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Corruption is a natural part of government, regardless of the type of government, because men are not angels. Government has the power to compel which means it will always attract the sorts of people who are comfortable using force to take the property of others. In this regard, government corruption is a measure of the tolerance of corruption in the system. Government corruption is a function of the culture that controls the actions of the people in government.
By way of example, think about cheating in sports. Baseball developed a steroid problem because the culture within the sport came to tolerate it. No player dared report another player as it would lower his status in the sport. Once the league instituted tough drug testing measures, the culture changed. Players caught cheating let down their teams and even cost teammates money. This lowered their status so the culture of tolerance flipped to a culture of intolerance.
Police departments have always struggled with the culture of corruption. In the last century, big city police departments would go from clean to dirty almost overnight due to the actions of a few crooked cops. The crooked cops would find ways to get other cops to take bribes or participate in shakedowns. This made all the cops guilty to some degree, even if they just remained silent. An otherwise honest precinct quickly became corrupt because the culture changed.
Police corruption is useful in understanding government corruption. Police departments have a high degree of group loyalty. Fraternity is promoted and reinforced in many ways, thus discouraging cops from reporting corruption. No one wants to be seen as a rat, so the natural tendency is to ignore bad behavior by fellow cops. Corrupt cops easily turn this virtue into a vice, by using this high group loyalty as a way to pressure their fellow cops into ignoring their corruption.
When you look at corrupt police precincts, the pattern repeats. The dirty cops start small, often roping in fellow cops on small things like stealing money from the people they arrest. The victims are not only outsiders, but viewed as the bad guys, so no one is running to the boss to report it. At some point, a critical mass of cops is doing this stuff and the culture changes. The “cool guys” are the ones shaking down drug dealers, while the “squares” look the other way.
We may be seeing the same process in Washington. The credible charges against the Biden family are piling up, but so far, few are speaking out about it. Fringe bomb throwers like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert are making noises about it, but people with status have been slow to say anything. Chuck Grassley is the most soberminded person to raise the issue, but he was mostly ignored by his fellow senators when he raised the issue last month.
What we know so far is that while Joe Biden was Vice President, he extorted the government of Ukraine. We know this because he used to brag about threatening them into firing the prosecutor looking into corruption. We now know that the Ukrainian prosecutor was looking into Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company, which was making deals with prominent Washington people. Hunter Biden was given a no-show job at the company, so we know what was happening here.
We also know that Hunter Biden shook down a Chinese company via text message, using Joe Biden as a threat. We also know the Chinese company gave money to Hunter Biden immediately after the threatening text message. In any other context this is a simple case of extortion. In the political context it is influence peddling. When this is added to the millions of dollars in mystery payments received by members of the Biden family, it suggests a long-term pattern of corruption.
Again, this sort of thing is to be expected. What matters here is the weird cone of silence around this story. Regime media mentions it in passing, often shaping these revelations as partisan bickering. Senior Republicans are trying hard to ignore the whole thing. One reason for this wall of silence is that this sort of corruption is so common that no one knows who is clean and who is dirty. Like the corrupt police precinct, the culture of corruption breeds a culture of silence.
The Hunter Biden stuff strongly suggests that this is not an isolated thing. Everyone in Washington knew that Hunter Biden was a crackhead. The only reason anyone would do business with him was to gain favors from his father. Everyone in Washington knows how things work, so no one can claim ignorance. It is a small town and everyone knows what everyone is doing. They may not have the nitty-gritty details, but they know the general outlines. There are few secrets in Washington.
The other thing that points to a widespread culture of corruption is the outlandish nature of the crimes. Biden bragging about threatening the Ukrainians never raised any alarms in Washington, because it was the new normal. Hunter getting a no-show job at a foreign company raised no eyebrows because everyone was doing it. Hunter being a crackhead doing deals with foreign companies should have raised alarms, but official Washington looked the other way.
This raises the question as to why we are hearing stories about Biden corruption from various whistleblowers and anonymous leakers. Speculation is that it is a way to ease Biden out of the way without a messy primary. That is possible, given his failing mental condition, but there is another reason. Based on his recent public appearances it is clear that he is fading quickly. It is possible he drops dead soon and that would mean putting the moronic Kamala Harris in charge.
Another answer is that no one cares. Things have reached the point in Washington where everyone shrugs at this stuff. Like the corrupt police precinct, morality has been turned on its head. Those not involved in shakedowns and influence peddling are viewed as fools, while the smash and grab people are high status. This behavior is now a form of ingroup signaling. Your willingness to take money and your creativity in doing it is what elevates your status in Washington.
None of this bodes well for the civic nationalist types. A system that presents the voters with a choice between two men in ski masks is not going to result in one of them turning on the other. What this all points to is that we are in the final phase of what Sir John Glubb described in The Fate of Empires. The American empire has entered the final phase where looting is the norm and decline is embraced. Everyone is grabbing what they can before the music stops and the party ends.
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The Biden bribery stuff was supposed to be a controlled demolition. Payments that everyone already knows about are alleged. The House subpoenas bank records, and shows up with receipts. And there are audio tapes showing that Biden was directly involved, so he can’t blame it on the crack head. The problem with a controlled demolition is there are many variables. Get any of them wrong, or change one, or introduce new ones (eg wind), and the results can go awry. The building falls the wrong way and there is a lot of collateral damage. Enter the IRS whistleblower. I don’t… Read more »
For many years now, the American leadership class has mirrored a very interesting scene in the movie Goodfellas. After getting control of this bar/restaurant, the mobsters begin buying cases of liquor on credit and selling it out the back door, when the restaurant’s credit is shot, they burn the place down for the insurance money.
As an american, you are living through this final phase of burning the place down. And the mobsters here are most certainly not Italians.
Spot on Post by Z. the whole system is corrupt. not rocking the boat is a loyalty test for not only players in the system but for the press and voters. Until the green light is given to do so, stating the obvious about the Bidens’ flagrant corruption is something only done by science denying, Maga Republican White supremacists who are pawns of Putin. Do you really want Putin to win? Besides we have an entire culture built on gaming the system. The only people who aren’t in on it are those evil Maga Republicans and those of us in… Read more »
The hour is even later. Nominated to replace Milley is a bitter, resentful black man who is so pyschpathic that he was up in arms when he parked in a reserved spot and was politely questioned when he was in his civvies. This guy has openly proposed a strict officer and enlistment quota system holding whites allotment far below our percentage in the population. After doing this, he is nominated for JCOS. Think about that. Right now Tuberville from AL is holding the line. If Tuberville fails, then all branches of government will have rewarded a vehemant anti-white AirForce man… Read more »
apartheid, you say?
Keeping Whitey out of the officer Corp will increase the degradation of the military. That’s a good thing.
As for Apartheid, Chimps and camel jockeys have a hard enough time with toasters. An Abrahams?
Good luck with that.
“My murderer was an idiot,” he didn’t say from the ditch he was buried in next to his wife and children, and all his hundred million dead relatives said the same.
The U.S. Air Force is like the rest of the military at this point. An evil tool used by the cabal to further their power.
Let the cabal degrade it.
It’s been straight downhill since the NY Times declared God is Dead. Without God, the only source of morality is man himself, and he’s a damn poor judge. Bill Clinton would have been about 20 years old then, Hillary about19. Both young, smart, good students at good colleges, absorbing the aura of the world around them, including the proclamation from our elite that God is Dead. It’s not a coincidence that the Clintons ushered in a new era of political corruption. Our society was primed for it by the time they were in a position to run. If the Clintons… Read more »
It was as though the Soviet Union was collapsing all over again… with fewer documented deaths than the Jan. 6 Capitol Riot. And, the possibility of a Prince Prigozhin in White Russia (Byelorussia, aka Belarus)- because that’s how small-hatted mercenaries roll. He wanted to blood avenge his friend Tatarsky, this Middleman mafioso at war with his Family kin in America. From a street convict to a billionaire MIC, against a Kagan who never picked up a gun. (Collated from MoA and Sundance comments. Intelligent Dasein: “Prigozhin is a Russian and that he is acting within the Russian historical tradition. The analogues of… Read more »
Dagnabit. Apologies, posted Dasein without looking at the comments first.
I’d also posted a comment once before without crediting it to Simplicius. No manners, no manners at all.
No worries. Thank you for reading.
You are most kind. I found it quite moving.
Remember how, before 2001, we knew nothing, really, about the obscure Muslim world? Then, we put our heads together and learned very quickly. Arabic phrasing entered the lexicon.
Now, at last, mysterious Russia and inscrutable China have entered the chat.
Such a sumptuous feast is laid before us! We might do well, well indeed in a multipolar world, especially if we remember our Indo-European and Greco-Roman roots.
Prigozhin is Acting Within Russia’s Historical Tradition Thus far, no one has understood the significance of Prigozhin’s Rebellion nor hit upon the true and accurate interpretation of these events. Prigozhin has been pilloried as egotist screaming for attention or a traitor in the pay of Western intelligence agencies. Both of these claims partake of a highly occidental worldview which does not comprehend the cultural antecedents of Prigozhin’s actions. On the contrary, I say that Prigozhin is a Russian and that he is acting within the Russian historical tradition. The analogues of Prigozhin’s Rebellion are not to be found in 1917… Read more »
One thing is for sure: the Russian people are united in this war effort. Even western regime media is unable to report any significant Russian dissent, whether real or fake. Prigozhin’s gambit doesn’t change that. Perhaps it clarifies it.
They weren’t cheering Pringles, they were cheering the Wagner soldiers.
Russia United! by the judo master…who has also bought time to properly train up a million man army of wildly patriotic volunteers.
May this become Whites United, casting off the evil spell, and giving the women a reason to abandon their evil spell as well and come home.
Wignats have never considered Slavs, let alone Russians, as white, rather Asiatic subhumans to be exterminated.
Where did you get this? At any rate, it’s author may be even more accurate than he realizes. Not only were there Razin and Pugachev’s frontier Jacqueries, there were steppe outburst led by Ivan Bolotnikov and Kondraty Bulavin, as well. That said, it’s been a long, long time since Russia has seen one of these. Approximately two-and-a-half centuries, to be precise.
Indeed. We have witnessed History here, in this story of Russian Brutus and the Tsar Vlad the Just.
I am the author of that. I’m hoping it filters up to Mercouris, so I posted it in several places. If you have an email address for him please feel free to pass it along. I don’t know how to contact him directly.
Yeah it’s probably just Russians being Russians. Who knows what happened.
People jumping to conclusions reminds me of the NYT claiming to have knowledge from “insiders close to Putin”. In reality we don’t really know much about what goes on behind the Russian curtain.
Col. MacGregor expressed somewhat similar thoughts in his latest commentary. He did not refer to past historical figures, but rather the impatience of the Russian military and people to take the clear offensive now that the Ukrainians and their handlers are clearly rocked back onto their heels. Putin and his inner circle have been playing cautiously given the potential for NeoCon led fuckery such as trying to destroy the major nuclear power station that the Russians control and the lasting contamination from radioactive releases, and this is understandable. But when under such threats, permitting your enemies the luxury of escalation… Read more »
For tne Ukrainians, this situation is a further confirmation of Kissinger’s trenchant words, “It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal”.
“In each of these explosions a local hero steps forth onto the stage of history, moved towards an end that cannot hep but result in his personal destruction, he impels, focuses, and clarifies all the hidden needs of the Russian heart. We don’t excuse their misdeeds, but we redeem somewhat of their memory in museums and songs, for we are sympathetic to their passion. The same fever burns within us”
WE used to do the same, Lee, Jackson, Pickett.
I used to live near William Henry Harrison’s tomb, and a couple miles up the road was a statue of Tecumseh.
I cannot fathom this Biden stuff will lead to anything, for it follows the same pattern. The media appeals to the Right with the perpetual mantra of: You [the Right] are the underdog, but cracks are appearing! Things are about to turn around! The media appeals to the Left with: You are good, and they are evil. And we are soooo close, let’s get rid of this evil and get it done. This keeps both groups involved in the same march towards perdition. If the Left truly wanted to remove Biden, they know how to agitate their base and make… Read more »
The WH press pool suddenly taking an interest suggests that this could be a move against Joe. They are making it front page news.
One of the blind spots of being a dissident who has tuned out regime media is that we often don’t know what front page news is. I dunno if that’s you, but it is often me.
That’s why I just got on NYT. Nothing but an opinion piece buried way, way down, from three days ago about how Joe is actually a hero for being a great father to a sick, addicted son. No joke – check it out. I think I saw it referenced here earlier.
The fact that defenders of the Biden faith, like the NYT, are starting to talk about it, suggests that there is a move to get Biden out…Biden has now a criminal defense lawyer, so that’s another sign..And Gavin Newsom getting into the race is a 3d….
I am being genuine when I ask, Where is the belief that Biden will be removed coming from? Since he was elected, people here have constantly said he would be removed. I am not calling out any wrong predictions; I am honestly curious. I have never seen the least indication that TPTB have any interested in exchanging their figurehead. Sure, the occasional passing comment on his age, but, beyond that point, I have seen nothing that would indicate this eventuality.
Why would the left want to replace Biden? He has been their ideal puppet since day one of his administration. For all of the talk during the 2020 campaign that Biden was a pragmatic moderate democrat in the mold of Bill Clinton, Biden has been a reliable rubber stamp for everything the left has put on his Oval Office desk.
Perhaps they doubt their ability to fortify 2024 sufficiently? Thinking which would be influenced by seeing his old age decline up close, and knowing that only gets worse, sometimes quickly.
I’m assuming there has to be a legitimate electoral base on top of which to fortify, that they can’t manufacture the entire thing out of whole cloth. I could be mistaken.
Oswald – this has been my point for three years! He’s the perfect puppet – Weekend at Bernie’s
The better question is, why does it matter if Biden is removed? If he is removed, he’ll just be replaced by a younger version of himself and AINO will continue its descent into the abyss.
….aaaaahhhhhnnndddddd there you have it.
The one time, perhaps the only one in our lifetime, someone not a puppet accidentally was elected they did everything but kill him (yet). The dude could have been easily coopted with flattery but, naaah, apparently picking the puppet is part of their kink.
You can have any politician you like as long as it is the one selected for you (maybe like Ford’s car, it only will come in black now).
washington has LONG been corrupt. Bill clintons first acts as president were to replace all 50 us attorneys with his own political hacks. the second was to get all FBI background check files on all elected and non-elected officials. they contained a lot of blackmail onfo. they coppied them all and sent them back to fbi. trump was an honest rube who found himself in charge of a totaly corrupt organization. look at the criminality of the operations agiainst him. Clearly they will not tollerate any honest actor sent there, no matter who it might be. in news missed by… Read more »
I guess Romney, Kerry, and Pelosi are happy that everyone is looking at Hunter and not at their kids who were also on the Burisma payroll. The Clinton Foundation, forgotten. The McCain Institute, never remembered in the first place. Yet in spite of all that, some people still wonder why fedgov can’t be fiscally responsible, or even more bafflingly, hope that it one day will be. Like if we just promote the right don to command the mafia then the embezzlement might stop. I am shocked, shocked, that there is gambling in this establishment.
Jeffrey Zoar: But a certain cohort of readers insist the system itself is just fine, if only we could get the right people in charge. Whatever. Don’t mean to be a black piller; I just don’t give a damn any more. I have separated myself from AINO intellectually and emotionally. I have relocated physically. And now I view it all from a distance, with great detachment. Oh, I know it will eventually encroach on every area – I’m not a fool. But for the present I have removed myself from the worst of the daily indignities. I’m so much happier… Read more »
Black pill is an odd name for intellectual freedom
Because 3g’s Great Escape is itself the inspiration. If she can pull it off, maybe some of us can too.
Took a bit of work, did’n it? I’m glad the Mr. finally saw which way the wind was blowing.
Alzaebo: My ‘escape’ was a lot of luck and a lot of God. But yes, it took timing and patience and money and prayer.
Heh.
Good to hear from you, 3g, when most everyone else, even here, still seems to be musing about the system – seemingly with some hope.
I too, have pretty much done exactly as you have. Complete detachment. Faith in the Good God helps, as does preparing your family in all ways you can. But when it comes to the political system? I can understand the urge some have to talk about it, but it is done.
I do believe there is hope – but not from the government.
Another answer is that no one cares. Things have reached the point in Washington where everyone shrugs at this stuff. Like the corrupt police precinct, morality has been turned on its head. Those not involved in shakedowns and influence peddling are viewed as fools, while the smash and grab people are high status. This behavior is now a form of ingroup signaling. Your willingness to take money and your creativity in doing it is what elevates your status in Washington. Unless you are Donald Trump. Who has been proven time and time again to be one of the cleanest, least… Read more »
Also not a pedo
Or a homo. Remember when Barney Frank’s gay live-in lover ran a homo prostitution service out of the congressman’s D.C. apartment? Crickets.
Trump was actually a hetero dude who said if you have money chicks will throw themselves at you and let you grab ’em by the pussy.
That’s practically a capital offense in the capital of GloboHomo.
Heh. Didn’t somebody just say “your creativity in doing it is what elevates your status.”
Lookin’ at Hot Bottoms Barney here. So that’s what young, idealistic interns are for- mommy is selling her kid for a ticket.
I have a theory that the old school kind of Richard Daley level corruption is better than whatever we have now. Removing parochial machine/nepotism politics is akin to having kids be in a sterile/clean environment from birth to 18 in that it creates unintended consequences. It allows for a more “med resistant” managerial type of corruption that is worse.
Does anyone here sort of get what I’m saying?
Being from the Chicagoland area I “grok” what you’re saying. As I said below: “People will accept corruption with a wink 😉 or an eyeroll 🙄 IF government is providing the services they’re supposed to provide.” And they’ll accept it if it isn’t blatant, out and out grabbing just to grab. One of the problems is at a local level, there probably aren’t any politicians in the mold of Hizzoner Da Mare Richard J. Daley. Yeah, Old Man Daley saw his opportunities and took ’em, but he was a Chicago resident and homer who was PROUD of his city and… Read more »
I get exactly what you’re saying. The big city Machine-style corruption could at least get essential things done. A while back, I knew a fellow named Dave who had lived in Chicago for a few years much earlier in life. Despite being a conservative, Dave told me that Mayor Daley “kept the trains running on time.” (Wasn’t that also said of the notorious Mustache Man?) Dave said that regular folks were willing to tolerate tremendous corruption so long as the crookedness didn’t interfere too much with the basic services provided by government. Therein lies part of the difference between the… Read more »
IMO, old style (White) corrupt pol’s were of a higher intellect than today’s minority pol’s and certainly, practical people rather than ideologues. They ran the government in the best way for friends and family, but were careful not to kill the golden goose. Today? Complete morons without understanding outside of ideology. Here in my town, the wheels are coming off the city, but the mayor continues to harp about climate change and initiatives to “save the planet”. One of which is to plant 1M trees. Folks, this town is in the middle of the Sonoran desert and currently in the… Read more »
I would say this is part of bioleninism but Biden himself is not from the bioleninist wing of the party. An ethnically Irish Catholic man first elected in 1972 has more in common with the Richard Daley types
They’re also selling your water to Saudi Arabia, for hay farms for its goats. Those watermelon farmers out west must be righteously pissed.
Daley also knew how to deal with, as Mr. Jared Taylor calls them, “our fellow African-American citizens”
https://youtu.be/olNN2iT41S4
Mayor Daley was a Boy Scout compared to what goes on now, speaking from long experience in Chicago….But Mayor Daley loved his city and wanted it to succeed….
As Z-man observed, the wily Sir John Glubb rightly observed that this is the last phase of a dying society..Where no official cares about the country…
Akin to the old time gangsters who became angry at their children for disrespecting the police. Their corruption was kept in a seporate box.
Though it would freak a lot of people out if Kamala Harris ended up ascending to the throne, I would personally be delighted by it. All of these politicians are just puppets anyway. We might as well get top comedic/buffoonish buck for our figurehead bang. Plus, as I have oft stated, Ms. Harris becoming president would quickly devolve into the most prominent advertisement against Affirmative Action we’ve ever had. I’m rooting for that special little harlot!
What would Harris taking over for Biden freak anyone out? The dems put her on the ticket, and the moronic dem voters voted for the worst ticket in the history of this country with glee.
I should have been clearer: it would freak out a lot of conservatives and dissidents. Still, I think Harris as president would freak out a lot of Dems voters too, increasing their sense of “buyer’s remorse” after so many of them voted for the current White House occupants simply out of hatred for Trump. Was anybody genuinely enthused about Biden back in 2020? As to establishment Dems who hold prominent positions within the system . . . it might (privately) freak some of them out too. A Harris Administration would render the spectacle of American politics too transparent. Then again,… Read more »
If it would freak out the Right, then Kamela’s a lock, a sure thing.
Only thing better would be Mike’s big swingin’ d*** in yer face. Make it a two-fer!
I know of a woman in Chappaqua who would be incandescent with rage if Harris wound up breaking the Presidential glass ceiling. Especially since Kamala wouldn’t be in that position without having (at one time) a modicum of sex appeal.
The Women’s War would be positively EPIC.
Kamela, Big Mike, and Hillary all fielding amazon armies.
Enemy combatants living and working cheek by jowl.
A national Housewives of DC would be to die for. Bigger than WWll. And we thought hippies or trannies were a big deal?
Sure a President Harris would be a good example of a bad example (AA), however what would that do when our demographics are indicting a majority minority population as early as 2050. Those minorities make good use of AA and will never part from it.
The demographic problem directly results from White people not having enough children. If we keep hoping for solutions from the top of the puppet food chain (which is not the same as the top of the authentic power hierarchy), we truly are screwed. The biggest issue here is that most Whites aren’t even aware that there is an issue. They have become oblivious to the fact that the European-blooded are the defining element of Western Civilization. It’s not a failure of our politics; it is a failure of our race. If anything, a Harris presidency might wake some more Whites… Read more »
“Those minorities make good use of AA and will never part from it.” That’s a salient point. I can think of only two examples in history where a source of power was relinquished in the name of “improving society”. When the Anglosphere relinquished the power to minorities (1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act, Affirmative Action, the Windrush allowance in the UK, etc.) and possible the pre-Meiji Japanese prohibition on firearms and Western technology (and that one may have other intentions. Whites may be the only group to eschew self-preference and act to their detriment in the pursuit of altruism. Minority ethnic… Read more »
That it isn’t blatantly obvious to them already, is a bad portent.
Absolutely correct. the web is filled with single white men who are going to the gyn, staying informed and working a job. they want a “future for the pales” but have no wife or kids. I give a pass to older guys who were victims of the 80’s and 90’s women who would not stop partying and working 66 hr a week because career. I see plenty of women at church and in my social circle looking for a guy and are having trouble finding anyone to have kids with . they have fertile years left but know they have… Read more »
You make a great point about Kamala Harris, but then I think back to when that Supreme Court justice Ketanji-hyphen-something couldn’t answer the question about what a woman is, and the collective shrugged-shoulder response, and I suddenly remember that we’re now living in a different world.
True enough. We’re in Clown World and much of what goes on is wildly inverted and illogical. Keep in mind, however, that the only time individual Supreme Court Justices get much attention is during their confirmation hearings. Now that she’s on the court, Justice Shaneequa won’t be in the public spotlight very often. Conversely, if Harris became president, she could not possibly fade into the background. She would have to be front and center in our political cesspool. The very prospect of it makes me chuckle.
What they might do is ask Kamala to resign and bring in Newsom. He would probably be a much more capable bad guy. We know Kamala is power hungry and her soul and body for sale to anyone who can give it to her. While probably less capable than Newsom, she might even more dangerous than he is. She has no shame. Not only is her past with sleeping for jobs well known, but she runs around claiming to be black despite not having black ancestors. While her becoming President might be amusing, it will be very sad. If I’m… Read more »
Biden’s corruption also means the Ukrainians and Chinese can put the arm on him anytime they want. Just quietly threaten to reveal the extent of the corruption to the right news sources and behold, $100 billion can be sent your way with no strings attached.
I’m reminded of the Abscam sting operation in 1979. Standards of conduct and standards of investigation and prosecution have since indeed fallen grievously. Now people just respond with a cynical sigh and shrug.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abscam
Looking back on it, of course Arab bribes were singled out as a problem because for the only group that matters, it was a problem.
To me, the most interesting thing about today’s post is that it highlights a piece of metadata that I believe has important implications. When corruption exists, those who are in a position to know about it, always do know about it. There is no naivete within the affected circle, by definition. To be naïve about these matters is simply to confess one’s non-membership in the group. This leads directly to the conclusion that the Efficient Market Hypothesis applies in the field of historical truth. There are no major surprises coming at us out of history like a blast from the… Read more »
Kudos. This is an elegant hypothesis. Initially, what I was reading sounded problematic, as if it placed economics prior to culture, but the transition from fact to sentiment and vice versa is decidedly a cultural driver of history. A provocative hypothesis, It needs further testing to transcend its general “truthiness.”
This kind of discussion is necessarily speculative, but it’s interesting.
My intuitions are opposite of yours. I think the winner’s write history and that today we are living under immense falsehoods that may never be exposed, and even if they are, this exposure may be suppressed successfully.
But a higher level question concerns your claim that “history is self-correcting.” What evidence could persuade that your claim is false? I can’t imagine any, but maybe you can.
I ask my question in the spirit of good fun.
“…that Oswald killed JFK, and that al-Qaeda perpetrated the 9/11 attacks.”
Either that was a poke to get the readers attention, or it was disproves right there that “history is self-correcting.”
But a higher level question concerns your claim that “history is self-correcting.” What evidence could persuade that your claim is false? I can’t imagine any, but maybe you can. Dear Line, The evidence would have to be of a sort that invalidates a priori global values, e.g. my belief that I am not now currently dreaming, and things of that nature. But we’re talking real Total Recall / Matrix-level stuff here, which is a rabbit hole we don’t need to go down. The point is that, within that field of subjective experience which we call normal life, statements about historical… Read more »
A thoughtful post. I borrow heavily from Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil): We’d love to be able to ascertain the truth (e.g. by studying history). At times we may have confidence in an account nearing certainty. Alas we usually fall rather short of that ideal. Nietzsche poses a far more interesting open-ended question however: Rather than try to ascertain The Truth® about X (which such often being difficult to impossible), far more insight might be obtained if we inquire “Why do I need to believe that X is true?”
Did I hear that something happened in Russia over the weekend? Putin had his dog Muffy spayed, or some such?
“Prigozhin’s coup was how the Russians got the CIA to pay for the next round.”
~Alfred, Clusterf*ck Nation
_______
(Tip to readers, the Zman has early thoughts behind the green door, hain’t got there yet.)
Col McGregor has an interesting take on this supposed coup. If he’s correct, look for a major shift in Russian tactics and a final assault on Ukraine. The coup is question was *never* a coup, but rather a (violent) protest against the continuing tactics of the Russian generals conduct in the war. The point being that the war is dragging out way beyond reason given the military situation of Ukraine. Given that the Wagner group has done the bulk of recent fighting and knows about the enemy, there might be something to Prigozhin’s concerns. Coup or no coup, Putin has… Read more »
The only reason I could see Putin wanting/needing to speed things up is to make it a fait accompli before the GAE can get further involved (either by support or directly). While his meat grinder does soften the Uke further, it also gives the GAE a chance to reload to the extent it can. I suppose there must be an inflexion point where further softening is outweighed by opportunity to regroup/re-arm.
The footage that our host posted on Gab was some of the more shocking I have seen. It gets me angry at the worthless POS s that are keeping this war going. Johnson, Sunak and Biden. All of the EU leaders. Garbage
I think you’re wrong, you think that Russians are like us. They’re not, they look at the long term and have very long historical memories. Ours is a gnat’s life span compared to theirs. They are a nation, not a collection of disparate strangers with no concept of volk or anything in common. I think the Russian people are in it for the long haul and will be patient with their leasdership unless something changes greatly.
This explanation does not explain the recent Wagner brouhaha, does it. It also ignores the escalation of the West (NATO) in Ukraine and gives such time to grow and perhaps succeed. But whether NATO is successful in propping up Ukraine or not, time = lives lost for both Russia and Ukraine. At some point there must be a calculation made of cost/benefit. Not very different from the thinking involved in the Normandy invasion. Half of general staff wanted to go from Italy into the soft underbelly of NAZI occupied Southern European countries and bypass France. The other half wanted to… Read more »
The Left cheered the “coup” lustily because it allegedly weakened Putler. What, in their ignorance they fail to realize is that, were Putin deposed, he would be replace by a hard-case who makes Putin look like Pat Schroeder. There is no Precious riding to the Left’s rescue in Russia.
I suspect they are worried that when you pull on a string, everything starts unraveling and that special prosecutors tend to spin off in unpredictable directions. Since they are in complete control of the cops, they just decide to ignore it. Allowing some special prosecutor to go in and start poking around and pulling on loose strings could spin out of control and start threatening a lot of powerful people.
Yes. Because the special prosecutors have done such a bang up job in recent years.
“Another answer is that no one cares.” There’s a reason McClean’s “American Pie” is so beloved and treated as near Biblical. America was a country once. The government was always corrupt and sinister to varying extends, but there was a people and a culture: Mom, baseball, and apple pie. It was real, no matter how they gaslight you. Over the decades, bit by bit, it has all been dismantled. McClean’s song is really an anthem to that dismantlement, IMO, and a big reason why Americans of certain ages respond to it. There’s nothing left to care about and we’re “generation(s)… Read more »
Oh, and as I watched him on the stage
My hands were clenched in fists of rage
No angel born in Hell
Could break that Satan’s spell
And as the flames climbed high into the night
To light the sacrificial rite
I saw Satan laughing with delight
The day the music died
You’re definitely onto something, fakeemail.
“And in the streets, the children screamed
The lovers cried and the poets dreamed
But not a word was spoken
The church bells all were broken
And the three men I admire most
The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died.”
I know the song is about the history of rock n roll and the death of buddy Holly, but always felt it was about the death of America as it was devoured by the counter culture and globalism.
I agree. And incidentally, McLean said he didn’t really know the meaning of the song. Said it was stream of consciousness and automatic writing.
Many musical masterpieces–Handel’s “Messiah,” for instance–are that way. It is as if a much power is doing the actual composing and the composer merely holds the quill and ink pot.
“American Pie” may have been a warning.
Meanwhile, in Russia:
https://twitter.com/JoveMarie2/status/1673312544826572800?s=20
Where we would be if we hadn’t altered course or given way to the poz.
Reminds me somewhat of those Russian grocery store flash mobs that “spontaneously” break out in amazing patriotic songs with young attractive people. I am sure the linked one was a bit staged, but even so – compare what the GAE stages to something like that.
If the GAE regime staged something like that it wouldn’t be a rendition of “God Bless America” or “America the Beautiful.” The regime would have a choir of trannies singing a paean to the blessings of unlimited immigration, same-sex buggery, or abortion…something like that.
Right. But they’d be rapping, not singing.
Find video on line of the Scarlet Sails celebration Saturday night in St. Petersburg. Those are legitmate pictures of the mood in Russia right now.
Hard for me to understand why they would feel the need to be so corrupt.
There are so many legal/semi legal grift and enrichment opportunities on top of the already generous lifestyle provided to politicians by the government.
How many mansions does one family need? What’s the point of having a Ferrari when you are China’s bitch and there are no roads to drive on?
I guess that’s why I work a regular job like a sucker and not making tens of millions running pure scams.
Chinatown covered this:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=s1i3dB2qWbA
“The future, Mr. Gittes…the FUTURE!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDD1tW59Mjg The original film Wall Street also covered the subject well. Bud: How much is enough, Gordon?! When does it all end, huh? How many yachts can you water-ski behind? How much is enough, huh?! Gekko: It’s not a question of enough, pal. It’s a zero-sum game – somebody wins, somebody loses. Money itself isn’t lost or made, it’s simply, transferred – from one perception to another. Like magic. This painting here? I bought it ten years ago for sixty thousand dollars, I could sell it today for six hundred. The illusion has become real, and the more real it… Read more »
How much is enough? The question is an old one. It was even asked rhetorically by a 1st century man in a backwater Roman province. “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mk 8:36). And from one of his followers, “For the love of money is the root of all evil.” (1 Tim 6:10). It is wise, therefore, to conclude that there is “enough” on the one hand and “too much” on the other. But where exactly the line is crossed? Questions upon questions because the truth of… Read more »
I like a paraphrase I’ve not heard often: “If all you want is money (wealth), that is all you will ever have.”
OS-
A great exchange in an all-time great film.
“How much is too much?” is and old question and there is no good answer. It’s been that way basically forever. The interesting question is why is the looting accelerating? Everything you point out is still available for slow, steady grifting, so why has the theft picked up? A desire to purchase hard assets before liquid assets are devalued? Is it easier and certain to go unpunished? Those very well may not be the reasons but there certainly is one.
Enough is never enough for whom enough is not enough.
You can never get enough of what you don’t need.
Panic before closing time.
It’s like in Britain, when the pubs were only open between 7PM and 10PM. A quarter to ten, the barkeep would call for last orders and everybody would hurriedly quaff down their pint and order two more.
I thought the Limies hurriedly quaffed their pints and ordered two more as standard operating procedure…
Limeys……….
All that tells me ,Merkin, is that you know next to nothing about my country.
Felix, the pubs used to close at 11.
If there is someone else with more, then you don’t have enough
“It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.” — Gore Vidal
I can’t remember if it was the History of the Roman Empire Podcast or one of Dan Carlin’s amazing takes… but one of them made the point about the wealthy of Rome in both the Republic and Empire phases. The wealthy utilized their wealth in order place their stamp on the “glory” of Rome. Civic construction projects or paying for/leading Legions in order to conquer in the name of Rome. A man acquiring wealth for the sole purpose of doing so was mocked and ridiculed. We saw much of the same in the Industrial Age, men of vast fortunes eventually… Read more »
Very interesting hypothesis Penitent Man. I don’t think that is it. I think today’s extremely wealthy came up when there was no identity imprinted upon them. They are not well -educated in a well rounded sense. They sit at a trough. The 19th century men, gave glory to God, understood how glorious it was to create a country, were in competition with Europe to try and be its cultural equal … … I just think this group is a rabble. For my money, the poster child is Mark Cuban. The dude is very close to being nothing more than a… Read more »
[…] ZMan says the quiet part out loud. […]
Suggested Biden family plot tombstone epitaph: Money don’t get everything it’s true, what it don’t get I can’t use
“You’re dead for a long, long time,
You just can’t prevent it.
If money can’t buy happiness,
I guess I’ll have to rent it.”
(Hat tip to ‘Weird’ Al Yankovic)
Another suggested epitaph for Joe Biden:
“Remember…ten percent for the Big Guy.”
You have to wonder if Joe was shaking down all sides in the Bosnian War. He made several personal appearances with bellicose speeches, swaggering and weird mind farts anbout “my son” even back then. He did have a bridge dedicated to Beau (who also had dealings with the locals), which seemed kind of campy at the time. The Joe of today would have shaken down Milosovic, but maybe the Joe of old did too.
My fun little spin on the Russian “coup”, submitted for your entertainment and entirely without evidence: It was a four way gang bang with Putin, Prigozhin, Xi, and even that other Z-man, Zelensky brought in at the last moment for reasons that will become obvious. The con is that Prigozhin’s Wagner group is going to Moscow to do a coup. Their Lada throws a rod conveniently far from Moscow but oddly close to Keeeeve. They call off the “operation”. Zelensky is then brought into a smoke filled room and told the real deal. See, now we’ve got all those Wagner… Read more »
It’s not simply that a culture of corruption breeds a culture of silence. The situation is far worse — critics of the culture of corruption will be indicted. Just look at what they did to Trump — they charged him with (at last count) 71 felony counts that could theoretically get something like 500 years in prison. They also indicted his political advisers, his lawyers, and his National Security Adviser. They spied on him illegally, released his tax records illegally, and sued him civilly. Meanwhile Hunter rakes in millions in bribes, violates federal drug laws and federal gun laws, and… Read more »
Many times Tucker Carlson pointed out that the only people getting in trouble are the ones telling the truth.
Are TikTok videos allowed on the forum?
I was sent a video from “Casino”, that substitutes Trump and DeSantis for Pesci and Deniro.
If anyone has it, and it’s ok, it’s worth a watch.
Something to grin at in shit times.
It’s actually worse than just rank corruption in DC. The Stasi is complicit in the lawlessness both by omission (looking the other way on Hunter) and commission (arresting Trump but not Brandon). There is no feedback mechanism to either fix this or provide hope of a better future. And it’s now a small step to going full Gestapo and locking up innocent people (Jan 6th) or escorting them into gas chambers. And no, Dan, voting harder is not going to miraculously cure this because the fix is in via Fortified For Democracy vote manufacturing, and the Deep State cabal runs… Read more »
The real question is why the Bidens or others take illegal bribes. They can do it perfectly legal if they weren’t so lazy. After leaving office, congressmen, senator and their high-level staff members – and family members – are well rewarded via speeches, consulting gigs, boards of directors, etc. Presidents have their foundations. This is just the tip of the iceberg, and they’re all legal. I suppose that Biden’s issue is that he wanted to stay in office for the power and get the money. Unfortunately for him, his son was such a screw up that he made a stink.… Read more »
This may also be the reason why those inside the State want Biden out of the way. Smart criminals know being too obvious is bad for the criminal enterprise. You don’t flout your crimes, as that makes the cops (even the dirty ones) look bad in public. They had hours of John Gotti on wiretaps complaining about Sammy Gravano being too obvious about opening various shell companies to move around the contracting money. Hunter could have done everything he did and worse, if he only hadn’t had a penchant for recording it all, and forgot the device he recorded it… Read more »
“My guess is even the people charged with running interference for him are exhausted at this point.”
Could be, but the assumption has to be that they also get a little something off the books as well.
Biden really is stupid, and that likely is the case with Hunter and James as well. Everything you wrote is spot on, and indicates either a lack of impulse control or intelligence and in this case it likely is both.
I’m curious, what do these countries and companies actually get when they funnel funds to Joe and Co? I give you 50 million and you give me, what?- a chance to bid on a government contract or a no bid contract? Can anyone provide an actual example?
> Can anyone provide an actual example?
Dude, have you SEEN how much money is sent to other countries via “foreign aid”? Heard about the Ukraine? Even the most egregious example of Biden bragging about getting the prosecutor fired he immediately freed up a billion dollars to the Ukraine government (and who knows where that money went to disappear.) At this point, the State Department is basically the World Bank for corrupt politicos and their friends.
Sure. Burisma was involved in shenanigans, the “take the money and buy a flat in Switzerland” kinda thing. The gubmint caught on and appointed a prosecutor. The guys caught with their hand in the till “hire” Biden’s son for $800k a year for a No-show job, and The Big Guy holds up a $1billion aid package unless the prosecutor gets fired. The prosecutor got fired and the administrative holdup on the billions in aid got cleared up. It’s Richard M Daley stuff. Like that campaign aid who got caught calling some business and saying “its a shame you haven’t made… Read more »
“Biden really is stupid…”
Stupid or just selfish and devoid of any moral conscience? Sociopathy.
President of the United States, wealthy, flies all around the world, few mansions, women. Stupid? At this point in his life, age related dementia.
He was allowed to sniff minors to his heart’s content.
Book deals – another favorite payoff method. How many $millions have the Clintons and Obamas collected on deals for books by some ghostwriter that nobody ever read?
That’s unfair. It’s my understanding that some of them sell into the high 3, or even low 4 digit range 🙂
The Bidens forgot The First Rule of Politics: Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. After leaving office, congressmen, senator and their high-level staff members – and family members – are well rewarded via speeches, consulting gigs, boards of directors, etc. Presidents have their foundations. This is just the tip of the iceberg, and they’re all legal. The problem is of course you need to be satisfied with your take. President Puddinhead can’t, or won’t be. Perhaps it’s because his remaining son is a complete and utter screw-up, and I’m being polite. He may be in office to protect him and… Read more »
Spot on, mmack.
Michael Bloomberg was right for all the wrong reasons when he suggested the strongman of China needed public approval. Daley wasn’t even an outright dictator. The city overwhelmingly elected his son almost a generation later in the hopes he could make Chimpcongo function again. He kind of did, too, although it is gone forever now.
To add, my favorite Daley story, from my aunt, one of the remnant Republicans who worked for the city during that time: The mayor would give city employees a turkey for Thanksgiving and a ham for Christmas every year. My aunt eventually got incensed about it and one year refused her Thanksgiving bribe. The city employee who delivered the turkey told her, “lady, I don’t care what you do with it, but you will take the turkey.” She knew he meant business and took it from him. Imagine living in a time where (a) that happened and (b) some people… Read more »
$5,000 freezer? Hah. You are off by an order of magnitude. They live at a very different level than us, so much so that we hear about their extravance and subconsciously reduce their profligacy. Nancy’s freezer was probably more in the $40,000 range with install and finishes.
Yes. Power AND money. Politicians used to have to choose one over another. Close paraphrase of George Wallace: There’s only two things that matter in life – power and money; and I’ve never cared much for money.
Yeah, I think that was the issue here. Biden wanted the millions and to stay in office with its power and limelight.
The guy really is awful. Even Clinton waited until after leaving office to get his millions.
And right on time, the various military branches are offering a fast track to citizenship for illegals if they’ll only sign on the dotted line. Don’t speak the language? Snuck into the country illegally? Here’s a squad automatic weapon, point it where we tell you, and you and your family will eat three squares a day for the next twenty years. And any kids you have while on active duty are paid for by Fedgov, and also immediately become citizens. Jeb Bush was right, you guys sure are fertile! Your first targets are those people over there not wearing masks.… Read more »
“According to my state’s law, “jurors cannot be punished for their verdicts whatever their reasons may be.”” Don’t interpret that too broadly. Jurors are instructed by the judge. He also has asked the jurors whether they could decide based upon the facts—not the law, which is the judge’s purview. What I’ve seen and read is that jurors *are* punished when they open their mouths and discuss “jury nullification” or the validity of the charges, or the harshness of the penalty, etc. In short, anything but the facts as presented to them during trial. And don’t kid yourself, the juror in… Read more »
“I didnt find the evidence credible” or “I think the witness was not being truthful” is about as safe as you can get.
Jurors are routinely doxed these days. It is safe to assume the State supports this but “jury of your peers” is part of the pretense of American “democracy.” I get most people here understandably have issues with democracy, but we don’t need to assist our enemies by pretending it actually exists, either.
The other utterly disgusting aspect to all this blatant corruption is the government’s high sounding morality about everything and the damned vision they peddle of the proverbial “shining city on the hill”. What an F-ing joke.
Substitue a ‘t’ for the ‘n’ and it’s no longer a joke – leastways not in SFO, and many other cities.
The American empire has entered the final phase where looting is the norm and decline is embraced. Everyone is grabbing what they can before the music stops and the party ends Maybe, maybe not. This all reminds me of the 2nd century BC roman empire. Everyone in the senatorial class was running rackets extorting money from foreigners. Prosecutions for doing so became part of their political process. Julius Caesar was under threat of such prosecutions for decades before finally marching on Rome. The end result was autocracy – with a singular authority limiting (or concentrating) the corruption to a tolerable… Read more »
“…a singular authority limiting (or concentrating) the corruption to a tolerable level.”
Sounds like Putin’s Russia. That’s the broad outline of how he got to be in charge.
At least in Putin’s Russia the fags aren’t marching down Main Street and drag queens aren’t reading picture books about anal to four-year-olds.
Not yet, anyway. Used to think the old SH quite was over the top, but not anymore.
“When we win, do not forget that these people want you broke, dead, your kids raped and brainwashed, and they think it’s funny” – Sam Hyde.
How do other nations bend a knee to this mentality?
Julius Caesar led to Augustus (a great emperor) to Tiberius (so so emperor) to Caligula (an insane emperor) to Claudius (another good one in retrospect)….and on to good and evil and mostly mediocre emperors. Not sure emperors as appointed through military force (Praetorian guard) is quite the answer we are looking for.
There is a reason it has sped up, though, DD. The GAE may collapse tomorrow or go on another millennium, but the smashing and grabbing is accelerating for some reason.
Z: “Fringe bomb throwers like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert are making noises…” The raging fury of the Cluster B which propels the personalities of MTG & Lauren Boebert is simply fascinating to me. Their emergence as movers & shakers in the GOP gibes almoast perfectly with an epic poast which our own board member FooBarr made this past Friday: https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=30176#comment-358905 [I strongly urge everyone at Z to learn FooBarr’s poast there.] In particular, regarding Lauren Boebert: 1) Lauren Boebert does not know who her biological father is [the paternity tests say that her mother has been fingering the… Read more »
We can hazard a guess as to what she did to get to (what she considers) the top. Ditto the Veep.
The Daily Mail has a new article about Kim Jong-un’s little sister, Kim Yo-jong, concerning how she’s both a psychopath and the ackshual brains in the fambly.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4163614/posts
I’m slowly starting to gain Strange New Respect for the methods of Henry the VIIIth.
PS: Yo-jong ain’t all that bad looking.
If I had a couple of glasses of Chardonnay in me, I just might…
Although she’d probably prove to be frigid.
Poor thang.
Clearly God intended us to have grandchildren at 36. Regardless of whatever kind of “modeling” Mrs. Boebert used to do.
None of this is tolerated if committed by Republicans.
As for Biden, he can’t croak soon enough for me.
What you talking about son. The republicans are full participants in the corruption. Couple of examples – Romney had some of his people “working” in Ukraine at do nothing jobs at the same time as Hunter. – all of the big names in the R party have “foundations” that get contributions from foreigners – mini me versions of the Clinton foundations. Do you really think that foreign oligarchs think its essential to hear Ms Lindsay’s brain farts on every issue? Of course not , their thinly concealed bribes and extortion payoffs. That id why it’s not a partisan issue. They… Read more »
They all do it – except my rep / senator – which is why Mr or Ms ‘I’ on the ballot (read incumbent) wins the vast majority of elections – and why voting harder is futile.
Honestly, wouldn’t mind the graft so much if they actually implemented policies that helped. Seems in the past, there was “neutral” corruption – the road paving contract going to the brother-in-law’s company, but at least the road got paved. Now, it’s simply treasonous graft.
Africa wins again.
The accelerated looting indeed is a bad sign. While most of The Help in D.C. is far too stupid to know This One Neat Trick, you can get your ass that stolen cash is being converted to hard assets as fast as possible by the few who don’t go on wig-buying sprees (hi, Maxine!). “One reason for this wall of silence is that this sort of corruption is so common that no one knows who is clean and who is dirty. Like the corrupt police precinct, the culture of corruption breeds a culture of silence.” The reasonable assumption is almost… Read more »
A minor quibble, but as soon as Cagney hollered that line his world became flames and ruin.
Yikes. I selectively forgot that part!
One of the concerns I have with “saviors” coming to the forefront to “turn things around” is time line. Seems that the rot is decades in development, whereas the best of democratically elected saviors has a limited life in power. Hence we have experienced at best a postponement and perhaps a couple of steps backward before we take another three steps forward into the abyss. This is why I see our best hope being a situation as we’ve seen in places like Chile and Spain and even Ancient Rome—the rise of a “dictator” for as long as it takes, who… Read more »
Totally agreed but even a successful dictatorship doesn’t necessarily expunge the rot over the long haul. Spain is perhaps the most cucked European state. Last account was Chile had descended back into communism. The Roman Empire turned to foreign troops and, unexpectedly, it fell. Is Spain better than pre-Franco? Chile pre-Pinochet? Maybe, maybe not. But folks got a couple of generations of reprieve.
Yep, which leads one (logically) back to a discussion we’ve had before—is liberal democracy as the Western world has come to practice it a long term viable form of organization and political control in a world of godless multiculturalism and a virtueless populace.
So a strong man returning the government that became corrupt to a populace than allowed it to become corrupted is self defeating.
As little as fifteen years ago you’d have to venture out into the hills where the long white Mercedes with blacked out windows roams to find a Chilean who cursed Pinochet’s memory. American leftists who’d visit were disgusted by normal citizens’ refusal to join their toasts to his death. Since then the Chileans have been replaced—by their brainwashed-American children. The covid years were the absolute end of their civilization.
You’ve got Sulla and Diocletian in mind (perhaps sans the Christian persecutions). Sulla tried and failed. Diocletian’s reforms proved to be mere stays of execution.
Constantine it is, then!
I was thinking more of the very old Rome and the dictatorship of Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus. Hell, we’ve even named cities after him due to his example of citizenship.
I had no idea Cleveland was named after Cincinnatus!
Glubb, glubb, glubb. Not just a prescient essayist, but the sound the ship of state of the GAE makes, slowly sinking beneath the waves of history,
Glubb…glubb, glubb/
I’m floatin’ on a sea of love.
Reminds me of the scene in the movie Margin Call where an emergency meeting is called because it has been discovered the whole stock enterprise is going belly up soon.
What to do? Sell it all. Today.
Most will be left with worthless stocks and a hell of alot of turmoil in the future except for those at the top who grab now. That’s our country now.
Margin Call was a seriously underrated movie. It’s a good primer of the financial crisis and the industry. I was out of the industry long before then and in the real economy but the characters in the movie were pretty true to life.
Mike – I’m guessing the Jeremy Irons character sums it up accurately near the end: “It’s just money. It’s made up”.
He also said, paraphrasing, “Explain it to me like I’m a slow child or a Golden Retriever”, which is pretty wiespread in that industry.
Glad you threw in the Glubb reference. I think of his essay every time I see the news. Corruption happens in other places. In Russia it’s tolerated until it gets too big, then somebody falls out a window or gets permanent food poising. Same in China until the corrupt exec or official gets a trip to camp concentration. Once a toady becomes made in the Clinton / Obama / Biden corruption machine, there is no limit to the graft. $ Billions can disappear and the DOJ will ignore it. More money will be printed and the whole thing will be… Read more »
In the US and other Western countries, killing is gauche. You don’t get invited to cocktail parties by throwing people off balconies or dosing people with polonium. It’s not Who We Are. (Trademark)
With low-level exceptions like Seth Rich or Vince Foster or even Jeffrey Epstein, high-ranking people just get sued to death. High-profile assassinations may come back, like in the 1960s. Who knows when or if we’ll get back to that place.
“In the US and other Western countries, killing is gauche.”
Western countries have seemed to exult in mass murder abroad since at least the Yugoslavia bloodbath, and as far as domestically, the cheerleading for the senseless killing of Ashli Babbitt speaks for itself. Granted, The Help does the dirty but it seems the elite have no problem with slaughter as long as it is done by others, sort of like lawn work.
I think Marko means killing your equal level opponents/rivals is gauche. Killing the “other”, the hoi polloi or plebes is sport.
Thus, unlikely a hit on Trump – rather, lawfare to death which seems almost a worse fate fir his type. Contrast with Qaddafi (an upstart “other”).
Also, Western bloodbaths go way far before Yugoslavia.
The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.” – Josef Stalin.
Somehow the US glorifies the latter and publicly abhors the former.
Actually, we do both.