Dirt

"Plain as dirt," people will say contemptuously. "Dumb as dirt."

Really?

Dirt is as important as air and water; without it, we die. And not just any dirt, either: humankind depends on arable dirt, dirt in which plants grow that can in turn support animal life.

That's my dirt to the right, dirt enriched with hundreds of pounds of dried sheep poop and kept moist so that in spite of the one-week-long nighttime freezes (in the 20s) we've been having, those broad beans are doing quite well, thank you, as of this morning, as the date stamp (European style: date first, then the month) shows.

When I left the northern hemisphere behind, I'd made up my mind to sacrifice a certain degree of comfort, convenience and city/suburban style consumer variety for good dirt. Say what you will: when the chips are down, few things compare with twenty inches of good topsoil.

I found my topsoil here in Traslasierra, far from the flaccid, overfed kine that wobble down the Wal-Mart aisles snatching at gaudily packaged snacks they can stuff in their gobs while, glassy-eyed, they gape at the flickering flat-screen, oblivious to the elitists' yoke sliding down upon their thick, wattled throats. They come in all shapes and sizes, all creeds and colors, male and female, young and old, of all political persuasions, though economically, rich and poor rarely applies: these are the poor, the near-poor and the remnants of the lower middle class, the plebs, the lumpen, the Great Unwashed, unlettered and barely able to do simple math. Naturally, neither you nor I belong to this rabble; we are above all that. Those people, after all, are dumber than dirt.

They may be, but then again, so may be the Greenwich Gang, the Hamptons Hideaway crew, shallow materialists who in spite of their money piles live lives of stunning superficiality bounded by status and a narcissistic wound that not even scads of money can scab over, never mind heal. I live far from them too, far from the Social Register listees whose identity and self-worth must be reaffirmed by looking at a hardbound telephone book in black and red, folks who drop names and brands as often as bats in a cave drop guano.

Far from leftist loonies fossilized in the amber of the Sixties, spouting the same tired slogans, their eternal whine-a-thon tempting one to borrow a pair of bovver boots from the nearest skinhead for a quick game of kick-the-cranium. The intellectual elite--left, right, center--seldom takes anything more than an academic interest in dirt, though there are exceptions, among whom I like to include (hem, hem, kaff-kaff) myself, but only because I am such a smart fellow according to my credentials. Well, all right: I believe I'm bright enough to have done a lot of reading, retained a great deal of what I've learned, and managed to assemble this montage of factual info into an integrated worldview that led me to conclude that my place in the sun was not in an academic or financial ivory tower, but down here in the dirt far, far from the madding crowd.

Dirt.

This is about dirt, and how it behooves the Paradigm Changer to seek out the best dirt s/he can find. How 'bout that! Gender-neutral language! Hope everyone likes it and my effort is appreciated. Personally, gender-neutral language and much that goes with it calls to mind the substance with which I fertilize my dirt, but I digress.

Few of us these days are qualified to gauge the value of dirt with respect to raising food; for this, omnipresent government provides us with well-educated professionals. But can we count on them to fulfill their obligations to assist us? Not in my neck of the woods, as I have learned to my chagrin. As the saying goes here: "Mucho ruido, pocas nueces," which for you poor, unfortunate Anglo monoglots means, in the words of the immortal James Brown: "Talkin' loud and sayin' nothin." I certainly hope agricultural extension agents up north honor their word more than do the gravy-train riders down here. Our local glad-handers have asked me to address a community meeting of small agricultural and artisanal entrepreneurs, and the meeting is the day after tomorrow, and I've heard nothing further. Okay. And all the promises the Peronistas have made to me about help with my own efforts... nada de nada. I suggest y'all may enjoy Sunday's post, because I'm going to treat them to some self-righteous Irish rage on Saturday.

I learned about my dirt on my own, thanks. I recommend you do so too. I will say this, however: down here in Catacombs Country, we've got some dirt you'd be thrilled to have under your fingernails. 'Nuff said?

Get down 'n dirty, boys and girls, or prepare to live like serfs without your own dirt.

If not, then I recommend you read up on dirt. If you need help in finding resources, let me know.

Get some dirt, get it soon.

99.7%

If ever there was a "must read" financial piece, it is this one: http://www.zerohedge.com/article/fitch-financial-companies-hold-997-all-derivative-contracts.

The article begins as follows: "Fitch has released a comprehensive study on derivatives held by various corporations and has come out with some disturbing results: as Zero Hedge's recent disclosure of data from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency confirmed, the bulk of the derivative risk is concentrated not merely in the "financial company" category (99.7%) but in a subset of just five companies, which account for an "overwhelming majority" of derivative assets and liabilities.

The companies in question (Total Notional Derivatives: Assets & Liabilities, $ in Trillions)

• JP Morgan:$81.7;
• Bank of America:$80.0;
• Citigroup:$31.5;
• Morgan Stanley:$39.3, and of course
• Goldman Sachs: $47.8 (this is an OCC estimate: Goldman has not disclosed notional amounts in their derivative book, only # of contracts);

If you want a preview of what the Basel III definition of "Too Big To Fail" will look like, the above five companies is a great place to start."

"Too big to fail," as in "more important than you or I or our nations." Lords and Masters of the Earth.

It's time for all of us who are NOT too big to fail to turn up the volume on what must become our anthem: the now-gender-neutral disco classic "Enough Is Enough," (aka "No More Tears") belted out by Donna Summer and Barbara Streisand.

The article, the reading of which I cannot recommend too highly, adds the following very useful information: "For those unfamiliar with the concept of derivatives, here is a good blurb provided in the Fitch report:

Companies use derivatives to manage risks related to interest rates, foreign currency exchange rates, equities, and commodity prices, as well as more obscure risks such as weather and longevity. According to the Bank of International Settlements, the notional amount of the global over-the-counter derivatives market was nearly $600 trillion at the end of December 2008. Furthermore, gross market value (the sum of gross derivative assets and gross derivative liabilities) stood at $33.9 trillion.

While improved disclosures and transparency are a good start to helping gauge the risks posed by these instruments, it is important for analysts and investors to take a fresh look at risk management practices, including the use of derivatives within that context.

The need for better disclosure on derivatives has been obvious since the implementation of Statement of Financial Accounting Standards (SFAS) 133, “Accounting for Derivative Instruments and Hedging Activities” (now Financial Accounting Standards Board [FASB] Accounting Standards Codification [ASC] 815). However, comprehensive derivatives disclosure did not become a U.S. GAAP requirement for most companies until March 2009 with the implementation of SFAS 161 (now ASC 815-10-50), “Disclosures about Derivative Instruments and Hedging Activities.”

For a more quantifiable overview of derivatives, we recommend the most recent quarterly report from the BIS, especially the data starting on page 28.

The key findings presented by the Fitch report are as follows:

• Not surprisingly, an overwhelming majority (approximately 80%) of the derivative assets and liabilities carried on the balance sheets of the companies reviewed were primarily concentrated in five financial services firms: JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPMorgan); Bank of America Corp. (Bank of America); Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (Goldman Sachs); Citigroup, Inc. (Citigroup); and Morgan Stanley (Morgan Stanley).
• Fifty-eight percent of the companies reviewed disclosed the presence of credit risk related contingent features in their derivative positions. These contingent features generally require a company to post additional collateral or settle any outstanding derivative liability in the event of a downgrade of the company’s credit rating.
• The use of credit derivatives was limited to financial institutions, with 17 of these reporting such exposure.
• Proprietary derivatives trading by utilities and energy companies appear to be very limited, but most of the companies reviewed in both industries report the use of derivatives for hedging commodity risks.
• Generally, non-financial companies appear to use derivatives only for hedging specific risks.
  Derivative valuation is often model-based, making changes in significant valuation assumptions particularly important. Analysis would be enhanced if issuers provided additional disclosure on the sensitivity of their derivative valuations to major assumptions."

There is much more, but for the non-financially-minded among you, or those who are uncomfortable with technical-talk, the above summary tells you all you need to know.

Bankers own the world; they own governments; they are a cabal, and unless an end is put to their privileges, societal suzerainty and social engineering that reward untrammeled greed, their stranglehold will only become more suffocating. Matt Taibi's "giant squid" metaphor must surely have occurred to many of us; it came to me as a memory of a science-fiction novel title: The Kraken Wakes, published in 1953.

Ninety nine point seven per cent. How much of that is in your portfolio? How is it that a government tasked with protecting the well-being of its citizenry permits these financial leviathans to suck every last drop of the lifeblood out of the poor schleps (US, in case you hadn't noticed) in the name of a "free market?" How is it that nearly all of the people can be fooled nearly all of the time? How long can this go on before some sort of breaking point is reached?

And the most important question of all: Are the above questions all rhetorical questions?

It is probable safe to say that approximately ninety nine point seven per cent of the population takes no interest in any of these matters and that is the main reason the financial cabal can lord it over them and those of us trapped in the grip of those tentacles. Those of us who do take an interest find ourselves largely powerless to do anything about what we learn, but we are not necessarily powerless to take steps for ourselves that will put us largely out of the reach of those ever-further-extending tentacles, and it is that Paradigm Change that this site advocates and hopes to assist in making such change possible for those who have just recently begun to recognize the need for it.

Unless you truly believe in the dangers--political,social,economic--stalking you and your fellow citizens, there will be little point in postulating a Paradigm Change; posturing it will be the only result. Step One--tangible step one is the planning and execution of a move from the urban/suburban setting to a rural area in which you can either own arable land adequate for providing a high degree of self-sufficiency, or finding someone who owns such land and making an agreement with that person to carry out some sort of cooperative and mutually beneficial arrangement that will improve the position of both parties.

How is that to be done? Future posts will explore potential solutions.

The Monsters Have Arrived on Maple Street

The title of this piece plays on the title of a Twilight Zone episode that aired nearly half a century ago: back then, the monsters were "due" on Maple Street; fifty years later, they have arrived.

Back in 1960, liberals were still huffing and puffing over the McCarthy hearings, in which an American senator claimed the government had been infiltrated by communists. "Witch hunt!" howled the liberals, and the public agreed. Yet many years later, it turned out the accusations were true. Ever-more-tiresome doom-monger James Kunstler fears a new witch-hunt, this time inspired by the crimes of the Monsters of 85 Broad Street, Main Street America's mortal enemy: Goldman Sachs. The intellectual aristocrat Kunstler fears "the savagery of right-wing broadcasting and how it had led, in one instance, to the murder of a doctor who performed abortions. What bothers me is that, sooner or later, the conduct of Goldman Sachs will lead the growing ranks of the unemployed, foreclosed, disentitled, and hopeless into the hands of a savage right wing seeking mindless vengeance, for instance, against "the Jews," (as represented by Goldman Sachs), or brown-skinned people (as embodied by a vilified president)."

Jimmy the K forgets how savage left wing violence led to the extermination of millions in a secularized, Bolshvik Russia and in the China of Mao. Perhaps Mr. K should take a close look at the portrait of soviet exterminator Nilolai Yezhov, aka "The Bloody Dwarf." Look closely at his facial features. Perhaps I'm hallucinating, but he seems to bear a curious resemblance to an American president of darker hue. Uh oh! Prejudice! Yipes!

It is K who is prejudiced, as is often the case with so-called liberal-progressives of his sort. He worries less about the rape of the United States and indeed the world by a cabal of materialists and more about vengeance against "for instance.. the Jews."

Fear not, bold defender of your tribe: I, an Irishman, would like nothing better than to see the downfall of: Kevin W. Kennedy; Timothy J. O'Neill; Terence J. O'Neill; E. Gerald Corrigan (former NY Fed prez); John P. Shaughnessy, etc., all managing directors of the "great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money," to quote Matt Taibi in Rolling Stone. But I don't fear a pogrom of the Irish (and there are many more at GS). No, Mr. K is a professional Christian-baiter, a bore, a one-trick pony, a snob whose endless predictions of catastrophe next week or whenever (like those of Rapture-huckster Gray North) never come true. Mr. K worries more about the homicidal physician tragically murdered than the many innocents that same doctor killed, of the millions he encouraged killing. Then again, Mr. K, like many "liberals," is an elitist, a eugenicist, most likely, and all those working-class babies... well, the fewer the better.

Main Street, USA, for Mr. K, is populated by the "the growing ranks of the unemployed, foreclosed, disentitled, and hopeless ," and it would be well for Main Street to remember this. If I have to read a liberal commentator, I'll take Joe Bageant, who is an actual representative of that class rather than a Sixties work-shirt-and-weejuns retread with a tattered Pete Seeger songbook under his arm. Joe worked!

The monsters have arrived on Maple Street, Main Street and nearly every other Hometown USA street, and perhaps it is time for the "unemployed, foreclosed, disentitled, and hopeless " to begin seeking justice from those who have manipulated them into that position, without regard to race, creed, religion, "gender preference" or whatever other qualificative nonsense the professional whiner wishes to apply. The "great unwashed," which is how pundits like Mr K see the American working class, have been lazy and easily gulled by the Goldman whizz kids and their elitist monster bosses. Time to take action, unless it is already too late.

I took my action by leaving the north. I took my action by obtaining a wholly-owned home, a rental property and arable land in a place where such things are affordable and outside the reach of the Krakens of the financial district. I took my action by obtaining a second citizenship and a permanent residency in a country not of the northern hemisphere. I took my action by changing my way of life from that of an intellectual elitist who "earns a living" speculating on the financial markets to that of a semi-hermit who grows his own food but, somewhat shamefully, continues to get cash by speculating in the financial markets, at least while such is still possible. I do not like earning money in this way, but it is what I know and in what I have experience. I am not a real estate tout, a stock tout, a gold tout, a newsletter tout... And that pleases me. I get by on little. I write for a fortnightly and that small income goes a long way toward sustaining me.

I live in a small town, a place in its own way somewhat like the "Maple Street" depicted in that long-ago Twilight Zone episode. The monsters haven't arrived here yet, largely because I live in a country in which "credit" is largely unobtainable. "Credit," aka "debt" issued by a cartel of counterfeiters, hasn't made it to Maple Street here, thank God.

That debt and those who deal in it are the true monsters. That is not a witch-hunt perception; it is a fact.

Do away with it and watch Maple Street return to "a tree-lined little world of front porch gliders, barbecues, the laughter of children, and the bell of an ice cream vendor," to quote the introductory narrative to the episode.

Ignore Kunstler, Gary North and all the rest of the huckster phonies who are concerned first, last and always with their own interests and those of whom they perceive as their "tribe." Follow the money, as the saying goes. And then see where nearly all of it ends up: not on Maple Street, but at 85 Broad Street and elsewhere in the neighborhood.

The monsters have arrived, but they are most emphatically NOT Mr. Kunstler's "factory drone[s]" and "growing ranks of the unemployed, foreclosed, disentitled, and hopeless ." The monsters are the elitists, the financiers, the intellectually arrogant and the godless, the eugenicists who believe themselves superior to lesser human life forms, the Yezhovs and Rahm Emmanuels, the Bidens and Blankfeins, the Gores and the Geithners and the Bilderbergers, the toadies and their masters... those monsters have arrived on Maple Street and if you look carefully, you will see that they are in your living room as well.

Don't worry about a "witch-hunt;" worry about them getting away.

Don't let that happen.