By James Kwak
There was one moment, when I was finishing up the manuscript of Economism, that I thought someone had already said what I was trying to say in the book. This is what I read:
“The beauty and the simplicity of such a theory are so great that it is easy to forget that it follows not from the actual facts, but from an incomplete hypothesis introduced for the sake of simplicity. … The conclusion that individuals acting independently for their own advantage will produce the greatest aggregate of wealth, depends on a variety of unreal assumptions …
“Individualism and laissez-faire could not, in spite of their deep roots in the political and moral philosophies of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, have secured their lasting hold over the conduct of public affairs, if it had not been for their conformity with the needs and wishes of the business world of the day. …
“These many elements have contributed to the current intellectual bias, the mental make-up, the orthodoxy of the day.”
That’s from the third section of “The End of Laissez-Faire,” the published version of a lecture delivered by John Maynard Keynes in 1924 and 1926.
Keynes’s argument goes something like this:
- Beginning in the late eighteenth century, economic theory extended the political philosophy of democratic individualism (epitomized by John Locke), providing a supposedly scientific basis for “the idea of a divine harmony between private advantage and the public good.”
- That idea in its simple form, however, was not a correct statement of what leading economists actually believed. Instead, it was the work of “the popularisers and the vulgarisers”: “the dogma had got hold of the educational machine; it had become a copybook maxim.”
- Economists themselves understand that the world is considerably more complicated. However, “many of those who recognise that the simplified hypothesis does not accurately correspond to fact conclude nevertheless that it does represent what is ‘natural’ and therefore ideal.”
- The ubiquity of laissez-faire ideas is ultimately due to the interests that it serves: the business world. “To suggest social action for the public good to the City of London is like discussing the Origin of Species with a Bishop sixty years ago. The first reaction is not intellectual, but moral. An orthodoxy is in question, and the more persuasive the arguments the graver the offence.”
Although Keynes was writing in the 1920s, this also describes of the state of the intellectual and political world over the past few decades. The idea that market forces necessarily produce optimal outcomes, and that government should generally stay out of the way, has dominated public policy discourse since the late 1970s. This is obvious for Republicans, but consider also the deregulatory policies of Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton proclaiming that “the era of big government is over,” the end to “welfare as we know it,” bipartisan financial deregulation, and Obamacare’s reliance on markets—indeed, the current Democratic orthodoxy that government should simply identify and correct for discrete market failures.
It is also widely claimed that the universal superiority of competitive markets is some fundamental law of economics—that the minimum wage necessarily increases unemployment (because it is a price floor), or that taxes on investment income necessarily reduce savings and investment (because they reduce the returns to saving). Yet, just as in the 1920s, few economists actually believe in such immutable laws, although some do think of them as some Platonic ideal for how the economy should behave. What happened is that a handful of simple economic concepts was picked up, vulgarized, and popularized by a network of foundations, think tanks, and media outlets. A few prominent economists played important roles in this process—notably Friedrich Hayek in The Road to Serfdom and Milton Friedman in Capitalism and Freedom and Free to Choose—but their ultimate influence depended on the reach of organizations such as the American Enterprise Institute, Heritage, and the op-ed page of The Wall Street Journal.
To take one example of how this works, consider the tens of millions of dollars that large company CEOs make, or the hundreds of millions of dollars that hedge fund and private equity fund managers take home. According to a simple Economics 101 model of the labor market, everyone’s compensation is exactly equal to her marginal product—the value of the work she does for her employer—and therefore those huge pay packages are both fair and necessary (or otherwise business superstars would choose to do something else with their time). Yet, as the Economist reminds us, academic economists have known for nearly half a century that information asymmetries undermine the textbook functioning of labor markets. (For a longer discussion of this topic, see chapter 4 of Economism).
The idea that pay equals marginal product is not economic truth, but ideology. Like any powerful ideology, it makes the interests of a class seem conterminous with the interests of society as a whole. As Marx wrote in The German Ideology, each ruling class “has to give its ideas the form of universality, and represent them as the only rational, universally valid ones.”
So when Ray Dalio says, “Society rewards those who give it what it wants. That is why how much people have earned is a rough measure of how much they gave society what it wanted,” he’s not speaking as someone who knows anything about economics. He’s speaking as a member of the ruling class—a billionaire hedge fund manager (and now Donald Trump cheerleader). If you’re a billionaire, it’s nice to think that your wealth simply reflects your contributions to society. It’s also useful for other people to think so, so they don’t raise your taxes. But that doesn’t make it true.
In the 1920s, Keynes thought the dominance of the laissez-faire ideology was coming to an end. “We do not even dance yet to a new tune,” he wrote. “But a change is in the air.” He was right. Increasing dissatisfaction with the unregulated capitalist system helped produce fascism in Germany and Italy and a much greater degree of government intervention in the United States, the United Kingdom, and France.
Could the same be true today? It is undeniable that the rapidly widening gap between the very rich and the middle class has undermined popular support for the economic status quo. Throughout the advanced, post-industrial democracies, there seems to be a brewing revolt against technocratic elites who appear insensitive to the plight of ordinary working people. In the United States, the Bernie Sanders insurgency demonstrated the tenuous hold of the Clinton-Obama-Hamilton Project-Center for American Progress coalition over the Democratic Party, while Donald Trump overthrew the Republican establishment.
While Trump has his own fascist, racist, and sexist tendencies, however, most of his actual policy proposals come straight out of the conservative playbook. This is not surprising, given that he is (probably) a billionaire, his most important backers are billionaires, and he shows few signs of intellectual curiosity, originality, or honesty. So in the short term, we are going to see four more years of economism triumphant—less regulation of businesses, particularly banks; lower taxes for corporations and the very rich; and a return of the bad old pre-Obamacare days, when people without employer health plans had to fend for themselves in an unregulated individual market. One thing we can be sure of is that a Trump presidency will do nothing to solve the economic problems facing the poor and the middle class, or narrow the widening gap between them and the 1%.
At the end of his essay, Keynes wrote:
“For the most part, I think that Capitalism, wisely managed, can probably be made more efficient for attaining economic ends than any alternative system yet in sight, but that in itself it is in many ways extremely objectionable. Our problem is to work out a social organisation which shall be as efficient as possible without offending our notions of a satisfactory way of life.”
That remains our challenge today. If we cannot solve it, the election of 2016 may turn out to be a harbinger of worse things to come.
The Baseline Scenario 
Once on the wrong side of nature, nothing is solvable.
Democracy has leaped off the cliff of nature and is now in a free fall of disbelief, denial, and anger, unless you profited from the greed, arrogance, and hypocrisy of it all.
Tip of the day, SHORT THE FED!
Pre-Ordered my copy today.
Good Luck with the book James, and thanks for all these years of coverage.
Happy New Year 2017;
Bruce E. Woych
Excellent
We Americans can be so gullible. Thinking that Trump overthrew the Republican Party for example and then just happened to have a policy stance that matched that of the party, as if the Republican Party doesn’t work every possible angle, diligently and incessantly, is something like believing that bankers only exist to serve their customers because banking is a service industry.
It is however much, much, more likely that the Republican string-pullers realized early on in the primaries that the appeal of an anti-establishment candidate was needed to overcome HRC. This being made apparent by how well Bernie Sanders was doing, this however needs to be understood from the perspective of Washington insiders who see things from a rightward angle; this view placing Bernie’s importance… in their particular pecking-order… at somewhere near the back of the line. Bernie being, in their eyes at least, an old fool beating a dead horse. Then too of course, Trump had immediate appeal as well due to a perception of his being an outsider.
So, while seeing the need to give the public what it wanted, the Republican establishment simply played along with Trump’s anti-establishment act, and embellished a little here and there. This not being all that different than when Reagan or Bush43 were seen as useful idiots who could always be convinced to do the ‘right’ thing. Ultimately then, the Republican machine won in every regard, and Reince Priebus, who is most likely not the master-mind involved here, but instead just a capable part of the machine, has been the conduit all along for what is yet another scam on the American people, and his placement as Head of Staff shows that Trump is by no means at odds with the establishment.
But of course, our representatives are a reflection of us, and collectively, we are not all that difficult to dupe. As individuals too, even someone as educated as James Kwak is easily fooled:
“….while Donald Trump overthrew the Republican establishment”.
“While Trump has his own fascist, racist, and sexist tendencies, however, most of his actual policy proposals come straight out of the conservative playbook.” Duh!
James,
While I find your arguments persuasive, there is one counter-argument I have not been able to overlook. That is, “There are two ways to allocate resources, market or political.” Any thoughts on how to resolve this?
Ray, this was the beginning straw that really broke the back of the
American middle class.
http://www.planetaryhq.com/rapeamerica.htm
If you didn’t have plenty of money then, you became a slave to money, a small percentage got lucky and most of them died an early death, a few winners are picked and the focus is placed on them as the std to reach for.
Life is an illusion, a formulatic….. numbers game, and satan won the law of numbers long ago and has yet to be overwhelmed. We as humans cant make anything which lasts the test of time, (plenty of toys to keep our minds from seeing reality and our bodies active, but that’s it) and that in turn erodes both machinery and mankind.
Eventually it becomes unsustainable, there is a reset, and the whole thing starts again.
Our political process, in this age of information, seems to be causing far more doom-speak than what it should. Maybe it has something to do with how each party puts so much effort into convincing potential voters that if their party doesn’t win… that the world is likely to end, or that the war of all wars will ensue.
Maybe some of this doom-speak is warranted though, Trump for example, has the environmentalists gravely concerned, and possibly for good reasons. But in other ways that are far less reasonable, doom-speak has become commonplace on the internet. It is common for example for doomsayers to foretell of the end of the middle-class, and to compare today’s inequality to that of the 1920s. Notably though, before the Crash of ’29 the Dept. of Commerce released an estimate of poverty of 71%, and so most of the middle-class was living below poverty then. This at a time too when there was no safety-net, and now, with a poverty-rate below 15%, and with those in poverty eligible for a long list of government subsidies, and in a country where charities have become almost an industry, it is often made to seem that things are about as bad as things can be.
There is though of course a method to this form of madness. A doomsayer is typically someone who is easily confused by statistical analysis. For instance, the difference in wealth or incomes between the rich and the poor, or whatever two groups, is compared in a way that only measures the difference in wealth or incomes without considering that each group can be improving at the same time: Mr. Rich earns $1000. Per day while Mr. Poor earns $20. Then, on day 2, Mr. Rich earns $1030 while Mr. Poor earns $40. And alas, that has ‘inequality’ worse by $10, but… Mr. Poor has doubled his income. Then on day 3, Mr. Rich makes $2000, and Mr. Poor doubles his income again and makes $80. Naturally, ‘inequality’ has worsened; and by a whopping $930…but Mr. Poor is much better off.
Naturally though, inequality is a serious problem and it does of course have negative influences on our political process, but for the most part that subject provided a simple example to serve my point.
Generally and historically speaking however, things are far better for the poor, and for the middle-class, than things were in the 1920s, and as compared to the current global population as well. Yes, things could be better, but the USA is still the wealthiest and most powerful nation ever… and only those who are choosing to analyze things in whatever unbalanced or unreasonable way, can make a case for doom.
A Happy New Year to all, and thank you to the Baseline Scenario, we obviously could never do this without our sponcer. To the readers (we have the best readers), to the authors for crafting the articles, the contributors( we have had the most sophiscated posters over time), and the programmers (I think we have the most powerful server in all of internet land). I just want to say that the fan base on this side of the fence is over the top unreal, I think it might even be part of the problem to some extent. Expectations, the need to control, and to many irons in the fire or too many slightly conflicting interests,(people demanding to see certain results but oblivious to the electrical componant which accompanies such results, a lose-lose for me and possibly humanity also, the longer one waits, the worse it can get, ergo the premise of my next paragraph) can actually burn bridges and hinder human progress, and we really dont need much more of that.
We as a rational? failed human gambling specious experiment, are still in our infint stage, (proof of this is that I cant touch the tip of my nose with my ear, but I can and do with my index finger) are still working on her birth year numbers, introductions, and most importantly, financing toward the gvt war on woman. We can still f up a universal wet dream, our VIP’s dont understand their universal uselessness, though they soon will. We are nowhere near utopia though the land of the Earth itself is quite young, as satans broken universal grip only gains momentum over time. I mean think about it, we as humans are either getting more ignorant or intentially being stupid to make money. Just look at keyless cars, as you fuel up at a station being close to your car, a theif can simply hop into the car, push a button and drive off with the car to be used in a crime if you left the activator close by, or to be stripped for parts.(insert link) Crooks devise things to easily access the car when you are not near by, to steal it, these are signs of a senseless society having gone mad over there dreamland creativity leaving the technology of man in the rear view.
We are on schedule to scrap some of the most brilliant, talented, and beautiful people ever known to mankind simply because they are not able to contribute to the one thing needed to advance the gvt war on woman, (this is the cause of our current delay). To be replaced by ONE Jeannie whos time has never arrived (who previous lives have already brought all woman to their logical conclusion, and provided the resources to circumvent failed human law, plus advance the gvt war on woman in a private setting in the not to distant future.) I might even add to the cause of the gvt war on woman and destroy satans side of humanity one more time just because I can, and have lots of fun doing it next go around because I missed so much fun this time around due to satans unrelenting desire to further his cause. He will go to any extent to finance and control his endevors.
I might be more of a skeptic or critic from here on out [I have every right to be one (post less often (probably like Trump and tweeter,(barf)) and be more like my ex-wife who says the same insane things over and over again with no end in sight, [and who is well over 120 years old but does’nt look a day over 51, you can tell when she turns her neck and there are NO age lines, that how you know. And she better not let me catch her again, cause I wont release her until she grows a pair of breasts])] rather than act as an esoteric informer. I’ll still hold him accountable to his behavior on the street, well into his next life time, because, we had to destroy the human race, in order to save it from its self naturally.
We have too many universally extended wars, the gvt war on women (no end in sight), the lost war on drugs, and the now brand new, war on cops (trained animals), set in concrete,(this also has no end in sight, its just the beast coming out of a gvt creation, it’s no big deal folks). Now if those clowns of the past (He was an expert at feeding the problem and starving the solution, and it’s well documentmented who the dishonest ones are now, it’s no longer a MAY be) started a war on women, which contributed to a never ending war on cops, so be it, the living dead following up with this act simply dont care about their actions as long as their beliefs continue onto, and beyond infinity. So have all your ducks in a row if you are to survive this war because these next few years promise to be brutal, unreasonable, and possibly shockingly painful ones. (My apologies to loved ones).
Remember, leo’s(which are aiding and abeting criminals, they are called law makers) and company, you are not being charged for what you are not about to do tomorrow, you are being charged for what you did not do yesterday. And this skunk will see to it that until the end of his tenure, he will keep your feet to the fire, shine a torch up your ring tone, and put this country through bankruptcy,(possible more than once now), even if I have to do it, single, handedly. Remember, a tool is not a tool until you use it, and the tool has no say as to how its handlers intend to use it, everyone should relize this by now.
So a new years toasty to satans demise,(and you institutional A students know who you are) for you surely are deserving of it after all these light years of human programmed formulatic (a new favorite word of mine, no disrespect intended) abuse.
Once again, thank you Baseline Scenario for your contribution to the good causes we are fighting for.
I forgot the link,
https://forums.tesla.com/forum/forums/warning-car-will-drive-without-key-all-if-it-already
,sorry.
Dear Mr. Kwak,
Are you still a deficit hawk as you were in 2010, lo, these many years ago?
Sincerely,
George Balanchine
I agree 100% that Trump is running one end against the other in a self-styled vanguard of winner take all centered gamesmanship, and that this corresponds most directly with a carpet bagging version of austerity milking politics.
I also have agreed entirely with the fact that his real interests and power derive from a core program that comes directly out of the 1% playbook endorsed by a self conflicting non-partisan party playbook
(https://baselinescenario.com/2016/02/03/donald-trump-is-running-as-a-conservative-republican/).
I think the critical assessment quoted from Keynes’ essay is the absolute truth to power for capitalism as a democratic potential in a hostile anti-democratic world; but the emphasis must be on working out a “social organization” which shall be as efficient as possible without offending our notions of a satisfactory way of life.
That interpretation is the critical distinction between “doomsday” and authentic “critical” thinking. Political centralization will not stand for long in opposition to unfettered capital concentration, and the two are sanctioned in an unholy marriage by “economism” and a century of ritual core presuppositions and methodical propositions posing as theory that is based more upon domination and power than on economic justice and the social organization of humanity. In fact it cares nothing about Keynes’ quest for a balance of power under capital allocation and has corrupted a perverted measure of “efficiency” to serve its ends.
Tracking these distortions simply regurgitates presuppositions to rationalize exploit as a final solution to ideal liberty and freedom; reduced into the lesser of two evils. Given this version of a final solution we are left with a dogmatic creed, captured ideologically under the name of capitalism that usurps all justice and proclaims that poverty is self inflicted and pure exclusive individual exploitation is a justifiable freedom and libertarian cure to those selectively more equal than others.
James Kwak has challenged that paradigmatic perversion in its own terms. Another perspective is also coming out from that economic warrior Michael Hudson. In a book that also challenges the entire zeitgeist of mythological capitalism and its lexicon of utilitarian theorists churning its framework to their exclusive advantage. , Michael Hudson condemns the entire process that legitimates its architectural academics.
In a working review posted at TRUTHDIG: (http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/michael_hudson_identifies_the_pathogens_in_our_economic_ideas_20161214), SHARMINI PERIES from TRNN interviews Hudson where he confides: (quoted excerpt):
” So I talk about the vocabulary. It’s an A to Z vocabulary that goes over all of the concepts you need to pierce through this Orwellian rhetoric that passes for mainstream economics today. Mainstream economics is pretty much turned into junk economics and its idea is that rent is perfectly natural to be paid. That a well-run economy should have no government at all but should shift all the economic planning to Wall Street to city of London or Paris or other financial centers. Let finance do the planning because they’re the most productive people in the world that government is just a bureaucracy.”
The interview from the Real New Network is stunning (available in transcript from TRNN and youtube video @https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXF7xJP6hW8). “Economism” JK’s terminology) becomes Junk Economics using Orwellian language as a blueprint for privatized and state- sanctioned pillage.
Change is definitely in the air. The real question is it’s carbon emissions and the sins of omission by economist cost/benefit ratios and the entire denial of climate change itself. I don’t think Trump- will read either of these two books. But it is a good will start for 2017. Maybe folks should invest and send copies to the White House and educate our new guide in waiting.
Happy New Year 2017 to all !
Bruce E. Woych
addendum: @Michael Hudson
Michael Hudson: Donald Trump Wants to Make the 1% Even Richer
Has this corrupted corresponding skunk reached an end which has yet to be realized? Gees Bruce, and I thought I was an esoteric essayist.
@skunk: An interesting word: esoteric…with many channels to fine tune and climates to explore. Alone in a collective consciousness where isolation is both anguish and reward. Essayist? perhaps participatory adventurist in soul searching communication might be more ‘savant’ guarded than Avant Guarde in this spiritual void of no direction; uncertainty blindly feeling out borders of dangerous boundaries to resolve?? A butterfly affect in a world dominated by effect? Or is that the other way around? Question after layered question peel from the onion, but pile on the floor unnoticed daily. No end to be realized only a quest to see an end to ending darkly. Memoirs of a lost faith seeking solace, but never fooled by false redemption and consolations that promise but never deliver. A bondage to time in human caring measured by things that should matter, but never really does in the end.
Such is the way of the world fellow traveler. And we pass in this singular path together and alone on a voyage to no where that we can say. That. I presume, is truly esoteric; but alas we are living in a time of false truth and post-reality. Once more united,…at this baseline quest of Kwak’s scenario;
An Odyssey into cyberspace and oversight. Esoteric. well brother, we are in the same drifting boat. What’s in a word? An mind is a terrible thing to waste! But it is a sin to waste time.
Esoteric…, a very interesting word indeed!
.
https://www.amazon.com/Economists-Powerful-Convenient-Distorted-Economics/dp/0857284592
Economists and the Powerful: Convenient Theories, Distorted Facts, Ample Rewards by Norbert Häring and Niall Douglas
(editorial abstract)
“Economists and the Powerful: Convenient Theories, Distorted Facts, Ample Rewards” explores the workings of the modern global economy – an economy in which competition has been corrupted and power has a ubiquitous influence upon economic behavior. Based on empirical and theoretical studies by distinguished economists from both the past and present day, this book argues that the true workings of capitalism are very different from the popular myths voiced in mainstream economics. Offering a closer look at the history of economic doctrines – as well as how economists are incentivized – “Economists and the Powerful” exposes how, when and why the theme of power was erased from the radar screens of mainstream economic analysis – and the influence this subversive removal has had upon the modern financial world.”
also:
“In their new book, Economists and the Powerful, Norbert Häring and Niall Douglas trace how the most powerful of all the social sciences became a doctrine for helping the rich – with the aid of huge sums from business … But the history unearthed by Häring and Douglas is far more disturbing – because they argue that vested interests have slanted some of economics’ most fundamental ideas.” – The Guardian Newspaper UK (guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/26/big-business-corrupted-economics)
=======================================
skunk:
Highly recommended!
Bruce
Well Bruce, all I can say is that, that Jeannie eliminated 99% of woman, and I eliminated 99% of guys, leaving the 1% to enjoy the fruits of the (rich) future. If you don’t combust spontaneously, and you don’t drop dead from the results of such a thing. Just start “bringing out your dead” and let the critters clean up the mess naturally, as you enjoy the fruits of his labor.
Esoteric survival of the fittest, at its best. Because, you never know the hour of his arrival.
skunk: Ignorance is bliss…when you have the money and get away with doping the population, “Esoteric survival of the fittest” …? That’s pseudo-esoteric mystification not esoteric bliss, The 1% are the most dependent people on the earth. I checked “Western Esoteric” on-line just to be sure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_esotericism…a great review summary
with extensive comprehensive and fascinating reading I suggest is worth checking out. As I said, esoteric is a very interesting word.
But skunk,…I read through very carefully and there was absolutely no mention of 1% supremacy cults with anything connected to esoteric rhelms. I suspect you are following Yale propaganda (322) and secret head hunting societies that have promoted themselves as human. Are these the survival critters that eat their dead from whence you speak?
I have, in fact, lived among them in NYC and was never impressed.
Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroy the Global Economy (Michael Hudson)
No, what i’m talking about is an end to a means which no one understands because it is without publication. Old movies portray this situation in a science fiction setting, but once it happens for real the battle of good over (for a lack of a better word) “evil” has a whole new meaning. And the creators choose who shall, or shall not, continue to walk the planet in quest of their final outcome.
The Jeannie came out the bottle long ago to prove it could be done, and then was placed back in so those results could be transferred to an individual who could provide peace to the middle east. That has yet to occur, what has occurred is a western gvt whos failed ideals continue to want to dominate the planet with various wars as their final solution.
So terrorism and war it shall be, I just attempt to even the odds of understanding since the gvt has now gone so deep into disbelief, denial, and anger they are no longer approachable reasonably. It is their way or the highway of terror, both of whom have reached their limits of reason as far as the laws of nature are concerned.
Remember, once on the wrong side of nature, nothing is solvable, we have found the enemy, and it is us.
Looking back in time can be rewarding if you can stomach the results. Perhaps we need a new word whos definition is “meant to be understood by no one”.
Anyhoos, the laws of nature always win in the end, it’s just the path that is taken which changes. Kudos to the conversation either way, it’s been a while since I’ve had one.
Turning “common sense” into “esoteric” knowledge….? Mental masturbation for the devil…gross… but
LMAO
A Math God…..? Wow, how the mighty have FALLEN…
http://www.urantia.org/urantia-book-standardized/paper-97-evolution-god-concept-among-hebrews
Well math is the great equalizer Annie, I guess it beats YOUNG ones KNAPP ing around and poisoning door knobs of all kinds.
Must be time to break out the cotton balls and rubbing alcohol and clean the knobs and people down before everyone gets Sick around here.
We call it targeting a change in the air.
If the sadistic bankster/IRS/FRB parasitical suck out is not addressed and curtailed by the Trump administration, then you can place your bet on the fact that the Declaration of Independence will once again become the law of the land. Probably will not be in USA or in the EU “lands”, but us FREE MEN will certainly claim a land zone because we have EARNED after 1800 years of “christianity” came to pass…
Your congolese savagery math god is too far of a shove back for us to accept, especially since you are now enforcing it by the “laws” of murderers and thieves! Killing honest-labor Peter in order to give “elite” Paul Peter’s Social Security/Medicaid fiat $$$$…..what LAWS give the murderer and thief that right?! The Talmud? The Koran? The Bible?
gfy
Shamans of Technology – worst priest class, yet, to DEFORM humanity….
140:6.12 (1577.6) “The lamp of the body is the eye; if, therefore, your eye is generous, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is selfish, the whole body will be filled with darkness. If the very light which is in you is turned to darkness, how great is that darkness!”
Had you included gypsies with the villains Annie I would have understood your rant, now, not so much.
What I can say is don’t let the dishonest ones fool or try to SHIELD you, ALright?
Cause, fool you once, shambers on me, fool you twice, shambers on you.
From 1991, when the ability to write to a broad audience through the internet became possible, SKUNKS arrived in droves, butchering language, throwing basic politeness under the bus, and taking up more and more bandwidth to hurl tons of depraved images at the “early adopters” and attaching viruses to the images. Now we know that all along, this “back door” – their septic tank overflow – was under the complete control of the “government”, more specifically an “elite” cabal of “autistic” wiz kids.
Natural and spontaneous expressions, unique as the person expressing them, of truth, beauty, and goodness were sadistically CENSORED. The Patriot Act was passed to turn citizens into suspects.
Prove me wrong. You can’t. You can only say you do not understand my rant, twist the words into a bizarre fantasy of psychobabble insight, and use the internet connection to burrow into emails, bank accounts, search engines to STEAL IDENTITIES. Trillions of fiat $$$$s disappear to war lords and slave lords operating out of FAKE countries in the middle east and the drug lords get legitimized by an “affordable care act” – over a quarter million people dying through “mistakes” in hospitals is the political perfecting of a “death camp”, and a heroin epidemic is the support group after the oxycontin is yanked away…
The depth of perfidy, iniquity, and depravity is breath-taking. The “truth” of it all is so repulsive, that even strong immune systems are weakened by the degree of PSYCHOLOGICAL viciousness which pervades “modern” life as ruled by the Internet Shaman. All the “common cold” viruses keep morphing towards a biological choke off of people’s voices – literally and figuratively.
And NOW, here and now, all the “elite” autistic math kids want to adjust the suck out for more efficiency since the GOVERNMENT is able to select the “peter” to kill (MURDER) to pay “paul” peter’s share of social security (STEAL).
Can’t wait to see what the Trumpeters do with the TRUTH….call us “losers” for allowing ourselves to be skinned alive BY LAW?
And the sacred one-liners accepted as “truth”….?
“There will never be peace in the middle east.”
“There will always be slaves.”
“The internet will never be 100% secure.”
For once we agree about something Annie, now I just have to take my fight to that damn barney, threw no stones, left no stone unturned, and he still didn’t show up.
By now i’m certain, he don’t know what he’s doing. Must be doin that swan song thingy either way so he don’t give a crap.
skunk: esoteric “elegance” is the a-hah! moment of duped simplicity when you awake to see what was before your eyes all along. Imagine a football game where every single member of the team except two, the coaches, have been bribed to throw the game; …each one individually by different corrupt powers that will have consequences if the player fails. The coaches here are the philosophers in search of hidden meaning as they try to assess the direction of the game and create a strategy towards success. The process is an enigma since in the end one coach will claim victory but for reasons they will never know. Nevertheless, they will go down as true believers that their own formulas had won or lost the game. No one speaks of their own personal truth because they have no idea that everyone else was equally in play to throw the game. At the same time, each player on the losing team believes (personally) that they succeeded in what they were paid to do…throw the game. The entire team of losers gets paid, because each of the separate crooks believe, for entirely different reasons, that their “guy” got it right and the payoff goes through across the board. Except for the “winners”, who for no fault of their own…failed by winning in a default arrangement where the consequences fell upon them.
This is the esoteric elegance of history hidden from us as we seek reasoned answers like the coaches. Knowledge trajectories that explain the truth that makes things right. It also seems to be the reason we look to the wrong myths to answer our very grounded realities.
check this out:
Published on Jun 27, 2013
1. Gen. Wesley Clark, Democracy Now! interview, 2007.
Objective: take out 7 countries in 5 years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Iran.
and his son:
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCCLAoRqvxA
[389] Wesley Clark Junior Stands With Standing Rock
Perhaps the two “coaches” in our little esoteric scenario?
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…and i echo your salutation in kind:
“Kudos to the conversation either way, it’s been a while since I’ve had one.”
addendum:
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176227/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_special_ops%2C_shadow_wars%2C_and_the_golden_age_of_the_gray_zone/#more
Tomgram: Nick Turse, Special Ops, Shadow Wars, and the Golden Age of the Gray Zone
Posted by Nick Turse at 7:49am, January 5, 2017.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter @TomDispatch.
“Don’t think the fad for “draining the swamp” began on the campaign trail with Donald Trump. It didn’t, although the “swamp” to be drained in the days after the 9/11 attacks wasn’t in Washington; it was a global one. Of course, that’s ancient history, more than 15 years old…”
Yes Bruce, but will the end of time arrive before the one coach claims victory? I have a seat available at the gamblers anonymous table for both participants since not playing is no longer an option for them.
Now myself, I depend on the laws of nature to do my wisdom bidding and we have yet to lose a battle to those who WILL listen, to those who wont, we fall back on the disbelief, denial and anger card and throw in a few who cried wolfs or bait and switches to prove time is up as far as these cards are concerned.
A failed human experiment remains a failed human experiment, until it doesn’t, there is no more keeping the peace, it has not worked as far as the laws of nature and time are concerned, satan has won this battle yet I will let you know once the tide has turned on this side of reality, until then, best wishes to you and yours, it doesn’t look good for the chasers or the chaseies at this point.
skunk: There is no end of time…you disappoint me. Read through the material and get real.
No one has ever won an argument with a false premise.
Bruce, i’ll wait for all the players to have a say in the matter before I jump to any conclusions, thanks for the tips though I think we’ve been here before.