The above said, we should make herculean efforts to be honest with ourselves — particularly for us who are voters in a democratic republic. Let's get past cognitive bias and political-party bias and all that.
1) Below is a short video of one of Joe Biden's recent outbursts. He is furious! And in the friendly venue of the AFL-CIO. My grandmother started having such outbursts, complete with similar gestures, post-stroke and when the situation certainly didn't merit such an outburst.
WATCH: Pres. Biden ignores questions when asked about his son’s business dealings with Russian oligarch.
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) June 16, 2022
“Why have you stopped taking questions from the press,” a journalist shouts. “What are you afraid of?!”
pic.twitter.com/HRptNwPURj
2) To close this post, let's have some wry humor and perhaps something we can all agree on. Heh.
Setting my own biases aside...
ReplyDelete1.) I tracked down Biden's 35 minute speech before America's largest domestic terrorist organization, er, the AFL-CIO to find the context of this "outburst." Seems Biden is fired up and wants to tout that the federal government has allegedly cut the deficit, and wants his supporters to be just as fired up about the government not spending more than it takes in as much as it used to (although sadly, it still spends more than it takes in). I don't think this was any kind of post-stroke blast of dementia, but rather more along the lines of a pep rally or even Obama encouraging his supporters to "get in the faces" of political opponents.
I saved myself $3.5 million by making payments on a Toyota instead of a Bugatti Veyron. I don't have to scream at anyone about my reckless spending because I don't recklessly spend my money not anyone else's. Biden doesn't have a cognitive issue here, but rather a lack of scale and perspective. He's excited about not screwing up the American economy and future solvency as fast as he did last year. Give him a cookie.
2.) I couldn't find the context of the second video, but it doesn't look like a venue where a press conference was to occur in the first place. Biden is ignoring hecklers, not journalists. I can cut him slack on this. I don't give a wet and stinky about who his son did business with or where. Business deals aren't illegal.
3.) Good Nastian editorial cartoon, if your first impulse towards resolving an issue is to throw the government at it. Otherwise, meh.
Personally, I believe Biden needs to spend more time at Camp David playing Super-Mario Karts with his grandkids, and less time anywhere near a teleprompter and the Oval office. And that is being "empathetic". My Unbiased opinion is that he resign and allow a competent leader (not Kamala) to be responsible and accountable for the presidency. America deserves better than being led by Biden's Presidential "Staff of Incompetence" and Jill Biden's nudgings.
Delete-FJ
All Joe does now is front (via teleprompter) for his staff's bureaucratic policies and decisions. He has marginal input into how the country is being run (I suspect he only "insists" on policy matters if "Jill insists")... for the Deep State runs largely on "autopilot". And we all know how the Deep State get's a real Pilot... they refuse steering orders and head for the nearest Iceberg so they can blame the Captain.
Delete-FJ
People want you to believe that "Joe's in charge." The truth is, "He's NOT!"
Delete-FJ
...and just to prove my "objectivity"... I fear for 2024, because Trump is very likely to suffer the same problems/ issues. Younger blood is needed... DESPERATELY!
Delete-FJ
Echoes of Eleanor and Colonel House
DeleteWhy had I not ever heard of Col. House before? Thanks for the intro, sf!
Delete-FJ
Echoes of Max Weber!
Delete-FJ
Trump, much like Reagan, was both a "celebrity" and a "charismatic" leader. Such leaders are necessary in order to inspire and enact changes to the "legal-rational" bureaucratic authorities.
Delete-FJ
-FJ
Biden is a fifty year "drone" of the legal-rational bureaucracy in DC.
Delete-FJ
...and given the Bernaysian "Freudalization" of our "Society of the Spectacle"... the direction we're headed is <a href='https://arachnoid.com/psychology/victimhood.php#2">NOT a pretty one</a>. It has affected the bureaucrats within our bureaucracy, leading to cultural capitalism and a resurgence of centralized authoritarianism. :(
Delete-FJ
...and given the Bernaysian "Freudalization" of our "Society of the Spectacle"... the direction we're headed is NOT a pretty one. It has affected the bureaucrats within our bureaucracy, leading to cultural capitalism and a resurgence of centralized authoritarianism. :(
Delete-FJ
Leaving us all exposed to the increasingly dangerous illusions of the analyst.... bureaucrats fighting the "ghosts on non-problems" like "racism" and "sexism" and "diversity".
Delete-FJ
While the 'symptoms' of the problems not only persist, but grow... and the voters, thereby more "populist" in their demands that the out-of-touch bureaucrats "change course" instead of blindly following the procedures and policies of their "legal-rational" regulatory handbook... DSM 4... DSM-5... to DSM-6.. in perpetuity.
Delete-FJ
DSM-5
DeleteIf only PsychoHistory could produce its' Seldon Plan... for the Twenty-First Century. :(
Delete-FJ
I feel proud. Today is the first time ever I may have introduced Farmer to something he didn't already know.
DeleteHeck sf, I don't know sh*t. I only have a mind that spends every waking moment trying to "connect" sometimes unrelated facts and events (ala -surrealist's paranoiac critical method) . Personally, I think of it more as a work-related "disability" for which I should be 'entitled' to compensation for. ;)
DeleteBut thanks for a new set of facts to add to my ever-expanding collection. Don't worry, Alzheimer's should set in in a few more years and I'll likely stop sharing ALL my craziness with you. ;P
...and you introduce me to new stuff ALL THE TIME. First time my *ss...
Delete-FJ
Farmer, I pray your alzheimers prediction never comes to pass.
DeleteHey, you're the one that will end up with an ear chewed off then... ;)
Delete-FJ
Always delightful. I too enjoy making connections, but I'm not nearly as good at it as you are.
DeleteJoe Biden is who he has always been: A blathering blowhard, only now, an aging one.
ReplyDeleteThe DC Establishment has failed us on so many levels.
Upvotes +++
Delete-FJ
When people carp and howl about President Trump getting elected, I like to remind them that the fact that he got elected is in indictment of our political establishment.
DeleteA President Trump would be an impossibility in a competent rational and well-functioning political establishment.
Further evidence that our political establishment is a nuthouse, reactionaries elected Joe Biden
@SF +1
DeleteI see the problem as one of increased 'Central Planning' and bureaucratic rot.
DeleteThe "Supply Chain Issues" that America and the rest of the world are experiencing remind me of the Russian GUM Department Stores of the 1960s/1970s. Back then, we used to say that the problem stemmed from a "Centrally Managed Economy". Now that we've become one (ie - The Defense Production Act being invoked to "remedy" every new shortage), we now see the problem of one of "supply chain issues". How convenient! The real problem which was so OBVIOUS before has now "faded into the shadows".
For the significance of the term "supply chain issues" I recommend you do some personal research into Salvador Allende's "Project CyberSyn"... where computers were used in an attempt to compensate for "supply chain issues" under a Communist System.
Central Economic Planning... thy name is "Washington DC".
Soon, the only place where Baby Formula and Tampons will be available with be at the Commissary and PX, because these will be the stores with a military "supply chain" infrastructure. And we all remember just edhow much we enjoy the quality and variety of goods on the shelves at the PX!
It would make a GUM Department store shopper so NOT jealous.
-FJ
A Supply chain focus can only solve incredibly obvious to everyone type problems for very narrow and pre-determined chain monitoring points. They do nothing in defining new needs or products for production...
Delete-FJ
For those, we now have have "Acxiom".
Delete-FJ
Farmer: Amen!
DeleteEqually concerning and a tweet I can't link here is the clip where immediately after his fall from his bike he spots a little girl and goes right to her and engages in conversation. Apparently forgetting he fell.
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/damonimani/status/1538311690181562368
ReplyDeleteYes it was a safe space where he wouldn't get any hard questions like, "Why'd you fall?", and where others would be less inclined to ask him such tough questions, he could always "divert" to the little girl. I think it's his handler's training has sunk in...
Delete..."Head for a safe space"!
Delete-FJ
ReplyDeleteNeither cruz or those like him have any credibility at all with anyone who has been paying attention and therefore is in touch w/reality
You mean the 'Reality' that has incorporated the jouissance of the bureaucrat's imaginary?
Delete-FJ
:P
DeleteThe one that happens to agree with your own (feminine) source of "Jouissance", and NOT ours (masculine).
Delete...of a vagina w/o a penis. ;P
Ever wonder why their "sex fantasies" differ? Didn't think so.
DeleteDifferent "realities" I suppose.
Delete@RN-USA - I'll bite. How should we react to Biden's fist-shaking announcement that his administration might recklessly overspend this year less than it recklessly overspent last year? The rational logic of cause and effect still apply - federal overspending today leads to inflation and recession tomorrow and beyond. The effects are cumulative, nothing gets wiped clean or written off at the end of each year. I am paying attention. Am I in touch with reality?
DeleteShort of actual fascism - putting guns to the heads of oil executives and telling them to produce more oil refining inputs than shareholder profits by ramping up production through the existing infrastructure and same proven oil reserves that made America a net oil exporter before Covid - how would Biden enact price controls on gasoline?
Delete...because oil companies, that all donated more campaign money to Democrats and Biden that Republicans and Trump in the last election, aren't now in the streets protesting the fact that Biden is forcing them to make more money against their will...
Delete...they're getting quite a return on their political investments.
DeleteFace it, beamish, the Democrats keep solving the problems of the 1950s and 60s with the same "remedies" they championed then. They're a one-trick pony trying to cure Covid and AIDS with Cow-pox vaccines and recapture past successes. They cured the social disease then... why not now? So every problem is seen as one of discrimination by race and/ or diversity (some new LGBTQ+ variant). Such is the Legal-Rational Nation approach. It can't innovate.
Delete-FJ
:P
DeleteThe old Republican Party (which you favor) always applied the bigger and grander "corporation" approach to problem solving. That too exceeded its' "limits" in 2016 as evidenced with Trump and the new "smaller is better" (less "global") approach messaged by Steve Bannon. :P
Delete-FJ
It's better because its' anti-fragile!
Delete-FJ
It can take a lickin' and keep on tickin'! ;P
DeleteBiden needs a Paul Volcker type and the Reagan-esque ability to run political cover for that Volcker-type cranking up interest rates to 11 and return to the rock and roll roots of consumer-driven economics. Businesses won't go to the banks for money, they'll go to customers that want stuff to get that money instead. Free market guitar solo ensues.
DeleteBiden's a plagiarist. Give him something good to copy ;)
I love that clip.
DeleteIf he does "turn it up to 11" with interest rates, will the Fed lend him the money to pay the national debt's bond interest, or will it just disappear into Fed's "perpetual debt holding machine" with the other $9t from 2008 and 2021-2 already on their books?
Yeah, the Feds "books" are the eleven...
Delete-FJ
...as inflation drops, money becomes worth more... The four ways to kill inflation are raising unemployment, raising prices, raising interest rates, and cutting government spending. Option three directly affects the least people and makes money worth more at the end of the inflationary cycle. Options one and two prolong the agony and deepen recessions and when inflation finally curbs, less people have money that is actually worth more. Option four has never been tried.
DeleteThe "lip" on the fiscal cliff that keeps the increasingly "fragile" American and world economies from going over the fiscal/ monetary cliff and "shattering" from the fall.
DeleteDeflation is WORSE than inflation, beamish. The Fed printed money to keep stock values from imploding (serve the corporate masters). Now that they've stopped...
DeleteLook at the M2 easing hikes between 2008-20.
DeleteIf inflation is a "tax on savings" (it is) then Reagan oversaw the largest tax cut the American people ever experienced. Via the magic of inspiring speeches while the behind the scenes wonks got under the hood and addressed the problem. Yeah, we can put men on the moon in the middle of throwing poor people into a war, but why? The bill always comes due.
DeleteEach QE1-4 increased the height of the fiscal cliff and baked more and more catastrophic collapse financial "risk" into the economy.
DeleteWe could afford to pay interest on the national debt under Reagan. We no longer can. The Feds hands are tied. All their current antics of "raising rates" in the future are a bluff. There will soon be a QE5/6/7 ad nauseum.
DeleteThe inflation tax on savings will be the government's way of "raising taxes" without being seen "responsible" for "raising taxes".
DeleteThe reckless Keynesian spending "will go on" and on... the iceberg's still just "over-the-horizon" and the passengers aren't looking. They're just smiling at their 401k statements.
Delete...while Trump-Biden via tariffs and the attendant increases in prices and subsidies have technically overseen the net effect of being largest tax increases Americans have ever seen.
DeleteGovernment should get out of the business of meddling in business. Fighting fire with fire leaves nothing to burn, and who wants ashes?
Did I say "increasingly worthless" 401k statements... of course not.
DeleteIt will be "suddenly worthless 401k statements"...when the Fed banka-rupta con and ponzi scheme can no longer be ignored.
DeleteHope you've got some "marketable skills" beamish. We're all gonna need them.
Delete-FJ
Gold and silver will top Bitcoin.
DeleteThe iceberg you mention (great anology) is a speed bump compared to the one China has ordered "full speed ahead" towards. We can bitch because relatively speaking, we're not in an economic philosophy rooted in fiction as the Chinese are.
DeleteWant to make a killing (pun intended)? Contract with the Chinese government to set up a mass grave digging corporation.
China has no "market". OUR market keeps them afloat.
DeleteWhen we cut them off, their carriers will steam "East".
Delete-FJ
The Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere reborn.
DeleteJapan vs. China should be an interesting rematch.
DeleteIt will be "suddenly worthless 401k statements"
DeleteNothing sudden about it. Take the amount in your 401(k) right now and go back with an inflation calculator to the year you started your 401(k) and see if you've actually made any money with the dollars you started with.
I can't as a Gen Xer because my 401(k) has been wiped to near zero five times already since 1986.
We're all going to beating JG Wentworth with tire tools because "we need cash now."
DeleteChina has no "market". OUR market keeps them afloat.
DeleteYep. If China and the US totally stopped and never traded fidget spinners for bulldozers again, the US GDP would take a 20% hit, while China's would take a 75% hit. That's BJs-on-demand level power over China that we're "too nice" to use. Hell, the rent Wal-Mart pays in China for warehouse space is 3 to 5% of their entire GDP. They don't want us to go full Slapaho Indian on them.
*Wal-Mart alone, not counting warehousing rent for Costco, Target, Big Lots, Home Depot, Lowe's, etc....
Delete...thus utterly debunking the "Chinese are good at math" nonsense.
DeleteRemember, Smart Fraction Theory (SFT) excludes half their population, by definition. Where's the Griffe de Lion when you need him...
Delete-FJ
ps - The site above may be "racist", but that doesn't mean that Griffe's original SFT theory was wrong.
Delete...but Griffe postulates a MUCH higher Jewish IQ average. Jes' sayin'....
DeleteTheir discussion is a bit more "off/ biased" than Griffe's original.
DeleteHere's a link that isn't racist-skewed and where you can find his theory in its' original unbiased form.
-FJ
:)
DeleteI wish you hadn't deleted the comment from "this poster wishes to remain anonymous" who was ranting and demanded that you stop deleting their posts. I thought the comment was hilarious and wanted to make a witty reply to it.
ReplyDeleteMy apologies, jayhawk. I have no patience for that crap. If the whiners and complainers would simply stick to the topic and perhaps even reply in a cogent manner to something someone else has said they would be welcome here.
DeleteAlthough the majority geriatric Congress wouldn't pass it, we desperately need a maximum age limit to be POTUS. I've seen obvious mental decline in Reagan, Trump and Biden, while they were in office. It's danger to the security of the Republic.
ReplyDeleteWhen Trump slid down a walkway in England, the media went WILD..."Check his cognition! The man's losing it!" remember? Biden can trip up and down stairs, fall off a bike, and "isn't he just WONDERFUL?" is what we get from the media. NONE of us could escape tripping or falling off a bike, let's face it, as none of us could have avoided throwing up like poor George Bush Sr did in Japan (I think it was?) But the REACTION to those things matters....They actually insulted Bush, as if he could help it? I say this in reaction to your cognition cartoon... ...I say STOP the notice of physical missteps and concentrate on COGNITION and let's SOMEONE finally get Biden to a doctor for all the things described in your post, AOW....he shuffles, he stops midsentence, he has to be taken from the public by press people dressed like big rabbits on Easter (remember?)....But this doctor will have to be honest and will have to feel it his duty to let Americans know what's going on. It's beyond Republican complaining when we're hearing Democrats criticizing him...and they are. Did you hear Don Lemon say he'd watched him on TV and couldn't figure out what he was SAYING? (I also believe they're building up to something since they're openly criticizing but...that's another post)
ReplyDeleteRemember Gerald Ford and <a href='https://youtu.be/RRy8Nr2EM3Q">the Chevy Chase pratfalls</a> on SNL... the Republican was mercilessly mocked.
Delete-FJ
Remember Gerald Ford and the Chevy Chase pratfalls on SNL... the Republican was mercilessly mocked.
Delete-FJ
:)
DeleteThe Trump ramp...
DeleteHeh. Bush the Elder proved sake doesn't mix well with Yum-yum sauce.
DeleteZ,
ReplyDeleteDid you hear Don Lemon say he'd watched him on TV and couldn't figure out what he was SAYING?
Really? WOWZER!
I also believe they're building up to something since they're openly criticizing
I've been thinking the same. We shall see quite soon, IMO.
It'll be between this November and January after the mid-terms when all the presidential challengers announce and begin fund-raising for 2024.... their "exploratory committee's" anxiously happy. A good place to start a new "taxable" period for FEC presidential campaign record keeping.
Delete-FJ
I agree with you AOW and Z. The sad thing is he is president but who is really running the show. My mother began with cognitive issues and now has dementia, possibly leading into Alzheimers. I do not feel sorry anymore for old Joe because I realize he knows still some of what he has done - is doing - and is allowing, but he is slipping. So I won't make fun of him, but I really do not like him. I pray God helps him and gets this country rolling better than it is this November during mid-terms. No sense looking back as we know we can only move forward. Let the liberals drown in the swamp!
DeleteThe procedure driven bureaucracy has its' calendars, after all.
DeleteIT IS RUBBISH FOR SURE
DeleteL,
DeleteSorry to read that about your mother! Dementia is tough to deal with -- no doubt about it. No good choices, really.
As for old Joe, well, I blame his wife most of all. A mate is supposed to protect her mate! Mrs. Biden is not doing so, IMO.
Addendum: in the 11.5 years that I cared for Mr. AOW post-stroke, I NEVER allowed him to get in an embarrassing situation! Part of "cherish" in my wedding vows.
DeleteAOW wrote, "As for old Joe, well, I blame his wife most of all. A mate is supposed to protect her mate! Mrs. Biden is not doing so, IMO."
DeleteYou get no disagreement from me on that. Spot on!
About Biden's screech in the first video ("changing people's lives")...Has Biden's economy, inflation changed lives? Americans weigh in: Americans in New York and Virginia share how Biden's economy has changed their lives. Granted, that is Fox News. But those comments are popping up everywhere -- including from Dems and Independents.
ReplyDeleteWarren and I are homebodies. We weren't planning a vacation this summer, anyway.
But I tell you this:
if I'd been moving 700 miles this summer, as I did last summer, my savings would have been decimated. As it was last summer -- Gas was up then, too -- it cost me around $17,000 (Atlas Van Lines, "full pack," and the U-Haul truck that Warren rented). That money came from Mr. AOW's small life insurance policy. Just imagine what the gasoline would cost now if I were moving 700 miles!
I have personal knowledge of at least two friends who want to move long distance, but cannot afford the gasoline to do so. In America! In middle-class America!
We're all just "proles" now.... the "middle class" is almost dead. :(
Delete-FJ
Good Lord what is this nation becoming? The devil is having a field day and no one is stopping it. The Republicans are not much better than Dems - give or take a handful.
DeleteIt's probably of no use or comfort to point out that the explosion of inflation that emerged from the double whammy of Baby Boomers retiring en masse and the economic shocks of ridiculous Covid shutdowns and government spending sprees under Trump would have happened anyway, maybe less, maybe a lot more if Trump had been re-elected and "had a mandate" to continue robbing Peter to pay Paul. Maybe we'd be in a shooting war with the smart and genius Russians right now. Regardless, inflation was going to happen - demographically the baton passage of unfunded mandates from Boomer to the much smaller, even less financially equipped Gen X was always going to be sloppy without the Murphy's law highlight reel of everything that could go wrong with trying to light a candle at the edge of a tornado. It's gotchas and told-ya-so's all the way down. It doesn't matter who the President and Congress is. The Ghost of Reckless Spending Past was always coming back to visit.
DeleteLook at the bright side... BLM can't afford Molotov cocktails ;)
DeleteTC,
DeleteYou left out what Biden has done to our energy sector -- including, but not limited to, the price of gasoline and diesel.
TC,
DeleteLook at the bright side... BLM can't afford Molotov cocktails ;)
But "Jane was here" can.
Elizabeth,
DeleteThe Republicans are not much better than Dems - give or take a handful.
We've had a Uniparty for decades!
FJ,
DeleteWe're all just "proles" now.... the "middle class" is almost dead. :(
Is resuscitation possible?
When the Fed Ponzi scheme collapses, we'll all be on our own again. We'll have to find our own non-corporate self-employment again, just like pre-colonial America. Maybe next time we won't allow Babel's corporate towers to reach so "high"... we'll stay small and anti-fragile. ;(
Delete-FJ
You left out what Biden has done to our energy sector -- including, but not limited to, the price of gasoline and diesel.
DeleteVirtually nothing Biden can do to raise or lower fuel prices survived contact with Congress. Something like 60% of the price of gasoline is driven by the price of a barrel of oil, which Biden doesn't control either.
US oil companies, with the equipment and infrastructure they still have in place now in the same proven oil reserves and shale fields that they are installed upon drove the price of oil below zero. They cut production to a trickle during the Covid shutdowns, and never opened the spigots back up after that.. Demand of an artificially choked supply has driving the price of oil, thus the price of fuel way up. Also not Biden.
I'm all for blaming Biden for things he could or should do instead of what he's done. How many battalions of the 82nd and 101st Airborne would it take to rifle butt every oil company executive and shareholder in the face?
Maybe next time we won't allow Babel's corporate towers to reach so "high"
DeleteIf you believe "Babylon the Great" is America in in Book of Revelation, you're on the right track. We're not at the "world will cry when we're gone" stage yet... but it's certainly coming.
Kakistocratic Dystopianism - Make America Great Always - by making the world worse
DeleteIf Democrats are so bad for the energy sector, why does the energy sector dump most of their campaign contributions on them?
DeleteThe "gig economy" is just a preview of the "economy of the future." The point will be to be your own "gig" and not pay "royalties" to some nerd "App creator" from Santa Clara.-FJ
DeleteHow many new nuclear power plants has Biden built, beamish?
DeleteHow much money spent on "fusion" research? -FJ
Deletevs. solar panels and windmills that solve NO pressing energy problem and create a further need for batteries?
DeleteAre energy sector leaders stupid, or are they paying for the campaigns for Democrats to get elected because they make more money that way?
DeleteMy former best friend from 4-7 grades, runs AES. He's the CEO. He "unfriended me" from Facebook in 2017 when Trump won because my posts embarrassed him to his other 'friends'. It's called "collecting a surplus salary", beamish. It MAKES them stupid.
Delete-FJ
btw - Andres is a smart guy. But he knows where his bread gets buttered.
DeleteHis business, American Energy Services (AES), relies heavily on World Bank financing of energy construction products. His company builds whatever they're willing to "finance". And he serves on all the Deep State Advisory Boards.
Delete-FJ
FJ,
DeleteCrony capitalism?
I'm sure that he believes he's doing nothing wrong and merely "hedging his bets". It's all "pay to play the Chicago way," and it's all completely legal. Finance is king.
Delete-FJ
From a recent World Bank energy report:
DeleteInternational Financial Flows. International public financial flows to developing countries in support of clean energy amounted to $14 billion in 2018, a 35 percent decrease from an all-time high of $21.9 billion the year before. Nevertheless, the overall trend in public financial flows has been positive over the past decade, increasing threefold during the period 2010–18 when viewed as a five-year moving average. This trend, however, masks some important distributional discrepancies, with financial commitments concentrated in a few countries and thus failing to reach many of those most in need of international support. The 46 least developed countries (LDCs) received a mere 20 percent of public financial flows over the period 2010–18 and a total of $2.8 billion in 2018—the same level as in 2017 but lower than in 2016 and 2015. International financial flows need to be further scaled up and increasingly target those countries falling furthest behind in reaching SDG 7. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has dramatically increased investors’ risk perception and shifted public funding priorities in developing countries, international public financial flows are more critical than ever to leverage the investment levels needed to reach SDG 7.
We're paying the rest of the world to invest in unsustainably stupid "green energy" solutions instead of reliable nuclear power, coal, oil, and gas fired plants.
Delete:)
Delete