I forgot my camera (sorry no pictures this time) but I wanted to write about my experience at the protest in NY this past weekend.  Despite the rain, there were about 50,000 people who showed up and marched down Broadway.  I felt like the protest had a very different feel from the one in DC last month.  It was somber and felt more like an obligation than an exercise in democracy.

I had friends telling me throughout the week that it was going to rain.  My response?  If I’m marching to end the death and destruction this war has caused, on principle alone I can’t back out because I don’t want to stand in the rain for a few hours. 

At least I wasn’t the only one who felt that way…..

I came up to NJ with a friend of mine and we stayed at his brother’s house for the weekend.  I got them both to come along with me to the march where we met up with srkp23.  Neither of my friends had been to a large protest before and I was very happy to have increased my group by 200% from the last time.  I was especially happy to have them talk politics with us at the bar later. 

When srkp23 and I were making our plans in the morning we both agreed that the weather was irrelevant and that we should still go.  Even if only a small amount of people showed up or the weather got worse.  When we got there later it was amazing to see how many other people were just as committed to the cause.  I think the crowd might have been larger if the weather was nice, but it was not a small protest by any means.  It stretched by for blocks, Broadway was closed off and the streets were filled.

The fact that so many people did show up lent itself to the mood of obligation and solidarity I felt.  Protesting had become a necessity rather than a show of support (or in this case disapproval).  And that’s what protesting is, at its core.  A necessity.  By no means is it the only necessary action, but it is part of a larger movement to instigate change.  And each part of the movement is an act of necessity.

The phone calls, emails, blogs and donations are all in essence passive aggressive ways to express political views.  The aggressive ways to express your views are protesting, civil disobedience and holding political office.  There should be a strong combination of all of these actions to effectively bring about an overall change. 

Although, I personally feel the country is at a point that we are taking far too long for the amount of shit we need to fix immediately.  I’m worried it will be too late before enough people get involved to repair the mess we’re all in. 

I think at this point it is going to take something very drastic to awaken the rest of the country.  Sometimes I have the feeling that America, as a country, is waiting to make sure it is absolutely necessary before they collectively take drastic aggressive action.  I just wonder what the tipping point will be.

Possibly Marshall Law?  That or the draft being reinstated.  Also, if we bomb Iran.  That might be enough.

I guess it’s just whichever happens first. 

Because right now, 2 wars, the looting of our treasury, hundreds of thousands dead (war, poverty, prison, violent crime, heath care system, suicides, Katrina and September 11th), the abuse of our military, millions loosing their homes, personal debt beyond available wages, cost of living sky rocketing, members of our government being charged worldwide with crimes against humanity, the erosion of civil liberties, and a president who is clearly mentally disturbed has not been enough to rouse the general populace to take aggressive political action.

I obsess over politics sometimes.  Some of those close to me say it’s not worth the aggravation and I’m just upsetting myself for no reason.  I would agree if I was obsessing over Hollywood starlets.  But politics can change everything in your world before you even realize it’s happening.  Look at Iraq.  One day they had a thriving economy, schools, jobs, electricity.  Now they have nothing.  And it is all because of politics.  There are very real consequences that could change your life forever in an instant.  It’s worth being upset over and it is worth fighting for and it is defiantly worth a Saturday.  I’m broke, I’m busy and very disheartened.

And that is precisely why I show up.  Even when it rains.

Also posted at dailykos.

What follows is a collection of quotes from reports and investment signals I receive every day. Most of these are not free. In fact, I pay as much as $3,000 per year for some of my subscriptions. I’ve made selections from the past four days — to give you a peek behind the curtain.

My focus is on global markets and currencies (with side orders of petroleum and commodities). Meanwhile, the world’s focus is on deliberately kicking America’s ass (even if it hurts them in the short term). Many nations are willing to take a hard economic hit to rid the world of a dangerous invading nation with an insane leader threatening to “throw atomic bombs” at his make-believe enemies. As a result, experienced U.S. investors have been dumping their US dollars (frantically over the past ten days) — except for:

1. Investment professionals who watch CNBC — the corporate-profit-driven business cable channel with a propaganda mission to drive up the Dow.

2. Investment professionals with a case of cognitive dissonance, indecisive paralysis, senile dementia, or right-wing brain rot.

Your hand-picked selection of financial quotes appears below the fold.

A Special Note on the Title

The title of this Essay comes from a popular 90’s arcade game called Zero Wing. The Japanese game was so poorly translated, that it became a cultural icon throughout the world. Especially the phrase: “All your base are belong to us.” Here’s a view of the salient screens in the game:

My favorite flash version of this craziness is located here –> The “All Your Base” Flash Experience

(I fixed it so it opens a new window. Click it. It’ll get you high. Mind your speakers!)

Okay, pass the Dharmaceuticals and let’s get this on… BTW, I did publish this at Orange, but I’m putting in stuff, below, that I can only tell you guys (and my gays, of course).

THURSDAY — Get Ready for Another Dollar Bashing!

What Happened:

Yesterday, the markets got wind of the latest Durable Goods Report. Core Durables came in at 0.3%, as opposed to the 7% expected. That’s a big ouch! Durables as a whole came in – 1.7% vs. +1.6 as expected.

How Markets Reacted:

The U.S. dollar got crushed as traders heard about the less than enthusiastic numbers. They dumped the dollar with new found enthusiasm.

What It Means:

Man, the U.S. dollar just can’t catch a break. This has pushed EUR/USD back above 1.4300.

Are things going to get better anytime soon? More than likely not. Just Wednesday, Bank of America announced the layoff of several thousand employees. Motorola posted a loss this quarter in today’s announcements. Also, Daimler (Chrysler) announced a loss.

So what does this mean in currency land? The dollar is down because the market is losing confidence in the greenback fast. Plus, foreigners are taking more assets from the U.S. (selling their stock holdings of these slowing companies, selling real estate, etc.) and repatriating their money out of dollars and back into their home land.

This makes foreign currencies go up and the dollar go down. Currencies are moved by both economic and sentiment levels. Both right now are in the toilet. So until this picture changes fundamentally, all stock market rallies and dollar rallies should be sold once they start to roll over.

FRIDAY — Nations are Pouring Their Investment Funds into Asia

What Happened:

Foreign powers are now more willing to inoculate themselves from weakness in the United States. They’re doing this by establishing Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs), or government-sponsored investment companies. Booming countries – including major oil producers in the Gulf States as well as Russia – are going to make major changes to the way they invest. And Sovereign Wealth Funds are the vehicles they’ll use.

Nations use these government-owned investment corporations to invest surplus reserves. They’re rapidly becoming a popular way for central banks to get rid of their U.S. dollar investments, which are plunging in value on almost a daily basis.

It’s estimated that SWFs currently have more than US$2 TRILLION in assets under management. That’s quite a chunk of change! However, they are expected to exceed US$13 trillion in assets just 10 years from now.

How Markets Reacted:

Already, nations are moving their investment funds into other more stable currencies such as euros and British pounds.

What It Means:

This is just the beginning. Nations will become more aggressive in investing outside the dollar, which means currencies of other nations will get bid up in the process.

We believe the Japanese yen is one currency that will benefit greatly from this trend!

See, SWFs are going to allocate a much greater share of their investments to Asia. For some countries, it will amount to investing in their home region. For others, it will simply be going where the growth is. But all of them are likely to gravitate toward Japan, which is the second-largest economy in the world.

End result:

We will see more dollars being converted into the yen and other Asian currencies.

WEEKEND — Dollar Sell Signal Rumor from Commodities Guru Jim Rogers:

Jim Rogers broadcasted his intentions to sell ALL his U.S. dollars over the next few months. He’s using some of the profits to buy Chinese yuan instead.

According to this living legend, the “policy” of the Federal Reserve is “to debase the currency.” That’s why he’s trading in his dollars for yuan.

He used this little history lesson to point out why he’s so pessimistic about the greenback.

“The U.S. dollar is and has been the world’s reserve currency, the world’s medium of exchange. That’s in the process of changing. The pound sterling, which used to be the world’s reserve currency, lost 80% of its value, top to bottom, as it went through the whole period of losing its status as the world’s reserve currency.”

So even though it’s already been under pressure for years, the dollar still has significant downside risk, yikes! According to Rogers, the Chinese yuan (or renminbi) is “the best currency to buy right now. I don’t see how one can really lose on the renminbi in the next decade or so. It’s gotta go. It’s gotta triple. It’s gotta quadruple.”

MONDAY — A Private Trade Signal for Currency “Options” — and a High-Level Explanation of the Global Money Machine

Background:

I said last Friday that if the G-7 finance ministers didn’t make a strong statement supporting the dollar, the market may perceive it as a green light to sell the buck.  Well, they didn’t, and the dollar is suffering the consequences.

The G-7 decided to let the dollar decline. That’s because a falling dollar will tend to add global liquidity to all asset markets.  And that was the devil’s tradeoff for the G-7, i.e. either keep the global music playing by sacrificing the buck, or take a stand on the buck and risk a big selloff in global markets and risk more contagion. 

Thus, we are in an environment that has to be labeled “The Return of Risk Taking.”  And it’s a very fertile environment to hold options that bet on a continued dollar decline. 

A Yuan for the Yen:

So what about the yen?  Doesn’t it do badly in an environment of risk taking?  Well, it used to, but I think the game has changed there, too. 

Though the G-7 did not support the U.S. dollar, it did collectively bash the Chinese currency, complaining the Chinese yuan is significantly undervalued.  This was the first time we saw the U.S., Canada, and Europe together in such a forceful manner on this issue.  I think they are finally getting serious. 

The Chinese currency is at least 40% to 80% undervalued against the U.S. dollar according to most analysts — and it could be a lot more than that.  The political pressure on China and the inflationary pressures in China, are growing rapidly, thanks to the policy of currency manipulation.  We may have finally reached that stage where it is in the best interest of China to act, and let its currency float much higher, much faster. 

Why is a stronger yuan good for the Japanese yen?

Japan competes with China on exports to the West.  A stronger yuan will allow Japan to implicitly let its currency move higher.  I think this will now clear the way for the Bank of Japan to finally hike interest rates.  Artificially lower interest rates in Japan have suppressed the yen for a while, as you know.  It has been the catalyst for the carry trade. 

Thus, we now have another reason why the carry trade in the yen could become unwound, besides just risk.  That’s why I am still very bullish on the yen even in an environment of risk appetite.

(This signal goes on to tell investors to buy March Yen at a certain strike price…)

For those playing along at home — I wish I could tell you that if you invest in “international funds” through your mutual fund at work — that somehow you are in the “foreign” market.

Nothing, however, could be further from the truth. As long as your investment is demoninated in dollars, you are losing money every hour of the day.

The big problem this week, is that on Wednesday the Federal Reserve may lower interest rates (to keep the U.S. corporations happy with the Dow Jones Averages) — this will simultaneously cause the dollar to lose a great deal of value around the world. But most Americans won’t notice — yet. And on Friday, an important report on U.S. employment comes out (it’s called the Nonfarm Payroll report). If this shows the U.S. is losing jobs this month (doh!) it will signal to the world that the U.S. economy is in trouble, which will kick the dollar even further down in value.

The last time I published the trading account, below, was in my Essay here exactly one month ago:

http://docudharma.co…

At that time, it was up $118,000.  By continuing to bet against the dollar (and investing a bit more in the Euro and Pound) it is now up to $169,000. By the end of next week, I would expect a lot more improvement:

You know what to do.

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From the “If you haven’t seen this, watch!” file…

(Again and always, posting these videos does not mean I believe or endorse every statement in the video)

Two interviews with the author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man – John Perkins

10 minutes

via videosift.com

54 minutes

via videosift.com

The Corporation …a Canadian documentary

90 minutes

via videosift.com

And for you annoying bastiges who are always asking why we don’t publish enough penguin torture porn….

via videosift.com

A ‘sort of response’ to breathingstill’s excellent essay

I hate inertia.

If anyone ever seriously asks me “why do you hate America?” I must remember to say….It’s the inertia, stupid.

Right now…everything doesn’t work. Nothing in America is working and I am tired of writing lists of all the things that aren’t working. So even my list making ability is not working. And. When somebody in America says everything is not working, somebody will say …well what is your solution? If they receive an answer, they will immediately say….well that won’t work. And they are probably right.

Because for something to work, people have to agree that it might work and  put some effort and brains into it to MAKE it work. And we can’t do that because of the inertia we are stuck being stuck in. The inertia, of course comes from stupidity.

The stupidity, of course, comes from the Republicants. In huge and meaningful ways….stupidity is the Republicant strategy. From bad education to voter suppression to control of the media, the Republicants electoral, social, and strategic policy is to reduce absolutely everything to the lowest common denominator and then label anyone who attempts to rise above that an intellectual elite in an ivory tower trying to tell real Amurkans what to do…….as if they are smarter than you.

This ….combined with the smear and slime tactics used against anyone who steps forward to say that the emperor has no clothes….or even worse, provide an actual idea or policy or solution that might work, has had the worst possible effect…..it has made being smart a bad thing.

Anyone who is smart or comes up with a new idea or a solution to a problem or a new policy to fight the inertia and stupidity is instantly renditioned to the world of Harrison Bergeron and draped in the chains of inertia and mediocrity though the means of personal attack. This development, perfected by Fox News, is not limited to the Right or to Republicants anymore, it has been adopted by the left now as well.

We see it on the blogs all the time….when someones loses an argument, they do not admit defeat, they engage in personal attack. If they can’t kill the idea, they kill the messenger. Of course on the blogs it is MOSTLY just an annoyance, but it does help to explain why nothing ever gets done on the blogs. Not only is every new idea greeted with attack, but…and this is the really damaging part….enough people buy into the attack to kill the idea itself. Usually by making the progenitor of the idea either too pissed off to defend the idea or making them give up on working in the blogosphere.

The alleged ideal of “peer review” and “criticism” has been largely lost, both on the blogs and in ‘real life’….and what is left is people attacking any idea put forward not on its merits….but in order to win the argument. In order to defeat an opponent. Thus, nothing new is tried, nothing new is rallied round, embraced and initiated ….inertia and ignorance stop all motion forward. Without motion forward a vacuum is created where the future is supposed to be…where change is supposed to be. In this vacuum of no new choices, no consensus, no movement, all decisions are once again left to inertia. When inertia makes the decision, it is ALWAYS the least controversial solution that is implemented….the lowest common denominator, once again.

The last line of defense for ignorance and inertia is always pragmatism.

“We can’t do that, it has never been tried before or has not worked in the past and so we must accept that it will never work.”

It is this form of pragmatism as despair that leads to inertia, it is inertia that leads to acceptance. It is acceptance that leads to people not standing up to those in power. It is people not standing up to those in power that creates a safe place for whatever stupidity comes down the pike. Like attacking Iran.

And it is the combination of inertia, stupidity and smears that creates the fear that we now see in our politicians, pundits and journalists….and it is the fear of being destroyed by a culture built on stupidity that leads to the slow spiral down into mediocrity ….and below, that we now see in America.

Buffalo, NY – While most Americans’ are introduced to their candidates through friends  and families, local salesclerk Tim Ofroll has gone about things differently. After not finding any candidate through traditional means, he wound up finding, then choosing, Ron Paul online.

“I am sorta a political junkie,” said Ofroll, who still hasn’t told his close friends he discovered Ron Paul on the internet. “I watch Countdown with Keith Olbermann and even Meet the Press on Sunday mornings, but I just didn’t see any other candidate I liked. It wasn’t until I went by Reddit.com that I saw Ron Paul, and then clicked on a link to his profile.”

Ofroll, like most normal Americans, usually finds candidates through his friends, or even at bars and parties, where political discussion abounds in the lead up to the 2008 election. But after playing the field, Ofroll still could not find that special candidate in real life that he wanted to share his vote with, instead having to go online to discover Ron Paul.

“Man, Thanksgiving is coming up, and I just know my mom is gonna ask my where I first saw Ron Paul,” said a distraught Ofroll. “I better come up with a story quick, or else I am gonna be shamed into admitting I became a Ron Paul supporter online.”

Such cover stories thought up by Ofroll include: meeting Ron Paul at a rally, a booth at a rock concert and even at the kiosk at the county fair.

“I had to shoot all those down because my family went to the fair as well, and they would have seen the Ron Paul kiosk. And let’s face it, Paul isn’t exactly Cold Play’s target audience either so the concert tale is out. My only real choice was to go with “a rally,” but kind of rally? The only thing I could come up with was a Truthers for 9-11, and that’s worse than admitting you meet your candidate online,” sighed Ofroll. “I guess I could say (girlfriend) Jill introduced me to Ron Paul, but everyone knows she loves Hillary.”

Even Ofroll’s best friends do not know the ugly truth about where Tim became a Ron Paul supporter, though some do suspect something.

“He got all weirded out when I asked where he got his Ron Paul t-shirt,” stated Eric Benfall, a childhood friend of Ofroll’s. “He went into this epic story involving a circus, a three day trip with the Rainbow Gathering, beers with someone named Alex Jones and even tangent about dinner with some Gold Bugs. Whatever the fuck that means. But I think he just saw Ron Paul online, liked what he saw, and is now to chicken shit to tell everybody.”

When told of his friends suspicions, Ofroll cleared the cache on his internet browsers and UN-friended Ron Paul on his MySpace page.

“It’s not that I am embarrassed,” said Ofrool. “people meet people online all the time, don’t they? Don’t they?!?”

He then cried himself to sleep like the loser he was.