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Post by Entendance on May 6, 2016 3:43:35 GMT -5
No room for anti-Americanism at Fred & Entendance Beach
"The genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures, nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges, or churches, or parlors, nor even in its newspapers or inventors, but always most in the common people." - Walt Whitman
 Charles Hugh Smith: No Wonder We're Poorer: Wages' Share of GDP Has Fallen for 46 Years
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Post by Entendance on May 9, 2016 3:44:44 GMT -5
Anyone should see the Moore’s best, most ambitious, most powerful film (You'll find out why Italians do it better!  )
“I wouldn’t want to live in the States even though you paid me, because...” -A female CEO in Iceland |
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Post by Entendance on May 10, 2016 3:08:50 GMT -5
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Post by Entendance on May 13, 2016 17:12:34 GMT -5
"It's a big club, and you aren't in it"
Benghazi Hero: The Fall Of Hillary Is Imminent
She should be in prison, not running for president
My main job is to keep my job, to get reelected. It takes precedence over everything
Voters are incredibly ignorant and know little about our form of government and how it works
It's far easier than you think to manipulate a nation of naive, self-absorbed sheep who crave instant gratification
Most of my colleagues are dishonest career politicians who revel in the power and special-interest money that's lavished upon them.
We spend money we don't have and blithely mortgage the future with a wink and a nod. Screw the next generation
More here
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Post by Entendance on Jun 1, 2016 16:55:54 GMT -5
June 9, 2016 Facebook is waging an illegal war on hemp!
Karl Denninger: Why does Facebook get away with using your microphone to "target ads" without Zuckerpig being indicted despite laws in several states, including Florida, that make interception of oral communications a felony unless everyone involved gives consent? We're talking about literally millions of felonies being committed daily, and Zuckerpig's Facebook is not alone -- Amazon's "Echo" and other similar products and services anyone? Samsung's TVs, as just one example?
Why did our government run guns to drug dealers that were then used in dozens of murders, including a border agent, and yet nobody has been indicted or gone to prison for it?
Why did our government fine big banks (instead of indicting the officers and directors) who were knowingly laundering billions of drug money on an international basis? This is why
American Serfdom – Companies Are Offering Loans for Living Expenses to Their Destitute Employees
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Post by Entendance on Jun 15, 2016 11:34:36 GMT -5
Rana Foroohar has written the equivalent of a public guide to why Americans remain mad as hell at Wall Street and Washington and why a lot worse than a political revolution may ensue if the plutocrats don’t wake up soon. Foroohar is an assistant managing editor at Time magazine and its economics columnist. In “Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business,” the author lays out a number of undeniable truths, which she backs up with footnotes and facts, such as: “the business of America isn’t business anymore.” That’s given way to financial engineering tricks like loading up a company’s balance sheet with billions of dollars of debt in order to prop up the share price with buybacks of the company’s own stock.
Foroohar, who has been a financial journalist for 23 years, correctly concludes that Wall Street has come to “rule” rather than to “fuel” the real economy. This has created a “dysfunctional financial system” that is doomed to another collapse, “taking us all down with it,” unless critical repairs are made soon. Foroohar maps out exactly what those repairs must be in her last chapter. 
The author gives a litany of examples to show how “finance has transitioned from an industry that encourages healthy risk-taking, to one that simply creates debt and spreads unproductive risk in the market system as a whole.”
The flip slide of this financial trickery (she calls it “financialization’) says Foroohar is that “our economy limps along in a ‘recovery’ that is tremendously bifurcated. Wage growth is flat. Six out of the top ten fastest-growing job categories pay $15 an hour and workforce participation is as low as it’s been since the late 1970s. It used to be that as the fortunes of American companies improved, the fortunes of the average American rose, too. But now something has broken that relationship.”In a word, that “something” is insatiable Wall Street greed where the people’s savings deposits that President Bill Clinton allowed Wall Street to manage through the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act are being used for speculative trading and financial engineering instead of loans to help businesses thrive.
If the majority of Americans don’t catch on quickly to the fact that the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation has failed to meaningfully correct America’s systemically dysfunctional financial system, the author worries that an ugly revolution may result...
“The Business of America Isn’t Business Anymore.” It’s Tricked Up Financial Engineering.
Foroohar shows how the “financialization of America” — the trend by which finance and its way of thinking have come to reign supreme — is perpetuating Wall Street’s reign over Main Street, widening the gap between rich and poor, & threatening the future of the American Dream .. 38 minutes H/T Tom from Florida
The Obama administration supported the terrorist group that became ISIS
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Post by Entendance on Jun 28, 2016 11:58:50 GMT -5
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Post by Entendance on Jul 15, 2016 5:26:32 GMT -5
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Post by Entendance on Jul 26, 2016 3:49:42 GMT -5
Stupidity Chapter VIII: "Bandit", one that harms others while gaining self advantage (Cipolla calls them “bandits”). ...If we don't know who they really are, how to defeat them? More here
Hillary Clinton: Class President of A Failed Generation Pillory Hillary Now
"...Come in un orrifico gioco virtuale, la barbarie che stiamo attraversando e cui stiamo contribuendo ipotizza che a ognuno di noi corrisponda un altro noi, speculare e che punta una pistola. Ma il duello non si risolve armandoci, stando a vedere chi spara per primo, ma deponendo le armi prima che sia troppo tardi. Prima che vincano quelli che stanno in quelle fortezze inattaccabili, ben difese, risparmiate da terroristi, matti, disturbati, chissà come mai." Licenza d’uccidere
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Post by Entendance on Jul 28, 2016 23:11:09 GMT -5
 "The central issue in the U.S. Presidential campaign can’t even be discussed in U.S. newsmedia, because America’s media have been almost uniformly complicit all along in hiding from the American public the crucial factual information that’s necessary in order for the public to vote in an intelligent and truthfully informed way about it. No news medium wants to report its own having been complicit in anything; so, the cover-up here just continues; it has a life of its own, even though it’s a life that brings the world closer and closer to a situation which would kill billions of people, as things get increasingly out-of-control the longer this coverup continues. The cycle of virtually uniform lying thus persists, despite the growing danger it produces. This article will need to be lengthy, because the American public have been almost consistently lied-to about so many very important things — things associated with the nation’s central issue — an issue even bigger than terrorism, and than global warming, and than rising economic inequality and corruption, but which is still virtually ignored. This article is thus intended to be ‘Drano’ for a political system that has become clogged by lies just jammed down into it, now backing up and pouring out onto America’s political floor. The overflowing sludge has got to be cleaned up, and discarded. Or else — and very suddenly — it will kill us all..."
***The Central Issue in the U.S. Presidential Campaign
"American global hegemony is nonnegotiable. And so what happens instead is that the Americans act baffled, regroup and try again, making for quite an amusing spectacle. 
The whole Edward Snowden imbroglio was particularly fun to watch. The US demanded his extradition. The Russians said: “Nyet, our constitution forbids it.” And then, hilariously, some voices in the West demanded in response that Russia change its constitution! The response, requiring no translation, was “Xa-xa-xa-xa-xa!” Less funny is the impasse over Syria: the Americans have been continuously demanding that Russia go along with their plan to overthrow Bashar Assad. The unchanging Russian response has been: “Nyet, the Syrians get to decide on their leadership, not Russia, and not the US.” Each time they hear it, the Americans scratch their heads and… try again. John Kerry was just recently in Moscow, holding a marathon “negotiating session” with Putin and Lavrov.
Above is a photo of Kerry talking to Putin and Lavrov in Moscow a week or so ago and their facial expressions are hard to misread. There’s Kerry, with his back to the camera, babbling away as per usual. Lavrov’s face says: “I can’t believe I have to sit here and listen to this nonsense again.” Putin’s face says: “Oh the poor idiot, he can’t bring himself to understand that we’re just going to say ‘nyet’ again.” Kerry flew home with yet another “nyet.”
What’s worse, other countries are now getting into the act. The Americans told the Brits exactly how to vote, and yet the Brits said “nyet” and voted for Brexit. The Americans told the Europeans to accept the horrendous corporate power grab that is the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), and the French said “nyet, it shall not pass.” The US organized yet another military coup in Turkey to replace Erdoǧan with somebody who won’t try to play nice with Russia, and the Turks said “nyet” to that too. And now, horror of horrors, there is Donald Trump saying “nyet” to all sorts of things—NATO, offshoring American jobs, letting in a flood of migrants, globalization, weapons for Ukrainian Nazis, free trade…
The corrosive psychological effect of “nyet” on the American hegemonic psyche cannot be underestimated..."
"...What to do? Seemingly, three initial steps are badly needed.
First. To make a pledge of no-fist-use of nuclear weapons a universal norm, starting from the USA and Russia. As a preliminary step towards this goal to make a commitment to resort to a defensive unconditional nuclear deterrence that threatens no one. Such notion will require no costs.
Second. The USA should withdraw all its TNW from Europe and the Asian part of Turkey.
Third. A multilateral new ABM Treaty limiting the number of BMD interceptors and their geographical deployments has to be elaborated. The next U.S. Administration has to seriously consider these steps."
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Post by Entendance on Aug 7, 2016 3:42:35 GMT -5
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Post by Entendance on Aug 10, 2016 2:31:25 GMT -5
BREAKING Julian Assange Suggests MURDERED DNC STAFFER Seth Rich Was Wikileaks Source: “We Have To Understand How High The Stakes Are In the United States”
Democratic Strategist Calls For The Assassination Of Julian Assange
****** Former acting CIA Director Michael Morell said in an interview Monday that U.S. policy in Syria should be to make Iran and Russia “pay a price” by arming local groups and instructing them to kill Iranian and Russian personnel in the country. Morell was appearing on the Charlie Rose show on PBS in the wake of his publicly endorsing Hillary Clinton on the New York Times opinion pages.
Clinton has expressed support for increased military intervention in Syria against Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian government. Iran and Russia are backing Assad.
“What they need is to have the Russians and Iranians pay a little price,” Morell said. “When we were in Iraq, the Iranians were giving weapons to the Shia militia, who were killing American soldiers, right? The Iranians were making us pay a price. We need to make the Iranians pay a price in Syria. We need to make the Russians pay a price...” ***Ex-CIA Director Who Endorsed Clinton Calls for Killing Iranians and Russians in Syria
‘Kill Russians and Iranians, threaten Assad,’ says ex-CIA chief backing Clinton
******
"Eric Draitser sits down with author Nicholas Schou to discuss his new book Spooked: How the CIA Manipulates the Media and Hoodwinks Hollywood*. Eric and Nick explore the history of CIA manipulation of the media going back decades, and how it has evolved into the propaganda consensus we see today. The conversation touches on everything from Nicaragua and the Reagan counter-revolution to the sycophantic relationship between Hollywood and Langley. From Robert Parry to Robert Kagan, from South Vietnam to Baghdad, the story of CIA information warfare is a long and sordid one, and Schou's new book is an important contribution in telling it..."
A few interesting points:
The CIA used to have agents working inside every major Hollywood studio. They were actually taking, for example, scripts like "Animal House" which had a very anti-capitalist message fundamentally, even though it's commonly viewed a sort of warning about Stalinism, it was still a kind of pro-Socialist script, until the CIA got its hands on it and completely changed it around.
This is something that in the 1980s again happened when the CIA was able to start working directly with Hollywood producers and directors to try to get favorable coverage. And it was really during the Clinton era when that really became corporatized and you had Chase Brandon, who was a CIA officer, working directly with Hollywood.
Obviously 9/11 just completely opened the floodgates for the fear factory.
Robert Kagan was working with the office of public diplomacy in the Reagan administration. He has become probably the single most influential and most important neocon ideologue in the last 30 years of the entire neocon movement, and so, it's fascinating to see how somebody whose kind of beginnings start with this perception management public relations, media manipulation world, is actually growing to be the central neocon leader and ideologue.
Draitser and Schou also discuss the fact that the CIA narratives are penetrating the American public through Hollywood series and films in a manner that has become more sophisticated. Characters appear more "vulnerable" in various ways, which creates a more "humanized" hero, closer to the everyday audience. In the end, despite all his/her "vulnerabilities", the hero is doing his/her "patriotic duty".
That's because the American public has become more skeptical and suspicious due to the failures and disasters in various wars and especially after the Iraq war.
Full interview here H/T Tom from Florida
Fred & EntendanceInvestors Private Beach. Members Only Area.
Gold & Silver The expansion of unconventional monetary policy will feed demand: The victory for gold bulls is only just beginning! |
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Post by Entendance on Aug 12, 2016 4:53:45 GMT -5
The administration of “Yes We Can” is now the administration of “No We Won’t,” in a ruling that keep marijuana as a schedule 1 drug. No one at Marijuana Stocks is surprised by this ruling from the administration via the lengthy statement from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Again the Cannabis advocates, activists & patients in need of the properties associated with Medical Marijuana were given some crumbs in true “Hunger Games” Style.
As of yesterday’s ruling by the DEA the study of cannabis will be expanded in order to ascertain the potential medical benefits of cannabinoids. Marijuana will continue to be on the list of the most dangerous drugs, regardless of growing support for legalization and more states changing their laws to have some form of medical marijuana or recreational marijuana on the books. “By punting the reclassification of marijuana debate the DEA exposes themselves to the utter hypocrisy of our classification system. Consider Cocaine and OxyContin are class 2 drugs and are far more ruinous to the people that use and abuse them, yet cannabis which can’t kill you is a class 1 drug which by definition means there are no medical benefits and highly addictive.” Said an agency source under the condition of anonymity.
The Health and Human Services Department was so bold today as to double down on the illogical argument on marijuana by saying cannabis “has a high potential for abuse” and “no accepted medical use.”
A statement of that nature exposes some problems with that argument as well as showing who is potentially to blame for the bureaucracy surrounding these kind of government rulings. Let’s examine this statement and try and draw some conclusions on our own.
First, if marijuana has no medical properties or potential benefits why are BigPharma companies spending hundreds of millions of dollars in research and development to study marijuana and create drugs for patients? Abbvie Inc (ABBV) has had a cannabis related drug it has marketed since 1985 for example called Marinol (Dronabinol Extract) which is an appetite stimulant used by cancer patients. INSYS Therapeutics Inc (INSY) was just given FDA approval for its orally administered drug called Syndros last month which is similar to ABBV’s appetite drug. GW Pharmaceuticals (GWPH) has a drug called Epidiolex for people suffering from seizures, they are also creating their own strains of cannabis for individual targeted Cannabinoids. Any person that has ever used medical marijuana for example knows that one of its side effects is hunger or the “munchies.” Why try and synthesize a drug when nature and thousands of years of use has produced the same result you ask? Money from prescription drugs, money from speculation on the public company creating these drugs and ridiculous ways to capitalize from the insurance that pays for it all. The reality is that cannabis is essentially a weed that grows all over the world and the pharmaceutical industry would lose potentially hundreds of billions of dollars if cannabis was federally legal. Which leads me to point two in exposing the bureaucracy tied to Big Pharma.
So how do the lawmakers in the United States and agencies like the DEA come to these irrational conclusions that lack all common sense? Lobbyists on K Street in DC for starters. Given medical marijuana’s position as a cheaper, safer alternative to pharmaceutical products, pharmaceutical companies stand to lose a significant chunk of market share if marijuana legalization were to pass. BigPhRMA is universally recognized as marijuana’s biggest financial competitor, with drug manufacturers giving a whopping $21.8 million to a myriad of federal candidates and committees, as well as political parties during election times. In 2013 alone, Big Pharma spent approximately $18 million solely on lobbying, according to OpenSecrets. While easily one of the biggest contenders to the marijuana industry, Big Pharma was hit with a crucial turning point, a survey of 473 adult therapeutic cannabis users, conducted by the Centre for Addictions Research of BC, found that 87% of respondents gave up prescription medications, alcohol, or other drugs in favor of cannabis.
Other Lobbies that are fighting relentlessly against cannabis are private prison corporations as well as the alcohol & tobacco industry. For mor info on that here’s an article on the top five lobby’s.
In the end officials need to get elected and no one wants to piss off their donors, grassroots organizations like Norml or the Marijuana Policy Project are fighting a war against opponents that have unlimited resources. Even so the expansion of study does crack the door open for the industry and in our opinion prohibition will eventually end. Once the government and big business set up the infrastructure to capitalize on cannabis they will demand their piece of the pie, which has an estimated black market value of $50,000,000,000 and a legal US market estimated at $6,000,000,000. That might be a scary thought, but there will always be artisanal cannabis for the masses and the best growers in the industry don’t need to become sellouts which is positive to us.
Here is the statement from the DEA today. Share this article, Tweet it, Facebook it, email it to your friends and congressman. Everyone must do their part or the elected officials we put in office will continue to vote against our collective interests. -WolfofWeedSt
Meanwhile...
***Under Obama Feds Collect Nearly 20 Trill. In Taxes While Increasing National Debt Almost 9 Trill.
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Post by Entendance on Aug 13, 2016 4:06:36 GMT -5
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Post by Entendance on Aug 16, 2016 4:54:10 GMT -5
“..generate Money-Out-Of-Thin-Air (QE) for the purpose of allowing “liquidity” flows to end up in US equity and bond markets in order to paint a false picture of “recovery” so as to insure the election of Hillary Clinton.” ***Burning Down the House
John W. Whitehead The Greatest Threat to Our Freedoms: A Government of Scoundrels, Spies, Thieves, Ruffians, Rapists and Killers
***** No matter what anybody does, the overbuilding, overcapacity and overconsumption in China can no longer be extended. Infrastructure investment in other countries won’t be enough to pick up the slack. As consumption and investment falls, so will prices. Commodity producers worldwide are sitting on huge overcapacity. They must shrink their operations, but the first reaction is always to produce more to make up for falling revenue. China will become known for the biggest misallocation of investment in history. |
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Post by Entendance on Aug 19, 2016 2:40:00 GMT -5
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Post by Entendance on Aug 21, 2016 3:50:42 GMT -5
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Post by Entendance on Aug 23, 2016 7:19:35 GMT -5
Jesuits
Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States provides liaison staffing among the nine provinces, various national associations and the Society’s international headquarters in Rome.
***Know Who You’re Dealing with
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Post by Entendance on Aug 25, 2016 3:52:54 GMT -5
Nigel Farage at Donald Trump rally: 'I wouldn't vote for Clinton if you paid me'
"...The political and economic collapse of the U.S. has long since “crossed the Rubicon.” The public violence that is spreading like the plague in places like Chicago, Milwaukee and Baltimore is a symptom of this underlying collapse – a collapse that has been covered up with extreme propaganda, shock and false-flag fear events and the glorification of U.S. military imperialism." ***The Human Stain
"...The US is spiraling down into financial, economic and political collapse, losing its standing in the world and turning into a continent-sized ghetto full of drug abuse, violence and decaying infrastructure, its population vice-ridden, poisoned with genetically modified food, morbidly obese, exploited by predatory police departments and city halls, plus a wide assortment of rackets, from medicine to education to real estate… That we know.
We also know how painful it is to realize that the US is damaged beyond repair, or to acquiesce to the fact that most of the damage is self-inflicted: the endless, useless wars, the limitless corruption of money politics, the toxic culture and gender wars, and the imperial hubris and willful ignorance that underlies it all… This level of disconnect between the expected and the observed certainly hurts, but the pain can be avoided, for a time, through mass delusion.
This sort of downward spiral does not automatically spell “Apocalypse,” but the specifics of the state cult of the US—an old-time religiosity overlaid with the secular religion of progress—are such that there can be no other options: either we are on our way up to build colonies on Mars, or we perish in a ball of flame..." ***A Thousand Balls of Flame 
"Whenever an irrational and inhumane law remains on the books far longer than any thinking person would consider appropriate, there’s usually one reason behind it: money.
Unsurprisingly, the continued federal prohibition on marijuana and its absurd classification as a Schedule 1 drug is no exception. Thankfully, a recent study published in the journal Health Affairs shows us exactly why pharmaceutical companies are one of the leading voices against medical marijuana. It has nothing to do with healthcare and everything to do with corporate greed..." ***Increasing Number of Americans Are ‘Mircodosing’ on Psychedelics to Enhance Mental Performance
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Post by Entendance on Sept 1, 2016 5:09:43 GMT -5
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Post by Entendance on Sept 2, 2016 9:44:52 GMT -5
...By directing all the money it makes outside the US into it’s “Irish” shell company Apple – thanks to the Irish government – walks away with a  ***tax rate of “0.005%...
"Want the simple answer to the tax brouhaha and similar related to Apple, along with other firms?
Want to, at the same time, resolve most (but not all) of the offshoring of production of goods?
It's not hard to do.
Change US law so that in order to bring a suit in the United States court system related to copyright, patent or trademark infringement you must have substantially designed and built said thing in the United States, using legal US workers, including but not limited to actual assembly.
If not then you have to sue in wherever you did such work -- you cannot sue in the United States.
Force Apple to litigate copying of their designs (or phones!) in China and I bet they get real interested in producing them in the United States.
That turns around and exposes them to taxation here as well.
Assuming you do this properly so as to make it impossible to evade the rule (that is, if you don't build it here you can't sue here) then....Problem solved." -Karl Denninger
Inside Apple's Chinese 'sweatshop' factory where workers are paid just £1.12 per hour to produce iPhones and iPads for the West
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Post by Entendance on Sept 4, 2016 4:15:20 GMT -5
Google owned YouTube*** begins censoring videos exposing war and politics
***HOW MONEY CAN DISINCENTIVIZE WORK
When stupidity combines with other factors (as happens quite often) the results can be devastating.
A fact that surprises me (or does it?) is the very little amount of study dedicated to such an important subject. There are University departments for the mathematical complexities in the movements of Amazonian ants, or the medieval history of Perim island; but I have never heard of any Foundation or Board of Trustees supporting any studies of Stupidology...
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Post by Entendance on Sept 8, 2016 3:43:17 GMT -5
"Wall Street was determined that a Democratic Socialist like Senator Bernie Sanders would never occupy the Oval Office. In hindsight, Wall Street may come to seriously regret that it and a full blown conspiracy at the Democratic National Committee blocked the ascendancy of one of the most popular and trusted presidential candidates in a generation.
Trust and confidence are essential ingredients for a healthy stock market and U.S. economy. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. consumers spent over $12 trillion last year “on all kinds of stuff, including new cars, furniture, clothes, groceries, beauty products, electronics, visits to doctors and dentists, and tickets to sporting events and movies.” The total U.S. GDP for 2015 was $17.947 trillion. That makes the consumer the Decider in Chief of what happens in the U.S. The consumer’s willingness to spend represented 66.86 percent of total GDP last year.
Consumers are also workers. Sanders wanted to give them a bigger piece of the corporate profits pie that would likewise bolster the U.S. economy. Consumers are also taxpayers. Sanders wanted to help consumers by making the super wealthy pay their fair share in taxes. Consumers are also voters – Sanders wanted to give them a President who represented the people, not special interests.
But dark forces prevailed and “the people” have ended up with two presidential candidates with the lowest approval ratings in memory. According to a Washington Post-ABC News Poll taken between August 24-28, 2016, 56 percent of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of Hillary Clinton. The Washington Post notes for good measure that this is “the worst image Clinton has had in her quarter-century in national public life.” Donald Trump weighs in with an unfavorable opinion by 63 percent of Americans. If you look at just registered voters, according to the poll, Clinton and Trump are running almost neck and neck with an unfavorable rating of 59 percent for Clinton and 60 percent for Trump.
Unlike Sanders, who has enjoyed a scandal-free quarter century in the House and Senate, both Clinton and Trump have citizens walking on pins and needles waiting for the next scandal to unfold and bring further disgrace to the country.
The worry among Americans that the unbridled tongue of a President Trump could sack U.S. relations with its allies and trading partners is getting a test pilot rollout in the form of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. According to the Guardian newspaper, Duterte has recently called President Obama “the son of a whore,” labeled the U.S. ambassador to Manila a “gay son of a whore,” and told the Catholic Church, “don’t f*** with me.” The Philippine stock market has responded in kind by selling off as foreign investors yank their money.
Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns has also cast a pall over his campaign as Americans worry that his presidency would be dogged with financial scandals and conflicts of interest.
The ubiquitous scandals swirling around Hillary Clinton have Americans equally on edge. And they can be multiplied by a factor of two since both Hillary and Bill Clinton will inhabit the White House if she is elected President. The Associated Press moved the scandal meter into the red zone on August 23 with an investigative report on the Clinton Foundation, a charity set up by the Clintons. The report found that: “At least 85 of 154 people from private interests who met or had phone conversations scheduled with Clinton while she led the State Department donated to her family charity or pledged commitments to its international programs, according to a review of State Department calendars released so far to The Associated Press. Combined, the 85 donors contributed as much as $156 million. At least 40 donated more than $100,000 each, and 20 gave more than $1 million.”
The article portrayed a pay-to-play operation on steroids. The Associated Press had to go to Federal court to get the State Department to release Clinton’s detailed daily schedules and now the State Department is saying it will not release the other half of these records until after the election. (This Federal agency is starting to sound like it’s putting its finger on the scale for Clinton similar to what happened at the Democratic National Committee.) Based on what it has obtained so far, the AP concluded that “more than half the people outside the government who met or spoke by telephone with Clinton during her tenure as a Cabinet secretary had given money – either personally or through companies or groups – to the Clinton Foundation. The AP’s analysis focused on people with private interests and excluded her meetings or calls with U.S. federal employees or foreign government representatives.”
Can either of these candidates rally confidence and trust in a nation where S&P 500 profits have declined year-over-year for five consecutive quarters. Where overall corporate profits have declined by 4.9 percent over the last four quarters, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Where most Americans feel the fix is in and no matter how hard they work, they’re never going to get a fair deal under either of these candidates in the Oval Office.
Senator Bernie Sanders uniquely understood what is ailing America after the greatest financial collapse since the Great Depression — brought on by new-age Wall Street robber barons in 2008. Sanders set up a special web page to describe his brand of Democratic Socialism, comparing what he sees today to what Franklin Delano Roosevelt saw when he took office in the 1930s: millions “denied the basic necessities of life”; families living on “incomes so meager that the pall of family disaster hung over them day by day”; “millions lacking the means to buy the products they needed and by their poverty and lack of disposable income denying employment to many other millions.”
Sanders further points out that almost everything FDR proposed was called “socialist” at the time. He writes:
“Social Security, which transformed life for the elderly in this country was ‘socialist.’ The concept of the ‘minimum wage’ was seen as a radical intrusion into the marketplace and was described as ‘socialist.’ Unemployment insurance, abolishing child labor, the 40-hour work week, collective bargaining, strong banking regulations, deposit insurance, and job programs that put millions of people to work were all described, in one way or another, as ‘socialist.’ Yet, these programs have become the fabric of our nation and the foundation of the middle class.”
The reality was that FDR put the policies in place to allow a more humane form of capitalism to succeed in America. Those restraints are desperately needed again today.
What does it say about the American system of elections when a voice of substance and reason like that of Senator Bernie Sanders can be kicked to the curb while two deeply discredited and disliked candidates enter the last leg of the campaign for the highest office in the land?"
Entire US Presidential Election is Fake, From Start to Finish
FALSE PHILANTHROPY:
***Summary Review of Selected Intentionally False Representations in Clinton Foundation Public Filings
Identity Politics = Totalitarianism The truth is we have more in common with people of different ethnicities and religions than we can possibly know in a totalitarian system drenched in the divisive propaganda of identity politics.
Identity politics are the core of every totalitarian state. Identity politics were the beating heart of Nazism, and the core strategy of the USSR's liquidation of kulaks and other groups identified as enemies of the state.
Identity politics eliminate the potential for class consciousness that crosses ethnic and religious boundaries. As noted yesterday in Our Impoverished, Pathological Society, "race is not a significant determinant of social polarization in today's America. It is class that really matters."
Identity politics divide and fragment the debt-serf class into ethnic and religious silos that are propagandized into viewing each other as enemies rather than colleagues. The core of identity politics is if you fail to vote the party line, you are a traitor to your race/religion.
The appeal to ethnic/religious identity as the sole definition of political selfhood is the perfect tool for manipulating the masses--and this is why the only possible output of identity politics is totalitarianism.
In the U.S. both political parties deploy identity politics, but the Democrats in particular depend on the "if you don't vote the Democratic ticket, you're a traitor to your race" line of propaganda.
The goal of both parties is of course identical: to fragment the bottom 90% who actually share common cause into ethnic, religious and secular silos that cannot possibly threaten the power elite's hold on the nation's wealth and power. If you fall for identity politics, then you're complicit in an oppressive, parasitic system that aggregates most of the wealth and power in the hands of the few at the expense of the many.
This chart shows that the bottom 99% received essentially zero income gains since 2009, but even those in the top 1% who earn their living have treaded water compared to the top 1/10th of 1% that own most of the nation's capital and have used it to buy political power. 
95% Of Income Gains Since 2009 Went To The Top 1%: Berkeley economics professor Emmanuel Saez put out an update to his estimates of income inequality, and the headline figure has everybody outraged: 95% of income gains since 2009 have accrued to the top 1%.
The favorite tool of fascists and totalitarian states is identity politics, for obvious reasons. Appealing to ethnic and religious identities fires up our built-in engines of identity and our propensity for "us vs. them" divisions.
The truth is we have more in common with people of different ethnicities and religions than we can possibly know in a totalitarian system drenched in the divisive propaganda of identity politics.
Bene agendo nunquam defessus: "the buck is stopping" Once again our great Warren absolutely spot on...
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Post by Entendance on Sept 20, 2016 5:19:20 GMT -5
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Post by Entendance on Sept 27, 2016 1:54:05 GMT -5
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Post by Entendance on Oct 3, 2016 11:16:45 GMT -5
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Post by Entendance on Oct 10, 2016 1:35:31 GMT -5
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Post by Entendance on Oct 13, 2016 4:27:51 GMT -5
Painkiller Abuse:***America's Favorite Drugs
"Depending on which news outlets you follow, your understanding of what is going on in Syria is likely coming from one of two main camps — Western media or Eastern media..."***The War in Syria: Who Is Actually to Blame?
“..if they vote for Hillary it’s war. It will be a short movie. There will be Hiroshimas and Nagasakis everywhere.” Putin ally tells Americans: vote Trump or face nuclear war
Debt is the slavery of the free. -Publius Syrus
America The Debt Pig: We Are A ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ Society –*** And ‘Pay Later’ Is Rapidly Approaching
The best response to Campaign 2016:*** anger
Our Crazed Drug Policy
No, not the drug users -- or even the dealers.
The people who need to go to prison are the politicians and officers who willingly, knowingly and intentionally "enforce" said "laws."
You see, it appears that Prince died as a consequence of accidentally consuming pills containing fentanyl, thinking they were hydrocodone -- which they were marked as.
Fentanyl, however, is some 100 times more powerful than morphine, and the amount found in Prince's system at autopsy was sufficient to kill anyone, irrespective of body size (he was, if you remember, of slight build.)
So why is fentanyl being sold as "heroin" or "hydrocodone"?
Because of our insane "war on drugs."
It is the cops and politicians who are complicit, and in fact accessories before the fact, to Prince's death, along all of us who have tolerated and permitted this system of laws to remain in place and in fact be strengthened.
Yes, Prince took the drugs, and there is no evidence that he did so other than by his own volitional act. But, he didn't know what they were; they were not labeled as to their true content, and the entire machinery in the black market that led him to purchase those drugs in an intentionally-mismarked fashion is not his responsibility, it is the responsibility of the politicians, so-called "law enforcement" agencies and individual agents.
Addictions are terrible things. None of them are "clean" and yet virtually all Americans have them.
Carbohydrates are an addiction. If you don't think so, stop eating them. You'll feel like crap for a couple of weeks to a month. You crave them, which is the very definition of an addiction. Once you break the addiction the craving goes away and so does your rabid desire for them. Fast carbohydrates kill millions of Americans every year -- slowly -- due to obesity, Type II diabetes and heart disease -- but kill Americans they do.
Caffeine is addictive. If you think not, stop drinking coffee "cold turkey." You'll get a nasty headache for a few days. You will suffer physical withdrawal, which is the very definition of an addiction. Once you break the addiction the withdrawal will go away. Caffeine, however, does not kill many people (if any at all), but that does not mean it is not addictive. It most-certainly is.
Marijuana is both illegal and addictive, at least on a psychological level. The number of people directly killed by consumption of marijuana, however, is zero; it is virtually impossible to kill yourself by overdosing on it. (This doesn't mean you can't have a very unpleasant experience however -- you most-certainly can and plenty of people have and do, and it also can obviously potentiate car crashes and other similar events.)
Alcohol is addictive. If you become hooked on it you're in for a world of hurt when you try to stop drinking. The symptoms of withdrawal are not only physical and psychological, in severe cases they can be fatal without full-time medical support. Alcohol abuse kills nearly 90,000 people a year in the United States, with approximately 10,000 of those being booze-related car crashes. The sad part is that the other 80,000 die slowly and horribly from cirrhosis, liver cancer and other related maladies.
Opiods killed roughly 20,000 people last year from overdoses; from all drugs the CDC claims 47,000 deaths in 2014. To put this into perspective more people die from overdoses of these drugs than gun homicides; in fact, over 50% more. (Most gun deaths are in fact suicides, not homicides, and it's hard to argue that someone who is suicidal wouldn't find another way if they didn't have a gun.)
There is obviously nothing good about addiction but treating consensual adult transactions in substances that people are either addicted to or simply enjoy consuming as crimes does nothing but ruin lives and kill people. Not only does it engender a hell of a lot of violence (see those homicides I referred to?) it directly kills the very people the laws claim to be protecting by making it impossible for them to obtain the drugs they want to consume by other than illicit, unregulated and unsafe means. We then double down on this by adding outrageously-discriminatory treatment for drug use depending on who you are; Malia Obama was caught on video in apparent weed-smoking in a place where it's a crime (Chicago) yet she has and will face zero punishment. I'm willing to bet on the same day you can easily find a dozen or more people who were arrested for the very same offense in the very same town. May I remind you that even a simple weed-smoking conviction can and frequently does lead to permanent economic disability (such as inability to get a job in certain fields or enlist in the military.)
Crack cocaine became popular (and deadly) because of a legal crackdown on powder cocaine. Crack was smaller, easier to hide, transport and divvy up for sale. It was also more dangerous for the user and killed a lot of people, many by direct overdose-related cause (e.g. overdose-induced heart attacks.)
Our treating the consensual adult consumption of things that get you stoned, irrespective of their addictive qualities, as a criminal act is asinine. Addiction is a mental and physical disorder; treating someone who is ill and as a consequence of that illness harms nobody but themselves as a criminal, imposing life-long sanction upon them, is an utterly unsupportable outrage.
This practice, now stretching back over 100 years and driven by lies and economic advantage both at the outset and today, has driven the black market to substitute synthetic fentanyl for heroin and other opiod drugs, and since black market producers don't give a good damn about quality control or safety it also leads to ridiculous overdose events that should never happen -- including the one that killed Prince.
Yes, whoever produced that set of pills that was mismarked is certainly responsible and if they can be identified they should be charged with manslaughter. But equally-culpable is every single law enforcement agent who works on drug interdiction, the politicians, and we the people who not only tolerate these laws we, and they, demand them.
Price would be alive today had his drugs been what he believed them to be, and in fact what they were marked as.
He'd still be a drug-addled junkie, but he'd be alive.
He's dead because of you, I, and every one of our politicians and law enforcement agents. In our willingness to promote laws that make no sense, criminalize consensual, non-violent conduct and in doing so encourage behavior by everyone up and down the line we tolerate, promote and demand policies that result in addicted people accidentally killing themselves.
We're more than 50 years into ever more-intrusive implementations of this garbage policy and every single time we tighten the screws on some aspect of it we kill more people we claim we're trying to help. That excuse is far beyond its use-by date and it is incumbent on us to cut it out and face reality. I find it especially galling to hear people who claim to be "conservative" preach on this topic and support drug laws and the drug war; if you believe in God then you simply can't support or tolerate laws made by man that have as their direct result tens of thousands of disadvantaged people accidentally killing themselves every year, as intentionally creating an environment that preys on the ill and disadvantaged is the pinnacle of outrageous sin, on par with the most-heinous acts of assault against others. -Karl Denninger
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Post by Entendance on Oct 18, 2016 10:32:57 GMT -5
<...There’s not going to be any “making America great again”. The demographics of America are the*** demographics of a dying empire, regardless of who is sitting in the big White House chair...>
 More here
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Post by Entendance on Oct 19, 2016 5:46:02 GMT -5
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Cell Phone Addiction: 
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"Enterprise value to corporate gross value-added is now nearly equal to the level observed at the 2000 market peak." 
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