The Savage State

The Arcadian or Pastoral State

The Consummation of Empire

The Destruction of Empire

Desolation

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-rise-and-certain-fall-of-the-american-empire-2010-03-09?pagenumber=2

Benny welcoming Kenson to Sportgastein.

Benny messing with the dog

The Sumerians produced the world’s “first high civilization” and were the world’s first urban non-Semitic people with the earliest traces of them found as far back as 5300BC. This ancient culture spanned the fifth to the second millennium BC in and around ancient Mesopotamia (mainly modern day Iraq but also stretching to Turkey, Syria and Iran) and its scientific and literary achievements had lasting influence throughout the ancient world and down through today.

The Sumerians were the first people to have a complex system of metrology which resulted in the creation of arithmetic, geometry, and algebra. They referred to themselves as the sag-giga, which literally meant “the black-headed people. The cities of Sumer were the first to practice rigorous, year-round agriculture.

What I find fascinating is that as late as the 19th century, the Sumerian culture was completely unknown.  Sumer had “been erased from the mind and memory of man for more than two thousand years.” That is, up until around a Hundred years ago, we had no idea of where we came from. It is clear that what we dont know is still far greater than we do know about our early histroy,  but a lot of the knowledge we have was brought to light with the discovery of  the Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh where 30, 000 clay tablets were found.

Another thing I find fascinating, is that the earliest Leaders of Sumeria, who lived amongst, and ruled over the people, were Deified, that is, they were gods. These were Dumuzi, a deity whose worship would have profound influences in Judaism and in Greek mythology, and Gilgamesh, the “supreme hero of Sumerian myth and legend,” his deeds written and rewritten not only in Sumerian but also in other languages.

Sargon the Great was the conqueror (7000 years later we are still fighting over these lands!) that finally brought about the end of the Sumerian people as “an identifiable political and ethnic entity” and began the “Semitization of Sumer.” He went on to later build babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Sumerians believed that rite and ritual were more important than either personal devotion or piety, and that man was “created for no other purpose than to serve the gods.” Bear in mind, these gods were not some abstract entity, but according to the Sumerians, they created the first people, lived amongst and ruled over them.

I have two fascinating books about the Sumerians. Both of which I would highly recommend, this one and this one.

Image by Raphael Lacoste

We live in a cynical world, and we work in a business of tough competitors, so what’s in a wobble? You don’t have to be a smart man to know what love is. LUVSTEP completes you and is programmed for pleasure. It’s music for starry nights and candle light…slow wine and grind time. Dirty South Joe and Flufftronix are your captains for this maiden voyage into the heart of the boom’s cosmic bosom. It’s amazing, the love inside. You take it with you.

Haha, playlist below.

Art Of Noise – Moments In Love (Caspa Remix)
M83 – We Own The Sky (Udachi Remix)
Subscape – Nothings Wrong
Deadmau5 – I Remember (Caspa Remix)
Jupiter One – Find Me A Place (Rx Remix)
Stenchman – The Number One
Yael Naim – Toxic (16Bit Remix)
Starkey – Miracles
Little Dragon – Twice (16Bit Remix)
Mala – Alicia
Booty Luv – Say It (Nero Remix)
Ellie Goulding – Starry Eyed (Jakwob Remix)
DOROTHY
Attacca Pesante ft. Shea Soul – Make It Funky For Me (Rusko Remix)
Simian Mobile Disco – Cruel Intentions (Joker Remix)
Little Jinder – Youthblood (12th Planet & Flinch Remix)
2000F & J Kamata – You Don’t Know What Love Is (VIP)
Passion Pit – The Reeling (Flufftronix Remix)
Turboweekend – Something Or Nothing (2000F & J Kamata Remix)
Chromeo – Night By Night (Skream Remix)
Cosmic Revenge – Late Nights
Rusko – Love Is Real
Florence + The Machine – You’ve Got The Love (XX Remix)
Boxcutter – Foxy
Joy Orbison – Hyph Mngo

From Mad Decent Podcasts..

The bleak warning of social and financial meltdown was delivered today in Tokyo at a gathering of 700 pension and sovereign wealth fund managers.

…One of Dr Faber’s darker scenarios involves growing military tension between China and the United States over access to limited oil resources.

His investment advice, which was the first keynote speech of CLSA’s annual investment forum in Tokyo, included a suggestion that fund managers buy houses in the countryside because it was more likely that violence, biological attack and other acts of a “dirty war” would happen in cities.

He also said that they should consider holding part of their wealth in the form of precious metals “because they can be carried”.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article7035913.ece

Bull or Bear? Take your pic. We also have a limited Grey version.

Cheers brov…

We are a clever, ambitious species who for hundreds of thousands of years (or more depending on the model) lived off of current/recent solar flows. We eventually puzzled out how to access stored sunlight in the form of fossil fuels. The population and growth trajectory that ensued eventually latched on to a series of assumptions/rationales that would fuse into the system a belief that more is better and that there would be unlimited substitutes for finite natural resources like oil and water. The change from using solar flows to the energy gain contained in a barrel of crude oil was and still is, indistinguishable from magic in the larger scheme.

Eventually (1970s), some cracks in the assumptions underlying this model appeared. Real wages then peaked in the early 1970s and have been declining ever since. Globally, though the poorest people in the world earn more than they did a generation ago, the fact that over 2 billion people don’t have a toilet doesn’t really sound like an equitable global playing field. Oil peaked in the world’s largest oil producer (USA) in 1970. In 1971 we discontinued the gold window and the worlds economic system had no natural tether to real assets. Without such a monetary speedbump, debt skyrocketed over recent decades and became every bit as important driver of economic growth as cheap energy.

Continued..

In 2009, more cars were sold in China than in the United States, something most analysts did not expect to see before 2018 or 2020, said Mr. Yergin. If China continues at its current pace, he said, it will be consuming more oil than the United States by the end of the decade.
The United States consumes about 19 million barrels-per-day now. China consumes about 8. The difference is 11. Thanks to the slowdown in energy consumption, OPEC producers now hold an estimated (highly unlikely given decline rates and overstated reserves) six million barrels a day of spare capacity, equal to roughly 7 percent of current demand, much of it in Saudi Arabia alone.
Here’s the deal. Once we run through the current spare capacity, the oil supply then and for the rest of your life is essentially a Zero Sum Game. If China uses more, someone else must use less.

zero-sum describes a situation in which a participant’s gain or loss is exactly balanced by the losses or gains of the other participant(s). If the total gains of the participants are added up, and the total losses are subtracted, they will sum to zero.

Saudi Arabia is gradually reducing crude oil exports to the US as it is pushing deeper into China and other fast-growing Asian markets. Exports to the US fell to 837,000 b/d in November, the lowest level in 21 years.

In 2008, the industry lost a record $42.6 billion.

Something is VERY wrong with this picture.

Instead of being punished for their considerable role in this crisis (and the next), and their part in destroying retirement funds and ruining millions of lives, wallstreet has been rewarded. The government handed them taxpayer money so they could make good on their bad bets rather than go under, and they turn around and give themselves record bonuses? This figure doesnt even count the money from shares handed out as bonuses.

Ghastly behavior as my grandmother would say.