When Irish Eyes are Smiling

By Jamie Douglas

There is a new standard for when Irish eyes are smiling. After suffering bravely through being one of the PIIGS, being the first one of them to grab the steer by the horns, and doing what was necessary to work toward an honorable recovery, the country just won the Irish Sweepstakes, literally.

The Providence Resources Exploration Company announced almost in conjunction with the Patron Saint’s Day, that they found a massive oilfield off the coast of Cork on March 15, 2012. This is the first time that any sort of commercial oil and gas discovery has been made off the Emerald Isle.

The Barryroe, as she has been named, is a mere 300ft deep and has already started to produce 3,514 barrels of Norwegian quality sweet Brent crude per day (over a million US$ every 3 days), and as a by the way, it is also gifting the Irish with almost 3 million standard cubic feet of gas per day. Come next winter, the Irish should stay warm and toasty.

It has been thought for quite a while now that the southwestern continental shelf of Ireland may hold many valuable resources, but the area is still massively underexplored by world standards. All of us are aware of the environmental dangers of offshore drilling, and I sincerely hope that in this and all future discoveries and extractions all precautions will be mandated to keep damages to an absolute minimum. That said, it must be accepted that as long as the planet is energy dependent on hydrocarbons, their exploitation will cause some unavoidable damages to Mother Earth.

It is estimated that the initial discovery could lead to the recovery of up to ten billion barrels of crude as well as trillions of cubic feet of gas. The current field is estimated to hold about one billion barrels alone. At today’s price of Brent crude, that is a mighty $126 billion, more than enough to help the Celtic Tiger’s economy recover.

Ireland is a member of the European Economic Union and is a member of the €uro zone, however, like the UK, it never became a member of the Schengen Zone, thereby freeing the potential expat from a lot of restrictive regulations that cover most of the continent. For most who are looking to move to Ireland seeking work, try Parador instead. If however you are looking to be a self-sufficient retiree, there are opportunities there for you. Additionally, there are lower taxes as well as special opportunities for working artists.

Ireland has a lot to offer to the leisure oriented expat, from the big cities to the lonely countryside, which have some of the narrowest roads in the world. Some of you may find that there is a bit more rain than what you would prefer, but that is what makes it the Emerald Isle. There are many properties on the market right now, due to the sudden infirmity of the Celtic Tiger, many of them being great bargains after the superheated pre-bubble-popping period, but generally still in the medium-high range.

For those drawn to the climate and the economic conditions, my advice as always is to go there for a few months (and not just during the best of the summer months), rent a place where you think you would feel at home, and give it a go. If it works out for you, you can always buy a cottage with an extra bedroom for your favorite expat writer (My wife and I are really good house guests and carry our own weight!).

Ireland is facing a miraculous recovery and will be ready to receive you with open arms. And if you get bored, there is Scotland, the UK, and all of Europe available by way of low cost Ryan Air, Enjoy it. The green, green summer time is coming.

Jamie Douglas

Troubles in Toulouse

By Jamie Douglas

Sarkozy and the Elevated Terror Threat

France has been hit by thee back to back mysterious “terrorist attacks” out of the blue, all having been carried out by gunmen on a scooter with faces darkened out by helmets.

On March 15, three soldiers were attacked, two of them killed while the third one expired of his head wound later. This comes on top of the murder of an officer the week before. Then on Monday, there followed an attack on a Jewish school in Toulouse, when again, it was gunmen on a motorcycle who opened fire outside the Ozar Hatorah secondary college, killing a Rabbi along with three children and severely wounding another. Now it must be made clear to my readers that two of the soldiers killed in the second attack were Muslims, and that the first headlines released by several French as well as British news outlets immediately claimed it was a racist killer at work. French prosecutors have now confirmed that the killers in the third incident used the same bike as in the other two attacks and the guns used are also allegedly the same.

Some of us are aware that the French elections are a mere month away, and that Nicolas Sarkozy, the current president of France, is woefully behind in the polls. I must reveal to my readers at this point that I have had several opportunities to see how ruthless and murderous the French intelligence service operates (Isle of Pines, New Caledonia, Tahiti, and Martinique). Would I be surprised if, at this critical juncture in the French elections, Sarkozy ordered some type of “black bag” operation to improve his standing in the polls? Not a freaking bit. In fact, I would be sorely disappointed if he did not pull this hat trick so close to the elections. Stand by for more public insecurity in France.

There is a lot at stake there. ...Like who will control the purse strings for the near and distant future! As people in the United States fail to understand, the socialism they have come to fear so much is not Marxism or Trotskyite or even just the regular fare of communism. The UK for all practical purposes is a socialist state, but has also tried to be very capitalist, which has caused a lot of confusion about their priorities. The socialist model of the UK always envisioned health care (NIH) and the pensions of the Boomers. What they failed to do was to have a valid model that took into account the difference in the life expectance between the times the Boomers were born and today, when they are refusing to go quietly to their early graves, as the statisticians had forecast.

Similarly, the socialists in France who are poised to win the elections are not Marxists or any such thing. They do not want to turn their nation into a social welfare state. Au contraire, mon ami. What is poised to turn France into a welfare state are the policies of the government currently in power as well as the two preceding ones: it is the colonialism coming home to roost, and all those benevolent administrations having allowed all those immigrants to come home to “Mother France,” completely overwhelming the social fabric that was so carefully woven over centuries. But now, after exploiting the colonies so brutally and for so long, the government felt that all those multi ethnic people would just come home to Mama and integrate into the French countryside, maybe pick grapes and take on the menial jobs. The country never figured that they were inviting a breakdown of their social structure, ghettos, and riots in Paris and Marseilles.

That Airbus 380 Problem

Well, it just won’t go away! Airbus in Toulouse just admitted that the problem will be with them for years and cost hundreds of millions of €uros. Those little wing riblets that hold the skin of the plane in place apparently are a lot more susceptible to stress than the computer models imagined they would be. A new experimental batch that has flown for less than 200 hours is already showing the same cracks.

The alloys used in the “new and improved” components apparently showed much worse signs of fatigue that the original ones. Now what? This aircraft is the flagship of Airbus’ lineup. If, and I hope it will not happen, there is a catastrophic hull loss midair with the loss of close to 500 lives, it will lead to the grounding and immediate redesign of the wings. But of course, to do that now would spell doom for the A-380. So is this going to be the Pinto of the aircraft industry, or the Corvair?  I have no idea, but rest assured, I will not fly that potential doomsday machine until they have fixed that vexing problem.

Jamie Douglas

Goldman Sucks ...and So Do Most Other Financial Firms

By Jamie Douglas

Woke up, Got out bed, had no need to drag a comb across my head (lack of substantial mass), but I opened my mail and went to my usual sites, and I’ll be damned, there was a banker at Goldman Sachs and Co. who has a conscience! His name is Greg Smith and he was the executive director of Goldman Sachs’ US equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

Greg has been with the firm for many years, having started there as an unpaid intern over 12 years ago. One could safely surmise that Mr. Smith has some insights into how these evil greedy firms work. While the US Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that corporations are people, a decision that will forever taint the legacy of the Roberts Court, corporations are people without a conscience, without allegiance to anyone except the mighty buck.

In that realm we experienced the energy manipulation conducted by Enron energy traders, who while sitting on their asses in air conditioned towers, and were laughing said asses off loudly and on tape about senior citizens not being able to survive the heat wave when their electricity was cut or rationed and how they brought the entire state of California to its knees by not allocating sufficient amounts of energy, even though it was available. There was no shortage, it was all a high stakes fraud perpetrated by USA Inc. against its citizens.

They certainly made a good point for nationalization of the energy grid. Lesson not learned. Every day that goes by, Goldman Sachs and their cohorts are busy squeezing the life out of the planet’s working class. While the working classes are sleeping, traders from the evil empire are busy buying and selling energy contracts in the Far East’s vast unregulated markets. Then, having manipulated the markets there, the secret trades in Ireland come awake, hours before London trading officially starts, and then the whole operation moves across the Atlantic to New York and Chicago.

The opportunist traders at Goldman Sachs are the ones who are responsible for the high gas prices now. It is not Obama or any world leader. It is the free enterprise system, which allows the traders of all these financial products to fleece what they call “the Muppets,” for millions if not billions every day. It has nothing to do with Iran, even though the big news networks like Fox and CNN would have you believe that WWIII will start any moment.

It will, if Israel is arrogant enough to attack Iran again, like they have before. But this time there will be consequences. There is Turkey, Russia, China, Brazil, and let us not forget Saudi Arabia. Israel may have 400 nuclear weapons at their disposal, but should they use them, it will be the end of the Jewish State. Regardless of what side you are on, using nuclear weapons is a clear no no!

The US has been busy making huge profits from arms sales to every nation in the region, and the House of Saud is so saturated with F-16s and all kinds of munitions and war materiel that Israel would be suicidal to attempt to start a war in the region, even with the help of Goldman Sachs, which finances many a transaction for weapons by means of sovereign bonds. Who cares if the nations get destroyed? The bonds are immediately bundled with others and sold to the Muppets!

I am certain that a lot you will not appreciate my corporate bashing, but I urge you to read Greg Smith’s resignation letter. It is a sign of capitalism gone wild. There are no more rules. Nobody has a conscience anymore. It makes me nauseous to read stuff like that.

Did He or Didn’t He? Sarkozy and the 50 Million Gaddafi €uro’s

By Jamie Douglas

Just in time for the coming first round of the French elections, which pit Angela Merkel’s lapdog, Nicolas Sarkozy, against his socialist opponent, François Hollande, a juicy scandal that has been making the rounds for several years is resurfacing. According to usually unreliable sources, ranging from the U.S. Department of State (no comment) to the Pakistani Intelligence service known as SIS, to the Hindustan Times, The Malawi Voice (Madonna’s favorite place to buy babies), and the regular news outlets of the world, Sarkozy’s election win in 2007 was financed by the very man who Sarkozy successfully led the effort to dethrone and assassinate.

It is being alleged that the money was funneled to him through Panama, which of course would make a lot of sense, what with one of the most corrupt regimes in power there and more per capita banks than is really necessary. It should be noted however that most of those banks are not doing business with ordinary people; rather they are a conduit that holds secret accounts in their computers.

The rest of this article has been censored.

International Banking: Not As Safe As We Thought

Jamie Douglas

All expats, all over the world, regardless of where they are from and where they are at, have to deal with financial institutions. Those of us who have internet access at home or in public places have always been assured that our transactions were secured by something called SSL Encryption, a method, we have been assured by “experts,” was inviolable. Or so we were told.

Now, in the same month that the CIA has been hacked, researchers, those of the mathematical type as well as super smart cryptographers, have discovered an apparent series of flaws that allow malicious users of the internet to break the code, which when used properly make it theoretically impossible to intercept the flow of information between two encoded correspondents. Yet it is being intercepted and used to generate random numbers.

The chances of your being affected are very small – 2 in 1000. That, taking into account the hundreds of millions of online transactions taking place daily, opens up a giant window of opportunity for the hackers in Eastern Europe, Israel, and China. Our entire faith in the SSL system rests on the assumption that it is inviolable.

For expats or anyone else conducting financial transactions over the internet, there is nothing you can do. The ball lands squarely in the court of the big site operators, sites like Amazon.com, all large financial institutions, the IRS, and other nations’ equivalent thereof. Every individual is a potential victim of this weakness in the system, without having the slightest ability to protect themselves, other than cessation of use of the modern world that brings us online banking and shopping.

These discoveries were originally slated to be published at a cryptographer conference this coming August in Santa Barbara, California; however the urgency of the discovery raised such serious issues that a decision was made to release the findings immediately. The researchers, including the highly respected Dutch mathematician Arjen K. Lenstra, the renowned professor at the École Polytechnique Fédéral de Lausanne in Switzerland, used the Euclidian algorithm to examine the public key numbers, and they were able to prove that a small amount of those randomly generated numbers were not so random after all.

In their publicly released findings, they stated that there are almost 27,000 keys that offer no security. “Their secret keys are accessible to anyone who takes the trouble to redo our work” The original work was enabled by the fact that there were databases of the publicly available keys, which were kept at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as well as the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Another of the researchers, James P. Hughes, a cryptanalyst who worked with the group insisted: “…we were very careful: we did not intercept any traffic and we did not sniff any networks. We went to databases that contained public information and downloaded the public keys.”

They point out that their lack of sophisticated methods make it that much more likely that some malicious hackers have discovered the flaws in the random number generators some time before they did. “The quagmire of vulnerabilities that we waded into makes it infeasible to properly inform everyone involved, though we made the best effort to inform the larger parties and contacted all email addresses recommended or specified in still valid certificates. The fact that most certificates do not contain adequate contact information limited our options. Our decision to make our finding public at this time, despite our inability to directly notify everyone, was a judgment call.”

And a very good one I might add. With the publicity surrounding this issue, it is highly unlikely that any corporate IT security department will ignore this, and I am sure that a lot of midnight oil will be burnt from Berlin to Bangalore until this problem will be patched.

And what can you do to protect yourself? Tell your in-house IT guy or gal to make sure that all the algorithms are in a randomly disarranged row.

With this, I have done my job to disseminate this information to you. Please pass it on.

Jamie Douglas

The USA's Global War on Drugs

By Jamie Douglas

We now have had 3 presidents in the Unites States that, admit it or not, have partaken in various drug consumption. Bill Clinton would have never been elected had it not been for the fact that the compassionate Marijuana Medical use was on many ballots in the states, getting the vote out, which gave him the winning edge in California.

Most of us probably remember his infamous statement, that he tried cannabis, but did not inhale. He did nothing to stop Reagan’s misguided war on drugs, if anything he made it worse. Then came Bush the younger, who was a confirmed alcoholic and mass consumer of cocaine as well as abusing prescription pills. But he prayed himself well, and started two disastrous wars which have cost untold lives and misery. He increased spending for the war on drugs as well, while the Afghani poppy fields yielded the highest production on record. We’ve got too be kind to those warlords that are helping us, you know, that Northern Alliance.

And now we have the great white hope, Barack Obama, who openly admitted that he smoked “quite a bit” of weed and consumed his share of cocaine. He even appointed an attorney general who admitted to having smoked marijuana, so it was with great relief that some of us assumed that the war on drugs would finally follow the advice of the members of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, and legalize weed. NO! To the disappointment of all of us hopeful for the change he promised, he lied about every change. We still have Guantanamo, we left a horrendous mess behind in Iraq, exiting Viet Nam style and immediately after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, he ordered that infamous build up of 50,000 troops in Afghanistan, obviously to protect the Opium trade (just my opinion, but after what I witnessed in Central America I feel qualified to make that assessment).

But since he took office in January of 2009, he has waffled and heed and hawed about the issue of medicinal marijuana in the states where it is legal to dispense the herb to those suffering from a variety of diseases, including side effect from cancer treatment. But regardless of State Laws, The Drug Enforcement Administration and other misguided federal law Enforcement Authorities continue to waste valuable resources which could be used in busting Meth Labs and the importation of Heroin. Just on Monday, April 2, 2012, Obama’s war on medicinal marijuana raided another facility, one which was to bring civility to the medical use of Marihuana. This took place in California of course, where State law is always trumped by Federal goons, wearing Jackboots, camouflage and the latest in urban assault weapons.

This is not just an issue about weed. It is the age old issue about State’s Rights. Marijuana like masturbation is essentially a victimless crime. If only the Feds would form strike forces to go after the wankers sitting at 200 West Street in New York, the Goldman Sachs people, as well as the Bank of America folks, Countrywide’s Lizard Frère, Angelo Mozillo. These people are the ones which have wrought have to the USA, not those who are trying to bring relief to the suffering. And of course, like the old Reagan trickle down economy, the war on drugs also has a trickledown effect. In Mexico alone more people have been killed than the USA lost in the Vietnam War. Had the nation’s drug policies not be so skewered from the outset, the treasury would have saved hundreds of billions of dollars. And our prisons, now mostly privately run for profit, would not hold the largest amount of prisoners anywhere in the world.

Mr. Obama, you promised us change. You delivered lies and more lies. You deceived your volunteers and all those of us that worked so hard to get you elected. And it’s not just about the weed. It is about almost every promise you made. Do you have an “Etch-a-Sketch” yet? If not, perhaps I should send you one! I urge all my readers to send him one because surely his numerous one are worn out.

How Secure Are You in Latin America?

By Jamie Douglas

Many of us expats have relocated to Latin America because it is simple and feels relatively close to home. But what are the realities?

Harsh! With the uncertainty of the world economies, even the bigger nations are facing major problems. Then you have all the instability of political systems from Mexico to Argentina, military coups, impeachments, overheated economies, and completely incompetent politicians running major nations and economies into the ground. You also have a large segment of young people unemployed and under employed, many of them with little chance of ever achieving their ambitions, with huge segments of the population being so piss poor that they live in readymade slums without any services or police protection.

Then there are all of the various slime balls on so many websites wanting to sell you real estate, gold mines, fractional ownership vineyards... Panama, Costa Rica, Columbia, Ecuador, Mexico, El Salvador, Chile, Brazil, Argentina et al all seem to be just waiting for you to buy into their economy by hooking up with ex cons that somehow managed to get themselves back south to run their scams again, whether it be for spiritual reasons, medical tourism, donating to help pay for eye operations for poor blind children by sponsoring fictional events that somehow never seem to materialize, buying property on beautiful Lake Chapala in Mexico, or listening to financial advice from a man that spent years in prison for ripping people off and is at it again now.

Admittedly, there are a whole bunch of expats that seem to have left their brains behind when they left their home countries. They fall for virtually every bullshit line being thrown at them from every direction, because the pitch man or woman speaks their language, wines then and dines them, showing full color brochures and plans: this is where we are going the build the clubhouse, and this is where the caretakers residence will be. You are standing on where the swimming pool will be and of course it will be gated with 24 hour armed guards patrolling. You will make your money back in 4 or 5 years by selling your grapes and we will of course take care of everything.

If you want to expatriate or already did because you think your government is incompetent, you don’t even have a clue what incompetence and bureaucratic nightmares await you south of the border. Worried that the US is becoming a social welfare state? Then name me one country in Latin America that is not a social welfare state by necessity. I can’t think of one myself, and I feel I am somewhat of an expert on Latin America.

Mexican Elections: The forever-in-power PRI is set to take back the presidency because the opposition is just as corrupt, but much more inept than the PRI ever was (note the 55,000 dead in Calderon’s war on drugs). The economy is doing quite well, but the distribution of wealth leaves a lot to be desired, what with the world’s richest man, Carlos “Slim” Helu, being Mexican.

Guatemala is not much better, with crime out of control and a government that got elected on the backs of the poor with empty promises.

Honduras has the highest murder rate in the world and there is no security there for anyone. Yet American and Canadian real estate sharks have established themselves there, trying to sell beachfront land to any suckers willing to listen to their pitch on how safe it all is and that here is no crime, it is all in the big cities. Big time crime has moved out to the Bay Islands, victimizing unsuspecting tourists. And they recently had a military coup that unseated the democratically elected president.

Belize? Yes there are a few people living in a few isolated spots that are raving about how great the place is. Look into it a little deeper before you chase your dreams to the latest narco heaven, where planes just keep dropping out of the sky, but with the help of the authorities, no drugs are ever recovered. Crime is high and the infrastructure of the nation is atrocious. Try having to need emergency medical assistance.

El Salvador? If you are considering that nation you need a brain transplant, but hopefully not in one of their many private clinics.

Costa Rica? 100,000 American expats have made sure that the former expat haven is not that anymore. With real estate rip-offs, tourist robberies and murders of expats, the national sport is not soccer, but robbing tourists, and to top it off, their President Laura Chinchilla is a corrupt idiot.

Panama? Also a formerly nice place to chill, but now full of American ex-cons, liars, and cheats, like the King of Serial Bankruptcy, Donald Trump, who managed to fleece a few sucker investors again out of hundreds of millions of dollars (as usual, it’s not his fault). President Martinelli has given shelter to a slew of international swindlers and has given a whole new meaning to the word “corruption.” It is from here that all those crooks trying to convince you that

Colombia is the next big thing, trying to convince you that the gold mines, the cattle industry, clear cutting the jungle, the fashion industry and so much more are so easy to get into. Just send money to the account in Panama. Colombia has nothing to offer to the average expat except insecurity and cheap cocaine. Direct flights to Miami several times a day, with kidneys being as easily available as they are in

Peru, which is a country that does have some promise and great history. It is the home of Machu Picchu as well as millions of undernourished and sick indigenous children and adults. The new president came into office with a promise of using the country’s incredible mineral wealth to improve the unequal distribution of wealth, bringing health care to the remote regions, but he is still (again) fighting the Sendero Luminoso guerillas.

Ecuador also has way too many gringos and oil companies in the jungles creating havoc. It is not the expat retreat it was so recently. A highly unstable government with an irrational president are making that a difficult destination, but not to worry, your white shoed American real estate friends will be waiting for you to sell you a nice condo in Cuenca, where eternal spring is the rule and medical care for the wealthy is always available in the big cities.

Chile had their experiment with socialism with their former Presidenta, Michelle Bachelet who was replaced by an extreme neo-liberal Chicago School of Economics Ayn Rand adherent, the richest man in Chile, Sebastian Piñera who could give a shit about the poor or the environment. His banks are making a huge fortune, lending money at very high interest rates to the upper middle class so their children can attend higher institutes of learning. While the students are protesting, demanding free education, he answered them with the riot police, killing some protestors, and trying to build huge hydroelectric projects in the Chilean Patagonian wilderness, to then run transmission lines the length of the nation to the very northern mining region of Antofagasta. He is so unpopular that it is unlikely his party will get re-elected, but who knows, he may very well follow the example of

Argentina, where Queen Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, quite possibly the most incompetent and corrupt leader that poor suffering nation ever had, assured herself re-election by having trucks going around the barrios of greater Buenos Aires, giving away free meat to the poor, and flat screen TV’s at a bargain price to the retirees. The majority of the population of this Southern Cone nation lives in the greater Buenos Aires area, where she did all her charitable work. The opposition parties conceded the election weeks before the election, not even mounting a concerted coalition opposition. Her Peronist thug party now holds an absolute majority in both the upper and lower houses, as well as controlling the Supreme Court and all the important federal judgeships.

Meanwhile the economy of Argentina is heading into the shitter with astonishing speed. Her government has been lying about inflation and unemployment for so long that they have institutionalized it. The independent non-government economists that are using real figures to peg inflation at about 25% are being threatened with astronomical fines for revealing the truth, so they are using the opposition legislators in Congress to release the figures.

Her son Maximiliano meanwhile is leading “La Campera”, a militant Peronist youth movement, and is being groomed to eventually take over the dying and bankrupt country. Argentina has what I call a circular history, where every few years the nation goes from one economic disaster to the next meltdown. The next one will occur within the next twelve months, and Cristina will promptly have another nervous breakdown. For the foreseeable future, Argentina, with its almost daily new currency restrictions, is an absolute taboo for expats and investors. Getting residency has become one of the worst bureaucratic nightmares imaginable, almost as bad as in

Brazil, where you have to practice for the upcoming 2016 Olympic Games to jump thru all the hoops for residency. Former President Lula da Silva took on a bit more than the country can digest with a weakening economy worldwide by committing a trillion US dollars to pay for the FIFA World Cup and the Olympic Games. That all sounded very good while the world’s economies were overheated, fueled by artificial money, but that has now come to an end. The continuing €uro crisis has severely affected Brazil’s currency, and this year so far ore exports to China are down 26%. FIFA is deeply concerned that Brazil will not be ready for the World Cup in time, and the infrastructure improvements are lagging way behind schedule. Corruption has played a large part in Dilma Rousseff’s administration, an administration she largely inherited from the hugely popular former President Lula da Silva. So far 10 ministers have been forced from office for proven and blatant corruption. Lula meanwhile has “recovered” from his cancer and, in his words, is planning to run for president again, if Dilma chooses to vacate the position, an arrangement that was reached before he left office and supported her to be his placeholder while he had to sit out a term. At least he did not do what many other Latin American leaders have done, which is to change the constitution to allow himself to run again and again.

Paraguay meanwhile had a velvet coup with the 2-hour impeachment of the horny bishop Fernando Lugo. He has been a thorn in the side of the ruling elite of that landlocked country for quite a while now, since he openly supports the struggle of the landless peasants, many of whom are occupying lands owned by some of Paraguay’s wealthiest elite. Interestingly enough, on June 28th and 29th there was a summit in Mendoza, Argentina of the heads of state of the Mercosur nations, of which Paraguay’s now-former President Fernando Lugo was president. The Paraguayan delegation was not allowed to enter the conference at the Intercontinental Hotel in Mendoza. Former President Lugo had originally announced that he would go to explain the situation of the massacre of 17 peasants and military, but he changed his mind when he found out that he might not be permitted to re-enter Paraguay. Not even he wants to live in exile in Argentina. Perhaps he can join Julian Assange in Ecuador, if Assange gets exile there, and they might be flown there in

Bolivian President Evo Morales’ new 27 million dollar jet, which will now require a 40 million dollar “executive terminal” for the security of the former coca farmer, who managed to screw his fellow coca farmers and indigenous supporters by trying to build a Brazilian financed 4 lane highway through the indigenous reservation that was granted to its inhabitants in perpetuity.

When considering where to expatriate to, remember one thing: Nothing ever stays the same! But you can always go back to where you came from, with your tail tucked between your legs, and try to get one of those sought after jobs as a Wal-Mart greeter. You probably will need to get something like that after your former new best friends in Panama have cleaned your clock. On second thought, why not just stay in the USA and go to Montana to start a dental floss farm?

Jamie Douglas

Out There

The World Today

By Jamie Douglas

Well so far so good. The socialists were elected in France. The Greek coalition is falling apart. Hell rages in Syria. A blind guy gets on an airplane for Newark from China (good thing he is blind). The inevitable first major air disaster in a record amount of time takes place in Pakistan. The birthers are rearing their ugly racist heads again. The entire Euro Zone is in chaos. The haves want to kick the Greeks out. So there is a precedent for when it comes to Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Italy.

In the USA it seems they have finally found the least common denominator to run against Obama: the guy with the most money. Rupert Murdoch and Roger Aisles are getting ready for their story of the year, joining with Carl Rove to manipulate the presidential elections. Already there are rumors that Obama is gay, since he had poetry classes with a decidedly feminine overtone. Yeah, I know his wife has a big ass, but at least she is trying to help others.

On the other hand, the drunken coke snorting big mouth barfly, Andrew Breitbart, managed to drop dead after one of his bar-based tirades. We now only need for Hugo Chavez, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the Castro brothers, various despots and corrupt leaders in the rest of the world to follow his lead, and I may actually believe in a Super Being.

Meanwhile Iran, Syria, Israel, most of Africa and a good portion of Asia continue to suffer from a dearth of freedom and democracy. If Syria was Libya, western forces would have been there a long time ago, to protect their God given natural resource, crude oil. But there is not that much there, and most of it goes to the ....stans.

No good pissing them off, as we still need them for logistical support for the other war in Afghanistan.

Back to the United States’ upcoming election mess. There is already one very slimy gambling billionaire, Sheldon Adelson, who spent millions to get his favorite scumbag, Newt Gingrich, nominated. But the people went with the guy who already has it all, the cultist from Michussets.

Poor old Grampa Ron Paul and his (many of you will disagree with me here) return to the gold standard. Please look it up yourself:  Total monetary supply divided by the gold available and we are all broke, unless you are willing to accept pennies on the dollar in gold. Don’t get me wrong. He is a sweet old man who has stood up for his principles for many years now. Then he names his son “Rand,” after a slutty communist/socialist educated wingnut. Nowhere in her literature do we get glowing descriptions of hourly workers who actually make it big. It is always the big wheel architects fighting big government, and the hell with the workers. There are plenty more where they came from.

Then there is the big fright about François Hollande, the new and SOCIALIST president of France. Only in the USA has the definition of “socialist” been drilled into people’s heads with Pinktertons’ violence, the Committee on Un-American Activities, the big red witch-hunt etc., where anything that could be equated with socialism was communism. Governments come, governments go, and currently South America is experiencing some leadership that, on the backs of the poor people, want to bring about socialism. Note to Wannabe Socialists like Evo Morales: Before you can distribute the wealth, you have to have it, and that does not necessarily start out by buying a US$ 40 million private jet, a top of the line Falcon 900EX by the French manufacturer Dassault.

Top of the list of imbeciles in Latin America must be the earlier mentioned Empress Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who just flew across the South Atlantic to Angola to assure her equally wondrous counterpart to keep the South Atlantic a weapons-free zone, therefore mothballing the entire Argentine armed forces while asking for Angolan oil, which has been sold out for the next seven years. She also neglected to ask Brazil and Uruguay about that. While along with all the nations on the eastern side of the Atlantic, Argentina slips further into inflation and recession, her majesty’s customs department is letting imported fruits, vegetables, medicines and anything else you can think of rot in containers in the sun. It was reported today that she is suffering from yet another “nervous breakdown,” which will keep her in bed for 3 days.

Meanwhile, her partners in government are getting ready to allow her to be president for life, and if not, then her son, the leader of Campora, Maximilian Kirchner. But at the rate the Kirchners are messing the economy up it will take a miracle for them to be elected again (Todo es possible en Argentina). Meanwhile her vice president was finally indicted for “Illegal Enrichment,” or corruption, to the rest of us. No different than the Kirchners who entered public service and are now billionaires. (Real Estate of course)

At least in Brazil, President Dilma Rousseff has been cleaning house, getting rid of so far about 10 ministers, all left over from the ever so popular Lula da Silva. Meanwhile she quietly slipped into the pockets of the major timber and mining interests along with those of the giant hydroelectric dam being built and Amazonia.

Well as always, the whole world is a mess.

So to those of you contemplating expatriating, stay home where you friends are and people speak English. There are no tax savings to be had unless you want to deal with crooks. It is not safer in Colombia, Panama, Ecuador, Costa Rica or Parador. Move to Montana, Idaho or Vermont. It is nicer there and if you feel like it, go to Panama or Colombia for a few months. You will be glad when you come back to a place without the bugs and welts.

Jamie Douglas

On The Road Somewhere in the Americas (heading to Igauaçu Falls next)

We are hitting the road again!

Please note: This site is not in any way related with Escape from America, Expat Daily News or expatdailynews Latin America. My writings, my opinions, unless you want to contribute.

My Predicions about the Future of France

By Jamie Douglas

First about my lack of presence: Last week, I not only cracked my skull but in the following nosedive also appears to have broken my sternum, as is suitable for a man my age. After an unknown period of time I tried to sneak back into bed without disturbing Julie, which of course was impossible in my state. “Dog” knows what the dog thought, but had I been the dog, I would have laughed my ass off.

So some weeks ago I wrote a piece forecasting Sarkozy’s defeat as well as the EADS team having to re-engineer the entire wing assembly for the A-380 Super Jumbo Jet. It turns out that every single wing will have to be completely redesigned for all future models coming off the line. But also, every aircraft flying will have to be refitted with the redesigned wing. (I am not gloating at all here.) Whenever you introduce a new model, whether it be toothpaste or rockets (ask the North Koreans), you might encounter problems. So here is the exchange with the very nice lady who lives 9 km from France:

 

Thursday, March 22, 2012

French Turmoil and the Elections in Gaulle: A Reply to a Reader

By Jamie Douglas

At this very moment I am writing this, one of my favorite nations is under siege from a lone lunatic gunman while the elections are turning out to be quite a spectacle. So I opened my fan mail today, and found this very polite letter from a woman who lives a mere nine km from France.

Hello Jamie,

I have recently been given the access details to The Expatriate News and there have been fairly numerous articles from your good self about France, their upcoming elections, Airbus, the random shootings in Toulouse, adjusting to living in France, etc. Living in the Mendoza area in Argentina I am not exactly sure what your background and experience is relative to France because you are somewhat off base in some of your pronouncements which are covered quite nicely in the general press in France and Europe.

Are you French, have you ever lived in France, do you speak French? As one who grew up in French Canada speaking both French and English and has lived within 9 kilometres of France for the last 25 years, it seems odd that you focus many of your articles (at least the ones I have seen so far) on France when you live in South America.

Why not tell us more about the delights of Argentina in particular and South America in general rather than trying to "teach grandma how to suck eggs" when it comes to France? Incidentally, and despite your advice to the contrary, Sarkosy will retain his Presidency and the problems of Airbus are not like you represent at all!

Bonne journée!

Dear Reader,

Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment, and for being a reader of the Expat Daily News. I will try to address your concerns

First, let me give you my qualifications to write about the subjects that I write about. I am an aerospace engineer and world traveler, having investigated more than 40 major commercial aircraft accidents word wide and accumulated over 6000 hours in multiengine jet aircraft from Learjets to the giant C5A/B. I lived in France for many years, having been born just a stone’s throw from the border in La Suisse Romande, and spent years going to school in France. I therefore feel somewhat qualified to write about the current goings on there. We may disagree on the political side, as you may feel closer to the current president, Nicolas Sarkozy, than I do. I personally feel that he has let all of the people of France down by taking the passenger seat in Angela Merkel’s grand plans.

It has also become quite painfully obvious that he did accept 50 million €uros from Mr. Ghadaffi to pay for his election. But enough of that! I doubt that short of an inquisition Sarkozy’s supporters will ignore any evidence to the contrary.

Now about the shootings in Toulouse, which also happens to be the French home of EADS, the parent company of Airbus, and why I, sitting here in South America would be writing about that. You have to agree that that is kind of a silly question. In the age of instant electronic communications via computer, I could write the same stories from Tonga or Antarctica. I write about things that affect all of us. And the brutal murders of the victims at a Jewish school affect me as much as the horrific accident in that tunnel in Switzerland last week. So I write about them.

I do write quite a bit about Argentina over on our sister site, Expat Daily News Latin America. (In fact, just today, my editor asked me to lay off Argentina.) I wish I could write more about the “delights” of this amazing country, but if you go back into the archives on that site, you will find that this is not always possible, these days. I am most aware of what is going on here and read the official Gazette every day. I sense that I am a witness to the next downfall of this charming country, which has never learned from its unfortunate history. As far as countries in Latin America, I once again invite you to look around the Expat Daily News Latin America website, where you will find a great deal of information.

I politely agree to disagree with you on the subject of President Sarkozy, not just based on polls, but because I read articles in the French press, as well as the rest of the world. Before I write my daily articles, I spend hours reading publications from around the globe, as well as being in contact with journalists.

But perhaps you could enlighten me and the Airbus engineers in France, Germany, and England what the problems with the wings on the A-380 really are. I am sure they would love to have grandma teach them how to create new alloys that will not crack under normal flight conditions.

Again, I want to thank you for taking the time to write to me in such an educated and civilized fashion. Vive La France!

Jamie Douglas

San Rafael, Mendoza

The following is the prequel to the above conversation.

My predictions have of course come true. The French people have made themselves a “comfortable” socialist bed, though it may be made of straw and all those poor and underprivileged immigrants will end up sucking up the wealth and peace of the state. This however is the karmic adjustments of the “boot in the ass, nigger” (my apologies to all my friends of color) colonialism. Yes, it is a bitter fact that the industrial revolution would have turned out differently without slavery and the stealing of continents and their natural resources, which of course include the millions of slaves.

Jamie Douglas,
Argentina

[image: French President Elect François Hollande, via Wikipedia]

The Good Ol’e USA: World Leader in Self Destructive Behavior

Politics in the US is what we are talking about here. The once “greatest nation in all of the Galaxies” has taken the lead in showing the rest of the world how to self destruct. It really was not that difficult at all. It started before the Civil War, with the new nation split into its pro-slavery and abolitionist factions. Then came the isolationists v. the join the war factions, two times no less. After that we experienced the Great Society advocates against  the ultra capitalist fear mongers, which was a very funny tragicomedy playing itself out between the have not’s against the never will have anything’s.

The loudest voices against social programs came from those who could have gained the most by having a social safety net in the form of some type of catastrophic insurance coverage, to be taken out of their wages in the same way that social security and disability as well as unemployment insurance are now. Right now, there are millions of people who are un- or under-employed. For many families and individuals, the nation’s safety net for those having lost their jobs is the only thing standing between them and hungry eyes.

If, like the rest of the US population, it is spread about evenly between Republicans and Democrats, then fully half of those unemployed, all those who are so strongly anti-socialist, the believers in the neo conservative agenda, the Ayn Rand faithful, the ones who feel that Ronald Reagan was America’s prophet, they should all do like Nancy Reagan said: “Just say no [to socialism]!” Refuse the socialist programs keeping them and their families afloat. Refuse social security, refuse Medicare and Medicaid, refuse unemployment benefits, subsidized public transportation systems and your FHA mortgage, use of parks and public facilities and by all means, refuse public assistance to help feed your children by way of what used to be known as food stamps.

According to some of the self destructive candidates for President of the US currently are some who would blame the jobless for being lazy and not doing enough to help themselves. But in the US, the word “socialism” has been so sullied by so many years of false propaganda, that the majority of the populace now believes that it is something akin to Marxism or communism. Nothing could be further from the truth.

One of the very phrases of the foundation of the US is that “United we stand. Divided we fall!” My interpretation of that phrase is very simple: If we all stand together and help each other, we can achieve greatness. Now that is socialism. And the United States showed the world how it can be done; how the country pulled out of several depressions, with soup kitchens, breadlines and compassionate help for each other, when even the super rich contributed some of their time, efforts and wealth to the common good. There are some brilliant examples of that to be found even in today’s toxic atmosphere of the rich getting richer, and the poor getting screwed by their elected representatives.

2012 being a presidential election year, the big feeding frenzy began right after the 2010 elections, with politicians jostling for positions to bring down the President, but it reaches back to right after the 2008 elections when the Senator “Mitch” McConnell publicly stated that his number one priority was to make President Obama a one term president. To accomplish that goal, the Republican Party has done everything in their power to deny the president his appointments and his agenda, fighting against the will of the American public in order to deny their opposing party any kind of legislative victory.

The results are obvious. A congressional approval rating of less that 10%! The Republicans have relied heavily on the three hot button issues that seem to tear apart the country: abortion, same sex marriage and second amendment rights to own guns.

If only the brainwashed US citizens came to realize that in the second amendment of the US Constitution, it states pretty plainly that “a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”  But it is the first part of the amendment that has me baffled: While those who insist on owning any kind of weapon (I am amongst them) only seem to concentrate on the part that states that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not being infringed, the interpretation that always seems to be the test for the constitutionality of the second amendment, the question of “a well regulated militia” never seems to reach the hollow chambers of the US Supreme Court, where supposedly the nation’s greatest constitutional minds are busy re-interpreting that flawed document written so long ago… so long ago in fact that the writers of our Constitution could have never envisioned my Beretta Model 92A1 9mm automatic pistol with a 17 round magazine, my HK 223 with a 40 round quick change magazine or my Browning 12 gage semi automatic shotgun, which with a little tinkering now holds 10 lethal rounds of express ammo, rounded out with a tiny little 25 automatic Beretta that holds a complement of lethal hollow points and lives completely undetected in my pants pocket. Yes, I am protected when in the US, but the people I need protection from are not the eventual home invaders or whatever our wise forefathers envisioned we need protection from.

It is that “well regulated militia” that gives me the heebie jeebies! May I invite you to read what has become of that well regulated militia? I am very concerned, or you may call me paranoid, even crazy, about the US government coming to take me away, ha ha… now that our president has signed into law a provision that allows the government to arrest and indefinitely detain US citizens without due process, although he did state that he would never use that power while he was president. As a white person of European descent, I believe him, sort of. But what if I was Somali, or Pakistani or an American Black Muslim? This provision was rammed through Congress in spite of vehement opposition of the directors of the FBI, CIA, the Attorney General and all other directors of those hundreds of secret agencies residing all around the US.

Why did the conservative majority attach this to a must-pass piece of legislation? What is their agenda? How soon before a future president or attorney general will use these provisions to incarcerate members of militias, which generally are already considered to be wing nut terrorists by the government? Anyone here remember Randy Weaver? Or the brutal intervention of the federal government in Waco, Texas?  It always came down to that “well regulated militia” enforcing government violations of the second amendment. What happened in Waco is an unspeakable atrocity committed by the US attorney general Janet Reno, an action that was so heavy handed that it cost the lives of 84 human beings, granted, some of them having been brainwashed by religious interference since birth, but that alone should not condemn them to being US Govt. FDA approved Bratwurst!

On the subject of abortion, which has become the paternal issue of the Republican Party, loudly proclaiming that life starts at conception, I, as a man will issue no personal opinion. It is not my body, it is not my business. I would however interject that I do have a daughter and two lovely granddaughters for whom I am grateful.

But the hypocrisy of the pro life factions becomes evident when you look at some simple truths: If life begins at conception, why is it OK to kill thousands of children in armed conflicts such as Iraq? Many a pregnant woman also died in that conflict. But apparently that is OK, because they were the enemy, and as such they were fair game.

Then there is the question of so many impoverished women all over the world who were forced to give birth by the right to life faction in the US, led by former President George W. Bush, who explicitly cut off all foreign aid connected to countries that did not fall in line with their agenda. The result of that policy was an unprecedented rise in the mortality rate of children in third world countries. As a matter of policy, that equaled a pogrom. During the 8 misbegotten years of the false alcoholic prophet, more children died of starvation and disease than did Jews during the holocaust.

If you look at the US alone, where the evangelicals insist on having control over a woman’s  body and the destiny of her fetus, once they win the battle to save the innocent little unborn, they could give a shit about what happens to the now born infant. In fact, the Republicans have gone through some great efforts to remove any and all assistance to the now living lump of tissue by blaming the mothers for irresponsible and lustful behavior. Therefore it stands to reason that the child must be punished for the sins of the mother.

The truly sad thing is that those in charge in Washington DC are almost exclusively men, who at some time or another, while at school, or in office, have participated in exactly that type of “immoral” behavior. From state representatives to the very President of the US, there have been violations of an unwritten code that states, “Thou Shalt Not Fuck your Interns!”

While all those fine politicos pretend to be one head taller that the rest of us, they are actually the slime that holds society together. They are the ones who attach riders to must-pass legislation at 11:59PM. They are the ones who have been elected by and are in the service of the corporations that financed them. In the case of Citizens United it has become very clear who the real “citizens” are. The corporations! The actual group called Citizens United (different link) describes its mission as being dedicated to restoring the United States government to “citizens’ control” and to “assert American values of limited government, freedom of enterprise, strong families, and national sovereignty and security.” In reality they are a sham organization that fronts for extreme conservative issues, such as having corporations shielded by the first amendment and allowing them in this coming election cycle to anonymously donate over ten billion dollars to defeat the incumbent president, because we must have that “shit trickles down on the poor effect,” originally invented by former Bedtime for Bonzo co-star Ronald Reagan’s creators.

Citizens United is one of those right wing agenda driven organizations led by a clearly discredited political hack, David Norman Bossie (Warning: graphic picture). During the Whitewater era, he was fired for fabricating and altering evidence by Rep. Dan Burton from Indiana. But that did not stop him and his compatriots from pulling shit out of clear air about Senator Kerry et al. in order to take a case, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA), all the way to the Supreme Court, which was as divided as always, 5:4. There may be a light on the horizon with this encouraging Montana Supreme Court decision. But as long as court 54 is in charge of corporate destinies, I suggest that you not hold your breath!

A dissenting opinion by Justice Stevens was joined by Justice Ginsburg, Justice Breyer and Justice Sotomayor. To emphasize his unhappiness with the majority, Stevens took the relatively rare step of reading part of his 90 page dissent from the bench. Stevens concurred in the Court’s decision to sustain BCRA’s disclosure provisions, but dissented from the principal holding of the majority opinion. The dissent argued that the Court’s ruling “threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation. The path it has taken to reach its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution.” He pointedly stated: “A democracy cannot function effectively when its constituent members believe laws are being bought and sold.”

           

Justice Stevens also argued that the Court’s holding that BCRA §203 was facially unconstitutional was ruling on a question not brought before it by the litigants, and so claimed that the majority “changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law.” Stevens concluded:

“At bottom, the Court’s opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics.”

Justice Thomas, yes him, of sexual misconduct fame, wrote a separate opinion (one of the few after all these years) concurring in all but part IV of the Court’s decision (upholding the disclosure provisions). In order to protect the anonymity of contributors to organizations exercising free speech, Thomas would have struck down the reporting requirements of BCRA §201 and §311 as well, rather than allowing them to be challenged only on a case-specific basis. Thomas’s primary argument was that anonymous free speech is protected and that making contributor lists public makes the contributors vulnerable to retaliation, citing instances of retaliation against contributors to both sides of a then recent California voter initiative. Thomas also expressed concern that such retaliation could extend to retaliation by elected officials. Thomas did not consider “as-applied challenges” to be sufficient to protect against the threat of retaliation.

How did we end up with this Supreme Court? Just looking at the eyes of Justice Roberts gives me the creeps. And when it was time for the Democrats to show their wisdom in not going along with his appointment, they as usual just rolled over and forsook the Constitution in order to have parliamentary peace. What Idiots! They turned the Republic over to those who just passed that legislation, earlier mentioned, regarding the arrest and detention of US citizens without due process. (Oh wait, all those who will be implicated are probably just {insert your derogatory term of choice here} - but remember, the “N” word and the “J” words are unacceptable because one of those is President, and the other ones are ruling congress by way of AIPAC). What happened to our Republic? I want to puke, even at this safe distance of 7000 miles. It is a disaster, and Americans are just sitting on their credit card fattened asses, pretending everything is OK.

Which brings me to the third meltdown issue of the Republicans/Evangelicals, the same sex marriage issue: Frankly people, who gives a shit? Mind your own business and keep your opinions to yourselves. So what if two gay people love each other and want to express their love by joining in marriage? Many of those deviates work alongside you and some of you may even be married to one. Some of them are US Senators tapping their feet in public toilets at airports. And why are the police there, tapping their feet as well to the tune of In a Gadda da Vida, baby? Is there no real crime happening? Those who are bothered the most by homosexuality and lesbianism are the ones who are the most fearful of their own same sex sexual fantasies.

Just like the racial prejudices that were practiced until a very short time ago, and still are in places, given a generation or two, our children’s children will come to accept that lifestyle, just as they have come to live with inter racial marriages. (It produces beautiful children: ver. Hawaii, Brazil, Vietnam etc.) By following the gays that opted to get married or civil unionized, we will discover that they are not a bunch of rampant child molesters, and we will also discover that their children will not all turn out to be degenerate faggots and rug munchers, but regular citizens of the world, perhaps more tolerant of football players’ closet antics and non-same sex marriages.

So we return to the topic of the good ol’e USA again making a total ass of itself to the rest of the world that is looking on. In my travels around the globe, the same question keeps popping up, asked by highly civilized peoples as well as citizens of underdeveloped and developing nations: “What the Fuck happened to America?” I wish I knew! But once upon a time, I was deeply involved in a large multinational corporation, and I was astonished at some of the practices applied to defeat the competition. As a mid-level executive in the epic battle between Kodak and Fuji film, I was able to game the system for 7 figure amounts, because they were so greedy for “market share.” In my position as a low level player, I was able to plant suggestions into the executives’ ears on both sides while I took them out marlin fishing, plying them with prostitutes and whiskey. When I first laid eyes on digital cameras, I sold my options and went to Fiji. Now Kodak is bankrupt and Fuji is prospering not just in Fiji, but all over the world.

Take the current selection process for the candidacy to become the next President of the United States. It’s a joke! There are way too many debates, and the candidates are obviously disingenuous during these debates, where the only moments of truth emerge when they have a brain fart like Rick Perry’s forgetting one of the 3 things he would do away with. It turns out it was his running for president. Most of the rest of the field is falling all over each other to proclaim how Christian they are, compared to that other guy, you know, the Mormon cultist. When JFK ran for the highest office in the land as the first ever Catholic, he had to overcome the same type of “Christian prejudice” against his faith. Now that all the various truths are being revealed, we find that he too diddled his intern, along with all the other illicit affairs we knew about. (He was quite the virile stud horsy, that Irish Catholic fellow!) But it seems that the political selection process this year has been reduced to a wastewater treatment facility, where the only thing floating to the top is that brownish foamy scum; I think they call it Santorum. For a party who hates this president even more than they hated President Clinton, who in reality was a closeted Republican, they sure failed miserably in coming up with a qualified and viable candidate. Karl Rove must be having a conniption fit, what with sitting on all those hundreds of millions of dollars without a decent candidate to support. But what the hell, the media corporations will get it all no matter what. The current election cycle is the first presidential election where Super-PAC’s can spend all their secret money freely. Congratulations America! You have finally made into law what I have been saying all along: Corporations are people; greedy, dishonest, power-hungry people for the most part. Welcome to the Corporate States of America! Did you know that the US Government and by extension the world’s governments are run by Goldman Sachs and Company? If that escaped your attention, you really are leading a sheltered life. Get ready for the biggest wakeup call of your entire existence.  

…And if you are supporting Rand Paul because he advocates the gold standard, beware! The USA does not even come close to having the physical amount of gold to cover either your money or their astronomical debt. If you were to take all the money in circulation, all the fictitious money that only exists in computers, and divided it by the amount of the actual gold holdings of the government, you would come up woefully short. Americans got screwed a lot worse when their government decided not to issue coins containing silver anymore. That was when my father, a wise man, started to buy bags of silver coins.

The US currency stopped being on a gold standard long before the official denial of it. If everyone during the changeover would have demanded their gold certificates be traded into bullion, the nation’s citizens would have ended up with about 34 cents on the dollar. But if we are not on the gold standard, why is our government holding 8133.5 tons of the yellow metal (as of Jan 1, 2012)? That is only 3 times the amount that the IMF or 8 times the amount that Switzerland has. Or are they really holding it? There certainly is room here for a whole new conspiracy theory! Who stole all the gold and replaced it with gold plated lead?  Did it go to the United Nations? Maybe the Clinton clan? The Bush family? Rupert Murdoch? The evil Koch brothers?  Vaporized in the twin towers? Only the shadow knows, and he has been off the air for too many years. But if you have any good theories on a new conspiracy, I urge you to send them to me for the widest possible dissemination.

Thank you for reading my rant. Please send me you comments or write your own rant, which will be published here. No personal attacks or libelous comments, unless they are in a foreign language such as Esperanto or Elmer Fuddish.

And remember, the preceding is just an opinionated opinion. I don’t claim to have any of the answers to the dark secrets of the universe. For those, you have to go to the altar of the Prince of Darkness, Rupert Murdoch and his evil twin, Roger Aisles. Good luck with that though, you may be sucked into a black hole!

Jamie Douglas

Safely ensconced in my bunker with my REMs and my Tinfoil hat, with the ever present bottle of Malbec to share with my child bride.