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Thursday, March 21, 2013

High-Tech Mugging

Cyprus is an outlier, but it is also a test case and a bellwether. The extent of the story presented in the MSM is that of economically rigorous Germany imposing austerity measures on their more profligate southern brethren. There may even be an element of truth to all that.

But those are mere principles, and here we are talking about money, and who gets to take it from whom, by muscle and gall if need be, for the benefit of those who already have more than they could spend in a hundred lifetimes. The central banking system is mightily overextended, with unsecured derivative obligations estimated between $600 trillion and $1.5 quadrillion. (Read that again: the low estimate is over half a quadrillion U.S. dollars of debt.)

The financial brain surgeons were only just barely able to slap enough duct tape and baling wire on their little perpetual-motion machine to keep things going, the last time they monkey-fucked it. Since then, they've had their run of things, been essentially told by the Attorney General of the United States that they're above prosecution for their laughably obvious patterns of malfeasance and corruption.

And now the problem is bigger and badder, because European austerity hasn't worked (as predicted -- but then again, "hasn't worked" for whom?), and Cyprus may just be the thread that, when pulled, unravels the whole cheap web of lies and casino trickery. It will take a while; first in Europe, as Putin decides whether or not to yank the natural gas chain on his Euro customers next winter, then next year we'll see some form of economic malaise metastasize its way over here.

Inventory orders abroad are dropping, though supposedly domestic housing starts are on the uptick, which will be accompanied by rising interest rates. Couple that with the ongoing economic fearmongering over the impending Affordable Care Act, and the continuing racketization of America in general, and you have a pretty solid recipe for deep shit.

This isn't zombie apocalypse, asteroid-extinction massive event stuff, this is frog-in-a-pot-of-gradually-boiling water action. But let's not beat around the bush about exactly what this is -- a very small percentage of financially strong people in financially strong countries shaking down the weak and unrepresented, over smoke and mirrors and spreadsheet-generated meta-debt.

I'm not saying you need to pack your bunker and go-bag or move to Patagonia, but as always, divesting from the system as much as possible, becoming self-sufficient, will absolutely lessen the blow, whenever it occurs. Solar panels and rain catchers, greenhouse gardening, seasonality and locavorism. Get a 3D printer and learn how to use it. Get a gun or two, and learn how to use them, just in case; the next corrective economic slump will likely set off another spasm of desperate people doing desparate things. Even an empty shotgun will do -- who doesn't instinctively clench their sphincter at the sound of a shotgun being racked?

Getting out of debt is another animal altogether; it should be apparent by now that the few true beneficiaries of the upward wealth transfer system make their bones primarily through massive amounts of debt peonage and rentierism, getting you on a financial tenthook and keeping you there. I don't really have an answer for that. Either pay the absolute bare minimum to avoid getting everything repoed, or get rid of it all as soon as you can, if that's possible. Not really many other options, which is sort of the point from the creditors POV.

I think the main thing to realize is that there's not much point into going into full-on Doomsday Prepper mode, but there is benefit to understanding that the game is truly rigged, that it's a small club that runs things and you ain't in it, and that no politician of any stripe is ever going to fix it. Either there's a massive jubilee on all this imaginary debt the Masters of the Universe rolled up on our backs, or you sign on for multi-generational obligations and rentierism for all the techtoys you need in order to get by or to forget your daily drudgery.

Maybe there'll be some sort of mass riot or conflagration to force some rethought on all this before things turn completely sideways, but it's doubtful. People are too cowed, too willing to believe that something or someone will come along to set things right, not wanting to believe what is right in front of them -- that none of this is an accident, that it was all preventable, that in fact it's a feature, and not a flaw.

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