'Another key trait of human networks is their ability to magnify inputs, Christakis said. If someone is altruistic and helps out a friend, that will likely trigger a cascade, making that person more likely to help others and making those others more likely to pass it on. This generates a higher benefit to the whole group than the original input itself. The downside of networks, of course, is that they can also magnify violence, germs, panic, and other negative factors. “Networks magnify whatever they are seeded with, good or bad,” Christakis said. Different people occupy different positions in a network, with the more popular in the center, with more and closer connections. Whether it is better to be in the center or out on the fringe depends on the situation, however, as does the desirability of tight-knit friends who all know one another compared with friends who are attached to unconnected others. A central position has greater access to information, but greater vulnerability to germs. A tight-knit group might perform better on a hunt or a raid, while a looser, more extended group might be more effective at gathering far-flung information. -- A later experiment involving a different group of people found that cooperators in groups with noncooperators tend to sever links with noncooperators and form new bonds with other cooperators. This leaves cooperators in like-minded groups and noncooperators with no choice but to team up with people like them. When network membership was fixed, however, cooperators eventually stopped, creating groups dominated by non-cooperators. “Generous people hang out with generous people. Ungenerous people hang out with ungenerous people,” Christakis said.'

'Now that everyone has a media platform, look for even more of the mutual back scratching that comes from tracking favors. Humans have a natural openness to reciprocity. It's a time-honored survival technique, one that allowed us to live together in villages for millenia. Someone who doesn't reciprocate is less likely to be protected by his peers, right? Not only have we been taught reciprocation since birth, but it feels right. It's baked in. The problem occurs when the trading of favors become mercenary, when alert individuals start manipulating the system for personal gain. Suddenly, every favor is suspect, measured and not at all generous. Suddenly all the likes and links and blurbs become nothing but currency, not the honest appraisals of people we can trust. It means that bystanders have trouble telling the difference between honest approval and the mere mutual shilling of traded favors.'

'Fear of separation from the group, and antagonism toward larger-brained independent individuals is deeply ingrained. The reduced brain volume is compensated for somewhat by vindictiveness. Prosocials reward conformists and will punish transgressors at some cost to themselves.'

How many fingers, Winston?

'Bearing in mind that the State is the organization of the political means - that its primary intention is to enable the economic exploitation of one class by another - we see that it has always acted on the principle already cited, that expropriation must precede exploitation. There is no other way to make the political means effective. The first postulate of fundamental economics is that man is a land-animal, deriving his subsistence wholly from the land. His entire wealth is produced by the application of labour and capital to land; no form of wealth known to man can be produced in any other way. Hence, if his free access to land be shut off by legal predmption, he can apply his labour and capital only with the land-holder’s consent, and on the landholder’s terms; in other words, it is at this point, and this point only, that exploitation becomes practicable. Therefore the first concern of the State must be invariably, as we find it invariably is, with its policy of land-tenure.'

"In an absence of principles all that guides you is immediate self-interest. That's the drugs, that's the sex, that's the divorce. Massive growth of the State. The National Debt. Without principles there's nothing to apologize for."

"A century ago a free market meant an economy free of rentiers, free of unearned income, free of landlords, and free of bankers."

"The great danger to society is not that children don't listen to society, the great danger is that they do."

'Arguments, expert opinion and data against the myth of mental illness.' -- Take four red capsules. In 10 minutes, take two more. Help is on the way.

'The 1% do not generate any wealth of their own. Everything they have they get by taking from others under the cover of law. They live at our expense. Without us, the State as an institution would die. The State is the only institution in society that is permitted by law to use aggressive force against person and property. The State is the institution that essentially redefines criminal wrongdoing to make itself exempt from the law that governs everyone else. It is the same with every tax, every regulation, every mandate, and every single word of the federal code. It all represents coercion. The State is everybody's enemy. Why don't the protesters get this? Because they are victims of propaganda by the State, doled out in public school, that attempts to blame all human suffering on private parties and free enterprise. They do not comprehend that the real enemy is the institution that brainwashes them to think the way they do. They are right that society is rife with conflicts, and that the contest is wildly lopsided. It is indeed the 99% vs. the 1%. They're just wrong about the identity of the enemy.'

'To conflate Wall Street – as an industry, anyway – with central banking is simply wrong. One is an evolution of the free market. The other hides behind it. Put central banking out of business and the worst excesses of Wall Street will almost immediately become a thing of the past. Put Wall Street out of business and central bankers will reconstitute over the weekend. Money Power lies with central banks, run by the Anglosphere power elite. These elites are quite prepared to sacrifice Wall Street. They WANT to regulate the private sector. Regulate it until it is cold as a corpse so that they can re-animate as they choose. The more laws there are, the better they do. The process is called mercantilism. The powers-that-be CONTROL governments. Pass a law and you are only adding to their arsenal. In fact, the leaders of Occupy Wall Street are DELIBERATELY turning the movement into a populist protest that looks to government for changes that will make societies work better. It is evident and obvious. Who knows who they work for – but evidently they are not who and what they say they are. We wish we were wrong.'

'When government is entrusted with the "redistribution" of wealth, no one should be surprised that the wealth straightaway is used to buy votes, to reward interest groups, to bribe constituencies, and to pay off friends -- not to mention to honor "public servants" with the style of life of which they think they are worthy. In terms of the growth of wealth and improvement of human life, these are all wasted uses. The situation is even worse when the money is borrowed or printed rather than taxed: The borrowed money must be taxed or printed eventually, while the printed money is simply stolen, by creating an artificial price inflation, from those who hold monetary assets (less likely to be the rich, whose assets are varied, than the poor and middle classes). Some people accept this corruption because they are deceived by the moralistic rhetoric that accompanies it (that the "self-interest" of the rich is replaced by the "public spirit" of the politicians); but it is more likely that the rhetoric is waved through more because people are satisfied with their share of the loot. As long as I get my "benefits" (Social Security, Medicare, etc.), then government must be doing a good job. Or, if "programs" exist to end or alleviate poverty, then we can congratulate ourselves on our own benevolence and compassion, as expressed through the "collective" action of government.'

'...the [2+2=5] continues to promote the psychological perspective of victimhood. The cost of this perspective is dear. Feelings of powerlessness, of helplessness, and of personal impotence are psychologically devastating. Such feelings are prescriptions for depression, anxiety, and misery, and they undermine a sense of personal agency and efficacy – the sense that you have the ability to make things happen in your life. Though the leaders of the [2+2=5] enjoy the benefits of making important things happen, their world view has the effect of instilling this sense of victimhood in its followers – with one exception: by participating in the overwhelming movement of historical and social forces in which those on the [2+2=5] believe, you get to be a member of a powerful group. By being part of the movement of the [2+2=5], you get to feel the power of history, the power of natural forces sweeping you and your cohorts to the vanguard of the new world order – or so you think.'

"Democracy is a system of bribery. And the only way a system of bribery of the general population can work – here's something for nothing, here's 'free' schools, here's 'free' health-care, here's 'free' pensions, here's 'free' roads – the only way that this can ever work is through debt. The only way that democracy can remotely appear to function is through debt. Democracy is debt. Democracy is predation on the unborn and the non-voting. It is the lending of the bankers on the future collateral of the unborn that allows for the existing population to be bribed in a democracy. Of course the government is going to do what the bankers want because without the bankers lending them money they can't bribe the population in order to get into power. Democracy is bribery; bribery is borrowing; borrowing is debt. When you have a system that is based on borrowing and debt, the bankers are going to end up in control of the system. The problem is democracy. The problem is the state."

'Money Power depends on the myth of infallibility buttressed by an overwhelming sense of fear. In the 20th century, this worked well. The entire mechanism of global government was put in place and people didn't object. In fact, many welcomed it. But today is another story. With the failure of its many memes (thanks in part to the Internet Reformation in my view), the power elite turned to increasingly to violence – as they always do. But what if violence doesn't work either? What then? This is the LARGER "turning point" that Hillary is talking about. THE END OF EMPIRE. If the five or so top Punjabi families do not rout out the Pashtun/Taliban, the Afghan war is indeed lost. And if the war is lost, then 10-20 percent of the world's population once again (as the Brits tried this 150 years ago) escapes the trap of the New World Order.' -- "That which can be destroyed by the truth should be." – P.C. Hodgell

'The term “capitalism” has been the most successful propaganda term in human history. ...the term “capital” masks the underlying and more fundamental interest that receives governmental privileges: ... the big landowners. If you want to understand the economic policies of governments world-wide, and the main cause of social problems, it becomes clearer if you grasp this proposition: The main purpose of government is to serve the big landed interests. ...the biggest subsidy to landowners is implicit: it is the enormous increase in land rent and land value due to the public goods provided by government. Streets, parks, security, schooling, transit, etc., all make land more attractive and productive. The rich pay high taxes, but they get it back, and often much more, in higher land value. Taxes fall most heavily on the middle class, as the state tax-confiscates about half the wages of a typical worker, including the taxes the pay when from their remaining wages they buy taxed goods.'

'It is almost comical that central banks have chosen to buy gold now after selling so much of it early in the 2000s. Britain's former Prime Minister Gordon Brown famously sold tons of his country's gold at the bottom of the market. Today, out of office, he campaigns to become head of the International Monetary Fund and is said to be one of the front-runners. Only in the modern world could someone who espouses such financial blindness be considered for one of the world's top financial positions. It has little to do with one having common sense and a lot to do with one being a willing foot soldier. -- Buffet has managed to profit from the system as it is and his mouth has been hovering close to the fiat-money spigot for a long time now. But people have profited from unjust and savage systems of production throughout the ages. That doesn't mean that Buffett is any the wiser for having made so much money, only that he is adept at exploiting the current system to create wealth.'

"A laughable waste of time, effort, and energy."

'Hoppe: All states must begin small. That makes it easy for people to run away. Yet states are by nature aggressive, as I have already explained. They can externalize the cost of aggression onto others, i.e., hapless tax-payers. They don't like to see productive people run away and try to capture them by expanding their territory. Empire building also bears the seeds of its own destruction. The closer a state comes to the ultimate goal of world domination and one-world government, the less reason is there to maintain its internal liberalism and do instead what all states are inclined to do anyway, i.e., to crack down and increase their exploitation of whatever productive people are still left. Consequently, with no additional tributaries available and domestic productivity stagnating or falling, the Empire's internal policies of bread and circuses can no longer be maintained. Economic crisis hits, and an impending economic meltdown will stimulate decentralizing tendencies... '

"The State is a parasite that almost always ends up eating its host."

"For the 'government', voters who can be bribed with other people's money are initially assets..."

'This is the issue: "How can the US cease its warring when so many people in that beleaguered country depend on conflict for their employment?" The US unemployment or under-employment rate (the real one) is somewhere between 25 and 30 percent. To reduce or eliminate garrisons in both Iraq and Afghanistan would inject hundreds of thousands of additional individuals into an economy that is struggling to provide employment to available workers. (Not to mention the private-sector "defense" jobs that would be made redundant.) And assuming that the additional workers find jobs; wouldn't they be at substantially lower salaries than their existing military compensations?" Were the US to suffer such an influx of unemployed as a result of adopting a sensible foreign policy rather than acting as the policemen for global morality, it is likely that trade unions and other leftist organizations would demand the existing wages of the military workers be maintained at current levels.'

'Why no politician can ever talk about how government spending is going to be cut.'

'It sounds bizarre doesn't it, dear reader? The idea that a small group of elite families with a power-base in London's City has managed to accumulate all the wealth in the world and – like the hydra-headed leader of million-man orchestra – played the tune to which the world has danced for at least 100 years. And yet ... gaze at the 20th century without flinching (if that is possible) and take calm stock of history as it is commonly recited. Central banking – price fixing of the price and amount of money – spread throughout the world despite the ruin it inevitably causes. Two world wars were fought, neither one with very clear antecedents. One great depression engulfed the world, again without a very clear causation. Somehow the world drifted away from honest money – gold and silver – which people had depended upon for millennia. New ‘isms" sprang up, seemingly out of nowhere – Communism, Nazism, Socialism – and somehow, somewhere, found fertile soil and were adopted by governments.'

'Nations engage in manic economic and political projects to get a "dopamine rush" that counters the depression and guilt about their success. Political paranoia and slow ego disintegration are seen in conspiratorial group-fantasies, fears of femininity [countered by persecution of homosexuals], imaginary humiliations by other nations [countered by a search for external enemies as grandiosity fails and Poison Alerts and sacrificial group-fantasies proliferate] [and Purity Crusades multiply as anti-modern and anti-child (Bad Boy) movements]. These are countered in the economic sphere by manic overinvestment, risky ventures, excess money supply growth, soaring debt and stock market speculations, and in the political sphere by jingoistic nationalism, expansionist ventures, military buildups and belligerent, insulting foreign affair behavior. As in drug addiction, each dopamine rush leaves a dopamine hangover that requires an even larger manic activity to overcome the resulting depression.'

"The disease is masquerading as its own cure." -- "The parasite always hates the host because the host reminds the parasite that it's a parasite." -- "It's developing slave-on-slave love that will free us from this tyranny."

"The state ends with a yawn."

'First a nation state must establish a predictable "ruling class" because the mercantilist Anglo-American elite needs an elite, government-affiliated group for business purposes. Governments are very important to the Anglo-American axis, especially governments that are "democratically elected." Governments allow the Anglosphere to create laws and influence legislators in a way that empowers Western multinationals (owned by the elite in our view) and reshapes society within so-called legal parameters. By exporting consumerism abroad, corporatizing impoverished countries and reorganizing them generally along Anglo-American lines, Western money power has extended its reach round the world without the overt colonialism that caused so much resentment. When the Westernization is concluded, when a given economy has "matured," money power will move on, leaving behind only shambles and social chaos—a carcass picked clean of industrial potential, another treasury filled with worthless scrip.'

'Matt Ridley’s The Red Queen, a book about sexual selection in biology, explains the very compelling theory that sexual reproduction evolved primarily as a defense against parasitism. It turns out that this is the most general sort of defense known. Why? The reason the bad guys are winning the cyberwars is that they have one major advantage: mass production of computing infrastructure. Diversity breeds robustness. Every bit of information that can be used to exploit a system has less leverage. The problem with diversity though, is that the amount of diversity required to stay ahead of the parasites is far higher than the amount of diversity required to actually accomplish whatever the systems are designed to do. In biology and corporate ecosystems, sexual reproduction provides a true offensive weapon to the good guys. What we want is an architectural paradigm that can churn the gene pool of computing design at a controllable rate, independently of advances in functionality.'

'"Many hours have I spent in my chambers contemplating this worrisome development," King Leopold declared from atop his throne of toilet-paper scraps and human hair. "For centuries, the woodwork and drainpipes of the world have been the unassailed domain of we roaches. Exterminators were powerless to stop us. Humans shrieked at the sight of us. But now this meddlesome bedbug has inspired tenfold the terror." "We must not allow this ignoble parasite to usurp our rightful place as the most feared and reviled pest in all the land," continued Leopold, raising four of his six legs to the sky and shaking his scepter. "Scurry forth, my countrymen, and let our unmatched ability to repel be known!" Prognosticators and soothsayers from areas as far-flung as underneath the stove and behind the trash compactor have begun to speculate in private that the fierce battle between the pests for control of mankind's paranoia and repugnance may already be lost.'

'...making markets for scarce things is the result of having a kind of money that is released in a scarce way. This is a better way of saying it: for all these people’s understanding of open source and programmes, they refuse to acknowledge that the money we use is also a programme, that it is a closed source programme. ...the money we use is an operating system that was invented during the Renaissance, and it was invented for a top down scarcity model of media and culture and technology and everything. Now we’ve got a decentralised technological system with computers all over the place and people creating value all over the place, but we’re still using a 13th century money system. ...we need to now develop an economic platform capable of dealing with the distributed decentralised value-creation economy.'

'Wikileaks uses individual superempowerment -- the ability of one individual to do what it took a large company or government agency to do a couple of decades ago -- to its advantage. In fact, the site is designed as a tool to confer superempowerment to anybody that connects to it. -- "...in a world where leaking is easy, secretive or unjust systems are nonlinearly hit relative to open, just systems." -- Julian's focus appears to be on disrupting/slowing the decision making cycles (OODA loops) of organizational opponents through a "secrecy tax" (a tax that is radically increased through leaks). ...he maintains that any organization unable to respond to environmental changes, due to very slow decision making cycles, will eventually succumb to competitors.'

'The myth of the Banker Jew, and of money-grubbing and devious Jews generally, is one of historical popularity. In the modern era, Jews are blamed for 9/11, for Western wars, for "bankster" central banking and other disasters of modern society. But free-market thinking should give the individual observer pause before he or she too easily subscribes to these beliefs. Is it the Jew himself or herself -- something intrinsic to Jewish personality -- that gives rise to these suspicions? In fact, absent government involvement, Jews would not be capable of accomplishing any of these nefarious objectives (were they to have done so). The problem is not Jews, or even Zionists, therefore, if one accepts free-marketing thinking, but a handful of powerful individuals (some of who may be Jewish) who utilize government power (and public/private central banking) in order to promote private agendas. ...the use of government levers to achieve individual private ends is called MERCANTILISM.'

'The myth of the Banker Jew, and of money-grubbing and devious Jews generally, is one of historical popularity. In the modern era, Jews are blamed for 9/11, for Western wars, for "bankster" central banking and other disasters of modern society. But free-market thinking should give the individual observer pause before he or she too easily subscribes to these beliefs. Is it the Jew himself or herself -- something intrinsic to Jewish personality -- that gives rise to these suspicions? In fact, absent government involvement, Jews would not be capable of accomplishing any of these nefarious objectives (were they to have done so). The problem is not Jews, or even Zionists, therefore, if one accepts free-marketing thinking, but a handful of powerful individuals (some of who may be Jewish) who utilize government power (and public/private central banking) in order to promote private agendas. ...the use of government levers to achieve individual private ends is called MERCANTILISM.'

'There are so many sponsored events these days, we can just camp out outside of them, waiting to get free ‘gear’, ‘food’, and ‘alcohol.’ All we have to do is look ‘moderately alt’ and we can hit up any free event from LA to NYC, from Miami to Burning the Man, from Chicago to Indio, from Bonnarooville to the City Limits of Austin. Being a homeless alt enables me to live a truly on-the-go lifestyle (usually advertised by trendy mobile phones) where I am [literally] on the ground floor of relevant events across the country. Lucrative sponsorship deals enable alts like me to eat for free. In addition, u can find a lot of bread + bologna in Subway dumpsters. We are truly free.'

'These people lock the system in place while at the same time destabilizing it by imposing financial burden on the productive. Apparatchiks are also in place in "finance" much of which would be in bankruptcy reorganization were it not for government payouts. Most of these workers are clueless hulks of America's communist Fascist policy. We have a huge burden being placed on the few real sectors of the economy with local law enforcement, capital investment, and education, being gutted by the weight of a system stealing our freedom with a police state. We need to encourage our bright people to be constructive parts of society not toe sucking lackeys of those who have entrenched themselves in an insane psychopathic system of mealy mouthed boot lickers. Beria had it right that law and financial based capitalism would defeat itself in a psychotic-insane-prison-death-knell. We now have a leaderless nation with a growing secret police. The media has dominion over our minds and bodies.'

You down with JOBs (Yeah you know me) / Who's down with JOBs (Every last homie) / You down with JOBs (Yeah you know me) / Who's down with JOBs (All the homies)

'For the individuals who took work that was rooted in over consumption by the government, they had no way of knowing that their position could not be sustained over the long term. It really is not their fault that they lose their jobs, but the fault of a government that created an unsupportable structure. Likewise, the businesses that will go bust structured themselves to support the over-consumption, and it is not the fault of the proprietors that they have gone bust. They were incentivised by the government to direct their resources to unsustainable government consumption. The problem of austerity is that, whatever happens, the shift from government consumption of resource means that those employed in activities to support that consumption are going to be hurt, whether now or later. ...to place blame on the 'cutters' is to place the blame on the wrong people. It was those that distorted the economy onto an unsustainable path that shoulder the responsibility.'

'Common Law is codified cultural and moral experience, socially accepted and applied on a case by case basis by a private/communal judiciary of some sort. -- Common Law: #resolution-based with no concept of "debt to society" #social canon of "law" codified by tradition #punishments customized to crime by simple resolution techniques #private resolution whenever possible #simple private or communal courts when necessary (as in early Britain) #precedent observed but informally and as suitable #shame based punishments preferred to incarceration #no obvious distinction between civil and criminal law -- Modern Western Law #control by the state #emphasis on "debt to society" (society remains undefined?) [Law Society] #private prison industry complex benefits from incarceration-intensive punishments #lavish celebration of precedent #elaborate appeals system #no ability to seek private redress #adversarial model with middle man (attorney) emphasized #distinction between civil and criminal law'

'Under the common law, two parties to a dispute are required to communicate the grievance and attempt to settle privately before going public with the dispute. If private settlement cannot be made, then they agree to abide by the decision of the arbiters that they both choose. At that agreement, peace is made, though the underlying grievance has not yet been justified until trial. Peace is accomplished swiftly, and the parties can go back to both productivity and leisure. Under an adversarial system, the parties are discouraged from communicating directly, but do so through a third party who has an interest in keeping the conflict alive, since only in litigation can the attorney benefit. Civil law is designed to foment and perpetuate conflict for the purpose of controlling people and obtaining their wealth (energy). For that reason the power elite have obscured every attempt of the people to utilize principles of law, and to teach those principles to others.'

'Lying and collusion have become so systemic that every decision made drives us towards a dangerously wrong result. These decisions are leading us down the path to breakdown collapse. We want to turn the tide, so how do we effect change.' -- You withdraw 'moral' support for government and every other form of organized violence – NOW – before the suicidal parasites fully consume their hosts.

'Lawyer Capitalism = LAWCAP. LAWCAP's "capitalism" is paradoxically the most highly socialized organization in all history.'

'Zombies are living dead. When faced with shortages of anything, zombies frequently revert to cannibalism by eating the lives of other humans to satisfy their insatiable hunger and arrogant and belligerent stupidity. Zombies cannot hear and do not listen to simple scientific laws or do simple arithmetic. Zombies are known for their ability to ask extremely stupid questions and to try and engage in futile arguments with the living, thus paralyzing or retarding useful debate and discussion. Zombies are closely related to vampires in that they exist to suck life and energy out of anything that has life and energy. The zombie paradigm is one of infinite growth in that zombies always need to create more zombies. Zombies can revert back to living status but this usually happens only when zombies are faced with imminent death. Collapsenet will always welcome former-zombies who have become human again. Current zombies are not welcome here.'

'The problem with Western economies for at least the past 100 is mercantilist central banking. It is central banks, by overprinting money that cause first booms and then busts. The power elite, rarely if ever mentioned in Marxian analysis, stands behind this public/private central banking system – which began as an Anglo-American invention but has now spread around the world. The Internet has allowed real discussions of the economic fraud of the so-called modern capitalist system. And the system itself has so badly failed in the past few years that it is probably much more difficult to cover-up the damage this time. For those apt to defend the system, the next few years likely shall prove both difficult and unforgiving. We anticipate continued conversations about alternative forms of money and different ways of approaching the economy. The elite of course shall suggest further centralization and central banking control. But we have a feeling that this will be a hard argument to make.'

'Returning to the question of government bonds being given a zero risk rating, what we see is a regulatory framework that positively encourages banks into buying government debt. What we see now is the same cosy relationship between the central bankers, the banks and the politicians. I scratch your back... -- ...regulation has played a large part in the lead up to the financial crisis, and has also encouraged states into their current indebtedness. You will note that, as the crisis progressed, central banks and regulators have demanded greater levels of capital to be held by banks - and that is a way of telling banks to hold more government debt - exactly at the time that governments have been increasing debt. The banks are now stacked up with debt which was formerly considered safe, and (in the case of many European banks at present) they are faced with a potential implosion of their balance sheets if there are sovereign defaults. Are you starting to see the circularity here?'

"I would argue that we're in Darwinian struggle with narrow AI, and that nature is currently selecting for bots and against humans and one reason efficiency. Rather than rising to some great complex golden age, I am concerned that human civilization might head towards a boolean age that's a constant bombardment of categorical questions that you must answer. You can't post any questions that aren't asked directly of you. When awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority when clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide almost without noticing back into superstitions and darkness." -- Suggests an encrypted, reputation-based, darknet economy.

'Writing that nation-states make decisions, rather than individuals, is a mild form of brainwashing in our opinion. One soon gets the idea that the nation-states represents its people, and that those at the top of the state are entitled to speak – and make decisions – for everyone else. Thus it is that artificial geographical regions somehow become anthropomorphicized. The money that Greece spent was money used by the political class for its own benefits and purposes. It's highly doubtful from our point of view that the average Greek (not in a labor union, anyway) benefited from all this getting and spending. Nonetheless, it is the average Greek who will suffer the consequences of the elite's use of the fiat money system for its own purposes. In fact, a central banking oriented fiat money system is always unfair this way. Those closest to the monetary system benefit inordinately from it. Those furthest away end up footing the bill.'

'From Each According to His Gullibility -- To Each According to His Greed.'

'Bernanke and others probably think that most people in America and the rest of the world are still convinced that the "financial industry" is "a necessity to the functioning of Western economies. Everybody did seem to think so in the pre-Internet 20th century. But we would bet that at least some people (more and more), having seen the bailouts, read about money on the Internet, and observed the result of two-years of Keynesian stimulation, are concluding otherwise. We read the Internet quite a bit. People, especially young people, really do "get it." When you have quasi-government central banking entities (as opposed to fully private entities which would be far less powerful and abusive as they would not wield the authority of government) you have what cannot be described otherwise than as dubious mercantilist mechanism. That's what they "get." And the frustration rises.'

'A financial oligarchy that has shifted loyalties to the global market (think in terms of the shift to primary loyalties in fourth generation warfare). This group is highly destructive to its host, and in a process similar to cancer have co-opted normal market function via the establishment of the shadow banking system. The huge size and opacity of this system has allowed them to systematically loot the middle class and gut national treasuries (via a process known as control fraud). The legitimacy of nation states will continue to diminish due to a financial insolvency (which means it won't be able to finance social/stability programs), successive global shocks, and tolerance of looting by a financial oligarchy. As national legitimacy weakens, people will give their loyalty to groups (gang, church, tribe, etc.) that can protect and provide for them. Many of these groups will be violent. As these groups multiply in number, open source warfare and systems disruption will spread.'

"It becomes a vicious circle: The higher health care costs become, the more people feel they need insurance to cover those rare catastrophic problems. And the more people feel they need insurance, the more government regulates and controls which further drives up the costs of insurance." -- The true economics and politics behind Obama's recent health care bill.

'The evolution of anti-parasite defence systems: Mounting an immune response consumes considerable metabolic resources, which may result in temporary fatigue even exhaustion while the parasitic infection is being fought. It has thus been suggested that animals evolved an additional system of defence: perceptual cues (appearance, odour, etc.) ...the detection of such cues may trigger aversive emotional and cognitive responses that motivate behavioural avoidance. This behavioural mechanism offers a first line of defence against disease-causing parasites and hence has been called the ‘behavioural immune system’. ...there is evidence suggesting that the emotion of disgust evolved to serve as an affective signal of parasite infection. ...collectivistic value systems are especially likely to emerge and persist in regions characterised by a high prevalence of parasites, whereas individualistic value systems are most likely to take hold in regions with a relatively low level of parasites.'

'What is the largest sector of the US Economy? it has to be the "Racketeering Sector!" We see regulations PLAYING INTO widespread racketeering in the delivery of healthcare and insurance. We see regulations WORKING AROUND legalized loopholes in the provisioning of endless (and useless) financial products. As long as racketeering remains pervasive we will draw down on our future prospects in terms of freedom as well as wealth. We need to design our society-culture-systems so they are free from the forces of racketeering.'

'What we are now seeing in the UK is the brewing of a perfect storm. As governments issue record levels of debt, the competition for who is funded is intensifying. Again, it is an argument that I made long ago, and it is now an argument that is gaining a broader airing. Whilst other economies may look very bad, the credit will flow to the countries that look least bad and the UK is not well placed in such a competition. The result is that yields on gilts are climbing, meaning that funding the government is already becoming more expensive. Just as in Greece, it appears that the electorate in the UK are taking their creditors for granted, and have not accepted (yet) that it is possible for the credit taps to switched off. At some point, the UK electorate needs to wake up and accept reality, but the prospects for this are dim. ...the government is building a client state - where any serious cuts to government expenditure threatens the livelihoods of ever more individuals.'

'Hedge funds are not seeking to dictate economic affairs. Rather we are preoccupied by price. A market-based economy requires a pricing mechanism to allocate resources and ensure that we all prosper. [W]e believe that recurring and periodic recessions reveal the economy's winners and losers. And through our endeavours, hedge funds attempt to discover the identity and inadequacies of the poor businesses. Fearing that the huge scale of reckless bets within the banking system threatened another depression, our politicians have used public funds to bail out the economy's losers. [I]n doing so they run the danger of creating a plutocracy: a society ruled by the wealthy. We need to stop this socialisation of risk taking. [T]hose in power would rather use the subterfuge of inflation to hide the enormous public subsidy. But we are intelligent, well-funded and willing to vociferously challenge public decisions. Most importantly, we are on your side.' -- The parasite on my parasite is my friend?

'Have you ever wondered why the eco-lobby is so pro-EU? Now you have your answer. Green pressure groups are becoming financially dependent on Brussels. Ten years ago, they received €2,337,924 from the European Commission; last year, it was €8,749,940. A study by the International Policy Network reveals the extent to which Green lobbyists look to the EU for their income: Climate Action Network, Friends of the Earth, WWF, they’re all at it. Much of this money, the paper shows, is then recycled into lobbying the EU. You see how the system works? The EU pays eco-lobbyists to tell it what it wants to hear. Its clients, naturally enough, tell it that the EU ought to increase its powers. A similar racket goes on between Brussels and the mega-charities.'

'Like everyone else who goes into it, I became a social worker because I wanted to help people. Very soon, I realised that's not why you do it at all. You can't. As a rule, people can't change – at least, adults can't. I've worked in child protection in an inner city for five years. Your left­wing views go out of the window. You get a skewed view of the world in which everyone is on drugs, ­psychotic, violent. ­Especially men. In my mind, they're all wife-beaters. I pretty much always blame the parents, and some days I just wish I could take all the children into care. But I know that isn't the answer.' -- Here's what you do: You go get yourself a real job, one that contributes to wealth creation rather than parasites off its absence, then have some children, but don't beat them or yell at them, and then perhaps in twenty years time you'll have actually contributed to the betterment of society and helped people. Good day.

'...the use of government levers to [realize] private goals—commercial (or even religious)—for individuals or small groups through public means is called MERCANTILISM. Once one understands that any state involvement in the private market will inevitably fail then we begin to realize that many of the promotions of the power elite are based on fundamental economic illiteracy—and count on the economic illiteracy of those they're aimed at. -- ...absent government involvement—mercantilism—there is nothing wrong with a "bankster" or banking of even the most aggressive sort. The free-market itself would sort through the most horrid of these practices in short order were government not involved. Absent government coercion, even the bankster monopoly would not long survive—nor even its gold manipulation. -- ...monopoly power is inherently a government-based operation. In a private market, if people are not satisfied with a product or service they can walk away from it, and often do.'

'This video is a visualization of Matt Taibbi's "The Great American Bubble Machine"' -- IMMA DOIN GAWDS WURK!

Clinton figures debt is a threat to national security. Max: "This is what Obama will finally figure out in 3 years time when he's sitting in his penthouse office at JPMorgan once he's booted upstairs into the board of directors after he gets rid of this pesky job he has to do now to prove he's loyal to his handlers, this so called 'Presidency of The United States' job."

'#How the Wasp Enslaves the Spider: A female wasp will target a spider and immobilize it with an unknown venom injected into its mouth--at which point the wasp lays its eggs on the spider's abdomen. When the spider revives, it seems to carry on unaffected as the wasp larvae develop. Over the course of several days, as the larvae grows riding on the spider's body, it releases a chemical that changes the behavior of its host. Instead of its normally orderly web-pattern construction, the spider begins to build a special cocoon for the larvae--controlled by the mysterious substance they emit. As the wasps mature inside their custom-built home, they draw nutrients from the spider who constructed it--eventually devouring it completely when fully developed. So much for gratitude.'

"What terrorist is going to have a Predator?" he scoffed at a conference last winter. Such arrogance is setting us up for a fall. Just as we once failed to imagine terrorists using our own commercial aircraft against us, we are now underestimating the threat posed by this new wave of technology. There is, after all, no such thing as a permanent, first-mover advantage—not in technology, and certainly not in war. For now, however, America remains at the forefront of the robotics revolution—superiority that has come at considerable effort and expense. Today, the lag time between the development of military technology and its widespread dissemination is measured in months, not years. ...we need a military and homeland-security strategy that considers not only how we use these unmanned systems but how others will use them against us.'

'Jim Puplava talks to Timothy Carney about his book OBAMANOMICS how Barack Obama is bankrupting you and enriching his wall street friends, corporate lobbyists, and union bosses.' -- CHANGE!!!

'We are disease-ridden, junk-food addicts selfishly condemning future generations to parched-Earth misery. We are bad parents who will end up killing our kids by stuffing them full of snacks. We are potential wife-beaters who don’t know when to stop drinking, how to cross the road, or even why it’s important to vote. Nothing better reveals the contempt in which the New Labour government holds the British public than its advertising campaigns. [T]he days when public information campaigns simply imparted information to the public are long gone. Now the aim is to scare us into submission and make us feel so disgusting and/or guilty that we will change our habits. -- The advertising industry has hailed the government as its ‘lifeblood’ and has rewarded the Central Office of Information (COI) with numerous accolades, including ‘advertiser of the year’ and ‘advertiser of the decade’.' -- So, Communist Purpose has infiltrated the 'Advertising' 'Industry'.

Gisted -- "Mercantilism is simply the transfer of money from the State to particular corporations in return for services without which the State cannot function." Mercantilism is inevitable whenever there's a State because the State is fundamentally helpless and can't do anything for itself. -- The government has three relationships in the economy. With: #1. Criminals: The black/gray market. #2. Net-providers of taxes: Companies the State steals from. #3. Net-receivers of taxes: Companies the State gives to via subsidies, tariffs, guaranteed contacts, etc, in order to get things done. -- As State power grows mercantilism always ends up as fascism as more and more corporations get their value from, and give their allegiance to, the State. Eventually, when the bloated State has destroyed all geniune wealth creation in the economy, it starts printing money just to pay off the mercantilist corporations it has hired to maintain the appearance that anything reasonable is getting done at all.

'...perhaps the economists are the problem? That they themselves cannot see the full dimensions of the project of which they have been a part. But still we listen to them, and still our journalists use their language and assumptions. Which means that despite the disasters we are still trapped in the economists' world. But the moment you pull back and look at that world from a wider perspective strange things start to emerge. -- Over the past 15 years the idea of the "market" has been extended to practically every area of society - education, health, even the arts. But to make this happen those running the neoliberal project had to enforce it by creating vast and intricate performance indicators and feedback systems (which in many cases led to wide scale absurdities). And to do this they used the mighty power of the state. -- We think it was the resurgence of capitalism. But maybe it was something very different?' -- Mercantilism. State(ists) as rentier middlemen collecting fees/bribes.

'...the nation-state has been largely co-opted by increasingly powerful non-state entities -- from parasitical banks that sit astride core functions of the global system (they profit from the ability to distort core financial and economic functions to manufacture virtual "wealth") to transnational gangs that puncture borders with drugs and other smuggled goods -- and that corruption is spreading. Nothing can get done at the nation-state level anymore and what does get done (as the recent health and finance legislation in the US proves), is only being done to drive forward profitability in parasitical firms or sap our resources (making us more vulnerable to predation by local threats). Worse, nation-state bureaucracies are becoming more insulated and focused on self-preservation by the day from the institutional level down the individual government employee contractor.'

'American journalist and Pulitzer winner Chris Hedges told RT the United States has developed a new form of corporate totalitarianism.' -- "Obama is a brand. You confuse a brand with an experience, you confuse how you are made to feel with knowledge, you confuse propaganda with ideology. It's not accidental that Advertising Age gave the Obama campaign the marketing award of the year. Take it from the professionals."

'...the Fed (a) suppresses the interest rate on Treasury debt and (b) refunds virtually all of the interest payments on Treasury debt held by the Fed. And remember, the way the Fed does this is through creating new dollars out of thin air, in order to buy the Treasury debt from the original investors [primary dealers ie., FRB banks] who lent [lent??] money to the Treasury. Therefore the Fed is clearly giving aid to the US government's deficit spending at the expense of everyone holding assets denominated in US dollars. When the Treasury securities held by the Fed mature — so that the Treasury has to pay back the face value in principal — the Fed rolls over the debt. Over time, the nominal market value of the Fed's holdings of Treasury debt continually grows. Barring a sudden reversal in this policy, the Treasury knows that it will never have to pay off this debt. The ultimate constraint on the Fed's operations is investor and citizen backlash in response to rising prices.'

'We're not big fans of corporations here at the Bell, by the way. We think the idea of the corporation as elaborated in the West's increasingly socialist jurisprudence is perhaps something of a flawed legal doctrine, and would not survive long without the backing of the state. In fact, without a socialist state justice system to insist on a corporate paradigm - and to constantly elaborate on it - business would likely revert to more standard profiles. People would build or invest in companies and property and would be appropriately responsible. Meanwhile, those who were aggrieved would confront either employees or owners, or perhaps both. Common law, in other words, would drive local culpability. Without the shield of corporate law, we wonder if business might not assume a more normal size - and the technocratic drift of Western governments might therefore be allayed as well. Businesses would tend to compete more and lobby less.'

'Fear itself; we have a major symbol of corruption standing in front of us. In a working system this symbol would be torn down. Instead the corrupt are defining this symbol at all costs, even in light of public outrage. This points to the importance of this symbol as the center of gravity. Pull down the symbol and the center of gravity, the corruption on the center, will fall. Do we have the ability to force this reform? Will the sacrifice be in the blood of our children.'

'Kleptoparasitism or cleptoparasitism (literally, parasitism by theft) is a form of feeding in which one animal takes prey or other food from another that has caught, collected, or otherwise prepared the food, including stored food (as in the case of cuckoo bees, which lay their eggs on the pollen masses made by other bees). The term is also used to describe the stealing of nest material or other inanimate objects from one animal by another. -- The kleptoparasite gains either by obtaining prey or other objects that it could not obtain itself, or by saving the time and effort required to obtain it. However, the kleptoparasite may run the risk of injury from the victim if it is able to defend its property.'

'The nation-state, as an organizational form that seized control of the world from the starting gates at the treaties of Westphalia, is losing power across the board -- due to the rise of a much larger, faster, complex, and powerful global system. The result has been a hollowing out of the nation-state through privatization, corruption, and outright abdication (of responsibility). -- [How does the nation-state survives after tangible power is gone?] Simply, the nation-state becomes a brand. More specifically, it becomes a lifestyle brand, or worse, a lifestyle brand centered on a single person. All of its functions outside of the strategic communications (public relations, information operations, etc.) required to support and extend it are outsourced, auctioned off, or abdicated. In the US, that brand is Obama, and that brand is in a fatal death spiral.'

'One of the most important films ever made.' -- The ways to the One are as many as the lives of men.

'Produced by The John Birch Society, 1969.' -- #1. Get control of a farm under a populist flag like "communism" or "social democracy". Prime the 'higher' slaves for the new flag via your favourite universities. Every higher slave likes to be part of the vanguard. #2. Tax the slaves on the farm and spend the money on war. #3. Set up 'wealth-fare' state services for the war casualties and their dependents paid for with debt (loaned by your own private bank) whilst increased taxes pay the interest on that debt. #4. When the slaves complain about wars and taxes, give them cheap 'credit' and 'parties' to choose between. Everyone likes a party. Everyone likes to be awarded credit. #5. When people become jaded with the parties, give them strange new slaves ('terrorists') from foreign farms to fight against. Everyone likes to believe they're a better class of slave. #6. Get control of a new farm. Every slave likes to be part of the biggest farm franchise; they think it protects them from war.

Max on JPMorgan's control of the foodstamp market: "It's basically that you're printing your own money called 'foodstamps' and the margins on that are virtually 100%. JPMorgan – through their lobbying efforts in Washington – are engineering poverty to profit from poverty... they've got slave labour doing work for the aristocrats being paid foodstamps issued by JPMorgan who are printing money in their basement... They live in the Big House; they are the slave owners. You and I are the slaves."

'For years, it was hard for many of us to fathom the psychopathic nature of our financial elites, or to expand the meaning of Matt Tabbi’s marvelous description of Goldman Sachs, the great vampire squid. Squid seems a fitting name for the financial cartel that drives what I have traditionally called the Tapeworm. There were some who saw the danger immediately and tried to warn us, like Sir James Goldsmith. There were some, like myself, who tried to prevent the housing bubble and find alternatives to investing our life savings in it. While those efforts did not stop the squid, they certainly made it clear that the squid take down of the planet was, indeed, part of a plan. That’s all documented now.' -- You'll be needing a strong stomach to read the rest.

'What I find so fascinating about the reporting of the War on Terror is the way almost all of it ignores history – as if it is a conflict happening outside time... -- Stirling believed that selling arms and planes to the Saudis would not only help fight the war, but would also re-establish Britain's influence in the Middle East in a new way – through the arms trade. And he was right. But it had a terrible price. -- The Islamism that we face today rose up in the 1970s precisely as a reaction to those corrupt regimes and their western backers. It too is an anti-colonial project that is very similar to Nasser's vision of a united Arab world free of western influence – but with religion bolted on. And now, to fight it, we are preparing to send arms and "intelligence advisers" to help prop up a corrupt regime in Yemen. To the Arabs in Yemen it must seem like deja vu. We are the old ghosts who have returned.'

'For victims of the abuse syndrome, the truth of their passive submission to humiliating oppression is more than embarrassing; it can feel shameful—and there is nothing more painful than shame. When one already feels beaten down and demoralized, the likely response to the pain of shame is not constructive action, but more attempts to shut down or divert oneself from this pain. It is not likely that the truth of one's humiliating oppression is going to energize one to constructive actions. -- When people get caught up in humiliating abuse syndromes, more truths about their oppressive humiliations don't set them free. What sets them free is morale. What gives people morale? Encouragement. Small victories. Models of courageous behaviors. And anything that helps them break out of the vicious cycle of pain, shut down, immobilization, shame over immobilization, more pain, and more shut down.' -- Morale. Start here: Starve The Beast: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUoPFxcbRzE (07:04)

'The Taliban have recognized the necessity to operate with the cooperation of local population with the modus operandi being to gain their cooperation through indoctrination (preferred) or coercion (when necessary). A village can be divided into three areas that most affect how daily life is lived: #administrative, #religious, and #security. Form fits function, an Afghan village can only work one way to allow its members to survive a subsistence agrarian lifestyle, and the Taliban know it well. The local villagers know the government has no effective plan that can counter the Taliban in their village and will typically only give information on Taliban or criminal elements to settle a blood feud. The Pashtu people are patient to obtain justice and will use what they have to pay pack “blood for blood” even against the Taliban. Afghan identity is tribal in nature. Americans view identity as a national government, in the villages Afghans do not. The tribe is most important.'