PRIME DECEIT SKEWERS GOVERNMENT, CORRUPTION, WAR AND OTHER IDIOCIES!
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Monthly Archives: November 2016
He Said That? 11/30/16
From Andrew Bacevich, “Winning: Trump Loves to Do It, But American Generals Have Forgotten How,” tomdispatch.com:
Absent accountability, failings and weaknesses escape notice. Eventually, what you’ve become accustomed to seems tolerable. Twenty-first century Americans inured to wars that never end have long since forgotten that bringing such conflicts to a prompt and successful conclusion once defined the very essence of what generals were expected to do.
An interesting perspective on the War on Cash, by Simon Black
The War on Cash proceeds, gathering strength and intellectual support from all the usual suspects. Banning large denomination bills is supposed to be a crime fighting measure, but there is no relationship between the size of a country’s denominations and its crime rate. From Simon Black at sovereignman.com:
t’s happening faster than we could have ever imagined.
Every time we turn around, it seems, there’s another major assault in the War on Cash.
India is the most notable recent example– the embarrassing debacle a few weeks ago in which the government, overnight, “demonetized” its two largest denominations of cash, leaving an entire nation in chaos.
But there have been so many smaller examples.
In the US city of New Orleans, the local government decided earlier this month to stop accepting cash payments from drivers at the Office of Motor Vehicles.
As I wrote to you recently, several branches of Citibank in Australia have stopped dealing in cash altogether.
And former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers published an article last week stating that “nothing in the Indian experience gives us pause in recommending that no more large notes be created in the United States, Europe, and around the world.”
In other words, despite the India chaos, Summers thinks we should still curtail the $100 bill.
The conclave of the high priests of monetary policy almost invariably sings the same chorus: only criminals and terrorists use high denominations of cash.
Ken Rogoff, Harvard professor and former official at the International Monetary Fund and Federal Reserve, recently published a book blatantly entitled The Curse of Cash.
Ben Bernanke’s called it a “fascinating and important book”.
To continue reading: An interesting perspective on the War on Cash
Time to Say Goodbye…, by Francis Marion
It may be time for the two sides of America’s political divide to file for divorce. From Francis Marion at theburningplatform.com:
Is it finally time for us to say goodbye?
A few months ago my wife and I made a trip into the city from our small rural community for an evening of dining and visiting with some of her old childhood friends. We started our date with just the two of us at a well known vegetarian restaurant. Later we met up with the rest of the crew at a local park near the beach to watch some skits and some dancing while the sun went down over English Bay. It was a beautiful sunset in an amazing setting.
While we’re sitting and chatting in the bleachers of the small amphitheatre my wife’s friend asks us at which restaurant we ate. We told her and with a raised eyebrow she replies: “Really, Francis actually ate in a vegetarian restaurant? Wow. That must have been quite an experience for you!”
I guess I don’t have a reputation amongst her city dwelling friends as being very cultured. But the truth is I like lots of things that aren’t redneck staples. Even vegetarian and vegan food. Hell, I just like to eat and so long as it’s quality it doesn’t much matter to me whether there’s meat on the plate or not. At the end of the meal I am concerned with three things: did I get enough, was it prepared properly and was the service more than adequate? Simple.
But that off the cuff comment set the tone for the evening and it was obvious by the end of it, that with the exception of chit chat about the old days, that I didn’t have much to say to these folks nor they to me. Not that they’re bad people but from my perspective their lives are narrow, kinda fake and frankly, completely out of touch with reality. They rarely leave the city unless it is to hop on a plane to another country or another major metropolitan area and in all the years that we have lived a short one and a half hour drive down the road from them they have never come to visit that I can recall. In fact, when we see them in the city (for me no more than once every two or three years now) the conversation inevitably ends up with them wondering how we can live so “remotely”. We’re an hour and half drive from the city for Pete’s sake. And they figure that’s remote?
To continue reading: Time to Say Goodbye…
Winning Trump Loves to Do It, But American Generals Have Forgotten How, by Andrew J. Bacevich
This is a 5-Star article that asks the questions: what happened to American generals who could win wars? From Andrew Bacevich at tomdispatch.com:
President-elect Donald Trump’s message for the nation’s senior military leadership is ambiguously unambiguous. Here is he on 60 Minutes just days after winning the election.
Trump: “We have some great generals. We have great generals.”
Lesley Stahl: “You said you knew more than the generals about ISIS.”
Trump: “Well, I’ll be honest with you, I probably do because look at the job they’ve done. OK, look at the job they’ve done. They haven’t done the job.”
In reality, Trump, the former reality show host, knows next to nothing about ISIS, one of many gaps in his education that his impending encounter with actual reality is likely to fill. Yet when it comes to America’s generals, our president-to-be is onto something. No doubt our three- and four-star officers qualify as “great” in the sense that they mean well, work hard, and are altogether fine men and women. That they have not “done the job,” however, is indisputable — at least if their job is to bring America’s wars to a timely and successful conclusion.
Trump’s unhappy verdict — that the senior U.S. military leadership doesn’t know how to win — applies in spades to the two principal conflicts of the post-9/11 era: the Afghanistan War, now in its 16th year, and the Iraq War, launched in 2003 and (after a brief hiatus) once more grinding on. Yet the verdict applies equally to lesser theaters of conflict, largely overlooked by the American public, that in recent years have engaged the attention of U.S. forces, a list that would include conflicts in Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen.
To continue reading: Winning Trump Loves to Do It, But American Generals Have Forgotten How
OK, I get it: Companies Clamor for Cheap Labor, Fed Delivers, by Wolf Richter
Let’s see, the federal government and its central bank have never been more involved in various ways with the economy than during this still-young century, and real incomes are lower now than they were at the beginning of the century. Coincidence? From Wolf Richter at wolfstreet.com:
In turn, households get the feel-good illusion.
Despite all the frothy excitement about the stock market’s new highs, and the drooling today over the new highs reached by Housing Bubble 2, exceeding the prior crazy highs of Housing Bubble 1 even according to the Case-Shiller Index, and despite eight years of super-low interest rates, and a million other things that are hyped constantly, median household incomes, the crux of the real economy, is still a dreary affair.
Sentier Research released its median household income measure for October today. Adjusted for inflation, it edged up 0.6% from a year ago to $57,929. But it’s down 1.3% from January 2008, and it’s down 1.5% from its peak in 2002.
It has fallen 0.5% since January. That’s not a propitious trend. The report put it this way: “Median annual household income in 2016 has not been able to maintain the momentum that it achieved during 2015.”
This chart by Doug Short at Advisor Perspectives shows the stagnating inflation-adjusted debacle (blue line) and the nominal income (red line):
The Census Bureau publishes household income data annually in mid-September for the previous year (the 2015 annual data was published in September 2016). Sentier Research uses Census data and publishes monthly updates, adjusted for inflation via the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
And inflation is now rising. The Fed is turning victory laps. Inflation is in part responsible for the decline in real median household income since January. Inflation matters. The report:
We continue to monitor the course of inflation, as this has a significant effect on the trend in real median annual household income.
To continue reading: OK, I get it: Companies Clamor for Cheap Labor, Fed Delivers
If World War II Breaks Out Again, We’ll Be Ready for It…, by Bill Bonner
The military-industrial-intelligence complex has become a welfare racket. From Bill Bonner at bonnerandpartners.com:
BALTIMORE – Mr. Trump is still assembling his lieutenants for his triumphal march on Washington.
Yesterday, he chose Steve Mnuchin, a Goldman guy, as his Treasury secretary.
He will be the third U.S. Treasury secretary from Goldman, following Robert Rubin and Henry Paulson. But Mnuchin is probably more Goldman than any of them. His father worked there. So did his brother.
Trump was supposed to “shake things up.” He promised to “drain the swamp.”
With only two months until the inauguration, there should be crying and gnashing of teeth on Capitol Hill.
You’d expect terror and panic up and down Connecticut Avenue. The Chevy Chase Club should be cleared out as the insiders run for the hills with their silver and their daughters.
But things are calm on the Potomac. The swamp critters show no sign of alarm. Instead, they seem to be collected and complacent, sure that no harm will come to them.
Maybe they know something…
McMansions in McLean
Washington has seen new administrations come and go.
The Republicans come in. The Democrats go out. One Goldman guy arrives. Another Goldman guy departs. The gators, snakes, and slugs have seen this show before. They’ve watched the reruns. And every time, the ending is the same. No matter what happens to the rest of the country, the Parasitocracy on the Potomac grows richer and more powerful.
It has always been thus… thus will it always be.
Over on the Virginia side of the river – the most treacherous part of the swamp, where the “military-industrial complex” that President Eisenhower warned us about resides – the calm has turned into euphoria.
To continue reading: If World War II Breaks Out Again, We’ll Be Ready for It…
Obama’s Legacy: Obamacare Failure, Drone Policy Failure, Guantanamo Failure, NSA Spying Failure, by Mike Mish Shedlock
If you get an argument with an Obama partisan, you can recite this article’s list of Obama failures, or you put the ball in the other court and ask the partisan to list Obama’s successes. From Mike Mish Shedlock at mishtalk.com:
Gallup’s Daily Obama Approval Rating poll shows Americans view president Obama consistently higher now than at any time since 2009.
His popularity is more of a reflection on Obama being a likable person, than having likable policies. It’s also a reflection on the extreme unpopularity of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
Complete Failure
Likable or not, Obama’s legacy will be one of complete failure. Vox reports The whole Democratic Party is now a smoking pile of rubble.
Vox missed some things, lots of things actually, but the headline is accurate enough.
Everything Obama stood for is about to be undone, except perhaps his drone policy which was a miserable failure and should be undone.
1. Obamacare Failure
2. Drone Policy Failure
3. Trade policy Failure
4. Libya Failure
5. NSA Spying Failure
6. Guantanamo Failure
7. Russia Failure
Affordable Care Act Failure
Obama’s Affordable Care Act was nearly a complete failure. Affordable it certainly wasn’t, except for those picked up by Medicaid and a small group of heavily subsidized others.
Obamacare “Near Collapse” in Minnesota as Prices Jump 60% Average
To continue reading: Obama’s Legacy: Obamacare Failure, Drone Policy Failure, Guantanamo Failure, NSA Spying Failure
China To Launch “Social Credit System” To Monitor Everything From Jaywalking To Internet Shopping Activity, by Tyler Durden
This is creepy. China takes the next step toward total Big Brotherness. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:
In the United States “big data” is a major trend that has been adopted by almost every major retailer in an effort to figure out the precise best way to convince American’s to buy more stuff they don’t need. In China, “big data” is all about population control.
As noted by the Wall Street Journal, various cities throughout China are currently piloting a “social-credit system” that will assign a “personal citizen score” to every single person based on behavior such as spending habits, turnstile violations and filial piety, which can blacklist citizens from loans, jobs, air travel.
Hangzhou’s local government is piloting a “social credit” system the Communist Party has said it wants to roll out nationwide by 2020, a digital reboot of the methods of social control the regime uses to avert threats to its legitimacy.
More than three dozen local governments across China are beginning to compile digital records of social and financial behavior to rate creditworthiness. A person can incur black marks for infractions such as fare cheating, jaywalking and violating family-planning rules. The effort echoes the dang’an, a system of dossiers the Communist party keeps on urban workers’ behavior.
In time, Beijing expects to draw on bigger, combined data pools, including a person’s internet activity, according to interviews with some architects of the system and a review of government documents. Algorithms would use a range of data to calculate a citizen’s rating, which would then be used to determine all manner of activities, such as who gets loans, or faster treatment at government offices or access to luxury hotels.
Input data for the social credit system would come from a variety of government sources but would also incorporate social behavior based on things like volunteer activities, academic records, social media usage and online shopping trends.
To continue reading: China To Launch “Social Credit System” To Monitor Everything From Jaywalking To Internet Shopping Activity
Declaration Of War? Erdogan Says Turkish Forces Are In Syria To End Assad’s Rule, by Tyler Durden
Is Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan trying to reconstitute the Ottoman Empire? From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:
Having stated in the past that the only reason Turkish forces are on Syrian soil is to combat Islamic State terrorists, today Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan made a dramatic diplomatic reversal and said that the Turkish Army has entered Syria to end the rule of President Bashar Assad, whom he accused of terrorism and causing the deaths of thousands.
“We entered [Syria] to end the rule of the tyrant al-Assad who terrorizes with state terror. [We didn’t enter] for any other reason,” the Turkish president was quoted by Huyrriyet as saying at the first Inter-Parliamentary Jerusalem Platform Symposium in Istanbul. Erdogan said that Turkey has no territorial claims in Syria, but instead wants to hand over power to the Syrian population, adding that Ankara is seeking to restore “justice.”
“Why did we enter? We do not have an eye on Syrian soil. The issue is to provide lands to their real owners. That is to say we are there for the establishment of justice,” he said, taking a page out of the US playbook, which however in recent weeks has been muted following substantial advances by Syrian and Russian forces which as reported last night, have made material gains in the fight against Syrian rebels in east Aleppo.
Erdogan went on to say that “in his estimation” almost 1 million people have died in the conflict in Syria, although no monitoring group has provided any similar figures according to RT.
To continue reading: Declaration Of War? Erdogan Says Turkish Forces Are In Syria To End Assad’s Rule
