Right about now, the people that run this country are telling Barack Obama all the reasons we shouldn't leave Iraq.

I don't know exactly how it will play out, but I suspect one reason after another will appear to slow or stop the progress of our withdrawal.

(Play Joe Biden tape describing how Obama will be tested.)

When Saddam Hussein attacked Kuwait we learned a lesson.

Had the Iraqi army kept moving they could have continued on into Saudi Arabia almost unimpeded. (Some Saudi Arabian citizens would have welcomed his arrival.)

It took us six months to move enough supplies across the ocean for Desert Storm.

About a half a mile from where I sit, 150,000 chickens that woke up this morning on our farm are being caught and attached by the legs to a moving conveyor with shackles. The chickens pass through a vat of water carrying an electrical charge that stuns them. Their necks are sliced by a saw; they bleed out through this wound until dead. The body then passes though a vat of scalding water and emerges to be plucked and gutted by a machine, then pieced and packaged by experienced brown hands. Within days, what’s left of their bodies will appear in meat counters.

We like our meat as far removed as we can get it from the point of origin, so you very seldom see whole chickens in grocery stores anymore. Instead we buy Styrofoam trays with neat rows of boneless breasts, wings or leg quarters laid out on an absorbent pad and wrapped in clear plastic with letters attesting to the wholesomeness of the product. No feet, feathers or blood; certainly no heads with sightless eyes staring out to remind us these parts were once part of a living animal.

Another Sabbath Eve. Another night alone, save a house full of dogs and the hypnotic glow of a computer screen.

Barack Obama is front and center. Everything Barack. His supporters dance with joy. They dream of world peace and a return to a thriving vibrant economy. Those that opposed him rush to buy guns and ammo while they still can and fret over the possibility of looming new taxes. In Lubbock, Texas a man flies his flag upside down. I see very little reason for any of this.

We elected a centrist Democrat, which isn’t a hell of a lot different from a centrist Republican. By world standards both fall moderately right of center and less than moderately north of neutral on the authoritarian/libertarian scale.

Informed commentary on the state of our economy from Mark Faber

MINA

Swiss financial guru Marc Faber tells swissinfo he sees hard times ahead for the world's stock exchanges and even state bankruptcy for the United States.

He also believes that stock exchanges will stay at low levels for a long time.

Read it at the link
linked fixed ~ ed.

Allow me to borrow a phrase from Jim Kunstler: Hallucinated wealth.

For all of us to one degree or another in these United States seem afflicted with the malady (myself included).

I recently wrote an article complaining about the cost of corn. At the time corn was selling for 5 dollars and some 70 cents a bushel (left out the cuss words this time). Now I’m faced with the prospect of selling my corn at 4 dollars and zero cents per bushel—a ridiculous number when you consider farm land in these parts is presently valued at $5,000 an acre.

If I take the $5,000 my land is supposedly worth and place it in a CD paying 4% interest it will generate $200 in a year. If I borrow the money to buy an acre of that $5,000 an acre farm land at 8% interest, it will cost me $400 to pay interest on my loan with absolutely nothing dedicated to principle against the note.

On our local ABC affiliate’s morning news program I heard thata study had been released suggesting that adolescents that make pledges of abstinence fare no better in the five year period after having made the pledge than those that didn’t bother.

This comes as no surprise to me.

Biological impulses are relentless. Virtually everyone fucks within a number of years after reaching puberty.

Some will deny they fuck. Some call fucking something else. Or they will come up with an alternate form of having sex. Oral, dry humping, whatever. What’s the difference? Everybody fucks. Some, in the effort to remain “technical virgins” end up with a higher rate of diseases due to anal and oral sex.

Here's a leaked report by the IEA sugesting that the decline rate on existing oil fields worldwide is a staggering 9.1%. Coupled with slowdowns in drilling and exploration, shortages over the next couple of years are all but a certainty.

As for the projected demand numbers in the future: demand can not exceed supply. The pricing mechanism won't allow it.

And at Oil Drum Europe an excellent slide presentation showing how oil depletion factors into current and future economic woes.

Democrat. Republican. Libertarian. Socialist, Communist, Capitalist, Anarchist, Fascist—the brand few wear openly, since Adolf Hitler so soiled the mark. Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Atheist or Agnostic. Leftist, from the Right, Centrist, Statist. American, European—not good enough—which brand of European? Mexican, Arab, African—white or black? Lord knows I’ve left out many more.

So, what am I?

The very fact that I have to choose defines my choice. I am a libertarian (notice: that L is not capitalized. Above all, I insist in the freedom to choose or not to). Why must I be any of these at the exclusion of the rest? None seem to have all the answers for me.

I sit at a table. The Sabbath just began here in Texas with the setting of the sun. Sabbath eve demons have been released for their weekly romp; most “Chrisitians” are out defiling themselves with their compulsion of choice. (Don't worry, they'll be back at the temple on the first day of the week, repenting.) I generally feel the buildup on a Friday, but for some reason the feeling is more profound tonight. Perhaps it’s due to the fact that this year Halloween coincided with the Sabbath (you know the one Jesus observed—begins Friday sundown until Saturday sundown).

In any event, I expect the majority of you to think I’m delusional. I mean, who actually really believes in spirits these days? Or some old Jewish fable about demons being chained during the week and released only at certain times?

I have long since believed that the Neo-con movement was not and is not a conservative movement, but instead a radical departure from the American track record. I came across words of another that pretty much sum it up.

ICH

It is stark. I see the election for president as equal in importance to any political decision in American history, equal to many of the crucial decisions in world history. It rivals those such as Lincoln vs. Douglas, Hoover vs. FDR. In Europe, the difference is like that between Mussolini and Giolitti in Italy or Hitler and Papen in Germany.

Something about this guy rings true. I realize we are in a deflationary cylcle. However, efforts to stop this correction will have long term consequences. And one of those will be the destruction of the dollar.

Videos after the jump:

Think Peak Oil went away? Think again.

Kunstler's Clusterfuck Nation

Jim Kunstler wrote:

October 27, 2008
Easthampton Burning?

In the typhoon of commentary that's blown around the world a step behind the financial tsunami that's wrecking everything, two little words have been curiously absent: "fraud" and "swindle." But aren't they really at the core of what has happened? Wall Street took the whole world "for a ride" and now a handful of Wall Street's erstwhile princelings have shifted ceremoniously into US Government service to "fix" the problem with a "toolbox" containing a notional two trillion dollars. This strange exercise in financial kabuki theater will shut down sometime between the election and inauguration day, when the inaugurate finds himself president of the Economic Smoking Wreckage of the United States. What will happen?

A few months back I all but swore to be damned I wouldn't sell my corn for $5.71 a bushel. Today's price is $3.67 and falling. I sit here thinking maybe $5.71 wasn't so bad after all.

But I can't sell my corn at $5.71 because the price is 3 goddamned dollars and 67 fucking cents a bushel. And falling.

Why can't we elect honest politicians? Not even an option it seems in today's climate:

video featuring Dennis Kucinich's 2007 financial advisor after the jump:

And my choice for president will disappoint some of you. The man I voted for was not my first choice. That would have been Ron Paul. Not my second choice. That would have been Dennis Kucinich. Not even my third choice: Mike Gravel. Fourth? Nope. Bill Richardson would have been my fourth choice.

The primary races eliminated all of these from consideration.

I was left with a choice between John McCain and Barak Obama. A myriad of minor contenders also remained in the race.

Before voting I took Ron Paul’s advice and looked at the various third party candidates. First on the list was the Constitutional Party candidate, Chuck Balwdin, the man Ron Paul eventually endorsed.

Saturday morning I began to tell Martin, a hand at one of our farms, what I wanted done for the day. Hogs had rooted in a field looking for wild onions. In the process of doing this, they left bare patches of tilled soil where we had planted wheat. I told Martin that I was sending two men out with seed and garden rakes to repair the damage

Martin, being a practical sort, interrupted me mid-sentence, advocating the use of a tractor and a grain drill to do the work. It would be easier and faster…

If you’d have been there to see what happened next you’d a thought he called my mother a whore.

Recently I've had a number of people trot out to tell me how important it is that I vote in the coming election.

McCain supporters tell me Obama is going to take the things I have earned and give them to someone else. That he is going to come take my guns (as if they didn't notice that has already been done).

And Obama supporters tell me I might lose the right to get an abortion...

Meanwhile, I just couldn't help but notice that both of these wonderful saviors trotted their happy little asses up to the big house to cast a vote for the motherfuckers that really stole all my money and yours and everyone else's including that of your offspring for the next couple of generations.

I didn't write this. Joe Bageant did. Quite masterfully in fact.

Speaking in the Tongues of Brokers

By Joe Bageant

Any number of cultural historians have noted the American belief that success is a sign of God's favor. And over the past couple of decades he has had a downright love fest with the already-rich. So much so that the richest 400 Americans now have more money stashed away that the combined bottom 150 million Americans. Some $1.6 trillion bucks.

This was accomplished by selling off or shipping out ever available asset, from jobs to seaports, smashing usury and anti-monopoly laws, raiding the public coffers and manipulating the medium of exchange and blackmailing the peasantry regarding common needs such as heath care and energy to keep their asses warm -- to name a few. The ultimate coup was to convince the entire nation that the well being of the rich, meaning the well being of Wall Street, was indeed the common man's well being.

but it often rhymes.

After the jump, a video about the Argentinian economic collapse:

Want to get the shit scared out of you?

Then listen to this:

Bud Burrell at Financialsense

If what he says is right, we're in for a lot more than some run of the mill depression.

If you knew half what Matt Simmons does about the condition of the energy industry that fuels our world, you would be too.

After the jump, highlights from his address at the recent ASPO conference (held a week or so ago).

I’ve come to believe that there is no one at the helm of this beast, at least in a flesh and blood body. No reptilian skinned illuminati. No hidden crowd of Satanists worshipping in a secret temple. No one else you can kill with a knife or gun entirely to blame for our predicament. Like Frankenstein’s monster, we have created a beast with an (un)life of its own.

Evil however, undeniably does exist. Those that practice evil think they serve God or conversely, don’t believe in any deity at all.

No one alive in a human body has a workable master plan to control the world. But there are people trying.

Good Morning America plays in the background. I hear the experts say the good news is that the cost of food and fuel is falling.

As a producer of those goods, I am underwhelmed. I’d go so far as to say that’s the worst economic news I’ve heard so far today.

The stock market crash could be compared to the passing of a hurricane. People walk out the door and assess damage. Not too bad, they say. A few buildings knocked down, fallen trees and the like. Debris in the streets. Most everyone is still alive.

Then the electricity doesn’t come back on. For a day. Then a week. There’s no running water, which means no sewer system. Can’t flush the toilet. No food in the store, no gas at the service station. No air conditioning. Damn those mosquitoes. You say they carry West Nile virus? Can’t get to work, which means no pay check…

This article pretty much sums up some of the things I've tried to say without all the seasoning (cuss words) and generalities (contains more facts to support the assertions) dhfjr.

Oildrum

The current financial debacle is really not a “liquidity” crisis as it is often euphemistically called. It is a crisis of overgrowth of financial assets relative to growth of real wealth—pretty much the opposite of too little liquidity. Financial assets have grown by a large multiple of the real economy—paper exchanging for paper is now 20 times greater than exchanges of paper for real commodities. It should be no surprise that the relative value of the vastly more abundant financial assets has fallen in terms of real assets. Real wealth is concrete; financial assets are abstractions—existing real wealth carries a lien on it in the amount of future debt. The value of present real wealth is no longer sufficient to serve as a lien to guarantee the exploding debt. Consequently the debt is being devalued in terms of existing wealth. No one any longer is eager to trade real present wealth for debt even at high interest rates. This is because the debt is worth much less, not because there is not enough money or credit, or because “banks are not lending to each other” as commentators often say.

As the ship lists, the captain exhorts. Don’t panic.

Meanwhile in the background the one and only life raft hits the water, the one we taxpayers bought on credit. Paulson and Bernanke at the helm. Captain Bush suddenly excuses himself saying he needs to take a shit and hands control of the ship to Mr. Obama.

John McCain yells, Wait a minute. I didn't get a turn!

Seconds later, we hear a splash.

Wells Fargo grabs Citi as she tries to board the raft, pulls her into the drink and launches himself into her seat. Bernanke tells Wells Fargo that the seat alongside that of JP Morgan is reserved, but Fargo grasps the handrail and refuses to budge. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley readjust their grips in case another interloper arrives.