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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)

And when they get their way and their healthcare system collapses, they'll use a neighboring county's whose population WERE wearing masks, and won't have learned a damn thing.

Here is the original short film, BEYOND US: After The Collapse

A building with a sprinkler system should not go up in flames that quickly.
“Within 15 minutes the whole back of the building collapsed and exploded,”
“I didn’t hear no fire alarms, I didn’t see no fire sprinklers, nothing,” employee Chris Smith said.

https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2020/06/05/massive-3-alarm-warehouse-fire-erupts-amazon-redlands/

Sorry comrade, all true, on video. It's you who is repeating lies and pure bull shit, and complete contradiction of what dozens of news groups including Fox reported from the scene...even contradicting the Whitehouse itself. I expect nothing less from delusional, sycophantic, morons who prefer to believe convicted racists and repeatedly convicted con men like Trump over literally hundreds of videos and thousands of eye witnesses, including clergy, Australian and other non American reporters, and the words of Trump/Barr themselves who publicly admitted it.
What, are you saying Trump is lying, he didn't decide on a whim, without asking the church leadership and against the suggestions of his SS, to go take pictures, he really did know the protesters were there and pushed some violent law and order on them and really wasn't an unbelievably ignorant buffoon who didn't notice the protests on his front door all week like he claimed yesterday, and didn't have Barr direct the violent removal of protesters by force, without warning, and well before curfew...for picture time? They said it, not CNN.

No other president has ever been so self centered as to direct the SS to attack peaceful citizens with grenades, rubber bullets, irritant smoke (so you don't dishonestly claim no teargas because you disagree with the long time accepted definition of the words, but irritant smoke is teargas), clubs, boots, hooves, pepper balls, and shields so he could use a church he just attacked as a photo prop. Never.
They even attacked the priests from the church he used for his 2 minute photo op as they were tending to injured protesters on the church porch, removing them violently by force, taking moronic photos with the church and bible as props not sacred sights and texts, political propaganda photos and campaign commercial videos that have been denounced by most religious leaders before running back home surrounded by hundreds of guards like the tantrum throwing scared little baby he is.
But I'm certain you will say he's the most conciliatory, thoughtful, empathetic, leader who has brought the country together like never before and made it incredibly prosperous, any contradiction therefore must be fake news, not reality any non cult member can see with their own eyes. Jim Jones had followers like you. Go have some Kool Aid, why dontcha.

Funny, if he's pushing law and order against rioters and looters, why is he directing attacks against peaceful protesters (they now claim the protesters were throwing rocks, but oddly have no footage of it)...more importantly, why isn't he going after the boogaloos, a right wing, pro Trump, anti liberal, pro civil war, pro collapse of society group who has been seen at every riot even though they're 100% against BLM since they're also a white power group...caught in Vegas preparing to bomb crowds after their plan to start riots fell through.

Can you name instances of Antifa being caught doing the same? I'll answer for you since I know you'll just go silent, no you can't.

Again, dummy, they weren't rioting or looting a thing, purely peaceful protests at the Whitehouse until Barr ordered their removal by force. Thousands of cameras, not one showing riots or looting, only showing the SS stormtroopers tossing grenades into crowds and shooting rubber and pepper bullets point blank in the face.
Completely wrong....comrade. No other president in our country has ever been so disrespectfully divisive as to insist the streets belong to him and then take them by force during nation wide, actually world wide protests over police violence, actually telling police to become more violent. None.

Looks like it's the boogaloos, a right wing, pro Trump, anti liberal, pro civil war, pro collapse of society group, stirring that pot of discontent. Three were arrested on terrorism charges with explosives trying to start riots in Las Vegas, and known members have been seen in almost every city that's had riots.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/three-men-connected-boogaloo-movement-tried-provoke-violence-protests-feds-n1224231

Can you point to a non OAN or Fox opinion report of verified antifa caught trying to start riots, fires, and explosions in the crowds? I haven't.

Newt, you've already lost.

You didn't lose with Trump in 2016, but with California's Prop 13 in 1978.

The goal of the Neocon movement was to decimate American public education because they knew that an educated population would never vote for the kind of shit they were selling, and because teachers (being educated and all) were a powerful Democratic voting block. Defunding public education was a win/win for them.

It worked beautifully.

The teacher's unions were starved. Public schooling imploded. We went from the most educated populace in the world to the point where 50% of the population can't find their own country on a map.

Then the real screw-job started with the wealth transfer. Unions were busted, jobs were moved overseas. The safety net that kept millions from abject poverty was dissolved ("welfare queens", "food-stamp cheats"). The Middle Class began to evaporate with about 10% climbing up the ladder and the rest being dumped into the street.

For people like me -- people with high-end skills and a college degree -- that shit worked out great. But people who aren't as lucky? Kinda sucks being them. So they got madder and madder. Luckily, there were dark-skinned people that this rage could be directed at. That good ol' American racism? That shit pays dividends if you play it the right way.

Now you have an increasing number of poorly educated people living in poverty with grievances. Hey, guess what -- we have a new tool to focus all that anger and it's called FOX News! They can show you whose dastardly plan it was to keep your poor, white self down on the farm while those FUCKING LIBERALS live it up in the cities!

Lather, rinse, repeat.

See Newt, people like Bob aren't an anomaly, they're the intended end result of a very well-conceived long-term plan by extraordinarily smart people who understood Chomsky, Orwell and Lasker better than you ever will. Bob is now the norm and you are the exception.

Go ahead and vote in Biden or Warren or even Sanders: it doesn't fucking matter because you can't vote out entrenched stupid. No matter who is sitting at 1600 Penn Ave, Bob is sitting in front of his computer, seething and being stupid. He's not going anywhere. He's not going to see things differently and he's damned well not going to get any smarter.

There's a shit-ton of Bobs in this country and their numbers are growing daily. What're you going to do with them? Put 'em in a camp somewhere? Shoot 'em? You cannot have Bobs and the America you want. That leaves you with exactly two choices: you pick up your gun and shoot them, or you pick up your passport and leave. It's one or the other. You might not like the taste of this shit sandwich, but you're going to eat it whether you like it or not.

Also, you think Bob's a little kooky? Go visit 4chan's /pol/, visit whatever 8chan became, visit the comments section of Zero Hedge, read the comments on FOX's YouTube videos: those motherfuckers make Bob look like a goddamn bastion of rationality. Those people, the ones who're yelling at their screens and pounding out febrile screeds? They're armed. They hate you. They want to kill you. The only reason they haven't is because they haven't reached critical mass yet. Give them a couple of years of post-Covid economic collapse and they'll get there.

I'll never forget the most important lesson a Holocaust Survivor taught me: "The smart Jews left first".

Good luck; see you in Lyon.

Juan Browne (blancolirio) breaks down the dam failures and situation


In addition from Juan as of 5/20 3pm est.
"According to Midland County officials as of ~3pm (EST) 5/20/2020, the Sanford dam may still be somewhat intact but they can't tell because it's underwater (they're using the term "failed" because it's spilling over, not necessarily because the structure has collapsed). Latest images of the Sanford dam appear to show overflow limited to the emergency spillway area. The current hope is that the dam itself will hold long enough for the upstream flow from the Wixom lake breach to recede. If the Sanford dam fails, areas downstream are looking at 500-year flood levels. Local and state police have already begun staging in a number of downstream areas, presumably to facilitate evacuations if the dam fails."

Trump claims the first stimulus package was for up to $6 trillion, not just two....and expects two more will be needed, making the bill for his inaction near $18-19 trillion by his estimates. That means all the outrage over Sanders plans to spend trillions on healthcare and education was utter bullshit (which we knew) or that the problem was we would get something for our money. Trump's just handing it out, largely without strings attached or getting any equity or concessions for it like Obama's bailouts did. Now THAT'S some serious socialism, meaning in just over 3 years his mismanagement would have more than doubled the national debt during an economic expansion (he added >$5 trillion without the pandemic, well over $1 trillion per year deficit before the economic collapse)....Conman Don, Don the Con, that's what they call him, I'm hearing people call him that, Don the Con.

It's all but guaranteed that he's going to just grab the Covid19 funds to build his wall, which is quickly becoming the wall America paid for FOR MEXICO who handled the pandemic infinitely better with only .3% of the cases America has and is stopping Americans from going to Mexico now.
(Side note, with immigrant harvesters staying home and crops rotting in the fields, expect food prices to skyrocket while unemployment also continues to skyrocket.)
@bobknight33 , comments?

Let his friends help him.
It would be great if we lived in a society where assisting the police didn't end in charges and lawsuits or worse more often than not. Sadly, that's not the society we have.
It's unfortunately likely another officer could mistake the help for an attack and shoot the citizen helping, then have zero consequences for his deadly mistake thanks to blanket immunity and a blue wall of silence and lies.
Besides, police have squandered any good will they once deserved with self serving lies covering almost daily deadly or life ruining abuses by their group. Just as I wouldn't help a Medaine cartel member, even though some do help the community too, I wouldn't help a policeman today. They're all part of a violent gang, better to keep your distance until they clean house, which is unlikely. Cops that don't back criminal cops are driven out of policing with death threats and retaliation top to bottom every time.
Furthermore, shouldn't kindness logically begin with the civil servants instead of their victims?

Sadly, while I agree about helping fellow citizens, that's also not without risk. If you try to help and fail, often you might find yourself liable for the damage you couldn't prevent. Even if you succeed, you may find yourself at risk. Years ago, my brother gave CPR to a stranger who collapsed nearby, when the man died he was nearly charged with homicide even though he had done it correctly and not injured the victim. Had he not had thousands to spend hiring a lawyer, he certainly would have been charged and sued. To this day, he can't find out what the man died of or if it was contagious. Civil society is breaking down, and civility is becoming increasingly risky. If you're going to help, get a liability release first. ;-)

THE GRAPE VINE
A restraint technique used by special forces in WWII.

“After a while in this position, 10 to 15 minutes, you start getting cramps in your legs, which becomes unbearable. The natural reaction is to let go of your hands to relieve the pain, which forces you to fall backwards. This unnatural position places pressure on your rib-cage, and your breathing is restricted. Eventually, you pass out, and your lungs may collapse if you are not pulled out…

Caution. - To release your prisoner: Two persons are necessary, one on either side. Take hold of his legs and lift him up the tree; then unlock his legs.”

https://criminalwisdom.tumblr.com/post/324640171/the-grape-vine-a-restraint-technique-used-by

your contention that ONLY personal profit drives invention or innovation.

I'm afraid I've never argued that, I can lead by agreeing whole heartedly that such a contention is false.

I merely pointed out that in a video about how 'capitalism didn't create the iphone', the authors own examples of innovations that lead to the iphone are all 100% from within an economy based on capitalism. My very first post stated clearly that it's not a purely capitalist system, but that it is noteworthy that not a one of the examples chosen by the author making his point came from a socialist country.

Can you offer a comparative American/Russian timeline of computer innovations
Well, I could actually. If you want to deny the fact that Russia basically halted their computer R&D multiple times in the 70s, 80s and 90s in place of just stealing American advances because they were so far behind I can cite examples for you...

And for some unknown to you reason China is beating the ever loving pants off America lately.
1. Factually, no they are not. The fastest network gear, CPU and GPU tech are all base on American research and innovation. America is still hands down leading the field in all categories but manufacturing cost, but that isn't for reasons of technological advancement but instead a 'different approach' to environmental and labour regulations.
2. Within the 5G space you alluded to earlier, there is an additional answer. Their 5G isn't 'better' but rather 'cheaper' for reasons stated in 1. The existence of their 'own' 5G tech though isnt' because Huawei's own R&D was caught up so fast through their own innovation. Instead if you look into the history of network companies, Canadian giant Nortel was giving Cisco a solid run for it's money for a time, until they utterly collapsed because of massive corporate espionage stealing almost all of their tech and under cutting them on price. China's just using the same playbook as Russia to catch up.

Russia beat America into space

Well, if you want to go down that road the conclusion is that fascism is the key to technological advancement, as America and Russia were largely just pitting the scientists they each captured from the Nazis against one another.

Once again though, my point has never been that only capitalism can result in innovation. Instead, I made the vastly more modest proposal that personal profit from inventions is beneficial to innovation. I further observed that the video author's own examples support that observation, and in that contradict his own conclusion.

Your video, Hard Rock Hotel in New Orleans Collapses, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

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