Sober Realist

What Stories Aren't Being Told?

AND THE #1 STORY IS:
We are on board a freight train to civilization's collapse due to entrapment in a consumption-based economic model based on unsustainable perpetual growth.

Lots of other stories, but they pale in comparison or are somehow related to the one I just mentioned. You mentioned one factor of the freight train story:
"Water shortages in China and India."

Here are the other major monsters bearing down on us:

-the 6th mass extinction ocurring right now:
www.austinchronicle.co...

-peak oil:
www.propertyinvesting....

-climate change
www.youtube.com/watch?...

-overpopulation:
globalextinction.org/E...

What Stories Aren't Being Told?

"MSM works on advertising revenue. MSM media copies formats which attract the most viewers. most viewers do not want real news. this is why we watch CNBC over Bloomberg, Fox over CNN, BBC over Al Jazeera."
...and all of them over Democracy Now/Link TV. I've found it to be a window into unvarnished truth.

China Becoming a 'Middle-Class' Nation

Jeff Nieson said
"ONLY Corporate America has a positive net-worth. And, as we have seen in the scams from Wall Street and the dismantling of the U.S. manufacturing sector, these multi-national corporations have ZERO allegiance to ANY government."
--- agree with this statement, but little else from your usual pom pom parade for China.

Don't Worry About Deleveraging

GS's view shows they are not interested in any structural changes to the economic model, just continued propping up of a failed system with more government stimuli and hoping emerging markets (namely Brazil, China, and India) will become hooked on debt like Americans have been over the last 3 decades. The government stimuli bridge won't take us there.

Consumer Deleveraging

And where will the jobs come from to pay the debt and consume. Look at this chart and see another big problem:
www.oftwominds.com/pho...

Greenspan: Another Crisis Is Inevitable

WE'RE A LONG WAY FROM CLEANING UP THE MESS HE WAS INSTRUMENTAL IN CREATING!

Has the Government's Effort Failed?

This is just amazing to watch--- a slow motion train wreck. How long can TPTB keep the charade going before the masses start laughing, like the Chinese at Geitner, everytime they see an Orwellian politico-speech on the boob tube.

Why I Predict No Economic Recovery

You have to look at all the factors that are squeezing the middle class : stagnant/declining wages, no real job security, no comprehensive health plan for the majority, a credit and housing bubble bust complements of Greenspan and the banking oligarchy, skyrocketing post secondary education, increasing food costs (Food prices are rising at an average of five per cent a year), rising energy costs. Lack of a strong middle class will doom this country into a developing world status with a two-tiered society, a small elite class and large underclass. No strong middle class = no sustainable recovery.

America: A Bona Fide Plutonomy

What nimrod gave you a negative on that remark? -- Obviously one of the Plutocracy which enjoys socialism for the rich subsidized off the backs of the middle class, i.e. Too-Big-To-Fail Bail-Outs.
Speaking of healthcare, here's a great trip down memory lane:
Hospital fees now 400 (to 800) times the cost in 1934
www.mountvernonnews.co...


On Sep 08 05:48 PM TraderMark wrote:

> That is a debatable subject. The general throwaway line is the middle
> class is better off or has the highest quality standard of living
> because of the most toys.
>
> One could make many arguments against it -
> is a situation where getting sick at the wrong time (no insurance)
> or with too little insurance, a good standard? i.e. your entire
> life savings can be wiped out by one stay in the hospital? is that
> a better situation than other countries?
>
> is a situation where to maintain the place in society as middle class,
> both parents have to work rather than the old standard where only
> the male had to (say 1950s, 1960s) "better"? Yes more toys now but
> what has it done for family and society?
>
> the previous example compared "today" to 50 years ago. What about
> versus 10 years ago? Do you honestly believe if you talk to the
> average Joe he feels he is better off than 10 years ago?
>
> Now let's be clear many average Joes got themselves in a serious
> pickle by spending far more than they have. But many others are
> just struggling to get by even by following the rules.
>
> I hang out in the middle class and maybe I'm on the wrong side of
> the tracks or live in the wrong state but many believe their kids
> won't have a chance to repeat the standard of living they did. And
> those are coming from people who are working 2-3 jobs to provide
> as much as their parents did with 1 job.
>
> Argument is not that the middle class deserve to be rich - the larger
> question that needs to be asked is what % of the population is going
> backwards or having to do 2-3x as much as in the past simply to stay
> in the same place. While a small sliver prosper no matter what.
>

America: A Bona Fide Plutonomy

Good comment Graham.
Emily Spencer makes the point more bluntly in her essay "The Widening Gap In America's Two Tiered Society"
08/25/09

"Americans, particularly ones from the middle class, need to realize that there are no core entitlements imparted by their government representatives, nor any other sources. They have none and should adjust their expectations accordingly.
If the U.S. populace somehow imagines that its members are viewed any differently than any other populations across the world that are used to produce maximal profits for the top economic class, there's a rude awakening in store ahead. Further, most legislators simply do not care whether middle and lower class interests are or aren't well served as long as they, themselves, can somehow make out well in the times ahead...."

A corporatocracy is the best label for our form of "governance."
A government which serves the desires and needs of corporations and special interest groups rather than those of its own citizens. A look inside the federal government right now, and especially during the last thirty years reveals a very cozy relationship between corporations and government. These relationships exist across all industries from defense and banking to medicine and agriculture.
www.chrismartenson.com...

“Make no mistake _ the status quo is corporate control and the government's agenda is not only to maintain corporate control but increase the grip of corporate special interests.”

On Sep 08 11:32 AM Graham and Dodd Investor wrote:

> In the attached instablog post, I pointed out that the American
> plutonomy was trying to make America's bottom 80% more like the world's
> bottom 80% by breaking down the barriers protecting them.
>
> seekingalpha.com/insta...
>
>
> The conclusion was that if an American percentile ranking became
> a GLOBAL percentile ranking, the bottom 80% wouldn't have much to
> cheer about.

Why Healthcare Probably Won't Generate Jobs for a Recovery

I think the author has put his finger on the problem of healthcare in this country: less bang for the buck. If anybody thinks we have better healthcare in this country compared to other nations, read this:
By T.R. Reid -- Five Myths About Health Care
www.washingtonpost.com...
Hospital fees now 400 (to 800) times the cost in 1934
www.mountvernonnews.co...

And also see this movie:
www.moneydrivenmedicin.../

The United States is the only developed nation that does not have a comprehensive national health care plan for all its citizens. And the middle class is paying the price for this, all for the crime of getting sick.
Unfortunately, the for profit insurance companies have already won. See here:
The Health Insurers Have Already Won
How UnitedHealth and rival carriers, maneuvering behind the scenes in Washington, shaped health-care reform for their own benefit
August 6, 2009
www.businessweek.com/m...
Why Are The Drug and Health Insurance Companies Smiling? August 21, 2009
www.americanchronicle....

And here for my personal take on the situation:
www.chrismartenson.com...

What if It Is a 'V' Recovery?

36+ million American's on food stamps now and the middle class is still up to their eyeballs in debt. No real healthcare reform and, therefore, the medical-bill-induced bankruptcies will continue. I could go on, but I won't. These are facts. Unless we are expecting the top 10% to drive this consumption-based economy, there will be no recovery in this middle-class liquidating country, just bouncing along the bottom and readjusting to lower standards of living. Maybe these facts can be overlooked by the stock market since its a manipulated, propped-up market that is disconnected from reality.

Economic Change: Not from This Administration

A third party is needed to bring actually change from the two-headed single party we currently have. Until the masses realize this, the status quo will be maintained at our expense. "The status quo is corporate control and the government's agenda is not only to maintain corporate control but increase the grip of corporate special interests."

Reappointing Bernanke Is a Mistake

The foundation of Rome cracks and crumbles as the oblivious emperors partake in orgies.

Reappointing Bernanke Is a Mistake

Reappointing Bernanke was no surprise. Not reappointing him would be an admission that the Wallstreet Bailout was the wrong thing to do. You wouldn't expect the Whitehouse to commit that faux pas, would you?