Generational Dynamics Forum - New Site

[quote="Oakwood"]
> John, the analog to your answers to simple questions I pose to you
> would be the Bush Administration's opinions about torture:
> waterboarding is not torture.[/quote]

You keep confusing me with a Republican. You've posted lengthy lists
of alleged lies by President Bush, and wonder why I wasn't criticizing
those. I responded by pointing out that Bush's "look Putin in the
eye" remark was analogous to Obama's "reset" of relations with Russia.
Admittedly that was fairly abbreviated response, but the point was
this: For each item in your list, you can probably find an equivalent
item in a list about Obama. But I haven't commented on the items
about Obama either. I haven't called him a socialist (except to point
out that he can't possibly be a socialist), I haven't criticized his
handling of the oil spill (except to point out that there's nothing he
could do anyway), I haven't criticized his mistranslation of "Reset"
in the Moscow "reset button" incident, etc., etc. This is all fatuous
political nonsense.

Even the comment that started your whole series of criticisms -- the
one about Obama healing the earth -- even in that case, I didn't
directly criticize Obama. I framed the criticism in terms of people
who could elect someone who says such a thing, and I've criticized the
credulous press that sucks up to Obama, no matter how stupid the
remark he makes.

That's the whole point, as I've said many times, but you can't seem to
get. Political lies and exaggerations are a dime a dozen. But the
important different between Bush and Obama, from the point of view of
Generational Dynamics, is the extremely high standard of honesty to
which Bush was held by the press and the people, while Obama has been
held to a nonexistent standard of honesty.

This has not been a benefit to Obama, and Democrats never seem to
realize that. I'm reminded that Democrats in general and feminists in
particular fell on their swords when President Clinton was first
charged with multiple cases of sexual harassment, when he lied to a
federal court about a sexual relationship, and when he was credibly
charged by Juanita Brodderick of being a violent sexual rapist. When
Clinton was first elected, I liked him, but by that time I was
thoroughly sickened and disgusted by him, as were a lot of other
people. Democrats insisted that he not resign, no matter how grossly
disgusting his actions were, but he insisted on staying in office. If
he'd resigned, then Gore would have become President and probably won
in 2000.

Obama has had it way too easy. He says the most ridiculous and
obvious lies, and the press just ignores it. If anyone did criticize,
they were automatically said to be "racists." That weapon was turned
against the current Secretary of State when she was running against
him, and is sitll being turned against the entire Tea Party movement.
But now that the ACLU and the NY Times and Maureen Dowd are turning
against Obama, he has no idea how to handle it, and he's flailing
around like a fish in a bucket.

By contrast, Bush was mocked from the day he took office as an
illegitimate President, and throughout 2001 he received contemptuous
remarks about his cowboy hat and his Texas accent. By the time the
REAL criticisms began, he was much better prepared to handle them.

Incidentally, this whole discussion comes just two days after it was
revealed that the Administration lied in a major way about the oil
drilling moratorium.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/537030/201006110000/A-Ban-On-Truth.aspx

I'm not going to mention this in the web log either, but I'd point out
here that if President Bush had lied in a similar way, it would have
been major news weeks about a Bush administration cover-up. Instead,
since it's Obama, I didn't hear it mentioned at all in today's Sunday
news shows. Quelle surprise! That's the difference that I focus on,
because that's what's relevant to Generational Dynamics.

--

Now I'll turn to your remarks about torture and waterboarding.

The public discourse on torture has fallen to such depths of utter
stupidity that words escape me to describe it adequately.

To say that any administration would fail to use waterboarding in a
scenario where a terrorist attack was imminent and waterboarding might
provide enough information to prevent the attack and save hundreds or
thousands of American lives is the height of stupidity. And a
President who failed to do so would be subject to impeachment if the
terrorist attack took place.

President Obama made a gaffe a few months ago when he claimed that
Winston Churchill never approved torture even when London was being
bombed. The minute I heard this, I knew it was total nonsense, and
sure enough, stories soon came out contradicting his claim. I have
absolutely no doubt that there was a lot more torture going on that
nobody is yet talking about.

When a country is going through a generational Crisis war, there are
no rules. I don't blame Obama in particular for making this
incredibly stupid, naive remark, because he's just following the
nonsense from the loony left portion of the entire nihilistic,
destructive, self-destructive generation.

John

[quote="burt"][quote="freddyv"]Hi John,
Interesting, + I just want to add a correlation with Tchernobyl (also bad engineers at the wrong places):
1986: 67 years after 1919 (end of crisis war in Russia)
2010: 65 years after 1945 (end of crisis war in the US)
[/quote][/quote]

In a particular engineering field, say bridge design, there seems to be a 30 something year cycle:
http://discovermagazine.com/2007/aug/man-who-predicted-the-bridge-collapse

In US currency there also seems to be a 33 to 39 year crisis cycle.
http://pair.offshore.ai/38yearcycle/#cycle

Several interesting cycles:
http://pair.offshore.ai/38yearcycle/#related

OLD1953: Please explain about the Comstock Lode and the gold-silver ratio and its relevance to today. Thanks.

I've always said, the day I find a silver/gold site that can seriously discuss the gold/silver ratio, I'll pay attention to it. Any individual or site or book that discusses this ratio historically and does NOT mention the Comstock Lode is just being ridiculous. I've yet to see that discussion on the internet anywhere, save the few times I've brought it up in various fora. It's barely mentioned even on silver coin sites, unless you closely read statements relating to the coinage acts of the late 1880's, and early 1900's.

You can find mentions of it on history sites, but not as relating to investment. But the single most important event affecting the silver/gold ratio since the founding of the US was the discovery of silver in Nevada and the far western US.

And that's why I don't listen much to the gold hawks. If they can discuss a commodity ratio historically and leave out the single most important event in modern times, what good are they?

[quote="freddyv"]Hi John,

It has occurred to me that the BP oil spill may turn out to be the economic equivalent of the dustbowl of The Great Depression. When I first had the thought I wanted to dismiss it as a stretch but then I thought about it for awhile and I realized that both where not just natural disasters but were caused by people who became complacent and failed to take reasonable precautions, mainly because of GD at work.

Your opinion?
/[/quote]

Interesting, + I just want to add a correlation with Tchernobyl (also bad engineers at the wrong places):
1986: 67 years after 1919 (end of crisis war in Russia)
2010: 65 years after 1945 (end of crisis war in the US)

John, what do you think of these 2 remarks. By the way, Tchernobyl was the last important accident in the nuclear power industry, and at that time (1986), may people thought it was only the beginning, any possible relation with oil??.



Burt

?By the way, why does this post appears here? it was posted on june the 4th, no?

[quote="Oakwood"]As for Celente, my over-the-top praise was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but what significant predictions has he gotten wrong?[/quote]
http://www.financialsense.com/Experts/2009/Celente.html

Going back to early 2009 (this broadcast is from January 2009), he was saying the following: The Panic of '08 will be followed by the Collapse of '09. The Collapse of '09 will be worse than the Panic of '08. The Collapse of '09 will begin in late February or early March of '09. There is nothing that can stop it (referring to government intervention). One reason the Collapse of '09 will be worse is that the commercial real estate market will collapse and it is more highly leveraged than the residential real estate market.

To the best of my recollection, another interview (it may have been on Alex Jones' show) predicted a bank holiday soon after Obama entered office.

Having written the above, I don't want to focus on this type of thing with regard to this forecaster. He provides a lot of interesting and informative commentary and forecasts, as does this site, and he lays it on the line with specific dates and forecasts. Also, anyone who has been reading this forum knows that I (and many of us) were guessing there would be a similar outcome last year. I was thinking there would be a weak rebound that would end in August, followed by a second crash.

[quote]Higgenbotham wrote: Oakwood's initial comments about John's forecasting record, which I happen to agree with for the most part were, well, I guess "boring"...Who cares? Who has a perfect forecasting record? Certainly not Gerald Celente, who I have been reading for years... Most of us don't come here to evaluate anyone's forecasting record. We come here to pick up original ideas that we can't find anywhere else (and which this forum is a great source of) and to try to do the best we can with our own forecasts....Next came the discussion of gold. My thought upon reading that was that it was the same old warmed over bullshit...[/quote]

To you and att99sy, thank you for your honesty. It's nice to get criticism with substance, in contrast to being called an imbecile or a left loon (let alone by the webmaster!). I apologize for my boringness and I will try to be briefer. I got on John's case about his predictive ability because of his outrageous claims of having the best website in the world, etc. He continues to claim 100% accuracy (it's not me, it's GD), and recently skewered someone who suggested that he might not [i]always[/i] be right. There's a part of me that loves to poke holes in authoritarian buffoonery. (I have yet to see John admit to making a mistake, but then we all have our faults...) Okay, enough is enough...

As for gold, I guess that again stems from John's insistence that gold is fairly valued at $500, while I believe it's the safest place to put your money. I agree I have nothing original to say about it and didn't realize the topic was so well-covered here. Sorry.

As for Celente, my over-the-top praise was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but what significant predictions has he gotten wrong?

[quote="at99sy"]Oakwood
I am certain that your intellect is superior to mine, however I cannot help but find myself having reached a point that is somewhere to the left of boredom yet not quite at the point of annoyance. I encourage differing points of view and frequently gain much from those discussions. Yet much what I see from many of your posts are not so much a point of discussion but an argument. I try to teach my 9th graders that there is a not so subtle difference between discussions, debates and arguments. I think what John has been very successful in creating with his forum, is to provide a very friendly and inclusive platform for discussion. I have found myself disagreeing with his ideas and statements from time to time and generally keep it to myself, yet I do my own research in an attempt to clarify my position and personal thoughts on the topic/s. Not infrequently, I discover that I will change my mind on said topics. I welcome your input where it will add to the quality of the discussion, but please discontinue the argumentative nature of many of your posts. Bash me, trash me do what you will.......
Just please do not bore me. It quickly becomes tiresome and takes up our time when reading new posts. I suppose I could ignore them but I enjoy the search for information too much to risk losing potential "gems" of insight that may be lurking in the shadows.
One of the first things I was told as a new teacher was "do not be a bore."
So lets leave the bores in D.C. and in the MSM shall we?
SY[/quote]
I agree with most of what is being said in this post. I've probably forgotten some of what was posted early on, but have read it all.

Oakwood's initial comments about John's forecasting record, which I happen to agree with for the most part were, well, I guess "boring" is a good way to describe them. It's just more to scroll through. Who cares? Who has a perfect forecasting record? Certainly not Gerald Celente, who I have been reading for years. Certainly not me either. Most of us don't come here to evaluate anyone's forecasting record. We come here to pick up original ideas that we can't find anywhere else (and which this forum is a great source of) and to try to do the best we can with our own forecasts.

Next came the discussion of gold. My thought upon reading that was that it was the same old warmed over bullshit that is served up thousands of other places on the Internet, almost verbatim. In fact, a few quotes were copied and pasted into a post, the kind of stuff I've read thousands of times before. Think we're not aware of these arguments? Think again. I've been in the gold and silver markets since the lows as have many others here. When an item has risen 4 or 5 fold from the lows, it might make sense to get the bearish viewpoint and start looking for the door. There aren't many places to get that nowadays. I appreciated Richard's post on that subject.

As far as aeden's posts, I can understand him well enough and the links he posts are well worth reading.

Oakwood
I am certain that your intellect is superior to mine, however I cannot help but find myself having reached a point that is somewhere to the left of boredom yet not quite at the point of annoyance. I encourage differing points of view and frequently gain much from those discussions. Yet much what I see from many of your posts are not so much a point of discussion but an argument. I try to teach my 9th graders that there is a not so subtle difference between discussions, debates and arguments. I think what John has been very successful in creating with his forum, is to provide a very friendly and inclusive platform for discussion. I have found myself disagreeing with his ideas and statements from time to time and generally keep it to myself, yet I do my own research in an attempt to clarify my position and personal thoughts on the topic/s. Not infrequently, I discover that I will change my mind on said topics. I welcome your input where it will add to the quality of the discussion, but please discontinue the argumentative nature of many of your posts. Bash me, trash me do what you will.......
Just please do not bore me. It quickly becomes tiresome and takes up our time when reading new posts. I suppose I could ignore them but I enjoy the search for information too much to risk losing potential "gems" of insight that may be lurking in the shadows.
One of the first things I was told as a new teacher was "do not be a bore."
So lets leave the bores in D.C. and in the MSM shall we?
SY

John, the analog to your answers to simple questions I pose to you would be the Bush Administration's opinions about torture: waterboarding is not torture.