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.

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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.

Death to the Higgs boson!

Police foil Al-Collider plot to blow up sub-atomic particle.

Two to note

1. Charles Hugh Smith reflects on something that's been nagging me for quite a long time, namely, the seeming impossibility of measuring "real" prices. Everything is relative to something else.

2. The Contrarian Investor's Journal fairly succinctly shows that the USA is fast approaching a debt level so high that Uncle Sam won't be able to service the payments. However, I think it may be time to separate actual here-and-now debt from notional debt in the form of medical and social security undertakings. Surely the latter will be revised radically, voluntarily or perforce.