Legend has it that the Persian King Xerxes was confident in his ability to crush the Greeks because he saw them as dishonest men. They lied to one another in their marketplace and in their debates over politics and law. From the perspective of the Persians, a people who allegedly viewed lying as the worst crime possible, this defect would undermine their efforts to resist the Persians. Men who cannot trust one another cannot defend one another when under attack.
We know Xerxes was wrong, if he indeed thought these things. Much of our history of the time comes from Herodotus, who was not afraid to gild the lily when rerecording the history of the Greeks and her enemies. It is a useful insight, however, as the market-based society is, when you think about it, a system where the rewards go to those who are best at deceiving their fellow citizens. More accurately, status comes from deceiving people into thinking you are being honest with them.
The marketplace for goods and services is where sellers misrepresent their goods in order to maximize profit. Sellers exaggerate key features and do not disclose possible defects to potential buyers. On the other hand, the buyer will misrepresent his interests and make claims about finding a better deal from another seller. Both sides haggle trying to take advantage of the other. The dynamic of the marketplace is a game of liar’s poker where cleverness and deceit are rewarded.
Democratic politics is just taking the marketplace idea and applying it to the governance of the society. The sellers are the people with ideas for how to solve problems in society and the buyers are the majority who vote on it. The game is to convince the mob there is a problem and that you have the solution. Being right about the problem or the solution is unimportant. What gets rewarded is convincing fifty percent plus one to go along with your scheme, which makes you the winner.
The recent trial balloon launched by the inner party regarding a wealth tax is a good example of how the lying game works. The idea being floated is that billionaires will be subjected to a new tax that applies to their unrealized capital gains. They will pay a tax based on the potential profit from the sale of certain assets. Presumably, this will apply only to equities, the market value of which can be determined by the current trading price at the time the tax is assessed.
Right away, you see that everything about this is a lie. For starters, how does one determine if you are a billionaire? It is easy when it comes to oligarchs like Jeff Bezos, but further down the list it gets less clear. Calculating net worth is not as straight forward at this level as most assume. Of course, avoiding the tax will spawn an industry to help the rich hide their assets from this tax. Since that exists in other areas, this tax is a boon to the financial schemers who currently serve the rich.
Then you have the impracticality of the idea. When would the tax be levied, and would it be levied on the same asset every year? If you buy a stock in 2021 and it goes up ten percent, you get taxed on the ten percent. If it goes up again in 2022, do you pay a tax on it again or just the increase in 2022? What happens when you pay the tax on unrealized gains that disappear the day after you paid the tax? What about assets held in family trusts? Do they get taxed as well?
The point here is that this is a nutty idea simply on the grounds that it is a wildly complicated solution to a problem that is simple to address. If you really want the rich to pay more tax, you tax them at a higher rate. Treating all income equally is the most straightforward and honest solution. Those gains and losses from investment activity are just another line in the income section of the tax return. Imputed income like stock options is just another entry on the W2.
Of course, this will never become law. It is just a sop to the mouth breathers on the far left who operate on massive corporate platforms while pretending to be anti-capitalists and socialists. It also allows the zombies in Conservative Inc. to come out from under their beds and do their libertarian dance. They get to put on the thin tie, throw on the Flock of Seagulls cassette and carry on like it is 1985. It is party night at the museum where everyone gets to pretend the outside world does not exist.
Everything about this drama is a lie, because it is just a drama. It is a story being told to arouse the passions of the crowd so they stop thinking about things that should matter to them, like the fact that gasoline prices have doubled, or their government lied about the Covid pandemic for two years. This is the nature of democratic politics. The winners are just the best liars. The losers never lose anything. They just have to come up with better lies so they can get another crack at the lying game.
A culture built around rewarding the most devious and dishonest is going to get more of the devious and dishonest. Assuming Herodotus was right about Xerxes, it was an important insight about the nature of democracy. The marketplace society is inevitably a society full of liars. On the other hand, the factious Greeks, and their penchant for lying, did beat the Persians. They did not just defend their lands, they dominated the Persians on land and sea, despite the numerical disadvantages.
It may be that a hidden strength of the marketplace is that because no one can trust anyone and there is no neutral arbiter to enforce honestly, everyone has to be on their game all the time. Therefore, it boils off those who are less clever and less able to live by their own wits. The cost to the collective strength that comes from the lack of trust is less than the benefit that comes from stronger individual members. Deracinated clever liars are better than united trusting morons.
That may be why democracy is such a violent form of government. The Greeks were always fighting with one another and then with the Persians. America is a hyper-violent empire that is always looking to wage war. Perhaps the hidden cost of that hidden strength of the market it is needs an enemy to bind the parts together. The reason liberal democracy looks a lot like fascism is the only way to bind the sticks together is with enemies, real and imagined.
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Negotiation does not depend on lies, although it can.
“Hey Fucker!” Said the young passanger of the car of Muslims the other day. He pulled phony smile. I cheerfully greeted him with a real smile.
As I turned my back down the alley, they reved their engine as if to run me down and then tore off.
They certainly didn’t realize that I had no intention of fooling them, but was certainly more ready for immediate violence. He made the mistake of putting his throat out the window. The illusion didn’t arise from my insincerity, but by their own hubris. Their elders, the imams, teach them that they are dominant and that there will be no resistance.
I don’t entirely blame them for that, seeing the tranny culture and weakness. They were deceived because my heart is kind. I didn’t lie.
A culture built around rewarding the most devious and dishonest is going to get more of the devious and dishonest
Think about all those poor females, regretting there are “no good men” :)). If they knew how quickly and decisively they wipe him away when they stumble on one.
Z-man, I can well believe that Xerxes said something like that, it echoes the “nation of shopkeepers” gibe of Napoleon about the English. However, you are dead flat wrong about the Greeks winning by strength through lies. They won by superior military achievement and being a single (though fractious) people speaking one language.
The Achemenid Persians were magnificent engineers. They built the start of their empire by magnificent (and some still existing) tunnels, canals, and aqueducts from the Zagros mountains to the plains of Iran. They build a bridge during the invasion of Greece over the Hellespont, and dug a canal across the Pelopenesian Peninsula also during wartime. But they had almost no coinage in circulation, nearly everything was barter and a command, Palace style economy from the Late Bronze Age. Their military was Bronze Age, mostly impressed, lightly armed soldiers from conquered nations, and chariots (already 800 years out of date by then) with archers with light (not heavy) bows. Up against them the Greeks had a heavily armored phalanx of basically a pike line. If maneuvered around the flanks it could be very vulnerable but otherwise was a giant impaling machine.
The Persians rolled up the Athenian and other City State colonies in the Aegean and in the Anatolian coast. But against the Athenians and others in two invasions they had no answer for much larger numbers of Greek phalanx soldiers. Their fleet while huge was mercenary and mostly Greek. Their core soldiers, the Immortals the Emperor’s Bodyguard, were lighter armored compared to Greeks and fewer in number. Against heavy infantry seeking a battle of annihilation they had no answer, in the run up to Alexander destroying them they were unable despite many attempts to create their own heavily armored infantry force.
The Greek advantage was that their society could produce such soldiers while Persia could not (nor could any other nation save eventually, Rome). Greeks produced middling farmers who would soldier out for money or duty (much like the late Medieval Swiss), who demanded some autonomy in how they conducted warfare (results not process) and armored themselves heavily. And sought a decisive battle not constant hit and run attacks.
The Persians were also hobbled by constant revolts against them, particularly in Egypt where they rather nastily suppressed the native religion as it affronted them with its pantheism I suppose, and dynastic squabbles.
Comparing things to the modern day, the Elites are the Persians. Commanders of mighty forces constantly in revolt, who all mostly hate their masters, and incapable of producing shock troops desiring a battle of annihilation.
“However, you are dead flat wrong about the Greeks winning by strength through lies.” Before the Battle of Salamis (480 BC) Themistocles used lies and subterfuge to lure Xerxes into the narrow channel. Even a cursory reading of Greek writing, plays, speeches and so on were filled with lies, tricks, distortions and all the rest. No Greek government could avoid using such things as a necessary part of military strategy. Herodotus, Thucydides and Xenophon are filled with examples of Greek deception.
I found it funny that is one of the few battles in ancient times where a woman, Artemisia of Caria, was in the battle on a ship.
I particularly like the world history description that as she was Greek fighting on the side of the Persians,
“It is said she would fly either the Greek or the Persian standard from her ships, depending on circumstance and need, to avoid conflict until she positioned herself favorably for assault or escape.”
She ended up ramming her own allies in order to escape. the battle.
Some things never change I suppose.
“All’s fair in love and war”, includes telling lies.
I’m probably being dumb again, but I was thinking about the wave of corporate jab mandates.
What if all of those mandates are intended to be a cover op for mass corporate layoffs to cut compensation costs without having to jump through the hoops of properly documenting things before cutting people?
I mean, think of all the work this method is going to save for all the HR Karens…
I was thinking it’s part of the push to accelerate the great replacement.
Oops, sorry, all our workers are ineligible to work. We have no choice but to hire H1-B scabs!
Actually, it’s already happening in Quebec with nurses: https://www.google.com/amp/s/beta.ctvnews.ca/local/montreal/2021/10/12/1_5620510.html
Oh, despite what the headline says, it’s not just Lebanon and Brazil. The last paragraph clears that up: “The province said it was including “the Maghreb countries,” which means French-speaking North Africa: Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia.”
Vive le Quebec libre!
In America there’s the additional twist of our pols and corporate choads all saying they’ll replace the fired medical, law enforcement, airline, fire, trucking, shipping, and…everything…employees with the National Guard. Best one I heard was a carwash that does cop cars.
It’s an odd thing for them all to say, isn’t it?
Just recently-militarily-couped-country-that-doesn’t-consciously-acknowledge-it things.
That’s precisely the analogy I’ve been using. Those who get badged are scabs. The more people who give in for convenience, the more difficult it is for the rest of us.
No reason to drag the poor Seagulls into this.
Totally off topic: Right before I shut down the computer last night, Daily Mail top headline was about a ‘mass’ shooting at a mall in Boise, Idaho (two dead, 4 injured). No info about shooter. Now no mention of story at Daily Mail site and I cannot find any additional info online. High probability it’s either a black or a rapefugee, particularly since they shut the story down. Anyone know anything else about this?
All the stories I looked at online said that the suspect was in custody, but not a single description, meaning it definitely wasn’t a white guy, as that would have been international news the day it happened. The absolute lack of follow-up stories on this (even local ones) implies that the shooter checks off multiple boxes that they don’t want to see portrayed in a bad light (think “recent transgender Haitian refugee”).
I don’t know anything about it, but Ann Coulter’s law probably applies here: The longer we go without being told the race of the shooter, the less likely it is to be a white man.
OT but did anyone else catch the brief moment in the sun that the “Israeli Professional Ethics Front” had with their open letter to FDA? Their name reminded me of Monty Python but maybe they just can’t help themselves with that kind of esthetic and they are a legitimate organization of medical professionals. Anyone here read hebrew and know more about them? The story got memory-holed pretty quick.
Not a sequence of words one expects to find together.
I don’t think that the market society rewards lying. The iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma says that lying only works on the last transaction. So, car salesmen are notorious liars, but the local grocery where you buy food every week needs to be on the up and up.
But politics, as per Nazi Carl Schmitt, is all about the enemy. If there isn’t one, you’d better make one up.
“I don’t think that the market society rewards lying.”
I gather you are not a veteran of the commercial debt collection industry nor a collection attorney.
“…but the local grocery where you buy food every week needs to be on the up and up.”
Further, I gather you are not familiar with a common practice of bleaching the chicken breasts soon to expire, re-packaging them and selling them.
My local grocery store is full of packaging that’s made to look like older packaging that held 50% more stuff—to cheat customers.
“The store didn’t do that.”
On their own brands, they did. And they didn’t lower any prices. They raised them.
“Businesses don’t cause inflation.”
They hide it. They abet it. Many desire it. They all enforce it.
“But—”
Yes, please, go on. The world’s seventeen honest businessmen need defending. Do the four good cops next.
Please remember, some settling may occur during transport. /sarc
The marketplace has a couple feedback mechanisms that democracy lacks. Foremost, that both buyer and seller must live with the consequences of their decisions. The appeal of democracy (in practice) is that everybody pays the cost for your special project.
Second, reputation in the marketplace is critical. If your product gets people killed then eventually, nobody will buy your product no matter how well you lie about it.
Third, both buyer and seller can opt out if an agreement cannot be reached. Democracy allows the bystanders to have a say in whether that purchase is made… an absurd situation!
Pingback: DYSPEPSIA GENERATION » Blog Archive » Strength in Lying
I don’t want to get mired in the weeds here because I totally agree with you that tax policy is FAR down the list of our national rot. However, the solution isn’t as clear as you indicate. The far left solution if taxing unrealized gains is insane. However, simply taxing the rich more on income isn’t the solution either. There’s a number of ways the rich hide their income. I’m not a financial adviser, but the gist of a big one is this. The super rich will take out loans as their income, and they’ll use their stock as collateral backing. You don’t pay taxes on loans. Plus, as long as the gains are making more in interest than the loan, you come out on top. What’s the solution? I’m not sure, but it’s more complicated than anything proposed by red or blue. I just know that the working white stiffs like most of us will keep getting the short straw.
I do not disagree. I was merely pointing out that there are simpler ways to tax the rich. What you describe, by the way, is why things like sports franchises are so valued. The franchise is bought on credit. The value of the asset increase and the principle decreases. The owners then refinance the franchise and take a portion as a loan to themselves.
It is pretty easy to beat the returns on loans when the interest rates are below 4% too.
It is pretty easy to beat the returns on loans when the interest rates are below 4% too.
You understand that trying to beat the oddsmakers is a rather serious gamble, right?
Around here, the oddsmakers are so conservative that they aren’t yet even giving anywhere close to 1% on money market accounts.
Some people can and will beat the oddsmakers, but most will not.
Even the “rule of law” is a lie. Our phones never stop ringing, either cell or landline, with Indian scammers and the government will do absolutely nothing about it. But they got plenty of time to hand out 10 million dollar fines to “racist” robocallers.
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/nearly-10m-penalty-for-man-who-made-antisemitic-racist-robocalls-683114
or to charge them with felony crimes in the case of Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl
I saw another story yesterday of 2 cops getting indicted because some African American who was running from them on a moped got hit by a car (not a police car, some random car driven by a citizen) while blowing a stop sign or red light in DC. This is a new low. It is just another example of how the law is weaponized. DC’s chase policy is written in such a way where it is so vague that it is entirely up to the discretion of the prosecutor. The rules are as clear as mud. So if you are a white cop and you chase a non-white, there is plenty of wiggle room to throw you under the bus.
A myriad of contradictory laws and selective enforcement.
One of the great hallmark’s of the Bolshevik soviet time.
A myriad of contradictory laws and selective enforcement. One of the great hallmark’s of the Bolshevik soviet time.
Which is precisely why we get down on our hands and knees and thank the Lord God Almighty for dispatching Saint Joseph Djugashvili to empty the House on the Embankment.
I often look at the shamdemic as one of the great indicators of mass hypnosis and worshiping of state power; but the fact remains that modern American policing seems to have an almost similar story. What white guy would be a police officer now? What honest white guy would stay, and wouldn’t be looking for a way out?
Sure, people may speak of the pension/benefits and whatever, and maybe these types feel like there is nowhere left to go. But surely? That said, perhaps many police persons really cannot put together the dots – it just seems so counter to being a white person, this being a copper lark.
Propaganda, lies, brainwashing… it’s all there.
Speaking of criminal acts, has anyone heard about the identity of the Boise mall shooter who was arrested yesterday. I have made at least a moderate effort to learn that information and have had no luck. Could this person give a black eye to relentless diversity push in Idaho?
I scanned several headlines and the identity of the suspect in custody is not named so it’s a save bet to employ the Coulter Effect.
Idaho was the #1 state people moved to last year (gee, I wonder why?) so expect all sorts of shenanigans (probably lies to keep on topic) to pop up.
This is why, although we’re supposed to tremble in fear of East Asian, and particularly Chinese culture as “the future” that will dominate us. I find the culture to be autistic and prone to making massive bets on things that don’t necessarily pan out. What worries me, as what was previously posted on here by Z-Man (I was thinking this very thought for years) is that the culture of D.C. has imported the mandarin nature of East Asia, while the center of the country is nothing like that. So while the country itself doesn’t have the cohesion and group think to make big bets on terrible ideas, the D.C. crowd does, and they’re currently betting the farm on stupidity that would never fly between the Appalachians and the Sierras, and yet another reason why democracy really doesn’t reflect the culture in a large, continental country as it would in a place like Denmark. The larger format the country, the more democracy breaks down.
A bit of a tangent from your post, but the debacle at the California ports is a perfect reason for any other state to secede. Surely this is once instance where DC has a constitutional mandate to step in because California is wrecking interstate commerce and even acting as the sovereign by effectively enacting a shipping blockade for the whole country. If the federal government is going to let one of the states arbitrarily block 40% of the imports to half the country then the other states not only should but must leave the union in order to achieve arrangements that won’t deprive the people of prosperity.
If the regime wanted those ports operating at full capacity they would be. We can safely take it as a starting assumption. Pretending it’s a choice left up to California gov. gives regime someone else to blame publicly. Why then would the regime deliberately hinder things? It’s an old protectionist trick to find reasons to block imports. How many of those ships are loaded with Chinese imports? My bet is that the port blockage is another expression of the growing conflict with China. We as nativist advocates for home based re-industrialization have projected how painful weaning ourselves from Chinese “trade” relationship would be. Not that I believe the regime intends to rebuild American industrial capacity but only to apply pressure to find slave labor elsewhere.
There are plenty of places other than Commie China where slave labor exists: Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Fiji, Madagascar, most of the countries in Africa.
Our industries have chosen Commie China because our industries over the las 15 years have been taken over by communists fresh out of the communist propaganda mills we call “universities” now running them. The same reason almost all media and social media are a bunch of Free speech censoring pigs.
The “slaves” mean nothing to these people it’s the commies that count.
Every institution and industry in America is currently controlled by Bolsheviks. That’s what happens when we let the evil bastards distract America from controlling the education of its children.
We don’t need an insurrection, we need a reckoning and make these fascist commie pigs pay. Dearly.
Although they’re phasing it out (or rumored to be) the ChiComs also subsidize labor over there. So not only are you getting very good slave labor, you’re getting it for free. Add in good (but not great) infrastructure and access to other resources and China bowls over the competition
Is “Commie” a code word for “Capitalist?”
Our friends who control banks: loaned themselves the money to buy the companies and transfer them offshore. It’s more profitable to be transnational capitalists, make product in a cheap place, sell in an expensive location, realize the gains in a tax haven.
Look into the blacks, black rock, stone, water, cube. Private wealth funds, gunmen, spies, …
Paul Singer, unit 8200, and other associated greaterer allies are transferring high tech to the start up nation. As fast as possible, ahead of our fall.
Ports in Washington state are the same. Little to nothing being offloaded.
Something is going on Something strange.
Sort of like the gasoline ‘shortages’ of the 70’s
Weren’t we dumb enough to sell a bunch of ports to our China bros a few years back?
I thought some of those sales included West Coast ports.
I tried to find out who actually owned the Port of Tacoma a few days ago, didn’t get very far.
On the China thing, the only reason we aren’t at war with China now is that the Chinese being well antiquated with skullduggery aren’t really sure who is really in charge of the US and if they are an actual threat to them.
Look at the current order of succession
If President Biden is removed via the 25th its Harris who has been seen on TV acting really weird and might resign or so I’ve heard After her is Pelosi who isn’t all there sometimes and after Pelosi is Patrick Leahy!
Age doesn’t effect the Chinese assumptions very much but having such an unstable order of succession with the most qualified person an octogenarian from Vermont seems so unlike the US , the Chinese are probably thinking its a set up .
Even if it isn’t with all that is going on its a near certain collapse scenario. All they have to do is wait.
There’s a fairly visible straight line between California mandating lower emission standards for trucks that are impossible for trucks older than 3 years to meet and the lack of trucks to take containers from California ports.
Interesting take on the market and lying. I had a series of long conversations with a fellow Catholic Trad. He has been a very successful businessman and is always starting new ones. I myself ran my own business. While he never recommneded outright dishonesty, there was definitely a ‘right-to-the-edge” quality of what he suggested in terms of how one could present products…perhaps its why I was never that successful at business!
Why wouldnt that translate into politics.?
There is one fellow, with hair sometimes yellow, who boasts of his “truthful hyperbole.”
Did you really write this post?
“The cost to the collective strength that comes from the lack of trust is less than the benefit that comes from stronger individual members.”
This is a simplistic endorsement of Machiavelian diktat minus the Straussian/Antonian overly. “The few, the proud, the ubermenschen.” Your usually trenchant commentary is way beyond that.
If Herodotus is the source of Greco-classical revisionism, how do we know the Greeks who allegedly defeated the Persians were so mistrustful of one another?
Even if strict liability in tort for the sale of defective products (extended to services in many states) isn’t what it used to be, don’t tell the poor used care dealer who gets nailed because he sold a car “as is” with standard warranties and then gets walloped for a defective sensor he couldn’t’ve known existed.
If your point is that government in a decadent nation is dominated by grifters, flaneurs, hustlers and mountebanks, even the kids on Tik Tok can tell you that.
Moreover, dishonesty in exchange isn’t exclusively capitalist. The USSR, at the end, had the same issue (the old saw of, “we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us”). As did pre-capitalist imperial markets, etc. Dishonesty is a human problem, not an organization problem. As long as humans run a system, lies will be told.
Mistrust of government is a bedrock American value, a lot lip service still given to it. The contradiction is strange.
Oops, here I thought it was Cyrus who dismissed the Greeks as liars!
“It also allows the zombies in Conservative Inc. to come out from under their beds and do their libertarian dance.” That’s great writing.
When you consider the laws promoting “puffery”, you realize that dishonesty is built into the system. Or, when you look at the absurdity of advertising. Well, all I’ve got to say to that is, “Welcome to reality!”
This is a good article that outlines how the Covid psyop has been used as a cover for the breakdown of the financial system/global economy:
https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/a-self-fulfilling-prophecy-systemic-collapse-and-pandemic-simulation/
Breakdown? What are you on about, man?
I’m safe behind my perspex safety screens, with three masks on and washing my hands every thirty seconds… no collapse’ll get me!
On a serious note this was one of the things I gave immense consideration to upon the arrival of the shamdemic. After it being one, two, three then four weeks with no bodies piling up outside, it became clear that something sinister was afoot.
I’ve since replaced the word ‘sinister’ with ‘evil’. All we can do is prepare the best we can, spiritually and physically and try and have a decent network when things begin to decline at a greater rate. But this decline may have a lot of life in it, I hate to say.
Its funny isn’t it.
After 2 years of no bodies and no blood spurting from eyeballs in the street you think the livestock would have noticed something?
Yet even today I notice an uptick in the mask retards out and about due to the TV/media’s were all freaking doomed mantra coming round again.
I honestly have trouble processing it as real people doing this.
Maybe we can replace Guy Fawkes with Mask Day every year.
Penny for the mask!
“I honestly have trouble processing it as real people doing this.”
It’s difficult to know if these are the ‘go-along, get-along’ types, or full blown Branch Covidians. But it is sad to see. That said, where I am in the UK, the mask wearing has dropped massively – especially since the latest ‘crisis’ resolved itself… The dreaded fuel-shortage.
Strange, when at school, we always learnt that Guy Fawkes was very, very naughty…
I’d say it’s impossible to know who’s who out at the store.
I hope that most still in face diapers are unjabbed and just going along to get along.
I fear that most still in face diapers are jabbed true believers.
OrangeFrog: I only wish all those masked morons are as likely to die as they fear they are.
I remember, before getting kicked off my local “next door.com” site, asking for bodies. There is no pandemic without everyone knowing at least one, or several dead people.
Stores would close not because they wre told to do so , but because half the employees were dead. Thats a pandemic
Before I just either didn’t discuss the shamdemic, or just call it evil, this would be my go to line: “Where are the bodies in the street, huh?”.
People got rather defensive, to put it mildly. As you say, if people are not obviously dropping dead, of all ages, all over the place, then there’s not really a big problem.
But the peep-al loves themselves the ‘stistix from da gubmint.
Nextdoor turned out to be peak karen. With male karens being some of the worst. I got tossed for repeatedly posting “what is a ‘case’?” or simply “Cases?” any time they squealed about exploding/skyrocketing/soaring/surging cases.
I knew early on we were already in a mass delusion/hysteria when these normal on the surface people would react violently against the most benign attempts to bring reason into the discussion. Suddenly everyone was an expert on the emergency and completely devoid of rational thought. Full trigglypuff. All in a culture of defect-defect trading in lies, but suddenly the government and media and whole apparatus were beacons of truth. heh.
The very definition of a case, for example, and the rapid and most obvious moving of the various goalposts and definitions of words went unnoticed. The talking points were eagerly gobbled up and regurgitated. That blind hysterics and the ritualistic howling from the front porches every evening sealed it. That was creepy AF. “We” are most definitely not all in this together.
It reminds me of Quatermass and the Pit, where they discover a Martian spaceship from 5million years BC that starts broadcasting a signal into the city.
80% of the population immediately turn into a hive mind controlled by the signal, hunting for those not of the hive in order to cleanse the hive. It turns out the majority were descendants of the genetically engineered humans created by the same insectoid Martians as slaves.
It gets more real every day.
If only we could shut off the broadcast signal.
Totally agree. I just quit after it became one hysterical post after another about people not wearing masks or businesses that didn’t enforce diapering. Truly pathetic.
My wife, in passing mentioned she was having to take care of the neighbors animals as the neighbor had another close death (Husband died 2 months ago) . A 30 something mother of two months who was fine Thursday, felt ill and went to the hospital Friday and died Saturday. When I asked if she’d been recently vaccinated I almost got my head bitten off.
We live in a binary world.
It’s coming…from the satan shot. Immune systems shitting the bed won’t be pretty.
Wow – thanks for that. Happy reading indeed – what a cluster you know what.
When you look at the history of the United States, it does seem that it always needed an enemy and/or challenge to keep the factions united. The frontier and the taming/conquering of the West – along with that little dust up from 1861-1865 – provided an outlet.
Once the South and the West were subdued (around the end of the 19th century), the American democracy started to look abroad for enemies. We started with a warm-up by attacking the Spanish and then moved to the big leagues with WWI and WWII. The Cold War provided an almost perfect enemy for fifty years.
It seems no coincidence that the infighting amongst the various tribes in America started picking up steam after the fall of the USSR. TPTB have tried to replace the enemy, first with Muslims, then Russia and now China, but none of them stick, so we always turn back to internal enemies.
Of course, let’s also not forget that a certain tribe really started to consolidate power at about the same time that the United States lost its great enemy. That tribe is great at gaining power but isn’t know for governing ability, at least not over other tribes.
We are a democratic empire lacking an enemy to united it and ruled by a cunning but ultimately incompetent (at least at the task of ruling) tribe. Things aren’t looking so great for the good ol’ USA, but, on the other hand, there’s a great deal of ruin in a nation this powerful so it could take some time before things fall apart.
Citizen, I believe this is the most optimistic comment I’ve ever read from you!
Solid, pithy observations, as always. Thanks.
One of my depressors in this tragic time is the ravenous hunger my countrymen displayed, post-COVID, in 2021. They revealed a hollow hunger for two of History’s classical ‘unattainables’: Heroes. And Enemies.
No nation, having killed its Ancestors, heroes and Founders – as America’s intelligentsia have done systematically, can knit new credible ones out of whole cloth. So questions like, Who is Essential? Who are the Heroes? Who are Our Enemies? that we no longer know the answers to, float around unanswered.
We’ve lost our bearings, and so, sensing our deliberate confusion, the Media/Left has stepped into the gap.
It’s 2021 and we’re hungry now. We’ve killed our Father. And we’re growing furious. And we’re grasping at anything that floats like a drowning swimmer, eager to smother either salvation or device, if it buys our Mores one more breath – as though the two polar opposites were comparable food-stuffs on offer at the ethnic corner grocer.
It’s this pathetic grasping, for an oily iconic Greek binary by the same officials and Capital media that conspired in the felling of the old cultural pillars, that ought to prod the thinking citizen. The minting of fresh Icons in old temples is done by vandals and cleft-thinkers. If this yen to leaven both enemies and heroes out of crisis’ dust is picked-up and amplified by official media in the months ahead, I fear either War or rank internal repression.
“So questions like, Who is Essential? Who are the Heroes? Who are Our Enemies?”
I think our elites have provided some provisional answers.
MLK is the greatest American who ever lived, maybe followed by Caesar Chavez, to appease the hispanics. Probably Barak and Michelle, given time.
Traditional whites are the enemy.
Beautiful comment.
I fear both.
The unification function of war has always been second to its enrichment function. $273 Million a day ain’t peanuts.
You’ve lost me on the point about modern capitalism being about lying, fraud and deception. Certainly many defects of our system can be attributed to the dishonest, but the fundamental premise of a market based economy is that value is both subjective and unknown until a transaction takes place.
The simplest manifestation of this is to walk into a ubiquitous third world market to buy fruit. You get to look at the fruit, squeeze it and then sample it. Thereafter, you barter with the owner about cost. You understand what the price should be but you also know there is value to the fruit other than the money – that is the surplus you gain by parting with you money. Conversely, the merchant parting with those goods makes a decision whether the goods are worth the price you bid for them. The essence of the agreement is that you both meet at some place where you both gain from the transaction.
We can scale this concept up to the modern economy and talk about Bernays-ian deception through advertising and messaging. We can then add in social pressure and desire for conformity. And then we can mix in fraud. But those aspects, though common, are bugs that can be resolved through government.
But still, at its root, a transaction is an exchange where both parties agree to some value. Look to the stock market where every single transaction has both a buyer and a seller agreeing to a price and getting a trade done. Both disagree as to whether the price of that stock is going up or down. Just because one is right and one is wrong, doesn’t necessarily mean fraud is occurring or one party is dishonesty
When extrapolated, this core precept of the capitalistic system has enabled extraordinary human progress and been the foundry of success for western civilization when combined with its highly capable people
.
Of course, the excesses and gamesmanship of the ruling class do not resemble anything close to a capitalist system. And, a capitalistic systems needs to have rules enforced and protections in place coupled with a rigorous anti-trust mechanism.
But the alternatives are simply wasteful, anti-freedom and anti-western man.
Good analysis, and I agree.
“The simplest manifestation of this is to walk into a ubiquitous third world market to buy fruit. You get to look at the fruit, squeeze it and then sample it.”
Mmmm… dried out fruit from a bazaar fondled and fingered by Mahmoud, Afshar & Ranjat… fresh after washing down their camels. It’s the future; haggle away!
Haha, but the best fruit in the world, passion fruit, comes from those places…
This is one of the areas libertarianism goes off the rails. It just assumes that any transaction that happens is by definition, mutually beneficial because it happened. Like it’s a tautology. Then, extrapolating it is even worse, because then you get the cries about how limiting free trade is damaging to the consumer. It is a very short step from all trade is mutually beneficial to “barriers to trade” is harmful because you are preventing this voluntary exchange (which by definition is good). Of course, this is why drugs should be all legal.
Ok, then what would the basis of any transaction? Saying it’s always theft is as inane as saying it’s always fair. I don’t think it’s either. But the starting point cannot be “everyone is lying” which implies that someone is better off than someone else in every single transaction. If everyone understood this, that they were being cheated or losing from every trade, they wouldn’t enter into any agreements. And commerce would halt beyond basic necessities.
You can point out a million flaws: poor personal discretion, desperation, asymmetrical information, etc, but the basis for making any decision in life stems from rational choice. Or else you’d have to rewrite all of western canon.
Within the realm of that plane, you can than strip out the instances where you may want to block exchange of information/goods on certain premises that your society chooses.
And that’s where I think we have to start thinking about how we define our side – from “first principles.”
Th other day I noted that changing concept of government is a consequence of immigration.
Your comment, that market transactions are inherently zero sum and abusive is another. The pets that the left is importing believe that. It fits we’re their master-slave conception of society.
Let’s not internalize their world view. OK
It’s very pleasant when one meets someone with whom they can have a genuine exchange; with lying at a minimum. As far as I’m concerned, the more people have an even greater number of human connections (digital or real), the more the lying amps up. Ever prevalent media devices have magnified this and are, for many, inescapable.
I’ve been conducting an exercise recently, carefully parsing my exchanges with various people I encounter for this lying. The result I’ve found is that almost every exchange was just a sequence of lies and or passive-aggressive balless-ness that was rather sickening and tiresome. A recent exchange with a manager had him repeatedly tell me he was “disappointed” in me; you know, I didn’t do something I ought to have. It was all rather mealy mouthed, phoney, forced and dishonest.
That said, there is lying, and then there is Lying – The System does both; always and everywhere with sphincter squeezing intensity, simply to alter reality. It’s all so tiresome… But it’s even faker and gayer than that.
That’s where if I were able, I’d make a sharp distinction between “lying” and “haggling.” It doesn’t surprise me that Xerxes wouldn’t have known the difference. I have no idea how to draw that line, but like everyone who has ever traveled in the Third World, I got tired of the constant haggling in about three hours. Nothing is straightforward. Nothing is on the level. Everyone is trying to get over on everyone, with everything, always. The same joke made about Brazil applies to China, India, anyplace that kind of thing is endemic: They’re the country of the future, and always will be, because they can’t stop screwing each other over long enough to accomplish anything.
Whatever the Regime does or doesn’t do — and I’m starting to come around to the idea that most people are simply tuning The Media out at this point — there’s your future: Instead of a boot stomping on a human face, imagine haggling with a New Delhi rug merchant, for everything, forever.
There’s the time factor involved as well. It’s no wonder some of these nations can’t do the bootstrap thing, they’re too busy pissing away their mornings on trying to get or save one last rupiah, riel, or kyat. Lee Kwan Yew grasped the need for well-defined systems to lubricate the gears of commerce and society.
like everyone who has ever traveled in the Third World, I got tired of the constant haggling in about three hours. Nothing is straightforward. Nothing is on the level. Everyone is trying to get over on everyone, with everything, always.
Yes. That was what put me off poverty tourism back when backpacking was a thing. Everybody you meet and talk to has one agenda and one agenda only: rip you off as big as possible.
I can’t say I blame them but it freaked me the fuck out.
Heck, one summer growing up I had a job in a tourist trap location in a Great Lakes state.
Car rolls up with out of state plates?
Game on!
Yeah, but that’s different. In the Western World, you’re only ripped off by people who work in the tourist industry, not by each and every person you meet.
There used to be a fellow by the name of Stanley, who did some poverty tourism of Africa way back in the 1880s. He didn’t have an iPhone and an Instagram account, just a Maxim.
That’s the way to do it. The authentic colonial experience.
I well remember haggling with Hajji in Iraq, 2003, using porno mags as currency for cigarettes and other stuff.
Some of the first English I heard from some Iraqi dude with his Saddam mustache was almost invariably, “You have tit book?”
The Americanized “haggle” is the business trying to goad you into a fight. What I most hated about living in NYC was how often the way a business expected to be used—where to wait, how to order, whom to pay, etc.—was a secret, and if you came in not knowing it, employees and regulars would gang up and attack you.
The fiction in the “Soup Nazi” episode of Seinfeld is the irresistible draw of the soup. It was irrelevant. What he sold was the opportunity to join a screaming mob. They literally cheered when they chased away people who wanted to try the soup.
Meh, the alternative view of that behavior is the in group had informal rules to keep outsiders out.
Which is something YT and the dissident right could learn from and take to heart.
Their are some things to know that will benefit you in any exchange that requires haggling with sand people. First, be the first customer of the day they simply must sell you whatever it is you seem interested in and will be willing to take a loss in order to win the sale.. Secondly always be willing to walk away. This will anger them & they will remember you so don’t ever go to that merchant again go to his competitors. Eventually he will want to sell to you so badly again he will take a loss. Thirdly & I found this to really be the least stressful. Tell the guy you’re just not in the market but did admire what ever it was he was selling. Then ask him to have a cup of tea take some time a smoke a friendly conversation. If you go this route they consider you a gentleman and are willing to come to a reasonable agreement. I found this to be very effective. Bought some spectacular antique firearms for very reasonable prices.
There is also lying, Lying, LYING with the ability to force you to repeat the Lies at the barrel of a gun and the systematic construction of a culture wide torrent that intentionally consists of nothing but falsehoods and projection to humiliate(not sure what to call this last one).
The system does not just lie it also forces you to accept it or the social A-10 scorched earth approach will be applied to your life, career and family.
That is a great position to be in for the pathologically malicious.
As Cartman was wont to say it becomes no more than:
“Respect my Authoriteee”.
Do dishonest governments make dishonest men? Or is it the other way around?
Trump is a good example.
Developing real estate in NYC is near impossible. Banks won’t lend money until you get the permits, the government won’t give you permits until you get the money, and a million other variations of moving pieces have to fall into place for anything to get done. So of course it’s “liars poker”; there is no honest way to accomplish much of anything.
Maybe it was always thus.
Some men were made to get things done in Rome.
Some men were made to get things done in Tarantum.
Caesars can be made anywhere, though eventually they need to deal with Rome.
Reminds me of the scene in Back To School when Thornton Mellon is telling the econ professor how things work in the real world if you want to build a factory: “First of all you’re going to have to grease the local politicians for the sudden zoning problems that always come up. Then there’s the kickbacks to the carpenters, and if you plan on using any cement in this building I’m sure the teamsters would like to have a little chat with ya, and that’ll cost ya. Oh and don’t forget a little something for the building inspectors. Then there’s long term costs such as waste disposal. I don’t know if you’re familiar with who runs that business but I assure you it’s not the boy scouts.”
Tangential, I realize, but your point about democracies being hyper-violent is really important, despite it flying in the face of what “everybody knows.” Back in the 80s we were taught that no two “democracies” have ever fought each other — you can disprove that in about 10 seconds of googling, but whatevs, just roll with me. Then in the 90s we were taught that no two nations with a McDonald’s have ever gone to war. Again, 5 seconds’ googling would disprove it, but there it is.
The point is that nations observably get more bellicose the more “democratic” they get. Kaiser Bill was so belligerent precisely because his nation was getting more democratic. A Bourbon, or even a Bonaparte, wouldn’t have been so dumb as to ally with the Russians, the Russians themselves were eager to go to war to defend “pan-Slavism” because Nicholas II could never forget the humiliation of being forced to grant a representative assembly, and so on. Take it back further: The England of 1831 would’ve told Jardine Matheson to suck it up, buttercup, them’s the breaks; but the England of 1839 invaded China on their behalf, thanks to the 1832 Reform Act. The only exception I can think of offhand to democracy increasing bellicosity is Australia, and, well, look where democracy has gotten them….
One wonders what would’ve happened if the crowned heads of Europe had kept their heads crowned in 1914. No doubt the US would’ve annexed quite a bit of Latin America, and probably fought Britain for Canada (as they nearly did in the late 1890s)….
“…— you can disprove that in about 10 seconds of googling…”
This reminds me of a common occurrence in my interactions:
Person A: Makes assertion out of their ass/”As Seen on TV”
Person B: Hey, let’s look it up, here I have my phone.
Person A: “No, no NO!”
The “democracies are inherently peaceable” bullshit was based on world events post WWII.
And completely ignored the fact that the US became the prime world hegemon after that war and modeled the governments of its dependencies on itself (as the soviets also did). So it would have been more accurate to state that “countries” within the American Empire did not fight each other. Which is a well duh. That’s kind of the point of running an empire in the first place.
Had Germany won WWII most countries in Europe and the world would have adopted national socialist governments. Had the US lost the Cold War most of the world would have adopted socialist republic governments.
That’s not even debatable as a historical artifact.
In the 18th century when Republican France was triumphant lots of new republics were born. And died to be replaced with constitutional monarchies as soon as Napoleon was finally defeated.
And as far as democracies never going to war, we’ll the US was the most belligerent country of the 19th. century. Followed by Great Britain. Followed by the various French republics.
But yeah, other than the only democracies of that century engaging in perpetual war, no democracy had started one.
Sharp take. Truth is indeed an impediment to liberal democracy/fascism.
As to the alleged billionaire tax, that fraud is being pushed for a second reason. While most people, including those in Congress, are innumerate and economic illiterate, there is widespread agreement among those who are not that inflation is going to get much, much worse. This so-called infrastructure grift will throw gasoline onto the fire.
So this fraudulent tax will be used as a fig leaf to claim the latest round of looting is fully paid. Of course, when courts strike it down and Treasury solemnly announces it cannot be enforced but the funds have to be raised somehow, the mostly White middle class will be strip mined once again.
You recently wrote that deficit spending can continue considerably longer. There I disagree, and that is based on the actions of those who shape economic policy. For example, a story not being reported is the widening insider trading scandal among Federal Reserve members and the Treasury secretary, who is all down with this grift and probably has her eye on some building material equities.
While nearly impossible, it would be pure karma if the billionaire tax became reality. Probably ain’t happening but a boy can hope.
The economy is being set up for implosion, and the grifters are grifting while the gritting is good.
The melt up in TSLA due to the headlines that recently emerged from bankruptcy rental car agency Hertz will buy 100k Teslas seems like a signal that we are witnessing a blowoff top.
I am still thinking this is some form of elaborate April fool.
I mean WTAF.
How does that work when you return your rental TESLA?
Do you have to have a “full charge” when you return it, or just pay the overpriced “re-charge” fee?
Instead of a quick car wash, now it has to go to a recharging station for a few hours for the next renter?
This seems like more of an appeal-to-vanity play by Hertz. They used to rent impractical sports cars..but never very many of them at a single location, and always at a ridiculous premium.
Hertz probably has been tipped off related to electric cars/tax credits.
Word is the Woke big banks wouldn’t float the loans to buy ICE vehicles.
I just realized Tesla is now a $1 trillion company.
5% of the total US GDP.
Its amazing what concerted worldwide government regulation can do for your business model.
My first thought was “do we then get to claim unrealized losses?” I mean no one would pay any taxes again ever if that was the case*
*From what I understand there is a limit to how much of write-down one can take, I think.
In this particular case I don’t agree. I think this is part of a long plan to seize private retirement accounts. Eventually they want to nationalize all 401(k)s and IRAs and will give you a monthly payout instead of allowing you to draw it down as you see fit or pass it on to your heirs. Steve Sailer talks about how the equity portion of DIE means they want the equity in your house, they also want your life savings. At a minimum they don’t want you to be able to leave it to your privileged white kids and grandkids.
Both are true. This sham is to grease the skids for strip mining the White middle class because that ol’debbil GOP saved the billionaires through the courts.
They have already seized your retirement funds. Everything about them is controlled by a small class of people who control the financial system.
Yup.
At some point we will go to our brokerage accounts with the intent of selling equities for cash and find that:
1) There are no sellers in the market, only buyers.
2) Every instance of the ‘SELL’ button has been removed from the platform.
Uh, 1) should read-
1) There are no buyers in the market, only sellers.
Someone needs more coffee!
The financial sector really would like to monopolize the real estate market so there is o alternative to equity investment for this very reason. That is probably too costly at the moment. I expect a controlled real estate crash some time before 2024 so the financial houses can expand real estate holdings. This is how Whites can be deprived of their equity there.
I’m currently looking at some interesting properties in low cost of living areas. The market seems to have cooled off *slightly*.
A couple are decent houses in decent areas of a 71% white metro that run about $300/mo on a 30-year fixed note. This is well under my means.
The other two are mixed-use with two residential units and retail/office space that run around $550-650/mo on a thirty year fixed. These are in a small 93% white city.
I *think* I could set up either mixed-use property to get someone else paying the mortgage, but the possible utility and maintenance costs give me pause.
I’m assuming that you mean the single family home market since institutional money already dominates other commercial real estate and is consolidating that control even more with fintech.
But, yes, the SFR (single family rental) is the one area – outside of farmland – that Wall Street hasn’t been able to get its tentacles into that deeply. Well, it has the loan on your house, but that’s not enough. It wants the actual house.
Granted, this isn’t my area, but I know enough to know that the problem for Wall Street is that the SFR market is unbelievably diffuse. Wall Street works on scale. One house isn’t even a round error on a rounding error. They need whole developments.
Unless Wall Street can figure out how to manage a ton of individual rentals over a large geographic area (unlikely), it needs people to accept renting en masse. That’s why institutional money (big and small) likes apartment complexes. They’re big enough to be worth the effort.
Institutional money likes (needs) scale. They get way better financing rates than you and me, but only for big deals. They can also hire apartment complex managers but, again, they need a big enough complex to make that work.
Scale.
Therefore, Wall Street/institutional money needs whole rental communities. Basically, apartment complexes but with single family homes instead of apartments.
But to get whole rental communities, you need people willing to forego buying their own home and living in a rental house for a long time either because they want to or because they can’t afford a house.
This would require a massive change in the American landscape and psyche. Owning your own home has always been a central part of the “American Dream.” Home ownership has also always been central to middle-class wealth. Indeed, without home ownership, there really isn’t much middle-class wealth.
If institutional money starts taking over the single family home market, it’s game over for middle-class America. They will return to being serfs.
But institutional money is hugely motivated to get into this market. Bonds don’t pay squat. The stock market is expensive. They already own other parts of the commercial real estate market. SFR offers the last place to earn a decent return, especially since financing is unbelievably cheap.
They’re going to try their best to get into this market. But it can only really work if people are willing to living in single-family rental communities. If they don’t want that, i.e. giving up their dream of their own home, it won’t work. Institutional money needs scale; it needs those big community projects.
We’ll see.
Citizen: Yes, SFR’s. Elimination/debasement of single family residences via zoning currently is underway. I think that will be done over time. See California.
The existence of single family residences is indeed the largest impediment to destruction of the White middle class. I’m looking at how the financial sector is able to wrest those that currently exist and are not vulnerable to multi-family, read “non-White,” zoning changes. That will be a tough nut to crack unless clever taxation such as surcharges on energy usage, to save the planet, mind you, are implemented.
At those prices, WGH, buy them. The only reason to be concerned, and it is a good one, is that there is an ongoing attempt to nationalize zoning to eliminate White enclaves. That is tough for the Ruling Class and financial sector to do but efforts are underway.
Elimination of single family residences is a top priority of TPTB.
Aside from outright theft (which is not beyond the realm of possibility) the next best thing is reverse mortgages to deprive middle classes of home ownership. I guess that didn’t pan out because I have not heard as much about them lately.
Reply to Jack Dobson: The massive inflation in home prices does make me nervous about when the crash will come. If we could we’d sell tomorrow, but we have yet to build somewhere new to live. It’s a hedging/betting game and I really don’t want to play.
Reply to Citizen re Single Family Homes: From what I’ve heard/read and seen, various domestic and international firms are buying up massive numbers of homes – entire neighborhoods in some instances. Almost every home for rent here in DFW – regardless of price point or suburb – is also now simultaneously for sale – and the buyers are not individual families or even small investors. We get letters weekly by various front firms we’ve never heard of offering to purchase our house sight unseen.
The point is both to own the homes so Whites cannot accrue wealth or afford to form families, and not necessarily to rent those homes even at exorbitant rates. Ultimate goal is merely holding them as assets on the books and as a place for foreigners to park their ill-gotten gains by buying US property. Both a simultaneous win for the big global money men, and a huge obstacle overcome on the way to ‘you will own nothing.’ Herd the people into the cities, eternally single and eternal renters and worker bees.
@citizen-
Single family rentals are a tax avoidance scheme for the upper middle class. It works by renting the property at a loss. Basically, you charge enough rent so that the tenant pays for the interest and maintenance, and you pay the principal out of pocket and claim the loss against income, kicking you down a bracket. Basically, equity becomes a tax deduction, then you sell when you retire or see a drop in income to realize equity at a lower tax bracket. There’s no way to rent a SFR profitably because it requires having tenants who can afford to own a home but don’t qualify for a mortgage, and are willing to pay a premium to not share a roof with outer families (in other words, you’re looking for a unicorn).
3g4me:
The timing is difficult, but there have been recent indications from the Fed implying rate increases in the next year or so are on tap. That serves two purposes:
1. It stampedes individuals to buy houses at inflated prices while interest rates are low; and
2. Signals to the financial sector that a recession is scheduled that will throw many of these aforementioned suckers out of work and may result in their houses being available and they looking for rentals.
I am seeing the same as you. Much of it is inexplicable. I recently sold a house in a suburb for double what it would have brought two years ago; the buyer more or less fronted for a financial entity (which, of course, made no difference to me) and the house is being reconfigured into what appears to be a duplex although current zoning does not permit this. My office, which I own, cannot get on the market soon enough; the biggest draw for it are the two rental houses on the same plot since this is mixed use real estate. I fully expect the office component to be rezoned for residential purposes.
The biggest fly in the ointment is the Fed and its financial sector pets have forces beyond their control that could bring on an economic collapse before scheduled.
This insanity is happening nationwide. There are pockets here and there where prices remain sane and stable, and those are prime places for relocation because they apparently are not targeted for diversity. Yet.
Drew: GREAT insight there.
Within the next few tax code revisions, I look for depreciation schedules to be revised to make single family residences into less attractive investments for upper middle class (read “White Karens and Chads”) types. It will require the needle to be threaded in such a way it doesn’t impact the financial sector investors. A way will be found.
Didn’t they already do this once with the video game store (I want to say gamestop)? They disabled all trading (except selling, of course) in the main app the reditors were using because some hedgefunds who were short the gamestop were losing a ton of money.
yep,
We caught a glimpse of this with the GameStop/AMC thing a year or so ago. RobinHood decided to disallow novice stock traders from transacting those stocks to prevent them from doing exactly what professional stockbrokers do every day with computer algorithms.
It’s fine for me but not for thee.
GameStop was hilarious. Federal law enforcement more or less became more overt “Tribal Police” after Tribe members got pissed that they got bested. It also signaled to the world that American markets are approaching Third World levels of corruption.
The initial GameStop raids led by reddit user DeepFuckingValue were so successful that they managed to wreck at least two hedge funds and forced other funds into mass selloffs of equities like TSLA, AMZN, AAPL, GOOG, to cover their shorts, sending those equities quite a bit lower along the way.
Sadly, I believe the two wrecked hedge funds were later bailed out/reflated by their fellow juice farmers.
It’s already being done with inherited IRAs (other than a spouse). Prior to 2020, non-spousal inheritors such as children could draw it down over their lifetime – now it’s ten years and even that’ll probably get cut down.
It will be expanded to spouses soon enough.
Gonna be pretty ironic when the ‘muh pension’ coppers that banged your skull for their government masters … find their pensions taken away for some reason. Say, like not getting ‘Booster 72’ on time.
Then what? They “march”?
Regimes like France and Australia are exempting the bronze from the jab mandates to ensure the bronze will be eager to beat down the non-compliant on behalf of their controllers.
“…are exempting the bronze…”
Just postpones when the coppers fall off the tiger.
To follow up on Wild Geese Howard’s point about exemptions, I thought about this very point earlier. They almost will have to carve out exemptions for federal employees when IRA’s and Roths are seized.
There is no doubt, based on the ‘tell’ represented by the current oppression trajectory that those that worship at the Synagogue of Satan are licking their chops at the thought of currency restrictions, asset seizures…. and surely will be exempt themselves from these impending depradations.
There already are large marches in NYC even. They don’t have much impact as our “elite” have no respect for any other group.
There are other ways and means of course but once that starts, its just becomes a grab for stuff.
There isn’t enough countervailing ideologies out there to say “lets do this” so everyone bleeds till dry.
They don’t need to steal retirement accounts.
They have a money printer and will use it.
In a farmer’s market, haggling over price is typically good-natured banter that aids both parties in quickly finding common ground and facilitating a transaction. And this works best in a community in which people know each other and reputation can have a big impact on your livelihood. The latter is a check on going too far.
Lying is a word most often used when there is malicious intent in a deception. For example, we now know that the Stasi orchestrated the Jan 6th invasion of the Capitol Building and it’s agents proactively used deception to induce others into committing criminal acts. This is a case of malicious lying, and in a sane world, would permanently tar the reputation of the Stasi. Why are our Federal law enforcement agents actively working to manufacture crime? The answer is that they are political tools (read Jackboots) and not neutral guardians of the rule of law.
That is no trivial thing.
Where the analogy breaks down is at the farmer’s market the apple is there. It might not be as good as the seller is letting on, but the apple does exist. Under the current regime they’re saying “we’re talking all your money in an effort to bring you an apple later” and then they disappear with no apple ever to be seen.
Yes. And you can see the apple and the apple you see is the apple you get. The farmer doesn’t sell you a paper bag labelled “apples” that you can’t open until you’ve paid.
Have you seen the billboards and bus signs soliciting hate-crime snitches? Really can’t express how much I hate these maggots.
I hope that my sister doesn’t see the billboard.
Yesterday I drove past a billboard that had the standard “Huxtable” model father and son in their UMC kitchen smiling at each other because they had just taken the “Safe, Effective, and Free” mystery juice jab thereby “bringing freedom back”. So many lies in one space. The f*cking nerve of these people.
Sociopaths and the powerful only respect raw force, nothing else, And note barely that but basic survival instinct sometimes kicks in.
Our elite or so grossly out of touch they remind me of the French aristocrats who lacked the self awareness to understand why they were under a guillotine.
Ultimately though, power is truth. If you don’t have it and take it, someone else will.
Motivating men to fight can be difficult though. We can’t be motivated by faith, especially turn the other cheek BS, stuff won’t do it we are awash in stuff. Hat maybe but its weak for real change
Ultimately it has to be ideology of some kind, a belief that a new better system run by your guys would make life much much better.
We still aren’t ready to embrace radical traditionalism or the like and may never be, American values are fundamentally Leftist at their core.
I don’t know what else will work.
Even with the provocateurs trying to egg on the crowd it wasn’t an invasion or an insurrection or any other scary word the regime has tried to misrepresent events of the day with. Even seemingly friendly media sources will use the enemies language on this and that’s one quick way to tell if they are enemies too. I noticed Revolver did it recently with a story about the Fed provocateur that Massie publicly pointed out. I would have all dissidents insist on refusing to use the enemy’s mischaracterization of the protest of blatant election fraud and the attendant mild civil disobedience as a riot, insurrection, invasion etc.
Trying to get dissidents to not use the language of the enemy is like pulling teeth. Hell, just try getting them to stop smearing our women as “Karens” “Karen” is exclusively used against White women and ridicules the very notion of a normal White woman.
Or get them to stop financing the enemy by paying for subscriptions to things like netflix.
“Our women?” Originally I was with you on the karen thing. But then orang man bad, pussy hats, covid, BLM signs, maskholes, vaxx cultists, etc. broke me.
I put no women on a pedestal or extend my goodwill and protections simply because skin color. I have women in my family, friends, and community that have earned that benefit and solidarity. The rest are independent free agents, on their own. When white women are busily destroying white men and white culture it is prudent to withhold universal group solidarity until alliance can be determined.
In principle, normal white women are worthy of my solidarity. But in reality most white women – and to be fair white males, are no longer normal. Nor working for the interests of my people. Often openly working against. Heck most of these people use “white” as a pejorative. They are on their own.
Its a time of great triage. It is also war. White women broke from white men long ago. If they want my protection they can drop their progressive feminist weapons and re-enter the fold.
Otherwise traitors are worse than enemies. It may be poor form to use a nog word originally intended as anti-white agitprop, but Karen picked her side and so it is fitting in this case.
Look to “woke” as well. Originally it was aimed at us but now we all use it as a means to push back on the totalitarian alt-reality that underpins the pox animals and their handlers.
But yes, stop giving them money. And stop habitually accepting leftist framing in general.
First, “Karen” is never used for a woman who is a POC.
Second, they aren’t labeling SJW women as “Karen,” they are using it mostly for normal White women who have normal White woman desires for things like safety. Like the woman in Central Park who called the police on a man bothering her. (I do not buy the he dindu nuffin, he was bird watching BS)
They use it to harass and spread hatred and resentment against them for things like calling the cops on a black person, which is apparently no longer allowed. If it were being used against women of every race, then I would agree with everything you said. I have no problem calling a white woman an SJW or anything else personal about her and would not defer to them merely because she is white.
If we can’t stand up for (or at least not use it ourselves) OUR women, OUR sisters, OUR mothers and daughters, who are specifically being targeted because they are White women, WTF are we doing? What are we? MRAs?
Race has almost nothing to do with skin color. That is a stupid strawman of race by our enemies. Race is ancestry and how related you are to someone. It’s about nations in the true sense.
I’m not saying gender relations are normal or healthy or good. I am merely pointing out that “Karen” is anti-white slur. It is only used against White women. On the rare occasions when some cuckservative calls a black woman a “Karen,” it is almost always as a “black Karen” as opposed to it’s normal meaning which means “White woman”
Should we be calling White male SJWs “honkey” because we don’t like them? “Karen” is every bit as racist as any other racist slur.
Tars: White women are among the most officious about masks and ‘safe’ distancing. They police everyone else’s language and tone regarding ‘woke’ issues. The only slur involved is in attempting to pathologize the natural conflict inherent in any interaction with non-Whites. Then the whole issue is based on race, the reality of which these White women will deny to their children’s dying breaths, so to hell with them.
I deliberately used the term self-deprecatingly when speaking with a White store manager recently and, because I was so apologetic and polite, it totally disarmed him. I will not stop courteously complaining about something as a legitimate consumer; I do my best not to deal with blacks and other non-Whites whenever possible so the ‘Karen’ label poses no personal threat to me.
The only time I ever see it being used is against white women and usually not SJWs/Woke white women.
See my reply to screwtape.
The dissident right need to accept that most white people are your enemy.
Building a white American nation-state is going to require creating something entirely new with the proper seed stock. Most white people ain’t that. Their pathological altruism, self loathing and out group preference is genetically engrained.
That’s the bitterest black pill to swallow – but it is the reality and must be accepted.
This dumb ass democratic (former) country has enemies aplenty, the vast majority of which are imaginary. Things like covid, White nationalists, White privilege, systemic racism yada yada. And unfortunately, we’re “led” by a bunch of deracinated and fairly clever deceivers over the proverbial cliff followed closely by the united mewling and trusting morons. The future doesn’t look particularly bright.
Over the long term, maybe market-based (I.e. lying) societies select for IQ, which would explain some of the disparities among the races. The causality could run the other way: smarter people are able to create market-based societies. Then again, Arabs have their bazaars.
I’ve always been taken by the Yuri Slezkine concept of mercurial versus apollonian people. I think his formulation is a bit simplistic. Instead, it is scalar. English people have more mercurial types than Slavic people, but both population have both types. Smart fraction theory but for personality type.
I think Arabs (and Semitic-speaking peoples) are pretty smart. They have created great cities out of mud, held large empires, and generally imposed themselves and their religion on peoples round the world. Now they’re building Abu Dhabi and Riyadh while Baltimore and St. Louis go to shit. Did the bazaar prepare them for that? Maybe. I know the native Brits don’t flail around like Arabs do, but high-IQ people can be emotive.
Is that why all their engineering plant is done by the Swiss, Germans, Americans and Jap firms under contract?
Heh. I was going to add in the English architects, too. But I think Marko’s point still stands, the sand wogs did have a good time of the mathematics/astronomy way back when – and they’ve at least taken YTs tech and made places that turned out to – perhaps – be less anti-white and progressive than those places YT carved out for himself.
Trumpton? Are you related to Camberwick Green?
I wonder how much of the supposed preservation of knowledge is true, given the early accounts at the start of the printing era of rediscovery of Greek/Roman manuscripts (if they are taken at face value) are nearly always entwined with non Arabic sources from Germany/France and Italian locations, with some coming back via Persia/Baghdad from sources in Byzantium (like the Almagest).
Seems a bit “we waz kangz in some respects given the inability to progress this in the last 1000 years and the fact to-Arabic translation numbers are perhaps the lowest for any major language.
But then some areas seem to have been quite civilized before my lifetime, so who knows.
“Time goes by when you’re a driver on the train.”
Right?
In places like UAE and Qatar don’t the Western expats outnumber the natives by something like 10 or 11 to 1?
Pretty sure that the key exec and management slots at airlines like Ethiad, Emirates, and Qatar are all Western expats as well.
The Arabs didn’t create great cities. They conquered them.
And who let that happen?
Don’t look at me! I wasn’t even there.
The Arabs/Middle Easterners we know today have been in a period of decline since the late middle ages that they may be emerging from now. Now that certain Arab governments have found a way to get along with the Israelis, I think the whole region will take off. There will be tyranny and religious fanaticism of course, but it won’t get in the way of development. And we here in America are dealing with a tyranny (global capital) and religious fanaticism (progressivism) ourselves, and we aren’t even getting the fast wifi and bullet trains Dear Leader has promised.
The bullet trains are a political challenge, not a technical, or even economic one. Perhaps once the airline industry collapses bullet trains will be politically possible. For now, they want you flying the friendly skies.
Bullet trains are an economic problem. There simply isn’t a market for them that’s large enough to cover their rollout and operational costs. Plus, there’s a very narrow range where they could even have any demand (my best guess is directly connecting cities that are between 250 and 500 miles away).
I’d say bullet trains sweet spot is 100-200 miles.
And that’s only with no stops along the way and effective mass transit at either end.
No cities in the US meet those criteria.
The IQ stats for Arabs are pretty low. Nonetheless, history tells us that Arabs invented the 10-based numeral system and algebra.
Were the Arabs of the past different than the Arabs of today?
And we can’t forget that Lovecraft tells us that the “Mad Arab” Abdul Alhazred composed the mystic Necronomicon, the Book of the Dead.
“That is not dead which can eternal lie.
And with strange aeons even death may die.”
Arabs did not invent Algebra. Diophantus was Greek.
We used to call this market phenomenon “Jewing”.
Just sayin’
Waddaya mean “used to”?
Ha. What was revealing to me years ago when I played in the liars pen was that all the ivory tower discussions of “markets”, economics, capitalism, etc. were just intellectual rituals to keep the rubes and goy fixated on principles as opposed to shining the light on the operant culture. A lot like how young white boys are taught all about equal rights, chivalry, and Nice Guy morality while the savages and cads take their turns with the girls.
Eventually, after all the maths and charts in the world repeatedly failed to demonstrate how a market would correct for a determined psychopath, you either learn to become more jooey yourself or you take whats left of your chips and leave.
To this day when people want to debate the merits of “Capitalism” versus other derivatives absent any mention of the culture and character of those who would occupy such a system, it rings hollow like other great debates of libertarians. And I then wonder if they are trying to convince me that a human system can be self-purifying to become more pure than the sum of the hearts of the men within it – or if they are trying to convince themselves that their own lies and deception are whitewashed because at least its not socialism, which is bad.