. . .
C “Some Internet postings go viral; some viruses go Internet-y. e-bola is spreading as quickly as an e-mail attachment or a YouTube video.”
Doc “Scary.”
C “When a small minor localized flu outbreak occurs even in a large major metropolitan region with a variety of medical facilities, the health care system quickly borders on collapse.”
Doc “Scary.”
C “e-bola has hit the ‘Reply All’ button rather than the ‘Reply’ button.” Continue reading
. . .
7 “Someday someone will realize that the attacks on Saddam Hussein in Iraq and on Muammar Gaddafi in Libya were motivated in part by their efforts to undertake oil sales in something other than American dollars. If the American dollar is no longer the world’s petro dollar and reserve currency, America will not be able to dictate and drive world economic affairs. America wants Europe to be dependent on America and American gas and on the American dollar, not on Russia and Russian gas and on some financial measure and medium other than the American dollar. And along comes Putin who is peddling oil and gas using something other than the American dollar.”
8 “That makes Putin ‘Public Enemy No. 1.’ So the U.S. is imposing economic sanctions on the Russians which are also economic sanctions on the Europeans and others. The only way for the U.S. to compel continued use of the petro dollar is to be the empire providing, controlling and protecting the petro supply. Now the U.S. is trying to provide rather than just control and protect the supply. For decades, the U.S. imported oil and gas from countries that disregarded environmental standards and now the U.S. is disregarding environmental standards and seeking to export gas produced using fluids and processes that are destructive to the land and water here in the good old U.S. of A. What are we doing?”
7 “America is on the retrograde in overdrive. Until recently, America ‘imported’ oil and ‘exported’ the pollution necessary to produce it. Now America seeks to ‘export’ gas and ‘import’ the pollution and degradation necessary to produce it. Pollution and degradation are externalities that are not paid by the oil and gas companies. If the oil and gas companies internalized the costs of the pollution and degradation, they could pass the costs on to the consumer and allow the consumer to decide how much oil and gas should be produced.”
8 “And look at those we call our allies. Among other countries, Britain, France, Poland and Bulgaria are refusing to embrace fracking and the resulting environmental damage. U.S. interests are interested in obtaining access to the gas reserves in the Ukraine and using fracking techniques to extract the gas. The lawyers and the lobbyists have been deployed. The sons of the Ruling Class like Kerry-Heinz and Biden are positioned and poised to make a killing.”
7 “Only after many others get killed. America cannot secure and dictate the distribution of the gas to Europe and others as quickly as Russia and Europe will be required to respond to the economic sanctions. Russia and Russians are much more resilient and resourceful than America and Americans. The Russians won World War II for the West. Starting World War III with them is not likely to end well. The Russians will develop workarounds to circumvent the economic sanctions and may dislodge the almighty dollar from the world stage.”
8 “The Europeans also need to learn to accommodate, but they could balk this winter at freezing to fuel the U.S. dollar.”
7 “They could sew American dollars together to make a shawl. Americans devised ‘Hoover blankets’ from newspapers and Europeans could craft ‘Benjamin blankets’ from American bucks. No one will strenuously dispute that it is or soon will be ‘Cold War 2.0’.”
8 “The Chinese may break the tie. China and Russia and other countries could work together to circumvent the sanctions and develop a competing and competitive international economy devoid of the dollar. Russia could provide China with access to the Arctic and allow them to proceed in the South China Sea.”
7 “Then America would boycott all Chinese goods. See how they like that.”
8 “A friend is convinced that all the gold in Ft. Knox and all of Germany’s gold in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York was transferred to the Chinese to stave off a sale of Treasury bonds. They may be prepared. The economic sanctions are seen as exercises of ‘soft power,’ yet they may expose how soft the American economy really is today.”
7 “That is why so many powerful interests are lobbying so aggressively for the U.S. to use ‘hard power.’ Wars are big business; wars are good for business. Look at all the misinformation involving the attack on the aircraft flying on flight MH17 that is bandied about to justify military action. False Flag capers are the easiest way to get the populace to rally ‘round the flag.”
8 “Here there be dragons.”
. . .
8 “Here there be no angels. The Russian oligarchs who control the gas fields are as corrupt as the U.S. bankers who control oil and gas prices. Look at the shenanigans and manipulations during the summer of 2008. No one does anything.”
. . .
Bumper stickers of the week:
Strategy: Cut off your face to spit your face
Dollar slaves; Dollar serfs
. . .
Q “If you plan to attract an academic clique, you need to concoct your own hip lingo. Those who are in the know need to believe they are in a selective and exclusive circle.”
P “I also call them ‘9-to-5ers’. That is just not as much fun . . . or as facetious.”
. . .
P “‘Class’ is a telling factor even though we profess to live in a class-free society. And of course ‘Earnings’ or ‘Income’ however defined are salient traits.”
Q “Social scientists have it covered with the more antiseptic academic catch-all phrase ‘Socioeconomic Status’. ‘Race’ is also intertwined with ‘Socioeconomic Status’.”
P “‘Education’ also impacts and is impacted by ‘Socioeconomic Status’.”
Q “‘Religion.’ ‘Religion’ and ‘Race’ are related. Some say that the most segregated hour of the week is every Sunday morning in the houses of worship.”
P “And one’s ‘Political Party’ is one’s defining clan and secular religion. Some hypothesize that the Red Clan hates the Blue Clan; the Blue Clan hates the Red Clan.”
. . .
P “A nuanced understanding of ‘Employment Status’ is also revealing. The differences between those who are employed and those who are unemployed refine the analysis. When I poll people who are among the employed cohort, the most defining trait is the difference between those who are ‘Titters’ versus those who are ‘Self-Unemployed’. Is someone working for the government or working for himself or herself? The analysis can be expanded to cover anyone getting a regular pay check, yet someone working for a corporation does have an almost certain guarantee of lifetime government employment. The distinction between ‘Titters’ versus the ‘Self-Unemployed’ is more telling and tells you as much as the other conventional traits.”
Q “One’s employment circumstance may be even more revealing than whether one is a devotee of the Designated Hitter Rule or not.”
P “Exactly. The ‘Titters’ feel entitled to every single penny and will fight for every single penny. And they are tight with every penny. ‘I earned it.’ The ‘Titters’ do not feel that they should pay the ‘Self-Unemployed’ for their services.”
. . .
P “When ‘Titters’ talk about the mission of their bureau, almost without fail they preface the discussion by stating that they cannot get the job done without even more money and even more personnel. The ‘Self-Unemployed’ admit that they don’t have enough money and personnel, but they soldier on within their limited means.”
Q “I know one guy who spends his work days twisting paper clips into animal figures and complains that the bureau can’t get the job done without even more money and even more personnel.”
. . .
P “Those who are ‘Self-Unemployed’ recognize that money is ‘Hard come, easy go’ and are often willing to throw a few dollars into the pot even though they do not know whether the next dollar will arrive.”
Q “I’ve notice that those who are ‘Self-Unemployed’ also may deduct a few meals that are only quasi business-related and thus spread the costs of their pinching with other citizens. They may also a slip a few dollars in their pocket without accounting to the Great Uncle.”
P “Pinching pennies by pinching pennies. Not a great surprise.”
. . .
P “Those who work for the government eat. Those who work for themselves eat . . . what they kill . . . if they kill.”
. . .
P “Republican Judges and Democratic Judges share one conviction – they will protect their pensions uber alles. One judge did not have any problem with the plight of a group of new employees who were forced to fund the retirement of an earlier group of retirees even though the new employees could not participate in the retirement fund under any circumstances.”
Q “Raw naked amoral power, the currency in courts today. And the judge surely participates in the old plan. Bankruptcy Judges will be increasingly deciding the issue and rarely are able to repudiate one hard reality. Resources of a debtor are finite. Almost all pensions today are actuarially unsound. If the money is not there in a bankruptcy case, it is not there.”
P “Judges other than Bankruptcy Judges will find some legal hook to order, adjudge and decree that their pensions shall be paid under any and all circumstances.”
Q “The new employees are a generation younger than the old employees. The conflict is both intra-generational and inter-generational.”
. . .
_ “A substantial cohort of citizens are entering retirement with no possibility of even maintaining a poverty level life style. The unfunded Social Security obligations dwarf in comparison to this unrecognized and unanticipated financial burden.”
. . .
[See the e-commentary at Pensions and Other Entitlements: Pt. 1 (April 14, 2008) and Pensions and Other Entitlements: Pt. 2 (April 28, 2008) and other e-commentary under the Category on “Pensions” at https://e-commentary.org/category/pensions/.%5D
Bumper stickers of the week:
For folks not working for the government, your retirement party is now known as your funeral.
For folks who are “Self-Unemployed,” your last day on the job is also your last day on the planet.
“Perspectives on Race, Class, Gender, Titters and The Self-Unemployed 101” at 9 a.m. M W F at Mr. and Ms. R. Baron Hall taught by Adjunct Professor of Race, Class, Gender, Titters and The Self-Unemployed H. Sebastian . . . .
. . .
A “Horace Greeley advised the young man to go West seeking land and opportunity. Today the sage advice is to leave the sagebrush and go East. All the power and all the money is absorbed and consumed by the contemporary Rome, the black hole known as Washington. Most of the remaining high paying jobs with pensions and health care are at the epicenter of the Empire.”
B “Town after town after town after town after town after town are now vacant shells with breathing zombies struggling to survive the day. Those with limited schooling have no recourse except to enroll in the military and fight resource wars for the bankers. Those with the chance to get some schooling flee and enlist in some institution of higher learning to get certified and credentialed. They might get a gig with a corporation, yet they will not get a pension or many other benefits.”
A “I advise kids who have the connections, the moxie and some good luck to get a plum job with the federal government and ride it out.”
. . .
Bumper sticker of the week:
The violin is more sonorous and the fires distant
. . .
P “In today’s experiment, we are going to show you some pictures. Based on your deployments to Iraq and your awareness of recent developments in Ferguson, Missouri, we want you to identify the pictures as either Fallujah or Ferguson. Ready?”
S “Ready as ever. Hit it. Ferguson. Fallujah. Ferguson. Ferguson. Fallujah. Fallujah. . . . Fallujah. Ferguson. Fallujah. Fallujah. Fallujah, no Ferguson. Ferguson, no Fallujah. Fallujah. Ferguson. Fallujah. Fallujah. Fallujah. Ferguson. Ferguson. Fallujah. That’s enough for now.”
P “Fifty-five percent correct.”
S “No kidding. I had two tours in Iraq and once visited St. Louis. Is that good?”
P “We don’t know.”
S “It isn’t good, is it?”
. . .
Bumper stickers of the week:
Hands Up, Don’t Shoot!
De-militarize the police; police the military
. . .
K “The official response to the Boston Marathon bombing provided a convenient beta test for the imposition of martial law in America. Systematic house-to-house raids in locked-down Watertown, Massachusetts gave us a glimpse of the future.”
J “They did not even look like cops. They did not look like a para-military. They looked like the military on a mission to search and destroy. They dress in riot gear and expect to chaperon a cotillion?”
K “They are now roaming Ferguson as if it is Fallujah. The foreign policy doctrine that ‘It became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it’ may now be a doctrine of American domestic policy.”
J “A few ordinary citizens in Watertown obtained a few seconds of furtive images on cell phones that were avoided by the major television networks and archived on YouTube. You too can view and decide.”
K “In a crisis, the Internet and cell phones in an area could be disabled by the authorities. Someone may need to capture an event with a Polaroid and celluloid and communicate with cans and a string.”
. . .
K “Too many citizens think they will make their last stand with their gun in hand. The authorities will simply vaporize someone who is inconvenient.”
J “Some folks are fooling themselves. Any citizen who resists will be secreted away at night or exterminated without seeing the light of day.”
K “One of the recent challenges is a failure. The public response by some at the Cliven Bundy Ranch in Bunkerville, Nevada was misplaced and misdirected. Bundy is a racist deadbeat who owes money to all of us for exploiting our land for years. The public must fight the right fight.”
J “When you loot a local business, you lose a local business.”
. . .
J “Nixon asked if it would play in Peoria to gauge whether Middle America would allow it.”
K “Some say they may have tolerated it in Massachusetts because the state has strict gun control laws.”
J “Will they allow it in Laramie?”
. . .
[See the e-commentary titled “Men In Pink: Today’s Sensitive New SWAT Togs (August 20, 2012).”]
Bumper stickers of the week:
The folks in Ferguson, Missouri appear not to yearn to allow it
De-militarize the police; police the military
. . .
K “As an investor, ‘Don’t Fight the Fed.’ The Fed is creating and flooding the market with digital dollars and spawning an otherwise unfounded rise in the price of stocks. Surf the collective delusion, but gauge when the Fed has played its hand and then beat the flood of funds out of the market.”
J “Ya gotta know when to fold ‘em.”
. . .
K “As a citizen, ‘Fight the Fed.’ The Fed is the banker’s private club that profoundly and often negatively impacts the economy and lives of every ordinary American with desperately little public input.”
J “Ya gotta know when to hold ‘em. Accountable.”
. . .
J “So just when do I fold ‘em?”
. . .
Bumper stickers of the week:
Don’t End The Fed, Do Mend The Fed
The Fed: Lifting the yachts but not the tugboats and rowboats. Since 1913.
. . .
1 “Somewhat ironic that it is a rhyme from a Russian proverb made famous by Reagan.”
2 “Is it irenic? I phrase it ‘distrust and verify’ because we have a civic duty to do our own research.”
1 “America is demonizing Putin, ostracizing Russia, antagonizing unknown forces, and militarizing the world. Triggering World War III on the hundredth anniversary of World War I is not a righteous aspiration.”
2 “The phrase does not apply just to the misrepresentations of Putin and Russia foisted on the public today by those in power in the West. When it comes to the Middle East and most matters of international affairs, it is also ‘reader beware’ in a world of pap, pablum and propaganda.”
1 “Who knows what is really going on in the Middle East or Gaza. The ‘One Hundred Plus Years War’ is going strong and may go on until one people is wiped out. And the apologists and propagandists pass themselves off as analysts and pundits. Too many newspaper columnists and television personalities are just ideological blowhards.”
2 “So many graduates of the Edward L. Bernays School of Disinformation. The truth is so elusive, because advancing the untruth is so often in the economic interests of the wealthy and the well connected.”
. . .
1 “Those who want America to go to war today are the ones who started the failed and failing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan yesterday.”
2 “The only thing you can say with a high degree of confidence is that those who want America to go to war are clearly not seeking to advance America’s best interests.”
. . .
Bumper stickers of the week:
Distrust But Verify
Distrust And Verify
“All Governments Lie” I. F. Stone
Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb [pick a place, any place], bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb [insert the place].
e-commentary 