Rich Wypipo

I've been poor most of my life, either dirt poor and sometimes literally starving, or on the margins of it, or living as if such poverty would be my fate tomorrow. And for the most part, one learns to cope, one learns to do without, and one discovers that there's not a lot of material things that one really needs in one's life to live well. Many of my poor friends over the years learned these lessons much better than I did and could not only live poor with style, they could live poor with utter grace and serenity, too.

They were some of the kindest and most generous people I ever knew.

Even now,  when (knock wood) I'm relatively well-off in retirement (in that Ms Ché and I have sufficient income to give a good deal of it away) we live simply, in an ancient and somewhat ramshackle pioneer adobe house in a tiny Central New Mexico ranching and farming community among people who are the salt of the earth, most of them not as well off as we are, with a very few ricos, mostly old ranching families from pioneer days, who share more qualities with the Rabble of the area than most of them do with their hot-headed peers in ranching and agriculture outside the region.

On the other hand, because of the kind of work I've done and the kind of life I've led, I've known a lot of urban rich people, rich Wypipo for the most part (a handful of blacks, browns and Asians thrown in to the mix), and I think I got to understand them reasonably well.

Trump is an aberration because he's so overt. But his perspective and behavior, and his many bizarre and largely false beliefs are not that different than those of many (most) members of his class. They are in my experience quite a despicable lot overall, the few and far between exceptions proving the rule.

They are selfish, greedy, cruel, self-obsessed, exploitative, aggressive, competitive with one another and typically they are wrong about everything or just about everything.

They live in a special bubble of their own creation, served by toadies and flatterers, deigning to part with their good will (and sometimes money) when and if they observe sufficient loyalty and obedience from their suppliants.

They are for the most part insecure as hell.

They loathe and fear the masses.

They want to be loved but believe they are hated. Often enough they're right about that.

Many spend their lives and much of their wealth in a futile quest for self-protection, obsessing on "security," with ever thicker walls, ever higher gates, ever more vicious dogs and guards to protect them from imagined (sometimes real) outlaws out there who were coming to take their stuff and rape their wives and daughters.

They believe sincerely that We the Rabble hate and envy them so much that if it weren't for their own layers of protection and it weren't for the government suppressing revolt, we'd all flood their mansions and offices and take everything they have.

As if what THEY have were the most important things in OUR lives.

They aren't. But don't tell them that. It might upset them even more.

"Generosity" among these people is almost entirely based on what they will get out of the deal -- how prominent their names will be, what sort of perks their beneficiaries deliver, and so on. New rich often see the notion of "generosity" as simply silly and have used it as a scaffold and opportunity for further exploitation of the despairing and downcast masses and the further enrichment of themselves.

They are ugly, ugly people, with no souls in my estimation.

There are exceptions, but they are often marginalized among their own peers. The "good ones" are laughed at by most of their class, called names behind their backs ("Saint" this or that) and otherwise mocked.

Trump is very open about these things whereas most of his class are socialized to obscure their natures -- at least in the company of people who are not like them.

What shocks me about the current situation is that so many people who should know better apparently don't recognize that Trump is what so many members of his class wish they were or could be. He's public about his crazy; no filters or shields. Right out there as a vicious, violent, cruel and despicable representative of his class -- yes, most of them in my experience are like Trump when you peel back the curtain -- who now has (almost) all the Power of the Great And Grand United States Government at his fingertips.

Oh my god in heaven, THINK of the possibilities! Gasp!

People who should know better think he's a one off. He isn't. They think his actions and success will somehow lead to a reaction from the Left, or something like it, that will result in some sort of Worker Paradise -- or at least something better than we have -- one day.

One. Fine. Day.

But first, destroy the Democrats. The Paradise will come once the Democrats are destroyed, the Clintoons  are hung from lampposts, and Trump succeeds in overthrowing the NeoLibCon paradigm. As if that were his intent or goal.

It's insanity.

Of course Trumpism and the apotheosis of his class can be defeated.

Start here:

Disobey card from Guerrilla Graphix, one of my favorite shops in Albuquerque

"Nobody Ever Points A Gun At Them..."

(It's a line from the 2008 movie, "Battle In Seattle")

Takin' care of business, Seattle PD

For the last couple of days, I've been puzzling over a police killing in Seattle. Stephen Johnston of 314 W. Prospect St, in the Queen Anne district, was "fatally wounded" by police riflemen on August 31. He had purchased his historic home about a year previously for some $2.2 million. He was, one suspects, one of "those people" who never get a police gun pointed at them.

Who was he, and what happened?

I'm not at all sure.

The stories in the media are murky at best. Claims have been made that the police had been called to the home the day before the ultimate shooting, but the reason is somewhat obscure. There was a 911 call, apparently from Johnston, on Friday. Police arrived, found the front door wide open and inspected the home -- which they said was "trashed". They didn't find Johnston or anyone else. They left.

That night, they went back to the house to arrest Johnston for making threats to kill his wife -- who was said to be in eastern Washington at the time. But they did not find him. Saturday, they received a 911 call that shots were being fired in the neighborhood. The caller is not known. Was it Johnston?

Upon returning to the neighborhood, police brought snipers with them.

Johnston apparently appeared on his front porch, armed with an AK-47, and started firing at officers (according to them, at any rate-- this story later changed to say that police didn't know what or who Johnston was firing at). Two police snipers fired at Johnston, wounding him. He retreated -- crawling -- back into the house. Police ordered him to come out, but he didn't. They sent a robot in. The robot espied his corpse on the floor. Police entered and found Johnston's dead body, his arsenal of weapons near the front door and a bulletproof vest.

The end. All of this from amalgamated stories in the Seattle media.

The media reports don't add up. Not yet.

Who Stephen Johnson was and how he got his money is the main mystery at the moment.

The fact that he was shot by police from across the street is interesting because of the terrain. How they ever got a shot at him at all is a question given that the house is on a rise and the house across the street is well below it. There are plenty of trees and shrubs in the way as well. The fact that he was shot at all is even more interesting. A rich, middle aged white man would be very unlikely to be shot by police, even if armed, and potentially even if firing.

But it happened in Seattle.

Naturally, neighbors -- while disturbed by the hoo-hah of it all -- feel it was a justified reaction by police. What else could they do?

Johnston's family is said to have returned to the house on Sunday but declined to be interviewed.

There is a story here. I wonder if we will ever see or hear it?


A few news reports in no particular order:
https://www.facebook.com/KilledByPolice/posts/893244397370365

http://blogs.seattletimes.com/today/2014/08/police-shoot-man-who-fired-gun-on-queen-anne-street/

http://www.king5.com/story/news/local/seattle/2014/09/01/police-find-gun-arsenal-queen-anne-home-shooting/14946055/

http://www.king5.com/story/news/local/seattle/2014/08/31/neighbors-react-to-officer-involved-shooting-in-queen-anne/14914715/

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2024435941_policeshootingxml.html

http://www.kirotv.com/news/news/officer-involved-shooting-lower-queen-anne/nhCrk/

http://www.skyvalleychronicle.com/BREAKING-NEWS/GUNMAN-IN-SEATTLE-KILLED-IN-SHOOTOUT-WITH-POLICE-1844623

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This is the listing for the house that the Johnstons bought last year for $2.something million. This is not the kind of place that your average summary execution target lives in by any means. So this case remains an outlier, a peculiarity, a question mark. Who was he, really? And why did the police head out there for the third time with snipers prepared to kill on command? If we can find out the answers to these and other questions about this case, we may be able to comprehend why it is that so many, many ordinary people, not rich or necessarily white, are summarily executed by police every month. A hundred a month.

Why?

Climate Change -- Everyone is Noticing

And yet still, "nothing" is being done. Of course, "nothing" is not quite correct. A great deal is being done, if only through economic collapse and retrenchment, but whatever is being done is not enough to curb the climate change that has been under way for many years.

I suspect that "not enough" is being done because long ago, scientists determined that at best the period of climate change that we entered into 30 years ago or so could only be slightly mitigated through strategic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, it could not be stopped or reversed.

No one has ever explained what "enough" would be, after all, "enough" to stop or reverse the change that's under way. What actually would have to be done?

No one will explain it, because it is not a pretty picture. Stopping or reversing climate change -- if it were possible at all -- would likely require a substantial reduction in human population around the globe. Like... I don't know... two-thirds reduction, or maybe even more. There is no way to do that... pleasantly.

It would require the survivors to live very simple lives in the few pockets of lush environment suitable for human habitat. Humans would have to vacate the rest or live so lightly on the land they would be barely perceptible.

In other words, it would require a return to a long-forgotten way of life for the survivors.

This fate may come no matter what, simply because the climate change that is under way, and which appears to be irreversible at this point, has already had and quite likely will continue to have increasingly catastrophic consequences, from earthquake, tsunami, violent storms, sea level rise, and so on.

One of the consequences is playing out in Japan right now with the unprecedented destruction of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and the release of large amounts of radiation and radiation products into the nearby and global environment. Exactly what is going on is still something of a mystery, but recent reports indicate that the reactor cores have melted through their containments and into the earth beneath and have reached the water table, contaminating the water and releasing radioactive products into the environment, including into the ocean. So far as can be determined, it will be impossible to even begin to control this situation for another two years, and even then there are no guarantees that control will be effective. It will not, in any case, be permanent. Though something will be tried, in effect, "nothing" can be done.

How many other catastrophic situations have been routinized and regularized is hard to judge, but the levels of destruction from storms and earthquakes alone have been almost unprecedented. It's not simply a matter of unprecedented destruction, either. In addition to all the lives lost and the ruin left behind, there's been a growing resistance to rebuilding beyond the provision of temporary shelter for survivors -- if that. Sections of cities and whole cities are being abandoned, whether due to the consequences of storm and earthquake or due to man-made economic collapse.

Economic collapse and neo-liberal reconfiguration seem to be working in tandem with climate change and other natural catastrophes to reduce the human footprint bit by bit. In other words, what "can" be done is being done -- to the extent that anything is being done about climate change.

The complaints that "nothing" is being done or "not enough" is being done about climate change seem to revolve around the notion that there ought to be a united global initiative to tackle the issue, and there isn't one. The notion that all peoples everywhere around the world can or should be united in common purpose has long been a chimera, an unachievable -- and perhaps quite an undesirable -- goal of some people for many generations. It's never been realized and it is certainly not being realized now, certainly not under the umbrella of Climate Change.

And yet...

It seems that perhaps unconsciously, perhaps quite deliberately, our ruling elites have figured out what has to happen for their own protection if not for the benefit of anyone else. Their goal seems to be to make life as miserable as possible for as many people as possible, let them fight among themselves, and let them perish from the earth in the process. This will inevitably lead to the desirable outcome of a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions; surprise, surprise. While the climate change that is under way cannot be stopped or reversed in the short term, the comfort and convenience of the ruling elites can nevertheless be assured -- with enough money. Enclaves can be prepared and protected and the rich can be taken care of -- no matter what happens to the rest of humanity.

That seems to be what's taking place. It's a rather simple scheme.

The question is will it work? And for whom? And for how long?

The rich are on a Tax Strike

I've made this point many times, but it's time to make it again:

the High and the Mighty, The Gods Who Walk Among Us® are refusing to pay taxes on behalf of the Common Good. Period.

They won't do it, and you can't make them. Nyah, nyah.

Of course, you cannot have a successful society on this basis. Our leaders have been attempting to negotiate a compromise with Our Betters, to no avail. They will not pay to support the Common Good. They will not. They will not. They will not. And nothing we can do can make them. Nothing.

I've pointed out that this was the situation in France when the Nobles refused to be taxed to pay for Louis XV's incessant wars, and told the King to make the Common People pay instead.

The King got all he could out of the Common People before they were completely destitute, but it wasn't enough, and his successor, Louis XVI, had to call the Estates-General to come up with some additional revenues from the Nobles as well as the Common People. They took it upon themselves instead to declare an end to the Ancien Régime, and to separate the heads of any number of Royalty and Nobility from their bodies. As I've said, it didn't end well for Louis and his family, nor for many of the Highest and the Mightiest in the Royaume de France.

We know this to be true in the context of France, and maybe to some extent (who knows) in the odd case of Romanov Russia. Maybe in a few places here and there in Asia, Latin America. Europe. Africa. Now and then, here and there. Tumult and civil unrest appear. "They say they want a Revolution." And any nation worth its salt will put it down. Hard.

Compared to much of the rest of the Western and Near-Eastern Worlds, the United States has almost unimaginably calm in the midst of worst economic catastrophe most Americans have ever experienced. As the Ruling Class consolidates its wealth and position -- in the face of increasing misery for the masses -- the People do not rise up. They protest, yes, and they march and they demonstrate and they blog, but they don't rise up to seriously challenge the Rulers or even to slightly inconvenience them.

We have what must be the most rigidly courteous protest community on the face of the earth.

It is bizarre.

Even the thought of (ew) rudeness makes people take to their fainting couches clutching their pearls. We cannot do that, it would be wrong, and we are better than our opponents!

Bizarre. Telling.

The Gods Who Walk Among Us® have so completely bamboozled the People to believe that their salvation can only come through subservience to those who rule them that the very idea of The Demand (which is a key to any successful action or protest) -- that, for example, the Rich pay at least their fair share of taxes -- is too direct to be considered. The Demand, not "request" or "suggestion," that taxes on the Rich be increased is therefore not made.

And so we're stuck, and we'll stay here until the next collapse, and we'll wonder why this keeps happening, and then it will happen again. Until there is nothing left to collapse, and then it will be time to dust off the tumbrils and oil up the guillotines, and everyone will wonder why nobody predicted it.

Bizarre.

Somebody's Getting Very Rich From All the Turmoil in the Markets

From Yahoo News:

The stock market once again proved it can be an incredibly unforgiving and swiftly punishing place, as a two-week long downturn was given new fuel by Standard & Poor's decision last Friday to downgrade the U.S. credit rating.

Gold rose Monday, as did Treasury prices, but the equity market was a horror show across the board. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped 635 points, or 5.6%, to put the index below 11,000 at 10,810. Since its recent high of 12,810.54, right at 2,000 points ago on April 29, the Dow has surrendered more than 15%.

The S&P 500, to most people the truest indicator of the U.S. market, was lower by almost 80 points, or 6.9%, to 1119. It's now 18% below its 52-week high of 1363.61. Here's another way of looking at how unnerved traders were: The CBOE Volatility Index (^VIX), often viewed as a measure of trepidation, rocketed up 45% and closed above 40 for the first time in more than a year.

Semiconductor stocks were down 5.4% on average, major oil stocks slid 8.5%, and utilities lost 5.7%. Computer hardware shares and retailers fell more than 5%, and telecom names roughly the same amount. The meltdown was seen virtually everywhere investors looked. Financials, as measured by the Dow Jones U.S. Banks Index, dove 11.7%.

As was the case last Thursday when the Dow sank 513 points, all 30 of its components were lower again. Bank of America (BAC), one of the aforementioned banks, had the misfortune of being the hardest hit, dropping 20.3% to $6.51. Alcoa (AA) was the next worst performer, giving back 11.4% to $11.33.

While the Nasdaq is historically known for being heavy on technology stocks, a number of large-cap tech issues held up fairly well, considering the size of the decline. The Nasdaq was down 6.9%, but its biggest component, Apple (AAPL), lost 5.5%. Intel (INTC), another Nasdaq (and Dow) member was lower by only 3.3%. Google (GOOG) was off 5.7%.

Traders early on noted the heavy nature of the trading volume for the day. Combined with the point declines in the major averages, the level of shares changing hands would be considered committed selling by any observer.

On the upside, gold prices jumped $62.10, or 3.8%, or $1,710. As an aside, according to the opinion of a Breakout guest this very day, the metal is heading to $2,500 an ounce. Meanwhile, silver was up more than 2% to $39 an ounce. In the Treasury market, seen as a place of safety in times of larger-than-normal uncertainty, the 10-year note was climbing 1-24/32, lowering the yield to 2.36%, and the 30-year bond was bolting up 3-7/32 to take the yield down to 3.67%. Both are gigantic moves, the size of which is seldom seen.

The recent sell-off in stocks, not just the latest decline, has been driven by a combination of factors that aren't likely to evaporate overnight -- a series of disappointing economic reports in the U.S. before the S&P downgrade, worries about European debt, political fighting in Washington. The bottom line is that professional traders go where the opportunity is the best and where the trade makes the most sense.
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The takeaway: Stocks are collapsing, Treasuries are worth more and more, and Gold is through the roof.

Somebody is getting very rich on all three, and it isn't you and it isn't me. But somebody is.

We're in a new Bubble Economy; the race to the bottom is on in earnest.

It'll be pretty grim once the summer break is over.

Pretty damn grim I'd say.