A Bit of Humor For You, Brothers and Sisters.

May your holiday season be one where that diabolical credit card stays in your wallet as much as is humanly possible. Hallelujah!

The Grand Wobble! Part 1.

Things are getting more and more bizarre here in Freedom's Land. In fact, I dare say that things are getting so bizarre that I fear the onset of another bout of unspecified collapse. I really don't know where to begin with the following survey of strangeness, so I will start with a discussion of a traditional icon of American life, the stock market. I would like to assert my view that the stock market, at least as many of us once knew it for many years, is dead.

If you are one of those who have always thought of the share market as nothing but a casino, I must offer to you that whatever casino like atmosphere existed before, oh, say, 2007, is as nothing compared to now. One reason for this is that the present stock market is the province of an even smaller coterie of powerful players than before, players who are being bankrolled almost exclusively by you and me. What's more, the house money that this group of players have been handed for free is being deployed into the stock market based on factors that have absolutely nothing to do with the real economy. Short to intermediate term ebbs and flows in the stock market have always been dictated, to a greater or lesser extent, by liquidity flows, but now, as the unofficial government policy towards the dollar is to manage it into a controlled oblivion, a gambit that I believe is destined to fail spectacularly, the stock market now functions as nothing more than a kind of inverse dollar commodity fund.

Who can be surprised as the U.S. economy is on government induced life support that is barely keeping the patient from experiencing a total collapse. As a result, despite the smoke and mirrors engaged in by cretinous Wall Street cheerleading oufits like CNBC, forward operating earnings for the S&P 500 do not come close to justifying present prices. Worse still, the appalling mark to market accounting fantasy that the banks, and many others, have availed themselves of, allows for ever more absurd acts of share levitation.

But those are but mere tactics, albeit obscene ones, employed by The Powers That Be for the purpose of obfuscation. The real reason that reality will not, at least for now, be allowed to intrude, is because the stock market is perhaps the key prop employed by The Powers That Be to bamboozle the American Public into thinking that the U.S. Economy has "recovered," and that all will be as it was before the annus horribilus of 2008 cut the value of most people's equity portfolios in half. Even as the PTB have set in motion forces that guarantee a future where our purchasing power erodes faster than a seawall in a Category 4 Hurricane, they will try, at least for a time, to make those with Roth IRAs and 401Ks feel better about their prospects. In the meantime, the stock market has become a kind capital market manic depressive, down approximately 66% percent from its all time (nominal) highs from October '07 to March '09, and up almost the same amount in percentage terms in the eight months from this year's late winter lows.

This is Your Government Part II

As a follow up to the first part of This is Your Government, I offer the following, which provides more insight into exactly who some of are culture's monsters are, where they come from, and more lurid details on what they've been up to. I present to you the goats that stare at men.

This Is Your Government!

You won't find this story discussed, let alone featured, in any main stream media outlet. However, if, by some miracle, you do, by all means let me know as I shall be surprised and somewhat chastened. Here is credible testimony asserting that U.S. Government "security agencies" have engaged in the most depraved and cruel acts imaginable. I have long felt that the so called "War on Terror," the ostensible raison d'etre behind the vile acts recounted by Mr. Murray, has been, and will always be, a monstrous fraud, and that those who give succor to it are either dupes and/or criminals.

Many years ago, while trying to make sense of the unfathomable monstrosities perpetrated by The Nazis during The Third Reich, Hannah Arendt made a key insight about the darker side of human nature that was encapsulated in the phrase, "The banality of evil." One wonders who, in our time, are the mediocre functionaries sanctioning and directing all the unspeakable acts referenced by Mr. Murray? Who are the individuals who most resemble, in some way, shape, or form, the infamous bureaucrat, Adolph Eichmann?

If we didn't already suspect their whereabouts, we now have excellent evidence to support the thesis that these sinister characters are in the employ of our equally nefarious defense and intelligence agencies. Some number of these, as yet unnamed, and probably never to be named, pallid monsters are in full possession of the most detailed information relating to each and every rape, burning, boiling, electrocution, dismemberment, shooting, hanging, water boarding, etc. etc. committed by U.S. forces, either in person or through factors.

On some level, ascertaining exactly who these shadowy characters are is beside the point, (that statement should not be construed by anyone as me advocating against the full weight of justice being served to the execrable perpetrators) because each and every one of us who call ourselves U.S. citizens are, to a greater or lesser extent, complicit in the myriad villainies described by the aforementioned British diplomat.

I now offer the caveat that what I am about to say may shock some readers and offend others. The United States is mired in wickedness, and steeped in evil to such a degree that we can barely detect how morally askew our behavior has become. And I will further offer that I believe the ghastly domestic events of yesterday and today have some deep connection, though I can not say with any certainty what the connection is, with the "atrocities of war" already described.

Given all that has come down the pike that we citizens must ultimately take, as they say, ownership of, it is well nigh impossible, at least from where I stand, to take the position that anything less than wholesale change, authentic change, is essential to restoring this nation to a country where Enlightenment ideals are not simply used as cover for profoundly venal acts, but truly inform who we are and how we live. It is often asserted that in order to maintain a society such as the one we aspire to, voting is the least citizens can or should do. I agree, but would add that Americans must realize that voting for either party is no longer the least we can do, it is the wrong thing to do.

Sarah Palin/ Whore of Babylon Watch.

She's at it again. The future's potentially most dangerous political actor- I use that term advisedly- is raising her visibility by becoming involved in this year's political silly season. The erstwhile Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, has, not so subtly, inserted herself into gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, no doubt sucking some untold number of sleepwalking American voters into the bogus Democrat versus Republican swirling vortex. Why any fellow politician would want TWOB to weigh in on their side is beyond me. Equally, why any voter would listen to such an obviously phony, grifting, unintelligent sack of twaddle as The ImPalinator is unfathomable, but then, as the estimable H.L. Mencken pointed out many generations ago, this nation is full of nincompoops.

I don't know how to say this any other way. Sarah Palin must be stopped. But it may not be possible, especially when one considers that TWOB's numerous supremely embarrassing performances have not already driven the requisite large wooden stake through the black, beating heart of Palin's monstrous political career. Pray for a meteorite to hit at the proper time and place.

Thwarted Again!

“Gentleman, I have had men watching you for a long time, and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families and that will be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the eternal God, I will rout you out.”

-Andrew Jackson

Let's face it, you knew, by hook or by crook, that the move to audit The Federal Reserve Bank would founder, and lo and behold, it has. Ron Paul, an early proponent of the initiative, and perhaps its most dedicated and staunch defender, has announced that the legislation in question has been gutted. A quick review of the article at the link will confirm his assertion. I really don't know what is worse, the evisceration of the aforesaid legislation, or the inevitable prating twaddle one will have to endure from some number of elected officials and main stream media stooges that substantial progress has been achieved in the area of bank regulation and reigning in The Federal Reserve.

The sad truth is that the will of "We The People" has, once again, been treated with barely concealed disdain, all because the protection racket that consists of the Fed and its biggest member banks has perfected the art of legislative obedience via the time honored mechanisms of bribery and/or fear. Bravo!

Let's face it, The Federal Reserve cartel and the big banks have the U.S. Congress in much the same state as a cowed beast of burden. It's positively perverse, and this latest failure by The House of Representatives- with special thanks to Mel Watt, and, of course, Barney Frank- to forcefully assert its basic Constitutional right, reinforces my view that the only way forward for the American people, should we have the fortitude to take it, is one that involves "radical" measures. Change, let alone revolutionary change, will not come about without walking on the lawn my fellow citizens. If you need any guidance regarding direction, I refer you here, once more.

Government Fails Again!

The Volatility Blog is turning out to be a real find. Once again, it has exposed another fetid instance of government abdication of responsibility masquerading as worthy and effective legislative initiative. The action of The House Financial Services Committee, under the errant and feckless stewardship of Barney Frank, is precisely the sort of horrid performance that argues in favor of effecting a complete turnover of the Federal Legislature, arguably the most toxic public body operating in the United States today.

The purpose of government is to act as an ombudsman for the citizenry, a bulwark against the incessant predation by the private sector on the public. One almost imagines this latest example of our law makers in action as a textbook case of how a key government body (mal) functions inside a failed state as former Assistant Secretary of The Treasury, Paul Craig Roberts, asserts we are.