American Decline and who's Objectively to Blame

Colonel Schulz and Count Ciano visiting a technical and air war academy

Originally posted on March 27, 2018:

In this addition to my post about the situation in the United States, I think that I will get into the reason why the United States is in decline and about what Israel represents.

First of all, what place does capitalism occupy in Western states? Capitalists are the rulers of the West, and what we have in the West is a dictatorship of capital. What this means is that capitalists are above the law and above the state in Western countries. The state and even some other forms of accumulation of surplus are tolerated in Western countries, but capitalists are the real rulers, they make the laws, and they control the thoughts of the masses. In other words, everything in Western countries revolves around capitalists. This is why it's not surprising that the capitalists of different Western countries have close ties and that they even bypass state power when they make agreements. It's a whole system and governments don't play the main role in it.

I have to disagree with the people that call what has been happening in the USA for the last several decades fascism. To me, fascism is industrial capitalism in its post-expansion, imperial form, like what happened in Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, or, less significantly, in other Western states like Augusto Pinochet's Chile or Francisco Franco's Spain. Under fascism, capitalists, who used to be the rulers of some state, finally give up real power to the instruments of class oppression and imperialist war that they've been funding and supporting. They do this in order to oppress the disgruntled masses and to prevent upheaval. So, the capitalists take a back seat to the new, authoritative people in power. Under fascism, the new military rulers begin massive spending and usually begin attacking other states in the civilization, and even outside of the civilization, in order to alleviate the economic crisis and to create an empire. The massive spending and the loot that comes from wars of aggression result in stability and prosperity, for a time. This is why the German Nazis, for example, had military, social, and scientific successes before they were defeated. This is why many Germans and other Europeans fought to the end for the defense of the Third Reich. The same can't be said about the USA now. In the USA, power is still in the hands of capitalists, like the Rockefellers, the Kochs, the Fords, or those unpleasant members of the Bush family. I think that many people are still under the influence of American propaganda, which states that capitalism equals freedom. No, in the end, capitalism becomes oppressive, just like any other system. South Korea, for example, used to be an oppressive capitalist state before the Korean Miracle was created by the Americans there. South Korea became a less oppressive state because fast economic growth and industrialization began there several decades ago. The reason why capitalism didn't appear to be so oppressive in the USA before is because of the serious economic growth that used to exist. But it's worth pointing out that, since the 1930s, this growth has been coming from the imperialist operations of the USA. Another way of putting this is that, since the 1930s, the USA hasn't been growing from the inside. It's because "expansion" came to an end in 1929 in the USA. The USA has been growing by exploiting the peoples and the resources of the many territories that are outside of the USA. The USA has spread its tentacles all over the world, to the extent that there's no serious opposition to American force and economics anywhere in the world now. But even this tremendous imperialism hasn't been enough to put an end to the decay in the USA. It has only postponed and softened this decay because the vested interests of capitalism have remained in power. These vested interests continue to resist change and progress. Therefore, now that there's little or no economic growth under capitalism, and now that the Soviet Union doesn't exist to keep the capitalists in check, the capitalists are showing the masses in Western countries who their daddy is. So, as Paid Liar Jones (Alex Jones) once said, "Shut up, slave filth" and don't raise your voice or you're gonna get it.

It's not easy nowadays to make sense of what's going on in the Western world and with its dominant state, which is the USA. But one thing that's clear to me is that the USA and other Western states are now demonstrating incompetence such as they haven't demonstrated before. This is happening because Western civilization is in a crisis. And this crisis didn't begin in 2008. It began in the second half of the 19th century, first in core states like England and France. This is why the British Empire and the French Empire collapsed some decades later and why they no longer exist (though England and France still act as imperialist powers). This crisis reached peripheral Western states like Germany and the USA in the first half of the 20th century. The reason why this crisis appeared is because capitalism (more precisely, industrial capitalism) is no longer functioning as an expansive system in the West. In the West, industrial capitalism has turned into a structure of vested interests called monopoly capitalism. This means, as Carroll Quigley explained in his books, that Western civilization has been in the Age of Conflict, the third in Western history, for about a century already. When a civilization enters the Age of Conflict, this doesn't mean that progress and growth come to an end. Progress and growth begin to slow down. The USA, for example, definitively entered the Age of Conflict in 1929, several decades after England did so, because it's a peripheral Western state. Therefore, the USA has been demonstrating incompetence since 1929, and this incompetence has only been growing since then. For example, some American nationalists say that if there had been more determination in the USA, and if the politicians in Washington hadn't been so afraid and so hesitant, the USA would have won the Vietnam War (1955 - 1975). And, sure, there's a possibility that the USA would have won the Vietnam War, but only if the Vietnam War had taken place decades earlier, when the USA was in the Age of Expansion. Since the Vietnam War took place after 1929, and since the Americans were fighting against a strong-willed enemy (an enemy that also had the backing of the Soviet Union), the Americans had to give up and leave Vietnam. And the war itself may have been started simply to boost the profits of the American military-industrial complex. It has even been admitted that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was a false flag. In other words, there's a reason for the American loss in Vietnam. This reason is the fact that the USA has been losing strength and morale since 1929. This has been happening because industrial capitalism has become a structure of vested interests called monopoly capitalism in the USA. But American nationalists and right-wing radicals, who are brainwashed and who are still obsessed with a fictional communist enemy, just can't accept that capitalism is the root of their problems. Therefore, they say that they would have cut through the Viet Cong like butter, and that the USA would have bombed Vietnam back to the stone age, if only the politicians in Washington hadn't been so weak. So, instead of looking for faults in the capitalist system, they imagine that some "other" is responsible for the problems. This "other" takes on the shape of something that they already don't like. For example, in the case of the American right (who are often irrational, poorly educated liars), the "other" is usually communism (though communism doesn't exist), or the Jews, or some conspiracy of bankers, or "cultural Marxism", or some other country like Russia, or certain left-wing politicians. What's interesting is that some people in the ruling class try to take advantage of this irrationality and shortage of knowledge by supporting them. Through their agents in the media and in culture, some monopoly capitalists support claims about a communist conspiracy or about a banker conspiracy because this shifts attention away from the real root of the problems, which is the uninvested surplus of the capitalist ruling class. This is especially the case when conservative leaders (like Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan) are in power in the USA or in the UK. They bring out people such as Joseph McCarthy, Anthony Sutton, or Yuri Bezmenov on television in order to make the dupes believe that the evil commies are out to get them or that there's a conspiracy of the left. Because, you know, it's not the all-powerful capitalists who are at fault but those non-existent or few-in-numbers commies. Carroll Quigley called these people, and the oligarchical faction to which they belong, the "lunatic radical right" in his book 'Tragedy and Hope' (1966). If I remember correctly, Quigley also wrote that Douglas MacArthur was close to this oligarchical faction, and this is why he disobeyed Harry S. Truman during the Korean War. Economic growth and population growth in the USA have been slowing down, and all kinds of social problems have been appearing, because the vested interests of capitalism no longer invest their surplus. I'm not saying that conspiracies (like a conspiracy of some bankers) don't exist. I'm saying is that, even if some of them do exist, they're not the root of the problems. By the way, what has been happening in the USA since 1929 is what happened in Russia from 1900 to 1917. There's a reason why a revolution took place in Russia. The Russian state, which was the "instrument of expansion" of Russian civilization, became a structure of vested interests in 1900, during the rule of Nicholas II of Russia. Therefore, problems began to appear in the Russian Empire after 1900 and "expansion" began to slow down. Like the Americans, the Russians began to demonstrate incompetence, they began to lose wars, and it took only 17 years for order to collapse in Russia. In the USA, on the other hand, this has been going on for almost a century already because the USA doesn't have the problems and the issues that Russia had.

So, when it comes to the election of Donald Trump and to what's been happening since then, I don't really agree that the American authorities are engaged in some effective deception with Trump. The American authorities are simply demonstrating incompetence and desperation, and there's a possible struggle in the American ruling class. When it comes to me, I don't really pay much attention to this struggle, even if it exists. Well, firstly, I'm not American. Secondly, I need proof that there is a struggle. I can't just rely on maybes and assumptions. I've come across information that seriously puts in doubt this "left vs. right" nonsense. Thirdly, even if there is a struggle between oligarchs, there's really no difference for the average person because the oligarchs are all monopoly capitalists anyway. They may disagree on minor issues, but they agree on major issues. I'm still surprised sometimes when I see people running after the next big thing. They still haven't learned, after all these years, that it's not important who they vote for. Sure, I kind of supported Trump in 2016. I did this only because of his anti-war rhetoric. But even then I knew that he won't change anything. I'm a little wiser and older now, and I think that I shouldn't have thrown my weight behind any of the presidential candidates in the USA. Still, it was interesting to observe what happened because the majority of the Anglo-American establishment didn't want Trump in the White House. Even Morgan Freeman, the "Voice of God", was brought out for a funny propaganda stunt. I also can't forget the 2016 film Independence Day: Resurgence, which was released just before the election. In this film, which I kind of like by the way, the president of the USA is a woman. This was a clear suggestion that the next president should be a woman (Clinton), and it's just one example of the backing that Hillary Clinton received. Still, even all of the support from the media and from Hollywood didn't get Clinton to the coronation hall. I mean, don't get me wrong. This support got her very far, but it wasn't quite enough to beat Trump because Clinton was just so hated. When I was dining at a restaurant once, in 2016, I overheard two young women talking not far from me about what was happening in the USA. One of them called Clinton an old bag. Later, I found even more useful information and opinions on Scott Creighton's (American Everyman) website. I basically knew what was happening, but his observations about why Clinton lost the election were so good that I began donating some money to him every month for his work. Creighton is an American, and, therefore, he follows what's going on in the USA. He's also old, which means that he knows things. This also means that he grew up at a time when Americans were provided with a somewhat better education. He's not like the 20 year-old or 30 year-old airheads who ramble on the internet these days. It's somewhat refreshing to listen to a knowledgeable person like him because there are just so many middle class reactionaries and pro-fascists on the internet these days. These middle class people have the time and the money to ramble on the internet. They're wealthy enough to afford a computer and other accessories. They generally believe that they benefit from the system and from the existing order. Consequently, they have an aversion to change. But they're also angry and insecure because they've been brought down by the economic crisis, thus losing some of their prospects and expectations. Since they believe that leftist ideas are alien to them, and since they can't sympathize with the working class, they generally support conservatives and reactionaries. Hence, many of these people voted for Trump because most of Trump's rhetoric is reactionary.

When it comes to Israel, I also have a few thoughts. Well, first of all, I think that the most important thing is that Israel seems to be a Western state because it was founded mainly by Western Jews. Moreover, Israel is the youngest Western state because it was created in 1948 on the territory of the dying Islamic civilization. Since Israel has existed for only several decades, we can deduce that it hasn't been institutionalized yet, like England, France, Germany, or even the USA have been institutionalized. This is why Israel, which is a capitalist state and which has a population of about 8 million, seems to be functioning more effectively than even the USA. In other words, the process of decline that has reached other Western states hasn't yet reached, or is now reaching, Israel. Therefore, I don't buy into the mythology that Israelis, or Jews in general, are supermen. Israelis aren't as incompetent as the Americans or as other Western peoples simply because Israel isn't yet in serious decline. Obviously, Israeli capitalists have ties to other Western capitalists, like American capitalists (or a faction of American capitalists). So, the fact that Israel has influence and friends in the USA isn't at all surprising to me. Israel is a very important strategic ally for the USA. What's also worth mentioning is that since Israel hasn't yet been institutionalized, and since it has been growing so far, Israel has been taking land from its neighbors and settling the land with Israelis. This is the same process that, for example, happened in the USA more than a century ago, when the Americans drove away the Native Americans, took their land, and then settled it with Anglo-Saxons and other Americans of European descent.

Suicides and Homicides on the Rise in Young Americans

Just finished watching Runaway (1984) and Maleficent: Mistress Of Evil (2019)...

The Empire of Genghis Khan

https://rutube.ru/video/e79f51b43ebbbc1abacff7a12a0d8c8a/

In the thirteenth century, Genghis Khan and his brutal heirs swept from the Asian Steppe as far as Eastern Europe, creating the largest land empire in world history. The empire existed between 1206 and 1405, eventually extending to thirty-three million square kilometres. At its peak, it contained an estimated population of over one hundred million.

Moscow - Along the ancient Zemlyanoy Val (1984)

https://rutube.ru/video/7211554e11ce0b7e27dbdf8246b709b2/

Zemlyanoy Val in Moscow (Russian: Земляной вал) is a line of fortifications that existed on the site of the present Garden Ring from 1593 to 1830. It served as the boundary of Zemlyanoy Gorod and defended it from external attacks. It was first built from 1592 to 1593 under Feodor I of Russia and covered only the northern part of the city, without Zamoskvorechye. It represented an earthen rampart with a moat in front and wooden fortifications. The fortifications were burned by the Poles in 1611. It was renewed and elongated from 1638 to 1641. Under Alexis of Russia, it also defended Zamoskvorechye. Zemlyanoy Val was dismantled at the end of the 18th century on the orders of Zakhar Chernyshyov.

Soviet sculptor Mikhail Anikushin 1917-1997 - Soviet Art

https://soviet-art.ru/soviet-sculptor-mikhail-anikushin/

In 1958, Mikhail Anikushin became a Corresponding Member of the Academy of Arts of the USSR and four years later – Academician (1962). He was People’s Artist of the USSR (1963), and Hero of Socialist Labor (1977). Among his awards – the Lenin Prize (1958) and the RSFSR State Prize of Repin (1986). He was a member of the Communist party since 1944, and veteran of Great Patriotic War (1941-1945).

Born 19 September 1917 in Moscow, Anikushin grew up in a working class family. Meanwhile, the artist wrote: “I – the son of the Moscow parquet floor maker, a wonderful wizard Konstantin Anikushin. He made parquet floor for those who stay in the hotel “Moscow” in the capital. My elder brother – an engineer-surveyor Vladimir Anikushin participated in the discovery and creation of Karaganda industrial area. And I had to be on a par with them. All that I did, and what happiness I had – I am obliged to Great October. And what I haven’t done yet – I must do”. Anikushin studied at the Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture named after Ilya Repin from 1937 to 1947 with a break for the war years (1941-1945).

One of the most famous works of the sculptor is a monument to Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, opened in 1957 in the center of the park (sculptor Anikushin, architect VA Petrov). The sculpture – 4.1 m, with the pedestal 4.5 m. The monument made of bronze, tetrahedral pedestal of red polished granite, and the base – wrought granite. The sculptor portrayed Pushkin in a relaxed pose, as if the inspired poet reads his poems.

Maria Litovchenko (1917-2003), the wife of Mikhail Anikushin, was also a sculptor, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Arts, and People’s Artist of the Russian Federation.

The memory of artist never fades. Thus, October 2, 2007 on the house where Anikushin lived (Sand Embankment, 16) appeared a memorial plaque. Also, there is Anikushin square, in honor of the sculptor (Kamennoostrovsky Avenue). In addition, there is Anikushinskaya alley, just in the park where his sculpture “Friendship” (“Dancing Girls”) stands. The alley runs from this square to Vyazemsky Lane, where he worked. Besides, one of the art schools in the city of Kronstadt bears the name of the sculptor. There is even Anikushin planet – a minor planet number 3358 discovered by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh in 1978.

From the autobiography of the sculptor: “I was born at the beginning of October 1917. Not Yet the Aurora volleys thundered, and not yet Winter and Smolny palaces became symbols. But in Russia reigned a revolutionary heat of passion, such depth of revolutionary consciousness, not previously known in the human world… There is a special meaning in the rank “the same age with October”. I did not choose it, but felt the high responsibility in front of people”.

Defending Roy Moore

Roy Moore's lackeys defend their creepy boss on national television.

Review - New Dominion Tank Police

https://www.myreviewer.com/DVD/112546/New-Dominion-Tank-Police/112741/Review-by-Jitendar-Canth

I'm a little bit late with this one, by about fifteen years. My first dalliance with anime came in the mid-nineties during the Manga Video boom. This was also when I was seriously into cyberpunk, so titles like Akira, AD Police, Cyber City, Genocyber, and the original Ghost In The Shell movie were essential items on my video shelf. With that in mind, you'd think that I would have bought the original Dominion Tank Police, and New Dominion Tank Police quicker than you can blink. There were two reasons why I did not. First is VHS. You youngsters may not know this, but VHS takes up quite a bit of room. I had one shelf of anime, about 16 titles, and that was it, no more room at the inn. The second reason was that no one had invented the Internet. It's easy now, if you want to know more about something, you just Google it. But back in 1995, after being blown away by the latest cyberpunk anime video, if I was interested in finding out more, it was seriously hard work. What I wouldn't have given back then to have a handy resource to just type Masamune Shirow, Katsuhiro Otomo, or Yoshiaki Kawajiri in and see what else was available. Maybe instead of the Junk Boy, Urotsukidoji and Angel Cop videos that I still have, I would have bought shows like Appleseed, and Dominion Tank Police instead. Dominion Tank Police is available on DVD from ILC if you are interested, although the dub only discs put me right off (Manga dubs of the period are painful). The Region 1 release is deleted, although still available for ridiculous sums of money. Fortunately, there is plenty of the sequel, New Dominion Tank Police still to be had, courtesy of Manga Entertainment.

New Dominion Tank Police is set in the high rise, concrete and steel, neon metropolis of Newport City, a world populated by advanced cyborgs and androids and robots, where technology defines how society lives, works and plays, all set in the distant future of 2010. Hey! It seemed like the distant future back in 1995 when this show was made. At least there aren't any flying cars. But there are tanks, plenty of tanks. In a world where crime and terrorism are rampant, the police need a little more firepower to accomplish their role of urban pacification. When rioters have RPGs, you'll be glad of 2-inch thick titanium steel armour between you and the villain. The thing about tanks is though, that they aren't exactly kind to the environment, and the Tank Police often wind up causing more damage than they prevent. It causes friction with the chief, and the city mayor, especially when Squad Leader Leona Ozaki and her specially modified mini-tank Bonaparte are often at the centre of the havoc. All six episodes of the OVA series are presented here on a dual layer disc from Manga Entertainment.

When Leona drives through a funeral of a top civic official, just to get to a fleeing criminal, she winds up wrecking a city block, being caught on camera, and has the Chief and the Mayor as an audience. The Tank Police is grounded, until Detective Higashinada can come in and audit them. It isn't long before he's suggesting new ways of doing things and rubbing people the wrong way, especially Leona who just finds him creepy. Then a new machine appears in Newport and starts wreaking havoc.

A woman fleeing through a car park is caught by a mysterious tattooed man, and murdered. The only witnesses are android catgirls Unipuma and Annapuma. The dead woman was Leona's ex-partner Charon, and when she presses the chief to let her investigate, she winds up out of work. It isn't going to stop her though, and she's soon tracking the Puma sisters down to find out what they know. It leads her to the front door of the Dainippon Giken Research Corporation, and straight into trouble.

The Mayor has enacted a Clean up the City policy, which means getting all the weapons off the streets, and which means stopping a suspected arms shipment at the docks. That's all forgotten though when a truck goes out of control on the highway, crushing several cars and even wrecking Bonaparte when Leona tries to stop it. The truck is on autopilot, loaded with explosives, and heading directly for the centre of the city. The Mayor orders the evacuation, but it may be too little too late. It falls to the Tank Police to avert disaster. And it's a Dainippon Giken truck.

With the city shrouded in toxic smog, it's the perfect cover for the android Puma sisters to steal Bonaparte, and with the smoky atmosphere and Leona's malfunctioning alarm clock, the theft isn't noticed until it's too late. It all falls down to Dainippon Giken again, as with the Mayor's anti-weapon policy, they are looking to other means to turn a profit, and one of their operatives actually chose Bonaparte in which to hide a valuable data disc. When Leona and her partner Al eventually track down their tank, they find a deal about to go sour.

It looks like the city is about to fall apart, when a raid engineers a mass breakout at the prison. The Tank Police are run ragged just trying to keep up, and meanwhile Dainippon executives use the mayhem to mask their own illegal activities. Leona has just managed to capture the Puma sisters, who were taking advantage of a bank raid to fill their own pockets, when the news comes in. Someone is going to assassinate the Mayor.

The Tank Police had tried to keep the Mayor's survival secret, but the secret got out. Unsurprising, when you have a battalion guarding the city hospital. As the hostile takeover of Dainippon Giken Research gathers pace, it becomes part of the deal that the job be finished with regards to the Mayor. Another set of robots is unleashed. The Tank Police do their best to stop them, while Leona tracks down the hidden controller by tracking the radio connection. The trail leads to a foreign embassy, and Leona finds her hands tied by diplomacy.

It's one of those 4:3 regular transfers that get the job done. With nearly three hours of animation on a dual-layer disc, you'd be forgiven for not expecting pin sharp definition and absolute clarity, and indeed New Dominion Tank Police is prone to compression artefacts. That said, it looks pretty good for its age, the image is sharp enough, and the animation comes across with vibrancy and energy.

It's an old style cel animation so there's not a lot of digital accuracy and perfection here. But the animation is excellent, fluid and expressive, while the character and especially the mecha designs come across well. The future city is a little generic, but once you've seen as many future metropolises as I have, they begin to blur into one.

You have a choice between DD 2.0 Japanese and DD 5.1 and 2.0 English. Pick Japanese, it's far more easier on the ears. This anime comes from the old Manga Video days, when English language dubs were recorded in the UK, but for universal saleability, the characters were given American accents. It isn't good, and admittedly there is some fun to be had with these old dubs, as they in no way let you take the show seriously. The dub also changes the essence of the show in some instances. There are scenes in the original Japanese that have just music playing over the action, and for dramatic effect, the dialogue and the sound effects drop out, this is immediately apparent in the opening sequence. The English dub puts the dialogue back in, which isn't the original intent.

As for the subtitles, they aren't the dreaded dubtitles; the opening theme gets its lyrics translated (while the English version uses an instrumental version). However, it does look as if they were taken from an early dub script, and by and large they do match with the English dialogue. The English audio does have the added dialogue mentioned before, though, and it is liberally laced with profanity that isn't in the subtitles. The music works well with the theme of the show; indeed the opening track is memorable from a thousand Manga Video trailer reels.

Inside the Amaray case, you'll find a mini-poster featuring the Puma sisters, as well as some information about the show on the reverse. On the disc, you'll find a Manga Entertainment trailer reel, as well as the New Port City Tank Police Personnel & Weapons Files. 13 characters and two pieces of technology are looked at here, but you should leave reading them for after you have watched the disc, as there are plenty of spoilers for the episodes.

New Dominion Tank Police was a blast from the past, an anime from a bygone age, where the immediate aim was to appeal to as broad an audience as possible. That's before Manga Video got their mitts on it and inserted a few choice swearwords into the dub to spice things up. So while New Dominion Tank Police has plenty of action and sci-fi at its core, it's also played broadly for laughs, has some unexpected slapstick, a pair of sexy android catgirls, a little romance, some politics, corporate double dealing, and some stereotypical comedy sidekick characters. Compared to the modern diversity in anime, the story driven plots, careful characterisations, and reluctance to pander to audience sensibilities, it seems charmingly naïve.

It's also a good deal of fun, certainly one of the stronger shows of the era, with high production values and no little thought put into its story. Of the three Masamune Shirow stories I have encountered, New Dominion Tank Police is the most accessible, lacking the esoteric philosophies of Ghost In The Shell, and presenting a future more immediately recognisable than that of Appleseed. Instead New Dominion Tank Police feels like what he did to relax after a hard day of slaving over ink and pad. It feels like a playground with all the same pieces of his other creations, cyborgs, androids, mecha, and metropolises, but one in which the main aim is to have fun.

New Dominion Tank Police is fast paced, action packed, entertaining silliness, the sort of thing that works just fine as post pub viewing. I must admit that it holds a special place in my heart simply for the nostalgia factor alone. It's the sort of anime that I was weaned on back in the nineties, and although I never actually saw it then, it still feels like coming back to an old friend watching it now. It's also a sign of how much the anime industry has changed. I recall the dub videotapes for sale in Forbidden Planet. Each half hour episode got its own tape, and the typical retail price was around £15. The whole series would have put you back £90. This single DVD collects all six episodes, adds a few extras and retails for the price of a single VHS tape back then. I got this disc on sale for £4. For that price, you may as well take a chance and buy it.

Postscript: The Man Behind Nintendo

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/postscript-the-man-behind-nintendo

When Hiroshi Yamauchi dropped out of college in 1948, to replace his grandfather as the president of the Kyoto-based hanafuda playing-card manufacturer Nintendo Koppai, the company, founded in 1889, had seen only moderate success. By 1991, fourteen years after the company launched the plainly named “Color TV Game 6,” Nintendo had supplanted Toyota as Japan’s most successful company, earning around $1.5 million per year per employee; in the early nineteen-nineties, the company’s earnings exceeded that of all the American movie studios combined, consistently posting more than a billion dollars in pre-tax profits each year.

Beyond the numbers, Yamauchi, who died this week at the age of eighty-five, was both the architect and the savior of the video-game industry as we know it today. With the Nintendo Famicom—known outside Japan as the Nintendo Entertainment System—and the famed Nintendo Seal of Approval, which assured wary consumers that its games would be functionally sound (unlike many of those released during the Atari boom) and enjoyable, his company restored public trust in video games following the American market’s grim crash in the early nineteen-eighties.

Despite playing only a handful of his company’s products himself (he fumbled with the Famicom’s controller the first time he picked one up to play a digital version of Go, eventually passing it to a junior staff member in frustration), Yamauchi’s philosophy was that creativity, not technological advancement, was the key to the medium’s development. “We cannot guarantee interesting video games just through the use of better technology,” he once said. For Yamauchi and his lieutenants—including the Super Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto, who was Profiled by Nick Paumgarten in the magazine, and the late Gunpei Yokoi, the designer of the Game Boy—eliciting the joy of discovery and surprise in a player was video gaming’s great purpose. In this way, Nintendo and its games have continued to redefine the way humans play for more than three decades.

Henk Rogers, the man who brought Tetris out of the Soviet Union and secured the rights for Nintendo, was one of only a handful of Westerners to befriend Yamauchi. The pair would regularly discuss the state of the industry over a game of Go; Yamauchi was a master player with the advanced rank of sixth dan. Rogers once likened his friend to the fictional mobster Don Corleone. “He was tough as nails and quick to reach a decision,” he said. “When he did, everybody fell in line. He was a difficult man to please. If you publicly disagreed with him, your days were numbered.”

Yamauchi’s reputation as a callous businessman was forged early on. After suffering a severe stroke, his grandfather, Sekiro Yamauchi, offered the twenty-one-year-old the presidency of Nintendo from his hospital bed. (Yamauchi’s father had left when Yamauchi was just five years old; unable to cope as a single parent, his mother, Kimi, gave her son up to her parents, putting him next in line to run the family business.) The young man agreed to quit his law degree on the condition that he be the only family member working at the company. Regretfully, Sekiro fired his grandson’s cousin, a longtime employee, and in 1949 Yamauchi was appointed the third president of Nintendo. Company employees, many of whom had worked at Nintendo for their entire careers, resented Yamauchi’s youth and inexperience. His first act was to fire these dissenters en masse.

While Nintendo had no direct links to organized crime, in those early years the company benefited from its patronage nevertheless. The yakuza operated high-stakes games with hanafuda cards in casino-like parlors. Professional players would begin each game with a fresh deck, greatly increasing demand for Nintendo’s product. In 1951, Yamauchi changed the name of the company to Nintendo Karuta—Nintendo Playing Cards. His first business breakthrough came in 1959, when he brokered a licensing arrangement with Walt Disney to print images of Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters on the backs of playing cards. With distribution to toy stores, Nintendo sold an unprecedented six hundred thousand packs of cards that year.

Eager to expand further, Yamauchi dropped “Karuta” from the company name and rebranded as Nintendo Company, Ltd. However, forays into selling instant rice and managing love hotels, which provide rooms at an hourly rate, typically for trysts, failed to meet his high expectations—though Yamauchi himself was reportedly one of the most reliable customers.

In the mid-nineteen-sixties, Yamauchi charged Gunpei Yokoi, a technician hired to maintain the hanafuda assembly-line machines, with designing a toy in time for Christmas. Yokoi, a keen amateur inventor, showed Yamauchi one of his latest creations, an extendable mechanical arm with a clasping hand on one end. Yamauchi immediately ordered production the Ultra Hand, Nintendo’s first toy, which sold over 1.2 million units. Yokoi established Nintendo’s first research-and-development group, dubbed simply “Games,” in a warehouse in the Kyoto suburb of Uji in 1969. More creative toys followed: the Ultra Machine, a mechanical ball pitcher; the Love Tester, a machine that measured the “current” between a hand-holding couple and offered a pseudo-scientific readout of their attraction; and a series of Beam Gun games, in which players shot beams of light at targets in an amusement arcade and watched as bottles appeared to explode.

Having experienced the commercial potential of games, and after watching the video-game market emerge in America in the late nineteen-seventies, Yamauchi negotiated a license to manufacture and sell the Magnavox Odyssey, one of the first American home-video-game systems, in Japan. Nintendo’s own systems, which played variations of Atari’s Pong, followed, but Yamauchi pressured his engineers to find a new way of designing games—ones not based around tennis. “We must look in different directions,” he said. “Throw away all your old ideas in order to come up with something new.” Yokoi had the solution: a pocket-calculator-sized series of handheld systems called Game & Watch, which each played a single game and could be mass-produced for a relative pittance. Introduced in 1980, Nintendo sold tens of millions of units over the game’s eleven-year lifespan.

Flushed with this success, Yamauchi turned his attention to a more substantial home console, one that could play multiple games via slot-in cartridges. In contrast to Atari’s 2600, with its wood-panelled face and black-plastic-rimmed hood that lifted up to reveal a panel of orange knobs and levers, Yamauchi wanted Nintendo’s console to look like a toy, so that it would appeal to the entire family—a family computer, he instructed: a Famicom. The heart of the machine, based on a Motorola 6502 chip derivative, was nothing unusual, though the system’s controllers, which were hardwired to the console, featured a unique cross-shaped directional pad whose design offered both elegance and functionality. (Three decades later, “d-pads” remain a staple of video-game controllers.)

The Famicom’s real innovation, however, was its business model. In May, 1983, Yamauchi addressed the Shoshin-kai, a Japanese wholesalers group, and told them that Famicom retailers should not expect to see large profits from system sales. His reasoning would change the gaming industry. “Forgo profits on the hardware,” he said. “It is just a tool to sell software. This is where we shall make our money.”

Nintendo’s new system launched on July 15, 1983, and sold for fourteen thousand eight hundred yen, around half the cost of its rivals. Within two months, the system had sold over half a million units. Within six, disaster struck: a faulty chip in the original manufacturing caused certain games to crash. Yamauchi, with typical flourish, recalled every system Nintendo had sold, missing a crucial sales window during the Japanese New Year holiday but protecting the company’s name as a consumer-centric manufacturer.

Yamauchi soon learned that software sold hardware, not vice versa, and appointed Shigeru Miyamoto, then a young artist and the designer of Nintendo’s first global arcade hit, Donkey Kong, to head a new game-design research group called R&D4. Yamauchi recognized that artists, not technicians, made the best games, and filled R&D4 with likeminded creative people. The internal-software division soon established itself as Nintendo’s most successful department, launching Mario Brothers and The Legend of Zelda, successes buoyed by Yokoi’s R&D1 group, which released similarly well-regarded titles such as Metroid, Kid Icarus, and Excitebike.

But success only seemed to isolate Yamauchi. “As I grew to know him more, he seemed to become more isolated, even from his own family,” said Rogers, who tried and failed to convince Yamauchi to attend his own granddaughter’s wedding a few years ago. Nevertheless, the elder statesman of video games maintained a laconic sense of humor. Rogers once shared a flight with Yamauchi on the airline Northwest. “I had no idea he was on the plane,” he recalls. “We met in an aisle when he was stretching his legs, and he complained to me about the service he’d received in first class. He called the airline ‘Northworst.’ ”

Yamauchi retired from his position as president of Nintendo in 2002, but his influence and philosophy continued to be keenly felt; he remained as the chairman of Nintendo’s American board of directors until 2005. He refused to draw a pension from the company, saying that Nintendo could put it to better use—as Japan’s thirteenth richest man, he had a net worth of $2.1 billion.

While Yamauchi maintained that being a non-player gave him an advantageous perspective on the industry, this assertion was only half true, perhaps to maintain the illusion that his business decisions came from his head, not from his heart. “After the release of Tetris on the Game Boy, I’m told he played the game extensively,” said Rogers. “He would call staff members, sometimes in the middle of the night, to ask them questions about the game.”

When Yamauchi left Nintendo entirely, in 2005, the company was a year away from launching Wii, the best-selling console of the so-called Last Generation of video-game hardware. Today, it’s in a somewhat precarious position: its latest console, the Wii-U, is underperforming, and in 2012 the company lost 36.4 billion yen ($366 million), its second consecutive annual loss. But the erstwhile president’s belief in the power of invention, of “throwing away your old ideas,” still characterizes the company’s products, which over the past decade have continued to sidestep the technological arms race that defines the products of its rivals, Sony and Microsoft, in favor of playfulness and novelty. It is a philosophy that, over seven decades, brought Yamauchi and the company he inherited a great deal of success, even if that playfulness, if it was ever within him, rarely made itself known from behind the carapace, one that seems to have been formed in childhood and tempered in business.

Now listening to Forever Young by Alphaville and Thor: Ragnarok by Mark Mothersbaugh...

Seymour “Ratboy” Hersh Crosses the Redline of Credibility – Frames Erdoğan for CW Attack on Behalf of EU

http://nomadiceveryman.blogspot.com/2019/10/seymour-ratboy-hersh-crosses-redline-of.html

A sad day indeed.

Seymour “Ratboy” Hersh has sold out. He has joined the ranks of the fake-left Vichy press personified by the likes of Amy Goodman, Jeremy Scahill and Chris Mathews.

Based on reports from unnamed “former administration officials”, he has crafted what is essentially a complete white-wash of the Obama administration’s involvement in the chemical weapons attack in Syria while simultaneously attempting to set a new “red-line” narrative for a regime change operation in Turkey, a country where the current ruling party just won 48% of the vote in regional elections. It just so happens that Turkey is moving away from E.U. membership. A country that the E.U. is demanding makes structural reforms to their economy and constitution in order to bring them more in line with the way the E.U. does business.

“The financial crisis, the global crisis, the Arab Spring and the events in Syria and Egypt show that the EU needs Turkey more than Turkey does the EU,” Prime Minister Recep Erdoğan, February 2014

After nearly eight months of talks, MEPs (Member of European Parliament) in the foreign affairs committee on Monday (3 March) voted on a resolution on Turkey’s progress towards EU accession.

The carefully scripted document, drafted by Dutch centre-right MEP Ria Oomen-Ruijten, describes Turkey as a “strategic partner” but also says it must initiate urgent reforms and promote political dialogue. EU Observer, April 3, 2014

I wonder what it cost to get Seymour Hersh to do an about face and start carrying water for the Obama administration under cover of his previous agitator reputation that had been well deserved up until this point, in my opinion.

The fact that he is clearly attempting to white-wash the Obama administration’s involvement in the chemical weapons attack in Syria is obvious. The fact that he’s attempting to finger Prime Minister Recep Erdoğan for that attack at a time when (as COINCIDENCE would have it) Turkey is gradually moving away from a partnership with the EU is less obvious but just as disingenuous.

“The foreign policy expert (unnamed source) told me that the account he heard originated with Donilon. (It was later corroborated by a former US official (another unnamed source), who learned of it from a senior Turkish diplomat.) According to the expert, Erdoğan had sought the meeting to demonstrate to Obama that the red line had been crossed, and had brought Fidan along to state the case. When Erdoğan tried to draw Fidan into the conversation, and Fidan began speaking, Obama cut him off and said: ‘We know.’ Erdoğan tried to bring Fidan in a second time, and Obama again cut him off and said: ‘We know.’ At that point, an exasperated Erdoğan said, ‘But your red line has been crossed!’ and, the expert told me, ‘Donilon said Erdoğan “fucking waved his finger at the president inside the White House”.’ Obama then pointed at Fidan and said: ‘We know what you’re doing with the radicals in Syria.’ (Donilon, who joined the Council on Foreign Relations last July, didn’t respond to questions about this story. The Turkish Foreign Ministry didn’t respond to questions about the dinner. A spokesperson for the National Security Council confirmed that the dinner took place and provided a photograph showing Obama, Kerry, Donilon, Erdoğan, Fidan and Davutoglu sitting at a table. ‘Beyond that,’ she said, ‘I’m not going to read out the details of their discussions.’)” Sy Hersh, April 6 2014

Seymour Hersh had an article published yesterday at the London Review of Books, The Red Line and the Rat Line, which utilizes a well established tactic of providing disinformation to the public dressed up with a little truth for credibility’s sake.

In this case, the disinformation is that the Obama administration and U.S. intelligence had nothing to do with the use of chemical weapons in Syria targeting civilians. The attack was committed in order to provide a false flag type event designed to provide Obama’s “red line” pretext to the Shock and Awe type attack they had been planning for months just prior to the event.

“Under White House pressure, the US attack plan evolved into ‘a monster strike’: two wings of B-52 bombers were shifted to airbases close to Syria, and navy submarines and ships equipped with Tomahawk missiles were deployed. ‘Every day the target list was getting longer,’ the former intelligence official told me. ‘The Pentagon planners said we can’t use only Tomahawks to strike at Syria’s missile sites because their warheads are buried too far below ground, so the two B-52 air wings with two-thousand pound bombs were assigned to the mission. Then we’ll need standby search-and-rescue teams to recover downed pilots and drones for target selection. It became huge.’ The new target list was meant to ‘completely eradicate any military capabilities Assad had’, the former intelligence official said. The core targets included electric power grids, oil and gas depots, all known logistic and weapons depots, all known command and control facilities, and all known military and intelligence buildings.” Sy Hersh, April 6 2014

The little truth that Hersh dresses his disinfo up with is that the CIA consulate in Benghazi had one purpose and one purpose only and that was to ship weapons via a “rat line” into Syria, to those very same terrorists we are now talking about arming with “manpads” (shoulder launched heat seeking rockets which the terrorists will undoubtedly use on civilian aircrafts). Those same terrorists who have been backed by the Obama administration since we started the destabilization campaign three years ago. Those same terrorists visited by high ranking U.S. officials. Those same terrorists who used sarin gas on a civilian population so that Obama could attempt to justify another Iraq styled Shock and Awe in Syria.

‘The consulate’s only mission was to provide cover for the moving of arms,’ the former intelligence official (yet another unnamed source), who has read the annex, said. ‘It had no real political role.’ Sy Hersh, April 6 2014

Of course the CIA has a political role in countries that they destabilize and neoliberalize on behalf of the masters of the universe. That’s the whole point of the CIA. This statement, as regurgitated by Ratboy Hersh, would be laughable coming from any CNN hack. From Hersh, it’s damn near tragic.

Hersh goes on to suggest that after the Benghazi attack, the U.S. inexplicably, gave up on the “rat line”, shipping illegal weapons to our terrorist destabilization campaign in Syria. This of course absolves President Peace Prize of any culpability in the chemical weapons false flag attack.

Washington abruptly ended the CIA’s role in the transfer of arms from Libya after the attack on the consulate, but the rat line kept going. ‘The United States was no longer in control of what the Turks were relaying to the jihadists,’ the former intelligence official said. Within weeks, as many as forty portable surface-to-air missile launchers, commonly known as manpads, were in the hands of Syrian rebels. Sy Hersh, April 6 2014

With the narrative set and “Terror Tuesday” Obama absolved of all sin, Ratboy goes in for the kill; it’s all Erdoğan’s fault.

By the end of 2012, it was believed throughout the American intelligence community that the rebels were losing the war. ‘Erdoğan was pissed,’ the former intelligence official said, ‘and felt he was left hanging on the vine. It was his money and the cut-off was seen as a betrayal.’ In spring 2013 US intelligence learned that the Turkish government – through elements of the MIT, its national intelligence agency, and the Gendarmerie, a militarised law-enforcement organisation – was working directly with al-Nusra and its allies to develop a chemical warfare capability. ‘The MIT was running the political liaison with the rebels, and the Gendarmerie handled military logistics, on-the-scene advice and training – including training in chemical warfare,’ the former intelligence official said. ‘Stepping up Turkey’s role in spring 2013 was seen as the key to its problems there. Erdoğan knew that if he stopped his support of the jihadists it would be all over. The Saudis could not support the war because of logistics – the distances involved and the difficulty of moving weapons and supplies. Erdoğan’s hope was to instigate an event that would force the US to cross the red line. But Obama didn’t respond in March and April.’ Sy Hersh, April 6 2014

Notice how Ratboy also clears the Saudis with the same brush-stroke of disinfo provided by yet another unnamed “former intelligence official”.

Mr. Hersh’s effort includes a rather stark and unapologetic review of the purpose behind the CIA consulate in Banghazi without really delving into the particulars of how and more importantly, why, it was attacked. This is supposed to show that Mr. Hersh is being completely forthcoming in his article with the facts, even the painful ones, regarding the Obama administration’s destabilization campaign in Syria.

But that information, that the Benghazi office’s sole purpose was to transfer undocumented weapons to our mercenary terrorists in Syria, was already well established even if it isn’t entirely true (when we neoliberalize a nation via violent means, many times our CIA has to have a presence on the ground helping the illegal regime round up any dissidents or business and political opposition leaders who might make our “structural reforms” more difficult. Assassinations, black-bag ops, disappearances, all of these nifty little “democratic” tricks are part of bringing “stability” to the region and more than likely the Benghazi hub was more than simply a way station for black market weapons being shipped into the next targeted nation.)

So Mr. Hersh wasn’t really offering up any new incriminating evidence.

What he did offer up was a rather unique version of the story of the Syrian chemical weapons false flag attack that completely absolves the Obama administration and even makes the case that the reason they backed off of their plans to Shock and Awe the country back to the stone ages like Bush did to Iraq on similar false claims, was because they came to realize in the nick of time, that it was Erdoğan who was responsible and not Assad.

According to Mr. Hersh, once the Brits discovered that the chemical make-up of the Sarin gas didn’t fit Syria’s they informed the U.S. and steps were taken to stop the brutal Shock and Awe plan of attack, which Mr. Hersh also takes pains to assert would ONLY have targeted military infrastructure.

Ratboy Hersh fails to mention the fact that the same thing was said about Shock and Awe Iraq and Libya while tens of thousands of civilians died. Millions suffered in the aftermath of being “bombed back into the stone ages” due to false claims of WMDs and attacks on their own civilian populations which never happened.

Hersh’s effort is part on an ongoing campaign to destabilize Turkey and make it ready for a regime change operation on behalf of the European Union. Hersh, of course, fails to mention any of the context of that developing story in his blatant propaganda piece.

A month ago, at a time right after Erdoğan openly expressed his disgust with the E.U. in a public statement, suddenly a recording surfaced which purported to prove he had planned a false flag event in Syria. Ratboy did make mention of that recording in the second to the last paragraph of his Judith Milleresque “news” report:

Turkey’s willingness to manipulate events in Syria to its own purposes seemed to be demonstrated late last month, a few days before a round of local elections, when a recording, allegedly of Erdoğan and his associates, was posted to YouTube. It included discussion of a false-flag operation that would justify an incursion by the Turkish military in Syria. Sy Hersh, April 6 2014

“Turkey’s willingness to manipulate events in Syria”? Are you kidding me? Did Turkey spend $5 billion manipulating events in Syria like the U.S. did?

A key clue into Ratboy’s inclination and his lack of intellectual honesty regarding the Syrian destabilization campaign being run by the Obama administration is found in the very last paragraph. It makes it clear that Mr. Sy Hersh can now be afforded the same credibility as Scaghill and Goodman:

Barring a major change in policy by Obama, Turkey’s meddling in the Syrian civil war is likely to go on. ‘I asked my colleagues if there was any way to stop Erdoğan’s continued support for the rebels, especially now that it’s going so wrong,’ the former intelligence official told me. ‘The answer was: “We’re screwed.” Sy Hersh, April 6 2014

While apparently calling for some kind of military intervention, either in Syria or Turkey, Ratboy refers to the destabilization campaign in Syria as a ‘civil war”

It is anything but a civil war. It is a terrorist destabilization effort funded by the U.S. and Saudis, armed by nearly every complicit nation and NGO there is and staffed by a collection of mercenary thugs rounded up by intelligence agencies from the CIA to MI6.

Sy Hersh is certainly aware of that fact. Whomever the creature is who wrote this disinformation screed, he certainly isn’t the old Sy Hersh we came to respect over the decades. It reads like it was written by someone else, full of undisclosed sources and administration talking points.

It’s a sad day in the ever shrinking world of legitimate journalism when Ratboy Hersh starts running regime change propaganda as if it were news while giving the real terrorists a pass.

A sad day indeed.

Just finished watching Hustlers (2019) and Whisper Of The Heart (1995)...

The Great War - Hell Cannot Be So Terrible

https://rutube.ru/video/89cdaa4dc835f712bd4a5185b2f0166e/

The Battle of Verdun through June 1916, with a brief look at the civilian life in France at the time.

The Great War is a 26-episode documentary series from 1964 on the First World War. The documentary was a co-production of the Imperial War Museum, the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Australian Broadcasting Commission. The narrator was Michael Redgrave, with readings by Marius Goring, Ralph Richardson, Cyril Luckham, Sebastian Shaw and Emlyn Williams. Each episode is c. 40 minutes long.

Just finished watching The Amityville Horror (1979) and Jumping The Broom (2011)...

Alex Jones is Jabba the Hutt - Jack Blood

On the Seawall Water Walk in Downtown Vancouver. Summer of 2019.

Will Fed Make Trump A New Herbert Hoover?

http://www.williamengdahl.com/englishNEO8Oct2019.php

In recent months US President Trump has pointed repeatedly to his role in making the American economy the “best ever.” But behind the extreme highs of the stock market and the official government unemployment data, the US economy is primed for a 1929-style shock, a financial Tsunami that is more influenced by independent Fed actions than by anything that the White House has done since January 2017. At this point the parallels between one-time Republican President Herbert Hoover who presided over the great stock crash and economic depression that was created then by the Fed policies, and Trump in 2019 are looking ominously similar. It underscores that the real power lies with those who control our money, not elected politicians .

Despite proclamations to the contrary, the true state of the US economy is getting more precarious by the day. The Fed policies of Quantitative Easing and Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP) implemented after the 2008 crash, contrary to claims, did little to directly rebuild the real US economy. Instead it funneled trillions to the very banks responsible for the 2007-8 real estate bubble. That “cheap money” in turn flowed to speculative high-return investment around the world. It created speculative bubbles in emerging market debt in countries like Turkey, Argentina, Brazil and even China. It created huge investment in high-risk debt, so called junk bonds, in the US corporate sector in areas like shale oil ventures or companies like Tesla. The Trump campaign promise of rebuilding America’s decaying infrastructure has gone nowhere and a divided Congress is not about to unite for the good of the nation at this point. The real indicator of the health of the real economy where real people struggle to make ends meet lies in the record levels of debt.

Today, fully a decade after the unprecedented actions of three presidents, the US economy is deeper in debt than ever in its history. And debt is controlled by interest rates, interest rates ultimately in the hands of the Fed. Let’s look at some signs of serious trouble which could easily put the economy in a severe recession by this time in 2020.

Ford Motor, GE

On September 25 the corporate bond debt of Ford Motor Co., who unlike GM refused government nationalization in 2008, has just been downgraded to “junk” status by Moody’s, who said Ford faces “considerable operating and market challenges…” It affects $84 billion in company debt.

Junk rating means than most insurance companies or pension funds are banned from holding the risky debt and must sell. Before Moody’s rated Ford bonds at the lowest just prior to junk, BBB. The problem is that over a decade of Fed low interest rates, corporations have taken greater debt risks than ever, and the share of BBB-rated or “at risk of junk” bonds today has risen to more than 50% of all US corporate bonds outstanding. At the start of the crisis in 2008 BBB-rated bonds were only a third of the total. That amounts to more than $3 trillion of corporate debt at risk of downgrade to junk should the economy worsen, up from only $800 billion a decade ago. Ten years of unprecedented ultra-low fed interest rates are responsible. Moody’s estimates that at least 47 other multi-billion US corporations are vulnerable to junk downgrades in a sharp economic downturn or with rising interest rates. The most mentioned are the aerospace and electrical conglomerate GE which among other things makes jet engines for troubled Boeing.

Corporate debt in the USA today is a ticking time bomb, and the Fed controls the clock. Today total corporate debt exceeds $9 trillion, an all-time high, a rise of 40% or $2.5 trillion since 2008 according to the St. Louis Fed. With the ultra-low Fed interest rates since 2008, companies have doubled the debt outstanding but debt cost has risen only 40%. Now in recent months the Fed has been raising interest rates directly and indirectly via Quantitative Tightening. The most recent token .25% rate cut does little to change the grim outlook for the US bond market, the heart of the financial system.

Ford among other problems is being hit hard by the global downturn in the auto sector. In the USA car dealers have become so desperate to sell cars as consumers are choking on record levels of personal debt that they have recently offered 8-year car loans. For the past two years the Fed has been slowly ratcheting interest rates higher. The predictable result has been rising default on household debts, especially car loans. As of April, 2019 a record 7 million Americans were 90-days or more behind in car loans, some 6.5% of all auto loans. More than 107 million Americans have car loans today, up from 80 million in 2008 and an historic record. The rise in defaults parallels the Fed monetary tightening graph.

Both Ford and GM are announcing thousands of job layoffs as the economy slows and consumer debt reaches dangerous levels. Ford is cutting at least 5,000 jobs and GM 4,400 in US operations. Tens of thousands more layoffs are deemed likely in coming months if the economy worsens.

Then the private US Institute for Supply Management just reported that its index of manufacturing industry contracted to the weakest since June 2009, the depth of the economic crisis a decade ago. In the survey companies cited uncertainties related to the China trade war of Trump as the major factor behind depressed hiring and business activity. Trump then attacked the Fed for not moving fast enough to lower rates.

One indicator of the precarious state of the USA real manufacturing economy is the deepening recession this year in the trucking industry, the sector that moves goods through the country. In September 4,200 truck drivers lost their jobs as freight rates plunged owing to lack of goods traffic. In the first six months of 2019 around 640 trucking companies went bankrupt, three times the number a year before when Fed rate impacts were still low and trade war consequences far less clear. In June trucking loads were down more than 50% in June compared with June 2018 in the trucking spot market. Rates also dipped by as much as 18.5% over that same period.

The volume of freight shipped by all modes in the US has been sinking dramatically. Freight shipments within the US by truck, rail, air, and barge fell 5.9% in July 2019, compared to July 2018, the eighth month in a row of year-over-year declines, according to the Cass Freight Index for Shipments, which excludes bulk commodities such as grains. This decline, along with the 6.0% drop in May, were the steepest year-over-year declines in freight shipments since the Financial Crisis of 2008.

Dodgy Home Loans?

Far from realizing the lessons of the US sub-prime housing debt crisis leading to the global crisis of 2007-2008, the banks have quietly moved back into making dodgy loans. Moreover, the two quasi-government mortgage lending guarantee agencies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are in worse shape than during the 2007 sub-prime real estate crisis.

Nonetheless in March, 2019 the President signed a Memorandum calling for steps to end the ten-year Government conservatorship of the two agencies. However, as several officials recently testified, “The U.S. housing finance system is…Worse off today than it was on the cusp of the 2008 financial crisis.” That, despite $190 billion of taxpayer bailout to the two agencies. By a Congressional directive Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are allowed to hold a loss buffer capital reserve of combined $6 billion. However they own or guarantee almost $5 trillion in mortgage securities. Many of those mortgages are of dubious or dodgy credit quality like before 2007, as banks look for higher interest rate yields. If the overall economy worsens in the coming year in the run-up to November 2020 elections, home mortgage defaults could soar. It has been estimated that

“if just 0.12% of Fannie and Freddie’s mortgages go bad (about one-tenth of 1%), it would wipe them out completely. They’d have no capital left. And without a government bailout, they might cease to exist altogether. That could quickly lead to a new mortgage loan crisis.”

The key to the US economy is debt and debt is at an all-time high for US Government, whose deficit is rising annually at more than $1 trillion, for corporations with record debt and for private households where home mortgage debt, student loan debt and car loan debt all are at record high levels. Student loan debt reached $1.46 trillion by January 2019, with serious delinquency rates much higher than any other debt type. Mortgage debt accounted for $9.12 trillion. Total private household debt was a record $13.5 trillion. If we add to this precarious economic debt the situation in American agriculture where farmers face the worst crisis since the early 1980’s, it is clear that the economic miracle of the Trump era is far from stable.

To wit, one of the most noted features of recent US economic growth, the US shale oil recovery of 2018 that made America the world’s largest oil producer, has all but flattened out this year as world oil prices fall sharply. The fall is threatening many US shale oil producers many of whom borrowed by issuing blow investment of high interest yield junk bonds in hopes of a recovery from the price collapse after 2014. Even an attack on Saudi oil infrastructure and threats of war in Iran and Venezuela have not stopped the price slide in oil in recent weeks. If oil prices continue to fall below $55 a barrel a new wave of bankruptcies and closings in the US energy sector will follow, most likely in 2020 just in time for the US elections.

From 1927 to 1929 the Fed deliberately created then burst a stock bubble using interest rates. Republican President Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff act in 1930 to defend American industry, resulting in a trade war that was blamed along with Hoover for the Great Depression that was brought on by an economy bloated with debt and easy money during the Roarin’ Twenties boom. Hoover was blamed and lost re-election to Democrat FDR with his New Deal. Behind all were the actions of the Federal Reserve, the real power. Soon it will be clear if 2020 will be a modern era repeat of the Hoover script, this time with a Democrat whose “New Deal” will likely be green.

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”

Back to the Future Part 3 (1/10) Movie CLIP - Indians in 1885 (1990) HD

Marty (Michael J. Fox) travels back to 1885 and finds himself in the middle of a tribe of Indians on the warpath.

The final installment in the Back to the Future trilogy picks up where the second film left off, but it casts off the dizzying time travel of the first two films for mostly routine comedy set in the Old West. Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) receives a 70-year-old letter from his inventor friend, Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd), who tells Marty that he has retreated a century in time to live out a relatively quiet life in the Old West. Doc Brown reveals that he hid his DeLorean car/time machine in an abandoned mine outside town, and when Marty does some research and discovers that the Doc died shortly after writing the letter, he decides to find the car, travel back in time, and warn the Doc about his demise. Meanwhile, the Doc, who has fallen in love with a local woman (Mary Steenburgen), realizes he can't hide in the past from the problems he has caused to the time flow in the previous two adventures. He reluctantly decides to return to the present with Marty, but first, they have to find a way to get the DeLorean up to time-travel velocity with a broken fuel line and no gasoline.

The Ten Best Photographs of Olivia de Havilland

Olivia de Havilland, in full Dame Olivia Mary de Havilland, (born July 1, 1916, Tokyo, Japan), American motion-picture actress remembered for the lovely and gentle ingenues of her early career as well as for the later, more-substantial roles she fought to secure.

The daughter of a British patent attorney, de Havilland and her younger sister, Joan Fontaine, moved to California in 1919 with their mother, an actress. While attending school, de Havilland was chosen from the cast of a local California production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream to play Hermia in a 1935 Warner Brothers film version of that play. As the sweet-tempered beauty to Errol Flynn’s gallant swain, she appeared in many costume adventure movies of the 1930s and ’40s, including Captain Blood (1935), The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), and They Died with Their Boots On (1941). She also played romantic leading roles in Strawberry Blonde (1941), Hold Back the Dawn (1941), and The Male Animal (1942) and portrayed Melanie Wilkes in Gone with the Wind (1939).

In 1945 de Havilland won a precedent-setting case against Warner Brothers, which released her from a six-month penalty obligation appended by the studio to her seven-year contract. Free to take more-challenging roles, she gave Academy Award-winning performances in To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949). She also gave a superb performance in The Snake Pit (1948). De Havilland moved to France in 1955 and worked infrequently in films after that, most memorably in The Light in the Piazza (1962), Lady in a Cage (1964), and Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964). She also appeared in a number of television plays.

In 2017 de Havilland was portrayed in the FX television series Feud: Bette and Joan, about the rivalry between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, the former of whom was a close friend. Later that year she sued FX and the production company, alleging that they had misappropriated her “name, likeness and identity without her permission and used them falsely in order to exploit their own commercial interests.” A California appellate court dismissed the lawsuit in 2018, and she appealed that decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case.

De Havilland was the recipient of numerous honours. She received the American National Medal of Arts in 2008, and two years later she was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honour in France, where she lived. In 2017, shortly before her 101st birthday, she was made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE).