God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

"Noah and his brother George inherited from their pioneer father six hundred acres of farmland, land as dark and rich as chocolate cake, and a small saw factory that was nearly bankrupt. War came.

George raised a rifle company, marched away at its head.

Noah hired a village idiot to fight in his place, converted the saw factory to the manufacture of swords and bayonets, converted the farm to the raising of hogs. Abraham Lincoln declared that no amount of money was too much to pay for the restoration of the Union, so Noah priced his merchandise in scale with the national tragedy. And he made this discovery: Government objections to the price or quality of his wares could be vaporized with bribes that were pitifully small.

He married Cleota Herrick, the ugliest woman in Indiana, because she had four hundred thousand dollars. With her money he expanded the factory and bought more farms, all in Rosewater County. He became the largest individual hog farmer in the North. And, in order not to be victimized by meat packers, he bought controlling interest in an Indianapolis slaughterhouse. In order not to be victimized by steel suppliers, he bought controlling interest in a steel company in Pittsburgh. In order not to be victimized by coal suppliers, he bought controlling interest in several mines. In order not to be victimized by money lenders, he founded a bank.

And his paranoid reluctance to be a victim caused him to deal more and more in valuable papers, in stocks and bonds, and less and less in swords and pork. Small experiments with worthless papers convinced him that such papers could be sold effortlessly. While he continued to bribe persons in government to hand over treasuries and national resources, his first enthusiasm became the peddling of watered stock...

Noah and a few like him perceived that the continent was in fact finite, and that venal office-holders, legislators in particular, could be persuaded to toss up great hunks of it for grabs, and to toss them in such a way as to have them land where Noah and his kind were standing.

Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling in America. Thus was the savage and stupid and entirely inappropriate and unnecessary and humorless American class system created. Honest, industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage.

And they saw that praise was reserved henceforth for those who devised means of getting paid enormously for committing crimes against which no laws had been passed. Thus the American dream turned belly up, turned green, bobbed to the scummy surface of cupidity unlimited, filled with gas, went bang in the noonday sun.

E pluribus unum is surely an ironic motto to inscribe on the currency of this Utopia gone bust, for every grotesquely rich American represents property, privileges, and pleasures that have been denied the many. An even more instructive motto, in the light of history made by the Noah Rosewaters, might be: Grab much too much, or you'll get nothing at all.

And Noah begat Samuel, who married Geraldine Ames Rockefeller. Samuel became even more interested in politics than his father had been, served the Republican Party tirelessly as a kingmaker, caused that party to nominate men who would whirl like dervishes, bawl fluent Babylonian, and order the militia to fire into crowds whenever a poor man seemed on the point of suggesting that he and a Rosewater were equal in the eyes of the law.

And Samuel bought newspapers, and preachers, too. He gave them this simple lesson to teach, and they taught it well: Anybody who thought that the United States of America was supposed to be a Utopia was a piggy, lazy, God-damned fool. Samuel thundered that no American factory hand was worth more than eighty cents a day. And yet he could be thankful for the opportunity to pay a hundred thousand dollars or more for a painting by an Italian three centuries dead. And he capped this insult by giving paintings to museums for the spiritual elevation of the poor. The museums were closed on Sundays...”

Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

7.6 Magnitude Earthquake In Costa Rica Triggers Pacific Basin Tsunami Warning

The initial tsunami watch for the Caribbean has been cancelled. The earthquake occurred 12 miles under the ocean on the Pacific side of Costa Rica.

Although the initial estimates of 7.9 magnitude were revised to 7.6, the warnings and watch for several countries in the Pacific rim are still in effect.

As always, listen to your official tsunami channels for updates and recommended actions.

NOSARA, Costa Rica (AP) — A powerful, magnitude-7.6 earthquake shook Costa Rica and a wide swath of Central America on Wednesday, collapsing some houses, blocking highways and causing panic, but there were no immediate reports of deaths.

The USGS said the 8:42 a.m. quake struck about 38 miles (60 kilometers) from the town of Liberia. It was centered about 25 miles (41 kilometers) below the surface. The magnitude initially was estimated at 7.9.

In the town of Hojancha near the epicenter, city official Kenia Campos said the quake knocked down some houses and landslides blocked two roads.

"So far, we don't have victims," she said. "People were really scared ... We have had moderate quakes but an earthquake (this strong) hadn't happened in more than 50 years."

There were no initial reports of damage or deaths in the capital of San Jose, said Douglas Salgado, a geographer with Costa Rica's National Commission of Risk Prevention and Emergency Attention.

Salgado said, however, officials were having problem accessing the earthquake zone or reaching people there and were flying over the area to assess damage to highways and other structures.

The earthquake didn't knock out phones or electricity in the capital 88 miles (141 kilometers) from the epicenter, Salgado said by telephone, but communications were down near the epicenter.

"There's chaos in San Jose because it was a strong earthquake of long duration," Salgado said. "It was pretty strong and caused collective chaos."

TSUNAMI BULLETIN NUMBER 002
PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER/NOAA/NWS
ISSUED AT 1525Z 05 SEP 2012

THIS BULLETIN APPLIES TO AREAS WITHIN AND BORDERING THE PACIFIC OCEAN AND ADJACENT SEAS...EXCEPT ALASKA...BRITISH COLUMBIA...WASHINGTON...OREGON AND CALIFORNIA.

THE EARTHQUAKE MAGNITUDE IS REDUCED TO 7.6 THE WARNING AREA IS REDUCED...THE WARNING IS CANCELLED FOR EL SALVADOR...HONDURAS...MEXICO...COLOMBIA...ECUADOR...
GUATEMALA AND PERU.

... A TSUNAMI WARNING IS IN EFFECT ...

A TSUNAMI WARNING IS IN EFFECT FOR

COSTA RICA / PANAMA / NICARAGUA

FOR ALL OTHER AREAS COVERED BY THIS BULLETIN... IT IS FOR INFORMATION ONLY AT THIS TIME.

THIS BULLETIN IS ISSUED AS ADVICE TO GOVERNMENT AGENCIES. ONLY NATIONAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT AGENCIES HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO MAKE DECISIONS REGARDING THE OFFICIAL STATE OF ALERT IN THEIR AREA AND ANY ACTIONS TO BE TAKEN IN RESPONSE.

AN EARTHQUAKE HAS OCCURRED WITH THESE PRELIMINARY PARAMETERS

ORIGIN TIME - 1442Z 05 SEP 2012
COORDINATES - 9.9 NORTH 85.5 WEST
DEPTH - 46 KM
LOCATION - OFF COAST OF COSTA RICA
MAGNITUDE - 7.6

Source: tsunami.gov

Additional Material from IMPACT 2012 with Chris Hedges and Robert Johnson

You may watch the entire show from the beginning, including the performance group, here.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts

Jammed into some important levels of resistance now.

Let's see gold take out the psychologically important $1700 and stick it for the weekly close.

ECB meets on Thursday, non-Farm Payrolls on Friday, and the Democratic boogie woogie all week.