Drugs are bad.

M’Kay?

I mean, some drugs are bad. Just bad.

Some drugs are good, like medicine.

Some drugs, well, they’re legal even if they kill you, like cigarettes, or, like alcohol, kill other people you run into. But drugs drugs are just B-A-D. Inherently. In and of themselves. Drugs are morally bad, M’Kay?

After all, drugs cause crime. Drugs cause illness. Drugs cause violence and even death - by overdoses and suicides. Drugs cause the breakup of families and relationships.

Drugs cost the economy billions of dollars a year and strain the health care and welfare systems to breaking point.

Actually, to be more precise, illegal drugs cost the economy billions of dollars a year and strain the health care and welfare systems to breaking point.

So how come drugs like heroin and cocaine cause so much crime and devastation? Do drugs really make good people evil?

Consider that the real cause of all of the crime, illness, destroyed relationships and death is the fact that the drugs are illegal.

The reason drug addicts steal and burglarise is that the drugs cost so much that to buy them they have to obtain the money for them illegally.

The reason for the illness is that the drug addicts are spending all of their money on drugs and not on nutritious food or health care.

The reason for the destroyed relationships is that financial worries, illness and preoccupation with obtaining the drugs compound to make proper relationships virtually impossible.

The reason that people die from overdoses is that because there is so much money in the drugs, dealers can make even more by “cutting” them. They can be cut several times between the original importer and the end user, with a variety of substances. Sometimes the drugs are cut with caustic chemicals. In any case, addicts can’t know how pure the drug is that they are using. When they take their normal dose of a sample that they are unaware is unusually pure, it can kill them.

Why do addicts commit suicide? At least one of the reasons must be that they feel hopelessly trapped in the squalor of a desperate downward spiral from which they can see no possible escape.

Does all this make sense? Well, we know of at least one person who was/is? a heroin addict. When we heard about her she had a high-flying corporate job at boardroom level. Together, she and her husband were very well off indeed. She had two daughters at an exclusive private school. She was on the school council. And she took her heroin hit every morning before leaving for work. No-one was ever the wiser and it never interfered with her performance at work.

Why didn’t she, too, descend into the hell that other junkies do? The answer is, she could afford the drug. On her income the cost was no big deal at all. She could afford to make sure that the drugs she bought were of consistent quality.

And, anecdotally, she is only one of thousands of similarly effective, perfectly functional heroin addicts in Australia, many of whom are said to be Canberra public servants.

So why are the drugs so expensive? First: because they are illegal; second because there is a strong demand. (To some extent their illegality drives demand; the thrill of the naughtiness, at least in the early experimental stage, can have appeal for rebellious young people.)

The illegality drives up the price. Law enforcement measures make the production and transport of the drugs more and more difficult. Concealment becomes more and more expensive, and the inducements for the producers and couriers need to be big enough for them to be willing to take the risks of death or imprisonment. This pushes up the street price which pushes up the crime statistics. The better the cartels become at hiding their trade, the more the enforcement agencies have to lift their abilities to detect and intercept it. The better the agencies get, the higher the risk and so the higher the price. The better the agencies get, the more limited the supply and so the higher the price.

All of this because “Drugs are bad, M’Kay?” Morally bad as an article of faith.

Illegal drugs constitute an industry which depends entirely on their illegality. It is in the interests of the drug criminals that drugs are illegal because that is how and why they make such enormous amounts of money.

But it is not a one-sided industry. It is equally in the interests of the enforcement agencies that the drugs be illegal. Their operations have exploded in size in recent decades. Vast empires, both governmental and private, have been built which employ enormous numbers of people all over the world and infuse huge amounts of money into both large and small countries. This money is used to bribe and control tinpot dictatorships and timorous democracies. The war on drugs is used, particularly by the US government, to leverage compliant trade deals throughout the world.

You will not find a drug baron calling for the relaxation of drug laws. In fact they are more likely to be clandestinely buying influence in the corridors of power to tighten the laws. Nor are you going to find their adversaries, the anti-drug czars, expressing an interest in loosening their own powers or reducing the size of their empires.

And of course the amount of money involved leads to breathtaking levels of corruption of both private and government officials, which naturally compromises the quality of governance where it matters most.

For players on both sides it is “a nice little earner”… at the expense of poor people all over the world; stupid poor people in the West, desperate poor people in the third world.

But there is a very nasty side to the illegal drug trade.

In Colombia the cocaine trade funds the FARC guerilla movement’s terror and kidnapping operations. The best way to cripple the FARC would in fact be to decriminalise cocaine worldwide.

In Afghanistan the worldwide illegality of heroin, with its huge market, is what is fuelling and funding the Taliban, resistance to democracy and ultimately world-wide Islamist terrorism. The value of the illicit poppy crops makes it worth the warlords’ resisting the ISAF in Afghanistan. It is in part what leads to the killing of Australian and other nations’ soldiers.

Decrimiinalising heroin would starve the trade of oxygen.

We are not holding our breath.

But any trade depends on supply and demand.

What about demand? This is the truly hard question, the really confronting question.

No trade can survive without demand. The illicit drug trade could never survive if the drugs were merely expensive. People have to want them and want them bad.

So what is it about our society and our culture that so many people so desperately want whatever they get from these drugs?

Don’t know. It probably has something to do with alienation, dehumanisation of our societies and our economic systems.

Perhaps Fromm¹ has a clue.

Could it be that the middle-class life of prosperity, while satisfying our material needs leaves us with a feeling of intense boredom, and that suicide and alcoholism are pathological ways to escape from this boredom. Could it be that…[this is] a drastic illustration for the truth of the statement that “man lives not by bread alone,” and that…modern civilization fails to satisfy profound needs in man?

[ … ]

It is the conflict between two principles of value: that between the world of things, and their amassment, and the world of life and its productivity.

[ … ]

Science, business, politics, have lost all foundations and proportions which make sense humanly. We live in figures and abstractions; since nothing is concrete, nothing is real…Man has been thrown out from any definite place whence he can overlook and manage his life and the life of society. He is driven faster and faster by the forces which originally were created by him. In this wild whirl he thinks, figures, busy with abstractions, more and more remote from concrete life.

[ … ]

… automatons, who follow without force, who are guided without leaders, who make machines which act like men and produce men who act like machines; men, whose reason deteriorates while their intelligence rises, thus creating the dangerous situation of equipping man with the greatest material power without the wisdom to use it.

Whatever, it is not a question that will ever be addressed politically. It is not a question we as a society want to ask, let alone answer, because it would require such adjustment, such effort, such an acceptance of responsibility, such reassessment of who we are that there is no political or social will to address it. Especially when we have our eyes firmly fixed on “the plasma”, or whatever must-keep-up status bauble comes next. And so we will have more of the same and worse.

And we will continue to slump back into the comfort of our self-serving myths. And we will continue to blame and punish and contemn the poor, stupid, desperate victims, even though in our refusal to abandon our righteousness, in our refusal to see things as they are and in our refusal to tackle the real questions, we make ourselves the true and self-inflicted victims.

M’Kay?

^{¹Erich Fromm, The Sane Society}

Technorati Tags: drugs are bad, medicine, cigarettes, alcohol, crime, violence, death, overdose, suicide, relationships, economy, health care, welfare, heroin, cocaine, good, evil, nutritious food, financial worries, import, caustic, dose, squalor, downward spiral, addict, corporate, boardroom, exclusive, private school, school council, junkie, Canberra, public servants, demand, experimental, rebellious, young people, price, Law enforcement, transport, inducement, courier, risk, imprisonment, street price, crime statistics, cartel, supply, Drugs are bad, M’Kay, article of faith, Illegal drugs, industry, bribe, tinpot dictatorship, democracies, war on drugs, US government, trade deal, drug baron, drug laws, clandestine, corridors of power, drug czar, empire, corruption, government, official, governance, nice little earner, illegal drug trade, Colombia, FARC, guerilla, terror, kidnapping, decriminalise, Afghanistan, market, Taliban, democracy, Islamist, terrorism, illicit, poppy, crop, warlord, ISAF, supply and demand, alienation, dehumanisation, economic system, Fromm, middle-class, prosperity, material needs, boredom, alcoholism, pathological, man lives not by bread alone, civilization, profound needs, value, life, productivity, Science, business, politics, automaton, reason, intelligence, politically, esponsibility, social will, plasma, status, blame, punish, victims, righteousness, Erich Fromm, Sane Society, drugs, values, cost, principles, standards, rights, South Park, Mr. Mackey

MS. PERINO: …Helen.

Q Yesterday, according to The New York Times, we dropped a bomb on a home in Sadr City and burned alive a pregnant woman and her children. How long is the siege of Sadr — how long are we going to keep bombing Iraqis?

MS. PERINO: Well, I’m not aware of that particular report. I have not — I’ve not seen it.

Q Well, it was pretty buried in the story.

MS. PERINO: [Deadpan] Okay. Well, the operation against the militias in Sadr City will continue until they root them out. And that is expressly in order to protect people like you just mentioned.

Q Root who out, Iraqis, in their own country?

It would make Calvin and the Inquisition proud. It truly is the logic of the new Dark Ages: killing people to save their souls.

As George W. Bush himself said,

“If you murder the innocent to achieve a political objective, you’re evil.”

He’s not only evil; he is a war criminal. He’s not only a war criminal; he has the mind of a common criminal.

Technorati Tags: Bush, President, President Bush, Iraq, Iraq War, bomb, bombing, pregnant woman, Sadr, Sadr City, militia, Mehdi Army, Maliki, murder, innocent, collateral, collateral damage, war dead, death, Calvin, Inquisition, Dark Ages, medieval, religion, Shiite, Sunni, civil war, war crimes, war criminal, common criminal, neocon, Republican, GOP, Project for the New American Century, PNAC, White House, Perino, Dana Perino, politics, government, protection, New York Times, NYT, WIIIAI, Mistress of Slime, lip gloss, values, morals, principles, ethics

Technorati Tags: lolcat, lol, cat, humor, humour, internet, computer, laptop, blog, website, websiet, mouse, mous, mice, cheezburger, i can has cheezburger, valuesaustralia, values, australia

With all this debate about whether people should be permitted to make money by selling their body parts for transplantation surgery - a desperate strategy to ease the extreme shortage of kidneys in particular - now from The Onion comes this truly heartwarming story of pure generosity:

This sort of anonymous, spontaneous philanthropy puts the rest of us to shame, doesn’t it?

Technorati Tags: medicine, medical, transplant, surgery, operation, health, doctor, surgeon, specialist, renal, cardiac, hospital, emergency, kidney, body parts, murder, mass murder, serial killer, generosity, donation, philanthropy, lifesaving, gift of life, giving, news, onion, the onion, onion news, ONN, horror, humor, humour, satire, irony, values, morals, ethics, principals, standards, gift idea

Technorati Tags: health, freedom, liberty, bacon, cooking, cuisine, pig, overweight, obesity, humor, humour, cartoon, xkcd

But first, this story just in…

Longtime Sexual Fantasy Awkwardly Fulfilled

McCain Declines Secret Service, Dares Assassins To Try Something

In other news:

Pope Stays Up All Night Telling God About Trip To America

President Bush Unveils New ‘Impotence Only’ Sex Policy

In the Bush era even a “Voluntary Teen Castration Act” doesn’t seem implausible.

Latest media news:

Researchers Discover Massive Asshole In Blogosphere

Four-Year Descent Into Complete Self-Obsession Live-Blogged

We love The Ønion

Technorati Tags: The Onion, Onion News, blog, blogging, sex, impotence, sexual fantasy, menage a trois, two girls, live-blog, blogosphere, asshole, obsession, media news, President Bush, George Bush, Bush, McCain, Presidential race, security, Security Service, Secret Service, Onion Video, assassin, castration, pope, god, taxpayers, politics, government, senate, congress, House, values, morals, ethics, standards, principles

The newest Bill Moyers Journal episode includes an interview with Victor Navasky and Christopher Cerf, whose new book MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! OR HOW WE WON THE WAR IN IRAQ looks back at what the experts told us would happen in Iraq. It’s quite funny except it’s all true.

You can watch it here, or get the podcast here. [We use FeedReader as our…uh…feed reader. It’s free and light and not nearly as clunky as iTunes.]

Here are a few excerpts from the interview.

What the experts said:

DONALD RUMSFELD:It could last, you know, six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.

BILL MOYERS:No one had pushed the war more than vigorously than Vice President Cheney. He said…”I think it’ll go relatively quickly…weeks rather than months.”

BILL MOYERS:And, said the experts, it won’t take many troops or require much sacrifice…Rumsfeld’s deputy Paul Wolfowitz…

PAUL WOLFOWITZ:…we can say with reasonable confidence that the notion of hundreds of thousands of American troops is way off the mark…

BILL MOYERS:And the cost to the taxpayer, the experts assured us — practically nothing.

PAUL WOLFOWITZ:…we are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon.

BILL MOYERS:Ted Koppel put the question to America’s top aid official on Nightline:

TED KOPPEL:…you’re not suggesting that the rebuilding of Iraq is gonna be done for $1.7 billion?

ANDREW NATSIOS: Well, in terms of the American taxpayers’ contribution, I do; this is it for the U.S. the rest of the rebuilding of Iraq will be done by other countries who have already made pledges…

and

BILL MOYERS:And now, mission accomplished, experts savored the triumph. The editor of The Weekly Standard William Kristol, “The first two battles of this new era are now over. The battles of Afghanistan and Iraq have been won decisively and honorably.”

BILL MOYERS:The neo-conservative warrior Richard Perle told doubters to get over it. The war, he said “…ended quickly with few civilian casualties and with little damage to Iraq’s cities, towns or infrastructure…it ended… without the quagmire [the war’s critics] predicted…relax and enjoy it.”

BILL MOYERS:Said columnist Mona Charen of the Commander in Chief, “the man who slept through many classes at Yale and partied the nights away stands revealed as a profound and great leader who will reshape the world for the better. The United States is lucky once again.”

BILL MOYERS:And columnist Charles Krauthammer said, “The only people who think this wasn’t a victory are Upper West Side liberals and a few people here in Washington.”

BILL MOYERS:The Iraqis, said the experts, were sure to rally ’round…

WILLIAM KRISTOL:”I think there’s been a certain amount of frankly, Terry, pop sociology in America…that…the Shia can’t get along with the Sunni and the Shia in Iraq just want to establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime. There’s almost no evidence of that at all. Iraq’s always been very secular.”

Navasky says:

VICTOR NAVASKY:Well, at every stage, there was someone who proclaimed that it was over. And– when this book came out, we were told isn’t it a shame that it’s coming out now, because the country has reached a turning point with the surge. And based on our research at the Institute of Expertology-

BILL MOYERS:Somewhere between the Brookings Institute and the Heritage Foundation.

VICTOR NAVASKY:Well, yeah. And the American Enterprise Institute. I mean, we consider them rivals, however, in our study. But we were sympathetic to the point of view that we’ve reached a turning point. Because, as we show in the book, in 2003, we were told by the President of the United States that we’ve reached a turning point. And then, in 2004, we were told we had reached a turning point.

And then, in 2005, we were told by Donald Rumsfeld we have reached a turning point. And then– So every year, three or four times, we seem to have reached a turning point. So that’s one of the ways that we have triumphed.

BILL MOYERS:So how do you decide who is an expert? What makes an expert?

CHRISTOPHER CERF:Well, I think if you are in the government — this is one of the problems we have in the country — you are, by definition, an expert. In fact, you’re unpatriotic if you disagree with someone in the government. And your expertise, if you had any before, becomes suspect.

BILL MOYERS:But these experts also included scholars, pundits, columnists.

VICTOR NAVASKY:People are believed to be experts who proclaim their expertise. Some of them do it directly. Others do it by using jargon, by parading the number of articles they’ve published, by their titles, and by their uniforms. And then, people who have positions of status and power, whether in the press, who are supposed to be adversaries of the establishment. Or, you know, the heads of departments — great departments of government — are assumed to know what they’re talking about.So anyone who is presumed to know what he is talking about, we, at the Institute of Expertology are ready to say, as an expert, but you have to trust us — they don’t.

But who are their favourite “experts”?

VICTOR NAVASKY:I have a favorite expert and a friend. And Chris, I’m sure, has his. But my favorite quote — he’s my favorite expert. But it’s a quote by Paul Wolfowitz, who, you know, came from the academic community, and then had this very important career in the Defense Department, et cetera.

And he says, at one point, “I think foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq.”

Technorati Tags: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, podcast, FeedReader, Cheney, Wolfowitz, American troops, Koppel, Kristol, Afghanistan, neo-conservative, Richard Perle, casualties, quagmire, Charen, Commander in Chief, Yale, United States, Krauthammer, Upper West Side, liberals, Washington, sociology, Shia, Sunni, Islamic, fundamentalist, Institute of Expertology, Brookings Institute, Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, government, Paul Wolfowitz, Defense Department, Moyers, Bill Moyers, Bill Moyers Journal, Cerf, Navasky, experts, Iraq, Bush, George Bush, President Bush, Rumsfeld, scholars, pundits, columnists, politics, politics and government, values, lies, deceit, stupidity, ignorance, arrogant, arrogance, principles, standards

…and we could see the prayers coming right out of his head!!!
^{So burn in hell for all eternity, thou unbeliever!}

But the whole world is already praying, every day; praying that George will stop it. Praying that George will leave early.

I think one of the interesting things about a National Day of Prayer is it does help describe our nation’s character to others. We are a prayerful nation.

We are a prayerful nation who, in the quiet contemplation of  prayerfulness, communion with our saviour and love of humankind, bombs the shit out of them and tears their country apart.

A lot of citizens draw comfort from prayer. Prayer is an important part of the lives of millions of Americans. And it’s interesting, when you think about our faith you can find it in the Pledge of Allegiance…

Our faith? We’re all Methodists here, ain’t we? Christians, anyways. Real religions, you know?

…you can find an expression of American faith in the Declaration of Independence, and you can find it in the coins in our pockets. I used to carry coins — (laughter) — in about 10 months I’ll be carrying them again. (Laughter and applause.)

Oh, man, don’t we know. The whole world is counting down the days till you carry coins in your pockets again.

Over the last seven years, our country has faced many trials. And time and time again we have turned to prayer and found strength and resilience. We prayed with those who’ve lost everything in natural disasters…

Yup, we prayed for them there Katrina people. We didn’t do anything useful but we prayed.

…We prayed for our brave and brilliant troops who died on the field of battle.

All 4,000+ of them

We lift up their families in prayer.

Prayer’s a fair trade for a life I terminated on the altar of my ego.

And as we pray for God’s continued blessings on our country, I think it makes sense to hope that one day there may be a International Day of Prayer, that one day the national — (applause.) It will be a chance for people of faith around the world to stop at the same time to pause to praise an Almighty.

An almighty crock of shit.

Press Secretaries We’d Love to Fuck

Dana Perino
Beneath the glowing and blushered skin and under her sexy-cute “do”, it’s so hard to believe that she could be as slimy a PR flak as the Masters of Slime in whose tradition she so ably follows: Ari Flescher, Scott McLellan and Tony Snow. But she is a prevaricator par excellence. She is every bit the Mistress of Slime with lip gloss. How can you think about the lies she’s telling when all you can do is fantasise about her wet-look lips and what you’d like them to ….ahem… ?

But we did catch this on the 5th anniversary of Mission Accomplished:

“We have certainly paid a price for not being more specific on that banner. President Bush is well aware that the banner should have said, ‘Mission Accomplished For These Sailors Who Are On This Ship On Their Mission’.

That’s right, George Bush got all dressed up in combat drag and took a plane flight to a carrier in the middle of the ocean and had a huge banner made which would just coincidentally sit smack bang in the middle of the tv picture, and had the entire world’s media (it seemed) present for his declaration that ‘Major combat operations in Iraq have ended’ just for these few people on this one ship. At a cost of how many millions of dollars? Of course. He does it all the time.

According to OpEdNews Dana Perino then revealed that “the White House will be holding a contest for families and friends of the over 4,000 soldiers who have perished, and the more than 50,000 who have been maimed since the original Mission Accomplished banner was unfurled, asking them to come up with a more specific banner…We’re looking for it to be fun,” added Perino.

Technorati Tags: Bush, Perino, George Bush, George W Bush, Dana Perino, Fleischer, PR flak, Masters of Slime, Ari Flescher, Scott McLellan, Tony Snow, prevaricator, lies, liar, Mistress of Slime, National Day of Prayer, prayer, hell, saviour, humankind, jesus, christ, methodist, iraq, shock and awe, Mission Accomplished, media, flight, combat, aircraft carrier, press secretaary, love to fuck, people of faith, faithful, almighty, troops, Katrina, hurricane, natural disaster, value, cost, price, morals, ethics, principles, standards, cash, money, politics, government, politics and government, government and politics, US politics, American politics, President, President Bush, US President

“Here’s what I’m sayin’: we’ve dug a big hole for ourselves, people, and what I think we need to do is just…keep digging…”

Technorati Tags: Jon Stewart, Daily Show, Bush, George Bush, President Bush, economy, recession, oil, price of oil, politics, government, politics and government, government and politics, magic, magic wand, gas prices, George W Bush, China, tax cuts, Congress, value, price, worth, principle, standard

For most people “the economy” really boils down to how much they can spend on dinner tonight, whether they’re going to have a house tomorrow, what car they can consider buying, what job they can hope for (if any) and whether they noticed things like petrol and bread are more expensive than they seemed to be last month.

Most of us think that there is a THING called “The Economy” which does stuff (mostly scary) and has a mind of its own and has an appetite which must be satisfied. It must be fed and stroked and tamed, or, say some, left alone to grow in its own ugly, vicious, untameable way like a Tasmanian Devil. But there is no such thing. Economists just collect and manipulate statistics about what people and institutions did and how much what they did changed from last time and they reify those statistics into this thing they call “The Economy”, as if it’s real. That’s not to suggest that you can’t learn anything from the statistics, just that as long as you give this collection of stats entity you pretend it has a life it doesn’t have and you say meaningless things like, “‘The economy’ is healthy”. Sure, it’s a convenient shorthand but it gives the wrong impression to simple minds like Sir Roger’s.

Anyway, Teh Economy is all about money. Money - the story goes - is a form of stuff. It is finite and in limited supply and we have to fight for our share of it. We think (most of us) that since it is a money-pie of limited size we should share it more or less equally. We shouldn’t take too much more than our fair share except, you know, if we are prepared to do more for it, or if we’re more clever or luckier than others, or if some people don’t seem to want their piece as much as we do. We all know the Calvinist philosophy which we used to call “The Protestant Work Ethic” and now call “The Way Things Just Are”: A Fair Day’s Work for a Fair Day’s Pay. We have to be careful with our money, preserve it, use it wisely; because there is only so much of it and it represents to us good folk, of both Calvinist and Augustinian religious heritage, both the fruit of our labours and our good stewardship.

Most of us, in short, think that money is a real thing and almost all of us think it is created by the government based on real resources. Like gold in vaults.

And it’s not.

We think that the money banks lend us is money that other people have deposited.

It’s not.

This was the bombshell that rocked us yesterday. What we learnt makes too much sense to dismiss it, and it also revolutionises opportunity and possibility: it forces us to think differently about what money really is. There is no real limit to the money supply, or how much can be created, and how much of it we can have. If you have more it doesn’t mean someone else has to have less. There is no pie to slice. It’s a magic pudding! A Cut-an’-Come-Again.

If we had read anything as dry (we once thought) as an economic opinion, we would have known that.

Money is not stuff.

Here’s what money is: Money is debt, it is a promise to pay. When you sign the mortgage papers, the bank creates that money - to all intents and purposes out of thin air.

Banknotes are not ‘money’. They are promises to pay; in other words, IOUs; in other words, debt.

Most of us believe that banks lend out money that has been entrusted to them by depositors. Easy to picture. But not the truth. In fact, banks create the money they loan, not from the bank’s own earnings, not from money deposited, but directly from the borrower’s promise to repay.

Don’t believe us. How about these famous people?

John Kenneth Galbraith: “The process by which banks create money is so simple the mind is repelled.”

Sir Josiah Stamp, Director, Bank of England 1928-1941: “The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented. Banking was conceived in iniquity and born in sin.”

Graham F. Towers, Director, Bank of Canada: “Each and every time a bank makes a loan (or purchases securities), new bank credit is created – new deposits – brand new money.”

Reginald McKenna, past Chairman of the Board, Midlands Bank of England: “I am afraid that the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that banks can and do create money … And they who control the credit of the nation direct the policy of Governments and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people”

Irving Fisher, economist and author: “Thus, our national circulating medium is now at the mercy of loan transactions of banks, which lend, not money, but promises to supply money they do not possess.”

Robert Hemphill, Credit Manager, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta: “Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash, or credit. If the banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve.”

So what about the sub-prime mortgage crisis? Money is created by debt. The debts are not supported with stuff, at least not enough stuff to go around. So if everybody called in their debts the system would collapse. For the system to work the banks must borrow from each other. The debt must be passed around. But the banks are scared and have stopped borrowing from each other. That’s why the central banks, especially in the US and Britain, are pouring massive amounts of cash into the system - it’s to encourage the banks to start borrowing from each other again.

There is a series of five videos on U-Choob which explains it really well for those of us who didn’t really care for economics at school. Here’s Part 1:

The “Economy” is a magic cut an’ come again pudding. That makes lots of things possible, new ways of thinking about where any individual stands in the scheme of things, what sort of dreams and intentions they can have and what sort of actions they can take. It’s like a really scary but exciting new freedom.

^{Disclaimer: The maker of the videos has an agenda although we’re not sure exactly what it is. Nevertheless, the argument in the first few videos is quite straightforward. And we like the idea that money can be created out of thin air.
We will not be surprised to learn that real economists will think we’re naïve and that they disagree with much if not all of what we have written here. We welcome their feedback.}

Technorati Tags: money, economy, economics, economists, Gruen, Nicholas Gruen, Peter Martin, John Quiggin, Fred Argy, Club Troppo, bank, banking, banker, Reserve Bank, Federal Reserve, central bank, loan, lend, borrow, securities, guarantee, deposit, promissory, house, housing, mortgage, home, rental, lease, money, gold, gold standard, vault, magic pudding, cut and come again, cut an’ come again, Norman Lindsay, Tasmanian devil, sin, iniquity, statistics, stats, stuff, possessions, assets, Calvin, philosophy, Protestant Work Ethic, Fair Day’s Work, Fair Day’s Pay, Calvinist and Augustinian, religion, heritage, labour, labor, stewardship, Bank of England, banknote, promise to pay, IOU, debt, Sir Josiah Stamp, Galbraith, Graham F. Towers, Reginald McKenna, Irving Fisher, Robert Hemphill, synthetic money, dollar, cash, credit, sub-prime mortgage, value, values, cost, estimate, moral, ethic, standard, principle, blog, blogging, blogger, Sir Roger Migently, Money as Debt, the Goildsmith’s Tale

Justice Scalia - Bush’s friend on the United States Supreme Court.

Why is torture not a cruel and unusual punishment? The answer may surprise you. Then again, it might not.

and the Global War in Your Pants
“Abstinence Only” and the Dirty Toothbrush

And Larry King brings us:

Jimmy Carter and what really happened with Hamas
^{[Click to play movie]}
[See post to watch QuickTime movie]^{[htt Norm]}

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Whatever It Is I’m Against It [WIIIAI] has done it again:

You know what pisses me off about Bush, maybe more than anything else? Seven years of incompetence and failed policies haven’t wiped that smug smirk off his face. The man will go to his grave without ever grasping how godawful a job he’s done, with his monumental self-regard undented.

…thus, with an effortless flourish, nailing exactly how we feel.

The picture accompanying WIIIAI’s piece shows George conducting (for fuck’s sake) the Marine Band at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner last weekend - while managing to wink lewdly at an official guest. He can’t just turn a country in chaos overnight; he can embarrass himself in front of professional musicians in the wink of an eye. Apparently the last time he conducted, the 1812 Overture had to be renamed the 1912 Overture and he made such a shambles of it, he had the French winning after all. The violins pre-emptively attacked the violas, the double basses mounted a frontal assault on the horns and the trombones tore apart the kettledrums looking for WMDs. Notwithstanding, the White House Press Corps reported the fracas as a stirring example of the President’s remarkable skill in creating peace and harmony.

Like Father, Like Sonny

Still, he’s a chip off the old block - a credit to his dad, Herbert, as this 1992 cartoon from Tom Tomorrow shows:

Sadly (or not) George’s “monumental self-regard” will not translate into the sort of elder-statesmanship that, despite everything, even Bill Clinton achieved; that, despite his sometimes ineptitude, even Jimmy Carter has achieved; that his father has almost, but never quite, managed to achieve. Because it seems everything he has ever touched has turned to shit. His oil business, his baseball team. The economy, Iraq, Guantanamo, Palestine, the GWOT. Everything. George W. will never even be invited to adjudicate a dispute over a backyard fence because they know the fenceline will end being a bomb crater. But perhaps there will be something - like brush-clearing at the Crawford ranch - to keep him safely occupied and that George is good at, or if he isn’t…it doesn’t matter.

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Vale, the (as Barry Cryer says) “Old-Etonian/Guards/trumpet-playing/jazz-band- leader/radio-panel-game-chairman”, Humphrey Lyttleton, who died on Anzac Day, aged almost 87.

We first discovered Humphrey as the Chairman of the BBC’s hilariously shambolic panel game, I’m Sorry, I Haven’t a Clue, which ran for over 30 years. Comedians on the ISIHAC panel included Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie [The Goodies!], Barry Cryer, Kenny Everett, Stephen Fry, Bill Bailey, Willie Rushton, John Cleese, Jo Kendall and David Hatch.

While he may be best-known world-wide for his anarchic “chairmanship” of the radio show his true calling was as a jazz trumpeter, one of Britain’s greatest. He was still playing at the age of 86.

Nevertheless it was on account of the schemozzle over which he presided that - to his great delight and pride - Humphrey was once described in the British press as the “purveyor of blue-chip filth to Middle England”.

Here are a couple of reasons why:

And here is Humphrey gloriously at work on George Bush
^{(thanks for the link to WIIIAI):}

“We’ll make America what we want it to be: a literate country and a hopefuller country.”*
^{[*Leader of the free world]}

U-Chubers can also watch Melvyn Bragg’s South Bank Show documentary on Humphrey (if they can bear its being broken up into 6 parts).

Tribute to Humphrey Lyttleton Pt 1

The rest are here:
Tribute to Humphrey Lyttleton Pt 2

Tribute to Humphrey Lyttleton Pt 3

Tribute to Humphrey Lyttleton Pt 4

Tribute to Humphrey Lyttleton Pt 5

Tribute to Humphrey Lyttleton Pt 6

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The audience at the Summit on Inner-City Children and Faith-Based Schools was astounded this week when George Bush’s head unaccountably exploded mid-sentence. Opinion is divided on the cause. Some suggest that it occurred as Bush vainly attempted to construct a coherent sentence; others that it was the pressure of juggling all the lies. Most observers, however, believe that it was a result of a statement he had made the previous day:

“I also know it’s in our interest to say to the world, treat us the way we treat you. In other words, all we want to do is be treated fairly.”

They suggest that he was, as invited, treated the way he treats the world - if it’s in the way you just blow it up.

However, we think the answer lies in the statement he had made earlier:

“My whole theory of life was we ought to be asking about results,

His whole theory of life!

We think he took this claim to heart and examined his own results - including a dollar in a death spiral, massive national debt, oil at $120 a barrel, chaos and massive death in Iraq, a USA that is a laughing stock of the international community and whose moral stocks are at their lowest in living memory.

Coming to the brutal realisation that you were personally accountable for all this would be enough to blow anyone’s mind.

grace à: WIIIAI

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We Call It Shit-Faced …

Study: Nearly 80 Percent Of Roommates Got So Drunk Last Night

Eat Your Heart Out, Tropfest!

Wildly Popular ‘Iron Man’ Trailer To Be Adapted Into Full-Length Film

And here it is - the beloved IRONMAN Trailer:

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