Stacy Summary: From what I can tell from history, the mightiest and most powerful seldom change, adapt and progress, they collapse. The US empire has Big Finance, Big Agra, Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Copyright and Very Big Military; through a combination of legislation, finance and military, competition to any of these American Bigs is either contained, co-opted or destroyed. No matter how powerful they seem at the moment, however, history shows that inevitably the bloat, the corruption and the absence of progress lead to eventual collapse because barbarians have been at the gate for 5000 years. There are plenty barbarians waiting at the gate of this collapse:
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BIG FIRST
Big second!
On a brighter note, the Noveau beaujolais for 2009 is rather nice, dry almost to a fault, but not too tannic. A little more ‘fruitiness’ would have been a highlight.
Yes, and Bill Gross delineates that the only real investment opportunity in America at present is:
UTILITIES!
“Look at your monthly statement, zero in on that .01% yield and say to yourself, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m just not going to take this anymore!” You can’t buy the Burlington Northern – Warren Buffett has scooped that up – and most other choices offer tempting returns, but potential bullets as well. Buy some utilities. It may not be as much fun as running a railroad, but at least you’ll know who to call if the lights go out.”
IF?
The US empire was a tent city for European banking interests.
@frances snoot – “The US empire was a tent city for European banking interests.” Wow. That was good. You’ll have a hard time topping that.
Wall st. It won’t blow up or disappear, it’ll just look ugly for a thousand years..
Thank you, Stacy. Your reply literally drips with sincerety.
@frances – um, it was
Sincerity:
freedom from deceit, hypocrisy, or duplicity; probity in intention or in communicating; earnestness.
oops, guess I mispelled my intent
@francessnoot
Yes frances the money is in Utilties
but how do you make money in utilties
You buy them at a cheap price and then run it down
who or what will invest for the future.
nothing in this envoirment of rigged capital markets
until it changes we are doomed to get poorer and poorer.
It’s bollocks that the money is in the utilities, Mr. Dork. The end of both essays are simular. Mr. Jesse indicates that there in not much fruit in financial investment through his nifty wine metaphor. Mr. Gross is indicating that finance now is a fool’s game.
I wouldn’t play, if I were you.
@snoot
Oh, now you done spoil a perfectly nice compliment..I agree with the appreciation..
The deeper point I was trying to make is that something very wrong has happened to the utilties sector
I believe that gold was the most effective symbolic representation of true capital and since 71 there has been a gradual drawing down of the true capital on this little planet of ours – cooperations have been extracting profit from this capital but now we are reaching a endgame where we can no longer borrow from the future because the future has no more wealth left to give.
@frances snoot
“On a brighter note, the Noveau beaujolais for 2009 is rather nice, dry almost to a fault, but not too tannic. A little more ‘fruitiness’ would have been a highlight.”
We had a rather dry 2009 summer in Europe so that have stolen it’s fruityness. I am a big fan of the french wine cause I never tasted anything better from other parts of the world. Like the Chablis but never buy it, too expensive for me. Chardonnay is what I drink most lately. Even the Chardonnays from South Africa are worth while.
They must laugh their asses off at the gullible public:
Why Eric Dezenhall Thinks Goldman Sachs’ Apology May Be a Waste of Time and Money
“DEZENHALL: They need to care about political risk. They need to care about there being so much political outrage that there is political pressure to punish them. But they don’t have to care necessarily that the public needs to understand or appreciate them. In crisis management the goal is to deprive people of the power to attack you effectively. For a company like Goldman the object is not to get people to like you, it’s to get those in a position of power to attack you less. The issue is not that reputation doesn’t matter, it’s that it doesn’t always matter.”
“DEZENHALL: I think, generally speaking, high-level management in nonconsumer companies views the whole PR function with a certain amount of disdain. And they may not be wrong. If you are Blankfein, you’re saying give me a business reason why I should care about our image, and the business reason I would tell him has nothing to do with consumers. It would be if you continue paying out billions in bonuses that is perceived to be exploiting the taxpayer you are going to be on the receiving end of punishing legislation. The object is to protect their freedom to operate.”
http://tinyurl.com/y89qoqe
This talk about incompetence should be burried. Timmay and his fellow cronies know what they are doing. This is a systematic coordinated take-down!
Mugabe was incompetent.. these folks know what they are doing! incompetence is when somebody does one thing, expects a result and the end-result is completely different.
These cronies know how this will play out, they only thing that will change that is some unknown stellar object of the size of manhattan crashing down on the US soil.
Add Big Government to the list!
@Mr,Dork:
Please, expand on utilities. It seems the powers here are gutting for the control over our resources.
@Mr. Youri:
What! Interesting. The metaphor was quite approbro: the tannic part indicates what Gross sniffed about in that the loss of money could have been worse. I didn’t know that dry weather affecting fruits sugar content!
@Mr. Dante:
“They must laugh their asses off at the gullible public!”
Do you think they are “fondly affectionate” of their public? They don’t expect much out of us, perhaps they enjoy a little spirit? Almost makes one feel like a God!
@Mr. Mr. MotherEarth:
To the victor goes the spoils.
Totaly agree with Stacy Summary, Mongo, the system won’t be changed from within. What can the American people do, demonstrate? I think that’s useless cause the banksters laugh at you from their hide outs and let the dumbed down fluorhead police do the dirty work and shoot them.
The only way is to get hold of control postitions in government layers with the local government to begin with. Congress is also corrupted but still it must be tried to alter and get honest people in. Not easy to do but what else can you do?
I do think it all will be too little too late unfortunately cause when the majority of the people wake up it’s becasue of dire position, losing their job and house and all but than we are allready far into the collapse.
But where there is hope and resistance there is live and freedom. Never give up….NEVER!
@snoot
I like the itallian wines, but then you have to wait for the tannines to fall apart, which usually takes 3-5 years. I have had that with Beaujolais I forgot about, and that can be really tasty..So if they are dark enough you may let them lie for a while..
I prefer to be protected from the barbarians…
N.
I think that’s useless cause the banksters laugh at you from their hide outs and let the dumbed down fluorhead police do the dirty work and shoot them.
nicelyput
@MotherEarth:
Really?
Once I was at a snotty English dinner party. The servers were giving us two types of wine: one white and one red. I tasted both and thought them lacking, then poured mine both into the same glass. Everyone loved it, and they all followed suit.
Which goes to show that being American does have its privilege.
OMG. MotherEarth:
Do you think climate change is affecting our daily glass?
Australian wine can be (surprisingly?) good. But of course might not be available/same good-value-for-money in other locations.
(The drought down here, however, is obviously taking its toll on quality and production volume)
@francesnoot
Both a bank and a power stations are utilties and share the same characteristics in terms of capital markets
Each have their core capital which they use to make a profit if they are private or revenue to a state if they are public.
In a properly functioning market they can expand their profit by increasing their capital base(bank-deposits , Power company-infrastructure)
The bank and energy crisies are two sides of the same coin.
Since 71 or possibly before banks have been making larger profits by simply increasing the ratio of loans to capital
Also power companies have allowed their stations to depreciate in value over time. At first they appear more efficent companys but this is a illusion
More and more deficit spending has been given towards consumption to reinforce the illusion.
There is nothing inherently wrong with deficit spending if it increases a company or nations capital base but spending future wealth to fuel todays consumption is the road to perdition.
Believe it or not both the worlds Central banks and Peter Schiff have the same goal of decreasing personel consumption levels to rebuild the capital base ,they just have very different ways of doing it.
I for one believe both approches are a bit negative and we need a technological revalution as well.
The sun is so bright iv got to ware shades…
What happened to the sun set….its to bright to set it just goes out!
Im sick of CO2 its a load of hot air
Climate Change is Euphemism for protectionism!!
snore snore snore
@snoot
at your service http://www.climatechangeandwine.com
Dear Max,
nothing about Jasper and Primus?
Buffet and Salomon?
GS is only a black horse!
God goes so what?
Not for the thirst time!
Good show.
@MotherEarth:
LOL
@Mr.Cork:
thank you!!!
Mr.Cork:
That is so very well explained.
@Cork:
Here in America JPMorgan deceptively serviced municipal bond sales in interest rate swaps contracts: the sewage bonds for Jefferson County Alabama nearly bankrupted the county.
Perhaps the twist in the Gross comment refers to misplaced birds from cow bird eggs.
@francessnoot
parhaps we should fill JP morgans books with the nations sewage
JP morgan may even have the skill to sell it on to some smuck
@Corker:
Sh*t! You’re right!
@francessnoot
I have to leave the blogosphere and enter the pubosphere and prop up the Irish economy by increasing consumption levels……………………
@Stacy:
Thought you would find this video interesting!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1tfIKUZ0fY
Janet Napolatino was governor of Arizona during the setup for the travesties. Wonder what’s in her imagination now?
@Cork:
Lucky!!!
Yes, government and industry are married. They haven’t yet developed into full blown Fascism. The question now is when and how will the Fascism metastasize and what will it look like when it does?
In Germany they needed to demonize and dehumanize a minority, the Jews. Then they needed to militarize and go on the march until they were finally defeated militarily.
Are the Muslims the American Fascists’ Jewa? Are the two wars only the beginning of permanent American military adventures. Is South America next? Access to 6 military air fields in Columbia is not a good sign.
We are. not finshed there.
Me and the world goes for PEACE!
@Nick
If you fight too long with the beast you become the beast ergo Americans are have become the barbarians…..
@Youri:
Do you consider me to be a Barbarian, Youri?
I shall defend northern California wines, since I am surrounded by the vineyards. *raspberry* So there.
And let us not forget that Wall St. is part of the Military/Industrial/Congressional complex of which we were long ago warned.
big military finance oil pharma copyright agra…. the true powers that be. kick ass stacy!!!
Here’s another crisis in the making…… Imagine KFC running out of buckets of chicken during the super bowl. Oh, the horror!
@ barbarians
The thing is, did the barbartians see themselves as more barbaric than the Romans? I suspect they just saw themselves as a rival brand. The ‘decline and fall’ is really just a rebranding exercise. Certain infrastructure is abandoned or replaced – but this not really unusual. Even the Romans shifted priorities.The biggest change being the abrupt dispatch of profits off-shore, along with some assets.
Now does that ring a bell?
I’m betting if you looked into it, you’d find the line between ‘barbarian’ and ‘Roman’ was far from clear-cut. Many of the most able barbarian leaders turn out to be Roman-trained, if not raised and related, many of the first to surrender ‘Roman’ interests, were none too Roman to start with.
When “Rome’ is no longer good for business, business finds other brands, before other hands.
What I’m saying is although things seem to undergo a drastic change with the fall of empire, business actually takes this in its stride. The New Bosses will, after all, still be bosses and their loyalties firstly to other bosses.
Check this out the possible future in living U S
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W51JRTjoI1A
@Gerry, et al:
Yes, “meet the new boss; same as the old boss”.
Regarding empires (and the Barbarous): I’m a fairly lowly class American by many standards, making me a wretch among, not wretches, but certainly the barely civilized; I don’t know if being a biker of sorts helps my credibility or worsens it but…
There are no sufficient “barbarians”, in either numbers or quality to replace the SPQR at this time. For numerous reasons I’m convinced that we are merely at the beginning of what in Ancient Rome was called the “Principate”, that is, the Julio-Claudian, or early empire. It is not that the organs of society are robust in any form– it is that there are as of yet no solidly working alternatives. That indeed is my critique of critiques of American Power: Namely, the alternatives are, at this time, substantially worse– especially on careful examination.
That is, perhaps, not saying much. I’m not attempting a counter arguement here to the local prevailing opinions (since they are generally very sound); really I’m questioning the specific timing of much of this analysis. The timing.
I do suffer (perhaps vicariously) under the current economic and political regime; and if nothing else, suffering does tend to lend weight to one’s… experience. But being down where I am, one sees the mood and temper of the ‘masses’, the people, and it is not of the kind of audacity required to sustain much of any order, more or less a new one. Not yet… not for quite a while.
I suggest that before new ‘orders’ emerge, new cultures must. A merit of American culture (I should say “lack of culture”) is that its vacuity both inspires and leaves room for cultural speculation that is more substantive than hooliganism. Not that I haven’t fondly met a hooligan or two on occasion. Come to think of it, I’d probably be taken for one.