http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/04/29/san-jose-leaders-look-to-build-pods-microhouses-to-shelter-the-homeless/SAN JOSE TRIES TO BE THE FIRST CITY TO BRING SOUTH AMERICAN GHETTOS TO AMERICA.
Lesson from the rest of the world. Shipping containers, sheet metal, cardboard, cement blocks and stolen wire cable, are all you need to shelter the homeless. Where they can reproduce like rats.
Source date (UTC): 2014-04-30 13:08:00 UTC
UKRAINE UPDATE : RUSSIAN TERRORISM IS WORKING IN THE EAST
The ex-president took $30B with him to Russia to fund the insurrection in the east. Ukraine is too impoverished to defend itself.
Source date (UTC): 2014-04-30 11:27:00 UTC
BOILING FROG?
Contrary to popular imagination, the frog does eventually realize that the water is boiling. Apparently, like the frog, humans eventually realize that their tax, regulatory, and legal policy are killing them. But only when its too late.
Our civilization is about to boil. And I’m going to add salt to the water.
http://english.caixin.com/2014-04-22/100669023.html
Source date (UTC): 2014-04-29 13:02:00 UTC
A COUP IS CHEAPER THAN SECESSION
Our nearest solution, as Thomas Sowell suggested, is probably a military coup. And of course they need a good reason. And you have to give them that reason. The problem with a coup, is that the military, being the military, needs a plan. Because military folks like plans. One of our jobs, is to produce that plan. That plan isn’t actually all that complicated. It has to be something that the military can do in 30 days or less. And not one that tries to solve everything.
COSTS FROM LEAST TO MOST EXPENSIVE
1) NULLIFICATION
2) COUP (RESTORATION)
3) SECESSION
4) REVOLUTION
Source date (UTC): 2014-04-28 05:13:00 UTC
Six people in the past 24 hours have told me that russia will invade and conquer Ukraine shortly – perhaps as early as tomorrow. Fucking barbarians. I love Ukraine. I have nothing from the american side except a few emails from the state department stating that all americans should leave and particularly leave the east. But you know, it’s a little like our invasion of Iraq. Just took a lot of time to get that equipment there.
Source date (UTC): 2014-04-28 04:24:00 UTC
CULTURAL OBSERVATIONS : GRIEF, COST IN LIVES, COST IN ECONOMICS
Walked through the center of Kiev today. Saw the memorials. Saw some people weeping. Saw the remaining barricade. Most of the shops are open, about a quarter or less remain closed. Those that are open have very little inventory, and nothing terribly high end.
The malls are empty. The restaurants almost so. Jobs are hard to find and salespeople nervous about missing the opportunity of each customer that happens by. This is a very different Kiev from a year ago.
But they are willing to pay this cost for their freedom. People will pay very high costs to punish unethical and immoral actors.
The president of Ukraine, a Russian puppet, exploited, plundered and impoverished the people of Ukraine, just as his Russian masters did.
The USA has done similar evils, in an effort to prevent an even worse outcome: the expansion of world communism under the soviet empire. But it is one thing to stop a plague, stop a murderous ideology, and constrain a people until they mature into members of the world economy, and quite another to PREVENT good and decent moral people from joining the productive world economy, and the prosperity that comes with joining it.
The problem is that Russia has nothing good to offer the world. It has violence, corruption, exploitation and poverty. Does the world need a strong Russia? I think so. But it only needs a strong russia if it is not a PREDATORY state that impoverishes people, in a continuing blight. The damage that the Russian soviets did to eastern europe, was tragic and still persists. The damage that the Russian soviets did to their own people – more murderous than Hitler’s war, is only matched by the great plagues.
Over the winter Ukrainians spent their blood, money, and time to overthrow a corrupt Russian sponsored predatory, in the hope of joining european prosperity, and saving itself from russian sponsored, corruption, predation and poverty.
Only to have Russians once again prey upon them. Only to have the west fail to live up to its promises. Only to find themselves raided, plundered, and abandoned.
I love these people. I love every one of them. I’m privileged to live with them. There are no better people on this earth.
The only freedom you have is the people standing next to you, the guns in your hands, and the willingness to use them. Everything else is merely someone’s permission to pretend that you are free.
Source date (UTC): 2014-04-26 10:27:00 UTC
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/may/08/let-the-past-collapse-on-time/RUSSIA vs UKRAINE
(good read)
My position is that the world needs an economically and militarily strong Russia. And since I love Russians so much I want them to prosper. Like I want nearly all people to prosper.
The problem is, that until Russians do what the Ukrainian’s have done, and kick out the corruption with acts of violence, that Russia remains a net exporter of poverty and corruption, and has nothing to offer the world whatsoever except increases in poverty and corruption.
A Russia that aggressively suppresses corruption would be a positive influence in the east. An expansionist Russia, as a net exporter of poverty and corruption is yet another evil empire that must be contained, and conquered if necessary.
Source date (UTC): 2014-04-19 18:38:00 UTC
SANCTIONS
I am not getting good info here. But do I correctly interpret that the threat of further sanctions on Russia are working? I mean, the States is planning to cut Russia out of the international finance system. It will be nearly impossible for Russian firms to do business without the very high cost of circumventing that system (doing everything in cash with people who will accept their currency). Russian growth has dropped to zero in just two months.
I mean, if I’m Putin, and I think I can do it quickly, I take the hit and do it anyway, and apologize afterward. But if the Ukrainian’s run a civil war and it’s protracted, then it’s pretty unlikely that the Russian government can tolerate the economic isolation, without severely affecting the citizens.
Source date (UTC): 2014-04-18 07:18:00 UTC
I just get comfortable again and Putin goes and starts insurrections in three main cities so that he can have an excuse to ‘save’ the residents.
Playbook continues.
Dammit. Someone shoot that fking guy please.
Source date (UTC): 2014-04-06 16:08:00 UTC
David’s right. Tipping point was in the past 30 days. It’s happening. Putin was the catalyst for the death blow to the postwar model.
Need to look at the cycles again now. Revisit demographics again. Not sure I have time for that kind of deep think.
When I said the correction would continue through 2014, and possibly through 2020, part of that statement was hopefulness. The human ‘forgetting curve’ is about four to six years. People have to ‘give up’ on prior habits and develop affinities for new ones, for a reformation of values to take root.
Now, technically speaking that cycle is about eight or nine years. (Flocking and schooling in a business cycle.) So, we should have one year left and see something serious in about 2015.
That’s coinciding with the departure of the (civilization-destroying) boomers (first generation of empowered proletarians).
That wave is coinciding with the collapse of anglo debt capacity.
And that wave is coinciding with the collapse of the postwar model (european american fantasy).
Demographics get pretty critical between 2020 and 2025.
Now, politically and intellectually you can start to see the change happening over the past year.
And technology is making an institutional solution to political conflict a possibility (just as all major innovations are technical innovations that assist in cooperation under greater complexity.)
Perfect storm.
Source date (UTC): 2014-04-03 12:46:00 UTC