I mean, really, how bad will it get for the average man or woman on the street?

[lektrode]

Re: I mean, really, how bad will it get for the average man or woman on the street?

...mentions that China and India are no longer threats since their populations will be rendered infertile by Bioengineered grains that will modify those populations genomes' into manageable numbers.

and there we have it folks!

The Ultimate Conspiracy Theory has just been launched.....

[BillBoard]

Re: I mean, really, how bad will it get for the average man or woman on the street?

and there we have it folks!

The Ultimate Conspiracy Theory has just been launched.....

lol, yes you are right.

more?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Kn8y...embedded#at=23

**********


Forensic Evidence Emerges that European E. coli Superbug was Bioengineered to Produce Human Fatalities
by Mike Adams, Editor
Natural News
June 6, 2011

Even as the veggie blame game is now under way across the EU, where a super resistant strain of E. coli is sickening patients and filling hospitals in Germany, virtually no one is talking about how E. coli could have magically become resistant to eight different classes of antibiotic drugs and then suddenly appeared in the food supply.

This particular E. coli variation is a member of the O104 strain, and O104 strains are almost never (normally) resistant to antibiotics. In order for them to acquire this resistance, they must be repeatedly exposed to antibiotics in order to provide the "mutation pressure" that nudges them toward complete drug immunity.

So if you're curious about the origins of such a strain, you can essentially reverse engineer the genetic code of the E. coli and determine fairly accurately which antibiotics it was exposed to during its development. This step has now been done (see below), and when you look at the genetic decoding of this O104 strain now threatening food consumers across the EU, a fascinating picture emerges of how it must have come into existence.

The genetic code reveals the history

When scientists at Germany's Robert Koch Institute decoded the genetic makeup of the O104 strain, they found it to be resistant to all the following classes and combinations of antibiotics:

• penicillins
• tetracycline
• nalidixic acid
• trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazol
• cephalosporins
• amoxicillin / clavulanic acid
• piperacillin-sulbactam
• piperacillin-tazobactam

In addition, this O104 strain posses an ability to produce special enzymes that give it what might be called "bacteria superpowers" known technically as ESBLs:

"Extended-Spectrum Beta-Lactamases (ESBLs) are enzymes that can be produced by bacteria making them resistant to cephalosporins e.g. cefuroxime, cefotaxime and ceftazidime - which are the most widely used antibiotics in many hospitals," explains the Health Protection Agency in the UK (http://www.hpa.org.uk/Topics/Infect...).

On top of that, this O104 strain possesses two genes -- TEM-1 and CTX-M-15 -- that "have been making doctors shudder since the 1990s," reports The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentis...). And why do they make doctors shudder? Because they're so deadly that many people infected with such bacteria experience critical organ failure and simply die.

Bioengineering a deadly superbug

So how, exactly, does a bacterial strain come into existence that's resistant to over a dozen antibiotics in eight different drug classes and features two deadly gene mutations plus ESBL enzyme capabilities?

There's really only one way this happens (and only one way) -- you have to expose this strain of e.coli to all eight classes of antibiotics drugs. Usually this isn't done at the same time, of course: You first expose it to penicillin and find the surviving colonies which are resistant to penicillin. You then take those surviving colonies and expose them to tetracycline. The surviving colonies are now resistant to both penicillin and tetracycline. You then expose them to a sulfa drug and collect the surviving colonies from that, and so on. It is a process of genetic selection done in a laboratory with a desired outcome. This is essentially how some bioweapons are engineered by the U.S. Army in its laboratory facility in Ft. Detrick, Maryland.

Although the actual process is more complicated than this, the upshot is that creating a strain of e.coli that's resistant to eight classes of antibiotics requires repeated, sustained expose to those antibiotics. It is virtually impossible to imagine how this could happen all by itself in the natural world. For example, if this bacteria originated in the food (as we've been told), then where did it acquire all this antibiotic resistance given the fact that antibiotics are not used in vegetables?

When considering the genetic evidence that now confronts us, it is difficult to imagine how this could happen "in the wild." While resistance to a single antibiotic is common, the creation of a strain of e.coli that's resistant to eight different classes of antibiotics -- in combination -- simply defies the laws of genetic permutation and combination in the wild. Simply put, this superbug e.coli strain could not have been created in the wild. And that leaves only one explanation for where it really came from: the lab.

Engineered and then released into the wild

The evidence now points to this deadly strain of E. coli being engineered and then either being released into the food supply or somehow escaping from a lab and entering the food supply inadvertently. If you disagree with that conclusion -- and you're certainly welcome to -- then you are forced to conclude that this octobiotic superbug (immune to eight classes of antibiotics) developed randomly on its own... and that conclusion is far scarier than the "bioengineered" explanation because it means octobiotic superbugs can simply appear anywhere at any time without cause. That would be quite an exotic theory indeed.

My conclusion actually makes more sense: This strain of e.coli was almost certainly engineered and then released into the food supply for a specific purpose. What would that purpose be? It's obvious, I hope.

It's all problem, reaction, solution at work here. First cause a PROBLEM (a deadly strain of e.coli in the food supply). Then wait for the public REACTION (huge outcry as the population is terrorized by e.coli). In response to that, enact your desired SOLUTION (total control over the global food supply and the outlawing of raw sprouts, raw milk and raw vegetables).

That's what this is all about, of course. The FDA relied on the same phenomenon in the USA when pushing for its recent "Food Safety Modernization Act" which essentially outlaws small family organic farms unless they lick the boots of FDA regulators. The FDA was able to crush farm freedom in America by piggybacking on the widespread fear that followed e.coli outbreaks in the U.S. food supply. When people are afraid, remember, it's not difficult to get them to agree to almost any level of regulatory tyranny. And making people afraid of their food is a simple matter... a few government press releases emailed to the mainstream media news affiliates is all it takes.

First ban the natural medicine, then attack the food supply

Now, remember: All this is happening on the heels of the EU ban on medicinal herbs and nutritional supplements -- a ban that blatantly outlaws nutritional therapies that help keep people healthy and free from disease. Now that all these herbs and supplements are outlawed, the next step is to make people afraid of fresh food, too. That's because fresh vegetables are medicinal, and as long as the public has the right to buy fresh vegetables, they can always prevent disease.

But if you can make people AFRAID of fresh vegetables -- or even outlaw them altogether -- then you can force the entire population onto a diet of dead foods and processed foods that promote degenerative disease and bolster the profits of the powerful drug companies.

It's all part of the same agenda, you see: Keep people sick, deny them access to healing herbs and supplements, then profit from their suffering at the hands of the global drug cartels.

GMOs play a similar role in all this, of course: They're designed to contaminate the food supply with genetic code that causes widespread infertility among human beings. And those who are somehow able to reproduce after exposure to GMOs still suffer from degenerative disease that enriches the drug companies from "treatment."

Do you recall which country was targeted in this recent e.coli scare? Spain. Why Spain? You may recall that leaked cables from Wikileaks revealed that Spain resisted the introduction of GMOs into its agricultural system, even as the U.S. government covertly threatened political retaliation for its resistance. This false blaming of Spain for the e.coli deaths is probably retaliation for Spain's unwillingness to jump on the GMO bandwagon.

That's the real story behind the economic devastation of Spain's vegetable farmers. It's one of the subplots being pursued alongside this E. coli superbug scheme.

Food as weapons of war - created by Big Pharma?

By the way, the most likely explanation of where this strain of E. coli was bioengineered is that the drug giants came up with it in their own labs. Who else has access to all the antibiotics and equipment needed to manage the targeted mutations of potentially thousands of e.coli colonies? The drug companies are uniquely positioned to both carry out this plot and profit from it. In other words, they have the means and the motive to engage in precisely such actions.

Aside from the drug companies, perhaps only the infectious disease regulators themselves have this kind of laboratory capacity. The CDC, for example, could probably pull this off if they really wanted to.

The proof that somebody bioengineered this E. coli strain is written right in the DNA of the bacteria. That's forensic evidence, and what it reveals cannot be denied. This strain underwent repeated and prolonged exposure to eight different classes of antibiotics, and then it somehow managed to appear in the food supply. How do you get to that if not through a well-planned scheme carried out by rogue scientists? There is no such thing as "spontaneous mutation" into a strain that is resistant to the top eight classes of brand-name antibiotic drugs being sold by Big Pharma today. Such mutations have to be deliberate.

Once again, if you disagree with this assessment, then what you're saying is that NO, it wasn't done deliberately...it happened accidentally! And again, I'm saying that's even scarier! Because that means the antibiotic contamination of our world is now at such an extreme level of overkill that a strain of E. coli in the wild can be saturated with eight different classes of antibiotics to the point where it naturally develops into its own deadly superbug. If that's what people believe, then that's almost a scarier theory than the bioengineering explanation!

A new era has begun: Bioweapons in your food

But in either case -- no matter what you believe -- the simple truth is that the world is now facing a new era of global superbug strains of bacteria that can't be treated with any known pharmaceutical. They can all, of course, be readily killed with colloidal silver, which is exactly why the FDA and world health regulators have viciously attacked colloidal silver companies all these years: They can't have the public getting its hands on natural antibiotics that really work, you see. That would defeat the whole purpose of making everybody sick in the first place.

In fact, these strains of E. coli superbugs can be quite readily treated with a combination of natural full-spectrum antibiotics from plants such as garlic, ginger, onions and medicinal herbs. On top of that, probiotics can help balance the flora of the digestive tract and "crowd out" the deadly E. coli that might happen by. A healthy immune system and well-functioning digestive tract can fight off an e.coli superbug infection, but that's yet another fact the medical community doesn't want you to know. They much prefer you to remain a helpless victim lying in the hospital, waiting to die, with no options available to you. That's "modern medicine" for ya. They cause the problems that they claim to treat, and then they won't even treat you with anything that works in the first place.

Nearly all the deaths now attributable to this E. coli outbreak are easily and readily avoidable. These are deaths of ignorance. But even more, they may also be deaths from a new era of food-based bioweapons unleashed by either a group of mad scientists or an agenda-driven institution that has declared war on the human population.

Additional developments on this E. coli outbreak

• 22 fatalities have so far been reported, with 2,153 people now sickened and possibly facing kidney failure.

• An agricultural ministry in Germany said that even though they now know the source of the outbreak is a German sprout farm, they are still not lifting their warnings for people to avoid eating tomatoes and lettuce. In other words, keep the people afraid!

• "The German variant of E coli, known as O104, is a hybrid of the strains that can cause bloody diarrhea and kidney damage called 'hemolytic uremic syndrome'."

• A total of ten European nations have reported outbreaks of this E. coli strain, mostly from people who had visited northern Germany.

• The following story is in German, and it hints that the e.coli outbreak might have been a terrorist attack (www.aerztezeitung.de/medizin...). Yeah, a terrorist attack by the drug companies upon innocent people, as usual…

www.naturalnews.com/032622_ecoli_bioengineering.html#ixzz1OXpUxGqW

===

Uploaded by chemicalovercast
Jun 2, 2011

Currently, there are four recognized classes of enterovirulent E. coli (collectively referred to as the EEC group) that cause gastroenteritis in humans. Among these is the enterohemorrhagic (EHEC) strain designated E. coli O157:H7. The bacteria Escherichia coli was first isolated by German bacteriologist Theodor Escherich. The bacterium colonizes in the human bowel. While cattle are the main reservoirs of E. coli, sheep, deer, dogs, birds, chickens, and pigs also carry the bacteria. The bacteria can survive in fecal matter for long periods. Researchers find E. coli bacteria, one of the most studied of bacteria, to be useful in genetic engineering and production of insulin.

The first outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 in the United States was in 1982 when 47 victims were stricken by the bacteria in Oregon and Michigan experienced severe cramps and diarrhea after consumption of contaminated beef patties. The 0157:H7 bacteria attacks epithelial cells of the intestine, destroyed blood vessels, and induce hemorrhaging. To determine whether 0157:H7 was a new infectious agent, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) examined E. coli cases from 1973 to 1983. Only one case 0157:H7 was discovered, which suggested that the bacteria was a new strain of E. coli. In 2001, it was reported that the 0157:H7 genome contains 5416 genes, of which 1,387 genes are not in less harmful strains of E. coli.

The largest outbreak in the United States occurred in 1993 when over 90 Jack in the Box restaurants over four states served undercooked hamburgers with E. coli 0157:H7. As a result, more than 700 became ill with over 50 cases of HUS (hemolytic uremic syndrome), a complication of E. coli infection that leads to the destruction of red blood cells and kidney failure. Two of the victims died. 10-year old Brianne Kiner, the most severe non-fatal case, spent 40 days in a coma and 189 days in the hospital where she survived three strokes, thousands of seizures and the massive organ failures.

In 1994, several cases occurred in summer camps where meat was improperly cooked in campfires. E. coli 0157:H7 bacterial agent thrives in undercooked hamburger, cheese curds, salami, unpasteurized milk, and unpasteurized apple cider. In 1995, the DCD started PulseNet, a series of connected public health labs across the country that used pulsed-field gel electrophoresis 'fingerprinting' to monitor foodborne E. coli bacteria.

Between December 1989 and January 1990 in the small southern Missouri town of Cabool, contaminated water resulted in 243 cases of E. coli 0157:H7 with 4 deaths. Canada's largest outbreak was in 1998 in Walkerton where half the town's population- 2,000 people- became infected with E. coli 0157:H7 bacteria, 90 were hospitalized, and 11 died. In 1998, an outbreak happened in an Atlanta, Georgia water park. Low chlorine levels and possible fecal contamination caused the outbreak. 27 children became sick, 6 hospitalized, and one 2-year old girl named McCall Akin died. In 1999, at New York's Washington County Fair, unchlorinated well water was served in drinks and ice, which resulted in over 900 cases of diarrhea, 65 hospitalizations and 2 deaths.

While the malleability of E. coli's genetic material renders it a valuable bacterium for genetic researchers, this malleability also makes E. coli a potentially deadly biological weapons agent. In the late 1980s, US scientists inserted into harmless E. coli bacteria the gene that produced lethal protein in anthrax. In E. coli, the gene was active and produced the same deadly proteins as anthrax. The Iraqi biological weapons program demonstrated interest in the possibilities of altered E. coli bacteria as a biological agent, and it was reported shipments of E. coli was shipped to Iraq from the United States.
******

[gnk]

Re: I mean, really, how bad will it get for the average man or woman on the street?

I agree that collapse is a colloquialism - and a rather overused one at that.

I would define "collapse" more broadly than c1ue does. It's not necessarily a reversion to stone age - though many people living in tent cities may be darn close to that.

Rather, I see "collapse" as the end of an existing way of life. It's a collapse of the world we knew and a collapse of the ideas (better life for my children, work hard and success is guaranteed, etc...) that bound a society together. Such an end is not necessarily abrupt (event v. process) but is more of a decomplexification or simplification of an existing civilization. A reversion to a prior point. Thus, it is a collapse of an existing system. That's not to say that no system will replace it, one will. And the speed of "collapse" during this long process can vary.

We will de-globalize to a degree, consumption patterns will change, crime will rise, political instability will rise, poverty will (has?) skyrocketed, resource wars will intensify. Again, that, to me, is a collapse.

Human systems rarely are static. They are dynamic. Either they progress in complexity, or revert to simplicity. A reversion to simplicity is a dangerous process for a civilization to go through. Benefits once taken for granted (weekend drives, retirement, cheap food, etc...) decrease even though the societal costs (energy, crime prevention, etc...) stay the same or even increase. For example, during boom times when wealth is broadly shared, crime may go down, so a society's security costs may be low. But if the wealth pie shrinks, crime spikes, and the cost of security rises.

Look at the amount of riots and protests going on right now in the Western world. I don't discern the causes of the riots - whether they be in London or Athens, or recently in inner cities of the US (gang wars). To me, they are all indicative of a world falling apart. They are all different symptoms of the same disease. Wealth is disappearing.

[BillBoard]

Re: I mean, really, how bad will it get for the average man or woman on the street?

I agree that collapse is a colloquialism - and a rather overused one at that.

I would define "collapse" more broadly than c1ue does. It's not necessarily a reversion to stone age - though many people living in tent cities may be darn close to that.

Rather, I see "collapse" as the end of an existing way of life. It's a collapse of the world we knew and a collapse of the ideas (better life for my children, work hard and success is guaranteed, etc...) that bound a society together. Such an end is not necessarily abrupt (event v. process) but is more of a decomplexification or simplification of an existing civilization. A reversion to a prior point. Thus, it is a collapse of an existing system. That's not to say that no system will replace it, one will. And the speed of "collapse" during this long process can vary.

We will de-globalize to a degree, consumption patterns will change, crime will rise, political instability will rise, poverty will (has?) skyrocketed, resource wars will intensify. Again, that, to me, is a collapse.

Human systems rarely are static. They are dynamic. Either they progress in complexity, or revert to simplicity. A reversion to simplicity is a dangerous process for a civilization to go through. Benefits once taken for granted (weekend drives, retirement, cheap food, etc...) decrease even though the societal costs (energy, crime prevention, etc...) stay the same or even increase. For example, during boom times when wealth is broadly shared, crime may go down, so a society's security costs may be low. But if the wealth pie shrinks, crime spikes, and the cost of security rises.

Look at the amount of riots and protests going on right now in the Western world. I don't discern the causes of the riots - whether they be in London or Athens, or recently in inner cities of the US (gang wars). To me, they are all indicative of a world falling apart. They are all different symptoms of the same disease. Wealth is disappearing.

Your way of thinking is primitive and obsolete. See this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FM8W...eature=related

[gnk]

Re: I mean, really, how bad will it get for the average man or woman on the street?

Your way of thinking is primitive and obsolete. See this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FM8W...eature=related

Not once was energy mentioned in that presentation.

And humans becoming immortal? OK, try feeding that kind of population.

Mankind was always genius. It was when mankind stumbled upon essentially energy dense, free fossil fuels that mankind's genius became evident in a big way. If petroleum never existed in the earth's crust, life today, would be very different.

Cornucopians overly focus on mankind's genius and overlook the limits of resources and population growth. JMHO.

[BillBoard]

Re: I mean, really, how bad will it get for the average man or woman on the street?

Not once was energy mentioned in that presentation.

And humans becoming immortal? OK, try feeding that kind of population.

Mankind was always genius. It was when mankind stumbled upon essentially energy dense, free fossil fuels that mankind's genius became evident in a big way. If petroleum never existed in the earth's crust, life today, would be very different.

Cornucopians overly focus on mankind's genius and overlook the limits of resources and population growth. JMHO.

Seriously? Do I need to spell it out for you?

This isn't about giving immortality to Billions. And regarding Peak Oil, it is only peak if demand outstrips supply, reduce demand and problem is solved. Watch the rest of it.

[Dave Stratman]

Re: I mean, really, how bad will it get for the average man or woman on the street?

The notion that the global economy is collapsing is nonsense.

The notion even that the US economy will collapse - as in Rome sacked by barbarians - is equally nonsense.

The notion that the average American is going to lose 30% of his purchasing power - that is very possible. And what generally comes with such changes: tyranny.

I agree with these comments, yet I think they are missing something important. We are not experiencing an economic collapse. We are undergoing a controlled demolition.

What are examples of the demolition? The outsourcing of our industrial base; the privatization of public wealth--privatized schools, prisons, hospitals, contract soldiers (mercenaries), parking meters (in Chicago), attempts to privatize Social Security--and the Mother of All Privatizations, the bank bailout.

What's the evidence that the demolition is controlled? Just look at how the banksters responsible for the supposed near-destruction of the financial structure of the U.S. (and world?) continue to be rewarded for their good work and are still in power.

There has been argument on these pages of just how much they looted--$4.5 trillion? $14.5? Neil Barofsky, Special Inspector General of the Troubled Asset Relief Program put the figure at $23.7 trillion--but there is no question that the amounts are unprecedented and that the lingering aura of financial crisis is being used to benefit the institutions and the class of people responsible for the crisis.

As John Hussman pointed out, the FDIC by law should have used the banks' shareolders' and bondholders' capital to restore their balance sheets, sell off their good debt, and replace their management--at no cost to taxpayers and to society. Instead the government chose to protect the bondholders. We are now reaping the whirlwind that the bankers and government have sown.

How bad are things likely to get? How far will the powerful go in their demolition? One can only speculate, of course, but the extreme scare tactics of the past two weeks--the debt limit charade and the S&P downgrade--suggest that they intend to go very far indeed. Look for the bankruptcies of a number of states, accompanied by the massive sell-off of public assets in those states to private hands, a la grecque, and the use by the powerful of these artificial crises to accomplish other long-term goals in the class war: abolishing public employees unions, confiscating pension funds, stripping away remaining public services such as unemployment insurance, privatizing public education more completely and perhaps other goods (highways) and services (police and fire, etc.), privatizing Social Security, etc.

This controlled demolition will continue to be--as it has been in the several years it has been underway--a strategy of the ruling class in the class war. Its goal is not mainly the transfer of wealth from the many to the few. It's main goal here and in Europe is total social control and, as one writer has called it (Matt Stoller, http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/...r-revival.html), "the liquidation of society." This doesn't mean, of course, that society will not continue to exist. It means--at least, those in power hope it will mean--a more complete atomization of life, with social bonds of support and solidarity among human beings cut asunder, and with the very idea of a common good wiped out or driven underground.

There is no reason to assume that the ruling elite will succeed in their drive for total control. Millions, perhaps billions of people around the world, have come to see that capitalism does not offer a promising or livable future and that the system must be destroyed if we are to live. The source of social stability in the past, at least in the U.S. has always been the hope that, while life may be difficult for me now, at least it will be better for my children or grandchildren. I suspect that few people still harbor that illusion, in part, ironically, because the ruling class itself has worked for 40 years to lower people's expectations of what their lives should be like, and in part because people have learned by experience and insight what the future is likely to hold if we keep to the present course.

While it seems to be at its most powerful, the capitalist system is in fact at its most vulnerable. It is time that we undertake a serious movement to overthrow this dictatorship by the rich and create a real democracy.

[Starving Steve]

Re: I mean, really, how bad will it get for the average man or woman on the street?

There is so much oil under the ocean floor of the Gulf of Mexico, that it is mind-boggling. Also, the North American continent, and probably other continents, are floating on natural gas reserves. We have tar sands in Alberta that will last for a century or more--- probably much more. We have rivers that are flowing into the sea, un-dammed, that could be used to generate hydro-electric power. Two such rivers are the Eel River in California and the Fraser River in British Columbia. And there are many more such rivers. Also, atomic energy is being all but ignored, and atomic energy could be the primary energy source for the future.

The technological know-how has been in place to synthetically produce oil from coal; this was done by the Germans in WWII. Why is the world not doing this now because coal is abundant on this planet?

There is oil leaking onto the beaches of southern California from the vast un-developed oil reserve offshore of Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. Why are we not developing that oil now? There is oil under Kern County in southern California, and that oil could now be pumped with side-a-ways drilling and fracking technology. There is un-tapped oil under the Arctic Ocean. There is oil still un-tapped off of Newfoundland. There may be oil offshore of the east coast of the U.S. There is oil, for sure, beneath the sea-floor of the Southern Ocean, all but un-tapped.... So, I don't even want to hear that oil is scarce; it is only that we have lost the will to do what is necessary to develop oil reserves, worldwide.

Most of the world is salt-water, and that salt-water could be easily filtered and pumped upward to cities. Incredibly, this source of endless future fresh-water is all but ignored. Israel and Saudi-Arabia are now two nations that are filtering and pumping sea-water, but most all of the other nations of the world are not. The Persian Gulf states are now filtering sea-water and pumping it. Mexico is beginning to de-salinate and pump sea-water. But that is about it.

Granted, the human population of the world can not multiply forever; there are natural limits to growth. But this preservationist movement is way off-base in their thinking that mankind now has to depend upon so-called, "technological convergence" to survive in future on this planet. In fact, the entire thinking of the preservationist movement to-day is repugnant; it's anti-people, elitist, impractical, unaffordable, anti-development, and downright un-American.

Finally, there are feed-back effects from development that raise our standard of living. These feed-back effects solve some of the environmental problems of development.... One of those feed-back effects would be that birth rates drop as standards of living in the undeveloped world rise. Another feed-back effect from development would be the discovery of new resources to develop..... So, the entire thinking of the preservationist movement is way off-base; development and progress does not have to stop, nor should it stop on this planet.

As far as "technological convergence" is concerned, any benefits from such would be a bonus for mankind. But the future should not depend upon miracles ahead with technological convergence. Planning for the future should not focus on technological convergence.

[globaleconomicollaps]

Re: I mean, really, how bad will it get for the average man or woman on the street?

Those who just want the simple things out of life are going to be fine. We may even be more satisfied than in the past.

I just want to draw your attention to Bruce Krasting who writes today that if you are depending on social security for "the simple things" you may be SOL:
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed...E2%80%99s-well

I read the other day that most of the so called "Rich" are dependent on social security for a large fraction of their retirement income.

[LazyBoy]

Re: I mean, really, how bad will it get for the average man or woman on the street?

Finally, the entire structure of the American government is designed to not function; i.e, the entire structure is designed to go into grid-lock. While grid-lock may have been acceptable in the late 18th C, it is totally unacceptable to-day if government is to function at all.

It's supposed to be hard to pass laws. Otherwise we'd have many, many more laws and "Ignorance of the law is no escuse."

[cpnscarlet]

Re: I mean, really, how bad will it get for the average man or woman on the street?

I read your remarks about the state level of government in the U.S, who holds power within states, the obsolete geography of state lines and state capitols with great interest. Thank you.

Please also note that within the U.S. Senate at the federal level of government, a state like South Dakota holds equal representation to a state like California.
.

The way the Founders saw the relationship between the states and the federal govt was just about damn near perfect. We simply have abdicated their wonderful guidance and plan. The Senate is needed to represent the interests of the states while the House represents the interests of the people. They saw the danger of a state like Wyoming being legislated into being a borough of New York City.

And dittos to others who see that this "archaic" form of government is actually supposed to be an inefficient way of wielding power and passing laws so that the liberty of the people is protected.

But like I said, we allowed our law makers and courts to ignore the Constitution, so things are broken. But they certainly don't need to be changed, only restored.

[shiny!]

Re: I mean, really, how bad will it get for the average man or woman on the street?

I agree with these comments, yet I think they are missing something important. We are not experiencing an economic collapse. We are undergoing a controlled demolition.

What are examples of the demolition? The outsourcing of our industrial base; the privatization of public wealth--privatized schools, prisons, hospitals, contract soldiers (mercenaries), parking meters (in Chicago), attempts to privatize Social Security--and the Mother of All Privatizations, the bank bailout.

What's the evidence that the demolition is controlled? Just look at how the banksters responsible for the supposed near-destruction of the financial structure of the U.S. (and world?) continue to be rewarded for their good work and are still in power.

There has been argument on these pages of just how much they looted--$4.5 trillion? $14.5? Neil Barofsky, Special Inspector General of the Troubled Asset Relief Program put the figure at $23.7 trillion--but there is no question that the amounts are unprecedented and that the lingering aura of financial crisis is being used to benefit the institutions and the class of people responsible for the crisis.

As John Hussman pointed out, the FDIC by law should have used the banks' shareolders' and bondholders' capital to restore their balance sheets, sell off their good debt, and replace their management--at no cost to taxpayers and to society. Instead the government chose to protect the bondholders. We are now reaping the whirlwind that the bankers and government have sown.

How bad are things likely to get? How far will the powerful go in their demolition? One can only speculate, of course, but the extreme scare tactics of the past two weeks--the debt limit charade and the S&P downgrade--suggest that they intend to go very far indeed. Look for the bankruptcies of a number of states, accompanied by the massive sell-off of public assets in those states to private hands, a la grecque, and the use by the powerful of these artificial crises to accomplish other long-term goals in the class war: abolishing public employees unions, confiscating pension funds, stripping away remaining public services such as unemployment insurance, privatizing public education more completely and perhaps other goods (highways) and services (police and fire, etc.), privatizing Social Security, etc.

This controlled demolition will continue to be--as it has been in the several years it has been underway--a strategy of the ruling class in the class war. Its goal is not mainly the transfer of wealth from the many to the few. It's main goal here and in Europe is total social control and, as one writer has called it (Matt Stoller, http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/...r-revival.html), "the liquidation of society." This doesn't mean, of course, that society will not continue to exist. It means--at least, those in power hope it will mean--a more complete atomization of life, with social bonds of support and solidarity among human beings cut asunder, and with the very idea of a common good wiped out or driven underground.

There is no reason to assume that the ruling elite will succeed in their drive for total control. Millions, perhaps billions of people around the world, have come to see that capitalism does not offer a promising or livable future and that the system must be destroyed if we are to live. The source of social stability in the past, at least in the U.S. has always been the hope that, while life may be difficult for me now, at least it will be better for my children or grandchildren. I suspect that few people still harbor that illusion, in part, ironically, because the ruling class itself has worked for 40 years to lower people's expectations of what their lives should be like, and in part because people have learned by experience and insight what the future is likely to hold if we keep to the present course.

While it seems to be at its most powerful, the capitalist system is in fact at its most vulnerable. It is time that we undertake a serious movement to overthrow this dictatorship by the rich and create a real democracy.

Thank you for this, Dave. As usual, your interconnected "Big Picture" perspective makes a lot of sense. It also raises some questions:

1. If what you say is true, that there is a small power elite absolutely determined to control society, what are the odds that "they" will allow "us" to retain any personal wealth in their new world?

2. If we do end up with some kind of gold-based currency, how likely is it that "they" will allow the rest of us to own gold? Door-to-door confiscation is not practical unless there are forced relocations, but they could raise taxes on its sale to astronomical levels, or make it illegal to sell except to the banks or the government. What is your outlook on this?

3. What about the safety of our paper investment portfolios?

4. How good can a new democracy be when most people are ignorant, self-centered and apathetic? There's a reason why the Framers of the Constitution wanted a Republic (rule of Law) and not a Democracy (rule of people).

I guess what I'm asking is, where are you on the Doomer scale?

[c1ue]

Re: I mean, really, how bad will it get for the average man or woman on the street?

We are not experiencing an economic collapse. We are undergoing a controlled demolition.

I guess it all depends on your POV.

From my POV, the state we are in is a logical extension from policies and attitudes starting decades ago.

The downward spiral exists primarily due to the political apathy/stupidity of the American people.

As times get worse, that will change.

In the meantime, the oligarchs and scoundrels will continue with what has always worked for them.

[gnk]

Re: I mean, really, how bad will it get for the average man or woman on the street?

Seriously? Do I need to spell it out for you?

This isn't about giving immortality to Billions. And regarding Peak Oil, it is only peak if demand outstrips supply, reduce demand and problem is solved. Watch the rest of it.

And pray tell, whose demand gets cut? China's? Saudi Arabia's domestic demand? The US' demand? Do 1 billion Chinese never get to drive a 1000cc car because Americans have a love affair with 3000+ cc SUVs?

Who decides? Why?

Think it thru... no one stops using oil voluntarily, globally. That's when war decides who gets it and who doesn't. Always has.

IMO, it's too early to confine global wars to the history books. War is the ultimate conflict resolution when all other options are exhausted.

[Starving Steve]

Re: I mean, really, how bad will it get for the average man or woman on the street?

And pray tell, whose demand gets cut? China's? Saudi Arabia's domestic demand? The US' demand? Do 1 billion Chinese never get to drive a 1000cc car because Americans have a love affair with 3000+ cc SUVs?

Who decides? Why?

Think it thru... no one stops using oil voluntarily, globally. That's when war decides who gets it and who doesn't. Always has.

IMO, it's too early to confine global wars to the history books. War is the ultimate conflict resolution when all other options are exhausted.

If we INCREASE the supply of everything on Earth, there need not be wars over so-called, "scarce resources".

This entire way of thinking of preservationists is a mental illness. When I worked in planning departments in the City of Winnipeg and the City of Regina, I worked to bust-open the vast supply of vacant land around these cities to subdivision development. In doing that in Regina and in just proposing that in Winnipeg, I was considered a radical and a nut.

Can you imagine in Canada where vacant land is everywhere, there are preservationists who are against urban development and urban sprawl? The preservationists, including the city planners, argue that farmland is scarce. Imagine, in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, idiots in government arguing that farmland is scarce! In British Columbia, the preservationists not only argue that farmland is scarce, they argue that salmon habitat is scarce, bird habitat is scarce, water is scarce, etc.

Imagine, in my own village in East Sooke, these preservationist morons argued that there was a shortage of fresh-water. In a rain-forest, a shortage of fresh-water, and people believed it! Not only that, they killed a housing development along Gilespe Road in East Sooke on the basis of their idiotic belief in "a shortage of fresh-water"!