Wine pressings

The crush of the present distils wisdom:

In general, my own prescription is all that I will share. I am 58 years old, and have amassed a fair amount of savings over the past twenty years. My general rules for the current period now are:

1. Get liquid. Have little or no debt. Be in cash and diversified. Reduce your expenses.
2. Get as far away as you can from Wall Street and dollar based assets as is practical.
3. Put something you can spare from savings into long term assets that are not directly contingent on anyone else whom you cannot trust:

a. Personal food production, preservation, and preparation
b. Precious metals as insurance against monetary inflation / breakdown
c. Essentials for daily living and personal health care
d. Investments in practical education
e. Personal infrastructure and efficiency

f. Have a contingency plan for a systemic shock.

If you wish raise your voice or to peacefully demonstrate, be prepared with a simple set of coherent positions and specific demands, avoiding anger. The mainstream media likes nothing better than to portrary demonstrators as cranks or fools. In general they are not sympathetic to the less powerful. They will not lead change, but they will eventually follow.

The "funny money" Dow

Comparing the Dow with CPI, and with debt

From economic crisis, towards politics and social change

Leo Kolivakis deeply regrets having to miss lunch with Michael Hudson:

[Dr Hudson argues] that we are moving to a "Neo-Feudal" world where the landlords and the bankers are again in charge of the economy (and the world).

Their strategy is to get the rest of the country into as much debt as possible. Whether this is so they can increase their claims on financial wealth (rents, interest payments, and capital gains on asset prices) or whether it's a political program to subjugate the population...that's one of the questions we were going to ask.

We were also going to ask if the "de-industrialisation" of advanced Western economies that Dr. Hudson talks about is a reversible process. Can Europe and America ever compete with China and Asia in manufactured goods? And if they can only do so in high-end goods (capital goods, technology, aerospace, IT etc.) what does that mean for the structure of employment in Western economies and corporate earnings.

Dr. Hudson, it seems to us, is right to point out that there is a kind of "Financial Oligarchy" that seems to be benefiting the most from the financialization of the economy. But everyone else - those betting on higher share and house prices to pay for retirement (and pay off huge debts) - may not fare so well. What should you do? What can you do? More on this in future reckonings.

US economic weakness to be exploited by China

Padders alerts me to this succinct WSJ article by Zakary Karabell, warning that just as the US leapfrogged a bankrupt Britain in 1945, China looks likely to do the same to the US.

Crony capitalism is our Vietnam War

Jesse passes on this CNBC tidbit, which explains how ex-Goldman Sachs operatives embedded in the US regulatory systems gave GS $70 billion just when nobody else had cash, so GS could buy up assets at fire sale prices and make monstrous profits at the taxpayers' expense. Truly, it's us against them, but all we can do is wave our placards as their limos cruise by.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

She's mine!

One teacher told how she and her new boyfriend snuggled up for the night, only to have her tomcat jump on top and soak them with urine.

So they heaved aside the soggy duvet and decamped to the second bedroom. But Tom came in and did it again.

They ended up having to grab a couple of blankets and sleep on the sofa downstairs.

And...

As Goldfinger says, "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.”

Laughing at the underclass

Doing the rounds on the Internet:

Two reasons why it's so hard to solve a redneck murder:

1. The DNA all matches.
2. There are no dental records.

Energy and polity

Following up comments kindly added to my piece, The Dolorous Stroke, I have aired the following and wonder if it has any merit:

I have a half-formed theory that coalitions/unifications have a destabilising effect. If, as with Germany and its customs unions in the 19th C, the result is greater efficiency, energy is released and the system attempts to expand, with the results we saw in the 20th C; if, instead, the system becomes less efficient, as with some giant commercial company mergers, the result is decay and contraction as inefficiencies fail to be addressed in a timely manner. I think the EU is / will be an example of the latter.

The wrecking crew

Jesse explains succinctly how the financiers are deliberately wrecking and looting what's left of the economy.

The money the government gave them isn't being loaned out, but instead is shoved into the stockmarket to create yet another illusory boom - so that more fees and bonuses can be earned. These are taken out of the system (where do they put their own stash?).

When the share-pumping stops, the market collapses again, less the plunder - so it's lower than before and there's even less cash to act as lifeblood for the real economy.

Meanwhile, the rich are, relatively speaking, richer than ever - even than their counterparts in 1929:

This threatens to destabilize society.