Game Over Dude, Game Over

Folks, I've been putting off making this post for some time. In fact, I've tried to convince myself for years that what is happening now is not really happening. Like many of you, I've been in denial.

The end -- game over -- is upon us.

I've been looking for jobs, but few employers even bother to autorespond to my resume. Every month, another 600,000+ American jobs are lost. Jobs are vaporizing and that is very bad news for poor bastards as myself who can't qualify for unemployment aid.

I've tried to convince myself that maybe it's just me. I'm screwed but there is still hope for others.

No. There's no hope for anyone under the present economic system. Everything is tapped out and the only game left is guessing how long it takes for everyone to figure this out.

The US government just passed a $410 billion emergency spending bill to keep operating until the end of September. California only recently finalized their 2009 budget with 2010 coming due on July 1st. It seems all levels of government are scurrying to find money missing from optimistic budget projections. Few governments have a clue how bad the next year will be.

Governments are good at bullshitting you out of money, but they suck badly at continuing to operate normally when you have no money to give them. They've been cutting public services so long, that all that's left is cutting back on emergency services. In the next year, we'll all start to wonder why we give money to the government at all. The last cutback government will make is interest payments to international bankers. At last, the people will know who controls them.

Look, it took California eight months to figure out their 2009 budget and the federal government five months to figure out theirs. Both budgets are up for renewal before we know it -- how long will it take to straighten out 2010, especially given the lies compounded into 2009?

Considering that the economic fundamentals continue to accelerate into a death spiral, where are we going to be a year from now? Is there any possible way to have any functional governments in two years? It's game over and maybe sooner than later.

Nothing in politics happens by accident. Therefore, everything we are experiencing is planned. "They" are ruining the system on purpose. Their goal must be to destroy all currencies in order to introduce a new World Currency. After unimaginable suffering, of course.

Don't allow this to happen. A "reset" of the world economy followed by "new money" will just mean a new round of usurious lending that eventually returns us to exactly where we are today.

A "New World Order" will consolidate control in fewer hands and enslave the survivors of the "Greatest Depression" even worse than the bondage we now suffer.

If we can't avoid another depression, then at least let us learn from it. Let us outlaw usury and unearned taking. Let us create an economy where everyone has the opportunity to profit from their own work.

Stop paying for three houses while living in one!

I Suck as a Writer

I understand I am not a very good writer, so don't bother telling me.

I write because it feels good -- it's a catharsis, whatever that is. Some of the reason I write is because people who write worse than I do believe I should write because they can't. I guess it's like the toad who thinks a frog a prince because the frog doesn't have warts.

Suck or not, I'm writing. Maybe the repetition will make me better? We can only hope.

I may not be able to elucidate my thoughts the way I hope, but I think the gist of my ruminations is apparent. See? I suck.

My biggest problem is I slept through every English class I sporadically attended. Participles, dangling or otherwise, may as well be terms in quadratic equations as far as I know. I slept through math as well. Syntax and grammar are foreign concepts to my alcohol-addled brain. Don't look for me to study up on these concepts anytime soon, as I have higher priorities.

My theory on writing is you can get better without studying English fundamentals just by reading. I am extremely well-read if you consider I have consumed more than 100 titles in the Destroyer series.

I've also read nearly everything by Mark Twain (my idol), H.G. Wells and J.R.R. Tolkien more than once. Many popular authors such as Stephen King (who cannot write a decent ending) and Michael Crichton have surrendered to my gaze as well.

In fact, I've read thousands of books by hundreds of brilliant authors and yet I still suck at writing. I guess the answer is "Writers write." No matter how much you read, reading is not the same skill as writing.

One of my problems is that I don't know which writer to emulate! A joke about Ernest Hemingway is that when writing a letter to a friend he hadn't written to in a long while, he wrote a very long letter and then ended it with the apology that the letter would have been shorter if he had more time to write. The joke, of course, is that writing short sentences is much harder than writing long ones.

Should I write short, clear sentences or long, obtuse, multi-syllabic diatribes that obfuscate my true meaning so that only professors of literature may interpret my true intentions? If I try to write like Twain or Mencken will I expose myself as a fraud?

Anyway, you can't write outside your time or you will sound funny. Shakespeare was a great writer but nobody gets away with his manner of speech anymore. Shit, Yoda sounds like the bard.

I guess I'm stuck writing in my own sucky way and hoping that three hundred years from now college curricula recognizes my genius at expressing the harried syntax of my time. "Those poor bastards didn't have the time to learn proper English, and we all know by now how pointless any such attempt would be anyways." (Early Reader circa 2323.)

So, if you know where I've misplaced an apostrophe or where I've lost track of tense or, God forbid, used laid instead of lie, don't bother reprimanding me because it won't do any good. I'm a slow learner and half of what I learn doesn't stick, anyway. I took Algebra four times, scoring A's the last two, and still can't solve a linear equation. I've got a simple mind that thinks in common terms that have served me amazing well throughout my spartan existence.

Bear with me. I'll get better (very) slowly.

How the Bailout Works

Both the banks and the government say they're flat broke. Despite this, the government borrows money from the banks, pledging to repay the loan by taxing people who have not yet been born. The banks create this money out of thin air, based on the promise of the government to force their citizens to pay the interest on the loan. There is no real concern about the principal, as it can be refinanced later.

So, the ruling elite conjure several trillion dollars from the promise to enslave American taxpayers for generations to come and use that money to replace their gambling losses. They screwed up, but taxpayers foot the bill.

Some people think the Illuminati plan everything. I think they plan 90% but the other 10% is out of control. No matter how much money you have or how careful your plans, human beings fuck up.

Most mistakes are easily contained. Some may even cause a change in plans. But every once in a while, someone does something that makes everyone else stand up and take notice. Once in a very great while, things escalate out of the control of even the most controlling party.

In this case, greed escalated in the form of derivative bets upon derivative bets. The Creeple bought into their own bullshit that we could all be millionaires and leveraged their investments into the quadrillions of dollars. They thought they had everything under control until they decided to bet billions of dollars on whether or not Jose Martinez could pay his mortgage.

In the old days they wouldn't care if Jose could pay. If he didn't pay, they'd take his fucking house.

They had collateral they knew was good because they hired their cousins to inspect the goods.

But someone screwed up. Someone started betting whether or not Jose could pay. Then someone else started betting on how much interest Jose would pay and someone else bet how much money Jose would pay buying gas to power the leaf blower he needed to pay the interest on his mortgage.

After a while, it was clear that if you could bet on Jose, you could bet on anyone or anything – and they did. They bet bets that bet on bets. Pretty soon, they had bet all the money in the world – many times over. They bet so much that if everyone in the world worked only to pay off their bets, it would take many, many years.

It was a mistake, an irrational exuberance – an over-extension of leverage. Rich people suddenly found themselves owing their entire fortunes to one another! No one could pay because no one understood their entire fortunes were based entirely on the ability of the American people to pay their taxes and Americans hadn't had a decent paying job since the Creeple shipped them overseas twenty years ago.

The only thing holding up the house of cards was the ability of the lowest people to pay their debts. When the job doesn't pay and the credit runs out, Jose defaults on his loan and rich people owing other rich people start toppling like dominoes. If it had been just Jose, the rich would have taken his house and all would be forgotten – but the rich Creeple betting Jose would keep paying were the first to fall.

It's a vicious circle of falling home prices and lost jobs. On the bright side, once all the jobs are gone the price of a home will be zero. We'll all either be dead or ready to move somewhere else. We're facing a ghost town on a global scale. Where do we move to from Earth?

The bailouts are helping a few elite families accumulate as much wealth as they possibly can before heading to an undisclosed location. They hope to be safe there when the shit really hits the fan. Historically, depressions are followed by wars.

The economic collapse is like a pressing RESET on our national currency. The elite want a replacement or devaluation along with write offs to return us to 1913 and another hundred years of inflationary interest collection. Interest payments keep the Sheeple working so the Creeple don't have to.

The system is vulnurable to change if only we demand it. Without usury, we could have an economy where loans finance productivity instead lining the pockets of parasites.

I'm trying to get the word out, but if no one knows how the Creeple control us through interest payments, the money will reset and we'll be right back to licking their boots.

Don't Bailout Banks, Buy Them!

Kudos to Representative Alan Grayson (D-FL) for taking Citibank to task for their so-called "insurance policy" -- giving US taxpayers $7 billion in shares in exchange for some $250 billion in guarantees. Grayson is thinking with at least half his brain, which is more than can be said for the majority of Congress.

Here's what you need to know about the bailouts. It's very simple. October's TARP spent $350 billion with another $350 billion left to Obama to disperse. February's bailout is $787 billion. The Federal Reserve loaned another $2 trillion between September and the end of 2008, but refuses to say to whom or what for. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac got guarantees of several trillion.

According to Bloomberg News, the total cost of the bailouts thus far is 9.7 trillion dollars.

Congress called the CEOs of the eight major banks for a collective pee pee whack. They rolled their eyes and admitted that not only had they wasted the original $350 billion TARP, but they used the money to pay bonuses and buy up the competition.

Well, I took a quick look at Yahoo Finance and came up with a total market capitalization of these eight banks of $278 billion. That's right. We spent $9.7 trillion on banks worth $278 billion.

I'm not making this up. According to Wall Street investors, you can OWN ALL EIGHT BANKS for $278 billion. If you own something, you get to make all the rules. You set how much CEOs make. You set lending terms. You control everything. Of course, you're on the hook for any losses but we appear to be on that hook without any upside, anyway. And we are trillions in debt to boot.

Here's an idea -- give the shareholders a 25% profit -- pay $350 billion for all eight in a hostile takeover. The money is already allocated by the unspent second half of the original TARP. Buy them out and set new lending terms of ZERO percent interest with a small fee. Appoint new directors at pay rates no higher than the Vice President of the United States ($208,100) and make them government employees (GS-Whatever.)

Once the eight major banks start lending at zero percent, it won't be long until their competitors get with the program. If they don't, buy them out as well. Yes, nationalize the banks.

Once this idea hits the mainstream, it won't be long until the public understands the scam the Federal Reserve has been running and demands its dissolution. The IRS can't be far behind.

We have the opportunity, right now, to solve the economic crisis and create a new monetary system that rewards value producers instead of parasites.

Let's do it!

Goldman Sachs 39.58B
JP Morgan Chase Co 80.82B
Bank of New York Mellon 26.56B
Bank of America 24.59B
State Street 10.02B
Morgan Stanley 21.23B
Citigroup INC 16.68B
Wells Fargo 57.89B

Total $277.37 billion.

The People versus the Banks

"The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks." Lord Acton

We teeter at the precipice of the largest economic depression since the Dark Ages. Nothing in modern history compares with the current threat of a return to feudal society.

As horrible as was the War to End All Wars and the war that followed, the suffering we now face threatens worse than even Hitler imagined.

There are no jobs, but plenty of work. Lacking money provided by jobs, the people will starve.

Don't look to the governments for handouts, they've been broke for years. Only inflated home prices kept the financial world turning, the people borrowing to eat, but now the equity is gone and so the game is over.

America outsourced its production to the rest of the world and the rest of the world depended on Americans to buy their goods. But without real work, American wages were stagnated and the people were forced to use their homes as cash machines. With every refinance, the banksters profited more.

With the last dollar of equity gone, the financial scam is exposed as a Ponzi scheme. The suckers have been completely fleeced and there's no future left to hock. The game is over.

I think the time Lord Acton spoke of has now come. We are unable to pay the interest, much less the principal -- not that the principal was ever more than entries in a ledger book.

Government is as much to blame for this crises as the banksters, after all, government is owned and operated by banksters. Another quote from Lord Acton will help explain:

“And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that. All power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Our governments were corrupted long ago and their power long absolutely corrupted.

Ezra Pound, the father of modernist poetry, spent twelve years in a mental institution for expressing the common sense argument that usury kills: (listen)

Canto LXV

With usura hath no man a house of good stone
each block cut smooth and well fitting
that delight might cover their face,

with usura

hath no man a painted paradise on his church wall
harpes et luthes
or where virgin receiveth message
and halo projects from incision,

with usura

seeth no man Gonzaga his heirs and his concubines
no picture is made to endure nor to live with
but it is made to sell and sell quickly

with usura, sin against nature,
is thy bread ever more of stale rags
is thy bread dry as paper,
with no mountain wheat, no strong flour

with usura the line grows thick

with usura is no clear demarcation
and no man can find site for his dwelling
Stone cutter is kept from his stone
weaver is kept from his loom

WITH USURA

wool comes not to market
sheep bringeth no gain with usura
Usura is a murrain, usura
blunteth the needle in the the maid's hand
and stoppeth the spinner's cunning. Pietro Lombardo
came not by usura
Duccio came not by usura
nor Pier della Francesca; Zuan Bellin' not by usura
nor was "La Callunia" painted.
Came not by usura Angelico; came not Ambrogio Praedis,
No church of cut stone signed: Adamo me fecit.
Not by usura St. Trophime

Not by usura St. Hilaire,

Usura rusteth the chisel
It rusteth the craft and the craftsman
It gnaweth the thread in the loom
None learneth to weave gold in her pattern;
Azure hath a canker by usura; cramoisi is unbroidered
Emerald findeth no Memling

Usura slayeth the child in the womb
It stayeth the young man's courting
It hath brought palsey to bed, lyeth
between the young bride and her bridegroom

CONTRA NATURAM

They have brought whores for Eleusis
Corpses are set to banquet

at behest of usura.

Toward the end of Pound's life, he said he mistook the symptom (usury) for the cause (greed).

Unbridled greed does cause usury, but self-interest is why we get out of bed. There is some virtue in profit but Reagan overstated the case saying, "Greed is good."

If value is added to a product, it follows that the value-adder should be rewarded for his efforts. Earned profit is good, even if driven by greed. Unearned profit is just stealing.

Some resources to help you understand the current crises:

Money as Debt

The Earth Plus 5%

The Story of Stuff

Freedom to Fascism

Freedom Road

Concise History of Usury

By now you're saying, "Steve, I get it. Greed begets usury and usury is legal only because governments are controlled by banksters. Usury begets debt and debt begets inflation. Inflation begets hyperinflation and hyperinflation begets death. SO WHAT DO WE DO???"

Governments (controlled by banksters) are the enemy. This enemy controls vast resources and still has the faithful cooperation of many, many stooges. They have written the laws, they control the armies and the police. We have the allowed the psychopaths control over our lives.

Today's governments are operated by psychopathic lying thieving killers. Open your eyes and see the truth. Why should half the world starve and most of the rest struggle while a very few assholes live in luxury? This is a big planet, there's more than enough for all of us.

It's a matter of attitude. We need to adopt an attitude of abundance instead of scarcity. Look at all the food thrown away -- it could feed the world. We could grow more if we wanted. The only reason things are as they are is the economic system enforced by (controlled) governments.

Since we have very few resources and virtually no weapons, our ONLY recourse is to deprogram the people we know. Information and re-education are our only hope. There is no hope for violent revolution just as there is no hope for voting change while banksters control the count.

As horrible as the economic crises is, as much suffering as it will bring, it will force our friends and relatives to pull their heads from the sand and ask, "Why the hell is this happening?"

You now know the answer is usury, so explain it to them. Only when the majority understands how we got into this mess in the first place can we hope for a better world.

Talk to your friends. Preach to them. Ask them to tell others. Truth is the only hope.

Stockton Job Fair

Stockton, California is the national epicenter of home foreclosures. Situated in the heart of the fertile "Big Valley," Stockton was traditionally an agricultural center.

In the 1990's, Stockton was promoted as a bedroom community for high-tech workers in the San Francisco Bay Area and home construction boomed. Despite the nightmarish two hour commute (each way,) lower echelon workers jumped at the chance of owning a part of the American dream at half the price of Bay Area homes.

But the slowing economy of 2007, escalating gasoline prices and stagnant wages killed the dreams of many of Stockton homeowners by 2008. By the time the economy collapsed in September, one in ten Stockton homes would be in foreclosure. To add insult to injury, Stocktonites would be blamed for igniting the national economic crises via sub-prime loans.

A victim of my own stupidity as much as the economy, I moved to Stockton in August 2008 and have been looking for a job ever since. I've learned the hard way that low real estate prices are the result of few (and low-paying) jobs. Lack of jobs is what creates ghost towns.

Sacramento television station KRCA advertised an upcoming Job Fair in Stockton for more than a month. (Oddly, or not, there is no television station in Stockton.) When the big day finally came, I printed up a dozen or so resumes and headed down to the Stockton Grand Hotel along with my son and his girlfriend. None of us hoped for much and we weren't disappointed.

The activity was scheduled for noon to five and we arrived mid-day on the dot to take our place in a line already one thousand strong. Another thousand lined up behind us before we took our first step forward about fifteen minutes later. We were still a block from the door after half an hour. More people were lining up behind us.

After more than an hour, as we neared the entrance to the hotel, a KCRA cameraman started filming the queue. Just then, a young lady behind us walked toward the camera and then collapsed. Hotel security called an ambulance and the whole scene was taped. It looked like the TV station was going to get a bigger story than planned.

At the front door, we were allowed inside as part of a group of about 15 people. Our objective turned out to be a tiny conference room upstairs crowded by 21 employer tables. Nine employers were government agencies, probably convinced to show up just to fill space. The City of Stockton and San Joaquin County were there, but I knew from their websites they had nothing of value to offer.

With the State of California $42 billion in debt and the comptroller pondering IOU's instead of tax return checks, the Highway Patrol was just blocking navigational space.

Of course, the Army and Air Force reserves were there and the Federal Bureau of Prisons along with the Border Patrol. There is still a bright future for head knockers! I looked around for FEMA or Homeland Security but couldn't find them. Maybe that's a good thing.

Had we merely been interested in pick-pocketing, the California Franchise Tax Board was represented but I doubt they really had any jobs available.

Afflac, the insurance company with the annoying duck mascot, was there but only recruiting independent salespeople. Apparently, you have to pay them to train you to sell their products.

Speaking of paying, Kaplan College (not really a college) would train you to be a dental assistant for the right price. Artistically gifted folks could even pay to learn advertising from some outfit calling themselves the International Academy of Design.

There were a couple of medical associations I had never heard of who offered a few jobs in the highly-regulated and licensed "careers" of low-paid medical flunkies.

The concession contractor for Yosemite National Park (Delaware North Companies Parks and Resorts) offered only seasonal, minimum wage jobs. Yosemite is two hours away.

F&M Bank ("California's Strongest Bank") claimed to have several positions from teller to loan assistant. But a later check of their website says there are no positions available. Hell, they're probably broke, anyway.

McDonald's, Burger King and Rite-Aide were there claiming to be looking for "managers."

By this point I was pretty disgusted with the whole affair which I considered a sham and a facade erected for evening news propaganda. Nine tables were government, two wanted money and nine more had nothing substantial on offer (a radio station co-hosted the event and offered a single part-time job handing out bumper stickers.)

There was one table left. The Wine Group claimed to have electrical and mechanical jobs that might fit my experience, but the ladies at the booth had no technical expertise to answer my questions. I dropped off a resume which they duly stamped and placed in a small pile.

An hour and a half in line followed by half an hour milling about the tables netted me one resume drop. My son and his girlfriend each dropped three. As we left we noted the line now stretched down the block, around the corner, down the block again, around another corner and down the block yet again! I estimate around five thousand people attended on the day. Stockton population is about 300,000 -- you do the math.

The family gathered around the TV for the six-o'clock news, (link is video prior to event) hoping to see ourselves. KCRA congratulated the success of their Job Fair featuring "more than twenty" employers. They expressed surprise at the size of the turnout of "thousands of job seekers."

We didn't see ourselves or the unfortunate young lady who collapsed during the long wait.

Raspberry Rulers

The clever gentlemen pictured is Rahm Emanuel, incoming White House Chief of Staff.

Emanuel, known for his tempestuous anger and foul language, is now President Barak Obama's closest adviser. If Obama can be faulted as being too laid back, perhaps "Rahm-bo" offers some balance. He is Mr. Hyde to Obama's Dr. Jekyll.

Born into a wealthy Jewish family, Rahm made millions as a Wall Street investment banker before being appointed by Bill Clinton to head Freddie Mac in 2000. Yes, that Freddie Mac.

Rahm-bo spent the last six years as a congressman from Chicago, but resigned to serve on Obama's staff. He appears to be a social liberal, a chicken hawk, a friend of Israel and a fiscal abomination.

But I didn't start out to write about Mr. Emanuel -- his ilk is too common in government to be very remarkable. I set out to write about the inauguration, but got lost trying to explain how this picture epitomizes the government's attitude toward its people.

The sight of nearly two million people shivering for hours just to say they "were there" at the beginning of America's first black Presidency did not give me hope. When the television commentators explained how proud I should be that our country had marched down the road of freedom and equality, I nearly cried. My swelling tears were not of patriotism, but shame that so many people still sheepwalk through their lives.

After eight long years of unending disasters under Bush, it's hard to fault people for swallowing the empty promises of "Hope" and "Change." The ghost of Carroll Quigley must be having a good chuckle at our expense. The only thing that changed were the names of the actors -- and as far as I know, we still can't eat hope.

Our rulers thumb their noses, stick out their tongues and wriggle their fingers in our general direction. We just got fooled, again. Now Obama can take up the "hard work" of Presidential signings -- signing our checks over to Rahm's bankster buddies.