Gregor,

I'm in BKK taking a few college classes.... I read your blog about BKK by the way... sounds like you had a little trouble adjusting to the place... I know the feeling!!! But you get used to it and this place can be a lot of fun.... and there is more to Thailand than just Bangkok too....

Anyway, that video didn't really say much. It looked like a Congressman just trying to look like he's doing something 'for the people' when he wasn't saying or doing anything. The Central Bank has always lent money to other banks... it's not some kind of conspiracy..... it's not ominous... it's not a secret plot against the people... they are short-term loans, it's a mechanism to help the Central Bank control the money supply... when there is an economic crisis, the Central Bank needs some tools to try and manipulate the economy...  after September 11, for example... there could've been a global meltdown (as was planned for by the terrorists).... the FED is like the damn holding back the raging river... sometimes there is too much money, and the FED has to hold it back by raising the rates... sometimes... there is not enough money, and the FED has to lower rates and get people spending again.... we need a Central Bank. Having no central bank means having no control over the wild nature of the pure free market economy...

Ever read about the Great Depression? Banks don't want to reveal if they borrow money because it might cause a run on the bank... everyone withdrawing their money at once.... now that would be a bad thing....

There is this subculture of populists out there, mostly on Talk Radio, who have no idea what they are talking about... they tend to all say similar things: We got to back to the Gold Standard. The FED is a boogey-man. Uh, what else do they say? Oh yea, also ... the U.N. is the boogey-man... the Mexicans want to take our jobs... the SuperHighway across NAFTA is a threat... the black helicopters are coming to get us and take us to work camps.... Ron Paul this, Ron Paul that... conspiracy theory this.... a missile attacked the Pentagon on 9/11.... 9/11 was an inside job... global warming is a conspiracy... the moon landing was faked.... etc, etc... everything is a conspiracy and everyone is in on it....

Anyway, it's best to really analyze what these people say critically.... (you know, Austin, TX is the capital city of these conspiracy theory populist types... let's just say they smoke way too much weed down there... I always here the craziest stuff and meet the craziest people down there... it's like Venice Beach in Los Angeles....)

There are REAL problems in the world, of course, but I think these populists are more of the cause than the solutions.  Getting rid of the FED, going to a Gold Standard, and cutting off trade with other countries such as Mexico would be a FULL-ON ECONOMIC DISASTER.

The real solution to our problems? You said it earlier. Don't spend money you don't have. Don't try and get rich overnight speculating on real estate or currency or whatever...  Invest in real value, not in junk bonds (by junk bonds I mean the debt of people who are going to default because they should've never been granted credit to begin with....) Be frugal, work hard, create value. Save. Educate yourself.

This bailout? Well, I'm sure lots of special interests got their hands in the pot, and they'll waste the money, as everyone who ever gets free money does... it's still not going to change the fact that each of us as individuals is going to have to create new value.... that's what economic growth is, new value added.

Anyway, at this point I'm rambling... I don't even know what question I'm trying to answer... just International Trade is good, the Gold Standard is bad, and the FED isn't destroying the dollar, but saving the damn thing (or doing what they can in trying to).

What's your field Gregor, if you don't mind me asking?

I'm not saying trade is bad.

I am saying that if the government were to not regulate companies and tax them as much then we would not need to outsource everything to other countries because companies will be more incentivised to invest here and good wages can be paid because companies wouldn't have such heavy regulation and tax burdens to deal with.  That and .... the FED creating inflation.

^that is what has derailed our economy^

Humanity gone haywireMarch 11, 2009 | Posted in The Rogan Blog | Blog Archives | 3 Comments
I just watched a video of humanity going haywire.
It was on people in Africa that have been convinced by missionaries that Satan has possessed young children there. They’re regularly tortured, beaten and killed for being witches. Or if they want to keep their possessed child alive, they can take the children to one of the local “witch expert Bishops,” and they can pay to have the spell removed.
This one “Bishop” in the film talked about how he’s killed 110 people that were witches, and that he estimates that the number of witches and wizards in his area to be exactly 2.3 million. He’s a dead eyed, evil looking mothercrappity smacker dressed in a wacky outfit that looks like something Michael Jackson would wear in a music video, and grown adults in his area take him very seriously.

He does these retarded ceremonies on these children, and charges the poor parents what amounts to a year’s income for the service. If they can’t pay him, he holds the children captive until they can. How totally Jesus-like.
The video is absolutely stomach wrenching. Many of these children are horribly scarred from their own parents who have tried to kill them for being possessed. One of the girls was burned with acid and buried alive by her mother.
It’s a crappity smacking human catastrophe, and I don’t remember ever hearing a peep about it in the evening news.

We’re all over here worried about the economy, and keeping up our precious lifestyles, and meanwhile there are thousands and thousands of innocent children in Africa that are being labeled as possessed and tortured. It’s crappity smacking completely crazy, and the lack of focus on it is really disturbing.
The lack of attention on this shit just seems really odd to me, and I can’t help but think that if this was taking place on such a large scale in another, predominantly white country like Finland for example – I think it would be a much more talked about story. For whatever reason we as human beings are ok with crappity smacked up shit happening to people that we don’t know who already live in a crappity smacked up place, but when it happens to people that we don’t know who live in a nice place we get very upset.
If there were thousands of people being beaten and killed in Sweden or England for being witches it would be all over the news, but since it takes place in Africa it’s just in a video that someone linked on a messageboard on the internet.

It’s weird how some things freak us out and other things we’re really casual about.
I had a conversation with some friends the other day about the escalating violence in Mexico. One of them had absolutely no idea what was going on over there, and was completely unaware that the drug wars over there have gotten so bad that 5,000 troops have been deployed to Juarez to attempt to control the area. My friend is just a regular dude that’s busy with work and his family, and he hadn’t heard about the problems. He’s not ignorant, he’s just busy, and he had no idea that thousands of people have been murdered over there in the last few years, and that they estimate the size of the army of heavily armed drug dealers to be over 100,000 strong and growing. Now, if that was happening in Houston, it would be serious, front-page news, and I’m sure my friend would have been aware of it, but because it’s taking place in Mexico the story is significantly less popular than the latest video of Brittney Spears’ pussy hanging out.

“Sucks for Mexico” is the attitude, but “Mexico” is just a crappity smacking name and an idea.
We live on a round, connected planet, and the whole notion of countries is just some shit we made up.
What’s very real though, is that on this planet we live on the exact same patch of dirt that Mexico is on.
It’s right there connected to us.
You can call it two different things, and pretend all you want, but once you get past the fake line separating the two you realize that just a few hours drive from some Major US cities lays complete and total chaos on a scale rarely ever seen anywhere else in the world. Humanity gone completely haywire; mass murders, beheadings, 2 hour long gun fights in the middle of the streets – it’s all going on every day over there, and folks in America don’t seems concerned at all.
The violence is starting to bleed over the border too, especially in Phoenix, where they’ve had an average of a kidnapping a day over the last year. We feel safe because of our “borders” but at this point the United States is like a gated community just outside of a warzone.

I think we as human beings are in a very strange stage in our evolution, especially in regards to how we’re altering our perceptions of reality through the use of technology. We’re connected together by the internet in a way that no humans have ever experienced in the history of the species, and it’s only been going on for the last 15 years or so.
It’s started slow, and snuck up on us, but now that it’s here to stay it’s moving at an incredible pace.
We’re more aware of each other and have more access to information than any generation by far, yet we still live under the same flawed and ill-conceived structures that were set up in our disconnected past. They just don’t make any sense anymore, and that’s why they’re falling apart. The economy never made any sense to me, but I always thought it’s probably best to not get obsessed by this shit, and to just leave it up to the experts. Turn

I know he does UFC color commentary and is a proponent of weed. Why is Joe Rogan's opinion of any importance to so many in MMA/BJJ?

The recent example with Rush Limbaugh shows how news networks like to spin this stuff. Rush Limbaugh recently said that he hoped Obama would fail. Now the democrats jump on this as if Rush wants America to fail, the stock market to fail, the economy to fail and that’s not true. They made it seem as though he was hoping that all this bad stuff happens in order to discredit Obama. Of course that’s not what he really meant. Rush understands that in order for America to succeed Obama has to fail. Obama has to fail at getting his agenda through congress. If Barack Obama were to get all the things he wanted passed, there is absolutely no chance the U.S. economy would succeed.

Congress should stop it from passing, but the problem is that the republicans don’t have any credibility on this issue because how can you oppose Obama when he’s doing exactly what Bush did? That’s the whole big irony of the situation. Obama constantly talks about how it’s so much different now. The voters wanted change and he’s here to deliver it. Well I got news for you, there is nothing different. All Obama is doing is continuing the failed policies of Bush. He’s got the same Wall Street types running government. He took the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and stuck him in treasury. It’s the same people that are in charge and it’s the same polices that are in place. Those policies are to bailout failing companies, “stimulate” the economy with government spending, and encourage more consumption with credit. That’s exactly what Bush did. They’re trying to prop up real estate prices. Well hey, that’s what Bush did. He can talk about how different it is but there is no difference. The only difference is the degree to which it is being done. Obama is simply “out Bushing Bush” we’re getting Bush on steroids. He’s doing exactly what Bush did only worse! So if you didn’t like the economy under Bush, you’re really not going to like it under Obama.

What would really be true change is if we stopped bailing companies out, stopped trying to stimulate the economy, and reduced government spending.

At the same time, Obama is criticizing Bush for running up a big deficit during his term of office. And what is Obama doing? What budget is he about to sign? Nearly a 2 TRILLION dollar deficit in a single year dwarfing anything Bush ever did! So how can you criticize the deficits of your predecessor and run up even bigger ones yourself? Now Obama’s trying to say he’s got no choice and that he’s forced to do it because of the circumstances. That’s nonsense. Bush could have said the same thing. Bush inherited a recession just like Obama did. Bush came in at the bursting of the dot com bubble just like Obama came in at the bursting of the real estate bubble. And so what did Bush do to fix the economy? He did exactly what Obama is doing. He increased spending, ran up government deficits and this is the result. The only thing different is that Bush slightly reduced taxes on the rich and Obama wants to slightly increase taxes on the rich, big deal.

This makes me want a drink or a smoke and a pancake. 

Things are tough now, but we need to come together as a country. All of this division does not add up!

So has the sky fallen down yet?

;o)

Hey, it snows up in N. Texas... that's normal.

As for the Cowboys?

It's a conspiracy. Obama's black helicopters had it arranged.