the federal reserve does not cause depressions, it prevents them.

the country would collapse within months.

what the federal reserve does is prevent foreign manipulation of the us dollar. do you want vladimir putin manipulating the exchange rate of the dollar? great: get rid of the federal reserve.

i have no patience for ignorance on this topic. if you want the federal reserve abolished, there are really truly only two possibilities as to why:

1) you are a banker, or a front for the bankers.
2) you're a retard.

THE TRACTORS came over the roads and into the fields, great crawlers moving like
insects, having the incredible strength of insects. They crawled over the ground, laying
the track and rolling on it and picking it up. Diesel tractors, puttering while they stood
idle; they thundered when they moved, and then settled down to a droning roar.
Snubnosed monsters, raising the dust and sticking their snouts into it, straight down the
country, across the country, through fences, through dooryards, in and out of gullies in
straight lines. They did not run on the ground, but on their own roadbeds. They ignored
hills and gulches, water courses, fences, houses.
The man sitting in the iron seat did not  look like a man; gloved, goggled, rubber
dust mask over nose and mouth, he was a part of the monster, a robot in the seat. The
thunder of the cylinders sounded through the country, became one with the air and the
earth, so that earth and air muttered in sympathetic vibration. The driver could not
control it—straight across country it went, cutting through a dozen farms and straight
back. A twitch at the controls could swerve the cat', but the driver's hands could not
twitch because the monster that built the tractors, the monster that sent the tractor out,
had somehow got into the driver's hands,  into his brain and muscle, had goggled him
and muzzled him—goggled his mind, muzzled his speech, goggled his perception,
muzzled his protest. He could not see the land as it was, he could not smell the land as
it smelled; his feet did not stamp the clods or feel the warmth and power of the earth.
He sat in an iron seat and stepped on iron pedals. He could not cheer or beat or curse or
encourage the extension of his power, and because of this he could not cheer or whip
or curse or encourage himself. He did not know or own or trust or beseech the land. If
a seed dropped did not germinate, it was nothing. If the young thrusting plant withered
in drought or drowned in a flood of rain, it was no more to the driver than to the
tractor.
He loved the land no more than the bank loved the land. He could admire the
tractor—its machined surfaces, its surge of power, the roar of its detonating cylinders;
but it was not his tractor. Behind the tractor rolled the shining disks, cutting the earth
with blades—not plowing but surgery, pushing the cut earth to the right where the
second row of disks cut it and pushed it to the left; slicing blades shining, polished by
the cut earth. And pulled behind the disks, the harrows combing with iron teeth so that
the little clods broke up and the earth lay smooth. Behind the harrows, the long
seeders—twelve curved iron penes erected in the foundry, orgasms set by gears, raping
methodically, raping without passion. The driver sat in his iron seat and he was proud
of the straight lines he did not will, proud of the tractor he did not own or love, proud of the power he could not control. And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no
man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No
man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised,
had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually
died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.
At noon the tractor driver stopped sometimes near a tenant house and opened his
lunch: sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper, white bread, pickle, cheese, Spam, a piece
of pie branded like an engine part. He ate without relish. And tenants not yet moved
away came out to see him, looked curiously while the goggles were taken off, and the
rubber dust mask, leaving white circles around the eyes and a large white circle around
nose and mouth. The exhaust of the tractor puttered on, for fuel is so cheap it is more
efficient to leave the engine running than  to heat the Diesel nose for a new start.
Curious children crowded close, ragged children who ate their fried dough as they
watched. They watched hungrily the unwrapping of the sandwiches, and their hunger-
sharpened noses smelled the pickle, cheese, and Spam. They didn't speak to the driver.
They watched his hand as it carried food to his mouth. They did not watch him
chewing; their eyes followed the hand that held the sandwich. After a while the tenant
who could not leave the place came out and squatted in the shade beside the tractor.
"Why, you're Joe Davis's boy!"
"Sure," the driver said.
"Well, what you doing this kind of work for—against your own people?"
"Three dollars a day. I got damn sick of creeping for my dinner—and not getting it.
I got a wife and kids. We got to eat. Three dollars a day, and it comes every day."
"That's right," the tenant said. "But for  your three dollars a day fifteen or twenty
families can't eat at all. Nearly a hundred people have to go out and wander on the
roads for your three dollars a day. Is that right?"
And the driver said, "Can't think of that. Got to think of my own kids. Three dollars
a day, and it comes every day. Times  are changing, mister, don't you know? Can't
make a living on the land unless you've got two, five, ten thousand acres and a tractor.
Crop land isn't for little guys like us any more. You don't kick up a howl because you
can't make Fords, or because you're not  the telephone company. Well, crops are like
that now. Nothing to do about it. You try to get three dollars a day someplace. That's
the only way."
The tenant pondered. "Funny thing how it is.  If a man owns a little property, that
property is him, it's part of him, and it's like him. If he owns property only so he can
walk on it and handle it and be sad when it isn't doing well, and feel fine when the rain
falls on it, that property is him, and some way he's bigger because he owns it. Even if
he isn't successful he's big with his property. That is so."
And the tenant pondered more. "But let a man get property he doesn't see, or can't
take time to get his fingers in, or can't be there to walk on it—why, then the property is
the man. He can't do what he wants, he can't think what he wants. The property is the
man, stronger than he is. And he is small, not big. Only his possessions are big—and
he's the servant of his property. That is so, too."
The driver munched the branded pie and threw the crust away. "Times are changed,
don't you know? Thinking about stuff like that don't feed the kids. Get your three
dollars a day, feed your kids. You got no call to worry about anybody's kids but your own. You get a reputation for talking like that, and you'll never get three dollars a day.
Big shots won't give you three dollars a day if you worry about anything but your three
dollars a day."
"Nearly a hundred people on the road for your three dollars. Where will we go?"
"And that reminds me," the driver said, "you better get out soon. I'm going through
the dooryard after dinner."
"You filled in the well this morning."
"I know. Had to keep the line straight. But I'm going through the dooryard after
dinner. Got to keep the lines straight. And—well, you know Joe Davis, my old man, so
I'll tell you this. I got orders wherever there's a family not moved out—if I have an
accident—you know, get too close and cave the house in a little—well, I might get a
couple of dollars. And my youngest kid never had no shoes yet."
"I built it with my hands. Straightened old nails to put the sheathing on. Rafters are
wired to the stringers with baling wire. It's mine. I built it. You bump it down—I'll be
in the window with a rifle. You even come too close and I'll pot you like a rabbit."
"It's not me. There's nothing I can do. I'll lose my job if I don't do it. And look—
suppose you kill me? They'll just hang you,  but long before you're hung there'll be
another guy on the tractor, and he'll bump the house down. You're not killing the right
guy."
"That's so," the tenant said. "Who gave you orders? I'll go after him. He's the one to
kill."
"You're wrong. He got his orders from the bank. The bank told him, 'Clear those
people out or it's your job.'"
"Well, there's a president of the bank. There's a board of directors. I'll fill up the
magazine of the rifle and go into the bank."
The driver said, "Fellow was telling me  the bank gets orders from the East. The
orders were, 'Make the land show profit or we'll close you up.'"
"But where does it stop? Who can we shoot? I don't aim to starve to death before I
kill the man that's starving me."
"I don't know. Maybe there's nobody to shoot. Maybe the thing isn't men at all.
Maybe like you said, the property's doing it. Anyway I told you my orders."
"I got to figure," the tenant said. "We all got to figure. There's some way to stop
this. It's not like lightning or earthquakes. We've got a bad thing made by men, and by
God that's something we can change." The tenant sat in his doorway, and the driver
thundered his engine and started off, tracks falling and curving, harrows combing, and
the phalli of the seeder slipping into the ground. Across the dooryard the tractor cut,
and the hard, foot-beaten ground was seeded  field, and the tractor cut through again;
the uncut space was ten feet wide. And back he came. The iron guard bit into the
house-corner, crumbled the wall, and wrenched the little house from its foundation so
that it fell sideways, crushed like a bug. And the driver was goggled and a rubber mask
covered his nose and mouth. The tractor cut a straight line on, and the air and the
ground vibrated with its thunder. The tenant man stared after it, his rifle in his hand.
His wife was beside him, and the quiet children behind. And all of them stared after the
tractor.

THE OWNERS OF THE land came onto the land, or more often a spokesman for
the owners came. They came in closed cars, and they felt the dry earth with their
fingers, and sometimes they drove big earth augers into the ground for soil tests. The
tenants, from their sun-beaten dooryards, watched uneasily when the closed cars drove
along the fields. And at last the owner men drove into the dooryards and sat in their
cars to talk out of the windows. The tenant men stood beside the cars for a while, and
then squatted on their hams and found sticks with which to mark the dust.
In the open doors the women stood looking  out, and behind them the children—
corn-headed children, with wide eyes, one bare foot on top of the other bare foot, and
the toes working. The women and the children watched their men talking to the owner
men. They were silent.
Some of the owner men were kind because they hated what they had to do, and
some of them were angry because they hated to be cruel, and some of them were cold
because they had long ago found that one could not be an owner unless one were cold.
And all of them were caught in something larger than themselves. Some of them hated
the mathematics that drove them, and some were afraid, and some worshiped the
mathematics because it provided a refuge from thought and from feeling. If a bank or a
finance company owned the land, the owner man said, The Bank—or the Company—
needs—wants—insists—must have—as though the Bank or the Company were a
monster, with thought and feeling, which had ensnared them. These last would take no
responsibility for the banks or the companies because they were men and slaves, while
the banks were machines and masters all at the same time. Some of the owner men
were a little proud to be slaves to such cold and powerful masters. The owner men sat
in the cars and explained. You know the land is poor. You've scrabbled at it long
enough, God knows. The squatting tenant men nodded and wondered and drew figures in the dust, and
yes, they knew, God knows. If the dust only wouldn't fly. If the top would only stay on
the soil, it might not be so bad.
The owner men went on leading to their point: You know the land's getting poorer.
You know what cotton does to the land; robs it, sucks all the blood out of it.
The squatters nodded—they knew, God knew.  If they could only rotate the crops
they might pump blood back into the land.
Well, it's too late. And the owner men explained the workings and the thinkings of
the monster that was stronger than they were. A man can hold land if he can just eat
and pay taxes; he can do that.
Yes, he can do that until his crops fail one day and he has to borrow money from the
bank.
But—you see, a bank or a company can't  do that, because those creatures don't
breathe air, don't eat side-meat. They breathe profits; they eat the interest on money. If
they don't get it, they die the way you die without air, without side-meat. It is a sad
thing, but it is so. It is just so.
The squatting men raised their eyes to understand. Can't we just hang on? Maybe
the next year will be a good year. God knows how much cotton next year. And with all
the wars—God knows what price cotton will bring. Don't they make explosives out of
cotton? And uniforms? Get enough wars and cotton'll hit the ceiling. Next year,
maybe. They looked up questioningly.
We can't depend on it. The bank—the monster has to have profits all the time. It
can't wait. It'll die. No, taxes go on. When the monster stops growing, it dies. It can't
stay one size.
Soft fingers began to tap the sill of the car window, and hard fingers tightened on
the restless drawing sticks. In the doorways of the sun-beaten tenant houses, women
sighed and then shifted feet so that the one that had been down was now on top, and
the toes working. Dogs came sniffing near the owner cars and wetted on all four tires
one after another. And chickens lay in the sunny dust and fluffed their feathers to get
the cleansing dust down to the skin. In the little sties the pigs grunted inquiringly over
the muddy remnants of the slops.
The squatting men looked down again. What do you want us to do? We can't take
less share of the crop—we're half starved now. The kids are hungry all the time. We
got no clothes, torn an' ragged. If all the neighbors weren't the same, we'd be ashamed
to go to meeting.
And at last the owner men came to the point. The tenant system won't work any
more. One man on a tractor can take the place of twelve or fourteen families. Pay him
a wage and take all the crop. We have to do it. We don't like to do it. But the monster's
sick. Something's happened to the monster.
But you'll kill the land with cotton.
We know. We've got to take cotton quick before the land dies. Then we'll sell the
land. Lots of families in the East would like to own a piece of land.
The tenant men looked up alarmed. But what'll happen to us? How'll we eat?
You'll have to get off the land. The plows'll go through the dooryard.
And now the squatting men stood up angrily. Grampa took up the land, and he had
to kill the Indians and drive them away. And Pa was born here, and he killed weeds and snakes. Then a bad year came and he had to borrow a little money. An' we was
born here. There in the door—our children born here. And Pa had to borrow money.
The bank owned the land then, but we stayed and we got a little bit of what we raised.
We know that—all that. It's not us, it's  the bank. A bank isn't like a man. Or an
owner with fifty thousand acres, he isn't like a man either. That's the monster.
Sure, cried the tenant men, but it's our  land. We measured it and broke it up. We
were born on it, and we got killed on it, died on it. Even if it's no good, it's still ours.
That's what makes it ours—being born on  it, working it, dying  on it. That makes
ownership, not a paper with numbers on it.
We're sorry. It's not us. It's the monster. The bank isn't like a man.
Yes, but the bank is only made of men.
No, you're wrong there—quite wrong there. The bank is something else than men. It
happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it.
The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It's the monster. Men made it, but
they can't control it.
The tenants cried, Grampa killed Indians, Pa killed snakes for the land. Maybe we
can kill banks—they're worse than Indians and snakes. Maybe we got to fight to keep
our land, like Pa and Grampa did.
And now the owner men grew angry. You'll have to go.
But it's ours, the tenant men cried. We—
No. The bank, the monster owns it. You'll have to go.
We'll get our guns, like Grampa when the Indians came. What then?
Well—first the sheriff, and then the troops. You'll be stealing if you try to stay,
you'll be murderers if you kill to stay. The monster isn't men, but it can make men do
what it wants.
But if we go, where'll we go? How'll we go? We got no money.
We're sorry, said the owner men. The bank, the fifty-thousand-acre owner can't be
responsible. You're on land that isn't yours. Once over the line maybe you can pick
cotton in the fall. Maybe you can go on relief. Why don't you go on west to California?
There's work there, and it never gets cold. Why, you can reach out anywhere and pick
an orange. Why, there's always some kind of crop to work in. Why don't you go there?
And the owner men started their cars and rolled away.
The tenant men squatted down on their hams again to mark the dust with a stick, to
figure, to wonder. Their sunburned faces were dark, and their sun-whipped eyes were
light. The women moved cautiously out of  the doorways toward their men, and the
children crept behind the women, cautiously, ready to run. The bigger boys squatted
beside their fathers, because that made them men. After a time the women asked, What
did he want?
And the men looked up for a second, and the smolder of pain was in their eyes. We
got to get off. A tractor and a superintendent. Like factories.
Where'll we go? the women asked.
We don't know. We don't know.
And the women went quickly, quietly back into the houses and herded the children
ahead of them. They knew that a man so hurt and so perplexed may turn in anger, even
on people he loves. They left the men alone to figure and to wonder in the dust. After a time perhaps the tenant man looked about—at the pump put in ten years
ago, with a goose-neck handle and iron flowers on the spout, at the chopping block
where a thousand chickens had been killed, at the hand plow lying in the shed, and the
patent crib hanging in the rafters over it.
The children crowded about  the women in the houses. What we going to do, Ma?
Where we going to go?
The women said, We don't know, yet. Go out and play. But don't go near your
father. He might whale you if you go near him. And the women went on with the work,
but all the time they watched the men squatting in the dust—perplexed and figuring.

that turtle, though.

a deal between putin & trump is likely to be something like molotov-ribbentrop: neither side will intend to follow it, and so the ensuing mutual contempt for it it will just further the mutual distrust by providing it with fuel. and, then you get more conflict.

when you make a deal with somebody like donald trump, you make the assumption that the terms will be broken at the earliest possible moment (unless you're a fool, i suppose, but these foreign governments are not represented by fools). as such, you sign the deal with the explicit intent to maximize concessions, because you know the other party is untrustworthy. and, if you don't get the terms you want, you don't sign because you know they'll never live up to it, anyways.

it follows that the only people that are going to be interested in making deals with donald trump are entities looking to take advantage of him; there is no other reason to sign a deal with a dishonest actor.

it's absurd, but let's consider the premise - that donald trump will make good deals.

let me ask you this question: would you expect donald trump to keep his end of the bargain? so, why would you expect the chinese or the russians to?

suppose he makes a deal with the russians that lets the russians stay in syria. would putin expect trump to live up to his side of the deal? and, if not, why would he carry out his side of the deal?

i could accept the premise, however tentatively, if the deal maker were perceived as honest. reagan was a lunatic, but he was an honest dunce, too. trump cannot project that kind of trust and won't get it.

talk about "playing a hand", huh? the entire world knows his word is worthless.

if he makes any deals at all, they'll be terrible. there's no other possible outcome.

see, again: they're putting ivanka through the same fashion circuit that they put trudeau through. or. at least they're trying to. i understand there's been pushback. but, they're following the same algorithm.

there's been this underlying narrative that exposes the administration view that ivanka is to essentially be presented as a princess, and try to present herself as a kind of role model for young women. this seems to be an idea with some priority, for whatever calculated reasons. i think it remains to be seen whether she's presented as a princess diana or as a dagney taggart.

is there a desire by political elites to import islam into the west? well, i'm not going to claim i can answer that question. but, i can explore the topic a little.

now, remember: i'm an anarchist. so, the nihilistic way i'm perceiving of capitalism is entirely normal to me. i'll warn you of somewhat of a culture shock. interpret it academically, if you must. i think it's empirical, but interpret the evidence as you may.

if you were a banking elite in the west, you might want to analyze the question of how best to maximize return on your slaves. i know that we are supposed to have defeated feudalism, but the class analysis presented in marx almost seems like a cover - he never addresses the remnant feudal class, the existing landowners, the banking elite. they are supposed to disappear in the bourgeois revolution. yet, they did not ever truly relinquish control, they just disappeared from public view. if you want to be that much more cynical, you could argue that they delegated the role of public service to the private sector.

see, something is happening, though: mechanization and automation is ending the era of capitalism. this bourgeois layer is becoming obsolete. questions of maximizing return on slaves, held through debt, are once again at the forefront of the centralized planning establishments, which operate free of oversight in the private sector. this is the equivalent of a scattering of landholders, warring amongst themselves; it is truly a new feudalism.

the bonds have morphed. where the marks of ownership were once held in ideas like language, nationalism and race, the new feudal elite wants control through brand identification. this includes less expensive branding, like that done by clothing wear companies, and more expensive branding, like that done by academic institutions and mortgage brokers.

so, if we are to have a new feudalism, we are going to need a new system of mind control to go along with it. what is the best way to maximize return on slaves?

while traditionalists may expect the western banking elite to adopt the traditional form of control, christianity, the truth is that christianity's effectiveness in control has long been suspect. christianity teaches evangelism, which is inherently aggressive. a thoroughly christianized culture is consequently prone to internal divisions, as different factions spread the truth in different ways, and come to quarrels with each other. christianity's track record is a lot of civil war. the argument has actually been advanced very convincingly over a long period, culminating in some pretty brutal attacks about a hundred years ago. even if christianity's empirical failings can be explained away, it is difficult to imagine how westerners could develop, at this point, a faith in something that they fundamentally know is false. it does not have credibility.

if the default return to christianity is to be rejected, then what are the other options? buddhism is a hard fit to the west, and isn't much of a success story, either. atheism is out of the question. what about islam?

islam has been more successful in maintaining a stable system of control. perhaps this is because it teaches submission, rather than evangelism. i haven't done the math, but i could imagine that it may be seen as a preferable alternative to the bankers, who wish to design a new system to maximize return on their slaves.

this may sound crude, but it's been done all through history. one example is when the russian king adopted christianity and invited in greek missionaries to design a new society. the russian aristocracy adopted the christian model for social control. and, the society that they built still exists.

ok, maybe it happened in autocratic states in the past, but surely this can't happen in a democracy? chances are that your democracy has an immigration department. that immigration department has a large budget, and spends vast sums on understanding how to adjust the demographics of the country to maximize profit. this is the bourgeois layer. it exists. it is not fantasy.

i know of at least one example of a government using policy in this manner, and it is the canadian government's policy of settling refugees and non-european immigrants in quebec. the explicit purpose of this policy was to weaken the strength of the quebecois nation, under fears that it may seek independence. these refugees and non-european immigrants would not claim allegiance to a nationalist concept of quebec as white and francophone, and this would tip support to the federalists. it's not the same thing, of course, but it demonstrates a willingness of the bourgeois layer to manipulate populations for their benefactors.

i'm not saying that this is something that is happening. i'm just pointing out that it can be explained, if it is. there is an underlying logic to it. and, that's what gives a good conspiracy theory legs.

"Their stories deserve to be told, but the question is whether splitting the focus of this particular inquiry is a useful idea.

The statistics would suggest the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls got its name for a reason."

indeed. it may not be clear from outside the country, but the phenomenon appears to be policing related. that is, this is not an inquiry about domestic abuse. this is an inquiry about the disappearance of young (carrying aged) indigenous women. or, to use the word nobody uses: this is an inquiry to address concerns of the existence of a longstanding policy of extra-judicial genocide. and, activists will tell you this, even if the media won't.

this is the third try to do this. the first time, they actually got a database, but the government mysteriously pulled funding and then denied them access to their work. i've spoken to the women that lost hours of their time on this and they're convinced that the state shut it down to hide something.

it's not that there's much faith in the government to address this. i mean, the government may be doing this explicitly as a trust-raising exercise, but that's almost the worst motive possible. it's more that there's nothing else to do except wait for them to admit what's happened, and stop doing it.

it's anybody's guess when the information gets out. if anonymous is a real thing, guys, this is a real issue. we're taking about decades worth of suspicion, under multiple governments. but when this data finally gets released, it's going to be grisly and revolting.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/coalition-expand-violence-against-indigenous-women-1.3896346