07:50 – Sporadic rain with thunder from yesterday evening through the small hours this morning. During the loudest thunder at around 0300, Colin bravely jumped up on the bed and forced his way up near the head, where he curled up into a small dogball to protect Barbara and me. We ended up getting 0.62 inch total, which was badly needed.
The Greek farce continues, with all of the news outlets speculating about whether or not Greece will default and leave the euro. The reality of course, is that Greece will default. Greece has done nothing but default for most of the last 150 years. Most recently, in 2012, Greece committed the largest sovereign default in history. Greece has been bankrupt ever since it joined the euro, and is now is the position of begging additional loans to make the payments on the loans that it already has. It’s on the hook now for hundreds of billions of euros in “loans”, 60% of which are held by the IMF, EU, and ECB, AKA the taxpayers. Basically, Greeks have for decades been living far above their means, depending on other to subsidize their lifestyle. Others are no longer willing to do that, and this is all ending badly, as was predictable and predicted. Europhiles are trying to kick the can a bit farther down the road, but they’ve run out of options.
Neither the Germans nor anyone else cares about the Greeks. That ship sailed long ago. Now it’s just a question of how to get out of this mess as cleanly as possible, and the hell with the Greeks. The Greeks, meanwhile, are perfectly aware that their economy long ago flat-lined, and are determined to continue forcing the rest of the EU to subsidize their lifestyle by threatening to blow up the eurozone if the welfare payments don’t continue. Tsipras isn’t bluffing, and neither are the Troika. There’s no way this can end well.
Old joke … you owe the bank $1,000 and can’t pay, you’re in trouble. Owe the bank $1BN and can’t pay; the bank is in trouble.
Any rational banker should have known that the Greek government could never repay it’s debt, yet the lending spigot kept gushing Euros. This was necessary, in the view of the ECB to keep the Euro house-of-cards from blowing down. Well, the day of reckoning is fast approaching – best result would be for the Greeks to return to the Drachma, stiff the bankers that loaned it money and sit back with a glass of Ouzo and watch the fireworks.
Greece should have abandoned the euro and returned to its sovereign currency in 2010, if not before. Either way, German taxpayers are left holding most of the bag. German taxpayers will be out with torches and pitchforks when the whole thing finally crashes down. If I were Merkel, I’d leave the country to avoid being lynched.
IIRC, the last time I looked, Germany held something close to 200 billion euros in Greek debt overall, counting their percentage of debt to the IMF, ECB, and EU. That’s something like 18,000 euros for every Greek man, woman, and child. I suppose Germany could invade Greece and sell its population into slavery, but I don’t think the average Greek will fetch 18,000 euros.
“…but I don’t think the average Greek will fetch 18,000 euros.”
Well, maybe Voula Papachristou might…
“If I were Merkel, I’d leave the country to avoid being lynched.”
I’d pay 18,000 Euros to see that, and double or triple it for Hollande and Cameron being included in the necktie party.
“Well, maybe Voula Papachristou might…”
Dave, go for that vision check NOW!
but I don’t think the average Greek will fetch 18,000 euros
Reminds of that old joke on Laugh In. Something along the lines about “How much does a Greek Urn……”.
“Hillary’s plans to stuff the ballot box”
http://www.wnd.com/2015/06/hillarys-plans-to-stuff-the-ballot-box/
“While Hillary gave lip service to the notion that “every citizen” should vote, her Democratic allies are in court trying to stop every reasonable means of verifying a voter’s citizenship. That’s no surprise because, according to a recent Rasmussen survey, a majority (53 percent) of Democrats believe that non-citizens, including even illegal immigrants, should be allowed to vote.”
“Hillary has assigned her top lawyer to sue Wisconsin to overturn its effective voter-ID law, one of the best in the nation. But that’s not all. The New York Times just reported that left-wing Hungarian billionaire George Soros has agreed to pour $5 million into a national effort to protect and expand early voting.”
This is not going to end well. At some point there will be a civil war.
Oh wait, maybe it will have a silver lining after all. Lining the Hillzilla up against a wall for execution for treason would be good. That line needs to be long.
Ray wrote:
“Reminds of that old joke on Laugh In.”
Showing your age there Ray…
(Verrrrryyyyyyyyy Interesting.)
Showing your age there Ray…
Indeed. Next I will talk about bunny rabbits and ping pong balls and remove all doubt.
“Dave, go for that vision check NOW!”
Apres vous, dude, who thinks Hillary is hot but Voula is not??? Yikes.
“This is not going to end well. At some point there will be a civil war.”
There it is. Probably not this year. Not next year. But it’s coming. Look at the just-prior history of other civil wars. The wheels are turning out here.
I just don’t see a civil war happening. Those of us that care are too old and the younger generations have been raised to be compliant. The first sign that there was a problem is when they raised the drinking age throughout country and there was zero outrage from the 18-21 year olds. It’s not a sign of a healthy society when the youth fall in place so easily.
I suspect what we’ll see is a continual rise in the crime rate and higher taxes on the productive as the rats running the government do their best to redistribute the wealth to the people they consider their core constituency. At some time in the future we will all be equal, but we’ll also all be poor (except for the politicians in charge who will make sure they’re rewarded handsomely for doing such a swell job governing.)
I hope I’m wrong but I don’t expect a happy ending for the good old USA. It was fun while it lasted.
Good points, Mr. Al, but there are a LOT of angry people out here who keep getting screwed over. We’ll continue to see the scenario you describe for a while longer but eventually it is unsustainable, as the Greeks are finding out right now. And many of the angry people are armed to the teeth and have previous military and/or law enforcement experience and training.
No, an old buzzard like me is not gonna be able to stand off a nocturnal fire team assault on the house here, but they can’t kill us all. Sooner or later the money is gonna run out and they won’t be able to pay their troops and cops anymore. Couple that with the the Grid down, no EBT cards, no ATMs, no gas pumps working, no tee-vee or innernet, and you have the ol’ recipe for disaster in a country of 330 million, the third largest in the world.
At the moment, I agree with Al.
The frog is boiled.
If no knock SWAT raids are ok
If civil asset forfeiture is ok
If secret trade agreements are ok
If non-stop spying is ok
If stop and frisk is ok
If extra judicial murder by cop is ok
If 52% of the population receiving govt aid is ok
If recounting an election until you get the result you want is ok
If widespread voting and campaign donation fraud is ok
If importing an invading army is ok
and on and on
What WOULD trigger the fight? There is no fight left. We’ve been incrementally, slippery sloped to death, and the shooting hasn’t started.
TPTB are not dumb enough to let an event happen that would be the flashpoint for the middle class.
Maybe the muzzies are, but the powers behind the throne aren’t.
nick
“TPTB are not dumb enough to let an event happen that would be the flashpoint for the middle class.”
I happen to think they would like to see it, and a nice rolling civil war would suit them just fine; mass die-off is fine with them, too. All they need is a servant class of minion guards, soldiers, servants and techies to keep the ball in the air and they’ll party like it’s 1999. Their role models are probably somewhat along the lines of the old banana republics south of the Equator and the Emperor Caligula.
Some headlines, presented without comment:
Multi-billionaire owner of luxury jewellers Cartier says the thought of the poor rising up and overthrowing the rich keeps him awake at night
Mom, 26, ‘overdoses on heroin and passes out in her car with her four young children inside’
Race is on to track hundreds of people exposed to woman with ‘extreme’ TB who traveled across three states while contagious
Teenage Yazidi girls abducted by ISIS are being sold in slave markets for as little as a pack of cigarettes, UN envoy reveals
-Jihadis have forced thousands of girls into sexual slavery in Syria and Iraq
The chemistry of Caitlyn: Video reveals how hormone therapy enables a man to become a woman
Mother’s death from botched butt injections is ruled a homicide after she ‘died on a table with bloody gauze on her rear’
‘Johnny, punch her in the face!’ Shocking moment woman starts a brawl in Walmart and gets her six-year-old son to help out
San Francisco considers health warnings on soda advertisements
Woman who died during ‘butt lift’ surgery in Mexico had her lungs punctured four times during procedure, post-mortem finds
And — coming soon to a city near you —
It’s like F’n Sodom and Gomorrah this week.
nick
Cue up Yeats:
“TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
But of course he was a pagan fascist and probably some kinda revolutionary terrorist anyway.
Let’s spin the dial forward a few decades, shall we?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yge311sFhC8
Race is on to track hundreds of people exposed to woman with ‘extreme’ TB who traveled across three states while contagious
I read that one earlier. Someone come up with a new name for Obola for this one?
TotalBarack?
Oburcula?
Damn, will they please stop kicking the can?
Some high-powered idiots are proposing to lend Greece enough for another year. How stupid can you be?
lol! I love Oburcula! It’s also got a creepy Tranny*slvanian twist to it.
*I just more reparations via PayPal for that one.
“Damn, will they please stop kicking the can?”
Why should they? Our own lords temporal are doing the same thing here, until they have no choice anymore and we get Default and then the Big Hurt kicks in like it wouldn’t have if they’d addressed the problems and fixed them. Yeah, I’m dreaming again, must be residual LSD from 45 years ago…
“…a creepy Tranny*slvanian twist to it.”
Yup, I thought of that immediately; Dracula! The fictional character of Bram Stoker rather than the real-life Vlad the Impaler.
And didn’t somebody put out a p.o.s. flick about the Great Eliminator being a vampire-hunter or sumthin? Anyone see that? It’s OK, you can admit it; we’ll only insult you and drag yer name through the mud a couple of nights….
I saw it. Hilarious!
Way back when, Mr. Chuck posted a link to his Stereo Tool settings. I managed to find his gist on github at CWJR. He has one for music and one for speech. Seems to have been uploaded a couple of weeks ago.
And once again we ask: Where the fuck is Mr. Chuck?
And also Cowboy Slim?
As for the various Lincoln flicks; the MIL up here got us tickets for that movie about him that got all the rave reviews, ’cause, naturally, it was from the Union p.o.v. entirely. I told wife I warn’t interested in more lies and those tix never got used. I’d like to see an alternate history one get made where Booth nails him in 1860 instead of 1865.
“The USS Liberty murders are arguably Lyndon Johnson’s greatest crime if one does not include deceiving and dragging America into the horrors of the Vietnam War where millions perished.”
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/06/roger-stone/the-uss-liberty-and-lbj/
Slim posted here 2-4 weeks ago, may have used his Stuart Nicol handle.
Chuck is probably riding the subway in Berlin and hanging out in the parks there and the English Garden in Munich, in his eternal search for “tiny titties.”
Ah, LBJ…
A former Australian PM once said “all the way with LBJ” to which someone replied “hell’s the way for LBJ.”
There was also a placard of him at a US antiwar rally with the caption “War Criminal”.
Not one of your finest presidents.
Not one of your finest presidents.
Indeed, horribly corrupt. Voter registration rolls exactly matched the order of some local graves. His property was modified at government expense to install a runway that can handle a 727. His home was modified at government expense to install a small theater. One of the bigger losers we have ever had. I would not be surprised if at some point in history it is discovered that LBJ had Kennedy killed.
I wouldn’t put past him. He was certainly one of the most corrupt we’ve ever had–probably tied with Bill Clinton–but I think he’d have problems making into the top five for “worst”. There’s some serious competition there.
A lot of the liberals at Jerry Coyne’s website think Nixon was a comparitively good president and hasn’t been bettered by the Republicans since.
“A lot of the liberals…”
There’s your clue right there. Nixon was a disaster, like all our presidents going back to the last good one we had, Grover Cleveland. The absolute worst was the Great Eliminator; naturally he’s next to Jesus in the Murkan Pantheon of Heroes. In our lifetimes, my vote goes to LBJ for being a murdering war criminal and one of the nastiest politicians ever. But Larry Klinton and Oburcula have been pretty good contenders for the title.
Field Marshal Rodham has a very good chance of beating out even LBJ, and eight years to do it.
Laissez les bons temps rouler, mes amis!
From Slashdot, I just found out that the leaders of the G7 have agreed to restore the dark ages to Western Civilization by 2100. Actually they agreed to end the use of fossil fuels by 2100.
^Field Marshal Rodham^Hillzilla
“…the leaders of the G7 have agreed to restore the dark ages to Western Civilization by 2100.”
Now that really pisses me right the hell off. I’ll be dead by then! I was looking forward to the Dark Ages coming back in my lifetime, dammit! I had an ABD PhD in Medieval Studies, with some language courses in Old English, Old Norse, Old French and Latin. I woulda been the abbot of some monastery or sumthin.
Field Marshal Rodham, Hillzilla, Lady MacBeth of Little Rock, The Heroine of Tripoli and Benghazi, etc., etc. Eight years, coming right up. Get ready. Are you ready?
We are always ready for anything in The Great State of Texas. Somebody even wrote a book about Hillzilla and Texas, “A State of Disobedience” by Tom Kratman.
http://www.amazon.com/State-Disobedience-Tom-Kratman/dp/0743499204/
His property was modified at government expense to install a runway that can handle a 727.
Nope. The field at his ranch is 6291 feet long. A 727 needs 9340 to take off. While he was president, Air Force 1 was a 707, which landed at the Air Force base in Austin (Bergstrom, now the Austin airport) or at San Antonio (Kelly, now folded into Lackland). He then was driven or took a chopper to the ranch.
Voter registration rolls exactly matched the order of some local graves.
The true story of his 1948 Senate victory (in the Democratic primary) will never be known, but it is known that at precinct 13 in Jim Wells county, 202 voters voted in alphabetical order and signed with the same handwriting. Johnson won by 87 votes. He then went on to victory in the main election.
A classic LBJ phone call has been out for a while. He called Joe Haggar at the pants company, to get some more slacks.
Audio at: http://millercenter.org/presidentialclassroom/exhibits/lbj-orders-some-new-haggar-pants