Las Vegas: 100,000 foreclosures and counting; House prices down by 60%

Las Vegas: 100,000 foreclosures and counting: From Steve Green at the Las Vegas Sun: Las Vegas house prices continue to slide, down 9 percent from year ago

“In less than four years, more than 100,000 homes in Las Vegas have been lost through foreclosure. That’s 18 percent of our privately owned housing stock: that’s nearly one home in five. And we’re nowhere near finished with foreclosures. In all likelihood, we have another 100,000 yet to go, and at the current rate, that’s another four years,” [housing analyst and SalesTraq President] Larry Murphy said.

According to Case-Shiller, house prices have declined almost 60% from the peak in Las Vegas ... no wonder foreclosure are so high.



And according to Core Logic, there were 426 thousand first mortgages in Las Vegas at the end of Q2 - and 270 thousand of these were in negative equity (about 63%). Another 100,000 foreclosures might be low.

In another 4 years, nearly 40% of the housing stock will have been foreclosed upon. Wow. Talk about land boom and bust. Don't worry though. The taxpayer will pick up the tab and make the banksters whole, because they'll "bring down the whole economy" if we don't.

Las Vegas: 100,000 foreclosures and counting: From Steve Green at the Las Vegas Sun: Las Vegas house prices continue to slide, down 9 percent from year ago

“In less than four years, more than 100,000 homes in Las Vegas have been lost through foreclosure. That’s 18 percent of our privately owned housing stock: that’s nearly one home in five. And we’re nowhere near finished with foreclosures. In all likelihood, we have another 100,000 yet to go, and at the current rate, that’s another four years,” [housing analyst and SalesTraq President] Larry Murphy said.

According to Case-Shiller, house prices have declined almost 60% from the peak in Las Vegas ... no wonder foreclosure are so high.



And according to Core Logic, there were 426 thousand first mortgages in Las Vegas at the end of Q2 - and 270 thousand of these were in negative equity (about 63%). Another 100,000 foreclosures might be low.

In another 4 years, nearly 40% of the housing stock will have been foreclosed upon. Wow. Talk about land boom and bust. Don't worry though. The taxpayer will pick up the tab and make the banksters whole, because they'll "bring down the whole economy" if we don't.

Las Vegas: 100,000 foreclosures and counting; House prices down by 60%

Australia passes carbon tax

Australia passes carbon tax:

Australia's carbon tax has been passed by the Senate. Be entertained as Piers Akerman goes barking mad:

This is the day the Western tradition of science-backed advancement of the human condition was rejected in favour of paganism. ...

We are witnessing the beginning of the end game for Australia as we know it. ...

The rest of the globe's population is wondering why we ever permitted ourselves to be lied and deceived back into the Dark Ages.

Oddly enough, despite Australia's return to the Dark Ages, New Limited's server was still able to serve up Akerman's rant.

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

The comments on the bizarre Akerman piece are also something to behold. Surely this is the beginning of a brownshirt type group: corporate/ fossilpower stormtroopers to fight the threat climate action poses against the billions, hundreds of billions, possibly trillions of dollars of fossil profits in the few decades remaining before it is shut down for good. I've no idea what ASIO people do, but if Gillard has any sense and especially after Brevik's Battle someone should be monitoring this closely for death and bomb threats etc. Who are these deluded whackjobs and what are their connections/ interrelations?

Australia passes carbon tax:

Australia's carbon tax has been passed by the Senate. Be entertained as Piers Akerman goes barking mad:

This is the day the Western tradition of science-backed advancement of the human condition was rejected in favour of paganism. ...

We are witnessing the beginning of the end game for Australia as we know it. ...

The rest of the globe's population is wondering why we ever permitted ourselves to be lied and deceived back into the Dark Ages.

Oddly enough, despite Australia's return to the Dark Ages, New Limited's server was still able to serve up Akerman's rant.

Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...

The comments on the bizarre Akerman piece are also something to behold. Surely this is the beginning of a brownshirt type group: corporate/ fossilpower stormtroopers to fight the threat climate action poses against the billions, hundreds of billions, possibly trillions of dollars of fossil profits in the few decades remaining before it is shut down for good. I've no idea what ASIO people do, but if Gillard has any sense and especially after Brevik's Battle someone should be monitoring this closely for death and bomb threats etc. Who are these deluded whackjobs and what are their connections/ interrelations?

Australia passes carbon tax

Hilarious Must-See Video: The Denial Tango

Hilarious Must-See Video: The Denial Tango:

It’s written and performed by the awesome Aussie group Men With Day Jobs:

Other humor from down under:

• Aussie climate scientists go all Beastie Boys on the deniers


• Funniest Denier Punking Ever: Lord Monckton Isn’t An Act by Sacha Baron Cohen, Is He?

Hilarious Must-See Video: The Denial Tango:

It’s written and performed by the awesome Aussie group Men With Day Jobs:

Other humor from down under:

• Aussie climate scientists go all Beastie Boys on the deniers


• Funniest Denier Punking Ever: Lord Monckton Isn’t An Act by Sacha Baron Cohen, Is He?

Hilarious Must-See Video: The Denial Tango

Solar is Ready Now: ‘Ferocious Cost Reductions’ Make Solar PV Competitive

Solar is Ready Now: ‘Ferocious Cost Reductions’ Make Solar PV Competitive: Must-See Photovoltaic Industry Graphs on the Changing Economics of Solar There’s a joke in the solar industry about when “grid parity” – the time when solar becomes as cheap as fossil sources – will happen. Ron Kenedi, the former VP in Sharp Solar’s U.S. business liked to throw out random dates, telling me once “November [...]

Solar is Ready Now: ‘Ferocious Cost Reductions’ Make Solar PV Competitive: Must-See Photovoltaic Industry Graphs on the Changing Economics of Solar There’s a joke in the solar industry about when “grid parity” – the time when solar becomes as cheap as fossil sources – will happen. Ron Kenedi, the former VP in Sharp Solar’s U.S. business liked to throw out random dates, telling me once “November [...]

Solar is Ready Now: ‘Ferocious Cost Reductions’ Make Solar PV Competitive

Occupy Google Reader: My God, My Google, Why have you Forsaken me?

We are the 1000+

One by one I was struck by the awesome and revolutionary features of the Internet: email, the web, usenet, chat, blogs. The last really powerful and useful innovation in my opinion has been RSS. Remarkably, most people seem not to have heard of RSS or to have used it much. I can only guess they don't do much reading online, or do all their reading on Facebook or Twitter.

But "social media"? Don't get it.

Myspace: looks to me like a sting perpetrated on Murdoch (couldn't have happened to a nicer fella); Twitter: (rather obviously for twits); and as for Facebook: well, the movie was great, but I haven't read the facebook (and don't intend to).

Nevertheless, all this stuff is undoubtedly a popular way for people to waste a lot of time.

In the good old days we wasted time on email, usenet and the web. Sure, it was a big waste of time, but we learnt something. I cant see what you can learn by wasting time on the huge pile of streaming detritus known as "social media".

Now Google has neutered Reader: after search, definitely their best product ever. Better than gmail.

Its a healthy warning about the cloud also. Having your data or applications controlled by some evil corporation is inherently dangerous.

We need a Free Software version of Google reader with the simple share/social functions included.

I cant help but compare this fiasco to the Ubuntu Unity disaster. Computing is being deliberately dumbed down by corporations. A split is emerging between the 'power users' and the billions (most of them not even online yet) who will interact with computers rather like an appliance: an on/off button, possibly a next and an up/down button will be all that is provided or that people are expected to cope with.

So let's break from the mob and the corporations and build free computing systems with full power.

While I'm at it can I complain about the horror that is Word (OpenOffice is no better) when all I want to do is write a paragraph or two. Never got over it. Composing and formatting need to be separated.

The 20-yr long gui fiasco has to be dealt with also. We should all be on unix terminal. Or perhaps Plan9 terminal nowadays.

Richard Stallman had a great idea in 1984 with Free Software, but tragically, he was about 10 years too late. Unix should have been made free when it was rewritten in C way back in 1973.

What a global disaster it has been. It might take another 100 years to straighten it all out.

We are the 1000+

One by one I was struck by the awesome and revolutionary features of the Internet: email, the web, usenet, chat, blogs. The last really powerful and useful innovation in my opinion has been RSS. Remarkably, most people seem not to have heard of RSS or to have used it much. I can only guess they don't do much reading online, or do all their reading on Facebook or Twitter.

But "social media"? Don't get it.

Myspace: looks to me like a sting perpetrated on Murdoch (couldn't have happened to a nicer fella); Twitter: (rather obviously for twits); and as for Facebook: well, the movie was great, but I haven't read the facebook (and don't intend to).

Nevertheless, all this stuff is undoubtedly a popular way for people to waste a lot of time.

In the good old days we wasted time on email, usenet and the web. Sure, it was a big waste of time, but we learnt something. I cant see what you can learn by wasting time on the huge pile of streaming detritus known as "social media".

Now Google has neutered Reader: after search, definitely their best product ever. Better than gmail.

Its a healthy warning about the cloud also. Having your data or applications controlled by some evil corporation is inherently dangerous.

We need a Free Software version of Google reader with the simple share/social functions included.

I cant help but compare this fiasco to the Ubuntu Unity disaster. Computing is being deliberately dumbed down by corporations. A split is emerging between the 'power users' and the billions (most of them not even online yet) who will interact with computers rather like an appliance: an on/off button, possibly a next and an up/down button will be all that is provided or that people are expected to cope with.

So let's break from the mob and the corporations and build free computing systems with full power.

While I'm at it can I complain about the horror that is Word (OpenOffice is no better) when all I want to do is write a paragraph or two. Never got over it. Composing and formatting need to be separated.

The 20-yr long gui fiasco has to be dealt with also. We should all be on unix terminal. Or perhaps Plan9 terminal nowadays.

Richard Stallman had a great idea in 1984 with Free Software, but tragically, he was about 10 years too late. Unix should have been made free when it was rewritten in C way back in 1973.

What a global disaster it has been. It might take another 100 years to straighten it all out.

Occupy Google Reader: My God, My Google, Why have you Forsaken me?

Fukushima Coverup

The company, the government, the regulatory agency and the media all seem to have conspired to coverup the severity of the Fukushima nuclear accident.

Here is the latest in case you missed it:

A full nuclear meltdown of 3 reactor cores occurred within hours of the accident. The company itself has admitted this.

The Fukushima accident has now released more radiation that Chernobyl, making it the worst nuclear accident on record.
The Company itself admitted this.

An area of 966 square kilometres is now uninhabitable due to nuclear contamination. link

Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind, according to Arnold Gundersen, a former nuclear industry senior vice president.

Each of those items is worth banner headlines in newspapers around the world, but I don't think they've been mentioned, as far as I know.

The company, the government, the regulatory agency and the media all seem to have conspired to coverup the severity of the Fukushima nuclear accident.

Here is the latest in case you missed it:

A full nuclear meltdown of 3 reactor cores occurred within hours of the accident. The company itself has admitted this.

The Fukushima accident has now released more radiation that Chernobyl, making it the worst nuclear accident on record.
The Company itself admitted this.

An area of 966 square kilometres is now uninhabitable due to nuclear contamination. link

Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind, according to Arnold Gundersen, a former nuclear industry senior vice president.

Each of those items is worth banner headlines in newspapers around the world, but I don't think they've been mentioned, as far as I know.

Fukushima Coverup

Give and You Shall Receive

Flattr is a very clever idea with a lot of potential. It might finally allow micropayments to work.

Particularly interesting is the requirement to donate a few euros (minimum two per month) before you can receive anything. I'm sure we've all had the idea of giving something to help alternative media and other content creators but the clumsy procedures of credit cards and paypal etc serve as an effective barrier.

Flattr is as simple as clicking on a 'Like' button in Google reader or Facebook. And the total donated can be easily controlled such that it is within anyone's budget. So now there is no excuse!

Hattip: Steve Keen.

Flattr is a very clever idea with a lot of potential. It might finally allow micropayments to work.

Particularly interesting is the requirement to donate a few euros (minimum two per month) before you can receive anything. I'm sure we've all had the idea of giving something to help alternative media and other content creators but the clumsy procedures of credit cards and paypal etc serve as an effective barrier.

Flattr is as simple as clicking on a 'Like' button in Google reader or Facebook. And the total donated can be easily controlled such that it is within anyone's budget. So now there is no excuse!

Hattip: Steve Keen.

Give and You Shall Receive

Massive Disconnect between Neo-classical economics and Global Reality

RWER:

Climate scientists are divided over whether “the tipping point”, the point at which positive feedbacks make climate change accelerate and irreversible, thereby endangering the survival of the human species, has been reached....

Meanwhile the World Bank forecasts that by the end of the century global economic output will have risen almost tenfold.

Evidently NCE counts output as a plus but the consequent destruction of the environment in which we live does not count as a loss. It's like chopping down trees on Easter Island. As they approach the last stands, timber production, profit and success have never been higher. But no thought is given to what happens when all the trees are gone.

We need to change NOW the measures of production and economic growth by a full incorporation of environmental damage.

RWER:

Climate scientists are divided over whether “the tipping point”, the point at which positive feedbacks make climate change accelerate and irreversible, thereby endangering the survival of the human species, has been reached....

Meanwhile the World Bank forecasts that by the end of the century global economic output will have risen almost tenfold.

Evidently NCE counts output as a plus but the consequent destruction of the environment in which we live does not count as a loss. It's like chopping down trees on Easter Island. As they approach the last stands, timber production, profit and success have never been higher. But no thought is given to what happens when all the trees are gone.

We need to change NOW the measures of production and economic growth by a full incorporation of environmental damage.

Massive Disconnect between Neo-classical economics and Global Reality

Banana Republic on the Potomac

Greenwald:

"You've got state secrets, targeted killings, indefinite detention, renditions, the opposition to extending the right of habeas corpus to prisoners at Bagram [in Afghanistan]," Mr. Hayden said, listing the continuities. "And although it is slightly different, Obama has been as aggressive as President Bush in defending prerogatives about who he has to inform in Congress for executive covert action."

And that list, impressive though it is, doesn't even include the due-process-free assassination hit lists of American citizens, the sweeping executive power and secrecy theories used to justify it, the multi-tiered, "state-always-wins" justice system the Obama DOJ concocted for detainees, the vastly more aggressive war on whistleblowers and press freedoms, or the new presidential immunity doctrines his DOJ has invented.

Is this a democracy we are talking about, or a banana republic? It's amazing to me that these policies could be created and confirmed, and there is not a hint of criticism anywhere in the world (apart from a wild-eyed radical like Glenn Greenwald) from either officials or the intellectual class.

Obviously belief in freedom or liberal democracy is merely nominal with most of these people. The Golden Rule is, never offend or speak against the Power (that issues the Gold and gives us our Position, may his Name be Praised).

I guess fool me for being so naive about it all this time.

The Assange case however proves that it hasn't gone unnoticed. The public is beginning to understand that you do not want to be extradited to the US, or even want to visit the damn place.

Extradition treaties have to be reviewed. It's time, sadly, to say goodbye to the American Dream.

Greenwald:

"You've got state secrets, targeted killings, indefinite detention, renditions, the opposition to extending the right of habeas corpus to prisoners at Bagram [in Afghanistan]," Mr. Hayden said, listing the continuities. "And although it is slightly different, Obama has been as aggressive as President Bush in defending prerogatives about who he has to inform in Congress for executive covert action."

And that list, impressive though it is, doesn't even include the due-process-free assassination hit lists of American citizens, the sweeping executive power and secrecy theories used to justify it, the multi-tiered, "state-always-wins" justice system the Obama DOJ concocted for detainees, the vastly more aggressive war on whistleblowers and press freedoms, or the new presidential immunity doctrines his DOJ has invented.

Is this a democracy we are talking about, or a banana republic? It's amazing to me that these policies could be created and confirmed, and there is not a hint of criticism anywhere in the world (apart from a wild-eyed radical like Glenn Greenwald) from either officials or the intellectual class.

Obviously belief in freedom or liberal democracy is merely nominal with most of these people. The Golden Rule is, never offend or speak against the Power (that issues the Gold and gives us our Position, may his Name be Praised).

I guess fool me for being so naive about it all this time.

The Assange case however proves that it hasn't gone unnoticed. The public is beginning to understand that you do not want to be extradited to the US, or even want to visit the damn place.

Extradition treaties have to be reviewed. It's time, sadly, to say goodbye to the American Dream.

Banana Republic on the Potomac

The 'Free Market' is a shibboleth

The "free market", "market mechanism" etc is virtually a shibboleth these days.

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1448476/Climate-committee-agrees-on-principlesa

But the free market or cargo-cult market fundamentalism as I prefer to call it is the problem not the answer. Free markets or rather unregulated markets are what have caused the Great Recession and the climate change disaster.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/42422.html

http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/CLIMATE-SPECTATOR-pd20101221-CBV35?OpenDocument

"a carbon price might, in theory, make complimentary measures redundant. But, as Professor Ross Garnaut points out, it would need to be $50-$100 a tonne to make it so."

Compare this with Stiglitz who says the tax needs to be somewhere near $88/t.

Why can't we start at a low rate ($10-20/t) and move up from there over time? And return the fee as a citizen's dividend to post compensate for increased energy prices and mute criticism of the 'great big tax'.

The "free market", "market mechanism" etc is virtually a shibboleth these days.

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1448476/Climate-committee-agrees-on-principlesa

But the free market or cargo-cult market fundamentalism as I prefer to call it is the problem not the answer. Free markets or rather unregulated markets are what have caused the Great Recession and the climate change disaster.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/42422.html

http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/CLIMATE-SPECTATOR-pd20101221-CBV35?OpenDocument

"a carbon price might, in theory, make complimentary measures redundant. But, as Professor Ross Garnaut points out, it would need to be $50-$100 a tonne to make it so."

Compare this with Stiglitz who says the tax needs to be somewhere near $88/t.

Why can't we start at a low rate ($10-20/t) and move up from there over time? And return the fee as a citizen's dividend to post compensate for increased energy prices and mute criticism of the 'great big tax'.

The 'Free Market' is a shibboleth

The Liberal Defence of Extraordinary Rendition

The Assange Case (Wikileaks) was the biggest story in the world for at least a week and a half.

Richard Seymour over at Lenin's Tomb didn't seem to notice it was happening.

No doubt he was busy playing 'revolutionary at the barricades' at some lefty protest or other.

He finally he jumps in with something on 21 December when it was all over (at least this initial skirmish). With an absolute tin ear for the local and international politics of the affair, his remarks involve wasting everybody's time discussing the sexual misconduct allegations. Seymour doesn't seem to realize that this doesn't matter. Maybe he's in the pay of the Empire like it was suspected Anna Ardin was.

The issue with the Assange case is simple:

Under no circumstances must Assange be extradited or rendered to the United States.

I'll repeat that. Rape be damned, Assange could be up for murder. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES MUST ASSANGE BE EXTRADITED OR RENDERED TO THE UNITED STATES.

The reason is, persons cannot be extradited to a place where they may not get a fair trial, may be detained without trial, tortured or executed. Especially persons who are critics of the Empire and who are not guilty or even charged with any crime concerning their dissenting activities.

Remember also that Assange is a White Male of Christian origin and a Citizen of an Allied Country. Who's next if he is fair game?

There needs to be an effective guarantee from the Swedish Government that he will not be so extradited. Otherwise there should be protests up to and including civil disobedience to physically prevent any such extradition to Sweden.

My suspicion is Seymour can't see this issue for the same reason he couldn't see the Global Financial Crisis, otherwise known as the Great Recession or Great Depression 2 depending on how it pans out. He's a traditional Marxian lefty and has a blind spot on the issues of civil liberties and finance capitalism.

This deficiency in politics and economics is pretty major considering the nature of the Marxist project. In fact, it is tragic. We cant put all the blame on Marx, the sad fact it the understanding was simply not there for him and for much of the 20th Century. But it is now time to do better.

Neo-liberal oligarchism has been running amuck across the whole world for the last 30 or 40 years now. Part of the problem no doubt has been the near total collapse and incoherency of the traditional left.

The Assange Case (Wikileaks) was the biggest story in the world for at least a week and a half.

Richard Seymour over at Lenin's Tomb didn't seem to notice it was happening.

No doubt he was busy playing 'revolutionary at the barricades' at some lefty protest or other.

He finally he jumps in with something on 21 December when it was all over (at least this initial skirmish). With an absolute tin ear for the local and international politics of the affair, his remarks involve wasting everybody's time discussing the sexual misconduct allegations. Seymour doesn't seem to realize that this doesn't matter. Maybe he's in the pay of the Empire like it was suspected Anna Ardin was.

The issue with the Assange case is simple:

Under no circumstances must Assange be extradited or rendered to the United States.

I'll repeat that. Rape be damned, Assange could be up for murder. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES MUST ASSANGE BE EXTRADITED OR RENDERED TO THE UNITED STATES.

The reason is, persons cannot be extradited to a place where they may not get a fair trial, may be detained without trial, tortured or executed. Especially persons who are critics of the Empire and who are not guilty or even charged with any crime concerning their dissenting activities.

Remember also that Assange is a White Male of Christian origin and a Citizen of an Allied Country. Who's next if he is fair game?

There needs to be an effective guarantee from the Swedish Government that he will not be so extradited. Otherwise there should be protests up to and including civil disobedience to physically prevent any such extradition to Sweden.

My suspicion is Seymour can't see this issue for the same reason he couldn't see the Global Financial Crisis, otherwise known as the Great Recession or Great Depression 2 depending on how it pans out. He's a traditional Marxian lefty and has a blind spot on the issues of civil liberties and finance capitalism.

This deficiency in politics and economics is pretty major considering the nature of the Marxist project. In fact, it is tragic. We cant put all the blame on Marx, the sad fact it the understanding was simply not there for him and for much of the 20th Century. But it is now time to do better.

Neo-liberal oligarchism has been running amuck across the whole world for the last 30 or 40 years now. Part of the problem no doubt has been the near total collapse and incoherency of the traditional left.

The Liberal Defence of Extraordinary Rendition

Modern Day Marxism

Chomsky:

[Marx] offered lots of insights into how society works, and he was an extremely good analyst of the current events of the day. I think he would take it for granted that elites are basically Marxist - they believe in class analysis, they believe in class struggle, and in a really business-run society like the United States, the business elites are deeply committed to class struggle and are engaged in it all the time. And they understand. They're instinctive Marxists; they don't have to read it.

Warren Buffett:

“There’s class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

What on earth could he mean?

Wikipedia:

Americans have the highest income inequality in the rich world and over the past 20–30 years Americans have also experienced the greatest increase in income inequality among rich nations. The more detailed the data we can use to observe this change, the more skewed the change appears to be... the majority of large gains are indeed at the top of the distribution.

Neoliberalism, all that b-s about privatization, deregulation, economic reform etc etc has in fact been nothing but a plot to reestablish high and growing income inequality. Congratulations, well done. You've succeeded. Can we have a revolution now?

Chomsky:

[Marx] offered lots of insights into how society works, and he was an extremely good analyst of the current events of the day. I think he would take it for granted that elites are basically Marxist - they believe in class analysis, they believe in class struggle, and in a really business-run society like the United States, the business elites are deeply committed to class struggle and are engaged in it all the time. And they understand. They're instinctive Marxists; they don't have to read it.

Warren Buffett:

“There’s class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

What on earth could he mean?

Wikipedia:

Americans have the highest income inequality in the rich world and over the past 20–30 years Americans have also experienced the greatest increase in income inequality among rich nations. The more detailed the data we can use to observe this change, the more skewed the change appears to be... the majority of large gains are indeed at the top of the distribution.

Neoliberalism, all that b-s about privatization, deregulation, economic reform etc etc has in fact been nothing but a plot to reestablish high and growing income inequality. Congratulations, well done. You've succeeded. Can we have a revolution now?

Modern Day Marxism

Christopher Hitchens Catches his Death of Cancer

I'm not some kind of droog kicking drunks in the street. One's opponents should be sober at least and preferably in good health also. But it's hard to avoid this remarkable statement from Hitchens:

I'm glad we're not having an inquest now, as we would be, into why we allowed a Rwanda or a Congo to develop on the Gulf, an imploding Iraq right in front of our eyes, a vortex of violence and meltdown, a whole society beggared and fractured and traumatised, waiting to fall to pieces.

But that is exactly what happened in Iraq, as a direct result of the illegal and criminal invasion which you, the traitor Hitchens, aggressively supported. Surely you, Hitchens, cannot be unaware of this fact?


Hitchens:

One of the bitter aspects of that is, well, I put in 60 years at the coalface, I worked very hard. In the last few years I've got a fair amount of recognition for it. In my opinion, actually, rather more than I deserve. Certainly more than I expected. And I could have looked forward to a few years of, shall we say, cruising speed, you know, just, as it were, relishing that, enjoying it.

Hitchens sold his soul to the devil to get his reward of money, fame, success and recognition. Instead, he got terminal cancer.

Truly pitiful.

Hitchens decided to switch his support to the US Empire over the criminal, baseless, counterproductive, disastrous, genocidal Iraq war.

It's like someone who decides to support Soviet Russia, not during the 1917 Revolution or the 1941 Great Patriotic war, but during the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia or the 1979 Afghanistan invasion.

You would have thought even the slowest of them would know better by then.

God didn't strike Hitchens down with cancer over his atheism or imperialism, he did to to give us a bitter, ironic laugh at this World-Historical clown figure.

I'm not some kind of droog kicking drunks in the street. One's opponents should be sober at least and preferably in good health also. But it's hard to avoid this remarkable statement from Hitchens:

I'm glad we're not having an inquest now, as we would be, into why we allowed a Rwanda or a Congo to develop on the Gulf, an imploding Iraq right in front of our eyes, a vortex of violence and meltdown, a whole society beggared and fractured and traumatised, waiting to fall to pieces.

But that is exactly what happened in Iraq, as a direct result of the illegal and criminal invasion which you, the traitor Hitchens, aggressively supported. Surely you, Hitchens, cannot be unaware of this fact?


Hitchens:

One of the bitter aspects of that is, well, I put in 60 years at the coalface, I worked very hard. In the last few years I've got a fair amount of recognition for it. In my opinion, actually, rather more than I deserve. Certainly more than I expected. And I could have looked forward to a few years of, shall we say, cruising speed, you know, just, as it were, relishing that, enjoying it.

Hitchens sold his soul to the devil to get his reward of money, fame, success and recognition. Instead, he got terminal cancer.

Truly pitiful.

Hitchens decided to switch his support to the US Empire over the criminal, baseless, counterproductive, disastrous, genocidal Iraq war.

It's like someone who decides to support Soviet Russia, not during the 1917 Revolution or the 1941 Great Patriotic war, but during the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia or the 1979 Afghanistan invasion.

You would have thought even the slowest of them would know better by then.

God didn't strike Hitchens down with cancer over his atheism or imperialism, he did to to give us a bitter, ironic laugh at this World-Historical clown figure.

Christopher Hitchens Catches his Death of Cancer

Randall Wray on USS Titanic QEII

link:

Maintaining the dollar's international appeal also requires imposition of the rule of law in the US. Currently, the fraud perpetrated by the biggest banks is far worse than anything the Russian kleptocrats and mafia combined could possibly imagine. The US is in the grips of the worst scandals in world history, with the financial sector no longer constrained by anything that would be recognizable as lawful practice. And that is the biggest threat to the dollar as international reserve currency. Unless the top banks are closed, with their management jailed, there really is no hope for the US dollar or for its economy.

link:

Maintaining the dollar's international appeal also requires imposition of the rule of law in the US. Currently, the fraud perpetrated by the biggest banks is far worse than anything the Russian kleptocrats and mafia combined could possibly imagine. The US is in the grips of the worst scandals in world history, with the financial sector no longer constrained by anything that would be recognizable as lawful practice. And that is the biggest threat to the dollar as international reserve currency. Unless the top banks are closed, with their management jailed, there really is no hope for the US dollar or for its economy.

Randall Wray on USS Titanic QEII

21st Century Jubilee

Steve Keen:

We should write the debt off, bankrupt the banks, nationalize the financial system, and start all over again.

We need a twenty-first century jubilee.

[We’re going into] a never-ending depression unless we repudiate the debt, which never should have been extended in the first place.

If we keep the parasitic banking sector alive, the economy dies. We have to kill the parasites and give a chance to the real economy to thrive once more and stop the financial [crooks] doing what they did this time around ever again.

Chifley was right. We need to nationalize the banks. But the time to do it is when they become bankrupt in a depression, not twenty years later when they have recovered their strength. The coming financial crash in Australia is an historic opportunity to achieve this.

The provision of finance and credit in the economy is an essential public utility - it cannot be left to the inherently corrupt and inefficient private sector based on some delusional cargo-cult ideology of "the free market always lands the goods".

The issue becomes clearer by the day and maybe will come to a head. The Giant Vampire Squid of the financial sector (like some monster out of the imagination of Clark Ashton Smith) needs to be ripped off the head and neck of the real economy where it has been feasting and poisoning, and stamped repeatedly into the ground until it is completely lifeless.

But Steve Keen does not say what Michael Hudson does: that rents and surpluses also need to be nationalized or socialized because those are the income streams that become pledged to banks as interest in the financialized economy. Without doing that, we will be on the treadmill again to another crisis 18 years down the track. This is a far more radical and permanent solution than what Keen proposes, which looks almost mild in comparison in spite of its shocking directness.

Steve Keen:

We should write the debt off, bankrupt the banks, nationalize the financial system, and start all over again.

We need a twenty-first century jubilee.

[We’re going into] a never-ending depression unless we repudiate the debt, which never should have been extended in the first place.

If we keep the parasitic banking sector alive, the economy dies. We have to kill the parasites and give a chance to the real economy to thrive once more and stop the financial [crooks] doing what they did this time around ever again.

Chifley was right. We need to nationalize the banks. But the time to do it is when they become bankrupt in a depression, not twenty years later when they have recovered their strength. The coming financial crash in Australia is an historic opportunity to achieve this.

The provision of finance and credit in the economy is an essential public utility - it cannot be left to the inherently corrupt and inefficient private sector based on some delusional cargo-cult ideology of "the free market always lands the goods".

The issue becomes clearer by the day and maybe will come to a head. The Giant Vampire Squid of the financial sector (like some monster out of the imagination of Clark Ashton Smith) needs to be ripped off the head and neck of the real economy where it has been feasting and poisoning, and stamped repeatedly into the ground until it is completely lifeless.

But Steve Keen does not say what Michael Hudson does: that rents and surpluses also need to be nationalized or socialized because those are the income streams that become pledged to banks as interest in the financialized economy. Without doing that, we will be on the treadmill again to another crisis 18 years down the track. This is a far more radical and permanent solution than what Keen proposes, which looks almost mild in comparison in spite of its shocking directness.

21st Century Jubilee

Death Blow for the Nuclear Industry

Solar Energy Cheaper than Nuclear for the First Time

In a “historic crossover,” the costs of solar photovoltaic systems have declined to the point where they are lower than the rising projected costs of new nuclear plants...

This crossover occurred at 16 cents per kilowatt hour, they said.

The Green movement, environmentalists, antiwar and anti-nuclear campaigners have been right all along, for the past 30 or 40 years.

Nuclear power is costly, toxic, weaponable, non-renewable and not the answer. Solar not nuclear.

Actually its a stroke of luck that the sheer cost of nuclear power is going to kill it. Otherwise we would have to rely on environmental arguments about pollution or moral arguments about war and militarism. Unfortunately those arguments don't carry as much weight.

The luck is the other way around with coal however. It's cheap to burn to produce electricity, and there is lots of it. We are having to rely on environmental, pollution, and intergenerational moral arguments to defeat it: a tough sell. This is why it is of fundamental importance that a carbon tax (combined with a carbon dividend) on CO2 be introduced as soon as possible. The price incentive is the one thing that can get the system moving.

Solar Energy Cheaper than Nuclear for the First Time

In a “historic crossover,” the costs of solar photovoltaic systems have declined to the point where they are lower than the rising projected costs of new nuclear plants...

This crossover occurred at 16 cents per kilowatt hour, they said.

The Green movement, environmentalists, antiwar and anti-nuclear campaigners have been right all along, for the past 30 or 40 years.

Nuclear power is costly, toxic, weaponable, non-renewable and not the answer. Solar not nuclear.

Actually its a stroke of luck that the sheer cost of nuclear power is going to kill it. Otherwise we would have to rely on environmental arguments about pollution or moral arguments about war and militarism. Unfortunately those arguments don't carry as much weight.

The luck is the other way around with coal however. It's cheap to burn to produce electricity, and there is lots of it. We are having to rely on environmental, pollution, and intergenerational moral arguments to defeat it: a tough sell. This is why it is of fundamental importance that a carbon tax (combined with a carbon dividend) on CO2 be introduced as soon as possible. The price incentive is the one thing that can get the system moving.

Death Blow for the Nuclear Industry

Stiglitz: Carbon tax a no-brainer

Putting a price on carbon is ''a no brainer'' and should be the first priority of any government, Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says.

''I'm an advocate of carbon tax, because the general principle is that it's better to tax bad things than good things,'' he told a capacity crowd at the Australian National University's Llewellyn Hall yesterday afternoon, drawing a loud burst of enthusiastic applause.

''We don't know exactly what the right price of carbon is some say around $US60 to $80 ($A66 to $A88) a tonne, but what we do know is that zero is the wrong price.''

link

Stiglitz thus joins what appears to be a majority of economists from all schools who advocate the carbon tax over 'carbon trading'.

In theory, 'carbon trading' would work, if the licenses were auctioned on an annual basis, but then if it is so like a carbon tax, why bother?

In my view, 'carbon trading' is designed to fail. It's designed to make money for Wall st traders and to allow corporate-dominated governments to giveaway 'permits to pollute' to the big polluters.

An obvious and inevitable line of attack against the carbon tax is the 'great big new tax' and 'raise the cost of standard of living' arguments. To counter this purely at the political level a carbon dividend should be proposed. Either 50% or even 100% of the revenue raised from a carbon tax should be returned to each citizen on a per capita basis as compensation for increased energy costs.

Or 50% of the revenue could be invested in the building out of the new clean energy infrastructure. This would be a genuine 'nation building' project, not the farcical and murderous wedding-bombing operation in Afghanistan.

Putting a price on carbon is ''a no brainer'' and should be the first priority of any government, Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says.

''I'm an advocate of carbon tax, because the general principle is that it's better to tax bad things than good things,'' he told a capacity crowd at the Australian National University's Llewellyn Hall yesterday afternoon, drawing a loud burst of enthusiastic applause.

''We don't know exactly what the right price of carbon is some say around $US60 to $80 ($A66 to $A88) a tonne, but what we do know is that zero is the wrong price.''

link

Stiglitz thus joins what appears to be a majority of economists from all schools who advocate the carbon tax over 'carbon trading'.

In theory, 'carbon trading' would work, if the licenses were auctioned on an annual basis, but then if it is so like a carbon tax, why bother?

In my view, 'carbon trading' is designed to fail. It's designed to make money for Wall st traders and to allow corporate-dominated governments to giveaway 'permits to pollute' to the big polluters.

An obvious and inevitable line of attack against the carbon tax is the 'great big new tax' and 'raise the cost of standard of living' arguments. To counter this purely at the political level a carbon dividend should be proposed. Either 50% or even 100% of the revenue raised from a carbon tax should be returned to each citizen on a per capita basis as compensation for increased energy costs.

Or 50% of the revenue could be invested in the building out of the new clean energy infrastructure. This would be a genuine 'nation building' project, not the farcical and murderous wedding-bombing operation in Afghanistan.

Stiglitz: Carbon tax a no-brainer

Ken O'Keefe on the BBC

Ken O'Keefe gives a spirited performance against a BBC 'journalist'.

Ken O'Keefe gives a spirited performance against a BBC 'journalist'.

Ken O'Keefe on the BBC

Emily Henochowicz

21-year old Emily Henochowicz loses her left eye after being shot in the face with a tear gas canister.

Link

21-year old Emily Henochowicz loses her left eye after being shot in the face with a tear gas canister.

Link

Emily Henochowicz

Housing Bubble

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article18733.html

Way back in 1983 Fred Harrison published his book "The Power in the Land" which relied on Homer Hoyt's 18-yr cycle theory to predict a land boom peaking in 1989 and a recession thereafter.

Back in the day we Georgists were amused to see the prediction come true and thought the bubble was a big one too. Anyone could also predict that the next peak would be 2007 or therabouts.

But look at this latest boom! No wonder the Economist called it the "biggest bubble in world history".

It's been Michael Hudson perhaps more than anyone else who has emphasized that a big land boom means huge amounts of money have been lent with land or property as collateral, which means in a bust all the banks are bust. In a financialised economy all available rents or supluses are pledged to banks as interest.

The financial sector is a giant vampire squid, sucking the life out of the economy and the workforce. Here again Hudson has rightly emphasized that 'debts that can't be paid, won't be paid'; that we need a 'Jubilee'.

However, the financial sector owns and controls the world and won't get it's fangs off it until there is some kind of revolution or popular rebellion.

Neo-liberalism will also have to be destroyed. The core of this dogma is to privatize, de-regulate, de-fund, de-tax and de-stroy.

Privatize: hand over land and resources and everthing in the nature of a natural monopoly to the private sector to allow them to privatize the economic surplus.

De-regulate: remove barriers to the raising of profits.

De-fund: the public sector and in particular the essential government role of infrastructure. Infrastructure will be provided by the miracle of market forces! Just like some sort of latter-day cargo cult. All you need to do is set up on some level ground somewhere wooden carvings of Adam Smith and Hayek, and all the good things anyone could desire will come down!

De-tax: lower or remove altogether taxation on wealth, property and capital.

De-stroy: the obvious outcome of it all, although a small class of the very rich have gotten smaller and even richer, which is their objective.

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article18733.html

Way back in 1983 Fred Harrison published his book "The Power in the Land" which relied on Homer Hoyt's 18-yr cycle theory to predict a land boom peaking in 1989 and a recession thereafter.

Back in the day we Georgists were amused to see the prediction come true and thought the bubble was a big one too. Anyone could also predict that the next peak would be 2007 or therabouts.

But look at this latest boom! No wonder the Economist called it the "biggest bubble in world history".

It's been Michael Hudson perhaps more than anyone else who has emphasized that a big land boom means huge amounts of money have been lent with land or property as collateral, which means in a bust all the banks are bust. In a financialised economy all available rents or supluses are pledged to banks as interest.

The financial sector is a giant vampire squid, sucking the life out of the economy and the workforce. Here again Hudson has rightly emphasized that 'debts that can't be paid, won't be paid'; that we need a 'Jubilee'.

However, the financial sector owns and controls the world and won't get it's fangs off it until there is some kind of revolution or popular rebellion.

Neo-liberalism will also have to be destroyed. The core of this dogma is to privatize, de-regulate, de-fund, de-tax and de-stroy.

Privatize: hand over land and resources and everthing in the nature of a natural monopoly to the private sector to allow them to privatize the economic surplus.

De-regulate: remove barriers to the raising of profits.

De-fund: the public sector and in particular the essential government role of infrastructure. Infrastructure will be provided by the miracle of market forces! Just like some sort of latter-day cargo cult. All you need to do is set up on some level ground somewhere wooden carvings of Adam Smith and Hayek, and all the good things anyone could desire will come down!

De-tax: lower or remove altogether taxation on wealth, property and capital.

De-stroy: the obvious outcome of it all, although a small class of the very rich have gotten smaller and even richer, which is their objective.

Housing Bubble