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Death of Navy SEALs Eclipses Silliness on Wall Street

By Rick Ackerman Posted on August 8, 2011, 12:01 am EDT Last Updated August 8, 2011, 1:06 pm EDT

Shares will get violently crushed on Monday at worst, or gyrate wildly throughout the day at best, now that Standard & Poor’s has downgraded U.S. Treasury debt to a still-delusional AA+. Whatever happens in the silly, benighted world of stocks and bonds, it would be a shame if Wall Street’s headless-chicken act overshadows the deaths of 30 American troops in Afghanistan over the weekend. Twenty-two of them were Navy SEALs from the same elite unit that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in May. They were the best of the best among America’s fighting forces, and their deaths will raise further, grave doubts about the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.

When the Russians were there for nine years fighting the mujahedin, we marveled from the sidelines at how the insurgents, armed with U.S.-made Stinger missiles, were proving to be more than a match for Brezhnev’s 40th Army. Now it’s our turn to apply all that we have learned about asymmetrical warfare. The generals say the war is winnable – but then, they always say that. Whether it is winnable or not, the pretense is fading that the Afghanis alone will be able to hold a murderous Taliban at bay as the U.S. draws down its troops ahead of Mr. Obama’s re-election bid. Neither should Americans pretend that giving the Taliban free rein in Afghanistan will be without serious consequences.  For in fact, if and when all of our troops eventually do come home, no U.S. company with offices or operations outside of North America will be safe from bombings, shootings, kidnappings and extortions.

Problems Dwarf Presidency

In the meantime, perhaps the President should follow Lyndon Johnson’s principled example by resigning. With a war that is going badly and an economy that is headed into Depression, the Republicans are going to have trouble fielding a candidate who would lose in 2012. We hardly care about the outcome ourselves, since the uncommanded events that have begun to dramatically reshape our lives, and to re-order the nation’s priorities, dwarf the presidency, especially one so puny as Mr. Obama’s.  But after four years of “Hope and Change,” Americans will surely be ready for a president who is prepared to set aside lofty aspirations and get down to business.  And to conduct it honestly.  However, because the GOP lacks the guts to try anything new, we can only hope that Rep. Ron Paul, one of the very few honest guys in Washington, comes to the Republican convention with enough heft to carve out an important role under a Mitt Romney or Rick Perry presidency.  In that respect, the very measure of voters’ success will be whether the Fed is still around in 2014. No institution could be more directly to blame for the economic catastrophe that lies ahead.  If Americans do not understand that now, they unfortunately will, and soon enough.

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  • Rinaldo August 13, 2011, 1:46 pm

    “30 American troops died in Afghanistan over the weekend. Twenty-two of them were Navy SEALs from the same elite unit that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan…”

    What a strange coincident …

  • Joey August 10, 2011, 6:40 am

    Neither Romney nor Perry talk about the Fed, because they are both beltway boyz.

    Disappointing Rick, that you don’t care enough to register R then go to your local caucus to help Ron Paul. It’s free.

  • Mava August 9, 2011, 6:37 am

    ben,

    I think ChrisT was pretty clear on your idea vs. Ron Paul’s idea. I have not heard Ron Paul advocating sending gold as is to China. He wants to sell it, to make money to pay Chinese. Actually he never mentioned Chinese in particular. We have many creditors, I do not understand your hostility to Chinese in particular.

    If you “print” money to pay debt, then we all gonna pay for it through inflation, but I, for instance, did not acquire any. So, this would be exactly the “robbing America” plan.

    If we do as Ron Paul suggests, and sell the gold to make money to pay debts or even current expenses, then I am going to buy that gold, in turn giving up my savings to pay for whatever it is we will pay. Those Americans not interested, will keep their dollars.

    The point was, however, that there is no gold in Fort Knox. OK? So, the offer from Ron Paul while morally correct, was still pretty much rhetorical.

    Somehow I think you are not really interested in gold mechanics nor debts, as long as Chinese somehow are made to suffer right along with Ron Paul…

  • Chris T. August 9, 2011, 2:02 am

    “So, sell the gold to the people!”
    to whuch I should add:
    from whom it was STOLEN by your left-liberal hero, FDR.

    • ben August 9, 2011, 2:28 am

      Wow. I actually thought my reply was very restrained. How would you answer someone who suggests America should give away it’s gold to pay it’s debts when it has printing presses that can create dollars?

    • Chris T. August 9, 2011, 3:13 am

      I would say that:
      becareful of the ghosts you conjured up!

      See my post above about the “giving away”.
      As to the dollars that will be printed to pay them back:

      You are probably correct in thinking that this is what will happen, see Greenspan’s comments. I concurr, to the extent that they are likely to do that, but not, that it is a good thing.

      What do you think will happen to those dollars we “pay back” to the Chinese?
      Are they going to be marked in some way to identify them as “just freshly printed, screw the Chinese” dollars?
      Hardly.
      They will be like ANY other dollar in circulation, physical or digital.
      In a dollar-denominated world, what do you think will happen to dollar-denominated assets, such as oil, when those Chinese dollars start chasing that commodity?

      That is exactly the problem, one which even Bernanke doesn’t understand, or pretends to not understand.
      When you inflate in a way that “only” affects a foreign entity, you are inflating the price of EVERYTHING you import, making it harder to compete for that resource.

      In addition to paying the Chinese back with “freshly printed” dollars, we would have to find a way for us, and everyone else, to be able to repudiate those specific dollars, but not any others, the “no-screw” dollars.

      If we could find that holy-grail, who then would return our dollars to us to help fund our budget deficits, and our debt refinancing?
      The world is not THAT stupid.

      Of course they may be coerced, and that is the reason we are all over the Middle East and Central Asia, and why the petro-dollare has not yet been repudiated.
      Don’t forget, the Saudis, Kuwaitis, etc are doing EXACTLY what the Chinese are doing, or else their currencies, like the yuan, would have appreciated vs. the dollar, and they wouldn’t even take the dollar.
      But there they have no choice, we would never permit it, and even if we did, just withdrawing our protective hand over those cleptocratic oligarchs, they would be gone within the next Arab spring.
      Just look at Bahrain as an example.

      So, to sum that up, we would screw the Chinese along with ourselves.
      Actually not would, but will, only we are trying to do it slowly enough as not to be so blatant, because again, the soft-default of inflation is always preferred vs. the hard-default of repudiation.

  • Mava August 9, 2011, 1:58 am

    Ben,

    You can have sound money and at the same time default on you debt, I hope you agree? Because these two are one and the same, they both mean responsibility for one’s obligations.

    It follows, that if we do have gold and debt, then we must sell it in order to pay the debt. If not, then what do we need the gold for? If we are known as scoundrels, then our honor is nil and we must pay cash for everything.

    So, Paul comes forward and says we should pay for all we agreed to pay. FED says we have no money (except for the bonuses). Paul says, you testify that you hold the gold. If so, sell it and pay up. Is this not what you would do if you had gold and owe me money?

    You may not believe so, but the gold in Fort Knox was stolen from American people by the FDR. Further, there is none remaining. It was then stolen by politicians and bankers and used for coverups for their little pet projects.

    So, the point of Paul is triple:
    – Do all you agree to do. Be honest.
    – Force the FED to explain that there is no gold in Fort Knox.
    – Force the FED to acknowledge that gold is NOT a barbaric relic, and to explain why they give the people some paper and keep the gold for the bankers.

    As for Chinese “manipulating” their currency, this is ain’t our business. Since we “manipulate” our currency all day long, and it is our right to do so, then we can not decline the same to Chinese with respect to their own currency.
    If you wanted to compare then we would lose out to Chinese, because they did not steal their people’s gold as FDR did.

    • ben August 9, 2011, 2:18 am

      We owe the Chinese nothing but worthless dollars. That is what they bargained for and we should print and digitally create enough to pay them back all their principal and interest. We SHOULD NOT pay them back in gold. And we do not have to sell our gold to create more dollars. All we need is to press a button on a keyboard topay them back. Ron Paul wants to be generous to our creditors at the expense of America. And he masks this by portraying it as a moral issue.

      Well let that moral imbecile give away his own gold to China for worthless dollars. Don’t give away mine, and don’t give away my country’s gold. fact, let Ron Paul go move to China, because this country doesn’t need him.

    • Chris T. August 9, 2011, 2:20 am

      such a reasoned and mature reply.
      Quo vadis, America?

    • richard j August 14, 2011, 1:35 am

      Sorry, even if the gold is there, it would not cover a third of this year s deficit.

  • Chris T. August 9, 2011, 1:53 am

    Ben:

    >>He thinks America needs to be fiscally responsible
    >>now…in 2011?

    It is never too late to start. Even if you’ve been smoking for 40 years, you can and should stop.
    If not now, when?
    Never?
    How will that end?
    BTW, don’t worry, we won’t start being responsible on our own, the train will smack into some wall at some point and end it that way.

    >>He supports America selling all its gold to foreign
    >>countries yet at the same time advocates for sound
    >>money.

    He did NOT say “to foreign countries”.
    I would buy a bunch of coined US gold, if the seignorage goes from numismatic premiums to that of a cirulating currency seignorage (low or nothing at all).
    You simply DO NOT understand how a sound money system, or a gold standard should work.
    A “gold backed” system, with the gold centralized ala Bretton Woods is NOT it. When we were on a REAL gold standard, there also was NO government hoard, the hoard was freely in circulation.
    So, sell the gold to the people!

    >>Ron Paul speaks of our obligations to our Chinese
    >>creditors

    Where, in what context?
    In the context of keeping ones contractual obligations?
    If so, fully on point, and EXACTLY within what he has been advocating.

    >>who manipulated their own currency

    No more than we. They did EXACTLY what we have been doing, like a mirror. And by that, imiporting our inflation, to SAVE US from seeing the natural outcome of our debasement for so long.
    And all to THEIR long-term disadvantage:
    No country has ever devalued its way into prosperity, not us, not them.
    This story is not finished, and at some point, the Chinese will regret it.
    EXCEPT for one thing:
    The Chinese have an ace up their sleeve.
    If you care to know more, read Antal Fekete about China and silver (not being cryptic, go to his archive, and see his recent post about it).

    >> helped drive us into the situation we’re in: our
    >>domestic manufactuing base was bankrupted by >>Chinese slave labor along with their manipulated
    >>exchange rates

    We drove ourselves into this. We bankrupted our own manfuacturing base.
    Remember all the “service sector shift”, “new-economy” bullsh*t of the 80s and 90s, taught from Harvard and Wharton on down to justify all that?
    Who do you think actually built those Chinese factories, and developed the technology used in all that production?
    The Chinese university system with its oh so creative scientists and engineers?
    Laughable.
    We transferred all of it over there, as did the Japanese, the Germans, the Brits, etc.
    Why, to escape the domestic inflation uno maskable by the shenanigans, which put pressure on wage demands.
    Your “left liberalism” didn’t help, not because it fought for ways out of the inflation traps (bey demanding pay increases and better benefits), but by not fighting the actual cause of the misery: the money debasement.
    Inflation also caused illegal immigration:
    Those jobs that couldn’t be off-shored along with moving production, because the tasks were not movable (cutting lawns, building walls, changing diapers, flipping burgers, all can’t be done in Ecuador), so bring the cheap labor pool here.

    >>The guy even shamelessly defends printing his
    >>political t-shirts in a foreign country. He’s a total
    >>hypocrite.

    Absolutely not: He has never advocated ANY form of protectionism, so there is nothing shameless about it.
    And hypocrite, NO WAY.

    A hypocrite says one thing, does another.
    Ron Paul is not perfect, no man is, but if there is one thing, he is honest, and does as he says. That is the definition of integrity, the antithesis of hypocrisy.

    Your problem is that you can not distinguish individual outcomes from the reasoning used, and in Ron Paul’s case, adhered to, to get to those outcomes.
    A principled man, like Ron Paul, sticks to the principle (the reasoning), and accepts the specific outcome that flows from that, even if that specific outcome does not appeal to him/her, or anyone else.
    That has been the left’s problem all along, all outcome driven, screw any principle one pretended to have.

    This is no different than the looser law made by the Supreme Court:
    It is full of idealogues on both sides, that are unwilling to follow a principle if the outcome is not what they wish.
    Ex. if an Alito or a Scalia ever came to the conclusion that their take on abortion disagreed with their legal principles, do you think they would ever adjudicate that way, and vote “pro-abortion” because of it?

    Or Ginsburg in reverse.
    You are the same way, and sadly much of our society.
    (see my comment above about the A-bomb and Dershowitz)

    • ben August 9, 2011, 2:54 am

      ……He did NOT say “to foreign countries”.
      I would buy a bunch of coined US gold, if the seignorage goes from numismatic premiums to that of a cirulating currency seignorage (low or nothing at all).
      You simply DO NOT understand how a sound money system, or a gold standard should work……

      You who know so much are really having a problem buying gold near spot? I went a coin show the other day and a guy offered me a few dozen 1 oz credit suisse bars for $10 below spot. There was plenty of gold to be had at the show under 1% above spot….a lot of it US coins. There is plenty of gold around for the “people,” and we don’t have to sell Fort Knox for a bunch of worthless paper that we can just as easily print.

      You seem thoroughly on the Ron Paul bandwagon. Lucky for America the man does not have a snowball’s chance of becoming president.

    • Chris T. August 9, 2011, 6:03 am

      LUCKY for the banksters, the corporatocracy, and general robbers of the middle class the man does not have a snowball’s chance of becoming president.
      UNLUCKY for America the man does not have a snowball’s chance of becoming president.

      It was ever thus, the left blinded by its desires into working for those that steal from all.

  • ben August 9, 2011, 1:05 am

    Here Ron “Gordon Brown” Paul is said to support selling off America’s gold holdings. If he truly believes in sound money, yet supports the American government eliminating all its sound money, then this is a man who is against America. Maybe even more so than Obama.

    http://www.nysun.com/national/selling-gold-at-fort-knox-emerges-as-next-big/87350/

    • Benjamin August 9, 2011, 1:27 am

      I can conclude a number of things from the question to sell or keep. But regarding Ron Paul’s suggestion of selling, it wouldn’t surprise me if he was just trying to get Ft. Knox properly audited. Too, by making the suggestion to sell, and being told that we shouldn’t and won’t, he forces detractors to admit that gold is indeed more than a relic. But I hasten to add that there are better ways to getting the supply audited, as well as for making the case for hard money…

  • ben August 9, 2011, 12:04 am

    Who’s side is Ron Paul really on? He thinks America needs to be fiscally responsible now…in 2011? It is decades too late for that. He supports America selling all its gold to foreign countries yet at the same time advocates for sound money. Ron Paul speaks of our obligations to our Chinese creditors who manipulated their own currency and helped drive us into the situation we’re in: our domestic manufactuing base was bankrupted by Chinese slave labor along with their manipulated exchange rates that shrouded our trade imbalance issues for so many years. The guy even shamelessly defends printing his political t-shirts in a foreign country. He’s a total hypocrite.

    I know I’m in the minority for loathing Ron Paul while not espousing a liberal leftist agenda. But this man is bad news…and he has seduced a lot of people who otherwise think similar to me into being ardent supporters of his covert anti-Americanism.

    • Benjamin August 9, 2011, 12:39 am

      I’ve my own issues with Ron Paul, but selling off our gold is not one of them. I’ve never heard him say that. Where did you hear this?

      As for China manipulating its currency, it was actually the other way around; buying up U.S. debt made for a stronger dollar than otherwise would’ve been had. As a result, they were able to, as you mentioned, beat us on labor and other costs. I agree that we don’t really owe them anything, as they’ve received quite a bit in the deal (they would not have made it, otherwise, methinks).

    • Rob P August 9, 2011, 6:19 pm

      Ben, it’s never to late to be fiscally responsible. I recall Ron Paul voting “no” on just about everything for many years and I’m fine with that.

      I agree that Dr. Paul is blind when it comes to China. He’s a free trade advocate, and way too honest, so it’s beyond his ability to fathom the need for a retaliatory trade policy with regard to China. If we want to drop our deficits, we too can go with tariffs, quotas, and arbitrary inspection and rejection of goods, just as Japan does. Or we could demand that our goods and services be purchased in exchange for the right to import to the US.

      Don’t forget that Japan historically has owned as many US Treasuries as China, and allows just as few imports. China is only worse because of its cheap labor and theft of intellectual property. Otherwise, the methods of China and Japan are the same.

  • Mava August 8, 2011, 11:22 pm

    Chris T,

    The market reacted (I think) because:
    1) Majority of players are really zombies (trust ratings, trust fiat, do not calculate real interest)
    2) Many zombies command their trust managers to obtain only a nominal profit, i.e. the fund managers are actually legally required to follow the ratings. They are, believe it or not, required to invest in AAA securities, which means in junk. And now that it’s AA+, they may have to sell.

    The government itself created those requirements to sell the junk paper to unsuspecting zombies who trust their fund managers and their government.

    It is all one big closed loop of fraud.

    • Chris T. August 9, 2011, 1:24 am

      good point.
      Next up:
      Obama’s already proposed “1/3” of retirement funds (IRA/401k, etc) must be invested in US paper…

  • jeff August 8, 2011, 11:02 pm

    Pretty tired of the whole left/right sham. I would support somebody like paul as president. Romney would just be another status quo president much like hope/change obama. I do agree that the honorable thing for him to do would be to resign or maybe at the least fire geithner, but we all see that obama knows whom butters his bread – wall street. He could also regain some confidence if he started acting the way a sherrif should and prosecute the heads of the big banks and nationalize em. Like Max Keiser has said repeatedly, we have a banker infestation problem that needs to be dealt with. For what we get with the current clowns, we could just randomly pick someone out of the phone book. It would be even better if they were required to wear the same flame retardant suits as nascar drivers, so we know whom their sponsors/our oppressors really are.

  • regina August 8, 2011, 10:34 pm

    Rick, did You know that did u know that a C-130 Hercules (over 70 tonns) crashed into a 10 floors building in Tehran,and guess what?Plane didn’t penetrate and the building didn’t collapse, watch:

    Military C-130 Hercules plane crashed into tower block in Iran NO COLLAPSE !

    • Mava August 9, 2011, 12:00 am

      regina,

      The C-130 is 2,5 times smaller than the 911 planes and it’s maximum weigh is about 2,5 times less.

      The apartment complex it crashed into is only a ten-story, which is no comparison to the towers.

      It’s not a good example.

  • Chris T. August 8, 2011, 9:31 pm

    Rick:
    “the Republicans are going to have trouble fielding a candidate who would lose in 2012.”

    Because the Republican mainstream (the Boehners, Cantors, McConnels, McCains, etc) serve the same clique as the Pelosis, Reads, and the President, they have as much interest in meaningful action, as the latter.
    THUS, they will prefer a weak, ineffectual candidate (see McCain) vs someone like a Ron Paul, and prefer a loss vs. risk someone like Paul actually winning.

    Is it any wonder that day in, day out, more names are thrown in the ring, everyone borrowing a little bit from Paul, to dilute the message and the general candidate pool?

    We will end up with Ken-doll Romney as candidate, and in that case, we might as well keep Obama, know thine enemy.
    Because of this Republican corruption, it is by far from certain, that even with the horrific state of affairs you refer to, Obama will be a one-termer.

    As to the Seals:
    See Paul Craig Roberts recent posts about the 5/2 OBL grab. Isn’t it interesting that (prob. all) the troops directly involved in that mission can now not testify as to what actually went on?
    At the very least, following Robert’s posts, we can now explain the missing troops, which actually may have been killed when the helicopter crashed over OBL’s house…
    We have a long history of managing the reporting of war-dead to suit our needs (done in WWII, in VietNam, and today).

    • Steve August 8, 2011, 10:28 pm

      Chris T. Spot on statement about special forces deaths reporting in regard to Black Opps mistakes.

    • Chris T. August 8, 2011, 11:21 pm

      And reading some posts further up, others posted this as well.

      Just a little historical info:

      Prior to D-day, there was a massive dry run of amphibious assault in the southwest of England.
      Some German cannonboats got into the thick of it, and managed to kill hundreds of allied troops.

      The deaths were not disclosed until after D-day, and the relatives were told their sons died that day.

  • Mava August 8, 2011, 9:00 pm

    On the AA+ theme, I happen to agree with R. Russell, that have predicted on the eve of the downgrade that such downgrade is not possible. It is not possible.

    However, Russell is a honest guy, just like Rick. Which means that they both would fail to predict the cheating.
    Rick keep expecting the deflation, and it would happen if not cheating. Russell would be right about AAA, if not cheating.

    Honest people are not used to think like cheaters, this is their weakness.

    I am not so honest. I learned to fight by the rules currently at use, so here is my prediction:

    US will get it’s rating back just on time for Obama to brag about it during elections.

    I don’t trust any of these agencies. One must be blind to think that a guaranteed rip-off should be rated anything but junk. S&P had done it on orders from Obama, this is obvious.

    The derivative from this is that we should expect a massive blunt trauma to gold as US gets it’s fake rating back and Obama pins on a medal.

    • Chris T. August 8, 2011, 10:02 pm

      I like your take, you may be right.
      That would give a great gold buying op!

      Actually, the whole thing is laughable either way.
      Looked at from a ratings point of view, how does that work?
      When a private borrower, even a publicly traded one, desires an issue to be rated, they grant a level of access to the agency that is beyond the public domain.

      But for government debt, there is no such non-public information.
      Every bit of information used by the agency is (or can be) known by all market participants.
      Why should large investors, such as PIMCO or the Chinese, pay any attention to what S&P, Moody’s, etc believe, when they can do their own evaluation, esp. given what we know about the rating agencies’ complicity in the real estate bubble?

      Thus, the market should not react at all, because nothing new is out there from the downgrade, all should have already been discounted in the price of US debt.
      If that is not so, then just due to stupid market thinking / psychology. One can expect that from the little guy, but the little guy doesn’t buy US debt (or if he does, it does NOT move the market), and the big guys should know better.

    • Steve August 8, 2011, 10:26 pm

      Chris T. Tend to agree – what has come and is coming is the Laws of Nature against the powers of men.

  • Mava August 8, 2011, 8:46 pm

    stolp,

    I did not trust any fancy collapse theories to begin with, as my own education was telling me in no uncertain terms that such collapse is not possible on Earth. Other planets? Don’t know, but not on Earth.

    Nevertheless, I have built the buildings inside a physics simulator engine, and as expected, there was no way I could destroy the towers. Literally, at one point I had built a “nail” into the sky above the tower, and hang a piece of cast iron on it, the size and shape of tel floor segment of the tower. Then I let it go. It did not do squat.
    Why?

    It turns out that it couldn’t damage the building for the same reason that we see dog crap in a pyramid shaped piles and not in towers. The top piece just added slides off in the direction with steepest decline/makes the decline in the direction of the weakest side. My cast iron block simply slid off the building after crushing about 6 floors. It created enough damage for the crushed pieces to chaotically create the paths of stronger and weaker resistance, and from that point on, the destruction proceeded not unlike the lighting bolt that creates the ionized path where few ions already exist, by crushing further the side that was already weaker, until it slid off the tower.

    The only way I could destroy the tower was by charging each floor. If I did not do it to each floor, then big pieces remained. Even if I only charged bottom floors, the top floors would roll off in a huge piece as seen in the video of Japanese failed demolition footage. If charged only the top or middle floors, then the strongest bottom floors remain standing, as everything above the just slides off.

    So, yes, my conclusion was that to achieve the collapse as captured on film, they had to charge almost all floors (about 85% or more), and not only that, they had to time them all to achieve concerted, “perfect” mushroom collapse.

  • stolp August 8, 2011, 7:41 pm

    Mava, that [plane was targeted on the White House, (supposedly). It was headed to Washington, NOT NY! The other buildings fell from the top, starting from where the planes actually hit. So you think these guys were good enough pilots that they knew exactly which floors they put the munitions on? very interesting??? or had they planted explosives on ALL the floors? ;-))

    • Craig August 8, 2011, 8:57 pm

      Building #7….answer that one…please answer that one…watch the videos…read the offical story and bet your life on that “offical” story? Waiting for 10 years for an answer to building #7…still waiting….

  • Jacques Redou August 8, 2011, 7:41 pm

    Americans have put their faith in power.

    Not in education.
    Not in understanding.
    Not in compromise.
    Not in truth.
    Not in fairness.

    In power.

    Their women dress for sexual power, high
    heels, lipstick, fake tits.

    Their vehicles get bigger and bigger, with
    more and more powerful engines.

    Their movies have larger and larger budgets,
    glorify war and violence.

    Their weapons are increasingly deadly and
    accurate.

    Their financial system, the dollar system, dominates the world financial system, gives
    them financial power no other nation has.

    Their lawyers have the power to sue anyone
    with no consequences to the lawyers.

    Their politicians lie to them. Lying is a way
    of maintaining power.

    Their marriages collapse. Power has found its
    way into their bedrooms.

    The power of money dominates their lives.

    Like any society based on power, they will fail,
    because the sword cuts both ways.

    As their Empire collapses around them they
    ask why.

  • Rick J August 8, 2011, 7:40 pm

    Politics is taking over the story of the day, which is that gold had the largest $ move over 24 hours that I can think of, off the top of my head since the 70`s, and this seems to have triggered the end of the idiotic sell gold shares short to buy physical trade. (at least not knowing the secret plan, such as naked short and never going to cover or deliver, etc)
    But as for politics, Ron Paul should run on his own again rather than be closeted as is Paul Volcker now. Republicans must be scared stiff of a third party with an idea or a break away Tea Party splitting their vote and losing the Presidency.
    Anyway, I read an article citing an average gain of over 70% for HUI and XAU from the summer low to fall/winter high in the years 2003,/05/07/09. Could 2011 be the same? Will it happen before some sort of October massacre?

  • Mava August 8, 2011, 7:35 pm

    Rick, I am sure you know that the plane that supposed to hit the building 7 and take out the remote control room was shot down in the field, (or, as it was reported, crashed).

    So, since it didn’t ever hit the building 7, how come that the building 7 still proceeded to collapse as if everything was going according to plan?

  • stolp August 8, 2011, 7:25 pm

    Hmmmmm, ,,comments,,,, First Steve, Denmark is not left alone, not by the God Fanatics (include taliban if you wish but you will be missing the point); for Denmark and Sweden too are under threat because of the audacity of their cartoonists to confront RELIGIOUS fanaticism with the most dangerous weapon, ridicule, humor and scorn….not to mention an impervious contempt… Damn, those Vikings took a milenium to do it, but they morphed into that most amazing evolutionary destination… The HUMANIST! (yes, amazing, he does good and shares with others because his inner being tells him to do this and he needs no deity to command so)!
    ;-)))
    Norway is a threat too now to the pervasive cult of fear and loathing that the corporate / gov’t entities that you are right to despise, for they are refusing to react in the expected way! But regarding the Danes being no threat to anyone, YOU ARE SO RIGHT, and this is the reason they are more or less left alone. You don’t think it is because anyone is afraid of the Danish Air Force,,, do you?
    Rick, keep in mind that there is NO EUROPE. It is a fiction of French / German policy makers. monetarily the Danes and the Swedes kept the Krona and do not use Euros; which is why those two countries are among the strongest, (along with the Swiss franc and Norwegian Krona), in the world. Believe me, it is painful to buy a beer there! ;-)) If you need prof that there is no Europe, just ask anyone who was part of the former Yugoslavia after 1991, as that tragedy prove the hollowness of the phrase “never again.” The Danes will be better off than most, as I said, because they have already accepted the fact that desire to succeed and innovation are not damaged seriously at all by the concept of living in a society that caps individual wealth, in some ways. Keep in ind that they are still committed totally to private property. Actually, there system supports growth and accepts movement up the ladder far more readily than ours because there are no “Oligarchs” at the top blocking access up the ladder.
    As for 9/11 conspiracy theories, GIVE IT UP! There are far too many people involved to keep something like that secret. It’s that sense that people have that some of the profoundest and most significant acts in history can happen just by the smallest amount of serendipitous fortune; ( i.e. the assassinations of Archduke Ferdinand, Attila, Bobby Kennedy, the defeat of Napolean , etc. ad infintum). We just don’t like to accept that great actions can be effected by the whims of fortune alone……
    And finally Steve, you are completely right about what might happen here, IF that is what you are saying. If things do deteriorate here, the angriest and most dangerous people to deal with will be those that we trained and taught to be the most effective warriors on the planet! Scary thought that…. can you say “Tim Mcveigh”, children? For now those forces remain used and abused by the Corporate Entities that squander the lives and fortunes of ALL in the pursuit of profit….. but as we all certainly know by now……”Payback’s a Bitch”! On a closing note as i want to get off to the golf course while there’s still water to feed them! My feeling, as one who knew and had business in Central Asia for a long time; “The pebble that we dropped at the top of the mountain in Kabul in”73”, when we helped take out the old King, took out the World Trade Center when it hit the bottom!
    Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.
    Respect and Regards, to ALL!
    s.

  • Mava August 8, 2011, 6:47 pm

    So, Obama had already started to remove the witnesses to the killing of some old man and posthumous calling of him OBL. This was expected. Not this obviously, but expected no less.

    As for your hopes for Ron Paul, Rick, I don’t think this would ever happen. There is no difference between Republicans and Democrats. To expect Republicans to advance Ron Paul is the same as to expect Democrats to do so. For without the FED, the economy could finally exit the zombie mode and start deflating as it supposed to.

    They will never let this happen, not until the whole country is sacrificed.

    As to the “brave soldiers” of Steve, we would see the truer picture is we did not execute people for deserting, i.e. “quitting” their employment. What you seeing now is slaves trying not to get slaughtered by slaughtering the slaves on the other side. Basically, you see the gladiator fight, and you presume that the gladiator dies “for Rome”.

  • Mel August 8, 2011, 6:38 pm

    LBJ didn’t resign, though he was beaten down enough to not run for a second term. It was Nixon who resigned later after Watergate.

    • Robert August 8, 2011, 11:38 pm

      It can be validly argued that any sitting President, who chooses not to run as the imcumbent, has resigned.

  • Steve August 8, 2011, 6:01 pm

    To the brave soul of Navy SEALs. To the MEN who do what they say they will do, no matter what the cost. To those who are abandoned by politcal machines when warriors are no longer needed I say THANKS.

    I took an Oath to the Constitution, and to the Republic to defend against all enemy foreign and domestic. The Joint Chiefs all know the republic is gone, and the constitution defiled by corruption and legalized political crime. Chiefs are not warriors, but; political hacks supporting the money machine. The Chiefs will abandon their own on the field of battle and deny the existance of the warrior SEAL.

    If there are no foreign wars, the knowledge of the domestic enemy within appears. What then? What then? The banker fears, and fears he should because should the truth appear there will be no place to hide. For now there are foreign wars where brave SEALS die for bankers and their kind.

    • redwilldanaher August 8, 2011, 6:05 pm

      Well put Steve.

    • Craig August 8, 2011, 7:55 pm

      Oathkeepers and returning Vets are the #1 terrorsts threats to “America” according DHS…amongst Ron Paul and Bob Barr supporters and bumper stickers….like Bush Jr. said “the constitution is just a god damn piece of paper” “it would be a lot easier if I was Dictator”….funny Obama said the same thing…..America is gone never to return…it slipped away throught the fingers of the “greatest Generation”…they were great..but they trusted the government too much and they will pay when their $1,800 soc security checks wont buy food..by design. Looted and taken over in 1913….it toll 100 years but mission accomplished by the Banksers.

  • Craig August 8, 2011, 5:29 pm

    Rick,

    “For in fact, if and when all of our troops eventually do come home, no U.S. company with offices or operations outside of North America will be safe from bombings, shootings, kidnappings and extortions.”

    How is someone so smart and so well informed and so well read not know, not looked or a not guessed that 911 was an inside job? Such a untouchable subject yet all it takes is 15 minutes of your time looking at Building 7 to understand that everything is theatre and we are the sheep being sheared. Please take 15 minutes to watch videos of building 7 fall into its own footprint at freefall speed, never being hit with a plane and only a few small fires. 30 minutes AFTER BBC said building 7 collapsed into its own footprint and after the police cleared a collapse zone…..87 steel columes on a 47 story building all failed at the exact same second for a as the official story goes “a complex gravatational collapse” never happened in the history of steel buildings…then 3 on one day. 15 minutes of research will have you not repeating the lies of the Banking cartel to send your sons off to be killed to steal and protect assets for them.

    • Rick Ackerman August 8, 2011, 6:05 pm

      Upon seeing the collapse of Trade Tower #1 on TV, my first reaction was to try and put a reporter friend at Barron’s in touch with John Loiseaux, the man who pioneered controlled demolition in the U.S. via a company called Controlled Demolition, Inc. (As a reporter for the Atlantic City Press, I’d met John when he and his sons took down the Traymore Hotel in Atlantic City.) The Tower’s pancake collapse was so strikingly similar to what I’d seen in promotional footage of various CDI jobs that I assumed the collapse was brought on by shaped explosives. My friend at Barron’s — one of the very best investigative reporters I have ever known — delved deeply into the topic and concluded that the Tower’s collapse was caused “naturally” by the impact of the 747. Subsequently, a very detailed, highly technical engineeering report that I read convinced me that that had been the case.

    • Anon August 8, 2011, 6:32 pm

      Rick,

      I think you should do some thinking for yourself.

      No other steel structures have ever collapsed from fire. The twin towers were built to withstand impact from 747s. There were numerous credible witnesses to explosions before and after the plane collisions. Steel buildings have sustained 24 hours plus of burning (not less than one hour) and still NOT collapsed. Building 7 was clearly brought down. Silverstein even admitted on camera that he had it “pulled”. I could go on and on but your friend is suffering from cognitive dissonance and so are you. The evidence is clearly there for anyone who looks with an open mind.

      &&&&&

      See above. RA

    • Craig August 8, 2011, 7:49 pm

      Rick….Although there is no doubt in my mind building #1 and building #2 were blown up using top down demolitions (they were so well done we could debate all day and night)…..invest the 15 minutes in watching the footage on Building #7…no doubt in anyone’s mind who looks at it…..building #7…not the twin towers…in fact read Popular Science’s debunking of Building #7 then watch the tape of Building #7..it will leave no doubt in your mind or anyone else’s.

      Building #7 (NOT HIT BY A PLANE) is the smoking gun of 911…. anyone that doubts it after looking at the evidence is a useful idiot or being paid off…once you know that building was taken down using demolitions…and you find out what agencies and what was inside…the fingers can only point to one place of how they got in there……….

      Building #7 is the smoking gun of 911…. anyone that doubts it after looking at the evidence is a useful idiot or being paid off…once you know that building was demolitioned…and you find out who and what was inside…the fingers can only point to one place of how they got in there……….

    • Chris T. August 8, 2011, 10:58 pm

      This is a topic best left for another time and place, because if we all engaged in it, the d vs. i posts of yore, would seem tiny by comparison.

      Just like any parent who loses a child as a soldier is willing to believe in the “died for a worthy cause” rhetoric to find some meaning for the death and help assuage the grief, it takes a lot to lose one’s ultimate innocence with respect to “our” government.
      “I know they’re lying about this, but about that….?”
      Next up would be the need to be in WWII, etc.

    • Craig August 9, 2011, 12:04 am

      Chris….ingonoring the facts and the truth is why we are in two..and soon to be four wars which will lead to WW3 and is why we have this finacial mess. 911 and building 7 is the keystone on what we will put up with…we get the gov we deserve and burying our heads and not waking people up will let the lies continue. 911 is how we got here…without it…they never would have gotten away half of what they have done.

      And Chris WW3 is coming to cover up for the financial crisis…blame Iran on our over spending…its patriotic……so yes 911 and Building #7 is THE ISSUE of the day forever….if people like Rick wake up so will the rest of the people in time to save us, only all of us collectively knowing the truth will save us so they can not continue to divide and conquer.

    • Chris T. August 9, 2011, 1:19 am

      On principle I don’t disagree with you, but its just that we would end up digressing from the main thing at hand too much here.

      As to the search for truth, one can’t ever oppose that.
      That is why the reference to WWII, because next to your point, about 9/11 being THE ISSUE, so is, still, WWII.
      That conflict, or rather its post-war treatment, in the cartoonish black/white, good*evil form preached for decades, also informs all this.
      It stands for the notion of there being such a thing as just war, and for the notion that the ends justify even the dirtiest means.
      Just look at how few in this country are willing to accept the notion that Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Tokyo after those two, was a war crime, pure and simple.
      The denial of that, and the acceptance of the A-bomb’s use-justification, is not different than the Dershowitz “its ok to brutally torture a terrorist if we can prevent an A-bomb in NYC” scenario.

      Dresden, Hamburg, et. al. are no different.
      There is not even an attempt to distinguish ours from dictatorial violence, meaning, that even when someone admits to these bombings perhaps being not fully jstified or perhaps war-crimes, then they will use the “the Nazis or the Japs did it too” defense, even though we were supposedly better than them, and the moral side.

      What about Eisenhower starving to death about 1 million German POWs after May 8th, 1945? Oh they deserved it, they did it too.
      With that stroke, no need to self-xamine, let alone to investigate the truth of the “they too” accusations…

      So, another KEY issue.

  • stolp August 8, 2011, 5:06 pm

    Hi Steve, When people are raised in a caring society, that is at least somewhat fair, and educated well, and resources are dispensed BOTH with regards to merit / incentive, AND to sustaining a certain quality of life; then you see remarkably democratic and happy societies. I spent three weeks in June in Denmark, where it is very difficult to become VERY rich. Yet everywhere I looked I found people being innovative, starting new businesses, having fun socializing, and just enjoying life! It is not surprising that the last three years running the Danes ranked first in major surveys on “happiness”. (OK, I’ll admit that it’s hard to define). All this in a country with no oil, or natural resources. Yes, there are rich people there, but not so rich; and I even know some of the rich folks who also ride bikes to work…. i would say there are some democracies that work. The world has progressed in some ways and some places. It is not 1826, James Madison was not a savant on this issue, tho he may have been accurate in his time? And your use of him is quite appropriate, as the mission of the writers of our Constitution were very intent on making sure our system of law DID NOT grant power to the People, or mob as they probably accurately felt at the time…?
    ….and i agree with you, this too shall pass…. but I disagree with the Taliban…….and Tina Turner… “what’s God got to do with it”?
    Best Regards.
    s.

    • Steve August 8, 2011, 5:45 pm

      I’ve not been to Denmark, nor do I possess any knowledge of these People, their land, society, or government. Where is Denmark ? Who is paying to protect Denmark and its People? Is Denmark spreading mobocracy to the World as the U.S. is ? Can I illegally imigrate there with a hand out giving nothing in return? There is something to be said about allowing the people to retain their wealth without having a corporate structure practice slavery. The U.S. is a slave state under the 14th amendment, and via a.k.a. the Reconstruction Acts of 1867 having a military monarchy in succession. The U.S. will not allow one to live in Liberty, or in freedom of peaceful thought as an individual. The U.S. is run by a foreign banking cartel who goal is the World. Denmark may be fine now, but; it will come under the yoke in time. Denmark is no threat and thus is left pretty much alone I would believe.

    • Rick Ackerman August 8, 2011, 5:51 pm

      A fascinating, first-hand observation concerning the quality of life in Denmark, Stolp. But are Danes earning enough in the global marketplace to sustain this life of apparent ease for the next generation? Concerning Europe as a whole, it’s hard to believe the answer is “yes”. To me, at least, it seems as though Europe is headed into the same bankruptcy as the U.S., albeit from an entirely different direction.

    • Benjamin August 8, 2011, 6:24 pm

      Steve said: “Who is paying to protect Denmark and its People?”

      But Steve! Happiness Index people don’t _need_ defenses! And they sure as heck don’t require anyone to do any dirty work for them (as they’re much too happy on the index to have such a thing as dirty work that needs doing)!

      Rick said: “To me, at least, it seems as though Europe is headed into the same bankruptcy as the U.S., albeit from an entirely different direction.”

      It’ll be worse for Europe. I think that certain non-western nations… if they are going to do anything at all… would rather take out their aggressions on a whole continent of happily helpless socialistic nations, rather than ones that just can’t continue to fight so many overseas campaigns.

    • mario cavolo August 9, 2011, 4:41 am

      As I absolutely believe, there is nothing wrong with government being a part of our lives. Good government by good leaders is a good thing….unfortunately its rare.

  • warren August 8, 2011, 4:52 pm

    You used the D word. I can only hope.

  • stolp August 8, 2011, 4:48 pm

    Sorry to do this, folks, but I’d like to add one, (actually two), last comments; one of which you are certainly aware of in its shortened form, from a man I am beginning to think may deserve the title of,, “The Last Patriot”….at least that is what I’m tentatively going to call the book. Either that or…….”The End of Golf”? Don’t worry you Country Club guys, it’s only the guys lucky enough to still have factory jobs who will understand that one! ;-))

    Here’s from Ike…..

      In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition
    of  unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
    militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of
    misplaced  power exists and will persist.

      We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our
    liberties  or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted.
    Only an  alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper
    meshing of the  huge industrial and military machinery of defense with
    our peaceful  methods and goals, so that security and liberty may
    prosper together.

    …..and another one of his that you may never have read but is quite appropriate and I migh add prophetic in the Time of T-Partiers!!!???

    “Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splin- ter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.” Dwight D. Eisenhower

    WHERE ARE PLAINS POPULISTS WHEN YOU NEED THEM…? Ike, Harry, are you out there..? ;-))

    • John Jay August 8, 2011, 5:40 pm

      Stolp,
      It is way too late for Ike or Harry.
      We need a Col. Kurtz to cut through the red tape.
      And while that would eliminate the oligarchs and their DC lackeys, we would face the same Marius, Sulla, Caesar, Marc Anthony warlord struggle that Rome experienced. And their is no guarantee we would wind up with wise Augustus at the end this time. Amy Winehouse was not fated for a happy ending and neither are we.

  • stolp August 8, 2011, 4:16 pm

    I do not believe it was an “inside job” Carol….. but that didn’t keep the forces that you refer to from using it to promote their agenda… so it doesn’t make any difference if it was or wasn’t…. The corporate Superstate that neither knows nor cares about the interests of nations and more importantly the people of those nations has completely manipulated 9/11 to accomplish the goal of bringing the PEOPLE to their knees in a condition of Fear and Poverty.
    What is interesting is that it doesn’t dawn on people that a large permanent military is an anachronism. The historical purpose of an army, in the majority of cases, is to go out and GET resources! As such, it is a highly inefficient way to go about that task. As the Chinese are readily showing us, and Ron Paul has amply explained….the cheapest way to get resources is to GO OUT AND BUY THEM!!! This by the way, also promotes trade, contact, and prosperity…. Which is surely the best way I know to have friendly relations with other Peoples! I wonder how it is that the Norwegian people reacted with such bravery and commitment to OPENNESS and the democratic state, when we reacted with such great fear that we completely obliterated the our fundamental rights and freedoms? Strange Fruit indeed!
    Is it perhaps because they actually have a democracy?
    Regards, s.

    p.s. what is the price of Iraqi oil when you figure the price of the war…?

    • Steve August 8, 2011, 4:48 pm

      cite from above – democracy is defined as mobocracy, communistic toward property, rule by passion without regard to consequences, discontent, mobocracy, anarchy – leading to violent destruction citing Mr. President James Madison for the last statement.

      We are seeing the practice of mobocracy first hand today. There are two kinds; those who live by Rule of Law and are self governed, and those who wish to rule over others in anarchy. Democracy takes the Rule of Law by force, or by force of economics. The ruling elite want to take everything and give to those they choose in the way they fitfully dream at night. (can we say unemployment payments creating more debt problems) I’ll state it again. There are those who wish to control others and create man in their perverted image, and there are those who wish to be left alone under the Law of the G-d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

      Right now is the time of mobocracy – it too shall pass.

  • stolp August 8, 2011, 3:37 pm

    Hi Mario, What does leaving Afghanistan and Iraq have to do with reducing the military by “Too Much”? The original plan for the Afghan mission in response to 9/11 was 10,000 very tough marines, massive air support, and the Northern Aliance. The mission; go get Bin Laden, disrupt the Taliban, dislodge Al Quaeda. THAT WAS IT! We accomplished most of that in about two weeks, as we also took iraq in two weeks. How either of these “missions” morphed into “nation building” is unfortunately easy to see in hindsight. The people responsible still need to be held accountable, as their pockets are lined with silver and their consciences should be filled with guilt.
    The irony of ironies is that they used the same agencies to justify and promote our wars, that hatched the original plan that WE concocted back in the mid 70’s to lure the old Soviet Union down the path to historical oblivion. Ask anyone involved in the old Soviet presence in Central Asia, and they will tell you that it wasn’t Star Wars, (who only Reagan and Andropov thought was real anyway), but Afghanistan that destroyed the Soviet Empire. ….. Strange and sad that we fell into a pit that we ourselves originally dug?

    • Carol August 8, 2011, 3:54 pm

      Stolp no I don’t think it is strange at all. TPTB used Afghanistan and the Soviet Union as test cases. Once they “saw” that an extended war there really could bring a strong nation down they used that blue print on US Inc. I honestly believe that the US corporation was put into Afghanistan (and Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, etc) to bring the country to its collective knees but then again I also believe 911 was an inside job what can I say I am one of those conspiracy nut jobs.

    • mario cavolo August 8, 2011, 4:28 pm

      Hi stolp, yes I easily agree… I was speaking to the more general idea of global military withdrawal. I believe a level of military presence is unfortunately necessary to maintain certain stabilities.

  • Rantly McTirade August 8, 2011, 3:30 pm

    Dead Hessians waste no more tax dollars.
    They made their career choice, it turned out
    bad-same as a lot of people in the past few decades.

    • Robert August 8, 2011, 3:39 pm

      Agree-

      Two points of view:

      1) Our “elite” soldiers had no better war to fight, so they were probably happy to apply their training in Afghanistan- with the job, come the risks.

      2) Perhaps this action will keep safe some minor, probably irrelevant President of some small resource heavy country who might be looking for a way to liberate his people and resources from the oppressive strong arm of the American military industrial complex…

      Also, so much ado about this being the famous ‘SealTeam6’ that took out Bin Laden… What’s the first rule of a clean assasination? Eliminate the assasins… Just sayin.

      If I were a surviving member of Team6, I might be looking for a nice little villa somewhere deep in South America about now.

    • redwilldanaher August 8, 2011, 5:13 pm

      The coincidences just keep piling up, don’t they Robert?

    • Chris T. August 8, 2011, 10:48 pm

      The analogy is apt, but the actual reference is not.

      The Hessians were not mercenaries, as is told in our history, but poor slobs, who were conscripted by force in Hessia, and sold to the English army as cannon fodder.
      It’s really too bad, that we couldn’t get more of them to desert, but quite a few did.
      Other pocket principalities in Germany did the same in the 18th century: Wuerttemberg sold soldiers to the British, only to have them be sent to India and die from exposure to Indian diseases.

      So, not mercenaries, but white slaves, pure and simple.

  • JimK August 8, 2011, 3:12 pm

    If we’re counting dead bodies, we should count the casualties of the illegal heroin/opium trade in this country. The recent images of our troops guarding opium fields in Afghanistan was the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ surreal moment. On top of that our pharmaceutical mafia controlled FDA kills millions of Americans with phony approvals of prescription drugs while muscling out cheap un-patentable vitamin, mineral and other supplements by making them illegal under CODEX, which was just slipped in here. I mourn the loss of these thirty, but am sadder to say that they and others are pawns, and our solemn respect for them should be transformed into political action to end this war, the war in Iraq, the war in Libya, the war in Pakistan. Time to stop enforcing corporate empire masquerading as ‘U.S. defending liberty around the world’. We are becoming a dangerous and despotic country and we are making more enemies than we are killing, every day.

  • stolp August 8, 2011, 2:51 pm

    Well Rick, (and Mario), Greg is completely right! How the U.S. is going to be MORE at risk after it pulls out of Afghanistan is beyond me? Al Quaeda has very little to do with the Afghan war at this point, has mostly become local in Pakistan, and has a far greater and more dangerous presence in East Asia and Africa. In fact, our battles in Iraq and Afghanistan weaken our economy, and distract from real offshore threats directed at American targets at home and abroad…… tho I think these are vastly overstated by the “Security Machine”, which of course has a business to protect and promote! Ron Paul has stated that the troops in both theaters should come home, ” as fast as we can get the boats and planes to get them”……. and he is RIGHT!

    • mario cavolo August 8, 2011, 3:10 pm

      I’m not sure where I came in on this one stolp but I’ll jump in:

      To suggest that American military should be reduced is sensible. I abhor the idea of war and military as most people do.

      However, to reduce it too much, to reduce it drastically, believing that there is no threat to the world’s security, that it is not needed to a great degree, demonstrates a gross level of ignorance and stupidity on such matters. Whether or not that is what Rick’s meaning was I can’t say. This is what I sense to be evidently true in the state global of geopolitical affairs.

      Cheers, Mario

    • Carol August 8, 2011, 3:33 pm

      Mario ” I abhor the idea of war and military as most people do. ”

      My impression from friends, family, and polls says that Americans are by and large warmongers so I would have to disagree with your statement about most people.

      I also disagree with your position that we would have to stay the course because if we pulled out too soon or too quickly the world would come to an end. Look no further that Vietnam. We pulled out quickly and the world did not end; neither did South Vietnam. From what I have seen had we stayed there the country would still be in a shambles. By our leaving we found out that not only did the North taking the South not spread communism to the whole world as we were told it would but it saved thousands of lives that would have otherwise been killed in that senseless slaughter.

      War is run only for profit and control of resources and people. I will keep my “ignorant and stupid” position that war is almost never justified and is always murder. Self defense is the only time violence is justified and sometimes not even then .

      Finally I don’t and never will “support our troops” on their foreign ventures of conquest. I would cut our military budget by 90% if I were King for a day!

    • mario cavolo August 8, 2011, 4:25 pm

      Oh we agree that war is bad, etc. Vietnam is a great example to agree with my point…too much military where it didn’t need to be.

      To clarify my point further, I mean to suggest that a military presence is required as a deterrent to others who would otherwise run amok…

      With a 90% withdrawal as you suggest, we and many others in the world would be slaughtered. It is way too idealistic a policy to implement in the real world…sadly yes.

    • Rick Ackerman August 8, 2011, 4:56 pm

      On balance, I’m an isolationist myself and would prefer that the U.S. abandon its role as the world’s policeman and #1 weapons dealer. But we shouldn’t kid ourselves about what it would mean for U.S. businesses around the world if and when the jihadists are given free rein. With an untouchable base of operations in Afghanistan, al Qaeda, for one, will be able to reconstitute itself and centralize its operations. At that point, America’s first order of business will be to keep Pakistan’s nuclear weapons out of the jihadists’ hands. It cannot work, and so a nuclear detonation somewhere on the planet will be just one consequence of Afghanistan’s fall.

    • Chris T. August 8, 2011, 10:35 pm

      If those in Pakistan want to keep anything in hand against their real enemy, India, they will make sure to hold on to the few nukes they have.

      And by that point, not waste them on some terrorist adventure, because they’re not getting any more.
      They don’t have enough to waste.

      The fear of an attack,whether imminent or not, begs the question:
      why nothing for about 10 years?
      It’s not like our borders are any less porous now than they were in 2001.
      TSA is there to scare us into submission, not to protect the country. If it were, we would have a sealed border from the Gulf to the Pacific, yet no one cares about that open door.

  • DG August 8, 2011, 2:36 pm

    I can report to the crowd that our old friend Andy is alive and well. He gave a captivating clsoing speech at GATA’s two day conference in London. He is a remarkable fellow and his courage to call out the scoundrels is fundamental to righting all that is wrong. Ironic that the day before he spoke the shenanigans on the silver exchange were in full force.

    Things will never change until we get enough folks to see the truth, not the crap that MSM feeds them. I saw last week’s Time Magazine and the cover states “How the Teaparty Hijacked America”.
    Sure. And the Great Society worked (45 million on food stamps now). And Phil Gramm and Larry Summers are genius for killing Glass Steagall. Orwell would be proud.
    Look, all parties are flawed, including the Tea Party, but accusing the Teaparty of committing a hijacking, implying that it held us hostage for stating some truth is the kind of MSM BS that folks need to reject. How absurd is it to argue that if we were just more fiscally imprudent that we would become more fiscally sound? W: “to save capitalism we need to abandon it.”
    The debt and the machine that creates it is now so powerful that this whole charade is a giant Stockholm Syndrome….”if we just work with the debt growth machine our lives will be better”…
    Get used to opens like today. Stocks getting whacked, forex volatile, and gold rising to new highs. Yeah. It is the damn Tea Parties fault.
    No. The truth is we have corrupted our capital structure over the course of many parties and decades and we are witnessing economic entropy that is multi-generational.
    Wrongs being righted. All of ’em.
    95% (this could be low) of the 535 clowns running the show are 100% responsible for our issues and anything they say or do should be looked at with extreme skepticism.
    I imagine that somewhere down the road we will have the antithesis of a Nixon moment and the next Prez will state 2015-ish, “well, I guess we are all Austrians now” or at least violently reject Keynesianism as it is currently practiced. At that time PMs will be at prices no one can imagine, stocks will have frustrated all, and debts will be so high that there is no fix, other than a global economic power on reset, destroying and replacing all paper capital. It is massive FUBAR and it ain’t the Tea Party’s fault. This bad seed was planted generations before they were even a notion.

    • Steve August 8, 2011, 4:31 pm

      We the People have allowed a democracy to be created because we do not care about our Brothers. Democracy is not a Free Republic no matter what word one places in front, like ‘representative’. Democracy is defined Federally at TM2000(15) pages 118-119 as “Rule by passion without regard to consequences”, “Disregard for Rule of Law”, “Contention”, “Anarchy”, “Mobocracy”, Communistic toward property”.

      Put the “Prince” in play in the hands of the few, to slave the many and we have reality. The F.D.R. New Deal was designed to place all wealth in the few, to rule the many. The current scheme is designed to do what it is doing.

      Why is anyone shocked about the results of mobocracy when we were warned by President James Madison in Federalist #46 ?

      The bet that should be placed is in regard to Federalist Paper #46’s statement on “. . .violent destruction. . .” of the mobocracy. The money game is without rules today. A game without rules is hard to control when it gets very very big.

    • Rick Ackerman August 8, 2011, 4:47 pm

      The pandering clowns at the news weeklies, most particularly Time magazine, will reap their just reward when they cease to publish. That day cannot be far off, since, who could possibly still be getting their “news” and opinion from the pathetic likes of Time and Newsweek?

    • redwilldanaher August 8, 2011, 5:11 pm

      I’m not so sure Rick, that day could be further off than we can imagine. Those 2 comic serials are still viewed by some as real opinion it seems! I guess the AARP crowd just can’t let go. The ministry of truth may want to carry them both for a few rounds as they are effectively the retention newsletter for US Imperialism, err, foreign policy.

  • Erin August 8, 2011, 12:22 pm

    Superb article Rick…To the point and well said with spot on analysis! If ever there was a time when Ron Paul should be our next president, that time has come.

    I am so sick of the lies and deception that we have had to endure for decades. What is it going to take for the country to wake up? Hopefully we have arrived at this moment…

    • mario cavolo August 8, 2011, 3:03 pm

      sorry to be a pessimist, not a chance Erin…not arrived not this moment. Zero evidence to suggest otherwise… the American lower/middle class people have become the same exact passive society sheep separate from whatever the govt is doing, exactly the situation here in China. They will not rise up, they will not take over, they will not secede or anything else you can think of…

      The rich and in control run the show, end of story, whether they run it well or poorly is mostly irrelevant at this stage in the, as Cam well puts it, theater.

    • Steve August 8, 2011, 4:19 pm

      Its all a game of shearing the sheep. A minor mistake of shearing the flock too close and there will be rebellion. Another story is the frog in the boiling pot. Never say never.

  • charles August 8, 2011, 11:34 am

    All entertaining dialog and I agree with Rick, but where’s the trade? Looks like shorts and PM’s to me!

    • roger erickson August 8, 2011, 12:37 pm

      Agreed. But this morning is already too late for most. The trade was early Friday before S&P’s move, for those who knew it was coming.

    • mario cavolo August 8, 2011, 3:00 pm

      yea roger I’m screaming at myself for not buying spy puts and gld calls on friday…it would have been sooooo easy to do…. but now that the moves have already gone this far, the roller coaster could go either way, very tough stuff right now…

  • Benjamin August 8, 2011, 11:07 am

    Not that the 30 deaths and declining public support was going to end the war, but I’ve strong doubts that a total withdrawal would result in the blowback mentioned in the article. It didn’t happen to the Russians and the Taliban isn’t in better shape after the last 10 years of occupation. Which also illustrates why we never had a good reason to create and maintain such a presence in the first place. Afghanistan never was much of a threat!

    • Carol August 8, 2011, 1:54 pm

      Ben, of course Afghanistan was not a threat to us such is obvious. The reason we went in there (beyond of course to “get the Taliban”) was to reopen the opium fields which the Taliban had all but shut down.

    • Benjamin August 8, 2011, 2:46 pm

      No offense, Carol, but that seems a rather flimsy motive (the Afghanistan opium trade doesn’t generate THAT much money). More likely, and though the effort isfor naught, the war had probably delayed the downgrade of our AAA rating by a few years, at least, and perhaps by as much as a decade.

    • Carol August 8, 2011, 3:09 pm

      Ben with all due respect, how the hell could an unnecessary war in a far off hellhole (remember 10 years in Afghanistan had a huge hand in bringing down the Soviet Union) have delayed a downgrade of corporation USA’s rating? All that unnecessary spending on war added to the untenable debt that was/is the cause of the ratings downgrade.

      Second, I did not mean to say that opening up the drug trade was the ONLY reason for attacking Afghanistan. Obviously the whole “war on terror” sham had to put real troops on the ground somewhere to maintain the facade. And Afghanistan needed to be “secured” so as to open up the oil pipeline in that area. Also even if the opium did/does not fetch that much money (that helps to fund the corporations black ops) they also get the added advantage of using the opium to further the whole “war on drugs” sham. Its multifaceted for sure.

    • Benjamin August 8, 2011, 4:58 pm

      Carol,

      “Ben with all due respect, how the hell could an unnecessary war in a far off hellhole (remember 10 years in Afghanistan had a huge hand in bringing down the Soviet Union) have delayed a downgrade of corporation USA’s rating?”

      The westernization of Iraq and Afghanistan was going to open up those countries to a whole slew of new investment opportunities. Many believed that the wars were going to be quick and relatively painless, because supposedly the majority of the people in those countries desperately wanted our intervention. Remember? That kind of stuff was all over the news, in the beginning.

    • Craig August 8, 2011, 5:20 pm

      Benjamin…..$500 billion a year is a flimsy motive for the US (controlled by the banking cartel) to launder? Pat Tillman (American Hero) was going to expose that we (the United Stated of the UN) were growing, guarding, transporting the sale of opium in A-stan….hmmm another “accident” of “friendly fire” at point blank range. His family knew he was exposing the truth about the opium upon his return. Same game as the East Indian Co. in China, the Vietnam War, the Drug War…many american Bankster fortunes had the seed money planted in drugs..pun intended.

    • Chris T. August 8, 2011, 10:27 pm

      don’t agree often with Carol, but she is right here, in part.

      The opium benefit was certainly a goal, if more like gravy than the meat.
      Same goes for the spoils of war, or rather redirecting OUR tax dollars, and the debt heaped on us, to the military industrial complex.

      After all, how much of the trillion dollars so far spent in Afpak (+Iraq) did NOT go to US entities?
      Almost all of it is spent on labor, services, material, sourced state-side, just as with most of foreign aid.
      Even when money is spent on schools in those places, who gets the building contracts?

      That is another reason, and also gravy.

      The real reason we are there is to encircle China, and siding with India, in their long running dispute with the Chinese.
      And, also, of course, OIL.
      Not much in Afghanistan, though there are other nat. resources (besides opium), but to the north-east, and Afghanistan is crucial in ensuring a route out, that is not Soviet or Chinese controlled.
      Also of course the reason, we are so Iran – hostile

      IF one can achieve a principle goal, and provide side benefits at the same time (the gravy), a perfect set-up.

      Even the military has figured this out:
      you can’t make any real money IN the military, but if you withdraw your capabilities by quitting, and then selling back those exact same capabilities (now lost internally) for 5x markup, cool!
      That is your Blackwater, etc for you, as well as the private contractors…

    • Benjamin August 9, 2011, 12:23 am

      Chris T: “The opium benefit was certainly a goal, if more like gravy than the meat.”

      Exactly, Chris, but just to make some things clear…

      Opium addiction, in the long ago past, made it easier for Western governments to cheat their own so-called monetary standards. It was an easy, handy way to replace the gold and silver that was over-spent from a nation’s treasury.

      And interestingly enough, the prohibition of drugs didn’t begin with Nixon. It started in the year after the Federal Reserve went into business. Then, in 1971, Nixon did two things: Stepped up the war on drugs and ended the Bretton Woods gold standard. They were about a month apart, if I recall. And then a few years after, we finally got out of Vietnam. Thereafter, it was all about selling America (literally and figuratively) on the “merits” of things like free-floating currencies and rating agencies.

      So the meat is definitely something other than $3-5 billion (not $500 billion!) in Afghan opium trafficing. The meat has been about selling America on the “merits” of free-floating currencies and ratings authorities. As to how Afghanistan helped our credit rating, we need only look at how the last decades of the Cold War affected our standing; we stayed AAA so long as the USSR remained a threat. The only difference, again, is that so many investment opportunities were being forecast well-ahead of an actual victory in the WoT. I remember this, btw, because I became so fed up (!!!) with all the unicorn and glitter talk about “cheap” start-ups in underdeveloped countries being soooo the next big thing, even as (to me, anyway) the deterioration of my country was all too apparent.

  • Cam Fitzgerald August 8, 2011, 9:07 am

    Indeed, we are all headed into a depression now.

    I imagine it will be long and bitter too as the dollar sags further only making the pain for every working family more difficult as buying power declines exactly when it is most needed.

    But do not imagine for a moment that a great hyperinflation is about to break out. Nothing so dramatic is in the cards. No, it will be much worse in many regards as buying power fades away month by month while asset prices continue to decline in sympathy. It is called a squeeze.

    No rising wage spiral will materialize, no easy boost from money printing will save your nest egg and no mortgage debt will evaporate through the miracle of too many dollars chasing too few goods. It cannot happen that way as I have always contended.

    I notice there is a mountain of commentary and discussion in the public media about Timothy Geithner, the Fed, the S&P downgrade of US debt etcetera, etcetera.

    Everyone is analyzing the drama step by step as though this was some kind of big surprise. We are amazed that a major ratings agency would be so bold as to take the action we just saw. To act responsibly. Impossible! Could their silence and cooperation not be bought to preserve the sanctity of US debt obligations?

    Well of course it could.

    And that is why this drama is so interesting. I frankly do not believe that the rating change was an act of honesty. Not for one second. And neither should you.

    Thousands of words have been written about the indignation coming from the White House. The anger. The humiliation. Those stupid S&P rater’s…..blah, blah, blah.

    All of it is nonsense, of course.

    This was no surprise. S&P had warned of a downgrade some time ago. All part of the big act. Can you all not see that this is really just theater? The very idea that S&P was backed into a corner by comments they made publicly and had to bring on a downgrade to preserve their reputation is laughable.

    This whole charade was deliberate and planned. Do not doubt that for a second unless you are willing to say that agency, with all its expertise and professional staff, are just a bunch of farm-boy fools with no market sensibility at all. They read the news-wires too, you know.

    What few are considering is that this is exactly what the US administration wanted and needed in order to devalue the dollar further.

    But it is a dangerous game of chicken in my opinion. This is truly brinkmanship at its finest moment to compete head to head with Euro debt issues and simultaneously to fight off the drain on capital resulting from the massive trade imbalance with Asia (I mean China).

    Do I have proof? No I don’t. But it is just plain obvious.

    The national debt as we all well know is un-repayable and a devaluation of the dollar is the only answer to balancing the books. Default by another name. Is there not an expression about roses that rings a bell here?

    You could not engineer a better solution than to hurt confidence in the dollar (just a little) than with one of three major rating agencies removing the AAA status.

    The best part is that the administration and the Fed are off the hook in this regard. They cannot be directly blamed for weakening the dollar as this downgrade is clearly the outcome of third party ratings. This is a very unconventional means to deal with the management of the worlds reserve currency. But all is fair in love and war. This is war.

    (Hey, it’s not us, it’s them!!!)

    Anyone fool enough to believe that this event was not orchestrated and staged to coincide with the increase in the debt ceiling must be daft or asleep at the wheel.

    Of course, even more theater is coming out of Beijing to mirror the drama in the White House. They figured this one out in ten seconds flat. The devaluation in the dollar will force them to remove the Yuan peg and they are really, really pissed off.

    Check-mate. They did not see that coming.

    So while publicly the Chinese berate America for being a wasteful spendthrift and they are openly supporting the Dagong rating downgrade; in secret they are furious that
    their treasury holdings are being whittled away as the dollar shrinks in value.

    They did not anticipate the S&P actions as a real or credible threat to their interests. They incorrectly guessed that ratings would be massaged as usual and a first class standing would remain in place.

    But it happened anyway. They feel betrayed.

    China cannot win at this game. And so they have upped the ante and threatened to form a new world reserve currency. (I am scared…are you?)

    There is no doubt they lost this hand though and the anger was palpable if not melodramatic. They don’t honestly mean a single word that is embedded in their threats, of course. Few care to listen anyway.

    Nor do the Chinese have the ability to bring on a new reserve currency that the global community might accept with open arms (would you?). The world simply does not trust the Chinese enough to accept them in a lead role in the community of nations.

    So not much will really change. They are just playing to the audience now. The whole world is a stage and we are but actors in a play.

    Shakespeare would have been really impressed.

    • roger erickson August 8, 2011, 12:35 pm

      That’s something many will agree with. It also fits with other scenarios. A premeditated move that will force a large chunk of $ to move out of AAA-only positions will profit those who paid to have it occur.

      People should be going to jail for this. It’s outright racketeering by S&P & whomever’s paying them.

    • Robert August 8, 2011, 3:31 pm

      “we are all headed into a depression now”

      Headed into?

      C’mon Cam. Depression is a psychological term. I submit that the global sentiment toward bankers, politicians, and “central planners” in general turned down in 2007, and will not turn back up for a generation or more.

      I agree with Neil Howe- we are in a Depression, and have been for years, and all the interim nominal economic data will not negate the fact that people are pissed, and they will continue to be pissed until what pissed them off (heavy handed elistist insider dealing that showed no regard for the people who have to foot the bill) is swept into the dustbin of history…

      http://insiderobertsbrain.blogspot.com/2011/01/where-economics-goes-horribly-wrong.html

      Oh, and Rick- count me among those who interpreted “no U.S. company with offices or operations outside of North America will be safe from bombings, shootings, kidnappings and extortions.” as a justification for continuing to keep our hired guns in other people’s saloons…

      Has anyone ever considered the fact that people in other countries view Americans in general the same way that Americans view the politico-elitists? They see us as meddling, interfering, spoiled gamers who think they are more entitled to cheat than the other players at the table…

    • Cam Fitzgerald August 8, 2011, 3:35 pm

      It is also why I believe that equity markets will be the ultimate beneficiaries once the da boyz have shaken out some easy profits on declines. Too many worry that stocks will absolutely collapse at some stage but that is just paranoia as I see it. As another round in the dollars decline sets in equities should quite naturally start to shoot higher and wouldn’t it be nice if you could springboard your purchases from fresh market lows?

      Well you chances are coming.

    • Angel Mendez August 8, 2011, 5:03 pm

      Write a book and I will buy it! Thanks.

    • Willio August 8, 2011, 6:22 pm

      Great post, Cam.

    • Robert August 8, 2011, 11:17 pm

      Cam: “China cannot win at this game. And so they have upped the ante and threatened to form a new world reserve currency. (I am scared…are you?)”

      I totally agree with this point. As Jim Rickards pointed out on CNBC recently “We own China”.

      There is a point where the debtor will have borrowed sufficiently enough to dis-empower the creditor, and we passed that point with China a long time ago.

      Their choices are:

      1) Ditch the dollar crutch and prove that their currency can stand on its own and support the full weight of their economic expansion/bubble (use whichever term you personally prefer)

      2) Run the Gold market into overdrive and hope they can aquire 10,000 tons before we do.

      3) Foolishly start a war.

      What other options are there?

      China is like the pissed off working class father who has been housing, feeding, and paying for counseling for his adult addict son for years, even though he repeatedly keeps catching the idiot out on the street corner getting high…

  • Terry S August 8, 2011, 8:24 am

    Looks like we’re goin’ thru your minimum upside for Gold today, Rick. We’ll see what the US markets bring tomorrow morning. If past patterns hold, we’ll see a well orchestrated take down that you can set your watch by. Barring that, maybe it WILL be different this time.

  • Rick Ackerman August 8, 2011, 8:17 am

    Greg, that’s not at all what my statement implied.

    • steve August 8, 2011, 1:30 pm

      That’s how most will interpret that statement;please clarify.

  • Greg Mulcahy August 8, 2011, 7:14 am

    “For in fact, if and when all of our troops eventually do come home, no U.S. company with offices or operations outside of North America will be safe from bombings, shootings, kidnappings and extortions.”

    This statement implies that having troops in Afghanistan prevents ‘bombings, shootings, kidnaps and extortions’ …utter and complete BS

    • RC August 13, 2011, 11:03 pm

      Right because the real terrorists operate out of Langley VA and other alphabet agencies. The war on terror is a lie and a hoax.

  • John Jay August 8, 2011, 5:47 am

    The U.S. has become Amy Winehouse.
    Staggering from crisis to crisis, always talking about “rehab”, while everyone knows what is going to happpen in the end.
    Greenspan just said we can’t default because we can just print money. Hard to believe, but there it is, he has learned nothing from the mess he created.
    158 F-22s at $412 million a piece, grounded since May.
    All F-35s grounded, I don’t know what they cost us.
    State of the art P-51s went for about 50k each by the end of WWII, how is that for hyperinflation.
    50k to 412 million, even allowing for the technology and debased dollar, staggering.
    With unemployment North of 9%, the US is still issuing work Visas for tens of thousands of immigrants a month.
    Free Trade Agreements with S Korea, Columbia, and Panama in the on deck circle.
    Crazy wars go on and on, scuttlebutt has it we are preparing to seize Pakistans 200 nuclear weapons if things don’t go our way.
    Amy Winehouse, that’s what we have become.

    • Chris T. August 8, 2011, 10:17 pm

      And California has just made “undocumented” ones eligible for college scholarships.
      After all, why give a little aid to one of “us”, that would be unfair to “them”

  • Chemical August 8, 2011, 5:21 am

    Great article. Very sobering. Now somebody tell me whether gold stocks track the market or the gold price tomorrow.

    • BDTR August 8, 2011, 2:56 pm

      Yeah, real sobering, isn’t it Chemical.

      Now, how can we quickly profit in trade from a new jolt of fear and uncertainty?

      The real bullshit in the deaths of these men is sending in a fat, easy target for extraction from a hot site. An idiotic tactical decision ignoring a predictable mass loss. But, we’ll sweep that minor detail of command incompetence under the rug with the rest of reality, sadly lamenting the loss of warriors as victims of mere circumstance.

      They were lions killed like cattle. Reality.

      Our circumstance is willful head turning from the hard reality that we expend human life of every station for a cynical grab at blood money, and power. It’s all blood money now.

      What a joke, Rick, to suppose that two other slimy political pretenders to principle would “carve” a roll for the presumed revolutionary Paul.

      If Ron Paul even got close to the real authority required for orderly transition to principled government with equitable intent, we’d be discussing his untimely, ‘accidental’ death.

      ‘Inception’, the movie, was an apt metaphor for distortion of the manipulated realities that we populate, …and our pathetic hedging delusions of repetitive, globally compounding tragedy.

      Shakespeare, today, Cam, would be Quentin Tarentino.

  • Mario cavolo August 8, 2011, 3:59 am

    Amen Rick …

  • SD1 August 8, 2011, 3:06 am

    The problem, Phil, is not that I am unwilling to accept changes. You are the one who can’t. You’ve probably grown up with this whole, “We have to save the world” mentality, when, in fact, it is exactly this kind of thinking that’s led to our demise in the first place. If hungry, unemployed people with no hope of bettering themselves, living in tent cities right here in the US isn’t enough of an eye opener for you, I don’t know what is.

    • Phil C August 8, 2011, 5:31 pm

      I don’t get the point.
      “We have to save the world” is not the idea I’m pushing for – it’s the “minding our own business” instead of interferring and making things worst.
      And yes, hungry unemployed people will not be “saved” by sending them overseas fighting while increasing the debt. I really don’t get your point SD1.
      But I encourage you to read “Confessions of an economic hitmen”.
      It’s the military industrial complex behind that.

    • Phil C August 8, 2011, 5:32 pm

      SD1: I’ve read your other comment and it sounds like we are an agreement and think the same way.

  • Phil C August 8, 2011, 2:20 am

    My quotes of your text didn’t go through. This is the part I was quoting:
    For in fact, if and when all of our troops eventually do come home, no U.S. company with offices or operations outside of North America will be safe from bombings, shootings, kidnappings and extortions.

    • SD1 August 8, 2011, 2:48 am

      Yes, and the US debt seems to support your findings, Phil C.

  • Phil C August 8, 2011, 2:19 am

    <>
    That’s normally the BS that the neocons are spitting.
    With books such as “Confessions of an economic hitman” by Perkins, and the actions of the US “collateral damage”, its easy to see this will never allow the US to make friends. They will once they act more like a switzerland type who mind its own business and is very willing to trade with whoever will.
    Ron Paul 2012!

  • SD1 August 8, 2011, 12:19 am

    There can be no “winnable” war when ulterior motives stretch well beyond the “safety” of another country’s citizens. We have a big enough mess in our own back yard, quite likely much larger than any of those countries we are supposedly trying to “save.”

    • Phil C August 8, 2011, 5:33 pm

      Agree!


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