that which can't continue, won't. kunstler provides examples and shows the direction in which we are headed, in case you didn't already know the answer. more at the link as usual;
And so the sun seems to stand still this last day before the
resumption of business-as-usual, and whatever remains of labor in this
sclerotic republic takes its ease in the ominous late summer heat, and
the people across this land marinate in anxious uncertainty. What can be
done?
Some kind of epic national restructuring is in the works. It will
either happen consciously and deliberately or it will be forced on us by
circumstance. One side wants to magically reenact the 1950s; the other
wants a Gnostic transhuman utopia. Neither of these is a plausible
outcome. Most of the arguments ranging around them are what Jordan
Peterson calls “pseudo issues.” Let’s try to take stock of what the real
issues might be.
Energy: The shale oil “miracle” was a stunt enabled by supernaturally low interest rates, i.e. Federal Reserve policy. Even The New York Times said so yesterday (The Next Financial Crisis Lurks Underground).
For all that, the shale oil producers still couldn’t make money at it.
If interest rates go up, the industry will choke on the debt it has
already accumulated and lose access to new loans. If the Fed reverses
its current course —say, to rescue the stock and bond markets — then the
shale oil industry has perhaps three more years before it collapses on a
geological basis, maybe less. After that, we’re out of tricks. It will
affect everything.
The perceived solution is to run all our stuff on electricity, with
the electricity produced by other means than fossil fuels, so-called alt
energy. This will only happen on the most limited basis and perhaps not
at all. (And it is apart from the question of the decrepit electric
grid itself.) What’s required is a political conversation about how we
inhabit the landscape, how we do business, and what kind of business we
do. The prospect of dismantling suburbia — or at least moving out of it —
is evidently unthinkable. But it’s going to happen whether we make
plans and policies, or we’re dragged kicking and screaming away from it.
http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/the-uncomfortable-hiatus/
Monday, September 3, 2018
always read this guy until his site began to require i register, which i generally refuse to do whenever possible. his thoughts below, posted in their entirety, are as clear as he usually is;
It no longer enforces the law.
It now allows any large company to simply pay the direct costs of any felony misconduct, if caught, and walk off. We have seen this thousands of times. It is an unbroken string of conduct. During the financial blow up they did it with every bank that had ripped off the people, and in fact paid them in the form of below-market loans (in some cases basically free!) to further enable them to operate after their fraud-laced schemes blew up in their faces. They have done the same with pharma, and they don't even bother indicting medical providers and hospitals.
And now we have this:
If you or I did the same thing our business would be destroyed. On purpose. What this statement says is that it is policy of our government to never impose said consequences on large companies -- at worst they pay for the direct costs of their criminal conduct, but never more, and never are they closed.
Of course criminals are not always caught, which means if you break the law five times and get caught twice you screw people successfully three out of five times and only have to pay back the direct theft the other two times.
No ordinary person ever gets such deference.
How many anchor babies were pooped out and then collected welfare as a result of this? How many of them (all) have consumed public resources -- schooling, medical care, etc -- while they would have never existed and such spending would not have happened but for the illegal conduct of this company.
Criminal prosecution is supposed to impose a wildly disparate punishment on purpose so it's not worth it. If I can hold up a bank and if caught only have to pay back what I stole, with no other penalty, I will hold up a bank right now, I will do it again tomorrow, and I will do it again every single damn day because I never go to prison and I never have to fork up more than I stole. If I get away with it then the money is mine and if not I simply give it back.
Our government is no longer legitimate; it has declared itself illegitimate with that above paragraph. You no longer have any obligation to obey any law and you have every right to demand the same deference Waste Management got here and enforce that through whatever means are necessary.
PS: This is Trump's administration now, so **** him sideways for this horse**** - he doesn't give a **** about illegals working or companies exploiting same and screwing Americans out of jobs.
Or dead college-age women.
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=234111
The Federal Government Is Illegitimate
[Comments enabled]
It now allows any large company to simply pay the direct costs of any felony misconduct, if caught, and walk off. We have seen this thousands of times. It is an unbroken string of conduct. During the financial blow up they did it with every bank that had ripped off the people, and in fact paid them in the form of below-market loans (in some cases basically free!) to further enable them to operate after their fraud-laced schemes blew up in their faces. They have done the same with pharma, and they don't even bother indicting medical providers and hospitals.
And now we have this:
“The non-prosecution agreement requires Waste Management to continue its substantial remedial measures to address all past immigration violations and forfeit more than $5.5 million in proceeds gained from hiring an illegal workforce at the Afton location,” said U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Patrick, U.S. Southern District of Texas. “In considering whether to enter into such agreements, we must take into account the collateral consequences that a criminal prosecution would have on the company’s contracts with many municipalities across the country and the thousands of employees for the conduct of three managers at one operating unit in Houston.”The entire point of criminal prosecution is collateral consequences!
If you or I did the same thing our business would be destroyed. On purpose. What this statement says is that it is policy of our government to never impose said consequences on large companies -- at worst they pay for the direct costs of their criminal conduct, but never more, and never are they closed.
Of course criminals are not always caught, which means if you break the law five times and get caught twice you screw people successfully three out of five times and only have to pay back the direct theft the other two times.
No ordinary person ever gets such deference.
How many anchor babies were pooped out and then collected welfare as a result of this? How many of them (all) have consumed public resources -- schooling, medical care, etc -- while they would have never existed and such spending would not have happened but for the illegal conduct of this company.
Criminal prosecution is supposed to impose a wildly disparate punishment on purpose so it's not worth it. If I can hold up a bank and if caught only have to pay back what I stole, with no other penalty, I will hold up a bank right now, I will do it again tomorrow, and I will do it again every single damn day because I never go to prison and I never have to fork up more than I stole. If I get away with it then the money is mine and if not I simply give it back.
Our government is no longer legitimate; it has declared itself illegitimate with that above paragraph. You no longer have any obligation to obey any law and you have every right to demand the same deference Waste Management got here and enforce that through whatever means are necessary.
PS: This is Trump's administration now, so **** him sideways for this horse**** - he doesn't give a **** about illegals working or companies exploiting same and screwing Americans out of jobs.
Or dead college-age women.
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=234111
i know some of you will tell me you can't accept anything from a russian source because russians built the berlin wall and your daddy told you they're nasty, but consider if you will the possibility there may be something useful to read here;
The Governor of Arizona offered to replace the deceased Senator John McCain… with his widow Cindy. Imagine what squealing would rise in Russia, with the sound of an offer to replace the deceased member of the Council of Federation with his wife. And in the US they are seriously discussing this “democratic” option.
https://youtu.be/AnkY2cTeSOU
John McCain died, long live Cindy McCain! – so you can describe the initiative of the Arizona Governor Doug Dews. If this is not nepotism, then what? The thoughts of the governor were reported on an edition of The New York Times. (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/26/us/politics/john-mccain-trump-replacement.html)
A special glamor to this initiative is the fact that the full name of the deceased is actually John Sidney McCain III, if anyone did not know. Am I the only one thinking the name resembles the times of absolute monarchies? The senator’s grandfather, who was John Sidney McCain I, graduated from a career as a four-star admiral. And then there was what is reflected in the classic anecdote about the son of the general, who can not become a marshal, because the marshal has his son.
So, John Sydney McCain II became a four-star admiral, like his dad. And McCain number three also wanted to get into that row. But that one turned out to be in 895th place out of 899 graduates of the Maritime Academy. Moreover, he was unable even to properly control the aircraft, breaking 4 (!) aircraft, which he controlled while serving in the US Air Force.
McCain got captured by the Vietnamese after he bombed a civilian object – a factory for the production of incandescent lamps. This, in fact, is a war crime. But it, as we see, did not in the least prevent the mediocre pilot from making a political career and becoming a senator from the state of Arizona already since 1986.
Hey liberals, I don’t see your hands and hear no shouting about the succession of power. And now, when the third representative of the dynasty of small-town American tsars rested in the Bose, they want his widow to be made McCain No. 4. Rather, the third-hatch. Since McCain has a son, also called John Sydney McCain, with the addition of IV, born in 1986. I bet this one will also make a career in the American establishment.
By the way, when the late McCain the third was a congressman, since 1983 and on appointment as senator, his predecessor, representing Arizona, was John Rhodes. And do you know who succeeded McCain in the House of Representatives of the US Congress? John Rhodes III. I give this example to make it clear: the McCain clan is not an exception, but a rule.
Under a loud crackling about democracy, America is run by the same families. And it’s all right, when their representatives are trained from a childhood to a career, but when a mother-housewife is recommended as a senator only because her murdered four aircraft military criminal-husband was a senator – then anything is possible. The next candidate will be McCain’s horse, I believe.
With all the background described, it is not surprising that our compatriots took soft news from Russian media about McCain’s death in a hostile manner. [“Our condolences and our rememberance of him in our materials” – Are you really TASS, or are you Radio Liberty?]
In our country, they perfectly understand who the deceased was, and why he got into American power. The eye-catching clan-like elite of the US is so annoying to all decent vatniks [slur term for Russians] that they generally would prefer to see in the US only a statement of the fact: “he died, and the Earth is glassy.”
Even the State Duma fell under this batch. Was it worth the head of the International Affairs Committee Leonid Slutsky to express his condolences? As he was criticized for using the wording “patriot of his country” in relation to McCain.
But this is indeed true: McCain was a patriot of the US, so Slutsky did not in the least make a mistake against the truth. Only under the US, McCain and his types, are not at all like ordinary Americans. For John Sydney McCain III, John Rhodes III and others like them, America is just “old families” whose members make careers, even if they turn out to be mediocre.
In the framework of such a paradigm, putting Senator Cindy McCain – is quite logical. After all, she communicated with her husband for so many years and probably learned by heart all his chants about “restraining Russia” and so on. She will voice them, urging to defeat the “enemies of the United States” in order to honor the memory of the deceased. Heh, “big deal.”
http://thesaker.is/the-life-and-death-of-mccain-showed-a-deep-degradation-of-american-democracy-by-ruslan-ostashko/
The Governor of Arizona offered to replace the deceased Senator John McCain… with his widow Cindy. Imagine what squealing would rise in Russia, with the sound of an offer to replace the deceased member of the Council of Federation with his wife. And in the US they are seriously discussing this “democratic” option.
https://youtu.be/AnkY2cTeSOU
John McCain died, long live Cindy McCain! – so you can describe the initiative of the Arizona Governor Doug Dews. If this is not nepotism, then what? The thoughts of the governor were reported on an edition of The New York Times. (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/26/us/politics/john-mccain-trump-replacement.html)
A special glamor to this initiative is the fact that the full name of the deceased is actually John Sidney McCain III, if anyone did not know. Am I the only one thinking the name resembles the times of absolute monarchies? The senator’s grandfather, who was John Sidney McCain I, graduated from a career as a four-star admiral. And then there was what is reflected in the classic anecdote about the son of the general, who can not become a marshal, because the marshal has his son.
So, John Sydney McCain II became a four-star admiral, like his dad. And McCain number three also wanted to get into that row. But that one turned out to be in 895th place out of 899 graduates of the Maritime Academy. Moreover, he was unable even to properly control the aircraft, breaking 4 (!) aircraft, which he controlled while serving in the US Air Force.
McCain got captured by the Vietnamese after he bombed a civilian object – a factory for the production of incandescent lamps. This, in fact, is a war crime. But it, as we see, did not in the least prevent the mediocre pilot from making a political career and becoming a senator from the state of Arizona already since 1986.
Hey liberals, I don’t see your hands and hear no shouting about the succession of power. And now, when the third representative of the dynasty of small-town American tsars rested in the Bose, they want his widow to be made McCain No. 4. Rather, the third-hatch. Since McCain has a son, also called John Sydney McCain, with the addition of IV, born in 1986. I bet this one will also make a career in the American establishment.
By the way, when the late McCain the third was a congressman, since 1983 and on appointment as senator, his predecessor, representing Arizona, was John Rhodes. And do you know who succeeded McCain in the House of Representatives of the US Congress? John Rhodes III. I give this example to make it clear: the McCain clan is not an exception, but a rule.
Under a loud crackling about democracy, America is run by the same families. And it’s all right, when their representatives are trained from a childhood to a career, but when a mother-housewife is recommended as a senator only because her murdered four aircraft military criminal-husband was a senator – then anything is possible. The next candidate will be McCain’s horse, I believe.
With all the background described, it is not surprising that our compatriots took soft news from Russian media about McCain’s death in a hostile manner. [“Our condolences and our rememberance of him in our materials” – Are you really TASS, or are you Radio Liberty?]
In our country, they perfectly understand who the deceased was, and why he got into American power. The eye-catching clan-like elite of the US is so annoying to all decent vatniks [slur term for Russians] that they generally would prefer to see in the US only a statement of the fact: “he died, and the Earth is glassy.”
Even the State Duma fell under this batch. Was it worth the head of the International Affairs Committee Leonid Slutsky to express his condolences? As he was criticized for using the wording “patriot of his country” in relation to McCain.
But this is indeed true: McCain was a patriot of the US, so Slutsky did not in the least make a mistake against the truth. Only under the US, McCain and his types, are not at all like ordinary Americans. For John Sydney McCain III, John Rhodes III and others like them, America is just “old families” whose members make careers, even if they turn out to be mediocre.
In the framework of such a paradigm, putting Senator Cindy McCain – is quite logical. After all, she communicated with her husband for so many years and probably learned by heart all his chants about “restraining Russia” and so on. She will voice them, urging to defeat the “enemies of the United States” in order to honor the memory of the deceased. Heh, “big deal.”
http://thesaker.is/the-life-and-death-of-mccain-showed-a-deep-degradation-of-american-democracy-by-ruslan-ostashko/
there's a lot to unpack in this article that covers many topics but taken together it could overwhelm some of the true believers;
Authored by Chris Martenson via PeakProsperity.com,
As the dog days of summer wind down, it’s hard not to notice how the climate is suffering brutally right now across many areas of the globe.
Crop failures have hit hard across Europe. Australia is under an intense drought. Warm water representing ‘archived heat’ has penetrated deep into the arctic. Coral reefs are dying through mass bleachings. The stocks of ocean fisheries are in deep trouble. Insect and bird populations remain in a state of collapse.
It couldn't be any more clear that our society's demands for ever-more "growth" are taking an increasingly dangerous toll. "Growth" is now the enemy of life on the planet; yet there are precious few leaders willing to admit as much.
What we need is less pressure on vital ecological systems and precious remaining resources. But good luck finding a politician willing to admit that.
Though a refreshing exception is French environmental minister Nicolas Hulot who dramatically resigned his position last week, on live television, declaring “I don’t want to lie to myself anymore.” His view is that the government is not addressing the major environmental issues properly and he didn't want his presence to give the false appearance that it was. Kudos to Nicolas, though I’m not sure that losing such a rare principled person in government is a step in the right direction.
Sadly, the mainstream media chooses to toss wedge issue after wedge issue, ususally in the most inflammatory ways it can, at an increasingly irate general populace that has almost zero clue about the true source of the shocks (financial, economic, and ecological) they are experiencing. This prevents society from having an informed discussion about the real risks we should be concerned with.
As heart-tugging a topic as 'border kids' might be, the monster asset price bubbles blown by the central banks get almost no attention in the media -- despite their ability to destroy the futures and dreams of pretty much everyone reading this article.
Our media is failing us, badly, by focusing on symptomatic issues that enrage and divide us, while remaining silent on the causal matters of vital importance to all of us.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-09-02/chris-martenson-whole-system-rigged
Authored by Chris Martenson via PeakProsperity.com,
As the dog days of summer wind down, it’s hard not to notice how the climate is suffering brutally right now across many areas of the globe.
Crop failures have hit hard across Europe. Australia is under an intense drought. Warm water representing ‘archived heat’ has penetrated deep into the arctic. Coral reefs are dying through mass bleachings. The stocks of ocean fisheries are in deep trouble. Insect and bird populations remain in a state of collapse.
It couldn't be any more clear that our society's demands for ever-more "growth" are taking an increasingly dangerous toll. "Growth" is now the enemy of life on the planet; yet there are precious few leaders willing to admit as much.
What we need is less pressure on vital ecological systems and precious remaining resources. But good luck finding a politician willing to admit that.
Though a refreshing exception is French environmental minister Nicolas Hulot who dramatically resigned his position last week, on live television, declaring “I don’t want to lie to myself anymore.” His view is that the government is not addressing the major environmental issues properly and he didn't want his presence to give the false appearance that it was. Kudos to Nicolas, though I’m not sure that losing such a rare principled person in government is a step in the right direction.
Operating On Blind Faith
Most politicians appear to think that there are no big issues out there ecologically-speaking. Of course, very few of them spend any time outside or understand where their food even comes from. Most subsist on the blind faith that our planet will somehow always bounce back from the abuses we inflict on it, despite reams of mounting evidence that it's hitting a mulitplying number of breaking and tipping points.Sadly, the mainstream media chooses to toss wedge issue after wedge issue, ususally in the most inflammatory ways it can, at an increasingly irate general populace that has almost zero clue about the true source of the shocks (financial, economic, and ecological) they are experiencing. This prevents society from having an informed discussion about the real risks we should be concerned with.
As heart-tugging a topic as 'border kids' might be, the monster asset price bubbles blown by the central banks get almost no attention in the media -- despite their ability to destroy the futures and dreams of pretty much everyone reading this article.
Our media is failing us, badly, by focusing on symptomatic issues that enrage and divide us, while remaining silent on the causal matters of vital importance to all of us.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-09-02/chris-martenson-whole-system-rigged
its been a long time since i remember the 'protect and serve' attitude in cops. then they started shooting family dogs, many of which had been absolutely no threat, but this case takes the cake;
Ogden City, UT — For years, some of the most read stories we produce involve instances when police officers kill family pets, getting away with the killings by way of their qualified immunity. But the following story is one of the worst we’ve ever posted. An Ogden City Utah police officer actually shot a family dog while the pet was secured on the owners leash.
Representatives from the Division of Child and Family Services, also known in some states as Child Protective Services, was attempting to conduct a welfare check at the home of a local resident and asked Ogden police officers to accompany them. Officers J. Beck and J. Grime asked the homeowner if the dog was friendly and was reportedly told he was not but that he would bring the dog inside, away from any threat to the officers of the peace.
But before the homeowner could bring the dog—who was attached to a long cable leash—inside, one of the officers fired one shot, severely injuring the family’s pet. The homeowner then posted his dissatisfaction with the Ogden officers’ decision to open fire on his dog, a pit bull, in a post which has now gone viral.
It’s important to note the officers did not have to invade the dog’s
personal space, a decision which put them in imminent danger.
Nevertheless, the officers did and were reportedly attacked as a
result—knowing full well that would be the case.
https://thefreethoughtproject.com/cop-shoots-dog-leash-chief-says-officer-followed-protocol/
Ogden City, UT — For years, some of the most read stories we produce involve instances when police officers kill family pets, getting away with the killings by way of their qualified immunity. But the following story is one of the worst we’ve ever posted. An Ogden City Utah police officer actually shot a family dog while the pet was secured on the owners leash.
Representatives from the Division of Child and Family Services, also known in some states as Child Protective Services, was attempting to conduct a welfare check at the home of a local resident and asked Ogden police officers to accompany them. Officers J. Beck and J. Grime asked the homeowner if the dog was friendly and was reportedly told he was not but that he would bring the dog inside, away from any threat to the officers of the peace.
But before the homeowner could bring the dog—who was attached to a long cable leash—inside, one of the officers fired one shot, severely injuring the family’s pet. The homeowner then posted his dissatisfaction with the Ogden officers’ decision to open fire on his dog, a pit bull, in a post which has now gone viral.
https://thefreethoughtproject.com/cop-shoots-dog-leash-chief-says-officer-followed-protocol/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)