Morning Walk
March 2, 2015Off the keyboard of K-Dog Follow us on Twitter @doomstead666 Like us on Facebook Published on Chasing the Squirrel on March 1, 2015 Discuss this story at the Collapse Fiction Table inside the Diner Back in the house the pellet gun was stowed away. Sunlight broke over the ridge across the rabbit field and through tree branches along the wooded creek. With the sun up curfew was over. He locked up his house and property and slipped behind to the...
This Week in Doom, March 1, 2015
Off the keyboard of Surly1
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‘The real danger in allowing practices like Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib is the fact that they always creep into other aspects,’ criminologist Tracy Siska told the Guardian. Photograph: Chandler West/Guardian
Originally published on the Doomstead Diner on March 1, 2015
“In 1951, a young William F. Buckley, Jr. articulated a strategy for opposing the consensus that supported New Deal policies. Buckley’s “God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of ‘Academic Freedom’” was a sophomoric diatribe by the Catholic son of a wealthy oil magnate, published by the small right-wing Regnery Press. In it, Buckley rejected the principles that had enabled social progress for centuries and laid out a mind-boggling premise: The Enlightenment, the intellectual basis of Western Civilization, was wrong.
That …thinkers must stand firm on what he called a new “value orthodoxy” that indoctrinated people to understand that Christianity and economic individualism were absolute truths. Maintaining that faith in reasoned debate was a worse “superstition” than the Enlightenment had set out to replace, Buckley launched an intellectual war to replace the principle of academic inquiry with a Christian and individualist ideology.”
― Heather Cox Richardson, in Salon
The watchword for today is “peak duplicity.” […] Continue Reading…
Boomer Doomers
Off the keyboard of RE
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Published on the Doomstead Diner on March 1, 2015
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Back when I first discovered the world of oncoming Doom back in 2008 in the Aftermath of the Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers collapses, I had no idea about Peak Oil, and my only knowledge or recollection of Doomers were what I had thought of as “psychos” at the time, the folks back in the 70s who walked around with placards declaring “The End is Nigh”. Turns out here they weren’t wrong or psycho, just way ahead of their time.
My first internet communications and discussion on Doom concepts came on the Peak Oil Forum in 2008-2009, and there I ran into the whole panoply of Doomer Archetypes, Survivalists, Nazi Eugenecists, Permaculturists and of course the Doomsteaders, which is where the Doomstead Diner title for this Blog comes from.
What is a Doomsteader?
Doomsteaders are people who have sort of exited the regular economy and moved out into the boonies on a patch of property they are trying to make resilient and survivable when the final crash of the industrial economy arrives. There are quite a […] Continue Reading…
Demand Destruction
Off the microphone of RE
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Aired on the Doomstead Diner on February 26, 2015
With this Rant, the Diner breaks through the 88,888 Listen Barrier on Diner Soundcloud!
To paraphrase Doc Brown, “When this Baby hits 88,888 Listens, you are going to see some SERIOUS SHIT! 
Discuss this Rant at the Podcast Table inside the Diner
Snippet:
…Given it is an Epic Fail to try to blame the Saudis for the price crash, the next place the economistas go is to our own Home Grown Frackers, and the idiots on Wall Street and at Da Fed who funded that White Elephant with gobs of cheap credit thrown at Junk Bonds any dimwit with a drilling rig was issuing out. Problem with that idea is that even with drilling rigs being shut in here and production plateauing, the fucking oil price is still dropping and the storage tanks for the stuff are filling up to overflow level. They aren’t producing much more of the stuff, they keep dropping the price, nevertheless the storage tanks keep filling up. This is some kind of big fucking MYSTERY to the economistas and prop desk traders.
The obvious answer here is that if there isn’t […] Continue Reading…
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Featuring the Collapse Cafe Vidcasts, Live Feeds, Collapse Tutorials, Documentaries & Music Videos
Large Public Works Projects: Part I
Off the keyboard of RE
Published on th Doomstead Diner on March 3, 2012
In this location on the Homepage of the Diner Blog, I will be reposting notable articles from the Diner Archives. Check back regularly to catch articles you may have missed when originally published.-RE
When you look back at the Successful Periods of Civilizations Past, what they all seem to have in common are very Large Public Works Projects (LPWP) which kept many people in the Civilization Busy and served to keep an Economy moving along. Whether it was the Tower of Babel; the Pyramids of Egypt; the Roman Aqueducts; the Great Wall(s) of China; or the Railroads and then the Interstate Highway system of the FSofA, during their Heyday all these civilizatin produced some large Public works project which had some form of Utility associated with it. Even the Pyramids weren’t strictly just big Burial Tombs for the Pharoahs, they were used as reference points for astronomical observation, which helped in the development of Mathematics, which in turn helped Agriculture and Commerce to develop.
The Last Big Public Works project of this sort was the Space Race, engaged in by the two major Power Centers of the USSR and […] Continue Reading…
Morning Walk
Off the keyboard of K-Dog
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Published on Chasing the Squirrel on March 1, 2015
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Back in the house the pellet gun was stowed away. Sunlight broke over the ridge across the rabbit field and through tree branches along the wooded creek. With the sun up curfew was over. He locked up his house and property and slipped behind to the vacant house next door disguising his departure. Yard to yard, tree to tree,and bush to bush he made his way to the main road walking out onto it by the nearby shut-up elementary school. The vacancy and silence of the school providing anonymity. Be began a brisk walk. The grocery store was fully three miles away and food deliveries happened while he hunted when curfew still ruled the n. It was easier for the truck escorts to consider everyone hostile, shoot first. With night-vision and automatic weapons guarding food trucks It was not only a violation of curfew but foolish to be on a main road at the wrong time.
As he neared the grocery store he encountered travelers as wary as himself heads down going to the […] Continue Reading…
Money, the People’s Proxy
Off the keyboard of Allan Stromfeldt Christensen
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Published on From Filmers to Farmers on March 1, 2015
Calling it “Energy” instead of “Bread” probably wouldn’t earn you many Cool Points
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In my previous post I drew some parallels between energy and money – and more specifically, energy and banking – and pointed out that when money is at stake, the presence of energy is likely lurking somewhere in the shadows. It was mostly hypotheses and observations I was throwing around about energy and banking, but when it comes to energy and money, one can hardly overstate the connection.
Take an Economics 101 class, however, and not only will it be very unlikely that you’ll ever hear of energy mentioned in a context besides that of a random commodity within the supply and demand workings of the “free market,” but what you will likely hear is that, gosh darnet, money is an efficiency-laden tool that we humans came up with ’cause we’re just so darn smart! As the story goes, money was ingeniously invented with three primary roles in mind: (a) a medium of exchange, (b) a store of value, and […] Continue Reading…
Slog Tri-fecta
Off the Keyboard of John Ward
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Published on The Slog on February 27-28, 2015
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RE Note: Slogger JW has been especially prolific of late with quite a bit of good stuff, so I am compiling a few at a time now instead of posting them individually.
GREECE LATEST: HUGE GREEK BANK OUTFLOWS, EURO FALLING AGAINST THE £, BUNDESTAG BACKS GREECE MEMORANDUM
By John Ward February 27, 2015 Angela Merkel Eurogroup Mario Draghi Yanis Varoufakis
If the Varoufakis memorandum ‘deal’ is so respectable, why do none of the players, or their Party bigwigs, or the markets, like it?
There’s a piece in the online magazine Counterpunch at the moment purporting to show how Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has ‘kept Greece in the euro by its fingernails’. Without going over the same tedious ground yet again, nobody can do that, because Greece doesn’t need to cling onto anything: once you’re in the euro, there’s no way out.
The piece continues as follows:‘So, those who think that Varoufakis should have given the Eurogroup an ultimatum (“Reduce our debts or we’ll leave.”) simply don’t understand the nature of the negotiations. Varoufakis was forced to operate within very strict parameters. […] Continue Reading…
Year of the Sheep, Century of the Dragon?
Off the keyboard of Pepe Escobar
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New Silk Roads and the Chinese Vision of a Brave New (Trade) World…
Published in Asia Times on February 22, 2015
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BEIJING — Seen from the Chinese capital as the Year of the Sheep starts, the malaise affecting the West seems like a mirage in a galaxy far, far away. On the other hand, the China that surrounds you looks all too solid and nothing like the embattled nation you hear about in the Western media, with its falling industrial figures, its real estate bubble, and its looming environmental disasters. Prophecies of doom notwithstanding, as the dogs of austerity and war bark madly in the distance, the Chinese caravan passes by in what President Xi Jinping calls “new normal” mode.
“Slower” economic activity still means a staggeringly impressive annual growth rate of 7% in what is now the globe’s leading economy. Internally, an immensely complex economic restructuring is underway as consumption overtakes investment as the main driver of economic development. At 46.7% of the gross domestic product (GDP), the service economy has pulled ahead of manufacturing, which stands at 44%.
Geopolitically, Russia, India, and China have just sent a powerful […] Continue Reading…
Science as the New Religion
Off the keyboard of Anthony Cartalucci
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Published on Land Destroyer on February 26, 2015
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Irrational faith in corporate R&D is not science, it is a modern day cult built on old, shameless tricks.
February 26, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci – LocalOrg) – When money and power are involved, those standing to gain the most will say and do anything to push their agenda forward. Five centuries ago, saying and doing anything involved exploiting people’s superstitions and their faith in religion. Today, saying and doing anything means also exploiting science.
Science, engineering, and design are amongst our most practical and effective tools to make real and meaningful change. But because they are so powerful and appealing, the potential for their abuse in the wrong hands is immense. Compounding this is the naivety of those who are fascinated by science’s promise but blind to its potential abuse.
It wasn’t long ago when big-tobacco had armies of “scientists” citing the latest “studies” confirming the health benefits and safety of smoking. Of course these were paid liars, not scientists, even if many of them had PhDs. And it was lies they were telling, even […] Continue Reading…
Propper Prepping: What’s What With Watt?
Off the keyboard of Cognitive Dissonance
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Published on Two Ice Floes on February 25, 2015
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Regular readers may remember a humorous post from November of 2014 by Mrs. Cog titled ‘Amps Times Volts Equals Watts’. In that article Mrs. Cog relates with a giggle her struggle to understand the basic fundamentals of electricity, something she had previously given no more thought to for her entire life than where is the nearest outlet or light switch. I think I enjoyed that piece more than any other article by Mrs. Cog to date. If you haven’t read it, please take a moment and do so before proceeding. This article picks up (sadly sans most of the humor) where that one left off.
I wrote an article some time back describing the process of physically and financially decoupling from the Matrix. In it I described how we were selling assets to eliminate as much debt as possible in order to reduce the need for cash flow. While we are grateful some of our assets contained capital gains, we were not delighted with the idea the tax man would remove […] Continue Reading…
Memo to Varoufakis
Off the keyboard of John Ward
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Published on The Slog on February 26, 2015
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Memo to Varoufakis: Game theory is fine, but this isn’t a game.
Yanis Varoufakis was caught in the headlights last Friday: he should stop denying it
The anti-‘deal’ leaks from the ECB, Berlin, the IMF and Brussels have been in full flow since Tuesday evening. It’s all terribly predictable: a clever process of suggesting that – purely out the goodness of their hearts – Troika2 is going to cut Greece some slack….even though T2 has – to tot up the list to date – ‘grave doubts’, ‘major reservations’, ‘worries about the lack of detail’, and ‘concerns about achievability’. There is slack rope, and there is enough rope to hang oneself.
The stench of hypocrisy in all this is vomit-inducing: Greece is being set up to fail, and in the meantime the ECB will continue its covert policy of creating bank cash-flow problems…ensuring that Syriza comes across as a Skid Row lush dependent upon never-ending welfare.
From Yanis Varoufakis, the Master of Game Theory, there has been little since the sign-off beyond rationalisation. In an interview with the Irish […] Continue Reading…
Morning Hunt
Off the keyboard of K-Dog
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Published on Chasing the Squirrel on February 24, 2015
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The grass field was fifty feet below the potato garden. He locked the gate behind him as he always did. His air rifle pointed down towards the ground. He stepped down the rock path through bushes, carefully placed the bushes provided seclusion. They hid his path and guarded the fence. High pressure sodium lamps along the fence top shown over grass. He looked for shape or movement. The first rabbit was easy and soon into his cloth bag. The second one was caught after a short walk in the concealing wood opposite the grassy meadow. Two in the bag and now back through the hidden gate in his fence, an hour before dawn, lights off.
His land everything from the edge of the bushes by the fence and inside. The sloped bank of rock and bush and the wide valley of grass field, wood and creek to the opposite slope a half mile away, public recreational area. His rabbit farm.
He always listened quietly before opening the fence gate. Coming or going he was […] Continue Reading…
False Signals
Off the keyboard of Ugo Bardi
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Published on Resource Crisis on February 24, 2015
Oil production (all liquids in barrels per day) in the US and Canada. (From Ron Patterson’s blog). Does this rapid growth indicate that the resources are abundant and that all the worries about peak oil are misplaced? Maybe not….
Discuss this article at the Economics Table inside the Diner
The shale oil “miracle”: how growth may falsely signal abundance
Sometimes, we use a simple metric to evaluate complex systems. For instance, a war is a complex affair where millions of people fight, struggle. suffer, and kill each other. However, in the end, the final result is seen in terms of a yes/no question: either you win or you lose. Not for nothing, General McArthur said once that “there is no substitute for victory”.
Now, think of the economy: it is an immense and complex system where millions of people work, produce, buy, sell, and make or lose money. In the end, eventually, we think that the final result can be described in terms of a simple yes/no question: either you grow, or you don’t. And what McArthur said about war can be applied to the economy, […] Continue Reading…
The Anti-Empire Report #137
From the Keyboard of William Blum
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Illustration for Trends Journal by Anthony Freda
Published originally in The Anti-Empire Report February 23, 2015
The Greek Tragedy: Some things not to forget, which the new Greek leaders have not.
American historian D.F. Fleming, writing of the post-World War II period in his eminent history of the Cold War, stated that “Greece was the first of the liberated states to be openly and forcibly compelled to accept the political system of the occupying Great Power. It was Churchill who acted first and Stalin who followed his example, in Bulgaria and then in Rumania, though with less bloodshed.”
The British intervened in Greece while World War II was still raging. His Majesty’s Army waged war against ELAS, the left-wing guerrillas who had played a major role in forcing the Nazi occupiers to flee. Shortly after the war ended, the United States joined the Brits in this great anti-communist crusade, intervening in what was now a civil war, taking the side of the neo-fascists against the Greek left. The neo-fascists won and instituted a highly brutal regime, for which the CIA created a suitably repressive internal security agency (KYP in Greek).
In 1964, […] Continue Reading…
How Goes the War?
From the keyboard of James Howard Kunstler
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Originally Published on Clusterfuck Nation February 16, 2015
Oh, you didn’t notice that World War Three is underway, actually has been for more than year? Well, that’s because most of it has been taking place in the banking sector, which for most people is just an alternative universe of math. The catch, which many people either miss or don’t care about, is that the math doesn’t add up.
For instance, the runaway choo-choo train of linked European sovereign bond obligations with its overloaded caboose of interest rate swaps and other janky derivatives of mass destruction. That train left the station in Athens a few weeks ago bound for Frankfurt. Ever since, the German government and its cohorts in the EU, the ECB, and the IMF have been issuing reassurances that the choo choo train will not blow up when it reaches its destination.
Few people grok that Greece is an entity with an economy not much bigger than North Carolina’s, yet it is burdened with roughly $350 billion of old debt that will never be paid back. The only thing at issue is how it will not be paid back, that is, what mode […] Continue Reading…
Best Prep Foods Review: Bear Creek Soups
Off the keyboard of RE
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Published on the Doomstead Diner on February 23, 2015
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I’ve had bags of Bear Creek Soups in my prep arsenal for years, but only recently since I started experimenting with various recipes for my Slow Cooker have I started testing them.
Similar to the Mountain House Freeze Dried Foods, they come in sealed bags and are very long lasting. They aren’t produced by a Freeze Drying process though, its basically just a straight drying proceedure for the various veggies in them, plus dried milk powder, spices, salt pepper etc. Kept in a cool dark environment, these bags of nourishment probably have a shelf life around a decade.
The total Calorie Count for any given soup varies from around 800 to 1500, depending on the variety. The Cheddar Broccoli and Cream Potato varieties have high calorie count, the Minestrone and Chili varieties a bit lower, but more veggies in them.
Just by themselves, one of these Soup Bags will get you through the day and they are very easy to cook up with just about any apparatus you might have, from a campfire or rocket stove […] Continue Reading…
Great Grexit Goon Game
Off the keyboard of RE
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Published on the Doomstead Diner on February 22, 2015
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As of Friday, for all intents & purposes is seemed as though the new Syriza Goobermint of Greece Kapitulated to the the Krauts, continuing onward with the Bailout regime established by the Troika, although with a face saving caveat that they are supposedly going to renegotiate points over the next 4 months.
That isn’t a bad plan, they do need time to figure out exactly WTF they will do once completely cut off from the Western Baking system, all their local banks FAIL, and they have zero money worth anything to pay their goobermint workers with.
The problem of course here is that they went in with a very Hard line and a Mandate from the electorate NOT to continue onward with the bailout regime under any cirucmstances, and to throw off the Debt Slavery Choke hold held on them by the Krauts. When push came to shove, the Academic Marxists running the Syriza show just could not do that. Why NOT?
The issue here is, these folks want to remain a part of the Industrial […] Continue Reading…
This Week In Doom February 22, 2015
Off the keyboard of Surly1
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Image by Ian Ference Barcroft Media
Originally published on the Doomstead Diner on February 22, 2015
“The viruses that cause smallpox, influenza, hepatitis, measles, encephalitis, and viral pneumonia; the bacteria that cause tuberculosis, diphtheria, cholera, typhus, scarlet fever, and bacterial meningitis—by a quirk of evolutionary history, all were unknown in the Western Hemisphere.”
“In 1491 the Inka ruled the greatest empire on earth. Bigger than Ming Dynasty China, bigger than Ivan the Great’s expanding Russia, bigger than Songhay in the Sahel or powerful Great Zimbabwe in West Africa, bigger than the cresting Ottoman Empire… bigger by far than any European state, the Inka dominion extended over a staggering thirty-two degrees of latitude—as if a single power held sway from St. Petersburg to Cairo.”
― Charles C. Mann
Charles Mann’s landmark, “1491:New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus” advances the thesis that the Americas were fairly teeming with native peoples prior to their “discovery” by Columbus and other early explorers. This thesis is supported in part by testimony from early explorers. Traveling up the Mississippi in 1540, De Soto reported teeming cities filled with Native Americans. The Spanish also reported large urban populations […] Continue Reading…
Wild & Wacky Winter Weather
Off the microphone of RE
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Aired on the Doomstead Diner on February 22, 2015
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More Boston Bonkers Snow Pics!
Snippet:
…It has sparked a simmering level of insanity already, with Darwin Award Contestants doing “snow diving” out of second story windows and people trading beer for parking spaces, and there has to be cabin fever across the whole metro area by now. On top of that the cold has been non-stop, which means many people are burning through their heating oil supplies, and getting a new delivery is tough, even if you still have money to order some more up.
You can’t even really pack up the car to GTFO of Dodge either, since the same shitty Wacky Winter Weather is hitting up and down the whole East coast, and even if you wanted to try and make the ESCAPE to FL, you’ll end up driving on icy roads the whole way and who knows where you can find a motel room on the journey? With those kind of conditions, it easily could take a full week to make the drive down to FL. Flying is possible between the snowstorms, […] Continue Reading…
China pivots everywhere
Off the keyboard of Pepe Escobar
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Originally published in RT on February 20, 2015
The world’s leading economy is on a roll as it enters a new year in the Chinese zodiac. Welcome to the Year of the Sheep. Or Goat. Or Ram. Or, technically, the Green Wooden Sheep (or Goat).
Even the best Chinese linguists can’t agree on how to translate it into English. Who cares?
The hyper-connected average Chinese – juggling among his five smart devices (smartphones, tablets, e-readers) – is bravely advancing a real commercial revolution. In China (and the rest of Asia) online transactions are now worth twice the combined value of transactions in the US and Europe.
As for the Middle Kingdom as a whole, it has ventured much further than the initial proposition of producing cheap goods and selling them to the rest of the planet, virtually dictating the global supply chain.
Now Made in China is going global. No less than 87 Chinese enterprises are among the Fortune Global 500 – their global business booming as they take stakes in an array of overseas assets.
Transatlantic trade? That’s the past. The wave of the future is Trans-Pacific trade as Asia boasts […] Continue Reading…
Reflections on the Rights of Nature Conference
Off the keyboard of Brian Davey
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Published on FEASTA on February 10, 2015
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The rights of nature conference at the Nottingham Contemporary Arts Centre and Gallery took place to further elaborate the theme of the exhibition opened the previous night. It was a major event for Nottingham. It brought to us some really important themes and ideas from and about global ecological politics. It informed us about how people who live in the Americas, north and south, have attempted to get to grips with the frightening scale and intensity of the ecological crisis. Themes and idea were presented by artists and activists that I have previously only heard in conferences abroad – for example in Berlin.
One theme in particular came out very strongly, over and again. This was that human rights of and for indigenous peoples and the protection of the rights of nature, of mother earth, of the living eco-systems in which they live, are two sides of the same coin. What this conference did, and what the arts exhibition does splendidly too, was to portray the world view, the thinking, culture and ways of life […] Continue Reading…
European Union at Ground Level
Off the keyboard of John Ward
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Published on The Slog on February 19, 2015
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Our glorious and beloved EU at Ground Level
As even German newspaper OpEds begin to ask if the MerkeSchäuble ist von der Apfelküchentrolley untergangen, what is gradually becoming clear – albeit far too slowly – is just what a dictatorial, law-breaking scam the European Union is. At its heart are two institutions: the European Commission – an organisation so steeped in corruption, nobody will sign off its accounts; and the European Central Bank – run by a Goldman alumnus whose career suggests that removing the ‘lum’ from the Latin sums him up perfectly. It is, in brief, an authoritarian scam.
For the average citizen, however, it is a sham….and in their everyday lives, that’s a far bigger failing. No supranational organisation in world history has quite managed managed to put the sham into shambolic like the EU.
I took up residence here in France 20 months ago, having moved from the UK. Even something as simple as switching from the British NHS to the gallic CPAM for healthcare has been a nightmare of lost formules, confusing […] Continue Reading…
I Consider Myself…the Luckiest Doomer…on the Face of the Earth
Off the keyboard of RE
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Published on the Doomstead Diner on February 19, 2015
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Today, Doom arrived at my Doorstep.
As regular readers of the Diner know, a while back I suffered a partial paralysis of My Right Arm, which I have been dealing with for the last few months. I actually did a Rant on the problem shortly after it cropped up.
Here’s the transcript for those of you who prefer to read rather than listen.
Typical current RE Sleeping PositionGreetings Doomfans, and welcome to another edition of the Frostbite Fall Daily Rant, here on the Doomstead Diner.
For today, I am going to leave the world of Global Doom once again to talk about personal Doom. This goes along the lines of it’s a Recession when your neighbor loses his job, it’s a Depression when you lose yours.
I remain amongst the fortunate folks in the world of Collapse for the most part, no debts, money in the Bank, still employed, live in a nice still uncollapsed neighborhood etc. However, I have health problems, most of which are my own fucking fault for taking […] Continue Reading…
Greece & the Eurozone Crisis
Off the keyboard of Brian Davey
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Published on FEASTA on February 17, 2015
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Note: this is an update to my shortly-to-be-published book Credo: Economic Beliefs in a World in Crisis.
The Syriza government has been elected to power in Greece with an electoral mandate to end the austerity policies imposed on Greece by the European Union, the IMF and the European Central Bank.
The first point to make about this is the obvious one that a government that has power to issue a national currency of its own can always cover a deficit – an excess of spending over tax revenues. This is because, in the end, it can print money to make up the difference. (Or, if you like the government can issue bonds and the central bank can create money to buy them). Countries entering the Eurozone lost this power and with the replacement of the Greek Drachma with the Euro so did Greek governments. The Maastricht Treaty is explicit on this – Eurozone governments cannot be funded by money creation by their own central banks. Money creation is a prerogative of the private banks in Europe, and of the European central bank . If […] Continue Reading…
Extinct—Extincter—Extinctest
From the keyboard of Dmitry Orlov
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Image: David Herbert
Published at Club Orlov on February 17, 2015
This blog is dedicated to the idea of presenting the big picture—the biggest possible—of what is going on in the world. The abiding areas of interest that make up the big picture have included the following:
1. The terminal decay and eventual collapse of industrial civilization as the fossil fuels that power it become more and more expensive to produce in the needed quantities, of lower and lower resource quality and net energy and, eventually, in ever-shorter supply.
The first guess by Hubbert that the all-time peak of oil production in the US would be back in the 1970s was accurate, but later prediction of a global peak, followed by a swift collapse, around the year 2000 was rather off, because here we are 15 years later and global oil production has never been higher. Oil prices, which were high for a time, have temporarily moderated. However, zooming in on the oil picture just a little bit, we see that conventional oil production peaked in 2005—just 5 years late—and has been declining ever since, and the shortfall has […] Continue Reading…
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The Brief Life and Private Death of Alexandria Hill
The Siberian Crater Saga Is More Widespread - and Scarier - Than Anyone Thought
UN Reveals "Credible and Reliable" Evidence of US Military Torture in Afghanistan
At CPAC, Scott Walker Compares Wisconsin Protesters to ISIS
The Mystery of the Civil War’s Camp Casey
"Gestapo" Tactics at US Police "Black Site" Ring Alarm From Chicago to Washington
Warming World: Is Capitalism Destroying Our Planet?
Crude Awakening: How the Keystone Veto Dashes Canada's "Superpower" Dreams
Goldman Employees Rake In $2 Billion From 2008 Options
Here is the New Homeland Security Report on "Sovereign Citizen Extremist" Violence
Hell on Earth: A Political Theory of Holy War
Net Neutrality: FCC Set to Vote on New Rules Governing Future of Broadband
'2014 Was a Catastrophic Year,' Amnesty International Says
Kerry Blasts Netanyahu: He's 'Wrong' on Iran Deal Like He Was on Iraq War
States Are Blocking Local Regulations, Often at Industry’s Behest
Official: Radioactive Fukushima Water Leak Was Unreported for Months
The United States' Radioactive National Park
Alaska's marijuana entrepreneurs eager to open for business
Top Medical Groups Say Gun Violence Is a Public Health Crisis
US 'Electoral Integrity' Ranked 45th Among 107 Nations, 'Worst of Established Democracies'
Corals face 'slow starvation' from ingesting plastics pollution, experts find
Vast dust bowls threaten tens of millions with hunger
This Is the Most Economically Segregated City in the US
How regulators and legislators make it harder for you to use solar power
Edward Snowden Has Just One Regret
Malkia Cyril: Net Neutrality Is the Civil Rights Act for the Internet
JPMorgan, Still On 2-Year Probation, Under Scrutiny in Gold Fixing Probe
The Global Water Crisis
"People Are Really Getting Angry": How Bernie Sanders Just Electrified Iowa - and What It Means for ’16
Right Wing Radio Host Hugh Hewitt to Moderate First GOP Presidential Debate
Who’s Afraid of Chicago’s Progressive Aldermen? Rahm Emanuel, That’s Who.
Republicans Split on DHS Funding, Edging Closer to Partial Agency Shutdown
Comcast Made $68 Billion in 2014
Alaska Becomes Third State With Legal Marijuana but Bans Smoking In Public
NSA chief declines comment on spyware reports, says program are lawful
Justice seeks stay to implement Obama's immigration orders
Border Patrol sees little reform on agents' use of force
The United States' Freelance ISIS Killers
Australia May Stop Providing Water and Power to Remote Aboriginal Communities
TransCanada has big new plans for moving oil around, and you won't like them
The Widening War Against Boko Haram
Australia reveals tough new security measures (VIDEO)
Net neutrality: A lobbying bonanza
Secrecy around police surveillance equipment proves a case’s undoing
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