Initial unemployment claims dropped by 26,000 this week to a relatively low number of 350,000. If you weren't aware of that, it is to be forgiven as the main stream media wasn't really interested in telling you about it. They thought you would be more interested in being teased with the idea that Condoleezza Rice was actually being considered as Romney's VP, it's more likely Willard would dig up the corpse of Sarah Palin and run it.
JP Morgan Chase's stock price jumped driving up the stock market, supposedly on "news" that the losses on its derivative trading were "only" 5.8 billion instead of the 9 billion that has been reported. Nine billion is probably not even close to the actual loss, but what the hell, it's only paper. The trading operations of the Wall Street banks are more than big enough to drive the stock market, so what exactly does it matter? Unless you thought you would ever see that money in your 401(k). Sorry, but you probably won't.
Editorial
Do you like being chewed on?
Airless, Chairless Musical Chairs
There's a stand-up party game out, the traditional standby of social interaction in groups. Details have leaked: The game is from the Guild of Lazing Rich Old Buggerers (GLORB) -- the leisure service unit of Global Adherents of Special Persons' Protections (GASPP), itself a subsidiary of parent corporation HAVOCC, the House of Avaricious, Villainous, Oafish, Charlatan Capitalists.
It'll be a blast, as this is the same bunch behind Enron, the Exxon Valdez, fracking, GMOs, the BP oil volcano in the Gulf, mortgage crises, the credit crunch, bets on derivatives' bets, the hapless need for red-alert bank bailouts, inter-linked LIBOR manipulations, with even more in the pipeline, so to say, for the really lean years ahead.
You know it's bad when a rigged casino fails
It seems we've only seen the tip of the iceberg with the Barclays Bank prosecution for rigging the LIBOR (London Interbank Offer Rate). It seems that they are cooperating to avoid jail time. Bob Diamond who headed the bank until recently said "he was sickened when he saw the emails." What he means is that he was sickened that his underlings were stupid enough to leave a paper trail. His nausea will be somewhat soothed by the $3.5 million he gets as a golden parachute. This, however, is about a tenth of what he expected to get. How will he make the payments on his Rolls?
From what's coming out it appears that all the big banks were doing this. Not a huge surprise there. That was the whole idea of deregulation, or rather decriminalization. But they weren't satisfied with skimming hundreds of billions a year (trillions over time) from the world economy. These "smartest guys in the room" managed to bankrupt their own rigged casino.
"Occupy 'Vision Statement' a Gift to the Elites."
TVNL Note: On July 4th, 2012, attendees of the first Occupy National Gathering in Philadelphia announced their "Vision For A Democratic Future." The following is a challenge to that vision and a warning about its message originally stated in an email to Mike Malloy's radio show.
by Tara "dacktyl" Devlin, founder of RepublicanDirtyTricks.com
Hi, Mike.
I wanted to share my feelings with you about the Occupy statement you read last night.
Frankly, the statement pissed me off because it sounded to me, not like a beautiful vision for the world in stark contrast to the CON vision of greed, hierarchy and intellectual incuriosity - but the death knell of a once promising movement.
"Our process is our message?!" WHAT? Really? I know that was probably meant to be a radical, bold, daring attempt at a fundamental shift in consciousness about how we organize our society, but it sounded more like a gift to the elites who are giggling with delight by the way Occupy just solidified itself as a fringe movement.
Crafting a "vision statement" that is SO incredibly broad and all encompassing is nothing but wasted time and energy. The struggling working classes need champions to fight for them in the HERE AND NOW - not paint a "peace and love" picture of an airy-fairy utopia that is SO FAR from fruition to make it frustratingly laughable.
It’s All True … Everything They Tell You Is A Lie
Once Upon A Time we believed everything we were told. While we were being taught how to dress and feed ourselves we were also beginning to learn a bunch of baloney. I learned how to tie my shoes just in time to walk to school to learn about God. As it turned out, I didn’t need to know those two things.
Advanced Alien Liars Recovered Near Roswell NM
It's the 65th anniversary of the first battle between the US Military and aliens over Roswell NM in 1947. That's as good of a story as any. It might explain the many trillions spent on "defense" since. Surely the critics who say we have just been supporting the lifestyles of a few hundred millionaires with all that money are wrong.
After all, President Eisenhower gave several speeches warning us against dangers the Alien Industrial Complex, and how we needed massive diversions of money away from schools and hospitals to combat it.
Present, in the Land of the Surreal
You know the expression: If it's not one thing after another, it's the same damn thing, over and over again. The over-and-over part: being on deathwatch, then losing another family member. The damn thing, in this case: Cancer.
It's the way these things go for those who survive: Too many events are suspended in the fog of the surreal. The sequence of events rubberizes and freezes clocks, stretching out and shrinking time. Gravity is too variable, but almost always heavy-handed -- trying to run, or move quickly, makes one feel submerged to the neck in bread pudding.
This deathly period boils it down, right down to bare-bones existence. Life, living, or feeling alive might come later. For now, I am able to merely vote "present."
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