Watching the housing market and listening to the media is like watching a baseball game as you listen to basketball. The audio portion is completely disconnected with the visual. How many times have you heard that the housing market has bottomed since 2007? Here is a question: how much is that house for sale down the street really worth? Why would anyone make such a big purchase if they cannot make that determination?

We've all heard about the middle class or working class Jones overbuying and underwater in the mortgage who are about to be foreclosed on, but there is another class of buyer in much more trouble.

Some people were shocked when I mentioned in an earlier post that we may come to the point when Tokyo has to be abandoned. Some of you, I'm sure dismissed that remark. So, first, I present to you three reports on the continuing and worsening nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Power Plant #1 (Daichi).

1, from EX-SKF dated Friday January 6, 2012 Mysterious Spike in Cesium Fallout in Fukushima on Jan 2, 2012 (Updated with Chiba Information)

The difference between American conservatism and American liberalism can be very confusing. Personally, I am a liberal. How do I know this? Because, that is what people tell me; Joaquin, you are a liberal. In fact, they can even point me out on the political line. My political beliefs defined as a point on a one-dimensional line. There is the center, the right, and the left and there I am; some negative number, a single point way off to the left and irrational too; at least so the conservatives tell me. This is not some generalization; it is a distillation of a lifetime of knowledge, of my identity, my wisdom, of who I am.

The first thing you have to know about politics in the U.S. is that this is the time in the election cycle that a candidate must firm up his or her base. Firming the base is so important that President Obama has been using police batons and pepper spray on his base. Crushing a few skulls of the people who used to believe in him shows that Obama is getting very firm with his base.

Meanwhile, a sizeable group of people from the Republican base who have lost faith in, and are otherwise disgusted with Republican politics formed the Tea Party. The Republican Party’s response has been to invite members of the Tea Party to become Republicans again. It sounds like genius I know, but there is a catch: the Republicans, in return, have to pretend that they are taking Ron Paul seriously as a Republican candidate.

Sometimes I think that we are an experiment, like mice in a maze, we were placed on a planet that has just enough resources to allow a jump onto other nearby worlds. Will the humans use the resources wisely and make the jump or will they party like yeast in a wine vat and perish in their own excrement? I think we all know which outcome we are heading for.
I don't know how many of you follow enenews.com, so it may be news to you that the Fukushima tragedy just gets worse and worse every day. At some point, Japan may find themselves having to abandon most of Tokyo, one of the largest cities on the Earth; the result of just one of many choices we have made to sustain the unsustainable. In the words of Admiral Rickover, we have re-introduced something on the Earth that has not existed for billions of years. We re-introduced the one thing that could prevent life on Earth. Not since the birth of the solar system has something, so toxic to life as nuclear radiation, existed on Earth.

I think an important clue is in unit 4; the unit that was not in operation at the time of the earthquake and tsunami but blew up anyway. The NRC maintains to this day that a breach of the primary containment is impossible even though we have three possible examples of it happening at Fukushima Daichi in units 1,2,3; we know that at least one of them is leaking core contamination through primary containment into the ground. The thing that is interesting about unit 4 is that they shutdown the reactor and took the partially used nuclear fuel out of the reactor vessel and primary containment and put it in the unprotected spent fuel pool. Now, why is that OK? We must conclude that primary containment is meant for fuel that is undergoing criticality and is unnecessary for fuel that is not critical. Fukushima introduces a number of contradictions to these operational processes.

Fukushima is a disaster that could well cause one of the largest cities in the world, Tokyo a city of 32 million to become uninhabitable. This might happen because, like an invisible strato-volcano, the nuclear power station is laying down an invisible deposit of radioactive contamination each day with shifts of the wind. Like the strato-volcano's ash and lava mountains here in the Pacific Northwest, the radioactive contamination of Fukushima is cumulative, creating a mountain of ever increasing contamination and radioactivity, which will eventually exceed that of Chernobyl. This contamination can over time pollute Tokyo's water supply. With the current situation as the status quo we could see radioactive pollution coming from the ruined reactors for years to come. Where is the coverage of this event in the media?

The truth is, there is a big fat lie that the nuclear power industry and the media are foisting on the public and that has not changed. But first let's take a look at some other lies. For example, here is a picture of an exploding reactor building #3 at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant:

We are supposed to believe that this hydrogen explosion is no biggie; course it isn't; it's just a direct hit. WTF, there is a huge amount of concrete flying hundreds of meters in the air not a tin roof; the nature of the damage done by this explosion has proven to be the subject of one lie after another.

I just finished reading "No Country for Old Men" by Cormac McCarthy. It's great of course and I have to say that the movie stayed pretty true to the book but I have to tell a story my Dad told me.

The book is a story about how America has changed as told by a rural Texas Sheriff. Here is my Dad's story.

Dad, when he was going to college, used to live at a friends ranch on Mount Hamilton near San Jose. This would have been the late 1940's. Dad drove the ranch's open top jeep like vehicle each day to school. The vehicle was actually a surplus military weapons carrier.

I remember this thing, it had no doors and no top but it could go anywhere. Dad would take his 30-30 hunting rifle with him and shoot a deer on the way home from school. This was how they put meat on the table in those days.

The housing picture continues down its uncertain path in my neck of the woods. Renting a house in my neighborhood cost $1500 on the average a year ago. We are seeing a new average of $1000 rent in our neighborhood but the average house to buy price is around $375,000. That means that a landlord is going to have around $550 dollars left from the rent check after paying taxes, insurance, and upkeep. Compare that to a $1500 mortgage payment on a $375,000 house. Housing prices based on value calculated on rent in our area are way out of whack. Then add the fact that the same $375K house is selling for $439K brand new and picture becomes all the muddier but they are building them and renting them when they don't sell for, you guessed it, $1,000 a month. There is also a new wave of foreclosures eating its way street by street, neighbor by neighbor, some of whom bought during the first wave of foreclosures; that's two waves ago.

I don't know why I do this. Perhaps it is a wish that someone in our government will slip up and tell the truth. Can you imagine the reaction of the media and the Congress? Of course there would be the impeachment after all of the feigned understanding of the president's mental condition.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans we your leadership have failed you utterly and completely.

No no no no ....

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans we your leadership made an little bitty boo boo.

From Wikipedia:

Knighthood as known in Europe was characterized by the combination of two elements, feudalism and service as a mounted warrior. Both arose under the reign of the Frankish emperor Charlemagne, from which the knighthood of the Middle Ages can be seen to have had its genesis.

In truth a knight, as they did in the Roman Empire, was a member of the aristocracy who could afford to and did maintain a war horse.

Modern America has its knights that would make old Charlemagne proud; case and point, Col. Jack Crichton (October 16, 1916–December 10, 2007), Texas. Jack Crichton worked for the CIA's predecessor, the OSS, during WW II as a special agent. Officially, he's an artillery officer who won the Air Medal, five Battle Stars, and the Bronze Star; a brave Knight indeed. The colonel would become involved in a web of businesses in service of the Du Ponts, Bronfmans (Seagram's liquor), but especially Everette DeGolyer a key player in the U.S. petroleum industry.

2010 was a year that I tried my hand at writing some fun but serious essays. It was a wonderful experience and I am thankful to the Editors and contributors here at the Agonist for your support and comments. Here are my favorites

Understanding Capitalism versus Socialism - Still gets 1520 hits on Google with the full name quoted. 147 buzzes on Buzzflash

Understanding Supply Side Capitalism - Still gets 1840 hits on Google fully quoted, made it onto Project Censored

Understanding the US Financial Crisis, Why Banking Regulations are a Temporary Fix - Still gets 215 hits on Google fully quoted.

US Democracy, Progressivism , and Brand Building - Still gets 191 hits on Google fully quoted

The Witch who was Made of Wood (Part #1)

My pre-2010 favorite

The Giant Meteor

The Witch who was Made of Wood (Part #2)

What happens if the Price of Oil decouples from U.S. economic growth. For example, oil prices become coupled to Gold Prices and is decoupled from other commodity indexes. What if oil prices refuse to go down even if the dollar turns around? Can the U.S. economy claw its way out of a second recession if oil prices remain high? Can the U.S. economy maintain the status quo with oil prices where they are or higher?

So, you cut back on your lifestyle; performed a so un-Greek personal austerity reset but your credit card balance is still creeping up; or perhaps you are slowly burning through your savings; or you are at the end of the line; abandon ship. Whatever, you have a lot of company out there.

Why is it so hard to make ends meet these days? The days of living high on the credit hog are over and we all have to get small but in the end, we still have to make ends meet; we have to pay for food, pay for utilities, buy gas, etc. How to make that work?

We all bought a lot of stuff during those days of easy credit. Debt driven demand drove up the value of lots of things. Homes increased in value so much that they became a kind of income harvested through a home equity line of credit. Autos got big and powerful again making them unaffordable to buy and operate now that we have to live within our means. Cell phones replaced land lines and cost a lot more; especially when everyone in the family has to have one. Maybe you have a home that you cannot sell and you are stuck living 20 miles or more from your workplace and your car is fast reaching the point when you will need a new one just to get to work.

If you work in retail or not; I'd love to hear your opinion about the last 10 days of traffic and sales.

We've had some discussions here and I've expressed the opinion that Biomass Energy from Algae is not scalable due to water requirements. I'm getting some backup on this opinion from the author of Revisiting the Fake Fire Brigade Part 2: Biomass - A Panacea? in which the general scalability of Biomass projects is called into question. The author also wrote this paper:
Burning Water: A Comparative Analysis of the Energy Return on Water Invested which is a free download. I asked the author, Mr.

The Media
by Joaquin,

We look in the mirror;
to see our reflection
or is it a distortion
Made by a horror?

Unseen but everywhere
Synthetic our culture;
We can never be sure
It stares where we stare.

Though one unruly
The true reflection
Can see introspection
Only looking truly.

It is hard choices
Spending time reading
Uncomfortable seeing
Hearing spurned voices

To find the reward
Put stake depress
Those who repress
Truth we forward.

Or easy whatever,
Smiling back breath
Easy but no breadth
Truth gone forever.

Part #3 of Understanding Capitalism and Socialism
by Joaquin

With the great financial crisis of 2007-2010 all over except for the screaming and yelling; and the yelling and screaming is over because oil spilled all over it; and with the oil spill all over because someone parked a SUV with toy timers on it in Manhattan; it's time to understand how the financial crisis was solved; so let's get started. By the way, aren't we all glad the financial crisis is over? Well except in Greece and maybe Spain, Ireland, Portugal, Italy and the UK; don't forget California and other bankrupt states, counties, municipalities, and your parent's pension; not to mention a giant national debt that is ballooning out of control; but yeah otherwise the financial crisis is over. How do we know its over? Well, just turn on the financial news anywhere and you will hear that the recovery is in full swing except for people having jobs and buying houses. The crisis is so over that it has been over and over. I mean if you Google "housing market has bottomed" you can find out that the housing market has bottomed out constantly since 2006.

By Joaquin Menendez April 19, 2010

Some friends related a recent encounter while standing in line to mail their income tax. It was a long early morning line in the Post Office parking lot before opening time. "This is Obama's fault", yelled a thirty-something man. What followed was a confrontation between the man and a woman standing in front of him. "What is your education?", asked the woman and then she tried to dismiss him, "You know nothing about what is going on."; she dismisses him as just someone from the Tea Party.

That man knows something all right; he knows that he does not see a hopeful way forward in his life. He knows what he has been told all along, what he is supposed to have, and what he is accustomed to expect are missing from his future. Perhaps he lost his home in a foreclosure and almost certainly he has family or friends who have lost their homes and jobs. Perhaps he lost a good job and is unemployed or has a job or jobs now with lower rewards and longer hours; he knows he is not treading water; he knows he is drowning. This man has lost his future; he is angry about it.

Part #2 of Understanding Capitalism and Socialism
by Joaquin

Now that Republicans are starting to talk about restoring Reaganomics, it is a good time to review Reaganomics; i.e., Supply Side Capitalism. This is number two of my technical essays about how the world works. Today we will explore how supply side economics will save the world. So let's get to it.

Supply side economics became so powerful that it was renamed Reaganomics in honor of the president and WW II movie hero. Reaganomics helped poor Americans understand what rich people have been telling us since the Middle Ages i.e., Robin Hood was doing it wrong.

Analysts for the political parties create segmentation labels like NASCAR Dads, progressivism, liberal, green, fiscal conservatism, etc for purposes having to do with the party's brand building and marketing campaigns. This process is very similar to that on which Corporate America spends so much time and money. An institution's brand and its knowledge of its customers are the Corporate family jewels. So it is with political parties.

It is important to understand that public labels of marketing segments are, in and of themselves, marketing messages; a kind of voice. It is unlikely that sophisticated political analysts segment their market with these terms; that is a statistical process that involves correlation of reactions to messages. The correlation around the messages enables the analysts to refine the party's voice to a particular segment. It is a sophisticated process that requires a solid knowledge of statistics and modern marketing techniques.

A hidden box
A veil that blocks
Created by a few
Reforming on cue
Thought blinds
our vision, binds

Left Right Center
Do not Enter
Stay outside
All places reside
Keep a mind clear
Be free of fear

Outside the box
You can see the fox
Speaking to the trapped
Who remain rapt
In ideas controlled
By those untold

Look inside
To see outside
Of windows told
Of spectrum sold
To us as tools
That make us fools

It forms our thought
Own identity sought
To define ourselves
On other's shelves
From this you must flee
Or none of us can be free

Well they've gone and done it. Congress has reformed healthcare uh ... insurance. We can see how the healthcare companies are really taking a hit today. I can't wait to see how Congress fixes peak oil; I'm sure the oil company executives can't wait either.

This is kind of a basic change in the way things get done in our government. Its all about streamlining. The government is so streamlined that we taxpayers now pay for corporate welfare in mandatory direct payments to the corporations. No more paying through the IRS; what a waste of time and energy that was anyway. Of course the IRS will still fine you if you don't make your direct corporate payments; oh but it's not a tax.

Maybe you are a casual Agonist reader or an Agonista at heart but in any case you are probably asking yourself: what's the deal with socialism and why do I like capitalism?

OK, lets get started by defining socialism: socialism is, by definition, something you don't want. Its that simple and all you really need to remember but, of course, there is a complex academic explanation which goes like this: Americans don't want socialism because the government does it.

Now that you understand socialism, its really very easy to understand capitalism. The definition of capitalism is something that you do want. Again its that simple, Occam's Razor! Again, this being an academic sort of paper, I should add that capitalism is something that you want because the government doesn't do it. It's so simple isn't it?