Financial topics

[Higgenbotham]

I have to say, Higgie, you were pretty brave to do all that --
confronting criminals, recording conversations, reporting them,
turning tapes over to the press. Someone might easily have decided to
kill you. Putting out a contract on you might have been cheaper than
the amount of money they lost letting you live.

Putin kills people but they don't do that so much here. A colleague of mine got turned into a vegetable. I talked about that here in these pages. Once they turned him into a vegetable, the personnel lawyers unilaterally gave him a disability check and health insurance for the rest of his life. There was no court case - they don't want the record of it. These people make Stalin look like an amateur. Aedens was right when he said they make the Soviets look like pussies.

You screw with anybody's head long enough and you can permanently turn them into a babbling idiot and they know how to do it. This guy is totally incapacitated for life and they can say, "There's no dead body - what's the big deal?"

My life was threatened - in so many words. But that's mostly just part of the process they use to turn someone into a vegetable.

My former colleague talks about the black helicopters and so on. He's totally gone. His head is spinning so fast that nothing that comes out of his mouth makes any sense.

[Higgenbotham]

You guys are talking about the bankers who are committing suicide and wondering if they are being bumped off or what is going on.

They may have perfected the technique of screwing with people's heads to the point where they can program them to be suicidal.

This civilization as a whole looks like it has been programmed to be suicidal as a whole. I'm not doubting there is some method behind that where the crowd has lost its ability to think independently as a whole and only the really tough cases can any longer think for themselves.

[Higgenbotham]

This is the comment I made about this in March, 2011.

Long ago, I worked as a regulator for 8 years in an engineering capacity with a state agency (federally delegated program). I would say it was the most difficult and distasteful job I've ever had. Being a regulator is fine I suppose if you want to spend your days doing your laundry or watching porn, but to do the work is a nightmare as currently structured.

In most cases, the industry, which is where the technical expertise lies, actually writes the regulations. I can't vouch for the fact that the nuclear industry operates that way, but I can vouch for many others. This comes as a shock to most people (I don't know about the people here; maybe you know) and creates a host of problems, such as stifling competition, as the regulations are often written so as to be too specific or cumbersome for less able (ie smaller) competitors to implement. An easy to understand example would be the landfill industry. Notice how there are no longer any city dumps or small trash collectors nowadays, but rather Waste Management, Browning-Ferris and maybe one other. Any landfill constructed today has many highly technical and costly operations on site such gas collection systems, energy plants and particulate monitors.

Most regulatory agencies are set up nowadays in such a way that a politician has control of the agency and the head of the agency is appointed by the politician. In no way do these people understand the regulation, nor do they want to. The government employee who has the responsibility of ensuring compliance is faced with the possibility of triggering a phone call from the regulated entity's attorney to the politician's office if he attempts to enforce the regulation, which is usually a black and white proposition (either the entity is in compliance with such and such regulation or it is not). Most employees end up spending a large percentage of their time and effort trying to determine what is politically OK to do or not do so as to not offend the regulated entity and become a thorn in the politician's and his appointee's sides. Employees who are unable to master this fine art of accumulating "beans" while not really doing their jobs are subject to smear campaigns from law firms hired by corporations for that purpose or insane internal bureaucratic tortures. Employees are told by agency lawyers that certain entities have a pipeline to the politician's office and that smear campaigns are a fact of life and to live with it. That type of thing can include, for example, one instance I heard about (from an ex-management person - did not witness myself) where a former employee had information placed in his file indicating that he was a homosexual who frequented gay bars.

To get an idea of what that really means, two cases that come to mind are David Graham (FDA) and Sibel Edmonds (Homeland Security). For the cases that never see the light of day, it can be worse. I know one guy who ended up mentally disabled from years of such abuse and the state currently pays him several thousand dollars per month plus his medical, and this settlement was given to him without the aid of any legal representation on his part - the state lawyers determined the settlement and gave it to him.

[Higgenbotham]

I think we can insert this into the larger picture.

The Soviets can't print money so if there's someone who doesn't fit into the machine it's more cost effective to just bump them off. In the US they have clearly gone down the path of money printing and as they debase it's helpful to throw some of that money at the nonproductive and obviously they have no qualms about creating more nonproductive in various ways. So whether it's illegals coming over the border, welfare recipients having lots of illegitmate nonproductive kids, or turning the odd person here and there into a vegetable, it all gets consumption and sales up. Better to have a zombie walking about muttering about black helicopters and consuming than to bump him off if you can just print off the world reserve currency. It's partly due to the arrogance too. They think they're invincible so if someone causes them a problem they grind them into dust mentally and don't really worrry.

What I find interesting is the system is so incredibly vulnerable to mischief but everyone (even al-Qaeda) has been mentally pummelled into submission to the point that they no longer act.

I think the financial stuff and the environmental stuff gets treated differently as far as priority. Keeping the financial scam going and not having too many people question it is a lot more important. It's not like someone who knows about environmental problems is going to make it into the news every day. There might be a reporter here and there who is interested in running an occasional story. The investigative reporter had told me that he wanted to take me up in his helicopter, hover over some facilities and do another story. I think what he probably found out was that people weren't all that interested. A friend of mine told me a long time ago when I first started working that all people are interested in is to "make a buck and get a fuck". Only a handful go beyond that.

[Iceman]

Just wanted to say that I've thoroughly enjoyed catching up and reading the past 6 pages or-so of posts from John and H. My 2 true favorite Generational Dynamics hero's. Well, them and A (and a few others) too. It's been an early 2015-on pleasure gentlemen.

[gerald]

WOW! Higgenbotham, I sure am glad I got out of the corporate world and went on my own, where I could more or less pick and chose who I wanted to deal with ( not counting some government bureaucrats )

Anyway, I think the climate is going to become a more important issue then people are prepared for and quite possibly in a very unpleasant way. Listened to a talk by John L. Casey, he is of the opinion that we are heading into a 20 to 30 year cold period , based upon the solar cycle and data going back to the 1600's, the Russians think it could be much longer.
Currently it appears the Pacific Ocean is cooling. He recently wrote a book "Dark Winter" (http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/dark-wi ... id/607672/)
He states that there is a 206 year cold solar cycle, which we are now entering. About 206 years ago Napoleon invaded Russia (1812 ) and experienced one of the coldest winters on record and lost big time. Increased earthquake and volcanic activity appears to correlate with solar activity. Mount Tambora was one of the most powerful volcanic eruptions in recorded history 1815. The "Year With Out Summer" 1816. These dates correspond with the bottom of a solar cycle. Casey thinks the US and Canada will have to stop food exports in order to feed their own populations. -- Things get nasty when people are hungry. But this is not PC so lets hide the truth it might upset the apple cart. ( there we go again, can't call a spade a spade )

To paraphrase Admiral Byrd the Antarctic explorer of the early 20th century --- lies, unpreparedness, self deception, and egos are rapidly exposed for what they are in Antarctica for it gives no quarter. ---- It appears we of the 21st century may have a similar experience, Nature appears to be getting ready to play Her cards.

cheers

[gerald]

John you may be giving the stock market more credit then it is worth regarding P/E

"If one were looking for more evidence that stocks are in a bubble, BlackRock released research suggesting that corporate earnings would be 86% lower if it weren’t for absurd accounting practices/ make believe. In this scenario, stocks are sporting a real P/E of over 140." http://ghovexx.blogspot.com/

[John]

> John you may be giving the stock market more credit then it is
> worth regarding P/E

> "If one were looking for more evidence that stocks are in a
> bubble, BlackRock released research suggesting that corporate
> earnings would be 86% lower if it weren’t for absurd accounting
> practices/ make believe. In this scenario, stocks are sporting a
> real P/E of over 140." http://ghovexx.blogspot.com/

Here's what caught my eye on that web site:

> My trading is based on the same analysis and projections that are
> presented in this blog. Zero Hedge, Mish's, Generational Dynamics
> and Testosteronepit are my most important newsfeeds.

Thanks for calling my attention to it.

[gerald]

> John you may be giving the stock market more credit then it is
> worth regarding P/E

> "If one were looking for more evidence that stocks are in a
> bubble, BlackRock released research suggesting that corporate
> earnings would be 86% lower if it weren’t for absurd accounting
> practices/ make believe. In this scenario, stocks are sporting a
> real P/E of over 140." http://ghovexx.blogspot.com/

Here's what caught my eye on that web site:

> My trading is based on the same analysis and projections that are
> presented in this blog. Zero Hedge, Mish's, Generational Dynamics
> and Testosteronepit are my most important newsfeeds.

Thanks for calling my attention to it.

Wish you the best --- It appears you will be having some "interesting " posts.

cheers

[Higgenbotham]

WOW! Higgenbotham, I sure am glad I got out of the corporate world.

Just wanted to say that I've thoroughly enjoyed catching up and reading the past 6 pages or-so of posts from John and H. My 2 true favorite Generational Dynamics hero's. Well, them and A (and a few others) too. It's been an early 2015-on pleasure gentlemen.

You guys reminded me - I still have the VHS tape of that 18 minute investigative report. I am featured in the middle third of it. One of these days I should figure out how to get that report posted on Youtube. I'd be really curious to see how many hits it would get.

John you may be giving the stock market more credit then it is worth regarding P/E

"If one were looking for more evidence that stocks are in a bubble, BlackRock released research suggesting that corporate earnings would be 86% lower if it weren’t for absurd accounting practices/ make believe. In this scenario, stocks are sporting a real P/E of over 140." http://ghovexx.blogspot.com/

That's what I've been saying here for about 3 years. Except instead of corporate earnings being 86% lower than they are, they are more likely negative.