DebateGate

AMERICA - -  10 years ago, we had Steve Jobs, Johnny Cash and Bob Hope.

Today we got no Jobs, no Cash and no Hope.

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Sorry guys - - hate to rub it in, but thought it was too good a joke to pass up

I don't like Robo.  Can't get used to the idea of replying, not to some real person, but to a program.  What's the point?

We may well be in a slow news cycle, where few new posts are being originated by the members simply because nothing much is happening.  Hey it's August after all.

I appreciate the idea behind Robo Poster, to inject some life into the group, nobody's pitching right now, so let's get a pitching machine (equal-opportunity, bi-partisan & colour-blind) and maybe someone will step up to the plate - - but that doesn't seem to be happening.  Nobody wants to debate R2D2.  I think if things are just left to drift as they are without R2D2, things will appear pretty somnolent around here, but soon enough, shit will hit the fan as it always does and then the outrage factor will kick in again.

Or maybe, because Obama is such a competent manager compared to his predecessor, the shit won't hit the fan again until another Republican steps into the Oval Office and the whole cycle of massive fuck-ups can start all over again.

http://news.antiwar.com/2010/08/10/us-outraged-as-iran-offers-to-replace-military-aid-to-lebanon/

After Israeli satellite USA cut off all military aid to Lebanon to punish it for standing up to Israeli forces, Iran offered to provide Lebanon with whatever aid the U.S. had previously committed to provide.

The U.S.A. immediately objected, claiming that the receipt of such (Iranian) aid would "compromise Lebanon's sovereignty."

Does it ever get more surreal than this? 

http://reason.com/archives/2010/08/05/the-unaffordability-of-endless

Article suggesting that the real cost of the wars started by Bush will be not $3 trill, but $7 or even $8 trill over the long haul.

Geeze, who ever knew you guys were so wealthy?

I reproduced the following article in its entirety but was too lazy to mark each para with "<<."  Great article.  One of the funniest I've read in a long time. 

The Ruling Elite Called
by Jim Quinn
http://www.lewrockwell.com/quinn/quinn32.1.html

 I just got off the horn with the Ruling Elite. We had an emergency conference call and to tell you the truth, they ain’t happy. You little people are not responding the way you are supposed to. A significant portion of you are not getting more optimistic because they tell you to. Instead of just reading the headline on Bloomberg that durable goods orders skyrocketed in June, you actually read the details that said durable goods orders plunged. It is getting difficult for the ruling elite to keep the masses sedated and dumbed down. These damn bloggers, with their facts and critical thinking, are throwing a wrench into the gears. Obama and his crack team are working round the clock to lock down the internet, but it will take time. Not that they are totally dissatisfied. They’ve been able to renovate their penthouses and purchase new mansions in the Hamptons with the billions in bonuses you supplied through TARP. The $1.2 trillion supplied by your children and grandchildren to buy up toxic mortgages off their balance sheets was a godsend. They will never call you suckers, to your face.

Their spirits were buoyed by the 2,600-page DONK (Dodd/Frank) financial reform bill. So many loopholes, so little time. Obama and his crack team of Obamanistas in the White House, supported by their mouthpieces in the mainstream media, have been able to easily manipulate the non-thinking masses into believing this bill would have stopped the last financial crash and will stop the next one. The Ministry of Truth has been working overtime utilizing Federal Reserve paid shill economists like Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi to perpetuate the myth that the actions taken in the last 18 months have averted a Depression, saved 8 million jobs, created a long-lasting recovery, wiped out Swine Flu, and earned Paul Krugman a Nobel Prize in fiction.

This is where we have a problem. The worshippers of Keynes, that rule the country, are pissed off at you. Don’t you realize that government spending of your money, borrowed from the Chinese, with the bill passed to your grandchildren, was supposed to reinvigorate your animal spirits? They handed you other people’s money to buy cars and homes and what do you do? You stop buying cars and homes as soon as they stop paying you to buy cars and homes. You ungrateful bastards. Bennie has been hugely successful at ruining the retirements of millions of grandmothers by paying them 0.20% on their money market accounts while forcing mortgage rates for 30 years down to 4.5%. And still you don’t buy houses. Timmy has instructed Fannie Mae to make home loans to anyone with a pulse who can make an X on a piece of paper. No money down, no proof of income, no assets. Just like the good old days. Still you don’t buy houses. What is wrong with you?

The criminal banking elite have more than bent over backwards to get this economy humming. They have patiently stood by while you haven’t made your mortgage payments for two years while still residing in the house. They’ve pretended to go along with the brilliant HAMP (Home Affordable Modification Program) plan, masterminded by the rocket scientists in the White House. Just because virtually no one has been able to qualify for the plan and the redefault rate is 75%, doesn’t mean it hasn’t worked wonders for the economy. The awesome part of not making people pay their mortgages is that they were able to make payments on their credit cards. That allowed the mega elite banks to pretend that consumers are flush and relieve their loan loss reserves while not writing off the bad mortgages and reporting billions in profits for the 2nd Quarter. It is good to be the ruling elite.

The ruling elite are letting you slide on your mortgages and you have the gall to withdraw $20 billion from U.S. equity funds and not buy into this fake stock rally. Don’t you realize that when the stock market goes up, the economy follows? Everyone knows this. But, instead you sit on the sidelines and refuse to invest in the stock market. The super computers of the mega-banks are getting tired of trading with each other and single-handedly making the stock market appear safe. Just because the ruling elite have vaporized $10 trillion of your net worth in the last two years, you hold a grudge? Remember the mantra “Stocks For the Long Run” that the ruling elite burned into your brains through CNBC and the rest of the shillstream media? Why are you so suspicious of our advice? Ignore the fact that the S&P 500 today is at the exact level it reached on March 24, 1998. They meant the really really long term.

Here is the message from the ruling elite to you ignorant masses: Debt got us into this mess and it sure as hell is going to get us out. They have convinced the mainstream media that the reason the economy is sputtering is because the average Joe is not doing their part. This crazy concept of saving for a rainy day seems to be catching on. This is very dangerous. Savings could lead to investment and long-term stability. The ruling elite will have none of that foolishness. The mainstream media is telling you that this new-found austerity will push us back into recession. The talking heads continue to pound away that you have reduced your spending too much, when anyone with a calculator and half a brain (Krugman doesn’t make the cut) can determine that the decrease in consumer debt outstanding is completely the result of write-offs by the mega-elite banks. Consumers are living off their credit cards at this point.

The military industrial complex continues to do the heavy lifting for this economy. If they weren’t blowing up bridges, power plants and orphanages in foreign countries and then rebuilding them at ten times the expected cost, how would they possibly spend $895 billion per year. It ain’t easy to waste that kind of money annually. Whenever some crazy dude like Ron Paul questions the need to spend as much as the rest of the world combined on the military, some potential terrorists are captured in the nick of time and the threat level is raised to Orange (thanks Tom Ridge). The “professional” journalists on the major networks then do their part in this farce by spreading fear among the general population. Rinse and repeat.

So, we now find ourselves at the edge of the abyss again. The ruling elite have a great plan. It involves more debt, more stimulus, more printing, more accounting fraud, more pain for the masses, and of course more bonuses for Wall Street. If you, the little people, will just follow this 10-step plan, the ruling elite will be just fine:

1.   Stocks are undervalued according to the same "experts" who told you they were undervalued in October 2007. Take out a loan and buy mega-banks stocks, commercial real estate developers, and bankrupt car companies.

2.   General Motors, in a brilliant strategic coup, has bought "subprime" auto loan company Americredit. What else does a government/union owned car company need? The fact that GMAC has lost $10 billion of taxpayer funds in the last year shouldn’t worry you about your investment in GM. If you can’t sell cars to people with no income, no job and no prospects for repaying the seven year 0% loan, who can you sell a car to? When the government pays Goldman Sachs millions to convince you to buy the stock of GM in its Fall IPO, ask no questions and just buy buy buy.

3.   Ignore the fact that Citicorp, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo would be declared insolvent if the FASB had not caved in to threats from the Federal Reserve and Treasury. Just buy their stocks. Trust Wall Street.

4.   Enough austerity already. You haven’t bought a new HDTV in six months. It’s like you’ve been living in a 3rd-world country. If you have any equity left in your house, borrow against it and buy something big and glitzy. Make sure you show it off to your shallowest neighbors. They will go out and buy something bigger and glitzier on credit. Before you know it we have a recovery. Keynesianism 101.

5.   Stop frequenting financial blogs like Naked Capitalism, Credit Writedowns, Dollar Collapse, Market Oracle, 321Gold, Jesse’s Cafe Americain, Of Two Minds, Zero Hedge, Mike Shedlock, or Barry Ritholtz. These sites will just shower you with facts, analysis and truth. Watch CNBC, Fox, MSNBC and the other corporate media to get the ruling elite approved view of the world.

6.   If you are currently renting or living in your mother’s basement, have no job, no savings and no prospects, Fannie Mae wants to put you in your very own house. Mortgage payments are optional. The 50% of Americans that pay taxes will gladly fund your new abode.

7.   If you are approaching the 99th week of unemployment, have no fear. The ruling elite will use the MSM to run hundreds of sob stories about only two years on the dole being immoral and cruel. The White House will present a study from "impartial" economists that proves that extending unemployment benefits to 156 weeks will create or save 3 million jobs.

8.   The stress of this recession has been too much. You need to whip out that credit card and book a trip to Disney World or Dollywood. Worry about funding that 401k sometime in the future.

9.   Unquestioningly accept the fact that Iran is an imminent threat to your safety and liberty. Support the obliteration of this evil nation based upon information provided by the CIA (WMD slamdunk) and the Israelis.

10.   Lastly, call your Congressman and tell them to extend the tax cuts for the rich. As you have probably concluded, the ruling elite are rich. They don’t like paying taxes. That is why they employ thousand of tax lawyers. Since the expiration of the Bush tax cuts will hurt the ruling elite the most, a full court press of disinformation is in order.

The ruling elite expect you to comply without question. Have they ever led you astray before?

July 31, 2010
http://www.lewrockwell.com/quinn/quinn32.1.html

The article, from Reuters last year, seems to have given a shitload (no pun intended) of ammo to the usual anti-communist hysterics who blame communism for every fucking disaster that ever befell the human race.

The article, which I reproduced whole from http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5792F420090810, does not blame communism or even the U.S. embargo, but makes it plain that the culprit is the global financial crisis and "three destructive hurricanes" that struck the island that same year.  Furthermore, the article makes it very clear that the shortage was temporary only, due to be resolved before the end of the year.  Furthermore, the article did not point to any actual shortage, but merely stated that "supplies were running short" and "might" not be sufficient till the end of the year.

From this, the anticommunist hysterics immediately conclude that disaster has enveloped Cuba.  A potential shortage - - not of basic food, not of medical care, not of education, but of TOILET PAPER!!!  is held up as an "abject failure" on the part of a system which brought literacy to millions of adult illiterates, and free health care and education to a nation in which only the elites were able to enjoy them before the Revolution.  But all the benefits of the Revolution came at an unacceptable price and that price was - - are you ready for it?? - - a potential shortage of TOILET PAPER in the face of a global economic meltdown and three devastating hurricanes in a single year.  Is it really possible to imagine a more trivial and contrived objection to the success of the Revolution?  I doubt it.

What was also significant was that the article reported that the Cuban government took extraordinary measures to keep the economy afloat.  Geeeze, does that remind you of anything?  Like the U.S. government in the fall of 2008 taking extraordinary measures to, uh, like, to . . .   to keep the economy afloat!   Wow, amazing huh?  When a global crisis and three hurricanes hit a communist country, it's pretty much like a global crisis without three hurricanes hitting a capitalist country.  Who woulda thunk?

I guess the difference was, with the capitalist economy of the U.S. on the rocks in 2008, the American people were faced with something a lot worse than a "possible" shortage of toilet paper.

Here's the article:

(Reuters) - Cuba, in the grip of a serious economic crisis, is running short of toilet paper and may not get sufficient supplies until the end of the year, officials with state-run companies said Friday.
Officials said they were lowering the prices of 24 basic goods to help Cubans get through the difficulties provoked in part by the global financial crisis and three destructive hurricanes that struck the island last year.
Cuba's financial reserves have been depleted by increased spending for imports and reduced export income, which has forced the communist-led government to take extraordinary measures to keep the economy afloat.
"The corporation has taken all the steps so that at the end of the year there will be an important importation of toilet paper," an official with state conglomerate Cimex said on state-run Radio Rebelde.
The shipment will enable the state-run company "to supply this demand that today is presenting problems," he said.
Cuba both imports toilet paper and produces its own, but does not currently have enough raw materials to make it, he said.
One of the measures taken to address the cash crunch is a 20 percent cut in imports, which in recent days has become evident in the reduction of goods in state-run stores.
Cuba imports about 60 percent of its food.
Despite the shortages, prices will be cut between 5 percent and 27 percent for some food, drugs and personal hygiene products, officials said.
A visit to a store in Havana's Vedado neighborhood on Friday found that prices had dropped for mayonnaise, barbecue sauce and canned squid.
One customer, who gave his name only as Pedro, complained that "it doesn't look like prices have been lowered for the fundamental products" such as cooking oil.
Ana Maria Ortega, deputy director for military-run retail conglomerate TRD Caribe, said there will be no shortage of basic goods.
"The conditions are in place to maintain the supply of essential products," she said on the same radio program.
Cubans receive a subsidized food ration from the government each month that they say meets their needs for about two weeks.
President Raul Castro told the National Assembly last week that the government had cut its spending budget for the second time this year and has been renegotiating its debt and payments with foreign providers.
Cuba has long blamed the 47-year-old U.S. trade embargo against the island for many of its economic problems. It also said that last year's hurricanes did $10 billion worth of damage that forced the government to spend heavily on imports of food and reconstruction products.
Castro, who replaced his ailing older brother Fidel Castro as president last year, also has complained that Cuba's productivity is too low.
He has taken various steps to boost output, including putting more state-owned land in private hands and pushing for salaries to be based on productivity.

http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100711/FOREIGN/707109882/1002

interesting article but it could reflect nothing more than cultural difference - - Pakistanis may not fully grasp the principle of civilian control over the military due to the differences in the civilian-military balance of power in the two countries.

If the entire conclusion rested solely on the Pakistani interpretation of McChrystal's firing, I'd be kind of dubious, but the rest of the evidence seems to fit the conclusion pretty well.