Philip Giraldi on the Necons, President Trump, and US foreign policy
Posted On: Tuesday - January 9th 2018 9:38AM MST
In Topics: Trump US Feral Government The Neocons
A really gutsy writer, Mr. Philip Giraldi of the modern press on unz.com, wrote this recent article, Surrounded by Neocons. It's not easy to admit or especially publish some of the truth about the major influence of Israel and the "American" Neocons on almost all of the our foreign policy.
The first 2/3 of Giraldi's article is relates the Lyin' Press's role in the continuation of the "invade-the-world" part of Mr. Steve Sailer's term "invade-the-world/invite-the-world" to describe the thoroughly idiotic-appearing policies that have been followed at the top levels of US government for the last 3 - 5 decades. The article describes why the TV press and the major newspapers seen to be on the same page with almost no real disagreement on foreign policy, citizens, taxpayers, and foreigners in the wrong countries be damned.
This article should be read in it's entirety, but out of the first 2/3 evisceration of the Lyin' Press, including 2 "Newspapers of Record", TV, some Neocon think-tanks, etc. Giraldi discusses a Politico interview OF 2 neocons BY a neocon.
An interesting recent podcast interview by Politico‘s Chief International Affairs correspondent Susan Glasser with leading neoconservatives Eliot Cohen and Max Boot, is typical of how the media selectively shapes a narrative to suit its own biases. Glasser, Cohen and Boot are all part of the establishment foreign policy consensus in the U.S. and therefore both hate and fail to understand the Trump phenomenon. Both Cohen and Booth were vociferous founding members of the #NeverTrump foreign policy resistance movement.
Boot describes the new regime’s foreign policy as “kowtow[ing] to dictators and undermin[ing] American support for freedom and democracy around the world,” typical neocon leitmotifs. Glasser appears to be in love with her interviewees and hurls softball after softball. She describes Boot as “fantastic” and Cohen receives the epithet “The Great.” The interview itself is remarkably devoid of any serious discussion of foreign policy and is essentially a sustained assault on Trump while also implicitly supporting hardline national security positions. Cohen fulminates about “a very serious Russian attack on the core of our political system. I mean, I don’t know how you get more reckless and dangerous than that,” while Boot asks what “has to be done” about Iran.
Pompous ass Cohen, who interjected in the interview that “and you know, Max and I are both intellectuals,” notably very publicly refused to have any part in a Trump foreign policy team during the campaign but later when The Donald was actually elected suggested that the new regime might approach him with humility to offer a senior position and he just might condescend to join them. They did not do so, and he wrote an angry commentary on their refusal.
The last 1/3 of this article describes, in Phil Giraldi's opinion, how Trump is not only beholden to the Neocon strategy of Israel-over-all, but even criticized by the Neocon formerly "Never-Trumpers" for not including them all as his advisors. He's broken campaign promises by implementing lots of the Neocon agenda, but still:
Hating Trump is one thing, but I would bet that if the question of a hardline policy vis-à-vis Russia or the Jerusalem Embassy move had come up Cohen and Boot would have expressed delight. The irony is that Trump is in fact pursuing a basically neocon foreign policy which the two men would normally support, but they appear to be making room for Trump haters in the policy formulation process to push the national security consensus even farther to the right. Indeed, in another article by Boot at Foreign Policy he writes “I applaud Trump’s decisions to provide Ukraine with arms to defend itself from Russian aggression, to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, to send additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, and to accelerate former President Barack Obama’s strategy for fighting the Islamic State.” Cohen meanwhile applauds the embassy move, though he warns that Trump’s success in so doing might embolden him to do something reckless over North Korea.It sounds like their particular Overton Window must be still pushed towards more war. I do have a question about whose damn idea is to still keep our military all over, and engaged with the Orient, as I don't think the neocons have any interest in that. It's a subject for another post - See, we're never gonna run out of material!
Lastly, the writer adds information about recent efforts to prepare for nuclear war, like a deja vu to me:
It must be reassuring for many Americans to know that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is preparing itself to deal with the aftermath of a nuclear attack on the United States and it will be sharing information on the appropriate preparations with the American people. There will be a public session on how to prepare for a nuclear explosion on January 16th.Man, America spent FOUR DECADES containing the Communist menace (though we dropped the ball on the domestic front.) It took Ronald Reagan, the old, non-Commie Pope, leaders in Poland and West Germany, and millions of American soldiers, airmen, sailors and engineers to shut down the Euro-version (at least) of the Red Menace, and damned if we want to start more problems and have our kids practice ducking under their desks again (spoiler alert - plastic desks made of cheap China-made Crap - no, we cannot win it that way.)
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The modern grade school as medium-security correctional facility
Posted On: Monday - January 8th 2018 7:16PM MST
In Topics: US Police State Curmudgeonry Educational Stupidity
Since school is back in session, I will write a little on something I meant to at the beginning of the school year. Listen, I have paid lots of taxes to these people in this district for quite some time, so, anyone reading this on the taxpayers'
Things have changed a lot over my lifetime in America, as it drifted toward and then accelerated with the hammer down, to it's current police-state form. Sending kids to school in the morning really hammers the point home, as the difference between my time in the grade school and the kids' now is stark. I have heard the jokes over the years of school being like a prison, but that was just from the kids that hated it because they didn't do well.. or so it seemed then.
The security apparatus is part of it, with the full-time cop even at the elementary school (yes, in a diversified school, that is almost a must - glad I didn't get to partake myself). Teachers have plastic badges, you need a visit and piece of paper just to walk down the damn hall, if your kid forgot something, and the main door must be unlocked from the office after you buzz. It that a medium-security thing, or max, come to think of it? Why would they need that? After all aren't all the little ones innocent at Shawshank Elementary?
"You're gonna fit right in. Everyone in here is innocent, you know that? Heywood, what you in here for?". "Didn't do it, Red. Councilor fucked me."
As much as disdain as I have for the Schools of Education at the Universities, propped up completely by state laws requiring a worthless certificate of a Masters in Education to teach the little ones, it's mostly not the teachers at fault. The state government gets involved, as MANDATED by the Feral Gov't in Washington, FS (to show they are DOING SOMETHING), and that make these teachers' working lives miserable, at least compared to 20-40 years back. (In fact, one teacher told me that all the worst stuff came down in the last dozen years.)
In kindergarten, for crying out loud, the teachers were worried about the kids being ready for some damn mandated tests. The curriculum ... hey wait right there ... it's freakin' kindergarten and you need a curriculum? Yeah, anyway, the nearly 7-hour day was broken up into periods of 15 minutes. Whatever happened to just enjoying the little ones, teaching them some letters here and there, and having the 1/2 hour nap time. That's all I can remember, along with even the color of my nap rug. Wouldn't the simple, short, peaceful day be better for everyone than the frantic following of THE CURRICULUM? So, yeah, no time for nap time at all now in this busy schedule. and we all know recess is too short.
Our kid in the elementary school could learn a whole lot more on a trip with us for a week than the time at school, nice conscientious teacher notwithstanding. Yet, the attendance policy mentions "THE LAW" and child "protective" services if one doesn't meet their requirements. It's a shame to have to teach a kid at that age why we may have to lie to the school just to keep our plans. Hey, we've paid our money over the years - it's not their business whether we are going to partake of their paid-for services or not each day.
A final aspect of the grade school that makes it prison-like is the silly 3-letter abbreviation for the room/treatment the one or two bad kids go to/get. I can't even remember the acronym, but it's something out of 1984 or the Dept. of Motherland Security, one. Just say "we're gonna put you in the other room to chill out", or "go home".
A haven't even written about high school yet, but that could be another post, if it doesn't depress me too much.
It's not just that the kids have to endure this, but the many procedures and the bureaucracy are teaching the kids to behave like prisoners. That's the real problem, and I've only seen worse than that at the TSA areas in airports (except it's all ages getting prepped for the FEMA camps there).
What's the way out? One word: Homeschooling. Yes, that is the biggest way any family can stick it to the globalist elites. I am fairly surprised that this growing effort has not been clamped down on already. It may take more sacrifice than, say, cutting the TV cable, but to have millions of young adults taught to live as free people vs. prisoners is priceless for America.
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Are snowfalls now a thing of the past?
Posted On: Saturday - January 6th 2018 7:58PM MST
In Topics: Music Global Climate Stupidity
Bottom line top, NO.
Per Climate Depot:
Former Vice President Al Gore has weighed in on the record cold and snow in the U.S. “It’s bitter cold in parts of the US, but climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann explains that’s exactly what we should expect from the climate crisis,” Gore wrote on January 4 on Twitter. [Peak Stupidity's boldface]See, there's that after the fact explaining going on again. Man, why didn't I see that coming before I made my tropical vacation plans out of
These brilliant climatologists must have run that model long ago, since they expected this to happen. It's too bad this peer-reviewed literature didn't make it into that USA Today I stepped on leaving my hotel room last week.
Meteorologists, as mentioned here before, have to be somewhat correct, at least for 24 or 36 hours ahead, though any forecasts they make up past 4 days is complete rectal extraction. Still, there are screen shots now, and we can capture the bogus forecasts for the world to see.
Meteorologist Joe Bastardi on January 4, 2018: “This is flat out insanity and deception now. To tell the public that events that have occurred countless times before with no climate change attribution, is now just that, is not science, its witchcraft. NO PROOF AT ALL. Its climate ambulance chasing, nothing more.”I've said it before here on the Peak Stupidity blog, and I'll have to say it again, weather is not climate, and I don't pick every cold snap as a reason to blog about the stupidity involved in the whole Global Climate DisruptionTM hoax. It's just that the hypocrisy and lies of the people pushing this agenda have become so blatant lately.
Bastardi* added: “This has happened countless times before and it wasn’t global warming then and is not now. Solid use of past patterns predicted major early cold from OCTOBER! I have tweeted that dozens of times showing the analog years I used, No co2 then.”
Climatologist Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. also weighed in, explaining: “For those who claim USA/Canada nor’easter is stronger because of ‘global warming’, they apparently do not realize that it’s so strong because of especially strong horizontal temperature gradient in ["the"]troposphere. It ‘bombed’ because of [sic, "un"] usually cold air!” [I guess climatologists are not any better at checking their tweets than their counterparts, the cosmetologists.]
Well, yeah, if you take him literally, he's kinda right, right? I mean, snowfalls are a thing of the past for him. He's out on the coast of California... at sea level.
The Daily Caller quotes some scientists in the field quoting others to where I couldn't follow who's who, but it gets to Dr. Cliff Mass of the U. of Washington, who in addition to describing more actual climatology theory, relates this about the politics:
“And on a personal note, it is very disappointing that members of my profession are making such obviously bogus claims,” Mass said. “It hurts the science, it hurts the credibility of climate scientists, and weakens our ability to be taken seriously by society.” …I guess it's pretty obvious by now how seriously Peak Stupidity takes most of these people.
Well, the weather outside is frightful,
and the fire is so delightful.
I'd like for Al Gore to eat crow.
So, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.
* He sounds like a reasonable guy, but what kind of name is that? Bastardi? Really?
** I didn't know that was even possible, till this guy.
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Federale of VDare - more on putting the scare on the illegal aliens.
Posted On: Friday - January 5th 2018 7:03PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity
The man called "Federale", who writes for VDare.com, applauded here, is happy about a certain detail out of the Trump administration involving the upcoming every-decade census (actually specified in the US Constitution). No, it's not like anyone at VDare, who are the most in the know about the all aspects of immigration, are happy with President Trump in general on the issue. Neither is Peak Stupidity satisfied in this regard. All of us can appreciate these small steps, though I am more pessimistic than Federale, as I'll explain.
This article, "Sessions Justice Department Weaponizing The Census Against Illegals" discusses the idea of scaring illegals to stay away from the 2010 census. There is a good point which the Peak Stupidity blog discussed almost a year ago, that illegal aliens may do damage to our political system by voting, but also, the counting of them in the census gives additional Electoral Votes to states like California, causing that much more damage. Federale's blog post addresses this.
In the good news department, recent demands by the Department of Justice could be a game-changer in dealing with the rotten boroughs problem that over represents Congressional districts with large illegal alien populations.Federale cites the short excerpt below:
The Department of Justice has requested the Census Bureau include a citizenship question on the 2020 census form that experts claim could sabotage the results.This is from a Newsweek (Still around! Who knew?) article unbiasedly titled: "Trump Justice Department Request For Citizenship Question Could Sabotage 2020 Census, Experts [sic] Say" by Maria Perez. If you're not a regular reader, I'll repeat PEAK STUPIDITY DOES! NOT! LINK! TO! IDIOTS! [My policy; the
The DOJ letter dated December 12 said that including a question on citizenship on the census would benefit the department and allow it to better enforce the Voting Rights Act, ProPublica first reported.
Yeah! You'd have gotten exactly the opposite from any Democrat or standard Republican administration, with the Hildabeast having fortunately not have been the extreme example. I guess I could just emphasize this nightly, but we dodged a bullet that day, sure enough. It's a nice gesture and this type of working the system for future elections (in this case it's plain old obvious rule-of-law anyway) is old hat for the D's, and in fact, most of what the immigration invasion is about for them.
Federale again:
This could be a game changer. Fear is the mind killer, and demanding that illegal aliens answer as to whether they are citizens will put the fear of immigration enforcement in them, and they will decline to answer the Census. This will have the effect of dropping their numbers in the numerous rotten boroughs in California and other States where illegals boost representation for overwhelmingly Democrat Congressional districts.I hate to be a Debbie (formerly Darrel) Downer, but I truly think plans made for multiple years or decades into the future are pretty much a surrender. The problem is EXI-FREAKING-STENTIAL!. The wall or barrier must be built now, and serious enforcement must start now, meaning large fines on employers and deportation of any arrested person found to be an illegal alien or any who admit it for the record. Right now, these guys aren't living in the shadows. That brings up a slight drawback to Federale's plan though. Why not let 'em form La Raza rallies in broad daylight, as they do, and arrest the whole lot.
However, just one question is insufficient. The Census should include several questions about alienage and require specific information in response to those questions, including alien registration number, immigration status, name, date of birth, and address. This will also allow the Census to weed out not only illegal aliens, but aliens temporarily resident, such as aliens on L and H non-immigrant employment visas.
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PC trending
Posted On: Wednesday - January 3rd 2018 7:27PM MST
In Topics: Political Correctness Movies Curmudgeonry
Yeah, the term "trending" itself has been trending for a while too; all sorts of shit is trending. The stupidity of Political Correctness has been trending upwards for a long while, but it was brought home to me how bad it is now when watching a video about tugboats with my kid.
We watched the "film" (yeah, "film", vs. movie, has been trending for a while with the upscale kids) about these tugboats pushing and pulling some big cruise ships and cargo ships into New York harbor. From the background, I didn't have to wait until the end to see that this video was made before September 11 of 2001, but likely in the late 1990's.
That explained why the video was not painful to watch in terms of the PC normally embedded all in it. It is amazing to realize that even only 20 years back, we didn't put up with, or sometimes have to put up with, the gender neutral pronouns (or worse!) - hey, they are tugboat drivers - all men. The guys in the video were white men, including the harbor pilot (he gets on-board the big vessel just for the close in maneuvering in/out of the harbor, as he is a local guy - they are not used as much anymore). What a pleasure it was to watch a normal, not Politically-Corrected video. It's worse, see, with a kid, as you can't explain all the stupid PC stuff when they have it, as he can't understand the point, but I want to point it out anyway.
Dr. Suess (see here, here, and here ) may or may not be rolling around in his grave, with the help of Thing 1 and Thing 2, as videos of his works were made. The Cat in the Hat series has the brother and sister being of different race. It is not explained anywhere how that came about. Are there no easy kid's words that rhyme with "baby daddy"? There's no point to this other than to just piss off the parents in front of their kids, as explanation of the stupidty at that age is not possible.
Just to end on a bright note, there is youtube! Yes, they have already tried some modes of censorship, so I do hope competitors become as ubiquitous. We would have never been able to see all of the "Mighty Machines" series without youtube, though. This is a great one for little boys. Though filmed in Canada, mostly Toronto and Montreal, the episodes were made in the middle 1990's so they are still a pleasure to watch. There are a fair share of women machines - the machines do the talking, see, so they had to get that in. What's pretty amusing, though, is the gruff French-Canadian voice of a few of the machines. My kid didn't know what to think, so I told him that's a French accent. It does not do the French-Canadian folks justice though, so I'm surprised the show is still on
It's great that we can go back no further than the 1990's, when lots of video was being made, to watch un-PC stuff and just enjoy the show.
"Mighty machines
Big and mighty machines
working for you doing mighty things,
they're mighty machines"
Lifting and pulling and flying so high,
building a building up to the sky.
You can watch 'em all day,
and then you'll know why,
they're mighty machines!"
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Return to Bizarro Germany
Posted On: Wednesday - January 3rd 2018 6:15PM MST
In Topics: Commies Immigration Stupidity History Trump Globalists The Future World Political Stupidity
3 months back or so, Peak Stupidity wrote about about the "Fourth Reich" of the Commie Angela Merkel of what we term Bizarro Germany. Again the "bizarro" is a reference to Superman, I am told (never was into that stuff), in which a world where everything is backwards is described. (Yes, you can learn a lot about nothing from Seinfeld, a "show about nothing". ;-}
Just as in any look at a whole big population, it'd be way off to say that all Germans are a certain way. In addition, the big problem that this post refers to, the intensive immigration invasion is not specific to just Germany either, when speaking of Europe. France and Sweden are in the same boat and have brought the same problems needlessly to their countries, and there are other smaller countries I don't have time to write about.
However, it's just that the Germans, in general, have always been known to have an unhealthy respect for authority. Yeah, the problem is pretty bad here too, as we documented before, and will write more about soon. The Germans are arguably tops in "respect mah authoritah", though I'll admit that none of what I know about it is personal accounts. The winners write the history, it is said. it's easy for people to make fun of the obedience for Hitler, as seen in the movies, from a time-distance of 8 decades, when once a certain point was reached there may have been no way out.
The Peak Stupidity blog described already, with 3 comparisons in that 2nd post of 2010's Germany vs. 1930's Germany that showed the bizarroness of the two time periods. In this post, I'll add one more about the German people.
Is the obedience to authority mostly a genetic trait? It's hard to single all that out. It was thought that these are a "Nationalistic people" and that was their problem in the 3rd Reich, but not today with their Globalism (the 1st of my comparisons in the linked post). So, I guess the nationalism was bred-out, or was just a cultural thing. It's not easy to sort these things out (subject for an upcoming post, BTW). Some say the war took many of the hard-core militant types out of the gene pool, and all that.
It just seem like the blind obedience thing, genetic or cultural or who cares, is still with them. Where is the bizarro, the oppositeness? Well, this respect for the authority of the Commie Frau Merkel means that the Germans (again, just most of them) will follow a Globalist who is deliberately destroying their country, vs. the madman Nationalist of 80 years back, who only inadvertently near-destroyed their country. That's the bizarro part.
As an aside, just like I'd say for another tyrant, Chairman Mao of China, the guy had good intentions for this country. That wouldn't help if you were Jewish, though I will have to add here, that had the Jews become more German, things may have happened differently (I say "may", mind you, as I have no idea what was in Adolph Hitler's heart.) Hitler's stupidity, just like that of Mao Zedong, got millions of his countrymen killed, good intentions not withstanding. History buff will argue all of it, but I imagine that the German people would have been fared much better had Hitler just fought one war instead of two - either West or East. Even the war in the west may have been avoided had Hitler not had the grudges, many deservedly, from WWI, and the allies let them take some of the German-populated areas that they wanted. My point is not to become a history buff here, but just to say that Hitler made mistakes that near-ruined, or temporarily-ruined his country. Merkel seems to be doing all this on purpose. Is she really that stupid, or is she just obituary shopping? (great term is per Nicholas Stix of VDare.
How can these German people keep supporting this nation wrecker, in a worse way, really, than the support for HItler in the 1930's, as they are not under the extreme financial duress as they were back then? It's that overriding respect for authority. "She's the duly elected leader. It's for our own good." Is that the thinking going on? Will it take the rape of one's daughter or the total transformation of one's town before anger and disrespect finally set in? It's going to be too late very soon. You can't say the Germans don't think ahead, as they planned the freakin' blitzkrieg "lightning war", and damn near conquered the world, even with Hitler's stupidity. Why can't they think ahead on a problem like this?
I'll give Americans some credit here. Even though Trump hasn't kept a whole lot of his promises (I mean the ones that he absolutely has authority on), many of us wanted to poke a stick in the eye of the elite globalist establishment. It's really hard to tell if this was truly on the mind of the 1/2 of American voters who put him in office, as look at the opposition. Some just couldn't stand to have that sick Hildabeast anywhere we had to see or hear from it. For me, it was both!
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Babylon - David Gray
Posted On: Tuesday - January 2nd 2018 6:03PM MST
In Topics: Music
Youtube had the original "official video" of this great song, but the video didn't fit the images that have been in my mind from this song from back in 1999. Though it was released in the summer of '99 per wikipedia, it couldn't have been summer when I first heard it, maybe the following fall or winter. It was a sort of gloomy time in a way. Things were not going badly in life, but where I lived was gloomy, and I had just been there a while living like a hermit. Because I was not sure I would stay long, I didn't get a phone connected up, nor the internet, and I was already off TV. It was nice for a while but it got dark early and I just read books and bought some music to listen to.
This song just went great with the mood I was in, and I don't need a video now to spoil the memory. I've never listened to anything else by this Englishman David Gray, but this is worth a listen to every once in a while.
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Toward Sustainable Stupidity
Posted On: Tuesday - January 2nd 2018 3:27PM MST
In Topics: General Stupidity Treehuggers Environmental Stupidity
... or should that be stupid sustainability? Sustainability is a perfectly good word, when used to describe a system with inputs and outputs to/from a control volume, given some generation and dissipation possibly too, in engineers' terms. It's just that, because the word has been used by the treehuggers and then the ctrl-left in general for so long as a BS word to throw out there along among the stupidity that they often emanate, it has bad connotations. Sustainability is often just stupidity by association, so it's time to straighten things out.
Let's talk about sustainability, shall we? [The bolding of this word is not sustainable. CUT! IT! OUT! - Ed.].
It probably started with pretty good science, maybe in talking about forests (typical with those treehuggers!). Yeah, this amount is being logged, yet tree growth has this time line, so this type of clear-cut logging is unsustainable, yet this other logging here is sustainable, and so forth. It's a pretty simple concept, in fact, though there may be lots of details to be worked out on the input, output, generation, and dissipation of whatever thing it is one wants to preserve, or keep to a minimum.
Take our garbage (please!) as another example. Recyling has become a big thing. Why? Is it not sustainable to keep burying loads of our used stuff in the ground? That depends. As Peak Stupidity wrote about in Were the Indians Slobs? (spoiler alert - that one guy was...), with a small population on lots of land, and especially with stuff that mother earth likes to reclaim as her own, sure it is. We mightn't even have to bury it. We throw out a lot of plastic and other wierd materials now that takes a long time to really go away and we have lots of more people on the same land. Hence there came the idea of recycling what can be.
I don't really have anything against this recycling idea, if we put in in perspective and understand what sustainability really means. More on that will be coming in a bit.
Are we going to run quickly out of areas to bury our stuff? No, take a look at google earth aerial pics sometimes and I doubt you'll find one landfill without making an effort. The cntrl-left enviros really don't care about that part, as most of them just want to feel good about themselves and know they are a BETTER PERSON than you are. Were they to go talk to the city managers who probably know the real problem, they'd know that it's hard to build a smelly landfill close in to the city. You can build them farther out, but that requires more money to continuously truck the trash much further. Is that sustainable? That depends on how much wasteful crap the city does with the rest of the budget, but I would not have any problem with any of the treehuggers who are in favor of charging for trash based on weight (Oh, no! Free markets! Ewwwww!). Sure, though, let's recycle what PAYS to recycle, as in stuff that the city can get enough money back for to cover what it would have cost to truck it to a far-out landfill (Landfills. FAR OUT, MAN!) That's what I call sustainable.
Instead of letting a free market take care of decisions about what to do with our trash, based on a concept called "pricing", we have these treehuggers pushing for decisions based on their emotions. They feel very good seeing these big cans filled with supposed "recyclables" in some citiies, when lots of it gets sent right to the landfill from the transfer station. See, not many treehuggers work at the transfer station to see this, just regular working people work there. Some of the process doesn't pay off at all, as in, it would still be cheaper to gather up the unsuitable-for-reuse trash normally and bring it straight way out of town to a landfill. That means that the taxpayers are on the hook, of course. Is that sustainable? At some point we're gonna' run out of taxpayers. Yeah, there are indeed bigger boondoggles than the recycling process in some progressive cities, and yes, you need to know how to pick your battles.. The point here is to debunk this whole meme of "sustainability, sustainability".
Just as a quick digression, I have learned more about recycling, scrap metal yards, and the like by viewing videos with a little boy, than I ever picked up during my whole life before. We spent quite a bit of time watching the crushing of cars, which have for a long time been the most recycled products around. It's not just the parts getting re-used (even more so now, via the internet sales) out of the junk yards, but the steel is used, and the glass goes back to it's mother earth as the sand it came from. "Sand to sand, dust to dust".
OK, let me get to the point here. You want sustainable? Even with 330,000,000 people in this country, quite a bit over optimal for my tastes, if it were held at that number, and with improvements by engineers, sure the cycle of refuse could be sustainable. However, due SOLELY to immigration, the population is NOT steady at all. Let's say we have gotten really good with this and recycle a full HALF of all household garbage. Whether you are worried there'll be no more room for landfills or not (it's not the case), then we've cut the problem in half. Depending on how good we get on with getting the stuff to truly go back to the earth (rot, or other "mitigation"), and re-use of the land taken by said landfills, it could get to where we would NEVER EVER have a problem - SUSTAINABILITY NOW! Nope, but once we've got TWICE the population, all that mental and physical effort has come to NIL!. It's as if we had the original population but never recycled.
Every single environmental problem caused by man will be that much worse with an increase in population. That is blindingly obvious. Why won't the environmentalists ever talk about immigration or overpopulation anymore? Oh, yeah, that's right.
Lastly, in keeping with the mission statement of the Peak Stupidity blog, just how sustainable is the high and increasing level of stupidity that exists in 21st century America? After putting a minute's thought into this, I would like to resurrect a concept from the scientific world, debunked by some bright European, mostly British physicists. That is the substance phlogiston, theorized to have a negative weight in order to explain the APPARENT lower mass of the products of combustion vs. the un-burnt fuel. This was before the clever scientists found a good way to measure the gaseous products. So, yeah, the existence of this phlogiston was debunked, but could stupidity be seen in the same way?
Stupidity can be seen as a negative for the quality of life and productivity of society. Additions of this
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HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Posted On: Monday - January 1st 2018 5:28PM MST
In Topics: Humor Holiday from Stupidity
A full new year of stupidity is ahead of us, unless we peak out and get to that sharp decline as modeled by the NACA supercomputers and numerically forecast to occur "ANY TIME NOW" +/- "a bit".
Of course, New Year's resolutions don't always take, and that's what this quick post is about (should be time for more detailed stuff tomorrow). I don't know how long this NY resolution business has been around, as I don't feel like looking it up (resolution # 23 this year is: "Look more stuff up."). I, and the Peak Stupidity blog are not big on resolutions. Like about anything else there is, according to quite a few people on the internet - hey, they're on "The Net", so they must be smart, right? - New Year's resolutions work on the Pareto 80/20 rule.
What is that bullshit, you ask? It's some well-known bullshit, apparently, as I was able to quickly look it up (resolution # 23: CHECK, done and done). It says, very simply, that "80 % of the effects are due to 20 % of the causes." That's kind of general so could indeed apply it to about everything. Peak Stupidity, after spending $14,000 of reader donations on consulting with Resolution Solutions, LLC, will therefore invoke the Pareto principle as applied to NY resolutions. We posit that:
A) 80 % of all NY resolutions are kept for under 20 % of the year.
and conversely,
B) 20 % of all NY resolutions are kept for under 80 % of the year.
After that, it's back to the same-old-same-old for most people. Stupidity is nothing if not persistent.
No, it doesn't really follow the general rule even, but it's something that can fit nicely onto just one powerpoint slide, which is critical in the modern corporate world.
Peak Stupidity's real New Year's resolution,
Thank you very much, readers, for being with us into the year 2018. We'd be glad if you "resolved" to just check in every day or so, as this is no Instapundit or Zerohedge. The goal is to put up about 6 - 8 substantial posts per week (i.e. not counting the quick music video ones).
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More on after-the-fact Explainers, in the finance sector
Posted On: Friday - December 29th 2017 7:59PM MST
In Topics: Music Economics
This was the upcoming post mentioned in the previous one. We're discussing here the practice of deeming oneself to be an expert in some field by explaining exactly why certain events have happened, when one just didn't get around to it, or something, beforehand.
The Finance "industry", #1 of the sectors of the worse-than-useless F.I.R.E. economy (mostly just for the acronym's sake), is a field full of big, big EXPLAINERS. There are explainers out the ying/yang, as most of us have experienced, I'm sure.
"The big drop in the DOW today was due to Mr. Merkel's speech yesterday about the European Union."
"Bonds yields have gone up this week due to investors being rattled over the goings on in the Middle East."
"Gold attained a three month high due to Mr. Yellen having attained menopause yesterday, with the S&P 500 pausing to take a breather due to consolidation in the rap-music sector (somebody put a cap in somebody's ass, or something)."
"The long decline of the NASDAQ since month-end was obvious at month beginning, as profit taking continues (yeah, knock yourself out, take your profits and get outta here), but we were not able to relate that information due to press deadlines. So, we're telling you now - don't know about tomorrow."
The investment guys always have very good reasons for what happened, ALREADY, but they never have the time to tell us that stuff beforehand. They are busy, busy people, people. Just once I'd like them to say "If Trump says something about North Korea, then stocks will end up higher this afternoon." NO, I mean TO ME, not his buddies at the bar at lunch, and I want a guarantee! NO, not a guarantee that his advice will pan out, but at least that he will lose something on the transaction if his prediction is wrong, along with my stupid ass (stupid for dealing with any of these finance "workers", which is why I don't.)
Yeah, more curmudgeonry here, right ... what kind of people do I like? Well, there's astronauts ... let's see ... Hey, I really like some part of the field of economics. No, it's far from a science, so I won't dignify it with that designation. However, the 1st-semester econ, with the supply/demand curves, price elasticity, price points, tax rates, the Laffer curve, etc. is pretty common-sensical, good stuff. You can work out some numbers this way, and use it to make decisions. I think a few economists could be useful in helping businesses using just those 1st-semester concepts. Econ 102 - no, it's all downhill from there.
The supply/demand idea come in right here, right now, in this very post, as it explains why we have these bullshit artists all trying to get us to invest by explaining why every financial thing just happened. How many simple economists that could consult and help businesses with pricing, tax law, etc. do we need? It's not a lot, and they wouldn't even have to graduate, as again, the last 3 1/2 years is what the psych majors (even MORE useless, if that's possible) call negative learning. Therefore, unless we create a demand for these $150/month newsletter writers, we're gonna have such an oversupply of economists that their wages will less than that in a Chinese McDonalds. The MBA programs are churning out bullshit artists, and someone's gotta hire them, I suppose.
That explains the oversupply in explainers when it comes to finance. You sound great at the closing bell, but don't take a loss no matter what you guessed at the opening bell. It's nice work if you
"This is the office of a busy man, can you hold the line ...
"... in pipes the music you can't understand.
Can you change the station?
Is there a message, he's on with L.A.
Big deal in L.A.
His time is his money, and his money is time.
Can you hold the line?
Do you know who I am?
Do you know who I am?
Do you know who I am?
This is the city of a busy man.
It's New York, New York.
There's thousands of people, and it's dog eat dog.
Can you taste the smog?
You've got to rush here and you've got to rush there.
Don't ask me why.
It's the city of dreams, it's the right kind of place
for a busy man.
1989, from "The Ocean Blue" (self-titled album)
Peak Stupidity featured this great band, The Ocean Blue, from Hershey, Pennsylvania, before, on, you guessed it, Columbus Day.
The band:
David Schelzel, Vocals and Guitars
Steve Lau, Keyboards, Saxophone and Vocals
Bobby Mittan, Bass guitar
Rob Minnig, Drums
Lyrics, David Schelzel
Music, David Schelzel and THE OCEAN BLUE
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I'm gonna need to talk to one of those Explainers.
Posted On: Friday - December 29th 2017 11:48AM MST
In Topics: Humor Global Climate Stupidity
It is not official policy of the Peak Stupidity blog to literally rub people's noses in the dirt - right now the dirt is so hard packed from the cold that it just wouldn't take anyway. The expression is usually taken figuratively though, but it's not even our policy to figuratively rub anyone's noses into the dirt. See it's cold all around right now, and, just as we don't want to read the crap (usually on Drudge) that says Global Climate DisruptionTM is IMMINENT! when our readers are reading our posts half-naked due to a heat wave (send pics in please, for valuable prizes!), we won't reciprocate tats-for-tits, as THATS! NOT! WHOM! WE! ARE! (Whom we are, in fact, is absolute sticklers on grammar, along with of course, a repository for tats/tits pictures.) This juxtaposition of headlines appeared today on Drudge:
It's that last one down, ""Global Warming" [sick] Explainers Race to Justify Cold" that really displays the stupidity of this whole climaphobia (not a sexually-transmitted disease, but possibly worse; you're thinking chlamydia, hell, I have no idea what you're thinking) episode that's been festering for well nigh a couple of decades with no
Seriously, for a second, that one really gets to the heart of them matter. Someone's got to come up with an explanation for everything that goes on, right? Well for all the human stupidity in the world, science is not gonna cut it, and for economic studies/predictions, well, that's an upcoming post. For physical phenomenon, yeah, that's part of science. We need science to explain the physical things that go on in the world so we can create inventions to replicate the ones we like, create ways to eliminate or mitigate the ones that suck, and just know what the hell is going on, for next time. Great stuff.
However, think for a bit on why we need "Explainers" on these short and medium term climate phenomenon when we are supposed to have WORKING MATHE-FREAKIN'-MATICAL MODELS. Well, I might have been the first one to break it to you, but There is no working mathematical model of the world's climate, dammit! (Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5.) Listen, I'm not expecting a climate model run in 2010 to tell me what exact days Chicago will set a record low-low or low-high, or when the next rain will fall in Oklahoma. That's local weather. However, a working model should at least be useful to give the trend of temperature over a few-year range of winters in a certain general region of a continent. It should do that for all such regions and it would NEED TO. It would NEED TO come up with data on average cloud cover over each large geographic area, along with precipitation averages over the seasons, snow cover, levels of the largest lakes, ice pack extent at the poles, ALL OF THAT.
Why do I keep saying "NEED TO" and using ALL CAPS? The reason is that these physical "states", if you will, are necessary to know in the future as they are not just outputs but they are a part of any working model of the energy balance (often mis-stated as "heat" balance) of the earth. If the model does not predict these things very well, then, even if it got some things correct, that'd have been luck or fudging, as it needs these future states (fairly accurately in some numerical form) to continue the modeling of the energy balance into the further future. Oh, ALL CAPS is because I got exited, OK!!?
Whew, back to small letters now, this is the kind of thing I've been trying to relate to some bloggers that seem to be pretty up on the political state of things, but can't really understand the state of climate science. As I've written many times already, there's nothing wrong with doing science, in any field, but please don't believe climatology has a working math model of the whole earth, kit-and-kaboodle.
What we seem to have, and who the Drudge headline is alluding to, is people, whether scientists or not, who are great with explaining after the fact what was the reason for that warm spring over here, and that
Well, now that I've gotten all heated, I may venture outside to reap the benefits of all our hard work emitting all of that CO2.... with it's well-expected effect of freezing-ass cold at my locale. With the cold weather (no no no... not climate), I may not run into many Explainers out there, but I'll all ears - I hope, I can't really feel them right now.
"Hey, are you one of those Explainers? Yeah, well I'm one of those Complainers, let's have a nice little chat, Floyd, if you've got a minute, about the weather."
*********************************
[UPDATED 12/29 eve.:] Added 7th paragraph to "explain" a bit more relating to the post title.
******************************
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Oh, you're one of those "you ever notice?" KIDS.
Posted On: Thursday - December 28th 2017 8:03PM MST
In Topics: Humor
Since I posted Oh, you're one of those "you ever notice?" guys. a week back, I've noticed that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. The little one, 6 years old, asks a lot of questions, as they all do. Today, it was, "Hey, why do they call hot dogs hot dogs, Dad? They're hot, but they don't look like dogs."
No, I didn't have an answer, but, hell, this kid should be in NY City doing stand-up off Broadway ... way, way off Broadway, like in New Jersey, but still ... No, it's not as good as Kenny Bania's Ovalteen routine, but, hey, the kid's only 6. If this kid can out-Bania Kenny Bania at his age, he's goin' places! And he can read tampon packages to boot.
Get it? Hot dogs ... they don't look like dogs ... it's comedy gold, Jerry!
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The Marshall Tucker Band - 24 Hours at a Time
Posted On: Wednesday - December 27th 2017 7:22PM MST
In Topics: Music Southern rock
Peak Stupidity has neglected the Southern Rock - it's been a long time. Here is a great song by a band that may be unknown to many readers, but they were fairly big back in the late '70's. The Marshall Tucker Band had a couple of hits, even, with "Fire on the Mountain" (not the song by The Dead that goes with "Scarlet Begonias") and "Heard it in a Love Song".
I had been trying to say goodbye to a girl, not in actuality, as we'd already been apart, but in my mind. As I sat inside my car in a parking lot in the rain somewhere, I heard this song for the 1st time, on the radio - this was long after Marshall Tucker. Man, I thought that great instrumental ending went on for 5 minutes or more, but I see, here on youtube, that it can't be more than 2 or 3.
I'd have posted this one long ago, but it hadn't been on youtube ...
Original Marshall Tucker Band:
Doug Gray - lead vocals
Toy Caldwell - vocals, lead guitar
Tommy Caldwell - bass guitar
George McCorkle - rhythm guitar
Paul Riddle - drums
Jerry Eubanks - flute (how many rock bands have a floutist, other than these guys and Jethro Tull - w/ Ian Anderson?_
Comments (2)
Why are most politicians immoral psychopaths?
Posted On: Wednesday - December 27th 2017 6:37PM MST
In Topics: Salesmen Liberty/Libertarianism US Feral Government Deep State
In his latest article, the great Dr. Ron Paul writes about Political Immorality and Personal Immorality. Most of this article is the usual stuff that we've read and heard many times from this great libertarian. It's all correct, but Dr. Paul doesn't really get to his point until the last paragraph on how these politicans political immorality is related to their personalities:
The welfare-warfare state is built on violence and deceit. It is thus inevitable that many of those participating in this immoral system will combine their immoral politics with immoral personal conduct. Hopefully the revelations of sexual misconduct among the welfare-warfare state’s Capitol Hill and media defenders will lead more Americans to question the morality and the wisdom of allowing the federal government to run the world, run the economy, and run our lives.Peak Stupidity does begs to differ on the reasoning here. As a reply to Dr. Paul, our comment is (and I won't "blockquote" it here, as it's our own writing):
He may be right, but there is a good argument for his putting the cart before the horse. Isn’t it just as likely that the big-money/big-biz/big-gov people who donate and “select” these immoral politicians are selecting them FOR these qualities? It’s a lot easier to get the guy to “accomplish” what you need during his time in office if he is easily corruptible.
It may not be so much as these immoral politicians being unfazed by, or creating, immoral policies, such as the welfare/warfare state, versus their being told to make this stuff happen by immoral elites who need immoral, hence, corruptible people up there in Washington, FS. Blackmail, bribery, and combinations thereof can only make things happen if the politicians have done blackmail-worth things and/or are immoral money-grubbing scum. Yeah, they mostly are, from what I’ve seen. They make their constituents feel good about their choice by being really good at smiling and remembering people’s names.
Let me expound on that last sentence with a personal story. The man I'm writing about was not a politician, per se, as he was not in an elected office, but he was in a high profile position that basically made him have to BE a politician, and his nature was one of a politician. This guy had a big gathering with at least a coupla' hundred people that he had definitely seen around but didn't know in particular, me included. I happened to be in a phase of going around barefoot at the time, and the man remarked to me, something along the lines of "Hey, WTF?", but as a politician, it was more lilke "How are you? Nice to see you? Going without shoes, I see.". "Yeah, I'm headed out to California for a while. I think they're all like this." That was the extent of the conversation.
Two years went by, and I was back in the area. This guy and his wife came up to the dock we were on with his power boat and we both said hello, as he was a recognizable guy. I feel ashamed to say now, but I thought that this was pretty cool. "Hey" the politician said, "I thought you were out in California." "Wow", I thought, "This guy knows me." Even cooler, I am more ashamed to say I felt [Hey, quit writing like Yoda! - Ed.] See, that's the gist of it - these guys are good at some things, there's no doubt. They are good at smiling; well, that's not that hard. They are good at facial recognition and remembering just enough to make you think they really care about the people around them. I would say being a salesman is one step on the road to
Please, please, use another browser to watch this if you have IE browser (I am so sorry, on behalf of Bill the geek Gates on this) - it is just plain hilarious!
Where were we, before this brief video digression on personal memorization techniques? Oh, yeah, though good at some parts of personal relationships, the weakness in these people is usually in their morality, their principles. That's not what you need in high levels of government, but that's what we're getting. Even some of the fairly decent people that get into the Feral government seem too weak to resist the peer pressure of Washington, Federal Shithole. In the Peak Stupidity post, a few weeks back, on Judge Roy Moore of Alabama, we listed 4 possible reasons, some that may be combined, for the continual incidences of these politicians going native. Perhaps just their personal weakness in succumbing to peer pressure could be number 5.
How do we prevent this? We can't in a big government situation like America is in now. We're pretty much going to have to start over, some day.
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How the Grinch Stole Back Christmas - by Mr. Joe Long
Posted On: Tuesday - December 26th 2017 6:13PM MST
In Topics: Websites Humor Political Correctness Pundits Poetic Stupidity
... of a site called American Greatness. This Joe Long, from Cayce, S. Carolina, can write this stuff as good as the original Doctor Suess. Yes, OK, it should have been up last week, and yes, it's a total cut and paste job, but this is funny, politically incorrect, good-natured, and hopeful. Mr. Long seems to write about every week or so on the site, and from what I've read so far, he's a great writer.
Tis a tale often told, and every Who knows,
How the Grinch first descended from Mount Crumpet snows
And stole away Christmas (its trappings, at least)
Then had his heart changed, and came back for roast beast.
Not everyone knows what has happened since then;
How the Grinch came to think he must steal it again—
For Grinches are grinchy, and grinch-genes will tell—
And in some ways, he wasn’t adjusting too well.
Though his heart grew three sizes, his brain had not shrunk
And he tired of buying up masses of junk
And dealing with hassles and hustles barbaric
For “holidays” swiftly becoming generic.
The customs traditional, which the Grinch loved
Were watered-down, fluffed-up, or “new and improved.”
Why, at one Christmas feast, by one misguided Who,
The roast beast itself was a glob of tofu!
And the songs which reformed him with simple Who joys
Were increasingly drowned out by “noise, noise, noise, noise.”
And deep in his heart, underneath his green fur,
The Grinch knew that things weren’t right as they were.
His ponderer once more was sore as could be
In the checkout line near the HDTV’s,
When the half-hearted clerk with a faraway gaze
Blandly muttered to him, “Happy Holidays.”
Well, the Grinch’s lips curled in a most Grinchy smile
(More grinchy, perhaps, than he’d been in a while!)
He remembered his heritage, cunning and sly,
He thought, “I was made this way—p’raps this is why!”
Then he fixed his eyes on the unfortunate knave,
And regarded him mildly, and told him, “How brave!”
“Brave?” asked the clerk, “Why, what did I say?”
“My good man, you have wished me a fine Holy Day!
“I thank you, good sir, and return it sincerely;
“For you wished for me, sir, not a merry day merely,
“But a day blessed with favor from our Lord divine—
“I return it; may your Holy Day, too, be fine!”
“No! I just said ‘holiday’,” stammered the clerk,
“For that is the policy here where I work…”
“Delightful!,” the Grinch interjected with glee.
“Such corporate boldness—it overwhelms me!
“A spiritual awakening—that’s what it means!
“Now, sir, sell me some cards with nativity scenes.”
There were no such cards, for he’d sold his last few
But he did have a Santa. The Grinch said, “He’ll do,
“That old Bishop Nicholas, merry and stout.
“He once punched the heretic Arius out!”
And the clerk looked about—and no bosses he saw—
“Merry Christmas!,” he whispered, and shook a grinch paw.
The Grinch strode from the store and out into the street,
“Merry Christmas!” he said to each Who whom he’d meet,
And he said to himself, “Why, this really is nice!
“A good deed which has gained all the thrill of a vice!
“This holiday season need not make me blue;
“For with each ‘Merry Christmas,’ I break a taboo!”
Some heartily answer, returning his greeting;
And others more shyly, ere swiftly retreating—
Some say “Happy Hannukah” back with a grin,
Which the old Grinch returns, and calls that a win/win.
Some never quite notice; too stressed and engrossed.
But some look offended—and these he likes most.
“Now, don’t kid a kidder,” he tells such a one—
“I stole Christmas once, and I know how it’s done.
“But I stole it with style; I stole it with flare.
“You aren’t that clever, or else wouldn’t dare;
“To my exploits, your Christmas theft can’t hold a candle –
“You’re not even a thief—just a wannabe vandal.”
For a Grinch is a Grinch, at the end of the day
(And as he observed, Someone made him that way)
As wise as a serpent (and almost as green)
And not really worried if folks think he’s mean.
He stole Christmas once, but he made his amends—
Now he’ll steal Christmas back, for his more timid friends.
So when you’ve the chance (if, that is, you’ve the guts)
Please join me and the Grinch, driving PC-folks nuts.
Reclaiming the Holy Days, joyous and rightful,
From the purely commercial or pettily spiteful.
Co-conspire in this bold holiday counter-crime—
Committed one “Merry Christmas” at a time.
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Merry Christmas from Peak Stupidity
Posted On: Saturday - December 23rd 2017 3:50PM MST
In Topics: Music Bible/Religion Holiday from Stupidity
I guess we shouldn't have expected gifts from the US Feral Gov't, but then, money isn't all anyway. It's not like Santa Clause can give me anything that I'd want for Christmas. I imagine some readers may say "how about getting him to make your site show music videos in Windows Explorer, for starters?". Between Bill Gates stupidity, Santa outsourcing all of his tech support elves to Bombay ("Hellooo, dees is Sugarplum Maddy... veddy meddy Christmas, and how may I help you today?"), and the fact that he is probably pretty sore about that recent post about him, not to mention the buck shot, I'm not expecting much.
That's OK, as it's not about the presents. It'd be nice to get the old America back, which is what Christmas music reminds us of. Imagine people coming to the door to sing beautiful religious songs, rather than to sell TV service. They did, I was there. OK, the curmudgeonry and snark ENDS! HERE! (till after the holiday).
C H R I S T M A S
from Peak Stupidity
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Merry Christmas from
Posted On: Saturday - December 23rd 2017 2:30PM MST
In Topics: Trump Economics US Feral Government Taxes
Kevin Brady presiding. As much as Peak Stupidity is interested in politics in America, I have NOT paid a whole lot of attention to the recently passed plan for a slight revison to the income tax system. I think the whole damn system has been a sick perversion of the American founders' beliefs over the last century, for starters. It's also that there's not anything I can do about whatever the plan turns out to be. I figured I may just barely notice something in the Spring of 2019, if I'm not doing my taxes at the bar, as I did for about 1 decade.
Well, I just got excited about an hour ago, when reading that the standard deduction (money off the top line) for a married couple will DOUBLE in the newly passed plan, starting with taxes calculated in early '19 for the '18
* NO, it turns out it would not. See, they like this kind of thing - nobody looks at the details. I wasn't gonna, right? As a curmudgeon, I just really couldn't believe that something was gonna change for the better, especially something emitted out of the ass-end - legislative branch of the US Feral Government. Guess what, right again. Because, I found it hard to believe I would save money next year, I got on-line to delve into this for only about 10 minutes. That's all it took to see the part about the "Exemptions" (called "exemption deductions", even more confusing, by the House Ways and Means Committee, Kevin Brady presiding) being ELIMINATED. The exemptions are about $4,000 per family member, so the break even point with the doubling of the standard deduction from just over $12,000 to just over $24,000 means that the break-even point is three family members, i.e. one kid. For more kids than 1, you come out behind with this change, all other things being equal for the year. For a family of four, instead of $12,000 standard deduction + 4 X $4,000 exemptions = $28,000 off of the topline, it'll be $24,000 off of the top line meaning a tax increase of about $1,000 for those with a reasonable income, putting them into the 25% bracket.
Let me explain the top-line/bottom-line thing now along with the concept of the marginal rates, which will be first though. Each higher tax rate is not applied on the whole amount of income even AFTER deductions. The lowest rate (going up from 10% to 12%, heh, THAT CAN'T BE GOOD!) is applied to money up to some amount, then the next rate, 15%, is applied after that up to a limit, at which the 25% rate starts. Get it? This is important because, as with the $4,000 exemption (top-line item) turning into ~ $1,000 in taxes, any additional money you made or any reduction of your "earned income" (IRS words there) is at whatever your highest rate is. That is right now 25 % for most people/families who are middle-middle class, making over $75,000 yearly.
OK, two paragraphs, my apologies... anyway, the top-line "deduction/exemption" amounts can be multiplied by that 25% ( only 15% if you're working/lower-class (in income, I'm not trying to call the reader names here) or 28/33% if you are, let's call it lower-upper-middle-class, not quite the ones sharing the Gray Poupon out of the Mercedes). That's how you can see how much your payable amount will go up or down. Bottom-line items are usually called "credits". The amounts for these are taken directly off the amount of tax owed. Let's not get confused with the whole refund thing - that's just giving you back your overpayment. I'm writing about your tax bill, notwithstanding whatever amount you got with-held by your
Back to this trumped-up Trump bill, I ended up directly at a US Gov't web site of the House Ways and Means Committe, with the details, probably not the details the lawyers get paid $500/hr to figure out, though. It had the details, enough for the big let-down, that there was not gonna be any big savings, probably the contrary. I don't want to be inaccurate here, as the info. I read elsewhere touts "Hey, no exemption, but the child-care credit goes up! Yippee!" Yes, it is a credit, off the bottom line, but it's a change from $1,000 to $1,600 with even some caveats. $600 extra off the bottom line is like $2,400 off the top line for families making over $75,000 (25% rate on the margin), or about an even $4,000 for those making $20,000 to $75,000 (15% rate on the margin). With two or more kids, then, if the total, reported** income is under $75,000, then, the whole thing is a wash, as the extra credit about covers the missing exemption. If that family makes over $75,000, there will be a net loss, or, in the Christmas spirit, a gain for the government.
That's about enough, I guess, though, I will say that the elimination of the Alternate Income Tax, originally a way to snare about 40 (no kidding) rich people, but now, due to the 95% cut in dollar value since then, a big pain in the ass for the middle-middle class, is a good thing. Oh, here's a gem from another article, (LP, so not linked): Also repealed: deductions for alimony payments and .... Sorry, estranged Dads getting screwed over by family court and feminist ex-wives, Uncle
Yeah, pretty wonky post here, huh? Hey, Peak Stupidity can DO wonky, but we mostly consider it stupid, as all these details don't mean squat in the midst of the general pervasive Global Financial Stupidity in today's world. Think about it, my 10 minutes looking into this, and 1 hour writing this did not do either of us (me and my reader!) a bit of good.
So, the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, Kevin Brady presiding, wishes you and yours
** Reported income is what the IRS is interested in. Make sure to keep a large portion of your income un-reported. Simple? [Note from PS legal dept.: YOU! DID! NOT! READ! THAT! HERE!... we know nothing .. we own nothing, squid pro quo, Clarice!]
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Papa was a rolling stone. Wherever he laid his hat was his house ..
Posted On: Friday - December 22nd 2017 12:08PM MST
In Topics: Curmudgeonry Economics Race/Genetics
Per a commenter who goes by the handle of "(((Owen)))" on Steve Sailer's blog on unz, regarding real estate in Compton - Los Angeles:
Blacks drive out whites with random street crime.What a great analogy by Mr. (((Owen)))! One difference from rock-paper-scissors is, of course, that nobody makes money on the real game. RE agents make money on every win - I guess their version of a draw would be "For Sale by Owner", (the best way to go)
But Hispanics form posses for self defense so they can colonize black neighborhoods.
Whites have much more money than Hispanics so they can colonize Hispanic neighborhoods once the blacks have been driven out.
Blacks have Section 8 and blockbusting to colonize white neighborhoods once the Hispanics have been driven out.
Rock. Paper. Scissors.
And the real estate brokers make all the money on the new Triangular Trade.
The Peak Stupidity blog has written about the F.I.R.E. economy (and also here) before. Finance, Insurance, Real estate, and Education are non-industrious "industries" that, especially the first 3 (as, people sometimes just mean, Real Estate) are composed of middlemen, oh, OK, middlewomen too, happy?! Come to think of it, regarding real estate, it is mostly middlewomen. That works, as many RE agents feel that high heels and tight white jeans are all it's gonna take to get a guy to pay 10 - 20 grand extra for a house ... and THEY ARE, in fact!
Big finance, insurance and real estate make money when people go through turmoil, or when there is at least enough turmoil around to worry about, in the case of insurance. Think about it. The big finance people make money off of every monetary transaction, whether the individuals they make money off of win or lose in their dealings. They need the economy to not necessarily produce a lot, but just have lots of dealings going on. Wanta just use cash at the flea market for groceries, pay cash for your gas and rent, get some bitcoin for a large dealing. That's NO! GOOD! for the finance industry. You are a very, very BAD! MAN!
The real estate people make money the same way. You've got a nice stable neighborhood, with lots of people having lived in and improved their normal-sized houses for 20-40 years. NO! GOOD! for business. You are a very, very BAD! FAMILY! We're gonna bring in some other people, and see how you like the schools now. You can pay out the ying-yang for private schools, or you can get the hell out, now, dammit! Someone's gotta move, so we can "move" these "properties". Hey, I'm not saying the RE industry has this all planned out like a big conspiracy. No, they are not smart enough to do that. They sure enjoy it though.
Now, just to add the curmudeonry topic key here, my major beef with the real estate industry is just their continual use of the word "home" for "house". Yeah, if you want to talk about all residential real estate together, meaning house, condos, "flats" (sounds so sophisticated, I want to live in a FLAT!), then "home" may be appropriate and sounds better than "property". However, the RE agents' idea is to use that word for it's emotional connotations. Oh, it must be cozy - it's a "HOME" - there's no place like HOME, right Aunty Em? Wrong, by "cozy", real estate agents mean really damn small, it turns out, with no place for your table saw and Harley (may have to park it in the living room - can you do that in a flat?).
Let's cut out the euphemisms, like my
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Are white people the new woo-woo Indians?
Posted On: Thursday - December 21st 2017 9:08AM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity Humor Americans
Per a favorite commenter of mine, Buffalo Joe, I will pick up the term "woo woo Indians" as it is more evocative than some of the other methods of distinguishing between two different peoples. As related here on the Peak Stupidity blog before, in "First Nations and the Spirits Communities", the recent terminology has been:
a) "Feather" vs. "Dot"
b) "Casino" vs. "Tech Support"
Anyway, in response to the same Pat Buchanan article cited in the last post another comment on unz wrote the following very interesting analogy, in regards to the massive influx of different groups of people to the US:
By a guy with a lengthy but appropriate name for these times, Mr. Citizen of a Silly Country.What America needs is a new national consensus on what is vital to us and what is not, what we are willing to fight to defend and what we are not.
What do you mean “we” kemosabe?
The United States has turned itself into a collection of tribes with very little in common outside of the fact that we work here. What does the white accountant in Minnesota have in common with the black itinerant janitor in Atlanta? What does the Chinese engineer in Seattle have in common with the Mexican bus boy in New Jersey? What does the Jewish lawyer in Chicago have in common with the white truck driver in West Virginia?
There is no “we” in any real sense of the word. There are several tribes that are not bound by race or history (remember American history is now just a long litany of evil white people discriminating against PoC) or culture.
We will fight small wars at the behest of Jews because those wars don’t require the full support of the various American tribes. You can get away with these targeted wars with gung-ho white kids from rural areas and the South.
If I was China or Russia, I’d play nice with the ring-leader of the American tribes, the ultimate tribe. America’s interests are now Jewish interests, so work with those in charge, knowing that every year that passes the United States becomes weaker as the various tribes grow ever more fractious.
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Pat Buchanan, still in that ancient mindset ...
Posted On: Thursday - December 21st 2017 8:54AM MST
In Topics: Global Financial Stupidity Globalists US Feral Government
... about US military might and economic power. Hey, yeah, it's more pundit-on-pundit stuff here, in a style of post I promised not to write too man of, but this is a general theme the Peak Stupidity blog has been harping on.
Mr. Buchanan also seems to live in the past when he writes about the domestic political scene, as if all "our" politicians in Washington, F.S. still follow Roberts Rules of Order and all that (re: Roy Moore). 2 weeks back or so, this column was about the foreign entanglements President George Washington (first time I've written that W-word without distain in a long while) warned us about way back. Just like my previous criticism of Mr. Buchanan on his old-timey-mindset, I don't disagree with the specifics, but he's not seeing the forest for the trees here either.
My comment to him is nothing really new from Peak Stupidity either, but needs to be reiterated:
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Let’s just back up and look at the big picture, Mr. Buchanan and readers. Lets’ leave out all the details about who started which war, whether the US should have been involved, what our strategy should be in the future… blah… blah.
AMERICA! IS! BEYOND! BROKE! Do you people get this?! I don’t mean just even-Stephen broke, like with zero in the bank and no cash flow right now. I mean $20,000,000,000,000 in the hole via Treasury bonds and around 10X that in future obligations – that’s peoples’ pensions promised to them, S. Security, health care obligations and all that.
That’s about 200 large owed per actual taxpaying (not filing, but paying) American family, just for the actual present debt, the 20 Trillion. There’s no way to get out of this hole without hyperinflation or default, either of which will eliminate the US dollar as “real” money.
Besides the fact that the US military is full of women, homos, and assorted trans-what-have-you’s and could not fight any serious enemy, we don’t have any money for more war. What are we going to do, call for a cease-fire with the Chinese to allow the container ships passage with the parts we need for helicopters and missiles?
There’s really no point in even writing about any of these details. We need to stay home and get prepped for what’s coming financially. I like Pat Buchanan, and he has written about Feral budget issues before, but he seems to have a blind spot for the financial aspect of what’s going on in America.
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Even Ron Paul's writings about foreign policy, though the gist of it is for America to quit interfering in world affairs, still don't usually bring up this simple point. We are like some spendthrift recent-divorcee that still has the credit cards, blowing money here and there on shoes, hair-styling, and granite countertops, as she hasn't realized yet that the money has to come from somewhere. I guess there's a little bit of Wile E. Coyote in all of us.
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