Maybe an Aside ... but Collaobration is sorely needed these days in all domains

While the powers that were try to be, the rest of us clearly seeing potential solutions which cannot be heard in the corridors rapidly clearing of power ... here's a thot from Nerd Girl

She's a post-doc at UBC writing a weekly Globe column

Crisis, What Crisis? hints on the road to Victory

In the fall of 2009 I think the University as we have known it will be in crisis because I cannot believe that parents and grandparents will sacrifice their much reduced retirements to send Billy or Barbie who don't want to be there to university for an education that means nothing in terms of being able to DO something ... at that point, it would be students who would demand a shift towards excellence and away from the present business models ... the current generation of academics will be viewed as having failed and CHANGE will come ... we may be called upon to make comments at that time, having seen the inside of the belly of the beast ... by then we will have seen workers and unions exchanging money for quality of jobs and life, sustainability at many levels, etc. We are going to see massive change, once the money/numbers game fails spectacularly ... the once sold-out souls are not yet dead and will awaken ... maybe basic goodness will have its day.

A New Economy: Some of you have made this point already ... here is some confirmation

From: Jim Kunstler

To be specific about this new economy, we’re going to have to make things again, and raise things out of the earth, locally, and trade these things for money of some kind that we earn through our own productive activities. Don’t make the mistake of thinking this is optional. The only other option is to go through a violent sociopolitical convulsion. We ought to know from prior examples in world history that this is not a desirable experience. So, to avoid that, we really have to put our shoulders to the wheel and get to work on things that matter, and do it at a scale that is consistent with what the world really has to offer right now, especially in terms of available energy.

In my view — and I know this is controversial — a much larger proportion of the U.S. population will have to be employed in growing the food we eat. There are many ways of arranging this, some more fair than others, and I hope the better angels of our nature steer us in the direction of fairness and justice. The prospects of a devalued dollar imply that we very shortly will not be able to get the all the oil-and-gas based “inputs” that have made petro-agriculture possible the past century. The consequences of this are so unthinkable that we have not been thinking about it. And, of course, the further implications of current land-use allocation, and the property ownership issues entailed, suggests formidable difficulties in re-arranging the farming sector. The sooner we face all this, the better.

Paul Krugman, nobel prize winner writes ... on the Dangers of the Lame Duck Economy

The comments here illuminate more than the article and send you back for more Krugman. He is VERY good in past pieces at explaining economics in examples you and I can understand. I'm not sure teenagers would, but ...

Common Dreams repub, hence the more thoughtful comments.

Mind the Gap ... the door is opening

Or ... why there have been few posts of late.

Rainer has returned from MX in his moment, which usually means that a party breaks out wherever he goes. Enough fun with that, there are also late nights, but more importantly, early mornings where the light is shining and illumiinating such facets as the Nez of Art ... a conversation which we know how we started and will do so again for whomever wants to listen in and perhaps kibbitz. This is also in regard to him being involved in the possible establishment of a school of art in Xalapa, created and run by those who eschew the art establishment and the training of artists by academics rather than by practitioners. We are beginning to map where the crucial distinctions/sparks between symmetry and chaos apply.

Introducing Victor Niederhoffer ... this is not supposed to be just irritating for the sake of it.
Many of us Boomers, and I am an early instance by some reckoning, born May 8, 1945 ... assume that the commercial systems are a blight upon the planet and toss that baby as far as we can ... baby is lucky if there is any water along to cushion the landing. Victor, by that calculation, is not one of us. He has been up to his ears in money and making it from the get-go and is still only fascinated by the ramifications surrounding the enterprises. However, he bears the marks of one who has over-extended and been ruined in a number of ways ... in the present context his words ring true with the wisdom of experience and a view that is not stuck in the moaning over lost assumptions. One story is that in 1997 he made a bad trade that cost he and his friends 100 Million in a few hours, leaving him once again in ruin and there were people at the time who, thinking that the poetry of justice was at work, resented the fact that George Soros lent him 10 Million to get back on his feet again. If that makes no sense at all to you, maybe the Boomeritus is too far advanced. At any rate here is his blog which is a running, non-MSM commentary on the $ issues of the day ....

http://www.dailyspeculations.com/wordpress/

Finding the Center ... the US spelling applies in this case

After the success of the revulsion of neo-con politics, the rest of us really have to settle in to also acknowledge that there were some notable left-liberal excesses that led to the neo-con ascendancy ... and find a way to move to the middle ground, the forgotten center where practicality rules ...

For example, it is patently obvious, really, that individual rights to freedom require limitations on those who have not leaned to respect those rights for others, whether they be crimnals or criminal regimes (or 20 something bodies with 2 year old minds) ... In our relief at the passing of authoritarian methods in homes and schools we have produced a generation of children, many of whom have not experienced the safety provided by strong, clear boundaries for their movements and expressions.

It is thus time for the progressive thinkers to step up and acknowledge those areas where the conservative critcs found liberals' fuzzy logic less than compelling, if not dangerous. Maintaining a polar opposite for the purposes of debate is one thing, and a significant part of the dialectic, that often fails in practice.

What we need at this point is a return to the functional dialectic (which has now become multi-faceted and where the middle ground of a circle is still the center) in order to re-discover the practicality of the middle way.

Taking a Stand ... what we are rapidly learning

The ways of the past assumed that on any issue there was a right or correct position and a wrong position ... politics often began from idealogy and spent a lot of energy criticizing the opponents' idealogy. We grew up in a cold war that was largely idealogical in basis. The ways of the present will come to be defined in contrast to the obsolesent ways of the past.

Today, facing unprecedented challenges and having no time to find out, if it were possible, who was to blame, the way forward is to find a way that works to solve the problems we are facing and to leave as many options open for change as we dare because in uncharted waters there are bound to be more and likely bigger mistakes.

The assumption of basic goodness at the root allows a latitude of possibilities really unprecedented as well and provides a firm middle ground that is experientially "higher" than the historical conflicts if only in that it can see the conflicts more clearly by not being required to take sides as the past roars off into the passed. (sic)

There are opportunities for those of us who have meticulously stayed outside until now to enter into the emerging conversations as supporting balance and equanimity ... the long view and a careful peacemaking between the old warriors stuck in their ancient battles. One can become quite impassioned to articulate this position by sending emails, writing comments on blogs being read and generally trying to bring the conversation up a notch beyond the yelping youthingas.

I call that a Stand worth taking.

Economics in Rap format ... I mean u no sh?t brutha

Harvard Professor finds a way to teach to students who wear their caps sideways.

Now if he could only find a version that US Congress or Parliament could understand.

Election PostPartum ... collecting the detritus and exorcising the space

A group of statistical geeks who made excellent sense out of the 3-4 times more polling done in this years election.

Obama's Victory Speech ... Change.gov is the rally the troops site for the transition and 2009 Congressional and Presidential Transition is the nuts and bolts "transparency" site

Do What You Got Elected to Do says the new Chief of Staff, R. Emanuel which is different that Our Emanuel, no? For those of you who are wondering about the stance of the new regime, this article should clear a lot of that up. In a word, pragmatic.

The Obama 30m Prime Time infomercial

Ralph Nader ... he of "fire in the belly" points out what is needed to move this on, rather than count on fait accompli ... oops repeat of previous post and link. Well it bears repeating.

And if you want to hear some VERY funny conservative breast-beating that is over half truthful and sets a lot of red and green harbour markers for the future, then P. J. O'Rourke is your guy.

A Harvard Economics professor gives some advice to Mr. O at the beginning.

Of course it will not stop at electing a black president, for the paranoid religious right this must be all too much. A transgendered mayor no less!

Ralph Nader is not Quitting ... and he doesn't want you to either

Interviews with Ralph on PBS where he is agitating for crucial involvement ongoing to goad Congress into making real changes

A voice beyond the politics as spectator sports mentality.

This one brought tears to my eyes ... like this man sees there is something freah on the horizon

A white southern middle aged banker on the street, discovering his heart

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1103/p09s02-coop.html

Key Piece illustrating David Wilcock's edge

This is cribbed directly from his website ... he calls Illuminati - 'Family' in here

PART OF THE COSMIC PLAN: A MIRROR OF OUR COLLECTIVE SHADOW SIDE

I should point out that I've been aware of the 'negative elite' and their plans since the early 1990s, and they were discussed extensively in the Law of One series, a body of philosophical material that I consider as credible. I don't get riled up about the negative elite or feel threatened by them, because for years now I have seen that this is all part of a grander plan for humanity's evolution.

Ultimately, the "negative elite" are there to mirror back our shadow side. Each of us has darkness that we don't want to face, but we lie to ourselves and act like it really doesn't matter. Until we choose to see that it DOES matter, and that we would be well advised to try to improve how we think and behave towards ourselves and others, this problem in the world will continue.

The simple act of waking up, on a mass level, insures that the power base of this group will crumble. This story of the revolt of the top generals is just another example of how the "best laid plans" never work out as they were intended to. Why? Because people are waking up.

They may think they could herd people into prison camps, or micro-chip the entire population. The recent Aaron Russo video on Prison Planet is required viewing if you haven't already seen it, and I've watched the entire one-hour film and can tell you that all the most important data is in the free online version. You can watch it as a video link within the following article, the first two paragraphs of which I have quoted:

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/january2007/290107rockefellergoal.htm

"Hollywood director and documentary film maker Aaron Russo has gone in-depth on the astounding admissions of Nick Rockefeller, who personally told him that the elite's ultimate goal was to create a microchipped population and that the war on terror was a hoax, Rockefeller having predicted an "event" that would trigger the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan eleven months before 9/11.

Rockefeller also told Russo that his family's foundation had created and bankrolled the women's liberation movement in order to destroy the family and that population reduction was a fundamental aim of the global elite."

I honestly believe that after all the movies we've seen about human injustice, they simply could never find enough people who would be willing to hold the guns, when push came to shove.

Svali revealed that even within the 'Family' itself, there would be a 'mass exodus' out of the group if people thought they could escape - and live. Most of these people are NOT really into it - they were born in, and they have no choice but to stay in. This may be one of the most substantial points of all. The group itself lacks the internal fidelity to succeed.

WHY "FAMILY" CANNOT COLLAPSE THE ECONOMY

There IS a scientific case to be made that if an economic collapse does occur, perhaps by premeditated design, it won't damage most of us, but would actually have more of a cleansing effect than anything else. By "cleansing" I mean that systems that RESTRICT freedom and movement - like the negative elite - crumble and fall away.

If you investigate the science of Chaos Theory, you will come across the theory of Complex Adaptive Systems. This science is very recent and obviously has not permeated the ranks of "Family." When a group of people get together and form an economy as large as the global marketplace, you have a system whose properties remained mysterious to us until recently, with the advent of super-computers that can analyze the behaviors of a huge system.

We now know that the more a system like this is driven towards instability, the more likely it is that it will suddenly re-arrange into a higher level of order. These changes CANNOT be predicted or scripted, but they do occur. Just below you will find quotes from reputable scientists regarding this research, and its impact for all of us.

Here is a simple example: you have a pile of sand forming from a trickle-feed up top. As the pile rises in height, it becomes more and more unstable - it enters into Chaos. When the chaos reaches its peak of instability, scientists now have concluded that you CANNOT predict the speed or direction of movement of ANY particle in the system.

The ENTIRE SYSTEM takes on a bizarre, UNPREDICTABLE behavior where it acts as a WHOLE, not as a sequence of individual grains. There is a sudden shift, and the pile restructures itself. The pile does not collapse into a flat pancake - it just changes shape.

Here is an exceprt from a page within a nicely-worded, relatively easy to understand website about this exciting new science. Of course you have to wade through some scientific geekspeak, so don't focus on every word - just skim it and get the gist of what is being said. The link is to the main page, which you should read first if interested. There are THOUSANDS of resources where you can research this material, but this is a good one to start with:

http://complexity.orcon.net.nz/intro.html

"A complex adaptive system (CAS) is a complex system that has the ability to not only respond to the outside environment, but one that can adapt itself to become more efficient within its given environment. Basically, this means a system which can learn.

All forms of life are complex adaptive systems. Plants grow towards the light, animals seek out food, and humans work to develop their career to give them a better advantage, and better income than the other people about them.

Complex Adaptive Systems are formed by a number (usually large) of individual autonomous agents interacting intensely together [like human beings forming the global economy].

This creates complex non-linear interactions that allow the emergence of new properties for the system that could not have been predicted beforehand.

The new patterns are often system-wide.

When human beings get together they form cultures and languages. [These are additional examples of complex adaptive systems in action…] "

This body of information, of which the above quote is just a starting point, is the scientific PROOF for why "Family" will never "Bring Down the Internet," or collapse the world's economy. Both of these entities are complex adaptive systems.

Each person has the potential to restructure the economy, and as long as the sun rises and sets, birds fly, rain falls, trees grow, et cetera, we have the resources to continue to persevere. WE are a complex adaptive system, and "Family" does not have anywhere near as much control over that system as they would like to believe.

[From http://www.artist-strange-work.com/images/82.it27s_a_beautiful_dayfr2.jpg]

The Powers that Be earnestly think they can 'fund both sides' of a conflict so that whomever 'wins' is still on their side, but now with the Internet you have guys like Matt Drudge, Perez Hilton and Dylan Avery of "Loose Change" (the 9/11 documentary) who are sole agents, NOT on either side, but gaining massive publicity.

In the case of someone like Perez, we're not really seeing any kind of constructive content - and he's being sued by everyone in the entertainment industry, it seems, in the hopes of shutting down the site completely. However, his site is already more popular than ANY of the corporate television news broadcasts, in the world, in terms of the number of people tuning in. He's now clearing five million unique visitors in a day, on certain days, and was the eleventh most-searched term on Yahoo last week, as you can see in my article from two days ago.

The real point is that the old-school paradigm of the 'Family' simply CANNOT hold true in a complex adaptive system that is filled to the bursting-point with independent, free-acting agents, any one of which could have a cascading, massive, unprecedented effect upon the entire system.

The Revealing is not what they think it will be.

You are experiencing it.

Right now.

Entire page summarizing the Illuminati/Family Holy Grail bloodlines etc.

David Wilcock comes into Focus ... this clarifies and expands 2012 in AMAZING ways

Non of my hoo-hah main page link

The first contact was Joe Brophy telling me about David being a reincarnation of Edgar Cayce and something about Ra material .. then Joe mentioned the other day that Wilcock says the financial crisis is not ultimately destructive but will help us get rid of the criminals running the economy ...

I searched torrent sites and downloaded 2012 Enigma and The Road to Ascension in 4 parts. Just collecting, no focus yet. THEN:

Today I read the following material on Why the UFO event on October 14th did not happen and realized that this person in a very direct simple way is describing his own experience and presenting important information without hype or hyperbole ... especially willing to update and correct previous visionary experiences as new inspiration/data arises ... also an extremely clear view on why others get confused about future events. That update part is critical and how he explains it too. I solves the huge difficulty that prophecy has had in the past. Why events can be correct and timing quite far off. See paragraph below.

Why go into this huge body of material at this time?

It is all too easy to be overwhelmed and to shut-down at the flood of infomration these days ... I look for, and promote, those voices that provide context, View ... that allow for the rest to flow by ... an interesting Wilcock analogy is that the Golden Ration 1.618 used to divide eras is now repeatedly dividing the time span between now and 2012 in ever smaller segments and major events are associated with each transition, so that we will experience more and increasingly more major events as the Date approaches ... that kind of insight can make you dizzy. What he says that is enormously helpful is that the primary task of each individual is to forgive themselves and others so that we can open to whatever future without resistance and fear ... I am inevitably drawn here and will continue to post the highlights as I go.

Up to Date intro video about 90m in length called 2012 Enigma ... if you want to quit before the end go ahead to last 5m

Road to Ascension Part 1 is important because this is the background on David's journey

The Importance of Updates in the field of prophecy ... this is my take, not Mr. Wilcock ...

The Seer, sees ... images, a certain amount of fuzziness, maybe a lot of relatively symbolic stuff and comes out of that visionary state with an interpretation that seems correct at the time ... the collection of beings that comprise the Totality are interacting with present and future states ... it is an adaptive system, evolving in potentially many directions ... as "time" moves forward it (the tuture) changes as the present interactions make choices that either support or change the initial vision ...

Enough to see that it is not surprising that this area has a dubious reputation for accuracy and yet is valuable as part of context in terms of choosing as we go. The stars incline, they do not impel ...

This work incorporates that "soft" approach, a certain humility often lacking in the propheically inclined ... I have noticed in our collective a certain weariness, at times, ... hard to stay positive when we are still worried that this might turn out quite terribly ... and while that is so, it seems important to me that the white knights get over the smudges on their robes and continue heading south ... my role seems to be about encouraging the view that it could turn out quite well ...

Neil Young: "Don't let it bring you down, It's only castles burning, Find someone who's turning and you will come around"

There is so much material here ... and connection to The Law of One which is also Ra material. Summarized in The Law of One Study Guide

If you can Stand reading The Other Side ... how a basketful of thoughtful conservatives are voting this time.

I came here because I saw Francis Fukuyama's name in a Memeorandum post.

http://www.amconmag.com/article/2008/nov/03/00020/

Then I began to click on the names below and it was truly an enlightening experience. There was quite a range of opinions expressed and the kind of concerns that many of us share in terms of going forward.

NY Times defends itself ... the media has been taking major flak from both sides

Clark Hoyt - The Public Editor responds and clarifies that beauty and everything else is in the "I" of the beholder

Pothead Hedge Funder: ‘Throw Away the Blackberry and Enjoy Life’

Andrew Lahde, the head of Santa Monica–based hedge fund Lahde Capital Management, who quit after posting an 870 percent gain last year, became something of a folk hero today after his awesome, Jerry Maguire–like farewell letter to clients made the rounds.

"I was in this game for the money. The low hanging fruit, i.e. idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale, and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking. These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government. All of this behavior supporting the Aristocracy, only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless America."

He went on to slam Congress for not reining in predatory lending practices, suggested George Soros start a new form of government, "that truly represents the
common man’s interest" and which would, he hopes, legalize marijuana.

It gets you high, it makes you laugh, it does not produce a hangover. Unlike alcohol, it does not result in bar fights or wife beating. So, why is this innocuous plant illegal? Is it a gateway drug? No, that would be alcohol, which is so heavily advertised in this country. My only conclusion as to why it is illegal, is that Corporate America, which owns Congress, would rather sell you Paxil, Zoloft, Xanax and other additive drugs, than allow you to grow a plant in your home without some of the profits going into their coffers.

You can read the whole thing here. Then "throw away the Blackberry and enjoy life." Or at least the weekend.

What next? ... rovian nightmare or shrewd political manipulation?

Trader Drove Up Price of McCain ‘Stock’ in Online Market
By Josh Rogin, CQ Staff

An internal investigation by the popular online market Intrade has revealed that a single investor’s purchases prompted “unusual” price swings that significantly boosted the prediction that Sen. John McCain will become president.

Over the past several weeks, the investor has pushed hundreds of thousands of dollars into one of Intrade’s predictive markets for the presidential election, the company said, resulting in repeated monetary losses through a strategy that belies any financial motive.

“The trading that caused the unusual price movements and discrepancies was principally due to a single ‘institutional’ member on Intrade,” said the company’s chief executive, John Delaney, in a statement released Thursday. “We have been in contact with the firm on a number of occasions. I have spoken to those involved personally.”

After an extensive investigation into the suspicious trading patterns, Intrade found no wrongdoing or violation of its exchange rules, the company said.

Citing privacy policies, Delaney would not elaborate on who the investor was or whether or not that investor was affiliated in any way with a political campaign.

According to Delaney, this investor, who boosted the McCain prediction significantly over the market value and above the levels of competing predictive-market Web sites, was using the Intrade market to protect other positions and hedge other investments.

What did the Market say this week? ... Crash + 1 week

After a whole week of trading during which time, some quite astounding swings were seen, the market is closing about where it reached las Friday ... not where it closed we are up substantially from there, but about where the bounce off the bottom reached last Friday. This, in spite of dear Warren trying his level best to boost it by publicly declaring he is buying for his personal portfolio. They did run it up based on that this morning, but the sellers stepped in and sold that rally as they have been doing for weeks and it is a couple of months now ...

What does all that mean? The jury is still out. This week traded pretty much inside of the range of last week and the tech sector made a slight new low yesterday. They may be able to lead it up next week, now. It has become too much fun for the street to run it back and forth rather than go anywhere in the brave new world where volatility of, well, almost anything is king.

Da Man does it again ... he's not wrong yet?

[BRIEFING.COM] S&P futures vs fair value: -20.30. Nasdaq futures vs fair value: -25.50. Stocks continue to move toward a lower open despite encouraging comments from revered investor Warren Buffett. He stated in a New York Times article he is buying U.S. stocks for his personal portfolio. His rule for buying is to be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.

Let's see what that does to the rally monkey today?

Here is the article as it appeared in the NY Times

The only positive thing ths Market can say for itself today ... the gaps got filled

This was supposed to be the day the sell-offs ended and the big C-wave rally began ... when the market let everyone know it was ok after last weeks bashing ... when the participants traded as if the supports from international governments were at least appreciated and had a chance of working ... when fear was vanquished for another day ...

They traded respectfully ... they traded, oh so carefully ... they tried their damnedest to land the ship without a crash ... the buyers came in on the dips and tried to buy ... the sellers waited until the little rallies had run their course ... the Nasdaq tried to lead them all to higher ground,

BUT

when the Nasdaq could not hold at a 62% retracement in the afternoon, everyone knes it was in trouble and that late day sell-off that looked oh so much like last weeks afternoons, again became a reality.

And, now, in the early evening the last gap, the big one in the S&P, has been filled. Will that be enough tomorrow?

The Asians and the Europeans will decide whether they have sold the euphoria resulting from the Big Deals, enough.

Can you say Melt Up ... Dow Jones up 1620 at this moment from Friday's low

I wonder how far this will go before profit taking and the return of the aggressive sellers takes it down again? In this state, the market speaks pretty clearly as noted somewhere below about Friday's reversal and gold ditching, the rally is not surprising ... the extent of it is and the out of control buying since 3 pm ET today definitely. At this rate GWB will be declaring Victory again tomorrow morning.

For the Reality Based Community, there is a maxim amongst traders: Volatility at the turning points. The volatility here will be dimensioned by the high of this rally and Friday's bottom. A huge range that could be traversed several times. It will then take a break of the extremes of that range to set the next direction. Either way will be HUGE ... so we are getting set-up for even more volatility. Must be a way to spend that.

Urban, Suburban and Subterranian Survival wha' the %#$(*%& comes next?

this link can be pretty overwhelming, but I believe it is better to be just a tad prepared these days ... there is a LOT in here and this is the site where the Time Monks' work is used as a reference ... right up to date and expecting financial collapse Oct 10 +/- 3 days ... so we may already have seen what it is going to be for now, or Monday/Tuesday should about do it and Monday is special because it is a sorta/klnda holiday in the US with the markets open but Columbus Day as a holiday and only half the typical participation ...

Urban Survival - George Ure's site

Good Luck!

my take: the big bounce at the end of the day, Friday and the large sell-off in gold indicated that a short-term bottom may be in. It ain't over, but it might be having a pause giving us a decent warning to get our houses in order, like nature usually does.

Long Detailed Background Post from Larry Levin MSM pet pit trader

First paragraph vital for everyone, those who find too much information in the rest, spit it out.

People ask me all the time when this will end. The problem is that the healing cannot even begin, until home prices stop falling. At the moment, house prices are still going down, which must happen. House prices have to go down to the point where people can truly afford them, without all of the Mickey Mouse financing games/scams. And since incomes haven't gone up in the last eight years, we can presume that housing prices shouldn't have gone up either. How much more do houses have to fall before they are back to where they were 8 years ago? The data I have seen suggest an additional 20%, which means we're only about half way through the decline.

I am also asked if the massive amounts of money being pumped into the system will create inflation. The answer is yes, most likely. Currently the markets are suffering incredible asset deflation and if the Fed can withdraw this extra liquidity, it may be able to avert run-away inflation.

The concern today is that the Fed has nearly doubled the size of its balance sheet in the past few weeks. The Oct. 3 issue of Grant's Interest Rate Observer describes:

After a flat-footed start, [the Fed] had shown its ability to degrade its balance sheet by selling off its Treasuries and acquiring dubious mortgages. But it had not really put its back into dollar debasement. The sum total of its earning assets, i.e., Reserve Bank credit, was rising at year-over-year rates of just 3% to 4%. Where was the push to print up enough dollar bills to smother the debt crisis of 2007-8 - assuming the problem was susceptible to smothering through money printing?

Mystery solved: Reserve Bank credit is suddenly flying. It surged by $203.6 billion, to $1.135 trillion, in the banking week ended Sept. 24. And if Merrill Lynch's guess is on the mark, it has soared to $1.730 trillion in only the past few days, a near doubling since May 2007, when the latent crisis became manifest.

As Helicopter-Ben Bernanke said in November 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 essentially no cost. Of course he went on to say that the Fed could easily avoid a Japanese style deflationary spiral by throwing those freshly minted dollars from a helicopter.

The data above show that the U.S. dollar is getting debased on an unprecedented scale. The printing presses are running overtime and do not come without a price - eventual inflation.

Have you ever picked up a sea shell and put it to your ear to "hear the ocean?" Today you can put a dollar bill to your ear - and hear the Treasury running out of ink!

Overheard in an alley ... well actually (blush) a baseball game chat

Rob Neyer is a red-flanneled shirt nerd from the Pacific northwest who is one of the best baseball commentators going .... and someone made a comment about The Current Situation

Jim (Boston): Subprime mortgage mess . . . Ill-advised loans to non-credit-worthy buyers? Or greedy, corrupt mortgage brokers?

ROB NEYER: Both have been vastly overstated by people looking to score cheap political points. The fundamental problem is that Americans, for many years, have been convinced -- by both political parties, not to mention financial institutions -- that debt doesn't matter, nor does intrinsic value. Except eventually, both do. And now we're all going to pay for it, even those of us who don't have any debt.I don't know who's got the game tomorrow, but I'll be back Sunday. Until then, don't forget: If you sleep on the floor, you never have to worry about falling out of bed.

Introducing Tim and going further into the apocalypse

I think the thing to do is to get all of you as co-participants in this blog, that way we can combine our explorations for mutual edification without sending around a bunch of emails that inevitably get lost. For that to work people will need a gmail account which is free and I will invite those of you who don't already have one in due time. But now, I am going to try something original for me ...

Tim Kent paid me a visit today ... he is a long-time friend and companion on this journey and for Tim and I the journey has a kind of Castenada flavour although we seldom refer to that ... he would not know that I think it is more of a Fifth Business kind of trip, but I digress ... the common thread at this point seems to be 2012 and it seems a whole lot closer or more realistic than it did only a couple of weeks ago. We were watching the S&P futures market conclude trading for this tumultuous week Friday afternoon in the last 40 minutes as "they" took it up 900 Dow points in 35 minutes and down 500 in 6 minutes to about where it closed the previous day, so not much in the way of news stories will come out of that effort ... and what does that have to do with the price of cheese or introducing Tim. Tim has read most of the books the rest of you collectively have read, but unlike the rest of us, he remembers the stories in quite precise detail and can tell them splendidly, so if you want to know what really happened in the 4th Dune book, ask Tim and in so doing you will find out what the whole series is about. How's that for an introduction? He also mentioned the "Time Monks" ... and I wanted to remember to slip him the link to Gerald O'Donnell l's site, particularly the Matrix Paper which also gets you into the site. What Tim and I were discussing was the predictions by the Time Monks for the 7th and the 15th and I was referring to the fact that Mr. O'Donnell while accurate in most of WHAT happened is often off about WHEN ... I think this is due to the fact that wrinkles in space-time are detectable to psychic processes and the scientific regimes that measure such, maybe ahead of the realities that represent the "full blowing" of these wrinkles ... whilst Tim was here Rod called to say that he is feeling quite (something positive) at this point, as am I. The world is definitely on a change ... the transformational apocalypse signalled by Pinchbeck, McKenna et al is happening before our senses and so far it is more promising than frightening ... jolly good I say!

Fleecing the Sheeple will never be a "for Dummies" book

If this market was being traded by surgeons it could not be more precise in what it is doing ... yesterday the huge downmove that washed out the last hopes of the public that the bailout would save us, was followed by a fantastic upswing that made it close only - 368 Dow ... the Europeans met and frigged with their systems ... The Federal Reserve opened a credit window for short term cash - NO LIMIT to amounts ... Wall Street methodically sells the market down all day, carefully and precisely into S&P 1000.00 (999.50 exactly) ... now, with unlimited paper money available to business (not home-owners) and a perfect price to hold at, the big players can buy, buy, buy, mopping up the trash the fearful sheep throw away after headlines that will be even more extreme tonight as the Dow closes - 508 .... here is a quote about Fed actions:

The Fed created a Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF), which will provide a liquidity backstop for the strained commercial paper market. The Fed will purchase three-month unsecured and asset-backed commercial paper from eligible issuers. The Fed did not give a dollar amount on size of the CPFF. The commercial paper market, which banks and U.S. corporations rely on for short-term borrowing, has been under pressure as investors flocked to the safety of Treasuries and away from money market funds.

Whence Freedom? nothing left to lose. Bobby MacGhee

As world changes accelerate and the prior certainty that humans had about knowing what to do next, yields to the wisdom of insecurity, change and ultimately emptiness ...

... some respond in terror or at least anxiety gnaws away at the unconsidered assumptions that supported what they thought of as "their lives" ... now susceptible to manipulation from the fearmongers ...

... others are finding that the fluidity and uncertainty our times have brought us, opens a doorway to a greater freedom for imagination and creativity ...

... who decides which attitude we adopt?

A Memorable Fancy or a possible experiment?

Assumptions:

• that there is a "time" when changes become "current" (like several inventors bringing forward similar inventions) ...


• in our time the conventional right/left dichotomy has failed and become toxic, but won't go away ...


• that the most distortion comes when humans believe that there is a RIGHT way to perceive, believe etc. and that this behaviour does not lie exclusively on either side of the "fence"

Proposal:

• begin to communicate broadly via comments, forums etc. on the web a different meme
  re-frame in widely read blogs and maybe letters to editors the right/left dichotomy as right(correct) vs rainbow of views/choices


• allow proclamation of "I'm not sure" as a positive in our times and cast the contrary as relatively dangerous


• running critique of extreme postions on both sides, so that you resist attempts to label you in one or other camp


• thus beginning a campaign to reclaim "the middle" which I fear is what has been lost in the wake of the neo-con era


• possible to broaden the first scattering of the seed by enlisting those who are already of like mind to participate by invitation/persuasion

Hypothesis:

• if it is "time" for such a view change, then a little seeding like the above would gather momentum and when you notice

Is something like this truly a possibility or am I deluded once again?

This idea is NOT copyrighted and anyone is welcome to give it a whirl ... the more the merry goes round.

Watching the World Change from the perspective of approaching 2012

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This is really the opening article of this blog, but could be lost as the roll unfolds .... we are losing the past as the pace of change accelerates ... we can't hold the past in focus for ourselves as the family, cultural and even racial memories shimmer and fade ...

By the same token, we are also losing the future because the conditions and ingredients that we may have for the composing of our individual, social and cultural futures are no longer as certain as we may have once imagined ...

THIS is the psychic apocalypse. The end of the world, yes, but not the end of the world as we have feared, perhaps. Oh yes, it may well turn out to be that as well, especially if we panic and start running around every which way trying to grab what we can before it's too late.

Some of us are imagining a different progression ... a changing landscape that allows us to be renewed as our old imaginary shells can no longer be maintained ... or contain the implications of new revelations. In the 70's Steven Gaskin suggested that psychedelics were a sheep-dip for the ego. Washed and cleansed of some of the aberations and excesses, you returned ... Ken Keysey said we stood with our shells at our feet and had to reconcile ourselves to our shells or our shells to ourselves and ended up building better shells than the old Glow-Coat varieties. I am suggesting that this is now happening without the ingestion of substances and everyone is sharing the trip, so Mr. Bush looks like he's been up all night and is no longer declaring victory this morning.

Everybody knows ... that ... nobody knows ... anymore .... what is happening or going to happen next.

And Mr. McCain is extremely uncomfortable with it being this way just now. Even though Mr. Obama is surrounded by a crowd of people, advisors and handlers who are not all that different than those on the other side ... he, himself, still manages to appear relatively calm in the centre of his storm and THAT is starting to register ... those of us who have had some training in sitting down, shutting up and doing nothing for a gosh darned minute should be able to relate and may be called upon to help with nothing more or less than being ok to not know just yet ...

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Canadians returning to their Political Roots throw the bastards out tradition

Just when we were crumbling under the prospect of a Harper election steal ... someone is pouring some considerable dollars into a guerilla move ... this link headed my Google Mail page which takes planning and poise and consolidates and furthers something Canadians used to do. Vote against the government when you don't like them, quietly and effectively overturning the political tables, buying time from the future ...

http://www.voteforenvironment.ca/

This was what the heading looked like ... on top of the page, not as a side ad

Stop Stephen Harper - www.voteforenvironment.ca/ - Care about the environment? Vote for change in this election

I am so pleased to see this being orchestrated in this very effective way.

In a week of surprises the Wall Street Journal surprisingly gets a lot of it right

or at least it corresponds well to my experience of it ...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122300786229301597.html

The analysis of the waning Bush days is bang on and hopefully this will count somewhere ... and heaven help us if they find a way to harness and use Ms. Palin effectively because she really does have the star sparkle that has completely vanished from post modern politics. Mr. Obama has it when he is giving a speech, at other times, not so much. It must be, for him, that black church rhythm seeping through and the law school grad guy who otherwise is there is quite flat.

Volatility Trading in the post-value era

Like da man said, "What am I going to pay for this with? Volatility?"

Wall Street Wins or who is manipulating whom?

[BRIEFING.COM] A knee-jerk selling effort has followed the announcement that the House of Representatives approved the ammended asset purchase plan. That reaction erased more than 300 points from the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The Dow actually fell all the way into the red, though only for a moment. It quickly pulled back into positive ground.

The concerted selling effort follows the build up that led up to the House vote. That build up had each of the major indices sporting gains of at least 3.0%.

Yesterday they took the market down, so they could buy it up today going into that vote. They sold the results of the vote just as they had planned to do on Monday, regardless of the outcome. Maybe Sarah didn't have it mixed up last night when she said that, "Folks on wall street should not have to worry about what happens on main street".

What a novel idea Sticking to what one's core business is

Shares of insurance giant AIG (AIG 4.76, +0.76) are trading higher after the company announced plans to sell assets and focus efforts on its core property and casualty insurance businesses. The restructuring efforts and asset sales will help raise capital to protect against future losses and repay the $85 billion credit line extended by the Federal Reserve. Moreover, with the company's image tainted, it risks losing some of its best assets as competitors chase customers. Focusing on core assets, like its property and casualty business, will help protect the firm going forward.

Wouldn't this be a great new trend ... all of the financial octopi become cyclops again. They are certainly being punished for trying to control everything these days. Seems that it was a decade or so ago that vertical vs horizontal integration was being debated