The Failed Mission That Is . . .

. . . Afghanistan.

Buchanan Performs Last Rites

All empires overreach.  And the US is no exception.  And the rationale was what?  Some revived Wilsonian global democratization gambit?

One hundred years of HOOEY!

From the piece:

“We did it to ourselves. Hubris was our failing, as it often is of great powers, the mindset exhibited by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright when she declared: ‘If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future.'”

Let me repeat . . .

HOOEY!

The Rachel Nichols/Maria Taylor Contretemps

Not just your average hot mic outing.  Here we’re talking a video Nichols didn’t know was being taped.

Me?  I have ZERO problem with what she said.  But I can see why the WOKE MOB would be all over this like jam on bread.

Thing is, Nichols got bumped by Taylor to cover the NBA finals — an assignment written into Nichols’ contract.  So then, naturally, Nichols OPINED on why ESPN had taken that EXTRAORDINARY step.

Learn How to Turn Off Your Video Recorder

What’s next?  Crucifixion for BAD THOUGHTS?  For Original Sin?  For being human and gossiping?

Forget about behind closed doors.

There’s NO LONGER ANY SUCH THING.

N.I.L.

N.I.L. refers to Name, Image, Likeness.

College athletes can now sell “those parts of themselves” to anyone interested in buying them for sponsorship or endorsement purposes.

I recently contributed the comments below to a college football discussion board.  I won’t bother putting them in quotes.

N.I.L.

The socioeconomics of this are interesting.

Even though college football players have unique skills which set them apart from, say, workers at Amazon, those Amazon “grunts” are just as important to Bezos et al as college football players are to college football.  No workers, no product.

(At least not until full-blown – potentially Orwellian – AI.)

Yet, FEW WITH MONEY are going to propose altering the wage scale – even marginally – for non-skilled labor at Amazon or anywhere else.  Meanwhile, that same prosperity-class – or at least that portion of it enamored of college sports – can’t wait to wrap itself around NIL contracts.

So, what’s this say?  To me, two things.

One, because college football players have something ENORMOUSLY LUCRATIVE to sell, they’re being admitted – that is, ALLOWED IN – to the OWNER-RENTIER ranks as at least NOMINAL STAKEHOLDERS, thereby allowing them to leave behind the “grunt” ranks of the average non-skilled laborer.

Two, NIL approval came about not as a matter of new law but as an interpretation of existing law via a 9-0 SCOTUS decision.  Yet, while framed as an anti-trust decision, might it not have broader effect?

In fact, did it not further strengthen the system whereby monetize-able, income-stream asset-outlets meant to circulate and recirculate capital are promoted and can be extended by the OWNER-RENTIER class to whomever they designate?

Note that despite all of the economic-justice ink that’s been dedicated to this issue, no one in the unskilled labor world will EVER come close to such a deal.

Which is JUST HOW WE ROLL.  No argument.

As long as we view this for what it is.  A timely extension of stakeholder status to a group deemed essential to the trade.

Again, HOW WE ROLL.

As for equity, there is none, but only WHAT THE TRAFFIC WILL BEAR.  Unlimited sums to athletes?  That’s RUNNING THE GAME, not HOLDING A STAKE.  THAT PART, I sense, will be challenged.

Three Kunstler Paragraphs

I stopped reading Jim Kunstler’s scathing blog when he rabidly turned pro-Trump.

This morning, in the absence of interesting news, I decided to check him out.  Too bad.  From every pore of his poisoned post, came a withering rightwing rant.

EXCEPT FOR THE LAST THREE PARAGRAPHS which I found to be dead-on-point.  Besides, who writes like THIS?

“An autumn wave of Covid-19 (one “variant” or another) would take out whatever remains of the service economy, the restaurants struggling just now to return to normality (ha!), the hair salons, the gyms, the florists, booksellers, sports, theaters, live music venues, what-have-you. Since we no longer have much of a manufacturing economy, the only thing left would be Wall Street — which was originally designed to raise money for the manufacturing and service sector but now only raises money for itself via the seemingly magical mingling of “leverage” with “liquidity” to conjure profit from black holes where the ghosts of productivity howl.”  

TUDOR PLACE:  Yes, Wall Street is still a trapeze act but no longer missing just a net.  Now, it’s lost its trapeze.

“It’s some trick but, let’s face it, it’s still just a trick. Also in that picture is the weird three-legged race of deflation tied to inflation running both uphill and downhill at the same time like a nightmare out of M.C. Escher by way of Stephanie Kelton. The USA will be toting up a $3-trillion-plus deficit just for the current fiscal year at the same time that debt becomes ever more obviously unpayable. How does debt even mean anything if there is no prospect of paying it back? Especially in the form of financial instruments, namely: bonds. And how does a financial system based on debt behave when all that is the case? I guess we’re going to find out.”

TUDOR PLACE:  For those who don’t know, Stephanie Kelton is the leading guru/magician for Modern Monetary Theory (MMT).  Or as I refer to it — Magical Monetary Theory.

“My guess would be a price collapse in financial instruments — abstract things represented by money — and then a collapse of money itself. You may be thinking: not a pretty picture. I know. And we thought the last days of the Soviet Union were bad in 1990. Hoo boy, are we in for a rough ride.  One can hardly imagine the social side-effects of all that, but it would seem to imply people having a rather hard time finding something to eat, or getting anything else they need. Remember good ol’ Ross Perot talking about “a giant sucking sound?” Think of that against a background of things on fire. What flavor ice-cream will “Joe Biden” be ordering on Halloween?”

TUDOR PLACE:  Let’s hope this isn’t prophetic.