THE PSYCHOLOGICAL FOCUS OF THE DAY-CYCLE, THE EGO'S ASCENT FOR POWER

No song captures the arrogant Ego-centered power climb up Olympus to money, power and prestige (and empire) as Peter Gabriel's classic song "Big Time". Remember, the Day-Cycle is about getting big, becoming a Titan, a Giant; while the Night-Cycle is about getting small, so one can fit through the eye of the needle, and, so, achieve rebirth.

"Big Time"

I'm on my way I'm making it, huh!

I've got to make it show yeah, hey!

So much larger than life

I'm gonna watch it growing

Hey hey hey heyyyyyyy

The place where I come from is a small town

They think so small, they use small words

But not me, I'm smarter than that,

I worked it out

I'll be stretching my mouth to let those big words come right out

I've had enough, I'm getting out

to the city, the big big city

I'll be a big noise with all the big boys, so much stuff I will own

And I will pray to a big god, as I kneel in the big church

Big time, I'm on my way I'm making it, big time, oh yes

Big time, I've got to make it show yeah, big time

Big time, so much larger than life

Big time, I'm gonna watch it growing, big time

Ho ohh ohh, oh oh, ho ohh ohh, oh ohhh

My parties have all the big names and I greet them with the widest smile

Tell them how my life is one big adventure

and always they're amazed when I show them 'round my house to my bed

I had it made like a mountain rage with a snow white pillow for my big fat head

And my heaven will be a big heaven, and I will walk through the front door

Big Time, I'm on my way I'm making it, big time, Huh!

Big time, I've got to make it show yeah, big time

Big time, so much larger than life

Big time, I'm gonna watch it growing, big time

Big time, my car is getting bigger Big time, my house is getting bigger

Big time, my eyes are getting bigger

and my mouth

Big time, my belly's getting bigger

Big time, and my bank account

Big time, look at my circumstance

Big time, and the bulge in my big big big big big big big big big big big big big big big, hi there

Jun 17 2011

THE HOLY GRAIL, THE HOLY CHALICE, THE LEGENDARY CUP, IS HALF-EMPTY:

IF IT IS 2010

Ian, you won't like my metaphor. The empty cup of 1983 began to fill with organic growth. The Business Cycle Growth Period is, metaphorically, the filling of the cup. In 2001, this cup (the debt cup) was full. Greenspan continued filling it; and then Bernanke after him. Filling a full cup results in bubbles, in too much liquidity. and then in the Flood -- which we are now experiencing. The Deflationary Cycle (beginning in 2001 this cycle) is the symbolic emptying of the cup – de-leveraging should have begun in 2001. 2010 should be, in fact, the point (twilight) when the cup really is half empty. Sadly, because the Fed is still trying to add water to the full cup, we have not really started de-leveraging yet -- the cup certainly is not half empty yet – I wish it was. The plan is for the cup to be absolutely empty in 2019, so that the filling process can begin again. In order for us to keep to this schedule, we will need a Fed chair who ratchets up rates -- or sovereign debt defaults that do the bank-rupturing-process killing bad-debt for us.

In the 20th Century:

1911: empty cup begins filling

1929: full cup begins emptying

1947: empty cup begins filling

1965: full cup begins emptying

1983: empty cup begins filling

2001: full cup begins emptying

2019: empty cup begins filling.

Please don't take the 'cup filled with debt' too literally in a historic sense. The real process is driven by periodical (18-year) 'breathing processes". Filling the cup is expansive energy turned outward; emptying the cup involves contractive energy being turned inward. Anentropy is the method of the Day-Cycle; followed by entropy, the methodology of the Night-Cycle. Republican domination, following by Democratic domination.

The Soul -- the Middle Principle, the Middle Class in a very literal sociological reading -- sides with the Republicans and the Male Principle during Day-Cycles, periods of expansion -- everyone wants to be rich and to be connected to the rich; and the Soul sides with the Democrats and the Female Principle during Night-Cycles, periods of contraction, feeling revulsion at the corruption and at the crimes committed against the Soul in order to try to be rich.

Bernanke is, of course, terrified by the idea of Deflationary pressures, because the Head is terrified by the thought of turning of the captaincy of the Boat of State to the Heart, which is what happens every Night-Cycle, the 'lower order', the Democrats.

Night-Cycles are about decapitation. The Head is almost always not ready for decapitation.

The seed, of course, is located in the Decapitated Head.

Bury that Head, and wait for the long cycle of gestation, deflation, for the Sun to return again, engendering a new growth cycle.

14 July 2011

ARISTOTLE, MEET PLATO

ARISTOTLE, BY DAY; PLATO, BY NIGHT

Ian: You're like Aristotle, you like the details; I'm like Plato, I like the universals. You seem to be saying that you can't predict the future (or at least generally subscribe the future) based on the past. But a scientist could generally subscribe that Winter will begin on December 21 every year. How can he do this: by studying past behavior. And by studying the laws (the universals) this past behavior suggests. That's all I'm doing.

I think the 18-year expansion/18-year contraction will hold true in every nation's history, but I have not devoted my time to studying it in every nation yet -- just America.

What do scientists do in their labs. They perform tests over and over again -- and then describe general laws based on the past performance of phenomena. That's what I'm doing.

History's universals repeat. It is just the details that don't repeat in a verbatum sense. The clothes are different; but the Solar Structure (as in Soul's Structure) is the same.

16 July 2011

MAN IS TECHNOLOGY; DAY-CYCLES ARE ABOUT MEN AND ABOUT TECHNOLOGICAL EVOLUTION. NIGHT-CYCLES ARE ABOUT WOMEN, AND ARE ANTI-MAN.

That's why de-leveraging will not be completed in two or three years.

According to Stephen Gandel’s article: “Americans In Debt: Just How Bad Off Are We?”:

On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal took a look inside the disappointing recovery and found a different answer for why the U.S. economy could continue to be weak: Consumer debt.

Getting rid of debt could be a long and slow process. To get back to a 1990s debt-to-income ratio of 84%, households would either need to pay down another $3.3 trillion of debt, or see their incomes rise $3.9 trillion. That's equivalent to about nine years' worth of income growth in normal times, estimates Credit Suisse economist Dana Saporta.

With weaker job-creation and weaker economic growth, I don't see any way incomes are going to be growing until after 2019. This is a slow grind in a deflationary environment, not matter what the Fed does to deny it.

As European banks begin to fail, more defaults, more destruction of debt through default. This, default, bankruptcy, will eventually get our cup emptied by 2019. Then we will start another slow march up the hill, filling the cup.

Each economic expansion is driven by a new technology.

1983-2001: Computer technology.

1947-1965: Television technology.

1911-1929: Automobile technology.

Man is technology. Day-Cycle expansions ARE about technological evolution.

What technology drives the expansion 2019-2037? That is where you want to invest your money. But not until 2019. Until 2019, gold is the place to be.

16 July 2011

WEALTH IS NOT EVIL, BUT…

CAPITALISTS ARE NOT CHRISTIANS, THEY ARE ROMANS

My view is not that wealth is evil. I don't believe that all wealthy people are evil and all poor people good. I'm trying to point out some inconsistencies in thinking by people claiming to be Christians.

My own view is that Wealth and the Religion of the Father -- what I call the Day-Cycle -- and Poverty and the Religion of the Son (through the Mother) are two great magnets in our Soul(s) which draw us into and out of life and experience. These two worlds are, in fact, a mirror-image of one another (like matter and anti-matter are a mirror-image of each other). The history of cultures is a passing from one magnet to the other; and every society is made up of these two great magnet-worlds, each believing that the side to which it is presently attached (attracted to, in an almost literal sense) is good and it's opposite is evil. Jesus believed that the Earth-World -- material reality -- was evil; and orthodox Jews believed that Jesus was a demon. Jesus' view threatened the existence of the established world -- so the conservatives wanted him dead. The conservative forces of Jesus's Jewish society (through the Romans) killed the rebellious son (a prodigal son, indeed) to try to preserve their (in Jesus's view) corrupt established order. Because Jesus did not take up swords and spikes to fight the old Jewish order (and the Romans) does not mean he was not a revolutionary, any more than Gandhi's refusal to kill means he was not a revolutionary.

Jesus was a revolutionary against the spiritual ideals of the corrupt Judaism of his day which gloated that having wealth was the sign of God's blessing. Jesus came to the Earth to revoke the covenant which God had made with the Jews -- revoking this covenant because the Jews had failed to put God first in their lives (Commandment #1: Thou shalt put no false Gods before me.). The Jews were worshipping money and worldly status based on money (the most obvious false god or idol) instead of God and God's law. Jesus' throwing the money-changers out of the temple was the overt act of this proclamation. Money worship and the worship of God cannot go together.

I would argue that both the Covenant side of Life (the climbing up the hill, armed) and the Revocation side of Life (Death, darkness, being cast out of Eden, the descending the hill as the Night fell -- think of Dante's Inferno) describe the two sides of Expansion (Day) and Contraction (Night) and both sides go together inevitably.

The world -- especially the Western World -- is now experiencing the Revocation of the Covenant, the reduction of wealth and power, the emptying out, the downsizing, the getting small and modest (after a Day of pride and arrogance based largely on an accrual of power through wealth -- Hubris, the Greeks call it). These polar cycles between Day and Night are the very basis of history.

The Religion of the Father (in one sense, the Old Testament) is individualistic, militaristic, fascist, and believes in a 'chosen' status, and selfish, capitalistic. In a very real sense this ‘taking heaven by force’ almost always involves taking real estate by force, the Promised Land, and the fact that it happened in our most recent cycle – our Housing Bubble – is illuminating, I think. The stealing of native American lands by White Christians is another prominent example of this.

Does the world of the Father 'work better'? Yes, it does, in a more pragmatic sense. It creates a heaven of wealth and order. Yes, individuals being responsible helps to create a better society, a heaven. But here is an interesting point: rich men cannot get into heaven. But once a poor man gets into heaven he 'becomes' rich. How? By worshipping money, and forgetting his God. So his 'fall' is guaranteed.

The Religion of the Son (in one sense the New Testament) is communal, a socializing unity, emphasizing sharing and peaceful living, a form of socialism always -- governed by the image of Mother and Son. The Father who falls becomes, in effect, the Son who eventually rises. When the Father, the Man, loses his power, he becomes small, seeking to hide, become invisible, seeking to re-become the holy ghost, in fact – seeking rebirth or resurrection in Christian language. The son becomes poorer and poorer, emptying his soul -- for only when his soul is empty can it be filled again with the pure spiritual nourishment he gets from the Virgin Mother in the underworld (milk and honey).

Here again we have the imagery of Day-Cycle Solar filling and Night-Cycle Lunar emptying.

God's chosen people are not rich and powerful -- they are poor and outcast. The covenant is a contract that, if they keep God's laws, they will be given power over the Earth. They will each be given a wife, children, wealth, power, and land to call their own -- but this covenant will be broken if they forget their original pure state. Which they are programmed, in fact, to do.

Economic depression is merely an effect of this disenfranchised state. The West has forgotten its God. It has worshipped Man's image, wealth, Earthly power -- the Master's of the Universe are no longer the gods and the angels, they are the Master's on Wall Street. So the Night-Cycle is now upon them. The Soul, the Son, who supported the Father to create heaven now opposes the Father for his corruption. He chooses exile and leaves his Father's home, not wanting his inheritance -- the Prodigal Son indeed.

The Day Cycle (the Father's Religion) is about the Soul filling up with power and positive energy and creative will, and always with a lack of empathy; and the Night-Cycle (the Son's Religion) is about the Soul emptying out and becoming powerless and filling with negative energy and destructive will (filling with matter is emptying of anti-matter; empting of matter is filling with anti-matter). Again, the filling of the soul with empathy creates an emptying effect of the selfish nature that leads to Earthly success.

The 'winners' so admired in American Society are merely the 'losers' at an early stage of their careers, when they are soulless.

James Hillman, the great American depth psychologist, writes: "When Psyche (Soul) appears, death appears."

Think of the 2008 Global Economic Crash -- in fact, think of the 2001 attack on America and the destruction of the Twin Towers: Death and Psyche appeared at the same time.

So, this is where we find ourselves, as we find ourselves regularly in the historical cycle of 36 years duration. 2011 is coincident with1939 and with 1975 during the last Night-Cycles, about half-way through the descent from the Mountain of Power into the Depths of Hell. The 'time" is about 7:00 PM. Midnight is 2019. Midnight in the earlier Night Cycles was 1911, 1947 and 1983.

Day Cycles evolve the Material World. Night Cycles evolve the Spiritual World (which is also the anti-mattter world).

Modern physicists can find where the Anti-matter goes. It is there at the beginning of the Universe; but then it vanishes. Where does it go? Anti-matter turns upside-down, and inside-out, and folds into an inner dimension (actually three inner-dimension) of the universe.

How can I prove this? I see it. To paraphrase Descartes: "I am, therefore I think."

When one is in Heaven he tends to look down on the poor as being literally beneath him and driven by negative values -- desire for theft, laziness, licentiousness, lack of discipline, lack of honor, evil intentions. When one is in Hell he tends to look up at the rich and make almost the exact same judgment of the rich.

We are all both parts of this whole, Fathers in Heaven, and Sons on the Earth (in the Underworld). We travel between these two poles. That is really the story of our lives.

Jun 17 2011

WE NEED DEFLATION AND LOWER PRICES

We need housing prices to come down so that Americans can again afford to buy a house without liar loans, without guaranteed to fail loans, AND (note my emphasis) so that Americans can afford to buy a house without everyone in the household working at one or two jobs to do it. We don't have enough jobs for this to happen. Also, raising children benefits from a stable home life with child-rearing done by a parent and not by strangers in child-care centers. Houses may seem affordable with two parents working full time at $30-40,000 a year -- but we are not growing jobs fast enough for this to happen -- and is it the way we want to live? Is it the best way to live as a society? Or are lower housing prices better for all of us, except the owner class that is selling real estate and housing for a living?

Deflation is built in to the system to relieve the pressure of keeping up with inflated assets so that we can all start again at a lower level of indebtedness. This is a sane understanding. We are not currently living a sane life, chasing more debt, and forcing prices higher and higher. This will lead to social collapse eventually, and civil war.

Greed is one of the seven deadly sins. And it leads to civil war.

Jun 7, 2011

INFLATION IS GROWTH (THINK 1983 TO 2001);

DEFLATION IS REST, SLEEP, DREAMING (THINK 1965 to 1983; 2001-2019)

Our problem is that we had inflation from 1983-2001; and this was REAL organic economic growth. That was the growth season. There is no perpetual growth in anything in Nature except in cancer cells.

A belief that humanity, through pride, will, hubris, intellect, innovation, QE and ZIRP, can trick the Natural seasons of the life/death paradigm into believing that we can experience Spring-Summer, Spring-Summer, Spring-Summer over and over again, ad infinitum, is ludicrous, inane, sophomoric, and, in fact, blatantly insane.

2001-2019 is the Summer-to-Winter season of the economy, a time when we are supposed to be de-leveraging and getting ready for the next growing season. We are so confused by this idea of perpetual growth that we are still trying to inflate a dead animal. Prices need to come back down to salaries. Raising salaries is a hopeless thing, because it devalues the local currency. We need higher interest rates, an honest bank policy -- no loans unless you can afford them -- and we need to start supporting savers because when the real, legitimate growth season does come back, beginning 2019, we will need citizens' savings to invest real money from their bank accounts to help fuel the preliminary growth stage.

The hard part in this is accepting death, I realize that. We want to be the heroes, always fighting the darkness. But sometimes the darkness revitalizes. Try not sleeping for several days. That's a form of perpetual growth. Where does it get you? Worn out, sick, and desperate. Which is where we are heading.

August 31, 2011

THE ILLUSIONS OF HIGH AND LOW;

EVERYTHING DEPENDS UPON CONTEXT

I remember reading about a behavioral science test conducted recently. 10 groups of 20 humans were convened and were given tasks to perform as a group. In each of the 10 groups, personality traits began to emerge: 3 leaders, 6 supporters of the leaders (followers), 4 disinterested but compliant, 3 underachievers, 2 depressed laggers, 2 rebels who actively resisted the leaders.

Then these 10 groups were broken up again, and all the leaders and followers were put in the same group, all the depressed laggers and disinterested but compliant were put into the same group, all the underachievers and rebels were put in the same group. Soon these new groups were showing the same characteristics of the first groups: 3 leaders, 6 supporters of the leaders (followers), 4 disinterested but compliant, 3 underachievers, 2 depressed laggers, 2 rebels who actively resisted the leaders.

The new group with only leaders and followers also broke down into the same archetypal spectrum of behaviors. The leaders in the first group often became the rebel resistors in the second. Some of the leaders became disinterested; some underachievers.

This suggests the illusion of fixed individual characters transforming environments; rather it suggests that changing contexts evolve always new opportunities for individuals, within the given controlling pattern of available roles in the archetypal recipe.

Someone always fills the void; but we can never predict who will be the atoms who step forward in a given context to fill the void, and which atoms will step back. Also, the idea of inherent moral or ethical character traits based on race, geography or culture also goes out the window.

Jun 17 2011

LESSONS FOR GREECE, SPAIN…AMERICA

Or Spain could devalue their currency, making it less possible for Spain to consume foreign products (German products, for instance). This illustrates why one currency for all doesn't work. The EU's monetary policies have followed the 'what's good for Germany' model, and the peripherals have had to swallow it. Low interest rates were not what Spain needed when they were borrowing too much. When a country is borrowing too much (experiencing bubbles) it needs to make credit MORE expensive, not less expensive. America can blame this same phenomenon on their own stupid central bankers -- but Spain can't, because the European central bankers can't get anything done without German approval. Lower European interest rates meant non-German consumers would go further and further in to debt but would continue to buy German products. Germany funded peripheral Europe's indebtedness much as China did America's -- so that Europe peripherals would keep buying German products.

Greek and Spanish unemployment compensations probably are not any higher than German unemployment compensation -- but German policies (through EU central bankers) make Germany more fiscally sound because Germany's productivity is being funded by Germany's investment in European peripherals debt -- at least it was until the cliff was reached. Germany has fewer unemployed people because of this. Germany got rich by being the debt supplier (pusher?) of European debt junkies -- much as China got rich by being the same for America.

Since Spain cannot devalue its currency, and would be crushed into default by higher interest rates, the choice seems to be (1) to choose default -- and to hell with German and French and British banks -- or (2) to erect high tariffs on foreign goods being sold in Spain. Make German goods too expensive in Spain to be bought. But that is what causes World Wars, isn't it?

A lesson for the whole world -- and America as much or more than anyone -- there is no free money. There is no almost free money. If you are spending someone else's money, you are digging your own grave with someone else's shovel.

Jun 17 2011

CAN’T A CHRISTIAN BE A RICH MAN TOO?

I DON’T BELIEVE IT WHEN YOU SAY JESUS WAS A SOCIALIST!

"It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." That seems to say that HAVING wealth, not simply desiring it, is the determining factor. The 'love of money is the root of all evil" is now used as a loophole for rich Christians to convince themselves that it's ok to be rich AND Christian by emphasizing the word 'love of'. Hard to imagine a rich man who did not desire money and pursue it with a strong steady will – i.e., who did not love money.

Are you saying that the American Dream has not become, quite expressively, the LOVE OF MONEY? How does America (and most of the world, I agree) measure success? By the size of a man's house, his car and his bank account -- or by the quality of his character?

Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." In a modern context, Jesus clearly has socialist overtones.

A very strange transition occurred in Christianity when Paul supplemented the original message of Jesus by substituting his famous dictate: those who do not work should not eat. The Pauline creed, in fact, is more Roman than Christian.

Then we had the pragmatic protestants further translate the teachings of Jesus to suggest that wealth was the proof that God was pleased with a man (the Mormons also believe this). The poor, by continuation of the thought, must be in league with the Devil: lazy, licentious, ignorant, criminal, and mostly dark-skinned. This fascist religion of Paul put white over black and made race a metaphor for the pursuit of religious righteousness.

According to Mark, Jesus said: "And he sat, and called the twelve, and said to them, If any man will (would like to) be the first among you, he shall be the last of all, and the minister (servant) of all." So much for wanting to be Number One, I guess.

"The meek shall inherit the Earth" and "the poor you have with you always" seem to be related thoughts. One might laugh at the first sentence; when do the meek EVER take over the Earth? Think of the Dark Ages in Europe and pre-European America -- in the former, the Gothic tribes inherited the Earth after the rich and the super-rich urbanites of the Roman Empire sank out of sight. Empire is the sinful state of riches, cities, Godless theologies which appear, conquer the world, and then disappear again, leaving the meek to again inherit the Earth, the poor again to be victorious through sheer endurance.

I'm not saying that success in the world IS sinful, I'm saying it was sinful in the eyes of Jesus. I just wish rich conservative businessmen would stop thanking God for their success and stop calling themselves Christians, when -- at least according to Jesus -- the Devil probably provided them with their money on Earth and they are probably more Romans than they are Christians. Maybe Paul should have his own religion. Maybe we should call them Pauline Christians -- those who worship Paul instead of Jesus.

Of course, Jesus was a revolutionary, who wanted to reform the world. He was not a conservative who wished to rigidly preserve 'tradition' and the status quo, which he considered corrupt -- and controlled by 'dark forces'. Money was to Jesus a 'dark force'. Jesus' casting the moneychangers out of the church (the temple) has a macrocosmic original: Michael the Archangel casting Satan out of heaven. Hard to ask for a more graphic image to see how Jesus felt about the corrupting influence of money on the decency of man and religion.

Jun 16 2011

CAN REPUBLICANS BE BOTH CAPITALISTS AND CHRISTIANS?

I think the grand plan of the Reagan free-marketers who took power in the 1980's was to destroy union-power in America. That is, to impoverish the working class. They probably did not think of it as impoverishing the working class -- they probably only thought of it in terms of the poor (the unionized poor) as blocking their 'God-given right to be rich'. This duality is inherent in nature -- what was it Leonard Cohen wrote: "There is a war between the rich and poor, a war between the man and the woman..."

There IS no God-given right to be rich. In fact, God's son said that being rich was paying service to the devil, not to God.

Maybe America needs poverty to teach it something about Heaven and Hell. Remember Jesus in the wilderness, and the devil tempting him with power, with women, with money. Satan said: 'I can give you all of this...!' Maybe we have been serving Satan -- and God has revoked his covenant with America.

Big Money does flow to places where it can exploit people most easily, usually with government support, the same government that keeps its public poor and useful to the rich who are doing either God's or Satan's work, and keeping government officials rich and fat and traditional and conservative and 'religious' and anti-poor (anti-communist, anti-progressive, anti-populist) -- that is, serving those who serve the Devil.

Maybe the Devil's province is the individual serving himself and unconcerned with anyone else -- getting ahead -- getting a head, and losing a soul.

People say 'the world tried communism, and it didn't work'.

Is that true? Communism didn't work?

Well it is true that communism didn't work like capitalism works. But communism is not supposed to work like capitalism works. Capitalism is the Day-Cycle; Communism is the Night-Cycle. Communism is the wrath of God, brought to punish a sinful society, and drag it back down to Earth, back down to poverty and humility.

Communism worked. Communism is the winter. And Capitalism is the summer. But you don't get to have summer unless you also go through your winter.

Jun 16 2011

THE ‘NEW ECONOMY’ – WHAT WAS IT REALLY?

The so-called 'new economy' was to send manufacturing overseas and to expand American jobs in servicing the Housing Bubble: construction, finance, real estate development; and in health care. That's why we were so desperate to keep the Housing Bubble going, because we have sent all our other jobs overseas.

Now we have service jobs at McDonalds and all the rest of the jobs are in recession, being downsized. All the new jobs being created are minimum wage jobs without benefits. Those are the kind of jobs American business wants to create, so American business can have higher profits and higher bonuses for corporate officers.

Do we really expect Wall Street to create a new generation of generous American jobs? American business killed the unions to get rid of all the jobs that pay Americans a decent living. Now the newest Republican cadre of poor-haters are determined to destroy government workers and government unions, so that there will be no well-paid and -benefited working Americans again.

Jun 15 2011

TWO MORE CHARTS HERE

The first chart shows how the banks and the financial services got and get rich. They get rich by putting the consumer in the prison of debt. From 1951 – 1983, financial service profits stayed low; so did American consumer debt, when salaries were inflating. We have a choice when we are inflating: 1) workers salaries can rise, creating visible inflation; or 2) workers salaries can stagnate, forcing them to take on debt to survive, which creates invisible inflation (inflation that the CPI and PPI indexes ignore). Inflation in debt IS inflation.

In 1983, deregulation of financial services ended. If you want rich banks, then you will have poor and debt-imprisoned citizens. This is a choice we must make. Do we want rich bankers and poor citizens; or do we want rich citizens and bankers that do not rule the world through debt? Remember: those who control debt control the world.

The second charts shows how the New Economy works. Financial services get rich. Everyone else gets or stays poor.

June 14 2011

ESOTERIC DIGRESSION: DANTE, THE NUMBER 9, AND THE CHARACTER AND BEHAVIOR OF NUMBERS

Dante was positively mad about the number 9, saying it defined his existence, and then showed how many of the important events of his life were governed by the number 9.

Since I began my own book I've become quite thrilled by the unique capacities and characters and characteristics of each number. 3, 6 and 9 seem very important as cycle-makers. 9 is a magic number. Multiply it by any number and then add its component parts and it always comes back to 9. No other number does this.

9x1 = 9

9x2 = 18 = 1+8 = 9

9x3 = 27 = 2+7 = 9...

9x375 = 3375 = 3+3+7+5 = 18 = 9.

3x1 = 3

3x2 = 6

3x3 = 9

3x4 =12 = 1+2 =3

3x5 = 15 = 1+5 =6

3x6 = 18 = 1+8 = 9

3x7 = 21 = 2+1 = 3

3x8 = 24 = 2+4 = 6

3x9 = 27 = 2+7 = 9.....

6x1 = 6

6x2 = 12 = 1+2 = 3

6x3 = 18 = 1+8 = 9

6x4 = 24 = 2+4 = 6

6x5 = 30 = 3+0 = 3

6x6 = 36 = 3+6 = 9...

The number 2 creates an even more elaborate pattern. An even-numbered high to low sequence followed by an odd number high to low sequence...

2x1 = 2

2x2 = 4

2x3 = 6

2x4 = 8

2x5 =10 = 1+0 = 1

2x6 = 12 = 1+2 = 3

2x7 = 14 = 1+4 = 5

2x8 = 16 = 1+6 = 7

2x9 = 18 = 1+8 = 9

2x10 = 20 = 2

2 x11 = 22 = 2+2 =4...

The number 8 runs high to low in a one-number sequence.

8x1 = 8

8x2 = 16 = 1+6 = 7

8x3 = 24 = 2+4 = 6

8x4 = 32 = 3+2 = 5

8x 5 = 40 = 4+0 = 4

8x6 = 48 = 4+8 = 12 = 1+2 = 3

8x7 = 56 = 11 = 1+2 = 2

8x8 = 64 = 6+4 = 1+0 = 1

8x9 = 72= 7+2 = 9

8x10 = 80 = 8+0 =8...

The number 7 creates a two-number declining sequence odd number and then even number....

7x1 = 7

7x2 = 14 = 1+4 = 5

7x3 = 21 = 2+1 =3

7x4 = 28 = 2+8 = 10 = 1

7x5 = 35 = 3+5 =8

7x6 = 42 = 4+2 = 6

7x7 = 49 = 4+9 = 13 = 1+3 = 4

7x8 = 56 = 5+6 = 11 = 1+2 =2

7x9 = 63 = 6+3 = 9

7x10 = 70 = 7+0 = 7...

Pythagoras said that numbers were the creative gods, the demiurgos.

Jun 15 2011

WE DO HAVE HYPER-INFLATION – BUT WE ARE HIDING IT

We have hyper-inflation. We are just hiding it by not including debt-levels in the calculation. If we include debt levels as 'income/salary'...just look how the inflation factor grows.

The federal government wants to hide inflation so they don't have to be the bearer of bad news and raise rates -- and get thrown (throne) out of office. So they manipulate statics for their own end.

We are drowning in debt. Noah is in his ark. Noah is looking for dry land. He has a black bird on one arm and a white bird on the other. It's still night. It's still the time of the black bird. We need the water to come down so that we can 'plant' the new generational idea, the new seed of growth.

Literalism cannot see the truth during a Night-Cycle. The Night-Cycle is governed by the metaphorical. Why did tribal societies honor the priest, the mystic, the shaman: because these understood the metaphorical language and could get the tribe out of the Black Forest of Death.

We are in the Black Forest of Death. To plant the New Seed we need to dry out the land.

5 September 2011

IS BERNANKE A ‘TRAITOR’?

ARE TEXANS THE ONLY TRUE ‘AMERICANS’?

I was born and raised in Wyoming, which Texans called 'little Texas'. Wyomingites don't like that -- Wyoming is 'Big Wyoming' not 'little Texas'.

I do know that the 'country bumpkin' is not really a bumpkin. I think the Texans love the price of oil going up, but they don't like the value of the dollar going down, because, in their minds, these Texans link the idea of the collapse of civilization and the collapse of that civilization's currency. I think they have a true love of nation at heart -- but also a true hatred of liberals and democrats; and, in their minds, they want to link Bernanke's plans to crucify the US Dollar with the liberals in Washington, rather than with a native son like Little George Bush and the Republican business magnates. The Republicans are supposed to protect hard money -- but it was the Republicans, through their frankenstein, Alan Greenspan, who discovered that everyone in the world could become a millionaire if we just inflated the currency enough. Cheap money made everyone rich, as long as the economy kept growing -- and the economy would always keep growing, if we fed it with cheaper and cheaper money. Little did Mister Greenspan realize he was shoveling Dollars (physical dollars, and dollar-values) into an inferno faster than the inferno could eat it. And then the illusion of perennial growth of the economy (perennial growth is a joke to anyone who lives in nature, like the rancher and farmers of Texas and Wyoming) became suddenly naked. That was when we hit the iceberg -- the boat being driven by a Texan Republican, in fact, when we did hit that iceberg. How could GW be expected to see the iceberg? He was putting all of his energy in to fighting terrorism and making sure everyone was out shopping.

Evil. Yes. I think the original concept of evil in religion was more akin to the ideas of karma and the Greek ideas of Hubris, pride, and then the fall. If humiliation and pain are built into the cycle of the seasons, then, in a real sense, God, or whomever created the universe, built 'punishment' for 'sin' (pride or hubris, individual men believing they were gods, with their machines and their man-man civilizations and cities) in to the system-- empires fell, civilizations fell. Why? For the same reason that the unpicked fruit rots on the tree, and then falls back to the Earth. This was a metaphor for man and his pride in building civilizations and towers and great buildings higher than he built churches. What was the so-called Dark Ages? It was the time between the uneaten, decaying fruit on the bough falling back to earth, the seed imprisoned in the fruit -- the metaphor, of course, was that the seed was the Soul and the rotting fruit was the rotting Body of the man -- freeing itself from the corrupt body of the decaying fruit, burying himself in the Earth to avoid freeze, or perhaps to avoid being eaten by birds or passing beasts -- germinating in the darkness -- and waiting for the Spring Sun to come back to wake everything up again. And that was the idea of resurrection, rebirth and reincarnation. (re-ink our nation).

Evil is the dark side of this process -- but, in fact, the dark side of this process is where the pain is and the pain leads to rejuvenation and humility and redemption and eventually rebirth.

The Darkness sees the Light Season as being Evil, and this is as true as the reverse. Growth is aggressive and tyrannical and violent and invasive, a bully with an overweening military technology. Youth tramples Age during the Growth Season; the New Civilization tramples on the Old Civilizations. This is sin, evil, also.

Those standing in the Light, in the Spring, idealizing the Growing Season see those standing in the Dark, idealizing the Redemption Season as evil, as lazy, as inferior, as stupid. Those standing in the Dark, in the Autumn, idealizing the Redemption Season see those standing in the Light idealizing the Growing Season as being immature, bullies, greedy, selfish, thieving, uncultured, body animals.

That is where the polarization comes that always leads to strife and war and horror. When it is Daylight in the East it is Darkness in the West; when it is Daylight in the West it is Darkness in the East. Those who understand the whole process realize they are all of these separate but connected seasons -- when out of Time -- they are the Spring, the time of Birth, the Summer, the time of Growth, the Autumn the time of Harvest and Decay, and the Winter, the Time of Deconstruction and Burial and Germination. But, in Time, we all standing in one season or another, polarized against our opposite Time Period.

The US is no longer leading the Global train. It is now every man (and every nation) for himself, and God against all. America is not leading; but neither is anyone else. That is a pretty good description of Chaos, into which environment we seem to be moving.

Hoarding is an apt metaphor for the times into which we are moving. Hurricanes are also; and earthquakes; and especially the tsunamis.

During Day-Cycle expansions Man conquers nature with his will and technology and money. During Night-Cycle deflations Nature tries to get even with Man.

26 August 2001

LET’S LET THE ‘SOCIALISM’ VS. ‘CAPITALISM’ WORLD VIEW GO.

Germans are also 'socialist pigs' if you use your same measuring device. That's why we need a new expression. Let 'socialism' go. Every nation in the world has a mixture of capitalism and socialism; and this is not the true duality any longer. People who cling to the 'socialism' vs. 'capitalism' diatribe are stuck in the past.

Germany has always been disciplined and made great products. They have also had a tendency to try to take care of their own people, their own tribe, as have all Nordic peoples.

It isn't socialism that is the enemy, because Germany, and Norway and Sweden and Finland are all socialist. [So is France and Canada and Great Britain and Australia, in truth. So is America.] But they also pay their bills. So it's something else -- something to do with the philosophy of pleasure and self-indulgence -- and this is not connected to socialism. Look at the communist experiments in Russia, China, Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia...this had NOTHING to do with pleasure or with self-indulgence.

Poverty will make us hard again. Wealth tends to make a people soft. Too much money, not too much socialism, makes a people crave pleasure and self-indulgence.

6 September 2011

OBAMA’S TRAGEDY: POLITICIANS ARE FOLLOWERS, NOT LEADERS

All the great plans are limited by the realities you face when you 'fall' into office. He wasn't expecting to have the global economy collapse under his feet. His entire administration (I think he will be a two-term president, because the Republicans are falling all over themselves to be cliches and irrelevant again) will be anchored by what his predecessors did with the debt binge and the home price inflation and the attempt to get everyone into their own home -- I blame both parties for this, and Alan Greenspan, because he knew better. Bernanke: I don't think he knows better, which is all the more shame he was appointed and then re-appointed.

I think, in terms of political leadership, we need someone who tells us what to do about debt and deficits, not someone who asks us what we want to do. Cast the polls into the sea. We need a leader who doesn't care if he/she gets re-elected. They know what needs to be done and they do it, popularity (and re-electability) be damned.

Jun 15 2011

QE 3 WOULD POUR GASOLINE ON THE FIRE OF FOOD PRICE AND OIL PRICE INFLATION

He HAS misdiagnosed the problem with the US DEBT CRISIS from the very beginning, treating a solvency crisis as a credit crisis. I believe his predecessor, Mister Greenspan, KNEW that he should made debt more expensive in 2000-2001 instead of cheaper -- and then tried to make up for it by raising rates in 2004. Greenspan KNEW he was pandering to political and business powerhouses (he was NO VOLCKER) but he also wanted to be liked and hired for millions after he stepped down as Fed Chair, which he was.

Bernanke did not know what he was doing. He described his 'adventure' with Hank Paulson in looting the Federal Treasury for his friends on Wall Street as 'flying by the seat of our pants, making things up as we went along'. QE1 and QE2 was the same thing: making things up as he went along.

I think what Ben does know now is that (Ben was clearly devoid of the knowledge of Physics and/or Metaphysics) for each action there is an equal and opposite reaction. QE was supposed to stimulate another housing bubble and save the banks from massive housing losses. It did not. The US can always buy T-Bonds that no one else will touch, but this will destroy the dollar and fuel hyperinflation in commodities and food around the world. Ben is now seeing that profligacy WILL devalue the US Dollar, and, even worse, will generate hyperinflation in anything that is priced in and traded in dollars, and this will, if done long enough, bring political and economic chaos to the world...that is, revolutions, civil wars, and full-scale wars.

Ben thought he was tricky. Now he sees that he has been trumped, and he has faced his devil, his limitations. He has learned some modesty? Is that possible? QE 3 would have triggered world chaos for the reasons sited above. That is why be backed off QE 3. As much as Ben wants a weaker dollar, he now understands that a weaker dollar also has some negative reactions built in. If he were to continue with his weaker dollar policy, then he would need to prepare for $10,000 gold, and $500 oil. And probably World War III.

Jun 14 2011

WE HAVE NO ‘REAL’ DEBT – AND ALSO NO ‘REAL’ CURRENCY.

THE ‘SEASONS’ OF ECONOMIC CYCLES.

We have no 'real debt' -- and also a dollar that is getting weaker by the second. We are all getting poorer as our debt goes up. We can inflate away our debt -- but, as we do this, we are also inflating away our currency. See what happened in Rome when the currency was inflated away.

The economic Winter (actually Autumn) will last 9 years (2010-2019). That's when absolute contraction hits, and then we begin a slow organic re-inflation again (the TRUE inflation).

We've already had our spring: 1992-2001. That's when we had real growth, not the fake growth that the Fed engineered with trying to fill a full cup and created our current FLOOD.

We just finished our summer: 2001-2010. Summer is actually a slow decline from a production peak -- 2001 -- that gains speed throughout the Autumn (2010-2019). Winter begins in 2019. Growth begins slowly as the Winter begins slowly losing strength.

No quick fixes. I know this is frustrating for the problem-solvers in the audience. But the problem-solvers are in power while we are climbing the mountain (1983-2001, and 2019-2037); problem-solvers are out of power during the descent down the mount. During the descent down the mountain, nothing gets fixed: it's time to fall in love instead.

From Winter to Summer, Man triumphs over Nature. From Summer to Winter, Nature triumphs over Man.

25 July 2011

INTEREST RATES ARE DESIGNED TO GO IN BOTH DIRECTIONS

Interest rates are designed to go both directions. When there is too much debt, interest rates should go up to make debt more expensive. Greenspan should have begun raising rates in 2001, after the Dot Com bubble. Instead, he lowered rates. The Fed has a one-sided philosophy: cheaper and cheaper credit. This, of course, creates a nation of debt-slaves.

Raise rates. Confront the problem. Defaults are not the end of the world. And it is not the government's responsibility to insure bad loans (either debtors or creditors). If banks fail, it will not be the first time (or the last time either) that banks have failed in America. We survived bank failures in the past -- and we will survive it again.

Jun 13 2011

THE OLD IDEOLOGIES ARE STALE AND VAPID

2001, the Fed should have begun raising interest rates to cut off more borrowing. The expansion was over. Instead, Greenspan, to please the banks and the political leadership, lowered rates to almost nothing, essentially overfilling a full glass.

Higher rates are no easy fix to anything -- except they put an end to a bad situation of too much and too easy debt. Nearly all the problems we have encountered since 2001 have happened because of capitalists demanding that expansion be constant, perennial. Bubbles are designed to mimic (simulate) organic business growth, not to stimulate it.

Study business cycles in American history and you will find a 36-year cycle, top-to-top, 18 years of expansion and 18 years of contraction.

To my mind, the worst thing Obama did was to coddle Wall Street and dump trillions of taxpayer money into corrupt and/or inept and/or criminal American businesses instead of letting real capitalism work and letting bad loans and bad loaners go down. He and Bernanke have been following Japan ever since -- and we all know where the yellow-brick path to Japan leads.

Give us a better option than Obama and I'll vote that way -- only no stale Republican dogma about free-markets and homilies about Good Old American Ingenuity (which is politic-speak for Let the Rich Get Filthy Rich and Let Everyone Else Get a Job at McDonalds) and about all we need is to deregulate business. Deregulation of business is what sank our torpedo boat.

Regulation of business is about playing with a set of rules. Deregulation of business is about playing without a set of rules, wherein the rich eat everyone else.

We need a new message from both the Republicans and the Democrats. The old ideologies are stale and vapid.

Jun 12 2011

THE BILLION DOLLAR QUESTION

I have a question for everyone.

Last Day-Cycle 1983-2001 was driven by what technology?

Computing?

Previous Day-Cycle 1947-1965 was driven by what technology?

Television?

Previous Day-Cycle 1911-1929 was driven by what technology?

Automobile?

Is this true?

What will the next Day-Cycle 2019-2037 be driven by? All investors are really going to want to know the answer to this question. Oh, and I think you can begin the buy-and-hold strategy again in 2019. Just don't Buy-and-hold during ANY Night-Cycle (1929-1947; 1965-1083; 2001-2019).

25 July 2001

LET’S BE HONEST

Let's be honest. The Republicans drove the cattle up the hill and over the cliff. Not very honest to now blame Obama. If Obama had already cut billions or trillions out of the government budget we would still be waiting for the new jobs to be created by business. Where is business. Business is hiding, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

In 2008 the global economy expired. Economies are struggling everywhere, even with trillions of fixes from central banks everywhere. It isn't Obama's fault that the global economy died. Everything is born, grows, matures, decays and dies. Every 36 years (360°) we have an economic depression.

Let's all give up our ideologies and try to see what is really happening. Ideologies are hard to give up, I know: our identities are supported by our ideologies. Living without an identity is hard to do, I also know. But, in the interest of truth, and in the interest of the survival of our democracy, we have to try to do this.

26 July 2011

DEFLATIONS AS PERIODS OF SOCIAL AND POLITICAL UPRISINGS

You are right about geopolitical deterioration. This is happening everywhere, although the media wants to focus only on the Arab states. The more depression you have, the more the political fringe ideas gain traction. This will happen in Japan, Europe, England, America all the more as status quo maintenance through inflation tactics -- Bernanke's 'flying by the seat of his pants' -- loses heart and looks for a place to hide.

Depressions are about deflating false economic inflations. False ego inflations. Built up out of (karmic0 debt. The world MUST go through its deflation if it wants to get around on the wheel to where things begin to inflate again. Of course, the deflations include cultural suicides (civil wars) and cultural murder sprees (foreign wars) -- so one can understand why the weak of heart will try anything to avoid going through them.

Jun 12 2011

OBAMA DID NOT CAUSE THE CRISIS

Obama didn't cause the depression and he won't cure it. He's right: it will take time. 2019, in fact, will be the time of the bottoming of the deflation and the beginning of a real and modest expansion. Until then, no progress. More social chaos; more natural disasters. If the 'natural disasters' spill into the social-political sphere (as they have in thee Middle (Y)East), then civil wars or actual wars between nations will begin.

Man, in his pride, believes he can 'fix' what he does not create. Man is the creation of a much larger imagination, and is the prisoner of the cycles by which Nature creates and destroys.

Jun 12 2011

AUSTERE AUSTRIAN OSTRICHES?

Cycles? How does one really discover cycles?

Study mythology. Study your own life. Study periods of success, ecstasy, failure, defeat...these are all metaphors for how life is structured.

Sad. Maybe. Look at history. Read Tolstoy's War and Peace. Read Milton, read Dante, read Joyce. What is that about?

Sad. Yes. Sad first; joyous next.

Joy; sorrow; joy -- day, night, day. That is how the Earth turns, is it not?

Study your own history of love, the great loves of your life. Venus, the Morning Star, leads one back to the Earth, back to the body, back to the Ego ascent into Earth-heaven (power on Earth) through marriage; Venus, the Evening Star, leads one back out of the body, a failed love, leads one into death.

Venus is the Dusk, the beginning of the Night-Cycle deflation, the broken heart. Divorce.

Venus is the Dawn, the beginning of the Day-Cycle deflation, the healed heart, God's covenant through marriage, the empowerment of the physical body.

Venus guards the gates of the Earth; she also guards the gates of Heaven, Spirit-Heaven, into which you cannot ascent until you give up your body.

Jun 3 2011

CYCLES SAVE US – IS SAVING MONEY A BAD THING?

DO NOT BAIL-OUT HOMEOWNERS

I don't agree that people saving too much (money) is a bad thing. People spending other people's money is much worse -- debt. America will become strong again only by saving money again. It hurts the economy short-term; but it is the root of the strength of a nation.

Everything goes in cycles. Saving; then too much saving; then spending; then too much spending; then spending other people's money (debt).... then back to too much saving.

Problems fix themselves eventually...but there are no quick fixes to this problem.

I don't think homeowners should be bailed out. Housing prices come down and this fixes everything. Deflation actually fixes everything. Then the business cycle begins again. And inflation fixes the problems the deflation has caused.

Jun 4 2011

IS SUCCESS A SIN;

IS FAILURE A VIRTUE – OR JUST GOD’S PUNISHMENT FOR SIN?

This latter idea -- Recession/Depression is God's way of telling us we've sinned. Although, I'd say this metaphorically. Ancient religions read God's thoughts in the Nature of the Four Seasons (the Four Archangels). Man's sin is the inflated ego, believing he is God. Thou shalt put no false gods before me includes the Ego, with its technological greatness and its monumental city-building -- and the hubris or pride that goes along with this.

Remember the Tower of Babel, when Zeus, Jupiter, Jove, Jehovah cursed the great Babylon by breaking the Universal (Global) Language back into the many tongues that did not speak to one another. Think of the European Dark Age, when the Roman Language, the Global Language of the day, was broken (defraction) into the many languages of the budding City-States of Europe (Spring) that could not comprehend one another.

I am not really meaning that this season is a 'sin' in the traditional sense. Because the 'sinning season' is also programmed in to the 'law'. The rise (fire rises; water falls) is necessary; the fall is also necessary.

Yes, it will be hard. We have been through Night-Cycles before: 1929-1947; 1965-1983; 2001-2019. It is the 'end of the world' in the sense of the REM song. But the 'end of the world' is not the END absolutely. It is the end of this cycle. We're 'going to sleep' -- during the Night-Cycle we 'dream' who and what we want to be in our next life -- then we awaken and build the next stage of the dream.

Evolution (physical evolution) happens during the Day-Cycles and almost always has a new technology that drives it: railroad for instance; automobile, television, computer. (Night-Cycles govern the processes of spiritual evolution.)

Day-Cycles: 1911-1929; 1947-1965; 1983-2001.

In terms of the dates there are two cycles at work. These cycles I most often talk about are actually Winter to Summer, when the growth cycle begins and ends (1983-2001, for instance).

The 'literal' Day-Cycle, however (if I can use the word 'literal' in this context) runs from Dawn to Dusk. The most recent Dawn to Dusk Day-Cycle ran from 1992-2010. Dusk just began in 2010. The Flood (the Biblical Flood, which is metaphorical), will run from 2010-2019 -- that's one of the reasons we're having all the floods and the tornadoes and tsunamis. During the Day-Cycles, man dominates nature (with his technology). During the Night-Cycles, Nature tries to get even.

In 2019, the waters of the Flood will begin to recede. And the seed of the new idea will begin to grow.

We have 8 more years of absolute turmoil to endure. No growth. We need to try to pool our resources as a nation and survive the next decade. Beginning 2019 (through 2037), we will be able to turn our Day-Cycle energy loose for expansion, in all of its meanings and venues. Until then, there will be no real expansion.

Starvation in the streets. War, rumors of war; civil wars. Economic depressions (Depressions are, in fact, a series of recessions punctuated by weak expansions -- what we are having today. The Great Depression had recessions in 1929, 1933, 1937, the World War, 1946-47. The Great Stagflation of 1965-1983 had recessions in 1969-70, 1973-1975, 1980, 1981-1982. The Day-Cycles also have recessions -- so recessions are NOT the key metric of the difference between Day-Cycles and Night-Cycles. During Expansions, Day-Cycles, recessions/contractions are weak, but exist; during Contractions, Night-Cycles, recessions are strong and expansions are weak. During the Winter, days are short and weak, not hot enough to thaw out the frost, the congealed nature of the Winter.)

These are always the 'truths' of every Night-Cycle:

1965 - 1983
1929 – 1947
1893 – 1911
1857 – 1875
1821 – 1839
1785 – 1803

Temperature, in its literal and figurative meaning, drive these cycles. The 'masculine' heat drives the expansion (fire, heat, Mars); the 'feminine' cool drives the contraction (water, moisture, Venus). The Sun rules the expansion, the Day-Cycle; the Moon rules the contraction, the Night-Cycle.

Contractions (loving language as I do) describe the decline of the system and its deconstruction -- but also describe the birth pangs that precede the rebirth. The Earth is 'in labor' -- earthquakes, floods, volcanoes, tornadoes. The child will be born in 2019.

I have tested this 'theory' versus American History -- but not world history, which is a huge job. Most of the globe seems to share the same phenomenon of Night-Cycles -- but I'll need to do a lot more work to test the 'seasons' against world history.

2 September 2011

WHAT PERCENTAGE OF LARGE-SCALE INVESTMENT IS NOT FRAUD?

What percentage of large-scale investment is not fraud? There is a lot of fraud running around today dressed as 'business as usual'.

My wife and I were watching a movie last night. The father lied about when their business was created, adding 25 years: "In Business Since 1965" – the sign said. That's a lie, his daughter argued. Yes, but it's a business lie; a business lie is different than a life lie.

The proper role of government is policing business to dilute the fraud. The proper role of government is not to be in bed with business.

Jun 4 2011

THE GREAT DEPRESSION OF 1946-1947

Check out the depression of 1946-47 also. The Great Depression was a series of deep-recessions from 1929 through 1947: serial recessions. The Great Stagflation of 1965-1983 was a series of deep-stagflations (inflations attempting to stimulate organic growth and failing) -- there were 4-6 deep-recessions between 1965-1983, culminating in the 2-3 created when Volcker finally jacked up Fed rates to 21%. The Great Deflation we began in 2001 will exhibit a series of crises and bubbles (attempted inflations), recessions, double-dips, and will continue through 2019.

We have recessions during real expansions (inflations) and we have expansions during real contractions (deflations) but the recessions during expansions are weak and the expansions during the contractions are also weak.

Time fixes things. We don't.

Jun 4 2011

PHYSICAL EVOLUTION DURING DAY-CYCLES; SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION DURING NIGHT-CYCLES

There is no progress during the "NIGHT". Why not? Because we lose our direction at Night, quite literally, light vanishes and our eyes are put out. And we sleep and dream

Evolution of the Physical World occurs during the Day-Cycles, the periods of Business Expansion (1911-1929; 1947-1965; 1983-2001) -- when the eyes are open. Evolution 'rests' during the Night-Cycles, Time stops -- Time is the direction of evolution. And progress stops. Night-Cycles: 1929-1947; 1965-1983; 2001-2019. Our eyes close; and our ears (our ears synthesize quite literally into the mystical Third Eye -- we see with our mind's eye instead of our physical eyes).

The Day-Cycle is run by men who are engineers, problem-solvers, creators of civilization. This force of organization loses its power at night: entropy sets in. Dis-Organizaiton takes over. Culture is created at Night, through Nature; Civilization is created by Day, City-building.

The Night-Cycle is run by men and women (more gender equality at Night) who are right-brain, who do not 'solve' problems (a left-brain activity) but understand the pattern of problems and the sequence of problems -- what follows what -- who use language, art, and metaphor as the Day-Cycle brains use mathematics and physics and science. Science rules the Day-Cycle; Metaphysics rules the Night-Cycle. Instead of engineers and bankers and lawyers -- city-builders -- the Night is run by poets, prophets, philosophers, and real religious visionaries (not false evangelical prophets making millions off their lost victims).

The Day-Force builds cities, worshipping Man; the Night-Force demolishes cities, worshipping Nature, punishing Man. (Notice that diseases, extreme weather, natural catastrophes, droughts, floods, are always more dominant during Night-Cycles periods than during Day-Cycle periods; think of Europe's Black Plague as an example.)

Jun 4 2011

THE WEAKNESS OF DEMOCRACY

The weakness of democracy is that no one wants to be the bad guy, because being the bad guy means you lose popularity; and when you lose popularity, you won't get re-elected. Who is going to be better liked, the man who brings the punch bowl to the party, or the one who takes it away? We need both figures.

What we don't need -- and what we have now -- is the guy who KEEPS bringing the punch bowl back, fuller each time, even after we are all drunk and approaching death by too much self-indulgence. And who then puts the inflated bill for all of this drunkenness in the crib with our baby and sneaks out the back door while everyone is passed out.

Jun 4 2011

GREENSPAN SAYS AMERICANS NEEDS TO RAISE TAXES

Actually, Greenspan is right. Cut spending; raise taxes; raise interest rates. Will this hurt? Yes. Are we afraid of being hurt? Yes. But there is no other way. We need to shrink our debt (consumer, corporate, and governmental): that has to be our number one concern at this point in history. There will be no new real organic business growth until we do this. We have been following Japan with lies and tricks and stalling, hoping growth will come back magically -- but growth depends on the destruction of debt FIRST.

Kick the can down the road, kick the can, kick the can...kick the bucket.

Take a look at Japan now. Look, but don’t follow!

Jun 4 2011

WHERE IS PAUL VOLCKER NOW? BUT THE TIMES HAVE CHANGED!

Times are different than 1983; situations are different. But today we have huge debts and we won't be able to grow the economy ever again until we de-leverage. To encourage de-leveraging we need higher rates, not lower rates. We should have begun raising rates in 2001. Instead we encouraged bubbles.

We needed to de-leverage after the 2008 global economic collapse. Instead, Bernanke lowered rates, urging consumers and corporations to take on even more debt. Apparently when an economy is cancerous, it needs to create MORE cancers.

America needs a higher savings rate. A real organic business cycle growth period begins with excess savings for investment. We are still in the hoarding stage, the TOP of the market. We will know that we are at the BOTTOM of the market (the economic cycle) when no one wants a loan and when no one wants to buy a house; and when no one cares about what the stock market is doing.

We need higher rates so that we will either pay off or default on our debts. The cup is full. No one can afford more debts -- unless we want real inflation, which would mean we have to start raising wages to try to catch up with prices and try to overtake the debt load. That is HYPERINFLATION.

The cup is full. If we don't empty the cup we can't fill it up again.

Where did I get the data to corroborate my FALLACIOUS arguments? American history. World mythology. The world's oldest spiritual philosophy.

Jun 4 2011

THOSE WHO DON’T LEARN FROM HISTORY

I would add to this the quote: "Those who learn from history also are doomed to relive it." But, at least they have a sense of what's coming.

Jun 4 2011

WHEN THE FRUIT FALLS THE FRUIT FALLS, NOT MUCH YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT

The only way back to a truly 'organic' economy (one that is able to grow, mature, bear fruit, and then decay into depression -- which is the inevitable cycle) is through the hell of higher interest rates, default, and bankruptcy.

Protecting the over-leveraged only means continued denial of reality and the horrible moral lesson of 'borrow, borrow, borrow' because economic growth is perpetual and we will always be richer, always generate more income than our debts require us to pay. This is a lie, of course.

Remember Goethe's Faust. The devil is at the door again. The devil is the banker who wants all of his money back -- and who is willing to starve and torture the poor to get it back. Are the governments on the side of the poor or on the side of the devil and his bankers?

Jun 3 2011

FLUSH OUT THE BAD DEBTS AND LET THE RICH FALL AWAY LIKE AUTUMN LEAVES

Japan needs to flush out all the bad loans it is hiding. Only one way to do this. Raise interest rates. Of course, this generally drives up the value of the currency, something Japan dreads as an export economy.

Will driving up interest rates save Japan (and the whole world) in terms of keeping them/us from experiencing pain and depression and social horror? No. All of those things are guaranteed to happen. When you spend money you don't have you invite the devil into the parlor.

Bad loans, heavy indebtedness, and insolvent banks are suffocating the capital system. We desperately need de-leveraging, even if it's painful. This 'avoid pain at any cost' philosophy is what got us into this problem. The 'pleasure principle' got us into the notion (a 1960's notion) 'if it feels good, do it'! Well, now we get to get to experience the obverse: if it feels bad, do it.

Protecting the status quo in history leads to a financial and social tsunami. Japan is trying to protect the old men who run their world, the one's who stand to lose their empire if rates go up and bad loans (as both creditors and as debtors) are flushed out and exposed. It's the same in America. I say flush them out -- let's get on with history. What are we waiting for? The next generation to have to do it for us?

Jun 3 2011

NIGHT-CYLES: WARS AND RUMORS OF WARS

I think the implications are frightening also. I see major civil unrest -- in America and all around the world -- before this thing shakes out. Perhaps major wars also. I think Europe will get there before America does.

Of course, the Arab Spring is proof of my reasoning.

And the civil discord and the rise of neo-nazi youth groups in Greece and in other parts of Europe also is proof of my thesis.

Open warfare on the streets of European cities between Islamic and Christian or Anti-Islamic forces is also coming.

Everything that expands also contracts. But our national philosophy is to accept (and chase) only the expansion part of the equation -- the positivist campaign for positive thinking. We are never prepared for the contraction -- and we push the expansion beyond sane limits in hopes of keeping it going.

The Bible says '7 fat years followed by 7 lean years' and this is symbolically true. 18 fat years followed by 18 lean years is literally true.

One does not eliminate the negative by ignoring it and pretending it has no substance. The Body and the Body's shadow both are made of substance -- only substance that travels in the opposite direction.

Jun 2 2011

BERNANKE AND PAULSON: “WE WERE FLYING BY THE SEAT OF OUR PANTS, MAKING UP THINGS AS WE WENT ALONG”

What kind of leaders do we have? Bernanke laughed about how he and Hank Paulson saved Western Civilization from the chasm in 2008: "We were flying by the seat of our pants, making things up as we went along..."

Sound familiar. He's still making up things as he goes along.

Our 'experts' in finance know about principles of finance but they don't know philosophy. This creates fatal errors in judgment. We are being led by children who can only see half of the picture; and who believe the half of the picture they are seeing is the complete picture.

Things are going to get very nasty again.

Jun 2, 2011

AN INDEPENDENT WITH A DISTASTE FOR ALL THINGS POLITICAL

I really don't have a party. I voted for Bush. I voted for Obama. I'm thinking about Ron Paul this time around. Don't see a lot of hope anywhere in our leaders, in fact.

But we are in a democratic-cycle. The Republican era was 1983-2001. The Democratic era was 1965-1983. Republicans: 1947-1965. Democrats: 1929-1947.

The Democrats will remain in power until about 2019. This doesn't mean either side has absolute control then. Clinton was in power during a Republican phase, but acted mostly like a Republican; and acted very much like a Republican when he sold out his party to Wall Street, leaving no political support for the poor in America after this 'pragmatic' betrayal. Nixon was in power during the Democratic phase, but acted mostly like a democrat -- a pragmatic survivor in a Democratic Age.

The Republicans and their message has lost credibility because of what Wall Street did in 2001-2010. Most Americans hate Wall Street even more than they hate their over-spending government.

May 23 2011

THE FREE-MARKET FANTASY

The biggest illusion of you 'free-marketers' (I'm not against the 'free market', I find it a great idea, I'm just not sure it has EVER existed) is that Nations/Big Money players don't ALWAYS control currency markets and make them move in the directions they want.

The ideal of the 'free market' is a fantasy, like Peter Pan. Many of us like the idea. But how do you keep Big Money from dominating the free markets unless you regulate the Free Markets to control the Big Money players, and then lose the 'free' part of the markets?

It's quite a dilemma.

May 23 2011

THE BEARS ARE IN CONTROL?

Then again, the Dow didn't break the 1929 high until 1954. So, DON'T buy and hold during a depression.

Bulls are realists during expansions and bears are realists during contractions. This means, of course, don't be an ideologue. Read the signs. Be a bear during the contraction (and trade, trade, trade) and be a bull during the expansion (and buy in 2019 and hold until 2037 – and go fishing).

Addendum to the Bernanke Era: Be a Bull when the Fed is throwing trillions of free money into asset appreciation; Be a Bear when the Fed can no longer afford to do this (when it's political capital is used up) -- and when interest rates begin to rise.

May 22 2011

MAKES SENSE: IF YOU CAN’T PAY YOUR CURRENT LOAN, BORROW MORE

Makes sense: if you can't pay your current loan, borrow more. And if the banks are stupid enough to do it, well....of course, the banks are stupid enough to do it because the governments are ponying up taxpayer money. So, the taxpayers are now paying for everything, including the notorious 'bankers' conscience'. A rather cheap expense, sadly -- although costly in social terms, since it lays the groundwork for depression and then civil war.

May 22 2011

THE GOALS OF QE2

This government/Fed's policy is TO WEAKEN THE DOLLAR. QE2 has as its goals (1) weaker US Dollar; (2) stabilize falling asset values, and create new bubbles; (3) funnel 'free' money to the banks to rebuild their balance sheets through carry-trade (which can be quite lucrative with a weak dollar). Of course, this continued refunding of banks’ balance sheets is all being done (free money for the banks) with taxpayer dollars.

This will need to be revisited when America becomes sane again. And the money siphoned off to the banks will have to be repaid.

May 22 2011

OBAMA WILL BE RE-ELECTED

Obama will be re-elected. The Republicans have no plan to deal with the current reality. "No new taxes and more freedom for business." That's bubble-gum that has already been chewed.

We need to cut spending (and especially defense spending) AND raise taxes. The ONLY issue at the moment is paying down our debt. Everything else has to wait.

May 21 2011

DEREGULATION IS A EUPHEMISM FOR ‘THE RULE OF THE WORLD BY CON-MEN’

Now we are starting to wake up to all the schemes and corruptions caused by the con-men being given too much credit and freedom to try to steal from the rest of us.

"Deregulation" is a euphemism for the rule of the con-men.

May 20 2011

GREECE AND EUROPE ARE TREADING AN IMPOSSIBLE PATH

Nothing a good civil war won't cure. Both sides are right: in the perfect world, no one should spend what they don't have and can't afford to borrow. Austerity is a good thing. Austerity is learning to say 'no' to yourself. But to afflict the poor in Greece with more and more austerity, in order to save the European banks...this will surely lead to civil war.

What is the answer? No easy answer. Let Greece leave the EU, leave the Euro, rekindle their own currency -- and say goodbye to the EU experiment. Painless? No. But that is where we are going, like it or not.

The banks and the Old Money aristocrats are going to have to take HUGE haircuts all over the continent and beyond. It's either that or try to say 'hello' to feudalism again. Bankers and Old Money Aristocrats on top; everyone else in the garbage heaps looking for bread crusts. And there is no guarantee that we all won't be in the garbage heap fighting for bread crusts no matter what we do. But if we are, the Old Money aristocrats should be in the garbage heap with the rest of us.

When banks make bad loans, they SHOULD lose their money. If they are not held to these strict standards, they will continue to make risky loans and expect the taxpayer to bail them out when they lose.

May 20 2011

THE WORLD HAS TOO MUCH DEBT

The world has too much debt. We have been on a debt-accumulation binge over the past 30 years. That's why we're tipping, tipping, tipping into depression.

Debt is good as the economic growing season (and expansion) begins. Debt at the beginning will be fuel for the expansion. Debt at the end of the expansion is catastrophic. It's like helium suddenly turning into iron.

The global economy won't grow again until we unload all the heavy debt. That will take a real global depression and all that goes with it -- social chaos, revolutions, civil wars, and foreign wars.

If the Fed had begun raising interest rates at the end of the last expansion (2001) and made it more and more costly to borrow, then we would have taken the first painful step toward unloading debt. They did the opposite, encouraging us to take on more debt -- which they are STILL doing, a decade later. Borrow for ever. Don't worry: we will make interest rates go negative if you have trouble paying back your loans!

So, we still have a long decline before we get to pass GO again.

We are being led by people who have only ego, testosterone and adrenalin -- adrenalin generated from fear of losing their power. We are not being led, obviously, by people who have a deep understanding of nature.

EVERYBODY should run their 'house' with the understanding that spending someone else's money is not the best policy for sane living.

May 17 2011

WHAT IS GOOD FOR GENERAL MOTORS IS NOT NECESSARILY GOOD FOR AMERICA

What are American corporations doing with all the cash they are hoarding (remember, hoarding is always a sign of a economic top, never a sign of a economic bottom)?

1. Paying exorbitant salaries and bonuses to their elite officers.

2. Using cash to buy back company stock. Buying back stock, of course, also helps to drive up the wealth in stock options these corporate officers are holding; it also increases debt, used to finance the buy-backs, unless they are using cash for the buy-back. Buy-backs also remove shares from the market, meaning a company losing revenue growth can camouflage this loss through the double negative of more debt to buy shares near all-time highs. Most bonuses now are directed toward performance of a company in the stock market – so buying back stock, which helps to drive up the stock price, helps corporate bonuses escalate.

3. Saving money to try to survive the next downturn, which they fear (know) is coming.

4. Pay down debt.

You may argue that if this is good for the company (‘What’s good for General Motors is good for America’) it is good for America. Not necessarily so. If American companies are getting healthy so they can expand in foreign countries, hire foreign workers and pay taxes to foreign nations and do nothing for America and Americans, then America would be better off with higher corporate tax rates to help pay off the American government deficits.

American corporations with no loyalty to America should be taxed out of existence in America.

Dead wood should be cut down to make room for the next generation of trees.

May 16 2011

WHAT THE GOVERNMENT NEEDS TO DO NOW

The government needs to (1) stop spending; (2) take in more tax revenue from the corporations that pay NOTHING (like GE, Yahoo, Boeing, Exxon (no taxes in 2009) and a slough of others)

Exxon Mobil made $19 billion in profits in 2009. Exxon not only paid no federal income taxes, it actually received a $156 million rebate from the IRS, according to its SEC filings.

Bank of America received a $1.9 billion tax refund from the IRS last year, although it made $4.4 billion in profits and received a bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department of nearly $1 trillion.

Over the past five years, while General Electric made $26 billion in profits in the United States, it received a $4.1 billion refund from the IRS.

Chevron received a $19 million refund from the IRS last year after it made $10 billion in profits in 2009.

Boeing, which received a $30 billion contract from the Pentagon to build 179 airborne tankers, got a $124 million refund from the IRS last year.

Valero Energy, the 25th largest company in America with $68 billion in sales last year received a $157 million tax refund check from the IRS and, over the past three years, it received a $134 million tax break from the oil and gas manufacturing tax deduction.

Goldman Sachs in 2008 only paid 1.1 percent of its income in taxes even though it earned a profit of $2.3 billion and received almost $800 billion from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department.

Citigroup last year made more than $4 billion in profits but paid no federal income taxes. It received a $2.5 trillion bailout from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury.

ConocoPhillips, the fifth largest oil company in the United States, made $16 billion in profits from 2007 through 2009, but received $451 million in tax breaks through the oil and gas manufacturing deduction.

Over the past five years, Carnival Cruise Lines made more than $11 billion in profits, but its federal income tax rate during those years was just 1.1 percent.

May 16 2011

FAKE RECOVERIES FOLLOWING BY ANOTHER LEG DOWN

Bernanke has just delayed the inevitable hoping organic business growth would come back and save him. It didn’t. Great job, Ben! Denial is over-rated. We are even more deeply in debt that when Ben's genius began to unfold. And this depression is about DEBT.

Ben turned Japanese -- hide the debt and pretend everything's ok -- but we'll have a tsunami also, literal or metaphorical; and all the debt will come wash us away in a floodtide.

We need to understand the long-term picture. Economic expansion is filling up the cup (1983-2001); economic contradiction is emptying out the cup (getting rid of debt). We haven't really done much emptying out yet.

Fake recoveries along the way in every depression we've had. And then another leg down.

May 14 2011

BIN LADEN’S DEATH? DID THAT MAKE THE DOLLAR RALLY?

Bin Laden's death was probably less important as a cause of the dollar-rally than the so-called acknowledged end of QE2. Two things really are supporting the dollar: end of QE2; chaos in European debt centers that seem to be pulling Europe apart at the seams.

How will Big Ben be able to keep interest rates at zero and keep the Dollar pinned on the canvas? That's the big issue.

Now if Ben suddenly resigns or is impeached, then the dollar might rally seriously. But the dollar is not supposed to rally until 2019 -- according to my calculations -- so I'd have to agree that commodities should go higher; gold and silver should go higher; and American earnings should go lower and lower, vis.-a-vis world currencies and commodities.

May 13 2011

WILL THE REAL JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES PLEASE STAND UP

Think of Mr. Bernanke's policies (and Greenspan's before).

“By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.”

John Maynard Keynes

May 8 2011

CONSERVATIVES TEND TO ARGUE THAT FASCISM AND COMMUNISM ARE THE SAME. ARE THEY?

Actually read the history of the Russian Communist Revolution and the Chinese Communist Revolution and the Vietnamese Communist Revolution...in all these cases, the rich people were either killed, imprisoned or driven out of the country.

National Socialism under Hitler did not persecute the rich (except the Jewish rich). The rich fashioned an alliance with Hitler.

Fascism as a form of government is almost always the ruling rich and the government fashioning an alliance, in collusion with the military. The form of economy is almost always state capitalism, in which the capitalist class and the government work together for their own enrichment, much like what is happening in America today.

Communism and fascism are similar in their approach to governing but communism cuts off the head (the rich and educated) and tries to grow a new head to take its place, drawn up from the Working Class. Fascism never idealizes the Working Class except as a potential army they can use to conquer the world for more power and more wealth. Fascism isn't a revolution, but an attempt to restore an imagined ideal state of government by some form of aristocracy (old money families, rich businessmen).

Apr 29 2011

1965-1983 NIGHT-CYCLE: THERE WAS NOT A DEPRESSION IN AMERICA THEN, WAS THERE?

1965-83 was really a period of stagflation (a new term for a new phenomena, combining stagnation and inflation). We were stuck in a vortex of 'try to grow' and 'can't grow', with high unemployment (10.8%) and high inflation, until Paul Volcker came along and jacked up rates and turned the scenario around.

Economic expansion peaked in 1965; and the economy began to contract.

Deflation/depression – in the way I use the term, relative to Night-Cycles -- is not only financial, but also social, political and psychological. Ego-deflation is about the 'can-do' mentality of the nation being turned into a 'can't-do' mentality; winners being turned into losers -- like in the 1930s.

If you lived through the 1965 - 1983 era you will remember a severe social/political/psychological depression expressed by race riots (LA, Chicago, Detroit, Newark burning); assassination of two Kennedys and Martin Luther King; black power movements against the White Power Patriarchy; feminist movements against the White Power Patriarchy; a near civil war over the Vietnam War, and then a lost war in Asia; a large part of a generation dropping out and choosing sex, drugs and rock and roll over the traditional American conformist culture ear-marked by self-discipline to become rich, consumption of plenty of alcohol and cigarettes, and Lawrence Welk, Dean Martin, and Frank Sinatra; a sitting Vice-President of the US arrested for bribery and tax evasion and driven from office, pleading no contest (guilty); a sitting President was impeached and driven from office; economic recessions combined with astronomical inflation, which led to Volcker's 21% Fed Funds Rate in the early 1980's.

Now if that isn't a depression I don't know what is.

The unemployment rate in 1965 was 4.4%. In 1975 it was 8.2%. In 1983 it was 10.8%.

There were 4-6 recessions from 1965-1983 depending upon who you are reading. America lost a war, lost a president to corruption charges ("I am not a crook"), lost its embassy staff in Iran as they were paraded through the streets of Tehran and then held hostage for almost a year and we could do nothing about it. Deflation of power is also a part of the Night-Cycle. When the military tried to put a rescue mission together to rescue the hostages, the mission got lost in a desert sand storm, and the helicopters crashed a hundred miles from the landing spot, an utter disaster.

Ego deflation. In many ways American prestige had sank to almost nothing internationally. And communism seemed to be winning in Asia and in Central and Latin America and even in Europe as Western Europe rebelled against American leadership which would make Europe the battlefield in a nuclear war between Russia and America.

Apr 29 2011

IS THE WORST BEHIND US?

Revisit this issue two years from today. The question is: is the depression over.

In 1935, many 'positivists' were claiming that we had escaped the depression by the skin of our teeth. A depressions has many tentacles, social, political, personal, and many symptoms, such as massive unemployment that leads to social chaos, revolt of peoples against their government, civil wars, foreign wars...one can't myopically read the stock pages and think they know about the depression.

In 1935, the Night-Cycle still had Pearl Harbor, all of World War II, the dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Great Depression of 1946-47 still ahead of it.

Apr 29 2011

WAS THERE REALLY A GREAT DEPRESSION OF 1946?

In their article 'The Great Depression of 1946', Richard K. Veddar and Lowell Gallaway argue that the depression in 1946-47 was even more devastating than the 1929-1933 depression. Quoting from this article:

It seems inevitable that some Ph.D. student in economics some time soon will pick up a recent copy of the Economic Report of the President looking for a dissertation topic and learn that there was a ‘Great Depression in 1946’, a topic which he or she will then analyze using all the tools of modern economic analysis. The student will read that real gross national product in 1946 fell 19%, the largest single decrease in annual output in the century of recorded annual GNP data. He or she will also learn quickly that from 1944 to 1947, real output fell by 22.7%. Looking up population figures, the student will observe that per capita output actually declined by more than one-fourth in real terms over the three years of conversion from war to peace, and did not regain the pre-depression (1944) level again until 1964.

From all this the student will no doubt conclude that the heretofore neglected ‘Great Depression of 1946’ was the worst cyclical downturn in modern American economic history, and that, by some measures, it had a greater disruptive impact of the American economy than the earlier, more celebrated Great Depression of 1929 - 1933. For example, in the earlier downturn, real per capita BNP surpassed the 1929 peak levels with 12 years, compared with 20 years it took to surpass the 1944 peak after the 1946 Depression. Moreover, while the 1929-33 downturn was quantitatively a bit larger (30% vs 23%), no single year exhibited a decline of the magnitude of that witnessed in 1946.

My argument is that these interrupted-but-linked depressions 1929, 1936, 1941 (declaration of war), 1946 were all part of the same general phenomena, all manifestations of the same root-system: the Night-Cycle of the deflating Masculine Ego bubble. Life expands; Death contracts. Heat expands; cold contracts. Life constructs the Tree of Life, essentially breathes out the Tree of Life; Death de-constructs the Tree of Life, returns energy to the soil, returns dissipating energy to its bed, to its Winter roots.

Every depression has several major manifestations and devastating performances during the 18-year Night-Cycle, which depression (singular) is always punctuated by weak attempts at recovery and growth. During the Winter, light doesn’t vanish entirely. There is light during the days – but the light during the days is weak and cannot warm the Earth sufficiently to allow for germinating seeds to spring back to life.

Only Time – the Spring Season – allows organic growth to resume.

One last note on this era: liberals argue that FDR’s massive deficit-spending on social/work programs saved America from the Great Deflation – and they tend to use this successful model as the ‘how to’ defeat deflationary cycles – much of which is the driving logic employed by Ben Bernanke in his current Quantatative Easing preoccupation.

There is no reason to believe that FDR’s government spending policies turned the Night-Cycle into an expansion. In fact, nothing the government did or nothing anyone does will change the fact that a deflation cycle is dominant during a Night-Cycle of contraction. Only Time will turn an World Contraction into a World Expansion. However, the central government does have an obligation to help provide for its citizens during a contractive Night-Cycle. The generative force, driven largely by Business Interests, are impotent during a Night-Cycle, cannot grow jobs, cannot stimulate growth. The government attempts to fill the void left by the disappearing masculine force.

Blaming the government for this disappearing act of Business is silly. The banks shot themselves in the foot – and the air of expansion began to rush out of the Hindenburg they had manufactured as a global economy. The government did not shoot the banks in the foot.

The government can, at best, provide for a neutral 18-year cycle of preservation of the advances made during the Growth Cycle. In Hindu myth, Brahma expands and creates; Vishnu preserves; Siva destroys. Siva comes last. Siva transforms into Brahma after destruction creates the energy for creation.

The government plays the role of Vishnu in an attempt to preserve as best as possible the dignity and humanity of the society during the directionless Night-Cycle.

Liberal advocates of government service-spending should not pretend that government service-spending will grow the economy; but neither should conservatives misunderstand the role of liberal government service-spending, producing a vital bridge between the Old World of former business growth and the New World of coming business growth, which the Business World cannot fill again until they have been empowered (over Time, through gestation) to grow another phallus, as the myth of Osiris-Isis-Horus elaborates so wonderfully. Without Osiriris’ magic wand the world falls into infertility and madness. But it is Isis that resurrects the magic wand, through a kind of witchcraft generated in the deep part of the Night, through which action she gives life to Horus, the Son, who becomes the next masculine force of expansion.

The government should be raising interest rates, raising taxes (on the wealthy and on rich corporations) and lowering government spending, and limiting this to life-essentials and social services – taking on more debt to try to fuel another expansion is folly stemming from a misunderstanding of what is really happening during a Night-Cycle.

Debt must be destroyed. The cup must be emptied. The cup is full; the cup is overflowing with cheap money. This causes the Biblical Flood, which causes the Night of Noah. Drying out the world is the step we next need, not more liquidation. Liquidity is NOT the problem. The hot breath of deity will blow across the Earth in an attempt to drive off the forces of the Winter storms, and lower water levels, so growth can return again to the Earth.

Water levels now are too high, all across the globe. Governments are beginning to dry out the Earth, using what the press is calling ‘austerity measures’. These austerity measures are needed – but they will not be easy. Austerity – and tax on rich citizens – must go hand-in-hand. There must be austerity for all citizens equally.

Then, when the Day-Cycle returns again, turn people loose again to see which will become rich during the succeeding Day-Cycle.

April 29 2011

BE WARY OF HALF-TRUTHS

I am seeing America's good side. I'm just not ignoring the bad side. We saved the world from the fascists during World War II -- that was good. But we also got a huge reward for doing so: 3/4 of the world became a personal marketplace for American goods.

Both sides exist.

I'm not an America-hater. But I want to see both sides so I don't become too energetic in supporting either side of the half-truth.

The American Revolution was about American business, at least that 's what sent us into open conflict -- which I support and would always support. The War of 1812: again about American business, but also against a bully trying to tell us how to live. The Mexican War. Not so sure about this one. The Civil War. That was different and quite complex, with real moral issues and attempts by both side to gain economic advantages. The Spanish American War. Not so sure about this one either, although kicking Europe out of America was generally a good thing. The American Wars against the American Indians. This was clearly economics -- but I'm not sure it was historically avoidable. Symbolically this was the Day Cycle demolishing the Night Cycle and establishing the Day-Cycle expansion mode. In a karmic sense, we are still paying for this however -- and we will pay for a long time....

Our corporations have tended to operate with the stamp of approval of the American government and the backing of the American military -- this has been very persuasive in Latin America; it has been resisted a bit in Asia. In Africa, we have had mixed fortune.

Foreign aid in Africa: we get back governments who become our friends and keep communists from gaining power (or friends of our enemies, such as Al-Qeda). We may see the capitalism-communist duality die soon and be replaced by a religious ethic: Judeo-Christianity against Islam.

As the Arab Spring rises, does it rise as democracies hungry for civilization, or as a global army of jihadists taking back the world for Allah?

It will be interesting to see.

It appears that Arabic Islam is rising out of the sea; and Western Christianity is falling back into the sea.

Apr 28 2011

OUR LEADERS HAVE NOT BEEN GOOD PARENTS LATELY

I think, if we continue to have a Fed, the Fed HAS to be capable of making the tough calls -- when we have too much debt, the Fed has to lead the way in making it more difficult to borrow. They have not been doing this.

I don't think the freedom we love and value is an absolute. Freedom and self-discipline need to go together. That's the rub. In a society that believes in only the pleasure side of experience, when we have trouble saying NO to ourselves, then we need a nonpolitical independent body helping us to make decisions -- which is what the Fed is and is supposed to be -- but the Fed over the last three decades, since Volcker at least, has only really been willing to push the easy money button. Yes, there have been periods of tightening -- but if we had not had an almost solid period of easy money we would not have contracted the debt-disease to a level we now have it.

You mention energy costs hurting consumers -- and I would point out that Ben's (and the Fed’s) unnatural devaluation of the Dollar (QE is a very unnatural squatting on interest rates and the dollar) is what has driven commodities (and oil/gasoline) through the roof.

QE is a failed policy. The alternative is scary. But sometimes you have to face the monster in life.

We are still free if interest rates are high and we can't borrow money like it was almost free. America has been through rich and poor times both -- and Americans have stayed Americans, relatively free, during both phases. We haven't had very good parents in our leaders lately. Good parents tell you what you have to do some times. Our leaders have been enablers. I pat you on the back and compliment you -- and you re-elect me.

Times are changing.

I don't see how unemployment can come down when banks aren't lending and corporations aren't borrowing to expand operations. Corporations are borrowing to pay down debt. We are entering the Winter Season of the Business Cycle (the Winter of our Discontent it seems).

Apr 28 2011

BEN IS DEPRESSED

Ben is depressed. He is terrified of the future. What do depressed kids do when the future gets too dark for them to face? They run to the mall and buy presents for themselves, things they don't need, because spending money lifts their spirits for a few seconds.

Is this what our leaders have become?

Apr 28 2011

DOES BEN BERNANKE HAVE A FEED-BACK SYSTEM?

I remember when Alan Greenspan had a feedback system of the Board of Governors. If someone challenged Alan, that person suddenly became a non-person, was no longer invited to dinners and official functions.

I was actually talking about Ben's personal psychological feedback system. Yes, he has people who tell him he's wrong, full of crap, even the devil. But I don't think he hears any of it. He is the same guy who has been wrong in nearly every public pronouncement he has ever made -- without seeming to lose confidence that he is ALWAYS right.

Perilous perspectives of our fearless leader -- leader of the global economy recovery plan -- 'more debt through more bubbles means more fun for everyone'....

The following are 30 Ben Bernanke quotes that are so odd and out of touch with reality that you won’t know whether to laugh or cry...especially considering that this man is captaining our boat through the dangerous waters of economic destruction. In 2008 Ben was still saying housing was ok, the economy was ok, and that he really wished he was 'omniscient' so he could have seen the crisis coming' -- after thousands of bloggers and financial journalists began warning the world that a crisis was coming starting in about 2002.

This is what I mean by no psychological (mental/emotional) feedback system. My favorite is #27.

#1 (October 20, 2005) “House prices have risen by nearly 25 percent over the past two years. Although speculative activity has increased in some areas, at a national level these price increases largely reflect strong economic fundamentals.”

#2 (On 60 Minutes in response to a question about what would have happened if the Federal Reserve had not “bailed out” the U.S. economy) “Unemployment would be much, much higher. It might be something like it was in the Depression. Twenty-five percent.”

#3 (February 15, 2006) “Housing markets are cooling a bit. Our expectation is that the decline in activity or the slowing in activity will be moderate, that house prices will probably continue to rise.”

#4 (January 10, 2008) “The Federal Reserve is not currently forecasting a recession.”

#5 (When asked directly during a congressional hearing if the Federal Reserve would monetize U.S. government debt) “The Federal Reserve will not monetize the debt.”

#6 “One myth that’s out there is that what we’re doing is printing money. We’re not printing money.” (This is true literally -- they are printing electronically by adding numbers in spreadsheets.)

#7 “The money supply is not changing in any significant way. What we’re doing is lowering interest rates by buying Treasury securities.”

#8 (November 21, 2002) “The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at no cost.”

#9 (March 28, 2007) “At this juncture, however, the impact on the broader economy and financial markets of the problems in the subprime market seems likely to be contained. In particular, mortgages to prime borrowers and fixed-rate mortgages to all classes of borrowers continue to perform well, with low rates of delinquency.”

#10 (July, 2005) “We’ve never had a decline in house prices on a nationwide basis. So, what I think what is more likely is that house prices will slow, maybe stabilize, might slow consumption spending a bit. I don’t think it’s gonna drive the economy too far from its full employment path, though.”

#11 “Although low inflation is generally good, inflation that is too low can pose risks to the economy – especially when the economy is struggling.”

#12 (February 15, 2007) “Despite the ongoing adjustments in the housing sector, overall economic prospects for households remain good. Household finances appear generally solid, and delinquency rates on most types of consumer loans and residential mortgages remain low.”

#13 (October 31, 2007) “It is not the responsibility of the Federal Reserve – nor would it be appropriate – to protect lenders and investors from the consequences of their financial decisions.”

#14 (On the possibility that the Fed might launch QE3) “Oh, it’s certainly possible. And again, it depends on the efficacy of the program. It depends on inflation. And finally it depends on how the economy looks.”

#15 (November 15, 2005) “With respect to their safety, derivatives, for the most part, are traded among very sophisticated financial institutions and individuals who have considerable incentive to understand them and to use them properly.”

#16 (January 18, 2008) “[The U.S. economy] has a strong labor force, excellent productivity and technology, and a deep and liquid financial market that is in the process of repairing itself.”

#17 “I wish I’d been omniscient and seen the crisis coming.” (It really did not take omniscience to see the crisis coming: it took a a lack of blinders is all. Thousands of people predicted the crisis beginning in about 2002.)

#18 (May 17, 2007) “All that said, given the fundamental factors in place that should support the demand for housing, we believe the effect of the troubles in the subprime sector on the broader housing market will likely be limited, and we do not expect significant spillovers from the subprime market to the rest of the economy or to the financial system. The vast majority of mortgages, including even subprime mortgages, continue to perform well. Past gains in house prices have left most homeowners with significant amounts of home equity, and growth in jobs and incomes should help keep the financial obligations of most households manageable.”

#19 “The GSEs are adequately capitalized. They are in no danger of failing.”

#20 (Two months before Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collapsed and were nationalized) “They will make it through the storm.”

#21 (September 23rd, 2008) “My interest is solely for the strength and recovery of the U.S. economy.”

#22 “Economics has many substantive areas of knowledge where there is agreement but also contains areas of controversy. That’s inescapable.”

#23 “I don’t think that Chinese ownership of U.S. assets is so large as to put our country at risk economically.”

#24 “We’ve been very, very clear that we will not allow inflation to rise above 2 percent.”

#25 “…inflation is running at rates that are too low relative to the levels that the Committee judges to be most consistent with the Federal Reserve’s dual mandate in the longer run.”

#26 (June 10, 2008) “The risk that the economy has entered a substantial downturn appears to have diminished over the past month or so.”

#27 “Not all information is beneficial.”

#28 “The financial crisis appears to be mostly behind us, and the economy seems to have stabilized and is expanding again.”

#29 “Similarly, the mandate-consistent inflation rate–the inflation rate that best promotes our dual objectives in the long run–is not necessarily zero; indeed, Committee participants have generally judged that a modestly positive inflation rate over the longer run is most consistent with the dual mandate.”

#30 (October 4, 2006) “If current trends continue, the typical U.S. worker will be considerably more productive several decades from now. Thus, one might argue that letting future generations bear the burden of population aging is appropriate, as they will likely be richer than we are even taking that burden into account.”

Apr 28 2011

EARNINGS TOP WALL STREET CONSENSUS ESTIMATES

Revenue declining 4% is good news. That means that the stooges in the financial houses decide together how bad the picture could be and then edge the projections down even farther. This gives the company a LOT of room to turn a loss into a psychological gain -- and allows the financial houses to sell more stock. If they don't sell stock, they have to look for a real job.

It is a fixed game, celebrating looses as if they were earnings gains. Convincing the idiot Americans to throw their money into more stocks, from which they live a rather ‘high-on-the-hog’ life.

It’s a good job, if you can get it.

Apr 28 2011

DONALD TRUMP: YOU’RE FIRED!

Trump is a Roman Emperor wannabe. Let's find someone more real than him. He's just a crook who made a killing in real estate, who got his money from his rich dad and never looked back. He's just a loud mouth rich kid with a flabby understanding of everything.

Look at Ron Paul -- integrity, perhaps a lack of imagination -- and look at Donald Trump -- decadent, flatulent, piggish, with that fake hair comb-over -- and see which of the two would make a better leader. (Note, I am not sponsoring Ron Paul against all other comers, only against Donald Trump.)

Trump wants America to become like Rome, to use its army to steal resources from the rest of the weaker world, which is what the Germans did under Hitler and the Japanese under the banner of the Rising Sun.

I agree with what you say about professional politicians. But Trump is even worse: he's a professional business thief.

Le Donald: you're fired!

Apr 28 2011

OBAMA AND BENNIE BERNANKE, JOINED AT THE HIP

Bernanke is not running for the presidency. He is, sadly, running the presidency now however. Obama has ONE CHANCE to regain his balance and become a legitimate candidate again: Force Bernanke out! I'm not sure he can do that. But he can break from Bernanke, and empower Volcker to be more vocal in disagreement with Bernanke. He won't do this, of course -- because Bennie has convinced him that it is either this or 'over the embankment'.

Obama is afraid to think for himself on this issue. He is trusting that what's good for Wall Street Banks is good for America. So far, after all the theft, this is an incorrect assumption.

This thievery all began in the 1980s with the deregulation of the Savings and Loan Industry. The bankers did the same thing them. They issues loans that they knew would never be repaid, collected fees and bribes and....waited for the crap to hit the fan. The Texas bankers (they were the worse) had a saying: "A rolling loan gathers no loss!" They essentially gave their friends money, waited for the crisis to hit, trusting that Washington would bail them out. And Washington did.

Wall Street Banks watched all this -- and had a game plan for their own future. All they had to do was to get Clinton, golden boy Robert Rubin, and Larry Summers to go alone with the Republican Plan to deregulate the banks and give them a free hand to create another bank deperession. And they did. The rest is repetitious history.

Apr 28 2011

LEARNING FROM THE GERMANS AND THE JAPANESE

So taking on MORE debt is the answer, when the 'real problem' America faced and faces is TOO MUCH DEBT? Is this trying to deal with the problem? Is this what Bernanke and Obama are doing? Or are they trying to deny the problem, extend it in to the future, so someone else will have to face it? The Japanese tried that. Look at them now. On their knees facing a wall of water that is really a metaphor for all the liquidity they have pumped in to their economy hoping to deny the reality of suffocation, accrued debt.

How do you deal with the problem? You raise rates; you let those holding bad debt fail. You raise taxes on the very rich who are not paying their fair share (this will take new tax laws probably, since the current laws were written by lawyers in Washington elected for, of and by the rich who wanted lax tax laws) and you cut spending and eliminate the consume, consume, consume mentality of America, beginning in Washington.

The spend, spend, spend problem is NOT a Washington problem. It is an American problem, from New York to San Diego, from Miami to Seattle. Spending is how you prove you are alive. Well, that is over: now we save, save, save. We make the Dollar stronger. And we rebuild an American economy with the understanding that buying American comes first. This will require that American manufacturing will need to be Quality One. This is something we need to fix also, the lazy mentality of the spend, spend, spend generation which says, oh, it's close enough. There is much good in America now, still: but we need more discipline as a culture. We can learn from the Germans -- although we do not want to become Germans. Pride in the quality of one's work is a principle the Germans (and the Japanese) seem to understand. This is one principle America can adopt from abroad that will make us a more serious and a more fortunate nation.

Apr 28 2011

THE FIRST COUP IN AMERICA

There was a coup in America in the first few years of birth. The struggle between the Romans, otherwise known as Federalists (George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, etc), who wanted America to be like England and like Rome, empires, dominators of the world. Thomas Jefferson wanted to follow a Greek model, city-states, agrarian states (gentleman farmers), choosing 'culture' over 'civilization', choosing philosophy over law.

The empiricists won: Big Banks, Big Government, Big Debts, Big Wars, Big Fortunes, Big Eventual Punishment By the Huns, Vandals, Goths and Visigoths.

The battle is still being waged. Sometimes it's hard to tell who is whom these days. A Lot has changed -- and the two political parties have changed identities several times along the way.

We chose empire. Now we are heading toward the BIG Non-Republic last violent, brutal, self-indulgent stage of Roman History -- when Big Money takes over BIG government and the Emperors run the country like a gigantic whore house, using their huge army to steal resources from every country that is weaker than it is. Sound familiar, Donald Trump?

Eventually America breaks in two. Two different capitols, one in the East and one in the West. We also should get ready for the appearance of the New Messiah figure. A New Religion eventually takes root. Invaders and Goths from within. A long Dark Age of 1,000 years, that is, essentially, the development of the New Religion. Gigantic cathedrals rise up all over America and the huge banks and office buildings (which are our cathedrals today, since we worship money today, our churches being tiny little structures made out of wood, easy to blow away or tear down) vanish in ruins. Money lending becomes a sin and illegal; and society is formed without the benefit of the banking class to turn us all in to debt junkies, while they become even richer than...Roman Emperors.

And then rebirth as Jefferson's Greek Model, different regions, speaking different versions of English, developing cultures that grow up out of the soil of North, East, West, Rocky Mountains, Midwest, Northeast, Southeast, South. It won't be perfect of course. Like Europe after their Dark Age, new states will eventually rise up and challenge one another and there will be almost endless warfare between regions and between versions of the New Religion-- as there also was in the Greek city-state model.

Neither system is perfect. Two giant magnetic poles that pull us toward them as idea. We move from one pole toward the other. Moving toward the Roman Pole, the Centralized, Empire Pole, is the Day-Cycle when physical evolution happens, resulting in the growth of great civilizations, and the Greek pole, the Decentralized Pole, is the Night-Cycle when metaphysical evolution happens, resulting in the growth of great cultures.

Julius Cesar stands at the Daylight Pole. Jesus Christ stands at the Nightlight Pole. Johannes Bach stands at the Dawn Pole, the appearance of the Great Cultures -- and, of course, the Religious Warriors, the Crusaders, who carry the idea of the New Religion into the World behind sword and spear and testimonial banner. The anti-Hero stands at the Dusk Pole, those who come to hate civilization and long for a return to Nature, the Romantic: Goethe, Byron, DH Lawrence, Bob Dylan....

Black King at Midnight; Renaissance Man at Dawn; White King at Noon; Romantic at Dusk. Woman in the middle, the Earth, for whom each fight to posses and then, eventually, attempt to discard.

Apr 27 2011

DID ALEXANDER HAMILTON WIN THE WAR FOR THE AMERICAN SOUL?

No. Hamilton wanted a world of slaves and masters.

The struggle between the Greeks and the Romans is alive in America today -- Hamilton/Washington and Jefferson are still fighting for possession of the American Soul, and, I hope, always will. That's what a living democracy is all about.

If we don't have Jefferson to balance the Federalist impulse we get an unchecked fascism trying to conquer and enslave the world for profit. If we don't get Federalism to balance the Romantic impulse of Jefferson, then we get equality but no vitality. We need both.

The Day-Cycle of expansion is dominated by the fascist impulse (the man, the Sun); the Night-Cycle of contraction is dominated by the socialist impulse (the woman, the Moon). Better pray that no side wins entirely, or we'll have slaughter and destruction on a massive scale. Civil War. The balance is better than civil war -- but democracy is a fragile season historically, one that we should value, even if our Ego (that is, our Identity) is tied to either the Fascist or the Socialist side.

6 September 2011

NOAH TOLD GOD: “LET IT RAIN! LET IT RAIN!”

Humanity has sunk lower and lower. God told Noah he would spare the world if Noah could find one good human being. Noah looked; then told God to go ahead, wipe out the world; it would be better to start all over again.

Wiping out the world does not really meaning going all the way back to the beginning. It means punishing Humanity so much that they regain their senses, their sense of proportion, an understanding of virtue, and a respect for modesty and goodness and for a real reputation (one based on integrity, not on money amassed and power gained in the world).

Noah could not find one decent man in the world. Noah said to God: "Let it rain, let it rain...!"

Apr 27 2011

I DON”T AGREE WITH YOU! IN FACT, YOU ARE LOONEY!

Yes: When you don't understand or agree with the other side's view, suggest that they are unhinged. That has been the behavior of the rationalists for ever -- 'don't mind them! They're looney!'

That is how the men keep the women down too. If they don’t understand, they laugh, and try to diminish not the idea – which they can’t comprehend – but the speak – whom they fear.

But, in fact, during Night-Cycles, those who can read by the Moonlight are the ones who can see.

6 September 2011

THE NEW REALITY: THE FUTURE IS NOT ALWAYS BRIGHTER THAN THE PAST

A significant earthquake happened psychologically to Americans in 2008. The dream popped. Now Americans understand how vulnerable they are. Most are one paycheck away from life on the street. When you have faith that the future is going to just get better and better, you can live that way, I guess. But when the future darkens up, people begin to realize that having money saved for emergencies beats having the new computer games and the new gadgets and all the new clothes they really don't need and all the other things they used to take for granted. People are scared. And people are a bit contrite. They realize they have been living the wrong way; they realize that spending money that is not their own money is a problem for them. Austerity is taking over psychologically also.

Apr 27 2011

JIM CRAMER: STOP TRADING! AND STOP BEING A BULLY!

Jim Cramer is a circus barker con-man trying to get you to go into his tent. He buys a stock and then screams about how brilliant the management is; stock going through the roof. He shorts a stock; then he screams that the company management really doesn't get it.

He's a crude bully standing on his money pulpit.

A decade ago America began to opt for people screaming at one another on television; and that caught on. Now you have to yell, to pound your chest, to scream how brilliant you are. Noise is money apparently. (The female version of Jim Cramer is Suze Orman, another bully shouting at the screen.)

At the same time American television began to drift lower and lower, filming fat people fighting against weight, brutality in prisons, violence in the street (Real Cops, etc). Common criminals became television stars -- I think of Snoop Dog immediately, and then Donald Trump secondarily. What about Anthony Robins, con-men of con-men?

It doesn't surprise me that Jim Cramer learned the 'ropes' with Goldman Sachs: it's the New World we're inheriting. And it doesn't look all that good.

Apr 26 2011

A PLAN TO END ESCALATING HEALTH INSURANCE PREMIUMS

I have a better solution. Insurance pays rebates for health insurance NOT used. At the end of the year, everyone who doesn't use the health benefits gets money back.

You may argue that this money does not belong to the worker/insured in the first place, but you are wrong. All the raises over the last two decades that could not be given to workers because of escalating health-insurance costs were actually workers' pay-raises given directly to the insurance companies. Time to start taking it back via rebates.

If Americans could be reimbursed (what percentage?) of health-care payments not used, then we would see the price of health-care come down and Americans’ habit of running to the doctor for a hangnail -- because it's covered by my insurance -- would vanish.

Apr 22 2011

A REPUBLICAN FOR 18 YEARS; A DEMOCRAT FOR 18 YEARS

I am not a democrat or a republican either. We have not had real moral leadership in some time. I was not defending Obama, of whom I have been quite critical for a lack of moral leadership (his marriage to Goldman and the banks being evidence of this).

Trump is cut from the same cloth as the Goldman boys. He is willing to steal other people's resources if it suits him. I see NO difference between Trump and Blankfein's boys. Yes: Trump has no ability to lead with moral values. He is a thief in search of new victims -- my fear is that his next victims might be the American people.

We need moral leadership -- but I'm afraid I'm not seeing it anywhere. And I think the LAST place to look for it is among the 'leaders' who've spent too much time on or around or near Wall Street.

We went in to Iraq to save Saudi Arabia and their oil, so we could count on a steady supply of oil, and since they have promised us to keep the price of oil just high enough to bleed us but not to kill us. Let's not forget we invited ourselves into Iraq. American anger should probably be directed against our own leadership rather than against the people of Iraq. It is a VERY dangerous first step to steal Iraq's oil, and then Kuwait's, because our military is bigger than their military is. That's how Hitler got started. Once that kind of motivated and politically justified thievery starts it's very hard to stop.

When a presidential candidate in America starts saying 'we have the right to steal resources' because they owe it to us -- and he is not shouted down and driven out of the presidential race for his stupidity -- then I think America is heading in to real trouble.

Apr 14 2011

LYING CREEPS, CHEATS AND ASSOCIATES

Goldman: Lying Creeps, Cheats, and Associates. Is that what business is now? Or is that what business has always been?

Now we have Donald Trump saying it's time for America to use its military and start stealing resources from weaker neighbors, especially oil from Kuwait and Iraq. How about Saudi Arabia? "We do it in business all the time," the Donald implied. Which brings up a question? Do we want a leader who is emphasizing the best in us as a people, or the worst? Yes, we can all be thieves and cheaters, murderers and thugs. That is in our natures. But is that what we want the world to become?

The Donald is #2 in the Republican poll for the race for the presidency. What does that say about the Republicans? Do we want some form of moral leadership in the White House, or just more money, more money, more money...?

If all you want is more money, then follow the leadership of our business leaders, like Trump and Blankfein – and say good-bye to America’s democracy.

Apr 14 2011

NO BAIL-OUTS FOR ANYONE

No free houses for anyone. No free bailouts for the large or the small.

But to try to blame the house-buyers of the over-priced homes and the under-priced loans misses the point. It is not a crime to ask a bank for money you don't deserve and aren't qualified to receive. It is the banks' job to say NO. Why did the banks say yes? The banks had a plan.

From my book:

Stephen Pizzo, author of The Looting of America’s Savings and Loans, writes:

Back in the early 1980s when Ronald Reagan deregulated the savings and loan industry, Texas became the nation's biggest cesspool of S&L crookery. At the core of their thieving strategy was a little trick they described thusly: 'A rolling loan gathers no loss.'

These wily Texas coyotes had figured out a win/win situation. S&L operators could help their buddies "borrow" money from their S&Ls, not pay it back, and still allow the S&L to book loan fees and other profits, upon which the S&L executives based their salaries and bonuses.

Ah, you say, but wouldn't bank regulators notice that the loans were in default? No. Because each time a loan came due the S&L would "roll it over" -- renew it -- adding all interest due into the new loan and booking it as income. The loans got bigger and bigger, and never got paid off. The bankers got rich, the borrowers got rich, American taxpayers got the bill. A classic Texas "win/win" business deal."

"Of the 56 banks that failed in the U.S. between 1959 and 1971, 34 had passed their most recent examination in a 'no-problem' category, and 17 of the 34 had been given an 'excellent' rating." (Rep. St Germain, qtd in Pizzo p. 475)

"Buttoned-down appraisers, plugging along in boring jobs... learned that by simply raising their opinion of a property's value to match a borrower's needs or desires, they could raise their own standard of living as well - and the higher the opinion, the bigger the paycheck."

This was just about THE SAME GAME-PLAN for the 1998-2008 Great Bank Heist.

You should not have to pay for the mistakes of careless people who bought overpriced houses. I agree. You should also not have to pay for criminal bankers and mortgage brokers who sold bad loans expecting to be bailed out by the government, in much the same way the bankers were bailed out in the 1980's banking thievery.

This was all staged. The bankers knew exactly what they were doing.

Apr 10 2011

WELL, THE QUESTION IS: ARE THERE CONSPIRACIES OR ARE THESE ALL JUST PARANOID DELUSIONS?

Well, is it a conspiracy or not? A conspiracy is a group (you can define the size of the group if you like) of like-minded individuals seeking power to make their ideas be put in to practice. The Democratic and Republican parties are essentially conspiratorial. They will do almost anything to win. Smaller groups can also be conspiratorial. We have come to view 'conspiratorial' accusations as a form of mental illness -- and have concluded that a conspiracy is something that ALMOST NEVER really exists -- but, in truth, it is the basis of all group involvement in politics, finance and culture, and is something that ALWAYS exists.

Perception matters. When the massive center of a society believes its leadership is pure and decent, the whole society works together to make things work in a common direction. When the massive center stops believing this, starts believing that the leadership is corrupt and self-serving, the teamwork motive slips, and the machine begins to break down. That is also part of the cycle.

Look at the Middle East: this is a pretty incisive picture of a massive center that is choosing to defect from corruption and self-serving leadership. This can and does happen everywhere, eventually. That is also part of the cycle.

Apr 2 2011

ROME OR GREECE?

Another note; Jefferson's ideal prototype was the Greek city-state. He wanted America to become a decentralized republic based on this model.

Hamilton (and Washington also) built their ideal prototype on the Roman model, the Imperial City -- as did England.

Rome had more power in the material world -- the Capitalist sector. Greece had more power in the immaterial world, the world of ideas.

When Rome and Rome's Empire broke into pieces, the European City-States of the area became the Greek ideal. I believe America will do the same, when we finally give up the Roman Empire attraction (that is the Big Magnet that is currently pulling America and American Capitalism (capitalism is a form of empiricism)).

Great Cultures come from the Greek model. Great Empires come from the Roman model. Those are the two magnets pulling us to and fro, which I outlined earlier.

In truth, the struggle between the Jeffersonians and the Washingtonians (Hamiltonians) is still being fought in America, as it is in every culture that is still alive. To remain alive a culture needs a vital middle class that throws its support to the Ruling Rich Class when the Night Cycle needs to end and throws its support to the Working Poor Class when the Day Cycle needs to end.

As I have indicated, we are at about 6:30 PM. The Middle Class is moving toward the poor, and the Day-Cycle has ended, even if Ben Bernanke doesn't want to believe it.

Apr 2 2011

SOCIALISM AND CAPITALISM: TWO IMPERFECT POLES BETWEEN WHICH THE WORLD MOVES.

I don't believe that socialism is the cure to anything. I believe humans bounce between two imperfect poles: Material Expansion (Capitalism) and Material Deflation (Socialism). Neither pole is perfect; instead they are just roadside attractions, great magnetic poles that draw societies toward themselves, these 'ideals', as a way of organizing and leading evolution.

America's corruption is a half-truth. I understand that. Capitalism's splendor is another half-truth. You can focus on the glories without seeing the shadow side. I think America is now slipping in to the shadow. When this happens (every Night-Cycle -- 1929-1947; 1965-1983) -- the corruption side is magnified, and the creation side is shrunken. The light side is almost entire shut out.

This same process is true for the opposite side, what you call the Socialist side. It has an ideal; and it draws the society toward it. Like its twin brother pole, Capitalism, Socialism is not a place for a society to be fixed -- not a fixed point -- but a magnetic pole that draws a society toward it, and then pushes it away from it. Day-Cycles return because the magnetic pull toward the shadow ends (turns in to magnetic repulsion) and the other pole, the positive pole, becomes attractive. The idea is not to get stuck at either of the poles, or, in truth, any of the other stations in between: keep moving.

Human history is about the movement between these two poles, each appearing perfect at one point in time, neither being perfect, but each playing a role in evolving the human race.

I am a Capitalist at Midnight and a Socialist at Noon -- and it is about 6:30 PM at the moment. The Capitalist manages the objective world and leads the evolution of matter and the growth of the object. The Socialist manages the subjective world and leads the evolution of antimatter (spirit) and the growth of the subject.

To every thing there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven.

Apr 2 2011

GREENSPAN’S REGULATORY FATALISM

Dodd-Frank? Aren't those two of the guys who sold the Democratic Party to Wall Street? I have to admit that I still have not read and comprehended all that Dodd-Frank does. I think the real flaw that led to most of our problems was that the Fed and the Banks were working together to fuel bubbles -- because the economy was sold to the third world.

Our new 'service economy' was really financial services, real estate, construction, and health care thrown in on the side. This new economy needed a constant bubble condition in housing and real estate or it was going to collapse.

The Fed needed to begin seriously raising rates in 2001 and choke off all financial bubbles after 2001, when the business cycle growth stage was over.

The BIG NEXT STEP is regulating or doing away with the Fed -- after a concise audit to determine if they have been breaking their charter or American laws.

I think government as regulators and the banks have to be in a constant state of balance through conflict. Bank profits, we need to remember, went straight up when American debt went straight up -- so I'm of the opinion that bank profits linked to American debt is NOT a good thing. I'd rather have the banks not-for-profit institutions and Americans richer and with less debt.

I think we need a reincarnation of Teddy Roosevelt's big stick, or big scythe: and we need to prune all of America's biggest corporations which have forgotten that they are members of the American society (and not overlords thereof).

Can you imagine GE, Google, Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, Adobe, Altria/Philip Morris....paying almost no federal taxes. It's pruning time. Pruning the garden is good -- it let's new vital plants emerge, instead of the old big grandfather plants that go running to the government for help when they fall on their faces for proving that they have too little imagination to survive on their own.

No welfare for private Americans? Then no welfare for American corporations either.

Apr 1 2011

GREENSPAN: THE MAESTRO BEFORE AND AFTER

Greenspan tightened the Fed Funds rate in 2005-6 when he realized he had made a mistake lowering rates after the Nasdaq bubble burst in 2000. But then he lost his nerve, and backed rates back down -- then retired to earn millions with John Paulson who had made billions shorting the very housing bubble that Alan had helped create. Conflict of interest? Apparently not. Everyone in Washington wants to eventually leave and move to Wall Street to make millions from the very people they have been regulating all those years before.

Raising rates takes a lot of guts because EVERY power player in this country (and many in the world) -- many of whom are WALL STREET and WASHINGTON friends --want lower rates because that is how they make their money and stay elected.

Greenspan KNEW that stocks were overvalued and beginning to bubble as early as 1996 (remember 'irrational exuberance') but he did nothing then, conveniently forgetting the premise that it is the Fed's job to take away the punchbowl when 'irrational exuberance' (or bubbles) begin to form. Alan liked being popular. Remember his cover on Time Magazine 'the Committee To Save The World' -- Alan with notorious Clinton Administration thieves Rubin and Summers -- who can blame Alan for liking to be popular?

Anyone who believes there was no inflation between 1983 (after Volcker acted) and 2001-2007 has been eating too much government-sponsored cake.

By the way, the Committee To Save the World all came away with millions of dollars stashed into their own bank accounts and dirty pockets.

Mar 24 2011

WE NEED A NEW DEFINITION OF INFLATION

We need a new definition for inflation. In fact, economic growth IS inflation. Economic contraction is deflation. Economic growth is the 'inflating' of the economy. Check prices of everything from 1983 through 2001 and beyond. The economy grew and raised all boats. That is inflation. Check the debt load of America and the entire world: that is inflation.

Of course, that is not the academic definition of inflation/deflation. It is the common sense definition.

We can call increasing or decreasing the monetary supply something different, I think. 'Monetary supply inflation' perhaps; and 'Monetary supply deflation'.

What Bernanke doesn't understand about Japan is not that they didn't stay soft long enough -- but that they never did empty their debt glass.

Economic growth -- which is also accompanied by monetary growth inevitably – or what I call inflation -- is the (metaphors are magic) filling of the economic glass. In 1983, the glass was empty. From 1983 through 2001, we filled up the glass. In 2001 we should have begun emptying the glass.

Instead we opted for the Viagra Option, the fake virility option, the fake inflation option: lower and lower interest rates; throwing taxpayer money into the Black Hole of Deflation, hoping it will stick and, somehow, power the engine up again.

But one you have had a harvest -- 2001 is High Noon -- 2004-2007 is the Harvest -- you must go through Winter to get back around to Spring.

More attempts at inflation through monetary easing are like attempting to re-fertilize rotting fruit at the top of the Tree of Life. This is what Bernanke is doing. This is what nearly all the nations of the world are attempting to do, so afraid of going down into the dark waters of the Flood.

But the water below is the Mother. The water below is where everything gets washed off, purified, dissolved, re-created, and re-born.

The Deflation Season is the Water Below. 1938-1947; 1974-1983; 2013-2019.....

It is dark, indeed; for this is where the monsters live.

How do we empty the glass? We raise interest rates. We choke of monetary growth, make debt more expensive, and make the Dollar, in America's case, stronger. Yes, this shrinks the economy, leads to recession, etc. -- but this is inevitable: the back side of the coin of growth.

We can't trick Nature: where you have an expansion you ALWAYS have a contraction.

Where you have a Day of work and expansion and evolution of the Material World you always must have a NIGHT of rest and contraction and devolution.

If you don't raise rates when expansion ends (2001), and you keep adding water (matter, debt/credit) into the full glass (by lowering rates, or by keeping them low), you overflow the glass. This is what bubbles are. If you keep doing it: then you get floods. Floods are (biblical) destructions, when the world you know "ends", leading to a new world when the flood ends: floods are depressions, social upheavals, price riots, revolutions, stagflations, hyperinflations, wars and civil wars etc. -- all made much worse by irrational overflowing of the economic glass.

(Take a look around us: what do we see happening now?)

What Ben does not understand about Japan is that Japan cannot grow and will never be able to grow until Japan EMPTIES THE GLASS.

Japan MUST raise rates, destroy bad debts, restock their savings, and support the local currency -- not that the Japanese needed or wanted a stronger yen, and a stronger yen scared the hell out of the Japanese, so they hid their bad bank loans and tried to extend and pretend until growth came back to assist their bad loans....it just didn't happen. They somehow got the worst of both worlds: low interest rates and floods and a stronger currency.

Growth (real, non-bubble, inflation) can't come back until a nation empties its glass. Raising rates dries out the economic garden, so that replanting becomes possible, and re-growth eventually becomes possible. A policy of higher rates rewards savers who are then the backbone of the next growth cycle, investing savings (cash) in the budding new rally, and driving the new plant (the new version of capitalist expansion) into the sky -- before cash is replaced by debt in financing the second stage of economic growth -- as the lower interest rate environment really takes over, and makes investors become reckless, and, eventually, destructive -- the stage that rockets higher, filling the glass, and usually ends in disaster, greed, and economic apocalypse (as the glass continues to be filled and over-filled for too long).

Fill the glass, lower rates: 1947-1965.

Empty the glass, raise rates: 1965 - 1983.

Fill the glass, lower rates: 1983-2001.

Empty the glass, raise rates: 2001-2019.

Fill the glass, lower rates: 2019 - 2037......

Nature is eminently rational.

Mar 4 2011

OF COURSE, AUSTERITY DOES NOT CREATE GROWTH

Everyone knew that austerity did not create growth. Austerity pays down debts and is painful, not euphoria-causing. Germany is paying off debts NOW instead of later. Japan showed the world what it meant to keep the party going and pay the bill later. Now Ben is showing this also, or at least trying to.

The real issue, again, is about instant gratification. Ben is refilling a full glass. We take on even more debt; the added debt we call 'growth'.

Follow the businessman: he believes that growth can go on for ever, because growth to him is more and more profits. That is one philosophy, the philosophy of Will, which, in the cellular world, is a description of cancer.

Follow the farmer: he believes that growth is a season in a larger cycle; and harvesting is a season, and resting and letting the land go fallow is a season; and re-planting is a season. This is a sustainable (I'm not fond of the word, I admit) philosophy. If the farmer is right, and the businessman wrong, then we can't have growth for ever. Everything comes in well-timed phases.

We need to breathe: BREATHE OUT: expire (expiration -- an interesting word, because it seems to suggest death is the guaranteed end-result of an expansion); BREATHE IN: 'inspire' (inspiration -- another interesting word because it seems to suggest that inspiration accompanies every withdrawal from the external world).

The mania for constant growth – the fear of ‘not being happy' -- is a form of mental illness.

Germany and Europe will know pain through austerity. Yes. And we will too eventually. Everyone takes the same path into the future, either by choice, or by being dragged there by their hair.

Filling an empty glass is 'growth'. Refilling a full glass is panic, bubble-making, and generates a flood -- a flood in a monetary sense, hyper-inflation, higher prices, hoarding, scarcity, panic, but also a flood in the human, social sense, or political chaos. Look at the food riots happening all over the world, the revolts in the Middle East, Asia (China, Thailand), Greece...this is the flood in the social, human sense. Too much water, too much emotion, too much darkness, too much debt: CHAOS.

Time to get 'rational'. Empty out the full glass. That is what austerity is about. We can't get back to the growth stage until the full glass is emptied out -- debt destroyed -- so we can start to really fill it again.

Feb 27 2011

BAILOUTS ‘R US

It was theft. The government gave them our money. The 'governors', of course, expect to get something back for their largesse with the taxpayers' money -- like jobs with Wall Street banks when they lose their next election.

Feb 16 2011

WHEN WILL HOUSING REACH A BOTTOM: 2019

Higher interest rates will kill housing interest AND will kill our baby recovery. Yes. This is not a problem. We have larger fish to fry.

When will housing reach a bottom: 2019. Keep your powder dry.

Higher interest rates will force prices down rapidly. Bernanke's attempts to steal more money for the hedge funds and the Wall Street banks by buying more bank mortgage debt will fuel a dead cat bounce in housing; but when reality strikes (remember Volcker's 23% interest rates in 1982 -- 2019 will be even higher), house prices will fall like a rotten fruit back to the ground.

The best time to buy a house is when interest rates are at the top of their arc and prices are at the low of their arc: 2019. Buy a house at the bottom with a high interest rate -- and then begin to refinance as interest rates fall.

It is INSANE to buy an overpriced house when housing prices are artificially elevated and when interest rates are low. How do you refinance? You can't refinance when interest rates start rising and housing prices fall.

Remember, it is not your job to keep the local mortgage broker in business.

Feb 14 2011

ARMAGEDDON NEVER?

Armageddon never? Some people argue that Armageddon never comes, that it is just a Biblical illusion.

1939-1945 was Armageddon in Europe and Asia.

1965-1973 was Armageddon in Southeast Asia.

1861-1865 was Armageddon in the US.

1972-1980 was Armageddon in Cambodia.

Rwanda?

Russia?

Everyone gets their Armageddon eventually.

Feb 14 2011

WE AGREE OF THE ILLNESS, ONLY NOT ON THE MEDICINE

I think we agree on much also, especially about what is wrong. Yes, our medicine differs. I don't think we can cure the patient by doing more of the same treatment that made the patient so sick. In my view, more debt makes the patient sicker.

I think we are debt addicts and need to go through rehab, and I'm choosing 'cold turkey' as a medicine. That's what raising rates does. You seem to have hope that BB might turn things around through QE2 and 3 and 4? and 5? I don't. I'm guided by a philosophical understanding that ALL expansions or inflations (constructions of civilization) are balanced by equal and opposite contractions or deflations (deconstructions of civilization).

These inflations and deflations are, to my mind, regular and geometric: 18 years up and 18 years down. 1911-1929 construction of civilization (the Masters of Matter rule, bankers, builders, and businessmen); 1929-1947: deconstruction of civilization (the Masters of Antimatter rule, think Hitler and the Axis powers as a manifestation of this Deconstruction Energy -- their job is to destroy the world as we know it); 1947-1965: construction of civilization; 1965-1983: deconstruction of civilization (as the fascists were the anti-matter force in the last Night-Cycle, the other extreme, the communists, are the anti-matter force in this Night-Cycle); 1983-2001: construction of civilization; 2001-2019: deconstruction of civilization (if the anti-matter force alternates during each Night-Cycle between extreme right and extreme left, expect the rise of the fascists again this time, fascists in the Muslim world, fascists in Europe to combat the rising Muslims? It's hard to watch the revolution in Egypt -- which is quite wonderful now, especially with its youthful and innocent democratic flavor -- and not remember the revolution in Iran which overthrew one dictator and eventually led to the ascendancy of another (Theocratic) dictator. If the Arab world unites through the energy and hope flowing forth from the joyous yeasting in Tunisia and now Egypt -- that is what the New Millennium is supposed to be according to Muslim doctrine -- then the world destroyers will be marching again.)

The problems we mostly agree on have been economic problems for the past decade -- now they are suddenly becoming social and political problems, as political polarization comes back and leads to a state of emotional chaos in the political sphere. That's what a Night-Cycle really is: think of the political and social chaos during 1929-1947 (world war and genocide) and think of the political and social chaos during 1965-1983 (world war and genocide) and get ready for the next act in this drama.

Day and Night-Cycles are really the drama (and the dramatic mechanisms) of the evolution of Civilization (Days) followed by the evolution of Anti-civilization (Nights), Nature’s revenge against Materialistic Man, and evolutions of spirituality. Both sides emerge, gain power, expand and culminate, and then begin to slowly weaken in contrary rhythms and sequences.

1929: Apex of the power of the Constructionists; emergence of the Deconstructionists. 1947: apex of the Deconstructionists; emergence of the Force of Civilization. 1965: apex of the building of Civilization; 1983: apex of the destruction of civilization...

2001: was the peak of civilization -- and was struck by a violence exclamation point of the waking of the deconstructionist, the Twin Towers, the attack on the pentagon, the attempted attack on the White, all symbolically significant.

The forces of chaos and destruction now own the planet through 2019. There will be wars and rumors of wars; the centre cannot hold; things fall apart.

This understanding also makes me understand that the economic system of civilization also will continue to disintegrate until about 2019, at which time the forces of cohesion, reason, and expansion of civilization will also begin to grow again -- and not before.

Focusing on GDP and debt-ratios to GDP and energy costs vs GDP and PE of stocks, etc etc etc seems to me an obsession with the details when the overriding philosophy points to a clear picture (to me) which cannot be overridden by anything in the detail world -- because the larger picture is part of the Laws of Nature in the largest sense.

My view, if I can boil it down relative to our discussion, is that the 18-years of expansion we have just enjoyed (1983-2001, + attempts by Greenspan and Bernanke to keep the party going) has been a big drunk of material success and national and international self-indulgence. I think we now need to sober up. More party is not what we need, philosophically, morally or economically. We need to dry out. Drying out means...higher interest rates, more saving, less borrowing. If people get hurt in the process, so be it. People always get hurt in the processes of both expansion and contraction. Less power for business. Less spending by government. More taxes on the rich. Lessening the gap between the rich and the poor are all things that will help society at this point in the cycle.

During the Day-Cycles, let the forces of greed and business run wild. During Night-Cycles, let the forces of greed and business come back to earth and join the rest of us.

We fill up; then we empty out.

We dream who we want to become as a people during the Night-Cycles (thinking in more ideal terms); and then the Day-Cycle is for trying to become the person(s) we dreamed of becoming, the Hero we wish to be.

We act (Day-Cycles); then we rest (Night-Cycles); then we act again. And on and on it goes.

Feb 11 2011

ECCLESIASTES UNDERSTOOD

Ecclesiastes understood: there is a time to spend; and there is a time to save.

There is a time to expand (inflate) and there is a time to contract (deflate).

We are at the time to save and deflate now -- but it won't last for ever.

Ecclesiastes understood that all dogma is merely a momentary truth on its way to the garbage dump.

Feb 11 2011

CONTEXT CHANGES THINGS, BELIEVE IT OR NOT;

BUT CONTEXT DOESN’T CHANGE THE LAW

If it does not matter if interest rate are at 2%, 4% or 8%, then why is Ben Bernanke spending our money hand over fist to try to keep them at 0%?

In the 1980's a 9% interest rate looked great after a period of 20% interest rates because Americans were not over-leveraged at that point. And could afford to take on more debt, and could get out of 20% loans for 9% loans. We are not in the same world now, however: we are looking at people who can't afford 0% loans who are going to get a chance to try to refinance at 3% or 5% or 7% or 9% over the coming years -- that's a much different picture than in the 1980s and illustrates pretty clearly the horrible position we have put ourselves in.

How long are we gong to artificially keep interest rates at 0%, because we are simply terrified of the consequences of having gone in for an orgy of spending money we did not have?

Let's get the defaulting over with, the bankruptcies over with, so we can actually try to grow the economy again in the future.

Feb 11 2011

DAY-CYCLES AND NIGHT-CYCLES AS CLASS-WARFARE

Day-Cycles are class wars in which the middle class sides with the rich and fuels greater hierarchical separation between rich and poor.

Night-Cycles are class wars in which the middle class, fearing their own demise, sides with the poor and lessens the class distinctions as tax policies redistribute wealth away from the rich, and/or civil wars punish the rich for 'sins' created during the Day-Cycle.

Last Day-Cycle (Midnight to Noon): 1983-2001

Current Night-Cycle (Noon to Midnight): 2001-2019.

Feb 6 2011

DURING THE NIGHT-CYCLE THE WORLD DOES NOT GO BACK TO GROUND ZERO,

BACK TO THE CENTRAL AFRICAN SAVANNAHS

Germany is NOT a banana republic, in terms of cheap labor -- we don't have to go there either. Better our workers have high wages than the banks get that money through debt-slavery.

I also agree that until 2019, the government, not business, will be providing more jobs. Business, through re-leveraging, is, in fact, going in to hibernation.

Government projects to build high-speed trains and re-build bridges, etc.? You mean instead of just refunding the banks? I have no problem with that.

During the Night-Cycles, the world does not go back to zero. It stays where it was when the lights went out -- with some adjustments for entropy and debt destruction. Every morning humans wake up and carry on the world of civilization from where the left at in the evening the day before. World civilization is also that way. Some regression. But not absolute regression.

26 July 2011

GROWTH IN TAX REVENUES DURING THE SUMMER GROWTH SEASON.

HIGHER TAX RATES DURING THE WINTER NON-GROWTH SEASON.

I agree with you entirely: you want growth in tax revenues, not growth in taxes. But my own understanding is that growth is not perpetual in Nature. We can't grow an economy that has gone into a winter scenario -- deleveraging instead of expansion.

The ideal is growth and increasing revenues. But that is a season, not a perpetual possibility. Now, in Winter, we need to destroy our bad debt. Depression is built in to the system for a reason. James Hillman calls it 'growing down' -- opposing it to the idea of 'growing up'. Inflation/expansion is growing up, becoming serious adults, leaving our past behind, climbing the mountain of evolution in our task of building civilization. ‘Growing down’ is going down the far side of this mountain. Returning to the dark, to sleep, to Nature, contracting, resting, 'emptying out', downsizing, becoming more compassionate with our fellow humans as we realize we are all in the same boat -- we are all in Noah's Ark.

We re-discover our power when we ‘grow up’, our power through our competition to gain the brass ring, which is all that matters to us. We re-discover our humanity when we ‘grow down’, become poorer, become darker, become less competitive and more cooperative for the survival of the 'tribe'.

Growing up is the 'masculine' imperative, the Fatherland, and the father's doctrine, Fire rising. Growing down is the 'feminine' imperative, the Motherland, the Mother's doctrine, Water falling.

These two doctrines seem to be at odds, but they actually complete each other, like men and women do.

The Black Hole is the Motherland; the White Hole is the Fatherland.

26 July 2011

WE ARE INSIDE THE BLACK HOLE ALREADY

We are pretending there is no black hole.

We can't see the black hole because we are already inside it.

As I have written, the Black Hole is the Motherland.

Feb 5 2011

FOREIGN POLICY AND IDEOLOGY

I have no problem with foreign policy being non-ideological. We should have helped Ho Chi Minh -- and then we should have told the French to shove it and get out of Vietnam. BUT...we had French telling us they would swing communist in Europe if they did not get their colonies back. It was a huge mistake to let the French back in to Vietnam, and it led to a broader involvement for us, and a deadly war that shook us to the roots.

I think we need to be LESS ideological in our foreign policy, with more foresight. Of course, our ideology is capitalism. And the people who run America are old money capitalists. So we have that built-in ideology which is hard not to take seriously -- they can get rid of you if you are too fluid in your thinking or if you sneeze too hard on their ability to make money.

Al-Qeda were the powerful militants who had essentially taken over Afghanistan. We fought the Nazis too, and the old money fascists who were along for the Nazi ride. It does happen. Historically, however, our intent is to keep the status quo intact so our businesses can prosper. We base foreign policy 99% on what is good for our own masters, Wall Street. That is why our foreign policy appears mostly reactionary, supporting old money in Asia, in South America, in Northern Africa...so that our businessmen are happy.

I agree that El-Baradei is probably NO answer, except short-term, to get through the next year, with a democratic principle in mind. I don't think the violent factions in Egypt will accept democracy for long. Maybe I'm wrong. Most extremists on the left or on the right don't want freedom of choice, they want their side to take over.

Foreign policy has to be fluid. Things change. One has to be nimble. Sometimes one ends up on the wrong side, the side on the outside. Then you have to deal with that.

It would be wiser not to interfere at all -- wiser. But many forces are always interfering in a nation's destiny. We are NOT the only force interfering. China, Russia, Europe, England, Israel, radical Islam...they are all interfering in Egypt. We give our support to the faction that is closest to us in view and asks us for help, the one that promises to treat us well if they have power. The world is a chessboard. Sometimes you choose the least worst option. A country that doesn't have much at stake can be neutral about the world -- such as Canada, or Switzerland. If America were more self-contained, perhaps we could become more neutral. We tried neutrality (of a sort) in the 1930's, and ended up having 90% of our naval fleet blown out of the water. Nothing is as simple as it seems.

Jan 31 2011

BIGGER PICTURE

Bigger picture: Islam wants to spread Islam around the world and have the entire world governed by a form of Muslim theology. The world, ruled by a non-religious system, is EVIL in their reckoning. They want a moral Earth -- and they think Islam can bring this about. The rule of the Fatherland.

There is much evil in the world today, and much corruption in the world run by the West. I agree with this. But there are not many Islamic empires of which I would want to be a part. Iran? Afghanistan, under the Taliban? These are as bad as communism under Pol Pot.

Jan 30 2011

EGYPT: WHAT SHOULD WE BE DOING?

I think that is what we always do: try to hold the lid on the trouble until it boils over. Look at Iran. That's exactly what we did.

We didn't want a shah to brutalize his people. But we DID want a government that did largely what we told it to do. There is always room for negotiation -- but not on the major points. There was a revolution, the Shah was overthrown, the US was thrown out, and repression of civilians and poverty just got worse. I wonder how many Iranians would trade what they have now for what they had under the Shah?

In Egypt, should we support Mubarak if he chooses a scorched earth policy and declares martial law and turns the military loose with live ammunition? No, not if we care about morality. BUT -- a BIG but (sorry for this obscure expletive) -- if Egypt falls to another version of the New Islamic Theocracy (as Iran did), we may have to fight another war in the Middle East, and very soon, to wrestle control of the Suez Canal away from the new regime. Maybe we can get the Germans to fight this war; maybe a coalition of EU states?

So, what do you do? Foreign policy is not for children -- but it is also not without karmic consequences if you keep supporting the status quo, no matter what, and always choose to defend the RICH against the POOR. That is what we are doing in much of the world and have been doing for many, many years. That is what many of our wars have been about -- helping rich tyrants keep their own poor down -- so our global business interests do not get disturbed. (Tell your mother that one of her sons died so Walmart could expand more rapidly around the globe. It is sad -- but true. But that is another issue.)

Mubarak should retire. He should announce elections in two months. He should support El-Baradei. And America should support this move, which would give America a moral advantage when the revolution turns into a civil war pitting the minority democracy movement against the majority Muslim Theology movement. At least, this way, we would be defending democracy and freedom in Egypt, instead of Mubarak's military rule.

Jan 30 2011

DEMOCRACY IN SOME OF THE ARAB STATES?

We didn't start the Iraq war or the Afghanistan war. We responded to an aggression (as you say) of Saddam Hussein, who wanted to take over all the oil states in the Gulf (he may have understood that we gave him the go-ahead to do this -- that's something for history to decide). That first war should have been carried back into Iraq, but to do so would have fractured the global support for the first prong of the war (Arab states siding with the democracies against Saddam).

Afghanistan? If 9/11 hadn't happened, we would not be in Afghanistan today.

The only democracy in the Middle East is Israel. Can a Arab state emerge as a legitimate democracy? It could, given the right freedoms....not with religious factions fighting to institute absolute power in the name of their sect.

Oddly, Iran is the most likely of Islam states in the region to thrive under a democratic system – but they are not there yet.

Democracy does not work unless there is a powerful and well-educated middle class that acts as a buffer to keep the Fascists on the right and the Bolsheviks on the left from trying to kill one another and turning the country into another desert.

Jan 30 2011

CLEAN HANDS AND REAL POLITICS ARE USUALLY NOT FRIENDS

Please, someone, show me one Arab country in the Middle East that has not been ruled with a tyrant's hand. Go back a few hundred years if you want, before America was born. It's not really America's fault. America has to deal with the forces in place. I'm sure they would much rather bribe a liberal country with real concerns for its citizens -- but not many of those really exist in the world, especially in the southern hemisphere.

Look at Libya recently, Iran after the Shah, Syria over the last half-century. These countries were not bullied by American dollars into following the collaborators' orders -- they resisted America. But the terror and the repression were probably even more than in Egypt -- although it is had to quantify terror, to find our which is really less.

America did not create the iron-hand rule that Arab's love. Iran was less free under the Ayatollah than under the Shah. The Shah was not perfect, clearly. But a lot of Iranians have been wondering why they overthrew the Shah after what followed. They were in bed with a tarantula, and exchanged the tarantula (the Shah) for an alligator (the Ayatollah and his henchmen).

We would bribe moderate states willingly and smile on more human rights in the Middle East (Arab nations) if the country we were dealing with could still guarantee us the use of the Suez Canal. Foreign policy requires making 'immoral' deals with people you would not allow in your house, and not want in your neighborhood, in order to get them to do what you want them to do to manifest the foreign policy you can live with. It is dirty, and has historical repercussions. But few countries with historical significance have clean hands. More power to those that do.

Jan 30 2011

DEMOCRATIC NATIONS DON’T START WARS?

Democratic nations don't start wars? There is some truth to this, mainly because democracy is a stage of civilization that doesn't really last that long. Democracy is a rare gem and should not be undervalued.

Democratic nations do FIGHT wars however. Sometimes it is difficult to be sure who starts wars, especially colonial wars, when native populations rise up to resist the thievery of the (sometimes democratic) nations who have invaded them hoping for commercial gain.

I believe there are some in Egypt (the young who want to be part of the world, like in Iran) who want democracy. But the vast population in the streets, calling for more freedom and less tyranny, probably want more freedom for their party (their religion) and less tyranny from the non-religious current government.

Be prepared for Mubarek to fall and be replaced by men in beards carrying rifles. (If that is their national destiny, then we'll just have to learn to live with it, or for ever support (bribe!) tyrants to keep their populace in chains.)

Jan 30 2011

LIBERAL LAMENT; CONSERVATIVE LAMENT

Liberal lament: Big Business is corrupt and needs to be reformed.

Conservative lament: Big Government is corrupt and needs to be reformed.

Translation:

Liberal lament: Big Business has taken over the government. We need to cut down Big Business so democracy can survive.

Conservative lament: Big Government doesn't work. We need to give more power to the rich so that they can lead us instead of our sham democracy. (Feudalism works so much better for the rich than does democracy apparently.)

Jan 30 2011

THE ROOTS NEVER ABANDON US

Judeo-Christian culture is the root-bed of Western Civilization. Do you think that has something to do with our political support for Israel?

Keep in mind: societies cycle through periods of anti-religion (modern and somewhat democratic) -- or, if religious at all, more tolerant, more New Testament and less Old Testament -- which are ALWAYS followed by periods of danger and religious re-awakening.

When we hit the dangerous waters, we go to our roots, regenerating our historical religious/cultural alliances.

When we need to carry a sword, instead of sell the new model of cell phones, we will NEED the Old Testament again.

Jan 30 2011

WHICH BRANCH OF FASCISM DO YOU CHOOSE?

Yes: much crime and horror committed by the West to order world trade and snuff out...Arab religious fascism. We have chosen non-religious Arab fascism over Arab religious fascism. But the Muslim Brotherhood is not clean either.

We are heading into a new age, one that will be very difficult for the West, especially until 2019, when we get another breath of world-organizing energy. Until then, more rebellion, more 'dark angel' victories, and less harmony for the global marketplace.

When Saudi Arabia goes, checkmate. (Did you read what the Saudi King said of the demonstrators and rioters in Egypt: "They are infiltrators!")

Jan 30 2011

EUROPE BEWARE!

We have a long history of supporting tyrants who take our billions and live like kings and produce 'stability' so our businesses can operate while their own population languishes in poverty and ignorance. The US military has mostly acted as the international police force of Wall Street.

That being said: we're no different than most countries this way. Diplomacy is almost always supporting those who support you, who listen to you, who obey you. Every empire has been the same. The only clean empire is the one still in the egg

Pax Americana is ending. We can no longer afford to be the world's policeman. It is a new millennium.

The Europeans will take the brunt of the new reality, because the Arab revolution is happening under their soft-belly; and there are millions of wanna-be Muslim martyrs living inside the European umbrella now, having emigrated in a liberal humanist policy Trojan Horse and have no loyalty to Europe or democratic living and a growing energy related to....the Moon God who rules Islam.

Night; terror; the bloody blade; the vengeance of God: these are the trumpets that Islam is fashioning.

Europe: beware!

Jan 30 2011

WHAT ROUGH BEAST?

The real danger, from the Western point of view, is that the tyrants in the Middle East we've been paying for decades to enforce stability for the global economy's sake (our current religion being capitalism) will be overthrown and will be replaced by 'men in beards carrying rifles'.

'What rough beast slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?'

A unified Arab world, unified not with a desire for democracy, but with a desire for an Iran-type theocracy, means trouble for oil transportation, trouble for Israel, trouble for Europe, trouble for America, trouble for the global economy -- and, yes, trouble for the markets.

Trouble for Western Civilization.

Night-Cycles are about the 'dark force' rising up and trying to overthrow or deconstruct the power structure of the Sun-God, the Day-Force seeking to construct civilization -- Western Civilization.

In the 1929-1947 Night-Cycle, the Dark Force was Asian and European fascism.

In the 1965-1983 Night-Cycle, the Dark Forces was Asian and European and American communism -- remember, communism won in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Nicaragua, almost in El Salvador, and made heady in-roads in Europe and among American youth.

In the 2001-2019 Night-Cycle, Islamic fundamentalism is the Dark Force (inaugurated by the Twin Towers, Pentagon, White House attacks).

If the Arab world becomes united behind a charismatic religious unity movement awakened by the popular uprisings happening now -- and builds a strategic political, military alliance with China, then we have the dangerous force sweeping across the globe, hoping to unseat the power of the West, which, of course, declines during every Night-Cycle.

The Arab worlds get richer and richer with oil profits. And Western worlds sink into economic decay and dislocation because of higher oil costs.

"The best lack all conviction/The worst are filled with passionate intensity."

Sound familiar?

Jan 29 2011

AMERICAN HOUSING PRICES: WHEN WILL THEY RECOVER?

American Housing prices won't recover their 2007 highs until about 2033, when we have another culmination in economic expansion.

Prices should bottom in 2019 or so. But the highs that were brought about in 2007 were part of a banking industry scam that believed that bad loans couldn't hurt us. Banks were loaning money to people they knew would default -- but Wall Street had guaranteed them that new-fangled genius bond mortgages that bundled high-quality loans to low-quality loans (which would balance each other) made the whole question of loan-viability irrelevant. Well, we found out that was not true.

Force interest rates down to zero to try to make more consumers look like they could afford more house, combined with stock market bubbles, and housing-price bubbles, to inflame the market through re-financing professionals.

We will have to have a tremendous inflation of incomes and/or a tremendous blind-eye turned again by banks upon loan applicants and/or belief in a new Wall Street instrument that renders default on mortgages irrelevant and/or a Fed dedicated to 0% interest rates to swell the bellies of bank loans (and bank profits)....we will need a couple more decades before all those forces fall into place again, when we hit the growth cycle apex one more time: this will culminate about 2033-2043.

Jan 26 2011

WHERE IS THE IDEALISM NOW

Look at the world today. Not much idealism floating around. Me, me, me. Me against you. No more taxes for those lazy bums. They're not taking mine from me.

We're living through the deconstruction of a Night-Cycle. The Day-Cycle constructs through expansion; and the Night-Cycle deconstructs through contraction.

The expansion, and especially its last stage, expansion through excess debt, is a deal with the Devil. And the Devil is coming to collect. Food riots are just the beginning. People surrounding the Presidential Palace in Tunisia, chanting "Bring us sugar!" Then overthrowing the President and forcing him to flee the country -- because he did not bring sugar. Pretty basic stuff. Floods in Australia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Brazil, Poland, France, South Africa. Noah, have you built your Ark?

Jan 24 2011

THE USA IS NOT EUROPE

John Doe and Jimmy Chu and Tommy Ramos and Nicki Swoboda are all individuals with different genetic histories. They are NOT the same. However they all all four overweight, get little or no exercise and are heading for heart trouble. They all need to lose weigh. And their doctor i telling them to eat and drink more and don't worry about what the doom-and-gloom crowd are telling them.

Bankrupt states. I can almost smell Greece, Ireland, Portugal, California...cooking over the fire.

Oh, and I knew this was about unions.

Secret GOP plan: Push states to declare bankruptcy and smash unions

DEC 7, 2010 13:42 EST

Congressional Republicans appear to be quietly but methodically executing a plan that would a) avoid a federal bailout of spendthrift states and b) cripple public employee unions by pushing cash-strapped states such as California and Illinois to declare bankruptcy. This may be the biggest political battle in Washington, my Capitol Hill sources tell me, of 2011.

That’s why the most intriguing aspect of President Barack Obama’s tax deal with Republicans is what the compromise fails to include — a provision to continue the Build America Bonds program. BABs now account for more than 20 percent of new debt sold by states and local governments thanks to a federal rebate equal to 35 percent of interest costs on the bonds. The subsidy program ends on Dec. 31. And my Reuters colleagues report that a GOP congressional aide said Republicans “have a very firm line on BABS — we are not going to allow them to be included.”

In short, the lack of a BAB program would make it harder for states to borrow to cover a $140 billion budgetary shortfall next year, as estimated by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. The long-term numbers are even scarier. Estimates of states’ unfunded liabilities to pay for retiree benefits range from $750 billion to more than $3 trillion.

Republicans in the House of Representatives already want to stop state and local governments from issuing tax-exempt bonds unless they are more forthright about these future obligations. Republican Representatives Devin Nunes and Darrell Issa of California and Paul Ryan of Wisconsin have introduced a bill that would require state and local governments to estimate the size of public pension liabilities if their assets earned a more conservative rate of return than many plans currently expect. Failure to do so would result in the suspension of their ability to issue tax-exempt bonds

Jan 24 2011

OBAMA: IS HE REALLY A BANK LACKEY?

I don't hate Obama. He's disappointed me big time, proving himself to be a lackey for the Wall Street banks instead of a real leader. He's either trying to survive through prayer -- or he's praying not to become the first black American president who sends the country into civil war. I understand his trepidation.

The cause of the problem is debt. We can't fly because we have too much debt strapped to our backs. Who has the most debt? Well, the banks and the ruling class who run Wall Street. Why do they have so much debt? Because they forgot the law of nature that says what goes up also comes down.

Depressions are built in to the system as a way (a necessity) to unload back debt and get ready to start over with a real expansion. Expanding debt is the very opposite of what we need to do to carry out this rational process.

Bernanke is buying this recovery with his trillions given away to banks and other 'risk leaders'. We need more risk, he says. So, who is going to pay for the next bailout -- taxpayers again. We do not need more risk. We need a little sanity for a change.

I believe in REAL austerity to destroy debt. That means cutting government spending AND raising taxes on the rich and the corporations. This will cause pain: yes. Everyone suffers together. We are a fat old man currently, addicted to debt and to viagra, pretending the party can go on, fueling inflation in the Third World with our willful devaluation of the dollar. This is really shameful behavior. We're afraid to face the truth -- and we're trying to convince ourselves that another stock market bubble --- which we are also paying for with tax-payer money -- will take care of all our structural problems.

Night-Cycles come along every 36 years. They are there to deconstruct the dream that has grown old, stagnant, and defensive.

We are heading into a whirlwind.

Jan 23 2011

OBAMA MARGINALIZES PAUL VOLCKER. THIS MEANS HE DOES NOT WANT TO HEAR THE TRUTH

I read that Obama et al are working on a process for individual states to declare bankruptcy. Do you think they don't know what's coming. America is not Japan! America is not Europe! Yes, by all three (you can throw England in there two) are fat slops sick with too much debt and unwilling to exercise to throw off the excess obesity. Bernie is telling us we don't have to lose weight. Japan has been building fancy clothing for two decades now to try to hide their fat rolls. Bernie is supposed to be the doctor who says: "You have to lose weight (debt), no matter how painful it will be." Instead he's saying: 'Eat and drink more -- everything will be fine."

Volcker has been marginalized by Obama, because his message contains the word 'discipline' -- we know how much the left dislikes that word. They also are afraid of the word 'austerity'. Europe is not so much afraid of austerity; so they are showing us that austerity will also lead to social chaos, and political upheaval. Can't be avoided.

I've been telling readers we are in a biblical flood (2010-2019) is the autumn season, the season when darkness wins. Floods everywhere: Pakistan, Poland, France, Australia, South Africa, Philippines, Brazil....

Another form of flood is the human flood of emotions when their lives are threatened. Food riots in Algeria, Tunisia, India, Bangladesh, China...it is not that there is not enough food; it's that the speculators are driving up the price of all commodities. Bennie's anti-dollar bubble is creating havoc in the world of (overpriced) food items. In Tunisia, crowds of angry people surrounded the government house shouting "Bring us sugar! Bring us sugar!" They drove the existing government out of the country.

The Night-Cycle (Dusk-to-Dawn) has just begun, 2010. Watch for more floods, more human floods, and more catastrophic political consequences.

Those who watch the stock markets, and projections for GDP growth, and say: "Wow, that was a close one!" don't see what is going on around them. The gods and punish men. Nature punishes men. That is what the Night-Cycle is all about. And it's going to get nastier.

Jan 23 2011

BEN BERNANKE’S STOCK MARKET RALLY – BOUGHT WITH YOUR MONEY

Remember, Ben Bernanke is still financing this rally, with money that isn’t his. Until he's done -- and he's pretty much promised the banks that the rally will continue for awhile -- he'll do whatever he can or has to do to see the rally continues. It’s the only plan he’s got.

Jan 19 2011

FIRST SHOT IN THE COMING CLASS-WAR?

Read Catcher in the Rye: another young nut-job trying to make the transition from youth to maturity. The first anti-hero novel.

The Hero dominates the Spring, defending pure society from the dark forces of crime and rebellion against the law.

The anti-Hero dominates the Autumn, defending pure Nature against the dark forces of corrupt man and civilization.

The shooter was a form of the antihero -- the antihero is the 'hero' of the Night-Cycles: the one who rebels against the shadow-side of Man's expansion.

What rough beast slouches toward Oslo to be born?

Jan 13 2011

NIGHT-CYCLES ARE LUNAR CYCLES

Man Arrested in Denver for Threat to Shoot Aides to U.S. Senator Bennet

Brian Faler, On Tuesday January 11, 2011, 12:01 am EST

A Colorado man was arrested after allegedly threatening to shoot members of U.S. Senator Michael Bennet’s staff in an incident that occurred just days before an Arizona shooting spree that left U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords fighting for her life.

John Troy Davis, 44, was upset over his Social Security benefits when he called the Denver office of Bennet, a Colorado Democrat, on Jan. 6 to seek a hearing on the matter, according to an affidavit filed by FBI Special Agent Jonathan Grusing. Davis told staff members that “I’m a schizophrenic and I need help,” and “I’m just going to come down there and shoot you all,” the affidavit said.

Davis was “well-known” to Bennet’s office because he frequently called to complain about his benefits, according to the filing. Authorities have increased security patrols around Bennet’s Denver residence, as well as at the lawmaker’s office in the city, Grusing said.

“Michael has full confidence in the law enforcement agencies handling the case and remains focused on his job serving the people of Colorado,” Bennet spokesman Adam Bozzi said yesterday.

Concerns over the safety of members of Congress have heightened following the Jan. 8 shooting in Tucson in which six people were killed and at least 18 were wounded, including Giffords, an Arizona Democrat. She remains in critical condition with a head injury.

Law enforcement officials say the accused assailant, 22- year-old Jared Lee Loughner, targeted Giffords as she met with constituents outside a grocery store and then began shooting into the crowd. Among those killed were U.S. District Judge John Roll, 63, and a 9-year-old girl, Christina Green.

NIGHT CYCLES ARE LUNAR CYCLES.

1929-1947: HItler and his friends that murdered millions.

1965-1983: Pol Pot, Jim Jones, Charles Manson; the murder of John Lennon at the very bottom of the cycle.

2001-2019: Arab Militants Attack Twin Towers; Arab Spring; Mister Brevik in Oslo….

Yes, we are heading into schizophrenic times.

Austerity is needed. But it won't sound like such a good idea to those who are having bread taken out of the mouth by our new-found Austerity Wisdom. Austerity better be shared by everyone in society; it better be clear that the rich are paying their share as well. Raise taxes; and cut spending -- and pay down the debt.

Jan 11 2011

ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION OF US CONGRESSWOMAN IN ARIZONA

Yes, the man was a rambler, a loner, a confused young man. The dispossessed (whether they imagine their own dispossession or not) tend to be like that. The shooter shot people over a series of political issues. His favorite book was apparently Mein Kampf. That he also liked Animal Farm should not mitigate his choice of prime reading. The shooter did not shoot Bill O'Reilly or that woman from Alaska, what's her name, the one who should be selling real estate on television? He shot a high-profile female politician from his own district who had changed her political affiliation from Republican to Democrat and who had, thereafter, voted for Obama's Health-Care Program, the ultimate betrayal for the right-wing socialist-haters.

American media ALWAYS portrays American assassins as solitary loners who ramble and are not coherently politically-aligned: mentally ill, because 'mental illness' in America means 'crossing the line of rationality' -- and rationality includes commitment to democratic processes and the renunciation of violence.

No one becomes an assassin unless they are on the edge. But everyone is on or near the edge at some point in his or her life; and not everyone on the edge is acting blindly and without a political agenda. We are getting the same psychological reading for this kid that we get every time a political assassination happens here.

Why? We've conveniently defined the Assassin's Personality as mentally ill, confused, and barely responsible. If he could think clearly he would KNOW that democracy is the best solution to political conflicts. Also, we want American citizens to think that crazy assassins don't belong to either of the two responsible political parties. We're being instructed to remain politically naive by the national media -- and we know that to do less might bring about another civil war in America.

I repeat: this kid did not shoot Bill O’Reilly or Rush Limbaugh. He has a political agenda.

Jan 10 2011

THE GUY WAS A NUT-JOB

“This guy was a nut job!"

So was Hitler. So was Pol Pot, for that matter. Nut-jobs can be politically-inspired.

I agree absolutely with the author's conclusion. This is just the beginning.

Why? If you've read my work, you'll know that I'm also a nut-job, believing American history divides almost perfectly into 18 years of expansion -- debt accumulation -- which I call Day-Cycles (1911-1929; 1947-1965; 1983-2001; 2019-2037...) and 18 years of contraction -- debt destruction* -- which I call Night-Cycles (1929-1947; 1965-1983; 2001-2019...)....

Night-Cycles are quite literally the times when the society, itself, becomes a nut-job. Look at world-history 1929-1947; 1965-1983....it was madness on Earth. Genocide; wars; class-wars.

Day-Cycles are times when the high and the low separate, when the classes pull farther and farther apart. The rich rise further away from the poor. Why? The middle-class joins the side of the rich in the dream that they too will become rich and famous. Night-Cycles are times when the gap between the rich and the poor dwindles, class distinctions grow less and less. Why? Because the middle-class joins the side of the poor during the Night-Cycles, fearing that they too will become poor. As the political weight shifts from the rich to the poor, taxes on the rich grow more punitive -- and the rich are vilified by the society in the same way that they were worshiped during the Day-Cycle.

Class-warfare? We've had class-warfare before. In this century, America has had class-warfare in each of its Night--Cycles (1929-1947; 1965-1983). Look for more political killings. Look for more bank robberies. Look for more politically justified chaos and rage driven by a sense of moral righteousness.

The nut-job, I'm quite certain, was motivated by a sense of moral righteousness, as were the Muslim extremists who struck America in 2001, the year our current descent into chaos began.

Also keep an eye on the pope's call for Christians to be defended in Muslim countries, after Christian killings in Nigeria, Pakistan and Egypt. We are heading in to another crusade: white religion against black religion. This won't really begin in America, but in Europe, as Europe has another Spiritual rebirth -- and attempts to fight off the suffocation of their own society by the Muslim Trojan Blanket that has been thrown over Europe during the last half-century of sleep. What makes a society wake from the dreams of the Night-Cycle? A threat to their life, a sense of invasion, an actual attack by a dark monster that is the spirit of and the manifestation of the Night-Cycle.

*The 1965-1983 Night-Cycle was more about historical karmic debt destruction, as if was the cycle during which American history's racial genocides (American Indians, African slaves, Vietnamese soldiers...) became the focus of a generation -- which then identified with the victims of the genocide and brought 'class-warfare' to America as punishment for these perceived historical injustices.

Jan 10 2011

EUROPE IS SICK

Over 20 years of inflation (growth and then over-growth through debt) and you think austerity should 'work' without pain. Sorry. The party is fun; but the depression and the sickness following the binge is a long painful process, getting rid of the poison in our system (the debt).

The 'growth-policy' of the US and Japan and Britain is designed to avoid ending the party, to stretch the process out until people start borrowing again and real growth returns. But what if REAL growth can't return until the austerity (unwinding of debt) happens, until we actually face the reality that the party can't go on for ever? Japan has been stalling -- but has not faced the Devil of Destruction yet. Either face your austerity now, or face it later, but it will be even more painful to face later when you make the process worse by taking on even more debt (toxic ingestions).

To get back to the starting point (the growth phase, not financed by more government debt) will be painful and dangerous (think Scylla and Charybdis). ‘Bernanke's put’ is just continuing the lie that the party can go on for ever. What happens when the government stops financing the stock market rally? What happens when the government can no longer manipulate the markets to try to keep the interest rates low?

The real 'growth' process of Bernanke (et.al.) is a form of cancer, that will eat up the body of the country with no REAL growth and with larger and larger debts. Karma is a debt; and all debt is karmic -- the more debt you accrue, the more painful it is to pay back.

Jan 10 2011

MONASTERY; CITY-STATE; MEGALOPOLIS; UNIVERSITY TOWN:

THE FOUR BODIES OF HUMAN EVOLUTION

People who live in Nature understand the importance of philosophy, because they study Nature and Nature's cycles. Knowledge of Nature's cycles keeps them alive.

People who live in the City, alienated from Nature, have either no philosophy or one based on individual will and getting ahead and getting for themselves whatever they can -- for, living in the city, they ARE, in fact, isolated atoms fighting everyone else for their existence.

Street smarts are not a real philosophy, although they do help city-dwellers stay alive, and help perpetuate the philosophy of 'dog-eat-dog' where the goal, apparently, is to become the biggest and meanest dog in the street.

When the cities become more dangerous to human life than Nature is, and when we see urban populations drifting off to live in Nature -- remember the 'back to Nature' movements of the 1970's -- we will know that the civilization phase is being rejected again.

Remember that Roman citizens eventually drifted away from Rome and some lived in the swamps that became, over time, the Medieval/Renaissance city of Venice, essentially a city state. The city-state is the political form of both the Dawn and the Dusk, the Renaissance (Spring) and the Romantic (Autumn). The city-state of the Romantic (the Autumn) is the University Town, the center of learning -- that eventually, as the darkness grows, becomes the Monastery, an even smaller center of learning.

Talk about downsizing. From Rome to the Uta Monastery, in 1,000 years.

29 July 20011

BUSINESS TELLS US: INDIA IS KICKING OUR BUTTS.

IS INDIA KICKING OUR BUTTS?

India is kicking our butts, in terms of what exactly? Making money for the higher class? Do we want a caste society that specializes in social-systems discrimination?

You guys (you right-wing entrepreneur-wannabes) are so one-dimensional. Do you want to be part of the American civilization or the Indian civilization or the Vietnamese civilization? Everything in nature goes up and goes down; and then goes back up again.

You don't honor your own nature much by panicking, reducing everything to the amount of money in your pocket, and then trying to emulate any idiot, fool or crook who walks down the street with more money than you have. Money comes and money goes. You are not a total failure without money in your pocket; you are not a total success with money in your pocket. Character makes the man. And one of the strongest tests of character is what the man becomes when he fails, when he has no money, when he has to make friends with the part of his own nature that is not a hero, not a success, not popular, not in the celebrity spotlight.

America's character is being tested. Let's not panic and prove people right who say America has no soul and Americans are a bunch of rich bastards who are only strong when they are on top.

29 July 2011

THINGS GO UP; AND THINGS GO DOWN

THERE IS A TIME TO ‘GROW UP’; AND THERE IS A TIME TO ‘GROW DOWN’

Things go up and things go down. You can jump off one roller-coaster (the one going down), and jump on another (the one going up), to always go up. Or you can be a complete human being -- in a complete human society -- and go up and down. Going up is more pleasant than going down, I admit. But Wisdom is gained from the full circle of life's experiences.

You get to be a hero when you go up. A success. A winner. Of course, we hat the losers on the other side, the down side of the ride. We don't want to be with them -- we don't want to be confused with them. "I'm a winner -- not a loser!" But, in truth, we are both.

Keep running from your shadow -- your shadow, as dusk approaches, rises up to meet you. Why did Jesus Christ go down to be with the losers of society? That was part of his nature too. Do you think the 'leaders' of the Judaic society thought of Jesus as a winner or a loser?

29 July 2011

IT IS NOT ABOUT KNOWLEDGE, IT IS ABOUT CYCLES OF PERSPECTIVES

It's not about knowledge, Tomas. It's about cycles of perspective. When the Sun shines on Asia it is dark in Europe and America. That is a literal truth. It is also a metaphorical and metaphysical truth.

Notice how you have to ridicule those who do not agree with your perspective. "You must have been born under a tarp in the local dump.." you say to Varan, because he does not agree with you. He was born and raised in India -- and you have traveled there. White people traveling in Asia don't know anything about Asia. Asians are very skilled in showing you and telling you only what you want to see. The 'Face-factor' is everything over here.

Asia is rising at the moment, yes. The system is designed so all parts of the Earth get the Sun for a time and get the Moon for a time also. Why is that so hard to understand? You are a scientist; a practical man.

Why is Varan an idiot living under a tarp in a garbage dump because he has a different perspective than you have? Maybe he is in the light this time; maybe you are in the dark? You see how the world HAS TO disagree, because of the trick of light.

You are standing in India and you yell out: "It has never been so bright!" And Varan looks out his window in America and says: "It has never been so dark!" Which one is right? You are both right -- but that doesn't mean that you agree.

And that is what creates wars. Having to be right, having to be on the right side, is what creates wars.

29 July 2011

WILL THE TEA-PARTY CONGRESS SAVE AMERICA?

The TEA PARTY won't bring a recovery. But they will bring the Destruction Phase without which the recovery cannot come. Today's shooting of the Arizona Congresswoman: first shot fired in the destructive phase. Expect more. The shooter's favorite book was 'Mein Kampf': get ready for some ugly attempts to resurrect the Roman Empire.

The party that is idealizing the Past, idealizing 'looking back', does not lead into the future, but into the destruction of the present.

Jan 9 2011

THE NEW RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS – THE AMERICAN TEA PARTY

I think the bond market vigilantes took a wrong turn at Muddy Gap and found their way to Seeking Alpha by mistake. Or is it the rising of the New Righteous Brothers for whom tea is an oblique allusion to 'earning power' and who are not going to take the negativity any longer -- fighting back for a myth to protect before too much criticism swamps the boat and sends it down to the sea-bottom, destroyed by Old Boogy Man Negative Thinking....

It DOES say something about Alan Greenspan as the most powerful spokesman for money in the world -- and that, deep in to the black heart of the Housing Bubble -- our intrepid leader is either (A) too drunk with power and success (he was the man Time Magazine said 'saved the world from disaster') that he really did not recognize the danger that inflated credit combined with ever-negotiable loan-standards (not to mention financial instruments of 'mass destruction') did not equate to a dangerous situation or complicit in trying to seduce American homeowners into rasher and rasher acts of refinancing, exchanging high-quality mortgages for low-quality mortgages and cash, acting like a circus barker drawing curious citizens into the Big Tent....Alan appears to have either been inattentive, slow, corrupt or out of touch with reality. Seeing that he was the Number One policeman on the block when the money was all stolen, I would think his credibility by now would be beyond repair -- at least it would take longer than five years for us to start resurrecting his complicated character. It took over 20 years to resurrect Nixon. I guess we're a forgiving nation. We seem to be especially forgiving of those who have tried – or even had success in this endeavor – to steal us blind.

Dec 29 2010

THE RECOVERY IS TAKING HOLD!

Just for example, see this post by Calculated Risk noting that personal consumption expenditures are growing, and growing at an increasing rate. As a result, many analysts are increasing their estimates of growth in this quarter and for 2011.

____

Personal consumption is what got us in the hole that we're in, did it not?

Personal consumption via DEBT.

Are consumers paying for their new toys with real money (dollars that are dwindling in value) -- CASH -- or by more debt?

Are salaries rising?

Are house payments going down -- I guess they are for those who've walked away from their homes.

We DON'T NEED more debt, even if it makes us feel better about a 'growing economy'. What debt growth gives with one hand, it takes away with the other.

Recessions are God's way of saying: "DON'T CONSUME! UNWIND YOUR DEBT! LET PRICES COME DOWN! OTHERWISE YOU ARE DEAD!"

Dec 29 2010

RISING BOND YIELDS SIGNAL AN EXPECTATION OF ECONOMIC GROWTH

Greek bonds, Spanish bonds, Irish bonds, French bonds, Belgian bonds...all have rising yields too -- but not because anyone fears those economies are going to be overheating very soon. It seems more logical that yields are rising because buyers are viewing them as junk bonds and are unwilling to buy them unless they are paid junk-type yields for the risk.

What 'risk' does America share with the PIIGS of the world? Well, for one thing, all these societies now share the risk of social and political chaos stemming from austerity/profligacy which intensifies the historical animosity between the Business Class and the Working Class. Banks could be blown up or set on fire. Civil war could develop. Chaos is almost always bad for business.

And, again, it is always risky to hold paper assets denominated in a currency which the government is attempting to devalue through ‘quantative easing’.

Again: it is possible to be too smart for your own good. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Dec 29 2010

GEORGE BUSH’S MEN WROUGHT THE DEPRESSION

Actually, George Bush's men wrought the depression. Obama's trying to manage a ship that was run into an iceberg by drunken Republicans. You can't turn around a damaged luxury-liner easily when it is taking on tons of water per second.

Any Republican who is screaming for Obama's head should be ashamed of himself -- since it was the Golden Age of Republicanism that ended with a thud the year before Obama came to power.

I agree that Obama has not done what I wanted him to do, especially with the bank bailout and the lack of courage to face-down Wall Street. But George Bush and his Republicans friends from the epicenter (Paulson-Bernanke-Geithner) started the bank bailout (the Great Highway Robbery) and made it public policy with a momentum of its own.

The Republicans now will try to make it look like a Big Government failure -- taking over the bad debts of the banks was a crucial political error -- rather than a Big Business collapse. But it is really shameless not to admit that they screwed the pooch and left us in dire straits and then handed Obama the key to the deserted city.

Dec 29 2010

WHAT CRIPPLED AMERICAN BUSINESS? NO, NOT THE UNIONS. THE INSURANCE COMPANIES

What crippled American business? No, not the unions. The insurance companies. They turned the standard benefits of American workers (health-care insurance) into the biggest scam since the Housing Bubble, raising premiums 10% a year for 15 years, bankrupting companies and stealing annual raises from workers who got stuck in an ever-dwindling salary package.

The insurance companies should be roasted over an open fire and fed to the community, pigs that they are.

Dec 29 2010

THE ECONOMIC DEATH-SPIRAL: THINK IN TERMS OF PRINCIPLES NOT IN TERMS OF DETAILS

Actually, the economy is in the down-cycle and there is really NOTHING we can do about it until it bottoms (2019).

We could be limiting debt, which would be a positive.

It doesn't matter who is president until 2019, there won't be any real new growth until then. Obama (and his successor(s)) have to try to steer us through difficult water and avoid as many conflicts as possible. When growth-energy comes back (and when we can see where we are supposed to go again -- we are blind now, in fact -- the light has been turned off), the economy will grow.

The growing economy (it's all a matter of energy expanding and contracting) grows businesses, businesses don't grow the economy. Business takes credit for the expansion, but businesses are really riders, not energy source. Likewise, during the contraction, energy implodes -- and business is helpless in trying to fight it.

Dec 29 2010

OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM ARE JUST RIDERS, NOT ENGINES

Optimism is a drug, just as pessimism is. Optimism rides the boat up the river and convinces itself that optimism, itself, is moving the boat, not the river. Pessimism rides the boat down the river and convinces itself that the boat will sail into the ocean and be crushed by a Chinese gunboat, all riders killed.

The first is obviously deluded; let's hope the second is as well.

Dec 29 2010

DEFAULT IS JUST A SEVEN-LETTERED WORD

I realize that default is NOT the issue with for the US. We can keep printing money, devaluing the dollar, cheating those holding U.S. government obligations (and US dollar-denominated) assets through currency devaluation...but the bond market IS a problem for this method IF the bond vigilantes keep driving up the yield.

I do realize that we can pay back our loans with devalued dollars.

The issue we share with the PIIGS in Europe, and with England and Japan, is that we still have too much debt, even if you can mitigate this by destroying your own currency in order to continue denying it. Rome did that very thing. All empires die by currency devaluation.

The PIIGS cannot devalue their own currency to try to deal with it. But, as with the PIIGS, England, and Japan, the U.S. can be stymied by the so-called bond market vigilantes (Japan, once the Japanese saver can no longer finance their own government's dept and Japan has to begin counting on foreign investors to help them pay for their deficit).

Keep a vigil that the bond-market doesn’t raise the ante on us when we least expect it.

Dec 27 2010

THE POISONING OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

The Fed has already funneled the banks billions of dollars and has gotten the Federal Government to buy most of its worthless (‘toxic’, what a word) housing loans. "Toxic" means "acting or likely to act as a poison". The Fed has helped the Federal Government ingest poison in order to preserve the banks.

A poisoned Federal Government is not a pretty thing to see.

Watch Europe to get a sense of what the first stages of death by such (bad debt) poisoning is all about.

Coming to a theater near you SOON.

Dec 24 2010

FRUSTRATED? LET’S PUNISH THE STATE WORKERS!

I don't know much about the structuring of pensions. I have not done a detailed study of all the types of pensions that exist. This is an emotional issue for you, I'd bet. You hate the fat-cats getting what you don't have. However, most pensioners are NOT fat-cats, although the federal government politicians DO take care of themselves – we all know that. But most pensioners are living a largely downsized quiet life, simply making ends meet, I'd guess.

As far as understanding the constitution, I do know that the US Constitution explicitly gives governments the authority and the responsibility to tax its citizens in order pay its bills. I also know that pensions that were made as a part of a hiring contract are legal documents. Can the government void legal agreements without implementing the constitutional requirement to raise taxes to pay its bills, without selling assets to pay its bills (legally constituted)? It's not a legal argument that claims government can change its mind and walk away from legal obligations because, suddenly, its not pleasant for them to fulfill their obligations -- it's an emotional argument. If we, as a nation, void laws we don't like, simply by walking away from responsibilities that are legal documents, then we are no longer a civilization, we are a swamp of animals acting on our emotions and bringing the power of the gun to replace legal authority.

If that's what the nation wants, we've done that before: remember 1861. We can do that again, but it won't make everyone's life better, at least not in the short-term.

As bad as the rule of law is some times, the rule of No Law is even worse.

Dec 24 2010

WATCHING FOR SIGNS OF THE NEXT HOUSING BUBBLE

Actually up 200% is not a reasonable level. The reasonable level for housing is what people can afford at their existing income level minus the necessity of refi, stock market bubbles, 0% interest rates. Housing is not supposed to be a speculative arena. Those who want it to be don't give a damn what happens to the US or to the global economy -- they only care about their own profits.

Signs to look for the during the next housing bubble: rental-vacancies rising AND home-owner vacancies rising at the same time. The Fed, seeing this, needs to slam the interest rates up and take the air and the money out of the speculators who destroy the economy through asset bubbles. Trouble is, the Fed was the bubble-maker instead of the bubble-making police. Trouble is, the Fed works for and with the speculators who destroy the economy through asset bubbles.

Last Housing Bubble: Rental vacancies rising, home-owned vacancies rising, and the Fed continued to lower interest rates and encourage more speculation in housing, encouraging builders to build more housing. Did the Fed do their job to defuse economic imbalances shown in the Housing Bubble? No.

Dec 24 2010

MORAL OUTRAGE? AGAINST STATE WORKERS, OR AGAINST BANKERS?

We know there are some government workers who are retiring with oversized pensions. But the majority are not. The majority will make less than they made while working and will need Social Security to bridge their survival needs.

I'm actually amazed by the emotionally-charged response to cutting the 'freeloaders' with governmental pensions -- actually, these people, in most cases, paid in to their pension plans with money taken from their salaries, having had no ability to opt out of the pension plan in lieu of a higher take-home salary – and, comparing this outrage to the sort of resigned apathy about the rich bankers of Wall Street slipping away with trillions from the government and billions in tax-payer produced bonuses and still slipping away with more and more through QE.

Something wrong with this picture?

It’s ok to steal billions from taxpayers through a banking bailout – but, by God, we’re going to get those little bastards getting monthly pension checks running in the hundreds of dollars!

I think it’s time to wake up.

Yes, America admires wealth and success – even wealth and success that comes from theft and deceit. Better to be ambitious and criminal than modest and poor.

Dec 23 2010

MORE ROME AND GREECE

Jefferson admired the Greek states (mostly Athens) of Plato and Socrates and Aristotle. He wanted a small central government; and states with more rights and more powers. He liked the idea of a society being run by philosophers and poets -- instead of by businessmen -- a pipe dream probably. Read Plato's The Republic to get a sense of what Jefferson imagined.

The Greek Model has a shadow too, yes. However, the Roman Empire/British Empire model also has a huge shadow. Remember how the Roman Empire ended, with barbarians overrunning the city-state, murdering its citizens, the survivors escaping to live in the swamps around Venice for a few hundred years. That's a pretty big shadow too, I guess.

I hope America does have its Plato, Socrates and Aristotle season some day. I don't see it coming for awhile. Perhaps after the barbarians chase the urbanites into the swamp again. After 1000 years of a Dark Age. The future, I'm quite sure, belongs to an even more perverted sense of empire, cruelty, and totalitarianism, after our democratic era is stolen from us and we sink into the 'real' empire.

I hope history doesn't repeat this exactly. But the picture becomes more livid and more tactile by the moment.

Dec 22 2010

STATES CAN’T DEFAULT JUST IT BECOMES INCONVENIENT NOT TO

From a legal standpoint, I agree that states are not individuals or corporations who or which can declare bankruptcy. For instance, I have a state pension and the state declares default and eats my pension. I sue the state and argue that the state cannot declare default because the constitution gives them the right to raise revenues through taxation – I could imagine arguing not only gives them the right, but REQUIRES THEM TO honor their legal obligations this way. No matter how difficult it may be politically to raise taxes, they have NO CHOICE but to do so to cover legal obligations.

Result: higher taxes; pensions paid.

States cannot default because it is inconvenient not to.

States can lay off workers and cut social programs to save money – they can sell state assets to raise money -- but they cannot default on legal contracts.

Dec 23 2010

YOU CAN’T HAVE A BIG COUNTRY WITHOUT A BIG GOVERNMENT

You can't have a big country without a big government. You can have a small country, with small scope of vision, and small resources. But if you want a country that is a player in world politics, then you can't have a state's right government system with a withered national government.

I wish Jefferson would have won, and America would have followed the Greek States Model instead of the Roman Empire/British Empire model of Hamilton and Washington. But we took the step into incarnation as the Sun Hero and now we are stuck in Time. There's no going back to the origin, unless all the states secede from the union and we break up into defensive cellular centers of self-interest and start to fight wars against each other like Greece did and like Europe did and has done for the last how many centuries?

We are an empire now. Many of us don't like that fact. But let's not pretend its not true.

Remember the Dark Ages? That was what happened when Rome (that big empire/government) broke up into smaller parts and turned out the lights for 1,000 years. That is coming also; but not so soon as some of would like to think. Not in our lifetimes. Eventually, America will break up and be scattered to the wind, as Rome was -- and those seeds will blow far, and then new plants will come up, similar to what the European City-States of the Renaissance were: offspring of the Roman Father-Mother. But we're not there yet.

Dec 22 2010

BUBBLE-CREATION IS NOT GROWTH

Yes. But bubble-creation is NOT growth. Bubbles appear at the end of growth and are a sign of debt-volume growth, not economic growth.

Debt being the problem in this case.

I agree with what many have suggested: what makes us Japanese is the hiding of debt, the extend and pretend policy. The Japanese refused to deal with their debt problem, hid the debt, moved it to the government to save the banks, practiced and still practice see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil monetary myopia, and waited for economic growth to grow them out of the deflationary spiral…which, of course, has not happened. Debt is the cause of the deflationary spiral and simply pretending that it is not the cause is not a cure but an act of gross denial.

Will we escape the Japanese Disease by flooding our equities markets with sugar-money and by refusing to, as many suggest, scare ourselves into recession by (talking about) austerity measures (is that really what the Japanese did?) -- there really wasn't much austerity, or even talk about austerity, in Japan now was there -- time will tell. I think once the sugar-candy sugar-daddy is gone, the truth about our 'recovery' will be out -- and we'll be looking at a long road into a silent extended decline like the Japanese. Unless we look the devil in the eye and begin relieving ourselves of the actual problem we are so afraid to recognize: too much debt.

Austerity isn't the evil, if it is shared by the entire society – debt is the evil. Austerity is one of those painful cures that feels like the illness because it hurts so much.

Dec 21, 2010

SPAIN: THE PROBLEM ISN’T PUBLIC DEBT, IT’S PRIVATE DEBT!

"Spain's problem isn't public debt—it's private debt," says Emilio Ontiveros, a private Spanish economist.

Don’t you get it, Mr. Ontiveros? To save the banks, have the government buy all the toxic assets, then transfer the insolvency from the banks to the government.

Then, transfer all the guilt for the crisis from the banks to the government, suggesting that government spending caused the economic collapse – only don’t mention that the government spending that cause the collapse was the government spending on the bank bailouts.

That’s what the Republicans have done in America. Look how wonderfully that has worked out.

Dec 20 2010

FEDERAL TAX LEVELS IN AMERICA ARE TOO LOW

Federal tax levels in America are much lower than any other First World democracy. All this emotionalism of 'too much taxation' is nothing but a sort of whining campaign of the right wing in America that hates Big Government and wants to blame Big Government for all of America’s problems. The US Constitution authorizes the government to tax. Most of you anti-tax people like having a big powerful army, like having nice big clean roads for your big fast German cars, you like having clean schools to send your children for education (and you like paying teachers less and less to do this), you like having big prisons to keep bad guys off the streets of suburbia, you like bridges that don't fall down; you like having an army of police in case bad guys try to break into your house(s). You don't like services for poor people; yes, I realize that. It's the taxation FOR THE POOR you don't like; but the taxation for the rich you do like. I see.

You're not over-taxed. Your soul is just being underrepresented in your political philosophy. Fascism wants to destroy the poor, kill out the shadow, because it fears the shadow, fears being absorbed into the racial shadow-land, through a shared poverty. It's understandable. No one likes to lose power. That's why Economic Depression is built in to the system: so that the proud, rich, overlords will have to lose their pride, fall down to the ground, discover their knees again, their vulnerability, their heart, and, thereby, become human again.

Good luck in resisting this process.

Dec 20 2010

HOW WALL STREET TOOK OVER THE WORLD

Yes. But something happened in the 1990s on our way to economic/political utopia. The conservative revolution led by Reagan and the orgy of globalism and the rush to export all manufacturing jobs to Asia, Mexico and India destroyed the Democratic base, which was the labor unions. Without the labor unions, the democrats could not complete financially with the Republican/Business Lords centered in Wall Street. Clinton understood that the Dems were done in an ever-more expensive campaign process...unless they went to bed with Wall Street. So, Clinton sold out his party to Wall Street, understanding they could not survive in the new environment unless they became Wall Street's whore.

Wall Street -- this was the plan of the 'global economy' after all, the larger plan, beside higher and higher profits through lower and lower payouts to Third World workers -- then funded both sides in the American electoral process. The Republicans were already Wall Street's whore; now the Dems sidled up, and Wall Street essentially took over the government. It now doesn't matter to Wall Street which side wins the election, because they own both sides.

Now neither the Democrats nor the Republicans make a move without Wall Street being consulted first -- or Wall Street makes the phone call, and then Washington moves.

Another wonderful part of this New World is that Wall Street hires politicians from both parties after the end their careers in Washington: no one wants to alienate Wall Street permanently, or they won't have a place to get even richer after government 'service'.

Isn't life wonderful now, with Wall Street running the country?

Dec 20 2010

DRUG COMPANIES AND INSURANCE: HOW THE BOODOGGLE WORKS

Part of the boondoggle is how the government protects the pharmaceutical companies. My wife has chronic asthma and needs a steroid spray daily. With insurance, of course, the cost is $25 for a month's supply. Without insurance, the cost is $165 for a month's supply.

We get the same medication in Vietnam for $15/month.

Why is the government protecting the drug companies? To protect innovation? But Germany and France have innovation without exorbitant drug prices. It's a boondoggle.

Doctor's prescribe a certain drug and get a kickback. They think the insurance companies are taking the hit. Higher prices are good for everyone, right. But the insurance companies just raise the premiums on their policies -- they have to make a profit, remember -- and, so, workers don't get a raise, they just get to keep their medical insurance as a benefit....the raise is essentially given directly to the insurance companies.

Isn’t life grand?

Dec 20 2011

ARE THE ELITE REALLY BETTER THAN THE REST OF US?

If the elite are really better than the rest of us, then they don't need their parents' money, they can make their own money -- because they are better than the rest of us.

Prune the garden. Take everyone back to Ground Zero. Have a new race every generation. Give everyone the same chance. Might be interesting -- and might generate a LOT of good new ideas and technologies. Old Money tends to try to hold on to what it has, and keep others from climbing up to challenge them.

Part of our problem as a culture is that we define success only one way, in terms of money. There are a lot of different forms of success. Was Vincent Van Gogh a success? He sold one painting when he was alive. Herman Melville wrote the greatest American novel so far...he died penniless and his name was even misspelled in his obituary. William Blake died penniless and unrecognized. We won't be a great culture/civilization if we only value money and power, forgetting about the other, the humanitarian, side of the circle: knowledge, art, culture, music, philosophy, and literature. Was Mother Theresa a success? Her bank account says she was a 'loser'.

We are afraid of death -- so we put all our energy into money, which represents (we think) distance from death. This is an illusion, of course. Rich people get cancer. Rich people die. Rich people turn to dust. And always will.

Is the mother who raises three children and helps them become hard-working contributors to our society a success? Not by the monetary scale, she isn't.

We have a very narrow, limited view of life in America. The American Dream should not be about living in a Mc Mansion and driving a German car, to show your neighbors you made it -- it should be about fulfilling your potential on whatever path chooses you. A good school teacher who helps even a handful of students find themselves out of the forest of confusion may be a success, even if he has to take a second job to try to keep the bank from taking his house away from him.

Every one is a winner and a loser and moves throughout his or her life between these two poles regularly, being a loser at one time, in one endeavor, and a winner, later, in the same or a different direction. Be slow to judge others. Others are, in truth, yoursekf, at a different stage on the Time-Wheel.

Dec 16 2010

HOW DO WE STOP ALL THIS WHINING?

I say kill the tax cuts AND cut government spending. Pay down the debt. Debt kills growth. We need a new body, lean, regenerated, fueled with a new logic. Now we are bloated, lost, whining, afraid we'll have to give up our toys. Not a very pretty picture. And, clearly, not a very good way to approach a future that will probably take no prisoners. Spartan is a good word. We need to become a bit more spartan.

Dec 16 2010

THE ECONOMY CRASHES FIRST; BURNS SECOND

The economy has crashed, but it hasn't burned yet. When it burns it will burn up the debt and all the bad loans made that caused the crash. We are still hoarding the bad loans, pretending that some magical expansion will make everything ok again. Trouble is, DEBT IS the problem. Until it burns, no growth. More bubbles, maybe. The Fed can engineer bubbles but not growth. That's what Ben cannot grasp.

We have to go DOWN into the fire -- purify ourselves of all the bad loans we are still hiding (transferred from banks to the government in a strange robber baron mentality – let’s protect the crooks by poisoning the government). Now we get to scream at the government instead of the banks. Very odd. The government is now the fall guy and the banks stand back like innocent creature, also shouting at the government, shaking their fist. But we know what has happened. Debt has been laundered. But now it will destroy the country through the bond market instead of individual banks. (Pick your poison: deflation for ever; or civil war and depression. Those are the choices.)

Dec 16 2010

TO HAVE AN OPINION – ANY OPINION – IS TO BE BIASED

We are all biased. There is no opinion anywhere that is not biased -- to have an opinion is to be biased.

In America we are taught that we are a nation of experts. Everyone does one thing really well. Specialists. Of course, we don't all believe that. But many people do. They take their money to a 'specialist' and give it to him or her and trust the specialist to make the right moves for them. Why? Gullibility? Stupidity? Misplaced trust? Yes.

Also, many people are just afraid of math, afraid of numbers, and think they can't do it. That makes it very easy for the 'financial experts" to steal from the non-experts. In fact, the financial experts are still stealing; and the government (mostly non-experts) keeps writing them welfare checks (what is Quantatative Easing but more free money for banks?)

Thank God the bond vigilantes seem to be putting an end to this sham(e).

Dec 16 2010

NO INFLATION IN AMERICA? WHAT DOES JIM ROGERS THINK?

Jim, is the Consumer Prince Index, the primary inflation gauge in America, rigged?

Jim Rogers: In my opinion, yes, of course it is. Have you looked at it? They’ve changed their accounting several times in the past few decades. When housing was 20% to 25% of the CPI and housing was going up, they didn’t count it, saying rents weren’t going up, and then when home prices started going down, they counted it. It’s the same with many things. It’s staggering some of the tortuous reasoning that the BLS has used over the past 25 or 30 years. When the price of gasoline goes up, they say it’s not really going up because it’s better gasoline, better quality, therefore you’re getting more for your money. I mean, it’s endless, the stuff that they say and for some reason people sit there, although more and more people are catching on, and accept what the government says. As I said, in other countries, they acknowledge that there’s inflation. I don’t know how there could be inflation in Australia and not in the US; how you can have inflation in Norway or India and not in the US, but the US says there’s no inflation.

Dec 15 2010

PRINCIPLES FOR THE NEXT FEDERAL ELECTION

Raise interest rates, pay down debts; raise taxes, pay down debts; encourage savings. View deflation as a natural part of the economic cycle, with the goal of driving prices down to the affordable levels again for most working Americans.

There is a time for inflated profits -- the Business Growth Cycle -- and there is a time for deflated profits.

Unmask the fed; audit their books; then decide if we need a Fed. Prosecute white collar crimes with a hungry insistence.

Free education for anyone who qualifies to go to college. We are only as strong as our education allows us to be.

Too Big to Fail Institutions get cut back so that competition is possible.

Campaign reform: elections happen more quickly with harsh spending limits. Keep the rich from buying out both sides of the government, so that they own everything.

Dec 13 2010

JAMIE DIMON: WE KNOW THE TRUTH

The behavior of Wall Street, and Wall Streets' lackeys in Washington, is driving me to the political left. I came to this site to discuss investment, which I still do. But the blind ignorance and denial of the truth by the Wall Street Apologists is driving me more and more into the camp, not of socialists and communists, per se, but in to stronger opposition to the rich and self-satisfied -- those bastards who gambled away our money the first time, and then went weeping and crawling and pleading to the government to give them all more of our money -- which Washington did. Now they say social security and social programs ruined the country.

We know the truth. Bankers and Wall Street thieves ruined the country. They exported American jobs to the Third World by the millions. And now they act surprised that Obama can resurrect American jobs. What do they care -- they're still getting rich; they're still getting welfare checks from Washington. They don't care if American workers find work. And they really don't want American workers to be well-paid for the work they do, which would cut into their profit-margins. That is why they are still exporting jobs to Asia.

Imagine ruining the global economy by gambling all our money away, forcing Washington to give you more of our money, and then dolling out billions in bonuses to the same guys who lost all that money in the first place, the geniuses, the Masters of the Universe, that blew all our money on a housing bubble, when everyone knew that a housing bubble was a form of financial death. Bonuses for what again? How well they did their job?

Bernanke continues to funnel billions to the banks, giving them free lunch after free lunch, saying QE II won't add jobs probably (but it will keep the bankers rich); saying also that QE III might be needed. Hell, why don't we just sign up for the feudal system in America. Everyone works for McDonalds for the minimum wage; and Wall Street and Washington work out a heraldic system of Lords, and Earls, and Counts and Marquises for themselves?

The bonfire is getting larger. Are those effigies of Wall Street titans that are going up in flames? Or are they more than mere effigies? Jamie Dimon: We know what you did! Lloyd Blankfein: God is telling me that you are working for the Devil!

Dec 13 2010

LET THE GUILTY STAND UP NOW AND LEAVE THE ROOM BEFORE THE NEXT ELECTION

I voted for George Bush and generally liked him. He was human; not especially sophisticated in how he thought; but he seemed real and fairly decent, considering the crowd he was moving in.

It's impossible not to blame his administration and Clinton's -- and in fact the whole Republican era of 'let Business police Business' that began with Ronald Reagan -- I voted for Reagan also -- so I'm not really a liberal or a democrat -- for the collapse through insatiable greed that threw the global economy over the cliff.

The bank bailout started with George W. His men -- Paulson, Bernanke, Greenspan before him -- all played a hand in the greatest robbery in the history of the world.

GWB left Obama with a train wreck -- and so, now, to hear people blame Obama, seems to lead me to ask: how long do the Republicans/Conservatives get to insinuate that the global collapse was really Obama and the Dems fault -- rather than look themselves in the eye and wonder if their free-Business card creed was not all it appeared to be.

Warren Buffet called Wall Street's new mortgage bonds (and insurance and re-insurance of the same) 'financial weapons of mass destruction'. Wall Street set off dirty bombs all over the world. To pretend that the cause of all this was Obama or too much social security is an indication that ideology is almost always stronger than reason, blindness almost always more preferred than unfortunate, tarnishing information.

Dec 13 2010

First, the only way to control banker mismanagement at the end of a business cycle is to raise rates and make it difficult or impossible for them to make bad loans -- and hang them if they try sophisticated forms of embezzlement. The banks serve the society; the society does not serve the banks.

Two, regularly scheduled cycles up and down: 18 years up; 18 years down.

Three, the political right is half-right (about economics, with the social implication of creating a larger gap between the rich and the poor) and the left is half-right (about social needs, with the economic implication of lessening the gap between the rich and the poor); and we need both, to expand the economy, and to further physical/material evolution, and to expand the health of the society (education, roads, health, military, etc), to further spiritual evolution.

The right governs the Day-Cycles, periods of expansion; the left governs the Night-Cycles, periods of contraction, germination, and re-birth. The right is the 'father' of the society; the left is the 'mother'. The Father is strong during expansions and weak during contractions; the Mother is weak (and supportive) during expansions, but strong during contractions, safe-guarding the life of the society -- and practicing 'equality' as a way of guarding against class-warfare and civil war that can destroy the society and make the next re-birth cycle more difficult or even impossible.

When the business cycle growth period ends, the Day-Cycle ends -- and bubbles begin to appear, and insane schemes, and outright theft on a grand scale -- then government has to take over from Business which essentially goes into the cave, protecting its money, trying to pay down its debt. Business can ONLY grow during the growing season.

As far as military spending, don't compare it to GDP, compare Mexico's total expense on military and America's. There is a huge discrepancy; and we can trim much without descending to Mexico's level. Why compare military spending to GDP? Military spending is an absolute dollar value, not a percentage based on ‘how much we can afford to spend’. If our ‘enemy’ spends $10 million, then we stay ahead of them by spending $20 million -- no matter what the GDP of each country is.

Let's not practice deception through statistics for the sake of protecting our sacred cows.

The past is not something that is gone for ever, except in your linear sense. 'Seasons' of history return. Clearly Rome did not expand for ever into the future. Rome hit the expansion limit, the linear limit, of their Day-Cycle expansion, and fell back into the Dark Age, the Night Cycle.

Spring returns, expansion returns; but so does autumn and winter. The Night-Cycle is about 'sharing resources', with an ideal of social equality. The Day-Cycle is about individual freedom, the 'individual' separating himself from the mass, about individual destiny, about hoarding one's wealth and one's accomplishments, about individual glory; but the Night-Cycle reverses that. Survival during the Day-Cycle is relatively easy, because heat expands everything, everything grows. The Night-Cycle is colder, and this makes growth always difficult, often impossible.

The Day-Cycle ‘fills up’ and creates giants (ego monsters), great cities, great edifices of civilization; and the Night-Cycle ‘empties out’, and downsizes everything, returning everything to the level playing-field, the Earth.

The idea of alternating Day and Night Cycles is not my idea. These are the oldest ideas of human culture, understood by Hindus, Greeks, Egyptians, Chinese, Hebrews.... We think we are so modern that old ideas will never come back, that all is linear flight away from the past. In fact, the linear mode (the masculine idea, Time) is periodical, like everything else. Our conception of Time vanishes in the Night-Cycle, just as Time vanishes (in our understanding, not absolutely) when we go to sleep at Night.

The linear mode cannot comprehend the Nigh-Cycle logic. The Day-Cycle logic is about separation, science, empiricism. The Night-Cycle logic is a poetic logic, through which metaphorical relations rule: this is like that. The Day-Cycle logic is the opposite: this is NOT like that.

We need both science and poetry (religion -- not the Day Religion of fundamentalist greed and individual economic-based aggression). The Day-Cycle Religion is the 'religion of the Father', the Old Testament logic of being the Chosen People and taking the Promised Land by acts of violence and deceit, self-glorification -- The Night-Cycle Religion is the 'religion of the Son', the New Testament logic, he who downsizes radically and pursues the path of poverty, generosity and righteous self-sacrifice.

When the Day-Religion has ruled long enough, the Night-Religion takes over so that the tired one can rest (and restore a dream or imagery that has grown stale, arid and used-up).

Where are we now?

The Business mind is stale, arid and used-up; and it is being replaced so it can rest and restore itself.

The Night-Cycle is coming to power, and will remain in power until 2019.

Dec 13 2010

WHAT IS BEN BERNANKE DOING?

Ben is trying to create Stagflation, like the Fed did in 1970, to avoid the 1930's type deflation. The problem is our debt level. Look at debt levels in 1930, 1970 and 2010. We had very little debt in the 70's. That's why we could get away with inflating the damaged craft. Not that the 70's were that good: 15% unemployment; 15% inflation rate. Interest rates jacked up to 23%. At least 6 recessions from 1965-1983.

We can't get away with inflating the debt away today, because we have too much debt. We have to face the truth, which means higher rates (like Volcker did in the early 1980’s) and much more default, bankruptcy, and ruin. The government has no obligation to save asset prices that have been pumped up with false creeds and easy money. Those who borrowed too much and those who loaned too much NEED TO BE PUNISHED. How else can they learn?

We need real deflation to dry out the system. We are all Noah's floating in a boat floating in an endless sea of debt, waiting for the catastrophe of greed to end and a new world to be born.

Dec 13 2010

A VISION OF WHAT’S WRONG AND OF WHAT WE NEED TO DO TO FIX THINGS

I think we've needed higher interest rates since 2001. ALL of our problems have come from TOO MUCH easy credit. All of our bubbles; and all of our bad loans. We would have missed all the negative credit problems if we had begun raising rates in 2001. We would have got our economic contraction, which we get NO MATTER WHAT. It is the non-growth season. But when you panic, and try to fight it, you get bubbles, bad loans, defaults, attempts at inflation, more debt.

Cash fuels the business cycle growth's first season; debt fuels the second stage. But there is a magic line in terms of debt you cannot cross -- it's a kind of chemical transition state -- at which point debt turns into concrete, into heavy garbage, and precipitates a FALL.

When a society hits this wall, it needs to become harder (and more expensive) to borrow, not easier, because eliminating debt is the only way down. We are crashing, falling out of the sky. We can't keep flying (which is what the original inflation is, at attempt to fly) -- we need to come down; and the crash will be worse if we weigh too much (if we have too much debt) when we hit the ground.

Raising rates ALWAYS slows the economy. BUT sometimes the economy needs to be slowed down, and debt needs to be eliminated, because flight is not possible with such a heavy load. (No matter what the CPI says, we've had inflation since 1983.)

Raise rates now, and keep raising them until about 2019. Encourage saving. The government is not responsible for protecting those who took out too much debt, OR those who loaned too much, ignoring the end of the business cycle. People get hurt during a contraction. It is winter. People die during the winter. Plants fall back to earth during the Autumn/Winter cycle. That is the way it is supposed to be. Plants gestate in the winter, hiding from light. Plants inflate in the spring, seek to meet the Sun. Plants blossom; plants climb; plants experience growth and wealth; plants give a fruit (that is what civilization is, the fruit) -- then the expansion ends, and everything contracts back to the earth and the compost heap.

Fighting the decline makes it worse. The compost heap is the grave (metaphorically speaking); it is also the womb, the earth, where the seed hides. Then it all begins again. Man is part of this process. Man's constructions are a part of this process. Construction ALWAYS includes deconstruction. We are in a deconstruction phase; and there is nothing we can do to reverse it. Time will reverse it (2019). However, we can make it worse by trying to take on more debt, which debt was the cause of our crash after all.

Ben Bernanke thinks we are approaching Spring.

In fact, we have just entered the Autumn.

Autumn 2010-2019. Winter 2019-2028. Spring 2028-2037.

Dec 13 2010

BEN IS A ONE-TRICK PONY

Yeah, Bernanke is the savior. Doctor Bubble. As we wait for the next bubble to pop. Ben is a one-trick pony: inflate, inflate; fake a pass, fake another pass, fake a shot, inflate. And our debt GROWS and GROWS.

Good luck in the second half.

Dec 12 2010

REAL LEADERS DO NOT FOLLOW THE POLLS

We need a leader who does not follow the polls, one who leads instead of follows. One of the real problems we have with our leaders is that we get poll-followers who care about keeping their jobs than leading. A democracy is not supposed to be a government that follows the popular thinking. A democratic leader does what he thinks will help the country. The safety valve is that the populace can throw him out if they don't like his leadership when the next election comes along. BUT -- a leader walks in the direction he thinks the country needs to go, no matter what the polls say. And he doesn't worry about re-election.

We've had too many followers in the presidency, presidents following polls, following Wall Street, following religious leaders, following party platforms.

We need a leader who will do what needs to be done, the devil be damned. Democracy allows the voters to choose a leader. But that does not mean that, in the hope of remaining popular, the leader NEEDS to follow the polls and be led by some imaginary vox populi, which is often like seed in a strong wind.

Ignore the popular will. Do what is right, and what needs to be done. If the public doesn’t like it, retire to the farm like Cincinnatus did.

Dec 12 2010

SQUATTING OUR WAY BACK TO PROSPERITY

The Housing Fraud money was lent in bad faith.

I can't afford a house or a loan but I go to the bank and the bank says "No problem, here's your money." Do I take the money? The bankers say: "Oh, don't worry about that. Trust me on this."

Now I probably would not take the loan, myself, because I'm spiritually allergic to debt.

But IT IS THE BANKER'S JOB to say No when a potential borrower is not qualified. IT IS NOT the loan-seekers job to say no when the banker offers him a ton of money and promises that everything will be alright.

So, it's the borrowers fault now? Let's turn the table so that EVERYONE is guilty, which means, of course, that NO ONE is guilty.

That's the plan, right? Even out the guilt, and get the bankers off the hook?

3 June 2010

WHY DO WE RAISE INTEREST RATES?

Raising interest rates has always been a kind of black sheep in the financial family. This is especially true in a democracy where the common man votes and 'easy money' has almost always been connected in the conventional mind with a rising quality of life.

However, this is not necessarily true -- this understanding of how low interest rates being connected to a higher quality of life.

I hesitate to say this -- I feel like I am a talking version of the Book of Ecclesiastes -- there is a time for low interest rates and a time for high interest rates. We are now (as we were in the 1970s) in a time for high interest rates and also a time of weak political leadership seeking political gain from the panacea of inflation. (Why did Paul Volcker have to ratchet up rates in the early 1980’s to save our economy? Because our so-called leaders during the 60’s and 70’s refused to do their jobs, seeking popularity and re-election, ignoring the waters of economic chaos they were seeking to manage through easy money. Volcker did violently, in three years, what should have been done carefully and quietly over 18 years beginning in 1965. Volcker sent America into two violent recessions when he did this – but he dried up the excess liquidity that had made the economy soggy and limp – limp, in the sense of incapable of erection. The American character also had grown soggy and limp: study America during the 1970’s and see if my description is correct. There were several discussions of impeaching Volcker during this time by politicians seeking to curry favor with angry voters – ‘give the voters what they want’ being the mantra of weak-kneed followers in Washington and elsewhere whose self-service definers their periods of ‘leadership’.

Let's look at the negative side of higher interest rates? Higher interest rates make borrowing more expensive. This tends to stop business expansion, stop consumer loans to purchase cars and houses and everything else under the sun. That is, to borrow money to make these purchases. The key word here being 'BORROW'.

The economy slows down; unemployment rises; political leaders get thrown out of office. (Of course, we have all those things today, and interest rates have been at zero for two years and have been kept artificially low for almost a decade.) It becomes more expensive to refinance.

Refinancing. Refinancing is the key to ‘kicking the can down the road’ – taking on as much debt as you like and then reloading the loan at a lower interest rate, with significant fees paid to the bank, of course, for this luxury. Ponzy schemes work much better if the investors/borrowers have the ability to double-up at lower rates, being top-heavy with loans but not ‘feeling’ it. As long as the interest rates continue to go down, excessive borrowing does not begin to scream at one, giving one the illusion that they are solvent. Of course, if the interest rates tick up, then all such illusions are set aside. It is much more painful to carry a heavy debt load when one is running up the hill with a huge sack on his back than when he is running downhill. Can you image needing to refinance a mountain of loans with interest rates rising?

However, there is a positive side of higher interest rates also. For one thing it strengthens the local currency -- and there will be many who leap at the notion of a strong currency as a negative vis-a-vis international export competition. There is this dark lining also, it's true. Higher interest rates force the banks to pay depositors to use and even to hold their money -- hence the savings rate goes up. Can you imagine 18 years of higher interest rates...the kind of pool of money Americans would amass in savings accounts for risk-less investment when the next business cycle growth stage begins? (We had a Growth Cycle birth in 1983; and we expect another in 2019.)

The beginning of a Business Cycle SHOULD be a time of massive investment of citizen's CASH, savings. As the Business Cycle grows long in the tooth, debt might have to supplement cash investment to keep up with the expansion. However, cash should be the driver of the initial growth stage of a Business Cycle. That's what the stock market is really for, for raising cash from the citizenry to help businesses expand -- not for margin investment, high risk, gambling, a New York version of Las Vegas, which is a recipe for disaster.

2001: End of Growth Cycle. Raise rates, raise taxes. Batten down the hatches for 18 years of non-growth. Higher rates strengthen the currency and encourage citizens to save and pay down debts. Austerity, yes. The Winter demands austerity -- the Winter IS austere. Higher rates will drive down the inflated price of housing, back toward the salaries of the citizens -- this will, in fact, help to avoid civil war, as the common man sees prices of all products going down, back toward the 'sane level' The time to buy a house is not when interest rates are low and prices high but when interest rates are high and prices low. Then refinance loans as the interest rate falls.

Remember, inflation is a transfer of money from the masses to the ultra-rich, the Landlord Class. Inflation is the Landlord Class and the Government working together to expand the profits of the rich and expand the debts of everyone else.

“By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.”

-- John Maynard Keynes

2019: Beginning of Growth Cycle. Begin lowering rates and lowering taxes. During the growth cycle, turn ingenuity and the entrepreneurial spirit (business enterprise) loose. Support business expansions. Support the amassing of wealth. But be prepared, because this expansion will end in 2037. As the end approaches, rein in business, raise taxes and prepare to raise rates slowly.

Use the Night Cycle (2037-2055) to pay off debts; take care of your citizens through government-sponsored social service during the long decline, and to amass savings again, that can be used during the next growth phase.

Both sides of this cycle can be used for the strengthening of both the body and the soul and spirit. Day-energy feeds the body and makes the body strong; Night-energy feeds the soul and makes the spirit strong as it moves again toward rebirth.

When the society has too much liquidity, too much water, it becomes weak and limp and indecisive -- too material -- it must dry out the liquidity, evaporate the flood-water, and strengthen the Spirit in the process.

3 June 2010

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN EUROPE? DO YOU REALLY WANT TO KNOW?

I was surfing the web last night and came across this article on Der Spiegel: "Our Leaders Are Responsible for Europe's Crisis," A Commentary by Hans-Jürgen Schlamp in Brussels.

Here's a few clips:

It was neither tax evaders in Greece nor hedge funds that caused Europe's existential crisis -- political leaders in the euro zone share a great deal of the responsibility. They have been either unwilling or incapable of doing their jobs.

When the financial institutions of the Western capitalist world began to wobble in the autumn of 2008 -- with some collapsing and taking others with them -- fear swept through the corridors of power. What could be done to stop an economic meltdown? Finance ministers and world leaders gathered at hectically planned crisis summits, where they applied Band-Aids to a severely wounded financial sector using billions of dollars and euros of taxpayers' money and promised to stabilize the fragile system for all eternity.

More than a year has passed since then, but not much of substance has been done.

When the first states found themselves on the brink of bankruptcy -- Latvia, Estonia, Hungary and then Greece -- the leaders donated more and more billions of taxpayers' money and prescribed drastic remedies in the form of stringent austerity measures -- including for themselves. "We did what was necessary," a confident German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at each stage of the crisis. Her colleagues nodded in satisfaction.

At the same time, most of them don't even have a clue as to whether their activities have been helpful or counterproductive, or if they are even having any effect at all. "It worries me that many politicians believe that things will be the same after the crisis as they were before the crisis, when the world was still in order," Carsten Pillath, the director general in the European Council responsible for finance policy, told a small group of co-workers.

But Pillath, like many other economists, believes that is a big mistake. "In the longer term, we will have slow growth rates, while having to clean up over-indebted budgets at the same time," he said. If Europe is to succeed in doing that, however, it needs a "macroeconomic model" -- in other words, a target which can provide the basis for economic policy decisions.

The fact is, however, that politicians aren't even thinking about this. The men and women elected to higher office are mainly interested in one thing: getting re-elected and retaining their power. Anything else is secondary.

My view,, of course is that a country CANNOT GROW an economy during an Economic Winter. We refuse to face this -- instead, insisting 'where there's a will there's a way'. A flower's 'will', the soil's 'will', and the sun's 'will' work together in the Spring to raise the flower up into the air -- creating something from almost nothing -- but no amount of natural will (or positive thinking, another favorite phrase of the ‘goody-gumdrops’ school of positivist religious thought) will be able raise the flower back up in the autumn or winter from its bed of rest. And no rhetoric from the leaders of the world will raise the flower back up either. Until we realize that all things in nature have periods of active growth and periods of passive rest we will be thrashing and crashing and manipulating against our own natures. So, there is no such thing as continual growth. Everything in nature is periodic: creative and destructive by turns.

Provincial Buffoonery and Political Denial

If you look at the European political landscape these days, the image you get is largely a desolate one.

* The political parties in Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, core countries of the original European project, are locked in endless battles, government crises and provincial buffoonery.

* In Eastern Europe -- Hungary and Slovakia, for example -- nationalist parties are stoking the fires of anger in their own countries.

* In Greece, the current government is struggling to deal with a legacy it has inherited from its predecessors. For decades, three families have taken turns to govern the country, with only a few short breaks here and there. The Papandreou clan of the current prime minister is one of them. The corrupt dealings of his grandfather, who once led the country, are the stuff of legend. And the people of Greece, whether passively or actively, adapted to the system.

* The situation is no different in Italy: The country, one of the founding members of the European Union, has been in a state of political denial for years. The people of Italy doze in front of the television programs of media czar and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who himself has made a fulltime job of protecting his supporters in parliament with more and more new laws that will save them from prosecution. Meanwhile, opposition politicians are devouring each other over trivialities.

Corruption, uncertainty ... and a political swing to fascism are coming and are already here in some places. "The best lack all conviction; and the worst are filled with passionate intensity." The best are those motivated by ideals of peace and love -- and they are now in a weakened condition. The worst are those motivate by ideals of war, hatred, scape-goating, vengeance, personal gain and personal survival (a cousing of that ‘enlightened self-interest’, the footnote to fascism: and these are coming to power. Watch them gain power swinging from the global east to the global west, the same direction that the Sun travels.

A Hyperactive Sarkozy and a Hesitant Merkel

For a long time, the German-French double act ensured at least a minimal amount of leadership and orientation in Europe. But those days are over, too. Take, for example, the following questions: Do we need European economic governance? Should we ban hedge funds? How massive should the austerity measures being put in place be? Does Europe's economy need stimulating? The governments of Germany and France are currently providing contradictory answers to most of these questions -- or worse, no answers at all.

Almost worse is the fact that the countries' leaders aren't only far apart when it comes to goals. They also differ radically in their style of doing things: Nicolas Sarkozy is a hyperactive egomaniac, while Angela Merkel is a grouchy ditherer.

Berlin regularly riles back, mostly under the cover of aides to the chancellor who can not be quoted. After reaching a €750 billion deal to shore up the faltering euro in early May, Sarkozy boasted to reporters that he had succeeded in pushing through "95 percent" of his ideas, including a "European economic government." A confidant of Merkel sneered back: "I will not deny that that was hot air."

Abbot and Costello. The hyperactive small fellow with the actress/model wife (now that's enough to get a fellow elected in France!) and the lumbering, hesitant giant potato-eating iron-lady who occasionally cracks a sardonic smile. Sarkozy IS a hyperactive egomaniac, who has plans to use this crisis for France's ascendancy. This will backfire of course, because he sees his own aura, as do most French, as being on a center-stage under a huge spotlight in a grand play written by Moliere: EVERYTHING IS THEATRE. The uncertain ditherer, Merkel, pressured by rising nationalist austerity visioners all around her, has plans of her own. If she chooses her own survival, she will turn against France and embrace Austerity (Austrian and Austerity have the same root and almost rhyme)...if she wishes to give it all up -- it is a 'No Win, No Win' situation -- she will allow herself to be martyred, retire to the countryside and write her memoires -- "It Was the Worst of Times, It Was the Worst of Times' -- (while the new war rages through the countryside. She'll be able to see the artillery bursts from her upstairs window, as tears fall on the top page of her voluminous manuscript).

It makes no sense to try to "hide the fact that there is tension between France and Germany," Jean Bizet, the chairman of the European Affairs Committee in the French Senate, wrote in a recent essay for Le Monde -- and it is unlikely he put pen to paper in such a controversial way without discussing it first with Sarkozy, a close political ally.

Berlin regularly riles back, mostly under the cover of aides to the chancellor who can not be quoted. After reaching a €750 billion deal to shore up the faltering euro in early May, Sarkozy boasted to reporters that he had succeeded in pushing through "95 percent" of his ideas, including a "European economic government." A confidant of Merkel sneered back: "I will not deny that that was hot air."

Now France is being called 'the newest member of the Sovereign Default Club', pushing its long nose in between Spain and Italy, up to the Public Trough. Of course France pushed Germany for a bailout of Greece (and Spain). It is going to push Germany (and the US, through the IMF) for a bailout of France also. Austerity and Joi de Vivre (Joys of the Fever?) do not have a common root, and do not even come close to rhyming.

You Germans better hold on to your money. If you give it to the basket cases surrounding you, you will descend in to a civil war and another dark nationalist will come to power and start killing all the bankers, and all their relatives.

Now, did you really want to hear all that?

3 June 2010

2010: DEFLATION OR INFLATION

Autumn is the season when the light of expansion (inflation) is defeated. From Winter Solstice to Summer Solstice, inflation wins, slowly at first. Reagan was the ultimate inflation magician. He inflated America back to power. In my mind inflation and expansion are the same thing. 1983 this began.

In 2001, Inflation absolutely triumphed. No shadow at Noon. But then, suddenly, the shadow came back. Muslim terrorist attack on America; Twin Towers. From that point on the shadow has been winning. Greespan/Bernanke are trying like mad to re-inflate. They know nothing else.

The erection-power is gone. (When I speak of the Fed as trying to redistribute Viagra, the metaphor is not really intended to approximate humor. Ancient cultures really did connect INFLATION – the fertility ritual -- with the ERECTION, the Male Energy, fertilization of the world. Ancient cultures viewed the Circle as the Female Eternity, the Womb of the World...and the Diameter (number One inside the Circle) as the Masculine Energy, Time. Time runs from Winter Solstice to Summer Solstice. Symbolically, Summer Solstice is Union, orgasm, the Death of the Male Energy. Time ends. Sabbath or Pralaya begins -- that is, the INFLATION of the Male Energy (the force that erects cities, civilization, buildings, walls around the city) runs from one side of the circle to the other side and is reabsorbed by the Circle (anti-Time, or Space: the Female Eternal Energy) -- and rest begins. God is now driving; not Man.

Deflation (keeping with the same symbolism) is what happens to the Male Energy (the erect penis after ejaculation). And it takes time for deflation to run its course and for inflation to set in again. In fact, a descent into the Underworld and confrontation with demons and fears and a rediscovery of God the magician, the Inflator of the World. The Osiris/Isis/Set/Horus myths are all about this. So is Noah, the spent Male Energy, who hides in the Moon-Boat, the Arc, and floats on the Waters of Space while the world is destroyed by Darkness.

2010 is the beginning of Autumn/Dusk. This means we are at the point where Darkness (deflation) wins. Darkness will be in power until 2028 (Dawn/Spring); however, Darkness will be most powerful in 2019. No light at all in 2019. Then we will have the rebirth of Light (Jesus Christ is a symbol of this). A sprout of light is born and slowly begins to grow. The inflation will slowly begin again and the Darkness will be furious to try to defeat it....but the Light is destined to rule again, in growing strength 2019-2037. 2037 is the Noon again, the Summer Solstice, at which point the Sun will be mortally wounded (orgasm is a kind of mortal wounding) and the world will begin another decline into darkness.

So, the simple answer to your question is deflation rules from 2001 to 2019 -- then inflation begins creeping in.

In the last Night-Cycle, 1965-1983, we should have been slowly raising interest rates in 1965. Instead, our 'leaders', the disciples of perpetual inflation, kept trying to grow an economy in the non-growing seasons and gave us the wonderful economy of high unemployment AND price inflation (caused by attempted price controls and inflation of salaries to keep up with inflationary forces)...so the bottom of the cycle needed someone like Paul Volcker to come along and jack up interest rates and cause TWO recessions at the Winter Solstice point to try to make up for what should have been done, slowly, cautiously, over the previous 18 years.

Men know how to Inflate, and they like to inflate, because inflation is a form of masculine power in the world -- they need to also learn how to soberly deflate, and accept the darkness as part of the equation. Psychologically this is hard, for the darkness represents death, female ascendancy, poverty, powerlessness...all the things that Life fears and resists. But, Wisdom is a higher truth than Force. Wisdom tells us to learn from life by including ALL the elements in the picture. Force tells us to control life by excluding ALL the elements in the picture we don't like. There is a time for Force; and there is also a time for Wisdom.

1 June 2010

LOBBYISTS WHO ARE FUND-RAISERS: WHY WE NEED ELECTION REFORM

We need to reform our election process. Make it shorter, less expensive, and keep corporations out of the picture entirely.

Today, only billionaires can get elected; or the whores who sell themselves to the billionaires.

We can do national elections in two months instead of two years.

Currently only the rich and/or lawyers who are lackeys of the rich can be elected because the cost of running in a lengthy campaign is beyond most Americans.

We have the technology to cut down the official campaign time; and we have the technology to eliminate the cost for candidates. This will take the rich (i.e., Wall Street) out of the driver’s seat; and this will give the America democracy back to the people of America.

Jun 01 2010

IS GOLD JUST ANOTHER FIAT CURRENCY?

Historically, gold has some room to run...up toward 2019. Gold is the Sun God of the Night-Cycle period.

While not 100% accurate, the accuracy is very high.

Gold is not just another fiat currency. Gold is an anti-fiat currency.

2001-2019: Gold appreciates

1983-2001: Gold depreciates

1965-1983: Gold appreciates

1947-1965: Gold depreciates

1929- 1947: Gold appreciates....

Of course, government manipulation also has to be considered. The American government does not want depositors emptying out bank accounts and trading US Dollars for gold.

When people are dumping their savings account and buying gold for the children's future (en masse), then it will be time to sell again.

1 June 2010

FREUD AND JUNG: SPIRITS OF THE DAY-CYCLE AND THE NIGHT-CYCLE

I used to be keen on the works of Freud. Until the Night-Cycle set in again, circa 2001. Now I am more interested in Jung. Freud is the Spirit of the Day Cycle; Jung is the spirit of the Night Cycle. Aristotle of the Day Cycle; Plato of the Night Cycle. Tom Sawyer of the Day Cycle; Huck Finn of the Night Cycle. Confucius of the Day-Cycle; Lao-Tse of the Night-Cycle.

Symbolically, these are the two brothers, the Twins, the light brother and the dark brother, Osiris and Set; Apollo and Dionysus; Cain and Abel; Castor and Pollux; the Lone Ranger and Tonto: the rule of one brother is followed by the rule of the other.

31 May 2010

IS IT MACABRE TO ACCEPT ECONOMIC DEPRESSION AS AN EQUAL PARTNER WITH ECONCOMIC EXPANSION?

If you view history, the American economy is experiencing some form of recession or depression or stagflation half the time. What is a true depression about? De-leveraging. What is an expansion about? Re-leveraging. What seems macabre to me is the idea that keeps circulating among the positivists (many of those in power) that if we just figure things out a bit better, finally, we can eliminate the Night, the Winter, the contraction, the depression from the equation. Day and Night; expansion and depression. What is macabre is the idea that we need only Days and can do away with sleep, rest and regeneration from our economic reality.

If economic depression is inevitable every 36 years or so, then why do we deny it religiously – I emphasize the last word – pretending it is not real, and that man’s ingenuity can overcome the natural period of Night in the economy? If it is inevitable, plan for it, and be ready for it. Use tax policy, interest rate policy, and social support systems’ expansion (with Night) and contraction (with Day) to work with this natural cycle.

Not only is Denial not a river in Egypt, it is also not a river in America.

31 May 2010

THE HOUSING FRAUD CONTINUES – IS IT A DISASTER ONLY FOR THE ‘GROUND ZERO’ STATES OF CALIFORNIA, FLORIDA, ARIZONA, MICHIGAN, NEVADA…?

The Housing Fraud a disaster for the whole country, although our 'leaders' are trying to protect us all from the truth.

Housing prices went up 100-300% in the three years of the housing fraud boom in many areas of the country, not just the ground zero states. Whose income went up 100-300% in that same time? Of course, no one could qualify for a real loan when prices inflated 150% in two years -- so the housing cartel hauled out liar loans, cheater loans, and loser loans to destroy their clients’ lives, so they could sneak with their fees. The banks and Wall Street came up with a plan to bundle loans together so that anyone buying the new securities would not know what loans they held. Utter confusion and chaos was the goal of the banks and Wall Street, not unintended consequences.

The prisons should be full by now -- except the government is pretending that nothing illegal happened. They think they just need to keep interest rates at zero, encourage more borrowing and home-buying and everything will re-inflate and save us from ourselves. But they are wrong.

We are heading down from high tide and all the bodies and the trash are going to be exposed at low tide. All the crimes will then be revealed.

American wages and salaries are going down, jobs are vanishing. How can we afford houses we could not afford 10 years ago except with the fake loans that destroyed the system?

Housing prices are unduly inflated still and are holding America hostage. Housing prices need to come down even more, back to salaries. If that destroys a lot of banks, well that's the price we pay for our orgy of fraud and criminality.

May 31 2010

IF NIGHT-CYCLES COME EVERY 36-YEARS (EVERY 36°), THEN THESE DEPRESSIONS CANNOT BE AVOIDED AND NO ONE IS TO BLAME, RIGHT?

On the surface this is true. Every 36 years (36°) we have a depression/stagflation/contraction of the economy -- actually, it is a spiritual/energy contraction that also has implications for the economy, for political systems, for social systems, for familial systems and for each individual. No one is to blame? In a sense. No one can make the depression NOT come. However, people can make the right moves -- for instance, monetary policy -- to help the depression do what it needs to do. That is, destroy debt, let deflation destroy the 18-years of inflation we have just been through, deflate prices, and encourage growth of savings so that consumers will have money in the banks to invest when the next growth season comes around again. We have had our leaders do pretty much the opposite of all this, panicking and trying to make more borrowing and more inflation re-ignite the growth that cannot come until we have deflated. Fear of death, contraction, down-sizing on all levels can be a pretty frightening picture.

One of my favorite metaphors of this process is the electron beam. Every electron in the beam is free to do whatever it wants to do -- however, for every action of one electron composing the electron beam, some other electron (which electron will re-act can never be accurately predicted) must balance to original action of the first electron so that the integrity of the electron beam is maintained.

One electron can cheat and steal, and act out of purely selfish motives -- and its shadow electron must act to try to balance the first.

We CAN blame individuals for choosing the wrong path, breaking the law, cheating and stealing -- and we must blame them and punish them, since this is part of the balancing act of the system we've created. But no one could have kept the depression from coming.

28 July 2011

WHAT ARE THE ‘TRIGGERS’ THAT TURN DAY-CYCLES INTO NIGHT-CYCLES

The ‘triggers’ are almost always the same historically: bankers' panics; bankers’ crises; bankers’ corruptions. However, these cycles are not primarily financial, but societal. The 'triggers' are often symbolic.

2001 had a very clear symbolism: defeat of the expansion energy through the castration of the Twin Towers by Arab Terrorists, an attack on American military power (Pentagon), and an intended attack on American political power (the White House). This was also accompanied by the collapse of the Dot Com bubble and the Nasdaq Index.

1965: Perhaps the murder of John F. Kennedy (November 1963). Other symbols in 1965: the burning of Watts, the Los Angeles ghetto.

1929: The crash of the New York Stock Exchange....

Essentially expansive (self-confident) energy turns inward, either through fatigue, or through an external shock – very similar to the idea of waking from a dream. In 2001, Americans were awakened by the sounds of horrible explosions and woke up from this cycle’s version of the American Dream.

This happens even without a clear symbolic counterpart.

Babylonian culture ‘celebrated’ (mourned) the Death of Tammuz, the Solar Hero, every June – Summer Solstice – as the expansive Life Energy turned inward and became a contractive Death Energy. Tammuz, in this myth, is gored by the Wild Boar. Why a Wild Boar? In Babylonia, the month of Haziran (June) was derived from the Chaldean word “Hazir” or ‘Hazira”, which also signified ‘porcus’ or ‘hog’ – boar. Interestingly, “Tammuz” was the Babylonian word for the month of July.

31 May 2010

KRUGMAN LAMENTS THE COMING LOST DECADE

Krugman is right. We will have a lost decade. An additional lost decade: 2001-20011. Then 2011-2019.

How do we get away from debt? Not with 0% interest rates. Banks don't want us saving, they want us borrowing. They have to pay us when they use our savings for investment; we have to pay them when we use their savings for investment. Until the default or the threatened default through malpractice comes. Then they use our tax money to help lure us in to more debt. The banks want us indebted -- they want us to be debt slaves.

Chop, chop.

Is that the sound of George Washington chopping down Goldman Sachs behind the White House? Yes, it's time to start pruning, so our republic can survive. The banks are suffocating us at the moment. Let's use Goldman Sachs for firewood.

Clink, clink.

Is that the sound of Washington leadership kicking the can of insolvency down the road, hoping to make it the problem of our children instead of our own problem. Kick the can, kick the can, kick the can….kick the bucket.

Here are two pictures of ‘lost’ 18 years; and ‘gained’ 18 years.

The first chart shows, in terms of the Dow/Gold Ratio, the Day-Cycle 1983-2001; and the beginning of the Night-Cycle 2001-2019.

The second chart shows similar cycles in the price of gold: first cycle shows gold’s price climbing from 1973-1983 (chart wanted to show 1965-1983); gold flattens during the Day-Cycle, 1983-2001; then gold jumps up again during the Night-Cycle, 2001-2019.

The chart below, 200 years of Dow/Gold Ratio, shows the Day-Cycles/Night-Cycles over two centuries.

STOCK MARKET RETURNS

1923* DJIA @ 75.23 - 1929 DJIA @ 331.65: INFLATION CYCLE: Positive 400% - 67% per year.

1929 DJIA @ 331.65 - 1947 DJIA @ 175.66: DEFLATION CYCLE: Negative 47% : -3% per year.

1947 DJIA @ 175.66 - 1965 DJIA @ 854.36: INFLATON CYCLE: Positive 386% : +22% per year.

1965 DJIA @ 854.36 - 1983 DJIA @ 1045.07: DEFLATION CYCLE: Positive 22%: +1% per year.

1983 DJIA @ 1045.07 - 2001 DJIA @ 10,604.59: INFLATION CYCLE: Positive 915%: +51% per year

2001** DJIA @ 11,000+ - 2019: DEFLATION CYCLE (through 2/09 DJIA @ 7850.41): Negative 26%: -3% per year.

* Could not find DJIA prices back to 1911.

** Current deflation from 2001 to February 2009.

I update the current Night-Cycle in 2019. Bernanke is attempting to trick American investors into believing that US Dollar destruction is separate from the 2009-2011 stock market gains. The Dow/Gold Ratio is essentially Dow gains modified for inflation. As I have said more than once, the current Night-Cycle rally is a fake rally fueled by devaluation of the Dollar. Stocks, commodities, and real estate are essentially anti-dollar plays. If the Dollar is being forced down by the government, investors must put their money into other ‘risk-assets’, such as stocks. But this chart (inflation-adjusted Dow, Dow gains versus Gold gains) never lies about this.

May 31 2010

ECRI GROWTH PLUNGES – DOUBLE-DIP RECESSION AHEAD

The Fed should have begun inching rates up in 2000-2001. We needed to begin a 'smart' drying out of capital then, to prepare for the built-in Night-Cycle of economic contraction. Fighting the contraction/deflation has been a disaster. All of our problems since then have come from our not understanding the two sides of economic manifestation ALWAYS go together, expansion/contraction, growth/rest, inflation/deflation. Wisdom is better than heroic resistance to the inevitable laws of nature.

2001-2019: upward bias of interest rates, drying out of inflation, deflation of overheated economy and prices. This DOES involve more government involvement in the lives of people with more money being used for the survival of a deflated economic cycle. Think of the trillions we have thrown into the Black Hole after our tragic attempt to fight off deflation by creation a Housing Fraud and a Banking Crisis instead. During the Night Cycle, higher taxes on the rich. The economy CANNOT grow during the Night-Cycle. The economy must rest and gestate, preparatory to the next growth phase.

2019-2037: Day Cycle. Lower rates; lower taxes on the rich. Less regulation at the beginning of the cycle. More regulation at the end of the cycle. Remember: 18 years of growth; 18 years of rest. This means that we need to prepare during the 18 years of 'fat times' for 18 years of 'lean times'. Taxes go up as we approach the zenith of the growth phase, and we assemble a huge savings pool for government to use during the contraction phase of 18 years.

Let's start using reason in planning our economy, instead of the 'let's slay the Dragon' heroism of fighting off the inevitable Night Cycle which ignorance cripples us and sends us always further in to debt.

May 31 2010

AUSTERITY IN GREECE: A SOLUTION TO CHAOS, OR A CAUSE OF FURTHER CHAOS

AUSTERITY, in itself, is the answer to nothing. Why? Much of the austerity being planned for Greece and Spain and Italy and Ireland (remember Iceland?) involves taking money out of the pockets of consumers. This will have two effects: (1) contract the economy further, ending the so-called 'recovery'; (2) strengthen the hand of political movements similar to National Socialism from the 1930's. When the common man and woman have no hope of improving their lives, they will turn to the new political force offering them salvation from the bankers and the cheats.

There is no salvation in 'austerity' now. Austerity will only breed less consumer spending and more anger against the political status quo. Those who think all the Greeks and Spanish and Italians have to do is punish the socialists and derail the 'gravy train' have no idea, apparently, what comes next in the causal sequence: a movement to take off the head of the beast is the most likely consequence of austerity. (Salvation of the banks, perhaps; but also civil war.)

May 31 2010

THE FED PLAN OF SPEND, SPEND, SPEND.

IS IT REASON OR IS IT DENIAL OF REASON?

This is the Denial Stage in the stages of Death. We will pass through denial eventually, when sovereign debt collapse takes away the government's capacity to pretend that Monopoly money is 'fixing everything'. Then we will enter the Anger Stage.

“Bernanke saved us from the abyss!’ you cry? Think again.

Bernanke IS the abyss.

31 May 2010

IF THE BANKS GO DOWN, WE GO DOWN WITH THEM

Is this true? Ok. Do it in stages. Do it with care for the deposits of bank customers. Yes.

Home loans? Sorry. They engineered a 200% gain in housing prices with NO gain in customer salaries through fake and liar loans, insisting 'We've figured it out. We have a system that cannot fail." They have to pay for this. And housing prices have to come back to salaries. There is no easy way to do this – there is an effective way to do this: higher interest rates. But the game of lie and pretend and wait for the market to lift everyone back up to a false apex is actually turning us into Japan. We can't afford to do this.

Titanic? I guess so. No lifeboats for the superrich. No lifeboats for the bankers.

Principles of this New World:

· The world we knew is gone. The world we don't know is frightening.

· If something 'sounds' too-good-to-be-true, it is too-good-to-be-true.

· For now: tax the rich; cut government spending; think about SURVIVAL instead of GROWTH. No more Growth anyway until around 2019.

· Day-Cycles: free capital, let the Tree of Life and Material Gain run wild. Interest rates come down. Sap ($$$) runs up the Tree of Life. Economic Growth and Market expansion.

· Night-Cycles: tax the rich to help pay for the decline. Interest rates go up. Sap ($$$) runs back down to the roots of the Tree of Life. Economic Contraction and Market collapse back home, back to the source, back to the point again.

· Do not fear. By obeying God’s laws of Nature, we will rise again.

31 May 2010

AGAIN, INFLATION OR DEFLATION?

Inflation only becomes a problem when salaries start chasing the rising price of goods and services. We found a way to disallow the rise in salaries by sending the best jobs overseas and by breaking the back of American Unions and by keeping interest rates low and housing and stock markets growing....now we have depreciating housing and stocks, so that only additional debt slavery is available. Sort of. Banks are no longer lending to debt slaves, who cannot pay off their current debt load.

Salaries are going down; jobs continue to be lost.

Deflation is here. No inflation until we pay down our debt load and return political power to labor unions. I'm not sure we want that kind of inflation. Afterall, inflation is the means by which the rich steal blatantly from the poor. I think I'd rather see deflation cripple the landlords of the world and drag the price of housing back down toward the actual salary level of the world, where prices need to be.

Never again do we let housing prices play the role of the one-armed bandits in Las Vegas. Housing bubbles are like the curses that God brought on Egypt. They help to elevate the price (cost) of everything; and when they pop a whole population is rendered poor. We can't let this happen ever again. We need to find a way to neutralize land-value appreciation or face civil war and revolution and depression every 36 years. People have the right to the riches created by the labor and their own genius – but land value inflated artificially by speculators is NOT wealth created by their own labor or genius.

31 May 2010

V-SHAPED RECOVERY: CAN YOU SOLVE AN INSOLVENCY CRISIS BY TAKING ON MORE DEBT?

V shaped recovery? Pour trillions into the banks and autos and other selected industries. Downside: sovereign debt meltdown and national defaults.

You cannot solve an insolvency crisis with more debt AT THE END OF A BUSINESS CYCLE. You CAN solve a credit crisis with more debt at the BEGINNING of a business cycle however.

You can borrow your way to growth and OUT OF DEBT at the beginning of the business cycle -- that's what you are supposed to do, in fact. But we are at the END of the business cycle. At the end of the business cycle you are supposed to have deflation and creative destruction (Kondratief's "Winter" season). We're pretending we can have Spring in Autumn...and we can't.

Beginning of another business cycle is scheduled for 2019. Until then, we have more deflation, and more insolvency, and more de-leveraging to face. And borrowing more money to try to force another expansion at this juncture is insane. This makes me wonder about the quality of minds that are now running and having been running our financial institutions, especially the Fed.

30 May 2010

IS THE WINTER SEASON NECESSARY OR CAN WE JUST SKIP IT?

Deflation is a necessary ingredient in our system of boom/bust. We want only the boom, of course. We want the inflation. We want prices always going up. Why? We don't know. We know that higher prices make us all bankrupt eventually. Wages don't rise the way prices rise. That would cause real inflation, right?

What destroyed Rome as an empire? Inflation destroys every empire. Every empire wants only the Daylight side of the equation; and tries to fight off the deflationary spiral with all its deceit and skillful theft.

Prices rise; and prices fall. The tide rises; the tide falls. The economy expands; the economy deflates. Our religious nature wants to deny the death side of this equation, the 'dark' side, the Night side. But without this other side, we become imbalanced, hooked by the adrenaline of continual expansion, which destroys us through fear and anxiety that our growth won't last for ever.

Growth CAN last forever only if it is married to equal periods of rest and contraction and de-leveraging.

29 May 2010

I THINK WE’RE TURNING JAPANESE (I REALLY THINK SO)

If we refuse to face the true problem -- debt load AND the quality of the debt we have taken on -- then we are condemned to a no-growth future like Japan has had. Japan will still have a tsunami deflation crisis culmination. You don't get to AVOID the deflation crisis by lying to yourself about it. It just takes twice or three times as long to get through it if you lie to yourself about it.

This is a death crisis. You can deny it, and stretch time, and buy more debt, and ruin your currency even more -- or you can face the truth, default, face bankruptcy, collapse the sick institutions and the terrible loans that are still on the books. It won't be easy.

We have two paths. Neither is easy. One takes 30 years. One takes 9.

22 May 2010

THE CENTER CANNOT HOLD; WHAT’S SO GOOD ABOUT ECONOMIC DEPRESSION? WHO IS GOING TO PAY FOR IT?

You plan for 18 ‘fat years’ and 18 ‘lean years’. Who pays for the Night-Cycle of 18 years? Who is coughing up the money for the lies we're clinging to today? We are, the taxpayers.

The rich get rich during the expansion. And the rich get less rich during the contraction, as they pay the society back for allowing them to get rich during the expansion.

I'm not saying 18 years of contraction are a GOOD thing. I'm saying 18 years of contraction are a NECESSARY thing. Don’t bother trying to hang a value on it. Study history and see that THAT'S WHAT WE GET whether we like it or not. It doesn't matter to God if you don't like His plan. You get it whether you like it or not.

15 May 2010

THE POINT AND THE GOAL OF EDUCATION

The things we forget about 'education' is that it opens doors to individuals so they can keep learning for the rest of their lives. That can happen without formal education too -- but a higher education requires that you open doors, so interests are more likely to develop.

If all we want from education is to get a job, then just fund trade schools.

If we want a 'higher civilization' – a great civilization -- thenwe have to support 'higher education'; if we want a lower civilization, we can be practical and stoic and keep our intellectual needs basic and closer to the soil. It depends what we want and what we value as a people.

Do we want to develop Bach, Shakespeare, Frank Lloyd Wright? Or do we want to live like the war-lords of Afghanistan?

Do we want to ‘keep the women down’? Or do we want to raise our women high into the heavens?

15 May 2010

RUGGED INDIVIDUALISM WORKS, BUT…

Yes, rugged individualism gets you somewhere; but I don't think it's really where we want to go as a civilization. If you have no heart as a people, and you just have the dog-eat-dog world-view, you will become a civilization of mad dogs.

12 May 2010

SHOCK AND AWE – THE NUCLEAR OPTION OF EUROPE TOWARD GREEK INSOLVENCY

So this is how the New Europe responds to Greek insolvency?

1. "Shock and awe" -- "the Nuclear Option": those are military terms. Who is the enemy? Deflation. Let's not forget that the military result of the 'nuclear option' is total devastation of all the people and structures around the blast center.

Is the European Central Bank's buying of Greek national government bonds really the nuclear option? Bernanke has been using the 'nuclear option' in America for many months now -- and it has done nothing here except postpone our face-to-face meeting with the devil. Is that all the 'nuclear option' is supposed to do: buy time?

Not much of a 'nuclear option' if you ask me. Default works better, as it wipes away the debt, it doesn't just prolong the anguish and pain and doubt. It’s sort of a nuclear option for banks that are over-leveraged and holding too much ‘bad debt’.

2. "SHOCK AND AWE": Isn't that where you drop bombs on a country from a safe height to obliterate the structures below?

Debt + debt = liberation from debt.

I didn't take that class in school -- so I'm a bit lost.

So Greece is going to layoff workers, devastate pensions and savings of old people living on these pensions, destroy their education and health care systems, so they can take on more debt from foreign nations? In order to pay that money back to the banks? I see what the banks get out of this. And Greece gets WHAT for doing this? Another year or two of free money before implosion? Do investors really believe that Greece is going to be able to pay back these additional loans when they can’t pay back their current loans? What is going to make Greece a safer risk in two years than today? Is Greece headed for a sudden economic growth, a sudden transformation into China?

We're so terrified of default and deflation that we are creating an even worse condition. Fear is a dangerous thing. Default is guaranteed UNLESS the world can go back to 2007, when false monetary policy was giving money away to everyone on the street telling them to spend as much as they could, there would always be more. We're never going back there. 2007 was a disease of the soul and the mind. It was the pinnacle of the Devil establishing the Earth’s misallocation of logic.

3. SHOCK AND AWE: Europe raises a trillion dollars to fight deflation in Greece.

Great. A trillion dollar bailout for Europe. Aren't you bulls sure glad the financial crisis ended in March 2009? It's time to start loading up on stocks again, I'm sure.

Wouldn’t it have just made more sense to let the banks fail and not have the banks try to hide toxic loans on the governments balance sheets? Is it better to have governments insolvent than it would have been to have ‘private’ banks solvent, since it was the banks who caused the insolvency?

How much of that $1trillion is coming from American taxpayers? Perhaps the IMF should be transformed into the New Central Bank of Europe.

When was the last time Europe bailed out America?

10 May 2010

EUROPE APPROVES A GREEK BAILOUT

More debt, more debt: THE MARKET SOARS!

Another big big band-aid for a ruptured carotid artery.

The problem: you have too much debt. You have to raise your taxes to pay your debts. You have to cut government spending to pay your debts. Oh, by the way, here's another trillion dollars in debt....use it wisely.

10 May 2010

THE CENTER CANNOT HOLD: IS RECESSION THE ENEMY?

Is there a danger of the advent of another Paul Volcker figure appearing and wrenching the economy into a serious recession?

I think I would have rather had a serious recession in 2001 when rates should have begun to be raised than what we have now: an unserious recession, deflation, spiking insolvency, high unemployment, and the government paying businesses billions so they can look like they are busy.

The economy grows; it deflates. Let it breathe. If we continue to view economic life as a one-sided stroll into every-increasing wealth and light, then we will ALWAYS freak-out when expansion ends, and our panic will make everything infinitely worse.

There is no eternal springtime? No, I’m sorry to say: not in economic measures.

Begin to lower rates and lower taxes in 1983, at the beginning of the business cycle.

Begin to raise rates and raise taxes in 2001 at the end of the business cycle.

Begin to lower rates and lower taxes in 2019, at the beginning of the business cycle.

18 year expansions followed by 18 year contractions.

Let's be rational about this cycle, for a change. Our emotions (our beliefs that prices and profits have to always go up) are killing us.

9 May 2010

BANKING REFORM: WHAT IF REFORM MAKES THEM UPSET?

You don't ask people if they want to reform, you TELL THEM they are going to reform. If the lobbyists are too powerful for our democracy to work, then we need a new democracy, with new rules on the accumulation of public power. The lobbyists' access to power needs to be sternly circumscribed. We've turned the electoral process over to the rich in the last 40 years in a way that we can reverse through laws limiting the power of the super-rich to 'own' the democratic process. They own everything else. If we allow them to own our government, then our destiny is to be serfs in their New Feudal Republic.

If we are not careful we may be looking for our own Cincinnatus. There aren't too many of him in the world.

8 May 2010

SPOILED CHILDREN’S EXPECTATIONS: WHAT I WANT AND WHAT I GET ARE NOT ALWAYS THE SAME

'Desired outcome' doesn't really interest me at this point. My desires about this are irrelevant. Did I desire Winter when I was growing up in southern Wyoming? Not very often. Did Winter come even when I didn't want it to? Yes.

It is a necessity that we expand during the beginning of a business cycle and it is a necessity that we contract during the end of a business cycle. Will people be hurt? Yes. Are people hurt during a business expansion? Yes. Millions of people were hurt by the Great Housing Fraud that was the last act of the Business Cycle Expansion. Can expansion of anything go on for ever? No.

This is bad news for astrophysicists, I guess. Many are still trying to solve mathematically how the universe just might expand for ever. The universe is like a housing bubble. It will reach a tipping point, gravity will replace levity, sorrow will replace joy, poverty will replace ambitions for wealth, and the big hot air creation will begin collapsing back on itself, back in to nothing, to a zero point again where, some day, the expansion will start all over again. But it will be a while before our overdone expansion hits the zero point and starts expanding again.

Love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage…

7 May 2010

LLOYD BLANKFEIN IS DOING GOD’S WORK AND DESERVES HIS SUCCESS

And I was going to suggest he apologize to the American Public and fall on his sword.

He deserves his success? All thieves deserve success if they steal successfully. He has clearly been a great thief; and I am sure History will remember him in this way.

On doing God’s work:

Again, the devil taketh him (Jesus) up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;

And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.

5 May 2010

THE GREEK TRAGEDY: TURNING AND TURNING IN THE WIDENING GYRE

THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

WB YEATS, 1922

"The centre cannot hold". The centre keeps the left and the right from civil war. This happens only while the centre is strong. As the centre weakens, elements from the centre choose whether to join the left or the right. Nazi Germany was a perfect picture of this -- and Hitler's right wing fanatics fought the left wing fanatics in the streets in pitched battles and defeated the left and then set the world on fire.

We are experiencing this now, all over the world.

During the Day-Cycle the nation and the national vision is unified, through the strong middle class. During the Night-Cycle (this recent Day-Cycle peaked in 2001, when the force of reason began to weaken; the Night, Dusk to Dawn, will run 2010 to 2028) the middle class 'leaves', joining sides with either the right or the left. Open chaos appears -- the Peacemaker vanishes. "Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world."

Build your ark. Things are going to get nasty.

Reason, light, and a budding middle-class begins to grow again in 2019. There is hope. Light ALWAYS returns. But Winter's job is creative destruction. No matter what the brilliant and crooked accountants and manipulators of power and money say and do, we will have our creative destruction also: bankruptcies, defaults, wars and rumors of war. But then the light will eventually return. Always, at the bottom of the barrel, there is Hope.

2 May 2010

GREEK RIOTS: SHOULD THE DEMONSTRATORS BE EXECUTED

Actually, there is no normal for the Greeks (or for any of us in fact) to go back to. Some of you people don't realize what is happening. These protests are from people who have lost their lives, their jobs, their pensions when the government suddenly decided it had to dump them (or the bankers would be mad at them).

Business as usual is what created this problem -- that is, the banks made wild investments that turned national paper insolvency into the real thing. Capital punishment for demonstrators? Is that what you do in a democracy? The fascists say so.

Why, so you can preserve order in a dying organism?

Marching in the streets is democracy in action during times of strong disagreement. The bankers screwed the pooch -- now everyone gets to suffer -- including, and especially, the bankers.

It is interesting how the press has helped the banks transform the issue from ‘How the Banks Destroyed the World” to “How Socialist Government-Spending Destroyed the World”. Very subtle – and, sadly, quite effective too.

We know who is running, and ruining, our system.

1 May 2010

BIG GOVERNMENT AND BIG BUSINESS: BOTH SIDES ARE WRONG

Both sides are wrong; both sides are corrupt. We're caught in between two forces that are both milking us dry. Big government AND big business are equally at fault. The bankers were put in a huge bind by the big government -- and their solution, instead of saying NO, was to manufacture a system (synthetic financial products) that bilked billions from the system. They're still doing it.

Cut off their heads, yes. Break up the big banks, yes. Cut the size of government, yes. Tax the rich more, yes. Raise interest rates, yes. Let deflation drain the system of its lies and greed and inflated asset values through bankruptcy and defaults, yes. Destroy false land values and the false appreciation of housing, yes.

We need to start over. Back to the stone age, I guess. Back to the soil, the root-system, back to the Earth.

It's hard to defend the banks since they've turned in to the greatest thieves in the history of humanity -- stealing the taxpayers blind through the intercession of the Fed Chairman, the number one thief and bank lackey in the world.

Demolish the Fed, yes. Prune the Big Banks back to the ground, yes.

Yes, Teddy Rooselvelt: “It’s pruning time again, we’re going to cut you …” (with apologies to Ray Charles. Yes, we are crying. What else can we do?).

30 Apr 2010

THE GREEK TRAGEDY IS THE WORLD’S TRAGEDY

When Greece has no credit, and the middle class disappears, the Body and the Mind will engage in civil war to see who will rule the country. This is a possibility now being faced by every nation in the world. It is the middle class that keeps the perennial enemies from killing each other, the Traditionalists (the Royalists, the Conservatives, the Rich) and the Revolutionaries (the anti-Royalists, the Liberals, the Poor).

The Middle Class is the bridge between the Rich and the Poor, the balancing force. When it is gone, then the country degenerates into a power struggle on the streets.

30 Apr 2010

THE LIE OF CAPITALISM WE ARE WITNESSING GOING DOWN IN FLAMES TODAY

The Fed is probably also (and has been for years) pumping money into stocks to try to keep them going up. It really IS a fixed game. Who do you think gets informed when the Fed decides it's time to take profits and stop pumping the market up? It certainly isn't the little guy. Do you think Lloyd Blankfein is on the short list of those who get a call when Time is ending?

It's a small club of insiders. The rest of us are 'on a need to know' directive: that is, we don't need to know.

Same as it ever was.

Do we have to take this? No, we do not, in fact. We have a choice. Status quo -- or something different.

We're being used like pawns, and we're being controlled by 1) our natural patriotism, and love of America’s ideals; 2) our natural religious natures, and our belief in individual destiny; 3) by our 'American Dream' support of the Ideals of Capitalism.

We are a long ways from Capitalism now. This is not Capitalism -- this is fascism, state capitalism, the corporations and the state using us for their own wealth and power. If we want to get back to a true capitalism, the props under American business (and the suffocating controls of ingenuity American business insists on) need to come down. The Lloyd Blankfeins of the world need to be sent to prison instead of paraded through the media as one of the 'entrepreneurs' doing God's work.

Wall Street is going to make EVERYONE rich -- right? -- so we tolerate anything they tell us.

29 Apr 2010

EL-ERIAN SAYS GREECE WILL DEFAULT

I guess the accountants should be hard at work tabulating whether the German and French bank losses, given a Greek default, will be in excess of the amount they are 'loaning' to Greece to delay the inevitable. The IMF needs to be trying to determine how much the US will lose from a German and French bank collapse, if Greek defaults -- and whether that is more or less than the money the IMF is thinking about 'loaning' to Greece to delay their default.

Of course Germans should NOT be paying to bail-out Greece. Of course French and American taxpayers should NOT be paying to bail-out Greece. But the ONLY game in town, apparently, is extend and pretend....so fake bailouts are the modus operandi of the day. We are digging our hole deeper and deeper. We are so terrified of facing the truth today that we are willing to try to lie to ourselves for another day, another week, another month...so we can pretend the awful truth is NOT the awful truth. The global economy is insolvent -- and the only resolution of this insolvency is default, bankruptcy, belt-tightening, tax increases, budget reduction. The free-spending era is OVER.

Does this understanding inevitably include depression, political chaos, and world war? The longer we all lie to ourselves about holding our breath and bringing about the good old days simply through spending more money and more wishful thinking, the more inevitable depression, political chaos, and world war become.

You can't sell your soul to the devil, and then trick the devil with clever accounting when he comes to collect his payment. Our way of life -- spending our grandchildren's money so we can live the 'high life' today -- IS, by definition, selling our soul to the devil. We worshiped money too much; we worshiped a false god; we betrayed our own common sense when the devil whispered in our ears "You can have it all. Why? Because you deserve it." Thank you, American advertising: you have been a wonderful apprentice to the Devil.

Don't believe the devil when he tells you that you deserve to have everything you want at no cost to yourself. The devil doesn't give you your dreams unless you give the devil something in return. If it sounds too good to be true, it is.

Let's face the truth. It's time to face our own mortality, so that our grandchildren can have a better life than we are currently giving them.

--- --- --- ---

Bail out Greece; bail out Portugal; bail out Spain: it’s just a continuing bank bailout.

We're not even close to the end of this crisis, brought on by greed, short-sightedness and the degrading of common sense. This is a financial services contagion that is sinking the world to a dark black hole.

Nothing lasts for ever. Put the banks in a financial straight-jacket; take away their bonuses; put those who broke the law in prison. Remember: they serve us; we don't serve them.

29 Apr 2010

PROUD TO BE A BULL; IS IT PATRIOTIC TO BE A BULL

"Proud" to be a bull? What does pride have to do with it? Better to be proud that you're bullish when the market goes up and that you're bearish when the market goes down.

"Proud" to be a bull; "Patriotic" to be a bull.

The market is a fixed game. Be proud to take profits on time. That's the only thing to be proud about.

28 Apr 2010

YES, DOCTOR: SO IT’S A GOOD TIME TO BUY

Yes, Doc: when people whose business depends on hooking other people's money to finance their life-styles -- such as commercial property developers -- begin to tell you it's a good time to buy, run the other direction as fast as you can.

We'll know we may be reaching a bottom in commercial real estate when the number of developers committing suicide spikes to all-time highs.

27 Apr 2010

THE HEALTH-CARE CARTEL NEEDS TO BE ‘DISCIPLINED’

The health-care cartel just keeps raising prices because they CAN. No one has 'corrected' them about this. This is one of the first things that needs to be done. Health-care costs are bankrupting America.

26 April 2010

NO INFLATION? DON’T TELL THAT TO MY PAYCHECK!

We need lower prices for ALMOST EVERYTHING. The inflation of our economy over the last 20 years can only be corrected by a prolonged deflation, which we're denying now, pretending we can inflate our way out of massive insolvency.

Stages of death:

Denial

Anger

Bargaining

Depression

Resignation.

As I say, we are still, as a nation (our leadership at least, and our financial leaders, and Bernanke certainly) in the denial stage. Still a long way to go.

24 April 2010

THE PHILOSOPHY OF INTEREST RATE CYCLE POLICY

We haven't had a real philosophy guiding interest rate policy (perhaps we've never had this). The Fed was working for/with the presidency trying to see the party that appointed him stay in power -- and to keep the bankers happy.

If we continue to have a Fed, then it will truly need to be detached from politics and attached to a philosophy which guides us through the expansions (Day-Cycle) and the contractions Night-Cycle) -- and stick with the philosophy like it was a religion, even against massive amounts of political pressure.

The Fed should no longer exist for and of the bankers, but for and of the health of the society itself.

20 April 2010

THE TIPPING POINT?

I'm of the opinion that the 'shock' that tips the markets over will be further deterioration in political situations (e.g., Iceland, Greece, Thailand, Kyrgystan, Spain, Italy....).

When the political discord of angry citizenry hits the streets in Western Europe, and then in America, the well-laid-out plans of all Goldman Sachs and her army of lackeys will begin to evaporate, and implosion will hit.

16 April 2010

IS BANKRUPTCY THE END, OR THE BEGINNING, OF THE WORLD?

If home prices were to fall where they belong (with 2-3% annual appreciation, negating the 150-200% appreciation in 2003-2007), then the banks AND the government would be bankrupt.

You are right. We need this to happen. Otherwise we just have shyster card-sharks running our government and our economy, desperate to keep the assets of the owner-class in America at an unrealistic .

Let it fall. Then let's build it again, this time without the bubble-mania.

We need inflation to get it started; we need deflation to shut it down. But we can't have the inflation UNTIL AFTER we have had a real deflation (price deflations, with interest rates at the top of the arc).

16 April 2010

THE TEA-PARTY AND OTHER BACKWARD-LOOKING REVOLUTIONARIES.

IF IT SOUNDS LIKE FASCISM, IT PROBABLY IS FASCISM

The Tea-Party is going to save us from our sins? I don't think so.

The Tea-Party is backward looking -- this, itself, is not the problem. Backward-looking is needed to re-discover a nation's roots and its fundamental principles. But this only works when the nation has gone through a death-ritual (and a bottoming process). We still have a long way to go to look Death in the eye and this, in a real sense, involves higher interest rates, bankruptcies, defaults, and a STRENGTHENING of the national currency – and an increase in the savings rate, because savings are the source of real financial power. We're right in the middle of the WEAKENING of the currency phase -- still believing inflation will save us from our debts.

Reagan's revolution came after a long Night Cycle, culminating in Volcker's VERY UNPOPULAR (remember, some sought to impeach him) interest rate hikes that led to two recessions, as he sought to dry up the FLOOD created by profligate monetary policy.

The Body and the Mind are enemies. The Soul is the middle principle between the Body and the Mind. When the Soul is on the side of the Mind, the Body grows weaker. When the Soul is on the side of the Body, the Mind loses its power. At the moment, the Soul is angry at the bankers and businesses. We have more emptying out (the Soul supporting the Democrats) to go through before the Soul will again join the Body (the Republicans).

During the Night Cycle, the Soul joins the Mind. This creates Chaos on earth. This Night Cycle endures until about 2019.

I love democracy -- when compared to the alternatives. But what democracy is best at is preserving order, and the status quo. Democracy puts its revolutions and coups in orderly 4 or 8 year cycles (in America, at least). Democracy is pretty slow to face crises -- almost always wanting to pretend everything will be ok if we're patient and well-meaning. In times of crisis, the more the government delays, the more anxious and frustrated the citizenry becomes.

16 April 2010

EUROPE: YOUR ROPE

We should begin to see an international turning away from the status quo parties and the rise of extreme right and extreme left alternatives. Or even outright civil war -- which is happening in the east already (Krygystan, Thailand, Philippines, Greece).

Centrist parties are best at holding on to the status quo -- but when the status quo is rotten, it tends to decay and collapse, often through indecision, and then extreme solutions seem more reasonable, to human’s sorrow (this is how Nature/God chastises man for his pride, for his inflation, for his challenging the gods with his own ambition).

16 April 2010

LET”S CUT GOVERNMENT ENTITLEMENTS!

"Entitlements". Are pensions entitlements? Most pensions are money taken out of an individual's salary over the years, sometimes matched by the employer.

Imagine the person who has worked 30 years and is now living off a modest monthly pension and a social security paycheck. Is this person the enemy?

Bankers are stealing millions a year -- and we're pointing at the pension-holder living on $2500/month, blaming him for the economic collapse. What's wrong with this picture?

15 April 2010

2019 BOTTOM, IF WE ARE LUCKY

2019 bottom, if we are lucky and don't follow Japan too closely. Incremental growth from 2019 up the ladder to 2028. Next boom (Golden Age of expansion, Garden of Eden) 2028-2037.

All the craziness we are going through today is just the massive panic of a world leadership in a state of denial and uncertainty. I really can't blame them. Facing the truth, at this stage, will be pretty catastrophic to the governments in power.

Just got back from another two weeks in Bangkok -- my favorite city in the world.

They have a civil war breaking out -- the 'rising of the redshirts'. Considering everything, Thai revolutions tend to be a pretty gentle affair. Now a three-day pause in fighting for Songkran, a huge waterfight festival throughout the country, celebrating the magic healing power of water (and baptism or purification), as well as friendship and food.

Kyrgzstan. Greece. Fighting in the Philippines. Seems like the Night-Cycle chaos is beginning in the East and will be spreading to the West. Hard to keep an economy going when the streets are filled with angry citizens. Bangkok has already lost millions in their economy; and their stock market is tanking.

Keep an eye on the Middle East. That’s where the yeast is stored.

The yeast in the bread? Israel. Israel will act again, like it did in 1982, invading Lebanon, and the bread will start to rise.

You can't underestimate the power of the emotional nature to undermine the orderly world of the fathers, and their business plans. The Night-Cycle is governed by the emotional nature, the water, in fact. Songkran comes along at a wonderful time symbolically. The Love Principle.

Remember Heracleitus' idea that Love (the Mother Principle, Darkness, Water) -- a horizontal order -- drew all elements of the Universe together, thereby creating Chaos (a classless soup of trouble). And Hate (the Father Principle, Light, Fire) separated all the elements again into a hierarchy, a vertical orientation, thereby creating Cosmos (order).

The "Hate" period describes a coming back of Time into governance of the world, a 'filling up' of the personal life, mostly with surface activities, surface goals, surface morality. The "Love" period describes the breakdown of Time as the Master Force driving reality -- dreamtime coming in, fantasy, nightmare, space -- and the emptying out of the personal life.

Thomas Moore writes about this process in 'The Planets Within': ‘In lunar consciousness, personal life is emptied as well as filled, a round that has as much darkness as light. Luna would empty us of those purposes and plans, as well as the interpretations and explanations, that keep life busy on the surface with no guarantee that there is movement within. Emptying, naturally, does not feel as good as filling up; it seems uncreative and unproductive; nevertheless, the cycle of the psyche’s Moon requires an acknowledgment of decay and death.’

'An acknowledgment' of decay and death’ means truly facing death and decay, going through this real experience, not denying it, and pretending it can be avoided by sophisticated financial semantics.

The season of acknowledging 'decay and death' is coming. The darkest part of the Night-Cycle will be 2010-2019. Depressions, wars and rumors of wars will become undeniable, realities that will unseat the surface activity of making money, chasing advancement, pursuing titles and objects of vain distinctions. Be prepared for anything. Also be prepared for natural disorders. Day-Cycles are about Humanity defeating Nature; Night-Cycles are about Nature getting even with Man (Humanity, with the emphasis on the ‘Man’ part of Hu(man)ity.

For those interested: Spring (Eden) is governed by Air – the element of Heaven: 1992-2001; Summer is governed by Fire – the element of the (falling) Sun, 2001-2010. It is interesting to note that Air met Fire in 2001, as we saw quite graphically in the 9-11 destruction of the Twin Towers. Autumn is governed by Water, the Great Ocean of the Deep, Noah’s element (2010-2019); we would expect some grand meeting of Fire and Water in 2010, which may be obvious and perhaps not so obvious. I do not think the Icelandic volcano is actually such a symbol, although its fire element is no doubt true. Fire meeting Water suggests steam and suggests the Love Nature swallowing up the Sun Hero. Winter is governed by Earth.

14 April 2010

HOUSE-BUYING RULES FOR THE NEXT GENERATION

It's a continuing crisis for borrowers IF prices continue to bounce lower and borrowers continue to get caught in the bankrupting deflation of a banker's bubble.

The housing bubble saw spikes up in prices of 200% in some places, in three years. Historical average gains for 3 years are 4.5%. That’s a huge, ugly imbalance that still needs to be corrected.

Housing will be underwater until about 2019. Interest rates go up; prices go down. Buy a house when interest rates are high and prices are low; then refinance as interest rates go back down. If one buys an overprice house, when interest rates are low, the price will decline in value and their will be no way to balance this by refinancing to a higher rate of interest.

29 March 2010

GREEKS R US

Look to the turn of the last century as an example in American history when we last faced an 'impossible' corporate take-over of America. What did we do? Teddy Roosevelt and his anti-trust vigilantes started cutting down the big corporate trees that were suffocating American society . We can do that again.

The Civil War in the 1860's; the Civil War in the 1960's. History is repeating apparently. We need to prune the corporations, and scatter them to the wind, making seeds out of them again.

It's called harvesting, and re-planting. Every other generation needs to participate in some form of this, or the weeds will take over the garden.

29 March 2010

WHY THE FED MUST RESIST A FEDERAL AUDIT

The Fed can't let stocks crash. The Fed's policy of "inflate now, face the consequences later" is based upon the assumption that another stock market bubble will lift all boats. That's why they are backstopping stocks (purchasing index futures) with taxpayer money -- which is why they CANNOT let the Fed be audited. Their actions to support stock prices are probably illegal and certainly cannot be justified under the Fed’s current charter – and with the Fed’s ‘conflict of interest’ clientele.

If the American public sees that the FED has been spending taxpayer money to support stock market appreciation (and foreign banking) for years, then faith in the stock markets will be destroyed for ever. And the Fed will be thrown into tonight’s garbage heap.

If the Fed is audited, the Fed ceases to exist. (And the international banking cartel is in tears, and is looking for vengeance.)

28 March 2010

PUBLIC HEALTH CARE IS NOT THE ISSUE – PRICE-FIXING AND THEFT OF PUBLIC MONEY IS THE ISSUE

The key is NOT health-care per se. The key is to deflate the health-care inflation bubble that has been rising 10% a year (minimum) for the last 15 years. Pop the bubble and watch costs come down again.

28 March 2010

CAN SELF-LOVE AND POSITIVE-THINKING CURE US AGAIN? NOT YET.

IT’S ALL A MATTER OF TIMING

You sound like Ronald Reagan: positive-thinking and self-love can cure us again.

This will be true in about another decade. The sap WILL rise again. But the sap is sinking now, and will be sinking until around 2019. The positive thinking revolution works only when the beast is awake again -- it doesn't cause the beast to awaken -- it merely rides the waking beast as it rises up the ladder.

And when the beast reaches the top of the ladder, and begins its descent, the advocates of positive-thinking and self-love cannot understand why their magic has stopped working.

Positive thinking does not save the world. The world is a wave rising that carries the positive thinkers into heaven. But the positive thinkers are not the engine of material evolution – they are the luggage on the train.

When the expansion stops, and the positive thinkers try to make the world expand again, through the power and magic of their spiritual direction, nothing works.

2 March 1985

INTEREST RATES DRIVE THE SAP OF THE TREE OF LIFE

Interest rates are the 'sap' of the tree of life -- no, that is not true: money/currency is the 'sap' of the tree of life; but interest rates drive the sap. The sap spends the winter in the Earth, trying to avoid the freeze. As the Spring comes, the sap rises up the tree, culminating in the fruiting of the plant in Summer/Autumn. Then the sap comes back down the tree, descending again into the Earth (the Underworld) during the next Winter season.

The Tree of Life is the period of the rising sap.

The Tree of Knowledge is the period of the declining sap.

Live when the sap rises. Reflect, learn about life (and your past mistakes) when the sap runs down again toward the Earth.

My four seasons are:

The Black Giant. The Mother. The Shadow of the Earth: Winter Season. The seed has escaped the fallen fruit on the ground and has buried itself in the earth hoping to achieve gestation.

Renaissance Man (the Hero): Spring. The seed is rising and the body of the new plant leaves the earth and stretches up toward the heavens, toward the fire of the Sun.

The White Giant, the King. The Father: Summer. Culmination of civilization. Crystallization of the global economy. The seed is in the fruit and the fruit is hanging on the highest branch.

The Romantic Man (the Anti-Hero): Autumn. Decline. Decadence. Rebellion. The seed is in the fruit and the fruit has fallen to the ground.

27 March 2010

THIS IS THE GREATEST HEIST OF PUBLIC FUNDS IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE

This is the greatest heist of public funds in the history of the universe. Robber Barons at the turn of the last century were nothing compared to the crooks stealing us blind today.

Government deficits? Debt doesn't matter, remember?

American taxpayer reserves are being poured by the trillions right into the pockets of the big banks. Why? Because that's how the corrupt economic system works when the government and big business climb into bed together. They steal until the citizenry can't take it any longer. Then they move to another country and do the same thing all over again. That's the plan, at least. Europe first; America next. Any guess as to where they headed next?

South America, anyone? Southeast Asia? India? China?

24 March 2010

THE GREAT DOMINO TOURNAMENT: EVERYBODY OUT?

Actually, it will be Greece out, Spain out, Portugal out, Italy out, Ireland out, France out....

This is the first round of a major domino tournament: who will be the last one standing?

Germany, probably.

England and Japan will also go out.

America? We'll be printing money like crazy, passing it out to our states, so they can pretend that this is a credit crisis instead of a solvency crisis. How long do we have to put up with the stupidity of the Fed and our leaders who believe they can inflate a deflating global economy?

When you don't like the truth, simply pretend that it is a matter of opinion only. No one is really right after all. Then just keep doing what you want to do, what is easiest to keep doing.

18 March 2010

A GLOBAL RECOVERY PAID FOR BY GOVERNMENT MONEY: IS IT REAL? WHAT IS REAL ‘FINANCIAL STRENGTH’?

Financial strength? Global recovery? With the Fed spending billions/triilions to prop up a floundering private sector, should 'financial strength' really be defined with or without the prop?

Remember, the prop is NOT free money. It is debt that needs to be re-paid. If the prop was being bought by tax revenue, then it is just wasted money. But since the prop is more debt, piled on top of the bad debt that caused the problem in the first place, 'financial strength' really should be defined as 'non-debt financial strength' if it is going to mean anything.

A 'leaning tower' of debt, supported by added buttresses that cost more than the original tower, is not what I would call 'money well spent'. Let the tower fall; pick up the pieces; learn from your mistakes when you build the next structure.

Historic preservation is good for architecture but not good for economic realities.

16 March 2010

THERE ARE THOSE WHO HONOR CAPITALISM TOO MUCH

Capitalism is not a pure system standing by itself in some pristine isolation. Government makes laws that limit dog-eat-dog capitalism...and by these laws civilizations are born. There is no slavery in America now, not because of capitalism, but because of government. Government is SUPPOSED to reflect the social soul of the culture, the ethical impulse, limiting what bullies (capitalism, in the economic sphere) can do to those who are weaker or more principled or more civilized than themselves. Child-labor laws were resisted by capitalism. Universal education was resisted by capitalism. Minimum-wage salaries were resisted by capitalism. Capitalism has no soul -- it only has the impulse for more and more profit.

Let's not lose our perspective and grant capitalism a soul. Capitalism has been dragged into compliance with every piece of social legislation in the history of humanity. Capitalism is rapacious, and behind every war in human history. Let's not pretend that capitalism doesn't need to be regulated unless our desire is feudalism again.

Having said that: we need capitalism, because it is the engine of life. BUT we do not need to be ruled by the capitalists. We need to govern, and control, the capitalists. Because, ungoverned, they work for the Devil.

12 March 2010

EDUCATION AND JOB-TRAINING ARE NOT THE SAME THINGS

Part of the problem with only 'investing' in an education when there are jobs on the horizon is that Wall Street speculation can undermine the future in the flash of an eye.

In 2003, when the house boom began, what better discipline for the future than architecture? Architects had never been so busy. Five years later, 2008: nothing. This, thanks to our friends the bankers on Wall Street, and those liar-loans and those sophisticated risky mortgages wrapped up inside of strong AAA loans that could never fail.

If we shouldn't send our kids to college unless we have a guaranteed job waiting at graduation, then I guess medical and engineering weapons systems are the only university disciplines we should be funding.

Business schools? What's the point? With all the businesses that are going bankrupt what kind of future is there in business?

Of course, higher education might be useful in educating a democracy to think as individuals. That's not such a practical goal -- not like having a job. Democracies fail because the populace forgets how to think. That's also something we should keep in mind.

The goal of education is to ennoble the soul (remember our founding fathers, they were idealists too). And to open doors for self-education that will generate knowledge for the good of the civilization -- and engage and vitalize a human being for the rest of their lives. The idea that higher education is ONLY a ticket on the gravy train seems so pedestrian and mundane as to make me shudder -- is there no imagination alive in the American Soul? Where do America's Shakespeares, Dante's, Rembrandts come from? Bach, Beethoven, Hegel, Plato? Is higher education logical only for bean-counters and plastic surgeons?

The key is to make higher education cheap again, so that anyone who wants to go to college can go without being bankrupt in the process, not to make it so expensive that only those studying to be doctors can get an education. Higher education is one of the few things that works in America. Look at the international rankings of the best universities in the world. American universities, in many rankings, have 15-18 of the top 25 college rankings in the world. We can't manufacture competitively with the rest of the world. But we can educate -- at least at the university level. Look at the list of Nobel Prizes over the last fifty years. America and American universities are dominating.

Inflation makes everything too expensive. Easy debt makes everyone insolvent eventually, trying to keep up with inflation. (And don't give me the CPI story and all the formulas for computing costs to keep everything look like nothing is inflating in price. Look at housing, education, food, energy, medical...the only things that have gone down in the last 30 years is salaries of American workers and the cost of computer chips, one of the few sectors in the international economy where price-fixing isn't dominating the scene.)

The goal should not be to limit higher education only to practical fields; it should be to expand it for everyone. To do this, we need to pop the inflationary price bubble. The government should make the FBI's #1 crime target price-fixing in the international economy. Where you have price-fixing and bribery you can't have true free enterprise to regulate downward the cost of products and services.

12 March 2010

HOW DID HIGHER EUDCATION BECOME SO EXPENSIVE?

Actually the government didn't step in – that’s not why higher education costs skyrocketed. The government (state governments) stepped out -- stopped funding university education -- remember the great property tax revolts -- and universities had to follow the private enterprise model for raising money: inflate, inflate, inflate....raise tuition costs through the roof.

When I got out of college in 1974, I had a debt of $1800 that I paid off the first year of working. Now students owe $50,000 - $100,000 for a four-year college degree.

Thus, higher-education costs (and health-care costs) are wiping out the middle class.

It’s easy to blame everything on government -- actually, it's the greed of the 'me first' crowd that also brought on this crisis. The 'to hell with everyone else, let me keep my own money so I can buy a boat and a second house' crowd.

The survival of our nation will be based on how well we educate our children, not on how many houses and boats we had when we died.

12 March 2010

WHO DESTROYED THE GLOBAL ECONOMY: BIG BUSINESS OR BIG GOVERNMENT?

The recent history of the political parties has been that Republicans have fought for Big Business and Democrats have fought for Big Government (or for Big Labor). Those lines have been blurred since 1992, when all politicians seemed to greedily jump on to the Gravy Train of a de-regulated Wall Street.

I agree that both sides are to blame for our current economic strife. I'm just hoping we don't forget that 1983-2007 was a Republican era (turn business loose from too much government regulation) – and it was this lack of regulation that sank us.

Big Government is not the answer -- but Big Business free of regulation is also NOT the answer. The Big Banks (and many politicians, Republicans mostly) are now trying to shift the blame for the collapse of the Global Economy on to Big Government, claiming that unfunded social programs destroyed our solvency. In truth, the banks sucked trillions of dollars into an unseen anti-financial black hole...and now they want Big Government to take the fall, to be the scapegoat, instead of taking responsibility for what they did. It's a great big propaganda war being waged with ruthless animation (even desperation).

Over the next decade in America, great propaganda wars will be fought over every election, between Republican populists who will blame Big Government for all of America’s problems, and Democratic populists who will blame Big Business for all of America’s failings. Each side will see a half-truth and mistake it for a whole truth. Each side will believe it is on the right side. If the emotional nature is strong enough, surrounding these competing half-truths, the two sides will fight one another in the polls and on the streets. If we are really unfortunate, they will create another civil war, fighting heroically to defend the sanctity of their half-truth.

--- --- ---

Let's not forget that the grand capitalist scheme (under the Republicans) to let the banks exploit the masses with worthless paper (liar loans turned into mortgage insurance turned into taxpayer bailouts) sank the global economy. The communist dictatorships and the Barak Obama designs on a socialist 'dictatorship' in American and the socialist 'stimulus packages' are a response to the sinking of the Titanic, not the sinking of the Titanic itself.

It is time for Republicans beating their chest about the damage socialism (as an idea) has done to America to also recognize and admit publicly the damage capitalism (as an idea) has done.

9 March 2010

EDUCATION AND THE FUTURE OF AMERICA

I worked for the University of Oregon for thirty years. In that time, from 1977 to 2007, the University of Oregon full-time tuition for non-resident graduate students increased from $320 per term to $5447 per term, an increase of 1602%.

To put this in perspective, a person earning $20,000 per year in 1976 (a reasonable salary at the time), would need to be making $320,400 in 2007 in order to keep up with this suggested inflationary rate.

A person earning $60,000 in 1976 (a higher administration type salary), would need to be making $961,200 in 2007 in order to be keeping up with this inflationary rate.

It is not uncommon for a student to leave school, with a bachelor's and a master's degree to be $100,000 in debt at graduation.

If we really care about America's future -- and we haven't turned our backs on the idea that educating our populace is a necessity of competing for future survival -- then we have to find a way to fund education without generating debt and insolvency as the fruits of our education system.

Can you imagine being $100,000 in debt, graduating in architecture, for instance, and seeing no jobs on the horizon for the next decade. Something is wrong with this picture. Something that bowing the the shrine of ‘Free Markets’ and ‘Free Enterprise’ is not going to resolve.

9 March 2010

WHY DID WE NEED A HOUSING BUBBLE?

Why did we NEED a housing bubble? Because that was where all our job-growth came from.

Finance, Mortgage, Construction, Real Estate. From 1983 we added millions of jobs in finance and sent all of our other jobs to the Third World.

The only other sector that grew jobs was medical. Hence, the health-care bubble served the same purpose: job-creation.

What happened to all the other jobs? They were shipped overseas by our business leaders so they could have higher bonuses and more obscene salaries.

Unless the government can get the housing bubble going again, there will be no new job-creation. All the other jobs were sold down the creek.

But the Housing Bubble bankrupted our financial system.

The next time someone tells you: “What we really need now is another good old Housing Bubble?” remind him that nearly a one-third of all mortgages, after the last Housing Bubble, were underwater and heading for default.

6 March 2010

SPEND, SPEND, SPEND….TO KEEP PRICES HIGH? WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?

We need to put a lid on the mentality that spending, spending, spending will fix everything. The only thing that will 'fix' the housing crisis, for example, is for housing prices to deflate back to salaries -- and to become affordable again. That is, prices have to come down!

The idea that spending trillions to keep housing values propped up on an artificial plateau is, in fact, a form of INSANITY. It's like agreeing to pay billions for worthless swampland in Florida to keep the rumor from getting out that the swampland is…overvalued.

The government is spending hand over fist because it fears a revolution will break out if it allows the economic cycle to follow its own course. At some point all these unnecessary dams are going to have to break so that we can start rebuilding them.

5 March 2010

SOUP AND SANDWICH, SOUP AND SANDWICH….

I don't think socialism will triumph -- I agree that it has built-in limitations. Capitalism (I guess by this word I mean when Business dominates the political sphere) will give man a breath of freedom and fresh air that he desperately needs -- and then will take it away again and plunge the society into another economic depression and another socialism experiment.

My view is that we are programmed by Nature (we call it History, which reflects Man's Nature and Man's History) to go through Day-Cycles and Night-Cycles. Times of expansion, acquisition, 'filling up', which is the Capitalist/Business Cycle -- lower rates, expansion of debt, expansion of empire. This ALWAYS ends with a tragic 'corruption' and a monetary collapse. This ALWAYS brings on the Night-Cycle during which time a form of Socialism ALWAYS comes back (this is a 'emptying out' process, the opposite of the 'filling up' process). Capitalism: government (and, even more importantly, the Middle Class) is on the side of the rich; Socialism: government and the (former) Middle Class is one the side of the poor.

There is a good side to each cycle; and there is a shadow side to each cycle. No side is perfect. The Business/Capital cycle begins at Midnight (as a small seed) and begins in a pure vision and philosophy. It grows, changes, comes to dominate the government, and, is, in fact, the Tree of Life. It crashes at Noon, at the Summer Solstice (a banking/monetary crisis), and begins to dwindle in power. Socialism (government more concerned with the poor than with the rich -- an attempt to balance the imbalances of the 'growth' season -- begins at Noon (2001 in this last cycle) as a seed and begins to grow to power. Socialism also eventually crashes, this time at Midnight (1983 most recently; scheduled again for 2019).

These two forces evolve the world TOGETHER. They seem like mortal enemies, but, like a Man and a Woman, a Husband and a Wife, they share power, share values, and share the development of ideas (Humans are BOTH Economic AND Cultural beings.), even as they are also fighting, and accusing one another of tyranny and selfishness. The Day advances the needs of the Body; the Night advances the needs of the Soul.

Day-Cycle: the Soul is on the side of the rich for the sake of fertilization of the world.

Night-Cycle: the Soul is on the side of the poor for the sake of justice and human equality.

As the song says: "You can't have one without the other..."

5 March 2010

AMERICA AND ROME

Diocletian separated and enlarged the empire's civil and military services and re-organized the empire's provincial divisions, establishing the largest and most bureaucratic government in the history of the empire.

Are you ready for the 'largest and most bureaucratic government in the history of the empire' in America?

Also, we have to account for the 'return' of the Jesus Christ figure in this scenario of the history of our New Rome. It hasn't happened yet (I'm assuming).

--- --- ---

Oswald Spengler called the ascending arc of human history the 'culture stage' and the descending arc (actually the crystallization at the top of the ascending arc, which was followed by the descending arc) the 'civilization stage'. The culture (the seed) rises up out of the darkness of the Dark Age; the civilization is like a seed hidden in the fruit that ripens on the tree, ripening in the light of the empirical Age of Enlightenment.

Then the fruit, the civilization, rots; and the fruit falls from the tree back down to the Earth. And the seed in the rotten fruit, digs its way back under ground, where it finds a place to hide from the violent darkness of Autumn turning into Winter. Gestation. Contractions.

Gravity curves light. Nothing lasts for ever in its current condition.

23 February 2010

AYN RAND OR MICHAEL J. CLARK -- WHOM TO CHOOSE AS YOUR NEXT ECONOMIC GURU?

This is Mr. Greenspan's legacy and the legacy of all 'Inflate for ever' monetary theocrats: 'the greatest global financial crisis in the history of the Earth.'

The moral: if you are going to base your theory of monetary policy on the ideas of a novelist, base them on the ideas of Michael J. Clark, not Ayn Rand.

23 February 2010

DAMN THE ICEBERG, FULL SPEED AHEAD!

(HAVEN’T THEY HEARD, WE ARE THE ‘MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE’!)

It is the same 'damn the Greeks' and 'damn the Icelanders' mentality that wants to shift the blame to the 'socialists' who are ruining capitalism. Actually, capitalism said 'Trust me, I'll help you pay for all your social programs. Just give me your money and I'll show you how to finance your idealisms....'

Capitalism hit the iceberg. Now the Captain is looking for someone to blame. Blame the weakest members of society, the poor, the weak, the losers, the blind, the indigent, the pensioners...these are the ones who are ruining our society. The losers.

Shift the blame away from the drunken yachtsmen who thought the iceberg was a picture of Shangri-La...'more money, more money, more money, for ever.'

Say no to the Plutocracy. Let the Financial Cartel boil in its own blood.

23 February 2010

DO EMPIRES FALL QUICKLY AND WITHOUT WARNING? NOT USUALLY.

I believe the United States IS in trouble. The US -- and all top tier nations in the first world. Europe, Japan, Korea, England – seem to be hanging by a thread.

But I'm not sure that empires fall quickly and without warning. Perhaps the Mayan Empire did. But I can't think of another historical empire than disappeared over night.

Empires CAN disappear quickly if they are defeated militarily -- think of Carthage. Carthage did not disappear over night however. It took Rome three wars to destroy Carthage.

I DO think America will sink into a Dark Age eventually -- and then it will rise again in its 'culture' stage, DAWN, reborn youth, as city-states (think of the city-states of Renaissance Europe). The 'Civilization' stage is the crystallized megalopolis old age stage; the 'Culture' stage is the dynamic youthful stage, couched in Nature. (This is Spengler's definition.)

In the mean time, we will head into a smaller Dark Age (1929-47 was a smaller Dark Age). Dark Ages come regularly in fact, to perform the ritual of 'creative destruction' in the world, what Winter does in the world of nature.

In the Dark Age, emotion (Water) triumphs over mind/reason (Fire). So get ready. Build your ark.

Dark Ages bring with them fear of death and destruction, poverty and social collapse. That is why atheists never rule for long.

23 February 2010

‘MANAGEABLE DEBT’ AS A BANKERS’ CANARD FOR ‘HERE, HAVE SOME MORE ICE CREAM, DON’T WORRY ABOUT YOUR WEIGHT; YOU’RE PLUMP, NOT FAT’

'Manageable debt' is a hop-skip-and-jump away from unmanageable debt again. Zero debt indicates a different mind-set about the 'debt is good' bankers' creed that led Americans (and much of the world) into debt slavery. (Remember Gordon Gecko's 'greed is good' announcement? Greenspan's 'debt is good (and sub-prime debt is even better)' pronouncement goes with Gecko's in the utterances of infamy.)

I'm not against debt. Once we've cleared the books, we can begin to borrow and expand again. I'm against debt as a way of life but not against credit as a way of doing business. They key is balance. And knowing when to say 'enough'. 'Stop'. 'Reconsider'. 'This is the end.'

There is no permanent expansion. The gravy train always stops, and always has to stop. We avoid all the frantic bubble-making if we build both the expansion and the contraction into our philosophy and into our monetary policy. We've turned this contraction into a disaster by insisting that monetary expansion is the ONLY reality.

23 February 2010

DEFLATIONARY ‘BIG CRUNCH’: IT’S THE ONLY WAY OUT

The illusion of the wonderful future surely evaporated quickly, didn't it? The illusion of ownership through debt is seductive to say the least. Now we're spending trillions of dollars trying to keep everything from changing chemical state from where it was when the lights went out.

The trouble is: where we were before the lights went out was an unsustainable state of bloated insolvency. And now we are even more insolvent (especially in terms of the government deficits).

Is there any way out of this mess except a deflationary crunch? I don't see it.

Back to the beginning: Do not collect a higher salary until you pass “GO” again.

21 February 2010

STRUCTURAL DEBT COLLAPSE AND PROTECTIONISM

We're in a depression. A depression is a series of connected recessions punctuated by a series of failed attempts at growth or recovery.

We are in a debt collapse -- it IS structural.

The government is throwing trillions of dollars of stimulus to get a tiny uptick in growth, which will not be sustained.

As it is a structural debt depression, we need to solve the problems that caused the depression. What are the problems? We are insolvent. We need to resolve our debt back toward nothing so we can start over again. We need to become savers, investors (cash investors, not margin investors, which is what debtors are), we need to say 'no' to debt; we need to say yes to saving; we need prices on over-inflated asses and services to come down to non-bubble levels.

Where will the permanent jobs come from? Not from the global economy. We need to retrench; we need to stop buying cars made by foreign workers and foreign companies; we need to buy products that are made by American workers. There's no other way to do this, sad as it is from a global brotherhood perspective.

It is true that ‘protectionism’ is a negative for the global economy. But the global economy is dead. We need to jump-start our own economy, which means focusing on our own needs first.

Global economics is the last stage of the Business Cycle, the ‘crystallization’ of the Civilization Idea, not the first.

21 February 2010

BUBBLES IN HOUSING AND HEALTH-CARE – WHAT ELSE?

If you look at the charts below, you will see where and to whom the wage/salary growth in America has gone since 1970. The financial and health-care industries have gotten filthy rich; and as the bottom charts show pretty clearly, Americans have gotten filthily (is there such a word?) indebted.

What sectors of the economy grew during the Reagan Era: financials, construction, real estate, and health care -- beneficiaries of the bubbles in housing and health-care.

21 February 2010

IN DEFENSE OF THE FED: THE FED DID NOT ‘CAUSE’ THE DEPRESSION

There are depressions every 36 years (or deep-recessions/stagnations/stagflations, as in 1965-1983). Why? Is this the length of the business cycle? Top to bottom: 18 years. Bottom back to top: 18 years.

The Fed doesn't cause the depression. It just makes it better or worse. If it works with the business cycle (eases credit at the bottom of the cycle, 1983; raises the cost of credit at the top of the business cycle, 2001), then it makes it better.

If it resists the business cycle -- tries to play God, insisting on only GROWTH, only INFLATION -- then it makes it worse. Both Greenspan and Bernanke tried to follow the ‘playing God’ path. Both will now be known to history as examples of what not to do when an 18-year expansion ends.

21 February 2010

A QUESTION OF CULTURAL FAILURE.

THE RIGHTS OF THE INDIVIDUAL ARE PART OF THE STORY.

But the Great Western Civilization also has a dark shadow, a bloody past of enslaving, killing, persecuting, oppressing. That dark shadow is also part of the story.

A strong individual pursuing self interest can cheat at business, kill business rivals, enslave weaker (collective) societies, make war on and colonize nations that have less developed technologies (this is actually as much the story of Great Capitalism, enslaving for profit, as is the growth of technology of man's use). Slave wages, child labor, black-lung death, literally working people to death was the history of capitalism until the government and the labor movement stepped in and stopped capitalism from pursuing the 'Maximum Self Interest' philosophy -- that is, Individualism (Social Darwinism) divorced from its soul.

A strong individual with no soul (no recognition of moral justice, and the rights of other humans, of whatever skin color or gender, who can justify colonial genocide as being in the interest of capitalism and Individual Greatness) is a tyrant making history but also a tyrant creating retribution in the future for his own excesses, his greed, and his amorality in service to the creed of self-interest. (The sins of the Father will be visited on their children for seven generations.)

There really isn't a lot difference between what Hitler did and what generations of European and American capitalists did around the globe to dark-skinned people in Africa, Asia, Latin America, through the creed of Colonialism and Individualism and Self-Interest and Racial/Philosophical Manifest Destiny and Biblical Exceptionalism. There is a difference in degree, in un-camouflaged philosophy of intent – but not in outcome. Colonialism killed people more slowly that Hitler did.

--- --- ---

We are both individual, selfish Darwinian creatures AND social, members of the collective at the same time. These two parts of our nature have different needs and different strengths. Anyone who says we are only one part of this dynamic duality misunderstands the human. Our solutions to our problems and the designs we make for the future need to incorporate fully both of these perspectives.

If we are isolated individual atoms only, out for self interest, then we should re-create the jungle and arm ourselves and kill or be killed. This is the world Mr. Altendorf seems to desire. No one gets in his way, and he gets in no one's way. But, of course, laws are part of the collective he doesn't believe in. So what's go keep someone driven by self-interest from just taking by force what he thinks belongs to him, such as Mr. Altendorf’s car, house, wife and children?

Watch how fast the collective reasserts itself once the poor start taking what they want from the rich. No collective? Don't believe it. What is the police force if not a collective army to protect property owners from the spirit of too much poor people’s self-interest.

--- --- ---

Bankers' bonuses did come out of your pocket last year and this year. In fact, the bankers are on the street if they don't blackmail (through the fear-engine and bribery-logic displayed with such devilish craft by the devil himself, Hank Paulson) the government to give them, the bankers, your money to survive.

If you make a bad business decision and are on the verge of bankruptcy, you can't run to the government for an emergency no-interest loan (free money). But the bankers can, and did -- and now the chortle about what a great investment the government made -- and dole out bonuses in billion dollar amounts -- and insinuate that it was, not their behavior but, liberal social programs that 'nearly' destroyed the economy. The economy is destroyed -- their hiding all their bad loans on government books -- which means we'll be paying their bonuses for our lives, our children's lives, and our grandchildren's lives. And we still haven't done anything with the bad loans except hide them. It's like giving our grandchildren live grenades to find, instead of Easter Eggs.

--- --- ---

No 'self-sacrifice'? So, when the next war comes along to protect capital markets from foreign dangers, the working class doesn't have to volunteer and can't be drafted to fight for the rights of the rich class to keep their power and money?

The rich argue that their money is THEIR money and taxes are illegal and immoral and social programs are theft of THEIR money and the poor have to make their own money on their own or not make it at all. But it has been mainly the poor who have been dying and being crippled to protect their capital markets (the 'American Way of Life' being, along with other things, the right for the rich to profit and remain in power) for centuries now.

No health care for the poor -- no military care for the rich.

If there is no self-sacrifice, just self-interest, then why join the military for minimum wage and maximum risk. The pay is much better as a thief, or in kidnapping the rich for a large ransom.

The rich get rich by understanding they are enemies of the poor and should exploit them for their own self interest. If we truly are not on the same side (if their is NO collective quest or reality -- no self-sacrifice), then the poor need to catch up with the rich in this understanding. I think there are still quite a few poor people who believe there is honor in self-sacrifice.

Also, someone needs to tell Jesus Christ that there is no self-sacrifice. I just love the rich Christians who ignore everything that Jesus said but still claim to be Christians and justify their own wealth by saying that “God made them rich”. Remember the ‘eye of the needle’? Remember ‘Pride leads to a fall’.

--- --- ---

The right wing has its populism: Big Government is to blame for all our problems.

The left wing has its populism: Big Business is to blame for all our problems.

The truth is somewhere in between.

--- --- ---

No collective self? Are you not an American? Are there no Americans? No Germans? No Chinese?

Are we all isolated atoms disconnected from all other atoms?

Is there such a thing as a human race?

Such a philosophy certainly makes it easy to steal and lie and conspire for power. If we are to believe Jesus Christ, success on the Earth is given through a covenant with the Devil, not through a covenant with God.

21 February 2010

A WHIFF OF DEFLATION?

A 'whiff' of deflation. The world pumps trillions of free money into the hands of the rich all over the world and the result we get is lower prices -- and this equates to a whiff of deflation. Actually, there is a whiff of inflation -- and a 'windstorm' of deflation, a hurricane of deflation, coming…

20 February 2010

THE ASCENDANT CULTURE SEES THE FUTURE;

THE DESCENDENT CIVILIZATION SEES THE PAST

The ascendant culture/civilization believes in the future, and sees and makes the future.

The descendant culture – the descendant civilization -- believes in the past instead. That's how it re-discovers its roots and traditions...and how it starts everything over again.

--- --- ---

I would argue that 'ascendant' culture is the light rising up out of the darkness of Midnight and rising to its apex at Noon. The 'descendant' culture is the light falling back to Earth, descending back into the darkness.

The 1960's demonstrated a rebellion against the 'corrupt' traditional values -- that is, the 1960's (anti-hero) saw the shadow of the traditional values -- racism, greed, destruction of nature, mistreatment of humans for capital gain -- and said 'no' to the traditional values in favor of...Nature (whatever Nature is).

Looking back instead of ahead, looking back to the primitive, tribal cultures, trying to find values more pure than the modern values they found so fraudulent.

Is that the Arab cultures rising out of a millennia of darkness, China by its aggregate side?

20 February 2010

WE INHABIT OUR PERCEPTIONS

We inhabit our perceptions, don't we? And (to refer to the structure of Finnegans Wake) at half-time the two forces (the optimists and the pessimists) change sides.

The optimists become pessimists and get to inhabit hell. The pessimists become optimists and get to inhabit heaven. For a time. Then the bell sounds, and we start all over again.

Get ready to switch. God has given instructions that we are all to be cooked well, on both sides.

20 February 2010

BIG BRAVE UNCLE BEN BERNANKE

Ben's policies have not done anything to stem unemployment. You must understand: the economy CANNOT GROW during the Winter of the Business Cycle. We have gone into massive debt trying to add 1% of public jobs that won't be permanent jobs anyway.

It doesn't take courage to give debt-junkies more debt. It takes courage to recognize that we are insolvent (we have been partying too long) and need to take steps to address our addiction. Higher rates, austerity, drying out...this is never easy. Courage sometimes requires we do what is not popular. Serving more drink to keep the drunks happy is not a sign of courage. Prolonging the party so you won't be the bad guy who turns out the lights is not a sign of courage.

We need to pay off our debts and we need to be encouraged to save. 0% interest rates DO NOT encourage us to save.

Sorry, preservation of a diseased status quo is not what I think we need. Japan has tried that for the last 20 years, and look where that is getting them.

In a biblical vernacular, when you sin (and spending other people's money today for your own comfort, money that your children will have to pay back tomorrow, is a sin), you have to pay for your vice. Expansion, the party, the wealth, the glory, the ‘selfish’ climb into the ‘winner’s circle’....must be paid for in the end, through contraction, loss of wealth, loss of glory, loss of love, which is a sobering process indeed.

Hubris ("I am the Master of the Universe") does not go on for ever. Imbalance -- what's more imbalanced than our current debt situation -- needs to be corrected. There is no painless way out of our mess. Bernanke's 'head in the sand' position (stalling for time) is not a sign of courage, but a sign of a fear to face the truth, and a lack of a true philosophical foundation. He thinks he can GROW the economy for ever, just by inflating bubbles as he goes, adding debt to debt to debt forever, not caring who eventually has to pay for this.

--- --- ---

The last couple of years were NOTHING like the Volcker years. Volcker came into to a situation where the Fed had failed to manage interest rates the way the should have for nearly two decades (should have been raising rates methodically around 1965 to slowly choke inflation out of the system). Politicians WON'T raise interest rates, because voters want a sloppy excessive monetary policy (growth, growth, growth): let the next administration squeeze inflation out of the system.

We should have begun to raise interest rates in 2000-2001. We should raise them until 2019 or so, and then began to ease again, to encourage expansion. If we had done so, we would have missed all the bubbles that have crucified our economy this past decade.

We should begin raising interest rates now -- and avoid the Japanese deflation economy. It will be painful. The pain is being caused, in fact, by the failure to raise rates on time, the inflation of prices of assets beyond the capacity of citizens to afford without becoming debt-slaves.

I think we should have had an upward bias to rates from 1965-1983; an easing bias 1983-2001; a tightening bias from 2001-2019, etc. I see 18 year cycles of expansion and contraction in our economic history. If these cycles are there, then we need to use them to help us understand nature's intentions. 18 years of GROWTH; 18 years of rest and regeneration. Let's understand and work with the existing business cycle. Days of expansion; Nights of contraction.

20 February 2010

AT THE END OF THE BUSINESS CYCLE…

At the 'end of the business cycle' we need to shrink debt, raise taxes on the rich and the corporations to fund social programs for our survival during the Night-Cycle. We cannot GROW business during the Winter of the business cycle -- we have to survive as a society, avoid civil war, etc. Jobs that the government provides do NOT have to be permanent jobs -- we are trying to build a bridge to get over the abyss in order to live to expand again. We will reach another business cycle expansion at some time (around 2019) -- but the idea of throwing borrowed money into a black hole to try to pretend we are not experiencing the Big Crunch is insane. Let's not follow Japan.

Expand credit, lower interest rates, lower tax rates at the beginning of the business cycle: Encourage Growth when we are supposed to be growing.

Shrink credit, raise interest rates, raise taxes as you approach the end of the business cycle.

Let the rich get rich during the business cycle expansion. Let the rich help the entire society survive the upheavals as the business cycle collapses into the creative destruction and the great social test of debt implosion (economic winter).

19 February 2010

RIGHT WING BABBLING?

Right-wing babbling? Do you think the left-wing really supports free money for the banks and corporate tycoons while Americans lose jobs, retirement money and municipalities go bankrupt?

Time to take off your Ideology Glasses (with attached moustache and Jimmy Durante nose) and look at reality more closely.

What Ben Bernanke is doing is redistributing wealth upward, not downward.

Bernanke and his enablers (and, yes, Obama is now his chief enabler, the same as George Bush Junior was) are supporting the greatest theft of public money in the history of the world.

19 February 2010

IS THE REAL RELIGION OF AMERICA THE SIMPLE DOGMA OF MAKING MONEY?

America’s behavior – and cultural prejudice -- putting money over every other value in life -- is shameful. We are clearly worshipping the Golden Calf, not the philosopher-God on the mountain.

Part of this comes from our clinging to the idea of the American Dream, which we translate almost entirely today as 'financial' freedom. Everything valuable can be bought.

Send us your tired, your weak, your poor...and we can remake them as millionaires. This is a pretty amazing myth, with a very large shadow attached, making money the only thing that matters in America, on the Earth, and in God’s Heaven. That's why we have a large share of the world's millionaires, but also a very high rate of insanity, drug addiction, plastic surgery, alcoholism, suicide, child molestation, rape, murder...because for every millionaire America creates it creates 100,000 losers (non-millionaires).

The American Dream has to be about more than just about money. Money expands and becomes tangible every 18 years and then vanishes and becomes toxic again.

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.

We seem to be basing our ‘dream’ on an illusion.

Money is seductive, yes, I understand this. Money is the ‘Whore of Babylon’.

18 February 2010

ANTI-DELEVERAGISTS: SLAVES OF A DEFUNCT ECONOMIST

We are in the death-throes of the Business Cycle. Business CANNOT come to the rescue. Business is shrinking, cutting costs, using every last dime it makes and saves to try to pay off its debts and lower its costs. Business is not hiring. Business is not expanding. That is what 'contraction' is.

And we've just begun this process -- and this is especially true when the government colludes with the banks and insurance companies to hide actual debts from the eyes of the public, so we can't follow along and see just how much financial 'over-capacity' our financial leaders generated for us. In fact, we are still in the ‘denial’ stage, still pretending that we haven’t lost an arm, haven’t had an arm torn off by the cyclone that recently hit us. Close your eyes; think good thoughts; when you wake up, everything will be the same as it was before. Well, sort of.

Yes, we are damned if we spend, and damned it we don't spend. I guess the conclusion then, based on this understanding, is that we are damned. Scylla, meet Charybdis. Rock, meet Hard Place.

But the conservatives’ claim that government is keeping business from saving us is ludicrous. Business is hanging by a thread, begging the government for help. Capitalism has strengths quite clearly. But it also had very well-defined weaknesses, much of which are the very same weaknesses that the right-wing casts in accusation at Big Government: lack of discipline, over-spending, over-investment, near-sighted self-interest.

Capitalism is best at jump-starting the business cycle once debt levels have been reduced (we are a long way from this new beginning). Capitalism can grow jobs, profits and opportunities if government gets out of the way only once the business cycle has been re-started. Capitalism also, inevitably, wrecks the train through excess and greed -- and that's where we are now.

Taxes on the wealthy should have gone up dramatically circa 1998; and interest rates should have begun to creep up 2000/2001. We need to be as steadfast in taking the air out of bubbles as we are in putting air into the bubbles. Because if we are not we get what we have today -- economic chaos caused by insolvency triggered by panic in the financial markets. We all know that what goes up also comes down. We need to build the coming down into our vocabulary of experience the same way we do the going up phase: The 'American Dream' has the other side also -- but it doesn't have to be a nightmare.

Taxes on the wealthy should be raised as we approach the end of the business cycle (to slow down the train and to prepare for the social conditions after the train stops) and should be lowered as we approach the end of the deflationary cycle. Business should be encourage to get rich and expand during the business growth cycle; the rich should be helped to get rich during the expansion. But the rich need to help pay for the social needs during the Winter of the business cycle, when nothing CAN grow, and when government programs should be funded with major assistance from those who benefited most during the earlier economic expansion.

17 February 2010

HIGHER EDUCATION IS ‘HIGHER’ FOR A REASON

Higher education is 'higher' for a reason. We have trade schools for people wanting to train for a job. Higher education is about being prepared to think for one's self and pursue a life of continued learning and devote oneself to the cultural education of the society, the expansion of the society's minds and souls.

People need jobs, yes. But we don't need to be a mercenary society in which the only value we have is the pursuit of money. We've had that pretty much for over 200 years -- we've given the world a heavy dose of finance and Disneyland and Hollywood and practical science; and we also need to give to the world philosophy, art, literature, history, higher science (theoretical). Practical sciences are fine; but they are not superior to theoretical science.

The practical mind tries to reduce everything to the basic common denominator: a full stomach. We need to stop reducing everything to something lesser, and start expanding everything to something greater. Bach and Beethoven and Shakespeare gave the world more than Warren Buffet has. Yes, Warren Buffet has helped to fill people's stomachs -- and that should not be reduced either. That success is also important. But he's no Bach or Beethoven.

The Practical Arts (such as money-making) have their place, but it's not very high in terms of the eternal history of civilizations. It's basic: the full stomach. The Impractical Arts also have their place.

I promise not to reduce the contributions of the Warren Buffets to society if you promise not to reduce the contributions of Herman Melville and James Joyce.

28 July 2011

THE SOCIALISTS ARE TO BLAME

The cry 'The Socialists are to blame' is an ideology that nicely tries to shift responsibility for the most recent failures of capitalism away from the leaders of capitalism back to the old right wing boogey man, Socialism. It works almost always in America. Blame the socialists – Americans jump on board.

But the Scandinavian countries, with socialism AND capitalism both considered positive values in their societies, PROVE pretty clearly that fiscal self-discipline AND spiritual social generosity CAN work quite well together if the balance of spirit and soul and body is the goal to which the society wants to commit itself.

America can have both too. But we can't have both if we consider one side of the whole to be our eternal, mortal enemy. The dream of ‘social well-being’ is the moral enemy of what again? The idea of ‘freedom’? The idea of the ‘individual’ becoming a millionaire, at whatever cost to the society?

There are millionaires in Scandinavia also.

We need to begin thinking clearly about what kind of society we want to become. Of course we can disagree. But a knee-jerk ‘the Socialists are to blame’ shows a remarkable lack of depth of true understanding and a powerful emotional reliance on the bully impulse.

Capitalists run the Day-Cycle. Socialists run the Night-Cycle. If there is a better way, I’d really like to be made aware of it. So far, I have not been.

17 February 2010

THE DAY CYCLE IS ENDING: GET READY FOR THE BANKING CRISIS

If one looks at American history, America has a depression or an economic 'contagion' every 36 years.

America has an 18 year expansion followed by an 18 year contraction.

Each one of these historical depressions is brought on by a banking crisis. This is NOT a rare one-time event. This is a pattern. The bankers know what time it is, and that time is running out, when the evolutionary time-piece cries out "Time for profit is ending" -- they try to steal as much as they can before this crisis becomes a full-scale deflation.

Don’t take my word for this – study American history.

American Historical Day-Cycles and Night-Cycles

Period A. 2001 – 2019: Night Cycle Deflation, Social Fragmentation, Chaos

Period B. 1983 – 2001: Day Cycle Inflation, Higher forms of Organization

Period C. 1965 – 1983: Night Cycle Deflation, Social Fragmentation, Chaos

Period D. 1947 – 1965: Day Cycle Inflation, higher forms of Organization

Period E. 1929 – 1947: Night Cycle Deflation, Social Fragmentation, Chaos

Period F. 1911 – 1929: Day Cycle Inflation, higher forms of Organization

Period G. 1893 – 1911: Night Cycle Deflation, Social Fragmentation, Chaos

Period H. 1875 – 1893: Day Cycle Inflation, higher forms of Organization

Period I. 1857 – 1875: Night Cycle Deflation, Social Fragmentation, Chaos

Period J. 1839 – 1857: Day Cycle Inflation, higher forms of Organization

Period K. 1821 – 1839: Night Cycle Deflation, Social Fragmentation, Chaos

Period L. 1803 – 1821: Day Cycle Inflation, higher forms of Organization

Period M. 1785 – 1803: Night Cycle Deflation, Social Fragmentation, Chaos

Period N. 1767 – 1785: Day Cycle Inflation, higher forms of Organization

Period O. 1749 – 1767: Night Cycle Deflation, Social Fragmentation, Chaos

Period P. 1731 – 1749: Day Cycle Inflation, higher forms of Organization

Period Q. 1713 – 1731: Night Cycle Deflation, Social Fragmentation, Chaos

17 February 2010

WHAT CAUSES THE DAY-CYCLE TO END AND THE NIGHT-CYCLE TO BEGIN?

Causes? The causes are metaphysical. The causes are the Laws of Nature.

Days (expansions of credit resulting in an eventual over-expansion of debt) are follow by Nights (deflationary contractions of credit resulting in an eventual under-expansion of debt, via bankruptcies and defaults). Days/Nights/Days/Nights...ad infinitem.

The Fed is following Japan's playbook, a playbook designed, I'm quite sure, by American theorists and bankers. This means lie and pretend, stall for time, and stretch out the inevitable indefinitely. Japan will still need to undergo an awful crash to get to the other side, even with all this suffering, this current deflationary death by 1,000 cuts.

If we follow the Japanese, we'll have a deflation stretched into the future for ever, until we eventually bite the bullet and face the truth. Contraction is built into the Economic system for a reason, as Winter is built into the Natural system for a reason -- rest, seed gestation, colder weather to kill off the insect population.... this works to help guarantee that the next generation wil be stronger when the Sun returns and the next growing season returns.

The illusion is that the economy can GROW forever. We are laboring under the shadow of a huge and damaging misunderstanding. We need both growth and rest from growth; we need both inflation and deflation, sequentially. Until we realize this, we will be at the mercy of overeducated positivists and ‘heroes’ who think they can save us from the laws of Nature.

17 February 2010

EBULLIENT MARKETS, HOUSING STARTS AND ANTICIPATING FRIDAY'S CPI ANNOUNCEMENT

The Consumer Price Index doesn't really seem to measure real inflation. We've been through 20+ years of inflation (check housing prices over that time, the cost of college education (up 1800%), the cost of durable goods (cars up over 1000%), heath care costs, food, energy)...and barely a blip out of the CPI.

The CPI seems to overweight income/wages. Wages have been trending down for some time. If wages don't chase higher prices of goods, the CPI doesn't measure inflation.

Inflation in everything but wages is still inflation because debt rising to catch up to prices IS a form of wage inflation that the CPI also ignores.

Does the CPI also ignore housing bubbles and stock market bubbles?

Politicians want a CPI that ignores real inflation because raising interest rates is a sure way for a politician to lose the next election. Higher interest rates slow borrowing, slow economic expansion, slow employment gains, and trigger anxiety or even revolutionary discontent in the populace.

The ‘happy story’ has no room for higher interest rates. The ‘happy story’ is that everything just gets better and better, that life just gets happier and happier, and the Americans just get richer and richer. If you want to get elected in America you have to master the ‘happy story’ – because voters want to just get happier and happier for ever.

But it is the ‘happy story’ that destroys civilizations. Inflation destroys the local currency, turns land values into happy slot machines, turns peasants into angry Marxists, turns societies toward civil war.

The ‘happy story’ is true half of the time; the ‘unhappy story’ is also true half of the time. The society that pretends the ‘unhappy story’ doesn’t exist or can be defeated will have a short and violent life. Ignoring or fighting half of the world is not the wise road to take if one wishes to have a long life on Earth.

27 February 2010

THE ‘MALE NATURE’ OF THE DAY-CYCLE;

AND THE ‘FEMALE NATURE’ OF THE NIGHT-CYCLE

I have been told that the alphabetic character for male masturbation in Japanese translates as '10 strokes'. The alphabetic character for female masturbation in Japanese translates as '10,000 strokes'.

My contention is that we have passed from a Male World (Day-Cycle) to a Female World (Night-Cycle) -- are passing, as we speak. Dusk is 2010; Dawn is 2028.

Getting things done in this new environment is not going to be so easy. Fixing things will take time. We might as well relax, don't hurry, and enjoy things that we can during this declining, slowing condition. No point in hurrying. Time ends at Dusk; Time starts again at Dawn. You won't miss anything. Evolution runs 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM, Male Time. Nothing gets lost. Everything improves over Male Time. During Female Time, things don't get better -- the world relaxes, takes its time, writes poetry, falls in love, takes a nap sometimes in the afternoon. (Throw your watches away.)

Oh yes: causality (cause and effect – the ‘law’ governing the Day-Cycle World) gets replaced in the Night-Cycle by analogy and metaphor -- this is like this other thing, and everything fits together. Meaning, as a goal of living, replaces efficient use of energy, the Day-Cycle logic.

'10 strokes' is the picture of efficiency. Get it done and move on to the next problem, the next crisis. We've got things to do; and Time is running out!

'10,000 strokes' is the picture of a restful appreciation of similarities between things, which is a rebirth of the poetic mind. Space as a force gains power over Time. Why hurry? We have all Night to enjoy ourselves.

We have 18 more years of Female-Time to endure. We might as well try to enjoy it. We aren't going to have much choice. Oh, yes: keep an eye on the distant border, because, while we rest, a monster is being hatched overseas somewhere, who we will have to fight and defeat when we wake up again: some kind of invader we will have to conquer.

16 February 2010

OBAMA IS THE DREAM-MASTER, AS WE PASS THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH (2001-2019)

Obama's job should be understood as being to help America survive as we pass through the Valley of the Shadow of Death from 2001-2019 (this was also the job of the Democrats from 1965-1983 and from 1929-1947).

The fertilization that leads Man, technology, science, civilization, and evolution a step forward does not happen during the Nights. Nothing grows during the Nights/Winters.

Business, Man, technology, science, civilization, and evolution has gone into hibernation, has gone to sleep, is deleveraging and is down-sizing. This frustrates people who believe in and want perpetual growth -- perpetual growth, in the cellular system, is cancer by the way -- but THERE IS NO PERPETUAL GROWTH. There is growth and rest, there is growth and fruition and then darkness and gestation.

Civilization fruits -- civilization IS the fruit, in fact. The seed is in the fruit. The fruit decays on the tree and then falls back to the Earth. The Earth gets dark and cold and unproductive. The seed struggles to free itself from the dead body of the rotting fruit. As the seed does free itself of the Old Idea, the corpse of the Old Idea, it buries itself in the leaves and soil to try to protect itself from the death and cold of Winter -- this, IS, in fact, the Valley of the Shadow of Death. The seed WILL BE the next generation, the plant in the next incarnation. But it needs to gestate, hide in the dark, grow a strong root system. And the seed will not become a new plant until the time is right. It will poke its head out of the Earth when the season is warm again and the Sun is high -- not before, not because we are tired of the Winter and want warmth and wealth and productive living again, evolution again. Evolution and De-Evolution work together in fact. Evolution grows up; De-Evolution grows down.

During the Night-Cycle we dream up the next stage of our civilization, the dream that we then carry into reality when the alarm clock goes off and wakes us again. Alarm clock is set for 2019.

28 July 2011

SOVEREIGN DEFAULT: STUCK BETWEEN DIRE AND DISASTROUS

Greece and America are in similar boats. So are Japan, England, Spain, France, Italy, Ireland, Portugal, Eastern European states, Russia too probably, South American states also to a lesser extent....and China is blowing a huge bubble in order to keep a lid on worker discontent in the homeland.

When the global economy is running on all cylinders, it's pretty impressive, I must admit. When the engine cuts out, however, the whole world spins into dissolution.

This is not a Greco-American crisis. It's a world crisis. Anyone who thinks it is not should remember the wonderful global economy of the 1920's and what happened to it when the world hiccoughed in 1929, and then started to break down -- and don't forget the rise of fascism and world war because those are elements of such a breakdown.

16 February 2010

THE GLOBAL ECONOMY IS DEAD.

LONG LIVE THE GLOBAL ECONOMY (WHICH WILL BE REBORN IN 2028).

You seem to be arguing that the global economy is still alive; and all we have to do is believe in efficiency again and everything will begin to grow. I don't argue against efficiency and competition. Efficiency and competition for efficiency result in the best returns for the global economy.

But I argue that the global economy is essentially DEAD. We have to pass out of the corpse of the global economy in order to cycle back, eventually, toward the next stage of the beginning of the growth of the next global economy. Getting to that place requires passing through the contraction. The contraction IS a sinking back into protectionism (in one form or another) – the current and present dangerous protectionism is a currency protectionism being played heroically but feebly by Mister Ben Bernanke and his friends around the world. Ben is leading – the world is responding. The theme song of this attempt is, of course, the ‘Re-Inflation Rag’.

Arguing that any form of protectionism does not lead to the optimum economic system misses the point. I agree, a ‘protected’ economy entity does not lead to the optimum economic system. But it is a stage toward a more optimum economic system. It was a stage of stabilization AND regeneration, withdrawal, self-consciousness.

We'd all rather stay at maximum expansion rate for ever, of course. Why else would our leaders (Greenspan, Bernanke, etc.) be selling their souls for one extra bubble. We want to live AT THE TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN – that goes without saying. But we have been kicked out of heaven by Eden’s angel who is now blowing a trumpet; we are now descending the mountain. The only way to get back to the top of the mountain is down, into the valley (of course, this is the Valley of the Shadow of Death), to the other side of the river, where we must drink from the River Lethe before beginning the long ascent again.

The global economy is and was a great idea for efficient use of materials and energy. But it is an economic kind of High Noon. It comes only once in a day. Midnight is low efficient, low energy...but you still have to go through it. Suffering, deprivation, hardship. That is why religion never fully leaves us (even though we definitely do not need a God when we are beating our chest at High Noon, proclaiming ourselves 'Masters of the Universe'.)

Masters once; disasters thereafter.

The Light will come again, just not tomorrow or the next day.

16 February 2010

HOW CAN THE ECONOMY BE SINKING WHEN STOCKS ARE RISING?

2019 is the coming bottom of the economic depression. The stock market is NOT directly connected to the economy. The stock market is a secondary reality dominated by Big Money and manipulated by Big Money controlling the Federal Reserve Bank for their own ends.

The stock market will rally and fall back. You will be able to trade it for gains during this Night-Cycle. But a true bull market won't really begin until the economy turns back up.

The 1929 high in the Dow Jones Average was not surpassed until 1955. Of course, the bull market started before 1955. But it does say something that the old high resisted for so long, for more than 18 years.

STOCK MARKET RETURNS DURING DAY/NIGHT CYCLES

Weekly Prices:

Night Cycle: 1929- 1947.

1929 DJIA High: 386.1. High broken: 11/30/1954.

Night Cycle: 1965-1983.

2/28/1966 DJIA High: 1001.11. High broken: 1/31/1973

1/30/1972 DJIA High: 1067.2. High broken: 12/31/1982

Night Cycle: 2001-2019. **

1/31/2000 DJIA High: 11908.5. High broken: 10/31/06

1/31/2007 DJIA High: 14297.86

**NDX, Nasdaq Index, Technology Stocks: first bubble

3/31/2000 NDX High: 4816.35.

current price: 2362. Currently down: 52%.

18 February 2010

ELEVEN LESSONS THE U.S. AND THE WORLD CAN LEARN FROM ICELAND

Lesson 1. Remember, the banks and bankers are the ox and the oxen, not the cart.

Lesson 2. Remember, the banks and bankers are the ox and the oxen, not the cart.

Lesson 3. Remember, the banks and bankers are the ox and the oxen, not the cart.

Lesson 4. Remember, the banks and bankers are the ox and the oxen, not the cart.

Lesson 5. Remember, the banks and bankers are the ox and the oxen, not the cart.

Lesson 6. Remember, the banks and bankers are the ox and the oxen, not the cart.

Lesson 7. Remember, the banks and bankers are the ox and the oxen, not the cart.

Lesson 8. Remember, the banks and bankers are the ox and the oxen, not the cart.

Lesson 9. Remember, the banks and bankers are the ox and the oxen, not the cart.

Lesson 10. Remember, the banks and bankers are the ox and the oxen, not the cart.

Lesson 11. Remember, the banks and bankers are the ox and the oxen, not the cart.

Use the oxen to get things done for the society. But don't let the oxen decide where the cart is to go and how fast it should run. The driver of the cart must be provided with a sharp whip.

15 February 2010

FEAR OF OBAMA, THE MARXIST

Sadly, if the Business Kings under the direction of George W. had not sunk the global economy through the art of 'policing themselves so well' -- 'Greed is good', remember -- Obama would not be in a political position to make all of us so afraid of what he is doing.

Who killed the golden goose? The golden goose-keepers did. Now they want someone to blame. Typical.

Let's blame the black man, the 'socialist’!

This has been done before in America. Martin Luther King was a communist also, remember.

15 February 2010

WHO WRECKED THE GRAVY TRAIN? THE BANKERS DID

Who drove the world economy into the ditch? It was the bankers, I might remind you, not the socialists, the Greeks, and the unionizers. The bankers' claim was that we would always be able to finance debt -- we could spend as much as we wanted as individuals or as societies. Goldman Sachs helped Greece to hide their debt with sophisticated models of deceit.

The whole world got on the bankers gravy train. And then the bankers wrecked the gravy train.

The problem in Greece is the problem in every nation. Too much capital destroyed by the bankers coupled with too much spending and too little tax revenue in a world being crushed economically by the Greatest World Depression in History.

The bankers destroyed the world; and they are now pretending it is NOT destroyed, or, if destroyed, it was destroyed by someone else, the socialists, the unionizers, the parasites in the society who want taxpayer money for doing nothing. The ‘parasites in the society who want taxpayer money for doing nothing’: that almost describes the bankers, doesn’t it – except they did something: they wrecked the gravy train.

14 February 2010

WHO WILL FAVOR THE LONG-TERM AND SACRIFICE FOR THE GREATER GOOD?

That's a great question. We all will eventually. We will have no choice. Because the 'path of self-interest' will have played itself out and resulted in our global bankruptcy.

At that point, survival will depend upon a society cooperating and working together (look at the 1930's as a model for this).

The Day-Cycle highlights and supports the pursuit of ‘private’ dreams and ambitions. The individual, in his ‘bubble’, seeking his treasure and destiny largely undisturbed by ‘the world’.

The Night-Cycle highlights and supports the pursuit of ‘public’ dreams and ambitions, chief of which becomes, of course, survival. The individual ‘bubble’ has imploded. All the elements of the world – standing naked now, and bubble-less and vulnerable – together in the formless sea of chaos, each nation or community becoming the new common ground supporting the ‘group dream’.

14 February 2010

THE ONLY WAY TO GROW JOBS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE BUSINESS CYCLE IS LOCALLY, NOT GLOBALLY

Sorry. The ONLY way to grow jobs in America again -- as I see it at least -- is through protectionism. You want jobs in the auto industry in America, then Americans have to buy cars produced in America. The same is true in other industries.

What we lose in international trade we will gain in national trade, and we will be able to vitalize our own industries again, with a new generation of technologies.

We have a huge market in America, a lot of resources, and a lot of 'needs' in terms of products. But the global model is no longer working for us. The global model is stuck in reverse, and will not get out of reverse until we let it go. Globalism, in fact, is NOT a characteristic of the early stages of the business cycle, but a characteristic of the fully-developed business cycle, as it approaches completion or fulfillment. A business cycle begins locally and expands globally over time.

Some countries -- most countries -- don't have the luxury we have. And the end of the global market means a resulting increase in international instability. It is not a perfect solution. No solutions are perfect. But sometimes you open the only door that is there, even if it brings with it a threat of disturbance and fear.

When you can’t go back, you go forward, come what may.

14 February 2010

GOLDMAN SACHS: DOING GOD’S WORK OR SATAN’S WORK?

Lucifer indeed! Remember Satan (Lucifer) appearing to Jesus in the wilderness, showing him a vision of the city, saying (I'm paraphrasing): 'Join me, and I will give you power over the earth, I will give you wealth and power and pleasure...!'

Isn't that what Goldman Sachs was saying also?

Goldman Sachs has been the python; and the world has been its dinner date.

No one likes a bully. God doesn’t like a bully either.

15 February 2010

LET’S DESTROY THE AMERICAN UNIONS!

It’s hard to see how unions are being protected, unless you mean the auto industry. Unions have been destroyed over the past two decades. That was the plan of the Business Class, to get rid of high-paying manufacturing jobs by sending them overseas, destroying the unions at the same time; and destroying service jobs by castrating the governments that support service sector unions. If Obama is trying to bring life back to the working class, in little drips now, then it is because unions have been decimated by the 'free market' revolution led by Reagan in 1983.

We're heading for a system of modern 'feudalism' at the moment, with the banks and the corporate elite on top and everyone else on the bottom living on the banks' capital and paying off monthly debts to the 'landlord' owners of the society.

Honoring the lifestyles of the ‘rich and famous' creates a lot of glitz and a lot of glamour ... but it also creates a huge shadow in the underworld, a shadow which rises up at some point to terrify the shallow, fearful money-changers, who, of course, own the armies and the police forces of America.

I think those money-changers are going to get thrown out of the temple again.

Just a feeling I have.

15 February 2010

DEBT AND BIOLOGICAL SYSTEMS

Ivo Janecka writes:

Hormones and Credit: Are they related?

John Mauldin writes, “…the set of decisions one faces for any given circumstance is limited by the decisions one has made in the past....” It seems that there is no escape from the influence of history.

Looking at human body as a biologic model, the dependence on history, our past choices, broadly relates to the second and third phase of life. A schematic model could recognize phase one, over which we actually don’t have that much control, can be called the hormonal phase. It lasts couple of decades and is driven primarily by body’s innate need to grow and reproduce. It is in the second phase, a decision phase, where we actually exercise a great deal of control (positive or negative). The third phase, the phase of consequences, is again slipping out of our direct control because the past decisions can be so influential.

If this analogy seems too distant from a possible sovereign financial default John Mauldin discussed, one only needs to substitute the word “credit” for the word “hormones” to see the pattern. As the above biologic model contemplates, hormones are self-generated within a system through self-organization utilizing feedback loops. Extrapolating into the economic model, the hormones, here termed “credit,” is also self-generated by the market system allowing for healthy expansion, growth, and multiplication. Oscillating between the biologic and economic model, we can see that artificially going beyond the self-organizing/system... amount of hormones/credit, may temporarily extend the “hormonal/credit” phase but at huge and detrimental cost to the entire system, be it the body or the economy. The correlative examples that can be used here are steroid use in a baseball player and the excessive credit offerings to the economy by the government. The consequences for both models are very clear: health problem for one and economic crises to the other.

Systems science draws strongly from biologic principles fine-tuned through evolution. Healthy economy can greatly benefit from its principles. “Mother Nature” is quite generous and benevolent but it also has its limits. Respect them or your misaligned decisions will follow you into the, inevitably arriving, “phase of consequences.”

Very nice. This is the 'over-expansion' phase -- or what I like to call the 'Viagra' Economy, during which, after legitimate expansion has occurred, the Fed continues to jack-down rates and over-inflate the bubble through fear of decline, stagnation, old age, impotence, loss of manhood or creative vigor.

"This time it's different!” Why is it different this time? “Because this time I have Viagra – or unlimited money-printing."

Which is followed by the "Oh my God I'm having a heart attack" stage and then the "Oh my God what have I done" stage. Then bed-rest and a lot of self-recrimination. Early retirement or death.

15 February 2010

WHY DO THE DEMOCRATS LEAD MOST OF OUR WAR EFFORTS?

Sad how the Democrats end up leading most of our war efforts.

World War I: we didn't start that war; but Woodrow Wilson eventually did end the war.

World War II: didn't start that one either. FDR wanted to come in; but the isolationists wanted to stay home, because it was Europe's war, and Asia's war. (Another way to read this: the Republicans were ideologically aligned to the fascists, and did not want to fight them because they were really on their side -- they wanted the fascists to win, because the fascists were 'pro-business'.)

Korean War: North Korea did invade South Korea, lest we forget. Here comes Harry Truman.

Why have the Democrats been the American warriors ever since: the Republicans claimed the Democrats were 'soft on communism', cowards who were willing to sell out the American way of life to the commies (remember Joe McCarthy), so Korea and Vietnam were testing grounds to prove the Democrats were loyal and had guts and patriotism.

Iraq One: Bush senior responded to a major mistake by Saddam. Iraq Two: Bush Junior tried to finish what Bush Senior should have done in the early 90's but did not do.

Today: Afghanistan and Iraq really can't be called Democrat's wars. Obama inherited these wars, like he inherited the now-defunct global economy.

Why do WAR and economic depression go together rather nicely (in many places, not just America)? Because the army keeps men employed and less inclined to foment war at home (a civil war caused by anger and frustration because of their unemployment and poverty).

Actually the Democrats fighting America’s wars does make sense from this tradition: it is always the American working-poor and middle-class who fight the wars while the American Business Ruling Class stays home and makes money off the wars. Does it have to be this way? No, it does not.

15 February 2010

SOUP AND SANDWICH (AGAIN): CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM DO GO TOGETHER

Many Americans are polarized in the 'all or nothing camp'. You can't have capitalism AND socialism together. This is a very pure ideology; but the world is not composed of pure ideologies, only minds are.

Capitalism and socialism go together quite nicely in fact, if done correctly.

14 February 2010

WHY ARE THE IRRESPONSIBLE SOCIALISTS IN SCANDINAVIA STILL PAYING THEIR BILLS?

I love those damned responsible socialists in the north of Europe. Socialist social programs and still paying their debts on time. What do all the 'capitalists' on this board have to say about that?

As I always say, it's not about entitlements, its about 'financing' the entitlements. It's about disciplining spending so you can pay your bills. Discipline is the key word – not entitlements.

12 February 2010

WHY WE NEED AUSTERITY ALSO

Why do depressions (economic, personal, national) come along regularly? Because the society and the individual need austerity as part of its history. It needs to recover from the party by learning to say 'no' to itself. That is how it regains strength, regains virtue and vigor, and regains purpose.

We have had the party; now we get the hangover, the pain, the self-recrimination, and, eventually, the recovery. The party can't last all the time, or it kills you as a nation.

We must be careful however. Once austerity starts, war tends to come around the corner. When war is appearing and politicians and businessmen are clamoring for war, understand that they are totally out of ideas and are trying to use war-fever to save their own jobs.

14 February 2010

HAVE WE BEEN WATERING THE TREE OF LIFE, OR JUST STEALING FROM IT?

Marvin Clark wrote: 'Perhaps living through a depression for a decade crystallized in their minds their dreams and aspirations. Subsequently, tax receipts from productive citizens and an expanding economy repaid the investment. Somewhere along the way, we stopped looking at our nation as an asset to fund and nourish, but rather its many parts as a liability to truncate...'

I think this paragraph is full of wisdom. We stopped looking at our nation as a tree that we must water for the sake of the tree, itself, and began looking at a tree filled with fruit as something rich that we needed to raid before someone else beat us to our share. Clearly, that's what the banks were all about especially during the last decade. But it's not just the banks; most members of the society also joined the 'I must get mine' mentality, replacing the 'I must give mine' (energy, time, creativity) which characterizes the spring time of the business cycle.

Ok; so now the fruit is gone, stolen and fallen to the ground, overripe, rotting. What now? The seeds of the next generation have to get out of the dead body, bury themselves in the earth again (the obscurity and the relative warmth and moisture of the earth protects the seed from the birds and bugs who want to eat them and the cold wind and air that can freeze them). The seeds bury themselves, rest, gestate, and evolve a root system that will prepare them for the next round evolution when the period of daylight returns (evolution is engineered by the daylight). When the sun comes back, the seeds, having secured their roots in the soil, spring up out of the soil and begin racing toward the sun.

Societies go through a similar process. The Great Growth Generation is the light that comes out of the darkness of depression and leads with unselfish direction for the sake of the society. After that, selfishness grows; the society becomes dissonant and discordant. One voice becomes many voices, many dreams; the society becomes a treasury to be exploited. The creative light is corrupted, darkened; levity, the power of expansion (the future) is overpowered by gravity, the power of compression (the past).

A new society cannot be GROWN until the cancer process is completed and selfishness strips the tree, strips the meat from the fruit; and leaves the 'dead' seed exposed on the soil below.

We need to endure the Winter and the darkness of inaction, before we can get back again to the season of building the next 'version' of our society, selfless and generous, unified and spiritual (in the highest sense). Many of us are longing for this stage. But it can't come until it comes.

What living through a depression for a decade does is 'crystallize in our minds our dreams and aspirations'. That is the beauty of the night, of the dream, of the period of rest -- it allows us to map out (or blueprint) the next stage of our active life. And to regenerate ourselves so that physically and spiritually we can become re-charged for the next Daylight period.

Some people view taxes as a crime against humanity. This is emotional logic, filled with selfish reasoning, inspired in large part by a government that is, itself, filled with selfish thieves who always put themselves ahead of their calling as statesmen. There is NO SOCIETY AT ALL without taxation. There is no police, no schools, no highways, no sanitation, no sewage, no military. How can anyone EXCEPT those libertarians and survivalists who desire the end of society really claim that taxation is ignoble or illegal? What we really want is a fair tax; AND a system of elected governors who are not thieves and political bag-men.

I advocate higher taxes, especially on the rich and on businesses, as we approach the end of a business cycle (the goal is not to GROW an economy during a Depression, which is not possible, but to mitigate the social stress caused by the collapse of the depression, without causing the government to go more deeply in debt) -- and lower taxes, especially on the rich and on businesses, as we approach the beginning of the next business cycle.

For example, the last business cycle: Top, 1965; Bottom, 1983; Top, 2001; Bottom, 2019. Raise taxes beginning 1956-1974; lower taxes 1974 - 1992. Raise taxes 1992 - 2010. Lower taxes 2010 - 2028.

During the Day Cycles (1983-2001, 1947-1965) interest rates should be lowered and taxes should come down to encourage growth and profit; during the Night Cycles (1965-1983; 2001-2019) interest rates should be raised and taxes should also be raised as rich individuals and rich corporations share the expense of governing during a winter season when the economy, by law, contracts, CANNOT grow, and social programs work to de-fuse social conflict during the dark night of deflation, unwinding of debt, and economic contraction caused by over-expansion and by the raising of interest rates.

During the first half of the business cycle -- expansion --the world is seen through a positive light which allows for sharing, a common goal, unity, high-minded self-sacrifice; and, during the second half of the business cycle -- contraction -- the world is seen through an increasingly negative light: the shadow side of the world is seen, the vices, crimes, selfishness; and so disunity results, cynicism, lowered expectations, alienation, bitterness.

In a religious sense, God (the Light) gives -- positive light is generous and filled with love -- and God (the Light) also takes away -- negative light is 'angry', judgmental, divisive. These are descriptions of stages of life, and of the Business Cycle/Social Cycle. God warns us over and over again in the Old Testament not to put our trust in money because He is going to take it away from us every 18 years (every second generation).

Pythagoras once wrote (or was it Plato): 'The Laws of Nature are the thoughts of God.'

12 February 2010

WHAT THE FEDERAL RESERVE DOES AND WHAT IT IS SUPPOSED TO DO

My understanding of the Federal Reserve's role in America is that they are there to feed the bubble at the beginning of the business cycle (1983, for example) and kill the bubble at the end of the expansion (2001).

The Fed kills the bubble to avoid the tragedy of hyperinflation, of trying to force-feed a broken bubble with the energy of cheaper and cheaper local currency. Patching a gigantic hole in the bubble with gigantic band-aids will not work. The bubble has imploded because (right, all you astrophysicists?) because the gravity of matter (debt) has exceeded the velocity of expansion.

The Big Crunch describes the end of the world. The blimp becomes too heavy with debt to fly. The blimp crashes to the Earth. The blimp needs to be rebuilt – and the first act is to unload all the debt it has been carrying, which, eventually, inverted its love of altitude.

The Fed did the first part of the job, the feeding the bubble; but not the second, the killing of the bubble.

The Fed will almost NEVER do the second part, because the fear of Deflation (which is a fear of castration on the primitive, unconscious psychological level, a fear of loss of power, prestige, wealth, prerogative) is strong enough to keep most individuals from choosing decline and death, the end of the expansion -- they'd rather lie to themselves, saying 'it's different this time'.

It's never different this time. But, then again, freely giving up power is a hard path to follow. You have to follow the law to do it, rather than your own fear of loss, or your own ambition and self-interest.

12 February 2010

CAN GERMANY DISCIPLINE THE EUROPEAN STATES AND MAKE EUROPE BEHAVE BETTER?

Bad precedent, giving away money as a condition for a failure of discipline: Greece first; Ireland; Spain next; Italy next; then Portugal; is France getting in line too? Where does it end?

Maybe Berlin should be the permanent EU capital and run ALL the financial, political and military affairs of the states of the EU, if they can only get the French to sign off on it. It would certainly be more efficient that way.

Germany is the father. It's not easy to discipline all those grown children. Especially now that Greek Labor Unions are marching and setting fires and throwing bottles and refusing to be reasonable.

Come to think of it: didn’t we give American banks billions of dollars as a reward for their failure to practice discipline? What is the message we are sending to future generations in doing this? Pay your bills on time; if you don’t, the government will pay them for you!

10 February 2010

SOCIAL SECURITY IS NOT AN ‘ENTITLEMENT’, IT IS A ‘SACRED TRUST’, AN INVESTMENT BY WORKING AMERICANS IN THEIR FINANCIAL FUTURE

The problem is NOT entitlements. The problem is financing the entitlements. We've all been 'donating' social security money to the government all our working lives, so we could get money back at the end of our working lives. This is money that has been taken out of our paychecks and invested for our own futures. But the government has been spending that money as fast as they can, assuming they will be able to bring new ponzi boys and girls into the system to make up for their profligacy, their unwillingness to say no to themselves and their constituents.

Social security is NOT welfare. Social Security is a return on our investment, in a much truer way than TARP is or was. How much Social Security money was sunk into the bailout of billionaires and their families on Wall Street?

Does the US Government have more integrity than the Enron Board of Directors had? Time will tell.

If it doesn’t have, then it will need to be reformed, through a ‘hostile takeover’ if necessary.

10 February 2010

HANK PAULSON? THE DEVIL OR THE LORD?

IS THIS GUY NOSFERATU?

Hank Paulson is the ULTIMATE INSIDER. Of course he knows everyone on a first name basis. This was an insider's game. Insider's in the Treasury, insiders running the Fed, insiders in control of the government. It smells like a coup. Is it a coup? Or is it just a group of very powerful insiders doing what is best for the American public…?

These insiders have never done ANYTHING that put the American public ahead of their own interests.

Time to turn the table on them I guess. If we don't do it now, it will soon be too late. Remember what happened to Rome's republic, how easily it was lost.

Now the battle for the public mind begins. America needs to be reminded that Hank Paulson saved the world, along with little Ben Bernanke, and that America's bankers are ALWAYS saving the world (and protecting AMERICANS!) in a very dangerous, complicated (much too complicated for most Americans to understand) international game (war) of high finance.

As long as America has a tight-knit group of American Patriots protecting her from the subtle crimes and destructions in the global financial sector we can all sleep well, because they, our protectors, will let no harm come to us or our wives and our children.

Ahh, it's such a wonderful bedtime story.

10 February 2010

IS AMERICA AT ZERO HOUR, AS MARC FABER WRITES – OR IS AMERICA APPROACHING THE GOLDEN AGE AGAIN?

Suggested ‘advantages of America’: Effective Rule of Law, Strong Property Rights, Unsurpassed Military, Dynamic and growing economy, Good demographics, Everyone wants to live here, Widest and deepest capital markets, Strong infrastructure, unsurpassed Higher Education System. It goes on and on...

I agree with some of this.

But things change. A decade of depression is going to change a lot. Colorado Springs is already turning out street lights, dropping firemen and policemen off the city budget, cutting bus lines at night and on the weekends. This is just the beginning; and it will happen everywhere in America.

Actually, we have NOT had a vital and growing economy since the 1950's. In the 1980's we began turning the economy over to the financial overlords .... investment services, insurance, and banking grew magnificent profits -- as did health care, as the result of the health cartel price-fixing crimes that are only now beginning to be understood -- housing, also, thanks to bubble economics -- but the rest of the American economy has been shrinking for half a century. The problem with the focus on the financial sector as a growth locomotive is that this resulted in the consumer's debt-slavery. Also, it depends on low interest rates to work – which results in inflation as a way of life, which robs the poor, turning them into a class of debt-slaves.

The result of this Reagan economic revolution (freedom to the bankers, destruction for American labor) was that we are now sinking into a modern feudalism, in which the bankers and financial overlords own everything -- and everyone else lives for the banks, funneling payments each month into the bankers' treasury. Wages are lower, jobs are gone. Your idea that we are a 'dynamic and growing economy' appears to be a fantasy based on an historical truth, now gone.

The 'everyone wants to live here' conjecture will not last when there are no jobs here and people are living in tents, instead of mega-mansions developers tricked the new debt-junkies into buying, which subsequently broke their backs financially.

Millions of empty rotting houses in America, Spain, China, Ireland, Eastern Europe...that tells us something about the big blow-off of the last stage in the business cycle, doesn't it? There will be no really significant economic growth for in America for at least another decade.

9 February 2010

LEST WE FORGET: ALL NATIONS ARE DANGEROUS AND AGGRESSIVE IF THEY HAVE THE POLITICAL NECESSITY AND THE MILITARY POWER TO BECOME SO

I'll remind you that Japan became an 'empire' (the Empire of the Sun) in the 1930's because they had no real oil of their own. It is not just the American military that will play 'grab the resources' over the next decade, it will be every military on the globe, if they can afford to make a play.

There is nothing inherently evil about America or even the American military that is not also shared by every country in the world; and every country's military, so long as they are stronger than their neighbor, will, if desperate enough, consider their neighbor a candidate for a 'hostile take-over'.

Donald Trump even began to speak of this quite candidly in his recent unsuccessful run for the presidency.

America has orchestrated the 'Pax Americana' over the last half-century because it is good for business. As America sinks back into relative financial weakness, more aggression in the world is very likely, more open theft of resources. Those who cheer America's decline will discover another side to their hopes, another return to the good old days when war was a common tool of capital enterprise (and not just the threat of war, as has been during the Paw Americana).

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There are a lot of perma-anti-Americans who want to see America fall. America has brought much of this on herself, through arrogance and chest-beating. Alas, no one roots for Goliath.

Markets and the economy are NOT related. Interesting but true. Part of the reason for this is that Big Money has been manipulating the markets for a long time. The stock market was designed as a funding instrument for capital investment. But Big Money found out long-ago that the Stock Market was the original Las Vegas. As long as Big Money controlled the trading, they could make money no matter what direction the economy was going. And if they could get the Small Money to follow, they could trap small money in their rallies and get away with almost anything.

Sound like a 'conspiracy theory'? Yes. Of course, believing Big Money does not cheat and steal in the stock market ignores how big money got their money in the first place -- by cheating and stealing in business. Naivety is not a form of virtue in terms of understanding how human nature works. The thieves are on top; the saints are on the bottom. That is how the Earth works. It is different in Heaven, in fact. But we are talking about Earth at the moment.

I think Marc Faber has a fundamental understanding: your cannot spend more than you make indefinitely. That is the path to bankruptcy. That is the path the whole world has been following over the last half-century. Pyramid money into one loan on top of another; as the asset values grow, borrow more and pyramid it again, ad infinitum. This works until the asset structure collapses. Then, suddenly, the assets are worth less than what one owes on them. And, suddenly, instead of being filthy rich one is filthy and poor, under water, drowning, and shouting at the government to provide a bailout. The rich don’t want to pay taxes when things are going well. In fact they pay lawyers billions to infect laws with loopholes they can use to steal the money they make back from the coffers of government. Lawyers, remember, work for criminals. If we weren’t a nation of criminals we would not employ millions of lawyers to try to save us. But (finishing a thought), the rich certainly enjoy having access to taxes when they run their yacht into an iceberg and have to beg to government for a ride to shore (and a suitcase of money to get started again).

This is why we have a depression (or stagflation) every 18 years. The government has poured billions or trillions into the economy to try to re-start it. Those of you who argue that we are recovering must admit that we are getting a tiny return on our investment (government stimulus). How long can we afford to get a tiny tick up in employment at the cost of billions in government loans? The economy 'stabilizes' and the deficits grow? Governments approach bankruptcy at higher velocity in order to 'stabilize' the economy. Sounds like a bad investment to me.

And where is private enterprise while all of this government seeding occurs? It's trying like hell to pay down debts, reduce costs, lay off people, cut benefits...business is not GROWING, it's declining, it's retreating, it is circling the wagons. And this is even before the real protectionism has set in. What happens when American populists start getting elected for promising American voters to slap an excess tariff on all non-US made automobiles and Japan and Germany and Korea and Sweden respond by making American goods no longer welcome in their countries.

We are still in the denial stage of death. I speak not just of the US, but of the global economy. The global economy is dying. This will bring all kinds of changes.

America is still young, still with many resources, still separated by huge oceans from much of the world. America will fall; but America will also rise again. There is a moral lesson in all of this: never forget, when things are good, that they will NOT remain good for ever. When you are rich, remember poverty; when you are poor, remember wealth. This is an immutable law; it is not an opinion.

A thought about rich lawyers: We should pass a law that lawyers who defend clients who are acquitted of criminal charges are legally and financially responsible for all crimes subsequently committed by said 'innocent party'. Our legal system is NOT working. We encourage criminality through our American Dream of wealth at any cost -- and then we build more prisons and educate more lawyers to keep the crimes and punishments expanding at any cost.

Expand or die -- isn't that the businessman's creed?

9 February 2010

DEFLATION IS DEATH AND A JOURNEY INTO THE UNDERWORLD –

LET’S NOT PRETEND IT IS NOT

Deflation is a kind of spiritual and moral death, a journey into the Underworld. You can't complete this journey successfully by pretending it isn't happening, or by renaming 'despair' 'optimism' in the hope that 'positive thinking' will make the nightmare melt away.

The only way to journey through the Underworld is to confront the truth, admit to yourself you have made mistakes (sinned) and make reparations for your sins...raise rates, wipes out debts, suffer through bankruptcies and defaults, convert your society from a soft, over-liquid consumer, debt-riddled society to a hard, producer, savings-inflated austere society.

It is not easy. The journey through the Underworld is built-in to the story of life as both a road to travel (in the dark) and a lightning-rod by which to remake one’s self and one's society. It is a process of emptying out, of giving up (things), of losing what is not essential in the spiritual quest.

This road is not supposed to be easy. But it brings one’s self and one's nation back to its roots, back to its purpose, and back to its better nature. It transforms one into a ‘saver’ (‘a saver of the world’, more generous, more clean, and again vigorous) from a ‘user’ (an inflated selfish isolated soul dedicated to amassing wealth and fearing change as the dreaded death-blow to one’s hollow empire).

12 February 2010

TURNING MYTH INTO HISTORY AND TURNING HISTORY INTO MYTH

Emotion tells us we are on one side or another; and it tells us that the world is a war between two sides -- and one is either on the right side or the wrong side.

In fact, the Day and the Night work together. Day is active; Night is for rest. Crops can't grow all year long: they have an active phase; and then they rest, while seeds germinate. Winter is a time for resting, dreaming, gestating. Human society is also like this. Men and women work together (and also against one another) to make life on earth better for all, ultimately.

Republicans and Democrats (capitalists and socialists) also work together, although you have to get above the action to see how this plan works, how the adversary is really your own shadow, the parts of yourself you hate and want to execute or send into exile. We all like to be right. We feel good being on the right side. It's a paradox. The two forces are always at war and are always not at war at the same time, competing and cooperating, betraying and recreating.

The capitalists are afraid of -- hate, for hate is a manifestation of fear -- the socialists because they are afraid of losing their power to the ‘women in their society’ (afraid of being powerless in the face of a primordial competition), afraid of being swallowed up by their mothers; and the socialists are afraid of -- hate -- the capitalists, because they fear their father and want to tear their father down because they know they will never be able to live up to their father's image as a builder of empires, cities, and civilization. The Father’s shadow is huge, uncompromising and endlessly judgmental.

We all have all of these parts (every human, every society, every nation). This is the metaphysical motor that turns myth into history, and turns history back into myth.

9 February 2010

GREENSPAN’S JOB WAS NOT TO MAKE EVERYONE HAPPY AND RICH

We should have raised interest rates beginning 1965-1983, but it is NEVER politically popular to raise rates -- because it disciplines the society fiscally, and threatens the electability of the party in power. The 'American Dream' illusion paints a picture that always expands, always inflates, always progresses, always gets better, richer, smarter, more good looking....

But if something goes up, it also comes down. A basic law of physics (and metaphysics).

Since we put off raising rates as much as we could from 1965-1983, Volcker had to rush in at the last minute and do all the raising in 3 years. Then we should have had an easing period (expansion, inflation) from 1983 to 2001. We needed to begin raising rates from 2001-2019, slowly, methodically. Again, so far, we're off to a terrible start.

Greenspan thought his job was to make everyone happy and rich, instead of helping to make the economy to breathe. His job was not to make everyone happy -- it was to regulate the economy through regulation of the monetary supply. Blow up the bubble that is the economy; then deflate it. 18 years of easing and expansion; 18 years of relative tightening and contraction. The creative destruction phase of capitalism is looked at like a cancer no one wants to mention. But you can't avoid it. You either do it willingly; or it drags you in to the next world screaming, as we are experiencing today (most of the world, in fact, if not all of the world).

Discipline is what we need now. We need to cut government spending; raise interest rates; and raise taxes on the rich. The rich made a killing during the last expansion cycle so they can help America rebuild its house during the contraction cycle.

A society CANNOT grow jobs during the Winter of the Business Cycle – it is not possible. So the argument that taxing the rich will hurt the economy does not really hold water at this stage, because there is no growth, no expansion, during the Winter Cycle, there is just survival, and surviving is not easy, and surviving needs resources. Government should not be taking on more debt to try to revive the economy. It can't be revived until the Winter Season is over. The Winter Season is supposed to be a punishing time for those who sinned: those who borrowed too much, who committed the sin of spending money that wasn't theirs...rich, middle class and poor. Bankruptcies, defaults and a return to saving money instead of spending money are the hallmarks of the Winter in the Business Cycle. It may sound harsh; but there is a lesson we can all learn from our mistakes. The banks need to be nationalized immediately, and re-created with a new (legislative) understanding that they are to serve the public good, not to serve their own greed and political monomania. Small banks are good for America. Big banks, banks that threaten to co-op the democratic government are never good for the nation; and the bigger the banks become, the more clear it becomes in a symbolic sense that we are approaching Spengler’s megalopolis stage, the Noon Hour, the crystallization of the idea, when everything is about to break and fall down.

Either the rich participate willingly in the paying down of our debt and the funding of social programs for Americans thrown out of work, or we will have a revolution -- and they will be overthrown, and they will have to leave the country and build their empires somewhere else.

In 2019, or about then, we begin to lower interest rates again, lower tax rates again, encourage risk and business expansion -- and shrink big government --always remembering that the expansion is a season of the Business Cycle, not an absolute law or right or social good, and that another crisis will come at the end of the expansion (2038). We need to encourage private greed from 2019-2038 -- and then encourage public sharing and brotherhood from 2038-2057.

We are in the ‘encourage public sharing’ stage (Autumn/Winter of the business cycle) now, from 2001-2019. Many of you may not like this. But God doesn’t care whether you like it or not.

5 February 2010

SOCIALISM CAN’T COMPETE WITH CAPITALISM – THAT’S TRUE.

BUT IT ISN’T SOCIALISM’S JOB TO COMPETE WITH CAPITALISM.

Socialism can't compete with Capitalism, it's true -- or can only barely compete.

But Socialism’s role IS NOT to compete with Capitalism. Competition is the realm of type A private enterprise and the Winter-Summer of the expansion of the Business Cycle, what I call the Day-Cycle.

What Socialism does is it focuses the society on survival.

During the Summer-Winter of the Business Cycle, GROWTH/COMPETITION are not options. Nothing is growing; nothing is expanding.

Crops don't grow in the Winter Season.

Socialism is an act of leveling during a climate of leveling; Capitalism is an act of construction during a climate of constructing.

Father and Mother have different jobs and different seasons of domination.

Honor thy Father during the Day-Cycle; and also honor thy Mother during the Night-Cycle.

5 February 2010

IS OBAMA DOING WHAT FDR DID ?

Has Obama done what FDR did, aside, of course, from handing over billions to the banks, which is what Bush did, in fact, to which Obama acceded, which he now must try to reverse in order to survive politically?

Obama – like Clinton before him – is acting more like a Republican than a traditional Democrat -- has done very little in his response to the crisis that Bush didn't do. Health-care reform, yes? But would Bush have done anything differently so far, except more tax relief, and an even higher deficit.

This isn't Obama's crisis. He did not create it. He inherited it. Like FDR he will manage the depression by trying to have the federal government replace the private sector. The private sector is down for the count -- and this is not the doing of the government -- but the private sector created this crisis out of over-expansion, which is the culmination ALWAYS of the Business Cycle's growth period -- over-expansion of capacity and debt.

America will have organized labor gain more strength over the next decade. But we need this, in fact, since labor was castrated by the Republicans and all the decent manufacturing jobs in this country were sent overseas. Americans have no jobs today because labor was too weak politically to balance private enterprise's export of labor costs (JOBS) to other continents.

Obama, like FDR, will NOT grow the economy. Ronald Reagan would not be able to grow the economy in the Winter of the Business Cycle either. We will suffer a depression, which is what happens at the end of the Business Cycle. We will deflate. We will watch international relations deteriorate; and we will watch wars break out, wars we can't stop, join or mediate.

Protectionism is a big part of the Winter of the Business Cycle. It does not CAUSE the Winter Cycle, but is an effect or outcome of Winter. Winter causes the freezing of international relations; freezing of relations does not cause the Winter. Obama is not the CAUSE of the Winter cycle. The Winter Cycle causes the FDR's and the Obama's to come to power. The glory of the Private Enterprise phenomena does not CAUSE the glory of Summer in the Business Cycle; Summer causes the material glory of private enterprise – and also the overexpansion that causes the disgrace of the Business Cycle expansion. When Private Enterprise exhausts itself through the propagation of bubbles and the overexpansion of debt, Private Enterprise hides in its wounded condition; and Public Enterprise fills the void.

It's nice to view our political adversaries as being the CAUSE of all our trouble. But trouble is built in to the system. We like being on the right side -- it reinforces our sense of self -- but history is a process of natural cycles of expanding and contracting. Reagan didn't CAUSE the rebirth of capitalism in 1983. The rebirth of capitalism in 1983 caused Ronald Reagan.

5 February 2010

KING ALAN: THIS IS YOUR LIFE! (WATCH OUT FOR THAT ICEBERG!)

Greenspan did what he wanted; the Congress did what Greenspan wanted. Remember, we were in the Golden Age. Business was regulating itself, and everyone was getting richer and richer...who was going to quibble about an iceberg?

4 February 2010

AGAIN, BIG GOVERNMENT IS NOT SUBVERTING BIG BUSINESS. BIG BUSINESS PULLED A ‘FRENCH LEAVE’

It's not like government is subverting business in order to wrestle power away from Wall Street. Business collapsed; and government is filling the void, trying to pick up the pieces.

Business will recover again, but not for another decade. In the mean time, government gets to try to carry the ball.

Government WILL NOT be able to grow the economy -- because we are heading in to the economic Winter when the economy CANNOT grow.

If business COULD grow the economy now, they would be doing it. Business faltered.

Business will lead the economy back in an expansion again; but not until 2019. In the mean-time, we need to face the facts. We are in a deflation debt-contraction phase. Households, consumers and businesses are scrambling to stay afloat, not attempting to expand their markets or their assets, not attempting to expand their business model, but to pay down debt, to cut back on hiring, and to save money for future shocks, so they can survive.

The notion that Obama is causing this business contraction misunderstands the nature of the business cycle.

2 February 2010

IS CAPITALISM DEAD? NO.

Is Capitalism dead? "Dead" as in gone for ever? No, capitalist economies are not dead. But an alliance between government and capitalists to save capitalism from deflation is a sign of death, of rigidity, of fascism (as a financial and political definition – State Capitalism)...what comes next?

The popping of the bubble is related to the popping of the illusions of the Ego, the Master's of the Universe hitting the wall of reality and limitation. Suicides will increase. Suicides of international bankers will also increase.

"The Lord gives and the Lord takes away": the Lord taking away is Jehovah's negative force (breathing-in) collapsing vision (Day and the Eyes are clearly related) and bringing on the Night blindness, as the Night limits the power of physical vision and forces the man/society inward, into the ears. The perimeter of vision contracts back to nothingness at Night.

In ancient myth the Masculine Force (the digit 1) when wounded by the Night loses the 1, the erect digit, the tent pole which expands space, sinks back into 0...space collapses, the tent collapses, and all elements are brought back to earth. The Heavenly Vision is lost.

Society loses its creative magic when the magic wand is cut off. Castration is a symbol of the loss of the magic wand used for fertilizing, creating, fecundating and expanding life on the earth. How does man get his magic digit back? It isn’t easy. If we are to believe the Egyptians (almost all ancient cultures), the damaged Male Energy must descend into the Underworld (sometimes female companions descend with them to attempt to rescue them through love). The injured or dead Male Energy is not accustomed to the Female Element of Darkness/Water. In some myths – the Christian myth, for instance – the Male Energy is crucified in the Underworld, sacrifices himself there for the preservation of the world. In one Hebrew version of the same, Noah, the Male-Energy, determines that the world is sinful and hopeless and decides not to save humanity but only to save the ‘seeds’ of humanity, for when the next Creation Day-Cycle begins. He rides in his boat with his wife and immediate family and attempts to survive the coming chaos by riding his boat on the waves of destruction.

So, what comes next: I see men marching in the streets in military uniforms, seeking to recapture the power found in the myth of the Solar Hero, the Day, the Warrior against the Darkness.

Capitalism is dead in the sense that it is periodical. The bubble of capital expansion popping is the angel blowing his trumpet. There will be a re-birth of Light. But not for some time now. We must go into the Underworld; and this cannot be avoided simply by taking on more debt and pretending that everything is ok.

When capital circulates freely – money is the bloodstream of the cultural body -- then the economic body is healthy. When capital is blocked by hoarding, then the body becomes ill. We are in the hoarding stage now, fearful of the future. Hoarding is a sign of the top of the market, not the bottom. At the bottom of the market, no one wants to own an asset in question.

We are contracting, not expanding. And we won't begin expanding again until around 2019. There is nothing we can do about this. The Ark will land on the mountain when it wants to, and not before. Our demand that we control life, control the Earth, control Nature, will be frustrated time and again during the Night-Cycle when nothing really works the way we want it to. The magic of the covenant has been lost. God has turned His back on us again.

Revocation (re-vocation) of the covenant has occurred because…Man in all his power and glory and wealth forgot that he was not a god. The first rule of the covenant (the Ten Commandments) is: Thou Shalt Put No False Gods Before Me. Man, through his pride, through Hubris – the ‘masters of the universe’ moniker is a sign of this – but himself above his God.

And it is time for us to get on our knees again and pray, and to ask for forgiveness, and start all over again.

2 February 2010

HISTORY HAS CYCLES

History has cycles. Day-Cycles, periods of growth, wealth, creative expansion, exist because of the positive light of Day (sunlight). Night-Cycles, periods of stagnation and rest, poverty, destructive contraction, exist because of the negative light of night (the absence of sunlight).

When a person, nation, globe sees the future in a positive light, they spend and project themselves into the future without fear and without doubt, conquering as they go. During the Day, the eyes rule; and one's field of vision expands, the world grows and becomes warm and more positive and inviting. As the Night 'grows', the eyes lose their power -- one's field of vision contracts. One's view of the future darkens. This is true physiologically; it is also true psychologically, and metaphorically. As the society becomes 'blind' (the Sun and its positive light disappears), the society shifts to its ears -- hearing displaces seeing as the dominant sense. Seeing is more positive than hearing. Seeing, one makes up his own mind -- seeing is believing. Hearing, one listens to what he is told, something outside of himself. Hearing is more passive than seeing. Hearing is the sense that dominates during sleep, rest, regeneration, as one uses sensory data to fuel one's dreams -- but one's eyes are closed.

At Night, as one sleeps, one, generally speaking, has a 'horizontal orientation' -- East and West create the essential duality during a Night-Cycle. The horizontal orientation sees equality as its highest virtue. The horizontal orientation emphasizes class as its dominant differentiation.

During the Day, with activity, one, generally speaking, has a 'vertical orientation' - North and South create the essential duality during a Day-Cycle. Hierarchy. Religious hierarchy. The vertical orientation sees freedom, will and power as its highest virtue. The vertical orientation emphasizes race as its dominant differentiation.

The 'negative' rest period is as vital to life as is the 'positive' growth period. In fact, the 'rest' period (deflation, contraction, depression) is the period of time when a society and an individual thinks and dreams about the next stage of activity, decides what direction to take, gains insights about life and about values it admires and wishes to achieve, which god it wishes to worship and carry back into the light of day.

Each Day the soul 'reincarnates' -- takes another step forward in evolution -- and commits sins it will regret during the next Night, which is a period of judgment, self-judgment, self-accusation...negative light.

Time exists during the Day. At Dawn we awaken to find the world relatively the same as it was when we left the world at Dusk, to sleep. Eternal Time exists during the Night -- that is, mundane time vanishes in the dream, space remains but Time is lost. Mundane Time reconvenes when we wake. And we carry the world forward again, in a causal, temporal pattern and understanding. But this world vanishes during the Night and is replaced by a magical negative realm, in which the rules of Day (growth and expansion, individual will and forward movement) are replaced by the rules of Night.

Regeneration happens at Night, in the negative world, where judgment (the Last Judgment), self-hatred, and crucifixion exist -- and also rebirth of the positive light, regeneration, and the return of direction and self-love. You have to go through the Night to get to the next Dawn. There is no extend and pretend as a way of avoiding this law.

25 January 2010

DUMP BERNANKE NOW!

The terrible message dumping Bernanke would send to the world is that "we have decided that ‘extend and pretend’ is not the route we want to go. We do not want America to follow Japan into a 30-year stagnation so we can hide bank losses and pretend everything will be fine".

Dumping Bernanke would probably cause the markets to finally correct, since Bernanke has been backstopping stocks, treasuries and mortgage bonds with tax-payer money (money that will have to be paid back eventually), this backstopping being the core of the 'extend and pretend' policy. Meanwhile, the debts are still on the books. Nothing has really changed, except we have MUCH more debt to pay back than we did when we started this charade.

The Bernanke plan was to create another bubble to lift us out of the depression. He has spent billions to re-inflate the damaged balloon -- but we are in an insolvency debt crisis, not in a credit crisis. Making more credit available works at the beginning of a business cycle, when consumers are solvent, but not at the end of a business cycle, when consumers are so strapped with debt they cannot move -- and when banks are the same, looking for income to pay down debt, not to take on more dangerous loans (almost ALL loans at the end of a business cycle are BAD loans – which insane bank makes business loans when business has just entered a debt depression).

25 January 2010

18 ‘FAT’ YEARS, FOLLOWED BY 18 ‘LEAN’ YEARS: HOW DO YOU PLAN FOR IT?

The real problem with entitlements and bad debt is that government does not recognize that the business cycle involves built-in limitations. We need to remember the Old Testament, and the interpretation of a dream in Egypt: There will be 7 fat years followed by 7 lean years. In our case, there will be 18 fat years, followed by 18 lean years.

This Law of Nature, vis-à-vis human history, requires that humans build inevitable recessions in to our planning -- and no longer refuse to consider the inevitable dark side of the equation. We are all going to die. That is a law. Science is not going to save us. We will not trick death by refusing to recognize its inevitability, or by calling it evil and instruction our brains to sabotage its power.

During the expansion, we need to put away enough savings to help us survive the contraction. And, during the contraction, we need to refuse to take on more debt. I have no problem with taxing the rich during a contraction, since the economy will NOT grow during a contraction. The rich need to be free to make as much money as they can during a Day-Cycle, the expansion, but they also need to know that they will have to help pay for social programs during the Night-Cycle, the contraction, to see that the society survives until the next Day-Cycle expansion returns. During the Winter, plants don't grow. During the depression, the economy doesn't grow, business doesn't expand, and government fills the 'support void' in the face of business's abdication of the role of social engine for financial expansion.

We can continue to pretend that economic depressions are 'mistakes' that happen because of human error, because of someone's error in judgment, monetary policy, or injudicious congresses raising taxes -- OR we can understand a basic law of the universe is that everything that inflates also deflates, everything that expands contracts, everything that grows decays and wilts -- it is against our empiricist nature, and against our belief that Individual Will determines history, but God (the 'Laws of Nature', if you prefer) has rules that trump our beliefs. The longer we insist on maintaining ignorance of these natural laws, the more desperate we become, and the more indebted, and the more we inflate and devalue our currency.

Inflation and deflation are, we will say this in a metaphorical sense since rationalists in the audience will rebel in their love of literalism if we don’t make this explicit, the acts of breathing in the monetary sphere. We expire (breathe out) when we expand the supply of money -- weaken the currency -- and we inspire (breathe in) when we raise rates and contract the amount of dollars in circulation. If we refuse to recognize the importance of the inspiration stage, then we will destroy our currency and our society will suffer the fate of nations that succumb to fear and self-destruction....when the currency goes, the society goes.

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Rule #1: You can't borrow money for ever. The more you borrow, the more profit you need to make payments on your loans. Decelerating profits and accelerating loans will destroy a company, a nation and an individual . Economic expansion is cyclical. A company needs to plan for economic contractions by paying down debt as the end of business cycle expansion approaches. Instead of paying out billions in bonuses, corporations need to reduce debt and have a plan for how to survive as profits decline and demand contracts.

18 fat years followed by 18 lean years.

24 January 2010

BOTH BIG BUSINESS AND BIG GOVERNMENT ARE GUILTY OF CONSPIRACY TO RAPE THE CONSUMER AND THE AMERICAN CITIZEN

Big Business bought out Big Government with massive campaign contributions and other forms of bribery, including promises of jobs after service, so that Big Government would give Big Business free reign to rape the consumer.

The alliance of Big Business and Big Government got us into this mess. It's time for the alliance between Big Business and Big Government to end. Where in the constitution does it give the government the responsibility of bailing out failed businesses at the expense of the tax-payer. The role of the government is to encourage business development (through its tax policy, tariff policy, etc) AND to regulate business through laws making graft, extortion, embezzlement and bribery illegal. Of course, now that business owns the government, such regulation has been almost non-existent for the last two decades.

I'd like to see both Big Business and Big Government shrink. But first things first. TBTF financial companies need to be pruned back and kept small enough so that they will never be able to buy our government again.

To regulate Big Business, Big Government needs to exist in an adversarial relationship to Big Business apparently.

24 January 2010

NIGHT-CYCLE CHAOS: WHAT TO EXPECT

Remember the 1960's and the race riots (the burning of Detroit, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis...) and the political assassinations (Kennedy, Kennedy, King, and Malcolm X) and the demonstrations against the Vietnam War and the killings at Kent State, a sitting vice-president arrested and convicted on bribery charges, a sitting president forced to resign after being impeached for abuse of power.

Remember the 1930's and the labor riots and violent strikes, race riots (Toronto, 1933; Harlem, 1935; Detroit, 1943) -- and the European and Asian riots, invasions, political repressions, leading up to the World War....

If this Night-Cycle is like those, the fighting won't be faked. It will be passionate and life-and-death. This will be global, not just American.

22 January 2010

BIG BUSINESS IS BETTER THAN BIG GOVERNMENT AT CREATING REAL JOBS: TRUE OR FALSE?

Yes: true. Our private sector has been creating jobs in China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Mexico, India...for 20 years now. I'm sure they are appreciated for what they are doing in those foreign countries. When do they start creating jobs in America? They won't, unless the tax laws require them to do so (generously benefit them to do so). A major goal of the global-economy theology was to destroy American unions. American business did a pretty good job at that.

If it wasn't for the government creating jobs in America today there would be NO JOB creation at all.

Those people wanting government to 'get out of the way' and let private enterprise take over are going to be disappointed, as private enterprise is cutting jobs, cutting costs, and using all its profits to pay down debt. Private enterprise is a decade away from actually expanding job creation again.

The expansive power of private enterprise is periodical. In American history every 18 years private enterprise stumbles, falters and disappears -- almost always after a banking scandal and a period of major corruption and theft -- having expanded beyond its own debt limits. Government, then, tries to fill the void. Government tries to take over the role of job creator (and/or with unemployment insurance, welfare, food-stamps, social services) since private enterprise has been forced to turn inward, to fight for its own survival through controlling costs and paying off debt.

We are not recovering. We are in a protracted contraction or depression that will last at least another decade. American business is not going to be able to grow until it pays off its debt, until the American consumer pays off its debt, and until the global economy works off its debt through payment, through bankruptcy and through default.

Private enterprise has had its glory. Public enterprise will have to help us through the darkness, now that private enterprise has ingloriously left the building.

22 January 2010

DID SCOTT BROWN’S ELECTION VICTORY WAKE OBAMA UP? I HAVE MY DOUBTS

No question, Mister Brown's victory is the catalyst for Obama’s ‘reform Wall Street’ initiative. This means Obama can no longer sit on the fence, praying that Bernanke's gimmicks will revive a bubble that will bring back the golden age of spend, spend, spend what you don't have, making banks in America infinitely richer. Oh, the bankers love a citizenry in debt.

Republican populism is to portray Big Government as the villain. Democratic populism is to portray Big Business as the villain.

The Big Government as villain act has been playing successfully since 1983, during which time the largely Republican-controlled government has gotten bigger and bigger -- and the national debt has become unmanageable.

The Big Business as villain act is just beginning. Who is going to answer for the greatest theft of public money in the history of the planet? Who is going to answer to millions of American jobs being shuttled overseas to Asia, India or down to Mexico?

Which populism will have more traction? Clearly the Republican populism wins when the Democrats aren't playing. But now that the Democrats have joined the war – if they have, indeed: I still have my doubts -- the outcome might be different.

Obama lost round one to Scott Brown. But this is a heavyweight fight, lasting 15 rounds.

Someone should send Obama a biography of Teddy Roosevelt. The rich corporations, in fact, have no legitimate right to own the American government. Obama needs to become aware of this fact.

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I think, also, that the vote for Scott Brown was a vote against the status quo, even though the man they elected -- Scott Brown -- was a man decidedly OF the status quo. He promised the voters he was for the status quo. “We'll defeat Washington,” he cried; “I will support the health-care status quo...!”

In fact, Republicans, in my lifetime at least, have ALWAYS supported the status quo. Their revolution is to emasculate the power of government and to empower the private accumulation of wealth. In truth, they really don't want to emasculate the government -- they only want to emasculate the part of the government that is interested in passing laws that constrict their own ability to accumulate private wealth. They are very happy with Republican control of Big Government. Government did not shrink during the Republican Day-Cycle (1983-2001), it grew. Big Government is the straw man for Republicans, as Big Business is the straw man for Democrats.

The Republican populism is against Big Government. The Democratic populism is against Big Business. So, right on cue, Obama finally realizes that he needs to pick up the big stick and begin using it on big business. Teddy Roosevelt needs to become his model, instead of Abraham Lincoln.

For Obama to get back the momentum he has lost to the Republican populism, he will need to portray Big Business as the villain in this drama -- and America will need to get back to the class war battle that favors of the poor, by which all Night-Cycles are characterized (think 1929-1947; 1965-1983). Class Warfare in favor of the rich characterizes all Day-Cycles (think 1947-1965; 1983-2001).

During the Day-Cycles the businessmen are lionized. The entrepreneur has his own television show, is on the cover of every magazine. Getting rich is the international obsession, getting rich at any price: cheating, stealing, counterfeiting, whatever it takes. Abusing the working class is fine also; shipping their jobs overseas is good business. Ethics, morality are old-fashioned ideas -- the 'Bottom Line' is all that matters. Taking care of one's own nation and one's neighbors gives way to taking care of oneself only. But then something happens. The Solar Hero, the Fertility Principle, gets wounded, loses his power, and falls. The light of material success and security goes out. And the world gets dark.

During the Night-Cycles the businessmen are decried as the rapists and destroyers of the working class and the planet. No more spotlight for Donald Trump, for Richard Branson, for Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. Now, the rich are seen (and portrayed in art, movies, and literature) as the force of selfish evil. When I was going to college in 1970-74, only the nerds were in business school. A generational door opened up; the corporations were clearly seen as the anti-Christ principle. In many colleges, corporations were not welcome – and job fairs and recruiting on campus came to an end for a time.

The war of perceptions goes on and on. Who will America see as the greater force of evil, Big Government or Big Business? This perception struggle (an illusion of course, since your perception depends upon where one is on the wheel of Time) is what drives the planet, drives history -- not truth, which sees the role that both sides play together -- but emotionally-fused, polarized perceptions.

From the anti-matter perspective, matter is evil. From the matter perspective, anti-matter is evil.

The Cole Porter song asks: 'Should I order arsenic or champagne?'

It depends upon your perspective I guess. The left hand says ‘arsenic’; so the right hand has to say ‘champagne’.

Or vice versa.

For one perspective, the future is opening up. For the adversarial perspective, the future is closing down. Which is which will be illuminated by history's unfolding, I guess.

22 January 2010

NOAH’S SECRET SONG: HERE COMES THE SUN

I hope everyone had a chance to read the article by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard at the London Telegraph a few days ago: "When Debt Levels Turn Cancerous".

In the article he publishes a table of debt by country "Household, Government and Corporate Debt as a % of Nominal GDP".

Pritchard writes:

Stephen Cecchetti and his team at the Bank for International Settlements have written the definitive paper rebutting the pied pipers of ever-escalating credit. "The debt problems facing advanced economies are even worse than we thought," Cecchetti writes.

In 2010, America was at 268% according to this table. The shocking thing is how many other countries had more debt than America:

Japan: 458%
Germany: 241%
America: 268%
UK: 322%
France: 321%
Italy: 310%
Canada: 313%
Belgium: 328%
Denmark 341%
Greece: 273%
Portugal: 363%
Spain: 355%
Sweden: 340%

Australia: 232%
Austria: 238%

Evans-Pritchard writes:

Now we know where the tipping point lies. Debt becomes poisonous once it reaches 80pc to 100pc of GDP for governments, 90pc of GDP for companies, and 85pc of GDP for households. From then on, extra debt chokes growth.

The basic facts are that combined debt in the rich club has risen from 165pc of GDP thirty years ago to 310pc today, led by Japan at 456pc and Portugal at 363pc.

From the study he is quoting:

"Debt is rising to points that are above anything we have seen, except during major wars. Public debt ratios are currently on an explosive path in a number of countries. These countries will need to implement drastic policy changes. Stabilization might not be enough."

Demographic atrophy and aging costs will make this even nastier.

Again, from the study:

"Rising dependency ratios put further downward pressure on trend growth, over and above the negative effects of debt."

Please note how low Greece is on this list. Greece is the tip of the ice-berg, in a sense. The first to fall. But it is not, actually, the tip of the iceberg.

Even Canada (313%) had much more relative debt than Greece (273%) did in 2010 -- and with their current housing bubble still growing (much as in Australia), their debt level must be still ballooning.

Italy was at 310%; France 321%; Spain 355%; Portugal 363%...

How in the world is default going to stop at only Greece?

Economic growth is an illusion now, and will be for another decade. The situation will get worse, not better, as GDP's shrink and government bailouts swell debt, and 0% interest rates encourage more debt. What is going on here? We are doing everything wrong. And we think by continuing to do this things will get better.

We need to dry out the earth -- there is too much water in the world. We are having Noah's Flood because of cheap money policies for too long. Inch interest rates up and keep them going up until 2019. Dry out the world bit by bit. Shrink debts through repayment, default and bankruptcies: this is the only way out of this DELUGE.

9 September 2011