Philadelphia Is Destroying Its Public Libraries

Some targeted library branches may be saved

Mayor Nutter said yesterday that five of the 11 library branches once scheduled to close permanently on Thursday are instead on track to be taken over by private foundations, wealthy individuals, companies, and community development corporations.

It was not immediately clear which branches have sponsors and the mayor did not identify the benefactors.

But Nutter expressed confidence that in time private operators could convert each of the branches now on his budget chopping block into community “knowledge centers” that would offer similar or perhaps even superior services to those now available. Though the services would vary from branch to branch, Nutter said the centers would likely retain book collections, computers, and perhaps even trained librarians.

Emphasis added by me.

This guy is certainly true to form to his surname: Nutter.

Hey, how’d you like to have to rely on, say, the Exxon-Mobil Knowledge Center for information about the oil companies?

I could go on in that vein and get really inflammatory, but fuck it, this blog dies tomorrow and I’m burned out as it is doing this.

This is the systematic destruction of the world as we have known it by the same bastards who brought us to this brink.

Are there any men left in America to stop this shit?

Chronicles Of Depression 2.0: #482: Keiser

Max Keiser: Predicting the collapse of Iceland

Aljazeera re-aired Max’s 2007 prediction of a collapse of the Icelandic economy.

While the program aired in August 2007, it was filmed in April 2007.

Watch for the scene in the Blue Lagoon in which Max predicts a global Depression to be caused when all these debts driven by low interest rates burst.

Emphasis added by me.

It wasn’t just debt — it was outright fraud. Isn’t that correct, Bernie Madoff, you bastard?

Things will get dramatically worse between now and Obama’s Inauguration.

You’ll have to find your Doom fixes elsewhere, however. I won’t be blogging after Wednesday.

Caliban’s End Is POD Available

Following up on an earlier post, after Lulu sorted out all the problems they caused him, Paul F. Stewart reports he has a satisfying POD copy of his novel, What Lies Beneath, in his hands at last.

It looks like this:

Happy ending?

No, not near.

When you use a service such as Lulu, you are at its mercy.

If Stewart wonders why he’s not getting any sales, it could be due to the fact Lulu apparently hasn’t found time to actually list it.

Look at this pathetic search result:

Click = big

Despite searching both by title and “creator” (WTF?) name, what came up was not his book. Not even close. (I’ve redacted the result because the guy in it is not the subject of this post and can damn well get his own post pimpage somewhere else!)

This is not good for any writer.

Does Lulu care? Ya think?

Quote: Filmmaker Eugene Jarecki

Why 2009 Could Eat Barack Obama Alive

Anyone who thinks that Republicans own the copyright on war or on corporate cronyism in America hasn’t read a history book.

Chronicles Of Depression 2.0: #477: Biden

Can Drudge get any more stupid than that Scrooge crack?

It links to a George Stephanopoulos blog to pimp Sunday’s This Week interview with Biden.

“The economy is in much worse shape than we thought it was in,” Biden told me during an exclusive interview — his first since becoming vice president-elect — to air this Sunday on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”

“There is no short run other than keeping the economy from absolutely tanking. That’s the only short run,” Biden told me.

Emphasis added by me.

Well, first, the economy is in worse shape than 99.999% of people realize. And in our government, that figure is even higher for widespread ignorance.

And what’s the prescription from Doctor Obama?

Biden said he has canvassed Republican and Democratic members of Congress about a second “big” and “bold” stimulus package. He said the Obama team is focused on creating jobs and spending on energy and information technology infrastructure.

“Every single person I’ve spoken to agrees with every major economist. There is going to be real significant investment, whether it’s $600 billion or more, or $700 billion, the clear notion is, it’s a number no one thought about a year ago,” he said.

Yeah, well, everyone already knows this.

What no one wants to face is that it won’t work.

Chronicles Of Depression 2.0: #476: Rules?

Into the Economic Abyss

Many people — including yours truly — have looked to events of 80 years ago to try and figure out how things might play out in future. But maybe it isn’t necessary to go back that far. There have been other economic implosions in more recent times that might offer lessons that are just as illuminating. In fact, one of my regular visitors, Jason, suggested that I check out a blog, Surviving in Argentina, published by an anonymous Argentinean, which offers up some disturbing but absorbing accounts of life in that beleaguered Latin American nation. After reading a post written a few weeks ago, entitled “Despair in Once-Proud Argentina,” it made me wonder whether we will see an equally calamitous ending here.

If this account doesn’t make you cry, please do the rest of us a favor and kill yourself. You are too deluded to face reality — or you’re one of the sociopathic pathogens infecting this nation.

A few clips:

“I can’t explain it, and maybe I never will be able to[.] [. . .] But maybe you can start to figure out why. You have to wonder: Is all this really happening? Are our politicians so corrupt? Are we now really so poor? Have the banks really stolen our money? And the answers are yes, yes, yes and yes.”

And:

“Am I proud of what we did? No, of course not. Would I do it again? Yes, of course. You start to live by different rules.“

Emphasis in the original.

With each post, I am trying to plant into your head in ways that cannot be avoided how absolutely horrific the breakdown of our advanced society can — will — be.

Because I don’t want it to happen to us!

“You can’t know what it’s like to see your children hungry and feel helpless to stop it,” she said. “The food is there, in the grocery store, but you just can’t afford to buy it anymore. My husband keeps working, but he keeps bringing home less and less. We never had much, but we always had food, no matter how bad things got. But these are not normal times.”

Emphasis added by me.

I paused while creating this post to read the comments for it. That caused me to add my own Comment, which is a fitting way to end this post:

Jesus Christ.

If I read one more whiny crybaby “Offer us solutions!!!” post, I’ll scream. OK, I’m screaming NOW.

WTF is wrong with you lot?

You’ve been given the very rare privilege here of seeing the breakdown of an advanced society into absolute horror. Some of you are thinking, unsaid, “Oh, it’s just those effing spicks, that’s how they are!” The other lot are thinking, “Hey, my gun will be my passport!”

Both of you are unfit for survival with what’s coming up.

Your “solution” — such as it will be — is YOU. What the hell do you think made this country, a pack of crybabies telling the proto-revolutionaries, “Oh, give us a solution EXCEPT overthrowing Old George”?!

Your money is shit.
Your gold is shit.
Your gun is shit.

Start there and YOU can begin to CREATE some solutions.

FA, thanks much for this post. I’m linking to it.

And so I have.

Update: For those who will stupidly dismiss this account because it’s from a “Doom site,” here’s the original source: The Washington Post!

Chronicles Of Depression 2.0: #475: Know Future

Yeah, I steal from Max Headroom for that.

Incredibly, I missed this huge news. It came out Thanksgiving Day. I was off the PC that day and I think the next few days I was not in a Post More Doom Mood.

But this is serious. It’s from CitiGroup and it confirms what I’ve written here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here.

Citigroup says gold could rise above $2,000 next year as world unravels

The bank said the damage caused by the financial excesses of the last quarter century was forcing the world’s authorities to take steps that had never been tried before.

This gamble was likely to end in one of two extreme ways: with either a resurgence of inflation; or a downward spiral into depression, civil disorder, and possibly wars. Both outcomes will cause a rush for gold.

Emphasis added by me.

This is CitiGroup saying this. Citigroup!

More:

“The world is not going back to normal after the magnitude of what they have done. When the dust settles this will either work, and the money they have pushed into the system will feed though into an inflation shock.

“Or it will not work because too much damage has already been done, and we will see continued financial deterioration, causing further economic deterioration, with the risk of a feedback loop. We don’t think this is the more likely outcome, but as each week and month passes, there is a growing danger of vicious circle as confidence erodes,” he said.

“This will lead to political instability. We are already seeing countries on the periphery of Europe under severe stress. Some leaders are now at record levels of unpopularity. There is a risk of domestic unrest, starting with strikes because people are feeling disenfranchised.”

Emphasis added by me.

Let that first sentence sink in:

The world is not going back to normal after the magnitude of what they have done.

Emphasis added by me.

What kind of world is it going to be?

A living fucking horror, is what.

And where I break with CitiGroup is over their assertion gold will be a “safe haven.”

Bullshit.

Sure, it’ll run up in terms of value against currencies — but gold is otherwise shit.

You’re starving. You have a wad of gold. The guy next to you is cooking Last Chance Stew, made out of rats he’s trapped, killed, and skinned. Your stomach has been empty for three days.

What fucking good is your precious metal?

Money and guns: Both worthless. Money is shit. And you’ll never have enough ammo. And do you really want to go to your grave having shot other people to death? It’s not like the movies!

Previously here: (gold)

Chronicles Of Depression 2.0: #419: Gold 2
Chronicles Of Depression 2.0: #409: Gold
Chronicles Of Depression 2.0: #407: $2K/oz.
Chronicles Of Depression 2.0: #248: Gold Coins

Chronicles Of Depression 2.0: #474: Cheer

Aw, in these dark times, I thought I’d post a happy, fun video that will make all of us get in the proper spirit of the times!

Watch it completely.

Enjoy.

Chronicles Of Depression 2.0: #472: P$ychopaths

‘Financial psychopaths’ wreak havoc

With everything that has happened on Wall Street over the past 18 months, you’d think we had seen just about everything right? Wrong!

Two of the most remarkable frauds in the history of finance were exposed this week. They are just beginning to unravel and as such we don’t fully understand the magnitude of the crimes. But already I can tell you they are of epic, even cinematic, proportions. This is really from the “can’t make this stuff up” school of news. These two miscreants aren’t just every day corner-cutters, they are world-class whack.

Emphasis added by me.

Go to the article for the gruesome details.

Why did it take everyone so long to wake up the fact that people who want to swing around multi-billion-dollar dicks are not normal, are not sane, are creatures who should be locked out of the financial system?

A normal person comes into a windfall and it’s often more than enough. Someone who, for example. is a big lottery winner often doesn’t go around trying to pump up the volume on that. They know when they’ve been lucky, they know the value of money, they know themselves, and they’ve had a grounding in reality and in real, everyday life.

These people who pocket four-hundred million dollar bonuses from a Board of Directors they appoint — this is not normal greed. This is Ultra Avarice. This is Fuck You Sociopathology.

Previously here:

Ayn Rand: Discredited By Greenspan
Chronicles Of Depression 2.0: #351: Sociopaths
Chronicles Of Depression 2.0: #255: Jackals
Chronicles Of Depression 2.0: #238: Lottery
Chronicles Of Depression 2.0: #174
Chronicles Of Depression 2.0: #011

Bank Collapse Watch: ALL OF THEM! AGAIN!

Jim Rogers calls most big U.S. banks “bankrupt”

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Jim Rogers, one of the world’s most prominent international investors, on Thursday called most of the largest U.S. banks “totally bankrupt,” and said government efforts to fix the sector are wrongheaded.

Speaking by teleconference at the Reuters Investment Outlook 2009 Summit, the co-founder with George Soros of the Quantum Fund, said the government’s $700 billion rescue package for the sector doesn’t address how banks manage their balance sheets, and instead rewards weaker lenders with new capital.

Dozens of banks have won infusions from the Troubled Asset Relief Program created in early October, just after the Sept 15 bankruptcy filing by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. Some of the funds are being used for acquisitions.

“Without giving specific names, most of the significant American banks, the larger banks, are bankrupt, totally bankrupt,” said Rogers, who is now a private investor.

Emphasis added by me.

Why does this surprise anybody?

More:

“What is outrageous economically and is outrageous morally is that normally in times like this, people who are competent and who saw it coming and who kept their powder dry go and take over the assets from the incompetent,” he said. “What’s happening this time is that the government is taking the assets from the competent people and giving them to the incompetent people and saying, now you can compete with the competent people. It is horrible economics.”

Emphasis added by me.

Welcome to Too Big to Fail 101. And now with all the forced mergers, we have Even Too Bigger to Fail!

Another stat:

Goldman Sachs & Co analysts this week estimated that banks worldwide have suffered $850 billion of credit-related losses and writedowns since the global credit crisis began last year.

Emphasis added by me.

That’s not even one-percent of the quadrillion lurking out there.

Some frank talk, finally:

“Governments are making mistakes,” he said. “They’re saying to all the banks, you don’t have to tell us your situation. You can continue to use your balance sheet that is phony…. All these guys are bankrupt, they’re still worrying about their bonuses, they’re still trying to pay their dividends, and the whole system is weakened.“

Emphasis added by me.

Yep, gotta keep those bonuses flowing. No matter how fucked-up a job they’ve done and continue to do and plan to do in the future.

American taxpayer, drop your pants and bend over!

Previously here:

Bank Collapse Watch: ALL OF THEM!