No Tie. Trumped Instead.

Or so it seems.

Much as I raised the question of whether the (s)election would turn into an Electoral College tie, I now ask whether Those Who Rule Us will allow Tuesday's results to stand. Right now, I suspect they will for reasons of their own -- to them, Trump is at worst a buffoon, at best an entertainer for the masses -- but because of some inherent instabilities in the systems they run, this might change overnight.

Trump himself brought it up with his constant claims that "the election is rigged," and the implication that he wouldn't accept the outcome if Hillary won. The unfortunate thing is that the System is most definitely rigged, and elections and their outcome can be rigged quite easily. Soooo.... Why should anyone accept a Trump victory any more than he was going to accept a Clinton victory?

It always depends on whose ox is getting gored, doesn't it?

It goes farther than that. Our elections have never been pristine. The idea that they are some kind of models of democracy is a hoary and perverse myth. They have always been subject to manipulation and outright fraud, and time after time, the winner of the popular vote (whether the count is accurate or not is another question) has been denied the Presidency thanks to the Electoral College and behind the scenes horse trading and chicanery. That is Our System.

In this case, it appears that Hillary won the popular vote, but Trump swept the Electoral College vote, but of course, in Our System the popular vote is an interesting but not determining data point. And if it looks like the popular and electoral votes will coincide to elect the Wrong Candidate, there is always the possibility of intervention by lawless outside forces, cf: 2000 election.

It's easy enough, however, to just just jigger the outcome by fixing the machines. They say it's easy-peasy, and it's done all the time, though I can't vouch for the claims, nor -- so far -- has anyone been able to do so in a completely convincing manner. The electronic voting machines with proprietary software, however, are a disaster for "free and fair" elections because they can be jiggered, sometimes undetectably and there's no way to know what has happened.

So Trump was claiming the election was rigged loudly and constantly and he said he would only accept the outcome if he won.

Well, I think it is worthwhile pursuing his claim that the election was rigged -- not in Hillary's favor, as he insisted, but in his own.

There are plenty of anomalies to be considered, starting with Pennsylvania, but it's probable that anomalies will be found throughout the electoral landscape.

Let's say enough anomalies are found to flip or tie the EC outcome. What do we do then? We don't know, do we?

Some have already said that because Hillary conceded, nothing at all can be done. The election is settled. Trump is the 45th President Elect, and that is that.

There are other ways TPTB can and most certainly will overrule this outcome -- if they want. We won't get into them now, but they exist, and we've seen examples of those Other Ways from time to time throughout our history.

Right now, it doesn't look like they want to overrule the outcome, whereas it was pretty obvious what outcome they wanted and would get in 2000. Perhaps they always wanted Trump and all the sturm und drang of the Elites over his buffonish, racist, misogynist candidacy was an elaborate charade and pretense to fool the rubes and snooker the Rabble. I don't know. The fact that there is an R majority congress and a radical R in the White House means that there will be no gridlock, any more than there was when the Bush Regime was installed back in the day. Oh, no! There was almost complete cooperation from the Democrats in the spirit of bipartisan comity, and after 9/11, (almost) anything the Busheviks wanted was theirs for the asking or taking. We've been in a police state and a world of hurt ever since. That is by deliberate design.

I'm quite sure that Trump as President will do nothing that doesn't somehow profit him personally. Profit can be money. Profit can be prestige. Profit can be naked power. Wielding the power of the presidency, particularly against perceived threats or enemies, foreign or domestic, is intoxicating. But Trump is always looking out for number 1, first and foremost, the rest of creation can get out of the way and fend for itself. So what he would do in office is "uncertain," and our Ruling Cliques hate uncertainty. No? They could get behind the disastrous Bush 2 Regime and stick with it long after it had proved its ruinous malignancy because they knew with almost perfect certainty what that outfit would do.

Many of them got richer than their wildest dreams in the process.

They profited from Bush 2, and they continued to profit mightily under Obama, as they would continue to do so under Clinton 2 -- so long as she didn't trigger WWIII (which she wouldn't, but that's another issue I won't deal with right now)  -- but what happens when El Jefe is the one, and only one, whose profits matter? That's Trump. Now what?

See the dilemma?

While he is an example of his class -- oh my yes -- he's something of a rogue example in that he is overtly a conman and gangster. He is a bully without question. A racist. A misogynist. A thief. One could go on and on. But strangely, there was almost no examination of his business behavior and the details of his personal life during the campaign apart from his obvious indiscretions. The "scandals" that were produced were on the order of the Clinton Scandals, prurient but essentially irrelevant because they didn't tie together the threads of a complete picture of who the man is -- and according to those who've known him a long time, the man-boy he's always been.

It's not a pretty picture. It should be deeply disturbing to anyone who cares about others.

But painting that picture was never done, at least no more than a rough sketch, perhaps because "everyone who mattered" thought he couldn't and wouldn't win. He was just too outrageous.

Um-hum.

Well, here we are.

This is not about Clinton or her campaign. That's a topic for another post. But she and the Democratic Pooh-Bahs should be deeply and mortally ashamed. They won't be. They're like the Bourbons in that regard. They learn nothing and they forget nothing.

I've been disturbed by some supposed "progressive" internet daily defenses of Trump -- particularly at NC, Ian's Place, and MoA. He is not defensible, but for some reason, these and other ostensibly "progressive" sites saw fit to daily trash Hillary for crimes real and imagined, and to present defenses of Trump in order, they said, to counter media anti-Trump propaganda and lies. Propaganda from the media? Who'd a thunk? The problem was, it wasn't necessarily lies.

As I said more than once, there are plenty of reasons not to vote for Hillary; there's no reason at all to vote for Trump, yet they were so determined to defend him, they would often opine that this or that factor was reason enough to vote for Trump. No. I do not respectfully disagree; I dispute and denounce the very idea.

The man is a thoroughgoing monster, and the only justification for voting for him is complete nihilism. Being somewhat naive about the way the federal government operates is no comfort.

The Busheviks knew all the levers of power and how to operate them, they were extremely well connected within the government, and they had a remarkably cooperative Democratic "opposition." They had every advantage going in, but it still took them 9 months and 9/11 to get their act together enough to consolidate their coup and inaugurate the New American Century as outlined in that infamous White Paper.

That plan is still the operating plan of Our Government and its Rulers. Obama provided an interregnum, but he didn't really change any of its primary aspects.

Trump has (sort of) vowed to shatter the whole thing, which I don't believe for a minute, and substitute something less globalist/hegemonic and more nationalist. Except he's got all these neoLibCons on his "team" -- so-called -- and their very presence means that nothing much is going to change with regard to the Plan, only that its current operators will be replaced with new or recycled ones, and they will be much, much meaner.

Of course this is not at all what he was talking about during the campaign, but you could see by his actions and who he had lined up as backers, it was what he would do. Typical con-man to re-negotiate the contract after closing the sale, too.

I don't want to go on and on and on about these things, but there are obvious signs of what's to come if he is allowed to become President. Clear as a bell, just as it was clear that the Busheviks were angling to get us into a hot war as soon as they could. It was a main reason why they were put in office. That and all the profits that would accrue to the Highest of the Mighty.

The question is will Our Betters allow the Trump rampage to get under way. If they do, they will not be able to control it no matter how highly they think of themselves and their power. I am certain enough that they don't care about what happens to the Rabble, but they do care about themselves and their power and position -- and their control of the government. All that is potentially out the window with Trump -- who only cares about himself. In other words, Our Betters have to demonstrate their loyalty to him before anything else, and even then they risk everything they've accumulated plus any future gains because of his pettiness and unpredictability. At least Hillary would have served them, just as Obama has done. With Trump, they just don't know.

And they have a range of means to stop him.

Will they?

¿Quien sabe?

Personally, I doubt they will take action until it is too late, then woe betide.

Note: I spent most of yesterday among a lot of Indians (ie: Native Americans, just to be clear), and to say they were devastated, sick at heart, clearly in mourning is to put it mildly. The outcome of the election has hurt them deeply, to the core. Those of us who have lived through a number of such elections can be somewhat sanguine about it, I suppose. "It's not going to be that bad," we can opine, and try to comfort our suffering brothers and sisters with nostrums like, "We'll get through this, too."

But this time... I don't know. I just don't know.

On the Topic of Medicare for All (aka "Single Payer")

Some of what's being spitballed around these days, thanks to the uncertainty of the Health Care Transition mess, is a revival of the notion of Medicare for All, previously known as "Single Payer" (a term only a handful of people ever really understood.)

The objections have been coming thick and fast from plenty of so-called "progressives" who are desperate to make the ACA "work." Ah, willing dupes for the insurance cartel are everywhere, aren't they?

Of course it is asserted that they're all Obots, but that doesn't make sense. I don't know that anyone online who is constantly yowling about "Obots" has ever examined their premise. This being the internet, I suppose questions of that sort aren't asked in polite company, but I don't mind saying there is a distinct whiff of racism in the claim that Obama loyalists are mindless Obots for defending this or that indefensible element of his policy prescriptions and political acumen. Obviously, it was a mistake to give black folk and wimmins the vote, right?

One has to ask "who benefits" from these indefensible policies, and they examine the defenses presented, and all of a sudden, the mindless 'bot argument pretty much falls to pieces. The defenders are, in most cases, those who stand to benefit, and they are not mindless at all; they are engaged in a propaganda campaign to ensure they continue benefiting, and for the most part they aren't black folk at all. Even if they were, it wouldn't matter. The issue is the pitch, what they're selling, and who benefits.

The so-called Obots are those who are benefiting the most from these indefensible policies, such as representatives of the hedge-fund, insurance and banking cartels above all. Mindless? Hardly. They know what they are doing, and they know that way too many so-called "progressives" are too gullible to believe. They are easy marks for con artists.

And many of them will defend the con till their last breath. It's sad.

That said, it's obvious who is benefiting from the cock up of a Health Care Transition that's under way, and it isn't We, the Rabble. It is Our Rulers, in all their glory. They are making money, hand over fist, on the cock up itself and on the really terrifying uncertainty that is being deliberately generated thanks to the cock up. Make no mistake, this was all planned months if not years in advance, and from all appearances, things are going as planned. A lot of people are panicking. Many others have been convinced to blame the victims. The Crisis is building to a crescendo. And you know what the neo-libs say about Crises: never let one go to waste, for they are all opportunities to for ever more creative destruction. Here we go again.

And in the background, some of the hippies who were advocating for single payer/Medicare for All (wonder why it took so long to adopt that slogan; if it had been adopted in the first place, a lot of the confusion about "single payer" could have been avoided. But it wasn't adopted till almost the end of the game....) are raising the issue again.

Of course, it would have been much simpler to go that route, and there has even been some chatter that it might have passed if it had ever been offered on the House and Senate floors. (There are bills, but the measures were never offered for a vote that I know of.)

This really isn't rocket science. The simplest way to do it is to gradually reduce the eligibility age to zero, and when the eligibility age reaches zero, everyone born that year and thereafter is automatically enrolled in a comprehensive health care program -- one like Medicare, but one that provides more and better coverage, rather like the supplements or Medicare Advantage do -- and everyone else is made eligible for expanded Medicare if they want it, which most would, it seems to me.

It could be a two year transition or a ten year one, it hardly matters; what matters is creating a universal health care system that eliminates the insurance cartel's hold on the system. It doesn't mean that private health insurance necessarily goes away -- though it should -- it means that the cartels can no longer control access to and the provisions of the health care system.

If the current mess continues -- and it will continue, guaranteed, as long as important people can make money from it -- the calls for Medicare for All will get louder and louder, and if the revolt against the insurance cartel that's brewing gains steam, we may actually see the insurance cartel throwing in the towel and advocating for Medicare-style universal coverage themselves.

It could get that bad.

We'll see. There are powerful forces intent on ensuring that never happens, but these days you never know. Sometimes Our Betters actually give up on something they thought was going to make them so gosh-darned rich without them doing a thing (such as ACA was intended to do.) Then, when they find it is more trouble than it is worth, they drop kick it into oblivion, and what should have been done in the first place looks like a winner.

We'll see.

The Drought, The Poors and Economic Confusion

There is talk that New Mexico's economy is "turning around," this despite the continuing federal budget cutbacks due to the sequester and the various local and state government financial difficulties due to the Permanent Recession, the housing market collapse, and other more subtle -- and frankly more New Mexican -- factors; for example, The Drought.

But SpaceX signed a deal at the Spaceport the other day, so things are looking up. And Richard Branson isn't bugging out on the Spaceport like he seemed to be doing, so what's the problem?

Supposedly, private sector hiring and employment are up  for the first time in a long time, and government employment is stable -- so long as you don't count the sequester. In our own neighborhood, two of the long time empty places seem to be occupied again, or they soon will be, and another one is possibly going on the market shortly. So may be...

Things are looking up.

I've been reading a novel called "Not As It Seems," by a local writer, Ed Chavez. In it, he describes a drought in this area that began in 1941 and didn't break for 16 years. Locals feel we're in that kind of drought again, perhaps one that will last longer -- who knows, what with Climate Change and all -- and just like before, there will be massive social changes because of it. Part of the likely change is impoverishment.

Things may be looking up in certain sectors and for certain people, but out here in the country, we see clear skies, or clouds that try but don't drop any rain, and we see parched and seer landscape all around and dust and grit filling the air, blowing off the plowed but still barren farm fields. The signs are there, and those who remember the 1950's drought are feeling the weight of history. They know what could happen.

The Rio Grande is already dry below Elephant Butte, and water tables are dropping along the valley limiting irrigation water. Much of Southern New Mexico's commercial farming will be impossible this year -- and for how many more years to come? Nobody knows.

Many people have long pointed out how unsustainable Albuquerque is even in good times, but the city keeps trying to grow. It must do so under the current economic and political regime, a regime that doesn't accept "sustainability" as a fundamental principle -- as opposed to a temporary fashion. "Growth" is the only principle recognized. And perpetual growth is unsustainable.

Albuquerque is actually a relatively modest example of civic unsustainability. Phoenix, Las Vegas (NV), even Los Angeles itself strike me as more fraughtful examples, but we may see a prelude in Albuquerque to what could be in store for many cities in the Southwest and elsewhere as a new weather regime settles in for the long haul.

But things are looking up!

Albuquerque has the advantage of being divided into sectors and ancient barrios and villages. What is now a bloated cityscape grew from tiny beginnings more than three hundred years ago, beginnings that were scattered along the Rio Grande in the shadow of a dozen abandoned Indian pueblos and bordering the two remaining pubeblos, Isleta and Sandia -- the presence of which strictly limits the growth of Albuquerque to the south and north. Those beginnings are still there, whether it's Barelas or Los Ranchos, or any number of others that may have been absorbed by the Albuquerque metroplex, but which still retain their independent character.

In other words, it seems at least psychologically possible to "go back" to the cores of the city's parts. It's not that long ago, after all, when there were still fields beside Old Town, and Rio Rancho, among other suburbs, didn't exist.

On the other hand, when the previous droughts have come, people have abandoned the country-side for the relative comfort and prosperity of the City. At least in the City, they believed, they had a chance, whereas out in the country, they didn't. Without water, without rain, there was no future to be found in the fields, and depending on motor traffic for sustenance, as was the case, for example, along Route 66, is risky at best. When the Drought settles in, that's it. Despite the of best intentions, one can't really ride it out. By the time the Drought breaks, you've long been dead.

What to do, then?

The Drought forces those who depend on the land for a living to consider -- and accept -- some alternative, because the land simply can't provide for them. If they recognize that the City alternative may actually be closed off to them (it's already apparent that Santa Fe, for example, has rolled up the welcome mat -- for some -- for the duration),  then thoughts of escape out of the region altogether may be necessary. That's one reason why the Spaceport looms large in the imagination. What better escape than to space?

Well, except for the fact that you have to come back...

One of our neighbors actually works in California. It's a long haul back and forth, but he claims it's necessary, because of the lack of employment opportunity around here... he gets paid a lot more in California, too. They just don't want to live in California. They have an Airstream, the husband works for several months at a time, lives in the trailer, comes back for a few weeks, then he is off to California again. It's an... alternative lifestyle. And at least to my way of looking at it, it's an adaptation to reality. (Well, I should know. Like a lot of people, we've never worked in New Mexico. Almost all our current income is derived from California employment.)

As long as the roads remain open... this kind of alternative is open.

Because of the Interstate, there actually are some employment opportunities where we live now -- and more are coming due to the construction of another truck stop. But the local workers I've talked to are not that enthusiastic about their prospects. Pay is low. Poverty level low. And when you're working in a low-end store or shop where you can't afford to buy anything, it can be severely depressing. One of the workers I talked to the other day says she's going to school full time so she can have a career in the medical field, and she works two low-wage retail jobs so she can afford school and childcare. Thank god, she says, she'll graduate next spring.

Even if there were enough work for everyone who wants a job, this wouldn't be an uncommon situation.

She's poor and she knows it, but she believes her schooling and training should boost her at least one rung up the economic ladder -- so she can "breathe" she says.

I hope so for the sake of her sanity, her health and her kids....

But for so many others, there are neither opportunities nor a future. I've written many times that the Future -- as an image, an idea, a goal -- has been stolen from us by those who deem themselves Our Betters, and they have no intention of giving it back, under any circumstance. The Future -- as it used to be -- is now their sole possession, and their goal now is gaining immortality, so they can hold onto it forever.

The common people have no Future. And the young feel the loss more than any.

For many of the young, there is not only no Future, there is  no chance for one.

What will they do?

We see signs of an explosion of anger and despair, even revolutionary murmurings, but not -- yet -- overthrow of the prevailing system of financializing, looting, extraction and rent-seeking by the Highest of the Mighty.

Can't "overthrow" the system without something to replace it with, né?

Well, yes, actually, "overthrow" doesn't require a pre-existing substitute, but will "overthrow" ever happen?

We don't know; no one can foresee well enough to predict the (non-existent?) Future. But we have seen preludes to Revolution, and if we use our peripheral vision, we might see the prefiguring of a Future, not only after the Revolution comes, but what happens then.

In part, the past of New Mexico may be a guidepost to the Future -- if we squint just a little and use our imaginations to visualize what once was and what could be again.

Drought is the ever-present reality we face right now, a drought that may linger for many more years to come. We don't know. Life seems to go on as it always has, the rhythms of the seasons haven't changed, the wind still blows, and we pray for rain as the ancestors have long done. The ancient social and cultural roots in New Mexico have weathered many, many persistent droughts -- and much worse -- and somehow the rootstock has survived. Even flourished.

In other words, there is a cultural/social pattern here that ensures the society as a whole gets through pretty much anything that comes along -- even when people have to move from rougher areas to more benign ones, and various parts of the whole are abandoned temporarily or permanently.

I've mentioned the prevalence of ruins in New Mexico, for example -- abandoned sites falling back into the earth from whence they came litter the place, yet many get reclaimed in the by and bye as other people come along to make do in what was once abandoned. It's a cycle, as natural as the wind.

In the meantime, many, many alternative living sites and intentional communities are inaugurated.  Some of them persist. They all have their own quirks and individual characters, and yet they all partake of the spirit of place, so in some sense they're all united. If they depend on farming for survival, they may be facing existential difficulty due to the drought, but many don't rely on their farm fields and livestock to sustain them.

What I see happening, though I can't be certain about it, is that more and more New Mexicans are recognizing the unreliability of the various lifestyle props we take for granted and are shifting into another frame of mind about it.

One factor is the shift of economic expectations. This is as acute here as anywhere else. It's basically a matter of recognizing and accepting the fact that we don't really need all the devices and props we've become accustomed to in order to live well. Living well often doesn't require either material or financial abundance. A sufficiency will do quite nicely, thank you.

It can be confusing to shift expectations from over-abundance to sufficiency, however. That confusion leads to many missteps and misperceptions. So many of us are conditioned to expect more, more, more, more devices, more cars, insurance, cable, new houses, clothes, appliances, and so on. Few of us seem to know how to get by without them, or with fewer of them. So many of us assume that the lack of material and financial lifestyle underpinnings is the definition of poverty, and many assume that no one can live well without lots of money and lots of stuff -- new stuff at that.

The quest for lots of money and lots of stuff is what kept the overall economy going for generations. But now, apparently, that era is over. We might never go back to it, might never have the opportunity to go back to it.

There are now at least two distinctly different -- and quite separate -- economies, one that serves the rich with extraordinary, indeed obscene, abundance, generally through a combination of automatic payments (often called rent-seeking) from the masses, and what amounts to rounds and rounds of thefts from one another. It is medieval on an unprecedented global scale.

The rest of us, quite literally, have a completely separate economy that primarily operates to ensure the perpetual financial indebtedness of the masses to their Betters -- Betters who are becoming their Masters. More medievalism on an unprecedented global scale.

Then there are those who insist on separating themselves from all of it.

The fact that you can still do that is something of a wonder. As things solidify into neo-feudalism (but without the necessity of old-fashioned mutual responsibilities)  I doubt that the opportunities for alternatives and intentional communities and so on will be widespread or endure. The point of neo-feudalism is to become universal, with no alternatives available or permitted. This is certainly how conquest was conducted by essentially feudal Europeans in the New World. The Natives could submit, or the Natives could die. Often, the consequence of submission was death in any case. There was no way out.

Right now, we still have alternatives if we choose to take them up, but how much longer that will be the case, I don't know.

 There is likely to come a time when only a very special handful of people and communities will be able to withstand the pressure of becoming part of whatever social, economic and political future is being cobbled together for us.

But then, even at the worst of the previous feudal past, there was always resistance.

Things are looking up!

Austerity for Thee

More and more people seem to be coming to the realization that Our Betters in Washington are selling us a bill of goods regarding the viability of various social programs, specifically Social Security ("if we don't do something right now, now, now! we're all gonna die!"), that is plenty familiar -- and wrong.

Of course it will still be a while before many of those who are opposed to -- say -- pilfering Social Security revenues for -- say -- yet more tax cuts for the rich, but even they'll come around after many more years of pounding.

Social Security is not really off-budget like Our Glorious Wars, not at all. As I understand it, until the recent payroll tax "holiday," it was paying out about as much as it brought in, so it was at least revenue neutral. Prior to The Permanent Recession (which happened simultaneously with the start of Baby Boomer retirements, isn'tthatinterestingthough) Social Security was collecting a substantial surplus, all of which was secured by (I wouldn't say "invested in...") special Treasury bonds.

Since the payroll tax "holiday," however, and even now with full payroll taxes being collected in incomes once again (which amounts to a 2% tax hike on working people) Social Security has been paying out somewhat less than (or quite a bit less than, depending on your point of view) it has been receiving in revenues.

This has meant "tapping the Trust Fund" -- except it doesn't really. The people who say the Trust Fund isn't real are right in that sense. There is no special place where the Trust Fund Trillions are stored for safekeeping. Payments from the Trust Fund come out of the government's General Fund -- which means they are either taxed or borrowed into being.

Because of the incessant jiggering that's been done to the Fund and the budgets and such, it ultimately means that all the money that's being paid out to Social Security beneficiaries comes from the General Fund, though SS continues to maintain nominal independence, what with its dedicated revenue stream and so on and so forth (the law, as it were).

Social Security is no more "going broke" than the Government itself is "going broke" or the Imperial Storm Troopers are "going broke." The Federal Government has a highly creative ability to keep itself from "going broke," as well as the ability to determine who will actually go broke in the Casino of Life.

Thus all the yakking and yabbering about Social Security being unsustainable or what have you is really little more than rhetoric for the yobs and entertainment for the Higher Ups as they decide (on Our Behalf, of course) who will and will not benefit from this or that decision or action they take and implement.

In the case of Social Security, the High and the Mighty have decided they want to cut Social Security payments to beneficiaries "going forward." And they have decided they will do it, no matter what the People think about it, though they will sell it as a "strengthening" or "improvement" or what have you, "to ensure that Social Security is there for the next generations, yadda yadda," as if they actually care one way or another about you and yours. (For the record, they don't.)

They have decided in their Wisdom to re-prioritize Government spending; they don't want to spend so much on the old, the halt, the blind, and the lame as they would otherwise be spending given the priorities set a generation or so ago. They aren't seeking to reduce the amount of Government spending in the aggregate -- no, they'll increase it into the dim mists of the Future Unknown. They just don't want to spend as much on you for the well being of you and yours.

This is still somewhat abstract for Americans, because it's not altogether obvious how this re-prioritization is supposed to work. A lot of people seem not to realize that many benefit payments have been severely cut as it is, that eligibility for benefits has been restricted, and that millions and millions of people have been cut off from benefits altogether. This has come at the cost of a stunning increase in poverty, hunger and homelessness in this country -- yet it's largely invisible or goes unrecognized.

It's happening not because of any "lack of money" -- there's plenty of money. It's happening because Our Betters see their opportunity and they are taking their opportunity to ensure their perpetual happiness while incrementally enmiserating everyone else. What could be better -- for them.

If they are not actually going to reduce aggregate government spending (don't be silly, they won't) but they are insistent on reducing the amount spent for "benefits" -- or anything else that doesn't provide an immediate bottom line enhancement to them and their cronies -- what do they want to spend the money on?

Well, wars, for one thing. Another one -- could get nasty -- brewing on the Pacific horizon involving Korea. Oh, that's the ticket. Let's blow things up Over There, and let's use some Nukes, too, eh? But see, that's how Our Betters think. If you take a moment to ponder what's going on Over There, it's hard to escape the notion that L'il Kim the Bad Boy got his ideas about How To Deal with the Rest of the World not from Mao or Stalin or his Old Man but from Gee Dubya and the ilk he surrounded himself with -- whose ideas and ideals still infest the Government. (Of course, my theory has long been that the Busheviks were the very subversives we, as little ones, were incessantly warned about in the routine Anti-Communist Propaganda lectures we were exposed to. But that's another topic for another day...)

Wars can be extremely profitable for certain connected interests, as was demonstrated in breathtaking fashion in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq, it was partly a matter of literally looting the people and the country of anything of value and destroying the rest, and partly it was a matter of looting the American Treasury, some of it in the form of billions of dollars (shrink-wrapped $100 bills) airlifted over on pallets, never accounted for. Endless defense spending for warriors and materiel, endless no-bid contracts, amounting to trillions more in money for nothin' -- not to pay for anything blown up or killed or conquered, not for repairs and maintenance, not for anything at all, except for the contractor's being. The closest parallel to what was happening might have been during the American Indian Wars in the 19th Century, an extraordinary period of handing out favors and payments -- often for nothing at all in concrete terms -- indeed ensuring that favored recipients would enjoy endless Government rewards for... being. All charged to War. What a racket.

The bloated National Security State has proved immensely profitable to certain connected interests -- sometimes the same ones who profit from War, sometimes others -- and they want to see those profits continue and increase until hell freezes over if they have their way. State security is a byproduct, if it occurs at all. The point, after all, is not to secure the state, it is to secure the profits of connected interests, and Americans have only the slightest glimmer of recognition that these enormous profits are actually coming at the People's expense. But that's the point.

One of the cleverest favored interests is the Medical-Industrial Complex that profits in myriad ways and seeks to ensure the perpetuation of that profit through the tender mercies of Obamacare and the forced extractions from The People that go along with it. It's not just a matter of ensuring profits for the insurance industry forever, oh no. There is more, much more, including all the many ways the Complex can profit directly from the many extractions yet to come, such as higher (and ever-higher) Medicare co-pays, premiums, and potentially the privatization of the entire program. There is no thought -- at all -- of reducing the scandalously high medical care prices in this country (another source of looting and profit). No. All the thinking among policy makers is about how to get more money out of the pockets of the old, the halt, the blind and the lame to pay for ever-growing medical costs. Clearly, the M-I Complex is one of The Most Favored Interests.

Of course the Banking Interests seem to be the most favored of all. Whereas War, the National Security State, and the Medical-Industrial interests have managed to extract trillions from the People during the last decade and a half or so, the Banking Interests managed a heist of hundreds of trillions practically overnight. Nothing like that has happened before in human history. It's a stunning achievement. Even Enron couldn't do it.

One of the little noticed factors of both the boom and the bust that has led to the current Permanent Recession (for the rest of us, not for Our Betters) was that there was an enormous amount of theft going on (much of it out in the open) and that the bulk of this theft was by the rich from the rich. That's where the money was after all, and in some ways, it was surprisingly easy for clever dicks to get.

Once that easy money was "redistributed" (among the rich) however, many of those who lost in the game wanted -- demanded -- their losses be made good from you and me. In other words, "austerity" for the rest of us, profits without end for the High and the Mighty.

The banks were the first in line, and their banditry was and is stark and stunningly successful. Not only were they made whole for their casino losses, they were apparently granted what amounts to a permanent subsidy to not only cover any future losses but to ensure an endlessly growing profit stream.

"Austerity" is perhaps the purest form of theft from the People to enhance the revenues and profits of favored interests, but in the United States, as I mentioned earlier, "austerity" is still something of an abstraction. The connections between cuts in benefits and services that have already been enacted, together with those to come, and the concomitant rise in poverty, hunger, homelessness among all sectors of the Lower Orders, along with the decimation of the middle class, aren't yet clear enough for widespread recognition.

But overseas, in Europe and Britain, those connections couldn't be clearer, as one after another, the peripheral countries and marginal population segments are quite openly looted and impoverished for the benefit of the "core" -- but more specifically for the benefit of the rising European Bankers and the Neo-Aristocracy. Parasites, in other words.

The already too meager benefits of Social Security in this country must be further reduced in order to ensure that the favored few receive the endless profits they believe they are entitled to.

But as we've seen with the banks most clearly, nothing -- at all -- need be reduced to provide the Entitled Class with endless profits. No pallets of $100 bills need be airlifted, no extractions need be taken from the pockets of workers and the elderly. All it takes is jiggering a few numbers on a screen, and Voilà: beaucoups de bucks! It's magic!

Wars and the National Security State, all the social benefits one could want, infrastructure spending out the wahzoo, all of it and more can be funded and more, with merely a jiggering of the numbers on a screen.

This tells us that the point of all the benefit cuts and austerity measures is simple: to inflict pain and suffering sadistically, because it can be done and the victims can do nothing about it.

Power.

For the sake of it.

Monstrous.

The Blankfein Thing

This has gotten much play in the Haute Blogosphere for many days now:

BLANKFEIN: You’re going to have to undoubtedly do something to lower people’s expectations — the entitlements and what people think that they’re going to get, because it’s not going to — they’re not going to get it.

PELLEY: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid?

BLANKFEIN: You can look at history of these things, and Social Security wasn’t devised to be a system that supported you for a 30-year retirement after a 25-year career. … So there will be things that, you know, the retirement age has to be changed, maybe some of the benefits have to be affected, maybe some of the inflation adjustments have to be revised. But in general, entitlements have to be slowed down and contained.
PELLEY: Because we can’t afford them going forward?

BLANKFEIN: Because we can’t afford them.

Jeebus what a freak.

The notion that this mook should be lecturing anyone on matters of what we can "afford" and "fiscal cliffs" and so forth is surreal and insulting. His own sense of entitlement (and his bone ignorance) is unlimited.

Perhaps he would do well to contemplate just how close he and his ilk are to a ride in a tumbril before he and they mouth off again.