TOXIC CONNECTIONS and the ANTIDOTE

TOXIC CONNECTIONS

Trust your instincts. 

The fact that some people are easier to avoid than to get rid of is a painful and expensive discovery. Such people fall into a category I call, toxic connections.

You know the type: people who leave you thinking you’re not as smart as they are; or the ones that suck all the oxygen out of the room leaving you feeling weak and vulnerable (just as they intended); or those who knowingly create problems for you, then appear as your white knight as the only solution available while ensnaring you in an even worse problem. And these are only the obvious examples! The truly insidious ones are much, much worse.

These are the ones who build you up by telling you only what you want to hear, then pulling out the mental, emotional or financial rug from under you at the worst possible moment, leaving you gasping for breath with no friend in sight and no place to hide. Often such personalities are very clever in subtly setting the hook so that you cannot even point out the time when the symptoms began.

Unwittingly, many years ago, my involvement many years ago with such an individual caused me more trouble than I could ever have imagined, underscoring the fact that indeed, truth is stranger than fiction, at least on this subject.

Happily, I have terminatedly extricated myself from any direct clutches of such toxicity! But, unfortunately, I still carry with me the psychic scars of the trauma.

This syndrome is something I have termed PTCS or “post toxic-connection syndrome“- if only to remind me of what I lived through and now recognize it for what it is. This essay is written to open others’ eyes for what to avoid and to expose such personalities for what they truly are: toxic connections.

THE SYMPTOMS

Be certain of one thing: when your life is failing, has become stressful, full of worry, self-doubt, trouble, or impending disaster – you have unwittingly been infected with the venom of a toxic connection.  And like the bite of a rattlesnake, failure to take effective action immediately can be fatal to your dreams, your goals and your life.

“To suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” – from the famed soliloquy by the Bard of Avon – requiring a cleansing of your psyche of the stain of a toxic connection – is something I would wish on no other person.  And the process of extricating yourself is more difficult than learning to avoid them in the first place.

The fact that there are bad people in the world doesn’t change just because it is a hard fact to face.  In hindsight the symptoms are obvious.  Your natural forgiving nature tends to justify the oddities and aberrations in others (“but they seemed so friendly and helpful”) while at the same time thinking that there must be something wrong with you!

People with toxic tendencies are constantly seeking out your weak points to expose any slight flaw in your character where you might be compromised. When found, the seduction is begun with one basic technique: they tell you what you want to hear.

Perhaps because of the aliveness, the élan vital of artists and other creative, productive people, they become magnets for the toxic individual.  For example, the  budding actor will often hear, “I’ve got the ear of the producer, I’ll get you in there,” or to the musician, “I know the producer of that festival, I’ll make sure you get top billing” or your ‘best friend’ who, under the guise of helping you, manages to sabotage your new creative project. Also in the world of business you’ll often hear, “I’ve got it on good authority that a stock split is going to happen soon, invest now and you’ll be set for life;” saying exactly what you wanted to hear and making you think you’re finally on the ‘inside track.’

Another particularly distasteful manipulation used by this personality type is the “religious affection trust,” or “affinity trust.”   It is a scam commonly used by the financial predator.  The trust of the group is gained and betrayed by someone first gaining your trust by representing him or herself as “a true believer, or someone just like you” – telling you just what you want to hear.   Strip away their social veneer and you won’t like what you see; under that pleasant manner and glib conversation you’ll find a vicious and diabolical plan to manipulate, control and fleece you, all the while masquerading as a force for good. You end up hearing what you want to hear, seeing what you want to see and ignoring the obvious facts and your natural instincts, all to your detriment.

The fact that you trust them effectively blinds you from really looking into the true nature of what they are really doing. Why?  It’s obvious.  No one wants to admit they are wrong.  You trusted him or her and that was a mistake.  This is one reason why people consistently overlook the clear indicators that something is rotten.  The three hardest words at say, evidently, are: “I was wrong.”

Various other schemes and con games could easily fill a large text and are the stock in trade for the toxic personality – but they always operate basically the same way: They tell you want you want to hear. They do this in an attempt to get past your “BS detector” so they can set you up to be used, dominated by nullification and making nothing of your abilities and experience. They will stop at nothing to keep you from seeing what they are really doing (and it’s not a pretty sight). To them, you’re a disposable asset,  used and discarded for their own personal gain.

Remember: If you’re only hearing what you want to hear, you don’t know the whole story and you’re in danger of being set up.

Losing anything is painful.  Losing your dreams, your goals, your soul, is another thing entirely.  Facing the fact that some people just want to see you weak and failing is a bitter pill to swallow.  But, through some convoluted logic, some people just don’t want you to win.  They are totally self-interested, self-absorbed, dangerous and weak, and they can’t stand the spotlight of truth being shown in their direction.

The longer such individuals go undetected, the more deadly they become.  Ignore the symptoms at your peril, as things will only get worse with them around; they are a menace to your life, your standard of living, your mental and physical health. . . anything is better than staying connected with people like this.

Important note:  if you noticed some toxic characteristics of your own in this writing, you most surely are not one. Self-examination and correction is not a luxury these types can entertain or grasp, as in their minds, they are always right anyway, so they never feel the need to change.

Now that we’ve figured out what is going on, let’s examine the antidote to toxic connections.

THE ANTIDOTE

An antidote is something that counteracts or nullifies the effect of a poison or toxin and takes away the bad effect experienced earlier.  For example, if you know you’ve been infected with some known poison and take immediate action to get the antidote, you’ll survive the experience and perhaps even learn from it.

If you don’t recognize that you’ve been bitten by a toxic personality, and instead just try to ignore or cover up the symptoms, your mental, physical and financial life is in peril.  Pretending that you didn’t get bitten or calling it something else, will not help, in fact, it will allow it to worsen.  Being unwilling to avail yourself of a cure when you have the opportunity to do so is suicide.

The antidote process breaks down to four fundamental steps:

1.    WHAT is really going on?

An ancient Chinese proverb says it best: “Wisdom begins by calling things by their right name.” Just being willing to recognize and call it for what it is will often diminish and even nullify the poison emanating from such toxic connections.

2.    WHO is causing the trouble?

Discovering exactly who or what is causing all the turmoil and trouble in your life will often diminish the stress instantly, but you still need to take action and do something. The only mistake you can make is to do nothing.

3.    HANDLE by whatever means possible.

Don’t wait. Use what you’ve got, where you are, right now! Avoid the toxic connection if feasible; move; get a transfer; even change jobs: get some effective counseling or a divorce if nothing else works; sometimes all you’re left with is threatened or actual legal action;  join a new group; make new friends; build up the positive connections and thereby diminish the negative. Again, the wrong thing to do is nothing.  Do what you’ve got to do when you’ve got to do it!

4.    CHANGE.  Get into motion; become active and create or produce more than you were doing before.  Change your life, your habits, your friends, your job, your location; gather up your old projects and get rid of them or get them done, exercise, talk to people, get outside, get up earlier in the morning,  join a group, read a book, write a journal, ride a bike, go on a trip, get on that horse and ride!  Do anything . . . but do something! This keeps morale high and your attention on the future instead of having it stuck in the past.  You’ll come out stronger than you were when you started.

But if nothing you can do will handle the situation you must sever the connection regardless of the consequences.  It is lethal not to do so.

Your future and your life depend upon taking action now. It is vital that once you have observed the situation correctly and come to a reasoned decision, you must act.  Either take effective action to handle them, or get rid of them.  Now!

Here is a quote by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, which supports this concept:

“The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too.  All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.  A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings, and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.  Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.  Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.  Begin it now!”

And remember, the wrong thing to do is nothing!

Okay.  Got it?

Now, what are you waiting for?  Start!

Daniel Jacobs
(c) 2006, all rights reserved

Failure Is Not A Life-Sentence

As I’ve said many times, I’m not perfect. I’ve made mistakes; many of them. While I am sometimes wrong, I am never uncertain or afraid of failing. To me, failure is only a temporary setback, not a life sentence. The fact of failing is a condition, and conditions will change. Adopt this mindset and it will serve you as it has and continues to serve me, for life. 🙂

Daniel Jacobs, 2017

How To Attract Abundance

How is one supposed to feel when someone dies?

Especially when this person, completely out of his own self-interest, has created untoward turmoil, trauma, and upset in the lives of so many, all under the thinly veiled guise of help?

I suppose I would say my feelings are mixed.

On one side, maybe I should at least give slight applause or at least a tip of the hat, to acknowledge what could be a desperate attempt, a final solution to get himself honest and straight after living a life a pretense, lies, and deception and harming countless others in the process.

Perhaps we can speculate that at last he came to grips with his life and took a look at his actions  – without the mask of justification or explanation – and just couldn’t digest (or live with) what he had done to ruin so many lives. Then he stopped himself from bringing further harm to good people and simply took himself out of the picture for good.  But I doubt we’ll never know for sure.

He lived a pretend life; pretending to help, pretending to care, pretending to be honest, ethical, or truthful, even pretending to ever take the lives of others into consideration.

Then when he had the opportunity to take responsibility for his crimes, he took the coward’s way out and created a physical condition that ended his life.

Personally, I feel no sympathy or sadness at the news that he departed the area for good.

In fact, I’m strongly leaning toward a feeling of relief; relief that such a person is finally out of the picture. He will not again be spreading his brand of evil, destruction, turbulence, or negatively into my own life, my family and friends, and the lives of so many others . . . at least not for the foreseeable future anyway.

Post-script:

To whatever slight degree, when such a person exists or has existed in your life, your natural tendency is to attempt to stop any connection or connection with that person. While this is a reasonable action, there is a hidden negative connotation attached to this.

When you put out an intention to stop something, especially when it has gone on for a long time, you have to have to maintain some slight degree of attention on the area, if only to remind yourself to be alert and vigilant in making sure the “stop” does not weaken or become lax.

Now then, an interesting mechanism takes place when you do this. The fact that you put out an intention to stop any negative inflow of undesired communication from this troublesome source, can morph into a generalized stop.

The unintended consequences of this process is, at least to some degree, that you also begin to stop attracting any positive inflow from coming to you.

The short story is this: if you set up an intention to stop an inflow (i.e. from a troublesome source), then by definition, this also stops both your outflow and inflow from this and adjacent areas.  A “stopped flow” is a “stopped flow” whether an inflow or an outflow.

Further, you begin to limit your own expansion by becoming “careful of” making the same mistake again. Happily, the moment you recognize what is really happening your “flows” will start to open up to positive inflow.

And almost magically you begin to attract abundance in terms of positive inflows heading your way, very soon!

And that is something we can all use more of, right?

Daniel Jacobs

(c) 2015, all rights reserved

ONE-ARMED ECONOMISTS

What is really going on behind the scenes:

Devalue the dollar by printing more without end in sight, then accumulate assets for pennies on the dollar, default on the dollar, and base the next fraudulent currency on the asset base you have now essentially stolen from everyone else.  This is their (Big Ben and the Treasury) solution to all financial woes.  The only thing is, they don’t realize that a wrong solution only creates a bigger problem requiring an even more desperate solution; exactly where we are right now.

I just had to post this article as it agrees with my viewpoints on the matters perfectly. – d. jacobs

ONE-ARMED ECONOMISTS

Jun 7th 2010, 12:38

by Buttonwood

HARRY Truman famously asked to be sent a one-armed economist, having tired of exponents of the dismal science proclaiming “On the one hand, this” and “On the other hand, that”. Economists are more inclined to stock their neck out these days (being a celebrity pundit is a good living) but I am not sure that has reduced the confusion.

Last week, we launched our economics channel with a debate on whether inflation or deflation is the greater threat. Scroll through the contributions and you will discover either that “Tough deflationary times lie ahead” or that “Eventual inflation is inevitable”.  Since this is the central question of economic policy at the moment, such a discordance of views is rather disturbing; much is made of the debate on global warming but the scientific consensus is overwhelmingly on one side on that issue. On economics, governments are being forced to choose in matters of fiscal austerity, where the debate is almost 50-50.

Perhaps that is why the markets are presenting such a confusing picture. Investors face the choice of whether to buy government bonds on very low yields (the 10-year bond is offering 3.2%) or gold at over $1,200, close to a record nominal high. (When gold peaked in 1980, the 10-year bond was yielding 10.8%.) Some argue that equities must be cheap, given that profits are booming and that shares have gone nowhere for a decade. But if the template is Japan-style deflation, shares can go backwards for 20 years.

The debate is really between the “output-gappers” who argue that inflation simply cannot be created when the economy is running so far below potential and the “credit bubble” group who argue that central bank money creation will inevitably result in higher prices. This debate cannot be settled by analysis of past trends; it is so difficult to isolate one economic variable and say what its effect wiill be. (As mentioned before, Greece, which is combining fiscal currency with a fixed exchange rate, is an interesting case study.)

My take, for what it’s worth, is that deflation is more likely in the short run, especially as the broad money supply numbers remain so weak. Inflation may come much later, but only as the authorities get more and more deseprate. Alas, that puts me in the two-handed camp that sent Truman into despair. But the purpose of the blog is not to pretend that one journalist has all the answers; it is, more humbly, to try and provoke thought and debate among the readers, to point them towards interesting outside observations and to “join the dots” in terms of finding different market and economic themes.

IGNORE AT YOUR PERIL

When I discover something of unusual importance, I always pass it along to my friends. This one fits the criteria. Everybody has a few oddities and fortunately, they are often relatively benign.  But occasionally some of them are less innocent.

Basically, oddities are indications of something out of the ordinary. If it’s an innocent habit or some other less serious thing, they can be ignored without liability.  But when they are subtle indications of a more serious situation, then you should pay attention to them.

If they are intentionally dismissed or explained away without inspection, you could end up with an untold amount of trouble and expense; or in extreme cases with your life in ruins.  Ignore at your peril.

When witnessed  in others, these oddities leave you thinking, “What’s up with that?” or “What’s really going on here?” or “Why did he (or she) say that anyway?” or, “What really did they mean by that?”

When you see or sense something that just doesn’t seem to add up or make sense, don’t ignore it.  If you look carefully, you’ll often discover a situation that unknowingly puts you, your group or your family in real danger.  It could be just someone’s way of handling things which is careless or reckless, endangering others unnecessarily.  When questioned they often say things like, “But, that’s the way I’ve always done it,” or “That’s the way I grew up.” or some other oddball explanation that does nothing to improve the situation.

Other times, what you uncover may be far more sinister.

They may be involved in some questionable or even illegal practices or activities that would expose you to liability even if you didn’t have direct knowledge of what was going on.  Stranger things have happened.

You must not ignore these signals.  They may be the only visible evidence you’ll get.

There are three steps to dealing with them:

1) The first time you notice an oddity of some kind, it may be excusable, but make a mental note anyway.

2) The second time it happens, something is going on; it’s not just coincidence.  Become suspicious; investigate and gather more information.

3) The third time it occurs, something is very wrong.  Get on full alert. Gather your wits and stay calm, but investigate fast and take immediate action to handle what you find. The danger lights are on. There is some big secret you’re not supposed to know about, you’re being set up, someone is trying to nullify you or bring you down, or worse, do you in.

Use whatever resources you have available to minimize or end the danger.  Don’t just hope it will go away by itself, it won’t.  Take immediate effective action to safeguard your interests before it’s too late.  You may not get a second chance.

This may mean that you need to cut your losses or your connection if the situation is so complex that can’t be fully handled without support from others.  But don’t ignore it, the worst thing you can do is nothing.  Do what you have to do when you’ve got to do it.  And do it without flinching, avoiding or neglecting it, once you know what is going on.

After the danger has passed and things have calmed down,  reorganize your life with the resolution to be more vigilant in the future, and stick to it.

Consider yourself warned.

Daniel Jacobs, 2010

PRIDE BEFORE A FALL

The Bible verse (King James version) says it this way: “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”

I would put it this way: Common sense goes out the window when success goes to your head.

Here is a real-life example.  When I first began traveling on business to Geneva, Switzerland in the ’90’s, the business giant Digital was in evidence everywhere you looked.  Employees of the company dominated the housing in the city, driving up prices while at the same time providing an economic windfall for the average businesses.

But I noticed an important signal that for me was a telling sign for the future of that mega-company.  Everywhere I went, I saw employees of Digital wearing t-shirts with this saying boldly (and arrogantly) displayed:

“WE’RE DIGITAL AND YOU’RE NOT!”

This spoke volumes to me.  It told me that Digital as a company was on its way DOWN.  The arrogance and pride made them blind to factors that should not have been ignored.  And it did take them down.  For within a short time (a couple years at the most), Digital was gone.  It no longer existed as a company.  Almost overnight, the company shut down and all the employees sold their houses and left Geneva.  It was an amazing change.  To me, it served as evidence of the saying, “pride goes before a fall.”

I am posting this blog and the article to follow so that Americans as a nation do not suffer the same fate.

The article entitled, “American Capitalism Gone With A Whimper” is a chilling condemnation of what once was the land of the free and the home of the brave.  A proud nation one the flag-bearer of the torch of freedom on planet Earth, has now become the home of minions, looking for a free lunch, blindly following the whim and dictate of criminals elected to power by a slumbering electorate.  This old saying captures the essence well: when everyone thinks they’re a dog, they’ll elect a dog.

Why am I not surprised with the cesspool of degraded criminals now “running” this country?  And I’m not just talking about our current administration.  It’s been increasingly true on an accelerating rate for as long as I’ve been aware of such things.   I’m afraid this great ship of state is approaching the precipice and is soon going down with all flags struck.  Soon it will be impossible to recover and our lives will forever be dramatically altered for the worse.  So went Greece, Rome, Russia, England, and now . . . sadly . . . America. – daniel w. jacobs

The irony of this article appearing in the English edition of Pravda (Russian on-line newspaper) defies description. Why can a Russian newspaper print the following yet the American media can’t/won’t see it?

American Capitalism Gone With A Whimper

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American descent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years.

The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather than the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas than the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their “right” to choke down a McDonalds burger or a Burger King burger than for their constitutional rights.   Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our “democracy”.  Pride blind the foolish.

Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different “branches and denominations” were for the most part little more than Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more than happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the “winning” side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the “winning” side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power.

Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America …The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama.  His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America’s short history but in the world.  If this keeps up for more than another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Weimar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all.  First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, losses, and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars.  These make our Russian oligarchs look little more than ordinary street thugs, in comparison.  Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes.  Should we congratulate them?

These men, of course, are not an elected panel but made up of appointees picked from the very financial oligarchs and their henchmen who are now gorging themselves on trillions of American dollars, in one bailout after another. They are also usurping the rights, duties, and powers of the American congress (parliament).  Again, congress has put up little more than a whimper to their masters.Then came Barack Obama’s command that GM’s (General Motors) president step down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear reader, in the land of “pure” free markets, the American president now has the power, the self-given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume other employees of private companies, at will.

Come hither, go dither, the centurion commands his minions.So it should be no surprise, that the American president has followed this up with a “bold” move of declaring that he and another group of unelected, chosen stooges will now redesign the entire automotive industry and will even be the guarantee of automobile policies.  I am sure that if given the chance, they would happily try and redesign it for the whole of the world, too. Prime Minister Putin, less than two months ago, warned Obama and UK ‘s Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our “wise” Anglo-Saxon fools find outthe folly of their own pride.

Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper….but a “free man” whimper.

So, should it be any surprise to discover that the Democratically controlled Congress of America is working on passing a new regulation that would give the American Treasury department the power to set “fair” maximum salaries, evaluate performance, and control how private companies give out pay raises and bonuses?

Senator Barney Frank, a social pervert basking in his homosexuality (of course, amongst the modern, enlightened American societal norm, as well as that of the general West, homosexuality is not only not a looked down upon life choice, but is often praised as a virtue) and his Marxist enlightenment, has led this effort.  He stresses that this only affects companies that receive government monies, but it is retroactive and taken to a logical extreme, this would include any company or industry that has ever received a tax break or incentive.The Russian owners of American companies and industries should look thoughtfully at this and the option of closing their facilities down and fleeing the land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest while there is still value left.

The proud American will go down into his slavery without a fight, beating his chest, and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is.  The world will only snicker.

Snoops link – http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/pravda.asp

Simón Bolívar

The South American independence hero Simón Bolívar (1783-1830) once wrote: ‘The difficulties could not frighten me, the greatness of the work excited my passion.  The fires of true passion will incinerate all difficulties and trials.”

Simón Bolívar was the liberator of South America from the yoke of Spain.  The able book, “The Four Seasons of Manuela” is a biography of his life with Manuela.  Bolívar is credited with contributing decisively to the independence of the present-day countries of Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia and is revered as a national hero in them.

From Wikipedia: Bolívar described himself in his many letters as a “liberal” who believed in a “free market.” He was an admirer of the American Revolution and a great critic of the French Revolution. He considered Thomas Jefferson so important that he sent his nephew to the University of Virginia. However, Bolivar differed in political philosophy from the leaders of the Revolution in the United States on two important matters: First of all, he was staunchly anti-slavery, despite coming from an area of Spanish America that relied heavily on slave labour.

Second and perhaps more notably, while he was an admirer of the United States, he did not believe that its system could function in Latin America.^[8] Bolivar felt that the United States, compared to his new nation, was established in a land that was much better suited for democracy, a land and people that could survive in a much looser, more liberal government.

By contrast, he referred to Spanish America as having been subject to the “Triple yoke of ignorance, tyranny, and vice.” If a republic could be established in such a land, in his mind, it would have to make some concessions in terms of liberty. This is shown when Bolivar blames the fall of the first republic on his subordinates trying to imitate “some ethereal republic” and in the process, not paying attention to the gritty political reality of South America.

Among the books he traveled with were Adam Smith‘s “The Wealth of Nations;” Voltaire’s “Letters,” and when he wrote the Bolivian Constitution, Montesquieu‘s Spirit of the Laws.^[9] His Bolivian Constitution placed him within the camp of what would become Latin American conservatism in the later nineteenth century. The Bolivian Constitution had a lifelong presidency and a hereditary senate, essentially recreating the British unwritten constitution, as it existed at the time, without formally establishing a monarchy. It was his attempts to implement a similar constitution in Gran Colombia that led to his downfall and rejection by 1830.

In regards to his immigration policy for Colombia, he viewed the immigration of North-Americans and Europeans as necessary for improving the country’s economy, art and sciences^[10], following the steps of the Latin-American criollo elites who accepted without questions many of the evolutionist, social and racial theories of their time.

DR. KURT RICHEBACHER says

FORWARD:
I like what Dr. Richebacher says and I like how he says it.  If I learned anything in my years of University study in Econ, it’s that what he says is true.  The fact that basic laws of economics are now violated by the “very best” advanced “de-greed” Economists (pun intended) that money can buy doesn’t change the basic law.

In my opinion, most the “media Economists” are bought and paid to push the message du jour given them by those behind the curtain.

The worst-kept secret in the world is that most of what you read, see, or hear cited in the current ‘mainstream news media‘ is pure, unadulterated fiction.  The more generalized bad news conveyed in the message, the bigger the lie.  It is a carefully crafted scheme intended to make the sheeple unthinkingly accept at face value, everything they are told by some perceived authority.

It is just my opinion, no more valid than your own (or perhaps just as valid), take them for what they’re worth. I will let Dr. Richebacher’s words speak for themselves.~ d. jacobs

Dr. Richebacher’s words . . .

“All this emphasis on statistics and calculations…” he went on, rapping his silver-handled cane on the table for emphasis, “without a proper theory, it is all nonsense. And your economists seem to have no theory at all… they just think they can manipulate the system in order to get whatever outcome they want.

They think economic growth comes from consumer spending and that they can control consumer spending by adjusting lending rates. It is unbelievable that anyone takes this seriously. It is capital formation that really matters. A rich society is one with a great stock of capital… one that builds capital and puts it to work to create more capital. A rich society is not one where people consume. Just the opposite.

It is not what is consumed that creates wealth; it is what is NOT consumed. Yet, all the Anglo-Saxons focus on motivating consumers to consume. And now they are consuming more than they make. I tell you, in 70 years of studying economics, I have never seen such nonsense.”

http://richebacher.com

THE SHOCK DOCTRINE

Jane Smiley, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Novelist and Essayist wrote, in the Huffington Post, September, 2007,  a brief synopsis of  Naomi Klein’s new book, The Shock Doctrine.  I have excerpted Jane’s writing in that article to give a short trailer of Naomi Klein’s book.

As an introduction, The Shock Doctrine is a critical review of the use and consequences of free-market economics. It takes its title from the application of shock therapy to bring economic transformation, shock and awe, the military strategy of Donald Rumsfeld used in the invasion of Iraq, but also elsewhere, and of electric–shocks and the use of torture to sustain authoritarian governments.

And now, here is and excerpt from Ms Smiley’s article on the subject. ~ daniel w. jacobs

“Her thesis is this (and if I am slightly inaccurate, blame me, not Naomi): In the fifties and sixties in the US, at least two lines of thought converged. One was about how to change people’s minds without leaving marks and the other was about what was the best way of organizing a given economy. The first grew out of experiments in psychological torture (whoops, I mean electroshock therapy) run by Ewen Cameron in the late 1940s. The theory was that patients could be rid of mental illnesses by “regressing” them to an infantile state, attaining a “clean slate” upon which new patterns of behavior and thought would be etched. Cameron used both electroshock and powerful drugs to attain his clean slate, having no actual knowledge of the chemistry of the brain or how it works — in other words, he was operating in accordance with a metaphor. The result of Cameron’s experiments, for the patients, was often considerable loss of short-term and even long-term memory and a subsequent lifelong feeling of “blankness” on the part of the patients (apparently, later refinements of electroshock techniques have mitigated these effects). In the 1950s, the CIA redirected these techniques toward torture of political opponents, allegedly to find out information, but really to test the techniques themselves (hello, Jose Padilla!).

At the same time, Milton Friedman was coming up with the idea that if only an economy could be purified of any kind of restraints on the free market (for example labor unions or socialized medicine or history), then the free market would be able to perfectly gauge the value of any type of good or service, and therefore an economy would balance itself, and, most importantly, inflation would be controlled (also, as you can see, a metaphor, or, perhaps, an extended analogy).

According to Klein, it soon became apparent that all-powerful shocks to a system had a similar effect, whether the system was a human body or a national body, and this was to temporarily disable the system’s defenses. The US government, the CIA, and the free market economists began to act on this insight, to collude in larger experiments. The first of these was the right-wing coup, in Chile, led by Augusto Pinochet, in 1973. At the time, Chile had a functioning leftist government and economy, and the voters had already rejected Friedman’s pure free market troika: privatization of government functions, an end to social spending, and deregulation.The new economy was dependent upon outside investors and highly profitable to them — let’s call that the allure of globalization. Pinochet set about instilling terror in the population (that’s the shock therapy) using death squads, exemplary killings, and torture. Taking advantage of this, the economists installed the new free market way of doing things within days of the coup. But Friedman’s ideas did not work — inflation rose. In the eighties, the Chilean government tried again, this time by inducing a profound economic crash — essentially impoverishing the populace in order to bring them to heel. Ultimately, the Chilean “miracle” (Friedman’s term) did nothing for the population, but it did enrich the top ten per cent and put 45% below the poverty line. It turns out that as far as the economists were concerned, this was a good thing.

The Shock Doctrine traces what the US, the CIA, the economists, the Neocons, and the multinational corporations learned from the Chilean experiment and subsequent ones (Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Poland, Russia, China, England) and finally makes its way to Iraq (this is a 590 page book, and the print is small). Essentially, they learned that a small economy is easier to “regress” than a large one, that the shock has to be brutal, and that the free market doesn’t work as Friedman said it would (automatically assigning appropriate value), but that it sure does make a few people rich beyond their wildest dreams, and that these people were Friedman’s (and his students’) benefactors and paymasters. They also learned to lie lie lie in order to sell what amounts to a program of inhuman greed to voters who have other needs, wishes, and ideas.

For our purposes, the more interesting section of Klein’s book is about Iraq, where she traveled in the first year after the invasion, and this section forms part of her series of posts at the Guardian. She believes that the Iraq War was intended to not only steal Iraqi oil, but also to impose a radical free market on an unwilling populace, and that that was what was behind the installation of Bremer as the capo of Iraqi reconstruction. She believes that, thanks to the resistance of the Iraqis and their deep resentment at being used and exploited by the Americans, this effort has failed. However, a parallel effort, to shock the US economy into absolute deregulation, privatization, and an end to social spending, has been and is succeeding. What this amounts to is the fleecing of the American taxpayer in order to enrich the war making industries. The byproduct, as in Chile, is the gutting of the rule of law and the American political system as we have known it. Why did Bush and Cheney go to war? Well, where do they get their fortunes? The Shock Doctrine works perfectly for them. As for that 45% below the poverty line, well, once the globalizing manufacturers exported the well-paying US jobs, then the globalizing financiers moved in and sold the newly impoverished working class a few sub-prime mortgages guaranteed to take whatever else they had. Then the financiers screamed for a bailout, and Bernanke gave it to them. The free market, you might say, is working perfectly now, at least according to its shock principles.

So, John Dean, stop wondering what happened to your fellow Republicans. They embarked, knowingly in many cases, unknowingly in some cases, with utter indifference in still other cases, upon the destruction of the common good. They began doing this in the Cold War and kept up with it when it turned out to benefit them economically. Some of them did this because they were fearful and aggressive by nature, and hurting those outside their own families and clubs felt good, or reassuring. Some did it for money. Some did it for “patriotism.” Some did it for religion and some did it out of pure cussedness, but they did it, and they did it over time.

Klein ends her book on a hopeful note — in many places such as Chile and Lebanon, the people have learned from their experiences — they are cannier and more resistant to the shocks administered to them by Bushco and their own ruling classes. Having endured “Disaster Capitalism” for several decades, they understand their own self-interests better and aren’t as easy to fool. I would like to be as hopeful. The question, as always, with Bush and Cheney, is how far are they willing to go? And, is anyone willing to stop them? From John Dean’s article, it doesn’t sound as though it is going to be the Republicans.” ~ Jane Smiley

RUGGED INDIVIDUALISM vs PATERNAL SOCIALISM

One thing is sure, my father-in-law, Carl Whorton, had a visceral dislike for  President Herbert Hoover.

Carl was a workingman who grew up in Alabama during the great depression working in the coal mines.  He saw people who needed help very badly, sometimes nearly starving at times; and he thought that Mr. Hoover was only out for the big money guys, ignoring the rest.

Although Carl believed in hard work and independence, it became exceedingly real that feeding a young family of five is sometimes not possible even with the help of the church or other volunteerism.

I always admired that he was never shy about doing an honest day’s work for an honest days wage doing what he had to do to earn a living. He worked in the mines then moved north to Southern Michigan and worked in the factories carving out a life for himself and his family with the tools he had available.

Still, he never varied in his dislike of President Herbert Hoover; he was very clear about that. Carl may well have been spot-on in his evaluation of Herbert as many other Americans shared his opinion during the years of 1929-1933 when Hoover was President of the United States.

But to be fair, I have found a couple of probing questions that Herbert posed in a campaign speech before his election in 1929 that are as relevant today as they were in 1928.

These two questions are from Herbert Hoover’s “Rugged Individualism” campaign speech (Oct 22, 1928) where he states:

“When the war closed (WWI), the most vital of all issues both in our own country and throughout the world was whether Governments should continue their wartime ownership and operation of many instrumentalities of production and distribution.

We are challenged with a peace-time choice between the American system of rugged individualism and a European philosophy of the diametrically opposed doctrines of paternalism and State socialism.”

“. . . Our American experiment in human welfare has yielded a degree of well-being unparalleled in all the world. It has come nearer to the abolition of poverty, to the abolition of fear of want than humanity has ever reached before.”

Our 31st President of the United States held the office during the worst economic times in America for the 153 years of its existence at that time as the Wall Street crash of 1929 came just eight months after he took office.  His attempts to combat the Great Depression with volunteer efforts and other impotent methods failed to change the tide of the economic downturn.  For this and other reasons, he is largely remembered among the poorest of past American Presidents.

Setting aside this historical position he occupies in the minds of many, I still credit him with two important questions; vitally relevant to our country then as they are today.

The two questions are:

1.  Whether Governments should continue their wartime ownership and operation of many instrumentalities of production and distribution.

2. Whether to continue the American system of rugged individualism or go with the European philosophy of paternalism and state socialism.

These two questions have reappeared with a vengeance with the roiling seas of tumultuous financial and economic waters in which we tread today in 2009.

Through implementation of nefarious methods ably outlined in the book by Naomi Klein, “The Shock Doctrine,” we see the current Government – through the printing press and computerized money creation and other means – gobbling up major institutions and industries of the American economy and culture; effectively owning the means of production, distribution and consumption.  Any Totalitarian dictator would be proud of the “progress” made in this direction.

The rugged individualism, whether born of necessity or design, which created an American humanistic ideal for the world, is eroding faster than ever imagined.  And the movement toward the European model of paternalism and state socialism has become a fact and a way of life in our country.  Both of these “new ideas” are promoted as humanitarian progress and “for the good of all.”  But giving away our “inalienable rights” as if they were Halloween candy has become “normal.”  Demanding that the Government do it all for us is the byword.  Freedoms once considered sacred and inviolable are thrown away and discarded like yesterday’s trash.

In other articles, I have written, “the price of freedom is never too great when the cost of indifference is so dear.” Freedom is the bedrock on which this country was founded.  It is now and has been since inception, the guidon for people of the world.  It is what is wanted at any cost and its need is without question.

Although the spark of freedom can be smothered, it can never fully be extinguished.  It is always lying there dormant, waiting to come back to life in spite of all attempts to dominate or eradicate it.  It cannot be killed.  There is nothing that is stronger. For freedom is an idea.  It can cut through a ten-inch inch armor plate as if it weren’t there; it knows no boundary; it is not limited by physical barriers; it is, in fact, not subject to the limitations of the physical universe in any way.

Freedom is a concept, an idea, a thought, a feeling that is invisible to the eye; it cannot be measured with any known scale, is impervious to any efforts to dissolve or destroy it.  It is not of this universe.  It can be temporarily supplanted by economic, familial, political, financial pressures, but is still always there.  It resides in the mind of mankind, and it is the goal, the purpose, the dream of any live being.

When a people align themselves with the concepts of personal freedom it does not go unnoticed; rather, it stands out like Mars at Perihelion.  The spotlight of freedom draws people to it no matter the obstacle.  You don’t have to sell people on the idea; just let them know where it can be obtained, and they will come.

America today still holds the position as the final bastion of hope for freedom in the world.  But the erosion of the position is rapidly increasing.  People in positions of power, whether by design or pressures of high office, are giving up on the concept of rugged individualism and instead, adopting the easier route of paternalism and State socialism.

(This photo, “Crossroads after a night of rain” is by MARTIN LIEBERMANN. (c) by Martin Liebermann/zeitspurenare, available for purchase at  http://www.flickr.com/photos/liebermann/580181284)

This has brought us to a crossroads in history in my opinion: whether to maintain the vital, animating, activating element of humanity . . . a factor of freedom; or go the way of too many in history and succumb to the acceptance of slavery.

The choice is yours.  To be free and alive or to be a slave, cared for by the State to do its bidding at its whim.

For me the answer is simple, and I know I’m not alone. I share this sentiment with my father-in-law . . . I too never wanted to be a slave.

Daniel Jacobs
(c) 2009, all rights reserved