wall st crisis
19 Sep 2008
A Suckers Rally?
With US stocks gaining nearly 400 points in one day, the short-term crisis in world financial markets looks to be over - for now
By the time you're reading this, the rally that Australian markets had been waiting for will be on in earnest.As I file this article, trading has only just begun on the ASX but already the Australian stock market is rebounding after one of its most dramatic weeks in modern history. With US stocks finally hitting bottom and roller-coastering back upwards nearly 400 points on Thursday night, the short-term crisis in world financial markets looks to be over - for now.
The financial panic of this week will surely rank as one of the most severe in history.
After more than a year of instability, the US stock exchange succumbed to irrational terror on Monday after the weekend collapse of merchant bank Lehman Brothers. Despite desperate efforts from United States policy makers, including Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, stock prices went into freefall on Tuesday, Wednesday and especially Thursday as hedge funds made massive bets (called "short selling") that banks and financial institutions would go under. World markets followed, including in Australia, where Macquarie Bank came under sustained pressure.
But overnight, investors rushed back in to the US stock market, buoyed by massive injections of liquidity from international central banks and perhaps reassured that the worst may be over. The US Federal Reserve, in conjunction with key European central banks, has announced that yet another massive line of credit will be made available to money markets, amounting to nearly $US200 billion. The scale of the crisis was evident simply by the timing of the announcement, which was released at 3:00am on the 18th September, Washington time, just as European markets were about to open.
The liquidity was made available from the Federal Reserve to central banks in Europe, Japan and Canada in an attempt to get short-term money markets moving again. By Thursday, most banks globally were refusing to lend to each other, seizing up the short term money supply internationally and blowing out interest rate spreads on overnight lending to levels not seen since 1941. At one stage, Asian currency exchange had all but shut down, with no US dollars available as panicked banks all over the world refused to lend even for the purposes of exchanging currency.
In Australia, the Reserve Bank of Australia also injected nearly $2 billion.
The massive cash injection calmed investor fear, which had reached hysteria after a week which brought down several global financial institutions and forced others to merge or seek government bailouts. After refusing to intervene to prevent the demise of Lehman Brothers, the US Government was then forced to bail out AIG, the country's biggest insurer, and the UK Government encouraged a forced merger of large British consumer bank HBOS with Lloyds TSB.
Even with the market bounce likely today, analysts everywhere are warning that the crisis is far from over. US policy-makers are discussing the possibility of setting up a new fund which would buy distressed financial assets from ailing banks and institutions. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is investigating whether short-sellers may have acted illegally in a concerted raid on Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley, while in Australia the corporate regulator ASIC has reportedly interviewed Wilson HTM banking analyst Brett Le Mesurier about the source of rumours that Macquarie Bank is under-capitalised.
The question everyone will now be asking over the weekend is: is this a suckers rally? The markets have seen several rallies like this after similar bailouts in recent months, for instance after the forced buy-out of Bear Sterns by JP Morgan in March, only to plunge into new rounds of panicked selling in subsequent days and weeks.
The economic fundamentals driving the bear market remain. The collapse in the banking sector will further hurt a US economy which seems likely to slip into official recession, while the UK and Japan may already be in one. Finance institutions are big employers in cities like New York and London, and the fat salaries of merchant bankers and traders have a big flow-on effect to these local economies. Nor is the crisis in financial derivatives which begun in sub-prime mortgages over yet.
Perhaps most importantly, consumers in much of the rich world remain heavily indebted from decades of low savings and speculative housing investment. As companies fail and consumers tighten their belts, this process of de-leveraging will cause pain right across the world economy. The Lehman Brothers bankruptcy alone was worth $US660 billion - or ten times the size of Enron. Much of this figure is debt that will need to be written down by loss-making investors. Other companies, including AIG, will now be looking to offload distressed assets in a desperate attempt to shore up wobbly balance sheets. US economist Kenneth Rogoff thinks that the size of the US public bailout may stretch to $US1 trillion.
Shareholder wealth has also been hammered. In Australia, this will be felt most keenly by self-funded retirees and those who depend on their superannuation payouts - but also by municipal and state governments, non-profit organisations and charities, many of which rely on investments to fund their ordinary activities.
But for today, at least, the bottom has been found and the panic-driven selling has abated. The market has gained enough breathing space for the next round of accusations and finger-pointing to begin.
Short-sellers? Hedge funds? Regulators? The irrational emotions of fear and greed? All must share some responsibility. Next week, newmatilda.com will look at the policy and regulation failures that contributed to this crisis.
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How long do you think it will be Ben, before the banks conveniently forget all about this week and overextend themselves again?
Certainly it would be problematic if institutions were to develop an expectation of this sort of massive bailout. Is the US or even Australian government talking about the need for increased conservatism from the sector?
And as one commentator on ABC said a few days ago, the regulators will tighten up a few things again, until the "Free marketeers’ get loose again, and it will all happen again. It is a vicious cycle.
If we are to believe Toby Abbott and his Labor counterpart Maxine, on QANDA last night, it is all a ‘small hiccup’ and will be back to normal with the Free booters, the Rogues and Thieves again sitting in glass offices making zillions for themselves, while the Taxpayers fork out zillions of dollars to pay for their greed and mistakes. Privatising the profits, socializing the losses!
Robert Manne tried to suggest, as Phillip Adams had done a couple of nights earlier, that this may be the end of the Free Market Capitalism, but he was quickly squashed by Tony and Maxine. How can anybody suggest something so intelligent!!???
But if we do not get rid of it, or change it to something that actually works with society instead of raping it, the world has no chance, they will fight any actions against Global Warming with all their might and billions, as indeed they are already doing in Australia, with Elmer Fudd listening intently, and nodding!
What chance have we got…..Zilch!
Dazza.
Very interesting article Ben. I’m going to ask you something shockingly naïve, but here goes. Wasn’t short selling banned in Australia several years ago? If it was: how come foreign money can come into this country without being subject to our legal system? Also, wasn’t Conrad Black finally thrown into the slammer because he had broken an American fiscal law? Yet the Americans feel free to come here and subvert the system. I would love to see an American being thrown into an Oz gaol for breaking our laws. But it ain’t gonna happen is it? I told you it was naïve. Also, I too was watching QANDA and heard Robert Manne’s prediction. Frankly, his sour expression made me believe he wanted it that way. So, here goes with an even more naïve question. What would take the place of Free Market Capitalism, and how would it all work? I mean there is all that money floating around, how can you invest in shares-in order to live off the dividends-if there is no market of any sort?
Cheers
Venise
Given that ASIC has just announced new rules on what kind of short selling is allowed, I think it’s safe to say, Venise, that no, short selling was never banned in Australia, and still isn’t.
"Naked short selling", however, apparently soon will be.
Spot on, dazza! "Privatising the profits, socializing the losses!"
Such is exactly the kind of petulant and feudalist mindset of privilege we see at work in this great crash and its long lead-up. Neolibs expect that taxpayers must relinquish all right to public ownership of essential utilities, education, public transport, and even many of the processes in policing, defence and government itself. When such privatized operations get hit by audited reality checks of unsustainable debt, and gambling raids by speculative predators, neolibs then claim that reserve banks of public money "had no choice" but to splurge out and pump up those same bubbles of parasitic uselessness.
A good summary Ben. Just a few points you may want to consider:
1. You seem to suggest it, but it should be obvious fact by now: these "rallies" - especially since mid-2007 and post-Bear Stearns - are really quite fake because of their reliance on "liquidity" via public money. They’re just dragging the process out as the entire financial system disintegrates before our eyes.
2. The total OECD bail-out funds have now far exceeded $US1 trillion, and I understand that such activity in the US alone has also passed that figure some time ago. If I’m not mistaken, Rogoff (among many others) follows those figures based not on the total variety of soft-loan and other (technically non-gratuitous) bail-out welfare for neoliberalism’s oligarch heroes.
3. Such massive injections of public money pose greater risks of hyper-inflation. Sure, write-dows of debt may match - more or less - some of the larger bail-outs. But the bail-out process threatens to pump the bubbles bigger in some areas, or overheating already unrealistic values in certain sectors. The damage may be even more severe precisely because of such capitalist welfare.
I’m sure people like hedge fund spiv Malcolm Turnbull could inform us how such welfare works - if they themselves were subject to a true reality check via properly applied notions of "competition" and a "free market".
Ben - "With US stocks finally hitting bottom and roller-coastering back upwards nearly 400 points overnight, the short-term crisis in world financial markets looks to be over - for now" - but Ben, if you (and all the other economists who spoke to us all of the "Goldilocks economy" not too long ago) did not see any of this coming all these years despite the warnings of many traders in the industry, how on earth would you know what exactly has hit us or how would you know that it is "over" for now?
Ben, this is NOT OVER. It has not even begun.
And about the rally, don’t doubt it any longer Ben, believe it, this IS a sucker’s rally. These crooks and their financial media cheer squads will suck all the moron longs into the US$ and into the bankrupt financial markets to give them the chance to abandon the sinking ship at the expense of the suckers who fall for it.
As you already know I have presented these views in response to many of your articles in the past and Ben, current events prove me correct - again.
As early as August last year numerous traders in the commodities markets warned of massive market manipulation and of obvious attempts to "paint the charts" by people such the "President’s Working Group on Financial Markets" or "PPT" - "Plunge Protection Team" - but the warnings were dismissed. Some Main Stream media commentators even dismissed the existence of the PPT as nothing more than conspiracy theories - just to highlight the ignorance of the main stream media and the public they "serve".
After the bail out of Bear Sterns the same traders issued numerous warnings of Goldman Sachs and others attached to the Treasury Secretary Paulson participating in huge suspicious purchase contracts for a number of commodities such as oil and that it was expected that an engineered collapse of the commodities prices and manipulated rally of the US$ was imminent. Again the warnings were largely ignored.
GATA’s Reg Howe representing the gold community even tried various acts of desperation to warn the public that the precious metals markets were being manipulated by the Central Banks and certain governments specifically to prevent a gold price from warning an unsuspecting investing public from becoming aware of the pending disaster.
GATA even used donations from its members to place a $250,000.00 advertisement in the New York times during January this year to warn the investing world of the problems ahead, the lies and the deceipt - but a brainwashed public took no heed.
For a number of years already the same community have been begging the various exchange authorities to investigate naked shorting in the gold industry only to be met with denials from the authorities that the practice occurred.
Now this.
Ben, this curious rally in the US$, the rally in the financials, the pathetic attempt to herd the crowd away from shorting the financial stocks or from buying specie, the $250 billion worth of trash injected into the system this week alone, the strangely counterintuitive declining oil price during massive storms in the gulf and international problems with production etc etc - all signs of US government and Central Bank interference in the markets designed to fleece the public and bail themselves out of trouble.
Ben, this is a moron’s rally and any investor who bases investment decisions on any single word from the twits and bullshit artists on Bloomberg, CNN et al deserve to lose their shirts.
This is the time to get out of stocks and equities, draw any trash remaining in any banking account and quickly get the worthless paper converted into gold and silver to protect any value until some of the dust has settled.
Ben, not only is this not over, the consequences of this event will be felt even long beyond our lifetimes - that is how big this crisis is and THAT is how far from over it is.
Rockjaw, I have followed your posts on this topic with some amusement and I must agree with much of what you say.
Has anybody else noticed how the leftist government officials and socialist economists keep telling us not to worry, its all okay and when things blow up they all trundle out again and tell us “well, sorry, it was bad before but its okay now” .
I’d like to ask Ben Eltham, as Rockjaw does, if you lot could not see what was coming when you misled us back then well then how could you be relied upon to know that the crisis has arrived or how to deal with it now that we in the middle of it?
Will these same officials and brainwashed lefty economists take responsibility for misleading us all into believing that all was just fine? Ohhh Noooo!
For example, where did all this sub prime crisis begin, how did it come about? How did it go wrong this badly? The Looney Left have all forgotten! Let me remind some of them.
The American Institute for Economics did an editorial on this credit crisis last month and part of their findings reveal that if we go all the way back to the 1990’s – 1992 to be exact – the Looney Left during Clinton’s administration became hysterical about the fact that banks only made mortgage loans to people who ACTUALLY COULD afford to repay those loans and so the Socialist Left Democrats convinced Congress to make it mandatory for banks to loan to the economically challenged and to increase the rate of loans to minority groups in direct proportion to their demographic representation.
This was regardless as to whether or not these people could afford the loans and it was called a part of Clinton’s “social engineering drive”
It was a distinct consequence of this legislation that the banks were FORCED to make “questionable loans”. Lenders who refused would be denied the right to make further loans and a “CRA” rating was given to banks to reflect the level with which each bank complied with these stupid rules.
All good standards previously applied to lending practices were thrown out and the “sub-prime mortgage” was born.
Those laws are still in force today and that same sub-prime mortgage has come of age in the form of this crisis which those same looney left economists now attempt to blame on the “free market”.
As Friedman once said, if you hand over the Sahara Desert to the state well then within 5 years the Sahara will experience a shortage of sand. Friedman has been proven correct over and over again and the Russians and Chinese are blowing gales of laughter at us here in the Western World as we cripple ourselves with exactly the socialist principles which destroyed Africa, South America and the Communist nations not too long ago.
Rogerio,
If you could possibly get your head out of your arse, you would remember that Clinton, for all his faults (and they were very many) left office with the US budget in surplus. Bush hasn’t finished reeking havoc on the US economy yet and the debt is already up around $ 12 trillion, which I can’t even imagine, unless I divide it by the 300 million population of the US and get $ 40,000 per person. Jesus, why am I defending Clinton ?? He was about as Left as Turnbull here, and YOUR mates - who have, after all, done the damage - are somewhat to the right of him. So put your head back up your arse, Rogerio, and do some hard thinking before you pull it out again. Moron.
Joe
rmg, I cannot wait for Rogerio so let me respond in his stead.
Rogerio’s head cannot be up his arse while yours is taking all the space.
When you have something to say which makes a little more sense, let’s hear it, but in the meantime, Clinton’s "debt surplus" was a fallacy, something which has been been demystified more than a decade ago already, but since you are that far behind on facts and socialist propaganda, let us revisit it again for your benefit.
First I have to tell you that most of the academic and official material which explains this does not have many pictures so it will be completely wasted on you anyway, but once you become literate enough to understand simple concepts without the aid of explanatory pictures you might want to consult the various websites which present the actual US debt for the FY1993-FY2001 where you will note the National debt grew from $4,411,488 trillion in 09/30/1993 to $5,807,463 trillion in FY2001.
Here is the US Treasury website for you:-
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/NPGateway and unless you know something which the US Treasury is unaware of you will note that the deficit grew quite considerably during the Clinton years.
You may want to consult a real economist to explain some of the concepts necessary to understand them rmg, but that website will give you all the US Treasury’s ACTUAL records for the "debt to the penny" :-
Unless you have more accurate data available than the US Treasury themselves, (in which case I would recommend that you advise Treasury Secretary Paulson quickly), you may want to haul your head out of Rogerio’s arse long enough to apologise!
All that Clinton’s administration did was to take the Social Security owed to the American people and with a little inventive socialist accounting he transferred it from "intergovernmental holdings" to "public debt".
That’s right, while Clinton was not inhaling and Hilary was not swallowing all the social security money belonging to the American taxpayers was "nationalised" at the stroke of a pen - but what more would you expect from a socialist other than theft anyway, right rmg?
The whole world has come to grips with this fact YEARS ago already so you might want to read more modern socialist propaganda just to keep up to date with the latest spin and brainwashing techniques mate.
Cheers
George
Thanks George,
As I understand it then, the US public debt has risen from $ 5.7 trillion to $ 9.6 trillion during Bush’s presidency, correct me if I’m wrong. Does this mean that, so far (and we are still a long way from the end), Bush’s administration has got the American people nearly four trillion dollars in debt ?
What on earth does socialism have to do with any of this ? If anything, China seems to be coming out of this financial mess relatively unscathed, if that is what you mean by socialism (I wouldn’t consider it to be socialist but that’s another argument). Merely because the state owns banks or infrastructure or enterprises, does not make them socialist. The governments of the Nazis and Mussolini’s fascists nationalised industries, ran banks, railways as we know only too well, but they weren’t socialist even if the Nazis did call themselves the national socialist workers’ party. State ownership is neither here nor there in relation to socialism.
Perhaps it’s a different world up there, George :) Bit dark and smelly but.
Joe
Didn’t you know Joe? Anyone to the left of Ghengis Khan is a socialist to Rockjaw.
Rogerio appears to be an exception though, as is bourne out by his objection to making loans to minority groups. He clearly sees that blacks and Mexicans ACTUALLY CAN’T afford to borrow funds, at least according to an editorial he read from a right wing think tank from the United States. They should keep to their socio-economic place and keep working to make the white people richer. It only gets them riled up to pretend that they can afford to dream.
It’s Clinton’s fault, that crazy communista. That, despite the complexity of the issue and the actions of banks, the Bush administration and the world market over the following fourteen years, is that.
rmg. what has socialism got to do with this? Socialism is the extent to which the state involves itself in the economy, and that is what socialism has to with this rmg.
Bush has basically doubled nearly 200 years of public debt in one weekend - but you must remember that the Central Bankers, who are not elected or chosen by the taxpayers, are really the ones behind these massive movements in the financial markets. That is a form of fascism and not socialism.
It is the Central Bankers who have asked a Democrat Congress for huge statutory powers and a Democrat Congress has granted them these excessive powers even though these people are not elected by the taxpayers. Democrats have handed over the power and control of the nation’s money and banking to these private individuals and banking corporations and of course they are going to look after their own interests rather than the interests of the taxpayers rmg, and that is why it is so alarming.
The American taxpayers have been sold out by their democrat congress and Moron Republican President since they no longer have a say in their own money, credit and financial affairs. This transfer of the banker’s debts to the American taxpayer is easily the worst thing to have happened to the American taxpayer in the entire history of the USA. In fact, the original war of independence fought by the Amricans against a fascist British monarchy was exactly over the same issue, the "Continental" paper which the British monarchy attempted to force on the Americans.
Now the Americans have literally placed Ali Baba and his forty thieves in charge of their Fort Knox and the wealth of the nation.
rmg, China’s markets have responded to a REDUCTION of restrictions to free trade, which means a REDUCTION of state involvement in the economy which means a REDUCTION in socialism and which has resulted in China’s current prosperity.
You are right when you say "I would not consider this to be socialism" but only to the extent that China has lifted SOME restrictions, but China remains very much a socialist state, only a lot LESS than they were a few years ago when excessive socialism had them on the brink of massive starvation.
In fact, in many respects, China’s markets experience far more freedom than either USA or Australia, which is why so many Australian and American companies have migrated from Australia, terminated employment contracts with Australian workers and moved their capital to China. We have lost Australian capital, jobs and revenue from those moves away from Australia.
If that is a good thing, well then it is only good for China, certainly not for the poor bugger in Australia who loses his job or the rest of us who have to work harder to make up the lost revenues.
And now we have Dr Dog who wants to talk about Ghengis Khan? Mexicans? Blacks? And then he calls the US Treasury and other Federal agencies "right wing think tanks"? Hahahaha Dr. Dog, you are also the blogger who called me a "born to rule Jew" in another forum. You know Dog, you really must spend some time trying to get over your petty prejudices - maybe even consult a good psychiatrist BEFORE you immerse yourself in the rather more complex topics of politics or economics!!!
ps hey Dog, do you still have that grain of salt?
What actually is it the US Govt is proposing to buy out in this new bailout plan that’s going to Congress? It was my understanding that this mess has been slowly "unwinding" for over a year now (rather than all at once and swiftly) owing to "lack of transparency" (due to their complexity) of "sliced and diced" securities, ie nobody (including many of those who held them) knew exactly where or what their liabilities were. So if something like that is the case, how can the Govt know how and where to find what they now intend to buy?
Rockjaw said: "this curious rally in the US$, the rally in the financials, the pathetic attempt to herd the crowd away from shorting the financial stocks or from buying specie, the $250 billion worth of trash injected into the system this week alone, the strangely counterintuitive declining oil price during massive storms in the gulf and international problems with production etc etc - all signs of US government and Central Bank interference in the markets designed to fleece the public and bail themselves out of trouble."
Rockjaw, while I won’t argue with your overall picture, I think you’re missing a few factors:
1) Massively leveraged hedge funds with the same trading positions make up a sizeable chunk of some important markets, I’m sure, and so when they all unwind the same position, it produces odd-looking movements. In other words, think about crowd behavior among institutional investors as an explanation sometimes, and not just actions by the ‘plunge protection team’.
2) The decline in the oil price has been due to increasing belief in an American and possibly a global recession (and thus lower demand).
Hi George,
Do you know, I agree with you ? You say that ‘the Central Bankers, who are not elected or chosen by the taxpayers, are really the ones behind these massive movements in the financial markets. That is a form of fascism and not socialism.’
Yes ! Exactly ! As an ex-Maoist, I would hotly dispute your claim that China is in any way still socialist and claim that it has moved much more closer to your fascist model, at least in terms of its contempt for human rights, which, to me, is always the mark of an anti-socialist.
Thank you, George.
Cheers,
Joe
Mitchell,
1) that is exactly what the huge players, like Goldman Sachs, already knows about the hedge funds. Those boys trade on HUGE leverage and the Goldman Sachs crowd know that with the aid of people like Paulson all they need to do to paint the charts and manipulate the markets is to push the target trading instrument into the red zone and whammo, you achieve a massive unwinding of positions as these guys rush off to buy dollars, close down their positions and settle their leverage accounts. As you obviously know, there are a lot of hedge funds on the rocks now as well.
The thing to notice is the complete counter-intuitive nature of these price actions we have been witnessing since June, just don’t fall for them, don’t get suckered into the movement of the crowds and don’t trade on leverage.
But remember this Mitchell, manipulation is manipulation and it is no better than theft, whichever way you look at it.
2) Decline in oil price has NOTHING to do with demand destruction! Rule #1 in this game - NEVER listen to the talking heads, they all lie or they mindlessly regurgitate the "party line" by selling the Goldman Sachs line.
Europe, USA and Canada, or the OECD countries as a whole, MAY be achieving very slight reduction in demand - unlikely, but MAYBE - but Asia, China, Brazil et all are all DEFINITELY growing their demand at over 1%. The oil crisis and forthcoming price spike/rally which you will see unfold right before your eyes within the next few weeks/months will be something spectacular, and we can talk about "demand destruction" then shall we?
Remember Mitchell, reduced demand results in a build up of inventory - are you aware of any inventory/stock of oil building up anywhere? Forget it Mitchell, the oil crisis is not GOING to happen, it has ALREADY happened, all we are waiting for is now is to hear the fat lady sing as the price curve goes ballistic.
rmg, cheers mate, we’ll make a REAL socialist of you yet, and not one of those yakkity types who think "work" or "productivity" and socialism are mutually exclusive.
Zingales and McCormack cited here: http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/geoffelliott/index.php
claim they have a better patch for the present crisis, in which the Govt requires debt cancellation in exchange for equities, rather than Paulson’s plan for socialising losses.
Bizarre definitions for "socialism" ("cliched" would be putting it mildly):
In rockjaw’s dictionary: when political and investment banking apparatchiks - a.k.a. cowardly groupies of the oligarchy or familiar subalterns of the same - use public treasure to help preserve the oligarchs’ power, privilege and comfort. Directly opposite to the Robin Hood motto "steal from the rich, give to the poor"!
In rmg’s dictionary: when people like Cadell Evans, Grant Hackett, Richard Gere and KD Lang make high-profile "protests" about a place they do not know, cultures whose languages they will never speak, and a religion they use as a loud but stylish lounge-room ornament. Meanwhile berating as "fascist" a more disciplined state that chooses to resist and punish opportunist and mystical challengers who promote various hocus-pocus, whether for guile or mere camouflage, including Falun Gong loops who take their lavish finance and publicity via an odd expat billionaire.
Here’s the news folks: these ongoing bail-outs demonstrate how far neoliberalism has taken us from social democratic justice and protection for workers and farmers. These bail-outs are for a system of unsustainable bubbles created by the likes of Nixon and confessed Ayn Rand admirer Greenspan. This enormous crash can only compel a political solution, but the trend from these bail-outs, as well as the indications from their publicity, point only towards a dire, even more regressive political change. Call it feudalism, call it fascism. It will hardly resemble any regime that has ever called itself "socialist", except perhaps the apex of that strange Ceausescu regime near its own collapse.
They will ultimately meet the same fate too. But the damage to humanity would be enormous - unless we get some political leaders with guts, humanity and intelligence.
Looking at the US Congress and our parliament, it seems we could not squeeze a single FDR, JFK or Jack Lang out of them due to all of the contamination by self-serving, nasty egos, pompously over-rated intellects, and jellyfish characters.
mil-observer, rmg spoke of "socialism" and you come along marching out an entire platoon of social reprobates? Socialists and reprobates are generally different concepts you know mil-observer.
Was Robin Hood really a socialist? Here was me thinking he was just a good anti-statist Catholic boy who actively rebelled against all high tax regimes like those neoliberals you rant about, whoever they are.
mil-observer, it was good socialist stock like Woodrow Wilson and FDR who created and then reinforced the autocrac and very non-democratic modern international banking hegemony which now bestrides the entire planet and which destroys the "social democratic justice and protection for workers and farmers" of entire continents such as Africa and South America.
Socialists Mil-Observer, socialists created those naughty banks which steal from the poor to support the statist ruling class and which keeps both groups in pocket and in power, and not those mythical bogeymen whom you refer to as "neoliberals" in your incoherent rant.
Mil Observer,
Woooo ! We touched a nerve here ! (George, do you ever sleep !?!)
So Mil, are you sayingthat nobody should demonstrate for anybody else’s rights ? Only for the rights of their own group ? My friend, that is the first step (at least) on the road to fascism, promote the interests of your own group over all others, even if it means the ‘extraction’ of the others for the good of your group. That’s not socialism, that’s moving towards fascism. Socialism should be life-affirming, opening up every person’s potential genius, without fear of Gulags on the one hand or rapacious bankers on the other.
George, I’m a bit picky in my old age about who and what is socialist - I’m prepared to concede that currently, there is not a single thoroughly socialist state in the world: even places like Vietnam and Cuba may have moved away from socialism a long time ago. I don’t know enough about Kerala. Nowhere in Africa is there much socialism, except a touch of it in Tanzania maybe. Even in South America, what is termed socialist is much more like versions of our Labour Party, which has never been socialist in my picky little book. No, I think we lost that round, folks. Vale socialism.
Cheers,
Joe
Hey Mitchell, you mentioned oil and "an American and possibly a global recession (and thus lower demand)" would/did cause a decline in the oil price.
Take a look at this chart from the New York Mercantile Exchange’s futures trading today :-
http://futures.tradingcharts.com/chart/CO/A8
Guess what, oil actually touched $130.00 per barrel last night! A massive 44% above it’s low of $90 just two sessions ago!
We may not have long to wait for the fat lady to sing after all mate! And I bet you the news will be suppressed to contain panic buying.
My guess is $200.00 per barrel soon after That Idiocracy finishes it’s elections IF they can manipulate the markets downward for long enough.
What do you think of that Mitchell? Still believe in "demand destruction" or "deflation" or "unwinding Hedge funds" or "speculators" - don’t be fooled Mitchell, leave the lying media and the short sighted academics to blunder about in their fantasy worlds while real men and women get on with the job of dealing with the real world.
Buy gold mate, and lots of silver, while you can still get rid of that paper junk they call "dollars".
Protect your wages and stop allowing those lying thieves to steal the pittance they pay us all for stripping this nation of it’s natural resources.
Always funny how such spirited and assertive ripostes follow something supposedly "incoherent"! It seems clear that "Rock Ape" is indulging in mischievous disinformation in order to further muddy the waters at this critical time, on this dominant and compelling issue.
No, Woodrow Wilson was with that nasty cabal of monetarists whose ruthless policies created 1923 Weimar Germany. The statist banking system of FDR, which ensured both the recovery from the Depression and the defeat of European and Japanese fascism, was not really a "socialist" model in any doctrinaire sense, whatever its spirit - hence my reference to "social democratic justice and protection". The destructive investment banking parasitism we have witnessed was not meant to be even part of the Bretton Woods system; the post-war debt regimes over developing countries was similarly an opportunists’ and cold warriors’ playground attached to an otherwise sound, sane and just system. What has arisen since is no "statist ruling class" at all; just privatizing whores, traitors and cowards (recall the proper context of "terrorism" in this situation).
Thanks too, rmg, for confirming that you offer in-principle "ideological support" for the likes of Cadell Evans, Grant Hackett, Richard Gere and KD Lang. Touching…
Hi Mil-Observer,
Yes, i think that Cadell Evans, who spent much of his childhood in an Aboriginal community, and the others that you mentioned, are great people, all the moreso precisely because they don’t have to stick their necks out, they’re not Tibetan, or Turkestani, or Darfuri - these are excellent human beaings who recognise the common humanity of others, instead of parochial turds who would go into bat only for their own narrow, pissy group.
Now that somebody raised the topic of Aboriginal issues, I’m sure that readers will be thrilled to read that in 2007, a record 1,495 Indigenous peoplegraduated from universities around Australia, all but about ninety at degree-level (1,080) and post-graduate level (324). So the annual number of Indigenous graduates has risen since 2000-2002 by about 48 %. As I wrote a few weeks ago, enrolments in 2007 were at record levels, 9,370 students - again with the vast majority at degree- and post-graduate levels. If in doubt, look up DEEWR’s Statistics web-page.
Putting all the figures together,
* a total of around eighty thousand Indigenous people have been, or are now, at university. That’s about one in four Indigenous adults alive since about 1980.
* a total of 22,200 Indigenous people had graduated from university courses as at the end of last year. By the end of this year, the total could be close to 24,000. That would be about one in twelve Indigenous adults currently alive - one in eight women and one in fifteen men.
Please pass this on to all the doubters in Indigenous abilities, all those low-level racists who have always had low expectations of Indigenous people, including some Blacks, by the way.
I would welcome anybody who wishes to honestly dispute these figures, or has any comment at all on them, and what the yrepresent in terms of Indigenous effort, blood, sweat, toil and tears, not to mention the sheer bloody poverty of student life - and all a step into the unknown.
Joe
Oh, by the way, for those old enough to remember whe nCharlie Perkins and Margaret Valadian were working their way through teir degrees, as the first Indigenous university graduates, the figures for 2007 represent an average of four graduates a day. One graduate every four hours of each waking day.
Cheers,
Joe
Please for the attention of other readers of these posts please seek out what I actually said about Rockjaw being a born to rule Jewish man. I had accused him of being a born to rule Anglican man, but he was good enough to point out my error. The thread is under Its Panic Time by Ben Eltham.
Before I leave Rockjaw to his mutual economic masturbation I would make the comment that I consider his views to be so self serving and narrow that I despair of engaging in any discourse that lies in the social, philosophic or real political realm, where my interest lies.
Joe and mil-observer; Rockjaw is all yours, I applaud your persistance at beating your heads against a prick wall.
Thanks rmg,
I think Cadell’s a narcissist like the other poseurs who pretend "care for oppressed" via a fashion statement associated with little more than archaic mysticism and a sexist, feudal theocracy which kidnapped male children and extorted from working people merely in order to sustain its own brutal system. Also, the Dalai Lama was mentored by two ex-SS men, one of whom actually led an Einsatzgruppe murder squad in Eastern Europe; Dalai himself has been on record uttering some trite apologia for Nazi mass murder too. You should realize from detailed and factual news reports that the more recent (pre-Olympics) "unrest" in Tibet Province began from a coordinated series of ethnically targeted murders: several dozen Han Chinese and Uighur Muslims killed in cold blood, followed up by street protests from some monks (who generally do not work for a living). Three cheers to the many Tibetans though, not publicized in the west, who advance their homeland and people away from the primordial and imperialist superstition that has held them back so cruelly for so long.
I found it encouraging to read your comments about indigenous progress in tertiary education, but I fear that you over-rate that sector’s significance for social and ethnic equity and this country’s class system, especially since our universities have been all but privatized upon the IMF’s insistence. The situation with the high proportion of tertiary qualified Muslim Australians too would diminish the optimistic tone of your review there. It is true that tertiary qualifications help those in this country’s predominant and more "established" (read "non-stigmatized") ethnic groups. However, programs helping indigenous Australians in that sector would suggest to me yet another effort aimed more at salving middle class white consciences - think Costello (and maybe Cadell too!) walking over a bridge on "Sorry Day".
Thanks Mil-Observer,
I’m seriously collecting mealy-mouthed attacks on Indigenous achievement, and yours was quite novel, that those lumps out there, those passive Indigenous lumps, were having it all done for them by Costello-type white middle-class people. That’s a good one, it should entertain some of my Aboriginal friends and relations.
Get something straight, prick - Indigenous people do it all themselves, they don’t need any f*cking white c*nt deciding for them. And I crave for the day when some of you bastards get that through your smug, thick Anglo-Celtic skulls.
Joe
back on track. For all his talk on socialist this or that I think Rockjaw has a point. What’s going on here is not that very different to the 70’s oil shock, just on a far larger scale (more global in the financial sense.
Creepy stuff. No rmg, I did not say that "those passive Indigenous lumps, were having it all done for them by Costello-type white middle-class people". What I do imply - and you infer hyper-sensitively as racist condescension- is that there is clearly patronizing "Costello value" in the explicit race-based scholarships and allowances for indigenous applicants to the tertiary sector. That such assisted achievement does not translate into equity in employment and class generally proves - as with the high proportion of Muslim graduates - that the tertiary education sector dissipates and displaces activism and demands for social justice away from their proper targets.
Maybe your presumption that I "attack" indigenes really proves my above point about "dissipated and displaced activism". I think you should save your abuse and hostility in general for people who really deserve it - try the Crown, squatters and other rapacious resource grabbers for starters. I myself, my family, and many other White Trash and immigrants like myself and my family (and also our indigenous in-laws) have had very little or nothing from such ruthless imperialist enterprise.
If you mistake potential allies for enemies, while mistaking your wily enemies for friends, then you are bound to lose very badly; imperialists and other racists will keep laughing all the way to their bailed-out hedge funds.
Dr Dog, in an attempt to explain away your bigotry and prejudice you come out and advise us all that you no longer object to "born to rule jewish" persons, it being those "born to rule Anglicans" whom you currently find so terribly objectionable.
Dr Dog, which psychiatrist have you been consulting for your problem? Professor Hans Heinze?
Apparently you have become so accostomed to prejudice and bigotry that you are no longer capable of realising how far down that hole you have fallen.
What particular brand of socialism was it that you supported again Dog and did you know that your anti Anglican slant was shared by somebody else most people still remember well today.
Here is a clue:- "Zis is ze Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei und ve are at war mit ze Anglicans".
Try checking out the substance of this latest mass bail-out package. One of Treasury Secretary Paulson’s clauses decrees that none of his decisions can be overturned or modified by any court or agency, thereby eliminating any legal challenges or appeals. His legislative proposal includes: "Review. Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." That would place Paulson and his bailouts above the law in a virtual bankers’ dictatorship.
The bail-outs are meant to pass quickly before the public can mobilize its opposition. The banker-parasites know that this is a massive scam to protect those who caused this disaster at working people’s expense. The big lie in our media now is that there is "no choice" and "no other way", and that the bail outs are meant to protect the people when they are in fact the greatest rip-off ever.
It is high time that all the parasites go through much-deserved bankruptcy proceedings, get farmed out to the labor market to try working for a living, while state leaders set about reorganizing the entire international financial system (as Russia, Italy and others have been urging for some time).
- and as FDR did in the ’30s.
With the current regressive, globalized, "divided-and-ruled" situation of exaggerated tribal identities, it seems hard to avoid the primordial knee-jerks and misrepresentations around "race" here as apparent in rmg’s and rockjaw’s ad hominem venom. But just a note to rockjaw, similar to my point to rmg about the early SS influence on the Dalai crowd:
George Soros (apparently admired by rockjaw) has often been a significant player in this callous monetarist mayhem and idiocy meant to pass for an "economy" these recent decades. We should not exaggerate Soros’ significance either, even though he is a major Obama sponsor and confounder against Hilary Clinton’s popular-vote success in the Democrat primaries. Regardless, Soros’ background and personality offer insight into the mentality and ideology of the entire oligarchy of speculators now setting themselves up to be the more entrenched international feudal lords of a coming Dark Age.
Soros’ father wrote in his own published memoir how his son enthusiastically took to work as a courier for the "Jewish Councils" set up by the SS in Eichmann’s organization of racist extermination. Couriers like Soros helped to identify and prepare Jewish families for transport to eastern Europe’s death camps. Implicit in the council members’ work was the understanding that they themselves were exempted from the transports. But Soros’ father was so concerned that he arranged for his son to pose as a Hungarian (gentile) minister’s son, for different and more remote work instead confiscating the property of transported (and mostly murdered) Hungarian Jews, for deposit into the coffers of the SS.
It is understandable that Soros and his father can justify their wartime decisions on basic and desperate survival motives; such extreme conditions would demand extreme adjustment and behavioral callousness, similar to many people’s experience of imperialist aggression and coercion in general. However, George Soros has since expressed an absolute lack of any remorse or sense of guilt over having worked in his youth to help the SS in its murderous tasks. Indeed, Soros has stated calmly that he "had no choice" then in exactly the same way as he has justified his exploitative, opportunistic and destructive acts against developing countries targeted in his locust-like raids as a speculator in non-regulated, globalized "free market" finance. According to Soros, if he did not do it, then someone else would - no responsibility, no remorse, and no choice (contrary to the most basic tenets of neoliberalism about "choice").
Therefore, it would be misleading to claim that there is some actual "Jewish" role in this world calamity: as far as I know, the activist and unrepentant mania of Soros would be deemed very strange, secular, corrupt, twisted and sinful when considered against the tradition and morality of one of humanity’s earliest monotheist religions. On the larger scale of events, perhaps the case of Soros suggests that such a role as his is even worse than the direct participation in evil by the most vicious and cynical of the fascist-collaborating Kapos.
Mil-observer,
Thank you, more novel ways to put shit on Aboriginal people, however you want to cut it. I’ll add it to my collection.
So you can’t say anything at all positive about twenty thousand Indigenous graduates ? Nothing at all ? Why do you assume that all Indigenous students get scholarships, or somehow have it easier ? Utterly despicable. Examine your heart, Mil-observer, if you have one.
Joe
Mil-observer,
I’ve just discovered your ‘exaggerated tribal identities’ as a stick to beat Indigenous graduates with - thank you, I’ll add that as well. It’s a beauty ! Anything but acknowledgement and praise, is it ?
And you’re still a despicable racist prick, however you twist and turn.
Joe
Whoa, this rmg does appear to be a nasty little tactic for distraction.
Feigned "aboriginal activism" and "militancy", twist and turn, dosey doe!
My sympathies to Dr Dog for the similar treatment he got on the related Eltham-derived thread.
The nasty, cynical and opportunistic deceivers who wish to divide us will be found out in good time.
How am I twisting and turning ? Is there something wrong with 22,000 Indigenous university graduates, and another 1500 each year, something that gets up your nose ? How is that ‘nasty’ ? How is it opportunistic ?
All I am trying to get across, in a stinking cess-pit of white racists, Left and Right, is that Indigenous people have prevailed and conquered the heights of ‘Western’ education, as they have sought to do - as they have freely sought to do, Mil-observer - it has been their choice to do so, nobody forced them. 22,000 more Indigenous people are now able to contribute to indigenous prosperity, and/or to the general betterment of Australians. Twist and turn on that, you piece of sh*t.
Joe
Joe
Just by the way, on the latest data, Indigenous women are participating at universities at a better rate than non-Indigenous men. Sit on that.
Joe
Hate the deed, not the breed - includes merchant bankers as well as peasants.
With the intense crisis and its equally intense foils and decoys, guess I must’ve really hit my targets square-on to elicit such hysterical, emotive and abusive distractions and libels.
Keep up the good disinformation and decoy work "rmg"! ;-)
On Rowena’s question: "…how can the Govt know how and where to find what they now intend to buy?"
I believe that issue points to just how corrupt and (properly defined) criminal the whole bail-out process is. That is why I cited Paulson’s clause claiming legal and administrative immunity and irreversibility.
They intend to keep sacking the state coffers without limit. The process suggests enormous potential for mark-ups and various further creative accounting as the derivatives players keep swarming in.
mil-observer says - "…With the intense crisis and its equally intense foils and decoys, guess I must’ve really hit my targets square-on to elicit such hysterical, emotive and abusive distractions and libels…" - Huh?
"…With the current regressive, globalized, "divided-and-ruled" situation of exaggerated tribal identities, it seems hard to avoid the primordial knee-jerks and misrepresentations around "race" here as apparent in rmg’s and rockjaw’s ad hominem venom…" - double HUH??
Hey mil-observer, you obviously have something to say, so why don’t you give us the English version of your rants so that we can all understand what that something is?
Thanks
Thanks, George, I haven’t got a clue what this crazy bastard is on about, with respect to crazy bastards generally. All I know is that very many Indigenous people, who have absolutely no chance or inclination to conveniently piss off and chase lizards and pick berries, for the edification of white middle-class sitting in their air-conditioned offices, who in other words have no option but to live and work in towns and cities, like most other Australians - have struck out on the path to ther unknown, to tackly tertiary education - and the yhave succeeded.
I apologise for my intemperate rematrks, but when I hear whites sneeringly put down Aboriginal people who have busted themselves to get out of welfare and get prodfessional skills, in the face of such people, it does appear as if all their efforts are being denigrated, to use an appropriate word.
Like it or not, Mil-Lel or whatever, from about 1990 onwards, at least half of all young Indigenous people have been enrolled at some time in tertiary education, as is their right. Remember equal rights ? Almost half of all those young people have graduated already, and something like 60 % of an age-group now enrols. You can’t stop that, thank Christ. Indigenous people WILL prevail over all manner of racists.
Joe
Joe
rmg, given what they have already endured, and given their growing success at EVERY level, I think they have already prevailed.
The rest of us have some learning and some cathing up to do.
Thanks, George. Yes, fifty thousand Indigenous graduates by 2020 is on the cards. Now we can return to the station. Back on topic.
Joe
Wow, a tag team of "covert operators" on NM - real sexy, James Bondy stuff! Keep the readers attention away from the actual issues discussed: distraction, deception and dissipation by attacking with a spurious race-education card. And now rmg adds to it further by implying some working class and non- (even anti-) apparatchik identity.
But what can we find out about this "rmg", in fact? A quick review showed up a rather different identity from that which fades in and out like spurious clutter on this thread here. For starters, consider rmg’s big lies by comparing his own words and sentiments here with some contradictory traces elsewhere.
[rmg1859, 1 June 2008]
"Many years ago, I was tutoring some Indonesian TAFE teacher-students and the guys took me aside to ask me, all conspiritorally [sic], when does a girl become a woman ? I went into a long spiel about legal age, maturity, blah blah, but they giggled and said, ‘when she’s got hairs.’ Perhaps a bit previous, I thought, but at least it’s an honest point of view. Presumably, even they would draw a line somewhere…" [see: http://newmatilda.com/2008/05/30/kids-are-people-too#comment3014]
So there you have it: "at least it’s an honest point of view…even they would draw a line somewhere", as if Indonesians amount to some lowest common denominator in scales of morality and prohibition around child pornography. I have never encountered any indigenous Australians expressing such a condescending, presumptuous and, yes, racist attitude about Indonesians. After all, several peoples in northern Australia use Indonesian vocabulary in their own native tongues due to centuries of regular trade with Makassarese, Bugis and others. Indonesians trace a history of highly ordered civilization and culture on Java, Sulawesi and elsewhere, pre-dating those in China according to many studies. I have only heard such pejorative remarks about Indonesians from some self-consciously "European" types or their lackey-imitators; in short, an imperialist and racist view.
Therefore:
Big Lie # 1: rmg is anti-racist (rmg’s own racist baggage is explicit and on record there);
Big Lie # 2: rmg’s passionately implied "indigenous Australian" identity (harder to disprove conclusively given the inherent silliness of all notions around "race" and bloodline/pedigree, etc. But we can be sure that rmg’s actual identity has deep traits of classic colonial / imperialist arrogance, betrayed by that patronizing view of our Indonesian / Malay friends. It seems that rmg’s "aboriginality" goes no further than an online fantasy);
Big Lie # 3: rmg is not a "white middle-class sitting in [his] air-conditioned office…". By his own admission about "tutoring", rmg is an education apparatchik - all but ensconced "middle class" in any part of the world, and in any air-conditioned office. It seems rmg (here, at least) is an academic, and I am confident I know his name.
Big Lie # 4: rmg is a "tuff guy", casually reeling off invective after expletive, with repeated insinuations of personal threat, as if used to picking and winning fights. In fact, the above-listed anomalies prove that rmg does not rough it very comfortably at all, but seems to merely pose in an extra fantasy about being able to somehow cut it as a member of the working class. That fantasy probably originated when his mummy escorted him to his posh school and he asked her about the kids they passed by along the street. They looked scary, impolite and unclean to him, but mummy reassured him: "they’re just working class. Don’t worry, some of them do good things for daddy’s factory".
Dr Dog: I think you can have reasonable doubt about rockjaw’s purported "jewish" identity, given his form in plucking out such spurious distraction repeatedly in these threads (I’d ignore their "George" and "Joe" monikers too). These conceited anti-worker types are just out to deflect attention from the contrived quality of their avowed "anti-socialist-but-conchy" and "Marxist" positions, associated clutter, superficiality and irrelevancy. In other words: ideological, intellectual and professional fraud.
Although I agree with Rowena’s comment about merchant bankers, the puerile and degenerate rockjaw-rmg game here reminds me that "merchant bankers" is also rhyming slang.
Ho hum, well, anyway, did somebody mention the original topic? Something about a sucker’s rally? I heard a rumour that it will not last beyond the November elections, if it even has the legs to last that long.
Yeah. It’s looking well confirmed now that this "rmg" is the academic - or at least one of his pseudo-leftist network-cum-boat club’s mates - who originally referred me to NM and one of NM’s editors. Given that the so-referred NM editor did not reply to my contact, the said academic had probably sunk a bitchy knife in by the usual bourgeois dinner-party tactic of blatant, duplicitous and childish manipulation (much as I identify on this thread too).
The hilarious part of it is to contemplate the mediocrity of the said pseudo-left academic, especially in light of the repetitive goading about tertiary qualifications. I publicly exposed some of the academic’s gross incompetency on a blog a few months ago, in a field for which he is officially paid and qualified, but is actually crippled by the most basic ignorance and lack of aptitude.
While such pseudo-left academics are parasitic and undeserving like the finance sector vultures of our main concern here, they are in some ways yet worse for the deceit and confusion they spread among many of us workers, who usually lack the time and specialized experience to detect the nasty games being played.
Their only legacy to the world a barren field of ashes and ignorance, testament to their pointless life and death, all devoid of meaning, truth and future.
There is so much fear and loathing on this civilised-NM blog.
In spite of the anti-regulators here, I think a blog moderator is needed.
So goodbye everyone, hope to avoid most of you in the future.
Mil-Lel,
I’ve never said that I was Indigenous, and I never would, because I’m not. My wife was. Neither am I am academic although I used to be. I’m not currently employed, I don’t have air-conditioning and I went to East Bankstown Infant School, then Strathfield, then Central Bankstown, then North Bankstown, then Homebush, then Gymea Bay, then Chester Hill, then Penrith Primary Schools, all pretty posh schools. My real dad was an engine driver (he drove munitions trains during the War, including one over the Hawkesbury River bridge on the night that the Japs attacked Sydney Harbour), and my mum was a factory worker, who used to sell Tribunes around Chullora when it was illegal. My name is Joe Lane, there’s no mystery there. I worke for ten years in factories and on farms in Ballarat, Melbourne, Auckland and Adelaide. I was a mature student.
Anything else ? What is ‘rmg’ ? Raukkan Market Gardens. Raukkan is the name of the Aboriginal community where my dear wife came from. 1859 is the year when Raukkan was set up as a mission by Rev. George Taplin, who I admire greatly. We wanted to set up a Study Centre and market gardens there, but that fell through.
Yes, I tutored Indigenous students and my office was not air-conditioned but in fact was over the campus canteen ovens, but close to the students’ rooms, so although it got a bit hot, it was most convenient when they wanted me for anything. I now put together papers on Indigenous achievement and I don’t get paid for any of them. You should try a bit of voluntary work some time.
I posted a few contributions myself, Mil-Lel, and they were cut by Rod, so you’re not the only one.
The bottom line is that Indigenous people are achieving at phenomenal rates, and that will never stop. They have conquered the heights of ‘your’ education system, Mil-Lel, and they will never go back to the bush as you and your pseudo-left Apartheid mates would dearly love.
So fuck you. Sorry, Rowena.
Joe
Good - now I know just what it is that has abused and yes - actually threatened me in public - with the twisty pose of "champion of Oz blacks". Your posing makes a great imitation of a hypocrite bourgeoise.
I’ll let my Indonesian friends know what to look out for too - though they’re mostly used to it from the Dutch (you know, creators of that "Apartheid" word).
"I nationalize strategic companies and get criticized, but when Bush does it, it’s OK," Chavez said on a weekly television program Sept. 21.
"Bush is turning socialist. How are you, comrade Bush?" … Hugo Chavez
You got to love the looney left, I mean, let’s face it, at least there is never a dull moment!
Hi mil-observer,
And now it’s your turn - who is mil-observer ? What do we know about her ? Is it true she is gay (not that I’ve got anything against that) ? What was she in jail for ? Do all of her kids have different fathers ? Did she get to high school ? Those sorts of things.
Thank you,
Joe
Nah tuff guy, you’re sussed from here - and that is all I need. As I said "at least one of his pseudo-leftist network-cum-boat club mates" - and you fit the bill well. I doubt your claimed first name though. I love your middle class jibes too! You’re premeditated obviousness, and OTT hype with the "raciost" tags, etc., kinda shows that you know my name anyway.
That’s why this latest push (a la the spurious blurbs from Congress about "socialism for finance" and rockjaw’s carry-on) get through so easily. Those labels that are accepted by the oligarchy for "Marxist", "socialist", etc., are usually a complete joke, which you’ve proved by your pale pose at thuggery.
Go for some of that Soros sponsorship for a Cadell-style "human rights" protest on Tibet - oh, redundant advice by a few years.
Hi mil-observer. Than