Social Security has been depositing money in surplus and is fine for a number of years. The false attacks on Social Security are said with a straight face by both parties and need to be taken seriously. Until Congress is able to be honest about Social Security and place the deposited money into a system that is safe from theft, no other money from any kind of retirement system should be placed into the Social Security system. If they can destroy it, rob it, deny it, they will.
It's positively disgusting. What's even worse is you have misogynists, sexist/harassing comments on the site reporting the events.
Unreal, Good God and this is the financial institution which runs our government. Read it and see, the U.S. is going backwards, as in over a Century backwards on labor generally.
Where are all the governments in this crisis, can't they see the nuclear situation in Japan is a world wide horror waiting to happen, perhaps the know more than us hence the silence. Don't they realise that radiation knows no limits and does not recognise borders and boundries
The WSJ has a radiation report that the sea around the plant is 1250 times the legal limit on radiation and then the "spokesperson" claims this is "safe" and not a "threat to human health".
The decay and fatigue of metal is well understood science. Nuke plant operators since ths 70's have noticed that all the plumbing in nuke plants crystallizes at an accelerated rate. That's right, pipes made of glass extruding a shit-stew of uranium and plutonium. So Fukushima was doomed to fail as all old reactors.
When the plutonium reactor exploded, the radiation spiked. Plutonium for this reactor came from bomb material sold by George H.W. Bush in 1992. Many tons loaded on a single boat and shipped. Japanese figured how to recycle plutonium after many mishaps.
When the coolant was lost, the water hydrolyzed into oxygen and hydrogen. The part not reported by the mainstream media is that much of the hydrogen turned to deuterium. The force of the reactor explosion was partially deuterium.
Let's recall the the III Reich worked exclusively on a deuterium bomb until the Norway plant was destroyed by British Commandos in late 1943. Nazis were a few months away from sufficient deuterium for a bomb.
To consider your question I think you have to totally change your frame of reference. For instance many people make the assumption that financial institutions in the West are active participating 'counter parties' in a transaction and share risk - say a mortgage transaction (I make the distinction between Western Finance Capital and say the Islamic banking system). They are not as they do not share the risk of the outcome of the transaction. Consequently, they were (and still are) only interested in the transaction fee.
If you are not responsible for something in terms of applying moral or ethical calculus, or there is no regulation in place to restrain behaviour then the outcome will be transactions that make no financial sense as rules are relaxed to bring in the commissions - the underlying driver and motivation. I believe some of the Investment Banks even brought their own products so they could 'hit targets'. The banks can create debt at will - a case of infinite debt creation capabilities with finance capital chasing finite assets - hence a bubble as Americans feverishly brought properties off each other (the velocity of transactions increased as people 'flipped' houses) like they done so in Ireland, the UK, Australia, etc, using more and more debt. Now we view this as irrational behaviour when observed from a longer term perspective as the outcome is collapse and failure but the people that made the money have walked away with no consequences.
The above observation would be true of the whole financial system, which is parasitic as it thrives on fees, transactions, commissions, etc, and is not connected to the real world that the vast majority of the world's population live in. Hence the explosion of the global derivatives market over the last 30 years to around $600 Trillion, I believe, whereas the total real GDP of the world's economy in terms of physical goods and supporting services is around $60Trillion. It is in the bank's interest to create new markets and introduce volatility and create arbitrage positions where there are none (the emergence of 'fast trading' for instance which is a fiction - money begets money) so as to take commissions, etc. Consequently the real economy and markets do not clear properly as price signals are false and driven by asset bubbles - massive amounts of resources can be misallocated as in the case of the US housing market as homes were built in the wrong location, to indifferent standards, etc, whereas these scarce resources could have been invested in productive capacity. It was observed in a UK report that the banks are destroyers of value in the real economy. This observation could also be applied to the US economy.
Accepting that Finance Capital is distinct and apart from the real economy we have to seek a different explanation as to how the 'system' operates and define its parasitic mode of operation. Neoclassical models of economic behaviour are totally inadequate for explaining the operation of the 'system' and the emergence of multiple asset class 'bubbles'. These 'models' are based a simplistic rationalistic view of the way humans behave and how markets clear and that simplistic model is then translated into financial models, albeit complex mathematical models.
We have to do is look at the world not through the prism of mainstream neo classical economics but through political economy which seeks to understand the interplay of the world of commerce with government as well as with the distribution of national income and wealth but most importantly the creation and distribution of surplus value. In this context Marx attempted to explain the disconnect between the real economy, the use and 'leverage' of money and the allocation of value. One book I read that was written in 1985 provided updated view of how financial crisis are formed was written by Alain Lipietz and was called - The Enchanted World: Inflation, Credit & the World Crisis. The word to note is 'enchanted' and the thesis is that the financial system is parasitic and will tend to create multiple bubbles and is not connected to the real economy. Bubbles and financial markets are instruments to extract unearned value and they will tend to a systemic collapse.
Basically, the justification is that the financial system operates to extract value and it does not matter if the reason for the transaction makes any sense - these is no apparent consequence. My guess would be that the vast majority of 'derivatives' have served their purpose as they have already earned the bankers commissions. The reality is that the vast majority could never be settled as no one would take on, or be able to understand the counterparty risk so the US government takes them on, takes the loss and the banks recycle at cents in the dollar. In essence it is one gigantic financial illusion (ponzy) whose rules do not need to make sense as that is not the objective of the game. The end result (end game) will be economic collapse as Finance Capital assumes no end of growth, bubbles, endless resources, etc, where as the reality is the opposite.
It has taken us 60 or so years to get to this point and we have missed the opportunity to kill the parasites. Like one of the other commentators noted - derivatives could be netted out as a financial exercise and this could have been done if the banking system had been closed down and resolved the conflict between the financial elites and nation states. Instead now the 'enchanted world' is impacting negatively on the real world (sovereign debt, inflation, etc) and has the potential to impact global food production, supply chains, etc, if the means of exchange is destroyed. Financial transactions do not need to make sense as long as they earn commissions, etc.
I like Sheila's idea of putting the nukey plants where people want them--only the rest of us need to be far far away, driving less, eating organically, working on wind and solar power. Why don't we do this? We keep talking about it. Of course they can still contaminate our air space. Sometimes I look at the US, or New Zealand (maybe), and say, where would be the safest place to live and recreate civilization? I know we have pockets in the US who have tried to do this, but they probably don't have enough buffer land. Am I the only one who wants to do this?
That's probably the best ROI they've even gotten. I didn't know that. Thanks.
I think you're right about the Japanese people making a powerful statement. Like much of our national energy policy, this was shoved through on pure fantasy and probably with far less than majority support. People don't like being "had". The Japanese are no different than anyone else in that regard.
The governments lie about everything else, of course they will continue to lie about this.
It is so beyond words...
A friend sent me an email from a Japanese homeopath yesterday, calling for NO NUKES and saying Japan needs to take the lead in this. I believe the people will, but then the governments ignore us/we the people and do what they please. And now with all the rigged elections, they don't have to worry about not getting into office.
How come they don't understand that their kids/babies are going to die too from the radiation too? I wonder do they really believe their own lies or are they so arrogant, they think they will be spared that kind of tragedy......
Back to the days when the nuclear weapons were building and building and building there were all kinds of stories that there were underground bunkers in DC that the govt would all go to, should there by a nuclear war. Did they really think then they would come out after it was over and just go on living?
They are stupid, immoral, evil, ignorant, arrogant.......
I have been saying we should build a nuclear power plant on the lawns of all who want them: on the White House Lawn, the Congress lawn, GE lawn, Exelon lawn
Nuclear power plants are weapons of mass destruction
We need a boycott of GE
Mike, have you followed the money on Exelon? Do they do anything else but nuclear power plants, so we could boycott them? I am sure you know they gave $270,000 to Obama campaign and that he caved to them way back when he was still in Illinoi
There are a lot of big wigs with egg on their face, including our president. It's always best to admit an error like this and move on quickly. They won't, of course. I think the response of the Japanese people will drive world public opinion. There were non stop claims by Tokyo Power that "it's all good" wit nuclear power and support from the government. Well, somebody has some serious explaining to do.
The site filters for spam and also for "troll" misinformation and personal attack insults and crazy people.
To wit, it seems your comments are the above, so no, you don't get to write attacks, insults against the author, devoid of information or misinformation.
This is true generally. While the site is about enabling regular people to pipe up, the social norms of courtesy apply as well as cited, accurate information if claiming a post is incorrect or not accurate.
Myself, I have had commenters point out an error at which point I personally make a correction, but when a post is well cited and referenced and someone doesn't like the implication for whatever reason...
no, we don't allow people to use this site to fill up the comment sections with beliefs, name calling and hate filled vitriol.
about Japan and I wish that there were really no faults below Diablo Canyon's reactors (there are three). I wish we could count on our governments to come clean on what's happening. But you know the old saying, If wishes were horses, we'd all take a ride.
This is a key point in the public dialog. The "Chernobyl" comparison by a scientific organization specializing in monitoring radiation, etc. shows how serious it is now, although it's not scientifically descriptive. The citizen and unrelated group/institutional monitoring is critical.
When will this be capped/resolved? That's the key follow up to the emissions and particle disbursement. It's the Freddy Kruger scenario that's so dreadful - ongoing releases for a year.
The Japanese people didn't do a single thing to deserve this. They were appropriately skeptical from the start but this was rammed through with empty promises and sweetened with PR campaigns by Tokyo Power. All the people did was work hard, obey the law, and live with an economic situation (since the 1980's) that reflected distorted policy and wealth concentrations, not the hard work and ingenuity of the people. Now this. They can't even get bottled water. They'll have something to say about this at some point, no doubt.
Mioko Smith and Takashi are both in Japan and both report a lack of information. It seems like they're having to piece things together in an ad hoc fashion. That's why the Austrian "Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics" is so important as a source. They exist to monitor treaties but their measurement routing is what's needed to measure part of this. Plutonium, levels of any toxins in the earth, contingency plans if all the efforts fail to gain control of these, and rigorous monitoring are all critical issues. This is looking like BP and the White House. Tokyo Power wants to run the show and control information. Hence, no transparent public web site that will say what they know and don't know and the methodology for gathering that information.
What a mess, not that I'm really happy about any of this, I would have hoped our nuclear trolls were right and that everything is fine, move along now, nothing to see but it appears instead this is probably going to "level 7" in nuclear accident levels soon.
While the amounts are small, the West cost is getting the radioactive iodine here. That's shocking, it has a half life of 8 days and that's 4500 miles.
No levels that I've found where that are at "alert" but the good news is due to youtube and social media, people are out there taking their own readings.
How can anyone trust the nuclear industry when, as we strongly suspected, Japan is fastly approaching the worst nuclear disaster in history.
Social Security has been depositing money in surplus and is fine for a number of years. The false attacks on Social Security are said with a straight face by both parties and need to be taken seriously. Until Congress is able to be honest about Social Security and place the deposited money into a system that is safe from theft, no other money from any kind of retirement system should be placed into the Social Security system. If they can destroy it, rob it, deny it, they will.
You all must read the harassment details at Goldman Sachs.
It's positively disgusting. What's even worse is you have misogynists, sexist/harassing comments on the site reporting the events.
Unreal, Good God and this is the financial institution which runs our government. Read it and see, the U.S. is going backwards, as in over a Century backwards on labor generally.
Bloomberg has an exclusive on how Japan was warned and risk was well know to nuclear engineers about the threat a tsunami had to the Fukushima plant.
Where are all the governments in this crisis, can't they see the nuclear situation in Japan is a world wide horror waiting to happen, perhaps the know more than us hence the silence. Don't they realise that radiation knows no limits and does not recognise borders and boundries
These MBS evaluations really don't add up to me and I've yet to find any spreadsheet, evaluation or explanation that tells me I am wrong.
Great analysis Nexus, as always.
The WSJ has a radiation report that the sea around the plant is 1250 times the legal limit on radiation and then the "spokesperson" claims this is "safe" and not a "threat to human health".
And they wonder why no one believes them. WSJ.
The decay and fatigue of metal is well understood science. Nuke plant operators since ths 70's have noticed that all the plumbing in nuke plants crystallizes at an accelerated rate. That's right, pipes made of glass extruding a shit-stew of uranium and plutonium. So Fukushima was doomed to fail as all old reactors.
When the plutonium reactor exploded, the radiation spiked. Plutonium for this reactor came from bomb material sold by George H.W. Bush in 1992. Many tons loaded on a single boat and shipped. Japanese figured how to recycle plutonium after many mishaps.
When the coolant was lost, the water hydrolyzed into oxygen and hydrogen. The part not reported by the mainstream media is that much of the hydrogen turned to deuterium. The force of the reactor explosion was partially deuterium.
Let's recall the the III Reich worked exclusively on a deuterium bomb until the Norway plant was destroyed by British Commandos in late 1943. Nazis were a few months away from sufficient deuterium for a bomb.
To consider your question I think you have to totally change your frame of reference. For instance many people make the assumption that financial institutions in the West are active participating 'counter parties' in a transaction and share risk - say a mortgage transaction (I make the distinction between Western Finance Capital and say the Islamic banking system). They are not as they do not share the risk of the outcome of the transaction. Consequently, they were (and still are) only interested in the transaction fee.
If you are not responsible for something in terms of applying moral or ethical calculus, or there is no regulation in place to restrain behaviour then the outcome will be transactions that make no financial sense as rules are relaxed to bring in the commissions - the underlying driver and motivation. I believe some of the Investment Banks even brought their own products so they could 'hit targets'. The banks can create debt at will - a case of infinite debt creation capabilities with finance capital chasing finite assets - hence a bubble as Americans feverishly brought properties off each other (the velocity of transactions increased as people 'flipped' houses) like they done so in Ireland, the UK, Australia, etc, using more and more debt. Now we view this as irrational behaviour when observed from a longer term perspective as the outcome is collapse and failure but the people that made the money have walked away with no consequences.
The above observation would be true of the whole financial system, which is parasitic as it thrives on fees, transactions, commissions, etc, and is not connected to the real world that the vast majority of the world's population live in. Hence the explosion of the global derivatives market over the last 30 years to around $600 Trillion, I believe, whereas the total real GDP of the world's economy in terms of physical goods and supporting services is around $60Trillion. It is in the bank's interest to create new markets and introduce volatility and create arbitrage positions where there are none (the emergence of 'fast trading' for instance which is a fiction - money begets money) so as to take commissions, etc. Consequently the real economy and markets do not clear properly as price signals are false and driven by asset bubbles - massive amounts of resources can be misallocated as in the case of the US housing market as homes were built in the wrong location, to indifferent standards, etc, whereas these scarce resources could have been invested in productive capacity. It was observed in a UK report that the banks are destroyers of value in the real economy. This observation could also be applied to the US economy.
Accepting that Finance Capital is distinct and apart from the real economy we have to seek a different explanation as to how the 'system' operates and define its parasitic mode of operation. Neoclassical models of economic behaviour are totally inadequate for explaining the operation of the 'system' and the emergence of multiple asset class 'bubbles'. These 'models' are based a simplistic rationalistic view of the way humans behave and how markets clear and that simplistic model is then translated into financial models, albeit complex mathematical models.
We have to do is look at the world not through the prism of mainstream neo classical economics but through political economy which seeks to understand the interplay of the world of commerce with government as well as with the distribution of national income and wealth but most importantly the creation and distribution of surplus value. In this context Marx attempted to explain the disconnect between the real economy, the use and 'leverage' of money and the allocation of value. One book I read that was written in 1985 provided updated view of how financial crisis are formed was written by Alain Lipietz and was called - The Enchanted World: Inflation, Credit & the World Crisis. The word to note is 'enchanted' and the thesis is that the financial system is parasitic and will tend to create multiple bubbles and is not connected to the real economy. Bubbles and financial markets are instruments to extract unearned value and they will tend to a systemic collapse.
Basically, the justification is that the financial system operates to extract value and it does not matter if the reason for the transaction makes any sense - these is no apparent consequence. My guess would be that the vast majority of 'derivatives' have served their purpose as they have already earned the bankers commissions. The reality is that the vast majority could never be settled as no one would take on, or be able to understand the counterparty risk so the US government takes them on, takes the loss and the banks recycle at cents in the dollar. In essence it is one gigantic financial illusion (ponzy) whose rules do not need to make sense as that is not the objective of the game. The end result (end game) will be economic collapse as Finance Capital assumes no end of growth, bubbles, endless resources, etc, where as the reality is the opposite.
It has taken us 60 or so years to get to this point and we have missed the opportunity to kill the parasites. Like one of the other commentators noted - derivatives could be netted out as a financial exercise and this could have been done if the banking system had been closed down and resolved the conflict between the financial elites and nation states. Instead now the 'enchanted world' is impacting negatively on the real world (sovereign debt, inflation, etc) and has the potential to impact global food production, supply chains, etc, if the means of exchange is destroyed. Financial transactions do not need to make sense as long as they earn commissions, etc.
I like Sheila's idea of putting the nukey plants where people want them--only the rest of us need to be far far away, driving less, eating organically, working on wind and solar power. Why don't we do this? We keep talking about it. Of course they can still contaminate our air space. Sometimes I look at the US, or New Zealand (maybe), and say, where would be the safest place to live and recreate civilization? I know we have pockets in the US who have tried to do this, but they probably don't have enough buffer land. Am I the only one who wants to do this?
That's probably the best ROI they've even gotten. I didn't know that. Thanks.
I think you're right about the Japanese people making a powerful statement. Like much of our national energy policy, this was shoved through on pure fantasy and probably with far less than majority support. People don't like being "had". The Japanese are no different than anyone else in that regard.
Thx, as usual, for this Mike
The governments lie about everything else, of course they will continue to lie about this.
It is so beyond words...
A friend sent me an email from a Japanese homeopath yesterday, calling for NO NUKES and saying Japan needs to take the lead in this. I believe the people will, but then the governments ignore us/we the people and do what they please. And now with all the rigged elections, they don't have to worry about not getting into office.
How come they don't understand that their kids/babies are going to die too from the radiation too? I wonder do they really believe their own lies or are they so arrogant, they think they will be spared that kind of tragedy......
Back to the days when the nuclear weapons were building and building and building there were all kinds of stories that there were underground bunkers in DC that the govt would all go to, should there by a nuclear war. Did they really think then they would come out after it was over and just go on living?
They are stupid, immoral, evil, ignorant, arrogant.......
I have been saying we should build a nuclear power plant on the lawns of all who want them: on the White House Lawn, the Congress lawn, GE lawn, Exelon lawn
Nuclear power plants are weapons of mass destruction
We need a boycott of GE
Mike, have you followed the money on Exelon? Do they do anything else but nuclear power plants, so we could boycott them? I am sure you know they gave $270,000 to Obama campaign and that he caved to them way back when he was still in Illinoi
Highest regards and bests
Sheila
There are a lot of big wigs with egg on their face, including our president. It's always best to admit an error like this and move on quickly. They won't, of course. I think the response of the Japanese people will drive world public opinion. There were non stop claims by Tokyo Power that "it's all good" wit nuclear power and support from the government. Well, somebody has some serious explaining to do.
The site filters for spam and also for "troll" misinformation and personal attack insults and crazy people.
To wit, it seems your comments are the above, so no, you don't get to write attacks, insults against the author, devoid of information or misinformation.
This is true generally. While the site is about enabling regular people to pipe up, the social norms of courtesy apply as well as cited, accurate information if claiming a post is incorrect or not accurate.
Myself, I have had commenters point out an error at which point I personally make a correction, but when a post is well cited and referenced and someone doesn't like the implication for whatever reason...
no, we don't allow people to use this site to fill up the comment sections with beliefs, name calling and hate filled vitriol.
about Japan and I wish that there were really no faults below Diablo Canyon's reactors (there are three). I wish we could count on our governments to come clean on what's happening. But you know the old saying, If wishes were horses, we'd all take a ride.
This is a key point in the public dialog. The "Chernobyl" comparison by a scientific organization specializing in monitoring radiation, etc. shows how serious it is now, although it's not scientifically descriptive. The citizen and unrelated group/institutional monitoring is critical.
When will this be capped/resolved? That's the key follow up to the emissions and particle disbursement. It's the Freddy Kruger scenario that's so dreadful - ongoing releases for a year.
The Japanese people didn't do a single thing to deserve this. They were appropriately skeptical from the start but this was rammed through with empty promises and sweetened with PR campaigns by Tokyo Power. All the people did was work hard, obey the law, and live with an economic situation (since the 1980's) that reflected distorted policy and wealth concentrations, not the hard work and ingenuity of the people. Now this. They can't even get bottled water. They'll have something to say about this at some point, no doubt.
Mioko Smith and Takashi are both in Japan and both report a lack of information. It seems like they're having to piece things together in an ad hoc fashion. That's why the Austrian "Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics" is so important as a source. They exist to monitor treaties but their measurement routing is what's needed to measure part of this. Plutonium, levels of any toxins in the earth, contingency plans if all the efforts fail to gain control of these, and rigorous monitoring are all critical issues. This is looking like BP and the White House. Tokyo Power wants to run the show and control information. Hence, no transparent public web site that will say what they know and don't know and the methodology for gathering that information.
Just sayin'.
It really is time to swap out most of the nuclear plants for green energy.
They just did this now? cows barred from grazing in Japan.
What a mess, not that I'm really happy about any of this, I would have hoped our nuclear trolls were right and that everything is fine, move along now, nothing to see but it appears instead this is probably going to "level 7" in nuclear accident levels soon.
While the amounts are small, the West cost is getting the radioactive iodine here. That's shocking, it has a half life of 8 days and that's 4500 miles.
No levels that I've found where that are at "alert" but the good news is due to youtube and social media, people are out there taking their own readings.
How can anyone trust the nuclear industry when, as we strongly suspected, Japan is fastly approaching the worst nuclear disaster in history.
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