This picture bled into my feed reader today. Look at the headline:
Sex and Marriage by the Ayatollah. Women Are Just Slaves
The woman in the photo is Debra Harry, the singer from Blondie. The date of the photograph is near September 3, 1978, as that is the date that Marxist-Leninist terrorist rebels of the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) shot down Air Rhodesia Flight 825 killing 38. 13 survived the crash. However, the insurgents then hunted them down and shot them dead with machine guns.
Here we are 38 years late. Nothing has changed for these Mohammadans ("Muslims"). Contrast the proclamation of the Ayatollah with what Paul Kester wrote in his 1919 work titled Conservative Democracy.
Many don't get it. They don't understand the majority of Americans who comprise middle America.
Trump is more than repudiation of Obama. Trump is repudiation of internationalism in its widest extent — neo-conservatism of ex-Democrats in the Republican party; Bush senior's "kinder, gentler" America kowtowing to the "New World Order" of harmonized laws with the WTO and U.N; of Bill Clinton's NAFTA; of Obama's Mohammadan ("Muslim") appeasement (see: OBAMA. MR. SETBACK. THE GREAT APPEASER. OBAMA NEEDS TO WIN A NEW NOBEL PRIZE FOR APPEASEMENT).
Middle America isn't merely a USA of geography. It's a USA of like-minded people with alike life stories. And of late, all of their stories seem to be the same.
Should Trump take the nomination and should Trump win the presidency, the biggest surprise in the post-election analysis will the huge crossover of white women voters for Donald Trump.
Van Halen were ahead of the punditry class on this way back in 2012:
Uncle Danny, had a coal tattooHe fought for the unionsSome of us still do.On my shoulder is the numberOf the chapter he was in.That number is foreverLike the struggle here to win.
Pundits everywhere expected Hillary Clinton to become the next president of the United States without much of a contest against a Republican Party challenger. No one expected Hillary to be in a fight for her political life for her own party's nomination.
Bernie Sanders, the other candidate for the Democratic Party nominee is beginning to be taken seriously. Sanders now leads Clinton by 27 points in New Hampshire. Sanders is running in a dead heat with Clinton in Iowa.
Sanders is part of the socialist wing of the Democratic Party. Through eight years of Obama, the Socialist Democrats have emerged as the main force of the Democratic Party. This has been a long time in the making (think: Occupy Wall Street, #BlackLivesMatter).
Socialist Democrats have vied for control of the Democratic Party since the conservative coalition collapsed and much of the Deep South transformed into a Republican stronghold. That transformation began with Nixon's Southern Strategy and peaked with the Republican Revolution when the last of the conservative Democrats retired.
For a detailed description of the major party tenets, see below.
The trend in USA politics has been polarization. Obama is the leader of the leftist, Marxist-Socialist Democrats. They are the mainstream Democratic party these days. They wrested control of the party from New Democrats when Bill Clinton retired. There are few Blue Dog / New Democrats with any clout in the party. They are the conservative Democrats. They hardly exist within the party. The Blue Dog Coalition consists of 14 members.
Those of the myopic mainstream media assumed Hillary Clinton would follow Barack Obama. Hillary Clinton is not the heir to Obama. Bernie Sanders is the proper candidate to replace Obama in this natural progression of polarization.
Hillary Clinton is running for the wrong party. Hillary belongs with all of the other ex-conservative Democrats, the neoconservatives in the Republican Party who have joined ranks with the long-established internationalist-interventionist Rockefeller Republicans.
True American Conservatism is a special kind of conservatism. It's a Bill of Rights nationalism that strives for the benefits of all citizenry by establishing a general welfare.
Trump represents a new dimension in USA politics — working-class, Bill of Rights nationalism. Trump is changing the game in a game that has been changing for awhile. Trump is the true right-wing, conservative candidate. Trump is trying to preserve the USA as it was before the ongoing international drift of NATO-UN-NAFTA-WTO-TPP.
Third party candidates generally offer the alternative to the political establishment. Trump is that candidate already.
Trump is the true American Conservative in this race, already. Also, Trump is the third-party style alternative-to-the-establishment candidate already.
Authentic Conservatism doesn't mean moral prudery. Only dimwits associate church-going religion and chastity with conservatism.
Progressivism promotes specific welfare, and specific subsidy. Progressivism promotes open-borders internationalism. Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan and even Ted Cruz — these guys are left-wing, internationalist republicans who push for the interests of major shareholders in oligopolist transnational corporations. They're all anti-nationalists.
Likely, Trump will beat any candidate in this election. Considering that Sanders is the true heir to Obama, here is a good contrast between Obama idealism and Trump idealism.
Obama: "They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
"If you've got a business—you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."
Trump: Close the borders. Build a wall. No more bad trade deals. I built a great company and you can to in a real America. I'm 100% for the Second Amendment. I'm an evangelical Christian. Let's make America great again.
Is there any wonder why Trump is winning?
————
Understanding the alignment in USA politics.
The Democratic Party is the left party, the party of socialism, the party of communitarianism (see: BEATING THE DRUMS FOR OBAMA TRIBALISM). The party still has vestiges of Blue Dog / conservative Democrats. The Democratic Party is an open-borders internationalist party but is against reciprocal free trade. Thus the party opposes NAFTA, CAFTA-DR and TPP. Yet, party favors supremacy of internationalist organizations with diminished sovereignty for the United States. This party appeals to welfare seekers and those of ethnicity, especially poorly-educated, low IQ ethnicity.
Main faces: Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama
The Democratic-Republican Party is an unofficial center-left party that one day likely will come into existence. Democratic-Republicans are a pro-big business internationalist party that favors heavily immigration as a means to suppress wages. This is a pro-Wall Street party. This is a pro-international interventionist party. They are major champions of the status quo. This party appeals to college-educated guilt-ridden, self-loathing liberals. This party appeals to lawyers, those who work in the medical establishment and mainstream government workers.
Main faces: Hillary Clinton, Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, John Kasich, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz
The True American Party / The USA Party is an unofficial right party. It is the true conservative party for Americans. They are trying to restore Bill of Rights Individualism and the Protestant work ethic that shaped the USA from the founding of the USA until 1965. This party is pro-nationalist and anti-interventionist but with a strong military. This is a walk softly but carry a big stick party. This party appeals to mainstream, Main Street working-class Americans, no-college white Americans with at least Ellis Island ancestry if not earlier.
So the travel agents of the United States Congress, the Department of State, have denied a brood of muslims with British citizenship from traveling to the USA. The action stopped a planned visit to Disneyland by these anti-Christian muslims.
Many have tried to play the children angle, claiming it unfair to these muslim kiddies. According to the Telegraph UK, British passport holder Mohammad Tariq Mahmood, his brother and their children aged between eight and 19 were stopped from taking a flight to Los Angeles for a planned tripped to Disneyland. Mahmood said, "They need to check our backgrounds, check our accounts and check our businesses before they react like that. They can't react like that just because we are muslim. My kids are obviously upset. They know why it happened and they know what is going on in the world. It could be because of Donald Trump as why otherwise would all of this spring up on us."
Someone needs to edcuate Mahmood. Foreigners lack any right to travel to the USA. Congress lacks duty to let foreigners travel to the USA. Visas are privileges kindly granted by Congress through its agency.
It is odd that muslims would want to travel to Disneyland considering Walt Disney was a very devout Congregationalist Christian who was named after his family's minister, Walter Parr.
Walt Disney had Disneyland dedicated by a Congregationalist reverend upon its opening.
Odder still is why would muslims want their kids steeped in stories Walt Disney adapted from strict Lutheran Christians the Brothers Grimm — "Cinderella" ("Aschenputtel"), "Sleeping Beauty" ("Dornröschen"), and "Snow White" ("Schneewittchen"). Snow White was an openly Christian princess. In Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Snow White can be seen praying with head bowed and hands clasped together asking God to bless the dwarfs.
Walk Disney said of himself, "All I ask of myself, 'Live a good Christian life.' To that objective I bend every effort in shaping my personal, domestic, and professional activities and growth."
As an ardent anti-communist, it is fair to speculate that Walt Disney would have been anti-Islam.
Today, Obama unleashed an attack on all Americans who rightly stand united against Obama's plan to import Syrian Muslims and their anti-American culture into the USA. This time, Obama has taken to Twitter, firing off a hashtag missile against the minds of the impressionable.
Obama is waging a war of psychology against Americans. When you think about it. That is the stuff of sicko dictators that you would find in movies like V for Vendetta.
Obama is using the latest tactic of cultural Marxists that relies upon deep-seated psychology whereby no one wants to known as a shameful person. Instead of slut-shaming, Obama is trying race-shame you.
Don't let the jerk-in-chief attack your mind with his hashtag missiles. No doubt, as an American, you have compassion. However, unlike Obama, you lack stupidity.
There are four types surrounding the question of importing Muslims into the USA. Three of them are against Age of Enlightenment Idealism:
Appeasers
Collaborators
Denialists
And then there is the fourth type:
Realists
Realists know the end game for Muslimry worldwide is political domination. With that comes imposition of Sharia Law. Sharia law means legalizing and institutionalizing a rape culture one which adjudicates for men against women.
Every realist knows this. Every realist knows that those who strive to live by Islamism do not want to live by the rule-of-law based on Age of Enlightenment ideals.
As I showed you in OBAMA. MR. SETBACK. THE GREAT APPEASER. OBAMA NEEDS TO WIN A NEW NOBEL PRIZE FOR APPEASEMENT, Obama began his presidency with a plan of appeasement to world Muslimry. Now it seems that Obama's appeasement was part of a larger plan of collaboration. Consider that Obama was raised by his Islamic step-dad, Lolo Sotero, it seems so unlikely that Barry Obama lacks any strong sympathetic allegiance to world Muslimry.
Obama entered the White House as an appeaser to worldwide Muslimry. He will leave the White House as a Muslimry collaborator.
Obama's support of terrorists in Syria against a UN-recognized sovereignty has let Obama put a toilet bowl stain on the reputation of Americans. In so doing, Obama has made Americans who pay taxes to Congress unwilling collaborators to terrorism.
All of the anti-Assad Syrians who Obama will import illegally into the USA — no law exists that authorizes Obama to pay to transport them — in effect are terrorists in violation of international law. It matters not if Assad is a bad guy as likely he is.
All Americans must ask themselves to what purpose does it serve to import millions of people who believe in a totalitarian doctrine to govern every moment of their lives, a doctrine — Islamism — that is little different than Mao Communism. Rather than relying on pseudo-science rhetoric though, it relies on pseudo-religious rhetoric, a rhetoric devised from corrupting extra Judaic texts and apocryphal, bogus writings about Jesus.
The next effect is the same. The bogus rhetoric justifies totalitarian political action ranging from stoning to death women who allegedly entice men to rape them to blowing up Westerners who attempt to live by Age of Enlightenment idealism.
Not only is Obama a bad president, perhaps one of the worst ever, but also Barack Obama simply is a horrible human being, a true lowlife. Obama is a horrible little man with deep character flaws, the product of his rather lame parents — a self-loathing mom and and an opportunist, immigration status-seeking dad as well as an opportunist, often-absent step-dad. Later historians will not be kind to him.
Everyday that passes, Obama goes further to reveal himself as a Islamic collaborator. Americans need to step up and demand Obama resign the presidency.
Over at The True Dollar Journal, I published a work of nerdy stats that reveals there has not been any recovery as you have been told. I am famous for doing that and revealing the truth.
In his work, Volokh, a native of the former communist Ukraine, in establishment apologist fashion tells his readers that "in addition to being a representative democracy, the United States is also a constitutional democracy, in which courts restrain in some measure the democratic will." Though he might be a bright guy, Volokh stretches the truth. It is the very design of the US itself through amendments to the Constitution along with public law passed by Congress that limits the democratic will.
Reality is far different from what Volokh preaches at UCLA Law and what millions of school children learn each year in America. Americans do not have representative democracy. Americans don't have democracy of any kind.
When the founders designed the United States of America with the second constitution, the founders wanted Americans to have popular representation and states' legislatures to have representation. To give Americans popular representation, they created the House of Representatives. To give states legislatures representation, they created the Senate.
For more on this, you can read about the Connecticut Compromise. Likely, most of you never heard of the Connecticut Compromise during your high school years because your states' legislators had a agenda for you to serve their purposes.
Sadly, today, the dictators of Congress use the census as rhetorical justification to dole out welfare to key supporting constituencies.
The United States of America as the founders intended with the Constitution of 1787 and ratified on June 21, 1788, began to die in 1870. America moved ever closer to death beginning 1910.
Reality gets worse when you discover that on a full-time, 40-hour work week with no time in D.C., a representative could give mere seconds to each of his adult constituents — seriously seconds. Hover over your state and see it for yourself.
Map 2. Number of Seconds Each Adult American Can be Given by their Representative, for a Full-time, 40-hour work week and no trips to D.C.
Now, if Americans were to have a truly representative democracy, one where each adult could at least sit with his or her representative for 15 minutes, once a year and still have their representatives go to Congress for three months to hash out the only most important matters of Americans, here are the number of representatives Americans need by each states.
Map 3. 15 Minutes Once a Year with One's Representative with the Representative Three-Months in D.C., Number of Representatives Needed in Each State
Californians alone would need over six times the number of representatives than the whole House of Representatives now!
And here is what it would look like if representatives only gave 10 minutes to each adult, 18 and older while still hanging out in D.C. for three months.
Map 4. 10 Minutes Once a Year with One's Representative with the Representative Three-Months in D.C., Number of Representatives Needed in Each State
Californians would still need over four times as many representatives as the whole of the House now.
Here is how many representatives Americans would need in each state if Congress adhered to the Constitution and had each House member represent 30,000 adults.
Map 5. 30,000 Adults each Representative, Number of Representatives Needed in Each State
Bernie Sanders is quick to rail against billionaires and Wall Street, but Bernie never mentions the true problem — the lack of popular representation. Hillary Clinton is merely the light version of Bernie. Hillary makes almost the same attacks but is much softer about hers.
Shouldn't that make you wonder about Bernie and Hillary or anyone like them who claims he or she has the plan to make America better for Americans?
The jokers running for Team Red, the Republicans, don't even attack anyone who they claim is harming America. They too don't want you to know the most pressing problem that has been facing Americans for years upon years, decades even.
Campaign financing by the rich isn't the problem no matter how many times Bernie Sanders lies to you saying it is and no matter how many times Hillary Clinton lies to you saying it is. You and all other Americans who are not part of the establishment have only one problem: You don't have a representative democracy. You live under a dictatorship of a well-organized minority. The lack of popular representation is the true problem all of us Americans face. It should be the only election issue. If you want to fix America, you must spread the word on this.
Anyone who believes Americans live under a representative democracy has been bamboozled. Anyone who knows better and still makes the claim suffers from corrupted morality.
If only you lived under a representative democracy, there would be many political parties with no party dominant. The Democrats and the Republicans would be powerless in themselves. They would need to form coalitions with other parties and yield much of their desires to a bigger cause.
Only the most important bills would rise to the top and become law. You would have much more freedom. People who work for Congress in the various agencies overseen by the President would show you much respect.
If you lived under a representative democracy, having a high income or low income wouldn't matter nor would having much property (right of ownership) or no property in anything. You would be on equal footing with the richest man whom your representative would represent.
This is what the founders wanted for us 227 years later. Alas, we don't have it because the Democrats and the Republicans perpetuate the Biggest Lie.
If you are an American adult or soon to be an adult, likely this is the most important work you have yet read in your life. After reading this, I encourage you to read Thomas Paine's Common Sense.
You can be sure that not one candidate from either of those establishment parties would ever want you to have representation. That is why their parties colluded in during the Quiet Revolution to freeze permanently the House membership to 435 and only later did they add another three delegates for D.C.
Today, over at The True Dollar Journal I published a detailed work supported by a series of charts that proves definitively that Americans are still living through the Greatest Depression.
Also, in the work, I show why life has gotten ever worse for Americans not merely since the Banking Crisis of 2008 but for quite a long time before then.
"Wal-Mart stock is tanking because if household income is $1,600 month and rents is $1,500 a month and if the price of ground beef has nearly doubled, milk and others up 30%, ya got nothing left. There is nothing left."
Me:
Current dollar prices are illusory. True food prices are falling, not rising.
Rent is rising because few built apartment houses during the residential realty boom and now few can afford mortgages on falling incomes. They need places to live. Population continues to grow.
When the prime working age increases faster than the spending rate on capital, wages fall. Wage rates are prices.
When wages fall, all prices fall. What are the source of other prices but wages?
Congress has accepted too many immigrants, legal and illegal. That has killed the return to capital and thus wages.
Me:
Current dollar prices are meaningless. What counts is how much stuff you can buy for an hour's worth of work.
Prices in true dollars are down, way down. Wages in true dollars are down even more.
How can you believe in higher prices on falling true credit. What do you think happens after a great inflation stops?
A giant banking bubble bursts. That is the crisis. What comes next is deflation.
Quantitative easing has papered over massive deflation. There are 69.8% more dollars in circulation today that June 2008. Since all prices are tallied in current dollars, prices in dollars will be higher.
That most don't understand these concepts is why most believe as you.
The facts of reality and everything men have known about commercial banking and economies for 165 years fails to fit your narrative that you want to believe, desperately, and are trying to defend.
It's because of people like you that central bankers can engage in deceits like quantitative easing. If the many understood commercial banking, none of this would be happening because none of it could be happening. They couldn't get away with it.
If everyone believed as you, accepting statistics from the agents of Congress, stats expressed in current dollars for GDP and food prices, then pro-Congress politicians along with their hand-maidens and agents must be right. If so, the rest of us must be wrong.
Yet, if so, all market participants would have complete information. There would be no movement in stock prices or anything else. No one could gain competitive advantage.
We would be stuck in a dreary world of static Dystopian perfection.
Allie:
You claim, "When wages fall, all prices fall. What are the source of other prices but wages?"
AND WHAT ARE THE SOURCE OF WAGES ? = JOBS
Me:
Never in the history of mankind have jobs been the sources wages. Returns to capital are the source of wages.
Wages are income and act like any kind of income. From the worker's perspective, wages are recurring sales in purchase and sales of cash or other bank credit for work done.
From the firm operator's perspective, work done by workers (employees) is capital (property put to production).
If firm operators lack income or credit supported by income, they can't buy capital (work done by employees) to put into a product.
Allie:
The more JOBS the higher WAGES.
Me:
Wow, what another fallacy you have expressed. First, it's a non-sequitur. Second, you haven't proved it.
Wages are a result of capital. Without capital and return to it, there are no wages.
Bare subsistence savages have no jobs and no wages precisely because no one has capital (property put to production) from which to gain returns and thus hire them to work at wages.
And for that reason, higher wages come from increasing returns to ever more capital.
Allie:
But ground beef is up!
Me:
Wage rates are prices. Wages have been falling, not rising.
Prices for everything else have been falling owing to efficiency gains and exacerbated, owing to falling wages. From whence prices exist except from wages?
You don't see these falling prices because you think in current dollars. As there are more dollars in circulation today than last month, last quarter, last year, last five years and so on, current dollar prices will seem higher, always. It's illusory.
How can you believe true food prices have been up on massive, increasing unemployment in America and Europe between 2008 and 2014? How does that magic work, exactly?
There have been no significant crop shortages owing to natural disasters and futures markets have provided for much grain storage.
————
Sadly, Allie believes as millions do.
Congress let in too many illegals and too many legal immigrants which swelled the ranks of the working age population. In so doing, returns to capital were impinged.
When collapse happened, extant capital bought on credit at much higher prices were crushed.
Exacerbating this, idiots at the Federal Reserve engaged in near-ZIRP, which further damaged returns to capital. That led to firm operators doing the only act they could do to restore the return to exact capital bought on higher prices — they laid off workers.
Firm operators decide always on this alone: Is there a dearth or abundance of workers.
If there is a shortage of workers and firm operators want to produce, they must augment workers with capital.
Americans can't have massive immigration in a WTO, free-trade agreement world.
Adding would-be workers kills the return to capital. Without increasing returns to capital, there is no reason to hire anyway.
Over at my all-nerdy stats and charts site, the True Dollar Journal™, I put up charts from the 2015 October Advance Retail Sales Report for September data that reveal how much Americans are still living in the Greatest Depression.
American businessmen haven't been offering up commercial paper for discount for years. That means there is no growth and no confidence in the future.
The discounting of commercial paper by commercial bankers and the re-discounting of that paper by Federal Reserve district bankers is a major aspect of commercial banking under the Federal Reserve system. When commercial paper discounting is on the decline, so too is the economy.
That no one else has reported this reveals no one else understand economies and commerce. And clearly, those who have failed to report this don't understand commercial banking.
The U.S. economy has yet to leave depression. Current dollar GDP is meaningless.
"Real" GDP is meaningless as well since to calculate it, government statisticians use an average ("the chain") of successive inflated current dollar GDPs to deflate the latest GDP. How is it possible to deflate something inflated by something else already inflated?
There are 69.8% more dollars in circulation today, August, 2015, than in June, 2008! That is what quantitative easing does. QE has papered over the ongoing losses.
Quantitative Easing means increasing negotiable bank credit in circulation — cash and checkable deposits so as to trick the public into believing the economy is growing through rising sticker prices expressed in current dollars.
Quantitative Easing works. QE has papered over the massive credit deflation undergone at banks. QE has papered over the Greatest Depression.
That is its purpose. QE is not intended to spur on an economy.
Look at the angle of the curve from June, 2008. It started to bend toward vertical, which means growth has been moving toward infinite.
This is what US GDP looks like in True Dollars™ terms rather than bogus current dollars or the equally bogus real dollars:
My chart is the only accurate chart on US GDP produced by anyone, the earth over, as are all my GDP charts and every other chart I produce. Unless someone has a standard yardstick that can't grow or shrink, that one can't get an accurate measure.
Look at my chart closely. My chart conforms to everyone's experiences through the years precisely. No other GDP chart on earth can do that.
Because I use an invariant standard that conforms to scientific knowledge about commercial banking, my measures are accurate and reflect commercial reality. No one else on earth can make this claim, unless he or she were to copy my method.
In true terms measured in True Dollars™ rather than measured in current dollars or the equally fake "real GDP" terms — as that uses already-inflated averaged current dollar terms over successive periods as the deflator — the economy has shrunk in almost every quarter since hitting a peak in 2007.
Americans don't see this precisely because QE has papered over reality. Current dollar prices including wages are up. So Americans believe they have been living through a recovery and an advance when they have not in reality.
Americans think in current dollars. They don't think in buying power terms.
When credit falls, the economy must shrink.
The US economy has yet to leave the Greatest Depression.
I track GDP for 40 countries in True Dollars™ terms. Those 40 countries comprise 86.6% of World GDP. The world is in serious economic depression.
The top 15 countries comprise 75% of world GDP. In True Dollars™, which is the only way you can get accurate true GDP, quarter-over-quarter
• Australia is down -11.4%
• Brazil is down -8.9%
• Canada is down -4.4%
• China is down -1.0%
• France is down -9.0%
• Germany is down -8.7%
• India is down -2.1%
• Italy is down -9.3%
• Japan is down -3.6% [Japan hasn't stopped falling since 30-June 1995! It's now down almost -74% since then ]
• Mexico is down -2.9%
• Russia is down an eye-popping -39.4% owing to sanctions.
• Spain is down -8.7%
• The UK is down -7.5%
• The USA is -1.5%
The notable bright spot is Korea, up 0.4%
I'll share a link to these charts as well as my True Dollars™ price guides for ETFs, which show which ETFs are rising fastest over designated periods as soon as my server comes up. My ETF price guides are indispensable for anyone who speculates with ETFs.
As my ETF price guides are merely that, the guides do not constitute advice of any kind as to what to buy or to sell. Such decisions are the both the legal and technical responsibilities of those speculating.
That said, having my True Dollars™ ETF Price Guides likely is the closest anyone can ever get to having a crystal ball. It's like insurance so cheap that you don't need to question the pittance to acquire one.
The charts above for the USA are what the charts look like for the 40 countries I track and for which I produce GDP in True Dollars™
Recently, there has been this stupid meme going around whereby tricksters have tried to shock fools with the meaningless statistic about 94 million Americans not in the labor force. A quick googling of the phrase record not in labor forcereveals a slew of search results.
First, the phrase labor force is a technical term and means the sum of those employed along with those who have looked for work in the last four weeks based on a survey conducted during the so-called reference week. So those not in the labor force are those who don't have jobs and who haven't looked for work in the last four weeks.
As I show always, numbers without context lack meaning and usefulness to describe reality. Here is reality:
So is the current percent of 37.3% far from historical norms? No. Right now, the latest reading of 37.3% is only 11.2% higher than the average from the end of July, 1986, to the end of July, 2007.
You can better believe that before World War 2, consistently, those not in the labor force as a percent of free total civilian population would have been been a far greater percentage.
If the Fed Res FOMC members decide based on data, then little reason exists for them to continue with their wrong-headed near zero interest rates policy. It's only been eight years of meddling by the Federal Reserve and by Congress to get the economy where it is now. Back when men debated whether or not to create the Federal Reserve, those in favor of creating the Federal Reserve claimed the Federal Reserve would shorten or even prevent altogether economic depressions. Their claims have yet to be backed by history as both the 1930s and the 2010s have proven them wrong.
Unfortunately, for these charts, key parts of the data needed for this calculation only go back to 2008. So it's hard to know if 6.2% is a good rate or a bad rate.
And the Strict Jobless Rate looks much better as well.
The number of Americans capable of work is falling.
And there are far fewer able-bodied in America sitting around doing nothing.
There are 3.7% fewer Americans being being supervised today than at the end of June, 2008.
Likely, there are millions of Americans who are not truly disabled, but merely legally disabled according to the generous rules decreed by Congress. Since the end of July, 2009, the number of supposed disabled has risen 17.5%. It seems so unlikely that before 2009, these Americans didn't know they were disabled.
Readers of Bizarro Theater know that Americans have not had a money-based economy legally since Congress decreed that Federal Reserve banknotes are legal tender. That happened more than 100 years ago.
Bizarro Theater readers know that were it to exist, money would be coined metal by weight and fineness. BT readers know that were it to exist, money could exist without either banking or lawgivers such as Congress.
BT readers know that cash is bank credits with bearer negotibility circulating in perpetuity. BT readers know that cash requires banking to exist. Further, BT readers know that cash as legal tender requires both banking, lawgivers and their enforcement agents.
So when anyone talks about the velocity of money, if they weren't muddled in thought by their false beliefs, rightly, they would say velocity of circulation or velocity of the circulating media or something along those lines.
With the legal tender banknote system Americans live by today, velocity of circulation reveals the turnover of negotiable bank credit in the buying and selling of domestically-produced products through time. A rising velocity of circulation shows anyone that Americans are trading new property in the pursuit of profit with greater frequency. Likewise, a falling velocity of circulation shows that Americans are trading new property with less frequency.
In short, an increasing velocity of circulation shows a bettering economy and likely leading to better living for many Americans, if not most. Likewise, a decreasing velocity of circulation shows a worsening economy and life worse off for most Americans.
Hover over the bars for the actual numbers.
For those old enough, when they follow along the chart and reflect on their life, they will see the chart corresponds to reality. In spite of minor recessions here and there, Americans became ever richer after World War 2 through the 1970s. Especially during the 1950s and 1960s, Americans moved to the suburbs, bought houses easily, had two cars in the garage while, had one primary income earner and could easily pay medical bills as well as easily pay for higher education for their college-aged children.
Americans were the envy of the world.
During the late 1970s, American living became increasingly harder. To quell inflation, Fed Chairman Volker oversaw the rising of Fed Funds Rate which pushd the prime interest rate through the roof.
During the Reagan years, and more so during the middle years of his presidency, living improved for many but not all. Yet, optimism prevailed among many.
By the time, the self-professed, kinder and gentler George Bush, Sr., became president, owing to the policies he supported that Congress turned into law, Americans began to see their livelihoods fall. American life became fairly bleak through near to the end of the first term of Bill Clinton.
Around 1994, Americans began to experience a bettering economy. This bettering rose until the peak of the Dot Com bubble, which hit in 1999. After sputtering during the early George Bush, Jr., years, Fed Res chairman Greenspan goosed the economy. Doing so led to the Greenspan-Bernanke Great Inflation, the biggest banking credit bubble in the history of mankind.
The Greenspan-Bernanke Great Inflation combined with reckless mortgage-backed securities peddled by the U.S. Congress itself through its GSE agents, Americans lived through a massive bubble, a false prosperity. That false living came to an end by Q4 2007.
Since Q4 2007, life for Americans has become progressively worse. Much of the damage has been done by the progressive Congress of Harry-Reid and Nancy Pelosi under Barack Obama, a man always who is willing to push more government upon Americans. As well, the Ben Bernanke-Janet Yellen Fed Res policy of near-zero interest rates has wrecked capitalism.
As our lawgivers are weak, mindless men, it's going to take much more pain from a much bigger disaster before smarter men ascend to power who put forth laws and action that restores prosperity to Americans by restoring capitalism, focusing on the protection of the individual and his property (right of ownership) while riding Americans of the failed doctrine of kinder, gentler, crony politics, near-socialism economics.
M1 consists of (1) currency outside the U.S. Treasury, Federal Reserve Banks, and the vaults of depository institutions; (2) traveler's checks of nonbank issuers; (3) demand deposits at commercial banks (excluding those amounts held by depository institutions, the U.S. government, and foreign banks and official institutions) less cash items in the process of collection and Federal Reserve float; and (4) other checkable deposits (OCDs), consisting of negotiable order of withdrawal (NOW) and automatic transfer service (ATS) accounts at depository institutions, credit union share draft accounts, and demand deposits at thrift institutions. Seasonally adjusted M1 is constructed by summing currency, traveler's checks, demand deposits, and OCDs, each seasonally adjusted separately.
The adjusted M1 is M1 with the traveler's checks removed.
These minions deflate current GDP using a past inflated GDP. Ask yourself, how could that work, logically?
True GDP expressed in True Dollars™ tells an altogether different story. As you can see in the chart, True GDP is down -1.5% for the quarter and -4.4% year over year.
The only growth to be seen is growth in inventories. No one should want a growth in their inventories in a just-in-time world.
Mark my words. Black Friday is going to expose all of the phony numbers published by agencies of Congress, like the Commerce Department's BEA. In True Dollars™, total consumer credit relative to disposable personal income is too high. I shared the chart for that with you in THERE STILL IS NOT A RECOVERY SEVEN YEARS LATER. HERE IS WHY, PARTLY.
So is it true? Could the NASDAQ hit a high higher than the peak of Dot Com era when every American who wanted a job held a job?
In True Dollars™, which are the only dollars that count, the NASDAQ Composite is quite far from the all-time high.
The NASDAQ Composite hit an all-time high on 3/6/2000 peaking at $1,032.37 in True Dollars™. All who lived through that time as an adult will quite remember the Dot Com mania that abounded throughout America.
Americans were flush with jobs and with cash. Truly good times had been flowing for awhile for Americans.
There is no way the NASDAQ Composite today is at a true all-time high. Americans are far from good times. Many Americans have yet to leave hard times behind.
Today's NASDAQ Composite close is down -61.8% from the all-time high and a tinge higher (1.9%) than where it marked at true peak GDP hit at the end of Q4 2007, but down -16.8% from the peak hit during the Greenspan-Bernanke Inflation Bubble, the biggest credit bubble in the history of mankind.
Cash in circulation is up 150.2% since the all-time high and is up 52.9% since the March 2009 NASDAQ low. In True Dollars™, the NASDAQ Composite is up 116.3% from the March 2009 low.
Along with the quality charts I share like the one above, below is the kind of quality report I will be making on offer soon to subscribers that tracks ETF trading instruments.
While some await the Census Bureau workers' next release of New Residential Sales data on May 26, 2015, the National Assoication of Relators have released Existing Home Sales data. The story looks bleak.
Always, numbers without context lack meaning.
While Existing House Sales looked to be bettering from the low of Q4 2008, that bettering stopped August 2013. Since then the trend has been worsening.
In spite of the worsening state of existing house sales, if you have the income, likely these are among the best days to buy a house in decades.
However, far too many Americans cannot swing a mortgage to buy a house. That, my readers, is the biggest problem vexing the economy.
There are many could-be buyers, but few would-be buyers because so few have the means to swing a mortgage. And yet, True Dollar™ prices run near 50% off.
The inane policy of Quantitative Easing impaired extant capital. To restore returns to capital bought with credit, enterprisers had to cut labor.
After all, wages arise solely from capital. Absent capital, there can be no wages.
Not until all of the impaired capital has been written off, can enterprisers begin to undertake new capital on much lower interest rates. Yet, once enterprisers can, new capital formation will give rise to wages.
We're catching glimpses of this dynamic of capitalism expressed in the labor markets. First there was massive layoffs, unemployment and the need to collect SNAP food welfare from Congress. Of late, there has been a steady decline in True Unemployment in the working age population.
Enjoy one from one of my all-time faves, The Boys!
For years, the foolish have parroted a thoroughly wrong story that Iggy Pop was a punk rocker and thus "the godfather" of punk rockers. Claiming Iggy Pop was a punk rocker is little more than historical revisionism in the annuals of rock and roll journalism.
James Osterberg (aka Iggy Pop) formed the also-ran Psychedelic Stooges(♫) in 1967 after seeing The Doors play at the University of Michigan. Joining Osterberg were brothers Ron (guitar) and Scott Asheton (drums) and Dave Alexander (bass).
Osterberg sought to be a Jim Morrison clone. After a year, the band signed a deal with Elektra, the same label as the band he idolized, The Doors.
The entire first recording by The Stooges, released in 1969, titled The Stooges, is little more than the work of clones in love with psychedelia long-form prog rock that many call acid rock. They tried hard to sound like Cream (No Fun, Real Cool Time) , The Doors (We Will Fall, Ann), Pink Floyd with Syd Barrett playing Interstellar Overdrive(♫) (I Wanna Be Your Dog, Not Right) or the Yardbirds (1969, Little Doll).
The entire second recording by The Stooges, Fun House released in 1970, is little more than yet another work of clones in love with psychedelia long-form prog rock. For this recording, The Stooges become a cover band of Steppenwolf (Down on the Street, Loose, TV Eye), The Doors (Dirt, Fun House) and Cream (1970). L.A. Blue is noise experimentation.
The Stooges were a bad also-ran who mimicked the prog rock sounds of Cream, The Doors, the later Yardbirds, Pink Floyd with Syd Barrett and Steppenwolf. The Stooges weren't reacting against progressive rock. Iggy and his bandmates embraced it! The Stooges were the anti-thesis of those who would become punk rockers.
After two lame L.P.s with little sales, and Iggy's bad heroin habit, Elektra execs dropped The Stooges in 1971. The Stooges became a bar band, adding James Williamson on guitar, kicking out drunk bassist Dave Alexander and adding bassist Jimmy Recca.
Those who were born around the birth of rock and roll (see: A COUPLE OF AMERICAN JEWS INVENTED ROCK AND ROLL IN 1952) and who were coming of age between 1970 and 1972 rejected the progressive rock sound and its demands of virtuosity. They longed to play the music they knew when that had between released before 1966.
Many took up instruments and began playing rock and roll again in defiance of the trend of progressive rock from the UK played by bands like Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Yes, Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, as well as the soft rock pop mostly coming from Los Angeles (The Eagles, Linda Rondstadt, others).
Punk rockers arose in backlash against the overblown, pretentious, pompousness of prog rock musicians in what became the first great rock and roll revival. The revival tossed away the need for virtuousity and all of its entrapment — instruments from symphonic music along with music synthesizers, music derived from orchestral music and jazz as well as music written with complex meter, contrapuntal bass, and extended musical passages.
Punk rockers played rock and roll. Rock and roll is a kind of music. It consists of these elements:
• simple meter (4/4)
• ostinato (riff)
• 3 chords or 4 chords resolving on the tonic with the 4-chord pattern adding the submediant to the tonic, subdominant, and dominant
• electric guitar, electric bass, drums, and often vocal accompaniment, and sometimes upright piano
Punk rocker sang songs with lyrics reflected the reality of the times. They eschewed the fantasy of Utopian ideals of prog rock lyrics.
Punk rockers first appeared in New York City in 1972. Punk rockers created the great rock and roll revival. No band formed, signed and recorded before 1972 ever could be considered as being in the vanguard of the great rock and roll revival known as the New Wave and later by many as Punk Rock.
The band that kicked off the rock and roll revival were the New York Dolls. In 1972, New York Dolls became the must-see band in New York City.
New York Dolls were the first punk rockers. Everyone in NYC and the UK took their cues from New York Dolls.
Even Iggy Pop was hanging out in New York in 1972, watching the New York Dolls and learning from them as his handler and new friend David Bowie was doing. Like everyone else, in 1972, Bowie became swooped up into the New York Dolls gravity. Sable Starr, the infamous groupie and Iggy's girlfriend who came with Iggy, dumped Iggy and took up with Johnny Thunders of the New York Dolls.
With his Mainman Productions firm, Bowie took on Iggy and Lou Reed and brought them to the UK to resurrect their failed careers. In 1972, while Iggy was in the UK with Bowie, the Dolls went to the UK and toured.
Time - In Quaaludes and red wine, demanding Billy Dolls and other friends of mine. Take your time.
In 1972, with David Bowie as producer, Iggy, Williamson and the Asheton brothers recorded a hard rock LP for Columbia, Raw Power, an LP that sounded nothing like the music that would come from the great rock and roll revival. Within a year after poor sales and public disinterest, the renamed Iggy and the Stooges were dropped by Columbia records execs.
In early 1973, after the death of Murcia, the Dolls signed with Mercury, recorded again all their material already having been recorded once before in 1972 and released their debut L.P. on July 27, 1973. New York Dolls went back to the UK, appeared on BBC 2 Top of the Pops (♫). The Dolls TV appearance truly launched the punk rocker movement in the UK.
The New York Dolls recorded 21 songs released on two records, the self-titled first release and the second release titled Too Much Too Soon. Of the 21 songs, David Johansen and Johnny Genzale (Johnny Thunders) co-wrote nine. Johansen with Sylvain Mizrahi (Sylvain Sylvain) wrote three, Johansen with Arthur Kane wrote one. Thunders alone wrote one and Johansen alone wrote one. In total, band members wrote 16 of 21 songs, which is a bit more than 72.2%.
As well, the band recorded but never released Endless Party (♫) written by David Johansen and Johnny Thunders. Later, Thunders recorded his own version of Endless Party (♫).
In total the band recorded 26 songs, of which one or more members wrote 17. Of the nine covers recorded (34.6%), not one cover was a song written by The Stooges or by Iggy and the Stooges.
The covers were written by pop song writers (Shuman, Pomus, Lieber, Stoller, Morton, Gamble, Huff), rhythm and blues guys (Dixon, Williamson II, Lieber, Stoller, Johnson and Smith) and rock and rollers (Berry, Diddley). The covers reveal an influence of pop music rooted in rhythm and blues. None of the songs songs reveal any influence of psychedelic prog rock favored by The Stooges.
Principal song writer Johnny Thunders went on to record these:
Thunders never mentioned Ron Asheton from The Stooges. And no one had yet heard of James Williamson by the time the New York Dolls recorded. Williamson didn't play with Iggy until the Raw Power recording, by which time, the New York Dolls had been long established.
Meanwhile, The Dictators (♫), guys from the borough of Queens, New York City, formed in 1973 while attending college in upstate New York (SUNY College at New Paltz). They began playing at The Coventry in Queens in 1974 and had a recording deal by 1975.
In 1977, The Dictators signed with Asylum and released their second LP Manifest Destiny (♫). The Dictators already established themselves in 1975 and were in the vanguard of the great rock and roll revival. Andy Shernoff founded The Dictators for that exact purpose.
"I saw the New York Dolls, me and Tommy and Dee Dee ... I saw Johnny Thunders in a club and I thought, 'Wow, this guy looks really cool.' I said to Tommy, "This guy looks too cool. He has to have something here." I went to see the band and I thought they were really good, really entertaining and I said, 'You know, I could do that too.'"
And there you go, Johnny Ramone in public on video said that Johnny Thunders and the New York Dolls inspired him to pick up the guitar and play rock and roll.
Johnny Ramone talking with Johnny Thunders
Not six minutes into the video, Johnny Ramone says,
"Oh, yeah, I would review everyone, you know, where our competition lied. You know, The Heartbreakers were the only other band I looked upon as, these guys are really good, but they were a bunch of junkies. So, I don't have to worry about them because their career is going to be short. You know.
That was the only other band I was concerned about.That was the next best band."
The Heartbreakers (♫) were founded by ex-New York Dolls guitarist Johnny Thunders and ex-New York Dolls drummer Jerry Nolan. Thunders and Nolan started The Heartbreakers after the New York Dolls folded in 1975.
Later in the same interview, Johnny said the Beach Boys were his favorite followed by The Doors.
As far as the rest of The Ramones go, Joey Ramone in his later years, after The Ramones long had folded, can be seen saying he liked The Stooges. Dee Dee Ramone who wrote or co-wrote most of their songs cited The Beatles as his biggest influence.
The Ramones released 54 songs on their first four recordings, the ones that matter. They covered five songs:
Here is what those involved with the Sex Pistols had to say. "The Sex Pistols were identical to the New York Dolls ... and they were identical in terms of their actions." ~Malcolm McClaren, creator of The Sex Pistols
"I was trying to do with the Sex Pistols what I had failed with the New York Dolls" ~Malcolm McClaren, creator of The Sex Pistols
"I thought it was great [New York Dolls first recording], just the rawness of it. And y'know Thunders guitar was what I really dug at the time." ~ Steve Jones, guitarist of The Sex Pistols
The Sex Pistols released their first song, Anarchy in the U.K. (♫) on November 26, 1976. Beginning early December 1976, along with Johnny Thunders and The Heartbreakers and The Clash, the Sex Pistols went on an ill-fated Anarchy Tour to promote the song.
Afterward, in the spring of 1977, the Sex Pistols went into a recording studio and produced the songs that would be included in their first and only L.P., Never Mind the Bollocks (♫), Here's the Sex Pistols. Anyone who gives a listen to the Sex Pistols song Liar (♫) and then listens to the New York Dolls song Puss N' Boots (♫) can hear how Jones stole from Thunders note-for-note.
Countless guitarists in recordings from 1976, 1977 and 1978, copied the licks of Johnny Thunders of New York Dolls and after the Dolls broke up in 1975, his playing with his band The Heartbreakers. As well countless others copied licks played by Ross Friedman (aka Ross the Boss, aka Ross Funicello) from the The Dictators.
None of the rock and roll revival guitarists copied his sound from either Ron Asheton or James Willamson . No band copied their sound from either The Stooges or from Iggy and The Stooges.
Those who claim The Stooges were the source from which punk rockers sprang must reveal to the world answers for these questions:
What song did the New York Dolls record that sounds derivative of The Stooges?
What song recorded by the New York Dolls has Johnny Thunders playing a run, lick or chord progression that he lifted from Ron Asheton?
On what song by The Ramones can we hear Johnny Ramone playing any guitar lick that sounds like what Ron Asheton played?
On what song by The Ramones can we hear Dee Dee Ramone play any bass line that sounds like what Dave Alexander played?
Liking someone and having listened to someone is far different from being influenced by someone. Being influenced means learning to copy the playing and then incorporating that playing into one's own material.
All known covers of The Stooges, a sure-fire way of telling "influence" happened after 1976, four years after the great rock and roll revival was in full swing. Here are the earliest covers of songs by The Stooges:
1970 (titled as I Feel Alright)by The Damned, February 18, 1977
T.V. Eye by Radio Birdman, June 1977
No Fun by Sex Pistols, July 2, 1977
Radio Birdman (♫), an Australian band, featured an American ex-pat from Detroit, Deniz Tek, a med student in college in Australia, who led the band as the guitarist and main songwriter. Tek was familiar with The Stooges as he lived around Detroit during the time The Stooges were a local bar band playing at venues like the Grand Ballroom.
Sid Vicious, the substitute bass player in Sex Pistols, a guy who couldn't play at all, covered one song by The Stooges (I Wanna Be Your Dog) and one by Iggy and Stooges (Search and Destroy) for his December 1979 release Sid Sings.
Notably, the already established punk rockers, The Dictators were the first band to cover Search and Destroy (♫). The Dictators released their version on their second LP, Manifest Destiny. Notably too is the superior musicianship heard in the Dictators' performance.
Rabid: Steve Jones has said he borrowed from New York Doll Johnny Thunders’ playing.
Lydon: Yeah, because Thunders would be playing with three strings and a bit of elephant rope. Anything that was available — that was a punk ethos. We came from something. We’re not just impossibly out of thin air.
Rabid: Of course, you wrote “New York,” the funniest song ever written about Johnny Thunders.
Lydon: Yeah. Done in the greatest possible taste! [Laughs] It’s a fun song, but it was taken as a bitter retort — it was far from it. It was accolades, is what it was!
"Oh, god, yes. I mean it was just taking birth and it was movin' so fast and I knew for a fact that the New York Dolls was ground zero for all of that, which really made me so proud. When it all kicked through and especially once we got our recording deal, which took three years probably.
"No, the bands got created around us. The first band that was ever there in New York City and the first band ever was the New York Dolls.And I'm not talking about Iggy Pop because he was a 60s band; he was a late 60s and the MC5, those guys were from the late 60s.
"In fact, the New York Dolls re-hatched Iggy's career. He went on the road with us in 1973 playing little theaters all around the country from Detroit onto California. He played with us at the [Hollywood] Palladium in Los Angeles actually where Iggy Pop opens up for the New York Dolls.
"That's what was going on. Iggy was sleeping in Johnny's room at the Ramada Inn. I'm not kidding."
Don't you know where to cop? That's what New York Johnny [Thunders] said. "You should get to know your town just like I know mine." ~ Joe Strummer, lyrics City of the Deadreleased as the B-side to the single Complete Control, September 23,1977
Undeniable facts remain:
Johnny Thunders, the principal song co-writer and lead guitarist for the New York Dolls, learned no guitar methods from Ron Asheton.
The New York Dolls launched the great rock and roll revival that many later would call the New Wave as well as punk rock.
Johnny Ramone saw the New York Dolls and specifically was inspired by Johnny Thunders to pick up the guitar and form a band with Dee Dee Ramone.
Iggy Pop tried to resurrect his failed career by riding the coattails of the New York Dolls as he slept on Johnny Thunders floor.
There seems to be a godfather of punkers, but that guy isn't Iggy Pop.
The Stooges were a quite unoriginal psychedelic prog rock band, hence their original name, Psychedelic Stooges. Without doubt, The Stooges played a bad version of psychedelic prog rock.
Watch the supposed godfather of punk, Iggy Pop, during the height of the great rock and roll revival talk about his failed career and his quest for fame and riches — two quite un-punkish qualities.
And then from the same video, watch Iggy Pop put on a psychedelic rock clone performance of Jim Morrison, his idol. The video is cued up to the performance.
Within the last 39 years or so, a wrong story has cropped up claiming there was such thing as proto-punk in a lame effort to try to connect Iggy Pop and his lame psychedelic prog rock with the great rock and roll revival. Sadly, many have parroted the false story. And even more have believed it.
It's a big lie to say Iggy Pop, The Stooges or Iggy Pop and The Stooges had anything to do with the great rock and roll revival. The Stooges didn't even try to play rock and roll.
David Bowie, likely who was Iggy's lover at the time, co-wrote most songs on Lust for Life, which no one could call a comeback L.P. Instead it was a last shot at staying in the music business effort L.P.
No one who grew up in the New Wave of Music era with all the punk rockers ever connected either The Stooges or Iggy and the Stooges with bands like The Heartbreakers, The Clash, Sex Pistols and so on. When Lust for Life hit the radio, most thought "Once been, has been". Iggy Pop wasn't even half as interesting as Ian Dury and the Blockheads.
A great marketing machine has pushed a false meme that Iggy Pop is the godfather of punk. If anything, The Stooges were among the last of many easily forgotten fuzz-tone psychedelic clone bands and Osterberg was their front man. Afterward he was a David Bowie guy pal who hung around New York City with David Bowie as Bowie became enamored with The New York Dolls.
"They have to have a place to put me to reference in the whole thing [of being the godfather of punk]. And they think they have to explain that to an audience of people who are similarly lacking in intelligence or education. So you get that. It's okay. But it's tedious."
Iggy Pop wasn't the godfather of anything. Iggy Pop had nothing to do with the great rock and roll revival.
Enjoy the band that kicked off the rock and roll revival, the quite original New York Dolls led by Johnny Thunders.
And then enjoy the magic of Johnny Thunders with Jerry Nolan, Walter Lure and Billy Rath, all playing as The Heartbreakers.
