Totally, completely, pwned

Black oily swan

A man-made disaster of epic proportions, I think we better start getting used to the idea that the leak currently hemorrhaging oil deep in the Gulf of Mexico may never be plugged.

I know it's a pelican

I expect that soon BP will throw up their hands and simply walk away. Taking a page from the Wit and Wisdom of Lloyd Blankfein, BP will announce “We did our best, this tragedy is now in the hands of God.” And of course the Gov will “take charge” of the disaster, and the money of course will come out of your pocket.

There will be no recourse for We the People. Just like Wall Street,  the Oilcos have engineered the law so that they will be untouchable.

Up to this point, BP has presented what in this age of centrally controlled media looks like a good faith effort. In fact it appears to cynics like me that every move they make is only to cover their ass. Corporate controlled media will make the case for their cronies offering the valuable assistance of helping form public opinion. Expect the slant from Faux Nooze(tm) et al along the lines of “If this is the Good Lord”s will, what you going to do?”

Obama will continue as an ineffectual figurehead who will make the right noises to keep the tongue clicking to a minimum. Meanwhile he will continue to reward Corporate America with the riches they so deserve. He might even get re-elected.

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Meanwhile, Louisiana continues to get treated like a prison bitch.

Death by misadventure?

“Mr Bernanke built his academic reputation on the study of the credit mechanism. This model offers a radically different theory for how the financial system works. While so-called “creditism” has become the new orthodoxy in US central banking, it has not yet been tested over time and may yet prove to be a misadventure.”

[ Telegraph
US money supply plunges at 1930s pace as Obama eyes fresh stimulus ]

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If the USA is the world’s wealthiest nation, why does it need to be so heavily into debt?

Also, the band played on as the Titanic sank

Banality of Evil

Me, I love a good fable. When insightfully written along-side the spectre of current events, fables can be quite revealing about unacknowledged truths that we live with day- to- day, and we are, or we choose to be, blissfully unaware of.

A Story for the Children: Making Friends with Evil

“The Good Ogre administration’s decision,” the milky smooth voice begins, “to authorize the killing by the Secret Signal Agency of a child suspect who is a citizen of Ogre City has set off a debate over the legal and political limits of mystery weapon strikes, a mainstay of the campaign against child terrorism.”

I found this lovely piece from the blog excerpted below. Not issued from the right but from the left (if you buy into the old tired and abused left-right paradigm, as many delusionals certainly do, but good on ’em for calling a spade a spade):

Arthur Silber outdoes himself with this one-two punch of an essay. It begins with a tale that pierces to the essence of what we are — and what we are becoming — under our murderous imperium. The second half unfolds some of the implications of the fable in the hard facts of the present day, taking off from the almost indescribable depravity of the current “debate” over Barack Obama’s open assertion of the power to assassinate anyone on earth at his arbitrary order, and the continuation of torture under the current administration, despite all the bright shining lies to the contrary.

Silber ends with an adjuration that encapsulates, with searing clarity, something I have been trying to say for a long time:

The fact that Obama’s claims on this issue are damnable, monstrous lies has been painfully, horrifically obvious since the time he first offered them. With very few exceptions, no liberal-progressive writers have told you that. More than a few writers — and Obama himself — continue to offer these same monstrous lies as truth even today.

Consider again the nature of the subjects under discussion: the immense evil of torture … and Obama’s claim that he has the “right” to assassinate anyone without judicial process or evidence of any kind whatsoever, simply because he says so. Reread the little story offered above. And then be brave enough finally to state the truth, at least in what should be the sacred space of your own mind:

This is insane.

This is monstrous.

This is deeply, unforgivably, irredeemably evil.

Here is a note for those who write and talk about these issues. If you write on these subjects and if you talk about them regularly on radio and television, and if you do not state — repeatedly, with all the conviction and passion that you can command — that actions of this kind are insane, monstrous and deeply evil, you are not opposing the monstrousnessness. You are accommodating it, seeking excuses for it, trying to minimize it — or, to use the phrase I often employ in my own notes — you are “making friends with evil.”

If you do this, you are not fighting against the monstrousness. You are part of it.

[ Chris Floyd ]

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Bubble brains die hard. Where’s a zombie when you need one?

Congratulations, you are the housing market.

Just when you though the housing crash was over, along comes the news that Fannie Mae (Phonie) suffered a stunning first quarter loss of $13.1 billion and Freddie Mac (Fraudie) lost $8 billion:

96.5% of all originated loans are now government backed. Remember Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and their epic continuing losses? Apparently banks have no problem originating loans as long as they can use the government money to gamble in the stock market.

Wall Street enjoys handing your money out. They like to beat on their chest about the free market but have no intention of lending out their own money (i.e., your bailout funds). In fact, Wall Street has convinced itself that your money is basically their hard earned cash. For the risky housing market, they’ll be the middleman in lending out mortgages that are defaulting in mass. What do they care if the economy is on stable footing? They don’t care if you lose your job and can’t pay the mortgage in one or two years. By then, the banks will be gambling in another bubble putting another sector of the economy at risk.

[ Dr. Housing Bubble ]

Foreclosure Stats
…..…..2005  65,000/mo.
…..…..2010 365,000/mo.
…..…..7,140,000 mortgages currently in default or 30+
…..…..days late  (14 percent of all U.S. mortgages).
…..…..24% of those that have made no payment in the
…..…..last year are still not in foreclosure!
…..…..39,000 people have not made a payment in 2 years.

Ironically the only thing that seems to keep people in their home is when they stop paying their mortgage!

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We was robbed.



Smells a bit like Harriet Myers

Has it occurred to anyone else that Elena Kagan is a cypher? She has absolutely no judicial experience. None. Nada. Kagan isn’t even qualified for a lower court position, let alone THE SUPREME COURT.

She comes from that ginormous supply of WH staff who hang around the White House as partisan apparatchiks sycophantic bureaucrats Solicitor Generals typically do, dreaming wishing hoping some magic will eventually rub off. I guess she got her wish.

By choosing Kagan tells us they didn’t look very hard to find a qualified candidate. AS IN: someone with experience. A really qualified candidate would have experience, and a track record open to scrutiny to back that up. An acceptable candidate is one who has made good, tough decisions that were upheld by other courts. Objective criteria.

Unfortunately, we live in a nation with a government where anyone, by virtue of their close proximity to the corridors of power- or can fulfill a stereotype or can wear a robe- can be nominated for THE SUPREME COURT. Hussah.

Voters to these administrations are pretty much out of sight, out of mind, since we aren’t allowed a say in the vetting process for SUPREME COURT NOMINEE. We’re expected to defer to our ‘betters.’

At least with municipal courts, we the people get a say, via an election. Even if the choices are typically marginal, at least we get a say.

But with someone like Kagan, most Americans can only shake their heads. A good candidate would receive some kind of consent from the public, and this would be acknowledged by the administration. With a Kagan (or a Myers) that consent is artificially whipped up and broadcast throughout the propaganda arm (aka the MSM) and presented as if true consent was a given.

But it is not. Ask any American.

As currently being framed by .gov’s propaganda arm (the MSM), her lack of experience might be her greatest advantage! Wow. See, she’s just like you and me! A total, clueless numpty!

By that yardstick, even Clueless Bush was qualified to be president. He wasn’t qualified, but he was (kinda, sorta) elected. So at least he had to run some sort of gauntlet, no matter how protected it/he was by his overlords/handlers. Our bad for not being more involved in the process so Manchurian dinosaurs like him don’t get the nod in the first place.

I think the American people deserve someone well-qualified to be on the Supreme Court. Expand the search outside your isolated coterie in the White House.

But the TPTB have to pluck someone out of obscurity. This delays the nominee discovery process, a vital tactic which if executed with precision, forestall leaks of any damaging info into the light of day until after the nominee’s confirmation. (They learned something from the Clancy  Thomas-Anita Hill debacle.)  Someone with no discernable track record is preferred. This helps keep the nay-sayers at bay. The preferred candidate is what we call a ‘ringer.’

This is pure hubris, my friend. They’ve gotten away with time after time, and it has become routine. They can find anyone to do their bidding, and place them since you are effectively out of the loop. Marginalized. You have no say in the matter. After confirmation, they expect you’ll forget all about it come election day (where your choice will be limited to their choices anyway).

Looky here- Harriet Myers, Clancy Thomas are underacheivers of the first magnitude (takes one to know one).  I think the American people want someone up on the bench who isn’t idealogically pre-disposed to whoever happens to be sitting in the Oval Office.

Your ‘betters’ need you desperately to believe that you deserve a nice home, one or two or three nice cars, that you get to believe yes you can! live out your dreams of fabulous wealth. So keep working two jobs! Don’t think abut that retirement account that lost half its value- it’ll make it all back by the time you are ready to cash in! They got your back!

What they don’t want you to have is time to think. If you do you might conclude you also deserve an accountable government, with qualified people in positions of power who are not influenced or outright bought by the hot money bribes of special interest. Instead they would rather you did not see the bloated bureaucracy populated by an ever-increasing, reliable voting block watching porn-tune while they pretend to be busy at make-work jobs (hey, at least they have one!) to perpetuate the ruling class.

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First they came for the homeowners and I didn’t complain.
Then they came for the credit card holders and I didn’t complain.
When they came for me, there was nobody left to complain.

The gyrations in the market last week have the look and feel of classic market manipulation.

From Janet Tavakoli:

Chicago residents grew up to the sound of local early morning radio rundowns of pork belly futures and other exchange traded commodities. Every trick in the book from manipulation of soybeans to silver has played out in Chicago’s trading pits. Every market professional I’ve talked to in Chicago since Thursday is of the same opinion. It makes no difference whether human beings or computers are front running and manipulating trades. The gyrations in the market last week have the look and feel of classic market manipulation.

If you want to manipulate a market, deregulate it as much as possible. Then make it as “dark,” and fast as possible. Make it hard for outsiders to view your trades as they get done, and make it even harder for anyone to figure out why you are trading. Get as much monopoly power as possible over the market. Get funding at the cheapest possible rate. The best possible rate is the near zero cost funding available from the Federal Reserve.

Next, get your “men” stationed in the most influential positions at the exchanges. Make sure your cronies have shock and awe market dominance through, say, High Frequency Trading algorithms that now make up the majority of stock trades.Then, make sure you have advance information of major market-moving events. A bailout announcement by the European Union would do nicely. A few days before the announcement, “bang” the market. Pound down the value so you can monetize put options and other bearish instruments. Trigger customers’ stop-loss orders, and pick up bargains at their expense. Then cash-in again when the market pops up on bailout news.

[ “Banging” the U.S. Stock Market ]

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It’s a very tried and true formula. In Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefèvre, Jesse Livermore (the putative subject of the book) portrays a similar scenario which existed during the the period of 1900-1923 (circumstances which were extant and mutated grandiosely resulting in the big crash of 1929; the manipulation continued well into the 1930’s, until the cheaters could not squeeze any more).

Actually, it’s a scenario that is as old as markets. Big players want to reduce their risk, and what better way than to be in control? Not necessarily directly, but indirectly (it keeps the punters guessing). Pulling strings; Influencing law and the public mindset; then set ’em up and sheer the  sheep who never learn, and are at a loss as to explain what ever it was that happened.

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Years ago I read about hunters on the African savanna who would walk after a single animal for days slowly and methodically until the animal ceased to run away from the hunter. After days of constantly walking toward the prey, ultimately the hunter would simply walk up to it and club it in the head.

Is ‘Globalization’ the biggest Ponzi ever?

If you don’t think the stock market is corrupt and rigged, consider this: after Thursday’s 1,000 point drop, the biggest nominal decline in NYSE history (percentage-wise, since 1987), the market then, within its last hour, climbed back UP out of the gutter 650 points. That retrace has got to be some kind of record too. Coincidental? Unrelated? I think not.

Manipulated? Isn’t that obvious yet?

And if .gov sets its propaganda wing on bitch-mode about market manipulation, you will take note that the spotlight is cast upon “evil short sellers” when it’s clearly the TBTF banks (“financial terrorists)”. In fact today’s 400 point ramp job at the open is courtesy of the ECB, the Fed, Inc. and the IMF… “juicing the present by robbing from your future.(tm)”

“In the aftermath of Goldman Sachs’ public flogging before the world in Congress, and while under investigation, on the very day that Congress was voting on the “break up the too big to fail banks” amendment and cutting behind the scenes deals to gut the audit of the Federal Reserve, the stock market had its greatest sudden drop in history, plummeting 700 points in ten minutes – shades of September 29, 2008 all over again.

“If you recall, back in September ‘08, as Congress was voting down the first bailout, the big banks made the market plunge a record 778 points in one day, fear and panic then led Congress to pass the bailout. Trillions of our tax dollars, the money that we desperately need to keep our society functioning over the long run, then went out the window and into the pockets of the very people who caused the crash.

“What happened on September 29, 2008 will go down in history as one of the greatest acts of terrorism ever.

“9/29/08 proved that when you have so much power concentrated in the hands of a few, you can manipulate a computer algorithm and make the market and economy go which ever way you want it to go. So on 5/6/10, just as the power of the big banks was threatened again on the floor of the Senate and a deal on auditing the Federal Reserve was being negotiated, in came a sudden and unprecedented ten-minute 700 point market drop. A precision-guided High Frequency Trading (HFT) attack to show Congress who’s boss.“

High Frequency Terrorism: How the Big Banks and Federal Reserve Maintained Their Death Grip Over the United States

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“These people (Rubin, Summers, Greenspank, Bukkake) designed economic policies that were intended to redistribute income upward.” [ Dean Baker ]

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“The Ponzi scheme was very effective, because the impossible dream was so appealing. The euro project gave people and companies and governments in the periphery access to far lower interest rates than they had ever seen before, and encouraged them to enter the gingerbread palace. The result was a manic period of credit expansion where people borrowed vastly more than they could ever hope to repay, just like the US subprime borrowers who indulged in the same dynamic. Attempting to borrow yourself into wealth absolutely never works, no matter where you live. The developing debt slavery further enriches the centre in the meantime, though.”

[ The Automatic Earth ]

Eurozone melt down explained:

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Karl Denninger does a good job summing up the perniciousness of the Federal Reserve privatized system.

IMHO, the case was made for auditing the Fed, Inc.  when it was recently revealed Easy Al Greenspank and his hood-rats decided to hide from the American people their concern about the housing bubble because “we’re the only ones who can understand this problem.”

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The chimera of prosperity works- until it doesn’t anymore.

The world has no money, and the Emperor has no clothes

From the mouth of knaves…