Wednesday, March 5, 2008

EDUCATION AND SKILLS FOR THE COLLAPSE from Murph

I have been involved with and familiar with far more primitive technology in the last number of years. There are all kinds of books out on how to deal with non industrialized means of doing things. Interestingly, almost of those means of doing things, involve to some degree industrialization, some more than others. For instance, if you are going to cut down a tree, the highly industrialized means is a chain saw. The far more primitive means is with some sort of ax or a manual saw, both of which demand ready access to metals and the means and skill to make the tool. When I lived in Arkansas, I worked for a short time with a neighbor who made the old style Ozark chairs. They had no fasteners or glue in them and were guaranteed to hold together for 100 years. Made by hand, a whole lot of manual labor, and it still took a lathe, electricity and various hammers and cutting tools, made from metal. The lathe could be put together to operate on treadle power, but getting around the need for cutters and other parts made with metal I would not know how to do.

Let’s take another example. When I was doing my survival living gig in Arkansas, one of the things that I just couldn’t do without is a hot shower, the pan bath got real old real quick. After trying to bath in the river up until November me and the family decided being that cold wasn’t worth it and we had to do something else. So I built an outside shower room, and put in a kit barrel stove with a copper coil in the smoke stack that filled a 100 gal. tank on the roof with hot water by convection currents and also had a 100 gal. tank to mix cold water with the hot water. The copper coil was a bit of a problem till I figured out you had to fill the tube with sand before you made a coil of it, using a fence post to coil it around. I rather imagine I had the only Finnish sauna in the Ozarks. Pretty primitive, right? Well, let’s see now. I had metal tubing for a 6” smoke stack that I do not think I could duplicate by hand, even if I had the sheet metal available. I had the cast iron kit parts to make a stove using a 30 gal. metal barrel, neither of which could I make by hand. Then there is the copper tubing, the couple of shut off valves and the means of filling the barrel as the water was used. To be able to put this rather primitive shower together takes an infrastructure of manufacturing to make it possible.

I realize that there will be a lot of scavenging going on, jerry rigging and making do. And, I rather imagine there will be lots to scavenge, but, if you’re thinking of going for the remote living, keep in mind just what infrastructure is needed to support what you figure you can’t do without.

I think it is rather self-evident that if things blow up around us and the industrialized support of this civilization goes away, a college degree in physics or an MBA will be little help in coping with the situation.

So what skills or “education” would be useful? It sort of depends on how basic, how self sufficient we will be required to be to survive. We could eventually be forced into the position of the only tools that could be used would have to be fabricated from the natural environment around us. Trying to cultivate land with a big piece of wood or making tools from different types of rock would be outright impossible for all but a very few people. Of course if we have a huge die off of population, the few that know how or are willing to figure out how to do it will probably be the survivors.

So let’s take a look at something happening that is not so drastic.

In modern times, there have been several societies that have collapsed. The most notable is the Soviet Union and Cuba. Demitry Orlov talks extensively about how the Russian society survived. Barring a nuclear holocaust, those are probably one of the more realistic patterns we will see. Cuba also went through some very troubling times when Russia cut off aid. They solved their problems by going quite low tech in comparison to the rest of the industrialized world. Seemingly, despite the embargos and attempts to isolate Cuba they have done quite well. Russia is on the rebound, primarily due to its store of fossil fuels.

In both cases, the need for formal schooling went down drastically, at least in technical skills since there were few technical things to work with. They were not eliminated entirely, just greatly reduced.

I rather imagine in our case, again barring nuclear war, technology will not disappear, at least in our lifetimes. (After all, it took 500 years for Rome to lose the people to maintain their technology and infrastructure). I imagine technology will be vastly reduced and be at a much lower scale than what we have now. I think that electricity will be rationed, and will periodically be unavailable. This is going to cause all kinds of havoc with electric motors. Better know how to fix them. In our throw away society, replacements are going to be scarce to non existent. Better know how to fix mechanical stuff and have the tools to do it. Learn the fine art of “jerry rigging” or “work arounds”. I think that anyone with the “know how” and tools to fix stuff will be in a very good barter position. I am constantly amazed at the sheer number of people that are unable to fix anything. I know a guy that gets hesitant about changing a light bulb, much less about how to wire an on-off switch. Of course, there will be a certain segment of the population that will out of desperation try to figure out how to do repairs and keep things running. I think you will also notice that most of them are older. They came from a time when that was just a normal skill to have, not the exception.

Going to school is going to become sporadic to non existent in most areas. Our school systems have become so centralized that transportation of students will become impossible. The 40 minute to an hour commute to and from school will be impossible. So, local areas will form their own schools. That means there will be some demand for people with knowledge and be able to teach it. (There is a distinction here of knowing and being able to teach it) Another good barter position. In that vein, what we are going to teach kids and adults will change, it will have to since what we teach people now is virtually worthless in that kind of situation. I think we are going to go back to teaching the down and dirty basics; simple arithmetic, basic reading. But, the real education is going to be given by those that have an understanding of why this collapse came about and be able teach it. I taught electronics for a couple of years in a vo. tech. First day of class I told the students that what they were there for was to learn how to think, we were just using electronics as a means to do this. Being able to talk about social organization and teach skills in critical thinking and real problem solving will be important. Can’t you imagine Montana Freeman heading up informal get togethers on the spirit and communing with nature and the respecting of all of our environment? That would be so cool.

I think in conjunction with this, that the older part of our population wherein resides the older knowledge of how to get by will become very popular, at least for those that survive. I imagine them taking apprentices under their wing to learn skills long ago abandoned. For sure, keeping an IPod cell phone or portable CD player operating is going to be far down the list of skills to have. Knowing how to keep a CB or ham set operating would be useful to keep information coming in from outside your area. Of course, the old standby of bicycle repair will be very useful. How many people you know that could build a harness for a work animal, or even put a harness on a horse? For that matter, fix a tire? Or fix a universal joint if you can’t get new parts? (A worn out ½” socket will work for a while). How do you convert that VW beetle into a tractor? How do you make a combustion engine work with a pile of fire wood and absolutely no gas? They figured that one out during WWII. How can you heat a house and cook with no gas, no propane, and no available fuel whatsoever? A wood stove works, but there are other ways too. How to get water from a well with no electricity will be a challenge. I’m working on that one right now.

On a family level, better learn how to produce your own food because in a collapse of a society, there isn’t going to be the well stocked grocery stores any more, even if you have the cash around to buy stuff with. Learn gardening, animal husbandry.

I know, I know, “when would I have the time to do this”. Well, if this collapse gets as bad as I think it will, you won’t have much time then to learn it when things turn bad either. Take your pick. When your hungry and you haven’t figured out how to grow some food and preserve it, and how to keep your chickens alive, you aren’t going to have the time to figure it out then either. What you going to do? Go out and steal the food? Risky business around my neck of the woods I can truthfully say.

Which brings up another subject. In the more rural environments, when the grocery store shelves become bare, the first impulse is to go out and kill some animals. Even in our sparsely populated area, that will last about 2-3 months, if that long. Edible game will be killed off. Then what? I hear this kind of talk and laugh and ask just how experienced they are at getting game when most of the game has been killed off and when you can’t find any to kill, then what? Again, it’s risky business figuring you will just take someone else’s store of food. Better plan ahead better than that. And, even if game is available, where you going to replenish the ammo to go hunting? Does that answer any question on why I reload? And, also for that matter, if you are figuring on hunting for sustenance, what are you going to carry? That monster 300 win mag. Or the 358 mag? Better start thinking more along the lines of .22 calibers and a shotgun and a very healthy stash of ammo while it is available and affordable.

You now also better start thinking about how to protect your stash of food from people intent on taking it away. Better have a group you can depend on to keep watch while you sleep because any marauder worth his salt is going to come when you least expect it. And, that’s not even starting to talk about how you are going to deal with a police state and people determined to mess with you because they can.

Surviving under duress is a tricky endeavor. Surviving well is even harder. Better get crackin’ in preparation or it will be on you before you are ready.

42 comments:

Anonymous said...

Murph,

As re: preferred fire arms choices, a friend who is knowledgable suggests obtaining a 50 cal. or 54 cal. flintlock. They can be purchased without filling out paperwork, and the ammunition and powder required for these types of arms can be produced at home. Lead bullets can be made from wheel weights, or the lead from old batteries. Black powder ingredients can be found in nature. It might be another skill worth perfecting. Any one know a local source of sulpher?

-rockpicker

Anonymous said...

Rockpicker,

You used to be able to make bullets from batteries. Even then it was a hazardous undertaking but today, it is a waste of time. Not a good idea. I did it back in the 80's, but the composition of the plates in batteries has changed.

Black powder guns are indeed one way to go. And, it is also true you can make gunpowder, which I have been experimenting with. The problem is the compound furnishing the oxygen. That is a whole different ballgame. Sulfur can be a problem also. Gun powder can be made from a whole variety of compounds, but the potassium nitrate or similar material can be a problem. It is true that they don't have a paper trail, and for good reason, they are too inefficient to be a threat. There is a problem with using wheel weights in black powder rifles. Stick on wheel weights have around 8 brinnel hardness, close to pure lead. Clip on weights are around 12-13 brinnel, making them a bunch more difficult to pound down the barrel, and thus raising pressure. As far as I know, all modern black powder guns only shoot near pure lead, no more than 8 brinnel hardness. Pure lead is 6. I tried loading a black powder gun with clip on wheel weights and abandoned the project. To damned easy to break something.

In conjunction with that, I have over time acquired a pretty good stash of pure lead, as well as different alloys of hardness. Thinking ahead on this.

It is also possible to shoot center fire weapons with black powder.

Part of the problem with flintlocks is a ready supply of the high quality flint needed, and the different grades of powder needed. My experience is that making your own powder is a rather tricky business, but it can be done.

Also, since the purpose of the sulfur is to lower the ignition and burning heat, it is not absolutely necessary. Raw flowers of sulfur is also a bit hard to find in nature. But, as I mentioned before, it's the nitrates or some compound to supply oxygen that is the biggest problem. In the natural form, it has to be refined to make it dependable.

Overall, a flintlock has some distinct advantages in a survival hunting situation. Better get real good at one shot kills though. lol.

Anonymous said...

Murph,

I don't have any expertise with black powder guns. Only repeating what my friends have been saying.

One friend killed a buffalo last fall with a single shot to the head. Can't remember the distance, but the other friend was very impressed.

One thing they talked about was needing saltpeter. That, they said, could be gotten from urine.

One of them knows of a local source of natural sulpher. And we have outcrops of flint and obsidian around here.

I'll have to ask them about the wheel weights hardness problem. Neither mentioned that.

-rp

Palooka's Revenge said...

murph... excellent. you need to send this over to the rick at after armageddon blog. try
* after_armaggedon@hotmail.com * it'd go nicely on the heals of the current entry... http://afterarmageddon.blogspot.com/2008/03/bugout.html

all... fyi... george ure and pie monk clif on c2c tues last. some perdiction stuff but mostly 'bout how it works and the underlying hypothisis that people are persient and it can be read. thus, pie monks aren't predicting. we are. their just reading it with a highly sophisticated combo of software and skills developed from earlier employemet dayz. fascinating.

for price of a movie you can listen for 30 dayz. they'll send you a re-up notice which you must decline or they'll re-up you auto.

1st hour was james mccanney on space anomalies.

http://www.coasttocoastam.com/shows/2008/03/04.html#recap

RAS said...

I don't know much about guns. Guess I'd probably better find out. As for the rest, I'd like to get together some kind of education center where people who know how to do these sorts of things would teach others. We're going to have to ramp some skills -old and new -pretty fast and it's easier to do when you can have one teacher teach many students. Of course, you'd have to have such a center in many different areas.

Anyone else hear about the IED at the recruiting office in Times Square this morning? They're saying it's not terrorism. Okay, riddle me this; a bunch of environmentalists burn down some (empty) houses and that's terrorism, but someone blows up an IED at a recruiting station and that's not? Wtf?

Anonymous said...

It's a little early in the day for obvious oxymorons, and this is off-topic, as well, but I guess I'm on-board with what these "religious investors" are attempting. Check 'em out here:

http://www.dontplantgmobeets.org/


-rp

RAS said...

Is everybody okay? This place has been dead this week.

Anonymous said...

Looks like everybody's busy watching the Tao tank.

Tao Jones, that is. Sooner, the better. Can't collapse fast enough for me. Go! Go! Go!

Just heard the Fed's pumping another 200 billion into the money supply. It's a monthly ritual now, isn't it?

The 'experts' are entranced by the trees, while the rest of us gape, speechless and trembling, before the vast expanse of economic wilderness looming in this twilight.

Pray for a quick demise, else we'll be slowly drained, and saddled with further loss of rights. DHS is turning up the heat on Real ID. We must resist. Kirwan says Ca. should secede. I say we all join Ca. and tell the Feds to go fuck themselves!

No taxation without representation!

Bush is opening our mail now!


Magnetic Ribbons and the Yellowcake of Faith

When we wake puking shame
at last, and know the dream
for sham, embraced en masse...
When bells that rang victorious
hang mute, their tarnished claims
ignored in disrepute, and
bitter sons, having been all they
could be, can't wish back innocence
or the leg below the knee...

(This brash regime's trimmed reason
from its ranks, its black guard
in the street, protecting flanks.)

...then will we heed the schemers'
gloating leer? "There's no future
for dissidents here."
Row on row, with hand
in trembling hand, it's come to this.
We dreamers need to stand.

Anonymous said...

RP,

Great man, I like it.

Anonymous said...

Jesus, Rockpicker, what a wonder you are. That is a truly great poem. It leaves one with the silence with which we seem to have been dealing this week.
I wake up, make coffee,and drink it while I check the charts on gold and the Dow, then George Ure at Urban Survival. It's not like I have ever been a freaking investor, but I am consumed with the spectacle.
Then, I go to the alternative news sites, then the fringe sites, then the resource depletion sites, and then I start the loop again. It's like watching a train wreck in slow motion. All the while I note that the repression is growing stronger, the threats less veiled, the crimes against us more and more brazen.
I've got this sick feeling that Hillary is The Chosen One... godalmighty.
Sorry to be so glum. It's been a rough week. I have had this chronic pain condition, and I began to think that maybe I should shitcan the Vicodin ( 3 per day) that I have been taking for years. So, now I'm just been using acupressure and coconut oil for a week, and I'm doing OK. But, that's my story for the week.
aho

Anonymous said...

the weather has been so beautiful that the winter dreams are chomping at the bit to be implemented and they are by golly,
just repaired the 8th space heater dragged from the town dumpster this winter and acquired two more bikes from the metal bin to repair for the new daycare center my also new daughter in law is putting together for the kids to ride. this is fun stuff for this one. so more then likely ras this is going on for many of us on a similar note. i hope to god there are people that are listening to the posts that occur here and the responses that accompany them, because this one who listens to the trees and the wind and the spring flowers that are starting to appear and especially my favorite insect the times indeed are getting close, the mother of all storms is fast approaching and the gathering intensity of emotional upheaval displaying itself through the collective conscience is becoming staggering in its awesomeness, whoa!!!!
it is soon and the time for prepare is soon, to end, the time of no time is upon us and that in itself is going to be one scary son of a bitch, for time is about to stop and for one second of eternity the human race is going to stand on its ass and cry for relief and there will be none, sorry but thats that!
those that have cracked the me me me egg and peered out at the brave new world will make it but it will come at a cost also, because like all things new and glamorous it also brings a form of blindness, thank you for that bug, made my day for sure.
ok beings there is so much empty space here i will go on with something else that happened recently,

in the dream last night i stood in front of a wall and it stretched out in both directions as far as the eye could see and the wall was covered with beautiful objects of many shapes and colors, bright and shining they were, i ask about what they were and she(bug) told me that these were the many paths that people walk in their times of existence, i said what do you mean and she told me that each object represented a lifetime of experience, and that the ones on the left and the ones on the right were all contained at the same time, which is no time or the time of dreams, i did not understand this, she shrugged and went on to say.......
she said that in the purity of the dream seeking there will come much to discover about yourself and in that discovery you will learn things that others will not know and you will as being a conditioned organism be confronted and tempted
to use that knowledge for personal gain,.. so to be in a constant state of watchfulness, this must be recognised for what it is and where it will lead, if not curtailed even as it will arise,and if allowed to expand into your life you will create even more misery for yourself and all that attend your field of council, she went on to say that the aliveness of life is a two edged sword and it can bring either greater joy or greater pain into the realm of the spirit world , the real world for all else is illusion, and even these words are part of that illusion.
i said what the hell and went back to sleep.

she also says this,
say at least 10 times a day if you can.

'all adjustments to normalize the body processes are at full function'

o hell why not???

If spirit is showering clues all around you, how can they be spotted? First, you must be willing to see these clues. They crop up in many forms: Meeting someone you just thought about, hearing a word that just flashed through your mind, having plans go awry only to find a hidden benefit, noticing that too many coincidences are occurring in your life to truly be coincidences. Spirit often begins to speak in these ways—they might be called first encounters. Narrow escapes, lucky accidents, and intuitions that come true fall into this category also; in all these cases the normal patterns of cause and effect are stretched, sometimes broken.
Because spirit is on the move, constantly creating your life from the invisible source of all life, you must be alert every moment to understand its ways.

"Respect your mystery. Nothing is more profound," Merlin"

peace and love beautiful people may your day be bright with the love that is you,

rp the poem tells it all don't it? very nice.
aho
mf&b

Palooka's Revenge said...

work demads are usually fulfilled here in my office where i also have a tv. this is often on but with the sound turned low. if i glance up and see something of interest going on i turn the sound up. yesterday, tuned to cnbc financial, the pres of a certain trading group (read INSIDER) otta NY was being interviewed. it went something like this....

anchor - where's your interest now?

trader - we're out on anything long term. only moving in on short term and then quickly out again.

a - why?

t - the risk is too high. we see the current situation and are applying what we learned from the dot com bust. usual technicals no longer apply.

a - those are fightin words. are you comparing the current situation with the dot com bust and saying this is as bad and its not over yet?

t - no. we're saying its worse!. ALOT worse!! the sub-prime thing was just the beginning. apparently there are many who do not yet realize just how bad this is going to get. the debt in question is greater than the GDP. its going to take years for this to correct.

there was more but thats the gist of it. i see only one prob with what he said. the word "correct" implys a fundamental system correct in the first place.

just one thing i've noticed lately among the many temporal markers signaling what lay before us... the rehetoric on lamestream has changed significantly in the last 6 weeks. more and more interviewees are appearing bearish. few into doom and gloom yet like our trader up but there's more and more of them showing up every day. theres always the usual element of how to capitalize. network philosophy assumes thats their job i guess. so still pleanty of die-hards and they get lotsa camera time. but more and more i'm hearing the anchors begining to challenge their pov's and thinking... but, but, but, wait a minute. what about this? what about that? how can you say that when...

spring equinox in less than 2 weeks. the beginning of the end. seems like yesterday was christmas. time speeding up. an observable, natural phenominon in sand pile theory. buckle up.

Anonymous said...

MF,

Another synchronicity. Project Merlin. Here:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/961337.html

Palooka,

NPR's finally decided to start talking about the economy.

Also, how's about the slip-sliding events under western Wa.?

-rp

Anonymous said...

Palooka;

Maybe it's the end of the beginning.

Oldensoul and I are hosting a corned-beef and cabbage feed, along with a bonfire and drumming spring equinox session in our front yard God Friday. Potluck. You're all invited.

Boom boom boom boom.......

-rp

Palooka's Revenge said...

rp... ya, i saw the notice. and there's this from ectv..

by Mitch Battros - Earth Changes Media

Reports are now being filed by the Pacific Northwest Seismic Center, indicating ongoing tremors measuring moderate to strong levels over the past two days. The location of activity is positioned in the southern Puget Sound area of Washington State.

Wendy McCausland and Evelyn Roeloffs of the Cascade Volcano Observatory report that their analysis of seismic instruments south of Olympia, WA -- does show a subtle signal that may be the beginning of an anomalous strain event.

Earlier in the week, seismographs in the southern Hood Canal area began recording bursts of low-level shaking associated with what is called an episodic tremor-and-slip event. This ?slip? event is likely to continue along the North American plate that lies under much of the Pacific Northwest. This NA plate is compressed by the Juan de Fuca plate where the two meet just off the Pacific coast. This is the Cascadia Subduction Zone.

The Last Cascadia Subduction Zone Mega Quake - January 26th 1700

Scientists believe the next Cascadia earthquake will be one of the largest on the planet measuring up to a 9.0 magnitude. The evidence of the great temblor 300 years ago was discovered along the coast of Washington and Oregon by Brian Atwater, a U.S. Geological Survey scientist in Seattle.

When Dr. Kenji Satake, of the Geological Survey of Japan, heard about Atwater's theory he realised that Japan could hold the answer. He explained that while 300 years ago is pre-history for America, Japan has written records of seismic events dating back to this time. What Satake was looking for was a special kind of tsunami.

One day the people of the Pacific Northwest will face a megathrust earthquake. So how big will it be? What damage will it cause? When will it happen? The difference today verses 300 years ago --- is this time everyone is watching close.

end battros report

battros lives in seattle. map of activity...
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/
eqcenter/recenteqsus/Maps/US10/
42.52.-130.-120.php

the big events of the week were due west of eugene out on the fault, aka tsunami bait. here's an annimation... ftp://www.agu.org/apend/jb/
2003JB002521/2003JB002521-animation.gif


i stand corrected.... the end of the beginning. agree 100%

great poem btw. that one needs to go in a time capsule. a bomb proof one at that

RAS said...

Guess what I got to do yesterday? I got to sit in a gas line. No; we're not having gas shortages here. Gas ranges from $3.02 to $3.30 a gallon here right now. Most stations are about $3.14. Being as broke as I am, I went to one of the cheap stations and there was a line, 5 deep as some pumps. And this was a big station. (Lucky for me, my fill up valve is on the odd side, so I got in a short line.) Yes, all of this to save $.12 a gallon on gasoline. Most people wouldn't have done it. But there were a hundred people out there doing so. Furthermore, all of them (pardon the expression) were obviously as broke-ass poor as me. There wasn't a newer model car in that line.

It's amazing how fast things are happening now.

Anonymous said...

Ras,

Indeed it is amazing how fast things are changing.

The discount gas stations in Bend, the nearest city, also have long lines for fill ups. Had a friend in Florida at the time of the last hurricane. Gas was a bit scarce for a couple of days and he saw a guy pull a gun to cut in line. Boy, think what it will be like after a week of severe shortages. Sure wish I had some storage facilities. Gas here is hovering around the $3.50 mark. Along with the 25% cost increase in groceries at the store, I wonder how people are managing to stay in the loop. I anticipate $4 gas in a month or so. $5 by the end of the year.

Stock market is going down in fits and starts. Adjusting for inflation, the stock market would have to be over 20,000 to be even with the 70's and 80's.

It sure looks like we are witness to the collapse. But then again, there are white rabbits to pull out of hats to drag the show out for how long?

Keep getting ready

Anonymous said...

Hey, according to whatreallyhappened.com, rense.com is being hacked into and dismantled. Wonder who would do that? Hmmmmm....

Later -

Dude

Anonymous said...

I just looked at the Rense site. I don't see it. Maybe some stuff has been taken off or put on. But, wouldn't Jeff Rense mention it?

Anonymous said...

From Belgium,

I have been following the sun and walking great half circles in the wilderness. I recently spoke to mf and he suggested that I didn’t find the present stuff very interesting. This is just not true. The present post particularly is one that is close to my heart. As Murph says in his outstanding post, education is going to be a key. There are surely a few who still know and there are even fewer who can pass this knowledge on. We seem to hit a peak in the 70’s and gradually bit by bit it has been going into genteel decline. Yes, I know we have I pods and blue rays now but in Europe at least there are only a very, very few along the Baltic coast who know how to build a ship anymore, not that this is going to be of great importance to our future way of life, but you will no doubt take the point. The old skills are going to be the ones in demand, shelter building; thatching; wheel making; barrel making (not as easy as you might think); pottery making and baking, horse shoeing; windmills to pump water. These are examples of the sort of things we will need. As was said, there is plenty on the internet and there are Technology Centres but most jump in halfway through and assume that you have starter level technology in order to develop future technology. Not many start at ground level.

I am now going to have a bitch about education, so far as it has affected me. Those who want can skip to the next paragraph. Some of you know I am (was) following a language course to learn Nederlands (Dutch). I was busy with an intensive course for level 5 out of a possible overall six level course. There are more levels for the seriously keen. I think it is important to speak the language of the country where you live so six levels will do me. The course was a nominal 120 hours but after taking out national holidays, for example a week off to watch the crocus coming out, lecturers meetings etc and finally if you take out the 20min/ day coffee break, the 120 hours finishes up at somewhere around 75. I don’t object to the course being extended to allow for these things but as things stand the students are being seriously short changed. I was not so much keeping my head above water as underwater breathing through a straw when I had to take a week off for personal reasons. Now there is too much of a mountain to climb so I will let it go and pick it up next time around, world events being equal, at least now I have the course material. I will wager however that the college is claiming a government (which we still haven’t got) subsidy based on 120 hours. Derrick Jensen made a pertinent comment that the way to learn things is by doing them not by intellectualising them. I have not one problem with the teachers themselves but instead of practicing what we learn until it is second nature to us, they are involved in a race to crunch the syllabus within the allotted time. In other words, the college is primarily a business and an educational establishment secondly. The passing on of skills in any future society must not be done in such a way.

I must tell you of a very brief conversation I had during my week off. I have my British passport but apart from this I needed to renew my Belgian identity card at the local town hall, which unfortunately goes with the residency. The lady who processed this gave me the new one and asked for two Euros.
I said “That’s good value. I thought it would be more than that”
She said “You are going to need an electronic one in two years and then it will be more”.
“Don’t want one” said I
“The minister has decided, so you are going to have to have one whether you want one or not”.
“Your minister hasn’t decided anything. He is just doing what he is told like everybody else”.
She gave me one of those looks which said “I know exactly what you mean but I am not going to go there and you are not going to take me”; so I smiled and thanked her and that was that.

My knowledge of weaponry is much like my knowledge of ships. Generally I know which end is the front. When I grew up even the rough buys didn’t have guns. It is all different now though, they would blow out your teeth for a buck. So far as calibre and gauge are concerned my knowledge is sadly lacking. From a chemical point of view, potassium permanganate or even chromic acid will get the job done but realistically I guess these are even harder to come by than sulphur. Maybe you could get sulphur from a gardening supply outlet if you tell them you want to dust your dahlia tubers to prevent the growth of mildew. Most people think of fire arms as hand held ballistic devices but in the wider sense of arms which can be fired, where does the law stand with being able to own a crossbow, do you need a licence?

Anonymous said...

Belgium

In most of the U.S,(with some really interesting exceptions) only center fire and rim fire weapons have to be accounted for. Blowguns, bows of any kind are not registered except in the few cases I mentioned.

I suppose I was what I call fortunate. My grandfather and father taught me about firearms at a very early age. I first went hunting with my grandfather when I was in middle school. Got my first shotgun when I was a freshman in H.S. My real interest in firearms started in the 70's.

I have to admit to a certain contempt for those that are either afraid of firearms or want them all gone, except for the police and military of course, of whom I am much more afraid of than my well armed neighbor.

I follow the idea that if you are fearful and don't trust me armed, then you should also not trust me disarmed. And, that goes for the government also.

As far as cross bows go, actually they don't have the power of a good double re curve, the long bow or the compound bow. Their actual effective range is quite short. One of the last things I would want in my larder. Besides, it is a chore to re cock the things. Very slow rate of fire.

Anonymous said...

One of the dumbest moments of my life was when I was living in Montego Bay with my late husband in the 80's. We thought we were being attacked by "tiefs" due to noises on our roof. Guns being illegal in Jamaica, we tip toed out into the dark backyard armed with only a stupid rubber-banded underwater cross-bow (me) and a machete (Ralph). After torturous moments of abject fear, we ascertained that avocados from surrounding trees were ripening all at once and falling onto our roof - hence the noise. The incident became known as "the attack of the killer avocados."
I never want to feel so vulnerable again.

So happy that you are back, Spirit! We missed you.

Anonymous said...

Spirit,
Perhaps you could teach us a word or two of Dutch. We could greet you with it or something. Or a curse word, or something useful. At this point all I could do is yodel or click a pair of wooden shoes together to approximate anything remotely Dutch.
If you think it is dumb there, you would be totally appalled at the dumbasserie around here.
And, I wonder where is Stoney? Where is mrs.p?
Also, in regards to the rense.com site, is it me, or does it seem that they are all of a sudden running somewhat racist articles? One of them linked to a David Duke site, for pete's sake.

RAS said...

Spirit, if you think education is bad over in Belgium you should come here. Pretty much all of the useful things I've learned I've taught myself. I got into an argument this weekend with an elementary school teacher who really hates homeschooling. Why? Because "they don't socialize the kids enough; they don't mix with all kinds of other people" and so on and so forth. I tried to gently point out that the purpose of school is not to socialize kids, but to educate them (which even she admits our broken school systems aren't doing) and she just kept insisting that they need to be "socialized". Brainwashed is more like it. I decided not to tell her that I decided long ago I would not have kids if I could not homeschool them or send them to a decent private school.

I've never owned a gun. My dad thought us kids all how to shoot when we were 10, but I've never handled a gun since (I was the girl, after all).

Freeacre -I hope that, upon disarming the killer avocados, you proceeded to make a huge batch of guacamole!

Anonymous said...

From Belgium,

RP,

Great poem, I think I have seen parts of it before on this site some time ago, is that possible? Laughing Lennie (Cohen) sometimes takes years to refine the words of song. Every new album contains a new version of Bird on a Wire, or maybe it just seems that way. Whoever it was, thanks for introducing me to John Prine. His song, There’s a Hole in my Arm Where the Money Goes In is very poignant and a pointed comment at uncaring administrations.

I forgot to mention above that I have started to collect the bits together to make a solar death ray. This is just a tongue in cheek name for focused mirrors to produce heat. Unlike other peoples’ previous versions of this, my intention is not to focus to a central point in front of the device like a satellite dish but to some point one to two metres to the side. The meaning is to try to heat up a dense brick which sits inside an abandoned pie heating oven behind a glass door. Apart from weight considerations, putting this in front of the SDR would block out the sun. So far I have got an old TV table which is a central column on four feet with a swivel top. I also have a laser pen to simulate the sun and focus the mirrors. The office supply company said this item was special order so I went to a flea market and picked one up for five euros. I have found a source of cheap mirrors about half price of the ones out of China. On my balcony, I can get direct sunlight between due South and some point just past due West +/- 290 deg but this is the hottest part of the day. Version one will involve me nudging the swivel and tilt by hand but if it works then maybe I can do this with an old clockwork clock. Suggestions are welcome.

Murph,

Thanks for the explanation on firearms, What is a rim firing device, is this something like a Gattling gun? In England the normal police do not carry guns so I was never brought up in gun culture. Even though I do not carry a gun I am changing my opinion on this subject in light of world events. I did read somewhere that the Polish Jews that were tooled up, fared somewhat better than those who weren’t. At least I think they got to stay alive. I have only ever used a shotgun to fire at clays. I did manage through sheer luck to down two clays with one shot and win the event for my team which gave me quite a buzz. I guess though, you will not want me to include Bowling for Columbine in this package I am putting together for you:-) One thing that this film did bring across effectively was the difference in attitude between the Canadians who have more guns and hardly shoot anybody and the good burgers of the USA. One thing Michael Moore did not pick up on is this supposed relationship between murder (mostly but not just guns) and temperature. Somewhere in USA there is supposed to be a murder capital of the world where the constant hot temperature just makes people niggly. Over this temperature people are supposed to get more lethargic. Is there anything in this cold temperature, cold blooded; hot temperature, hot blooded relationship or is it just urban legend?

Freeacre,

You don’t really want to get started with Dutch, even the locals say it is a mad house language. Just for silliness and no particular reason I will tell you a few greetings. Good morning and Good day are common forms. These are Goed morgen and Goed dag. The Dutch ‘G’ is very soft, sounds like the ch at the end of Scottish loch and hardly distinguishable from the English ‘H’. ‘N’s on the end of words are often clipped and they will often add an imaginary ‘e’ to slide one word into the next and the ‘r’s are rolled. The above would come across as Hoed-e-morche and something between Hoed-e-dach and Hoed-e-dak. Good Day, always shortend to Dag (dach or dak) is used in place of good bye.
Another greeting is ‘Hoe gaat het met u?’, literally how goes it with you? People that know each other well shorten this to ‘Ooeist’ pronounced ho at the end of ‘who’ and east said as one word which means ‘How is’ and the rest is left hanging. Incidentally the Dutch think nothing of running four vowels together.

Thank you (Dank u) can be used to mean no thank you. If somebody offers you a cigarette and you don’t smoke for instance. This would usually be accompanied by a bit of body language like an imperceptible shake of the head or a half raised palm and is shorthand for ‘Thanks but no thanks’.

People who bring something for you like a waitress, will often say ‘Please or Alstubleeft’ meaning please receive this. A response to this is Dank u, Dank u wel or bedankt (thanks). Sometimes people overplay this and say Dankt en bedankt.

Gekrijgen is one form of the verb to receive. Ij is one letter. It is a vowel pronounced like air without the a at the beginning and is used in place of Y. When I have travelled an hour on the bus to school, three hours lessons and an hour return, I come home out of the cold, stuff myself with food and coffee, sit down and crash out. Someone might ask me why I was sleeping in the middle of the day and an appropriate answer might be “Ik heb mijn klop gekrijgen” or I have received my knock on the head.

Ras,

Point taken, I have seen videos of the socialising that goes on at Christian summer camp. Dank u.

This is more than enough for one time.

Anonymous said...

Belgium,

I have read quite a few examinations about how the Jews fared in Germany. Most of the examinations conclude that the armed Jew had a higher survival rate and resisted more effectively.

I have occasionally been seeing stuff that said that the unarmed bobby of England was changing. Have a friend who is making a visit there. Have to ask her if she noticed anything. Have also been reading articles that say that England has the most civilian servailance of any country in the world. Know about that?

There are two types of MODERN cartridges now in use. The center fire cartridge has a primer in the center of the shell at its base when when struck by a firing pin ignites the powder in the shell. A rim fire normally can't be reloaded, although there are devices out there to do so. These cartridges have no primer. Instead they have an explosive mixture on the base of the interior of the cartridge that when the firing pin falls on the exterior of the case it ignites this small amount of charge which in turn ignites the gunpowder. Rim fire cartridges are now days seen only in the small 22 calibers. Larger 22 calibers have primers and are called center fire. While the bullet size is the same, it is the size of the cartridge and the amount of powder that they can hold that makes the difference. More powder means higher velocity of the bullet. Example. The 22 long rifle, (the most commonly used of rim fire), usually peaks out at 1800 feet per second. There are a few faster and a bunch slower. The 223 round used by NATO in the military has the same bullet diameter and a much larger casing and is center fire and can obtain velocities of around 3000 ft per second and in some cases, more. The advantage is distance.

Interestingly, in a hunting situation, more game on this continent has been taken with a 22 rim fire than any other caliber, even larger game than rabbits and squirrels. The skill of the shooter has to be much higher to take a deer with those cartridges.
But they are also the cheapest to shoot.

Anonymous said...

The title of this article, that an embarrassingly high number of Americans believe that the sun revolves around the Earth, is only one point argued by the Washington Post’s Susan Jacoby, in her attempt to prove that Americans are in serious intellectual trouble, facing a virulent mixture of anti-intellectualism, anti-rationalism and low expectations.

What else is signaling that Americans are becoming increasingly dumbed-down as a society?
Reading -- of books, newspapers and magazines -- is on the decline. A 2007 study even found that 80 percent of American families did not buy or read a book in 2006.
Attention spans are declining; Jacoby suggests this is due to television and videos. For instance, between 1968 and 1988, the average sound bite on the news for a presidential candidate dropped from 42.3 seconds to 9.8 seconds. By 2000, according to a Harvard study, the daily candidate bite was down to just 7.8 seconds.
General knowledge is eroding. This is evidenced not only by the fact that one in five U.S. adults believe the sun revolves around the Earth, but also many others.
Yet, it’s not bad enough that knowledge is quickly declining in the United States. On top of that, there is an arrogance about this lack of knowledge, almost as if a good portion of the population is saying, “We know we’re ignorant, but we don’t care!”

Consider, for instance, that a 2006 survey by National Geographic-Roper found that nearly half of young Americans did not think it was necessary to know the location of other countries in which important news was being made. And another one-third felt it was “not at all important” to know a foreign language.

Why is this so concerning? Because …

Fear and Ignorance Go Hand in Hand

The more that you are kept in the dark, either due to your own lack of inquisitiveness or the workings of an unscrupulous industry (such as the food industry that markets junk foods and soda to children as though it is something they should be consuming), the easier you are to manipulate.

And this is where a population of people who do not possess their own knowledge base will easily believe, for instance, that they must quickly get vaccinated to protect themselves against an imaginary pandemic like the bird flu, or that food from their local supermarket is somehow safer than food grown by a farmer down the road.
MERCOLA

Anonymous said...

Mercola,

Thanks for your comments.

I agree that overall Americans are being dumbed down, a lot easier to control don't ya think.

I have done some investigation into the history of American and English public school systems. The thrust of it is that they were originally formed by corporations to have minimum abilities to follow direction, be good workers and not make waves. As the system developed, there were of course exceptions, but actually not as many as one might think. Overall the public school and private school systems did an excellent job of making passive citizens that conformed to the agendas of the elites. We are all a product of this and it is damned hard work to break out of the mold made for us.

I'm not so sure that a pandemic is not to be taken seriously. After all, it has happened before and with the genetic manipulation today, is more virulent and possible than in the past.

Anonymous said...

From Belgium,

I first heard of guns hitting the streets about 1990, so maybe they were around a couple of years before that. The sorts that had them were the ones who knew that Britain was an island and everywhere else was abroad. Drugs came from abroad and could be sold as a nice little earner. That’s when SWOT teams first started advertising themselves by their presence. After the Patti Herst incident and flights to Havana became popular even by people who didn’t want to go there, airport security in the UK became very much tighter. After 9/11 police with what looked to me like machine guns but in all likelihood were probably automatic rifles started hanging around in inconspicuous areas of the terminal concourse, far enough out of the shadows to be seen but not to cause alarm. Then we fast forward to the Brazilian in the tube train. I do not know how widespread fire arms in the police is, traffic cops don’t have them but it seems to be a growing trend as more and more special incident units are required.

A very brief return to the Nederlands thing and how foreign words enter a language; on the national news here, if somebody does a stick up a post office or mugs someone at an ATM machine, the perps are referred to as gangsters, which always amuses me. Also if more than one person is injured as a result of a firearms incident that is known as a ‘shooting party’.

It is true that England is the surveillance capital of the world. It started in city centres which were notorious for Saturday night punch ups, then the whole motorway (freeway) network, then the entire road network and then almost every street in the land. Just think of all the hard drive space needed to store that lot.
I wonder if the cameras have the sort of transistors which allow the Chinese to turn them all off when the moment is right. Still, as a citizen you have the right to demand a copy of any pedestrian journey you make, just give the police the time, date and route you took and you get your copy. I think the whole citizenry should demand copies of their images every time they leave their house. One problem is that just as a motorist can drive down a street and not see where the bus stops are or before the days of cable, people could look at a house and not see the TV antenna so people can walk down a street and not see a pole with half a dozen cameras hanging off the top. They are invisible in the day to day clutter of modern life.

There were a couple of interesting items on the news tonight. The British government thinks it would make the nation more cohesive if in the latter stages of school life the students were made to take an oath of allegiance but they are not quite sure what that allegiance should be to. There was talk that maybe it should be to the Queen, or maybe the flag, or maybe the land or the citizenry in general. Since the English are probably now in a minority, I can’t see that one flying. On reflection however it is not such a bad idea for the British to give their allegiance to the Rothschild family, the World Bank and the IMF. I wonder if anyone will run that one up the flagpole and see who salutes it.

It appears the world is short of wheat. The problem must be deep seated for me to hear it on the MSM. This is reflected in dearer bread prices. Dearer cattle feed results in dearer beef prices and etc. I also appears that it is all down to that global warming. There was not one mention of killer frankenseeds, it must have slipped their minds.

Aho.

Anonymous said...

Belgium,

What say you on the subject of chemtrails?

We got doused pretty heavy Monday, when the skies were blue and empty.

Today, when the skies were full of puffy, billowing clouds, no sign of chemtrails at all.

Gee. Maybe they're no longer flying on Tuesdays.

-rp

Anonymous said...

From Belgium,

Rpckpicker,

After missing two posts out entirely, I seem to have jumped in and taken over, this was not really my intent. You did however ask about chem trails. This is the biggest world event which nobody knows anything about and damned interesting too from a curiosity point of view. My main source of information, Will Thomas, is the same as yours so you will have a fair idea of what I am going to say.

Firstly they are not con trails which happen when a jet aircraft is going from here to there and the atmospheric conditions are suitable for their formation. They are ice crystals which melt and are reabsorbed into the air.

In the case of chem trails the purpose of the flight is to lay the trail and usually the sky is full of aircraft. International treaties stipulate that except in the specific case of airfield landing patterns, all aircraft must be separated by a distance of forty nautical miles. These treaties are not abided by in the case of aircraft laying trails.

The majority of the public are as unaware of them as they are of surveillance cameras. Those who do notice do not usually regard them as anything suspicious and I have personally heard parents pointing those nice aircraft out to their young children.

What I do know from general reading, although there was no confirmation source quoted is that the main components are:
Sub micron sized aluminium particles; (a micron is a millionth part of a metre)
Barium stearrate;
Unidentified microfibres.

Aluminium is a silver grey metal as we all know but with its small size and moist atmospheric conditions it will not take long to oxidise to alumina. This will initially be in the glassy eta phase and over time may or may not take one of the crystal transformation routes and finish up as alpha (corundum). All alumina crystal phases are white.

Barium stearrate is also a white organo-metal crystal. It is used as an antioxidant in plastics and rubber and also imparts heat and light stability to the products in which it is incorporated. This means for instance that Perspex sheets would not loose their transparency and clarity over time. I have no idea what this material would do to the atmosphere except possibly exacerbate global warming and reflect radiation from space. There have been vague, unspecified allusions to ‘military applications’ whatever this means.

Microfibres, whether organic or inorganic are bad news to all mammals. The surface of all species lungs have microscopic hairs which waft to and fro as we breathe in and out like shoreline seaweed in the ebb tide. Their purpose is to stop air becoming stagnant and therefore capable of breading disease. Microfibres are small enough to bypass the human filtering system (hairs in your nose) and lodge on the inner surface of the lungs where they destroy by attrition the swaying hairs on the lungs inner surface thus making those sites vulnerable to attack by other species. This is the very reason why asbestos is so bad.

There may well be other components in chem. trails but the above are the main ones quoted in the Will Thomas article. Also according to this article, for again unspecified reasons the trails are laid at the edge of a warm front in the direct path of a cold front. This would explain clear Monday and cloudy Tuesday.

What is it all for? Who knows, but remember that nothing happens without a reason?
We can all play the game of reckless speculation but in the end it is just that.
It has been said that planet Earth is now beginning to glow when seen from space. A reflective layer in the upper atmosphere would have the effect of keeping radiation that is in, in and radiation that is out, out. Which one is it? Do the HAARP people want to blow a hole in the ionosphere for weather manipulation or any other purpose and still have a protective layer? Everyone here knows that I am sceptical of the dark planet theory. The evidence you can see in the skies is the one thing which would give this credibility. A possible previous event which saw off the dinosaurs may be coming around again. Microfibres and pandemics will get rid of the least able to cope but the proportion that is left must be protected, including the perps of course.

On the other side, have the Neocons’ whose fingers are growing itchy on the nuclear button realised what a reflective atmosphere will do for them?

Finally, the question of all questions, who has the money to fund such an operation over virtually every nation and yet still manage to keep the worlds’ citizenry uninformed? Every government that allows this operation to proceed over its borders must know the answer. What is so huge that we cannot be trusted with the information?

More wild speculation will be fully considered and weighed.

Aho.

Anonymous said...

From Belgium,

Correction: Chem trails are laid at the edge of an area of high pressure in the path of a cold front, not at the edge of a warm front. Sorry.

Spirit

Anonymous said...

This is off topic, but, the dramatic humiliation and fall of Gov. Spitzer is like something out of "The Godfather," don't you think?
Having gone after the Mob, Wall Street, and also looking into voter fraud, it seems he stepped on at least one too many toes. I find myself sympathizing with him, despite his apparent distasteful sexual vulnerability, which I consider none of our business anyway.
It makes me wonder just how many of our political leaders are being blackmailed or controlled due to our ramped-up surveillance system. Priests, ministers, politicians, business tycoons and the like seem to be motivated not just by power and money, but also by drugs and kinky sex. What is going on?
And, really, who (other than his wife) should really care if someone else has consensual sex anyway? Personally, I am saddened by how quickly our champions can fall, and how how stupid and weak even the best us us can be. So, now will anyone else pick up the standard and go after the boyz on Wall Street. Probably not.

Anonymous said...

From Belgium

Oh dear, me again.

Freeacre, you were right about the Godfather, it was not his mind they wanted to get right.

Anonymous said...

from rp.

Anybody catch NPR last night, talking about how Spitzer got caught? I didn't hear it, but Oldensoul heard a guy describing the computer networking that was involved, including databases interfacing with each other, and she said it sounded suspiciously like Promis software capabilities.

I agree with you, freeace. Spitzer is a good guy, and we need him. I want to see editorials across the country decrying the fact that the prostitution ring was not the subject of an investigation until Spitzer's anomalous transactions led investigators to the "Emperor's
Club."

This fucking repub crew is foul.

Belgium, thanks for filling us in on the chemtrails. Great summary. I bought a movie from a distributor I located on the Clifford Carnicom website. Film is called "Aerosol Crimes." I sent the woman $10, and she sent me 3 copies. One for us, and one for each of the local libraries.

www.carnicom.com

no trails today either. a few billowy clouds.

I've come down with a nasty bout of congestion. Haven't been sick all winter. Just started my first job of the season, and now this. Makes me wonder if it's due to the spraying.

Anonymous said...

Just opened my e-mail and found this from democrats.com :



Spitzer Resigns - It's Time to Impeach Bush

Today Gov. Eliot Spitzer apologized again to the people of New York for his personal failings and resigned, just 16 months after winning an historic landslide election with 70% of the vote.

But Spitzer's resignation was not entirely voluntary, because Republican leaders were busy drafting Articles of Impeachment.

What was Spitzer's impeachable offense? The "lowest" crime in the book.

As we know, the Founding Fathers wanted Impeachment to be used for "High Crimes" like treason, bribery, war crimes, and subverting the Constitution itself.

Eliot Spitzer committed no "High Crimes" - but George Bush and Dick Cheney most certainly have, and they continue to do so with absolute impunity.

It's time for Congress to impeach them for it.
http://www.democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/88?ad=d8

16 months ago, we posted a petition listing 10 High Crimes which justified their impeachment:
(1) Starting a "war of aggression" (2) torture (3) arbitrary detention (4) war crimes (5) warrantless wiretapping (6) signing statements (7) election fraud (8) outing a covert CIA operative (9) the "unitary executive" (10) gross negligence for Katrina and global warming.

Each one of these crimes is as unacceptable today as it was then. After 5 years in Iraq (see below), Bush has killed nearly 4,000 Americans and over 1 million Iraqis and incurred $3 trillion in costs. And there are many more crimes we could add, including Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence to stop him from testifying about the crimes of Bush and Cheney themselves, and Bush's ongoing threats to bomb Iran. And each one makes Spitzer's "crime" utterly insignificant by comparison.

Over 137,000 of you have signed this petition, and we thank you. (If you've forgotten, our form won't let you sign twice.)

But many of you have not. And in the wake of the Republican effort to impeach Eliot Spitzer for his "low" crime, every American who is outraged by Bush's "High Crimes" should sign it.

Please tell your Senators and Representative to Impeach Bush and Cheney Now:
http://www.democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/88?ad=d8

And thanks for all you do to make the world a better place.

_______

-rp

Anonymous said...

That is so right on. Looks like I'm gonna have to write to my congressman once again. I'll tell him that if Spitzer can be impeached for paying a professional $1,000 an hour to polish his candelabra, then, by God, Bush and Chaney ought to be drawn and quartered...or words to that effect.

RAS said...

The thing with Spitzer was a hit job. Somebody (probably several somebodys) wanted him out and deliberately sat out to entrap him. I'm not much one for conspiracies, but this stinks like fish on land. And who cares if he saw a prostitue? That's between him and his wife. (Not saying I agree, but its a fact that prostituition is real, has been real for untold centuries, and will continue to go on no matter how many laws they make against it.)

Even if there was time to impeach Darth and Little Darth, Congress wouldn't do it. They don't have the brass.

Anonymous said...

From Belgium,

Just to clarify my 1.45 comment which could be read a different way,
This was the head teacher making an example to the school. With authority you can assume all the morality you want.

Anonymous said...

Keeping track of the day to day quaking of the big money boys and gold lately? A branch of the Carlyle group went down the tubes today. Gold is bumping the $1000/oz mark and the dollar is down another 3% of it's value while oil is well over $100/ barrel. The feds pumped $250 billion into the securities market a day or so ago, propped it up for one day and it's in another free fall already.

this just might be the trigger.

Anonymous said...

From Belgium,

After Carlyle group yesterday, today Bear Stearns is looking dodgy and is after a bail out from JP Morgan and the Fed. I don’t think this is the last we will hear of this sort of thing. What I wanted to tell you about was that yesterday the BBC World Service really let itself down in my opinion. The news anchor and the correspondent in New York were having a fine old time laughing and joking about the present financial crisis. The young lady in NY was saying things were moving so fast that the 250 billion injected by the Fed two days ago has seemingly disappeared and it seems like two months ago since it happened. But we were assured that it hadn’t really disappeared but will take about two months to work its way through the economy before we see a derived positive effect (oh yeh). People are no longer talking about ‘if’ there will be a recession but how quickly the Fed can get us all back on track, lol. They were both in such high spirits that I wondered if those with the quarter of a trillion in their back pockets has given them both some of the good stuff.
Maybe it was a case of if you can’t cry then you have to laugh. More likely though is that from a distance of ten miles you can see what is at the top of a range of mountains but when you are half way up one all you can see is more rocks and you just keep climbing.

What is puzzling though is why the Fed are intervening at all, they didn't do it in '29. Although whatever they give away comes back to them eventually.

Anonymous said...

Even more ironic and infuriating was that this evening's news report began with the bailout of Morgan Stearns by the Fed, guaranteed by the government, so that the Big Boyz don't have to give up their yachts or their vacation property. Then it ended with a story about the million homeless children living in cars and on the streets, and how one woman and a bunch of volunteers are trying to help them by tutoring and helping with classwork. So, it's fine for the government to bail out the rich, but screw the kids out on the streets. The greedy bastards.