Got Myself Banned On The Market Ticker
I was wondering how long it would take. Karl doesn't like it when you can demonstrate that he's wrong about something. The post he made that I was responding to was, 'When All You Have Is A Hammer (Market Efficiency)'
Karl made the argument in the forum that anyone who thinks the Fed or the Gov will keep printing money and giving it to the banks, is engaging in fantasy and he wouldn't tolerate anymore talk on that.
I pointed out that Karl didn't predict the bailouts, then didn't believe they would happen when they were proposed. I argued that in fact, this was fantastical thinking, because it turns out that the way he views the world, doesn't reflect reality.
Karl got pretty pissed at me from the tone.
He argued that the plan didn't work. He said,
"They DIDN'T FLY.
What has been fixed? Lehman is gone, the market is down 40% from the top, it is unstable as hell, the attempt to force mortgage rates to 4% FAILED, the attempts to restart securitization have ALL FAILED, and on and on and on! The only people who have kept their money safe or made any are TRADERS - all the retirees in stocks or people with 401ks who were in the market got fucking DESTROYED! Unemployment is STILL ramping, mortgage defaults are going parabolic, 2 of the 3 major automakers went under and we've got a state that has effectively gone bankrupt.
WHAT flew? Blowing money out of one's asshole? Well shit, anyone can do that! The question isn't whether you can do stupid shit (anyone can) its whether ANY OF IT will do ANYTHING positive in the greater economy!
Obama came out with his "stimulus" and said it would stop unemployment from ratcheting higher. IT DID NOTHING!
Who's living in the fantasy land here? I said none of this shit would work and that they'd be CRAZY to do it - well, it appears they're crazy!
This makes me wrong? Like hell! Show me one of these things that has worked!"
To which I responded,
"Yes, and it worked. The bonuses for the pirates keep flowing. The Bankers that engineered this continue to see record salaries.
The whole point was to funnel the wealth of the nation into the hands of a few bankers. It's working fine. What you see is what they wanted.
The bubble, the bailouts, the massive debt overhang was all intentional. It's a pattern that the banks have used for hundreds of years. It really started taking shape in Africa in the 1970s, then South America in the 1980s and 90s.
Now it's North America's turn.
We're in the middle of a hostile takeover. Next they sell the USA off for parts."
And finally he responded,
"You're done Weasel. I warned people about this shit in my Ticker threads.
Do it in another one and you're gone from this part of the forum entirely.
I'm tired of this crap."
And I'm fine with that. I do enjoy a the analysis I read on his blog and forums. But far too often, Karl assumes that the world works the way he wants it to, and as a result, we keep seeing things that he labels 'Tin Foil Hat Conspiracies', coming true. The last ten years has shown us event after event that would be labeled 'Tin Foil Hat' material.
In fact, any well grounded in reality as we might interpret it, would've been completely incapable of predicting most of the major events of the last decade. All that proves is that folks that believe that they are well grounded in reality, don't understand reality at all. The reality in their heads is fantastical.
Karl doesn't believe that the Fed and the White House, Congress and the top banks are acting in their self interest. He believes that they won't do things detrimental to the country, because..., well I think he believes this because he assumes that they are acting in the nation's best interest. He believes (as I understand his position), that they wish to save the economy, but are just accidentally profiting handsomely, by screwing up.
Now in 1999, I first started writing about how financial bailouts would be the norm as the world's oil production peaks and declines. Industry would become a losing investment and the money would move to finance. Finance would rule politics and the politicians would do everything in their power to keep the most powerful banks solvent. As I see it, everything will be sacrificed to keep the wealthy empowered.
So two years ago, with the housing bubble in full swing, I started arguing that it would end in massive bailouts. I was laughed at, ridiculed and called a 'Tin Foil Hat Conspiracy Theorist'.
But I was right. I saw that the logical outcome of the bubble, predicted it, and my predictions reflected reality.
I think it's about time that folks began to recognize that the way we've been taught to view our society, our government, our economy, and our legal system, is nearly completely wrong. We have been sold a fantasy, and for much of our lives, the fantasy and the reality haven't diverged enough to be dangerous.
But that time is over. The fantasy view that we as a society cling to, no longer has any semblance to the reality in the top levels of government and high finance. It's time to discard that view and see the world as it really is. And it's ugly.
The actors on the stage now are just greedy pirates. They are looting our nation and destroying it. There is every reason to believe that they will keep doing this, until they are stopped. I think this should be plain for all to see. But we still cling to the illusion were trained to believe in, all of our lives.
Karl does not believe in this view at all. And because of this, I believe he's going to be wrong again and again. He's looking at this from the perspective of what is good for the economy and what is good for the nation. He assumes that the people in charge, have good intentions, but are making boneheaded mistakes. He thinks in my view, that they will come around.
I believe that this is a dangerous way to view the situation. I believe that we have overwhelming evidence that what has been happening is intentional. I believe that the evidence is overwhelming that the criminal activity is also intentional. i believe that the White Houses Dream Team, is doing all of this, and causing the damage that they are causing because this is their intent. They've used this script in other countries and gotten fatter and richer. They keep doing it again and again and profiting. In fact, this scripted cycle of impoverishment goes all the way back the practices of the East India Company, and their use of debt to gain political control of nations.
I predict that there will be more bailouts and there will be fire sales of public assets. Karl predicts that this will not happen, because that would be bad for us.
I don't think we'll have to wait too long to see which of us is engaged magical thinking.
posted by Weaseldog @ 11:31 AM
14 comments
14 Comments:
So two years ago, with the housing bubble in full swing, I started arguing that it would end in massive bailouts. I was laughed at, ridiculed and called a 'Tin Foil Hat Conspiracy Theorist'...
You and I both. KD is consistently wrong when trying to identify the motives and true character of the kleptocrats. He really doesn't see it. Sad really. I don't day trade but judging from his ever escalating rhetoric and the fact that he started charging a fee for his forum under the most ludicrous of excuses (for the quality of the commments, people who pay make better comments, ha! horse hockey) he must have lost quite a bit of money over the past two or three years. Meanwhile, my pitiful thing I manage makes money because I always assume a screw job is in the works. He's wrong about "everyone's" 401k being in the toilet, mine isn't, and he's wrong about traders making money, the vast majority don't. Quite frankly kd is full of crap in most regards but he is very good at knowing how things are "supposed" to work. Recently he wrote: "organic correlations started working again..." or something like that. Translation: "I was losing money again." Poor kd, he'll keep trading until it's all gone I'm afraid.
Hi again weaseldog,
I wonder how many people bit on the six weak(sic) head and shoulders pattern on the S&P? GS set that one up beautifully. What's worse is that there's nothing unusual about this week, it is a typical opex week. Up strong three straight days, then down or flat thursday and friday, I've seen it dozens of times. I'm reading alot of whining from the day traders and loving it! Shadenfreude? Maybe, but also those day traders are enabling GS et al to go on living by giving them their money freely.
[http://slopeofhope.com/2009/07/so-what-happened.html]
What is strange is that KD is constantly posting evidence that the market is a sham, and exclaiming, "If this is true, then it really is rigged!"
Then goes on to act as if it isn't.
And blasts anyone that shows that there is a pattern in what the banksters are doing.
Karl doesn't seem to learn from his own posts.
We're going to see new bailouts and a massive series of layoffs, and it's all going to be a surprise again to KD.
But I understand him I think. He doesn't want to live in this kind of world, so he doesn't, not in his head anyway.
What Karl seems not to understand is that just because the bailouts he said would never happen don't work, doesn't mean they will be done.
I knew that the various bailouts wouldn't work but I also knew that they would be done. I know also that another stimulus package won't work but I also know that it will be done anyway.
What Karl doesn't get is that the people in the saddle don't care about reality, that they'd rather not know reality, for their version works so much better, in their view.
Karl is right that the bailouts don't work- he's an economic realist. But he is not politically astute and what he doesn't understand are the poisonous politics involved, that things are set up so that the U.S. Treasury is nothing more than a conduit through which the taxpayers' money is to flow to Goldman Sachs and other financial rapists.
This is typical KD: The ugly facts are that there can be no durable recovery in the economy until the excess capacity is removed...
On the surface this statement is true. However...
The "excess capacity" will not be wrung out of the maggots, ever. They will try to wring it out of everyone else.
Example: Banks make a bad investment, here's your money back, try again.
Banks make another bad investment, or some other connected fascist, here's a stimulus, and your money back, and a gubbermint contract.
Now, if some peon makes even one mistake they lose money, job, house, car, everything. One slip up and we're dead, whereas the kleptocrats have unlimited backing. That is how it really works, and like The North Coast said, it causes kd to have brain lock because he can't accept it.
Those are good summaries of how I see it.
Karl is really only missing an understanding of the political side of the equation.
He's mastered the other side.
I have a feeling if he ever does accept the depth and breadth of the swindle, he's going to a have stroke and die.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Gf8NK1WAOc]
[http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2009/02/tarp-recipients-paid-out-114-m.html]
Because I spent a lot of time working as a psychiatric nurse, I like to ponder WHY people are psychologically inclined to think what they think. I also like to give myself a gut-check and wonder "Am I absolutely fucking paranoid-crazy to think the way I'm thinking?"
To believe the way you do, Weas, is scary. We'd all like to think that wise people, the "good father," are in control. It's why the God myth was invented. Goes back to when we were all children, when we had to rely on smart elders to keep us alive. We'd like to believe that's who's in charge of our government, our investments, our health care, etc. To realise that dad is cheating on mom and has another family in a different state, or the surgeon who's going to cut into our chest is an incompetent drunk, it blows our little minds. We need the fantasy to keep us from running out of the room screaming.
Plus, it goes against common sense that some people would do shit that will ultimately bankrupt the company, or ruin the nation, or make the entire planet choke in blanket of hot, smothering gases. That's suicidal! How can smart people -- and they MUST be smarter than us, since they got the promotion to run things, eh? -- be suicidal?
Because they can live high until we all die, and maybe they'll croak before the shitstorm hits, of course. Greed is good, as long as it lasts, if you're the big pig. Denninger can't wrap his head around the fact that many people are venal at heart, and they don't care about anyone else, even their own children's future. Same problem with utopian libertarian thinking.
So we believe in the goodness of the system. In order for an organised system to keep functioning, a critical mass of people MUST believe. If we all went our own way, we'd be atomised and non-functional. (Although I suppose that many of us would wind up going in the same direction.) To not believe, as you, and I, and Edgar, and so many sceptics, is lonely and scary.
Plus it gets us labeled as nutjobs. I don't care about that myself, because I don't give a rat's arse about the opinions of the herd. I do get tired of explaining things to people, so generally I just smile and nod when I'm presented with intransigent ignorance. I've done research, I know what terms like U-6 mean, and there's no point in arguing economics with people who think the Federal Reserve is part of the federal government. (I know, because I tried that with my aging mom and uncle when I was in the U.S. last month.)
I keep asking myself, though, "am I the equivalent to one of those people who believe the moon landings were fake?" Those people are damn sure they're smarter than everyone else, just like you and I and Edgar are. My delusional patients were always certain they were sane. My answer to myself is that I can't be sure, but I'm always open to the possibliity that I might be full of crap. But from everything I've seen, your analysis of the zeitgeist of the situation fits perfectly with how things are playing out.
Look at the bright side, though. Being a non-conformist in the face of a looming disaster is great! If there's a herd of sheep marching to the slaughterhouse, while the shepherds say "That's a nice warm barn up there," nobody's going to notice if a few slip away from the flock and hide in the woods. If ALL the sheep scatter, the shepherds will resort to different methods, like setting the dogs on us all. You'll succeed better as a sceptic only BECAUSE there are so many fools. It's like the joke about the two guys who meet a grizzly bear in the woods; the one with the punchline of "I don't have to outrun the bear -- I only have to outrun YOU!"
So be glad of your non-conforming beliefs, Weas. You're smarter because so many other people are stupider. Do what you can to enlighten those who are ready for it, and don't be bad to the ones who aren't. But acknowledge that you can't save everyone, so first save yourself.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_8Zq_iWuFg&feature=related]
"I keep asking myself, though, "am I the equivalent to one of those people who believe the moon landings were fake?" Those people are damn sure they're smarter than everyone else, just like you and I and Edgar are. My delusional patients were always certain they were sane. My answer to myself is that I can't be sure, but I'm always open to the possibliity that I might be full of crap. But from everything I've seen, your analysis of the zeitgeist of the situation fits perfectly with how things are playing out."
On the moon landings, look at the evidence that the naysayer's present. Much of it is really bad science.
One point brought up is the lack of dust clouds kicked up by the astronauts. Well, dust needs air to float on, to make a dust cloud. In a vacuum, it will fall back to the ground, like it did in the movies shot by the astronauts.
When wondering if you're equivalent, look at the evidence. analyze it as see if it fits the narrative. Look for evidence that doesn't fit.
If you're doing your best to think up and discard ideas, based on the evidence, then you're doing proper science. The most important thing is to avoid getting emotionally wrapped up in an idea. I went through and discarded quite a few theories before refining the few that I tend to preach. If I am presented with, or find contradictory evidence, I'll have to reevaluate or discard these ideas.
I find that the true believers, just run around in circles when presented with counter evidence. they don't re-examine their core beliefs because those are sacred to them, as is the mythological framework that supports it.
I see a lot of this on the 9/11 theories, where I may agree on some essential points, but if I point out one flaw in one pet theory, then I'm accused of being a propaganda agent of the government. Every tenet of the mythology must protected, lest it all come apart. At least that seems to be the fear.
If you do not do these things, then you're not like them.
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE56F5MK20090716
You did good over on KD's forum, Wease, as what you said was patently true and understood well by many. As North Coast points out KD is a believer in the financial system, an idealist, he honestly thinks it can be fixed and criminality is an aboration, rather than endemic to the system. He does, however, have a very good feel for the technical side of it, he just lets his idealism overwhelm his common sense and all empirical evidence. In that regard EJ over at Itulip has a better handle on it.
Great points, by the way.
In the mirror image of classical fascism, the political system has been taken over by economic interests. It really IS all about the bezzle, and morons are in charge.
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