Liars and Linguistics: “Secretary Clinton”?

A few points of interest about the debate tonight, starting with a discussion of positional power. If you skipped the grown-up organizational development classes in grad school, the short version is people tend to bow or bend to the will of people with power.

The President of a Company directs his subordinates, but he is beholden (to the degree of stock ownership, lol) to the Board of Directors. Stuff rolls down hill.

But what happens when a once company president is gone from the job: Is is still referred to as “president” of XYZ company?

No.

Robert Hickey has a website (and book  Honor & Respect: The Official Guide to Names, Titles, and Forms of Address)  in which he deals with how to address formers and political  has-beens.

If I can lift this from his website over here, the key thing to know is that:

A former secretary of a U.S. Federal Department continues to be addressed as The Honorable.
The rule is once an Honorable always and an Honorable.
But, he or she is no longer Mr./Madam Secretary or Secretary (Name) since there will be a new holder of this only-one-person-at-a-time office. “

In simple terms, if there is one of something (Like President) then after leaving office that person is Mr. Obama, for example.  But where there are many (as in judges and generals) then they keep the title after office. 

One of the subtle “trappings of power” that social climbers (and reporters) use is to refer to people by the old/former/has-been titles.

This is something to be aware of tonight in the  presidential debate:

Every time you hear a moderator or a panelist in the aftermath/wreckage-sure-to-follow refer to “Secretary Clinton” they are using positional power jujitsu on you to reinforce your recall of her former position.

But it is not correct and to refer to her as Secretary Clinton is to show outright bias or ignorance and imprecision of thought..bad in either case.  She’s Mrs. Clinton.  Period.

Language is a terrible thing: There are civil rites built into it designed to keep you groveling at the feet of the power structure and this is one of the clearest examples. When you think Clinton, do you associate it with “I can’t remember” or do you associate it with “Secretary”?

The head-trip which is obvious is that of course, the secretary part has been planted so deep in your head that it’s assumed she is somehow better than her opponent.

Then, to build on the psychology of it, her corporate structure uses this positional power to assert she has some insight into whether the opponent is “qualified.”

Unfortunately for her side, there are still some of us who remember a) how position power works, b) proper forms of address (Mrs. Clinton), and c) the qualifications for the President are laid out in the U.S. Constitution, not in the crooked court of public opinion.

If you hear the word “secretary” tonight, it’s all part of the branding/mind-game/positioning battle to sell you the “right soap.”

Depends what you mean by soap, lol…

Stars Have It?

On a closely related note, I asked our Consulting Astrologer is she could produce a what “the stars” have in store for us tonight, since that makes more sense that most of the political content out there. I trusty Pluto and Mars more than Kardashian press reports on who she’s voting for, lol.

Unfortunately, she declined to (publicly) do the debate forecast, but importantly she offers this instead:

“I believe that this election is only one piece in the on-going downfall of America from its prior heights, as indicated by the present highly impactful transits of Saturn and Pluto over the USA chart. I’ve mentioned that Saturn is currently going over [and over] the USA Ascendant degree. However, it doesn’t end there. The Ascendant merely marks the beginning of the House ruling our Identity and “Being-ness” as a nation. So, Saturn will be in that area for quite awhile longer, as described below.

While this is going on, Pluto, symbolizing death-and-rebirth, (with heavy destruction preceding that rebirth,) is opposite our USA’s natal Sun degree. The Sun is the life force in our solar system; so, too, does it represent our energy, our ability to be fruitful, and yes, our “life force.”

One of these planetary transits would be bad enough, two will prove devastating! Capping all of this off will be next August’s total eclipse crossing our entire nation from Oregon to S. Carolina. There is no way we can escape the changes and travails coming.

Saturn brings loss, constrictions and harsh lessons. Whenever it goes over anyone’s Ascendant and continues to transit their First House, it begins a process of changing their very identity and way of life. Often the losses and constriction bring on a major change in how one is able to sustain themselves and may result in a personal Great Depression. It is the same for nations. For example, although the drop in stock prices took place in Oct, 1929, and was considered the start of the Great Depression, Saturn actually began the whole downturn when it went over the USA’s Ascendant, entering the first House in September, 1928. Furthermore, it was still in the First House in Oct, 1929 and it stayed there through mid-October, 1931. That is when it then moved on to the House ruling Money and Income, which only continued the hard times up to January, 1935.

Saturn will be traveling through our First House until late November, 2019. And, of course Saturn’s hard lessons won’t end then, since it will move over to the USA’s Second House of Money and Income until January, 2023.

Pluto actually started the whole on-going transformation process when it passed over the USA’s Ascendant degree — on Sept 11th, 2001. That was the beginning of the downward trajectory. As for its current position, in the entire history of this country, Pluto has never before been opposite our Sun’s degree in mid Cancer, until now.

Because this is a new experience for us as a nation, we cannot even imagine all the changes that will be happening in the coming years. We do know, however, that the journey includes both the “Death” and the “Rebirth” phases, as symbolized by the Phoenix bird in mythology.

We are still on our way down and, like an alcoholic, will need to hit bottom before we can gather together whatever pieces survive to rebuild this country; to bring about the “Rebirth”. This transformation will not merely be economic, it will touch every area of our lives. Think caterpillar-into-butterfly level of change. At least that image gives us the possibility of Hope.

Many Blessings,”

As always, a trip to our Chief Astrologer’s free gift to the world website here is always worth the trip and no, you can’t buy anything there. The best things in Life are still free.

So, About Them Markets

There was a moment on Thursday or last week when I almost sold my short position. By Friday’s decline I was glad I hadn’t. And this morning with the Dow futures down 80-something, the mood is damn near giddy.

Still, as was demonstrated in this weekend’s Peoplenomics report, the way down from here is long and steep and in terms of “changing how we life” whoever wins the Presidency will likely live our the Herbert Hoover historical role.

The problem is defined by a couple of important trading indicators and the levels I mentioned in the Friday report are still the targets that will define which wave count (larger or smaller degree) is in play.

Tomorrow we get the S&P, Case Shiller, Core Logic, etc. Housing report. I expect it willl show a rollover in prices and if so, it will be an immediate source of concern.

That’s because Elliott Waves (book: The Wave Principle) tend to work at the macro (zoomed-out) level as well as they work on the one-minute chart zoom-ins. And that being the case, you ought to be able to see (from the Housing Peak in 2007 early 2008) the very clear Wave 1 down into 2010 and then Wave 2 up, which is about due to roll on us.

Not that it will be a surprise, given the Fed gov has been printing money like crazy in order to keep things from collapsing prior to the election/charade. I mean bumping up the M1 (Cash and demand deposits) of money at an annual rate of 10%? That’s a major WTF given that the economy is growing much, much slower than that.

The excess money, which would normally be pushing prices up by now in previous economic cycles has merely been shoveled into the huge deflationary holes around the world. I assume you know the US is one of the few countries which has managed to avoid negative rates?

Durable Goods come out Wednesday, Corporate Profits Thursday, and the statical month wraps up Friday with Personal Income and expenditures.

Across the whole lot of them, I don’t see much that will give us reason for optimism.

Ure’s Right Eventually…

It was more than a year ago…June of 2015 if going from memory this early is forgivable…I was telling you that Deutsche Bank’s blow up involving co-CEO’s and (again memory) a rogue trading thing would eventually collapse.

It has taken longer than I expected to resolve, but we see it coming into view today as CNBC reports “Deutsche The Wave PrincipleBank shares hit record low on report Merkel won’t help the troubled lender…”

Of course, this is now how things will work out. I expect the DB folks will begin to do the “We’re Too Big To Fail” whine, and with enough leverage, they are likely to suck in the weak-minded Merkel and the government checks will flow – and that will get the economic collapse of Europe pushed into 2017.

Besides, with the “Merkel said no” report, Deutsche Bank denies that CEO John Cryan has asked Merkel for support.

But it won’t likely end there because there are too many leaks to fill, and when the Germans run out of patience and money, I will remind you of our discussions in fall 2015: How are you going to feel when as a U.S. Taxpayer, you’re lied to by the crooks in Washington who will use US Money to Bail Out a Foreign Financial Disaster because of TBTF?

A Merkel Note

Oh, sorry to offend calling Merkel weak-minded, but she has managed to do something all the previous leaders of German prevented: A successful reinvasion of Europe by Muslim hordes not seen since the medieval period of European history.

You do remember the Muslim invasion of France (the first time, not this one) ended at the Battle of Tours in 732. But it took until almost 1500 to root them out of Spain…so Europe has a long-term period of misery ahead if you believe history rhymes, which it seems to, at least in economics.

For now: Migrant camp to be dismantled in France.

These ‘ol boys (and gals) of Europe seem like pretty slow learners, if’n you was to ask me.  No wonder they are chess fodder for the Russians.

A no-hate side note here: This is not to say all parts of Sharia (the finance part) are bad. Unlike the concept of interest which is made up out of thin air, which then causes cyclical economic disasters, Sharia banking is pure buy/sell. And when you think about it (and the miserable history of interest which has led to our $20 trillion in national debt) it is a more honest way of conducting business.

EXCEPT that it is not trading oriented and thus naturally tends to slough-off the leach/financial class who use money against the people who actually MAKE it.

Like Algebra, which was originally “al-jabr,” there are some good things to be said about borrowing or stealing “best practices” from other cultures of different times.

Except instead of thinking through ideas, we FIRST polarize ourselves and THEN attempt to fairly consider the next ideas.  Obviously we can’t figure out where all the wars come from.

But the words polarization and stupid preconception may have something to do with it.

War would disappear if we focused on getting best practices and dropped the polarization angle.  Ah, but where’s the money and monetization of that?

Take Syria, Please

Hmmm. N’other example? U.S. Decries Russia’s ‘Barbarism’ in Syria Amid Fresh Attacks on Aleppo.

Except we are giving aid to ISIS and al Nusra to try to unseat Assad and Russia is helping Assad hold on to his own country. (*In return for Russian access to the Syria port at Tartus. Hey, nothing’s free, right?)

So: we lie about supporting ISIS there and Russia wants to hang onto its port…FMTT who let the neocons (moroncons) into the State Dept?

Why, slick Willy Clinton…and they’ve been there ever since.  Think when a Clinton made the problem the next Clinton can fix it?  She’s been living that life I suppose…

Mall Terrorism?

That Washington State shooter of last week was originally from Turkey.

The reason I suspect he will be found to be a terrorist-connected fellow is that ISIS has claimed credit for the mall stabbings in Minnesota. Malls seem like they are a weak underbelly of American culture, and a third case would about cinch the case. Which could happen any time.

Did I mention we will be looking for media distractions during the debate tonight?

I can here the PTB now:  “Clinton’s starting tgo cough…cue the disaster and let’s get a cut-away up…”

Whipping Us Up?

WaPo, NYT Lead Trend Of Emphasizing Race Of White Officer, Burying Race Of Black Officer seems like a good call.

But enough…we have a week to get on with.