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john p · Joined: 10 Mar 2006 Posts: 1820

Don't fear, I think Neil Diamond will show up on his white horse before any of that happens.

Boston ITer · Guest

John, it appears you haven't seen 'The Warriors' or enough 'Max Max' films. Usually, it takes a generation or so for a future-looking film to come to fruition. Remember the '76, "Network", with William Holden, Faye Dunaway, and Peter Finch? It's amazing how that movie almost completely predicted today's broadcasting industry and its lack of standards or accountability.

john p · Joined: 10 Mar 2006 Posts: 1820

I think it was just a defense mechanism and I was retreating to my happy place like Happy Gilmore.

What scares me is Iran gets close to getting nukes and Israel makes a preemptive strike and this whole roman candle lights up.

There are usually a crew of Clockwork Orange guys marching around Salem, MA on Halloween.

What about those German Rocker gang on the Big Lebowski. I don't want any of those guys peeing on my rug and putting a ferret in the tub when I'm blowing jaybars.

Kidding aside, gangs in NYC and even Boston were rampant when we hit on tough economic times. People try to escape their realities with drugs and then when you have more addicts, you have more street trade of drugs and that eventually all gets organized and you have turf wars, etc. The biker gangs used to be contracted out by the Mob, and actually they had a hell of a time with them in Montreal.

When a city really starts to deteriorate, people flee to the suburbs and the people left in the City choose some wacko as their Mayor i.e the guy from New Orleans who was awful during Katrina or the numerous Mayors like the one in D.C. who got caught blowing crack. I think in Miami the County controls some of the City's business.

Hell, look at the crazies in the South Side of Chicago. You're talking about Bill Ayers, Saul Alinsky, Reverend Wright, the Black Panthers, ACORN. Those radicals are having one of their own run for President. Wait till you see more militant members of ACORN acting up. If they got 20% of the Bailout like they wanted, it would be a total racket and "community organizers" would be code for mafia.

Boston ITer · Guest

balor123 · Joined: 08 Mar 2008 Posts: 1204

The threat of a war breaking out in the Middle East may be closer than you think. If Israel will attack, then it will likely be before Bush leaves office to ensure that they have adequate support, in addition to attacking before the point of no return for Iran. I read an estimate somewhere of a 30% chance of an attack before the end of 2008. Oil looks cheap to me!

admin · Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2008 1:51 pm GMT Post subject:

john p · Joined: 10 Mar 2006 Posts: 1820

Honestly, Boston IT'er's stuff sounds out of this world crazy to me. The danger to me is that I may have manufactured some "floor" in my mind of how bad things will/could get and maybe I'm not mentally prepared to factor in anything below that. Maybe that's just a defense mechanism in my mind that is laughing, mocking and dismissing it?

Although I think the ideas are far fetched, I am going to open myself up to at least evaluating what the floor might bring. I do think that you'll get gangs in certain areas; hell we have them now. The question is how much of an impact they will have.

Other than the Iran / Israel thing, one big reason why I think we might get rampant crime is when we get disorder through moral hazards being broken and a distrust for politicans and especially law enforcement. If you see the movies "Serpico" or "American Gangster", you'll see a depiction of what I'm talking about. When certain key people are corrupted in government and police, they have to create unwritten rules and codes where it is ok to plant evidence, guns, be on the take a little and get some grease. The responsible people, the true sheep dog is outcast and it is hard to discern the criminal with the crooked policeman.

One of the first tell signs is delusion. When people throw reason to the side and start to make absurd arguments and you realize that people aren't on the level when your speaking with them, that they are just exerting power and the content of what they say doesn't matter because people will fall in line with the power then we lose our common sense and morality filters and they prevent certain poisons from getting in our bloodstream. Delusion is the irrational in irrational exhuberance, it is what makes us irresponsible and suseptable to corruption. Irrational exhuberance is delusion, it is not rooted in reason or fundamentals. Obama wants you to submit to him and divorce yourself from reason and cloud your mind with what he calls "Hope". That is his only chance, because if you kick the tires you'll find out that he is grossly unqualified.

For example, when people start to say that a Casino is good for your community, that is delusional. When people think that giving ACORN 25% of the Bailout money is a good thing, that is delusional. Can you imagine the corruption we'd have if Billions of dollars went to ACORN? When people who don't pay taxes expect a check from the government, that is delusional (Obama's tax plan). When Obama rants about the lies of WMD in Iraq and applauds Colin Powell, the man who told the "lies" to the United Nation, that is delusional; he makes straw man arguments and then he sides with the people that plug into those straw man arguments. It's like how he wags his finger and blames corporate lobbyists for corrupting politicans by buying them off and preventing them from issuing reform and then in the greatest financial crisis, at the core, the subprime lending, Obama was front in center taking payoffs from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, that is delusional. The fact that the Press is spinning and diverting attention away from that fact is delusional. Deval Patrick calling a grandmother rapist, "thoughtful, insightful, eloquent and humane" is delusional, the newspaper that reports on this who reports on this as well as his involvment with Ameriquest, a predatory lender of the poor and minorities, that is delusional. Think about the delusional people in the South of Chicago, Ayers, Alinsky, Farrikan, Reverand Wright, the Black Panthers, all out of their minds delusional. Fools with big plans. What rational man would associate with these types of people other than someone that might be using them for political gain?

If our society isn't based on rationality and it just becomes a powerplay, it will be prison rules. If a policeman realizes that his whole force is corrupt and getting fat by being on the take and further, if he/she tries to be honest they'll just be targetted by those that are corrupt, it will be prison rules. If Obama becomes President, it will devalue experience, and paying your dues, it will devalue industrious values where everyone is marching in the same direction forward, it will pit one class against another. What you'll see if he wins are more of Charlie Rangals, people that talk about helping the poor as a front for them being just a graft warlord that actually steals from the common wealth. Tony Rezko stole from money that was set aside for the poor and he bought off politicans like Barack Obama. Obama bought his house and Rezko's wife bought the adjacent lot, which was a buildable lot based on zoning. Rezko sold a slice of his land to Obama rendering the rest of his land too small to build a house, making it an unbuildable lot which would have no value to anyone but Obama. Why on earth would Rezko buy a $300k house lot and then sell a slice of $100k to Obama when the remaining land would be worthless as you couldn't sell it to anyone to build a house? Rezko was guilty of like 18 counts of political corruption and Obama got a $200k personal gift on top of the hundreds of thousands Rezko funnelled into his campaigns.

That is delusional. I understand that Halliburton most likely is that stuff at a grander scale, but Obama is not a change in the right direction, he's the one that is more of the same. McCain, when implicated in the Keating Five went to town hall meetings and took questions directly from common citizens and stayed for hours until everyone asked what they wanted. He did it out in the open and said it was worse than being tortured in Vietnam. Beyond standing in front of Americans and taking unscripted questions, there was a full investigation by the Federal Goverment which concluded that he was innocent of any criminal activity but exercised poor judgment for being hoodwinked by some corrupt people. He was exonerated. Obama is not a "stand-up" man who will tell us the full extent of his relationship to corrupt and dangerous people.

To me, Obama is a moral hazard and it will be prison rules and it will be more important to get political power than to do a good job at work. He will push class warfare and that will tear at the fabric of our Nation not bring it together.

This is the best article I've found that gets to the core of populism (social and economic)

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/10/the_populism_divide.html

john p · Joined: 10 Mar 2006 Posts: 1820

This is a great article.

Read this and as yourself, are you a sheep, a sheepdog, or a wolf?

http://mwkworks.com/onsheepwolvesandsheepdogs.html

Deval Patrick seems to align himself with the wolves in our society, the casino industry, the grandmother rapists, his chief aide, a child molester, Ameriquest, etc.

Boston ITer · Guest

john p · Joined: 10 Mar 2006 Posts: 1820

Boston ITer · Guest

It is true, crime in NYC hasn't shot through the roof, as it did during Sliwa's time ("We're Fighting Back" movie on the Guardian Angels). However, there's something interesting, happening in the Big Apple which wasn't there during the Giuliani times, the cops are no longer patrolling the stations along Lexington Ave, from 23rd to Bowling Green (Wall St area), as earlier. This was considered an extraordinarily safe area, and now the city can't afford to pay for its security. Also, more and more bars and night spots are empty, due to the downturn. Many of my pals down there are astonished at how the place is falling down and it does appear that normal petty theft, probably not readily reported, as aggravated assault, is occurring more frequently.

Now, the question is... if there's a way to start on one's retirement pad early, then to wait till the region gets crowded, then why not? You see, the one thing about real estate is again, location. In a sense, where location got blown out of proportion was that people focused too much on the new expansion territories (Phoenix, Miami, Inland Empire CA, etc), instead of where people, with financial means, would actually want to be. All and all, for SoCal, the rich will still prefer their BelAir/Malibu security depots than any other spot esp if they're movie producers. Outside of that, property values and security can vary, depending upon the economics of the times. Likewise, retiring New England professionals and academicians would want to be in an area of culture and safety which was always Northern VT's calling card. That in effect, creates the critical mass which then attracts others with money in the bank. Realize, a vast majority of well off Americans don't like to live in Paris, they wouldn't fit in long term. They prefer safe places by the beach (perhaps Hawaii, since FL isn't doing the trick), Boulder/Aspen CO, and places like Northern VT.

john p · Joined: 10 Mar 2006 Posts: 1820

In areas where you have a big disparity of wealth like along the coast in Florida, you see lots of secured properties and gated communities.

I agree many retired people might find a quiet and cultural sanctuary if cities go bad. I think the cost of rent will filter out the rift raft. Places where rent is real cheap is where we have problems. Here, that is Lawrence, Brockton, parts of Worcester, etc.

With security cameras, cell phone cameras, I think that lots of the bad guys will be busted. When the mafia was at their peak, they didn't have recording devices or video cameras so it was much easier to operate in the open.

I know that area by Bowling Green Station, down by Wall Street. During the day, it is really a great place.

Lots of areas are totally gentrified, so I don't suspect that you'd find cheap rent in the South End any time soon. If anyone went there to hunt and rob someone, I doubt they'd be residents of that area. I agree that you're closer to more criminals when you live in the city though.

Criminals, predators are cowards and we may see more of them when times get more desperate, but there are plenty of quiet sheepdogs that will do the right thing if someone needed help.

john p · Joined: 10 Mar 2006 Posts: 1820

http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/03/03/pants-on-fire-lynn-sweet-obama-and-his-taking-questions-on-rezko/

Getting back on to real estate, Smile

check out the two video clips. The first you'll see Obama avoiding any questions from reporters regarding his shady real estate deal involving Tony Rezko, the convicted felon. You see the crowd of reporters yelling at him saying, come on answer a question about this affair. The second video shows him claiming that he stayed the entire time and answered questions until everyone was finish asking questions.

What a friggin liar. The funny thing about this report is that the remaining parcel that Rezko owned was not big enough to have a house built on it based on Zoning Regulations. The fact that he rendered the site unbuildable and therefore of no value for development is the main point which was overlooked. This is payola, graft plain and simple.

Worse, Rezko most likely pays taxes on the land which Obama can enjoy looking onto, versus seeing the side of another house.

This makes me mad.

Guest · Posted: Thu Oct 23, 2008 6:08 pm GMT Post subject:

Verizon built a tower for McCain...that makes me mad. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/washingtonpostinvestigations/2008/10/exclusive_verizon_gave_cell_to.html#more

re: ACORN, it wasn't long ago that McCain praised them - http://www.oliverwillis.com/2008/10/14/mccain-praises-acorn/ ... but if it helps get Fox viewers scared of black people, they'll use it. It does appear to be working based on the comments here.