billcoe

I think I know why folks are defensive. In Washington/Seattle, within a day, are multiple amazing areas/climbs/Mts. It's like there are these pretty young virgins seducing you dudes EVERYWHERE! As represented by this picture below: Down here, in contrast, there is very little nothing that can compare. It can be related to a guy marrying a fat and mean bitch. Knowing that your brothers up North are hanging with the 47 Vestal Virgins makes one sensitive to having married her, and when she is criticized, the dude who made the mistake gets sensitive.....after all, she is his wife. Seen represented here: This is exaserbated and seen even on this board in that folks who want to go do other stuff, as in find and climb new cliffs, often get criticized by their brothers and called "ego maniacs under the guise of community service" or they are accused of making climbing "consumable", as if climbing is edible panties and it's going to disappear. To illustrate a small sub-set of this thought, in this very picture of Beacon (top one) that Kevin posted, there is climbable rock in the background which I would wager few -if any - posting here have climbed on. I can assure you that if you go there and dare to place some bolts on that solid rock, and it IS solid, you will be sadly criticized...by those who would rather armchair quarterback from their comfortable old armchair (Beacon) than get out, explore and try something new and thus expand the opportunities available to all.[/RANT] Yet Beacon STILL outshines all others around here (review lower picture of elderly woman for reference), and this is Kevin's great thread which we shouldn't be steering off the cliff into spray oblivion (sorry about my part of that). Like it said in the Jeff Thomas guidebook and it still gets quoted 26 years later: "As the saying goes "it's the best place to climb in Oregon, even if it is in Washington."

are you as dumb as you sound because you sound like a shithead. Nah, no need for that as the pictures really don't show the inner beauty. Pete, it's the best stuff around here so we make due. There are some super long, super fun splitter cracks on the south side that stay (relatively) clean.

Perhaps, but please Josh, they need slack for they are foreigners and not use to our sandbagging ways. LOL Realistically, once the route is repeated, then the truth will be laid bare. In looking at the picture of the crack the guy is leading, in no way does it appear to be A4 (easiest pitch of the 1 was suppose to be A4+)...but I wasn't there, and it's a picture. Furthermore, A4+ of yesteryear was easier than A4+ of today....so whatever. I can't say and don't know, wasn't there. A "crack" in mud may not be quite as fun as a crack in granite or bomber Basalt eh? Time will tell. I like the pictures though.

in the same sense that you need to have fucked a hideous fat-chick at some point in your life to put the hawties in perspective? uhhh....can't say about that, but given that the easiest pitch they did was suppose to be A4+, given the picture below, it looks like it might be grade inflation. To add to MountainMatts pic on top. "A Spanish pair has climbed a new route on the northwest face of the Titan in Utah’s Fisher Towers and proposed the unprecedented grade of A6+ for the crux lead. David Palmada and Esther Ollé climbed Look Out! Danger in 11 pitches, with one pitch given A6+, three A5 pitches, and three A4+ pitches. They placed no expansion bolts at the belays. The pair based the ratings in part on their ascent last year of Intifada, on the Cottontail formation in the Fisher Towers, a route given A6 by first ascensionist Jim Beyer but said by those few that have repeated it to be A4+ or A5. " Look at this one carefully, dude has his extension/Stick clip in use to take this picture. Clever. No belay bolts but it appears to be a Fixe bolt bag below. "Vertical mud", pretty bad-assed in either case.

Pffft, well he does but we don't see those kinds of headlines. Here you go. I like this one with the dog. hmmm...perhaps...hmmm... Mal-con, maybe you were thinking of this one below about the budget sinking? I don't recall where this chart was published though. They say that the man could sweet talk the panties off a 90 year old woman...I can't say about that, but I heard him live on the radio in my car discussing to Americans why Sonya Sodameyer was an excellent supreme court choice for our country and I had a tear in my eye, was singing God Bless America and reaching to take my own panties off before I realized I wasn't wearing any...The man is a powerful, erudite and flat out amazing speaker. And I'm not doing the compare and contrast thing on Presidential literacy with the last President either LOL!!!!! It's been noted by others that they do seem to share some similarities though.

That sounds like a metaphor for something. When I figure out what for, I'll let you know. BTW, Richard, I use a static line for mini-traxioning. That way, if you're doing something really hard, you don't have to barely not-do the crux over and over again due to rope stretch. Also, I use a Petzl stop for rappelling a single static line. Single static ropes rappel kind of funky with ATC's or regular belaying devices. -- I don't think Cilly, who's trolling for a discounted Mini Trax, is going to be paying the $115 for a Stop....jus' sayin' for Clubfoot.

Nice Trip report. Needs more climbing photos! I'll add a few. I forget what I'm leading here. Icicle Ethel, a great and easy route.

OK

Don't let it bother you Gary, Ivan thinks everyone is a bastard. This is only unusual insomuch as he seems to be a pretty good guy himself. It use to be much more of an exclusive club let me tell you..... regards to all

I was thinking that as well....once I got over my thoughts that Kevin was just off route again. LOL Kev, one of your better posts for sure! Looks like you got the last great weather day for a while too (except for the smart folks who went to Smith this weekend). Arent for a partner

from :A History of Free Climbing in America by Pat Ament "September 1965. Chuck Pratt, with Chris Fredericks, climbed the awe-inspiring Twilight Zone, an eerie, wickedly steep, 5.10+, off-width crack up a sheer wall of Yosemite's Cookie formation. The second pitch of this route was one of the boldest leads ever done, and entirely without protection. The Twilight Zone is arguably the greatest free-climbing achievement of the '60s era. Perhaps only John Gill's Thimble route in the Black Hills of South Dakota, done four years earlier, compared to it in boldness. Pratt had a remarkable gift for off-width cracks. A loner, never for sale to the media, he found certain private realms in which to play--including a number of paranormal, dark, scary climbs so ultimate in seriousness that even in his humble manner he was inclined to give them names such as Crack of Doom and Twilight Zone. Whereas John Gill had all the strength, had a mathematical/gymnast mind, and knew how to work up to such an achievement as the Thimble, Pratt, on the other hand, was more spontaneous. He simply found himself there, do or die. On the second pitch of Twilight Zone, Pratt reached a point well up the crack, hanging there unprotected amid difficulties that were alien and unimaginable to most climbers, who would not be able to do more than claw and gasp for the next inch. Yet there Pratt was, quiet, enduring, as cool as a circus wire-walker. At this fateful moment, he asked Chris Fredericks to use their extra rope, rappel down the first pitch, go to the car, look for a bong-bong (a large piton), and return. It was an amazing effort on Chuck's part, to stay there so long. Chris took what time was required to rappel, hurry down the Cookie road to the car, fetch the largest bong he could find, come back up the road, and use prusik knots to ascend the rope 100 feet or so back to the belay. Chuck then used one hand to pull up the bong with the climbing rope, risking a death fall if he lost his hold of the crack. Below, on the belay ledge, several spikes--actual blades--of rock jut upward that would act as guillotines if someone fell onto them. We wonder what Pratt thought, during the long wait for Fredericks to return. It must have been quiet. Pratt might have been able to hear himself breathe or hear his clothes press against the granite. We imagine he may have had to shift his feet a time or two, or alternately kick his feet against the granite to drive some of the pain out of them. Did he think about a girlfriend? Did he ponder the possibility of climbing down what he had led? Or envision himself coming off and having to jettison himself out away from those sharp spikes of rock pointing upward out of the belay ledge? Perhaps it was best not to think such things. Perhaps he did not and instead kept his thought focused above. Chuck found the bong to be too small! His famous calm words: "Well this bong doesn't fit. Do you mind if I go ahead and lead upward?" It was said in soft Pratt-like style, as though if he fell his belayer would be the one to suffer. The difficulties inherent in a true climb provide a creative climber with ideas. Pratt, with his typical nonchalance, arrived at the top of this mangnum opus. Pratt's technique was characterized by a marvelous economy of movement. Yet he must have experienced an eloquent chill when he arrived at the top. As unsafe as some say it is to climb unprotected, for a few individuals a climb inspires in them the necessary strength, and hidden powers to succeed with reasonable security. To climb in such a pure way, alone essentially, tends to destroy egotism, encourage care, awaken unknown abilities, and bring one in deep touch with the surroundings. Today's best climbers who have repeated the Twilight Zone are often photographed placing large, high-tech, spring-loaded protection devices in the wide crack. They slide up their big "Friend," as they go, and keep almost a top-rope for the whole distance. They have chalk and good shoes, and all the protection they want. Yet even today, a lead of the climb now rated 5.10d, generally brings deep feelings of accomplishment. Pratt simply rated it 5.10 but it was certainly more difficult psychologically than any other 5.10 in Yosemite at the time. In fact, Twilight Zone will never be repeated. It was a work of art and thus virtually impossible to duplicate. It was pioneered by a man the cracks of Yosemite were fundamentally unable to stop. The Twilight Zone was an odd quest of a private and brilliant soul. On a certain pitch, a particular climbing artist achieves his or her true form. We continue to see Pratt up there, in that crack, stoic, in tune with the relative solitude such a place affords, and true to the purest free ethic. "

NOW THIS!!!!!!! IS WHAT I CALL A TRIP REPORT !! If we were able to be rating stories, this would be maxed out on top in my view. Great visualizations even though there were no pictures. Thanks for sharing.

I bought a $90 bottle of Woodford Reserve Mastercraft small batch ultra-premium estate the other day and matched it up in a blind taste with 2 Bourbon snobs against a $50 bottle of Bernheim and a $33 bottle of standard Woodford Reserve Distellers Select. The expensive bottle last, cheapest bottle first, by a wide margin. The last bottle of Chateau Mouton Rothschild (A red French wine, probably selling in the $200 range) I opened up (last month) received a 60 plus (VS the published Robert Parker 91) from the wine snob I blindly shared that with and asked what he thought the rating was...sigh...I need to work on my snob presentation:-) The moral of the storys: I should have given the dude the Woodbridge. That's some great stuff. Essentially "$4 Buck Chuck", I'm drinking it now and it's great.

Today is Red Wine day.....jus' sayin'. Woodbridge by Robert Mondavi. It's 10 steps up from 2 buck Chuck in quality and only 1 (baby) step up in price. $18 and change for a 4 pack at Costco...don't swill it all down at once Paul, leave some for Moi!

Looks to be 2.

You talking about Shrub, King George III and Dubya? Thats insulting, he was the President you know.

Identify the color and then we'll know it's yours and Pete will return it to you.

LOL! Ultralight! Climbmax has some small custom ones that would work if you tie a regular knot (I believe) and they are selling them for A BUCK EACH!!!!!! They should increase the price to $2 IMO, and they already may have. Don't see them on the web site: http://www.climbmaxmountaineering.com/ I see they still have Kong pitons for $1.99 though on the closeout and special link. Just email them, good people.

Beth and Chris McNamara

Shallow water soloing coming soon to a pool near you. http://www.gadgetreview.com/2009/09/aquaclimb-bringing-the-elements-together.html OMG! Is that G-spotter in the red trunks there?

It's OK for you to be black buddy. No worries. http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20090903/cm_csm/ycollinsweb " By May Akabogu-Collins May Akabogu-collins – Thu Sep 3, 5:00 am ET Vista, Calif. – I was about to kick my white neighbor out of my house. Then the memory of my dad's voice intercepted me. In 1980, when I was coming to America from Nigeria to attend grad school, my father told me, "Not every unpleasant encounter with a Caucasian constitutes racism. It might just be ignorance – stupidity, in fact." When I arrived at the University of Southern California, the dynamics of black-white politics were still alien. That first semester, I received the highest score on a test. As he handed back my paper, the professor publicly announced, : "You surprised me; I kept slowing down for you, thinking you were lost." A compliment, I thought. "An insult," said a classmate later. "The professor had presumed you were dumb because you're black." I wasn't convinced. But events moved on. Sometimes preposterously. A year later, I was walking back to my hotel room in Baltimore when another hotel guest stuck her head out her room and addressed me: "I need extra soap and a towel." I smiled and replied, "Me, too." At that point, she flushed and disappeared. I chalked it up to rational discrimination. Soon after grad school, I arrived at a college for an interview and introduced myself as "Dr. Collins." The secretary replied, "And I'm the president." She later apologized profusely, adding, "You look too young to be a PhD." "It's the melanin," I deadpanned, adding with a wink, "Black don't crack." She cracked up. Never having been a target of old-fashioned, explicit racism, I still couldn't distinguish between imaginary and real racism. That changed when my sister and I entered a video store in Korea Town in Los Angeles. We were excited to find the Eddie Murphy comedy, "Coming to America." The clerk, without batting an eye, announced unequivocally, "Only Koreans." That was the turning point in my assimilation to my new environment. For the first time, I felt the frustration of being black in America. "It's an Asian thing," a friend explained later. "They tend to be clannish." For a while I shunned Asians – and consorted with Caucasians. In Africa we attended the same schools as the Caucasians. There was no built-up animosity and, I suppose, the Caucasians in West Africa never had a reason to draw racial lines or feel superior. Hence, I had no self-consciousness among Caucasians. The O.J. Simpson verdict in 1995, however, changed all that. I was the only black professor at a small college in Pennsylvania. When I heard my all-white colleagues denouncing the verdict at the department lounge, I stepped outside my office to join them. The lounge immediately went silent. Everyone froze, like a still frame in a movie, and the tableau resonated with the unspoken, "You're black, therefore..." I spun on my heel and fled campus. I'd spent 15 years in America resisting racializing my feelings, but that incident at the faculty lounge gave me a new pair of glasses. In San Diego 10 years later, as I was walking my dogs (Akitas) one Monday morning, I encountered an elderly white woman. "They are absolutely gorgeous!" she declared. Before I could thank her, she added, "Are they yours?" Here's the thing: After 25 years in America, as such encounters accumulate, subconsciously, resentments also accumulate. "Fat chance," I replied, "I'm dog-sitting for a rich white family." And I strode away wondering if I was becoming racially paranoid. I was still wondering that when my white neighbor knocked on my door that same day. She was having an off day, so she took the day off and came over to vent. "It's like," she began, tears welling. "How can I put it? I feel like I've little black people inside my stomach." Huh? I'd had three little black people inside my belly and those were the happiest months of my life. So what could I say? "What do you mean?" A litany of woes ensued: hubby's worsening Alzheimer's, facing foreclosure, teenage turmoil – my mind strayed. Black market, black sheep, Black October, Black Sunday, black Monday, black weekend, the blackest day in history (9/11). Granted, those held no racial connotations – they were just terms for bad things. People having a bad day often say they're having a black day. But little black people in her stomach? Why, that's racist! I should just kick her out, I thought. Then I heard my father's voice: "It might just be ignorance...." "Hel-lo-o?" my neighbor reeled in my attention. "Yeah, I'm listening," I said. She continued, but my mind kept wandering: Had I just been insulted? Should I demand an apology at least? Or was I becoming one of those "overly sensitive blacks" – you know, the ones who criticized David Howard, a former Washington, D.C., mayoral aide, for saying "niggardly" (which means "miserly") at a budget discussion in 1999? I still can't, be certain, of course. And I'm still not convinced that kicking my neighbor out would've been wrong. Yet, I'm bothered that my feelings are now colored by race. I now empathize with blacks born here who, due to the country's history, are sensitive to these issues. But at the same time, I sympathize with the uninformed whites who must watch their language lest they inadvertently offend our sensibilities. That's where America is. And until whites make the extra effort to understand the source of "black rage," that's where America will remain. Why didn't I approach my neighbor later to tell her that I felt insulted by her metaphor? I was afraid she would consider me "overly sensitive," and that it might cause a strain between us. Race discussion is uncomfortable. And that's exactly the problem in America – the lack of trust between blacks and whites and hence the inability to engage in an open and frank discussion about the causes and effects of racism that can clarify our different reactions to the same racial landscape. As President Obama has said, for America to progress, both blacks and whites must listen to one another with an open mind. Only then can we understand where the other is coming from. Yet it has to come from our hearts. And that requires mutual trust. Blacks must be able to talk to whites about their fears and resentments without presuming that whites would consider them racially paranoid. Whites must trust that blacks won't label them racists for expressing their frustrations. This is the way toward a more racially tolerant America. And in order to get there, we must be open with ourselves and compassionate with others. Until then, these incidents will proceed with black – oops – bleak predictability: Ignorant white says something racially insensitive. Sensitive Negroes overreact. And we're all tired of that broken record. May Akabogu-Collins is a professor of economics and a freelance writer." _______________________________________________________________ U can talk to us. It's OK.

Is G-spotter the first patient? http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/09/internet_addiction_center_open.html ".....The center, called ReSTART, is somewhat ironically located near Redmond, headquarters of Microsoft and a world center of the computer industry. It opened in July and for $14,000 offers a 45-day program intended to help people wean themselves from pathological computer use, which can include obsessive use of video games, texting, Facebook, eBay, Twitter and any other time-killers brought courtesy of technology...."

http://www.michael-hudson.com/ FULL TEXT OF THIS LINK: Note the date this was published. "The Game is over There Won't be a Rebound An Interview by Mike Whitney with Michael Hudson on the Economy June 20th, 2008 ISLET © 1--Fed chairman Bernanke has been on a spree lately, delivering three speeches in the last two weeks. Every chance he gets, he talks tough about the strong dollar and "holding the line" against inflation. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson even said that "intervention" in the currency markets was still an option. Is all of this jawboning just saber rattling to keep the dollar from plummeting, or is there a chance that Bernanke actually will raise rates at the Fed's August meeting? MH: The United States steers its monetary policy almost exclusively with domestic objectives in mind. This means ignoring the balance of payments. From the U.S. vantage point, supporting the dollar’s exchange rate by the traditional method of raising interest rates would have a very negative effect on the stock and bond markets – and on the mortgage market. These markets fall whenever there’s serious talk of an interest rate increase, because it discourages speculation – and that’s what the Bubble Economy is still based on these days. Higher rates and a stock-market downturn would lead foreign investors to sell U.S. securities, and likely would end up hurting more than helping the U.S. balance of payments and hence the dollar’s exchange rate. So Mr. Bernanke’s statements are merely being polite in not rubbing the faces of European and Asian governments in the fact that U.S. officials are not at all unhappy to see the dollar’s exchange rate plunge. U.S. officials believe that dollar depreciation will help their exporters, especially in the aircraft and other military-industrial sector. It’s foreign investors and central banks who must absorb the loss in their dollar holdings as valued in their own domestic currencies. Like the domestic U.S. economy itself, the global financial system is all about getting a free lunch. When Europe and Asia receive excess dollars, these are turned over to their central banks. Until the recent decision to create sovereign wealth funds, these government bodies had little alternative but to recycle these dollar inflows back to the United States by buying U.S. Treasury bonds. This financed the domestic U.S. federal budget deficit, which stems largely from the war in Iraq that most foreign voters oppose. Unless foreign governments are willing to make a structural break to change the world monetary system, they will remain powerless to avoid giving the United States a free ride – including a free ride for its military spending and war in the Near East. 2--How do you explain the soaring price of oil? Is it mainly a supply/demand issue or are speculators driving the prices up? MH: It’s true that enormous amounts of speculative credit are going into commodity index funds. Forward purchases increase the demand for deliveries of oil and other raw materials. But bear in mind also that as the dollar depreciates, OPEC countries have sought to stabilize their receipts in euros, and to offset their losses they are suffering on the dollar-denominated securities they have bought with past export proceeds. For over 30 years they have been pressured to recycle their oil earnings into the U.S. stock market and make loans to U.S. financial institutions. They have taken large losses on these investments (such as last year’s contributions to bail out Citibank), and are trying to recoup them via the oil market. OPEC officials also point to a political motive: They resent America’s military intrusion in the Middle East, especially in view of how much it contributes to the nation’s balance-of-payments deficit and federal budget deficit. Look at it from their point of view. They see that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was a win-win situation as far as the oil industry is concerned. If America conquers Iraq and forces the Oil Agreement through, U.S. companies will be able to grab the world’s largest available pool of oil for a generation, and U.S. officials can use the oil weapon against oil-deficit countries. Last week the U.S. oil firms managed to bump Russia’s oil industry out of the Iraq picture, reversing the trend that had been developing under Saddam. And if the war continues to be a military and economic disaster, the price of oil will skyrocket, providing a price umbrella for domestic U.S. producers – as you can see from how the stock market is raising its valuation of Exxon and other oil majors. So the question is by no means just an economic one. The U.S. press prefers to blame Chinese, Indian and other foreign growth in demand for oil and raw materials. This demand has contributed to the price rise, no doubt about it. But the U.S. oil majors are receiving a windfall “economic rent” on the price run-up, and are not at all unhappy to see it continue. By not building more refining and shipping capacity, they have created bottlenecks so that even if foreign countries did supply more crude oil, it would not be reflected in refined gasoline, kerosene or other downstream product prices. 3--The Fed has traded over $200 billion in US Treasuries with the big investment banks for a wide variety of dodgy collateral (mostly mortgage-backed securities). How can the banks hope to repay the Fed when their main sources of revenue (structured investments) have been cut off? Are the banks secretly using the money they borrow via repos from the Fed to dabble in the carry trade or speculate in the futures markets? MH: The Fed’s idea was to buy enough time for the banks to sell their junk mortgages to the proverbial “greater fool.” But foreign investors no longer are playing this role, nor are domestic U.S. pension funds. So the most likely result will be for the Fed simply to roll over its loans – as if the problem can be cured by yet more time. When a bubble bursts, time makes things worse. The financial sector has been living in the short run for quite a while now, and I suspect that a lot of money managers are planning to get out or be fired now that the game is over. And it really is over. The Treasury’s attempt to reflate the real estate market can’t work, but can only cut losses for the financial institutions who have become the nation’s major political campaign contributors. Mortgage arrears, defaults and foreclosures are rising, and much property has become unsaleable except at distress prices that leave homeowners with negative equity. This prompts them to do what Donald Trump would do in such a situation: to walk away from their property. The banks will be left holding the bag, just as they were in Japan after 1990. In Japan’s case, real estate prices declined steadily every quarter for 17 years! That should give you a flavor of how serious the U.S. problem is today. The banks are trying to win back their losses by arbitrage operations, borrowing from the Fed at a low interest rate and lending at a higher one, and gambling on options and derivatives. But this is a zero-sum game: one party’s gain is another’s loss. So the banks collectively are simply painting themselves into a deeper corner. They hope they can tell the Fed and Treasury that if it doesn’t keep bailing them out, they’ll fail and cost the FDIC even more money to make good on insuring the “bad savings” that have been steered into these bad debts and bad gambles. The Fed and Treasury are following the traditional “Big fish eat little fish” principle of favoring the vested interests. They are more willing to bail out the big financial institutions than to bail out savers, pensioners, Social Security recipients and other small fry. 4--According to most estimates, the Fed has already gone through half or more of its $900 billion balance sheet. Also, according to the latest H.4.1 data "the current holdings of Treasury bills is $25 billion. This is down from some $250 billion a year ago, or a net reduction of 90%." (figures from Market Ticker) Doesn't this suggest that the Fed is just about out of firepower when it comes to bailing out the struggling banking system? Where do we go from here? Will some of the larger banks be allowed to fail or will they be nationalized? MH: You need to look at what the Treasury as well as the Fed is doing. The Fed can monetize whatever it wants. And as you just pointed out in the preceding question, it’s been buying junk securities, leaving sound Treasury securities on the banking system’s balance sheet. Meanwhile, false reporting will help financial institutions avoid the appearance of insolvency. Government bailout credit will keep the big banks alive. But many small regional banks will go under and be merged into larger money-center banks – just as many brokerage firms in recent decades have been merged into larger conglomerates. They will seek more and more government guarantees, ostensibly to help middle-class depositors but actually favoring the big speculators who are their major clients. What we are seeing is the creation of a concentrated financial oligarchy – precisely the power that the Glass-Steagall Act was designed to prevent. A combination of deregulation and “moral hazard” bailouts – for the top of the economic pyramid, not the bottom – will polarize the economy all the more. Cities and states will preserve their credit ratings by annulling their pension obligations to public-sector workers, and raising excise and sales taxes – but not property taxes. These already have fallen from about two-thirds of local budgets in 1930 to only about one-sixth today – that is, a decline of 75 percent, proportionally. While the debt burden and the squeeze in disposable personal income is pressuring workers, finance and property are using the crisis to get a bonanza of tax relief. Democrats in Congress are as far to the right as George Bush on this, as their base is local politics and real estate. 5--According to the Financial Times: "Analysts at Citigroup said a planned tightening of the rules regarding off-balance sheet vehicles would force banks to reconsider arrangements and could result in up to $5,000bn of assets coming back on to the books. The off-balance sheet vehicles have been used by financial institutions to keep some assets off their balance sheets, thereby avoiding the need to hold regulatory capital against them." Is there any way the banks can find investors with "deep enough pockets" to provide the capital they need to meet the requirements on $5 trillion dollars? Are most of these off-balance sheets assets mortgage backed securities and other hard-to-value bonds? MH: It looks like the practice of off-balance-sheet accounting has become obsolete, because nearly all the banks have abused it in a fraudulent way. The United States is going to adopt Europe’s normal “covered bond” practice of bank head-office liability for mortgages and other loans. The Wall Street Journal had a good article on this on June 17, anticipating that the U.S. covered bond market might rise quickly to $1 trillion as early as next year. This coverage is what traditionally has protected European investors. But the United States put its faith in “self-regulation,” by banks – in a sector where financial crime always has been rife. We’ve already seen criminal charges brought against Bear Stearns, and the FBI has announced that it’s in the middle of a far-reaching fraud investigation. I hope they get Countrywide and the other crooked institutions – but nearly all the big banks and companies have been involved. The problem with financial institutions is that they live in the short run. This actually has paid them. They declared large profits on fraudulent loans, and paid out an amount equal to their entire capital on wages and salaries for upper management, and dividends. So their managers have stripped them dry, leaving them today with Negative Equity. This is the same situation they were in back in 1980, but at that time the reason was that interest rates had soared to 20% in the Carter-Volcker inflation. Today, interest rates are low, and the banks already are broke. If this really were a “free market” economy, their shareholders would be wiped out – and the government would demand return of the exorbitant bonuses and salaries. Instead, it looks like the government will bail out the banks. But I think it’s wrong to lend money to a bank today without getting preferential treatment over its stockholders and bondholders, plus secure collateral. In view of the heavy losses of German banks in Saxony and Düsseldorf in the U.S. subprime market last summer, and the heavy losses by Arab sheiks in Citibank stock last summer, it’s unlikely that investors will buy mortgages that no major bank or government agency stands behind. So something has to give. 6--Many of the TV financial gurus --as well as Henry Paulson--keep assuring us that the worst is behind us, but I don't see it. Foreclosures are increasing, the dollar is falling, unemployment is rising, manufacturing is sluggish, food and fuel are soaring, and consumers are backed up on their credit cards, student loans and house payments. Where would you say we are in the present cycle? What will it take to rebound from the current slump? Will the stock market take a beating before all this is over? What do you think the greatest problem facing the economy is; inflation or deflation? MH: The idea that we’re even in a business “cycle” is whistling in the dark. To think of the economy being in a cycle is to imply an automatic recovery is in store. This free-market idea was developed at the National Bureau of Economic Research by opponents of government regulatory policy. The fantasy is that the economy oscillates in a fairly smooth and regular sine curve. But this always has been a fiction. 19th-century writers didn’t speak of economic cycles, but rather of periodic financial crises. There is a slow buildup, and a sudden plunge, so the shape is ratchet-shaped. Today’s plunging real estate and stock market prices are not a self-correcting ebb and flow in which downturns set in motion automatic stabilizers that produce recovery. Each U.S. recovery since World War II has started out from a higher level of debt. The result is like driving a car with the brakes pressed more and more tightly. Alan Greenspan at the Federal Reserve flooded the banking system with enough credit to enable debts to be carried by borrowing against the rising price of homes and office buildings, corporate stocks and bonds. In effect, the interest charge was simply added onto the debt balance. But now prices are falling, leaving families, companies and many Wall Street firms with negative equity. Asset-price inflation fueled by the Federal Reserve – is giving way to debt deflation. Today, the prospects are dim for paying off debts out of further price gains for homes and real estate. Speculators have pulled out of the market – and as late as 2006 they accounted for about a sixth of new purchases. The United States and other countries have reached the point where interest and amortization payments are absorbing the entire economic surplus of so many individuals, so many companies and so many government bodies that new construction, investment and employment are grinding to a halt. Families, real estate investors and companies are obliged to use their disposable income to pay their creditors. This leaves them without enough money to sustain the living standards of recent years – and they no longer can wipe out their debts by declaring bankruptcy as in times past, because Congress has passed the harsh bankruptcy law that credit-card and bank lobbies paid them to pass. This means that there won’t be a rebound, and it will take longer than 2009 to recover. 7--I read about 8 or 9 articles every day about the meltdown in housing. I always tell my wife that its like reading a Tom Clancy novel except the ending is less certain. As Yale economist Robert Schiller pointed out last month; the decline in prices is now greater than it was during the Great Depression. Will prices find a bottom in 2009 or will it take longer? If prices keep falling then how are the banks going to sell the hundreds of billions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities that they are presently holding? MH: Prices will keep going back down, because they no longer can be bolstered by interest rates plunging further. The zero-amortization mortgages and low or zero (or even negative) down payments in recent years are as low as can be achieved mathematically. This means the end of the Bubble Economy. The actual real estate market is much worse even than the present price statistics show, because many people are frozen in with negative equity. So instead of price declines, we’ll simply see many more foreclosures. This means that the banks can’t sell their mortgage-backed securities without taking big losses – except to the government at prices way above what the market will pay. The Fed already has let them borrow against collateral at way, way more than it is worth – in sharp contrast to how it treats middle-class debtors. 8--How serious is the current crisis in the financial markets and housing and what steps do you think Obama or McCain should take to stabilize the markets, reduce the deficits, strengthen the dollar, increase employment, and put the economy on solid footing? Is it possible to have a strong economy without policies that distribute the nation's wealth more equitably? As chief economic advisor to Rep Dennis Kucinich, what one bit of advice would you give to Obama to restore America's economic vitality and put the country on the right path again? MH: In economic terms America today is in as “optimum” a position as it is can be. That’s actually bad news, because an optimum position is, mathematically speaking, one in which you can’t move without making your situation worse. This is the position we’re in now, and it’s already as good as it can get. There’s nowhere to move, at least within the existing structure. “The market” can’t be stabilized, because it was based on fictitious prices to begin with. It’s hard to impose fiction on reality for very long. The rest of the world has woken up – although not Congress, it seems. In times past, bankruptcy would have wiped out the bad debts. The problem with such write-offs is that bad the savings that have been steered into bad loans must follow suit and go by the boards. But today, the very wealthy hold most of the savings, so the government doesn’t want to let them take a loss. It would rather wipe out pensioners, consumers, workers, industrial companies and foreign investors. So debts will be kept on the books and the economy will slowly be strangled by debt deflation. The U.S. can’t reduce its balance-of-payments deficit without scaling back its military spending. Meanwhile, Congress is refusing to let foreign governments invest in much besides overpriced junk here, so central banks are treating the dollar like a hot potato, trying to buy foreign assets that can play a role in their own future economic development. At a point these actions threaten to leave the United States economically isolated as foreign economies protect themselves from U.S. credit creation out of thin air to buy their exports and companies. The questio is, will Obama and other politicians be willing to tell the public the bad news – that restoring vitality will take radical measures? The way to do this is to present it as good news. There ARE reforms that can help matters, and they are reforms that Americans have endorsed for a century, ever since the Progressive Era. One problem is that lobbyists for the vested interests are so powerful that they probably can get Congress to water down any real so much that the economic situation will to keep on getting worse and worse before the needed reforms can be enacted. On the other hand, only in such a situation CAN they be enacted. I think that Mr. Obama would be wise to explain this before taking office. As president, he will have to do what FDR did, and challenge the financial oligarchy with new regulatory agencies, staffed with real regulators, not deregulators as under the Bush-Clinton-Bush regime. His political hope to avoid being blamed for the economic problems in which 16 years of Clinton and Bush policies have pushed the United States is to come out in the fall – probably after the election – and blame the Republicans for their regressive tax policies. This would help bring pressure on the new Democratic Congress to back a return to progressive taxation and serious financial restructuring. For starters, Mr. Obama should repeal the Clinton repeal of Glass Steagall. And he should make large depositors and “savers” take the losses on their bad bets. Most of all, he will have to make the tax system back progressive again if the domestic market is to recover. Also, a good tax code should encourage equity financing instead of debt pyramiding as is now the case, thanks to the banking lobby. This winding down of U.S. debt can best be achieved by removing the tax-deductibility of interest payments, and do what the original 1913 income tax did: tax capital gains at normal income rates rather than subsidizing speculation. The great majority of such gains accrue to real estate speculators, not to industrial entrepreneurs. Mr. Obama can help revive the middle class by paying Social Security and medical care out of the general budget, not as user fees borne by the lowest wealth brackets as at present. Until this change is made, FICA withholding should be levied on total income, without any upper cutoff point. If there is a cut-off point, it should be to exempt people who earn LESS than $60,000 a year. This would end up being fairly revenue-neutral. Pres. Obama should explain that his policy is not to “soak the rich.” It is to make them pay their way once again, by favoring a strong middle class as the tax code was meant to do prior to the 1980s. Unless Mr. Obama does this, what used to be a democracy will be turned into an oligarchy. The problem with oligarchies is that historically they are so shortsighted that they stifle the domestic economy, driving enterprise and emigration abroad. This threatens to reverse America’s long-term affluence. The word means literally a flowing-in – an inflow of capital, of skilled immigrants and other labor, of technology, and of foreign support. All this has now been put in danger by the policies pursued since the 1980s. Industry and savings already have begun to flow abroad. Skilled labor and technology is next, while domestic infrastructure is sold off to foreigners. Free roads will be turned into toll-roads, and the fees, interest and profits sent abroad. If this trend cannot be reversed in the present economic squeeze, U.S. living standards and the domestic market will be subject to IMF-style austerity and shrink. Michael Hudson is a former Wall Street economist specializing in the balance of payments and real estate at the Chase Manhattan Bank (now JPMorgan Chase & Co.), Arthur Anderson, and later at the Hudson Institute (no relation). In 1990 he helped established the world’s first sovereign debt fund for Scudder Stevens & Clark. Dr. Hudson was Dennis Kucinich’s Chief Economic Advisor in the recent Democratic primary presidential campaign, and has advised the U.S., Canadian, Mexican and Latvian governments, as well as the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). A Distinguished Research Professor at University of Missouri, Kansas City (UMKC), he is the author of many books, including Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire (new ed., Pluto Press, 2002) He can be reached via his website, mh@michael-hudson.com"

Since it's not a "secret" area anymore. Repost of the video of Kelton leading "Angle of the Dangle" at Ozone. Almost 2 years after the first post. [video:google]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9093589330085364485 Good video work there! Maybe the pinkpoint/redpoint/brownpoint/boltclipping is bad discussion can start over on spray this go-round.

Dark and wet, like you like your women!