Maybe Massalai was right after all

Do they really expect me to take seriously some proposal to replace an incompetent liar with a psychopathic, foul-mouthed control freak who was previously booted out due to incompetence, arrogance and inability to get on with anyone in his own party?

I'd like a 'None of the above' option on all ballot papers.

PDW

 

Hi pdwiley,
That is a problem we all have - who is the least bad? (a rhetorical question)... I definitely do not consider Dr NO as a person worthy of my vote for Prime Minister. - but he is not in my electorate, and in Queensland "Can-Do", going for Queensland Premier, is associated with SIGNIFICANTLY higher services costs from his time as Mayor of Brisbane... (population just above 1 million compared to Tasmania at around half that according to googled data resources.)

I feel that the Rudd / Gillard 'bunfight', - - - (Sort of like 2 tarts abusing each other from across the street claiming their 'territory' to sell their wares.), - - - was a consequence of factional in-fighting and naked-ambition - most claims are overblown and difficult to distinguish from fact or delusional opinion - to put it politely... That is not to imply that they are more worthy of my vote either... The media is the main player in that "stupidity" as they have nothing else more intriguing or exciting on which to pontificate...

Ex Queensland Premier - Peter Beaty - may make a better Australian leader in these times as he is a proficient, self proclaimed, in a deferential moment, "media tart", who could keep the populace informed and interested in what is happening ... He appeared to have a good sense of balance...

This graphic is from USA, http://www.caseyresearch.com/gsd/edition/rising-gold-price-got-you-down-call-bis-1-800-rig-mkts but the implied analysis suggests the bottom is not there yet and Australia still has a significant distance to go in its housing price correction - A similar graphic on Australia would be interesting... as I feel a further up to 50% correction here may be on the cards...
20530

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/18/technology/drones-with-an-eye-on-the-public-cleared-to-fly.html The current state of technology and at present "observational altitude" of more than 20+thousand feet, they could detect the brand of cigarette you were smoking - ABSOLUTELY NO PRIVACY any more....

http://rt.com/programs/keiser-report/episode-252-keiser-greece/ "In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss London bars and cafes introducing Facewatch for criminals on the lower ladder of crime while Mayoral candidate, Ken Livingstone, proposes an altogether different solution to end the banking crime wave higher up the ladder. They also discuss Greek heists and tweets from Syntagma Square. In the second half of the show, Max talks to Zeus Yiamouyiannis about Greek tragedies and Greek solutions." - - Irreverent, vacuous or off-the-wall, but read between the lines makes the 'fun' becomes a little more useful...

In closing, I liked a couple of the cartoons from http://www.caseyresearch.com/gsd/edition/rising-gold-price-got-you-down-call-bis-1-800-rig-mkts and many of the linked stories had more than a good measure of interesting content - Have fun and enjoy...

In Australia petrol (gas in USA?) is around Au$1.40 per litre - it goes up and down 12 cents either side of that mark, depending on the profit the fuel companies seek or feel they can extract from the consumer without the consumer squealing very loudly... - - - - - Is that something like US$5.67/gallon if --- 1 US gallon = 3.7854 litres?

 

What will happen next? http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-22/kevin-rudd-makes-press-conference/3845758 "Rudd quits as Foreign Minister

Updated February 22, 2012 17:36:03
Map: Australia

Kevin Rudd has announced he is stepping down as Foreign Minister.

Mr Rudd is at the centre of leadership tensions within the Labor Party and said he no longer felt he had the support of Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

He says the refusal of Ms Gillard to repudiate criticisms by Simon Crean and other Labor figures means he does not feel he has the leader's support.

"The simple truth is that I cannot continue to serve as foreign minister if I do not have Prime Minister Gillard's support," he said.

Mr Rudd says he will leave the United States tomorrow, arriving home in Brisbane on Friday morning.

While he did not say he would challenge for the leadership, Mr Rudd said he would consult with his family and community before making an announcement about his future before the return of Parliament next week.

He said he would not be involved in a "stealth attack on a sitting prime minister" and that the future of the ALP depended on removing the influence of factions within the party.

"The truth is, I also feel very uncomfortable doing this from Washington, and not in Australia," he said.

"But I don't feel as if I have a choice, given the responsibilities I have here before me.

"Under no circumstances do I want Australia's international reputation brought into disrepute because of this ongoing saga."

More to come."

 

what I find interesting about the Greek situation is that they seem to be simply trying to hold it to an organized default, rather than total chaos. The Euro might be able to stand one collapse. But what happens when the next domino falls ?

 

Hi Boston,
As I see it, The citizens want the 'Sovereign default' - - It has happened 4 or 5 times in recent history, so what is new? The banksters have loaned heavily to Greece (with a very bad history) and it is they who stand to loose heavily... (greedy ********). and the likelihood of a domino run are very strong if the banksters seek to recoup by the 'insurance' as that is the elephant that will cause an implosion... Who holds what "risk" in this financial instrument is NOT KNOWN...

 

what cracks me up is they'd rather loan good money after bad rather than just cut there losses

 

That is the problem that is causing this mess - ALL OVER THE WORLD... near 800 trillion is the estimated size of the 'doomsday elephant'... some 50 years of GDP... WTF

 

If you study history, this is 1935 or so. People blame the banksters, people blame the rich, they blame everyone but themselves. Next come the uprisings; socialists, communists and fascists. Everyone hates the Jews because they cause it, and the Germans and everyone else that is doing better than them. The French and Italians and Spain fall into chaos. The Greeks are always in problems they are used to it. The US establishes social programs for everything to try to keep people happy. Then there is a big war followed by inflation to pay deficit. There are big shortage and big price hikes.
The Catholic church and the other rich keep quite hoping that everyone would forget about them. They know it will eventually pass and just want to survive. Welcome to the next thirty years. Don't even bother reading the numbers or the news. Buy a gun, some chickens, a shovel and a fishing rod. Gold may or may not be useful. Get out of the big cities that is where the most crime and government control is going to be.

 

Pox on the lot of them, I say. Get some adults with experience in actually doing something for a change....

Yeah, Tasmania population is low, real estate is not so ridiculous as in other places in Aus. As an ex-Sydney boy, I appreciate that. Then again I buy land to live on not to speculate with so, now I have no mortgages or other consumer debts (including no credit cards) I could care less if land prices drop by 90% or more. I have 3.5 acres of productive land with lots of fruit trees, a house & workshop I built, 12m steel boat under construction in the shop and a boat mooring out the front of my place, I'm happy. Get the boat finished & get some use out of it before I get too old.

So, time to go & paint the interior so I can start the fitout. Pity you've reached a wall with yours, I feel for you. Even taking the low tech KISS approach, time & money disappear at a fascinating rate. Mine is going precisely to expectation though. It's over time & budget.

PDW

 

www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29411 How Greece Could Take Down Wall Street - - - "That may be, but there is one bit of bad behavior that Uncle Sam himself does not have the funds to underwrite: the $32 trillion market in credit default swaps (CDS). Thirty-two trillion dollars is more than twice the U.S. GDP and more than twice the national debt.

CDS are a form of derivative taken out by investors as insurance against default. According to the Comptroller of the Currency, nearly 95% of the banking industry’s total exposure to derivatives contracts is held by the nation’s five largest banks: JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, HSBC, and Goldman Sachs. The CDS market is unregulated, and there is no requirement that the “insurer” actually have the funds to pay up. CDS are more like bets, and a massive loss at the casino could bring the house down."

At first glance it appears that the CDS market size is VASTLY underestimated (NO ONE KNOWS for sure, as it is basically a 2 party arrangement and thereafter, derivatives of that derivative are likely 'on-sold' to how many other parties - making for a very large and tangled web becoming the killer mammoth in the outhouse...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17108367 "How Goldman Sachs helped mask Greece's debt" - Complicit in the fraud for their own profit...

- - - - - - - - - - ooo - - - - - - - - - -​

Hi mydauphin.
The difference and core argument being, that the banksters had a VERY LARGE profit motive individually as 'dealers' egged on by the corporate ethos and remuneration system and corporate protection of their players by paying a marginal fine (1 to 5% of the net income) for the "misdemeanours" that yielded so handsomely for the corporate profit margins... The banksters are a group of corporate allies who take advantage of their position as primary or initial (OTC) buyers of US treasury notes and work the system to make HUGE PROFITS, These entities include BoA, JPMorganChase, GoldmanSachs, and another 9 or so, (not to forget COMEX and "HighSpeedTrading" making that market an insider play excluding all others from equal access), in the core group and are all "global players" including quite a few head-quartered in London & elsewhere in Europe, such as LBMA and several major banks...

If the Catholic Church has been caught out playing these silly games against humanity - so be it...

The "banksters" does not necessarily include other banks, but most are caught with very toxic "assets" on their books complements of Fanie and Freddy etc derived derivatives, including Australia's 4 major banks... These toxic derivatives were sold as 'AAA rated mortgage derived assets' and now found to be fraudulent creations of the prime trouble source - - the dozen or so banksters...

This doomsday elephant (mammoth global debt) will not go away... It will get bigger and bigger until it is seen for what it is by ALL the good citizens of the world, who then force the issue, so the respective governments can no longer "kick the can down the road" and are forced to cease borrowing to fix their problems, default on their "sovereign debts", and the banksters that created it are destroyed, as it is they that continue to feed it...

A great big global debt with NO TANGIBLE ASSET as a counterbalance in a double entry book-keeping system will destroy present global economic and trading systems... THAT IS THE PROBLEM WE FACE... All else pales to insignificance beside that...
- - It will not be solved by borrowing even more...
- - It will not be resolved or fixed by creating money...
- - It will not be resolved by denying its presence (The massive creation of global debt)...
- - It will not be resolved by political inaction (kicking the can down the road)

- - - It will be resolved by "PEOPLE POWER" and
- demanding that the government prosecute the criminal acts and
- confiscate the proceeds of crimes,
- close the FED & the banksters,
- cancel all debts,
- remove all unnecessary laws,
- remove excessive bureaucracy and regulation,

- - - Allow and make it easier for free enterprise to flourish in LEGAL pursuits and in a legal and morally fair manner...
- - - Apply a flat tax of 10% of sales (a GST = General Sales Tax) and that is the only revenue available to government....
20696

 

whoa there just a moment.

If I remember our debt skyrocketed because two wars were fought back to back on borrowed money that went to no bid contracts. Most expensive wars in history if I remember rightly. That was bad enough but then the corporate oligarchy thought it best to send all the manufacturing jobs off to the third world eliminating a huge section of the US economy. Nice job. At the same time as all these folks were loosing there jobs or just before we had one of he largest and most aggressive advertising campaigns ever to con our young people into going credit card happy. That coupled with the Freddy and Fanny political scam to get poverty line people into houses they couldn't afford, which left us with banksters packaging known toxic mortgages as low risk assets and dumping them off on there competitors. The whole thing was a feeding frenzy that had to crash, no mater what the average consumer did.

and your blaming the poor ?

Sorry but I'm not sure anyone is buying that republican tripe for one instant. Sure "some" people got in over there heads, but we were sold out buy the shysters right and left.

I sold off as things got bad, so I'm not in any debt at all. Just don't have much work still and just scraping by. But there's lots of people who are miles upside down on there houses and watching here retirements disappear. All because some fat cat at wallmart can subsidize his employees low wages off the public tit.

Its frightening how so many people would just love to lynch the poor, rather than realize what really happened

 

http://www.caseyresearch.com/cdd/doug-casey-africa "Doug Casey on Africa" - - - I have not and probably will not read this transcript but because of the title thought it may have some content of interest to the "Saffa's"...

http://www.caseyresearch.com/gsd/edition/john-embry-machinations-blame-end-year-slide "Since February 9th, there has been 4.1 million ounces of silver withdrawn from SLV, even though the silver price has basically traded sideways for the last month." - - - Ed Steer's daily musings are as always packed full of diverse and interesting links and information... Many of the links are MUST Read stuff relating to today's theme - explosion of global money printing and other forms of DEBT CREATION...

http://www.roadtoroota.com/public/822.cfm?awt_l=J859B&awt_m=3ZGViEjREdAZ85B - - - Bix weir presents a novel interpretation on matters economic. He does a lot of research and is usually worthy of review... This is a series of audio plays...
20708

 

I am not blaming the poor, I am speaking strictly from a psychological point of view. The rich don't blame the poor or the rich, and they inconsequential is that they are a small minority. The poor (the great majority) are unhappy and blame the rich, (which is everyone richer than them) for their problem. I personally almost everyone is to blame, and especially the politicians and economists that made up systems so complex that all the interconnection were not understood fully. Ultimately this all might lead to a better world, but expect a lot of us to eat a lot of cornmeal and not steak in future years.

 

Hi mydauphin,
That is sort of sociologically logical but not really relevant to the s41t the world is in debt wise... Most of the debt is in the form of 'mysterious-instruments-of-financial-manipulation'... created by the banksters as defined by others and clarified a little by me in an earlier post today... For more, look here http://usdebtclock.org/ at the fourth from bottom line <money creation> the "MESS is approaching 800trillion now The graphic identifies that number as CDS (credit default swaps)... For more info see - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_default_swap
- and also - http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/creditdefaultswap.asp#axzz1nBOUCqEe - - - - The total amount is difficult to quantify and the impact would be almost instantaneous and quite devastating... globally

- - - - - - - - - - ooo - - - - - - - - - -​

http://www.gata.org/node/11019 "India silver imports may top 5,000 tons in 2012"

http://www.dailyreckoning.com.au/ho...eflating-experience-for-all-of-us/2012/02/23/ "Australia's political incompetence has been quietly bubbling away for months. Fortunately, Europe's world-class, AAA-rated, gold medal political incompetence has masked the shortcomings of our own power mongers and their schoolyard antics. . . "
- - - - - Which is a very polite description of the "goings-on"

http://www.dailyreckoning.com.au/opposing-trends-in-debt-and-gdp-growth/2012/02/23/ for an Australian view on the Greece issue that will not go away...

GATA has some more stuff that you may be interested in checking out start by going to <home> there