COLLECTIVE MADNESS
“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."
My pharmacological inventory is, sadly, not up to this. :)
ReplyDeleteWTF?
DeleteI was going to play it, but read Ruf's comment first, so now I'm going to Fox.
ReplyDeleteLooks like more in Quirk's line of listen.
I pass.
Obama’s shameful apology tour lands in Hiroshima
ReplyDeletehttp://nypost.com/2016/05/26/obamas-shameful-apology-tour-lands-in-hiroshima/
Fasdf Fasdf •
Didn't these guys start the war?
Richard_Iowa Fasdf Fasdf •
December 7, 1941.
Dustoff Richard_Iowa •
China, Bataan Death March, H-ll ships, the list goes on & on.
CarlJomini Dustoff •
Yep, and no mention at all about these atrocities from the man-child in the White House.
http://www.bigstory.ap.org/article/5c59111e89c444c0b2f239cab084df54/obamas-hug-hiroshima-survivor-epitomizes-historic-visit
Listening to Heron Oblivion’s album feels like sitting in a lovely meadow in the shadow of a dam that’s gonna heave-ho’ any minute.
ReplyDeleteHow much less pain would have been experienced at Ground Zero in Hiroshima.
DeleteHeron Oblivion is more like being firebombed in Tokyo.
Kathryrn Steinle’s parents sue over daughter’s Pier 14 slaying
ReplyDeleteThe parents of a woman who was shot to death on a San Francisco pier last year sued former Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, the city and federal officials on Friday, saying the gunman would have been kept in custody, disarmed and deported if they’d done their jobs.
The federal court suit by Kathryn Steinle’s parents said Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, a Mexican immigrant who has admitted firing the fatal shot, was freed from jail only because of blunders by both Mirkarimi and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
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"Blunders"
We wish.
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Kathryrn-Steinle-s-parents-sue-over-7949584.php
Fuck You, Rufus, and your Traitor Hero in the Whitehouse.
DeleteWorthless Fucking Pigs.
Laugh while the country dies, asshole.
DeleteTHE HELL SHIPS
ReplyDeletehttps://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=the%20hell%20ships
Let me be clear; I Love Heron Oblivion. I just wish I had a doobie. :)
ReplyDeleteRussians' Approval of U.S. Leadership Drops to Record 1%
ReplyDeleteby Julie Ray
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Rating in Russia is lowest in a decade for U.S.
Median approval stable at 45% worldwide
Image of U.S. leadership improves in Europe, the Americas
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Just 1% of Russians approved of U.S. leadership in 2015 -- the worst rating in the world last year and the lowest approval Gallup has measured for the U.S. in the past decade. Remarkably, this is even worse than their previous record-low 4% approval in 2014.
He's gotta be doing "something" right. :)
Hey, I’m just trying to help all you old farts chill out on the first short summer long weekend.
ReplyDeleteIt's appreciated. :)
DeleteGive peace a chance for fucks sake.
ReplyDeleteFunny how we all turn into peaceniks once we get too old to fight. :)
DeleteMy short tour brought out my inner pacifist.
DeleteIn case you forgot, the best sex you probably missed was with hippie chicks.
ReplyDeletePeace Out - Memorial Day.
Maybe.
DeleteI wish I remembered the 70's. :)
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ReplyDeleteHeron Oblivion: Tediously nondescript before melding into jarring cacophony.
I had planned on using them for the theme for my proposed Deep Thoughts Blog before it was postponed do to lack of content.
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Delete...due to lack of content.
Perhaps, I am ready for them.
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Lack of content always trumps incoherence.
ReplyDeleteIt would be a move upwards. You should go for it.
Heron Oblivion seems to be going over here like a lead zeppelin.
Bernie Sanders has declined to discuss the situation in Venezuela.
ReplyDeleteToo busy running for President of the USA, he says.
Doug, you and your hero John Bolton (author of that article) are a couple of sick puppies. The USA killed 10's of thousands in one shot and you guys get your panties in a knot when Obama acknowledges that the mass killing occurred. He never came close to apologizing and his acknowledging the USA'S killing of so many could just as easily be interpreted as a warning to others that the US will do it again but you partisan hacks wail at the moon lamenting that a POTUS bowed at some diplomatic meeting. Fuck, I'll bet you cream in anticipation of a Trump presidency.
ReplyDeletePeople with empathy show concern for sick puppies.
DeleteAsh, The Japanese and the Germans murdered tens of millions.
DeleteDO the math
What Smirk lacks in empathy he makes up for in obnoxiousness.
DeleteThe estimates were that an invasion of Japan might have cost us a million men, Smirk, and the Japs even more.
ReplyDeleteThat is why it is often called a life saving event.
None moreso than me, Harry, and Curtis E. LeMay.
DeleteThe Joys of Firebombing:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzFjI7BIOQk
My friend Wayne had an uncle that took part in the firebombing of Tokyo.
DeleteSaid off the left wing, off the right wing....nothing but fire as far as his eyes could see....all the buildings there made out of light wood...
You three have your heads up your asses. Acknowledging that the US killed 10's of thousands in one shot says nothing about the morality of the act.
DeleteTokyo was around 100,000 - it created quite a firestorm.
DeleteWho said anything about morality other than Obama?
You and your buddies whining about an apology tour.
DeleteChinese racism -
ReplyDeletehttp://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/05/the_horror_the_horror_chinese_tv_commercial_is_racially_insensitive_toward_blacks.html
Both the Japanese and the Chinese have always been super racists.
Oriental women can't drive.
Delete.
ReplyDeleteThe Jig's Up. Well, Almost Up.
The Federal Reserve's $4.3 trillion ticking time bomb
Quantitative easing was a Faustian bargain.
The Federal Reserve has a big problem if it wants to raise rates again. It will have to pay U.S. and foreign banks enormous sums of money instead of U.S. taxpayers.
Not only would the Fed likely draw the ire of Congress, but it could also become a target of the next U.S. president—be it Clinton or Trump. That’s because the gangbuster profits of $90 billion (plus) per year that the Fed remits to the Treasury could easily dwindle to zero. According to several leading economists, it’s also possible that the Fed will become technically insolvent (though it always has the power to print its way out of such a disastrous state).
The putative savior of the financial crisis, quantitative easing, was a Faustian bargain. The Fed got to inject trillions of dollars into the financial sector while simultaneously “sterilizing” the very same money. It did this by incentivizing banks to deposit their digital cash at the Fed, paying above-market interest rates.
Currently, the Fed pays 0.50% annually to banks to keep that money out of the economy. It might not seem like much, but the comparable rate paid by the U.S. Treasury for T-bills is 0.28%. In other words, the Fed pays banks nearly twice as much as the Treasury does.
But the Fed refuses to acknowledge this. Each year, the Fed Chair is required by law to testify twice in front of Congress. Both Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen have used the word, “comparable,” to assert disingenuously that the Fed is paying an amount of interest similar to what banks could earn in the marketplace. It’s possible to “compare” apples to oranges, but it doesn’t mean they’re similar.
Currently, the Fed is paying banks about $12 billion per year in interest. If the Fed raises rates two times (by 0.25% each time) and the level of reserves stays the same, that number doubles to $24 billion. If we are to believe San Francisco Fed President John Williams, who targets an eventual 3.0% for short-term rates, then that's $72 billion per year to the banks. This is a huge expenses for the Fed. Subtract from that the $90 billion (plus) per year in operating profits, and the amount of money the Fed pays to the Treasury gets pretty small.
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Delete{...}
The Fed is poised to take huge capital losses
But it gets worse. The Fed is taking capital losses on its $4.3 trillion bond portfolio, and those losses will eventually accelerate. When the bonds that the Fed holds mature, it realizes losses because it paid above-market prices for most of them to begin with.
The Fed is currently keeping its balance sheet the same size, purchasing new bonds when old ones mature. Should it decide to sell bonds, it would realize huge losses over a short space of time and would likely go into debt with the U.S. Treasury. According to Hall and Reis, it would take the Fed 6 to 10 years to work off the debt and get back in the green.
Bottom line: No matter how you slice it, the Fed payments to Uncle Sam will not only drop off a cliff someday, they could also go negative. That means, the taxpayers would be indirectly on the hook for Federal Reserve operating losses.
The crisis comes when Congress realizes the Fed is paying the government nothing (or next to nothing) while shelling out billions to the banks. Several members of Congress have already been critical of Fed payments to banks, but they’ve largely missed the mark. When the next budget crisis arises without the Fed paying it’s perceived “fair share,” all it would take is a few impassioned speeches to stir the masses and make monetary policy a de facto political animal.
The worst possible outcome would be for a fickle and indecisive Congress to assert its authority over monetary policy. Unfortunately, by waiting seven years to raise rates—and into an economy growing at best modestly—the Fed has backed itself into a corner. The Fed has clearly chosen the banks over the best interests of the taxpayers, and this will eventually come back to bite Chair Yellen.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-federal-reserve-s--4-3-trillion-ticking-time-bomb-121801977.html#
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DeletePeople seem to think that the FED got out of the QE business a while back. In fact, they simply stopped adding to their balance sheet. That balance sheet remains at its highest point.
There is no free lunch. It is inevitable that the FED will eventually have to pay the piper.
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DeleteI count at least 5 hackneyed phrases on this link so far.
I may go for the record after the baseball game.
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Alas.
DeleteBut what can we do ?
Hackneyed phrase is a hackneyed phrase.
There is no free lunch on this blog.
If you break the record we will give credit where credit is due.
DeleteWhat's the big problem?
DeleteIf Trump is elected, Rufus will put the blame on him.
If not, he'll blame Bush.
:)
DeleteYup, that is what he would do.
Hillary could have the Fed making payments to The Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Foundation and it wouldn't make any difference to Rufus.
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DeleteLong story short I don’t want to kick the can down the road but I have a couple things to do so when I come back I plan on doubling down and pushing the envelope in going for the gold.
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I have no idea what all those numbers mean but I'm voting for Trump cause he'll Make Our Country Great Again and I don't like Venezuela or Crooked Criminal Hillary aka 'Livia Drusilla' or our Park Bench Commie, Bernie Sandernista.
ReplyDeleteThem's my politics.
And, I don't want Deuce to lose his Limo and driver either and The Donald is the only one I trust not to take them away.
Delete
ReplyDeleteQuirkFri May 27, 10:56:00 PM EDT
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People seem to think that the FED got out of the QE business a while back. In fact, they simply stopped adding to their balance sheet. That balance sheet remains at its highest point.
There is no free lunch. It is inevitable that the FED will eventually have to pay the piper.
Wow Quirk is right.
write it down.
I'll take your word for it and put it in my 'Quasy Quirk Quotes' file.
DeleteWhy Some Cultures Frown on Smiling
ReplyDeleteFinally, an explanation for Bitchy Resting Face Nation
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/05/culture-and-smiling/483827/
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ReplyDeleteWow Quirk is right.
write it down.
Not necessary. I have a PA who transcribes everything I say and logs whatever I write.
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God ?
Delete