It varies inversely with the amount of attention others pay to one’s penis.

Didn’t you know Obama’s black? You’ve been fooled by his white accent for 3 years. They can make anybody sound like who ever they want. You probably never heard Sylvester Stallone do ‘Hamlet.’ It’d break your heart.

And speaking of Greece’s problems, what’s with this coincidence: the day after Germany and France agreed to help the new Prime Minister of Greece get his country back on the track, Italy’s bonds go over 7% and they take over from Greece as basket case du jour.

Btw, forget about asteroid 2011 MD. Phobos Grunt is where it’s at. I have a beautiful conspiracy theory about it but not now.

Really, who the fuck cares about 7 ounces of dirt from an ugly moon that Mar’s gravity is working closer to the Red planet pretty quick?

Russia just picked that particular mission because of the the moon’s name. Phobos. FEAR

9 tons of nitrogen teroxide and hydrazine circling the earth. A new kind of Russian Roulette.

When it hits, it’s like a real big Rufi in your blueberry and banana smoothie.

” I feel he is to blame for @82.”

Of course, he’s to blame for @82; as it has been suggested here that he’s to blame for everything. Really, what is the fu*kin’ point of a black, Democratic president if he isn’t a blame magnet. Even things that Bachmann and Palin accuse him of.

“…when that particular peak was hit…”

My bad. I didn’t just mean when U.S. Peak O was hit in 1972. And I didn’t mean the world Peak O which was it hit 6 years ago. I was referring to “Valley of Death Peak Oil” which some forecasters of earliness predict in ’13, ’14, or ’15.

While I don’t hear Obama saying “I do not chose to run.” I can faintly hear the rabble Hebrews now, chanting before Pontius Pilate: ‘Give us Gingrich. Give us Gingrich.

“Yoo Hoo, Oh Chancellor Linda and Lt Pike…Yoo Hooo….I think there’s a tumbrel coming down the street with your “names on it….”

Not to worry, Chancellor and Lieutenant.

Occupy Place de Concorde has pitched tents where the guillotine usually stands.

“This is the point about Obama. He is doing nothing, absolutely nothing. It will be his legacy.”

I sure hope doing “nothing, absolutely nothing” is Obama’s Legacy. Cause that’ll mean that being president when Peak Oil comes home to roost a top the Washington Monument won’t be his legacy.

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have ‘nothing’ than Peak Oil, for Obama to be famous for. (knocks on wood)

” He’s not the worst part of the system everyone is protesting but he’s definitely part of it, and nothing more.”

Haven’t Congress and the President always been the the original 99%?

That is, 99% of all elected officials are part of the system everybody is protesting and 1% are honorable and are trying to help.

It is a big risk. But shouldn’t all effort to protect the occupiers from heinous local and state repression begin in the House?

Isn’t Boehner the go-to guy on this? Or the Chairman of the Comite de Salut Public. Eric Cantor?

Dorky Eisenhower had the stones to call the 101st Airborne into Little Rock.

Double dorky Obama could have sent Federal Troops around to all the occupy sites.

No skin off his dick.

What a weasel.

“Does this mean that she was previously telling her clients that futures and options were safe?”

Absolutely correct. Because she no longer understands how to play the dishonest game in the commodity and option markets. In the last 3 years they moved the crooked goal posts on Ann Barnhardt and they didn’t tell her where they moved them.

I wonder how safe she thought tech options were just before Nasdaq hit 5000? That was 12 years ago and makets don’t get any more unsafe (dishonest) than that.

Given the same setting following the Napoleonic forces’ capture of Toledo… a French officer described the following account of discovering such a device (Iron Maiden) in the dungeons beneath the headquarters of the Inquisition:

“In a recess in the subterranean vault, next to the private hall where the interrogations were conducted, stood a wooden figure, carved by the monks, and representing the Virgin Mary. A gilded halo encompassed her head, and in her right hand she held a banner extolling the glory of her Faith.
It appeared to us at first sight that, despite the silken robe adorning her, she wore some kind of breastplate which, on closer examination, was seen to be stuck full of extremely sharp, narrow knife-blades, the points being directed towards the spectator. The arms and hands were jointed, controlled by machinery concealed behind a curtain.
One of the Inquisition staff was commanded to set it in motion, and when the figure extended its arms, as though to press someone most lovingly to its heart; a Polish grenadier was ordered to substitute his well-filled knapsack for an imaginary victim. The effigy hugged it closer and closer, and when finally it was made to unclasp its arms, the knapsack had been perforated to a depth of two or three inches, and remained hanging on the points of the projecting daggers.”

Today when an “Iron Maiden” is required to obtain information from a tough terrorist, our military usually contracts that work out to Ann Coulter. The narrow knife blades protruding from her bosom and the broken glass sparkling in her nether regions, has made many a gorilla tremble and dissolve in tears.

I have followed the collapse of the global economy since I learned of it when Paulson called Obama and McCain off the campaign trail in October 2008 to tell everybody the news.  I still see the look on Pelosi’s face. 

I remember spending the rest of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009 trying to figure out where to move my money.  And then early in March ’09 the market made an acute V bottom at around 6500, and I knew boys on Wall Street were back in the saddle and my cash was safe in the Greenback.

A hundred trillion dollars down the drain, Lehman and Bear Sterns ditto, banks collapsing left and right, General Motors a hair’s breath from belly up, AIG too, and the market makes an acute V bottom.  

Clearly we were not told everything. So I went looking for another reason for what really happened.

That’s where I part company with everybody, but I’m over 70 and being wrong doesn’t bother me anymore.

I’m not going to go into excruciating detail, but will only ask you if we were a decade or so into Peak oil would the world look any different than it does today? 

There’s no place for the PTB to run and hide.  It is in everybody’s interest NOT to panic the world population at large.  A severe recession much like the one we are experiencing is necessary to reduce demand for crude oil.

With demand for oil reduced, global GDP will fall and with it government receipts. Bills and obligations still have to be met so central banks will have to print pronto.   And if there is an agreement among central banks of the richest nations as to how much will be printed, there will be no panic running out of or panic running into certain currencies.  The central banks will all be printing simultaneously and inflating their currencies in unison.  So on and so forth….

I can’t prove this theory is right, but I have seen nothing that proves it wrong.   

It’s not exactly a subject to talk about at Christmas parties.

I’m afraid we will need boots on the ground.

Iran 636,374 square miles.  Population 77 million.

Iraq 167,400 square miles. Population 30 million.

However many boots we needed on Iraqi ground, it looks like we’re going to need 3 times as many on Iranian ground.

Hey, but maybe it’s not about the oil.

Maybe it’s really about the nuclear bullshit.

“not sure if the economy is really improving, maybe people are just getting more used to povery.”

Or ‘maybe people are just getting used to other people’spoverty’.

eCAHNonomics @ 7

“retail sales have ticked up.”

Have retail sales really ticked up or has inflation made flat sales look stronger? Aren’t we now in an era of WMD — “to believe or not to believe” — economic numbers?

I don’t doubt that Italy is not insolvent, if you say so.

I confess that I have not spent much time looking at the balance sheets of the PIIGS. But if Italy is having trouble rolling over it’s short term debt, that mean that it’s revenue will only cover it’s current expenses. And if the country is suffering from the same recession that most countries are, that also means they will be unable to buy back their short term debt or roll it over and will be forced to pay higher and higher interest rates for not only their short term but long term debt. This increases their annual interest expense and with their now receding revenues no longer covering their total expenses, they will soon be forced to borrow just to cover their current expenses.

You are absolutely right about about the” betters” and the legitimization of Credit Default Swaps. That they are still being sold after 2008 is mind boggling. My only hope is that the ECB is using its power to rid the European Union of politicians like Berlusconi and welfare programs like Greece.

So to my original point I repeat, there are few powers today like the power of printing fiat that people want to hold.

Is there any question as to whether Berlusconi would still be Prime Minister of Italy if American investment bankers had not gone wild pushing sub-prime mortgages, putting together MBS with them, and selling them around the world until the largest bubble in the history of the world busted?

Sure, Berlusconi’s gone, but look at the cost.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Central_Bank

“Authorities 
The key tasks of the ECB are to define and implement the monetary policy for the Eurozone, to conduct foreign exchange operations, to take care of the foreign reserves of the European System of Central Banks and promote smooth operation of the financial market infrastructure under the Target payments system[10] and being currently developed technical platform for settlement of securities in Europe (TARGET2 Securities). Furthermore, it has the exclusive right to authorise the issuance of euro banknotes. Member states can issue euro coins but the amount must be authorised by the ECB beforehand (upon the introduction of the euro, the ECB also had exclusive right to issue coins).”

It would be nice to know whether our Fed or the European Central Bank is required by treaty obligations to let the public know when it’s going to print a trillion or two.

Somehow, I think they can get around that notification if they want to.  For example, on QE1 and QE.  Was the Fed required to tell us that they were printing?  I skimmed through the Fed regulations and didn’t find anything.  While that doesn’t mean they aren’t so required, it also doesn’t mean that there aren’t emergency exceptions, if there are such requirements.

If the Fed (and the ECB) isn’t required to notify the population, the media, or the politicians when it prints, it may mean when the Fed told us about QE1&2, they were just telling America the extent of their powers; but for us not to expect notification every time they needed to print a trillion or two.

For all we know the Fed may well be into QE3 right now, and we won’t hear about it until after the fact.  

Or Ron Paul gets elected president, and he decides to spill all the beans.

Thanks for the link, maa8722.

Sarkozy’s plan seems to me to be nothing more than a whip to get the lesser EU members to go along with what the powerhouses have come up with.  It’s a little early to tell where all this is going, but I’m going to maintain my belief that the ECB is just going to print the way the Fed is printing.  And then loan to its members on a as needed basis.
1) Andorra
2) Austria
3) Belgium
4) Cyprus
5) Estonia
6) Finland
7) France
8) Germany
9) Greece
10) Ireland
11) Italy
12) Kosovo
13) Luxembourg
14) Malta
15) Monaco
16) Montenegro
17) Netherlands
18) Portugal
19) San Marino
20) Slovakia
21) Slovenia
22) Spain
23) Vatican City
And just like American banks want to know what you are going to do with the loan you want from them and then they dole it out piecemeal as the various stages are successfully completed, so will ECB pay out it’s newly struck currency to the less capable of it’s members whose revenues can not meet their expenses.  To the basket cases like the PIIGS, the EU will probably keep a permanent loan officer in a corner office of their Treasuries, signing each check after carefully going through the receipts presented to him/her by their Chancellor of the Exchequer. 

Where all this ends depends on whether the world economy gets going again which depends on whether or not we’re rolling down the Peak Oil Expressway.

First, you are exactly right about Berlusconi. He’s a throwback to the demented rulers of Ancient Rome. And he makes Rupert Murdoch look like St Francis of Assisi. Okay, that may be going too far. He makes Murdoch look like the sole of St Francis’ sandal after St. Francis stepped in dog shit.

I like St Paul of Princeton too. But he’s not above omitting the facts, or massaging them, to make his point. In the piece you quote of him, he neglects to tell us an important factoid:

“First, if you look around the world you see that the big determining factor for interest rates isn’t the level of government debt but whether a government borrows in its own currency. Japan is much more deeply in debt than Italy, but the interest rate on long-term Japanese bonds is only about 1 percent to Italy’s 7 percent. Britain’s fiscal prospects look worse than Spain’s, but Britain can borrow at just a bit over 2 percent, while Spain is paying almost 6 percent.”

‘Japanese bonds 1% to Italy’s bonds 7%. Britain’s bonds 2% to Spain’s bond almost 6%.’ Because, Krugman tells us, Japan and Britain are borrowing in its own currency. But are there other reasons?

Neither Britain and obviously not Japan are involved with the euro. They continue to use the yen and the pound, and because they do so, they can print as much currency as they need to. And like America, they can buy their own bonds and keep their interest rates low.

So when Krugman says “when a government borrows in its own currency,” what he is really saying when a government prints its own currency, it can also pay top dollar for its own bonds, keeping the interest rates it pays to borrow from itself low, and maybe even start a little ‘flight to safety” into its freshly printed currency and bonds.

When the wheels came off of the global economy. — or when earthlings were told the wheels came off of the economy. —  the United States, the most powerful nation on earth with the largest economy, staunched the flow of liquidity into the ether, as assets became toxic and worthless, as markets crashed, as overextended businesses went bankrupt and as lenders called in their loans.  We did that by printing.    

Remember all that righteous, uninformed indignation about QE1&2 we used to hear about printing?  Gone with the Wind.

Now it’s Europe’s and Japan’s turn to print.  To bring the ratio of dollars to yen, dollars to pounds and dollars to euros back to what it was before we printed.

Anybody got a problem with that?