China And Japan Build Iron Bridge Over Troubled Waters

12/24/2007

Elaine Meinel Supkis

Santa Claus is coming to town. Only the Sheriff is right behind him. And behind the long arm of the law are all those Sovereigns with Wealth. The Bosses. So today, on the Eve of Christ's 'birth' [by imperial decree] we have yet another series of stories about world trade, the credit crisis which is really a transfer of power which the West cannot accept but put upon itself by itself due to its desire to have Xmas every day rather than once a year.

China puts embassies on Rio bid alert

China has begun concerted action to protect its position as one of the world's leading consumers of iron ore and other raw materials by launching a two-pronged initiative to gatecrash the £67bn bid battle being fought between BHP Billiton and rival mining group Rio Tinto.

The Chinese have approached Lehman Brothers, the investment bank, and are scouring the globe for other advisers in their efforts to affect the outcome of BHP's unsolicited takeover bid for Rio. No formal confirmation of Lehman's involvement has yet been made.

Chinese embassies in the UK and Australia have sounded out banking and legal advisers in London and Sydney over the past 10 days. Officials are drawing up detailed analysis of the BHP-Rio situation to assess all of China's political options.

The Chinese are building this huge consortium which is an interface between the Communist Party leadership, the cadres of the Party, the new capitalist enterprise system which was cooked in the Party's wok, a mixture of many elements from sea slugs, quail eggs all the way to bamboo shoots and a panda or two. It has everything. And this is the nature of the enterprise. It isn't like the old communist ones of producing more steel per annum or more freight trains. It is all-encompassing. And it has many levels including the all-important diplomatic angle. This part is of highest importance.

When the Chinese moved some of their staff out of the hotel they owned on 42nd Street in Manhattan in 1986, the excuse was, they wanted the new diplomatic staff to be less insular. They wanted them to learn how to deal with American culture and social behavior. I am a total savage when it comes to this sort of thing which is probably why the CIA told them to live with me. I might suppose the guys at the top there who knew me since my birth thought this would be funny.

But when the first cadres showed up, I was in the midst of building a new business and becoming my own boss so I was engaged in figuring out how capitalism works on the ground level. This involved lots of research, of course. Not one to do half measures, I was assembling information and working like a fiend to figure out how to best use the system. So when the Chinese moved in, they socialized with me and this meant, they became interested in my research and my daily work at my business during office hours.

This led to them complaining about the lack of funds from the embassy which paid me quite well but had them on a starvation diet! So I said, 'Hey, I'll help you get started and you can earn money without holding down a job, of course, you can't do that!' So we began with dumpster diving and then repairing things and selling them. This expanded rapidly and the Chinese began to scout for free stuff and then SHIP IT TO CHINA. My husband, at that time, was in the shipping industry so he showed them the rules and the ropes for import/export of junk goods, for example.

The seeds of capitalism grew rapidly and my group of Chinese, instead of learning theories at the University as the government thought, instead, learned raw capitalism in the real world. Of all my attempts at moving history's wheel forwards, this is perhaps my most successful attempt. But then, this quickly turned into a difficulty: the US refused to understand world trade, money and the nature of capitalism at the exact same time the Chinese figured out all this including the most important part of the nature of magic money and how this intersects with death and the Outer Darkness.

As soon as my charges from China went back home, China erupted into a major revolution and part of this was the Tiananmen Square event. The students there were NOT capitalists. They were NOT anything most Americans though they were. They were actually more like the Maoist cadres than anything the West thought. I was at first very amused at how they flew their flags and ran around, posing, looking exactly like Maoist posters celebrating the Revolution. They were also eager to have freedoms of various sorts. But they were not agitating for capitalism.

When the students decided to demonstrate in front of the UN after the massacre, I was their chief advisor. We spent over a month together there. I had many long talks with them. All of them stayed in the US afterwards thanks to me arm twisting Bush Sr. into giving them permission to apply for citizenship. But my friends who lived with me in previous years continued to climb China's Communist Party ladder and they focused not on liberalizing politics but building capitalism from the ground up, in their own way which was inspired by this bizarre mix of Mao, Hong Kong/Singapore style international trade and Elaine's understanding about how money, magic and power work within the capitalist matrix. And my favorite lecture is always, 'NEVER ever lose sight of what capitalism really is: taking human labor, natural resources and then gaining a PROFIT which is then, in turn, put BACK into the system to create more interactions that leads to more manufacturing using systems, not just naked labor. The keystone is the workers who are the ones who not only translate raw materials into goods but also CONSUME them. If the worker can't consume, the flow of capital dries up! So the important thing is to keep the money flowing as much as possible back into the system!'

When the money flows into palaces or military or eating and then throwing up like in Ancient Rome, when it becomes empire building and not building a healthy social base, it 'dries up' rapidly. This is a harsh lesson. The British Empire, when it discovered the secrets of capitalism, proceeded to prevent any money flowing to the working class, they tried as hard as possible to prevent even 1% of the profits going to the workers! This nearly destroyed the British empire. The pathetic condition of the workers was so dire, they could barely fight off invaders. Germany was just as bad off until Bismark figured out that starving workers make lousy soldiers. So he created a social security system just so he could attack Britain.

I explained this to the Chinese, by the way. China's crushing of the peasants was so hideous, most were reduced in stature so the average Chinese in 1940 was less than 5' tall. Yet, the minute the hell of work was lifted and life was granted, the size of the people sprang back. I know Chinese families [we are part of this, by the way!] where grandpa and grandma are as small as children, parents are about my height and their children, the grandkids, are over 6' tall.

When the communist Chinese moved in with my family and met my American Chinese friends, they also noticed the rise in size. The 'princes' whose dads were party officials were all my height. But I explained to them, their own sons would be much taller. And so it is today. I showed them statistics and figures about Germany and Britain from the mid-19th century to WWII. Germany's rise as an industrial power was also set alongside a rise in the incomes of the working class and this was by government wish. Bismark wanted 6' tall Germans, not people with rickets and missing teeth, barely able to march. Indeed, when we look at the old movies from WWII, we can spot the Aussies pretty easily. They lived at the opposite end of the Empire and had more freedoms and better diets as well as more socialism due to being founded by convicts who hated the government in London and thus, were able to ignore the customs there.

Back to the Rio Tinto business in the news: the Chinese are more like Japan or Germany, not the USA. The model they are following is very much the one we fought in WWI and WWII. This is understandable because the German model included state-sanctioned socialism! And this is the key. For the US has set itself on a course of building a system which looks like the stupid one set up by the British empire: crushing the workers under debts and loss of wages, 'free trade' that allows a flood of goods manufactured in other parts of the empire where workers are starved even worse! And rule from above by a minority that live in palaces and who go about the planet, making deals for themselves that hurt the workers who live in their own countries! And like England, we will find the alternative system will be stronger and will destroy us.

England survived only because the US saved them from their obvious fates. And the US, under the hammer from the Great Depression, had to imitate Germany and so we began, reluctantly, building highways, dams and other government projects and we finally started Social Security, way later than Germany. Thanks to the US for imitating Germany, we got to enjoy the fruits of capitalism because the workers were also granted the right to strike and other things they needed in order to force the owners to obey the logic of capitalism which is, when the workers get the profits of manufacturing, they will spend it within the system and create MORE manufacturing! Aha! The flow of money goes through the hands of the WORKERS who then give it a boost each time it does this via the magic of value-added labor!

The instant this is cut off, everything dies on the vine. Manufacturers can't sell stuff anymore. Most of what the upper classes buy can be made by hand and this is what happens. They buy handcrafted stuff! Including art work. They do NOT buy manufactured stuff! Workers do that. The Chinese have figured out that not only do workers have to have profits, governments must work in unison to expand economic opportunities. And one thing they must do is keep COMPETITION GOING. I am baffled as to why capitalists want monopolies. These things are terrible destroyers. They don't let money circulate, it becomes one way and this is fatal to the system. A government must try to prevent this which is why the Chinese are meddling in this deal in Brazil.

Only they have another option: they can become the monopoly! This is why the US must be involved, as a nation, in preventing monopolies and this includes doing things like having tariffs and barriers to prevent interlopers from killing off industries! Duh! Gads, when will we figure this out?

Temasek Raises Stake in Standard Chartered to 18%

Set up in 1974 to run Singapore's state assets, Temasek also has stakes in ICICI Bank Ltd. of India, Bank of China Ltd. and DBS Group Holdings Ltd., Southeast Asia's biggest bank.

Standard Chartered gets most of its profit from Asia and spent more than $2.7 billion since 2006 on acquisitions, including Hsinchu International Bank in Taiwan and Union Bank Ltd. in Pakistan. This month, the London-based company said it would accelerate investment in emerging markets, avoiding a potential decline in revenue faced by U.K. rivals such as Edinburgh-based HBOS Plc, which depend mainly on Britain.
*snip*
The latest purchase puts Standard Chartered closer to a threshold that would make it unable to issue notes in Hong Kong. The city will bar lenders that are 20 percent owned by foreign governments from issuing bank notes denominated in the local currency, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority said in July.

Note the date when Singapore set up its first state-run sovereign wealth fund. It is the same year the US currency collapsed. It is the year the US began its great decline as an economic power. From that day onwards, the US has run all its systems in the red. All of the ones that matter. No matter how 'big' our economy, how 'big' our paychecks, our government, our trade, everything is running in the RED. This is highly significant. Singapore's affairs moved into the black at the same time. Note also in this article, how Hong Kong protects its own banking system. It won't let foreign powers move in and issue notes! These notes happen to be things which we call 'money' and the paper in one's wallet is merely a 'note' which is why it is NOT called 'money' on the face. Nor it is any longer, a silver or gold 'certificate'.

The interlacing of the bankers is also quite interesting to me. This can be fatal if there is not some sort of political control system running things so the bankers don't go wild like they did in the Western empires. Wild talk about creating infinite money this last three months should alert us all that our bankers have gone insane. They are opening the doors to Hell wide open in the hopes they will get rich without sharing a penny with the workers. This delusion is destroying not only the workers but the entire banking system across the planet. I will note here that the Asian bankers are slowly moving towards China due to this. I include the crazed Japanese bankers who stupidly have fallen into the 0% interest pit, the one that leads to eternal debts and eternal depression.

Unpaid credit cards bedevil Americans

An Associated Press analysis of financial data from the country's largest card issuers also found that the greatest rise was among accounts more than 90 days in arrears.

Experts say these signs of the deterioration of finances of many households are partly a byproduct of the subprime mortgage crisis and could spell more trouble ahead for an already sputtering economy.

Speaking about eternal debt! Before 1974, it is nearly impossible to get a credit card. I had an American Express card since 1970 to 1990. I had to pay it off each month. This was OK. I used it for business. Sometimes, I would run up thousands of dollars. Since I always paid this off, they always let me do this. It was pretty useful during the years of financial turbulence due to inflation. When inflation was killed off by Volker, credit cards took off. At first, things were not so bad with these cards. But since they charge huge interest rates, people began to hit their limits. At first, people simple sent more family members into the work force. But wages began to decline due to government and corporate hatred of sharing profits with the workers. So a political game developed of cutting taxed to both the rich and the workers at the same time while NOT moving up wages!

Instead of indexing taxes to take into account, inflation, the government was corrupted by the corporate rich to cut taxes and thus, drive the government into the red at the same time worker's wages were being ruthlessly sheered! So the 'compromise' was to reduce INTEREST ON LOANS. This meant, everyone, especially the working class, could still keep money 'circulating' only it was NOT circulating at all!

Instead, debt began to ACCUMULATE! This is why we are in a crisis now: we can't accumulate more debt EVEN AT 0% INTEREST! Only the workers are not getting 0% interest, only the corporate interests. Workers are paying over 33% for loans. This is usury. It can never be paid off easily EXCEPT by buying NO MORE MANUFACTURED GOODS!!!! Indeed, this is a killer for the industrial system and causes depressions like we see in Japan today where worker's wages have been ruthlessly slashed and sales of cars has collapsed, for example.

The US mountain of debt will have to be discharged. Right now, everyone prays the workers can take on just a few more debts so we can sail past the Xmas selling frenzy. But I fear, this is the end of the road. No matter how much they wish, I suspect stores in America will be echoing tombs after Xmas and the sales will be ferocious. I will note here that I am not Xmas shopping. I buy later, have done this for years now. The profits from waiting are great. And this is why it is dangerous to start this cycle of depressed wages leading to ruthless price cutting and lower profits. DUH. I despair in hoping our dumb capitalists figure out this simple business.

Fukuda: Japan, China face opportunities to expand communication

Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said recently through a Japanese newspaper that Japan and China face a great deal of important opportunities to expand communication in all fields in 2008.

In his new year greetings published in the Jan. 1 edition of the "Japan and China," the organ of the Japan-China Friendship Association, Fukuda said the year 2007, which was the 35th anniversary of the normalization of ties between Japan and China, has been a year of great improvement for the bilateral relationship, during which leaders of the two countries carried out mutual visits and all kinds of activities such as those related with the "Culture and Sports Exchange Year" were successfully conducted.

Fukuda mentioned that 2008 will be the 30th anniversary of the Japan-China Treaty of Peace and Friendship. He described the bilateral relationship cemented by the treaty as an iron bridge, which is harder than the original hanging bridge set up by the Japan-China Joint Statement signed 35 years ago.

Sounds innocuous. The Chinese are very fond of joint statements. But what is this 'iron bridge'? The Chinese have been at war with Japan off and on for a long time. Like, thousands of years. When they aren't at war with weapons, they are via trade. Then they 'come together' and have furious cultural exchanges which then breaks down again. So the Chinese communists have been working on something a big less vaporous as the Rainbow Bridge to Valhalla. They want something concrete.

The Japanese like things to be more rainbow-like from their own end. They love delay and they love having a fortress. But lately, they have been forced to move due to their own financial data. The offices in charge of the financial affairs of Japan are not stupid. They know that any downturns in the US turns into catastrophe in Japan. They don't like this and they want to have a bigger base but this conflicts with China's rapid growth in power and economic heft.

Both tried to wrest power from each other last summer. Since then, negotiations have been off the record, for the most part. I know of this only because of small, arcane stories about the head of the Bank of Japan suddenly rushing over to Beijing for unpublished talks. The recent speech by the head of the Bank of China, which I covered closely, shows that the Chinese are now determined on their course. They are pretty certain, the US has reached a significant financial milestone or I would suggest, grave stone.

China and Japan are keeping things rolling still for mutual benefit. But they are preparing their life boats for launching.

China, Japan confirm new mechanism for long term reciprocal co-op

The press communique said that at the one-day dialogue meeting China and Japan had "frank" discussions of issues concerning macro-economic policies, trade and investment, climate change, environmental protection and multilateral and regional economic cooperation and the two sides agreed to release a report on their joint research about bilateral economic and trade cooperation in the long term.

Gao Hong, research fellow with the Japan Research Institute of China Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), said such bilateral all-round discussions, which enabled the two Asian powers to exchange views on policies and more importantly to fine-tune their economic, trade and energy ties, has demonstrated their intent to cement political relationship by further developing and enhancing economic and trade cooperation.

And here it is, confirmation that these negotiations are important. The Chinese had not one but several stories about this matter. This happens only when they are very happy about some outcome. The release of cheap Japanese loans for environmental repairs was pretty much a 'peace accord' from Japan. It signaled the game of last summer is done and the business of the G7 yelling at China was finished. When Paulson, our Treasury Secretary for Goldman Sachs came to China, even he didn't yell about the yuan. This is definitely a change in the wind.

I would suggest that Japan, alarmed at the looming lack of sales in the US, is triangulating. This is a natural response. Japan can't afford to constantly fall off the same cliff. They either must deal with China or China will surpass them as they fall with the US. Japan's deep debts are owed to their own people whereas the US owes Japan and China. So they have crunched the numbers and decided, it is time to move China into a new status position vis a vis, Japan.

This one day meeting is really an emergency meeting. Starting back in July, 2007, Japan and China exchanged quite few very nasty barbs. Both began this quite dangerous FOREX games which led to a banking crisis since the entire banking system in the West is predicated on the weak yen carry trade! This instantly seized up the interbanking system which has a very peculiar status quo due to the Bank of Japan's near-0% interest rates. The battle is now being resolved...by both China AND Japan creating a host of SECRET ACCORDS! Which will move them further along their chosen road. This means

China drafts law to protect state assets

China's top legislature began deliberations of its first state-owned assets law. It is designed to protect state-owned assets from being illegally seized and to maintain the country's basic economic system.

The draft state-owned assets law was submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) for first deliberation on Sunday.

The ruling party has had some rather intense meetings on the topic, 'Will we fall down the same rabbit hole Russia fell down or do we put bullets in the back of the heads of anyone seeking to loot China?' As I expected, they chose the latter course. China is still a one-party state with precious little democracy and virtually no free press but they are also led by people who are at least, not traitors. They want China strong and prosperous. And definitely, the majority of people are to see better days, not face starvation. This is simple: Germany figured this out. Starving, unhappy, small in stature, uncertain people don't make for good armies. They need strong people with healthy bodies and literate, well-educated minds if they want to protect China and see power and wealth grow.

Germany's problem was imperialism. They thought they had to conquer and rule rather than use diplomacy and other arts. The Chinese leaders read history and I don't mean, skim books. They study with fair intensity, a library of books that looks remarkably like my own. Heh. And these books clearly show how countries that crush the peasants, crush the workers, are weakened by this! The Japanese are not aware of this and are crushing their own so badly now, they are literally digging their own graves! No future generations means no more Japan.

Trade and Prosperity

Democrats have been most tempted by the protectionism. John Edwards likes to talk about how trade agreements like Nafta “have hurt workers and families while helping corporate insiders.” Senator Hillary Clinton has suggested that the economic theories underpinning the cause for free trade no longer hold, and has said she would review all of the United States’ trade agreements.

Even Republican candidates — normally staunch supporters of expanding trade — can sound skeptical. “I don’t want to see our food come from China, our oil come from Saudi Arabia and our manufacturing come from Europe and Asia,” complained Mike Huckabee. Mitt Romney defends globalization’s record of improving living standards, but cannot resist drawing an applause line by adding that the government should negotiate better with other countries to make sure “the American worker gets a fair shake.”

It would be unfortunate for the United States if the winner of the 2008 election elevated skepticism toward trade from a red-meat sound bite on the campaign trail to a new wave of protectionist policy.

The infantile debate about free trade continues. All our major corporations have outsourced like crazy. Not one of them wants to stop 'free trade' which has precious little to do with trade at all. They are all simply off shoring work and then bringing it back in and this way, they get more profit and the workers in TWO countries cease to gain benefits from this and BOTH are denied much of this capital which then flows off shore yet again...into secretive accounts from speculative ventures that pay no taxes which hammer the workers of all countries yet again. The amount of money flowing in this one-way stream that utterly bypasses the working class of every sort, is at the root of this whole mess. These same people then LEND this money to the workers at usury level rates that start low but then, on any excuse, shoot up to 30+%. Breaking up this cycle, destroying this system that has been perfected only in the last 10 years, this is life and death.

Already, China and Japan are engineering a new system, one that benefits themselves, of course. But who can blame them? They are doing what any good competitor does: make profits and expand.

The end of the American dream?

That marks a notable contrast with the 1990s, when the economic boom boosted both jobs and incomes.

The puzzle of economic expansion without significant job or wage growth has been troubling US economists and commentators of all political persuasions.

They are NOT troubled by this! If they were, they would be storming DC and yelling. They would tell their students, 'You are all doomed unless you figure out the vital importance of sharing profits with the workers!' Th American dream ended in 1974 when our currency died. Up until then, we were in the green for the most part. We were not dying under a mountain of debt, drowning in red ink! After that, we had all sorts of schemes, not one of which fixed the real problems. All were designed to kill the workers or deny them access to profits. Unions were annihilated. Going from over 40% of the work force to single digits today. Most of which are 'grandfathered' in that no one is allowed to join them in the future. They are being bought out to go home and die of old age.

The losses while profits soared in the corporate headquarters is what China fears. Japan has imitated the West except minus the 'debt to the workers' part. So the workers of Japan have terrible circumstances but at least they are not deep in debt! Except to the Yakuza, I suppose. The economic expansion in the US was actually the conquest of the US by Asia. The US thought we could do this and still rule the world but our lack of sovereign funds and now, the collapse of our banking systems, shows the fatal weaknesses. And so Merry Christmas everyone, ho-ho-ho to hell.

This graph looks like the ones from Japan, you know. This is sad. The collapse of power in the working class in America is signficant. Warning to all Ron Paul supporters: he will make this worse, much worse. I support Kucinich for this reason. Weak workers=economic collapse.

A reader sent me Dani Rodrik's blog, he is an economics professor:

I do think those items in the NYT's policy agenda have an important place on the policy agenda. My earlier book Has Globalization Gone Too Far? was largely about the need for a serious social-insurance complement to the trade agenda. But it is also time to recognize that the WTO rules need to become much more flexible to provide a better balance between international trade and domestic regulatory and other policy priorities--in other words, to assure domestic electorates that their values and preferences are not being sacrificed to the demands of some globalization agenda constructed, in any case, by a narrow elite.

The narrow elites misunderstand how wishes work. The more the wishes are granted, the quicker one ends up in damnation. The only way to evade this is to lose everything suddenly and start all over again. The rich and powerful decided they wanted infinite wealth and total control of this lovely planet of ours. They hope to eventually turn all things here to their own ends and this may mean removing most humans one way or another. The temptations of the powerful and great are tremendous. All end up at the Gates of Death, especially when they cease to be human, themselves. And that is the gravest danger of all: humanity vanishes and the love of oneself overwhelms the mind and the person goes utterly mad.

For some reason, evolution made us social creatures who need each other and who sacrifice each other for some vague common future. This is our strength. When anyone gets inside a bubble that protects them from reality, from pain, from needing to compromise or sacrifice for others, they become demons and monsters and will willingly blow up this entire planet if cornered or ill. Hitler's last orders, after all, was for everyone to commit mass suicide! The Japanese military had the exact same orders and forced many Okinawan civilians to jump off of cliffs at bayonet point. More than one crazed religious leader has made their followers commit suicide. People online talk about 'Kool Aid drinkers' all the time.

UBS to face credit crunch probe

Switzerland's Federal Banking Commission (EBK) is to investigate how UBS became one of the banking sector's worst victims of the credit crunch.

The Swiss bank has been forced to write off about $14bn (£7bn) because it owned debt linked to US mortgages.

Aw, just arrest them all. So many people committed so many crimes. As Mitt Romney said about his pirate funds that are off shore so he can betray the US and not pay taxes, 'Hey, it is all legal.' Well, we know that the banking system is collapsing due to immorality, improper behavior and the hyper-criminal desire to become filthy rich while not producing anything real or useful. Just using magic wands to make money appear from thin air.

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Comments

[Teddy]

On cursory review, the startling fact about the above chart is that ALL wage earners have failed to participate in the "productivity" growth in the last 6 years (I really think that it is more about inflation than productivity), but even scarier, the wages of the college educated workers have flatlined. So, not only have these kids had to endure the scam of no reward for their hard work of study and loss of income while attending school, but also the cost of that education which has become a scam because of inflating these costs by "financing" them.

[Elaine Supkis]

Teddy, you are so right. When I talk about things, I try to tie as many things together but this is one big bundle of non-joy. Yes, the destruction of wages has been ripping through the white collar middle class to the technician class but still has NOT reached the old timer economic professor class. Until those guys lose THEIR jobs, we won't hear NOTHING.

HAHAHA. I suspect, in 10 years, they will be replaced by Chinese economic professors lecturing about the history of communism in China.

[JSmith]

A Merry Christmas, and a happy and prosperous 2008, to all!

- J. Smith

[Elaine Supkis]

And a pompous, ooops....PROSPEROUS XMAS to you too, Mr. Grinch. Heh.

[Al]

Elaine, I would imagine the H1B visa's would be contributing to the destruction of wages here, as it moves up to the white collar workers. Paul Craig Roberts had a good column on this, there is a media fed misconception that Americans are too stupid/lazy/whatever to do scientific and engineering work. He points out that wages in those fields have dropped or stagnated over the past ten years, obviously jobs don't have their pay drop if there is a shortage of workers with growing demand.

[jbvo]

Interestingly, 1974, the year you cite as the beginning of American economic decline, was also the year the great equity bull market commenced. So, one could argue, going deeper and deeper into the red has been very good for equity prices and effectively has hidden the economic decline from most observers. Any thoughts as to when this paradox ends?

[Elaine Supkis]

The equity thing is the 'last blossom of imperial goodies'. The baby boom plus the WWII winners created great demand for certain things. The imperial dollar made the bidding for all this easy.

The way this was paid for was via debt.

[blues]

Deeper into the red.

Indeed.

Merry Christmas

Love always.

[Carli]

Merry Merry! And Happy Happy to all!

While we peer into into the prospect of the black void of tomorrow, let us take heart, for in reading these pages we are at the very least knowingly prepared for the worst. May our indomitable human spirit allow us to in our own ways work for change, while hoping for the best. We are not alone. Peace to all.

[Elaine Supkis]

I only want the best for everyone. I have a happy story to tell today. Once lost, now found, a dog's Christmas present.

[Greg]

Merry xmas Elaine and all.

[Chris]

Thank you for your fascinating, thought provoking and extremely funny news service Elaine :) Happy festive season to you and yours; and to everyone here :)