How far away are we from reality? Don't worry about it, because the numbers don't mean anything anymore. HA!

This derivatives game is like trying to build a skyscraper out of playing cards. As long as the wind doesn't blow, and the ground doesn't move and you have a very steady hand, maybe that makes sense. Or, not so much:

The use of derivatives grew at the fastest pace in eight years during the first half of 2006, boosting earnings at securities firms and reducing costs for investors.

The face value of derivatives based on corporate bonds, currencies, interest rates, commodities and stocks jumped 24 percent to $370 trillion, according to the Bank for International Settlements. It was the biggest percentage rise since the bank began keeping records in 1998.

Trading in credit-default swaps, the fastest-growing derivatives market, helped spur record earnings for banks including New York-based Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. At London-based Barclays Capital derivatives accounted for more than 60 percent of revenue and profit, Chief Executive Officer Bob Diamond said in May.
posted by Kevin at 4:02 PM

Jeff Wells' latest post reminds me of one of my favorite Robert Anton Wilson quotes:

"There are periods of history when the visions of madmen and dope fiends are a better guide to reality than the common-sense interpretation of data available to the so-called normal mind. This is one such period, if you haven't noticed already."

Here's to not maintaining appearances:

I love that. I love the look on McCarthy's anguished face. It's not, it's over. It's at last it can begin. The disheveled kook is suddenly the most credible person in the room.
posted by Kevin at 3:33 PM

The only epitaph I could manage for Milton Friedman was to ask in anyone could think of any individual who was responsible for more death and destruction in the world.

While not one person bothered to send in any suggestions, Sam Smith wrote a more informative epitaph for the diabolical Friedman:

We have paid a terrible price for this corruption of our culture by the new robber barons egged on by Friedman and his ilk. We so accept their foul standards that we don't even discuss or debate them. We have become prisoners of their lie.

Research Credit: MM
posted by Kevin at 3:08 PM

Is Tony Blair a rocket scientist, as well as an international war criminal:

Tony Blair has publicly agreed with the opinion that the violence in Iraq since the 2003 invasion has been a disaster.

The UK prime minister was responding to a question by Sir David Frost in an interview on the new al-Jazeera English-language Arabic TV channel.
posted by Kevin at 2:05 PM

Google is going to force all current Blogger users to migrate to the new, fully Googleized platform. I actually read the Terms of Service on the new system:

10. Termination; Suspension. Google may, in its sole discretion, at any time and for any reason, terminate the Service, terminate this Agreement, or suspend or terminate your account. In the event of termination, your account will be disabled and you may not be granted access to your account or any files or other content contained in your account although residual copies of information may remain in our system for some time for back-up purposes.

Google already considers Cryptogon a "hate" site. They won't let me run paid AdWords campaigns or display AdSense. Now, if I agree to their new terms, Google may, "at it's sole discretion" terminate my account.

The good news is that all of the Cryptogon content is stored on my server.

Long ago, Blogger worked well and wasn't owned by evil criminals. Those days are long gone. I have to move away from Blogger. I've known this for years, but I've just kept putting it off to avoid the pain.

The real point of this message is to let you know that if Cryptogon goes down, it means that I'm trying to put the new system together. I'll try not to break anything too badly.
posted by Kevin at 2:17 PM

Is there no limit to what the British people will accept?

Parents could be forced to go to special classes to learn to sing their children nursery rhymes, a minister said.

Those who fail to read stories or sing to their youngsters threaten their children's future and the state must put them right, Children's Minister Beverley Hughes said.

Their children's well-being is at risk 'unless we act', she declared.

And Mrs Hughes said the state would train a new 'parenting workforce' to ensure parents who fail to do their duty with nursery rhymes are found and 'supported'.

The call for state intervention in the minute details of family life followed a series of Labour efforts to reduce anti-social behaviour and improve educational standards by imposing rigorous controls on the lives of the youngest children.

Mrs Hughes has established a national curriculum to set down how babies are taught to speak in childcare from the age of three months.

Her efforts have gone alongside a push by other ministers to determine exactly how parents treat their children down to how they should brush their teeth.
posted by Kevin at 3:12 AM

Israel is using nanotechnology to try to create a robot no bigger than a hornet that would be able to chase, photograph and kill its targets, an Israeli newspaper reported on Friday.

The flying robot, nicknamed the "bionic hornet", would be able to navigate its way down narrow alleyways to target otherwise unreachable enemies such as rocket launchers, the daily Yedioth Ahronoth said.
posted by Kevin at 2:29 AM

With mainstream news like this, who needs tinfoil?

BANKS in the UK have been ordered by financial regulators to assess how they would cope in the event of house prices crashing by 40 per cent.

The instruction to include a housing slump scenario in their stress-testing models comes after the Financial Services Authority found that some banks were failing to include gloomy enough assumptions in their modelling.

The FSA said yesterday that an "appropriate" benchmark was to assume property prices fell by 40 per cent and that 35 per cent of mortgages in default ended with homes being re-possessed. It stressed that this was not a forecast but a "severe but plausible scenario" and one that banks should examine when deciding how robust their balance sheets were.

In a speech to the British Bankers' Association yesterday, Clive Briault, the FSA's managing director for retail markets, remarked on banks' differing views over the size and impact of a house market downturn, hence the need for reference points.

He also warned bankers to ensure that they have properly stress-tested their mortgage portfolios in the wake of decisions by some to lend people greater multiples of their incomes.
posted by Kevin at 8:52 PM

Random ID checks in libraries? Take a look at what happens if you refuse to produce your papers:

A cell phone captured video of a 23-year-old student being administered multiple Taser shocks by UCLA police on Tuesday.

The UCLA student was hit with the Taser shocks multiple times while he was in the Powell Library Computer Lab.

Another student recorded the incident on a camera phone. On the video, Mostafa Tabatabainejad can be heard screaming during the incident, which took place at about 11:30 p.m., the Daily Bruin reported.

According to the paper, Tabatabainejad did not show ID to community service officers who were conducting a random check. UCLA police said Tabatabainejad was released by police after he was cited for obstruction/delay of a peace officer in the performance of duty.
posted by Kevin at 8:39 PM

I continue to receive questions from terrified people about how to proceed as we move into collapse.

But first, a little story.

In high school, I took a basic psychology class. The instructor had all of us take the Myers-Briggs personality test. I remember thinking that the entire thing was a bit presumptuous. After all, how could a multiple choice test provide any meaningful insight on an individual's personality? I was curious, and skeptical at the same time.

My good friend's mother happened to be a psychologist. I told her that we had been given the Myers-Briggs test at school and chuckled about it a bit.

She looked at me for a moment and said, "You're an INTJ."

* pause *

I was, in fact, an INTJ. That was pretty weird, I thought, for her to be able to guess my "type" on the first try.

That was twenty years ago. I just typed INTJ into Google to see if my "result" still seemed accurate.

In addition to the, "disregard for authority," and needing to, "learn to simulate some degree of surface conformism in order to mask their inherent unconventionality," you'll find this critical trait:

When it comes to their own areas of expertise -- and INTJs can have several -- they will be able to tell you almost immediately whether or not they can help you, and if so, how. INTJs know what they know, and perhaps still more importantly, they know what they don't know.

Now, people are asking me questions like this:

What should I do with my money?

To where should I move?

Will my family be able to leave the U.S. once the travel restrictions are in place?

How long will fascism last in the U.S.? Can I just wait it out?

Folks, believe me when I tell you: I don't know the answers to these questions.

Additionally, if someone is purporting to provide specific answers to questions like these, questions with potentially life altering consequences, watch out.

Why?

Because questions such as these are not answerable with precision. The complexity of the situation we're facing makes doing that impossible.

I've been writing about these issues on Cryptogon, at length, for years, but the message either isn't sinking in, or it's too disturbing and people want something different from me, something... easier to stomach.

While I don't know if this is easier to stomach, this is the most concise way I have ever put it:

Get into a situation that eliminates your reliance on luck and minimizes the impact of factors that are completely beyond your control.

That sums it up, and that's as far as I'm willing to go in the personal advice category.

For my wife and I, that meant a nearly wholesale rejection of what most people consider "normal" and moving to one of the most remote areas of the planet. Obviously, and thankfully for us, most people can't (and wouldn't want to) do that. There are lots of options. There are options that I can't even to being to conceive of. Everyone is different, so how silly would it be for one person to try to suggest a course of action for everyone else? To do so would be as dangerous as it would be silly.

If you have questions about how to proceed, that's great, but don't look for clarity by trying follow someone else's footsteps too closely. As I've tried to demonstrate in the past, seeking too much clarity is not often rewarded.

Looking for another one sentence summary?

Devise a strategy and embed it with many tactical pathways; remaining flexible provides options.

Footnote

People have also asked me whether I think Mike Ruppert's swan song from Venezuela provides a solid justification to simply stay where they are.

I'll try my best to remain calm as I write my response:

Ruppert goes off, half cocked, to a third world country and, surprise, surprise, it's not easy.

What did he expect?

And so because his experience abroad has been bad, the great epiphany from Mike Ruppert is to just stay where you are!? After all, if his experience is bad, he's Mike Ruppert, and it must apply to everyone...

Get a day job, Mike. You're personal catastrophe shouldn't dissuade others from exploring their options.

Harsh?

Another INTJ profile says that the INTJ mindset, with regard to other people, could be summed up as: "'If you don't want to be called an idiot, don't do stupid things.'"

Well, you asked!
posted by Kevin at 2:37 PM

Can anyone think of a single individual who is responsible for more death and destruction than Miltion Friedman?

Rest in pieces, Milty:

Milton Friedman, one of the most influential economists of the past century and winner of a 1976 Nobel Prize, died on Thursday morning of heart failure at a San Francisco area hospital, a spokeswoman for his family said. He was 94.

A free-market economist, Friedman preached free enterprise in the face of government regulation and advocated a monetary policy that called for steady growth in money supplies.

His ideas played a pivotal role in informing the governing philosophies of world leaders like former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and former U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

Related: Cryptogon's Farewell to Ronald Reagan
posted by Kevin at 1:42 PM

All of you know how I feel about Republicans and Democrats. The entire thing is a scam. Today, however, Congressman Kucinich started to talk some sense.

While I can't think of a case in which Congress has cut funding to stop a war (please remind me if I've forgotten a time when Congress had a spine), it is, as they taught us in Constitutional Law 101, the greatest power that the U.S. Congress could wield over an out of control president. They just never do it. (The Boland Amendment showed an attempt to put a stop to the antics in Nicaragua, but They just raised the money through narcotics trafficking, and then Bill Clinton, one of the key figures in the crimes, became president!)

My conlaw professor had us read an entire book about how U.S. presidents routinely abuse their war powers, and how congress goes along with it.

So, is this just a case of theatrics, or is it something else? Could Bush wake up one morning and find himself out of congressionally approved funds to give to his criminal friends via the war?

My money is on theatrics, but as usual, I hope I'm wrong:

Congressman Kucinich called Wednesday for cutting off funding of the Iraq war, as the surest way out of Iraq. His statements were made in an interview by Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman.

"I want to say that there's one solution here, and it's not to engage in a debate with the President, who has taken us down a path of disaster in Iraq, but it's for Congress to assume the full power that it has under the Constitution to cut off funds. We don't need to keep indulging in this debate about what to do, because as long as we keep temporizing, the situation gets worse in Iraq.

"We have to determine that the time has come to cut off funds. There's enough money in the pipeline to achieve the orderly withdrawal that Senator McGovern is talking about. But cut off funds, we must. That's the ultimate power of the Congress, the power of the purse. That's how we'll end this war, and that's the only way we're going to end this war.
posted by Kevin at 1:25 PM

I don't read many stories that are so chilling that the hair on my arms actually stands on end. This is one of those stories.

These people are stark raving mad, and they're making more of themselves as fast and their biology will allow!

Wolfson, Moore and thousands of mothers like them call themselves and their belief system "Quiverfull." They borrow their name from Psalm 127: "Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in the gate." Quiverfull mothers think of their children as no mere movement but as an army they're building for God.

Related: Left Behind: Eternal Forces

Research Credit: Life After the Oil Crash
posted by Kevin at 3:35 AM

If you're going to buy stuff for Christmas, and you can't (or don't want to) buy it used, please consider using any of the links below for your shopping needs. All of these companies pay Cryptogon a commission for goods and services purchased via these links.

Becky and I will use commissions from your purchases to help pay for a solar hot water system that will cut our electricity use by about 75%.

Thanks to all of you!
























posted by Kevin at 2:26 PM

A little over a year ago, buyers couldn't wait to sign contracts to purchase homes. Now, many can't wait to get out of them.

With real-estate prices falling around the country and even pro-industry trade groups predicting further declines over the next year, buyers are backing away from deals in droves. At a semiannual housing forecast conference in Washington, D.C. recently, economists reported that contract-cancellation rates for big builders were running around 40 percent --- about twice as high as last year's levels. Anecdotally, real-estate professionals say they are seeing a similar dynamic in existing-home sales.

Some of the cancellations are by people who signed new-home contracts at one price months ago, haven't yet closed, and are now stunned to see the builder drastically cutting prices on identical properties. Some are by speculators caught short by other investments they can't unload. And some are by people trapped in a chain reaction: They can't sell their old home --- or the buyer has canceled the contract --- so they are being forced to cancel the deal on a new house they are buying somewhere else.
posted by Kevin at 3:21 AM

I spent a lot of time working on this essay, but I'm sick of it. I wound up not wanting to post it at all. But I thought that if I can keep one person from dressing up in a Halloween costume and licking the boots of pea brained cops and fascists, I should post this.

- - - - -

For those of us who have chosen to resist, there are two options left: Flinging our bodies onto the gears of The Machine or militant, voluntary simplicity, in remote, lightly populated areas.

Let's first look at flinging our bodies onto the gears of The Machine. I chose Derrick Jensen to represent this perspective because the few people who think about these matters seriously cite him regularly enough.

As Jensen accurately points out in Endgame Volume 1, activists need to watch Star Wars again and imagine that---instead of suit wearing politicians, monolithic bureaucracies, and evil corporations---they're actually dealing with Darth Vader and The Empire. And no matter how hard the activists try, no matter how long the fair trade, organic hemp hacky sacks can be kicked around the circle, no matter how many bumper stickers the activists put on their hybrid SUVs, or how many letters the activists write, Darth Vader is not going to change his behavior. It's not in Darth Vader's nature to do that. Besides, Darth Vader did not become the commander of the Death Star by writing letters.

As long as Darth Vader continues to receive written requests, he knows that his power is secure, and it will be business as usual on the Death Star...

In Star Wars, what finally stopped business as usual on the Death Star?

Was it thinking positive thoughts? Was it radiating love to Darth Vader? Was it sending letters to the editor? Was it holding focus groups and drinking organic wheat grass smoothies?

Prayers?

Waving signs?

Voting?

Faxing?

Spray painting peace symbols on the bulkheads of various ships in the Imperial fleet?

Were Darth Vader and the terrifying Death Star stopped by reading web pages? By sending emails? By listening to podcasts? By watching documentaries about The Empire on YouTube and Google Video?

Just as the the Death Star had a relatively undefended exhaust port that led directly to the main reactor unit, the system of horror we're all living under has several strategic, relatively undefended fulcrums (Jensen calls them chokepoints) upon which the core operations of The Machine depend.

If you don't believe the system is collapsing under its own weight, right now, Jensen wants you to think about these strategic, relatively undefended fulcrums, consider yourself dead and take action. Real action. Throw yourself onto the gears of The Machine.

Jensen notes that some Jews who went on what they thought were suicide missions against the Nazis in Poland wound up living. He curiously didn't use Japanese kamikaze operations in the Pacific to make his point...

Don't, whatever you do, rely on Jensen to teach you about asymmetric warfare. He's dangerously clueless on the subject, and even tells the reader on page 257 of Endgame Volume 1, when it comes to carrying out operations, "I don't know what to do. I'm a writer... I'm spatially and mechanically inept...with a heavy dose of absent mindedness thrown in for good measure..."

[Note on Endgame books: If you haven't yet read these books, the above represents a condensed spoiler version of the nearly 1000 pages of material. And I didn't mention salmon or dams once... * gritting teeth thinking about how many times Jensen mentions salmon and dams * Don't get me wrong, there are dozens of excellent data points in the books. I made notecards to keep track of them. Unfortunately, 3/4 of the tomes' pages are Jensen's meditations on the natural world (read: mostly salmon, again and again and again), dams, his life traumas and rambling wanderings on ____<--- fill in the blank. Still, I recommend reading the books, if you can tolerate what seems like great negligence in terms of editing. And WTF on his use of endnotes!? Anyway...]

While Jensen is correct in his assessment of political and environmental activism being worthless for making any positive difference in the situation on the ground---Cryptogon readers have seen this same perspective here for years---there are other alternatives for inflicting great damage to The Machine.

Rather than attempting to bring down The Machine suddenly, in a manner that would, almost certainly, result in the use of strategic nuclear weapons, we should gradually destroy The Machine (and let it destroy itself), while learning the skills necessary to make living in a post collapse reality not only possible, but enjoyable.

How do you gradually destroy The Machine?

Living on as little money as possible, bartering for or buying only what you can't produce yourself, in my opinion, does a great deal of harm to this system.

Doing these things also allows the advocate of the strategy to avoid the obvious hypocrisy that bogs down Jensen's suggestions. Nope, you won't find Jensen actually doing anything to blow up the Death Star. Like he says, "I'm a writer." That's convenient, especially for Jensen.

Regardless of the fact that Jensen uses all of the tools and enjoys all of the comforts of civilization, he thinks the system needs our help in order to bring about a collapse... but he can't actually help with any of that...

If everything crashed tomorrow, suddenly, what knowledge---useful for existence in a post collapse world---would be lost forever? Many of us are several generations away from anyone who lived life in balance with the natural world. The requisite skillset is, in general, long gone. Those of us who are out here actually trying to do something are having to learn all of it over again.

Look around. This thing is coming down on its own. The Death Star, it turns out, is running on petrochemicals, the production of which have probably already peaked, or are near to peaking. Additionally, the Empire depends on the Rebel Alliance to spend money on shit they don't even need. If the Rebel Alliance slowed the movement of money, and kept the money from flowing up the pyramid, the Empire would collapse. Yes, as it stands now, the Rebel Alliance is taking out loans from The Empire and this is keeping the Empire in power! HA. Eventually, Darth Vader is going to get stuck with the bill.

In a linear collapse scenario---what we're living in now---there is less of a chance of nuclear weapons being used. If, however, an insurgency began dismantling key infrastructures, the regimes in question could (and probably would) see the threats as strategic and begin to follow scripted war plans that include the use of strategic nuclear weapons. In such a cascading collapse, the release of nuclear weapons would, because of the confusing nature and fast pace of events, be much more likely.

Voluntary simplicity is as frightening to many people as armed insurgency. Those, however, are the only viable options that remain at this late stage of the game. If you go with voluntary simplicity, you have to assume that the system is actually in the process of collapsing, because, if it doesn't collapse, we will pass a point beyond which resistance of any meaningful kind will be impossible. If you go with armed insurgency---and, let's say that you, by some miracle, actually manage to collapse civilization---avoiding total extinction via thermonuclear holocaust would be your next goal.

Choose carefully.
posted by Kevin at 5:12 PM

About two years ago I made a big, rubber band ball. It's bigger than a softball, but not as big as a basketball. It's made of 100% rubber bands, and the core is nothing but knotted rubber bands. It's been in the trunk of a car that I own and keep down there for most of that time.

I decided to bring it home to Anchorage to work on more, and that proved to be a bad decision. I threw it in my carry-on and headed off to the airport. When I got there, I "dinged" at the metal detector while wearing a belt that has never alarmed before. I removed the belt and went through a second time, and "passed." As I got through I noticed that my carry-on bag was open and being rummaged through. The TSA agent held up my rubber band ball and asked, "what's this?" I replied, "it's my rubber band ball. What are you doing looking through my bag?"
posted by Kevin at 3:40 AM

Tonight, I decided to head downtown to take some pictures of DC. I didn't go downtown until about 11:30pm so as to avoid most of the tourists. Since I had already taken pictures of the Lincoln Memorial and World War II Memorial, I decided to focus on the White House and Washington Monument tonight.

As I was walking down Pennsylvania Ave in front of the White House taking pictures, I noticed that a couple Secret Service cars slowly passed by me approximately four times. I knew what was coming.
posted by Kevin at 3:37 AM