this link doesn't explore all it could but it illustrates many of our illusions;

Authored by Lee Camp via TruthDig.com,
Our society should’ve collapsed by now. You know that, right?

No society should function with this level of inequality (with the possible exception of one of those prison planets in a “Star Wars” movie). Sixty-three percent of Americans can’t afford a $500 emergency. Yet Amazon head Jeff Bezos is now worth a record $141 billion. He could literally end world hunger for multiple years and still have more money left over than he could ever spend on himself.
Worldwide, one in 10 people only make $2 a day. Do you know how long it would take one of those people to make the same amount as Jeff Bezos has? 193 million years. (If they only buy single-ply toilet paper.) Put simply, you cannot comprehend the level of inequality in our current world or even just our nation.

So … shouldn’t there be riots in the streets every day? Shouldn’t it all be collapsing? Look outside. The streets aren’t on fire. No one is running naked and screaming (usually). Does it look like everyone’s going to work at gunpoint? No. We’re all choosing to continue on like this.
Why?

https://www.theburningplatform.com/2018/07/28/american-society-would-collapse-if-it-werent-for-these-8-myths/

this guy is usually quite accurate;

Oh Look! More Horsecrap (GDP)

[Comments enabled] This morning the GDP for 2Q was released and it "showed" that the economy has reached a $20 trillion annual run-rate in the United States.
Tout TV was up saying this was (of course) a first (actually it wasn't; last quarter we had breached it too) and a large increase over the last 10 years.
Well, of course it was a large increase.
There's only one problem: Exactly zero of it was actual economic expansion.
Yes, I said zero.  In fact the economy has contracted over the last 10 years.
What, you say?  That's impossible -- look at the numbers!
I did look at the numbers and you did not.
Remember that GDP is C + G + I + (net) Ex
In other words, Consumption + Government Spend + Investment + net Exports (Exports - Imports) = GDP.  That's first-semester economics.
All unbacked borrowing by government is, of course, part of "G", and once that's in the economy it never leaves -- unless of course government debt goes down (which it hasn't even during Clinton's alleged "surplus", because that "surplus" never actually existed.)
It therefore circulates forevermore in every future quarter, but by emitting that debt you devalue all existing dollars!  This means that mathematically GDP "in dollars" will mathematically increase by exactly that amount but that says nothing about whether the actual quantity of goods and services increased.
If you have a certain amount of goods and services produced and double the amount of circulating "moneyness" in the economy then the price level on average doubles, since by definition all goods and services consumed were purchased with something -- and that something in the US is denominated in dollars.  In other words you will report that "GDP" has "doubled" even though the amount of goods and services produced has not expanded at all.
So here's the ugly -- Here is US Government debt, to the penny, as of 7/25/2008:

07/25/2008

9,540,689,536,562.79

That is, $9.541 trillion dollars.
Here it is on 7/25/2018:

07/25/2018

21,265,465,085,278.12

$21.265 trillion dollars, or $11.72 trillion more.
The current annual run-rate of the economy is $20.402 trillion.  In 2008, Quarter 2, it was $14.805 trillion, or an actual increase of $5.60 trillion per year from then to today -- in nominal, that is, "dollar-denominated" terms.
Federal government debt added alone was more than double the net increase in nominal GDP over that same period.
In other words the facts are that the economy has actually contracted, not expanded.  That's why the common American is finding food more expensive, fuel more expensive, health care and housing more expensive, cars are more expensive etc etc etc when one looks at the number of hours of effort required to pay for each of such things, that is, in an actual "SI" (or invariant) unit.
The so-called "expansion" since the crash has all been sleight-of-hand -- and continues to this day.  Nor is this new; it was in fact going on for a good long time (decades) prior to 2008 as well.
Goebbels had nothing on our so-called "modern media", say much less our current President and the only reason they get away with this crap is that you can't make change for a $20 without using a computer.

 https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=233872

george always hits the target, center mass;

lots of stuff here you won't see in 'our free press' in its various manifestations, like the tv, and there's much more at the link;

Having recently accused president Trump of "treason," the biggest traitor in Washington D.C. might be none other than Senator John McCain. 

 

Disturbing information continues to emerge about his direct ties to Muslim terrorists and the London bomber, and how he's owned and funded by Saudi terrorists and George Soros. 

 

Ever since Trump got into office, McCain has done everything in his power to subvert the President of the United States, which is a federal crime. 

As McCain continues to garner the sympathy of many Americans who still falsely believe he's a Vietnam "war hero," it's time that we finally set the record straight about the unbelievable things McCain did during his time in the military, before McCain dies and nauseating tributes are made about his "service" in Vietnam.

It's important to note that due to McCain's familial ties to high ranking Naval commanders during his time in service (his father and grandfather were both four-star admirals), the majority of McCain's massive catastrophes and scandals in the Navy were completely buried, and his military records sealed.

Of course there is the cover up that John McCain was solely responsible for the horrifying atrocity aboard the USS Forrestal Aircraft Carrier on July 31, 1967 where his cocky maneuver of doing a "wet start" of his plane would kill 134 sailors, in the deadliest loss of life the Navy has ever seen. But because of McCain's daddy being a 4-star admiral, the entire incident was buried, and the Navy never officially put blame on anyone for the tragedy. Astonishingly, McCain would not only be allowed to continue serving in the Navy, but would go on to be responsible for the deaths of numerous other men, in a scandal that has been successfully buried for decades.

Three months after the bloody tragedy on the USS Forrestal Aircraft Carrier, John McCain was sent on a bombing mission over Hanoi in October of 1967 when he was shot down and captured by the North Vietnamese, where he's go on to be a prisoner of war until 1973. After being released from captivity, McCain would use his POW story and veteran status to rise to political prominence, where his image as a "Vietnam war hero" would go on to propel him to be elected as a United States Senator.

https://theferalirishman.blogspot.com/2018/07/if-he-wasnt-then-he-damn-sure-is-now.html

it seems this way every time i stumble across any 'news' on tv or radio, or www as 'our' rulers blame their troubles on others in their race for more money and power. the curious thing is how many 'consumers' buy this crap;

 our situation reasonably well described;

The U.S. mainstream press can easily recognize the dominant and influential role that the military plays in society, so long as they are referring to countries like Pakistan and Egypt. Unfortunately, the same reporters and commentators turn a blind eye to the similar phenomenon here in the United States.
For example, the Washington Post writes: “When not in power, [Pakistan’s generals] have exerted outsize control over foreign policy, the economy, and local politics.” The New York Times writes: “Even during civilian rule, the country’s generals have wielded enormous power, setting the agenda for the country’s foreign and security policies…. As prime minister, Mr. Sharif ran afoul of the military early on by trying to assert control over foreign and defense policy, which is seen as the army’s domain.”
It’s the same in Egypt. Newsweek points out that after the military coup that ousted democratically elected President Mohammed Morsi from office, “The army stepped in…. Five years on from the coup, the military government — led by general-turned-president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi — has established a firm grip on the nation….”
Meanwhile, not surprisingly, the U.S. government is flooding the Egyptian military with hundreds of millions of dollars that the IRS has forcibly taken from the American people.
What the mainstream media and, unfortunately, all too many Americans, fail to recognize is that the Egyptian, Pakistani, and American governments all have a fundamental governmental principle in common: All three are national-security states and, consequently, in all three regimes the military and intelligence sections of the government play the dominant role within the government and within society.


https://www.fff.org/2018/07/27/the-pentagon-the-cia-and-the-nsa-are-in-charge/

kunstler hits it out of the park in this piece;

The political insanity roiling the USA only gets worse, with no end in sight. On Wednesday, Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass), made the astonishing statement on CNN that “the American people wanted a confrontation, not a conversation,” between Presidents Trump and Putin in Helsinki.
Really? We wanted a mud wrestling bout and all we got was some lousy chit-chat? Next time, maybe Mr. Trump will bring a fungo bat to the room and “tune up” his counterpart — a popular negotiating technique from the rough-and-tumble New York City construction scene back in Mr. Trump’s halcyon days. Some people you just can’t reason with, especially the hell-spawned man-beast who personally directed Russian “meddling” and “interference” in our election and stole certain victory from president-designee Hillary. (I know this because The New York Times and The Washington Post said so.)
Another astonishment: in his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the US would not recognize Crimea as part of Russia and would demand the return of the region to Ukraine. Not to put too fine a point on it, Mr. Pompeo is pissing up a rope on that one. Russia will not give up its warm-water naval bases on the Black Sea anymore than the US will return its San Diego naval installation to Mexico, and Mr. Pompeo knows it. So do the posturing idiots on the senate committee, who apparently forgot that our own government officials fomented the 2014 Ukrainian coup that prompted Russia to annex Crimea and its military assets in the first place.

http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/round-the-bend/