Usually, it takes more than a noble cause and proper programming to achieve prosperity on a multicultural nation. As a country, in Greece, we've been around those people for longer than 10-15 years now. I believe that the best thing the countries can do, is to enforce the "at home" beliefs. You want to believe in God, Allah, Buddha, whatever? Alright! But do it at home!

Practices like sharia has no place within a western culture country. At least not out in the open! I once saw a man hitting his wife in plain sight on the street! Could you tolerate this? The western countries have their own system of justice and it has to be followed by everyone. What this man did, violates the country's law of equality between man and woman. He ought to be brought to justice.

Things like that will have to be "fixed". I think those people are now behaving as the rest of us, but there are "cells" that I tend to believe never came into the EU for a good cause. Charlie Hebdo was one paradigm, I believe more will follow. Until every single one understands that we all must follow the same rules if we want to live together. Willingly, or forcefully.

It seems it keeps happening:

Moody's downgrades France's government bond ratings to Aa2 from Aa1; outlook changed to stable from negative

London, 18 September 2015 -- Moody's Investors Service has today downgraded France's government bond ratings by one notch to Aa2 from Aa1. The outlook on the ratings is stable.

The key interrelated drivers of today's action are:

1. The continuing weakness in France's medium-term growth outlook, which Moody's expects will extend through the remainder of this decade; and

2. The challenges that low growth, coupled with institutional and political constraints, poses for the material reduction in the government's high debt burden over the remainder of this decade.

At the same time, France's credit worthiness remains extremely high, supporting an Aa2 rating. The country's significant strengths include: (i) a large, wealthy, and well-diversified economy with a high per capita income, (ii) favourable demographic trends as compared to other advanced economies, and (iii) a strong investor base and low financing costs. The rating and its stable outlook are also supported by the country's efforts to stabilise its public sector finances and initiatives recently deployed or announced to arrest the erosion of the economy's competitiveness.

In a related rating action, Moody's has today announced its decision to downgrade the ratings of the Société de Prise de Participation de l'État (SPPE) to Aa2 from Aa1. The SPPE's short-term rating was affirmed at P-1, including its euro-denominated commercial paper programme. The outlook on the ratings is stable. The debt instruments issued by the SPPE are backed by unconditional and irrevocable guarantees from the French government.

The local and foreign currency deposit ceilings and the local-currency and foreign-currency bond ceilings for France are unaffected by this rating action and remain at Aaa/P-1.

https://www.moodys.com/research/Moodys-downgrades-Frances-government-bond-ratings-to-Aa2-from-Aa1--PR_334715

Perspective. This is what we need to understand what's happening in the EU right now. Let's see some facts:

1. Was the Syria/Iraq crisis pre-organized?
2. Were the migrants forced to leave their houses and cities?
3. Were they "indulged" by the Europeans to "join" their "promised land"?

If you answered all the above affirmatively, then we may have a basis to start a conversation. Let's please talk a bit of thermodynamics here. Don't worry, it will be only epidermic and nothing you could not understand.

You're a top scientist and want to observe chaotic particles within a closed thermodynamic box. You take an isolated box, full of "free" molecules of smoke into the inherent air. Everything is thermodynamically "controlled" and (somewhat) "predictable". After some time, the entropy of such a chaotic environment is maximized. As a top scientist in thermodynamics you knew that, and it's being predicted since the very beginning.

When there's taxis, there's no chaos though, so, you cannot observe chaotic phenomena. Which means you should "maintain" the chaos. That will keep the experiment rolling, thus you will keep your job. Now let's broaden our minds.

What EU is all about? Could we perceived it like a "closed thermodynamic system"? The answer is "yes". It has all the characteristics. The first "boxes" where the countries that primarily formed the EU. First only a few were interconnected; then, more countries were added and more connections were established. After 29 countries and 29 years from the Schengen treaty, we had reached the maximum entropy of the enclosed "chaos". There was a form of taxis, so, the experiment lost its intrinsic cause!

We are now at the crucial point where we open the box to add more smoke molecules inside. More chaos - more experiment - more time... What's gonna be next? I'll leave it to your imagination. If this passes on without major public unrest, guess what comes next...

Ah, George Carlin. A Universe on his own for every stand up comedian out there. Let me tell you a dire secret; some of the most intelligent people I've ever met were sarcastic at themselves and very sympathising to people who could not understand them. George Carlin was just that. Never met him but watching his speeches, reviewing his old-time videos, he was very fond of ignorants. He knew that they were MORE than the smart people and he TRIED hard to make them smarter, with a smart way. By making them laugh.

You know, laughing is liberating. It can certainly grow a man better by releasing his tight bonds with his ignorant self. For ignorance is nothing but a brain chain that when you realize it's there, you can break it loose! I admire people who can make others laugh; often suggests that there's an indication of brilliance behind them.

PS: Thanks for this! Loved the speech, I had watched a similar one a couple of years ago by a stand up comedian suggesting the very same principles about the "wood" language of politics (well, it was in Greek, but believe me - politicians are the same everywhere). It's really an art of deceivement to speak for a couple of hours and actually say nothing at all...

Touché.  

If you want my thesis on the subject; I said that we don't NEED everyone to be a scientist, but personally, I'd feel more comfortable within a world of scientists. Advancing one's knowledge tends to expand his visualization of the Cosmos around him. It's just like somebody goes into the Plato's cave and lights up a Xenon lamp! Brightness flows everywhere; the chains of the unknown simply vanish in the light of knowledge...

That's why the current education system literally overkills our children with useless information instead of focusing on each one's favorite subject. You can't expect a child that likes to be an engineer to read and comprehend biology; nor vice versa for a biologist. Under these circumstances no one is able to fulfil his personal preferences and thus we produce uneducated people. Those schools are not education places; they're mind bending factories!

Same goes for the mass media; Huxley got it better than Orwell when he predicted a world filled with a shitload of information where no one could ever know which is the most important of all...

“In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.”

George Orwell from Politics and the English Language

I have answered in detail on the same subject at bigtimespaghetti's post in this comment. I think it may give your thoughts a better perspective as well. Fortunately, we don't need EVERYONE to be a scientist...

I'm not muslim, but I'd like to take the devil's advocate position here. Turks are part of the German society since sometime in 1990 (maybe even before). Even though I'm a Greek, some of my best friends are Turks that (wait for it) are scientists, as children of poor migrates! Almost none of them is religion oriented anymore. Science tends to transform people to a-religionists at best (we had this conversation about 3 pages ago).

As I wrote above, incentive is a very strong paragon towards success. No matter who you are, where you come from. As I spent half of my life in the university, I've often met colleagues who were hostile against people of certain origin. It's alright not to like everybody; but you shouldn't berate them before they have the chance to prove who they really are and what their brain capacity is.

I was in awe many times in my life by such paradigms; take my word for it (or rather Alan's words):

Martin Armstrong often stated about the inevitable crash of the Real Estate bubble. This thing was getting out of control back in the mid-2000s and it's getting even worse now. Interestingly enough (the timing is also critical) Bloomberg has posted an article about the four "worst" cities as far as it concerns the housing rents.

For renters in Austin, Boston, San Francisco, and Houston, however, there may be a slightly less depressing future, a new report shows. Periodically, commercial real estate firm CBRE polls brokers on the rent-growth expectations that apartment landlords are baking into property transactions. And for prime properties in those four cities, those expectations are coming down, according to its most recent report.


This is everywhere btw. Not only in the USofA.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-18/in-some-cities-even-landlords-think-rents-are-getting-out-of-hand

I'm re-posting this for reference. IMHO, it has all the answers you may seek. Plus, as an additional bonus, (more like a certification or proof) that Germany & Austria have ceased the Schengen treaty when they "had enough". The "need" is here, we need to act on it. Like NOW! It's URGENT! I'm more worried of our disability to outperform such a dynastic environment than living with those poor devils in the same neighborhood to be honest...

Yet again let me bring you the Pareto principle. The 80% of the general population will never manage to fast forward our society because they simply can't. The ones who do are almost every time the other 20%. To be specific, the 20% of the 20% are the unique geniuses among the general population who "are crazy enough to change the world".

Being "afraid" of the aliens, or don't want them anywhere near us, pretty much certifies the disability of our society to form a global community where everybody is equal to one another. All social schemes have previously failed because of this myopic visualization and incertitude of our "egotistical self" against the "low-end neighbor" (who might prove himself better than us).

It's the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) motto that we used to have when we first started to get our rubbish sorted out. Only this time we present it with other human beings... Yeah. Shit.

I boldly disagree. Determining a human behavior by addressing whole countries is a generalization which is ineptly perceived. To give you an example: Who can tell for sure that the poor Nigerian emigrant that came in Greece at his age of 6 and now studies molecular biology won't be the one who finds the cancer treatment?

Technology and innovation is not country oriented; and frankly, not even person oriented, really. There are no "genes" for smart people. Everybody has equal chances to achieve magnificence as everybody else. Take for example the best students in the US Universities. Most of them are emigrants. You know why they excel? Because they have no alternative! THEY WANT TO SUCCEED!

It's no different for any other country in the whole planet. I believe that the "injection" of desperate people within EU (and elsewhere) will rise the probability of innovation, instead of decreasing it. Those people have something in common. They're children of a lesser God to the eyes of locals. And they WANT to succeed in order to change this. I believe most of them will eventually manage doing it.

I agree on the civil unrest part; but requires us, to reject the emigrants from our neighborhoods. Which IMHO is inhuman and unfair.

I believe he "advised" Fed to raise them, but not to raise excessive res. rate. Here's the blog post of his:

I understand that Larry Summers and the IMF, among others, are advising the Fed not to raise rates. They are expecting the Fed to sacrifice domestic policy objectives for international objectives where so many have borrowed in dollars to save interest. This is the real clash between domestic vs. international and the consequence of the dollar being a reserve currency.

My advice to the Fed: YES, raise the lending rate, but do not raise the excessive reserve rate you pay banks. Alternatively, you can lower the excessive reserve rate to zero and leave the lending rate unchanged. This will have the desired impact of forcing the banks to get real.

If the Fed raises the rate, which includes the deposit rate on excess reserves, the banks will only deposit more money and not lend. This would encourage hoarding and further the deflationary cycle.

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/37167

Often claimed the very same about DOW. There's absolutely no difference if the top is 5K 15K or 50K as several people have predicted in the past. It's nothing but a number. What is truly at stake is WHERE the excess money is at? And most importantly, what the one(s) who has the pile is gonna do with it?

Doom? Nah. Just ordinary manipulation of the whole planet.

You probably gave it a better perspective than mine - I admit your explanation is better. The outcome still remains the same though. The demographic transition is happening as we speak. Funnily enough though; in Greece the people who migrated here a couple of decades ago (Nigeria, Kenya, Albania) blended in with the rest of us. They only got about 2 children tops. So there you have it... The "virus" got them too.

This could be true, but I'd pose another thought for you... The EU population is getting old. We're a land of "old people". I've mentioned it before, but the biodiversity of all human beings is only 0.02%. It doesn't matter if you're "Native American" or "Scottish" for that matter as long as you keep up with the most important thing in your existence. Which is NOT to make money NOR make yourself smarter.

It's to give birth to children!

Maybe you agree, maybe you don't, but the truth is that the migrants are a blessing towards modern societies. I wouldn't blame Christianity for equalizing people nor the Muslim dogma about having the women treated as lesser beings. They both serve their cause, only the second one serves it better! Every woman has about 4 to 5 children, where a christian one only has one or none at all. Our consideration of "in what world my child will live into?" is our Achilles heel that will eventually bring us down.

Islam doesn't have that. Women are "tools" towards its dissemination of culture and religious beliefs. It's a "silent" war. It's been happening since the '90s. Only a few back then had the ability to foresee a continental EU as "Eurasia".

So, what will it be? Prepare yourselves for a multicultural Europe. It's already here in France, Netherlands, England - even Greece. Don't be afraid of it; there's the same virus that will eventually catch them all like it did with us the last couple of decades. It's called "Science & Technology". Evolution-wise these things will eventually normalize them to what we became as well... And they too, will be religion-free after a while.

Yeah. Just like us. And then we will have to find another migrant wave...

Macroscopically speaking, it will certainly have a positive effect. If BTC is considered a commodity (which we cannot know for sure it is) it will probably follow the PM standard procedure. When every stock out there will be crashing like there's no tomorrow, it will become a safe haven for some people. I intentionally left out the (long shot) possibility it will become the new world reserve currency. I don't even want to think about it.

I really struggled to add this one to the list, he's definitely ultra bear oriented, but after I reviewed his latest post and his (forbidden) picture on personal posts history, I decided that he belongs here. There probably will be more instances of him. Please update your lists.

Latest additions to The List as of 2015-09-17:

The true story is unfolding as we speak. Here's an interesting video from CNN:

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/09/16/middleeast/syria-al-assad-interview/

(CNN)Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is blaming Western nations for fueling the refugee crisis by supporting opposition groups in his country's bloody civil war.

"If you are worried about them, stop supporting terrorists," he said in an interview with Russian news organizations. "That's what we think regarding the crisis. This is the core of the whole issue of refugees."

On the same subject:

Now that Russia has boots on the ground around Latakia and has openly called on the US and its allies to form a real coalition to defeat ISIS, Washington has found itself in a tough position. People are very gradually beginning to wonder why it is that Russia has been able, in the space of just two weeks, to build a forward operating base and prepare to help Bashar al-Assad drive back ISIS and reclaim the country while the US - which, if you believe the rhetoric, is at the forefront of the global effort to eradicate Islamic militants in Syria - has managed to do virtually nothing to debilitate the group even as the campaign has been going on for the better part of a year.

The explanation, of course, is that the US is primarily interested in ousting Assad, and a sweeping, Russian-assisted mission to swiftly route Assad’s opposition doesn’t do anything at all to advance that aim and indeed, once the militants are gone, one imagines that convincing the Russians to butt out while the US orchestrates some farce of a “democratic” election that will not include Assad will be well nigh impossible. So here we are: there will be no real effort on the part of the US to defeat ISIS until Assad’s ouster is assured and the Russians just made that outcome far less likely by making it more difficult for ISIS and everyone else fighting for control of the country to win the battle against the regime. So the conflict will continue and so will the the flow of refugees to Europe.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-09-16/assad-says-europe-responsible-refugee-crisis-if-youre-worried-about-them-stop-suppor

It's often hard to foresee the truth hidden behind a news story that's being communicated all around the world. You need a "vantage point" in order to have the ability to see above the clouds far into the horizon. We (as people) lack of such an ability. Because we're living in an Orwellian world filled with Huxley's sea of (useless) information.

One of the reasons I don't fully adopt M. Armstrong's ideas is that he often predicts facts that he has no historical data to map them fully. Imagine a problem consisted from 5 equations with 6 or 7 unknown variables. You can only guess! Yes, there's a great chance you're going to match a couple of them right, but under no circumstances you would be sure about all of them.

The EU (as we know it) is only a couple of decades old. The historical data representing its format, its politics and ecosystem is pretty new regarding, let's say the USA's state infrastructure. There's absolutely no way you can predict with 100% certainty what will happen. He can be as wrong as anyone else predicting that the EU will stand strong and keep its state bonds without a single fracture (which is an equally insane claim).

I will repeat it once more: NO ONE CAN PREDICT THE FUTURE UNLESS HE SOMEHOW MANUFACTURED IT!
I will stand right against M.Armstrong's loyals, until someone proves me wrong. There's only one way to it; M.Armstrong himself prove me that everything he predicted is right. Which he didn't.

If on the other hand, IF someone manufactures a crisis in order to promote a (prefabricated) solution... Then, he's our oracle alright.

https://wikileaks.org/eu-military-refugees/

I've often stated here that we're en route for a EU Federal State. This could not be achieved via a Democratic procedure. TPTB had to create the "need". The need is here in the form of millions of migrates. Their expatriation has been carefully designed and it's been enforced in various forms for the past five years in Syria, Iraq and Pakistan.

The last and most brutal measure, came in the form of Islamic State. Whoever is dumb enough to believe that this wasn't the "child" of TPTB shouldn't be here reading these lines. It was all in the plan. Now, Germany (who firstly stated that "we welcome the emigrants") now closes its borders; the same goes for Austria, while Hungary raised a fence that whoever tries to pass either is imprisoned or abolished from the country.

"The Need" for us Europeans to maintain our territory and protect our borders is "finally" here. We NEED a European Army. Everybody should give what they can; the poor and the rich. The conservatives and the socialists. The migration crisis affects us all...

This Is Gentlemen. The 1st step towards a European Federal State. The United States of Europe finally has something to celebrate.

Goodnight and good luck.



http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/604964/David-Cameron-under-fire-EU-army-stance