Saturday, October 27, 2012

I'm Baaaack!

I may not be better than ever though. In the meantime, I'm going to pledge to my erstwhile dear readers who have, quite sensibly, long since deserted my barren little blog, that I am planning to post one sumptuous piece a month. Should that initiative go reasonably well-don't ask how I will know if it goes well- I will endeavor to post once a fortnight. The Peter Principle, broadly defined may, at that stage, rear its ugly head and throw me back to a once a month offering, but now I'm getting just a tad ahead of myself.

So much has happened in our world since my last post, many months ago, though the changes have mostly been of the sort that may best be defined as beneath the surface. We are presently faced with a Presidential election that occurs in approximately two weeks, and, depending on which poll one subscribes to, what is left of the voting public that still subscribes to the worthiness of Presidential elections seems to be split down the middle regarding who they would prefer to hold executive power come 2013. I know I won't be part of the cult of votism where The Presidential election is concerned, but I will likely participate in the local referendum questions.

Suffice it to say that my view is that the trajectory of the course the U.S.S. USA is on will not markedly change regardless of who is nominally manning the helm come January.  There's just no room to maneuver any more as politics simply won't allow for the sort of bold, not to say draconian, responses that are required to address, for example, the government's seemingly intractable indebtedness. Enacting genuine solutions, as opposed to counterfeit ones, will be left to other actors, and, forces, and in their wake, nothing more than plentifully hollow excuses will be proffered by our political class.

In that light, if you haven't made preparations for the cataclysmic finale that will signify the bitter end of the dollar's global hegemony, I urge you to get with the program, pronto. After all, large swaths of the rest of the world have been preparing for the none too pleasant denouement of the greenback's reserve currency status for a number of years. That is, after all, what all the bi-lateral currency swap agreements that have been erected by and between a plethora of nations of all sizes and shapes are about. When the dollar reaches the event horizon of the looming financial system black hole that, with each passing week, draws ever closer, folks in other lands would like to be able to continue conducting trade for life's necessities. This is the proximate reason for the aforesaid agreements that are cropping up across the globe with all the dizzying frequency of dandelions growing in one's front (or back) yard after a heavy, spring rain.

With respect to timing, my view is that when The Europeans show some demonstrable progress in addressing the key issue that plagues them, namely how to stop living beyond their means via chronic debt expansion, all eyes will turn towards the U.S. and its own grotesque collection of financial excesses. My best guess for a time frame for a great reckoning on these shores is the middle of the decade whether or not the EZ gets things sorted. If, for example, the EZ manages to get a proposed banking union up and running by this coming year, the time line for the U.S. Gotterdammerung will accelerate. But, make no mistake, the train has long since left the station and is now well down the tracks. All that is in doubt is the ETA.

13 comments:

Johnny D. said...

Good to see you back, Edwardo. And sharp as ever.

Edwardo said...

Nice to see you here, and so soon too.

Johnny D. said...

Well, you're on my list of blogs I follow, so it popped up right away. :-)

Edwardo said...

Well, I hope you and your family are doing well.

Johnny D. said...

We're fine, and thank you for your good wishes. My youngest son is still in Afghanistan, and my oldest is well on the way to his BEE. I've learned to sleep pretty well at night with my son lugging a machine gun around Afghanistan. I didn't think I would, but God has given us peace. You probably already know I did NOT want him going into the military, but he was just restless and young and has always had a fascination with military things. Our hope now is that he will return home when his tour is up and get out and finish college with the money they are giving him for that purpose.

Of course, that assumes the best possible scenario with our currency - which is, as I'm sure you agree, probably a tad optimistic.

One good thing I can report about my son, Edwardo, he has been raised with a solid base. He understands leadership and its concepts. He also knows he is to never fire on American citizens. His standing order from me, his father, is that if he is ever asked to do anything like that, he is to go AWOL and just come home. He's a darn fine young man - mostly thanks to his mother. :-)

At age 51, I decided I needed a challenge and took up motocross again. I raced for years back in the 1970s into the early 1990s. I could not be happier with the decision. I was a bit concerned that I might have regrets, but once I got back out there with the firm conviction I could do it just for fun, I knew I had made a great choice. It's good to be around guys that race - they are just good people that will help out with about anything.

So, that is a sort of brief synopsis of life lately for me and mine. I could still not care less about politics. The entire system is corrupt and needs to be totally reformed. My current philosophy is to just try my best to ignore it all and work around the moronic laws and such. Sad life has to be that way, but I've come to the conclusion I can do nothing else but sit back and watch Leviathan thrash itself into oblivion. Anyhow, I'm about as happy and fulfilled as I've been in a long time. Hope you are too.

Edwardo said...

Thanks for sharing all that information. I'm glad to hear that, with respect to your son's decision, you have found a way to keep the turmoil at bay.

With respect to your son's paycheck, if he saves his surplus, assuming he has a surplus, in physical gold, he will be fine, but the dollar will, in my view, experience a crushing devaluation before this decade is out.

So you raced Motorcross in the seventies. I was a motorbike enthusiast as a kid, but while my mother relented with football, riding motorcross was a bridge too far. I could own a bike, but I was not allowed to compete. Did you race alongside the likes of Hurricane Bob Hannah and Marty Smith back in the day?

Johnny D. said...

Thanks for the advice, Edwardo.

What part of the country did you grow up in?

The guys you named, Hannah, Smith, and company, were all professionals. I'm an amateur, but I certainly know who those guys are. Decoster, Mikkola, Tony D., Johnny O'Mara, Ricky Johnson, Ron Lechien, Jeff Ward, on and on. I've seen them all race at one time or another. Good memories of the two-stroke heyday.

Edwardo said...

Roger Decoster, yeah, that was a big name back then. I grew up in Virginia which wasn't exactly a motorcross hotbed.

Debra said...

Hi, Edwardo.
A little stroll over to Toby's place, and I saw that you had been.. resurrected ?
Nice to hear from you again.
On the European... debt crisis, something tells me that the.. fusional relationship between the U.S. and the Old Continent ensures that while all eyes remain on European debt... they will be conveniently not trained on American debt, right ?
A little respite there for the.. NEW world... (which, unfortunately is not so new, after more than 500 years now. Geez... the word "new" is getting incredibly.. OLD now, isn't it ??)
My son moved yesterday to Dijon, where he is starting an internship in digestive surgery. Our prospective daughter in law is still here, and we will see her on the weekend, as she needs some close range encouragement to brave the.. hostility ? of her last, grueling combat year in the French system before initiation is complete, and she gets a breather.
I read Arthur Miller's "After the Fall" a few days ago.
Arthur has some interesting things to say about the long, slow, excruciating... castration ? of the Western male, in order to ensure that we all live in the safest, most "secure" world possible..
That's what we ALL want, isn't it ?...
No motocross for me, but I did tend to run with.. the boys, way back when.
I look forward to reading you... once a month.
Cheers, now.

Edwardo said...

Hi Debra,

Yes, it's something of a game of misdirection ala Three Card Monte with respect to The EZ and the U.S.

The tottering, sclerotic, monstrosity that is the $IMF system, a system without which there would not be an EZ sovereign debt crisis as we know it, has simply been bought a tad more time before it implodes in a manner that precludes any sort of outcome other than one that is unambiguously calamitous.

As for who or what to lay the blame on regarding the drive for the utterly unattainable goal of absolute security, well, if I can, for a moment, be permitted to conjoin some reductive thinking with a standard practice found on Jeopardy, I would choose to say something like, "I'll take The Enlightenment for three hundred, please.

Dijon, the mustard capital is also a spot where one learns the complexities of digestive surgery. Well, somehow, I just can't help but feel that's a pairing that makes absolute sense.

Debra said...

Lol, on the mustard, Edwardo.
On catastrophes... remember that Jesus and countless other buddies were running around in 3 B.C. (or so...) prophesying the end of the world..
Within THEIR belief systems, they had every.. REASON to fear the end of the world...
But, with our convenient 20/20 hindsight, we can say that their fears were vain, right ?
I oughta read St Augustine's piece on the end of Roman Empire..
Our civilization will probably go out with a whimper...
Indeed, it IS already going out right now...
Under our eyes. (C.F. Joe Bageant, may he rest in peace. Met here, on your blog, Edwardo.)
That's what it looks like from over here in France, at any rate.
So... now that the slouching beast has arrived at Bethlehem, maybe we can get a glimpse of its mysterious... face ?
Then again, maybe it's still too soon...
I sometimes feel lucky that I'm getting older every minute.
Since you have zeroed in on the..ahem, Enlightenment, Edwardo, have your feeling towards its visceral opponent... the Catholic Church, evolved a little bit ?
I, for one, regret that in the best and worst of all possible worlds, there is no going back in time, and that... there is no way of erasing the Enlightenment.
Not for.. the Catholic Church either. (But rest assured, Edwardo... the Enlightenment is going out, and we are already moaning about it. Never happy, right ??)
Sigh...
Back to my labor at the piano, now.
Cheers.

Edwardo said...

Have my feelings towards the Catholic Church evolved? That's an ironic word choice, Deb harkening back as it does to the Theory of EVOLUTION, an idea that the CC has struggled with since The Origin of The Species first appeared. No, I must report that my views on the CC have not altered one jot; The CC seem every bit the horrific monstrosity, born in sin, if I am to employ their argot and conceptual framework, as always.

Now, this is not to say that certain members of the CC rank and file, and relatively humble clergy (of the sort who would not lust after young children and/or the idea of resplendently parading about The Vatican) have not, from time to time, been of service to mankind, but, in the main, the institution has proven to be nothing less than incalculably destructive, acting primarily as one of human civilization's more infamous protection rackets.

Therefore, as per their almost unfathomable villainy, they are worthy of little else but scorn, derision, and ample assistance along the way to their well deserved dissolution. I have no desire to ruffle feathers-I know that's hard to believe- but there it is.

As for the indefatigable idea of "the end of the world", the candle for which was lit as soon as our knuckle dragging predecessors acquired even a semblance of an imagination in which to house their darkest fears, TEOTWAWKI occurs every day, every month, and every year for some untold number of our fellow man. In short, it's just a question of scale.

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