Americans have given up

POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 04:06
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SIGNYM

Sunday, January 3, 2016 10:07 PM

A recent episode of Max Keiser (former Wall Street trader and current commentator on economics and finance) interviewing Gerald Celente of "Trends" magazine.

https://www.rt.com/shows/keiser-report/327519-episode-max-keiser-856/

I listen to Keiser but generally don't bring what he says to the board, as it tends to be so much blah-blah-blah. But I thought this interview was interesting, as Celente brings up two interesting points:

1) The point he makes the most of is

depression -> currency war -> trade war -> world war

In his analysis, major depressions have always been followed by world war. He uses the Great Depression as an example of this dynamic (altho IMHO his argument would have been far more robust had he been able to find more than one example). My observation is that we are CURRENTLY in a currency war, and have been for three or four years already, since nearly all of the major nations (except the USA) have been deliberately devaluing their currency to (hopefully) stimulate exports.

We are just BEGINNING our trade wars- the USA just slapped an ~250% tariff on Chinese steel.

As far as World War (hot/ shooting war) it seems to me that every major bloc is saber-rattling by now: the EU and the USA (via NATO) is pushing hard up against the Russian border and fomenting trouble (via its terrorist proxies) in the Mideast, China is building islands in the Spratlys and building up its navy, and Russia is militarily engaged in Syria. As Celente says ... Nobody is talking peace.

2) The other point, and for him it was a minor one but for me really captured the USA zeitgeist (literally "worldghost", but more like "spirit of the times", overall mood) is that Americans have given up.

We people seem exhausted from fighting with our elected representatives and getting nowhere. The rich are getting richer, the middle class is disappearing, and any goals in the realm of improving our economy or setting our nation on a different, more peaceful, more productive, more equitable, more sustainable course have fizzled. The conversation has moved from jobs and debt to terrorism in the middle east, which is serving its intended purpose in distracting from the fact that the rich are getting richer and the middle class is disappearing. The wealthy use war to get wealthier, and the vast majority as as clueless as ever.

Gerald is an old guy ... older than me. He just laughs about it.

6IXSTRINGJACK

Monday, January 4, 2016 8:20 AM

The problem with wars in the US now is that nobody in the US stands to make any money funding them anymore. There was a time when the War Machine fueled tens or even hundreds of thousands of jobs or more stateside, not including the soldiers deployed.

Now one can only assume we buy our ammunition from China or some other country since the bleeding hearts got most of our munitions plants shut down and it costs a fortune to load your guns up. Remember when the cops were asking citizens for spare bullets?

What exactly have American's given up Sigs?

The status quo has gone exponentially down since I first started posting here, that much is true. Life in general sucks more than it used to, but people somehow still have access to credit they don't deserve and buy a whole bunch of shit they can't afford with it.

People aren't any stupider than they've always been when generally speaking. Most people are stupid. Most people were stupid. I'm going to take a wild guess here that most people in the future will continue to be stuipid.

I've given up trying to talk any sense into anybody. Half of the people you talk to are too stupid to understand what you're saying, and most of the other half refuse to be brought down by all that negative shit or are so depressed by it as to be ineffective.

A Revolution in The Head don't count for nothing.

Name a single time in history when a Revolution happened when things were just "Okay"....

So long as American's still have access to credit to buy worthless shit and keep their sinking ships from taking on water, you'll never find anybody who wants to join up.

I for one hope that day never happens, but history shows that it always does.

On that day we will find out who the true heroes are. In the mean time, most of us just graze and willingly get fattened up...

Do Right, Be Right. :)

SIGNYM

Monday, January 4, 2016 8:23 PM

Quote:
What exactly have American's given up Sigs?

The idea that we can even influence Washington DC.

We live in an oligarchy, pure and simple. People have thrown up their hands and quit trying for anything different.

Quote:
People aren't any stupider than they've always been when generally speaking. Most people are stupid. Most people were stupid. I'm going to take a wild guess here that most people in the future will continue to be stupid.

I disagree. All of the progress that was ever made in the USA ... and that goes back to FDR and before... was made because people were less stupid - and less cowardly- then. The reason why FDR came up with his patchwork of social security programs wasn't because he was a good-hearted guy who felt sorry for the populace, but because less-stupid, less-cowardly people were fomenting revolution. If he hadn't saved capitalism from itself, it might have been destroyed by the less-stupid people.

The last gasp of the less-stupid was the antiwar movement.

But we're now at the bread (government assistance) and circuses (iPhones/TV) stage, and people are content to ignore the world as long as they're in their comfy mental bubble, and wait for the building catastrophes (there are at least three or four pending) to come crashing down on them.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

There is a difference between THUGR is a genius., and THUGR is a "genius". And everyone knows it except THUGR, who is a "genius".

SECOND

Monday, January 4, 2016 9:00 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

I disagree. All of the progress that was ever made in the USA ... and that goes back to FDR and before... was made because people were less stupid - and less cowardly- then. The reason why FDR came up with his patchwork of social security programs wasn't because he was a good-hearted guy who felt sorry for the populace, but because less-stupid, less-cowardly people were fomenting revolution. If he hadn't saved capitalism from itself, it might have been destroyed by the less-stupid people.

The last gasp of the less-stupid was the antiwar movement.

But we're now at the bread (government assistance) and circuses (iPhones/TV) stage, and people are content to ignore the world as long as they're in their comfy mental bubble, and wait for the building catastrophes (there are at least three or four pending) to come crashing down on them.

Good that you mentioned FDR. Churchill ought to be included. I think a better description of what happens now is “A generation of failed politicians has trapped the West in a tawdry nightmare”.

In one of his last interviews, the historian Tony Judt lamented his “catastrophic” Anglo-American generation, whose cossetted members included George W Bush and Tony Blair. Having grown up after the defining wars and hatreds of the west’s 20th century, “in a world of no hard choices, neither economic nor political”, these historically weightless elites believed that “no matter what choice they made, there would be no disastrous consequences”.

A member of the Bush administration brashly affirmed its arrogance of power in 2004 after what then seemed a successful invasion of Iraq: “When we act,” he boasted, “we create our own reality.”

The reality it made is mayhem in Asia and Africa now reaching European and North American cities.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/01/generation-failed-politi
cians-elite-liberal-values

THGRRI

Tuesday, January 5, 2016 3:31 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
A recent episode of Max Keiser (former Wall Street trader and current commentator on economics and finance) interviewing Gerald Celente of "Trends" magazine.

https://www.rt.com/shows/keiser-report/327519-episode-max-keiser-856/

I listen to Keiser but generally don't bring what he says to the board, as it tends to be so much blah-blah-blah. But I thought this interview was interesting, as Celente brings up two interesting points:

1) The point he makes the most of is

depression -> currency war -> trade war -> world war

In his analysis, major depressions have always been followed by world war. He uses the Great Depression as an example of this dynamic (altho IMHO his argument would have been far more robust had he been able to find more than one example). My observation is that we are CURRENTLY in a currency war, and have been for three or four years already, since nearly all of the major nations (except the USA) have been deliberately devaluing their currency to (hopefully) stimulate exports.

We are just BEGINNING our trade wars- the USA just slapped an ~250% tariff on Chinese steel.

As far as World War (hot/ shooting war) it seems to me that every major bloc is saber-rattling by now: the EU and the USA (via NATO) is pushing hard up against the Russian border and fomenting trouble (via its terrorist proxies) in the Mideast, China is building islands in the Spratlys and building up its navy, and Russia is militarily engaged in Syria. As Celente says ... Nobody is talking peace.

2) The other point, and for him it was a minor one but for me really captured the USA zeitgeist (literally "worldghost", but more like "spirit of the times", overall mood) is that Americans have given up.

We people seem exhausted from fighting with our elected representatives and getting nowhere. The rich are getting richer, the middle class is disappearing, and any goals in the realm of improving our economy or setting our nation on a different, more peaceful, more productive, more equitable, more sustainable course have fizzled. The conversation has moved from jobs and debt to terrorism in the middle east, which is serving its intended purpose in distracting from the fact that the rich are getting richer and the middle class is disappearing. The wealthy use war to get wealthier, and the vast majority as as clueless as ever.

Gerald is an old guy ... older than me. He just laughs about it.

The reason you bring him up SIG is because it fits in with your agenda and allows you to criticize America. Again comrade troll, FUCK YOU and your Russian loving ass.

1KIKI

Tuesday, January 5, 2016 7:15 AM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Celente

Gerald Celente (born November 29, 1946) is an American trend forecaster,[1][2] publisher of the Trends Journal, business consultant[3] and author who makes predictions about the global financial markets and other events of historical importance. Celente has described himself as a "political atheist" and "citizen of the world".[4] He has appeared as a guest on media outlets such as CNN, The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS Morning News, The Glenn Beck Show, NBC Nightly News, The Alex Jones Show, Coast to Coast AM and Russia Today.[5][6][7]

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

1KIKI

Tuesday, January 5, 2016 10:07 AM

Americans have been dumbed down. I haven't figured out the watershed moment - was it when people believed 'greed is good'? Was it earlier when hippies assumed if enough people just 'dropped out' the system would magically change?

But I can't imagine a more naive last gasp of political action than the Occupy movement.

The following is not my analysis but I've come to agree with it: the people who have power aren't going to willingly give it up.

And certainly not because a few thousand people politely stood in the streets and slept in the parks for a few weeks. Yeah, 'the 1%' is now in the vernacular. But what Occupy TAUGHT people is that change isn't going to happen.

There was no discussion of political goals, or political tactics; there was no political education; there was no persistent political organization. Occupy didn't organize politically and enter the political fray, and it faded into an irrelevant death. So people look at the history of Occupy and say - look, we tried, we failed, and nothing can be done - and fold their hands and still their voices in mute acceptance of their powerless state. That's a VERY corrosive lesson in the power - or lack of it - of the masses.

And then we have the vote. Look, we voted for Obama and what did he do for us? voting is hopeless.

The only REAL power we legally have, we've never really tried to use.

How can you say people have given up when they haven't tried?

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

SIGNYM

Tuesday, January 5, 2016 7:57 PM

Interesting that you should mention Occupy bc it's already faded from my mind.

One of my Canadian friends - an NDPer that I'll call Bill- was totally entranced with Occupy. To him, it was an exercise in consensus democracy - everybody had to agree to a particular action, or it wouldn't happen. Just the feeling of being in such a direct, participatory democracy was a valuable political lesson, he believed. But as you say, it accomplished nothing. IMHO, it was an exercise in feel-goodism. The real lessons ... well, I don't think many people have figured those out yet.

You're right about the vote. We have the power in our hands. Which is why TPTB try so very hard to make sure that we DON'T exercise it in any way beneficial to our interests. Hence the billions of dollars spend on advertising: convince to "buy" something we don't need or really want, avoid something that's positive. If it wasn't so important, it wouldn't attract so much money. Yanno, we don't have to pick up a gun or blow up buildings. All WE have to do is think before we vote. Do you think we can manage that?

Instead, what I see are people BARGAINING WITH THEMSELVES. TPTB don't have to negotiate with us, because we (the people) do that to ourselves!

How much can I give up before I decide I wasn't represented? and

What is the least that I can accept, and then how much will I move the threshold when I don't get even that?

I'll let you in on a secret: There is no limit on how far most people will descend. Internally defending a system that is inherently unfair to them, without having the courage to just notice and accept that they're getting screwed, even by "their team". That is the last bastion of idiocy- dividing up the political spectrum into "my team" and "your team", and voting for "your team" no matter what.

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

SIGNYM

Friday, January 8, 2016 9:16 PM

Quote:
The reason you bring him up SIG is because it fits in with your agenda and allows you to criticize America. Again comrade troll, FUCK YOU and your Russian loving ass.

Since your monomania about Russia appears in every single friggin' thread that you post in- relevant or not- maybe you should explain yourself here:

WHY I ABHOR RUSSIA
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=60306

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You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

WISHIMAY

Friday, January 8, 2016 11:59 PM

I'd just like to say that an aluminum smelting plant a couple counties away from us is closing down. This thing has been iconic in my childhood. Every man I knew wanted to work there at some point because it was such a good job. Even through the crap economy they held on. Not any more...

If anything is a bad omen, it's that...

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