Newt,

This is in response to your comment on my statement about Biden needing to lose in '20.

I recently wrote this as a reply to one of my readers (I write under a number of different names in other places).:

Dear <name>,

>I took some time to absorb what you wrote. It's a lot to juggle. The Atlantic has an article in the July-August issue on the worst and best case scenario in CLO defaults. I'll read more.

I read the article you mentioned, and while it's certainly good, it also misses a very important point that explains the mess we're in: the collapse of Lehman and Bear-Stearns, while catastrophic in their own ways, were not the nightmare that caused the Fed to freak out in 2008 -- AIG was. Had AIG gone under and the counterparty default contracts triggered, we'd be on the barter system right now. We came within hours of not having an economy in the western world. The $700b ($.7t) the Fed coughed up to stop this from happening calmed the panic, but did nothing to resolve the underlying issues. These issues continued to compound during the 2011-2020 stock run-up and now we're at the point where the Fed is throwing trillions of dollars at every piece of bad debt they can find just to keep the whole thing from imploding into an economic black hole. It is important to note that in September '19, the credit markets started freezing because of the debt that was already on the books then, -before- CV-19 started rolling, and it took $3t just to get them unlocked again. Absolutely nothing has gotten better since then, and I would argue things have gotten dangerously worse.

In an odd coincidence, the NYT ran an article today about the looming bankruptcy crisis. They're calling for 30-60 days before things start imploding, but I'll stick to my estimate of ~90 days. There's some talk about extending the $600 benefits (we'll see) and chatter about another stimulus check, but that's kicking the can as well as telegraphing how bad things really are. When the Republicans are getting behind free money, you know we're in some uncharted territory. For all intents and purposes, Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) -- the reason the Fed is backstopping debt and printing money like crazy -- is the hill the US economy will live or die on. Should the US dollar come unpegged as the world's de facto currency or should inflation begin (and there's already worrying signs this is happening), that's game over.

Please don't take anything I say as the Word of God; please do your own research and come to your own conclusions. Everything I've said is an opinion based on my education, experience and way of thinking. Your mileage may vary.

Here is the article I mentioned: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/business/corporate-bankruptcy-coronavirus.html -- might be paywalled, but clear your cookies for the NYT and you should be able to read it.


>Frankly, it's the physical danger in my area of the States that concerns me. There are the guns and bullying. During some BLM demonstrations in the Midwest, locals were standing around with semi-automatics. I drive a Prius for the fuel efficiency. Pick up trucks enjoy tailgating, trying to intimidate me. This behavior isn't going to change with a change of President but will get worse is we don't change. This ideological push to takeover the country instead of ruling by compromise started around the same time we came to the US in 1981, Reagan's first year. I was so shocked when I heard talk radio for the first time; this wasn't the country I had left in the 1970s.


And now we come to the giant pile of sweaty dynamite that's just waiting for the right shock to set it off. I could give you a prolonged lecture about how this all started in 1978 with California's Proposition 13, or how David Stockman's tragically prescient warnings were blatantly ignored, but Haynes Johnson does a far better job at this than I ever could in his 1991 book "Sleepwalking Through History", as does Kevin Phillips in 2006's "American Theocracy". Honestly, at this point, the prelude is academic. The reality of the situation is that a large swath of adult Americans are appalling ill-educated, innumerate and devoid of even the most basic critical-thinking skills. These people are now locked out of the Information Economy. They lack the most basic skills required to compete in the 21st century job market and thus will watch their standard of living sink into the abyss. These people are not blind to this fact because they're living with the reality of their situation every single day. They're totally without hope, cut off from all avenues of control over their own lives and they feel utterly abandoned by the very people who're supposed to be helping them. The reason you're seeing bullying and behavior like that is because these same people are totally removed from any avenues of recourse and the only people they can take their anger out on are people like you and me. Their anger is being stoked on a daily basis. FOX News and the GOP are experts at this and have a host of boogeymen to keep the anger from being pointed their way: ANTIFA, BLM (black Americans have always made a perfect target), "coastal elites" and, of course, Liberals.

Trump's election was a warning, not an outlier. Trump was the primal scream of these people and Liberals and the Democrats as a whole chose not to listen because they found the sound so abhorrent. The rage will only get worse and the number of people enveloped by this rage will only grow as economic conditions worsen. At this point, it no longer matters who wins in '20. Winning the election will be like winning the deed to the World Trade Center one second after the first jet hit. The damage has already been done and no steps are being taken to repair it; if anything, people are actively making it worse either through ideological blindness, deliberate malfeasance or outright stupidity. It took almost 50 years to get to this point and the endemic issues will not be undone in a single generation, much less a single election. Until the people who voted for Trump feel a sense of real hope, a sense of control over their lives and a genuine expectation of recourse for their grievances, they will keep right on voting for Trump, or people like him.

My unfortunate suspicion is that this country will rip itself to shreds long before those reforms are enacted.

Side note: the fundamental difference between the United States and Europe is that European history has forced the nations of Europe to live with the consequences of their actions. Not so the United States. Europe has suffered for her sins. Not so the United States. The two bloodiest wars in human history were fought on European soil. Not so the United States. The United States has never faced true suffering, nor has it ever had to live with the ramifications of its own actions. Both these facts are about to change and a nation whose character is built on a mythology of individual action and violence is going to have to face reality. The people of this nation are not prepared for this and they will not like it.

Second side note: many people are erroneously comparing the current situation to the Wiemar Republic. This is a lack of historical understanding. A more apt comparison would be to Spain in late 1935.


>As for re-opening, we could have gotten some control if the "leader" had simply donned a mask and used realistic thinking. People could go back to work more safely, wash hands, stay a certain distance. But his hubris led the way, so now we'll have a roller coaster for months and years that will affect the economy even more. France is a good comparison because they were unprepared also, having slashed the public healthcare budget for the last twenty years. But when they laid down the rules, troops patrolled the streets to be sure they were followed. So far, they've flattened the curve (for now), and used different economic incentives, such as paying part of employees' salaries to keep them employed.

At this point, the pace of re-opening is a difference between very bad and much worse. Had $3t been used to pay the yearly salary of every American, we could have saved lives and the economy, but we didn't. The history of 2020 will be littered with "what-ifs". However, the first thing you learn when studying history is that what-ifs are useless because things are what they are and you can't change that. It's already obvious we're going into a second wave. If previous pandemics are any indication of what's to come, this second wave will be many times worse than the first. The wait for a vaccine is indeterminate, but if we're going for herd immunity, ~70% of Americans will need to catch the virus. To date, ~1.5% have. If the US population is ~330 million, ~230 million will need to catch the virus. Call the mortality rate 2%, that means ~4.6 million Americans will die. That's a lot of dead Americans and grieving families.

Take care,

(my actual name)

I'm all, Whew they made it outside....man.. .that was clo--OH GET AWAY FROM THE POWER LINES!! You're RIGHT UNDER THEM! GAH!

Look around 17 seconds at the car on the left passing the trees. It disappears. Look at the same area after the train passes to see how the car "should have" looked.
I think this was done in one of 2 ways.
1) 2 separate shots filmed at very clos to the same time. Probably train first, then car, to minimize change in lighting. The 2 films were then merged with most of the background being masked out for the car, which would explain why the car on the left disappears. It is entering the mask area.
2) Real train, CGI car.

there are a lot of sites like pirate bay. but PB is the only that publishes those funny letters from big companies, that want them to remove their content from the trackers... ie response to one of EA's emails:
"From anakata_anakata.hack.se Mon Sep 13 07:20:31 2004
Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 07:19:36 -0100 (GMT)
From: anakata
To: Piracy - Online <Piracy-Online@ea.com>
Subject: Re: Copyright Infringement

On Tue, 14 Sep 2004, Piracy - Online wrote:

> September 14, 2004
>
> SENT VIA E-MAIL
>
> Fredrik Neij
> PRQ
> Box 1206
> Stockholm, Sweden 11479
>
>
> Re: Electronic Arts Trademark and Copyright
> Infringement Notice
>
>
> Dear Mr. Neij:
>
> It has been brought to the attention of Electronic Arts Inc. ("EA") that
> the website http://www.piratebay.org with the IP addresses of
> 217.75.120.115, 217.75.120.116, 217.75.120.118 is conducting
> unauthorized activities with respect to EA's copyrighted software, The
> Sims 2. The aforementioned website is offering and distributing
> bittorrent seeds for an unauthorized downloadable version of this EA
> game.
>
> The infringing material may be found at:
>
> http://www.piratebay.org/download.php/3238103/Sims%202.torrent
>
> http://www.piratebay.org/download.php/3238222/The_Sims2_AlcoholClone-CLO
> NEGAME_Full.Release_%28exclusive_for_trackerwww.prq.to%29.torrent
>

Hello and thank you for contacting us. We have shut down the website in
question.

Oh wait, just kidding. We haven't, since the site in question is fully
legal. Unlike certain other countries, such as the one you're in, we have
sane copyright laws here. But we also have polar bears roaming the
streets and attacking people :-(.


> This unauthorized activity with respect to the distribution of EA's
> software products constitutes infringement of EA's intellectual property
> rights. EA enforces its intellectual property rights very aggressively
> by using every legal option available.

Please don't sue us right now, our lawyer is passed out in an alley from
too much moonshine, so please atleast wait until he's found and doesn't
have a huge hangover...

>
> As you are listed as the registrant for this website, EA demands that
> you immediately and permanently disable access to the aforementioned
> bittorrent seeds for The Sims 2 and any in the future.

You're free to demand anything you want. So are we. We demand that you
cease and desist sending letters like this, since they're frivolous and
meaningless. Where should I send the bill for the consumed diskspace and
bandwidth?

> Thank you for your cooperation. If you have any questions concerning
> this matter, please contact us via e-mail at:
> piracy-online@ea.com.
>
>
> Regards,
>
> EA Law - IP Enforcement
> Electronic Arts Inc.
> piracy-online@ea.com <mailto:piracy2@ea.com>

Thank you for your entertainment. As with all other threats, we will
publish this one on http://static.thepiratebay.org/legal/

//anakata"