The Warlords Keep Winning- The Sunday Collage

I wish that I could tell you that I entered law enforcement because I loved my fellow man and I wanted to make the world a better place. But that would be untruthful. My reasons were far more shallow than that. I thought law enforcement would be fun. I wanted to be entertained. I'm not sure it was any more complicated than that.

Eventually, that superficial thought process would fade away.

About six weeks ago, I read this story about a woman who stabbed and killed her 7 year old son, a 5 year old girl she was babysitting, and the two family dogs. She made the children pray before she stabbed them to death. What are the chances that this woman is insane? Better than average. I landed on schizophrenia for her. http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/11/01/babysitter-charged-with-killing-kids-due-in-bond-court/#photo-1

When you are prescribed medication for mental health issues- the translation is that we don't have any way of fixing you- so society's answer is that we will just medicate you for 40 or 50 years and hope that everything turns out well. Medication is not a cure. It never has been. For millions and millions of undiagnosed and/or depressed people- many simply self medicate with booze, pot, or maybe some valium.

The point I am trying to make is simple. Drugs do not cure people. In a country devoid of patience- we want what we want- now.

We have been sold this ridiculous notion that we can fix broken people with some magical compound while ignoring all internal and external influences on this person. In an emergency room, they might refer to this as a mechanism of injury. If you don't know the precise mechanism of injury- you cannot possibly hope to properly treat the underlying illness.

For several years, I taught mental illness at the state police academy. My degree is in law enforcement. This was a bare bones kind of mental illness approach. I taught young police officers the basic differences between schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, and depression. I also had a rudimentary knowledge of lesser known problems like obsessive compulsive disorder, autism, and the new kid on the block, Asperger's Syndrome. I taught these things in an attempt to understand them primarily- and then secondarily- to assist young officers in rapidly assessing what they were most likely dealing with when confronting these folks in their daily activities.

Here was my experience. Schizophrenics and people with Aspergers could be highly difficult to deal with. They were prone to violence and highly impulsive. Depressed people tended to be more isolated and if prone to violence- it tended to be suicide ideation. I never needed validation of that opinion. This was my truth and my experience. So when a young man shoots his mother in the face and then oddly, goes to a school she is associated with, that tells me that his actions were highly impulsive. Having a lack of empathy for others, allowed him to kill children. That type of rage and impulsivity, in my experience, was limited to people with schizophrenia and possibly Asperger's. Indeed this morning, I read this piece. http://boston.cbslocal.com/2012/12/14/newtown-school-shooting-who-is-adam-lanza/

So how do we deal with mental illness? Are we going to lock up everyone with a schizophrenic or AS diagnosis? No, the supreme court has decided that. No plan B.

So one of the things this country is very good at- is ignoring our own problems like we don't have any. Our leaders have plenty of money to drop bombs on middle easterners while telling us we don't have any way of dealing with the mentally ill.

This is beyond bullshit. The truth is- this country doesn't give two shits about the mentally ill until some insanely tragic thing happens in Connecticut, West Virginia, or Colorado. In Idaho, I have actually listened to state legislators publicly DOUBT the existence of mental illness. I am not kidding. That level of unconsciousness is hard to comprehend.

So for the next few days, we will have to listen to talking heads with alleged credentials yak on television or listen to the left talk about gun control like that is the real issue. We love to blame the symptoms.

I have refused to turn my television on.

In all three cases- Virginia Tech, Columbine, and now Sandy Hook- the shooters were all people with a long history of mental illness. What a coincidence! Who deals directly with those people? Teachers and cops. Every day. Who's asking the teachers and cops for information about these people? Nobody. Because nobody thinks that is important and worse yet, other than social workers and immediate family members- I don't think anyone really cares about these people. They have been marginalized.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that our society is horrible at diagnosing, identifying, treating, and then providing after care for this particular demographic. We don't check on these people regularly. We don't assist them with housing or help. Instead we write out some script- get them some prescriptions and hope that they take them. That's our solution to a mental health problem that will only enlarge and get worse. To presume otherwise means some sort of large scale intervention by a government that up to this point- would clearly rather spend OUR billions bombing and killing foreigners than provide aid to our own people. We can see where the priorities are.

Now all of this might sound socialistic to you. But I have to say this. I know of no other mechanism to help the mentally ill while preventing death and destruction to the rest of us. Perhaps programs administered by states with all of that largesse the government confiscates from us each year. I simply can't think of a better way. In my mind- it's a win for everyone in our country and a vast improvement over the wars, waste, and destruction that we currently engage in year after miserable year.

To me, wasting our money on wars makes socialism look wonderful.

If the government diverted 5 billion dollars or one day's spending, that would be a hundred million dollars per state for mental health care. Chump change. But instead we will waste billions upon billions bombing other countries and paying interest on the debt we borrowed to bomb them. It seems, the warlords keep winning. The people keep losing.

Whether we decide to voluntarily help the mentally ill or we are ultimately forced to do it, will simply be a matter of how bad our society continues to break down. For years I worked with the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. I advocated for better treatment of the mentally ill. Law enforcement taught me that the mentally ill are a huge problem for the rest of us. I gave up when I realized that beyond the people who are intimately and directly effected by the mentally ill- nobody seemed to care. That's too bad.

Because the mentally ill keep showing up at places like Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook. It doesn't appear that they are going away any time soon.

Who Kills 5-10 Year Old Children? This Guy Does*Updated

*I am not surprised that CNN initially reported that Ryan Lanza, rather than his younger brother Adam Lanza, is the deceased shooter in Newtown, Conn.

News agencies are reporting that cops got the two names mixed up. The latest info is that Adam Lanza was carrying his brother's ID when he shot and killed himself. In some odd way- that all makes sense to me.

MSM now stating Adam Lanza is the deceased suspect. Cops are questioning brother Ryan. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57559316-504083/connecticut-school-shooting-suspected-shooter-now-idd-as-adam-lanza-older-brother-ryan-questioned-by-cops/

Back in the old days, I often speculated on why "would be" killers never showed up at the police station. It was simple. We have guns and we will use them. A guy even tried walking into a Detroit Police Station a few years later to shoot a few cops and test that theory. He is no longer with us.

So the cowards, guys like Adam Lanza, focus all of that pent up hostility and hatred on unarmed children. Killing them at will. These were 5-10 year old children just before Christmas. The body count rests at 28, at least 20 of whom were very young children.

What happened to reports of a second shooter? Apparently that report just disappeared.

Within an hour or two of the shootings, Zerohedge had posted Ryan Lanza's facebook page on it's blog as the alleged shooter. Mistakes travel every bit as fast as accurate info.  http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-14/newton-ct-elementary-school-shooting-tally-rises-27-dead-whom-14-children 

I don't think you'd be normal not to feel some anger for a guy that simply walks into a school and starts gunning down innocent children. How can you explain shooting innocent little kids? Hint- don't try. It's useless. 

There is nothing to be gained from getting angry about the depressed and mentally ill. They used to frustrate the hell out of me. For the most part, they present themselves as fairly normal- especially when they are medicated. Trust me, I can tell you with 100% certainty that this guy suffered from mental illness. 

So is that an excuse for what he did? No actually, and I doubt Adam Lanza would invoke one. He doesn't care. All of that anger, rage, and hostility was just looking for a flash point. His needs are self centered- completely self absorbed. Now we are finding out that Lanza's mother worked at the school and he killed her too. Shot her in the face. That's a big clue.

Our world is full of people who are angry and depressed. I'm not sure our society has the where with all  or the money to arm every venue against attack. 

The problem runs so much deeper than the usual and shallow rhetoric that will be discussed in the days and weeks to come. The people with agendas will be out- the anti gun people. The media will discuss this bullshit ad nauseum. 

Adam Lanza suffered from some serious mental health issues, that is a given. Adam is a symptom of a society that thinks the solution for depressed people is a bottle of Prozac or some pot. I think that we are going to find that Adam Lanza suffered from a whole life long laundry list of issues and one day- he just snapped. The problem is much larger, more uncomfortable and complex, than most people care to think about. Except guys like me. I am actually comfortable talking about the things that disturb us.

So I think I'll try and tackle that on Sunday.

Apple Has Jumped the Shark

When I was a kid, I watched Happy Days religiously. Until I grew up that is. A few years ago, people started using the phrase, "jumping the shark." In the last episodes of Happy Days- the writers were apparently running out of material to write about. So they came up with this ridiculous idea of having the Fonz water ski off of a ramp and over an enclosed shark pen.

Jumping the shark has thus become cliche for something that obviously- should have already ended.

 

This morning I was reading another blogger who was extolling the virtues of Steve Jobs. Jobs was a great industrialist- but he surely was no patriot.

There are 43,000 Californians paying taxes thanks to Apple. Big deal. There are four times that or 180, 000 Chinese employees making a little over a dollar an hour and get this...

Foxconn, the Apple subcontractor, has agreed to only work employees only 60 hours a week. Fucking humanitarians, those Chinese. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57515968-37/riots-suicides-and-other-issues-in-foxconns-iphone-factories/

The truth is, I liked Jobs. He ran Apple with an iron fist which is why it has done so well. But Jobs is gone and in all respects, I think he took Apple with him. Apple pays a dividend now which is something Jobs would never do.

So I don't mind all of the visionary labels attached to Jobs. Or an industrialist tag or two. But please don't call him a patriot. He was just another greedy capitalist, whoring out his labor and inflating his margins. At the cost of the American worker.

Unfortunately- it was too hard for Apple to import a fleet of Chinese people to operate Apple stores. They would have had the protection of American labor laws including a 40 hour week and a minimum wage a little bit north of a buck an hour.

Succeeding CEO Tim Cook has seen the future. He knows there are people like me out here- people who will refuse to buy those over priced Apple products especially knowing that Apple has averted standard overhead costs while employing slave labor.

So Cook is going to build a line of Apple computers in the U.S. Well bless his little heart. http://rockcenter.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/06/15708290-apple-ceo-tim-cook-announces-plans-to-manufacture-mac-computers-in-usa?lite

I bought my last Apple product a year ago. No more 200 dollar Ipods with Itunes, no more MacBooks starting at 1000 dollars and going up. No more trinkets and accessories priced 5 times higher than anyone else's. No more Iphone. No more Ishit period.

Even if Apple products were competitively priced, I simply wouldn't buy them knowing that Apple uses slave labor to produce them. Paying ridiculous margins for a product that is marginally or arguably better than competing brands- is just not worth it. I think Apple has finally jumped the shark.

All Great Men of Faith Have Courage

This is not one of them.

We Are Not Obligated To Obey Bad Law, Nullify It

You are going to hear the term nullification a lot as Obamacare approaches. The Constitution was never written in a way that allowed the Federal Government to impose unconstitutional restrictions on the states. In fact, it is the duty of the states to oppose those over reaching and unconstitutional laws.

Obama's Great Lie

Do you know what this means?

Ex ut, ver is.

Today over at Conservatives on Fire, Jim wrote an excellent piece that makes an assumption. http://conservativesonfire.wordpress.com/ Jim assumes, like any reasonable person, that the President of the United States wants to save his country. That's an honest assumption and it makes sense to a lot of normal and well adjusted people.

Here's the problem. Obama has not done anything that would support that premise. In fact, I haven't seen any evidence that he has any less apathy than the typical American.

During the debates and the campaign, I listened to Obama shovel his "tax the rich" rhetoric onto every voting soul who would listen. It is meant to be divisive and to get votes from stupid people.

I had already done the math that was required to get us on a path of solvency. The really bad news was and still is, that it was no longer possible. You can confiscate the wealth of everybody- at 100%- and you cannot break even.

The government has simply overspent itself by trillions assuming that one day- we would crank up the great taxing machine called GDP and get it all back. But this time- it really was different. We had lost 50 million jobs. There was no great taxing machine to fire up. It has been sent in pieces, shipped to places like Mexico, the Pacific Rim, India, and China.

In fact, increasing tax rates to 75% on the wealthiest few Americans- those making 250k a more per year won't make a bit of difference. Here's a guy, like me, who has done the math. He realizes the same thing.

Obama purposefully misleads. He is a liar. http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/12/how_much_taxation_would_fund_current_spending.html

The great lie that Obama tells is that taxing the rich is the answer to our deficit problems. It is not. We have a spending problem. Here's the secondary problem. The majority of Americans believe this lie. They all assume Obama cares about the U.S. , yet I have seen no evidence of that. This man has an agenda. Instead of worshipping this guy- we should be trying him for treason.

Obama knows ol man whitey makes all of the real money, the 250K plus. He also knows that minorities hate ol man whitey. The easiest votes on the planet take the same simple recipe. Bait the race and status card a bit, kick back, and rake in the  down trodden and minority votes. Blame the rich for your lack of revenue. Then watch the voting magic. It doesn't matter whether it's the actual truth or not. The voters think that it is true and that's all that matters in the voting booth.

The math Obama learned at Columbia or Harvard would have been exactly the same math the rest of us learned. This is another grand distraction- some garbage meant to look as though something is getting done will government increases taxes and spreads it's dominion over us.There will be some miniscule spending cuts, coupled with some tax increases, the celebration will be brief and guess what- nothing will have changed. All of this is meant to buy just enough time for the seated politicians to escape their chairs with their cushy connections and seven digit salaries on the outside-

That is all any of them do. Kick the can, buy time, get out.

Obama's great lie is that the rich are responsible for our state of affairs. Nothing could be further from the truth. Unfortunately, people never let the facts get in the way of their beliefs.

From that, springs this.

Gold Always Remembers, So That You Can Forget

Gold has an inverse relationship to easily counterfeited currencies. The more governments print, the higher gold goes. In cases like ours, where the FED cannot stop printing, gold cannot go down. 

The only thing that drives gold down at this point- are the banks that manipulate the price through the futures exchanges. That is the last line of defense for bankers- who simply cannot find the alchemy to counterfeit gold.

The gold vid. Redux.

How To Hijack a Republic

For the past 3 years, I have been on this website stating the incredibly obvious.

We are bankrupt and insolvent. Figures cannot lie, liars figure. As many of you will note- I had this back and forth with some idiot on Huffington Post a week ago who maintains that we are not bankrupt- kind of like that idiot Krugman.

Where do we get these people?

This is the new normal. These morons think that math is some hideous Republican invention- like pro life and God. They think....and get this....that math is an opinion.

What happened in 2008 was unprecedented. Never in the annals of this country or our history had we
turned over the public coffers to bankers. Trillions of dollars.

It was the greatest theft ever conceived and when I tell you Bush and Obama deserve a prison cell- I am dead serious.

What did you think would happen? Did you think we were going to pay this back? That we were going to have this miraculous job growth even though we had lost 50 million jobs over the past 15 years?

We were structurally incapable of a recovery. We had lost every decent manufacturing job that we had. We had also allowed an illegal labor force to come over the border and steal as many jobs as they could. Not just in low paying crop picking occupations- illegal aliens were driving trucks, framing houses, starting businesses.

In 2008, we lost our Republic. It is not coming back. We shall have mob rule democracy until we finally have the economic implosion we all so richly deserve. This is what happens when an apathetic public plays chicken shit with the greatest Republic ever.

We lost it. Just like Ben Franklin said might happen.

From here on out...it is QE to eternity and government lies...about employment, about GDP, and debt ceilings. They are going to steal every tax dollar they can get away with. All of this ridiculous talk about the fiscal cliff? That ship sailed back in 2008.

Here's Art Cashin talking some crazy, Frankenstein Government, kind of talk.

Art Cashin Previews Our $202 Trillion Destiny

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 12/11/2012 - 09:36Art Cashin Bill Gross Demographics Italy Medicare Tim Geithner Wall Street Journal

Yesterday's trading was a balance between Italy fears and fiscal cliff hopes-fears-and-hopes-again. While UBS' Art Cashin notes that on the bright side, this will all be over on December 21st when the Mayans predicted the end of the world, he also details what is perhaps even more fearsome - not-the-end-of-the-world as, in his words, demographics, destiny, and the fiscal cliff loom very large not just for the next few weeks but heading out over the next decade as baby boomers retire. As Cashin so wisely points out: "Somewhat lost in the posturing is the fact that the Fiscal Cliff was put in place to force Washington to address the exploding government debt problem. That problem is greatly exacerbated by the rapidly changing demographics in this country. If you fast forward 20 years until all the boomers are retired government debt (taking into account unfunded liabilities) soars to $202 trillion.  Perhaps worth remembering that "The real problem is that regardless of the resolution it will not solve anything. We have passed the point of no return. We cannot mathematically solve this debt problem. We can only slow its progression."

Some Thoughts on Silver

First my positions. I own physical silver and shares in PSLV. I plan on buying SSRI as early as tomorrow.

I have been doing a lot of silver research over the past two weeks. There is very good evidence that the supplies of silver are very tight and that a silver surplus- does not exist. 

Please remember that just because silver is 50 times cheaper than gold does not mean silver is 50 times more plentiful. In fact, there is strong evidence to suggest that the only thing keeping the price of silver down is market manipulation and specifically two banks. Here is an eye popping report showing short positions and a potential price explosion in metals. The top report on the GATA site. http://www.gata.org/node/12011

Not only has the price of silver been solid for the last few weeks, but I have been seeing serious buying action at the silver miners. SSRI was up nearly 6% at one point today. http://www.silverstandard.com/

In fact, on a day when the DJIA and other averages were pretty flat, all of the silver miners that I track were showing green on my 60 stock watch list. 

Odd. 

Historically, silver has traded from levels of 15 to 20-1 with gold. A move up, over 100% from here, will still not get silver to historical norms. That's why I am a silver investor now. That's where I am focused.

A significant problem is taxes. If you are buying silver stocks or positions in a trust like PSLV...if you want to take some money off the table...Uncle Sugar is going to be there with his hand out wanting his cut. Selling a few ounces here or there, is not reportable like short term capital gains on a sale of a stock or trust. In fact, because of the huge potential for gains and rising tax rates, you are probably better off buying the real stuff. In the smallest increments that you can.

I wouldn't wait too much longer. The supply is very tight.

What Ben Knows

It is the greatest lie never told.

Several years ago, I began to realize that people only care about something if it directly effects them. They don't really care if some stranger needs a kidney transplant and they have a match- nor do they really care whether you are out of work so long as they are not. They are apathetic.

This week, the Federal Open Malarkey Committee, headed by Ben Shalom Bernanke will meet once again. They will decide how much more money to counterfeit.

Now you'd think as the sixth year (07,08,09,10,11,12) of this depressed economy and subsequent bank deception comes to a close- that people might actually start catching on. This economy ain't gonna get better. This is an elevator that only goes one way.

There are some clues.

-A continually rising food stamp recipient number currently at record levels of 47.7 million.
-A labor force participation rate which is at 1981 levels when we had about 90 million people less than we do today.
-Budget deficits of 1.2 trillion for five years running. Oddly, unemployed people do not pay taxes.
-Nearly two trillion sitting off shore in corporate bank accounts. Only UBS and Lichtenstein know how much elite and individual money has been hidden away.

Does this look like a recovery to you? Do you think these folks are paying taxes? http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-09/foodstamps-soar-most-16-months-over-1-million-americans-enter-poverty-last-two-month

Now the time has come to pay for all of that bank thievery that occurred in 2008. That's really what we are talking about. The politicians have to raise taxes to pay for all of that largesse that was stolen in 2008, that 6 trillion in accumulated annual deficits over the last 5 years, at interest.

Thankfully, people are going to start feeling the pain. I hope every American citizen with any income loses about 10% or more of it. Maybe then they'll shut off their fucking Ipods and pay attention.

I want Barack Obama to take his rightful place in history- as the worst, most ineffective and banker co-opted President of all time. The guy who fiddled while America burned.

I want the FOMC to keep printing money and buying debt at a trillion or so a year. I want Ben to keep the hammer down, printing like crazy because he has a thesis to defend. Ben believed that deflation prolonged the Great Depression. Like all good bankers, Ben hates a gold standard. Ben was wrong about the Great Depression but I suspect he knew that all along. He had to. You can't steal the wealth of America without being able to increase the money supply. It is the quantity of money created via debt and nothing else- that has destroyed our economy and enriched bankers.

You don't hear the bankers crying do you? Fact is, they are propping up the stock market for him.

The reason that virtually none of us were taught anything about the Federal Reserve, either in high school or in college, was simple. The ruling class, the bankers, don't want anyone to know anything about money printing and how they skim interest off the top.

You don't educate the marks. If you don't understand what I am talking about- you are a mark.

Instead, you say that the Federal Reserve was created in 1913 to issue currency and smooth out bank runs after a bunch of "bank panics." (created by bankers, I might add)  Some generic bullshit like that will be devoured by most school kids and taken as gospel. To this day, I find myself at odds with older adults who don't have a clue about the Federal Reserve or what it really does. These are not idiots either. These are lawyers, doctors, educated people. Marks.

This is what Ben knows. Quantitative easing can never stop. Because once it stops, the whole system implodes and collapses. The dollar will be destroyed. Inflation will take off. Interest rates will soar. We will not be able to refinance our national debt like we do each year, into higher and higher rates. The rosiest scenario at this point in the cycle,  will be to keep a sheep like public pacified- and hope that they will put up with this banker stagflation for 25 years or more- just like the Japanese have done since 1989.

But I don't think we can. The only collateral we pledge when we sell treasury debt- is American labor. With out the promise of American labor, how will we pay this outrageous debt?

We won't. That's what Ben knows.













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Doing the Right Thing- The Un American Way

Iceland went after the people who caused the crisis — the bankers who created and sold the junk products — and tried to shield the general population.

But what Iceland did is not just emotionally satisfying. Iceland is recovering, while the rest of the Western world — which bailed out the bankers and left the general population to pay for the bankers’ excess — is not.