Making predictions about the economy—or much of anything else
Are these guys correct, and is the worst of the recession behind us?
I certainly don’t know—but neither does anyone else. It would, however, be a wonderful thing to have the answer, because we are being asked to act in drastic ways to forestall a cataclysmic event that may or may not occur without such intervention. And, unfortunately, since the proposed cures could be worse than the disease, it would be awfully good to know that the diagnosis is correct before we start the treatment.
But isn’t this always the way? For example, it’s the situation with global warming (or climate change, or whatever is the proper term de jour). The state of our analytic and predictive powers is poor, but the voices of doom cry out for immediate and sometimes drastic remedies.
It also was what faced the Bush administration in the buildup to the Iraq war—that is, unless you think the evil CheneyBushHitler manufactured everything for their/his own nefarious purposes. There was evidence that pointed in the direction of a situation that could easily go on to become a conflagration if not nipped in the bud. And yet the nipping process was painful, uncertain, and potentially dangerous in and of itself, as we have seen.
But we must always make decisions based on incomplete information, both in our lives and in politics —and even in areas of science that seem far more straightforward than climate change or economics. For example, at the end of WWII, when it came time to test the atomic weaponry developed by the Manhattan Project, there was still some uncertainty about the outcome. Despite the fact that physics is one of the more rigorous and predictable sciences, and although the men who designed the bomb were exceptionally brilliant, there remained some question about what would actually happen when an attempt was made to detonate one:
The observers [of the first atomic test] set up betting pools on the results of the test. Predictions ranged from zero (a complete dud) to 18 kilotons of TNT (predicted by physicist I. I. Rabi, who won the bet, to destruction of the state of New Mexico, to ignition of the atmosphere and incineration of the entire planet. This last result had been calculated to be almost impossible, although for a while it caused some of the scientists some anxiety.
I bet it did.
We all must live with the anxiety of not knowing the consequences of our actions, or what the alternatives would have wrought. Those of you who read this blog regularly know that one of my favorite authors, expatriate Czech author Milan Kundera, has written quite a bit about this topic—and I’ve quoted him quite a bit, too. But his words seem so apropos that I’m going to quote him again (the following is from his masterpiece The Unbearable Lightness of Being):
Several days later, [Tomas] was struck by another thought, which I record here as an addendum to the preceding chapter: Somewhere out in space there was a planet where all people would be born again. They would be fully aware of the the life they had spent on earth and of all the experience they had amassed here.
And perhaps there was still another planet, where we would all be born a third time with the experience of our first two lives,
And perhaps there were yet more and more planets, where mankind would be born one degree (one life) more mature.
That was Tomas’s version of eternal return.
Of course we are here on earth (planet number one, the planet of inexperience) can only fabricate vague fantasies of what will happen to man on those other planets. Will he be wiser? Is maturity within man’s power? Can he attain it through repitition?
Only from the perspective of such a utopia is it possible to use the concepts of pessimism and optimism with full justification: an optimist is someone who thinks that on planet number five the history of mankind will be less bloody. A pessimist is one who thinks otherwise.
….There is only one history of the Czechs. One day it will come to an end, as surely as Tomas’s life, never to be repeated.
In 1618, the Czech estates took courage and vented their ire on the emperor reigning in Vienna by pitching two of his high officials out of a window in the Prague Castle. Their defiance led to the Thirty Years War, which in turn led to the almost complete destruction of the Czech nation. Should the Czechs have shown more caution than courage? The answer may seem simple; it is not.
Three hundred and twenty years later, after the Munich Conference of 1938, the entire world decided to sacrifice the Czech’s country to Hitler. Should the Czechs have tried to stand up to a power eight times their size? In countrast to 1618, they opted for caution. Their capitulation led to the Second World War, which in turn led to the forfeit of their nation’s freedom for many decades or even centuries. What should they have done?
If Czech history could be repeated, we should of course find it desirable to check the other possibility each time and compare the results. Without such an experiment, all considerations of this kind remain a game of hypotheses”¦
The history of the Czechs will not be repeated, nor will the history of all of Europe. The history of the Czechs and of Europe are a pair of sketches from the pen of mankind’s fateful inexperience.
Does humanity grow in experience, and therefore wisdom? Perhaps. I’m not at all sure, however—or, to extend Kundera’s thought, I’m not at all certain that the history of planet number five would go any better than that of planet number one (or to use another example, does “Groundhog Day” trump “Peggy Sue Got Married?”)
No matter how much history and knowledge we amass, we are still going forward into an unknown future, in which situations that appear to resemble each other (such as, for example, the present economic crisis and the Great Depression of the 30s) have so many differences that to try to apply the lessons learned from the errors of the first to the facts of the second is not necessarily going to lead to a better result. We also labor under the difficulty that, even if those lessons might be applicable and we would like to apply them, public opinion and/or politics may at times make it impossible to do so.
The only solution is to attempt to study history and/or science, find the course of action that seems most suitable to address the new situation, and do our best, remaining philosophical about the prospects of success. Another caveat might be to use the least drastic measures possible. But unfortunately, sometimes drastic situations require drastic interventions.
Does humanity grow in experience, and therefore wisdom?
I’ve had thoughts similar to this. We only have around 3 generations living at any given time. Of course, we have the collected writings of the past that let us accumulate knowledge, but somehow I think wisdom is not nearly as easy to pass on. Our knowledge increases steadily over time, but our collective wisdom and life experiences fluctuate around a finite amount. Even then, as you point out, history does not tend to repeat, so much as parallel itself.
I’d say its a vicious cycle in humans. Where adversity breeds wisdom and prosperity breeds boastful knowledge in dire need of some adversity.
Free will trumps learned and received knowledge all the time. Ecclesiastes’ “there is nothing new under the sun” makes the point abundantly clear. As for wisdom, it is about as rare as deus ex machina is ubiquitous.
We are still with a big economic crisis , rumors that Obama is focusing on economy…
Neo asked, “Does humanity grow in experience, and therefore wisdom? Perhaps. ”
It is in 2005 that I heard a very applicable saying that I’ve repeated often…
“Humanity’s struggle is against confusion”
There are lefties that like to say that most of the war and killing happens because of or in the name of Religion – as justification to shed religion. Then they also like to take the side of the enemy in wars. There are so many who do not know economics 101. There are so many who have no concept of energy basics. There are so many who want more government, race preferences, policies that promote dependency, who want to act like people who care (conservatives) don’t care.
All of this confusion causes more pain, misery, suffering.
Humanity’s struggle is against confusion and in my eyes there is confusion on the left and right and especially the so-called ‘center’.
Clarity is what we should ALL be struggling to obtain.
Wars and death have almost all been about land and resources and freedom from tyranny. Except for the Islamist approach of convert or die or submission. WW2, Revolutionary War, Civil War, The war of 1812 – you name it was not about Religion.
Our government has grown every year for more than 70 years – it is the reason for the problems we face from the housing crisis to the everyone sitting tight and saving their money – without confidence in knowing who they can invest in and who will get bailouts. The solutions lie in changing this direction and allowing our economy to work again. Nobody knows the value of ANYTHING at this point because things are all up in the air. People are waiting to see what govt will do. Psychology affect the economy more than govt because of governments actions in the last years and months.
Energy basics aren’t taught either. 700 watts applied to an electric motor is roughly equivalent to 1 Horsepower. The amount of battery capacity required to store enough energy to propel a 2 ton vehicle would require battery packs equal to half the weight of the car. This is why hybrids have taken the market by storm. Because electric vehicles simply cannot do the job alone. Working in tandem there are efficiency gains in the city mileage but not so much in the highway miles. Electric motors are more efficient and powerful at low speed and gas motors are more efficient and powerful at higher speed. But if we allowed politicians to rule the day and mandate electric cars (as they did in CA years ago – that law had to be dropped) then people would live in misery and poverty because the marketplace would be ignored for do goodism fuzzy headed lack of clarity policy.
Racism is promoted.
And because of the total lack of clarity on almost every topic by politicians and voters, you see us fighting and talking past one another.
We all care.
Hey lefty! We all care.
We know that you are well-intentioned and have rose colored glasses on. Recognize please that we are well-intentioned also.
Let’s make it so that humanity’s struggle isn’t against confusion but with a little more clarity!
GO!
There’s no better way to go broke than predicting the economy.
When I was a fraternity grad adviser (housemother), I was surprised to hear the younger guys saying we should try this or that and replying to the seniors’ caution that we’d tried it and it didn’t work by saying, “It will be different this time.”
Since the future, by definition, hasn’t happened yet, you can’t prove anything, and youthful enthusiasm, or wishful thinking, or vile plans for something awful, can all be overcome by saying, “It will be different this time.”
And, truly, what can be said?
Saddaam is like Hitler? Well, no he isn’t. He doesn’t speak German, for one thing. The analogy of Munich of letting somebody get stronger in order to avoid trouble now and reap the whirlwind later is addressed by insisting that Saddaam isn’t Hitler and thus no analogy could possibly be useful.
So we go from useful ignorance to deliberate obfuscation to disguise either foolishness, cowardice, or positive evil.
It doesn’t even matter how many generations of living institutional memory exist. Their wisdom can always be overcome by saying, “It will be different this time.”
go back to my earlier posts and tick off what i said…
syria and jordan fire on israel..
[more false flag work to drag them in]
leftists yelling to damage jewish businesses (crystal nacht II?) – neo nazis and left with hammas sharing rallies with jews the new nazis…
news is suppressed like pravda..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp-lwSe2llg
i never saw a thing on police being chased…
did you?
my left jewish freinds dont want to hear about politics, despite them being on the side that said EVERYTHING is political..
turkey afraid is switching sides since we didnt get rid of iran. (check my older posts).
Tartus has been reopened…
(meaning no more removal of nuclear facilities, or being able to retaliate… much like the 6 day war where the US stood by because russian troops were so near…)
6 months ago, when i said it was coming. no one would believe that we would have people yelling about ovens… new jewish stars fashioned with swastika centers… and so on..
i will guess that they will turn the chanels, and let it all happen… how else did all those funny nasty people get in power?
latin america should light up soon…
Thanks for the introduction to 1985’s “Peggy Sue Got Married,” and, how nice it is to have both the time and high speed internet for catching up on cultural events one was too busy to notice happening at the time.
It’s interesting (?) that Netflix identifies both “Groundhog Day” and “Peggy Sue Got Married” as comedies; I doubt they intended comedy, as in “the human comedy,” but that might be most appropriate.
The devil is in the details.
On the one hand, we can safely assume that humanity has not grown much wiser than it was two thousand years ago. Back then, Roman politicians and emperors would get support by promising (and delivering the goods) the mob the things they wanted. That has not changed.
On the other hand many of the variables (details) do change and those details can affect the outcome.
The current recession began back in very late 2007. At the time the Fed had finished a period of raising interest rates, which were beginning to prick the housing bubble via those sub-prime, variable rate mortgages. When the Fed saw what was happening and the momentum of the economy going forward, they began to reverse course. And when that happened, the dollar began declining in the currency markets because other currencies were being propped up by the higher interest rates of those nations. Oil prices were already high to begin with, and then they really began to take off as the dollar declined. The higher energy costs were really sticking a fork in the economy.
Almost every time the Fed raises interest rates enough and over a long period, economic slowdown’s occur. That is the effect the Fed wants: it wants to halt inflationary pressures. When it thinks inflationary pressures are abating, it reverses course and eventually GDP picks up again.
If a depression is in the offing, it won’t be because of the Fed’s actions. It will be because the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress enacts tax increases that affect business investment and expansion.
So… right now we don’t know where things are going to break, Neo. Everyone is waiting to see what is going to happen. It’s not difficult to discern this. The people who should take note that this is the scenario are the ones who will advocate tax increases and the carbon tax/cap and trade regime.
The Fed is providing sufficient liquidity into the financial system via the instruments and avenues it can control. But right now everyone is waiting to see how Congress and the new president act. Normally, at this point in the cycle you can rationally surmise that we are at or near the bottom. Investors like me are not waiting on a stimulus package. We are waiting to see what the tax policies are going to be. I honestly do not think “stimulus” packages accomplish much. If the spending does not enhance productivity and cause more investment by private individuals, all the money does is change hands, with the government employees taking their rents from it.
I forgot to point out that groundhog day magnified the truth about reality, and attempted a lesson that heaven is not enjoyable.
there is remarkable wisdom in that movie, but no one cares to look at it. analysed its wisdom, unexamined its whatever you might want to call such.
a description of heaven would be a place where you get to do whatever you want without any repercussions, and immortality.
what did the main character get (but was never sure of)? constant repetition of a day he could live in any way without any fear of repurcussions, presumed immortality (given he wakes up agin when he dies), and completely no reason or meaning to morals, or his life.
the deep truth that is revealed is that life and reality has us on the red queens treadmill. certain terms really have little meaning when one understands the limitations and the repetitions of the situation.
pollution, progress, and other things have absolutely no meaning when looked at outside our immediate lives and false imperatives.
pollution will not exist in 200,000 years… will it?
progress to what? if we lived that 200,000 years, how far would we have gone?
if we intend to live that long as a species, do we really think we can ration the raw materials we have in the earth? or is there no choice, and the concept of a choice is a time preference?
lets make it more real, and baffling.
time is not a constant.
and reality breaks down absent a perceptive viewer
absent sentience, reality doesnt exist is another way to put it (but its a lot more complex than just that).
when i get on a plane, and the plane is flying towards, say china, the rate that time passes for me is different than my family i left at the airport.
vary my speed, vary my mass, and you also vary time. we are moving through space really fast, does our time frame change as we move through different time densities? heck, we twist and bend it too [frame dragging]
we are not going to be allowed into space (why build storage for nuclear materials for 10,000 years?)
we are not allowed to realize that most progress other than the capitalist kind that would include expansion into the universe, isnt progress, its antiprogress. if we get into space other than for earth, then there is no such thing as domination any more. no way for despots to continue other than their own little areas.
ground hog day shows that this is a treadmill. which is why the wise religions kind of let you know that there is no meaning in the material world, there never was or will be. meaning is constructed apart from the material world in the sentient world that then percieves and in that constructs reality, and does so based on how it wants to view it, through what lenses it adopts, and its own schema.
the key to the mystery is that they teach you to incorporate something into your model that embues your model with the functions of that something in material reality. this does not deny the actual existence of such, or proves it, since everything within such is an exercise in faith. but enough faith and belief, and lo, you have learned how to choose to incorporate complex abstract subroutines into the model in a way that the model changes its material behavior and outcomes. (and since this model is biological, you really cant replace it with some cheaper kind of copy and have the same outcome. the things reinforced by biology resonate, and so do better since they are to fit each other (the adopted thing adapts with the adoptee symbiotically over long periods of time in which such things evolve to resonance))
(ergo our competition in injectable frameworks (ideologies as man made directed religion), and their general dislike of competing forms (organic religions). fractally like bacteria, viruses, and mitochondria battles, our minds share the same things. this is what the frankfurt school and others in power relized, and settled on the model that by pretending to follow it, would embue the public and their charges with the docility of sheep and the work willingness of happy slaves who no longer work for themselves but for the collective. a collective whose will is the few at the top)
religion causes the mind model to adapt to a world in which the points of religion are embedded in the models function and assists its judgments and actions. our minds are not tools that are at the concousnesses disposal, the conciousness is at the minds disposal, and reality is at the disposal of the sentient. not realizing this we abuse our minds for pleasures that are not all that pleasurable compared to what we are supposed to do.
when i look into the abyss it looks back into me.
when i play with my mind, i allow others to play with it too. i lose why i have it as i get wrapped up in pushing its buttons. (given enough time on this treadmill it becomes living hell. ask any herion addict, cigarette addict, etc… ideology is the same, except now someone is telling you the meaning of your life in exchange for servitude)
groundhog day gave you heaven in miniature without the clouding issues of a god or infinite range.
without a self constructed meaning, or one embued by religion, heaven became hell. just as pressing your minds buttons and living in the meta level denies you heaven.
it was a ‘hit’ because this resonates with how we live, we have everything we presumably want, its not enough, and what should be a great time is hell due to the false bill of goods that lukaks worked out to transform the farm.
people are hell said a great philosopher…
i always thought they had a choice by choosing who and what to follow, and developing faith, and meaning in being like pooh, the uncarved stone.
murrays character tries it all… he tries kindness, avoidance, pain, suicide, gluttony, lying to seduce, and on and on… but he has some limit.. he didnt (we presume) try serial killing, vivisection, etc. so he was not true to humans when they have no repurcissions for their actions… (anyone play grand theft auto, or the hitman series? see any problem with actions when there are no repurcussions? how about the sanford experiment?)
satan found meaning in heaven by opposing heaven, and creating misery.
for such spiteful people, misery gives them pleasure, and that they believe gives their victims meaning. the despotic urge is in having this understanding, and not having meaning. so real life becomes a video game of sorts, where the despot is the winning player who keeps pushing and getting the high score. the psychopath does what they do because no one stops them.
peggy sue got married didnt have any of that. peggy sue was not in heaven, and she intended to go back. she was connected to the past, the future, and the outcomes. she had meaning in the old traditional things. her time away from reality was more responsible for she believed it had consequences.
she resonates because her story is how do we get back to the meaning in our lives? that in this malaise, we are all trying to get back and go forward to our connections and they are failing.
her success is no different than the success of cinderella after the ball.
[more scary are all the childrens things in which the key characters are parentless, and have such great lives/adventures without them. what is that injecting into the lives of the young? perhaps the abstract equivalent of the SDS join the revolution, kill your parents. so is it really that odd that the modern era there are some people in which the new motif causes extreme expression of it? so then what is saw and hostel making if the people watching it have no framework to put it into, moral or reality based?]
truth is that reality is heaven
and heaven would be hell without god/meaning.
(and when we are in hell we look for a savior, but ya better not put faith in the wrong kind of guy)
when we try to manufacture meaning, we become numb, and do more horrible things to feel alive, but feel less alive for having been part of them. the orgie isnt what they expected, and they cant go back.
this is the battle of the eternal opposites..
parasite over host
immoral over moral
opressed over oppressor
problem is that inverted, many of these things will cease to have what they have. the constructive becomes the destructive.
parasites that rule the host die, because their interests are not the interests of the host, including survival, and their sustenence comes from the robustness of the host. socialists are parasites and cause a tragedy of the commons in all lives seeking their own interests without regard to the interests of the hosts they tap.
the immoral cant create an organized functioning productive society… when they rule, they destroy that which they would steal that they covet so much. they need to be inside a greater better society, if they rule the roost, they do not prevent each other from causing the same trajedy of the commons by going to the well too often.
the oppressor oppressed thing too (since its falsely applied most of the time – of course a parasite sees that which it needs for sustenance as a oppressor – it doesnt make it so, and they decline and suffer never knowing this is what they create).
the oppressed worker who lives in a house and vacations in cancun does better than the free bushman in the forests. i hear by lefty freind rail about the man with 20 million, but he never tells me what he would do if the whole infrastructure that he takes for granted werent here. would he be a better hunter than a steam fitter?
the oppressed wife does better with her oppressor too (which is why they seek one and average 35k per oppression bonding ceremony, and why gays clamour for oppression), since the family does better than non existence.
thats why the battle of the opposites cyclces destruction and construction… if it doesnt end us.
the capable overcome the parasitical when they team up… they can team up when the parasitical change the population formulea and lower the population…
the parasitical overcome the capable when they have so many parasitical that they can create a network, and they then take control… and cant force the sustenance… and it collapses… till there arent enough of them..
care to figure out which is coming ascendent due to a world wide network? and they will bring the ruin that parasites create… for parasites cant create they are incomplete without the hosts they resent.
(if they resent them. some of them see their hosts and they as a sybiotic relationship in which both do better. how hard was it for communism feminism to change symbiosis to parasitical spite?)
rather than parasite host, oppressed oppressor, etc… you can also call it cargo cult vs substance.
its also interesting that in murrays world, this battle of the opposites cant exist… neither can politics… nor can marraige… love… etc.
you can have infatuation, lust, violence, and a lot more…
[as a curous exercise, can people see that if his time didnt repeat a different mix of what has meaning or not arises?]
got to go… too much… and all over.
but i hope interesting and stimulating.
🙂
Thanks for a thoughtful post, Neo. I wish most of the responses were as thoughtful, but alas…
Well, we Americans are trained from birth to be consumers. It’s what keeps the rest of the world going. We buy everyone’s stuff. Some of the nations we purchase from have been buying various amounts of our debt to keep it all flowing.
Right now, and for as far as I can see, I do not intend to spend a penny I don’t absolutely have to spend. And it is going to bite me in the rear end. So I tighten the belt harder, knowing it’s going to bite harder…..tighten, bite, tighten, bite………….
We have not seen the bottom. I doubt anyone seriously thinks we have for one second.
Artfldgr, there is a lot in what you say. More people than you know think Groundhog Day was a sweet and wise movie, though dark and terrible in parts. You name many things and paradoxical conditions, and to me that is the point: life is full of paradoxes, but those who are grounded in substance rather than airy ratiocination, and who approach the mysteries of the unknowable with appropriate patience and humility, tend to find meaning and happiness without losing their ability to act in the real world.
I liked FredHjr’s little essay on the Fed policy and the adequacy of the liquidity already injected. If we could keep TARP focused on M-0, M-1, and encouraging the banks to take on more leverage, this might not be so bad. Sadly, the political environment is too uncertain and still full of various kinds of hysteria to make me feel comfortable buying at this time. He mentions taxes, but we shouldn’t forget the impact of regulation.
Dave Swensen (Yale’s investment manager) argues in today’s WSJ that excess liquidity guarantees inflation. I certainly hope that is true, because we are in the unusual situation that both debtors and creditors would benefit from inflation. We will have to look lively to get out of cash and back into assets and commodities at the right time.
By the way, our government knows this, so they’re spending the money no one else will, or can. So far, no results, eh? Who’s surprised?
And our grand kids grand kids will still be paying it off.
We’re supposed to be good stewards in order for our kids to have a better tomorrow. We’re spending our kids’ tomorrow today. Or rather, our government is at this time.
And I don’t remember being asked if it was OK. I’ve been told what needs to be, what will be, done.
Honestly, is anyone on the hill smarter than anyone who writes into this blog – or just about any blog, for that matter? Would we be here if they were?
For a quick and easy explanation of M-0 and M-1 go here:
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/basics/03/061303.asp
I predict the government will continue robbing from future generations…
Right now the Fed is more focused on the very real presence of deflation. If inflation were the concern, then the policy would not be so accommodative. Normally, during the latter stages of a normal, cyclical recession you will see a period of price deflation. It does not cut across everything. However, if deflation occurs across all products and services then that is a sign that things are getting dangerous. And when the economic cycle is in expansion and inflation shows up across all products and services you have a serious problem too.
I learned in life that while I was in academia I had a correct instinct for realizing that, in matters of discerning truth and how to live, that BALANCE is the key. Absolutism in either direction, while occasionally corrective, and sometimes in the matter of principles can be right, is more often destructive.
The Fed understands that reality is not stasis. It is dynamic, balancing, and corrective.
Well said, FredHjr. The Fed is correctly more afraid of deflation than inflation. I think Swensen is right, with a lag. I just have no idea how long the lag will be.
Great last line.
Come, come now, FredHjr. Am I to understand from you that the Fed’s gross excesses under Greenspan, yielding the present bust (with help from others, but still the key motivator) out of which the Fed is trying to re-inflate us, is just good-hearted dynamic balancing? Seems to me the Fed is persistently derelict.
Must the economy always be 70% consumer-driven? Why? Lest we have a downturn? Reduce national overleveraging? Heavens, No. Reminds me of Global Warming…we’ve always gotta have the present climate, regardless of the costs.
I have not seen any comments here about the differences between benign deflation and malign deflation. Anyone?
Tom, it’s a complicated topic. At one level, there is the issue of asset prices. Simple example: if we expected that the price of a house would decline 4% on average, how much would you pay for it? How much money (loan to value ratio) would the bank lend you? How much down payment would know need to make? Well, 20% down wouldn’t be enough: your equity would be destroyed in 5 years (let’s leave out compounding to make the math simple). How much interest should you pay? Mathematically you could pay negative nominal interest, I suppose. Even if you even paid zero interest, it would get harder and harder to earn the money required to pay the interest.
And if you default, you force the bank to take writeoffs, which affects its capital sufficiency, which in turn makes it harder to make new loans.
Persistence deflation was story for much of the last part of the 19th Century. The political result was talk about crucifying mankind on a “cross of gold.” Bond issuers defaulted regularly.
Now add in the behavior you could expect if everyone expected the price of everything would fall. Everything would be for sale, and there would be damn few takers. Where were you in September? Were you watching the financial panic?
For good reason, the Fed has been committed to “price stability” since the early 1980’s. On that basis, people can raise money to make investments without being forced to pay exorbitant interest rates.
In today’s environment, creating price stability requires intervening in favor of inflation.
Oblio,
Damn Firefox wanted to reboot while I was typing a reply to Tom. Some of what you have written in reply to him I was going to expound upon. You did a good job of it.
I would only add that there were periods during Greenspan’s tenure (about half the time) when the Fed actually was maintaining rates that were considerably higher than the inflation rate. Which meant that there were periods – even during expansions – when the Fed was actually restrictive, taking into account real inflation. Part of the reason why the Fed during Greenspan’s tenure was less restrictive than under Volker is due to the fact that gains in productivity allowed the Fed to be less restrictive. Also, Tom forgets that during the early Volker years inflation, while coming down, was still quite a bit higher than it has been recently. And even during the later Volker years, when the economy was expanding, inflation was still in the 4-5% range – still higher than it was for most of Greenspan’s tenure. Compared to the Seventies, inflation was quite tame and much more under control.
As for the mix of GDP, that’s not Fed policy at all. It has to do with the federal government, tax policy, currency policy, and the decisions of specific companies in specific industries. The decision for massive investments in factories in China was made quite a while ago. In the Fall of 1980, while I was an undergraduate at the University of New Hampshire, I had a course in Operations Management under a professor who was an M.I.T. PhD. She was part of a consortium of industrial engineers, finance people, economists, and other academics who were helping to pave the way for this wave of investing in China.
The other thing to understand: anyone who has, in an M.B.A. program (I have mine in Finance from Boston College), taken a course in Strategic Management knows that industries, companies, and products undergo cycles. In the mature phase of a company, profitability and margins begin to be squeezed by competitors, and so one has to find ways to reduce costs in order to eke out profits. Mature companies in mature industries go to places like China. That is why the future of our economy is not in aging industries and companies, and this is why it is imperative that we keep our tax policies at the level that allows young companies and new products to grow. It does no good to prop up old models, products, and companies. That’s not where the new jobs are going to be.
During the Volker years two thirds of GDP was consumer spending. It is still at that level. It didn’t change much at all under Greenspan.
The asset bubble that burst at the beginning of this recession was mainly caused by the almost non existent underwriting standards by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That’s on Congress, not the Fed. The Fed’s goal is price stability, not micromanaging the housing sector. What are you going to do? Have the Fed stomp on the rest of the economy because non credit worthy people are getting mortgages from a government program or people are flipping houses? Is that fair to the rest of the economy? I hardly think so.
Tom is making Greenspan the scapegoat for whatever is eating at him. I won’t make light of whatever is bugging him, but I would encourage him to cast about in a wider frame with greater depth of field to get an idea of what happened and why.
Sorry, gents. I meant Greenspan since 2001. I actually know, understand, and agree with what you all have written. Mortgage securitization was not/is not the Fed’s purview; never so claimed. But the low Fed funds rate since late ’01 was a major enabler of our overleverage, causing the housing bubble. That was dynamic, yes, and critically over-corrective, surely. I’m just a mere MD, lack the wisdom of an MBA degree. But I ran a largish capital-intensive business and did so pretty well. I also bailed out of equities summer ’07 and made some real $ on longterm put options.
I see no takers on the benign vs. malign deflation issue. That is a valid and recognized distinction.
Tom,
I think a small amount of inflation in a growing economy is healthy and expected. There are always going to be sectors where prices are going up, just as there will be sectors where the opposite is happening.
The economy took a dive for awhile after 9/11. The Fed was expanding the money supply in order to help revive it. The Bush tax cuts were also targeted towards getting the economy going. Both worked.
Sometimes the timing of the Fed’s moves is dicey. And they know it, as is evident when you read the notes of their meetings when they are eventually released.
Mortgage rates are more directly affected by the bond markets. Long bond rates are not directly affected by Fed policy. For much of this decade the bond markets operated under the assumption that the Fed would, over the long haul, keep inflation under control. And as I type these words I think they have been largely successful in this.
Let me share with you my perspective on what is happening in a macro sense. I work as a securities’ analyst and I follow the retail banking and retail stores’ industries for a small investment firm near where I live. I’ve been doing this work since 1992. I noticed that since the late Nineties a new kind of “investor” seems to be having hegemony over how things play out. More and more pros and amateurs are dabbling in what I call “momentum investing.” Speculating. Instead of doing thorough research into value, buying solid businesses you understand at bargain prices and being patient, people are dispensing with that sort of thing and just following the herd. I saw this happening with the tech and dot.com bubble in the late Nineties. I saw it coming and was not surprised that it happened. Nor that it burst. Some of the pros do what is called “sector rotation.” They look for industries or asset classes where they think the fast action is going to be.
Many of the same people who bailed out early in the dot.com bubble, took their money and then went into flipping residential housing. And they flipped until they could not flip anymore. The lucky ones got out early. Others, not so lucky.
Meanwhile, the overall asset class of stocks remained fundamentally underpriced relative to housing. People just found that leveraging their plays in the housing sector was too lucrative to pass up, and never paid attention to the risks.
So, that bubble has burst.
Stocks are so damn cheap right now that dividend yields are at extremely attractive yields. But, people are still fearful. In addition, we have a new regime in power that is decidedly hostile towards investors and we don’t know how it all is going to play out. If they double the capital gains tax like they would like to do, it could be many years before we see robust investment.
It seems that most of the kiddies and lassies who voted for Obonga know almost nothing about what the Seventies were like. Well, they are about to get a hard lesson in reality. If the Democrats and Obonga make the wrong moves, the kids who voted for this guy en masse are going to have a serious case of buyers’ remorse. Maybe that’s the lesson people need to have.
We learn more from our failures than from any other experience.
Well, while the conversation has drifted somewhat, I didn’t get here til the end. Given that:
“We are still with a big economic crisis , rumors that Obama is focusing on economy…”
Rumor had it Bush the Younger thought so too, right up until, well, right around the morning of September 11, 2001 when reality bit him in the ass (along with the rest of us). I hope Obama’s rumors will turn out better than his, but I doubt it.
Of course, this goes back to the whole idea if “This time it will work” – it has always amazed me at the human capacity to fool itself when it wants too. I truly think most know when they are doing that and is why you get the reactions you do.
And, lastly, to talk of one of my favorite movies of all time – Groundhog Day – one of the great things about it is that it works on so many different levels. It *is* a comedy, I can be with a group of my friends and had a large intake of alcohol and it is still a good funny movie. I can be in an introspective mood and there is a lot of interesting ideas there about repetition, immortality, and the other issues brought up.
When I first say it in theaters (buy its release date I was 18 by a whopping 8 days) I thought it mostly funny but had some interesting thoughts, as I got older and had come to grips with my chosen technical trade (and, therefore, had time to think about more social issues than simply pure entertainment) it was one of the few movies that moved out of the “pure entertainment” genre into something else.
I guess my quote of the day is one FredHjr made in the last post before I wrote this one, he said “Well, they are about to get a hard lesson in reality”. I think so, Obama is too – it still remains to be seen how he will deal with said reality. For the first time there is no where else to go, no where else to shift blame, and he has to *do something*. I’m some what heartened by a number of his picks – I hope (and see – he did bring hope to me in a way) that he will be one of the myriad who gets robbed of the innocence when it occurs. A Bush with a name of Obama will go down in history, at this point I give it pretty much a 50/50 shot. But then again I am amazed at the power of the human mind to delude itself when it really wants too, the smarter the person the more ability they have to do this and Obama isn’t stupid by any means.
As I’ve emphasized, Obama is only street smart, a calculating political manipulator and opportunist; From the financial debacle, to Israel/”Palestine” diplomacy, to the manipulated “science” of global warming, the real lessons learned from the last hundred years aren’t of significant interest to the democrats, but rather their consolidation of political power. Like FDR during the 1930’s, it’s extension into federal government policy and structure is a deliberate priority. The financial recovery will occur when well established (pragmatic) reality, the necessity and viability of free market economics, as well as other illustrative history, is respected. This isn’t the same historical-intellectual vacuum that existed from 1932 to 1990. There are clear lessons learned concerning economics, as well as the implications of responsible diplomacy and military responses, concerning totalitarian agendas, if they aren’t ignored. As is now unfolding, the recovery will likely take longer, as in FDR’s days, but the Dems will again take credit for saving the day. Perhaps needless to say, but if Obama had muddled through the events of the last 8 years, rather than Bush, from the Iraq war expedition to Katrina, he would be getting high marks for a highly competent “mission accomplished”. That’s a cultural lesson to be learned just from the latest presidential campaign. Great article Neo, one of your best.
Tom, I didn’t mean to appear to be condescending, and FredHjr didn’t either, as best I can tell. Good for you for selling 18 months ago; I had the same thought, but talked myself out of it with warnings about the perils of market-timing. I expected a perhaps 10% fall in the markets, but I have a long investment horizon, and so I didn’t act on my thoughts. I completely misunderstood the magnitude and sensitivity of the banks’ off-balance-sheet obligations. Silly me.
I took a stab at showing that deflation would be malign at very low nominal rates of deflation. We have argued in favor of price stability. Since you have qualified yourself, you should take a stab at distinguishing malign v. benign for us.
We will be in a recession until January 21. Then the miraculous healing will occur and everything will be just fine. Any lingering problems will of course be George Bush’s fault for at least 8 years.
i was going for predictions of other thigns.
why?
because all the predictions in the world wont hold together given the world crisis being created!!!!!
failure to realize this has you guys sitting in an echo chamber discussing something meaningless…
would all the financial discussions be valid the day AFTER koreans invaded the south? of course not, and unless you can resolve or somehow make allowances and read the world stage, your all just farting in the wind.
‘
capitalism requires stability, so nothing will work right till you can find that, and that comes AFTER such stability is found. ever thought that the plan is to fix the finances by grabbing a large part of the property by going to war, and getting the inheritances?
stop looking at this as if we were the same moral people we were BEFORE The revolution.
we are not, they are not, and so what you have are choices being made to steer outcomes, and morals are not real…
we sit here and talk about how left leaders have historically had no morals. we talk about how reletivism means there are no absolutes. we point out that these leaders re more liek this than their followers.
but the minute we start to analyse, we go right back to the moral meaningless arguments…
when has the negatives of war ever stopped a war? when when has the moral choices ever guided a neo liberal leader when control was also a choice?
they already believe they own us. how else can they justify taking freedom away by its productivity lost that was owed society in exchange for your life?
ok.. since few want to listen to the negative that keeps hitting the hoop and scoring, just ignore it.
rockets fired from lebenon this morning hit north israel.
i said that latin america has to show its stuff… they have teamed up with the obamas, the communists, and soch and have all denounces israel. (see a coalistion of socailsit states taking israel over)
so evo morales just broke connections with israel.
russia just moved ships into the ports, as i mentioned, so now fighting back as in the 6 day war is more complicated.
you think your financial plans will pan out if they shoot off a big bomb? or some other thing? keep thinkin gthat way.
guys… can anyone here tell me the things that happened leading up to the great wars? (and tick off the number of things that are the same or similar here?)
they have been trying to open a second front on israel for two weeks… but no comments on that.
let me know what you think… since the word down low is that isreal is going to hit irans nuclear facilities.
“A strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities is a political decision, but if I understand it correctly, all options are on the table … The Air Force is a very robust and flexible force. We are ready to do whatever is demanded of us.” Ido Nehushtan
online.wsj.com/article/SB123172143660372413.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Kasparov on Russian Mahem in the Middle East
Those looking for a bright side in the global economic meltdown are fond of invoking the old line about finding opportunity in a crisis. But also keep in mind that there are those who will incite a new crisis to escape or distract from the current one. This is the scenario looming in Russia as the Kremlin faces increasing pressure on multiple fronts.
guys… how do they drive up the price of oil and gas so that they earn 200 dollars per unit sold instead of 20 dollars per unit sold? (note that the obama admin is setting it up so that their choices become a multiplyer effect on the socialists actions).
Russia and its fellow petrodictatorships are in dire need of a way to ratchet up global tensions to inflate the sagging price of oil. Petrodictators, after all, need petrodollars to stay in power. The war in Gaza and the otherwise inexplicable skirmish with Ukraine over natural gas have helped the Kremlin in this regard, but $50 a barrel isn’t going to be nearly enough. It will have to reach at least $100 and it will have to happen soon.
duh… (ergo the false flag actions in mumbai, and in jordan and syria on israel!)
i explained this perhaps a year ago…. that they have no economy but natural resouces, and weapons… and weapons ahve to traevl over land thorugh a intermediary so that they avoid dirt. iran is that intermediary.
when george bush said he was going to go after iran i said that if i was right, everythign will heat up so fast and to the extreme that we will be destracted from looking…
did that happen?
did russia start using gazprom on the ukraine?
arent syria, lebenon, iran, hezbolla, hamas, fatah, plo, ALL THEIR CREATIONS?
we are so used to ignoring them we still do even though everything has their fingers on it. whose explosives? whose expertise? whos rockets? whose guns? whose battel ships.
its like 100 naked models are standing in the snow outside the office holding up signs, and everyone says. what models
how about their breaking into the pentagon and world bank just before this? the cutting of the undersea cables. the sudden discovery of chemicals in products that dont use them. and on and on..
how many times does someone allow their nose to be broken before they stop believing its an accident?
had to break this up since its from wsj…
guys… i cant explain all this any shorter and have it mean anything!!!!! (maybe this was the purpose of shortening our attention spans)
if you dont belive me, listen to kasperov.
The natural place for the Kremlin to find its new crisis is the Middle East. Open hostilities between Iran and Israel would lift the price of oil back to a level that would allow Mr. Putin and his gang to keep funding the crackdown. Israel’s anxiety over Iran’s nuclear-weapon ambitions is the most vulnerable link in a very weak chain.
There persists a very damaging myth in the West, spouted by politicians and the press, that says Russia’s assistance is needed with Iran and other rogue states. In fact, the Kremlin has been stirring this pot for years and has a vested interest in further increasing turmoil in the region. The Hamas/Hezbollah rockets, based on the Russian Katyusha and Grad, are not delivered via DHL from Allah. It doesn’t require the guile of a KGB man like Mr. Putin to imagine a way to accelerate Iran’s nuclear program, which has been aided by Russian technology and protected by the Kremlin from meaningful international action.
So the question for Western leaders is whether they doubt Mr. Putin would hesitate to provoke a war in the Middle East. If his regime falls, he and his cronies will face the loss of their immense fortunes and criminal prosecution when their looting is exposed. What are thousands of lives in the Middle East to a Kremlin mob that is openly preparing for the day when they will have to open fire on their own citizens to stay in power?
This “mad bear” theory is even more plausible when you consider how tolerant the current cohort of Western leaders has been regarding the destruction of democratic rights around the world. There appears to be no line the world’s despots – and would-be despots – cannot cross with impunity.
It is time to bury the failed model of dealing with the world’s antidemocratic and bloodthirsty regimes. The real change we must effect in 2009 is toward a new global emphasis on the value of human life. Anything less confirms to the enemies of democratic civilization that everything is negotiable. For Mr. Putin that means democracy; for Hamas it means Israel’s existence. The Free World must take those chips off the table.
enter stage left…
the latin american crisis…
right on cue!!
Sudden collapse in Mexico
Mexico is one of two countries that “bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse,” according to a report by the U.S. Joint Forces Command on worldwide security threats.
“The Mexican possibility may seem less likely, but the government, its politicians, police and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and press by criminal gangs and drug cartels. How that internal conflict turns out over the next several years will have a major impact on the stability of the Mexican state. Any descent by Mexico into chaos would demand an American response based on the serious implications for homeland security alone.”
there will be more in the next week or so…
turning up all the burners i said would be the tactic.
It always seems strange to me that conspiracy theorists like Artfidgr always know what’s going to happen, but with a track record of 0% predictions coming true, continue to state with certainty what’s going to happen next.
For hundreds of years(Anti Masonic Party, 1832), we’ve been told we’re frogs being slowly boiled. Well, aren’t we cooked yet? Why didn’t Putin start up when oil dropped below $100? Why didn’t 9?11 or Y2K bring on martial law?
And besides, if it’s all true, why are you here crying about it rather than doing something besides inciting me to do it for you?
Looks like we’re going to need that fence after all, and a new army training base near the border, where they can, killing two birds with one stone, practice their skills… Maybe Obama will enjoy playing with his toy soldiers so much, now that he has finally “joined” the army as, Commander in Chief, he’ll grow up, instead of further left, there’s hope now, right? Why look, all of a sudden Bush’s current Iraq strategy is something too good to give up… Some people will do anything for money. Love your insights Art!
“…why are you here crying about it rather than doing something besides inciting me to do it for you?”
Lee, you are the messiah perhaps?
Call me “Tommy”. I became aware this year.
If you want to follow me, you’ve got to play pinball.
I think Artfldgr is right on the money about the Kremlin’s involvement with Iran and with Islamic terror groups in the Middle East. These are proxies they are using against the United States and Israel. Of course they benefit from any spikes in oil prices that occur because of the threats of war.
Russia has a long history of trying to forge alliances with Iran. Of late they have indeed been helping the Iranian nuclear weapons’ program. Russia does sell sophisticated weapons to the Mullahs. Higher oil prices mean that Russia gets more revenue from a variety of streams – and one of those is arms’ sales to Iran.
Tom, I was around for the inflation of the 70s and can tell you it was quite a ride. Money was trash. You needed to get rid of it and buy something of substance – gold, real estate, mining stocks, heavy equipment, etc. The value of all those things was rising perceptibly. I was into mountain climbing at the time and bought several nylon ropes and a lot of hardware, which I later sold at higher prices because that was what was happening. Home values were increasing by $1000/month in my neighborhood. A friend and I bought a house together and rented it out until we sold it at a much higher price 18 months later. Basically there was too much money out there chasing too few goods, especially things made of metal, oil, lumber, and other commodities. People were rushing out to buy things before the price rose and, in those days, many large companies provided inflation increases in pay as a normal thing. So many people’s wages kept pace, further fueling the inflation. Also unemployment was quite low giving rise to the idea that any unemployment rate below 5 1/2% was inflationary.
That was brought to a halt by the Fed cutting the money supply and raising interest rates as high as 15%. When rates got to 15%, a rate not seen since the Civil War, bonds bottomed and inflation cooled quite rapidly. It was a very wrenching time and there was a lot of pain along with a lot of losses. Those who were nimble and brave enough to buy bonds at 15% did quite well.
During the 90s and through these last eight years monetary policy was pretty loose, but there was no inflation because we have had an oversupply of everything in this country. I can remember in the 90s going into the big box stores and looking in wonder at acres and acres of goods stacked to the ceilings and asking myself if this wasn’t just too much supply for the market. And it has tended to be. At least that is why I think inflation has stayed low for all these years. However, with the rise in oil and commodity prices we began to see a situation where the manufacturers were having to pay more for their commodities, but they could not raise prices because their was too much supply and they would lose market share if they raised prices. So, profit margins were squeezed. Lower profits equaled declining stock prices. Also, gasoline prices acted as a tax on both consumers and producers resulting in less demand for everything. Ergo, the recession began about the same time as the housing bubble was deflating. All that would have been bad enough, but then we were hit with loss of confidence in financial institutions that were holding large amounts of mortgage backed securities (MBSs). The lack of transparency of those MBSs was what caused the fear and panic that has resulted in the financial crisis.
IMO the reaction to the mortgage problems and the shunning of MBSs has been completely overdone. But it has been fanned by the media, and some short side operators who have profited royally from the crisis. My thinking goes like this. Even if 20% of the mortgages in the MBSs are defaulted it is a problem that is bad but manageable. 20% is a very high default rate, not seen since the 30s, but it is not catastrophic. Yes, there will be huge losses and write downs, but the value of the defaulted mortgages is not zero because there is a property associated with each mortgage that has a value, albeit probably less than the outstanding mortgage.
The problem is no one is sure just how bad each MBS is. It will take a complex series of book keeping projects to tear into these MBSs and find out what the mortgages in each one are really worth. That takes time, just like it took time to resolve the loans associated with the Savings and Loan crisis in the 80s. It is my guess that when these instruments are eventually worked out the write downs that many banks, insurance companies, and others had to take (most on the order of 80% of value) will turn out to have been excessive and wrong. In other words, this panic deleveraging was unnecessary. I’m not saying that many investment banks were not over-leveraged and had beeen too eager to construct and sell MBSs. It was all clearly overdone and needed to be reined in. However, it need not have become the crisis that it has if only the SEC and FASB had not insisted on the wholly inappropriate mark to market accounting.
I am also going to guess that four years from now the MBSs will passing into history as did the Resolution Trust Corporation and people will say, “That really wasn’t so bad as we thought it was.” I also predict that some smart and enterprising investors wiill buy some of the MBSs at 30-40 cents on the dollar and will make fabulous profits, just as happened with the Savings and Loan crisis.
Have we hit bottom or is it safe to buy equities? I don’t know, nor does anyone else. That said, I’m dollar cost averaging into sound companies. Four years from now I think most of those will be worth a lot more than they are now.
After so many years of overspending and overborrowing, it is time to began pay up the debt. Any attempts to resolve the crisis by even more overspending and overborrowing are futile. Economy must contract to sustainable levels of consumption – this is the only way out. Short of this, another world war of the scale WWII is needed to draw America out of depression.
In every generation new heresies arise, due to lack of immunity of youth to these maladies, and the old ones return – a pattern well known to epidemiologists. The only preventive approach is ideological vaccination against them, the task the modern education system hopelessly failed, becoming instead a vehicle for spreading the diseases. School education must be snatched out of state-sponsored establishment and given into hands of parents to supervise – by vauchers, charter schools, homeschooling, ets. Only then return to normalcy would be possible.
Nothing in modern US economy can ever become comparable to great depression which struck Russia after desintegration of Soviet Union, when half of urban population lost jobs and were reduced to hand-tool farming on tiny vegetable garden patches to feed their families. I did it for four years, without any other source of income, to feed 5 children. And it was not as bad as I feared.
It always seems strange to me that conspiracy theorists like Artfidgr always know what’s going to happen, but with a track record of 0% predictions coming true, continue to state with certainty what’s going to happen next.
then you havent read me enough… I am not a conspiracy theorist, i am a historical analyst. i have no secret information.. i have no papers from sources.. all I have is history.
have you gone back and checked what i said, or have you assumed that i have a 0% record?
just in this post… go ahead.. look at the dates of my post, and what i thought would happen and why… nothing magical…
the KGB, CIA, and other organizations run on billions of dollars, and of course, dont do so conspiratorially… right?
for instance when russia printed and did active measures to make the US look bad and blame them for the AIDS virus, that was all in the open.
everyone knew that it was faked, and so there was no conspiracy to inject that false inforamtion into the memory? thats why gorbachev ADMITTED to the conspiracy, and why revererend wright is still telling teh african americans that the white peopel here created the virus in labs…
lee,
For hundreds of years(Anti Masonic Party, 1832), we’ve been told we’re frogs being slowly boiled. Well, aren’t we cooked yet? Why didn’t Putin start up when oil dropped below $100? Why didn’t 9?11 or Y2K bring on martial law?
And besides, if it’s all true, why are you here crying about it rather than doing something besides inciting me to do it for you?
when have i EVER brought up the masons, illuminaty, or any of that drivel? but just becaue that is drivel, and you have fallen for how it covers real argument.
in other words, ALL conversation about how things are going, and how different states decide whats in their interest are completely off the table, and the ONLY discussion that is allowed is the empty ones about morals, just war, and all that other crap that the leaders dont follow. (lee thinks that putin and our president, and the others sit there watching the veiw, and other programs fretting over the moral terpitude of exterminating enemies… )
the maaons are a lodge… and while i am SURE that some people who belong to the masons are conspiratorial given the goals of some people, i never thought the masons as an organization was this way.
however, i DID say that the CFR, Trilaterial commission (and their duplicates in the other countries), and the bildeburgs are theis way, whether they want to be or not… (after all, when the most powerful peopel hang out, drink and discuss their work, and goals, what do you think happens when others help and they dont have a press release for it?)
lets look at my track record in just this thread lee… you owe me an apologie for besmirchnig me and hurting my reputation without ANYTHHING to back it up.
first post i said go back to my posts when everyone thought that my saying that everything was going to explode very soon, and where it was to happen and why… so far that was dead on in the big picture… i cant predict details since i dont know HOW a goal will be met or what resources are in place for it. but i can sure list out what each countries goals are, what their economics is, and what would favor or not favor them.
if you were a bit less dumb and a bit smarter you migh discern the difference between a tin hatter and a person giving the best analysis of things based on what they know. which is all i EVER claimed to be doing.
and by the way… what we pay billions for analysts to do… you know little about me as a person… but yet, you still havent tallied up the expanse of what i know, and whether i am write or not. like a relativist you think that i lie and play games the minute i exceed yoru capacity, rather than knwo that this has been passed. in thsi way, every dumba** fights with every smart person but will not listen since they think they are as smart and the other one is just being tricky or else they woud see it.
January 13th, 2009 at 4:52 pm in this thread i said a lot of things… (i said the NIGHT of the event that jordan might open up a second front but it would probably be false flag. they are not ready for a war, and so they would not start one, and false flag would drag them in. the problem lee is that if i explain every point i make, you all complain i am too long. and if i assert wihtout it, you then say i am a guesser tin hatter. heads i win tails i lose)
at the bottom of this post i drew attention to the fact that india pakistan has been dinged and in play… i mentioned jordan and syria… they are in play, with russian ships docing in syrias port to prevent actions AS THEY DID BEFORE IN HISTORY.
but at the bottom i mentioned that latin america is not in play enough. that it has to heat up there if i am right as to the tactical meneuvering. (in other words i gave a falsifialbe prediction that would confirm or deny my line of thinking, and either say i am going pretty good, or say that i need to reasses).
all my information is public… i just know how to read it neutrally, throw away the meaningless distracting parts and destill implications, and not be distracted by crap made for public consumption.
[a very thorough knowlege of hsitory, including the darker side. a very good knowlege of medicine, evolutionary psychology, psychology, and also the darker side of that too. family experience so that i do not measure validity by some extreme cut off… and lots more… including game theory, ideology, philosophy, the great canon, and lots of other stuff…]
so i said that latin ameerican is not enough in play on january 13th… (same kind of assesment that you use when you havent heard from a freind in a while, and think it should come soon as the absence marks the arrival).
Artfldgr Says:
January 13th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
latin america should light up soon…
then later i went into a thing about groundhog day and some of the stuff in it.
Artfldgr Says:
January 14th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
i try to teach a bit on how to analyse..
and to confirm that latin america WAS heating up from what i said the day before i said
i said that latin america has to show its stuff… they have teamed up with the obamas, the communists, and soch and have all denounces israel. (see a coalistion of socailsit states taking israel over) so evo morales just broke connections with israel.
then i posted this.
Artfldgr Says:
January 14th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
enter stage left…
the latin american crisis…
right on cue!!
Sudden collapse in Mexico
how am i doing?
i came back today to update this. point.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6212148.html
Chertoff: Military ready if drug gangs cross border
Homeland Security plan also accounts for possible border surge by refugees fleeing the violence.
Neither Chertoff nor the lower-ranking official would discuss the number of U.S. forces – ranging from Border Patrol SWAT teams to National Guard and Army troops – that would be mobilized.
The officials said contingency plans have been tailored to deal with a range of emergencies that might overwhelm local authorities, from coordinated drug gang raids to the arrival of large numbers of refugees, similar to the thousands who fled to South Texas from Central American civil wars in 1989 or the 125,000 Cubans who fled to Florida in the 1980 Mariel boatlift.
so am i 0% and a tin hatter?
or am i giving you play by play ahead of whats happening?
you owe me an apology for attempting to discredit me and [printing it, and falsely attributing things to me. if this wasnt a blog, and it was my real name, i would be seeing you in court for slander.
on another note maybe lee really wants to learn.
i would say go here to START:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osprey_Publishing
Osprey Publishing is an Oxford based book publisher specializing in military history. Many of their books contain full-colour artwork and numerous photographs, and the company produces over a dozen ongoing series, each focusing on a specific aspect of the history of warfare. Osprey has published over 1,500 books. They are best known for their Men-at-Arms series, running to over 400 titles, each dedicated to a specific historical army or military unit.
i have read almost the whole series… and no i am not military, or with any agencies, nor did i go to college much other than minimum for a year or so.
when your done reading that lee… you can then start on Tsun Tsu… (but now you will understand things that he says)… i would also say you should read Clausewitz “on war” the western tsun tsu. after that, i would move to the modern treatises, like just war… and that philosophy… and one must not forget “unrestricted warfare” you can download it here: http://www.terrorism.com/documents/TRC-Analysis/unrestricted.pdf
now understand lee… i am not a big history buff! nor am i really interested in war… this kind of reading is what i do in PASSING. most of my focused reading is in physics, genetics, ai, engineering, and entreprenurial stuff…
but i am much like leonardo… i paint and draw… (if neo ever went to my site as i sent to her, she could confirm this). i am also a journalist who writes, and also a photo jourhnalist… where my work covers celebrities, fashion, and general news. i am athletic, and come from a long lived family… i spend most of my time alone since i have BAP qualities
in other words i have savant talents wihtout being an idiot (or aspergers). eidetic memory… huge recall of information… ability to see patterns… math abstracted into landscapes i can walk through… low number of freinds… i only sleep 4 hours a night… so i get more than 4 hours a day to study… made it to bronx science a year early… so i was at college level in grade school, and never stopped.
too bad there are so many people who pretend to be the same i am no longer super special like i was when i was young and it was easy to tell!!! i guess neo can tell about that.. suicides are common… among other things… and super high iq is NOT a marker for success… 120 is the favored… above or below that, they do not succeed as much.
now… after your done getting the principals down, you can then start on the history that connects the events.. but dont fortget to incorporate the archives additions that change the history with facts that could not be known then… like venona, mitroken, as well as the VALIDATED defectors. golytsin, sejna, and tons of others… but dont ignore those others who cahnges sides too, like langston huges, bella dodd, and others who confessed to the things they did…(bella dodd admites that they put 1000 operatives into the catholic church in the 20s before all the pedophile scandals and she pointed out in the 50s that they had taken up high positions, and are protecting others, and in general working to destroy the catholic church. the useful idiots though, like you, think that these things happening are natural. so they are upset at the history they think is valid. thats stalinism in action, change the history and the facts to get people to behave the way you want. you want them to hate the catholic church, dont argue about the catholic church, put deviants in the church and tell them they will be protected. soon the church becomes a sink as they invite others. and as long as the peopel dont know that this is being done, voila the false history and facts hve been constructed to make the horses turn right. much easier to sociopaths who have no desire to work through merit or validity. they dont see people as people… (i get that insight from my autistic stuff… the difference is that i have a concscience and like people, but find them confusing and illogical, while they see them as objects to be used and manipulatted. you dont debate with a horse, do you?)
lee… the reason i know all this is that people like me are not favored by these regimes. we are smart enough and independent enough to undo what they do. the jews are the smartest race on the planet and they designed this system they are exploiting as the great con against those weaklings who have morals and concscience. of course this group is their target for what they made they can unmake. not to mention that they are not willing to reform their religion and beliefs to conform to the new con, and they will not change and become the new socialist man.
so as engels said… they would have to all be swept away by a world confligration (holocaust as a word had not been invented).
the game since wwii, was to convince us all that it was a fluke of the man, not the goal of the ideology.
most believe this. which is why most do not understand why obama tee shirts and che and skin heads and communists, and anarchists and islamics are all calling for jewish extermination again.
it wasnt the people, it was the ideollgy.
absent the ideology, the peoploe would be differnt
by blaming hte people, we absolve the criminal, the ideology.
some people lee are actually smarter than other people. some are smart enough that they never meet others like them. i tested out at the 99.999th percentile… topping the tests limits when i was in school. everyone wants to paint me as arrogant because i tell the truth about my ability… but few see that i NEVER argue from authority… i ALWAYS tell you to check my facts (i might learn something).
but just because smarts is not as common as people pretend it is… doesnt mean that EVERYONE who appears to be is not actually stupid either.
the multi cults kicked me out of society… between school diversity, money games, and things like the 8a program (for women and minorities, so its designed to hurt white men)… i couldnt go to school. my family were refugees from hitler and stalin… we had no money, no contacts… we came as laborers and factory workers and miners.
to be one of the smartest kids in the country in my generation, and be denied an education for ideological reason, the same reasons that created refugees of us, and murdered my family… you tend not to like it. even more so when you know the truth through family, not through stalinesque hsitory which leaves stuff out (and whcih you learn in school if you bring up, they hate you and wish to ruin your life by crapping on your grades).
i do not have a blog, because i dont want to be a sitting target. with defiance out in the movies, people cant understand that i am hiding in the woods… as i move over time from place to place i have a large following of people that follow me… they like to tune into what i say… often i find them appear on other sites and such. some have appeared here too… but i wont say.
you have a lot to learn lee… i may be in my 40s, but with only 4 hours of sleep a night, my capacity is more like someone in their 80s… and i have another 50 years to go given family average (though we get alszheimers… its a curse of the very smart too. so if your envious lee, or jealous, dont worry… i will be a shell of myself. will nto be able to hold my urine in… and will be abused by carers… so you can feel better now and revel in your shadenfreuds)
U.S. military report warns ‘sudden collapse’ of Mexico is possible
http://www.elpasotimes.com/newupdated/ci_11444354
exerpt from report:
The Mexican possibility may seem less likely, but the government, its politicians, police and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and press by criminal gangs and drug cartels. How that internal conflict turns out over the next several years will have a major impact on the stability of the Mexican state. Any descent by Mexico into chaos would demand an American response based on the serious implications for homeland security alone.
Artfidgr,
Well, for an independent analyst, why can I read anything you say on sites like American Free Press, Infowars, Ziopedia, The Grassy Knoll?
Sure, you take pieces of historical fact, then read the worst possible case scenarios as to future outcomes, always blaming nefarious elites, whose interests are to make me and the world their subjects.
Sure, there are problems south of the border, and the fact we have contingency plans doesn’t mean they’re inevitable, as you try to imply.
Sure, Russia has economic ties with Iran. But Russia could be benefiting from Middle East tensions of their making now. What are they waiting for?
As stated before, there is nothing I learn from you that I haven’t already heard from truthers, tin hatters, and neo-nazi wannabies. You may not mention certain groups I bring up, but I mention them for others to compare and contrast against your tripe.
Next year this time, you’ll still be telling me the sky is falling. See you in the court of public opinion then.
Hiding in your Unabomber shack in the woods.
JimmyJ says:
“Sure, Russia has economic ties with Iran.”
It’s more than economic ties, sir. When you are providing some of your more advanced technology to the Mullahs – of the kind that can create monumental headaches for the nations that ultimately have to do SOMETHING about what Iran intends to do.
Or do you think the Mullahs are just bluffing when they say that there are certain things they are going to do?
Give it a rest, Lee.
American Free Press, Infowars, Ziopedia, The Grassy Knoll?
i am not familiar with those at all..
if you look at my links… they tend to be the times, wsj… pravda, ria novosti, uk times… library of congress, the armies government website, asia times… i have read das capital, and the koran, and tons of books on various subjects, and through my work i have access to the library collections of studies papers and such… (so lunch hours and evnings at home i tie in and read while my wife sleeps).
all those things your attributing i never claimed nor said…
lee…
sometimes bad times do come…
sometimes they come for simple plain reasons that no one wants to understand.
one thing i have noticed is that the self esteem movement coupled with crap education makes people who think their crap education not only stands up to the past education, but vastly exceeds it! however they are hypersensitive, and so no one can tell them something they dont know.
you can see the difference of the conversation, and it turns into a knotty battle because they want their opinions and feelings to be as valid as facts, and principals, and their knowlege is intimately tied to their feelings
so no one can tell them anything.
if my predictions are dark, its because there is a lot of dark things arrayed around us.
your view may be much brighter, because you dont know about yamentau, or the new missiles, or the new nuclear sub silos china has with 20 brand new nuclear subs… or their papers, or the history.
in other words. all those missing things are what makes your world brighter than it is.
between self esteem and reletivism stunting them permanently on a pergatoried existence (where they want to know need to know, but can never know unless its along the lines of their keepers messages they grew up with), they also are unaware of the facts and conditions that would tell them that the choices they are making and the things they think are grand are really bad ideas.
the people who were yelling fascist are now yelling and calling for a new kristalnact… yet the best they can do is project that the jews are nazis!! the more they are the left becomes what they have always been, the harder they project that to the other side.
lee… you want me to be nicer and lighter… not because you want to know the facts, but because my facts are dark, beg caution, and say life is not a party… and how can you keep enjoying your party if someone is telling you its going to end. heck its not going to end to tomorrow, so why ruin tonight? (yet they are also trained masochists which is why they have to participate in things that they dont like).
not all my predictions are dark… but i am not really making predictions. i do no crow when i get it right, and i do not grouse when i get it wrong.
and if you read me… i tell you how i get to my analysis… its not mystical… its not from those sites you talk about…
lee, what if you were living in poland and this was august 1st?
you would be telling me that this is crazy… i would have left town… and on september 1st… with no warning… no declaration of war… (and actually more than a month before with troops in civilian clothes whe were causing distracting things for the news). 1.5 million troops come over the border.
within an hour of hearing the news, your city of krakow is being pounded by phosphorus and other incindiary bombs. German planes were coming over in squadrons of 50, every half-hour…
you flee to the other side of the country… and on the 17th.. the soviets come in from there.
i on the other hand had already left.
well, a similar story is what my fathers family went through. those that stayed… well, you dont believe what happened to them…those that left did ok… not great, but a heck of a lot better than everyone else ended up.
i am not saying that there is going to be the next world war in the next few months. i have no way to make that conclusion
however, your a freaking idiot if you dont think that these things have to be in the analysis and equation. because one day, it may actually end up being that.
my analysis has been really good because i figured out the game.. thats all… (its not any different than the game in the past!!! so its not so hard).
i turned off the bable box, took out a map, and figured out cui buono.
and your soooo dumb (like the young idiots at work who sit for days plinking away at a problem, then argue to my solution…then get smart, send it to me, and i send it back in 3 mins with the solution i told them!!! you would think they might get smarter after 4 or 5 times).
i am telling you how to figure it out… rather than try it yourself… your defending what?
whats your basis for saying i am wrong? a rampant assumption that i am a tin hatter so just ignore it? how is that a valid way to make a choice when you havent even got a method to tell a tin hatter other than its bad news, and talks of spies.
like bad news cant happen if its real bad, and that spies dont exist (even if they caught one last week, and the guys that slammed the towers were the same kind of thing).
well… bad news and bad times do happen… and they are more often than not made worse by the state. you should see the woppers coming down the pike. england just restricted a bunch of chemicals that in the past kept things like the potatoe famine away… we have linked food to feul.. and we suckered starving people into growing it, and then didnt buy it from them since our own farmers did it too… so next year, they will all be starving in these african countries.
its in the news lee… you just have to have three brain cells to see what will happen, and then not be turned by their bull shit, or their rewording it to something nicer.
yes, you can sell more steak if you describe it as a juicy slab of choice fillet with potatoes, and gravy…
you can also say slice of burnt dead cow, with hot tubers and pan drippings mixed with crushed grains.
both are equivalent though.. and thats what the young and crippled (name of my daily soap opera), cant see that…
which is why they can be sold communism by picking the right term. progressive, liberal, neo liberal, socialist, and tons more.
you see. in truth, communism is a slice of rotten meat… but they tell you its incredible, wonderful, and such…
the difference is that these are lies, and you cant tell the difference any more between the equivalent truths, and the spinned lie.
with reletivism, you cant discern the difference. just as you cant discern between tin hatter and an open analysis guess… (and the analyzer admitting that its a guess and that its following a hypothesis. and always cautioning that there is no real way to KNOW)
this is why most of your life is in a kind of slavery.. and at least i had a childhood that compared to today is quite idylicc.
i self educated… no one skewed reality for me so bad that i have to protect it from others telling me facts. (like you)
good luck lee… i do wish you the best.
just remember, that betting on the same horse without consideration that another may actually win, will leave you broke and in the wrong place when the crap hits the fan.
sometimes bad does happen
and sometimes people know things you dont
and somtimes they can figure better than you…
yes there are people that can do this better than me.. there is always someone better than me… but i admit it. (and your not it)
Artfidgr,
For someone who tested in the 99.999 percentile, I would think your spelling and punctuation skills would be better than you demonstrate. I make typing mistakes, too, but c’mon, dude! Just a little cursory proofreading before you submit?
Yep, Art and only Art can predict the future of the world, but he’s not “arrogant” about it, just “honest” about his abilities.
For someone with more than “three brain cells” like me, one would think you could tell the difference between a falling sky and an acorn dropping off a tree.
But, when the whole world is out to get you, paranoid is just good thinking, right?
For someone who tested in the 99.999 percentile, I would think your spelling and punctuation skills would be better than you demonstrate.
and if they were perfect then what? einstein failed math… so whats your point other than to try to disparage me and discredit me because i dont have the time to play spell check for a moron?
i dont have the time you do lee.. i dont have the time to type 10 pages, and make it a thesis report when the ass hat on the other side is not going to discuss the words, but look at punctuation, spelling etc…
after all that, to disparage my punctuation makes you out to be what?
Yep, Art and only Art can predict the future of the world, but he’s not “arrogant” about it, just “honest” about his abilities.
arrogant? i am honest.. if i then play humble, you win because i then dont type because i am afraid that an ass hat like you might call me a bad name…
again… nothing to do with the points you made, and my response…
lee… i am not a collectivist… your pretending i am illiterate, because i dont spend my time on punctuation but on content!!! then you pretend i am arrogant, when i am being honest, and to annoy me, you refuse to drop predition.
a prediction and analysis are not the same thing.
i give you the basis for my thinking. linking to the data, the historical context… tactical and cui buono… you realize that teh CIA, NSA, tavistock, kgb, DIE, and all thes eother agencies ahve people that do what i do? are they all tin hatters?
For someone with more than “three brain cells” like me, one would think you could tell the difference between a falling sky and an acorn dropping off a tree.
But, when the whole world is out to get you, paranoid is just good thinking, right?
and what makes you think that enemies are not out to get you?
you still have not explained in real world terms WHY what i am saying is not so… my analysis was dead on… while yours was?
oh yea… completely and entirely wrong and off planet… but it had great punctuation, and was humbly written so your mommy can put it on the fridge.
you and other leftists have swalloed the koolaid that says that times have changed. that those things dont happen any more.. etc.
why not?
did we genetically eradicate the power hungry and sociopathic? nope… not that i know of..
did we learn taht captialism isnt an ism, and that socailism is slavery? nope.. not that i nkow of.
in fact, we havent even learned that hitler was a socialist on the left… he was never on the rigth, and the weimar republic was a lot more liberal than hitlers left was.
lee…
why dont you read about the asian guy that got into the zoo tank with a panda bear to hug it.
he is like you!!!! out of touch with reality…
if i told him that the cute panda was going to tear his face off… like you, he and you would chime in that i am paranoid.. how can such a cute cuddly thing be so dangerous…
well, that cute and cuddly thing is a bear (actually related to the racoon family, not bear), and it has teeth claws, and without weapons its higher on the food chain than we are…
so he got mauled… and they nearly had to kill the bear.
russia has not changed… is it a free state?
china has not cahnged… is it a free state?
of course you dont know the three times that russia previously pretended to loosten up, and the time that mao did it.
your history is completely incomplete… and you dont know what happened, why, or what.
Lee, your dreams do not trump experience.
you havent given a coutner analysis to mine.
none waht soever.
all you have done is call me names… misattrubute me to crackpots… complain about the length of posts… insult me as arrogant rather than honest…
its not a falling sky… i never said that…
[usually these things arent doom. is russia, germany etc all still here after two world wars? so no, its not falling sky… i never said it was. you did]
and i have said that small acorns grow up into large trees.
my family served with the forces against the axis… got that? my famkily was in europe at the time of the wars… i am a refugee child… some were part of their own army… some were a part of hitlers forces… some were a part of stalins…
when it was all over, they taught me about the natures of the political systems, and the people and means to ends, and how to get there and what to watch out for when it comes.
out of a family of more than 500 people…
there is only 5 of us left now…
only one is young
are you going to tell me that for them the sky did not fall?
want to know how the russians took care of my grandfather?
they cut his belly… pulled out his intestines a little bit… then they nailed that bit to a tree, and forced him to march around it poking him with bayonetts till he unraveled the 30 feet of intestines around the tree… then left him…
my father, grandmother and a few others were under a pile of garbage watching… my grandfather buried them there to hide them… you know, close the door from the outside so no one looks.
i have literally hundreds of personal stories that come with photos.
you think they are myths…
Oh, yeah,
It’s just like “1984”. Big Brother’s watching (even though he still lets you expose “the truth”). I’m losing all my rights ( like taking a knife onto an airplane). I’m becoming dependent on government handouts ( yet I still have enough money to buy beer and marijuhana after taxes). He’s been coming for me since the Adams administration. But I’m the one out of touch with reality, huh? I’m not the one making analogies between myself and Daniel Craig ( he’s an actor in a movie, not a partisan). I’m not the one comparing my shortcomings to Einstein ( he was a genius, not a paranoid with delusions of grandeur).
Not to mention, what I say, and what is said about me on an anonymous blog (or what any commentor says, for that matter), should be taken (if at all) with a grain of salt. But for you, it’s personal, isn’t it? You really think you’re saving the world, don’t you?
Tin hatters like you are as predictable as the sunrise. Always the age old cry: “Why doesn’t anyone believe me? You’re all just too stupid to see the truth!” Well, at least I can see through you like a sheet of Saran wrap.
i didnt say 1984, i was referring more to aldous huxley… in which the masses dont realize that they are this way… in THAT type of situation, the masses ARE allowed to talk, they are promoted to talk more… because all talk no action is the way to go.
on handouts… lee, did you get a guaranteed loan for school? did you plan on that as part of the financial future? its a handout lee… unless you paid for all your schooling with all your money and didnt use a guaranteed loan, you got a hand out. if you have ever collected welfare, got school lunch, free examination, and more… you got a handout.
russians can buy drugs too… they drink to death… so how is your missive on beer and alcohol, two drugs that keep the population quiet, and drain their capital while puttig them out of the game, evidence of freedom?
you ARE losing all your rights lee… carrying a knife on a plane is not a right. and if you cant tell that it isnt, then you lost your rights!!!! i have a question, if the state thinks you hit a child in your house, do they need a warrant to take your child away and put it up for adoption? nope… (i didnt say you actually hit the child, i said they THINK you did). when you walk into a subway, the police can search you for no crime. how is that being safe from searches as the cosntitution says? in a legal altercation with a female, even if she commits the offense, her identity is secret, yours is public… so how is the right to know your accuser… the lsit goes on..
and i will say you ARE a moron, if you think that carying a weapon on a private plane when the owner doesnt want you to, is a right.
I’m not the one making analogies between myself and Daniel Craig ( he’s an actor in a movie, not a partisan).
your so stupid… ANALOGY… a tool for using common knowlege between two people to explain something that isnt part of it.
if you draw an analogy to a han dynasty emperior, i am no so stupid as to think you think you ARE a han dynasty emperor.
boy are you dumb… no wonder you like socialism.. with such broken thoughts you cant function…
I’m not the one comparing my shortcomings to Einstein ( he was a genius, not a paranoid with delusions of grandeur).
thats funnier than the last idiotic thing.
YOU were the one that set the standard for smarts and competency was punctuation and skill in everything…
your too stupid to get that the analogy to me. but to the fact that if the rest of the world was like you, no one would know einstein… beacuse einstein fai;ed m,ath, and by analogie to your analysis, that makes him an idiot not to be listened to.
its YOUR analogy…
i am not saying that because i dont spell check, i am as smart as einstein.
i said that the fact that you use lack of spell check as a proxy for intelligence, you would never recognize an einstein.
is that spelled out for you in the simplest terms that a person who is way below average can understand?
how would a man like you with a brain like mush know how to test the validity of my points?
a moron cant determine mental acuity and facility with invention and orignal thinking. which is why people like you come out of the woodwork, and use spellign as a iq proxy.
but totally ignore attending bronx science.
by actually entering the school i fit the textbook definitino of GENIUS.
AVERAGE IQ of these HIGH SCHOOL students is 145.
145 is AVERAGE there…
let me know if you can name another school with the same creds.
A short list of alumni achievements include:
7 Nobel Prizes in Physics
5 Pulitzer Prizes (not counting team reporting)
5 National Medal of Science, National Medal of Technology
Past Secretary of Defense, Air Force, Navy
President of Amherst College (2003 to present)
President of Columbia University (1980 to 1993)
President of Teachers College (1994 to 2006)
Chancellor of UCLA (1997 to 2006)
Dozens who clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justices
1% of the membership (selected by peers) at:
National Academy of Sciences,
National Academy of Engineering
Institute of Medicine
Executive Editor of The New York Times (1994 to 2001, 2003)
Editor-in-Chief of BusinessWeek (1984 to 2005)
Other awards such as:
Rhodes Scholars
Guggenheim Fellows
MacArthur “Genius” Fellows
Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of S&P 500 companies.
what did YOUR freinds in high school do?
may i ask YOUR sat scores?
i was 50 pts shy of a perfect score.
Not to mention, what I say, and what is said about me on an anonymous blog (or what any commentor says, for that matter), should be taken (if at all) with a grain of salt. But for you, it’s personal, isn’t it? You really think you’re saving the world, don’t you?
nope.. not the world… just a few people…
Tin hatters like you are as predictable as the sunrise. Always the age old cry: “Why doesn’t anyone believe me? You’re all just too stupid to see the truth!” Well, at least I can see through you like a sheet of Saran wrap.
you have not refuted my facts.
you have ASSUMED that i am a tin hatter because your ignorance puts REAL facts in the same category.
WHICH fact is wrong…
the ONLY thing you have done was get a bug up your ass because you are ignorant an stupid of the facts.
you have not decided to read one link i post. you dont like long posts becasue long posts tax limited mental capacities. (which is why the population doesnt like them when they used to).
lee…
you are too young to know what your talking abotu.
your also too stupid with hubris to learn from those older than you.
ridiculing me as a tin hatter, well, that doesnt make me a tin hatter any more than calling you mary poppins will make you fly…
the reason people who are very smart here tolerate me is that i am not a tin hatter.
that is, my facts are verifyable. the sources are not tin hat sources. there are no secret documents i only have.
in fact.. most of the long stuff you dont like is quotes from books and papers written by marx, engels, lenin, stalin, and many others.
most of the time, i am just repeating what they say they want, are going to do, or have stated is a goal which has remained unchanged in 60 years.
by the way…
just one more little thing…
you about as right about me as you were about obama being a good thing for the country..
i am old.. i will not live through the misery that you will live through watching your children and family live through this.
check out what a dark realestate salesperson is in russia…
right now, all the people like you sure that socialism and communism are different (Despite your being the only ones to make that distinction, while the giants and authors of the ideology do not), are about to find out the truth.
it wont matter to me…
but the reason you dont know me, or where i am..
is the same reason that i am here to write you.
my family kept their mouths shut. so that when an ass wipe like you gets caugth in the machine… they dont tag me as the person to grind up next!!!
lee… wait lee…
i dont really care whether you believe me or not…
in fact, i dont care what really happens to you, since your actions do not bode well for any one who shares your genes!! after all, you got suckered, and your on my case because i didnt get suckered with you!