Richonomics 101 in Post-Bush America

chchicano,
Thank you very much for this information. I really appreciate it.

Sometimes I buy herb sage from some organic farmers and puree it with the raw garlic and onion recipe from my earlier post. I call it a "sage pesto" and is quite tasty.

I use ginger several times a week, and the idea of growing it is terrific. I'll check the internet for ginger rhisomes.

Peace and Harmony

peaceman--
If I may jump in here. There are three completely different plants called "sage," and they are not related. The herb sage that you use to cook with is a member of the salvia genus. Other salvia sages are white sage, a powerful herbal medicine, and Texas red sage, an ornamental plant. There are actually hundreds of different salvia "sages." What is usually referred to as sagebrush is a plant that grows in the high deserts of the Southwest. A member of the artemisia genus, it is a woody bush with small gray-green leaves whose tips have three "teeth." It is bitter-tasting, but has valuable medicinal properties when taken in small doses. It can also be burned, and the smoke has both physical and spiritual cleansing properties. The third plant called sage is a member of the lucophyllum genus. It is often called purple sage, and has round or oval silver-gray leaves. It is also used medicinally, and is found primarily in West Texas. It's important not to confuse these three types of plants, as they can all be poisonous if consumed in large quantities and have very different healing properties. An experienced horticulturist (for the cultivated ones) or a good herbalist can help you to distinguish them.
If you want to grow ginger you can use the rhisome that you buy at the store. If it has not been treated with growth inhibitor (many root vegetables are), you can break it up into individual "fingers." Bury it very shallowly with the tip right at the surface of the soil (the way you do certain bulbs). Be patient, and you will start seeing the shoots of the ginger plant emerge in no time. Unless you live in the tropics, you will need to grow it in a pot and bring it in as soon as the weather gets cold. You can find hundreds of varieties of ginger rhisomes and their close relative tumeric for cultivation on the internet. Many have beautiful flowers.

peaceman wrote: Take enough garlic and onion plants with you to grow. They'll help ward off infection and destroy harmful bacteria and viruses.

I also heartily recommend ginger, and acacia, yerba mansa and sagebrush can be found wild anywhere in the SW.

I have 500 sq ft of cold boxes where I grow native and some exotic herbs and roots for trading with the local Alamo Navajo. They are teaching me. I have my own apothecary.

~TOTALJOKE~ Those are very astute observations. The DERAMATIC reductions of birds of all types this past year is alarming. Those are opinions from the Audobon Society and bird watchers all around the world. The lack of commercial honey bees made news this year, the dramatic lack of the other 2,000 bee species did not make the news. There is a rather sudden and very serious problem with our atmosphere and we have not seen the end of it, just the beginning. There has been a serious problem in that respect for over 200 years, but this last year there was a dramatic acceleration of the long standing problem. Why? No one yet has a specific answer.

WTF: Good recommendations. I never met anyone growing ginger. The only ones i've seen come from Hawaii, the Malaysia, or China. I guess we can grow it in the states.

I like the apothecary idea and the cold boxes for the herbs.

How similar is sagebrush to the sage herb?

I love the dialogues here. So much to say, so little time. I do wonder how agriculture of any kind will do in the future. I have been a life long organic gardener, working hard on developing a permaculture environment, but strange things have been happening with the climate for going on 8 yrs where I live in the Pacific NW. My birds and pollinators disappeared last year too. I usually have an overabundance of them. Only one hummer, usually half a dozen or so. All of the flickers, woodpeckers, tits, thrushes and goldfinches disappeared. I often work in the major bird flyways, this year I was taken aback at how small the flocks of birds were.
Plants have become almost unpredictable. Things are flowering, fruiting, growing at weird times. My blueberries and beans this year were abundant, everything else marginal.
I worry, because I have very good skills in growing food to feed myself and have done it a lot, but what if plants and animals can't keep up with the climate? I forgot who said it, maybe Lovelock, but the REAL trouble will come when agriculture fails. Things get ugly real quick when there is nothing to eat.

Kem,

Anarchist thinkers suggested a century ago that humans ordinarily self-organize to an optimal point (bottom-up) for tasks at hand, no more, no less. It really is the (top-down) tyranny we have to blame here. If there is any rioting that breaks out, it is because people have been caged up in ways and means that are no longer sustainable. And should not have been so in the first place.

Take enough garlic and onion plants with you to grow. They'll help ward off infection and destroy harmful bacteria and viruses.

I'm not grabbing for myself, we are part of a community effort, 37 families. It's gonna be very tough sledding for most of the country. People in metro areas and large cities, will be facing rioting and anarchy.

It is interesting that the solution to survival in the coming economic crisis proposed by some of the regular posters on the CD forum is pretty much the same one that Bush has been using the past seven years. Grab as much as you can in the way of resources, hoard them for yourself, and defend them with arms. How about some communitarian solutions, not this survivalist crap. The philosophy of "Everyone for himself and the devil take the hindmost," is exactly what got us into this mess.

Paul B., I was in the middle of typing a response to your comment last night when we lost our satellite internet due to a storm. It's ironic because I was commenting on how delicate and vulnerable our wired world has become, then, blank screen.

Anyway I was saying that I come from a very similar background and life experience, though my parents didn't divorce, nor do I know too much about computers. I wrote a lot more last night but I'll save it for another time. I agree with much of what you said in your 10:18pm comment.

WTF, and BR-001, do you recall what transpired in the Gulf areas during and after Katrina? If a depression hits that's what you will see again,__ everyplace. What you describe is how it should be, not how it will be. Oh, there will be martial law alright, there was in New Orleans as I recall.

We get along just fine with our neighbors, seven families live within a twelve square mile area. We're all retired, we all have gardens, our own wells, and it's 22 miles to the nearest town. None of our gardens produced last season, even though the weather was perfect all year. No pollinating inscects. Our country now imports over 40% of our food, in a depression that will cease overnight. It's gonna be very rough.

It is fascinating to read the fantasies of suburban wannabe "survivalists" I suspect they read what they know on the web, and subsequently claim utter independence. They will be among the first in the soup line.

I contend that real survivalists know how to work within a community that can maintain itself without significant external input. Knowing how to barter and trade experience is the most important skill for a social animal. This is how man co-operates in all non-western societies throughout the planet. Western society has bred the fallacy of independence, an illusion that masks utter dependence.

So please, no more hairy-chested he-man rantings. Consider your neighbors and how we can work together to solve daily challenges. Your neighbors are your best help, and you their's.

The spirit of PROFIT rages on. Take EVERYTHING you can, and give back NOTHING. It's what made Amerika great!

The great tax cut scam has worked for the right since the days of Reagan I think the American voter is so stupid they would vote for it again and again we are doomed as long as Republicans keep getting elected.

KEM PATRICK

Thanks for the link!
Remember when the spirulina craze started in the early 8o's? We tried it and felt much better. As the word got out and the 'National Enquirer' published an article about it helping to lose weight, the shelves were literally empty of the product and the price quadrupled. I guess they call it 'supply and demand.'

Next month will be my 40th year as a vegetarian, so I'll have to pass on the mice, muskrats, chickens and anything else that walks, crawls, swims, or flys. When I was stationed in Okinawa, a Japanese woman friend gave me a package of thinly sliced seaweed coated with a white powdery substance. It may have been finely milled confectionary sugar, mixed with flour or something else (?), but she said to eat the stuff as it is is good for the hair. I ate few packages but it's a taste I haven't been able to aquire.

Good reply to Galen on the phytoplankton. Also, small family farms. Back in the 70's when I lived in Southern California, we would buy much of our organic produce from small farmers. Several citrus fruit growers said the government, underhandedly, was trying to force them out of business by raising the price of water. If anybody should be helped with tax dollars from the government, it should be small farmers. So many are Republicans.

This grand plan for monolithic monopolistic corporations have made some people extremely wealthy, and put many more folks on the other side of the financial rollercoaster. It started decades ago and the public went along.

Maybe after we are defeated in WW3, China might have a 'Marshall Plan' for the United States. Who knows.The government has passed all sorts of draconian, un-Constitutional laws, starting with the Patriot Act, because they worry about a rebellion of the people against this ever- increasing dictatorship.

bbr-001

Very good points. Well said.

Parallax

Good quote from one of our best presidents. More countries are turning away from the international shylocks known as The World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Hugo Chavez paid them off and possibly Argentinia, but I'm not sure on that one. And I think Russia, under Putin's leadership, paid his country's debt off as well. But the WTO is an economic cancer which has to be neutralized.

Quality Time

How true!

"In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way." - FDR

So destruction of the middle class and increasing poverty must be part of the plan. Indeed, they have vacuumed up all the spare cash around the world with the help of the world bank and the WTO (see Stiglitz and Perkins) and now it is the turn of US citizens.

I never enjoyed dandelion, Beth, but nettles were alright as were a lot of the wild berries. Whenever I have had a penny to spare it went into improving my home. It annoys the hell out of me when people, who have been earning three and four times as much as I ever did, start whimpering and running around with the begging bowl.

What gets into people like Bush and his supporters who abandon all common sense? Aside from being angry about it, I'm just bamboozled. Is it really all in the interest of helping the people worth a couple of hundred million get to the half-billion mark or higher?

Today they say the markets are going to tank, despite the band-aid of a .75% cut in the fed funds rate. Problem is, when the band-aids stop working (to belabor this metaphor) there ain't no emergency room to go to.

The Republicans have given us war and made us poor.

In some ways our food production and distribution systems might be in better shape for a depression than in 1929. The big factory poultry farms are in place. ADM, Con Agra... have huge storage and distribution centers, and grain farming is big business. The national grocery chains and WalMart have well organized retail distribution networks.

We won't have small grocers and farmers deserting their businesses in despair. (They aren't there any more.) It will be those shiny toothed, pinstriped, bejeweled, big haired system milking sharpies that feel the despair.

The government merely needs to ensure these systems receive the fuel, water and electricity to stay in operation, and put us all on rations. It might be a step up for folks now in homeless shelters. Martial law and curfews might be required in places where people panic.

Electricity is in pretty good shape too, as coal and nuclear are domestic. Again, the government just has to ensure the utilities keep operating. There should be excess capacity as many non-vital businesses will be closed.

Oil will be the big problem. The US has to import at least 60% of it and the ratio gets worse every year. People might better insulate their homes and go solar or grid electricty. The guy with a $40,000 BMW will be in the same shape as the guy with a 15 year old Cavalier: a ration card with almost no allocation.

People will have to be allowed to keep their homes and apartments, even if they have no cash flow or savings. An occupied dwelling is better protected than an empty one.

A well managed depression might be the best fix for global warming, the trade deficit, peak oil and a host of other problems caused by uncontrolled growth.

We had millions of small farmers in 1929, they are gone. There was a farmer for every 20 people in America then. Lack of food will be the fuse that sets off the rioting all across the entire country. Katrina 10,000 times over. If we have a depression, the presidential directive are, the government will seize ALL food supplies and fuel supplies, all medicines and control all medical people and hospitals. Control all forms of transportation, including personal vehicles, the media and communications, including cell phones. Gonna be exciting.

Hi PEACEMAN, plankton actually is the very best thing in the entire world for our bodies health. Check this link, you can order it too. There are several other icons there to click onto. It takes 47 seconds to read the main page, quite interesting. And if you are ever in Rock HALL, Maryland, their little supermarket sells muskrat meat. Yummy yum. We can buy cleaned chicken feet in ours here. It's about $3,45 a pound, including the toe nails. __ They look sort of tough. Must be for Chinese chicken soup.

http://www.whyplankton.com

That's correct ~Galen~. The decrease of the oceans phytoplankton is actually one of the MOST serious problems we have. Those microscopic plants, produce about 70% of the oxygen in our atmosphere,it used to be about 90%. If the cause of their continuing decline is not pin-pointed and we don't correct the probem, any can readily see that the situation in that regard is quite serious. Unless of course, one has a private biosphere and it works a lot better than the one they built near Tucson Az. a few years ago.

My mom recalls the Great Depression which was worldwide. Her family lived in a steel company town. Grandpa, one of the supervisors and active in a local church, was asked to become what for practical purposes was a social worker. You see, the company let the workers stay in their houses. Lacking fuel for heat, adequate food, clothing, etc. the workers had begun to sicken and die from opportunistic illnesses such a TB and pneumonia. Grandpa and Grandma, who was the daughter of a minister and knew what a minister's wife must do, did their darnedest. Ultimately, it took FDR's policies and programs to begin to salvage our nation. Our government is meant to "promote the general welfare." Helping each other and pulling together, not trying to survive in isolation, is how it works.

Lizard: Dead on man.

Galen: and Iraq.

And another thing.

There have been many advanced societies in history. Ours, thusfar has been the most technologically advanced. And it's a statistical blip, fueled by petroleum. And spewing out cancer, global warming and toxic effluent.

We may think we are the greatest thing since sliced bread, but outr society is a baby compared to the ancient societies of China nad Egypt.

Ipenek: I dunno... maybe a few hundred thousand of the fat and soft overclass dropping dead from heart attacks during the collapse might be a good thing....

To the people who think surviving economic collapse is only a matter of being a cross between MacGyver, Martha Stewart and Grizzly Adams: All well and good until that day when you start experiencing severe chest pain and need emergency open-heart surgery. Face it, without advanced society we're all screwed.

Perhaps instead of inviting folks over for some 'stone soup', we'll have 'concrete soup'?

KEM

I'm crackin' up man! Ya' gotta join the Writer's Guild when the strike's over.
You're ungrateful. No more recipies from me. 12;11am post is hillarious.
A friend of mine, may his soul rest in peace, had an African Grey parrot who was quite ornary at times. He loved tortilla chips, pizza crust, and of course, birdseeds and nuts. Watching "Charlie" work each filbert until he cracked the shell to eat the nut was just amazing. Time to go get some plankton, for myself.

Kucinich, 08!

KEM: Last I heard, ocean researchers were alarmed at the recent decline of both phyto- and zoo-plankton. They were concerned that the very base of the oceanic food pyramid was in dange of collapse due to warmin trends and ocean acidification.

Lamp post? How about the rear bumper of the limo?__Drag races.

How about dandelion and mouse or muskrat stew? If you live near ocean water, kelp is very healthful and of course plankton is used for the nectar of the Gods. Whales that consume only plankton, live 150 to 200 years and are still sexually active. I don't know what parrots eat. If you don't live near the ocean, wait awhile, you will.

DCBeltway: How welcome do you think those wealthy refugees will be? I agree they will run, and for a brief time they will fine sanctuary with their second and third world bretheren. But shortly after that, the local population will know they are there. And most populations of the countries the uber-rich will run to will not welcom these wealthy invaders, who will be rubbing their ill-gotten money in the poor folks faces.

How much do you think they will take before the wealthy are pulled from their limos and mansions and hung from a lamp-post?

The rich will do well just like the last great depression. They'll either buy up all the properties and businesses for pennies on the dollar or they'll take thier money and run to their villas in South America, Europe, Israel, or South Africa. Just watch.

rebelnow,

I grew up working-class and sunk to even more marginal levels when my parents divorced. I was the first person in either side of my family to attend college, and I worked my way through -- debt-free. It was a formative time for me, and I've learned several trades (basic carpentry, ceramic/tile, drywall, window replacement, some plumbing, etc.). I assemble my own computers, have practiced organic/heirloom herb gardening about 7-8 years now, etc. I camp/roadtrip about 3 weeks a year with no itinerary or reservations. I've been building my nature lore for about two decades.

But I agree on the alarmist undertones. There is a dark fantasy or desire to prove the hard ruggedness/knowledge/craft/resilience that some still possess. Our society has turned most people into lazy slobs, boogers, sheeple, who can't replace a lightbulb let alone a head gasket. Some of us would have made successful pioneers, some would have failed miserably. The crux of the problem is that the real test -- the test which ought to sift out the smart/assertive/curious/energetic from the dull/passive/boorish is no longer with us. Our society rewards birthright, passivity and cronyism more than demonstrable clear-headedness in the face of significant struggle.

I believe the economy will tank. If not this time, soon enough. There can be no doubt that offshoring manufacturing/IT, while in-shoring tradesman and agricultural work to illegal immigrants working a substandard wage, must eventually spell disaster. But I don't think it's going to be the chance to prove our survival abilities. It'll just suck.

Edward1793: How much of that wealth held by the obscenly rich is actual physical wealth? Better than 95% of the worlds 'money' does not exist in a physical form. It's digital, ones and zeros, a convenient illusion we willingly belive in.

And if they do actually hold physical wealth, after a general economic crash (say as suffered by Wiemar germany) you can't eat the banknotes. And gold is only valuable if you belive it's valuable. In a pure survival situation, it's pretty but useless.

Most of the wealthy minority we have around these days have no real skill set to survive. They have people to do everything for them. Most of them don't even know how to do basic cooking. Or how to raise a kitchen garden. Or cut firewood. That's why I say the homeless will do better during the collapse. They are already at the bottom. They can't fall any further.

As said above, the rich are not going to be poor, The UMC and lower classes are the ones that will suffer. Asshole's tax breaks for the rich, and his corporate chairty will keep the rich rich and the rest of us and our children in hock for a very long time.

Big_money: *giggle...snort... Bwah ha ha!*

Oh lord.... that's what our great technological civilisation grinds down to. Gilligan's Island!

Absolutely priceless! And too true! Totally justified in the closing days of the Bushco junta.

Jazzhead said it best...

the karate kid's teacher said it best:
"best defense- no be there…"

Nice to see how the discussion turns to practical ideas of how to do just that. My two cents - develop a skill that would be in demand at any level of civilization. Gilligan's Island was a great literary example - the rich were utterly dependant on even the most marginally competent.

Love the dandelion discussion, but dandelions won't grow in frozen ground (six months of the year for much of the country), nor in concrete, where millions reside. Some guy last weekend got all riled up because he thought I was cutting in line at the pizza counter, I wasn't, but he was ready to come to blows. Things are going to get very ugly if food, water, and gas become sparse. I wish I had more faith in human nature but hungry mammals are dangerous creatures.

Maybe all this survivalist talk will be seen as somewhat silly a few years from now. Maybe we will all pull through this one, with a mild correction and some damage repair. Maybe we can see the error of our ways, politically, economically, environmentally and find creative solutions and get on with leaving a healthy society and planet to our grandchildren. That's what I am working on, but we'll see. Fortunately I like dandelion greens.

Thank you Beth Quinn for writing this. Reading it the second time around was better for me than the first time as I'm a slow learner. Good comments from most of you. A little info from me, free of charge.

Dandelion greens ARE bitter but very nutritious. They have a good amount of calcium and potassium, and If you have a juicing machine, juice them with carrot or apple juice and it's a healthy drink. What I do sometimes, is put raw dandelion greens in the blender with about 7 or 8 cloves of raw garlic and a whole raw onion ( chopped ), then add a can of tomato sauce or half and half,or sometimes just fresh tomatos and puree the ingredients. DON"T heat it! You don't want to kill the enzymes or the volatile oils in the garlic and onion which help dissolve mucous and other junk inside of us. When the steamed vegetables or wholewheat or buckwheat macaroni is hot from the pot, I pour it into a big bowl then pour the puree from the blender on top of it, mix with a big spoon, put some grated cheese ( optional ) on it and go to town. You hardly taste the dandelion, but your taking in chlorophyll, the second most important element we need, after air. A few times a week with this unusual home-style cooking and you'll feel better in a short time. ( I can't wait to hear the garlic feedback )

Iquokwai,

If you can a decent piece of land in a small community of like-minded folks, where you can grow crops, have access to a water supply, and trees, ( timber ) that might be a good investment. I think living in big cities will be a nightmare for many. Good luck, whatever you do.

tj,

We aren't blaming you for anything. The system has been corrupted for so long that most people have gone along with the program thinking it was the right thing to do. Just by reading the many fine articles on Common Dreams instead of falling for the marketing approaches to all our problems, you've an understanding of what society is up against. In the meantime, try Dr. Peaceman's "coming depression formula" several times a week, and may you be blessed with greater health. Peace and Harmony

( No, I'm not a doctor. )

frank1569,

Very good! I couldn't agree with you more!

A verse for Galen;

Sleep tight sweet Aphrodite

Oh homo erectus ...he wrecked us ...
he wrecked us
So why did he leave us
small brain should have been a select us
Oh homo erectus ...he wrecked us ...
he wrecked us...
should have left that fire alone...
stuck with the raw ...and left dark matter in the dark...
oh pine for homo erectus
when fight or flight didn't need to check a manifest
and destiny was timeless

but hush

Sleep tight sweet Aphrodite
the post human era will be even better than before!
for nature will nurture even more
except for the odd meteorite
The biggest sound won't be a bite
though that may seem a little trite
for finite is just time that said good night

Big_Money – nice nuanced discussion…
And I guess what I was trying to tie together was how the war relates to lifestyle.

As far as the rich becoming poor and visa versa…
Unfortunately the rich are the ones who can best prepare for the oncoming crisis. They can buy land stategicly located (like the bush fam buying the largest aquifer on the western hemisphere).
They are the ones who can stockpile enough supplies such as food, guns, gas, to continue their rule of terror into the next era.

I have read about companies like black water (not blackwater but maybe them)selling insurance just for that eventuality. Creating a stock pile in a safely secured compound and here's your chance to buy in now for the low low price of $.
when the shit hits the fan They will fly in, swoop you and yours up and take you to the safe zone or whatever they call it.

So even looking forward to the inevitable crash still offers no relief.

We are ging to be having some fun times soon. Keep in mind that the average city has only three days worth of food in it's stores and warehouses.

Just came back from our local sporting goods store and handguns (not rifles) were flying out the door, not the .22 type, these were 9mm and 45's with lots of ammo and extra clips added to the bill. I opted for a fishing license. Unless bushco applies for direct aid from the IMF and World Bank, we are in big serious trouble.

I am so glad for all of you who are enjoying the dandelion cure for poverty. I assume that you and your families never had a sickness that bankrupted you; I assume that you never had a spouse that left you broke; I assume that you make a livable wage; I assume that you're fine in retirement; I assume that you have enough to provide for your children and their education; I assume that you've never lost a job, been jailed or been blacklisted; I assume that your health is still good; I assume that you have an affordable way to get to work and do other normal things in life; I assume that you're living in heaven.

For most of us who live on Earth, poverty is neither a matter of choice or unnecessary overconsumption. It's simply a matter of making less than the cost of living and we either have to borrow, beg or steal to make up the difference -- or die pretty miserably...

Now I'll go back to my Cadillac and head on down to the welfare office to pick up my check on the way to the bar where I'll look over the sub-prime loan that I just couldn't turn down because I was just too damned lazy and have too many large screen TV's to fit in my govt-subsidized penthouse...Oh, the life of overconsumption, what a Joy, Joy, Joy...

The BBC just called today's stock market meltdown the worst since since 9/11, maybe even worse.

Let them eat dandelions--actually they're pretty healthy, locally grown, not much of a carbon input but all that does not let that fool Bush and the rest of the free traders off the hook.

Impeach the bastards, take the country back, tax the rich, give to the poor, stop playing globo-cop and for godsakes, stop being this militaristic Sparta with its weird death cult.

Dr. Wu, the last of the big-time thinkers.

So what should I do? Having been in a bad car accident 16 years ago, I received a settlement that I thought would carry me through retirement. Being a kid, I didn't know where to put the money. My dad had me put all of it into equities. After the tech bubble, I lost a third of it. Then it was re-invested. Now, the value of it is half of what it was when I received it. Should I tell my portfolio manager to sell everything? All I want to do is buy land upstate NY now, and build earthships, and learn permaculture, and live a kind life with the earth. It's a vicious trap. Tomorrow, I go back to my lonely cubicle in NYC and wonder if my life is ever going to feel good.

I hope we can pull through this one. I moved from country, where I had more than my fill of dandelions growing in my lawn, to city, where I have concrete outside my stoop. I happen to be a fan of dandelion salad though, a bit like arugula.

Honestly though, even in a big collapse, I think the wealthy are still going to be better off than lower income people. The board members of these mortgage firms, etc, are probably up on how to make themselves even richer off others debt.

With each economic downturn, I can at least feel a sense of relief that I've never used credit cards and have no significant debts. I'd rather live modestly than be at the mercy of every economic crisis. I don't have a big screen TV, but I also don't have an ulcer.

Incidentally,to militantliberal, dandilion greens really are good. You need to pick just the small, tender leaves, since they grow bitter as they get bigger. I, personally, like to eat them the same way as cooked fresh spinach. They're also a good source of fiber, vitamins, and iron.

The whole situation makes me very nervous. I guess I am not the only person.

Depression probably knocks out mainly the lower upper-class, and the entire middle-class. The lower-class is always poor and propertyless, and don't have much to lose.

But the very upper-crust stand to gain. They can profit in times of stock decline (by "puts" or "selling short"), foreclosures, etc. Funny thing is that if they didn't have socialized force of arms (the law enforcement and court system) on their side, they'd be like kings of ages old -- except without the moat/castle/keep to keep themselves defended from the hoardes. That's their safety net.

Wait a second why the hell should we all suffer the Great Depression part II when these bastards are at fault? Tar and Feather them I say! Time to get the torches and sticks out.

Wall St execs collect $US33b bonuses
Business Day
January 18, 2008

The Wall Street gurus who presided over the subprime mortgage crisis currently shredding global sharemarkets have awarded themselves bonuses totalling $US33.2 billion ($38 billion).

In a concession to the crisis - which has forced America's largest banks to write off billions in bad investments and raise billions more to shore up their capital reserves - the bonuses were down nearly 5 per cent on the previous year.

The average bonus of $US180,420 ($206,088) in 2007 dipped 4.7 per cent from the previous year, New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said in a statement today.

The securities industry rewarded $US33.2 billion in bonuses to its New York City employees, two per cent less than the record $US33.9 billion ($38.7 billion) in 2006, he said.

The numbers are taken from the seven largest financial firms headquartered in New York City, which are tracked by the comptroller's office. The firms are Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, Morgan Stanley and Lehman Brothers.

All except Goldman Sachs, which largely avoided the risky loans, have been battered by the financial crisis.

While the seven firms earned $US39 billion ($45 billion) in profits during the first half of 2007, a 41 per cent gain over the prior year, they lost $US28 billion ($32 billion) in the third and fourth financial quarters, DiNapoli said.

Total pretax profits for the seven firms totalled $US11 billion ($12.6 billion) in 2007, less than one-fifth of the $US60 billion ($68.5 billion) record set in 2006, the comptroller said.

Employee compensation, which includes bonuses, consumed 61 per cent of the firms' revenues in 2007, up from 45 per cent 2006. DiNapoli said this reflected the firms' efforts to keep high-performing employees.

Those working in mergers and acquisitions and in equities should be rewarded with bigger bonuses but employees in the fixed-income units that handle mortgages will be "dramatically lower", the comptroller said.

Compensation experts say those high-performing units will basically subsidise whatever bonuses are left to give to flagging parts of the banks' business. Because of the dismal performance of the Wall Street investment houses, Morgan Stanley chief executive John Mack and Bear Stearns chairman James Cayne gave up their huge annual bonuses.

Last year, they were paid about $US40 million ($45.7 million) in compensation.

AP

Wilmoor: There is some serious debate amongst biologists as to whether human levels of intelligence is a survival trait.

Maybe coming back as a cockroach is a good thing...

I keep wondering which is going to hit first - the fall of that super-top-heavy corporate rich conglomerate that teeters on the stem of the dwindling middle class and feeds from the roots of the growing very poor - or the catastrophic effects of global warming.

On the one hand I don't mind being at the age, and with ailments that could lead to my demise before any of it happens, but on the other hand, I hate to think of what I might end up coming back to!

DCBeltway: Waht a cheery thought. But you left out one piece of the formula. One world religon (Xtian).

I need a beer.

Hmm perhaps one world government, one world military (blackwater), one world currency with one world central bank. Scary thoughts.

Uniroyal tire sandals anyone? I know where to find the insructions. I can do Firestone too.

If it was good enough for the Vietnamese, it's good enough for me. Recycles too.

DCBeltway: Thank you for the correction. Noted. And it wont be a world war, not in the way we think. More of an economic lipstand at 60mph for the entire world. Nasty, but not always fatal.

And I do not own a gun. Some bows, yes. But guns have the nearly always fatal side effect of making you think you are invincible. Better to know you are the rabbit, and run accordingly.

Instead of pulling dandelion weeds from your backyard to put in your salad mix, we might consider getting guys like this to pay taxes at a rate that makes sense:

http://warongreed.org/

I am married to an Afghans so its Afghans not Afghanis. Afghanis is the name for the currency sorry but I am always correcting people on this.

Yes they've been living off the grid for a while now but its really hard on them there's nothing romantic about living without electricity, clean-water, and sewage and yet must of the world has no choice but to do this. As I work in the international development field I've seen this first hand. My mother-in-law in Kabul complains often to my husband about the fact that electricity has been sporatic in the city since 2001.

I agree with everyone that Americans live way beyond thier means and at the expense of the rest of the planet. Its disgusting really when you think about it. When the depression hits its going to be ugly here. My husband and I really considering leaving soon as the signs are all around. If a depression does hit at home just like the 1930's I believe it will be followed by a world war.

Marc Medler: My lady makes homemade cookies for her kids. She's on welfare and disability. And the first jackboot that tries to touch her won't live to try a second time.

Give me twenty minutes, some clothespins, a bit of cardboard, some leftover plumbing supplies, a box of rubber bands, some shotgun shells, and a spool of dental floss, and I can make a house a living hell for any US soldier or Blackwater goon who wants to come knocking...

Thanks for the reminder! It is a well known fact of the -heart- that only the wealthy can afford homemade cookies! Time people start running their own life and run out of town the frauds on their t.v. screens. I learned long ago to run like mad when a large corporate entity claimed; we shortened our------to better serve you.

MeYouWeUs, It's not so much that the war created a bubble, but it is one of the big inflators of the credit bubble. I read somewhere that the USGovt has now made promises to pay out some bizarre amount of money that equals $175,000 per American.

Seen from an honest income/expenses perspective, every penny that has been spent on war, or promised to be spent on war, is part of that total. That total is nuts. Eliminating all war since 1950 would not fix that total. That total will probably annihilate most retirement savings, through inflation and debt maintenace expenses alone - it's just not going like they promised, surprise surprise.

The mechanisms are broad and complicated, but everything people need every day will become worth more - everything that people have stashed away hoping to preserve their purchasing power will become worth less.

Ever wonder if it's a coincidence that it's swinging this way, just as the bulk of Americans are teetering on retirement?

KEM: And people like you, brother!

The more I watch, the readier I am to tell my lady it's time to head for the tall grass...

"No Child Left a Dime" (bumper sticker)

~Militantliberal~ Ya gotta soak the dandelions in salt water for an hour, then rince them well in very cold water before you cook them. __ If you have the salt.__ They still taste like slimey shit though, makes great tasting wine though.

When the depresion hits, and it will, the "rich" are gonna be those who have stocked up with a two year food and medicine supply, weapons and are able to well defend themselves from the maruading armed bands who will be frantically looking for food. The richest will be the once very poor, who live in areas like the isolated areas of Apalachia, the Mormons and people like GALEN. Of course the very rich will have access to the food supplies that our government will seize when the depression arrives.

Bush as well as the Republicans and Democrats in Congress have mortgaged our future. They have taken sub-prime loans agains the wealth of we citizens and left us to secure the notes, now held by foreigners. We are not going to like making regular payments on this very thick coupon book for many years to come. Thanks, mr bush and cheney!

Big_Money, so what kind of bubble does the war create? Is it big enough to effect the overall picture?
As I understand it a lot of retirement investments are invested all across the board, so does that mean people looking to retire stand to loss their ass if that bubble were to burst?

The preacher man says its the end of time
and the Mississippi River she's a going dry.
The interest is up and the stock markets down
and you only get mugged if you go downtown.
I live back in the woods you see,
my woman, and the kids and the dogs and me.
I got a shotgun and a rifle and a four wheel drive
and a country boy can survive. Country folks can survive.

I can plow a field all day long,
I can catch catfish from dusk till dawn.
Make our own whiskey and our own smoke too
ain't to many things these boys can't do.
We grow good old tomatoes and homemade wine
and country boy can survive, country folk can survive.

Because you can't stomp us out and you can't make us run,
cause we're them ole boys raised on shotguns.
We say grace and we say mam
and if you ain't into that we don't give a damn.
We came from the West Virginia coal mine's
and the Rocky Mountains and the Western skies
and we can skin a buck, we can run a trout line
and a country boy can survive, country folks can survive.

I had a good friend in New York City
he never called me by my name just hillbilly.
My Grandpa taught me how to live off the land
and his taught him to be a business man
He used to send me pictures of the Broadway Nights
and I would send him some homemade wine
but he was killed by a man with a switchblade knife,
for forty three dollars my friend lost his life.
I'd love to spit some beechnut in that dudes eyes
and shoot him with my ole forty-five
cause a country boy can survive, country folks can survive.

'Cause you can't stomp us out and you can't make us run,
and we're them ole boys raised on shotgun.
We say grace, we say mam,
if you ain't into that we don't give a damn.
We're from North California and South Alabam'
and little towns all around this land.
We can skin a buck, and run a trot line
and a country boy can survive,
country folks can survive,
country boy can survive,
country folks can survive.

MeYouWeUs, the stock market does benefit from the war. War Corporations show huge profits (paid to build a billion bombs, etc.) Investors flock to these stocks in hopes of more killing-driven profits. (make a killing.. hmm... )

While I personally consider it evil to invest in companies that benefit from war, I'm not entirely sure those companies benefit from the investments - they could go private and still make bazillions of dollars on the so-called "sales".

All a stock price represents is the enthusiams of investors to have a piece of it's action. When the government chooses war, bidding up the price of those stocks doesn't help the war, just the folks who had the same idea previously. But I still think it's evil.

Anyway, these ideas of mine may only apply to an un-rigged market. I haven't the foggiest notion of how the so-called "Plunge Protection Team" does it's thing, but would not be surprised if someone were to discover a big money-pipeline straight to the defence contractors.

Frank, that is getting right to the true core of almost all ills..

Big_money, Nice point about other investments like cars.

But isn't the stock market profiting, form the war? Even if they're not funding it?

DCBeltway: The average CEO is paid 700 times what the average worker employed by his (or her) company earns. Not including incentives and stock options.

The disparity between rich and poor in America has never been greater. Ever.

I wonder why no-one has taken a pot shot at Bill Gates or the Ford family yet. Or whacked that waste of DNA Paris Hilton....

Yes, you can all live simply... until the soldiers come to take it all away from you. This nation is now solely the Military-Industrial Complex with the 'stock market symbol' USA. So you may feel you are "off-the-grid" but how off-the-grid were the Afghanis? How off-the-grid were the Iraquis? How off the grid were the Dravidians or the Idaho survivalists? If you don't 'get with the program' then "you are not with 'us', you are against 'us'"... Gee Dubya Bush.

I wouldn't be so sure that the System will not crush individualists one way or another no matter where, no matter how poor. And the populations of cities cannot simply be turned out into the countryside. See PolPot's Cambodia, as an example of this, but America doing this would be even worse! Thus, it is vital to take back the US government from the NeoCons, moneygrubbers, and Repukelicans. Not just retreat. Anyway, the polluted, overheating atmosphere is everywhere, so there is no escape.

If a person eats and eats and eats even when not hungry until they are morbidly obese, it's an eating disorder that requires both medical and psychiatric treatment;

If a person gambles away his savings, car, house, that person is labeled a Gambling Addict and treatment is recommended;

If a person drinks alcohol to excess - Alcoholic.

But if a person lies, cheats, steals and hoards more wealth than can be spent in 100 lifetimes with not a thought to the consequences of this behavior, it's called the American Way, or capitalism, or the entrepreneurial spirit.

Greed is a mental illness now pandemic in this country. Until it's recognized as such, we will continue to kill ourselves for every last penny.

What a great little comment, very cleverly connecting micro-economics to macro-economics. Thanks, Beth.

MeYouWeUS asks...

I have a general question?
Does investing in stock, (retirement), make you part of the problem? I mean if you invest, and are financially tied to the ups and downs of the market, and considering that much war has been waged in the establishing of new and maintaining of old markets, is that not buying into the machine of war ??

Depends on what you invest in, of course, but the Stock Market is not funding the war. The money for the war comes from debt assumed by the government. (or taxes, in the bad-old tax-and-spend days). You may be helping prevent a nation from becoming bankrupt by participating in the markets, but if you look at nations that go down the path of war throughout history, you will notice that a crashing financial market does nothing to curb the squandering of resources on killing.

In fact, it often works the other way. A nation's gotta be pretty messed up to think they can war their way to wealth, usually already have a big economic mess by the time they get to that point.

But maybe you're more wondering how, if you feed the warrior, are you partly responsible for those he kills? Playing the markets is not the only way you can do this - you buy a car, or anything, the country that made it can go on longer doing whatever it is they are doing.

Personally, today I walked a long way to the next hardware store so I could buy light bulbs that were made by a company that doesn't specialize in building war machines and lobbying certain governments to spend more on war.

Today is another day that I am not spending one dollar on consumer goods. It feels sooooooo goood! lol

An 85 year acquaintance of ours is normally a very up beat person. She came in one day last week very sad. When asked why she was so down, she said "well I'm 85 and I lived through the depression, we all managed somehow, but I just worry about the kids these days." She became very silent then said, "I don't think these kids today are prepared for what's about to happen, I feel very sorry for them."

Frankr29: Thank you.

I do not hold any stocks, bonds etc. This is part of the problem as Wall Street is evil. Its all a race to the bottom and these folks make excessive profits without giving back at all to society at home or abroad.
I have no credit card debt or massive mortgage debt. When my husband and I noticed the insane run-up in housing prices we knew there was a bubble in the DC area. We found websites like www.patrick.net and noted the bubble would burst so we've waited and saved. When housing crashes back to reality we'll buy...and probably a foreclosure.
We avoid credit cards, we don't own one only debit cards. We have no credit card debt and we don't buy anything we cannot afford..we wait and save for it. Ursury is against our religious beliefs anyway.
I do owe grad school loans..sadley this was the only way I managed to afford education. I hope to pay this off in bulk at some point. This was worth it though.
We do not shop at Wall Mart, Costco, Target etc. These big-box shopping centers destroy local jobs and drive down wages in our general economy. They import too much from Chinese slave labor. http://tinyurl.com/37fybe
We try to shop local for food or we go to Whole Foods because at least we aren't supporting big agricultural chemical fertilizer Genetically modified foods.
We purchase Halal meat as animals are raised and then slaughtered more humanely then at factory farms.
We do not eat pork, dairy, or beef products and eat lots of soy helping the environment.
I work for a nonprofit. I could work for big defense with my skills and make plenty of money but I prefer to help society not hurt it even if it means making less money.
We try to live simply so others can simply live as the slogan goes.

Galen: You cite some good people, but let's get their names right --

(Richard) Heinberg
(James Howard) Kunstler
M. King Hubbert

Peaceman: My father survived WWII by eating the rabbits they raised as pets. He was a child evacuee, but was also part of the Dunkirk Boatlift, the evacuaction of Dunkirk. He saw the savagery of war very close and personal.

I come from a family of woodworkers, and my father was a teacher and jack-of-all-trades. He instilled in me a sense of being able to do it for yourself, cause no-one else can.

I actally look forward to the day that stockbrokers, and bankers are sitting on the window ledge of thier once fancy offices, wondering how they will tell their trophy wives, mistresses and coke dealers that they have no money.

Hienberg and Kunsler are right. M. King Hubbart was right.

Hard times are coming folks. Use this spring and summer to learn how to garden.

Galen,

That's the spirit! When the system collapses, the people in demand will the ones who can create and build with simple tools as you describe. Bankers and stockbrokers will be out of work, wondering what went wrong.

MeYouWeUs: YES!

I have a general question?
Does investing in stock, (retirement), make you part of the problem?

I mean if you invest, and are financially tied to the ups and downs of the market, and considering that much war has been waged in the establishing of new and maintaining of old markets, is that not buying into the machine of war ??

Got my axe, got my saw. Know how to build a house from tree to beam to siding. Know how to garden, how to light a fire with a flint and steel, how to make a snare. How to make a solar still for water. How to fish.

I'm set for life!

I look forward to seeing those poor saps with their luxury SUVs and soon-to-be worthless stock options sitting by the roadside looking like Katrina refugees...

The overseas stock markets are tanking as we speak.

I'm rich, too, in the same way. Once upon a time this was called "common sense" to not live above your means. A long recession may be a godsend to get Americans to re-order their priorities.

There is a course that one can take on edible plants--you can make dandelion beer apparently.