Decline of the Empire

Fiscal Cliff Porn, Open Thread

This is an open thread. I am not moderating comments. That means you will have to moderate yourself. No comments requiring intervention have been received since last Friday, when I turned moderation off. I hope and pray such admirable self-restraint will continue. This has gotta be some sort of record for the intertubes.

Between now and the end of the year, you will hear more and more about the "fiscal cliff" looming before the nation. Naturally DOTE wants to do its part to spread the considerable fear and confusion engendered by this farce.

Toward that end, I give you Exhibit A (left, click to enlarge in a new tab or window). Unfortunately, you can not look at this happy graphic in isolation. You need to also ponder the Congressional Budget Office's Update to the Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2012 to 2022.

The CBO is officially bipartisan. This means, in effect, that their projections of future deficits and government debt held by the public are delusionally optimistic but without political bias. Naturally we are happy to get such edifying clarity

For example, if you look at the economic outlook referenced above, you will find the real (inflation-adjusted) GDP projections shown below. Estimated growth catches up with "potential" growth in 2018, which as we all know, will be a much more prosperous time than that we're experiencing now. A mere six years from now, you will finally be able to break into song. I recommend Happy Days Are Here Again. Or The Future's So Bright I've Got To Wear Shades (video below).

Don't know what "potential" growth is? Don't worry about it, neither does the CBO. They just made that up (ignored the Housing Bubble, etc.).

The long and the short of fiscal cliff porn asserts that if the government raises taxes and cuts deficits at the end of this year as the law currently requires, the economy will go down the tubes. Some of you, with much justification, might ask: How will we be able tell the difference? Aren't we in the toilet now?!?

I understand. You have my sympathy. Most of you will not be able to see any difference between the pre- and post-fiscal cliff economies because for you there will be no significant difference to see. In fact, we're probably in recession now, but phony government GDP numbers do not reflect that.

But at this late stage in America's decline, wherein the economy depends in large part on government largess ("pork") and low tax rates on the wealthy, the pending fiscal cliff is a considerable strain on the receivers of that pork, and on those who may not be able to afford that exquisite private island (and tax haven) in the Carribean they've had their eye on.

And now, the floor is yours.

Bonus Video — Timbuk 3, The Future's So Bright

 

Damn! We're In A Tight Spot!

In a long New Yorker article called Schmooze Or Lose, Jane Mayer describes the role of money in politics in 2012. She opens by explaining that, until recently, Barack Obama hasn't been very good at "donor maintenance." As we might expect, Bill Clinton set the "gold standard" for massaging wealthy contributors.

The attendee [at one of these $30,000 a plate fundraisers] appreciates that such events must get tiresome for Obama. “Each person, at each table, says to the President, ‘Here’s what you have to do . . .’ At the next table, it’s the same.” Even so, he noted that Bill Clinton—who set the gold standard for the art form known as “donor maintenance”—would have presided over the same event with more enthusiasm: “He would have stayed an extra hour.” After that Four Seasons dinner, the attendee adds, “people were a little mad"...

Big donors were particularly offended by Obama’s reluctance to pose with them for photographs at the first White House Christmas and Hanukkah parties. Obama agreed to pose with members of the White House press corps, but not with donors, because, a former adviser says, “he didn’t want to have to stand there for fourteen parties in a row.”

This decision continues to provoke disbelief from some Democratic fund-raisers. “It’s as easy as falling off a log!” one says. “They just want a picture of themselves with the President that they can hang on the bathroom wall, so that their friends can see it when they take a piss.” Another says, “Oh, my God—the pictures, the fucking pictures!”

Mayer's piece is chock-full of exquisite details like these, so I recommend you read the whole thing. I myself was not able to read the whole thing because after I read this text on pages 4-5, I could not bring myself to continue.

As Politico reported recently, a pool of only twenty-one hundred people has given a total of two hundred million dollars to the 2012 campaigns and their Super PACS—fifty-two million dollars more than the combined donations of the two and a half million voters who have given two hundred dollars or less.

[My note: Got it? Only 2,100 people have forked over 200,000,000 bucks.]

In other words, the top .07 per cent of donors are exerting greater influence on the 2012 race than the bottom eighty-six per cent. And this accounts only for publicly disclosed donations: much of the money raised during this election cycle consists of secret gifts to “nonprofit public-welfare” groups that claim to have no overt political agenda...

By August, at least thirty-three American billionaires had each given a quarter of a million dollars, or more, to groups whose aim is to defeat Obama. At this point in the campaign, most of that money is funding attack ads in swing states like Colorado and Virginia. Federal-election reports indicate that twenty-seven of those billionaires have given large donations to Restore Our Future, which was founded by former Romney aides, and to American Crossroads, which was conceived by the Republican political operative Karl Rove. News reports have linked six of the billionaires to nonprofit social-welfare groups that aren’t required to identify contributors. Earlier this month, one of those groups, Americans for Prosperity—which was founded, in part, by the billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch—purchased a reported twenty-five million dollars in advertising time; the spots are now airing on television stations in eleven swing states. Though Americans for Prosperity is purportedly nonpartisan, its ads attack Obama for presiding over a growing federal deficit...

Meanwhile, only three billionaires have contributed at least a quarter of a million dollars to Priorities USA, the largest pro-Obama Super PAC. George Soros has given money to the Super PAC American Bridge, which produces opposition research for liberal candidates. Warren Buffett, America’s second-richest man, is one of Obama’s most high-profile supporters, but he has declared that he will not support Super PACs, saying, “I don’t want to see democracy go in that direction."

Sometimes I imagine that fools encountering DOTE for the first time are smirking.

What elites is this guy talking about? Whaddya mean we don't live in a democracy? Give me a break!

And then they go over to Politico or some other popular political website and read there.

All I could mutter to myself after I read the first few pages of Mayer's article was "what a fix we're in, we're totally screwed." In George Clooney's unforgettable words from the Coen Brothers' O Brother, Where Art Thou? —

Damn! We're in a tight spot!

 

There Were A Lot Of Human Fuck-Ups Today!

We hear it everyday. It's called The News.

Lots of humans fucking over other humans. Some of these  humans are actually killed—that's it for them! Always sorry about that, can't be helped. Sometimes these unfortunate victims are just wounded or jailed or screwed over in some more subtle way (e.g. economically). There are lots of variations on this theme in the Human World.

There were a lot of human fuck-ups today! That's true everyday. Never ends.

Homo sapiens is an animal species, essentially like any other, so what you see is what you get. Enlightenment is not just around the corner.

When we listen to The News, we get the same tragic story over and over and over again, everyday, all day long, for our entire lifetimes.

Gets old, doesn't it?

How Does The Mainstream Media Work?

What do we mean when we refer to mainstream media? There is even an acronym for it — the MSM. Generally we expect the MSM to express viewpoints consistent with the elites who own that media. And in so far as those who own the media are corporations, and in so far as corporations are interested in one thing and one thing only—profits—we are forced to conclude that the MSM covers only those things which that elite ownership has deemed profitable. It's more complicated than this of course—all human arrangements are—but I think this simple explanation captures the essence of how the MSM works.

If that's how the MSM works, we would expect to see so-called media watchdogs who tell us which subjects have been deemed profitable and which are viewed as counterproductive to making boatloads of money. Media Matters For America is one such watchdog, and they recently noticed that global warming (anthropogenic climate change) is not a money-maker. It's easy to see why: global warming is such a bummer. Flo can't sell people Progressive Insurance during those interminable commercial breaks if the Earth's surface is warming, and humans are causing it, and this warming will eventually result (along with other human-caused factors) in the near-total destruction of the biosphere.

Only 14% Of Heat Wave Stories Mentioned Climate Change. In a study of major media outlets, only 8.7% of television segments and 25.5% of print articles reported on record-breaking July heat waves in the context of climate change.

CNN And ABC Stand Out In Their Incomplete Coverage. Of the six TV outlets included in our analysis, ABC mentioned climate change the least, in only 2% of coverage. Among the cable networks, CNN mentioned climate change the least, in less than 4% of coverage. MSNBC was the only television network to regularly incorporate climate change into primetime segments on extreme heat.

Fox Mentioned Climate Change Once, Only To Dismiss It. In six primetime segments on extreme heat, Fox News raised climate change once. The Five's only liberal co-host Bob Beckel noted that record July heat is consistent with global warming, and was promptly dismissed by co-host Greg Gutfeld, who routinely denies that manmade global warming is occurring.

Quality Of Heat Wave Coverage Varied Among Major Papers. Overall, the major print outlets mentioned climate change in just over a quarter of articles on extreme heat. The New York Times led the pack, mentioning climate change in more than half of its coverage (54.5%), and the Washington Post mentioned it in 26% of articles on July heat. But the Associated Press, the Los Angeles Times, and USA Today mentioned it in less than 15% of coverage. The Wall Street Journal didn't mention climate change at all, although the paper had significantly fewer stories on extreme heat.

Only 8% Of Coverage Pointed Out That Human Activities Are Driving Climate Change. Only 6% of television segments and 12% of print articles noted that climate change is fueled by human activities including the burning of fossil fuels, which emit greenhouse gases that are warming the planet. The Associated Press, USA Today, Fox News and the Wall Street Journal never made that connection.

Associating recent extreme weather events (the record-setting heat waves) with human-caused climate change also breaks down along political lines, so making money is not the sole cause of avoidance of the subject, although I would argue that avarice is indeed the ultimate cause of all political bias, at least in this culture.

Thus we see that Fox News mentioned global warming once, but only to dismiss it. We see that the "liberal" alternative MSNBC associated global warming with the extreme heat 88% of the time. However, political bias does not explain the reticence of CNN, CBS, NBC and especially ABC, which mentioned global warming only 2% of the time. I believe we can chalk up the behavior of CNN, ABC, and the others to their simple desire to not rock the money-making boat.

It is important to see that the omission of crucial information is far more prevalent and effective than telling outright lies about a subject, or distorting it beyond all recognition.

In short, what you don't see is often far more important than what you do see. If you don't believe this, ask a magician (or a Jungian psychologist, if there are any left). How do magicians make a living? They create plausible illusions which look like magic to the uninitiated.

But the only constant in this Wonderful World of ours is change

We have now learned that there is evidence suggesting that Progressive Is About To Kill Off Flo.

In adland, it's been stated so often it's now a truism: America loves Flo, the Progressive insurance pitch woman played by comedian Stephanie Courtney, and a huge portion of the company's brand equity is tied up in the Flo character. Progressive spends up to a quarter of a billion dollars a year on ads starring Flo.

Yet this week comes talk of The End of Flo.

It all started with a series of Tumblr posts by Matt Fisher, describing how Progressive paid for a lawyer to defend the man who killed his sister in order to weasel out of paying off a death benefit.

The story has taken on a life of its own on the web, and people are heaping scorn upon Progressive, which at one point denied it had paid for the lawyer—only to be contradicted by the court record.

They're also blaming Flo, and suggesting that the character is now a millstone for Progressive because her perpetually smiling face is an inappropriate response to a PR crisis.

As I often do, I am wondering whether Human Life On Earth could be any more ridiculous. I think not, although it is always a grievous mistake to underestimate the human capacity for farce.

Bonus Video — I could watch this stuff all day long. It's so funny, and so true to life.

 

Farming Is A Risky Business

On Thursday August 16, 2012, the PBS Newshour reported that it was a A Sour Season for Michigan's Cherry Farmers.

Northwestern Michigan is considered by many an ideal place for growing fruit. Located on the 45th parallel, halfway between the equator and the North Pole, the surrounding Great Lakes and rolling hills help create a temperate climate.

But as Pat McGuire walks through his orchards now, they are a haunting green. This year, nature harvested the trees.

Cherry trees remain dormant throughout winter until a spring warming wakes them up. That happened much earlier this year. Temperatures in March shattered records across the country, reaching the mid-80’s in Michigan that month - that’s nearly 14 degrees Fahrenheit above the state average. That pushed the trees to a development stage about 5.5 weeks ahead of normal, Jim Nugent said.

And when temperatures dropped again, the trees’ early buds were vulnerable. From late March through May, there were 15 to 20 nights in which temperatures fell below freezing. Farmers tried using wind fans to keep warm air circulating around the fruit trees, but it was little help.

The cold snaps killed not only cherries, but also juice grapes, peaches, and apples. Losses across the state are estimated at $210 million.

As the Earth warms, extreme weather events become more frequent. The March heat wave was one such event. Most of us "weathered" the unseasonal warmth and moved on, but it was devastating for fruit farmers in Northwestern Michigan.

The McGuires are trying to stay positive and focusing on selling cherry products from past seasons to get through this one. “We try to constantly think creatively about how we can do things differently to reduce costs. That’s been our strategy since we got started, but this year it’s become more important,” Sara said.

Pat admits that they haven’t ruled out putting the ‘Out of Business’ sign on the door. They knew when they started that farming was a risky business, but the odds of crop loss feel stacked against them now, he said.  

“What if we don’t have fruit next year?“ Pat said. “How do you plan for that?”

Good question, Pat. How do you plan for that? And the obvious answer is: you don't.

Farming is a risky business. And now it's riskier than ever before.

 

I Am A Little Dumbfounded

I wrote a post today explaining why the oil markets, which in the end are the most important markets in the world if we consider economic growth, are utterly corrupt. As a consequence, those markets now and in the future will impede the growth which humans apparently require to accommodate growing populations and afford those new humans the greatest comfort possible. This crude oil market hosedness, along with actual scarcity, will eventually, and inevitably, result in the deterioration of those precious standards of living we cling to, even for most of those who consider themselves well-off at present.

Have we forgotten the price spike of 2008? That spike was more related to supply & demand fundamentals than not, but it seems like anything could happen now.

The craziness is in the graph. Look at the wild price swings in recent years. Click to enlarge. Source

Nobody said anything about that post. There were zero comments on that post.

Now, I understand that most of my regular readers have little to say (comment-wise) about what I write on DOTE, but, I mean — c'mon on!

I just told all of you that the oil markets are fucked, and in the post I explained in very precise terms why that is so. And nobody, I mean nobody, has anything to say about that?

I am a little dumbfounded by this.

— Dave

Throwing In The Towel On Crude Oil

Yesterday's Saturday Oil Market Report was the last one I am going to write. I want to explain why.

When I first started writing those biweekly reports on January 15, 2011, I felt it was important to pay close attention to what many consider the most important commodity market in the world. It is not much of an exaggeration to say that oil makes the (human) world go round, and has done so over the last 150 years. There's no doubting the importance of the subject.

If crude oil is humanity's most important commodity, then it is of the utmost importance to make sure we understand its price. Is it scarce? Is it plentiful? How much are people consuming? Why are they demanding that much or that little? These are crucial questions. Oil consumption tracks economic growth. If demand is low or falling, that's generally a pretty good indicator that economic conditions are sluggish, or worse. In the best of all possible worlds, the price of crude oil would track the supply & fundamental fundamentals. Economists who pay close attention to oil still think it does. They are deluded in this and many other matters.

In the course of writing nearly eighty Saturday Oil Reports, I had to come to grips with the fact that the oil markets for Nymex WTI and Brent (i.e. the benchmark prices) are broken, probably irrevocably so, as I said yesterday. The price movements not only do not track the fundamentals; these movements seem to have a life of their own disconnected from anything outside the desire of paper traders (often from the Big Banks) to makes boatloads of money.

I would see the post-hoc explanations in the mainstream press telling me why crude oil prices moved up or moved down that day or that week. It was all bullshit. It seems futile to me to try to refute this never-ending stream of nonsense. I was so impressed with the sophistication of this finely hewn, industrial-scale bullshit that I felt compelled to include a picture of Mickey Mouse in my last two Saturday Oil Reports. Here's the mouse.

You should read those last two reports if you haven't already done so. Each report contains a link to the previous report, so if you read the last one, you can read the one before that, and the one before that, back to the beginning of time (January 15, 2011). If you read them all, you will learn a hell of lot about how the broken oil markets work. I won't go into any of that detail today. I have other fish to fry.

Why do we have markets? Markets set prices for goods and services. That is called price discovery. In so doing, markets govern the levels of supply and demand for those goods and services. Much has been written about markets in the last 200 years (since Adam Smith). You can disregard most of it. The main function of markets is precisely what I just said it is.

For commodities, the vagaries of nature often interfere with the smooth functioning of markets. A drought or other disaster can wipe out farmers, who have to make the investments necessary to grow food in advance based on unreliable assumptions about future supply and demand. Thus hedging was born, and it was a good thing because it created a safety net for physical traders in corn, wheat, soybeans and so on. Indeed, it created a safety net for traders of all commodities, not just food, and including oil.

But markets can become corrupted. This is where things get complicated. Let me lay out a few basic considerations and concerns.

• A market is broken if the price discovery mechanism is disconnected from the fundamentals of supply & demand. This is always a matter of degree and has a temporal dimension. Over the long haul, markets necessarily get prices more or less "right." Unfortunately, in the case of a commodity like bluefin tuna, as it's price goes up and up due to the increasing scarcity of this fish, the desire to catch tuna increases concomitantly. In the end, the price of tuna will be zero (or undefined) because there won't be any more tuna to catch. However, we might say that the price at that unknown point in the future will be "right." Over the last 12 years, the price of crude oil has increased, although the price is volatile for the reasons I've discussed in my Saturday Oil Reports. The good news is that the price should be rising because the supply of crude oil has been flat for seven years. Unfortunately, the price levels we see over weeks or months bear little relationship to fundamental market conditions (supply & demand). Even more unfortunately, people are now hopelessly confused about prices signaling the incipient scarcity of crude oil (see below). Eventually, in the far-flung future, crude oil prices will approximate the conditions which pertain to tuna fish now (if we get that far).


• As in all things, humans reify markets, or worship markets as the case may be, forgetting that markets are merely human creations and are thus subject to human regulation and manipulation. In this latest episode over the last 30 years or so, we have been subject to a particularly nasty line of bullshit called the efficient market hypothesis, which states that "stock market efficiency causes existing share prices to always incorporate and reflect all relevant information." In short, the price discovery mechanism is necessarily perfect due to this astonishing "informational effiency," and thus the price is always right. Although formulated for financial and equity markets, this happy hypothesis has been extended to all markets, including those for commodities. Today this bogus assumption is still in place, and is used to justify non-interference in markets where the price discovery mechanism is obviously broken (as for crude oil). It is convenient for powerful, self-interested players in markets to pretend that the markets they are manipulating are models of enduring perfection—but "free" markets do not exist. If you are interested in crude oil—and who isn't?—you need to know what a bona fides hedging exemption is and how these exceptions have been abused by the likes of Goldman Sachs.  Not surprisingly, you don't hear much about these exemptions. The bottom line is that markets which require reform are not subject to new (or re-) regulation.


• Last but not least, commodities (and all other things) are traded in some currency, and for oil that currency is the dollar. Unlike oil, which is the physical commodity which makes the (human) world go round, a currency is an entirely artificial concept. If the dollar (or any other currency) is under assault, i.e. being devalued, as the dollar has been since 1913 when the Federal Reserve was created, the nominal price of oil must rise. If the oil market is corrupt—not subject to proper position limits and margin calls on paper contracts—and the dollar is being devalued with a renewed enthusiasm, as we've been subject to in recent years, and despite the recent "core" (non-food, non-energy) deflation or "disinflation" we've seen, that market is subject to excessive volatility based on the volatility and long-term demise of the exchange medium itelf (i.e. the dollar). We hear the exquisite rationalization that markets function "best" when they contain sufficient "liquidity" to allow trading to proceed unhindered. Ha! Thus the price of crude oil (and other commodities) rises when the Federal Reserve implements "quantitative easing" which increases the amount of money chasing essential goods (like food) and pushes investors into asset classes not called Treasury Bonds.

The world is a complicated place, and the markets no less so, because humans have made it that way. We don't find this the least bit surprising because humans love money, and understandably, they are fixated on crude oil for obvious reasons (i.e. the energy it provides). There are no two subjects humans are more irrational about than money and crude oil. We would expect no less.

For all these reasons, I no longer see any point in putting out a biweekly Saturday Oil Report. The oil market is broken in the senses just described, and that's the end of it. Enough is enough. In the future I will report on crude oil as events warrant.

Remedy du Jour -- August 18, 2012

Today we present a long overdue tribute to Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. To say there's a lot of material to choose from is an understatement. These are a few of my personal favorites.

• Learning To Fly — live, from Into The Great Wide Open, 1991
• Free Falling — official video, from Full Moon Fever, 1989
• A Face In The Crowd — official video, from Full Moon Fever, 1989
• It's Good To Be King — live, from Wildflowers, 1994
• Breakdown — live, from Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, 1976

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday Oil Report -- August 18, 2012

Inexplicably, oil prices rose again this week. Both Nymex WTI and Brent crude have increased about 5 dollars per barrel since my previous report on August 4, 2012.

Graphs courtesy of oil-price.net. When the price of oil fell 2 months ago, I actually thought the price would remain depressed for some time to come because of this global recession we're in. Silly me.

I see no reason to raise the alarm level, despite these rising prices.

Oil Alarm Level — Yellow

The Associated Press story Oil prices rise after government reports unexpectedly big drop in supplies; gas prices climb gives us the "best" explanation for recent price hikes. The rest of this post is rated "R" (restricted) due to strong language. Stop reading now if coarse language offends you.

Benchmark oil rose 90 cents to finish at $94.33 per barrel Wednesday in New York, its highest level since mid-May. The Energy Department said stockpiles fell 3.7 million barrels last week to 366.2 million barrels. Analysts had predicted a decline of 1.5 million barrels, according to Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill.

It marked the third consecutive large weekly decrease in oil supplies. Still, analysts point to production problems and seasonal factors more than increased demand for the declines. But with supplies still above normal for this time of year, any decrease tends to cause a rise in oil prices [???]

Inventories (stocks) are still well above their 5-year average range (blue shading) Source

Oil production has been affected by a number of issues this month, including some refinery and pipeline problems in the Midwest and California. Tropical storms have moved through the Gulf of Mexico, closing some oil rigs and slowing oil tankers destined for U.S. ports.

Why the fuck would these downstream problems affect the price of upstream crude oil? Is there enough supply to meet demand? That's what counts. There's more than enough.

In addition, refiners are selling off inventories to avoid a surplus when they switch to processing winter blends of fuel next month.

Ah! Now we know why inventories are declining a bit. It certainly isn't due to greater demand for oil. So much for those pipeline problems. So much for those slow oil tankers.

“The bigger question is, are these numbers [prices] sustainable once these refiners start to come back on line?” Price Futures Group oil analyst Phil Flynn asked.

Not sustainable? In so far as the price of crude is divorced from supply & demand fundamentals, why the fuck wouldn't these absurd prices be sustainable? Why the hell not? What are you assuming, Phil?

Brent crude, which is used to price international varieties of oil, gained $2.22 to end at $116.25 per barrel in London. The Brent contract expires on Thursday. Prices sometimes can be volatile the closer a contract gets to expiration.

Brent is up more than $13 per barrel this month on concerns about production outages in the North Sea. It’s also influenced more by developments in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, on Wednesday ordered its citizens to leave Lebanon over kidnapping fears.

Ah, Brent. Back on Saturday July 30, 2011, I discussed the Brent benchmark at some length. I pointed out, as some others have, that Brent is a flawed benchmark because it directly depends on North Sea production, which is often shaky, and has been in decline for many years now. Thus if there is are technical problems in the North Sea, no matter how insignificant to world oil production, Brent prices go up. And that's what has happened here. Surely you don't think the Brent increase was justified because Saudi Arabia told its citizens to evacuate Lebanon?

In short, the Brent benchmark is shit.

And by the way, in case you were wondering, what's going on with OPEC and Iran? Bloomberg reports—

Iraq pumped 3.08 million barrels a day in July, 115,000 barrels more than the previous month, OPEC’s Vienna-based secretariat said today in its Monthly Oil Market Report. The Persian Gulf state for a second month outpaced Iran, where output dropped by 173,000 barrels to 2.82 million. Iraq last produced more than 3 million barrels in February 2002, OPEC said after revising its April estimate.

The reduction from Iran came as full sanctions by the European Union started July 1, which led to the third monthly decline in the group’s output. OPEC, which supplies 40 percent of the world’s oil, produced 31.2 million barrels a day last month, versus 31.35 million in June, according to the data, which cites secondary sources.

OPEC production has been reduced by a whopping 150,000 barrels-per-day. No help there if you're trying to explain these price increases.

But enough of this beating around the bush. The oil markets are broken, probably irrevocably so. God only knows what really happens in the trading pits. Those paper traders—these sick gamblers are often trading for the big banks—are completely out of control. These assholes do a big bump, buy a bunch of paper oil contracts, start sweating when the bump wears off, and then do another fat line to keep Reality at bay for another half-hour or so.

I recommend that position limits be established and margin calls increased, with no exceptions for Goldman Sachs, etc., cocaine and all other stimulants should be banned, and all oil traders should be immediately evaluated to assess their psychological health. I would implement these reforms immediately

I should call this the Saturday Mickey Mouse Report.

Well, there is some consolation for me in this debacle. At least I'm not a fucking economist.

Here's the mouse.

Mitt's Tax Returns, Open Thread

This is an open thread. I have turned comment moderation OFF. I won't even be notified if readers choose to comment. I'll look in occasionally to see what people have said. Let's see how that goes for a few weeks.

Although no further evidence was required which demonstrates beyond a reasonable doubt that we live on Planet Stupid, or even wanted for that matter, the 2012 presidential election campaign is now focused almost exclusively on Mitt Romney's unwillingness to disclose his tax returns.

Try this Google search. National Propaganda Radio literally can't stop talking about it. They have obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). That's only one of their many pyschological disorders.

I seriously doubt that Mitt, who has wanted to be president since he was three years old, would file tax returns which violate federal law. But that is the whole point—his returns would reveal the squalor which exists inside the U.S. federal tax code. And the reason for this is simple: Mitt is a rich man. The tax laws have been modified again and again to benefit the wealthy at the expense of the poor and middle class.

This is news? I think not. Do you think I'm just kidding when I speak over and over again about the utter corruption of our federal government? Washington D.C. makes Sodom & Gomorrah look good!

As president, the Mittster would represent and serve the interests of other rich men. Check this out, from USA Today's Romney declines Obama deal on tax return releases—

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, amped up the issue by claiming that a "source" told him that Romney has paid no taxes at all in some years.

Romney said, "Harry Reid's charge is totally false," and he doubts anyone told Reid that.

In divulging the 13% figure, the Republican candidate also told reporters that the tax issue is being used to distract people.

"I have to say, given the challenges America faces — 23 million people out of work, Iran about to become nuclear, one out of six Americans in poverty — the fascination with taxes I paid I find to be very small minded compared to the broad issues that we face," Romney said.

This is a good example of what I "love" about our species Homo sapiens: Mitt can tell a small truth—the tax issue is being used to distract the people—to cover up a big lie—Mitt wants to focus on the "challenges" America faces.

It's so complicated. The humans are so clever! There isn't time enough to sort all this bullshit out!

You might be tempted to ask: can they sink any lower? The answer is always Yes; there is no bottom.

Of course the entire election is a distraction designed to prevent a serious discussion of the "challenges" America faces. That's why the damn thing lasts 22 months, because there's a lot of distracting to do, and one could never do that much distracting in a few weeks.

This behavior never ends, so there is no use in complaining about it. And it will never end until Mother Nature puts a stop to it, which necessarily includes our own self-destructive Human Nature.

And now, the floor is yours.