Inflation and Interest
Posted On: Saturday - January 28th 2017 6:39PM MST
In Topics: Music Global Financial Stupidity Economics Southern rock Inflation
This is an interlude within the series of posts entitled "Primer on the state of Global Financial Stupidity (Part __)". In order to properly understand the next in this series of posts about the just-started, on-going financial calamity, the reader must have an understanding of inflation and interest rates and the relation between them.
Just the title of this post is enough to put most readers to sleep, we figure, but this has got to be done - we're slipping it in on a Saturday afternoon when we figure most readers don't have us tuned in (wait, whaaat ?? - Editor). We could always bring Ben Stein back on to liven things up, I guess.
This writer was around and somewhat aware of things already during the high-inflation phase of the 2nd half of the 1970's. My belief at the time was that this inflation was due to some kind of vicious cycle, wherein employees were demanding higher wages to help them keep up with the big increases in prices of food, cars, etc., and that these prices had to be raised in order to pay the employees the new salaries, and round and round. All that had to be done, I figured, was just one party had to give in for a while, and things would become stable. The sorry thing is, is that this is what the newspapers were saying too - hey, I was just a kid and nobody was paying me the big bucks and putting my name in print for these ideas.
The real reasons for the price increases have to do with the increase in the supply of money. The shenanigans of the Federal Reserve bank, the closing of the gold window under Nixon (one could no longer redeem Federal Reserve Notes - read the fine print on your
Let's go back to the late 1970's again. As price inflation was in the lower and even middle teen annual percentage rates, interest rates (mostly mortgages, as credit cards, student loans and even car loans were of a much lower percentage of consumer debt in those days - a good thing) were in the same range. One would think, at first thought, that these should be somehow equal - NOT TRUE. The idea of one party collecting interest for giving another party the use of money for a period of time is based on a natural factor, usually called the "time value of money". The party borrowing could use this money as capital to enable earlier and higher profits than if the money could only be spent as earned by this borrowing party. This is probably all obvious to our erudite readers, but please pick your heads up off the desk anyway. Interest rates should therefore be HIGHER than the inflation rate by whatever the time value of money is. (There's another factor in any debt that has a risk of default to it - the lender should get some extra just to cover the small possibility of the borrower reneging.)
Now, let's ACTUALLY go back to the 1970's again, as I didn't in the last paragraph - even though the presidency of Ronald Reagan reaped the benefits of a large drop of the inflation rate by the earlier 1980's, people arguably* credit that to Mr. Paul Volcker of the Fed. Reserve, who President Jimmy Carter appointed near the end of his term. He got the Federal Reserve banking system to force the interest rates up to very high levels. Note the blue curve of the graph peaking at 15% around 1980 (yes, I also wish an engineer had made the graph). This shows 10-year treasury bonds as an example, but house mortgage could be at 18% in those years. Right now, people are perturbed about getting up toward 4%! The reason the inflation decreased drastically is due to the effect of the rates on economic decisions by businesses, but the FED should not have been involved in the first place.
It so happens that this graph ends at about 2009. There is a lot to write about regarding just about that time, as the FED forced rates very low and has kept them artificially down ever since. This is more of their big interference in the market and it hurts responsible people. More about that later, but it leads to the conclusion of this post.
In a free market of money - meaning no Federal Reserve deciding on interest rates and creating money out of no labor at all - we could say two important things:
1) About interest rates - the time value of money, as measured by people and (mostly) business that borrow or lend, based on their experiences and with their livelihoods dependent on it, will be at the "correct" level, not some arbitrary one set by a Bank (one that keeps people under the impression it's part of the US Gov't - it's NOT). What's correct? What's the correct price of a 2010 Toyota Rav-IV with 125,000 miles and certain specified options, cracked dash, new tires/alignment and a roof rack? Whatever the guy ends up paying the other guy, that's the correct price for both of them. What's the correct price of a
2) About inflation - there is absolutely no reason there should be some steady inflation of prices at even 1% each year, as the Federal Reserve banksters and gov't officials would have us believe. Back a century ago, before the Federal Reserve, it was indeed the case that over the long-term, say, a life-time, there was no steady inflation that would eat away a savings down to 5% of what one started with (keep compounding in mind!).
This stuff is not something most people think about, and this writer would also have had a hard time with it even 10 years back. That's a real shame, as it is also stuff that explains how governments of all sorts have (mostly unintentionally) screwed over their citizens or subjects out of their labor throughout history. Nowadays, it seems to be part of their basic operation to encourage irresponsibility and punish responsibility, raising the stupidity level SKY HIGH:
This is some really obscure stuff above, from an almost-forgotten great Southern Rock band, the Atlanta Rhythm Section - more on them later from this great live album that you can't find.
*Because, arguably, plenty of people will argue about damn near anything!
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99 % of good rock and pop was created in the English-speaking world...
Posted On: Friday - January 27th 2017 7:42PM MST
In Topics: Music
... and, I'm 99% sure of that. Really, it's kind of uncanny, though. You may say that Americans did not get to hear all the "good stuff" from around the world back in the days when our music (and the British) was the good stuff, but I don't believe that. Way back in this post my theory that good lyrics don't mean a lot vs. a good tune in a song was expounded. So, were a great tune (and "sound") made anywhere around the world in another language, even back in the 70's we could have heard it, and we'd have liked it.
Now, after the Canadian artists, we've featured one particular Englishman and his combo Wings (too bad we can't recall if this guy had done anything of note before that group ;-} There are hundreds more and thousands of great songs to go though, from the UK, and then more from Australia, and America. Why is it that almost all of the good stuff was created in the English-speaking world - serious question?
OK, you say, what about the band "Golden Earring"? They were Dutch, I believe, but yeah, OK they had one hit per decade for a streak of 2 decades (Radar Love in the 70's and Bullet Hits the Bone in the 80's). Whoopdi-freakin-do!
True, this 99 (or should we say nein und nein-zig) percent number was obtained partially via rectal extraction, but additionally via subliminal thoughts of this one German hit by a girl name Nena. It's really not a great melody, now that I hear it for the first time in decades, but, hey, she had a good eighties hairstyle, and got on MTV before it started to suck.
Ninety-nine red balloons, but actual translation is just "Ninety-nine Balloons", as the "luft" just means "flying", not red.
NOTE: This song was heard/seen in America with English lyrics FIRST. Then, as a novelty, the German-lyric version came out and was more successful - yeah, the lyrics don't matter.
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The lyin press
Posted On: Friday - January 27th 2017 6:34PM MST
In Topics: Immigration Stupidity Media Stupidity
Our President is pretty good at keeping a "meme", you might call it, going. It's pretty tough, as he is one man and the lying press is legion. That phrase, "the lying press" seems to be catching on. I remember the "crooked Hillary" phrase he used for a time.
It would have been great, huh, if he would have just made a contraction out of it, say "Crillery" - sounds like something to do with "krill" that whales eat, but "CRILLARY" is just short for "CRooked hILLARY". The celebrities have been doing this sort of thing for 5-8 years running now, what with Jennifer Lopez being "JLo" and Laura Kardashian being "LarDash", you know, that kinda thing.
Where were we? Ahh, the lying sack-o-shit press, right. This VDare article by Brenda Walker quotes San Francisco ABC channel 7, and they start the lying in paragraph 1:
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday seeking to end sanctuary cities, that, in his words, “harbor illegal immigrants.”
It's not a lie of commission, where they just state something that is flat-out wrong (happens a lot), and it's not a lie of omission, where they leave out important stuff that would have changed the whole story (happens a lot). What would one call this one? These guys want the reader to associate a wrong meaning with a phrase, right off the bat, to muddle the reader's thinking.
Think about it "... sanctuary cities, that in his words, 'harbor illegal immigrants'". WTF does the "in his words" mean here? That'd be like my calculus teacher saying: "Newton performed an integration on this function, that, in his words, used differential elements to obtain the area under the curve". It's the definition, just like "a place where they are harboring illegal aliens" is the definition of "sanctuary city".
This could be fun. Future headlines to look for from the lying press:
North Korean strongman Mr Kim Ill Kimson threatened today to blow the livin crap outta Washington, FS with a thermonuclear weapon that would, in his words "use a nuclear fission reaction to compress and initiate a secondary nuclear fusion reaction of a hydrogen isotope".
A Boeing Company's commercial aircraft division spokesman announced that the new 797 will undergo it's first test flight tomorrow that would, in his words, "use Bernoulli's principle to create a low pressure region on the top of it's wings to cause lift and cause the long-delayed airplane to leave the surly bonds of earth and, like, fly."
JLo tweeted this morning that she didn't like rap music that in her words "doesn't have any melody and is just a bunch of yelling thugs".
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Another great song by Wings
Posted On: Thursday - January 26th 2017 7:33PM MST
In Topics: Music
That was the band this guy McCartney was in way, way back, after he just left Liverpool, or something ...
This live version is pretty good, but Paul doesn't use the phase shifter for his voice (at least much) as he does in the studio track, which was originally just a single and not on an album - it later was on Wings Greatest Hits.
Posting may have to be light (for rest of the week), but the Financial Stupidity stuff will continue ...
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Alex Jones in the press gallery?
Posted On: Thursday - January 26th 2017 9:06AM MST
In Topics: Trump Pundits Media Stupidity
This Zerohedge article, Alex Jones' InfoWars Offered White House Credentials refers to an Alex Jones video in which Mr. Jones states:
Here’s the deal, I know I get White House credentials, we’ve already been offered them, we’re going to get them, but I’ve just got to spend the money to send somebody there. I want to make sure it’s even worth it. I don’t want to just sit there up there like ‘m in the media, look our people are there.’ People don’t understand this paradigm, we’re devolving in a good way, power from the federal government back to the people, back from the centralized MSM to the people, just like Trump said in his speech.
Alex Jones has operated the Infowars and PrisonPlanet websites for a long time. He is a conspiracy theorist about some conspiracies that are real and some that are just theories. He is also a constitutionalist patriot, so PeakStupidity is thrilled with this news.
Donald Trump does not have the knowledge and understanding of what's wrong with this country to the extent of a Ron Paul, yet in dealing with the problems he does understand, he is a master. If this is true he is following through with his ideas written about here a week back or so. Before I had read this zerohedge article, I had thought that Drudge should have a seat in the press room also. These white house guys are even ahead on this:
He [Sean Spicer, press secretary] contined:
“[Trump]) keeps saying CNN is fake, and I'm not going to any of your fake news. What’s CNN doing in the front row, when [White House press secretary Sean] Spicer keeps going to them? And then the reporter yesterday goes, “Oh, maybe Trump wasn’t even elected. That’s why you say there’s fraud.” So they’re like little kids up there. These aren’t real journalists. Meanwhile, it’s just crazy, you should see Breitbart and Drudge, and also just reporters that are known to tell the truth from mainstream, whatever, promoted and put up at the front of those briefings, to bring up real questions, not just a battle where they’re just attacking with fricking lies"
Excellent! Although PeakStupidity is not always enamored (gotta like that word) with Matt Drudge - see "Matt Drudge - what we at Peakstupidity think of Drudgereport" - he is definitely on our side. As almost all readers would already know, he puts up just headlines. His way of putting like ones together, and using them to display hypocrisy is his forte. This is from today (this one is not about the hypocrisy, just showing that Mr. Drudge is on our side):
Imagine Matt Drudge, Alex Jones, maybe Glenn Reynolds, Peter Brimelow, Jared Taylor, etc. able to put their questions out there - it's not so much that Trump is not hip, but this way the entire country would have access to the questions and answers. This is what people who speak corporatese call a "sea change". I would agree with them, after I told them to cut out the stupid way of talking.
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Wings - Helen Wheels
Posted On: Wednesday - January 25th 2017 7:30PM MST
In Topics: Music
Some of these artists really burn me up with their silly political statements, but Paul, hanging out with the Hildabeast?? I can't even ... like... OK, I'm not even gonna recommend to anyone your music before Wings. If they ask me about you, I'll tell them that you started out with Linda and Denny Lane. "Who are these Beatles of which you speak? John, Paul, George, and Ringo? - no, not musicians - you're probably thinking of some of the Popes during the Middle Ages", yeah, that's the ticket.
You can forgive the guy only after hearing this one, and another song I'll put up tomorrow:
Again, the tune makes the song, not the lyrics, but I do like them:
Said farewell to my last hotel
It never was much a kind of abode
Glasgow town never brought me down
When I was heading out on the road
Carlisle city never looked so pretty
And the Kendal freeway's fast
Slow down driver want to stay alive
I want to make this journey last
Helen, hell on wheels
Ain't nobody else gonna know the way she feels
Helen, hell on wheels
And they never gonna take her away
M six south down to Liverpool
where they play the west coast sound.
Sailor Sam he came from Birmingham
but he never will be found.
Doing fine when a London sign
greets me like a long lost friend.
Mister Motor won't you check he.r out
she's got to take me back again
Helen, hell on wheels,
ain't nobody else gonna know the way she feels.
Helen, hell on wheels,
and they never gonna take her away.
Got no time for a rum and lime
I want to get my right foot down.
Shake some dust off of this old bus
I gotta get her out of town.
Spent the day up on the motorway
where the carburetors blast.
Slow down driver want to stay alive
I want to make this journey last.
Helen, hell on wheels,
ain't nobody else gonna know the way she feels.
Helen, hell on wheels,
and they never gonna take her away
Say bye bye!
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Primer on the state of Global Financial Stupidity (Part 4)
Posted On: Wednesday - January 25th 2017 6:58PM MST
In Topics: Global Financial Stupidity
(Continued from here.)
We left off writing that major financial pain will come to many if the US Gov't debt were defaulted on. At this point, we can give you some good news and some bad news. What'll it be first, readers? OK, the good news first. The good news is that there is another way for governments with control of the money supply to get rid of debt besides via defaulting! Yippee! It's called inflation, (the real definition of which is "an increase (inflation) of the supply of money".) and governments have been doing it for millenia. It's tried and true, and our own Feral Gov't is pretty good at it too, as the Federal Reserve Bank was created specifically to accomplish this task. Hey, high-5's all around!
What ya' do, see, is print paper (back in the day, at least), or create digits in the computers of the big banks, that represent money, so there is more money in the country. That way, if you owe 20 trillion dollars, you could just create 1 trillion bucks a year for a 20-year period that can be used to pay back people that are cashing in the IOU's, i.e. Treasury Bonds. Nice goin', America! We've been doin' this inflation thing for 100 years, exceptionally well. Right-on! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
Wait, wait a sec., not so fast, people. I haven't written about the bad news yet. The bad news is that inflation sucks just as bad as a monetary default on debt. It just sucks much more slowly (if that's your thing - not that there's anything wrong with that, no not at all!). This makes saving money a losing proposition, so wisdom and responsibility are punished and Stupidity and irresponsibility are rewarded. This Monetary Stupidity, as it is known by us economists in our prestigious academic positions in our
Money itself obeys the same law of supply and demand as any good or service. Therefore, an increase in the amount of money means that the same face value is less desirable than it was before the increase in the money supply. Supply of it has gone up, so for the same demand, the "price of that money" will go down. That can be measured against various goods and services, and the converse of that is that prices are seen to rise in that monetary unit (the dollar in our case). We are so used to a steady inflation level of a few percent, and periods of much higher, that we are under the mistaken assumption that this is just a natural thing. INFLATION IS EMPHATICALLY NOT A NATURAL THING, WERE THE MONEY SUPPLY NOT SCREWED WITH! The reason we make this assumption is that the Federal Reserve Bank was created 104 years back, so nobody alive has got a memory that includes some years before that. Plenty of info. on the web can teach one that inflation was not a normal thing in the 19th century in this country, as we had solid money back then.
Having just hinted here about the bad effects of inflation, we will post much more about this in the future. The next installment will get into other debt and financial stupidity, not just that of our Feral US Government.
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New Column by Ann Coulter proves she is a Libertarian
Posted On: Wednesday - January 25th 2017 6:21PM MST
In Topics: Pundits Liberty/Libertarianism
This column by Miss Coulter is about Obamacare, as plans for getting rid of this monstrosity are in the works right now.
Read the whole thing, or at least this excerpt and tell me that she is not a hard-core Libertarian at heart. This is not to confuse her with the idiots at Reason magazine or Gary Johnson of New Mexico who claim to be libertarians - the Reason people are what's called "libertines" and don't want to ever run into the real responsibilities of liberty and Gary Johnson is just a flat-out bloomin-idiot.
Republicans all say they want to save the so-called “good parts” of Obamacare. Because who knows better what the American consumer wants than a member of Congress!
I keep imagining Congress designing a “comprehensive hotel reform bill,” promising to save the popular parts: “BUT PEOPLE LIKE HAVING TV’S IN THEIR HOTEL ROOMS!” How could we ever get TVs in hotel rooms without Congress writing a law?
It turns out, people running a business have an uncanny ability to figure out what’s popular with their customers.
Any “popular” features of Obamacare obviously, manifestly, inevitably will be preserved by the free market. If parents like keeping their useless millennial kids on their plans, guess what? Any insurance company forced to compete with other insurance companies WILL OFFER THAT.
As for covering people with “pre-existing conditions”–there are pre-existing conditions and pre-existing conditions. Does this mean the unfortunate few with some exorbitantly expensive medical problem? Or does it mean people who have a “pre-existing condition” because they waited to be diagnosed with cancer before buying insurance?
The first category of people was dealt a bad hand. Eventually, they will be taken care of by the market when excess coverage policies are common and reinsurance companies pop up to cover the primary insurance companies.
Until then, a separate program can pay for the unlucky. That’s not a reason to wreck the health insurance market for everyone else. There aren’t 22 million people with horrifyingly expensive medical conditions. They’re being used as the baby seals to sell subsidized health care for the irresponsible.
Miss Coulter has done her best to educate the public our immigration problems, and her book, Adios America may be what gave Donald Trump an education and the kick-start to his nomination.
Ann Coulter is such a smart woman - she has the PeakStupidity nomination for Pundit of the Century!
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Primer on the state of Global Financial Stupidity (Part 3)
Posted On: Wednesday - January 25th 2017 8:53AM MST
In Topics: Global Financial Stupidity
(Continued from here.)
Let's keep this fairly serious compared to the last post, Part 2, on the topic of Global Financial Stupidity so's it doesn't become a mini-series. As the reader left off, the point was that US Gov't debt (also others but we're fixating on this specific debt right now) is fungible.
To default on only one part of a series of "debt instruments", as a finance guy might call it, does not work out well. How could other debt-holders be sure their holdings of debt instruments, IOU's whatever - which are assets to them - feel secure with what they are supposedly owed. They would feel the need to get out of these assets quickly, even if they took a big loss, meaning the price of all of these paper instruments would take a nose dive. That would mean that it'd be very difficult for the Treasury, Fed Reserve, or whoever is actually making up the pieces of IOU paper so that they can create digits in the accounts of the big banks, to issue more of it.
Secondly, how would you go about defaulting on only a portion? It'd be much like coming out with a regulation that banks not accept any 20's, 50's and 100's with serial numbers that have 4's in them. Wait, make that 8's - seeing as how the Chinese think 8 is a lucky number, maybe they like to keep the ones with the 8's, and we can just say, "hey, they're no good - maybe 8 is not such a happy-lucky number after all, but we'll honor your 4's any day of the week - except the unlucky days, haha" It'd be the same with Treasury Bonds - they've been traded all around, but even if a certain series were not to be honored - well, see the paragraph above this.
Getting back to the $200,000 (or in the rough neighborhood thereof) owed on average by each actually-tax-paying family, again, the money can not be payed back via tax increases without bankrupting most of those families or having them start shooting (probably more likely and appropriate option). Oh, wait, we can cut the Feral Gov't down to 10% of it's size, you say. Hey, don't get me wrong here, that's a Libertarian's and PeakStupidity blogger's wet dream - or dry, whatever! It's just that financial pain will happen to lots of people this way too, although SOME of them may be more deserving of it. Keep in mind that most of the Feral Gov't budget goes toward "transfer payments" meaning that money goes right back out in SS checks, medicare, pensions, grants of various forms back to states (the last being a very bad thing anyway). This means that with large budget cuts, which PeakStupidity would be joyful over, many people would lose a bunch of income and/or their jobs. We welcome more the cuts of jobs that are if not just a complete waste of money but are positions that harass and hurt the working people in lots of ways. Still, the transfer payments are money that is expected by people, and those will be in financial pain, whether deserved or not.
Part 4 coming later today. Have a good morning.
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Good outlaw country
Posted On: Tuesday - January 24th 2017 6:09PM MST
In Topics: Music
Waylon Jennings - "Are you sure Hank done it this way?"
If you don't know who Hank is, then go listen to this crap, and stay away from PeakStupidity, afore we sic the idogs on your sorry ass.
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Primer on the state of Global Financial Stupidity (Part 2)
Posted On: Tuesday - January 24th 2017 5:56PM MST
In Topics: Global Financial Stupidity China
(Continued from here.)
What does that $200,000 number, owed per taxpaying household to cover just the US Gov't current debt, mean? Imagine it were household finances. That would be the amount to square the family finances back to zero and be on a new footing. Let's be reasonable and assume that if the money could be seriously planned to be paid over a 10 year period, then that would assuage the worries of those that the money is owed to - people/organizations who "own" some of the debt, meaaning have money in Treasury bonds. That's reasonable, I think. Even allowing for 1-5% of households that could actually pay $20,000 EXTRA in taxes each year for 10 years what about the rest of the 95,000,000 households. There's no possible way! It's! inconceivable!, and yes, that word DOES mean what I think it means, bitchez!
My first thoughts on this 10 or more years back were probably somewhat like many others, especially when told we owe a lot of this money to the Chinese, as we pay in dollars for all of the consumer (and lots of industrial) goods from China. Hey, I figure the Speaker of the House - after all Congress controls this money of ours or lack thereof - could just tell Chairman Wen*:
American attache: "Listen, we don't have the money, sorry".
Chinese Cadre: "But, I can't tell my boss that!"
Chinese Cadre: "He's gonna kill me! Chairman Wen is gonna shit!"
American attache: "Well, what's it gonna be, dude, is the Chairman gonna shit or is he gonna kill you?"
Chinese Cadre: "First he's gonna shit, then he's gonna kill me!"
Wait, wrong movie.....
American attache (putting his arm around Chairman Wen to console him): "Cmon, Wen, you can't spend your whole life worrying about your mistakes - you fucked up, you trusted us."
Or, I might would have mentioned that all of the people in Peking and most of China would be speaking Japanese right now, if it hadn't been for the American military, especially the AVG Flying Tigers, and General Stillwell in Burma - so "hey, call it even. Now you know better than to lend any money to the US Feral Gov't. OK, which way back to the airport?"
OK, the China silliness being over now, the problem is, of course, that this debt to China and people and organizations the world over is not in the form of a few notarized notes like a mortgage, that can be ripped up, or shredded by the cat. The Treasury bonds are fungible and have been traded all over, just like, say 100 dollar bills.
This is where we will continue in the morning, with how all the debt is interrelated and why it is not a solvable problem without a lot of financial pain.
* Or bring a current-day team of Abbott and Costello along to Peking, yeah, just might work:
"When will get the money?"
"No, no money for Wen."
"Who will get the money?"
"No, Who's on foist!"
(OK, this routine is still being fine-tuned - lighten up!)
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How many divisions does this guy have, again?
Posted On: Tuesday - January 24th 2017 9:04AM MST
In Topics: Commies
Pope Francis warns "against populism and 'saviours' like Hitler". (That link is to Yahoo, but here is Amren's take and comments.)
Yes, and the Nazis made sure to take the guns away from the people they didn't like first, as I recall. Now, Mr. Trump is not the guy that's for registering the guns is he? (he WAS a NY'er, but as PeakStupidity has stated, the guy is a quick study and has good judgement.) I believe that was the other major candidate, ya member, some cranky, batty ol harpy who was cheated on by one of the presidents, I recall.
"Germany... was looking for a leader, someone who would give her back her identity and there was a little man named Adolf Hitler who said 'I can do it'."
"Hitler did not steal power," the pope said. "He was elected by his people and then he destroyed his people."
The Germans at that time also wanted to protect themselves with "walls and barbed wire so that others cannot take away their identity," he said.
As does a certain pontiff from Latin America, who let one Moslem family in while urging the Western world to take in multiple millions. How's that family doin, Pope, keepin an eye on em?
"The case of Germany is classic," he said, adding that Hitler gave them a "deformed identity and we know what it produced."
There can be good nationalism and bad nationalism - maybe people can be nationalist but just not give their leaders much power. Now that's an idea we can all rally behind, c'mon guys, George, Tommy J., Ben, Patrick, Sam Adams, Mr. Madison, all y'all .... oh wait, you did it, we just let you down so much 200 years later. Our bad.
Pope Francis however underscored that it was too early to pass judgement on Trump.
"Let's see. Let's see what he does and then we will evaluate," he said.
You're gonna evaluate, Pope? What if we disrupters help our lead disrupter Mr. Trump to put America first, control our borders, rebuild American industrial might, and cut our Feral government down to size? What do you think you're gonna do about it? How many divisions have YOU got, Pope Francis?
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Primer on the state of Global Financial Stupidity (Part 1)
Posted On: Tuesday - January 24th 2017 8:06AM MST
In Topics: Global Financial Stupidity
With the exception of this post a few days back about student loans, PeakStupidity has not yet seriously broached the topic of Global Financial Stupidity - the problems with the present day economic system, fiat money, global debt, etc. There's no time like this morning.
In the last 2 paragraphs of our "about" page on the top left, called What is Peek Stoopiditee? we introduce our theory that the reason the stupidity of the world will peak out and plummet fairly soon is not due to an internal property of the stupidity itself, but due to another feature of the present day, the inevitability of a major financial crash.
As written before on this site, PeakStupidity will not attempt to be a 2nd Zerohedge. However, I read it and link to it very often, and so the ideas on this topic will be more of a conglomeration or summary of 5 years of that website and the commenters thereon. The financial posts on zerohedge (used to be ~ 3/4 of the posts, now more like ~1/3) use much terminology that would be better known by people in the finance industry. That makes me think that the "Tylers" either work or formerly worked in the finance industry that they so denigrate, and it seems like some of the longer-term and previous commenters also were in that business.
OK, enough intro, here's the deal: The American people, westerners and peoples of the developed world in general, and the governments that
Let's just fixate for a little bit here on the US, and in particular, just US Feral Government debt. Most of us have heard the numbers over the years (yes, we know, just big numbers, it hasn't come to a head before, so what's to worry about). Currently, US gov't debt owed to holders of Treasury Bonds and Bills equals a nice round number - $20,000,000,000,000 and some pocket change (we've all got some old couches around, so don't worry about the change ;-} That number in words is 20 Trillion dollars, but I believe looking at the number of digits is important. Truly, it's hard to make sense of this figure in terms of importance unless we do some easy arithmetic.
Let's figure out of 330,000,000 (Three hundred and thirty million) Americans, you may come up with 150,000,000 "households", to be generous (yes, that's only just over 2 per, but there are lots of single people) that file taxes. However, to put it in terms of households with decent enough incomes to actually PAY money, meaning refund is less than withholding or variations thereof, versus those who get money out of the actual taxpayers pockets, we may have 100,000,000 cases. We are being generous here too. It may be less than 100 million, but, again, we like round numbers. Divide the money owed (20 trillion) by the number households that pay anything (100 million), we get $200,000 dollars owed per household that currently pays SOMETHING.
(Please don't get picky with our numbers here, cause this is just a 1/2 order-of-magnitude estimation here, OK?)
In order to keep our posts of reasonable length, we will continue this later today, promise. Just keep that $200,000 figure in your head for now, and think about what that represents.
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Some magical music
Posted On: Monday - January 23rd 2017 6:59PM MST
In Topics: Music
This song was the first this writer had ever heard from Enya, formerly of the Irish band Clannad. I had just bought a color TV and hooked it up to Cable and this video came across on some channel or other (not MTV, as it had already sucked for a few years by the time of Enya). She put out many great albums over the years, many songs of which are sung in Gaelic, which is confusing as all get-out.
Anyway, the sound seemed just magical to me and got me into my New Age Phase. I hope you enjoy it.
Enya - Orinoco Flow:
Too pooped to post tonight - much to say during the rest of the week.
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Peggy Noonan reckons we should give up....
Posted On: Monday - January 23rd 2017 8:37AM MST
In Topics: Elections '16 - '26 Trump Pundits
... because, regarding Trump: "He really has no one but those who voted for him.".
Via this zerohedge article, we hear again from Peggy Noonan, an opinion writer for the Wall Street Journal.
Normally a new president has someone backing him up, someone publicly behind him.
Mr. Obama had the mainstream media - the big broadcast networks, big newspapers, activists and intellectuals, pundits and columnists of the left—the whole shebang. He had a unified, passionate party.
Mr. Trump in comparison has almost nothing. The mainstream legacy media oppose him, even hate him, and will not let up. The columnists, thinkers and magazines of the right were mostly NeverTrump; some came reluctantly to support him. His party is split or splitting. The new president has gradations of sympathy, respect or support from exactly one cable news channel, and some websites.
He really has no one but those who voted for him.
Do they understand what a lift daily governance is going to be, and how long the odds are, with so much arrayed against him, and them?
-Peggy Noonan, WSJ
First off, I used to read this lady's opinions in the Wall Street Journal back in the late 1990's and for a few years into 00's. She was Ronald Reagan's speechwriter during at least part of his 8 years as US President. After having read Mr. Reagan's writings in a book excerpting some of his radio talks from days of yore, I don't think he needed Peggy Noonan at all. He was a good writer in his own right.
After Miss Noonan was all enamored with Øb☭ma back during the '08 election, I got very dis-enamored with her. Again, it seems to be a woman thing to get all empathetic and compassionate without using any logic and knowing more details of anything. She knew much less about this man than even the average political pundit/writer that was trying to find out who put this man in the high position he was in, and what were their motives. Of course, Miss Noonan changed her mind over the years to fit in with the rest of us.
About her text above from the WSJ, and this part below:
The inaugural address was utterly and uncompromisingly Trumpian. The man who ran is the man who’ll reign.
It was plain, unfancy and blunt to the point of blistering. A little humility would have gone a long way, but that’s not the path he took. Nor did he attempt to reassure. It was pow, right in the face. Most important, he did not in any way align himself with the proud Democrats and Republicans arrayed around him. He looked out at the crowd and said he was allied with them.
-Peggy Noonan, WSJ
it is safe to write that Peggy Noonan is her same dull self. Does she not get the mood that the American people are in at this point?
She apparently does not understand how long the American people have had the "odds arrayed against them". Trump is just one man, and the only group on his side are the regular American people - that is true. So, we know the odds and we are not giving up, Miss Noonan. This rebellion against the establishment is just cranking up, and Mr. Trump is undoubtedly the (possibly unintended) leader of this movement at this time. We want the "pow in the face" and the "blistering attacks" from Trump and others on our side that we have been on the receiving end of for a long time. There's no more "humility" coming - been there, done that - doesn't help.
Get a clue, Noonan. It's no wonder I haven't read that Globalist Rag (WSJ) since 2002 or so.
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I've been everywhere in this here land.
Posted On: Saturday - January 21st 2017 5:59PM MST
In Topics: Music Geography Peak Stupidity Roadshow
* Watched a nice sunset with a cop outta Globe, Arizona, as his buddy searched the trunk and found a sack of white stuff - turned out to be white sand from White Sands.
* Woke up in a small Honda on a beach of Lake Superior - made it 1100 miles to Roundup, Montana by next night.
* Slept in the truck in SE Oregon - too tired to make it 200 more miles south to nearest town of Winnemucca, NV.
* Locked myself out of the car on a small 2-lane road E. of Joshua Tree, California.
* Tried to sleep in the rent-a-car as long as I could in the Green Mountains of Vermont in November - too cold to sleep - made it to an interstate highway - took exit the wrong way down in emergency gas situation - cop pulled me, and we had a great chat.
* Took a bath in the Brazos river near Waco on the way across Texas.
* Slept in the car on the 850 mile stretch across Texas (from Sabine River to El Paso) - about 2/3 way when jackrabbits would not let me pass them at 20 mph.
* Pulled into the badlands of S. Dakota for an early end to the day - dropped off hitchhiker who wanted to tell me which way to go - next morning, almost couldn't climb my way out of the badlands park by myself.
* Started off westbound on a 2-lane windy road through E. Kentucky instead of eastbound - girl rider was sleeping on top of the map - didn't want to wake her and had eventually made a 200 mile wrong turn.
Hello, I'm Johnny Cash:
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Million Skank Waddle in Washington, FS
Posted On: Saturday - January 21st 2017 10:10AM MST
In Topics: Lefty MegaStupidity Feminism
Per Zerohedge 500,000 Women Swamp Washington For Anti-Trump Protest March - Live Feed.
Per usual, in situations with no men in charge, I'm really worried that nobody has thought through the details, such as, have these women synched-up their, you know, periods of the month? No, wait, it's not like that, we were JUST SAYIN'. I can see some real trouble if there weren't plans for staggering things out a bit. Again, not trying to micro- or even tera-aggress on anyone in particular, JUST SAYIN', this could be a
From the Zerohedge article:
. Jesse Carlock, 68, a psychologist from Dayton, Ohio was attending her first protest in decades. "Once Mr. Trump was elected, I decided I needed to get active again, and I hadn't been since the 60s and 70s," Carlock said. "I've got to stand up and be counted as against a lot of what President Trump is saying...about healthcare, immigration, reproductive rights, you name it."
Since the 60's and 70's huh? Hahahaaa - I will say this a 2nd time - will you drag out your old worn-out chants from the '60's too, like "hey, hey, ho, ho .... blah blah blah .. has got to go"? If you can't think of any original chants, Mrs. Carlock, than go back to Dayton in time for the early bird special to gum down your creamed corn!
If any wife of mine went to the FS for this, she would find the locks changed on the house when she came back.
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UPDATE - 30 min later: Unbolded my main point. It just sounds like a low blow, so rather than apologize (and I don't delete posts), I just un-bolded it. I've got a chip on my shoulder about feminism - for a good reason.
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UPDATE - 01/24/17: Updated article title
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Inauguration of Donald Trump - a Righteous Dude!
Posted On: Friday - January 20th 2017 8:57AM MST
In Topics: Commies Elections '16 - '26 Trump
PeakStupidity has had a lot of good things to say about our new president lately. However, we don't think he is the Second Coming, we think he tweets and shoots his mouth off too much, he takes things too personally sometimes, and we liked Ronald Reagan more. The guy, though, seems to have a good head on his shoulders, as he picks the right guys for advice, and his political instincts to try to do what's right for Americans, not America Inc, subsidiary of Soros, IMF, World Bank, conglomerates, are very good. Each time he learns about a political issue, he seems to seek the truth.
Now, in another post we will emphasize that this guy alone, no matter how good his intentions and plans are, CANNOT do it by himself. Just your votes and campaign support are NOT ENOUGH, PEOPLE. He has most of the world arrayed against him, and so do we.
However, for right now, inauguration day, as Bikers, Potheads, Snowflakes, & Women - Washington Braces For Protests, Patriots, & Physical Conflict, we, the geeks, motorheads, sluts, sportos, wastoids .... we think he's a righteous dude!
allowFullScreen>
[He's very popular, Ed(itor)]
OK, from the President-Elect to the President-Eject, all we can say about that Affirmative-Action-hire, never-worked-a-day-in-his-life, effeminate, lazy, racist POS is that things would probably not have been run any better if Juan McCain or Romney had been elected in most areas. Due to the fact that most Americans still go for the Red Team vs. Blue Team theme, not realizing that they are just two squads of the same team, we'd have not gotten a better man because "I won't vote for this Constitutionalist because HE CAN'T WIN." No he can't, because of too many people like you.
The only thing that Øb☭ma dis-complished that may not have happened without him was to make race relations in this country worse than ever before. Let's hope he just gets back to "organizing communities". Let him organize some little disaffected groups of misfits, such as possibly the Chicago People's Front, or the People's Front of Chicago. BTW, whatever happened to the Popular Front?
Øb☭ma is the guy on the right during the last 3 seconds of this video.
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There are many false peaks on the way to Peak Stupidity, glasshoppa.
Posted On: Friday - January 20th 2017 7:19AM MST
In Topics: General Stupidity
Now, take the
First, free your mind, now listen the f__k up to my story: many years ago I was climbing up a "mountain" in Ireland, really just about a 1500 ft. hill, near the west coast of that beautiful land. This hill did not have any rock at the surface, so, after I got across a bunch of barb-wire fences and stone walls, it was just soggy peat covered with wet grass. (That country never dries out, apparently, in every sense of the word ;-}
Just from experience, I figured I was almost to the top of the 1500' elevation gain as I saw a 20 ft. rise with nothing but sky on top, as the terrain was kind of featureless. As I ran up that rise, I expected to be at the high point where I would have a good view all around. Well, there was another rise that I couldn't have seen until I was all the way up the first one. I got up that one and the same thing happened again. I kid you not, that this happened about 8-10 more times until I did get to the top. I truly felt exactly like Sideshow Bob felt here:
What was the point of the story, young Kung Fu guy, you ask? First, sit down crosslegged in the dirt and quit figeting, dammit. The point is that there are many false peaks on the path to Peak Stupidity my son, and marijuana is just one of them. Here's the headline of this Steve Sailor post: TNR: A Weed Website Is Racist for Calling Itself "Civilized" (TNR is "The New Republic" to which I'll be dammed if I'm gonna' link.)
Is it even worth a comment? Can we get more stupid. or is there one more rise that we can't see just yet? I'll say this - these lefty SJW's or whatever a good term would be, are going around in circles here, until they will be offended by their own selves. Think about it - "civilization" is racist - yeah, so, us non-racist people, everyone but the white guys, are not civilized, so only white males cause this civilization ... wait .... whoa Nellie, peak stupidity ahead... don't know what's on the other side..... there be Dragons.
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Feeling Stronger Everyday (Chicago) - if it's not played tomorrow in Wash. F.S.*
Posted On: Thursday - January 19th 2017 6:53PM MST
In Topics: Elections '16 - '26 Music Trump
then play it at home, at volume 11, and set treble down and bass up on the equalizer.**
* Washington, Federal Shithole
** "Hey what's an equalizer?
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