I'm watching "America's Got Talent" tonight ~ always good for a laugh. Some DO have talent, others, well it's hard to understand how they can do what they do on national tv. AND we could really use a laugh about now.

catmom5

http://www.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer60.html

Butler Shaffer teaches at the Southwestern University School of Law:

"Men and women need nothing so much right now as to rediscover and reenergize their own souls. They will never be able to accomplish such purposes in the dehumanizing and dispirited state systems that insist upon controlling their lives and property. In the sentiments underlying anarchistic thinking, men and women may be able to find the individualized sense of being and self-direction that they long ago abandoned in marbled halls and citadels."


http://www.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer132.html
"There is one poignant scene in this movie in which thousands of unarmed, peaceful individuals confront the well-armed military forces of the state. This scene, more than any other, may provide insight into how society might evolve in a world in which vertically-structured institutions are collapsing. The transformations of thinking that are arising from the study of “chaos,” or “complexity,” are producing changes in social behavior that make state systems obsolete. The predictability the statists imagine inheres in their structured apparatuses has been rendered illusory. Terry Pratchett’s observation that “chaos always defeats order because it is better organized,” reflects a world in flux. Perhaps a film such a V for Vendetta will provide us an opportunity to begin exploring the orderly nature of anarchistic systems.

I have no doubt that this film will generate “terror” in the minds of those who regard the domination of others either as some inherent right or as an inevitable necessity for social order. But it is not the fear of violence that will be their principal concern. Violence will be the fear that the media will transmit to the boobeoisie to keep them huddled at the feet of their masters. The establishment’s fear is not that buildings will be blown up......
......but that men and women will begin to dismantle the structures of political authority in their thinking. To paraphrase the words of Evey, it is not buildings that people need, but hope.

For those who are serious about living in a society in which peace, liberty, and the inviolability of the human spirit prevail, V for Vendetta provides an opportunity to rethink our social assumptions; to develop new ideas about our relationships to one another. And as “V” informs us, “ideas are bulletproof.” This film is a powerful antidote to the mindset that is destroying mankind. It is not for those who wish only to reform the state and confirm beliefs that the 20th century has rendered no longer suitable to the interests of humanity."

           ----Butler Shaffer teaches at the Southwestern University School of Law

---

This is what Eisenhower was talking about.  Just watched a documentary about him.  He was very intelligent.  The solution will not begin in the "state" outside of us.  (The government.)  It has to come from a change in our state of mind. 

I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.
                                             Dwight D. Eisenhower

http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Dwight_D._Eisenhower

That is when they could make it even worse.  I think powerful special interests have been running the show more and more.  I really don't know how bad it will get, but it is bad already.  Very bad for the people starving in emerging markets.  And the IMF wants us to bail them out, rather than fix causes like engery speculation or the falling dollar.  We pay so they can keep playing and the truly poor don't riot.



http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data

According to the real numbers, we are at -2% and falling now as far as GDP.  He has real inflation at 12%.  Unemployment according to BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) is 10%.  His figure is 14% computed this way.

"The SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated "discouraged workers" defined away during the Clinton Administration added to the existing BLS estimates of level U-6 unemployment. "

This number was 15% in 1994.  The Great Depression unemployment figure was said to be 25%, but I have read that they called those working part-time as employed to hide an even worse reality.

But if we were at a real number of 15% unemployment in 1994 that had only improved to 10-11% by 2000, many people have been hurting in this country for a long time silently.  This is why I say a 'compartmentalized' Depression has been going on here for many years.

An analyst said that what will be different about this whatever you want to call it that is happening now, is that the last severe inflationary cycle occurred prior to global labor arbitrage so employers were willing to increase salaries to compensate somewhat.

Now they have no need.  Labor is cheap, so we may see people suffer out of proportion to the stats as compared to past downturns.  More working poor.

Klondike so the truly poor don't riot? Well when people have to chose between food and heating their homes - what to do? People are doing with less and less. The next big bubble will be the credit cards. Those who can't re-finance their homes anymore are turning to credit cards to stay afloat and some pay their mortgages with them too. Will be something when millions of people just up and stop paying their credit card balances too. But just found out if you do not have a job the old way  that you were able to file bankruptcy on everything still stands (you have to have no job to file this way) and wipe out your debts. Maybe when that happens they will get off their butts and find a solution but it may well be too late by the time that happens.

Klondike I wish we'd caught the documentary on Ike.  Who carried it and I wonder if it will be repeated or even available thru Netflix?  Big Ike fan here. 
We like Ike, we like Ike, we like Ike....

So much of what everyone is writing here really hits home with me. We stay just ahead of the bills every month. We've been through tough times before but we always felt that the economy would get better - until now. We're really apprehensive about the future. DH has work now, but may not in a month or two.

We have such a high insurance deductible that we stay away from doctors as much as we can. The insurance goes up every year. Since I have a serious chronic ailment we hesitate to drop the insurance, but may have to sooner than I'd like to think.

We use the library for movies and books.

I would really like to have one more cat along with our three. The most harmonious cat group we ever had was four - two girls and two boys. But DH would then have a cow, and well, then what? In all seriousness he is right, we need to focus on taking care of everyone we have now. So sadly, there's a cat somewhere that I would take in under better circumstances, that won't get a home.

Trying to keep humor in your life is an important part of any bad situation, as pointed out by Catmom5 and Katie. In that spirit, Here's an entry from those lists of "Things you will NEVER hear in the South", (original author seems to be impossible to find), "Duct tape won't fix that." Another one "Unsweetened tea tastes better."

Our house needs repairs and there's no $$$ in the budget for that, so pass that duct tape!

We do have a tarp or two around, we're better prepared than I thought!