I've been too busy/tired/lazy to post recently, having been occupied with a particularly tedious job in LA for the last few months. You can read a tirade about this wretched project here. Having spent 21 years in the animation industry, it's a bit much to earn the princely sum of $400 a week on an animated safety film for a dismal Florida roller coaster. A final escape from the animation industry beckons.
At the moment, I'm visiting clients & friends in San Jose. Saturday, to Eugene Oregon, and a belated return to Portland sometime on Monday.
Once back in my cell, work on personal projects will recommence.
That $200 billion is in addition to the $599 billion that the 19 stress-tested banks could face if the adverse stress test scenario comes true.
Given the baseline scenario was more like a cake-walk than a stress test, it is reasonable to assume another $800 billion is going to be needed by banks. 58 banks have been seized since 2008, 33 of them this year. More are coming and the FDIC is preparing for them.
Common knowledge about coal is that major producing nations like China, the United States and Australia, have enough to last hundreds of years, far beyond the reach of oil, which may already be in its twilight years. But worldwide coal production could plateau as early as 2025, according to one new estimate, and a growing group of scientists are concerned that fossil fuel supplies may begin dwindling by mid-century.
For those who don't keep tabs on UK politics, this bears watching: the MPs expenses scandal might have the potential to wreak actual change on the British electoral map. The UK Telegraph acquired a hard drive containing the expenses claims of MPs, going back four years. Suffice to say that the claims made by MPs (including several cabinet ministers) range from the ludicrous to the outright criminal. Were you or I to behave like this, we'd be in jail. Our neo-Fuedal overlords however, live by different rules.
How, the paper enquired, had the care services minister Mr Hope managed to squeeze £37,000 worth of refurbishment into his modest flat? The haughty tone of MPs' letters to the Fees Office betrayed the assumption that allowances were theirs by right; the indignant response when a claim for a cot was knocked back; the reference to "natural justice" in support of an appeal against the rejection of a claim for a £2,100 TV...
...When millionaire Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward [blamed the system] on Newsnight on Monday, to help explain his £100,000 mortgage claims – as well as the 38p Muller Crunch Corner yoghurt and £1.06 pizza from Asda – an incredulous Jeremy Paxman replied: "So you are victims of the system?"...
...the Telegraph finally trained its fire on the Conservatives. Michael Gove had "flipped" his Commons allowance and claimed £13,000 in moving costs. Francis Maude had claimed £35,000 in two years of mortgage interest payments on a flat a few hundred yards from his London home. David Willetts claimed for hiring workmen to replace light bulbs at his second home. Oliver Letwin charged £2,000 to replace a leaking pipe under a tennis court...
...Labour MPs Elliot Morley and David Chaytor have been suspended from the party over claims worth thousands of pounds for "phantom" mortgages". Justice minister Shahid Malik became the most senior victim on Friday after revelations of secret cut-price rental deal on his constituency home, which he designated as his main home. Mr Malik insisted that he had operated "one million per cent by the book" and added: "I am as straight as they come." Three hours later, he was gone...
...Clare Short – whose noble account of her departure from Tony Blair's cabinet was entitled An Honourable Deception? – was among those embarrassed, claiming the full cost of her mortgage. Norman Baker, a vocal critic of expenses abuse, admitted claiming £20,000 to rent an office he already owned.
What's striking about this is the reaction of the electorate. The usual apathetic reaction of "I'm not voting for anyone". However, a substantial chunk of the voters are planning on voting for the smaller parties - UKIP (a right wing anti-immigrant party), the BNP (fascists), and the Greens.
The figures presented on the front page today are percentages for the entire electorate, and so include the 23 per cent who say they will not vote in the Westminster elections. They also include 17 per cent who will consider voting for a minor party – and that could prove a big opportunity for the Greens and Ukip at the forthcoming European polls, where they would be expected to do much better than in the first-past-the-post system.
The 40 per cent for "none of the above" is compared with 31 per cent for the Tories, 16 per cent for Labour and 13 per cent for the Lib Dems.
The European Elections in early June will be the acid test.
Some links:
A classic piece from the War Nerd - the tale of Carl Gustav von Rosen. As the Nerd says, it's amazing that this hasn't been made into a film. Hollywood is too busy hacking out "remakes" and crappy superhero films, apparently.
The best example, one of the few real heroes you'll get in this sleazy world, was a Swede, believe it or not. A Swedish aristocrat, no less. Count Carl Gustav von Rosen volunteered to do close air support for the Biafran army, hosing down government troops and raiding their bases, flying tiny civilian prop planes like little Swedish Cessnas.
Is that glorious or what?
Davidowitz, who is nothing if not opinionated (and colorful), paints a very grim picture: "The worst is yet to come with consumers and banks," he says. "This country is going into a 10-year decline. Living standards will never be the same."
This time, the difficulties include the huge global trade imbalance and the nationalisation of much of the US banking system. That resembles the US depression and also the 1970s UK crisis. The current massive US and UK budget deficits and monetary expansion are peacetime firsts. The scale of pre-cash financial excess is reminiscent of Japan's real-estate and stock market bubbles.
At least the world doesn't look like it is heading towards a mess of 1930s proportions. There has been no surge in global protectionism and no price deflation in the West. Thus the bottom is probably above 170 on the S&P 500, the equivalent of 1932's low.
Nevertheless, if history teaches lessons, they are sobering. A 70pc overall market fall is possible. That would bring the S&P 500 from the current 909 down to 470.
I’m sticking to my assessment that it’s going to take some kind of wildcard event to move the show on to the next act. Something big. I don’t know what, but it will probably involve a reduction in the number of national currencies or the use of some new global confetti currency. The crimes that the Fed undertook during the end of the Bush regime and the beginning of the Obama regime bought the system as we know it some time. We’re in the eye of the storm, in other words.
Trillions of dollars worth of funny money is now hiding somewhere out there, nobody knows where, but that confetti bomb is eventually going to burst into the wider system. When it does, we’ll be in for another round of chaos and probably hyperinflation.
Ouch. I just finished the Job from Hell. It was supposed to last 6 or 7 weeks, but ground on for 14. As tedious a project as I have ever endured. Banality raised to a zenith. Finally, to be cast into the dust of my life. Get thee behind me, Stan.
A macabre traffic associated with poor countries in Asia and Latin America has sprung up for the first time in western Europe as the credit crunch reduces Spaniards to selling organs to “transplant tourists”. Spanish “kidney for sale” advertisements have proliferated recently on the internet as people struggle to make ends meet in a country whose 17% unemployment rate is the highest in Europe.
“It’s a sham. The banks are insolvent. The US government is trying to sedate the public because they are down to the last $100bn (£66bn) of the $700bn TARP funds. They think they’re doing this for the greater good of society,” he said, speaking at the Qatar Global Investment Forum.
Foreclosure filings in the U.S. rose to a record for the second consecutive month in April as banks increased efforts to seize homes from delinquent borrowers.
A total of 342,038 properties received a default or auction notice or were seized last month, RealtyTrac Inc. of Irvine, California, said today in a statement. One in 374 households got a filing, the highest monthly rate since the property data service began issuing such reports in 2005.
But wait! Stop for a second. This all sounds too weird. If "Hitler" is "Hitler", how can there be an election? How can the outcome be in doubt?
That is precisely the point. That is why we are hearing nothing about the approaching election coming out of the White House. That is why there is not a word about it in the corporate press. If Ahmadinejad really were a "Hitler", there would be no election. There would be no campaigning. There would be no last-minute efforts to win over Iranian voters. If the man were another "Hitler", his political opponents would be shot on the spot...
...Indeed when it comes to matters of war and peace, the president of Iran has as much power as US house speaker Nancy Pelosi. That is, none. Nada. Zero. Zilch. He's not the commander-in-chief.
The recent large inventory build of petroleum, under a steep contango which now is flattening, within the big oil consumers (like the OECD countries and China) have left some with the expectation that major economies soon will begin to grow again, and that the contango now signals increased oil demand and higher oil prices in the future.
My analysis indicates that in recent months, as much as 2 -3 Mb/d of global petroleum supply has been used to build inventories. This is about to come to an end, because available storage is getting closer and closer to full and contango has begun to flatten. When additions to storage cease, the resulting drop in demand can be expected to lead to substantial downward pressure on oil prices.
He said the officers yanked Cantisani from his seat and dragged him off the plane, injuring his hand, which was gripping his seat belt . Then they forced him into a wheelchair.
At one point, an officer held him “by the throat,” he said.
Vanore said that Cantisani had been asked several times to leave the plane but continually refused.
A U.S. Airways representative said Cantisani was an unruly passenger who had refused to exit the plane.
During the struggle with police, Cantisani said, he lost his retractable walking cane, making him unable to navigate.
Officers told him they had done the “blind test” and didn’t believe he was blind, he said.
Vanore said he knew of no “blind test” administered by police.
Pigs won't fly, but they will lie. "Blind test". Bastards.
Cynical media hysteria, led by the rats in the MSM: the lowest form of fear-mongering. An existential threat used as entertainment.
A public whose reaction was largely blase (oh, the luxury of post modernist irony). Let's crack jokes about a disease that's killed a couple of hundred people.
Juvenile attempts to 'rebrand' the disease as "Mexican Flu" by our Israeli friends, taking time off from bulldozing of Palestinian women and children to take care of their wounded feelings.
Naked profiteering by Pharmaceutical companies selling glorified sugar pills.
If one of these flus ever does go hot, you'd better have a well stacked bunker - because we didn't exactly shine over the last couple of weeks. We keep dodging bullets - and we don't deserve to. Once again, grown adults reacted en masse like six year olds.
There are days when I'd love nothing better than to take a blowtorch to the entire human race - but why bother? Sooner of later a real pandemic, famine or war (or all three) will come around and do the job properly.
I'll never forgive you people for electing Obama. You're just postponing the inevitable.
Proof of the axiom "a convoy can only move as fast as the slowest vehicle": hand-washing denialists. Yes; people who boast about never washing their hands, even after visiting the toilet. Germ Theory has been well understood since the mid 19th century. Apparently some didn't get the memo. My four humours are out of sorts today; to the Physic for a bleeding, sirrah.
Called the Georgia Guidestones, the monument is a mystery—nobody knows exactly who commissioned it or why. The only clues to its origin are on a nearby plaque on the ground—which gives the dimensions and explains a series of intricate notches and holes that correspond to the movements of the sun and stars—and the "guides" themselves, directives carved into the rocks. These instructions appear in eight languages ranging from English to Swahili and reflect a peculiar New Age ideology. Some are vaguely eugenic (guide reproduction wisely—improving fitness and diversity); others prescribe standard-issue hippie mysticism (prize truth—beauty—love—seeking harmony with the infinite).
Methinks the authors of the stones waxed too poetic. They should have kept the advice simple: "Wash your hands after you shit, you disgusting ape." or: "Don't overrun the planet with an industrial economy based on the ludicrous idea of infinite exponential growth." (More simply stated: "Stay in the cave, you disgusting ape."
"The retreat of Wilkins Ice Shelf is the latest and the largest of its kind," said David Vaughn of the British Antarctic Survey. "Eight separate ice shelves along the Antarctic Peninsula have shown signs of retreat over the last few decades. There is little doubt that these changes are the result of atmospheric warming on the Antarctic Peninsula, which has been the most rapid in the Southern Hemisphere."
Dublin has been ranked 16th in the EU and 25th in the world for overall quality of life in a global survey by Mercer Human Resource Consulting.
Dublin ranks ahead of several major European cities including Paris (33rd), London (38th), and Barcelona (joint 42nd with Portland, USA).
ANGER SWELLING. FURY RISING. VEINS POPPPING ON FOREHEAD! Dublin - 25th in the World? Are you FUCKING SHITTING ME??? WHAT goddam PLANET are these people living on? Portland Oregon on 42???
OK: I've lived in both - currently based in Portland. Dublin is one of the most expensive cities on the planet. It's not the worst place on Earth, but God almighty - 25 out of every city on Earth? Better than PARIS?????? Put down the crack pipe, Mercer HR Consulting.
I spent a year in New Brunswick Canada, where we had 3-4 months of snow, and temps hit -30F (-34C). Even that didn't feel as cold as a typical Irish winter, where it always hovers .01 above freezing. You're always cold and damp. So are your bedsheets. You catch about 4 or 5 colds/sore throats a year, and one good flu.
Do you like hacking up huge gobs of phlegm?
It's dark and rainy - enough to induce SAD (seasonal depression) and rickets (vitamin D deficiency) in those unlucky sods with darker skin who migrate from sunnier countries.
What else? A collapsed economy the envy of Iceland; political corruption that makes Iraq look good; shitty health care; gang crime soaring, with feral youths owning entire neighbourhoods of Dublin; endemic alcohol abuse with concomitant drunk-driving and soaring death rates on roads; did I mention EXPENSIVE?
Worse that that are the nouveau riche Irish - now that they've got some coin, they're going to tell you all about it. Some of them have been known to have Asian slaves chained to their radiators.
I've lost track of the number of Irish friends who've moved back to Dublin over the years (to enjoy the 'booming economy'), only to come back to the U.S., chastened. Once you've seen the way the rest of the world functions, it's almost impossible to fit back in...to turn a blind eye to the bunkum and baloney and the rip-offs. It's so bad now that people drive 100 miles to Northern Ireland to do their shopping. They save a fortune. I left that bloody place along with many of the best of my generation for a damned good reason.
I'm sharing a lovely craftsman house in Portland (rent = $450, utilities another $150 max). $600 a month, total. 3 miles from town (walkable). Nifty neighbourhood, with restaurants, coffee shops, and the like. First rate public transit, so no car needed. Within easy reach of skiing (which I don't do) and vineyards (which I hope to visit this summer). Relaxed, easy going, people are friendly.
Sorry Dublin; I'll give you a pass. Let me know when you manage to clean the vomit and used chewing gum off the footpaths.
To halt the escalating imbalance between expanding population numbers and the earth’s essential natural resources, humans must control their numbers. At the same time, they must make efforts to conserve cropland, freshwater, energy, biodiversity, and the other life-supporting environmental resources. People in developed countries could contribute by reducing their high consumption of all natural resources, especially fossil fuels.
Continued rapid population growth damages the lives of all individuals and their offspring. Personal well-being, based on health as well as personal freedoms, is directly related to population numbers. If humans do not control their numbers, nature will.
Fascist! Burn the Hitler-loving heretic! All bow before Octomom!
