The economic crisis has hit Estonia hard. As this blog has noted, Estonia’s economic output declined at an annualized rate of 15.6% in the third quarter, and the country’s unemployment rate, at 14.6%, is a modern record for Estonia and the third highest in Europe. The only Estonian industry showing any growth at all is fisheries, and Estonian construction workers have fled to Finland in search of employment.

Today’s New York Times cites a new Moody’s report that compares a mainly European group of countries on the basis of a newly contrived misery index. This index adds together a country’s unemployment rate and its government budget deficit, calculated as a percentage of its gross domestic product. The resulting total represents the country’s misery index, which

captures the current conundrum for many countries: their economies need stimulus, but their budgets may not be able to afford it.

Estonia scores a misery index of about 18%, placing it between Portugal (less miserable) and France (more miserable) in the league tables. But Estonia is considerably less miserable than the United States and Britain, and far better off than misery leaders Spain, Latvia, and Lithuania (each close to 30%). View the complete tables here.

None of these countries is in great shape, but the figures suggest that the Estonian government has a bit more flexibility to implement economic stimulus measures than do its Baltic neighbors.

A primer from Prof. Jarrell on this important subject

Macroeconomics is the study of aggregate supply and demand, and looks both internally to the workings of the economy and externally to how a domestic economy interacts with others worldwide.

Macro builds on the principles of microeconomics, which is the study of prices and quantities of individual goods and the markets where these goods are produced and sold.

In macro, “price” refers to some index of the prices of domestic goods and services, and “quantity” refers to some measure of the value of domestic production or “output.”  One common measure of output is gross domestic product (“a measure of the productive activity of a country computed on the basis of the ownership of the factors of production”). A country’s standard of living is usually directly correlated with its real output, or the value of total output corrected for inflation.

John M Keynes

Unlike microeconomics, macroeconomics started with the idea that prices and markets do not continuously resolve all of the coordination requirements of a modern economy.   Such “failures of coordination” (Keynes) seem likely when one views the economy as the collective sum of thousands of microeconomic markets.

For example, although most economies around the world have experienced generally positive trends in their gross domestic product, short run positive and negative deviations (recessions and, in more dramatic examples of the failure of coordination, depressions) around the trend line, or “business cycles,” are common.

Inflation is the rate of change of the average level of prices, where the price level is usually measured as a price index.  Inflation rates are typically quoted in annualized percentages.  In normal times, the inflation rate is procyclical: it rises in periods of high growth and declines in periods of slow growth.  Unemployment, by contrast, is usually countercyclical.  The U. S. inflation rate was as likely to be negative as it was positive before World War II; since then, price levels have risen fairly consistently.

Financial markets play a key role in macroeconomics.  It is here that resources are collected from savers and lent to producers for investment in the real economy.  The real economy stands in contrast to the nominal (or financial or monetary) economy.  The real economy is concerned with the production and consumption of goods and services; the nominal economy deals with the trade in assets, such as monetary and financial instruments.  Physical investment, which is the acquisition of the physical means of production by firms, provides one channel by which financial markets affect the real economy.

Two fundamental approaches to macroeconomic policy have arisen, both of which are concerned with how to manage the inevitable failures of coordination between the micro units in the economy.

1. Demand side: the use of government demand to smooth out fluctuations in the economy, mainly to avoid protracted recessions.
2. Supply side: improving the efficient utilization of labor and capital resources to enhance the productive capacity of an economy.

One can also usefully separate the approaches to macroeconomic policy into laissez-faire and interventionism.  Keynesians are frequently characterized by the view that markets are imperfect and that government holds an information advantage and should engage in active policy interventions in the economic activity of the markets.

Monetarists, one the other hand, see politics and bureaucracies as barriers to government attempts to deal successfully with market failures, which they see as just one step toward a self-correcting market mechanism.

Milton Friedman

Monetarists tend to reject activist policies because of uncertainties, policy lags, and government incompetence.

Which of these two approaches are currently in favor depends on the state of our knowledge of the causes and effects in macroeconomics and also, perhaps largely, on politics.

The close link between the state of the economy and politics is summed up by the “misery index,” which has no scientific basis but so closely predicts the political fortunes of incumbent governments that most believe it does contain substantive information about the electorates’ views on how well the government has managed the economy.

The misery index is the sum of the inflation rate and the rate of unemployment, two measures of national performance that are easily understood and monitored by the voting public.  Incumbents tend to be thrown out when the misery index is rising.   Economies are alike in that they hold their governments responsible for the health of the economy.   Where they differ is in how hands-on the government should be (a “normative,” as opposed to a “positive,” statement) in making things better!

By Sherry Jarrell

Two weeks until we start tracking drums. Hibernation has ended, and the record is coming together as we tie up loose ends, shift some lyrics around, add a few solos, and finalize the concepts.

Right now we are going with “Heirs to Thievery” as the “working” title, but will decide soon on that and the final track list around the new year. The thread that binds several songs lyrically surrounds ideas of hidden history, how we interpret our nation, and our idea of who we are culturally and collectively, as it is generally handed down to us in terms of icons, wars, struggles and triumph.

Mostly, it is the tropes in selective history that give us a sense of identity and validate how we came about as a nation and people (as outlined in any high school US history textbook). However, like all nations, there is good and bad, and we often only get one side of the story. So we have the (presumed) title track “Heirs to Thievery.” This is a line admittedly borrowed from the great punk philosopher Chris Hannah, however it is exploded into a miniature run-though of sorts of Howard Zinn’s amazing and detailed A People’s History of the United States, where thinking critically and asking pertinent historical questions often calls to attention many of the sad and ugly events in our history that are often swept under the rug.

Furthermore, it explores the somewhat shadowed history of our country (and Canada as well) that put so much wealth into the treasury’s coffers throughout the 1800’s (and beyond) through conquest, forced expulsion, murder, and westward expansion as the nation experimented with colonial ventures and other forms of appropriation.

Let us not ignore these events, no matter how ugly they may be, and no matter how deeply the cognitive dissonance may shatter prevailing conceptions of a pure and noble history. Let us learn and reconcile, no matter how seemingly inconsequential or glaringly obvious the transgressions may be, so that we may never again do such wrongs in the name of liberty or _______ .

“From Grande to St Lawrence, a nascent power heaved
Monroe Doctrine, Manifest Destiny decreed
Push to the Pacific, across the open sea
Eliminate the natives (and leave them a museum)

Expansion had an engine- the slavery of man
In poverty those masses, tilled a broken land
As pious, grand deciders, sent armies far abroad
From Cuba to Manila,  we finally had a cause”

Moody’s, the international financial ratings agency, has provided an interesting international comparison of financial misery (as reported by finfacts.ie and LA Times).  The misery index is a metric which adds a country’s fiscal deficit to the unemployment rate, which Moody’s suggests highlights the financial hole that a country finds itself in and its attractiveness to sovereign debt issuers.  Their analysis suggests that sovereign debt has the potential to create the next ’subprime’ crisis in the coming year as some countries edge towards defaulting on their debt payments.  Countries such as Spain, Greece, Ukraine, Austria, Latvia and Mexico are seen at risk of defaulting due to their Debt to GNP ratio.   Ireland’s debt to GNP ratio in Dec 2008 was 32.5% (up from 23.3% in 2007), still quite a way short of the 60% threshold where defaulting becomes more likely (I couldn’t find a 2009 figure), but the fact that it’s on the rise means that it’s perceived as a risky investment, pushing up the cost to the government of borrowing money.  If one was to follow Fintan O’Toole’s diagnosis of the Irish crisis it would be interesting to explore how many of these nations are ‘democratically immature’.

Rob Kitchin

After another week out of town (this time visiting a cold, rainy and surprisingly un-Florida like Tampa Bay), I am back home and once more back in the songwriting fray. We have 10 solid tunes now. Shaping up to be a great mixed batch of grinders and groovers, that somehow go together, reflecting all member’s varied musical interests. Its looking like we now have these guys, but a formal announcement will be made with the correct listing and album title in a few weeks:

1. Embracing Extinction
2. The Carrion Call
3 Heirs to Thievery
4. Plague of Objects (formerly Consensual Hallucination)
5. Fed to the Wolves
6. You Lose
7.  The Spectator
8. Sleeping Giants
9.  Illuminaught
10.  ? Untititled ?

Currently finishing the lyrics to “Fed to the Wolves“….I remember when I was in high school, the urgency that was placed on us to not only compete and prepare for the ‘working world’ or university, but the horrid formality of it all, the way in which the imagination and original thinking was so suffocated by the assembly line-like process of the modern teaching method (perhaps this is what some studies somewhere have show to be effective?)

Of course, the varied student and teacher backgrounds (and competence levels) differ greatly across a nation of hundreds of millions, and teachers are sometimes forced to choose their battles given limited time and resources. However, there must be a more creative way in the mix somewhere? Some Dead Poet’s Society kind of shit?!

I suppose its an idealistic vision (what other visions are worth anything!?),  but the track “Fed to the Wolves” is a lamentation of sorts, decrying the mechanical nature of formal, secondary education processes. Many enjoy it and find it works, but in my view, there is a unnecessary focus on the eradication of creativity in the human mind, at a very crucial developmental stage. The adolescent brain is vibrant, soaking up the challenges of adulthood incessantly (like during a heated game of “Grand Theft Auto!”), as each day brings new perspectives and ways of understanding the world, in often contradictory and shattering ways.

This is to me, why those days “seemed to last forever”(in the immortal words of Bryan Adams) and you could never get to 18 fast enough, because each day upended the previous day’s notion of what is and what is not possible!

So, at the end of the indoctrination process, some start on the secondary journey of life a bit more molded, and a bit less of a dreamer, cause the world outside indeed eats dreamers alive. And so goes the trajectory of “Fed to the Wolves…”

“Imagination crushed, like misspent youth
Conformity reigns, where brilliance once thrived”

Nation-Building in Afghanistan Instead of at Home Will Produce New ‘Misery Index’

Congressional Democrats Beware: Unemployment at Home + Casualties Abroad = Defeat at the Polls in 2010

By Tom Andrews Dec. 3, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

President Obama’s decision to nation-build in Afghanistan in the midst of the worst economic recession since the Great Depression is likely to produce a new Misery Index for Americans: The escalating numbers of dead and wounded American soldiers in Afghanistan PLUS the likely high level of unemployed Americans at home. For Congressional Democrats, the Misery Index could add up to big trouble at the polls in November 2010.

Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan coined the term “misery index” as a very effective way to focus attention on the Carter administration’s double barrel headache in 1980: rising unemployment and inflation. President Obama’s decision to double down on a failing Afghanistan strategy by ordering an immediate military escalation is likely to present Democratic Congressional candidates with a Misery Index of their own in 2010.

President Obama wants to rush the troops that General McCrystal has requested for Afghanistan as soon as possible so that they can be in place for the so-called spring “fighting season”. The significantly larger military footprint of foreign forces will, inevitably, swell the ranks of Taliban fighters who have been successfully using the presence of these forces as their most potent recruitment weapon. The result is not hard to predict: a significant spike in US casualties in Afghanistan in the summer and fall of 2010 at precisely the time that Members of Congress are facing voters in the 2010 elections…..
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/12/03-

"All You Can Eat" As Cultural Norm

For a supposedly superior species, we are very clever at doing ourselves in…

We (Misery Index) are due in the studio in 4 weeks to begin recording our fourth album, I think I will have the title straight by then, but for now there is another song I have been working on that Mark wrote, a Tragedy meets Napalm Death ripper called “Embracing Extinction.”

I have long been fascinated with the inventive ways humanity has progressed since the Enlightenment, to the scientific revolutions of the last century- yet at the same time we developed ever more innovative ways to destroy ourselves. Some were intentional – like nuclear weapons- but some were simply side-effects of our uniquely gluttonous nature. Since the 18th Century (give or take a few decades), the global spread of capitalism ultimately reached such deep, all-penetrating levels, that its “creatively destructive” nature defined by a cycle of relentless production and consumption threatened to have us choke on our own industrial excrement. Wiping out other species, bulldozing forests, and poisoning the oceans were just the start. What is next? “Green Capitalism” is still profit-driven, and although noble, it is perhaps too little too late….

“We process the facts, and choke on the math
Yet we can’t come to terms with ourselves
Gorge belly up to the table of wants
Its “all you can eat,”  after all!

Embracing extinction, what higher form of life,
Destroys his creations? …how far we’ve come to fall!”

As we close in on the recording, I am going to use this sacred medium to mete out some lyrical themes for the upcoming record…

Neuromancer

I.  Consensual Hallucination

“Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts… A graphic representation of data abstracted from banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding.” – from Neuromancer. (WIlliam Gibson 1984)

That was written in 1984. As prescient as Gibson was and is, he only alluded to the pan-optic depths to which that now seemingly archaic term “cyberspace” ultimately expanded, and still expands. To me, a more contemporaneous definition of a  ‘consensual hallucination’ would refer to the collective illusions we experience as a social species interacting not just with ourselves in everyday life, but through technological and synthetically intelligent mediators that intercede, interject, and create new communicative spaces among us hue-mans.

Here, the giving over, or consensual relegation of our self-consciousness to such insidious intermediaries constitutes an erratic  reconstruction of social relations, as we rely more upon secondary and tertiary spaces for social expression, interactivity, and relationship development. This is not necessarily a bad thing, it perhaps could be viewed alternatively as more of fracturing of the social landscape, wherein the previous channels of communication revolving around simply ‘getting to know’ others, is exploded into radical new arenas of interpretation, as humans develop ever more clever ways to technologically masturbate their ego.

Second lives and third lives existing online and elsewhere sprout up as digital doppelgängers, putting up more and more walls between interpretations of the self, and the self itself- hovering in its simplified existence, way back in that (comparatively) limiting and lonely cavern known as the human mind. Yet out in that world of illusions, in some extended way, we externalize our consciousness to interact with others, and build the ever hyped ‘crowd- sourced’ brain, from which the full potential of collective human consciousness can finally engage in that perpetual orgy of knowledge, that we dream is somehow happening.

Yet back on the paved concrete streets of reality, we still have lonely hearts, and rainy days.

Yes, D is My Final Answer

Thanks to Dave from Relapse for snapping this. I guess “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” decided not to use “American Death Metal band Hailing from Maryland” as the proper form of the question.

A long time ago (which doesn’t seem very long to me) our country was in a state of economic malaise.  A profligate tax-and-spend Congress and an economically indifferent President conspired to create the conditions for a serious recession, one that combined economic stagnation with punishing inflation (“stagflation”).

The pundits came up with a graphic term that just about said it all:  the Misery Index.  This (non-scientific) index combined the inflation rate with the unemployment rate.  While the inflation rate today is relatively low, the economists warn us that our boundless government borrowing and debt will bring the clouds of inflation and higher interest rates soon.  It is to be expected, therefore, that the media will reprise the Misery Index in the near future.

For us ordinary people, so remote from the U. S. Capitol and its bizarre happenings, the Misery Index didn’t mean that much.  What we noticed were the grocery clerks changing the food prices (up) every day.  If our employers happened to transfer us to another city, the economic effects on real estate sales and mortgage rates shocked us to the core.  For those of us fortunate enough to move under a generous employer relocation policy, that shock was greatly ameliorated.  For others not so lucky, such a transfer amounted to a sharp reduction in standard of living or an invitation to try to find another job.

However similar the recession economy is today versus that earlier time, there was an encouraging difference back then.  The succeeding President and Congress must have felt at least a little bit of the pain of the people.  In a refreshing difference of approach, they implemented new laws and policies actually designed to increase jobs and to slow down and eventually reduce the soaring inflation.  The results of this enlightened legislation were not vague and shadowy activities taking place among politicians in capitals of far-away states.  They were open, obvious and  even our family had an opportunity to participate in the nation’s economic recovery in a small way.

I had a lifelong fascination with airplanes and aviation, and this opportunity was tailor made for our family.  Among the recovery measures that Congress and the President implemented was a 10% Investment Tax Credit (ITC) on the purchase of qualifying new equipment for businesses.  Another, related, tax feature was an Accelerated Cost Recovery System (ACRS).  The former provided a tax credit (!) of ten percent of the purchase price of newly manufactured qualifying equipment.  The latter allowed such equipment to be fully depreciated in five years.

Fixed Base Operators (FBOs) at airports, and flying schools (which were frequently a part of an FBO operations), were desperate for replacement rental and training aircraft.  Nervous investors were reluctant to invest in aircraft during the recession, and a liability insurance issue made them even more standoffish.  Because of exceedingly high awards to plaintiffs in aircraft mishap suits, the manufacturers’ price of light aircraft was inflated by 30%—the cost of liability insurance (do we hear a medical malpractice echo today?).  Nevertheless, the time was ripe for our family to go into the aircraft leasing business.

My paycheck was all the income we had, and we did not have anywhere near enough savings to buy a new airplane.  But we had good credit, barely enough discretionary income to handle the monthly payments, and we could really use some tax deductions (home mortgage interest was our only one at the time).  So we took the risk.

I had researched the various types of airplanes within our means that could also serve as family transportation some day.  My wife and younger son then interviewed owners and managers of a number of FBOs and flight schools (because my job required me to be away on business quite a bit of the time).  We settled on a Piper Archer.  The Archer is a four-seat, low wing, fixed-landing-gear, propeller-driven airplane powered by a four-cylinder gasoline engine. In short, it was simple enough for flight training yet was in demand for rental by less-experienced pilots (especially those with less-deep pockets).

We placed the order, making a small down payment, and waited for delivery.  Of course, a number of our friends, and many of my coworkers, thought I was having a mid-life crisis or was working on a ticket to a psychiatric facility.  My wife and son and I also had a few nagging doubts—would the plane actually be rented for the expected number of hours each month; would the maintenance cost run true to expectations for this model; could Congress and the President capriciously rescind the legislation before we had gotten the tax benefits; etc.  But we kept a happy face, and we proceeded with plans for a christening party in the hanger of the FBO who would handle the day-to-day business details and also perform the maintenance.

One day the expected phone call came from our FBO, and we rushed to the airport, 15 minutes away, to see our shiny new airplane investment.  It was a mixture of excitement, wonder and apprehension.  But we now had a natural grin to help keep our happy faces; and we mailed the invitations to our christening party.

This christening party should have been covered by the society reporters of the local newspapers, because it was a blast enjoyed by all and because it was unique.  An aircraft christening party  normally is the purview of a Nancy Pelosi celebrating among her high-dollar supporters the arrival of her new $40 million Gulfstream personal luxury jet.

In fact, our christening party for a Piper Archer caught the attention of the Piper Aircraft Company, and they sent two factory pilots to investigate this curiosity.  Once those pilots convinced themselves that we were real, and that we were just celebrating a somewhat risky (for us, at least) business venture and being new aircraft owners, they joined in the spirit of party.  Both pilots volunteered to take turns treating any guests who wanted to go to a short flight in the new airplane.  Among those short hops was one with my wife and son, with me at the controls beside the factory pilot—my first flying lesson since I was 17.

The only awkward thing about that party was a champagne fountain that stood high in the center of the snacks table in this immaculate, white-floored hanger.  Sparkling white grape juice circulated through the fountain, and guests wandered over to the table to fill a plastic champagne glass from time to time.  But one of the Piper factory pilots pulled me aside to ask, “is there a drinking fountain or soda machine around here; I’m getting really thirsty”.  I pointed to the champagne fountain, but he shook his head and whispered, “It’s against FAA regulations to drink alcohol before flying”.  My 17-year-old son, who was eavesdropping, quickly said, “It’s grape juice—that’s why I can drink it!”  We all had a good laugh,  the owner of the FBO read “High Flight” to the crowd, and we christened the plane (with a fake bottle of champagne, of course).  Everyone seemed to enjoy this truly unusual  party.

The airplane performed flawlessly and it was rented as much as we would allow.  Our family enjoyed the 10% tax credit, plus 22% depreciation, in the first year; it even turned out that the President and Congress had not spoken with forked tongues.  In the next four years we did capture the remainder of the depreciation, and eventually we made that final loan payment to the bank.  At last we were unfettered aircraft owners!  But, of course, just as Nature abhors a vacuum, the government abhors financial happiness.

Soon after that last payment, with the stroke of an Executive pen we were defined to the IRS as “Passive Investors”—meaning we were not actually at the desk, examining pilot credentials, collecting money, and handing over the keys to the airplane each time it was rented.  Therefore, we could no longer deduct maintenance costs, taxes, and other operating costs on our tax return (but of course the IRS demanded the full taxes on gross rental income).  The government giveth, and the government taketh away; and at that point our aircraft rental business retired due to terminal government disease.  But we did have one consolation prize:  a  fully depreciated airplane (which was approaching its 2500 hour engine and propeller major overhaul).  My wife, my son and I all learned to fly and we were, in fact, free to enjoy our plane for a period of time (until another economic squeeze came along).

Is there any moral hidden within this story?  Not particularly, other than never trust Great Father in Washington and his or her 535 Congressional Cousins.  The story does illustrate an extremely rare occurrence:  legislation that is accurately portrayed to the public, performs its intended function, and encourages or tolerates extended economic growth.  This happens probably less frequently than total eclipses of the sun.  But in that period described, the legislation eventually powered an economic boom that continued across three succeeding presidencies.  Naturally,  at that point a profligate tax-and-spend Congress and an economically indifferent President conspired to create the conditions for . . .

Just in case anyone likes to get “social” you know, like socialism and all, and talk to other people and argue with them, and use the interweb in ever more inventive ways, we, me, and the band have thrown up a new Message board, check it out and flame away!

The numbers told the sad story of the Jimmy Carter presidency: interest rates of 21%; inflation at 13.5%, and an unemployment rate of 7%.  And a relatively new economic device called “the misery index” – the combination of the unemployment and inflation rates which Carter had himself used to great effect in his 1976 campaign to win election – was at a shocking 20.5%.

And those who went through those dark and difficult times may soon be looking back to that period as “the good old days.”

Welcome back, Carter.

When Ronald Reagan took office from Jimmy Carter, inflation was at a meteoric 13.3% and the country was in the throes of a fierce recession. There was a real question as to whether workers’ wages would keep up with the costs of living, which made people afraid to either spend or save. And nobody knew how to control inflation – which had risen from 1.4% in 1960 to the aforementioned 13.3% in 1980 – causing a real erosion of confidence in the future. Jimmy Carter answered a reporter’s question as to what he would do about the problem of inflation by answering, “It would be misleading for me to tell any of you that there is a solution to it.”

But Ronald Reagan had a solution.  And by the time he left office, he had solved the problem of creeping inflation increases and had actually reversed the trend: he left behind a healthy inflation rate of 4.1%.

Reagan’s policies set the trajectory for growth that would last for 20 years.

And the only thing that could truly destroy the fruit of Reagan’s policies was the coming of another Jimmy Carter.

Inflation Inevitable, Rogers Says: Could Be “Much Worse” Than the 1970s
Posted Oct 12, 2009

Given the Fed’s extremely easy policies, runaway government spending and shortages of many commodities, inflation pressures are building and destined to get much worse, according to famed investor Jim Rogers of Rogers Holdings.

“The Federal Reserve has laid the groundwork for some serious inflation down the road by printing all this money,” Rogers says. “So have many other central banks.”

Although “the U.S. government lies about inflation” in its official data, inflationary pressures are already evident in nearly everything, excluding energy, Rogers says. Inflation is “going to continue, going to accelerate,” he says. “We’re going to be paying more for just about everything down the road.”

Asked if he foresees a 1970s-style stagflation period ahead, Rogers chuckled and gave an ominous reply: “I hope it’s that good. It might be much, much worse.”

Given that view, Rogers remains very bullish on commodities as we discuss in subsequent clips.

You don’t massively increase the money supply (by running printing presses night and day) without consequences.  But that is exactly what we’ve done.  “The money supply was increased from $600 billion in 2000 to $800 billion in 2007.   This year, it has risen from $800 billion to $1.7 trillion! (Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis).”  And we aint seen nothin’ yet, as the Fed is planning a 15-fold increase in the monetary base.  Actions have consequences.  And the crazier and more irresponsible the action, the worse and more dramatic the consequences.

The National Inflation Association released a statement back in March following the passage of the massive $3.27 trillion stimulus porker:

“The United States today is in a short-term deflationary phase caused by forced liquidations, de-leveraging, going out of business sales, and other temporary factors.

It is our belief that the monetary policies of the Federal Reserve and United States Treasury will soon put an end to this deflationary phase, and we will see massive inflation in the U.S. that could ultimately lead to Zimbabwe-style Hyperinflation.

The U.S. has lost more than 2.8 million jobs since the passage of the stimulus bill and its promise of “shovel ready projects” that was supposed to prevent unemployment from going over 8%.  It failed to create jobs, but only massively increased our debt.

This country is going to go for a ride, and it won’t be a fun one.

Retaliate

Apparently, in an effort to boost the bottom line, Nuclear Blast Records licensed our debut 2003 album “Retaliate” to Poland’s label that puts out old crap no one cares about anyway reissue label extraordinaire: Metal Mind Productions. Perhaps because in a few short years (in 2012), the rights to the album are supposed to revert back to us (we will see), and we wanted to redo it ourselves with bonus tracks, remastering etc, as part of a larger discography collection. Either way, its done, and although they asked us directly for some bonus-goodies, we declined. So before any potential fans shell out there precious Lira and Rubles, just know that there is nothing at all new or different about this glorified “reissue,” except for the fact that it is in a digipak, and some guy wrote a praiseworthy essay on the band. Other than that, you can dig and get a copy dirt cheap on Ebay or elsewhere. Additionally, if anyone is looking for our other out-of-print releases (Overthrow, Dissent etc) we are in the process of putting the discography together, and it should be out by the end of the year, just in time for Kwanzaa.

More specifically, I love it when brand-new American bands drop bitchin’ EPs. No more than 15 minutes of undiluted, unadulterated, raw “essence.” It’s how I got into Misery Index oh so many years ago (Overthrow), how I discovered Baroness in my smoky college days (Grey Sigh In A Flower Husk, actually their third EP, and a split at that, but the best of their pre-Red Album stuff), how I found Stonecutters last month (Christhammer, I guess, is technically a full-length, but it’s free, barely produced, and could’ve been half as long with the same effect, so eat a dick), and how I heard Howl this evening.

This is the good shit, homie: Pounding, deliberate, a lil’ bit technical, and in a refreshing twist, groovy without the rehashed southern or stoner riffs. Out of the modern sludge bands (and I use that term loosely), they’re the most similar to Baroness, with the same meandering quality to the songwriting (in a good way) only much heavier than even the Second EP—and I don’t think there’s a chance Howl will pull out a bluegrass solo or turn up the indie influences on their first Relapse full-length. The three-song EP is streaming on their MySpace.

The sludgy American metal sound is really coming into its own—it’s like we’re in a brave new world, the post-Mastodon-and-High-on-Fire era, where heaps of new bands model themselves after these druggy luminaries to varying degrees of success. Howl seems to be a cut above that fray, and I’ll most certainly be checking them out at the Middle East next month with Goatwhore (!), Eyehategod(!!), and Anal Cunt(!!!).

~Liam

P.S. I bet you anything that at least one of the members went to RISD. An-ee-thing!

P.P.S. Speaking of which, did MySpace just start adding pop-up adds to their music player, or have I just not been paying attention? Fuckers!

We played a show in Brooklyn, NY, last night. It was fun, but the venue and vibe was unspectacular, except for the chance to see some friends and check out the view of Manhattan from the East River across the street from the bar. We made our presence known over the evening, carrying on in grand revelry at a nearby pub all the way until the city’s oh-so-sweet 5AM closing time…

Just out, looking forward to reading “Adland: Searching for the Meaning of Life on a Branded Planet.” I thought that advertising had completely saturated our metal environment years ago, when the product placement crap in movies began appearing (ahh remember that awesome 2 hour Fed-Ex commercial called “Cast Away?”), or when you had to look at adverts even when enjoying that sacrosanct private moment of taking a piss at the local bar. But Zeus knows, that those Mad-Ad Men will not stop until they colonize every waking moment in our lives…and then some.

Also, its that time of the year again. The NHL hockey season starts in coming weeks, and YET we have an NFL preview from Decibel Magazine? Yeah, yeah…attrition sport-snoozefest. Why no Decibel Magazine NHL hockey preview? Do they not know that hockey is THE most metal sport in the nation, if not the world? The previews from all the puck-thirsty Canucks, Swedes, and Finns in noteworthy metal bands would be stellar! Come on, guys, get with the brutality on the ice! The blurb on that guy from Willowtip records who DJs the Penguins games a while back was only the start, and by the way, even George from Cannibal Corpse knows that Crosby sucks!

I’ve been thinking the following amazing and totally ironic thing. Humankind’s primary worry has always been being able to feed themselves. The satisfaction of this foundamental need has been taken for granted, at least for the “western” world, since at least the first decade following the second world war. Once people managed to secure their feeding, and took food for granted, they went on to value other things more and more. So today if you ask someone what they would take with them on a deserted island, that would probably be “a laptop” or an “i pod”  instead of things that would secure their nutrition. With the great importance of technology in our lives, we now consider food of secondary importance.

Countries or regions specialised in agriculture are condemned to under-development because agricultural goods are not high value-added goods. We value bread and vegetables less than mp3s etc. so it takes increasingly more vegetables to afford an mp3 player. It makes sense. Also even countries with a comparative advantage in making computers can also have a comparative advantage vis a vis poor agricultural countries, because the former can substitute labour force with machines and genetically modified crops and produce even cheaper goods!

And here is the irony…! Almost two centuries of capitalism favoured technology which promised to people access to ample and cheap food necessary for their survival. At the same time though, tachnology has led to an unprecedented level of nature’s destruction. That compromises the primary human need, i.e. feeding! And ironically we are now forced to buy more and more expensive food (organic products) to satisfy out basic need, which is to feed without running the risk of dying from it (genetically modified products). All this technological progress is gradually making us realise that what’s important is “living” and not “earning”. It would be fun (and even more ironic) to see poor countries that remain agricultural prosper in the future, because of their capacity to (organicaly) produce what others have been taking for granted!

And I started thinking of these things after I picked the latest “Misery Index” album and read the first sentence on the lyric sheet…

“Only after the last tree has been cut down, only after the last river has been poisoned, only after the last fish has been caught, only then will you find money cannot be eaten.”- Cree Indian Prophecy

We have a twitter page, I do the updates. I still do not see the complete use of the tool, but given its burgeoning cultural relevance (or seeming) I go on there and post updates when appropriate. No “Hey I am taking a shower!”. “Now I am eating a pear!”…just the good stuff. You know like “Adam and Mark vomited all over the bus tonight, LOL!”….or something like that.

http://twitter.com/MiseryIndex

So this is a new approach. Demockery 3.0 on WordPress. Why? Its easier for me to use on the road, has previews, organization, and commentary options, not that such a thing is needed in the this dark corner of webtopia, and its just an option after all (feel free to exercise it, just like voting for your favorite American Idol contestant!).

As for me, I have been home, the recent tour was the final round of “Traitors” dates for Misery Index, and now we are entering the funner-than-anything “writing phase.” This is where we go back to our normal lives, and learn to understand why we really enjoy being on the road after all. Its back to work, the same old shit, and although some normalcy is welcome, it just gets banal after a month at home. We love Maryland, but really, the horizon ahead of the van is the real reason we do this. So, in order to make that next round of touring a bit more fun, we will write some new material over these increasingly cool autumn months, and get our collective fill of the new season of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” (Yes there is something more than remotely watchable while waiting for the next season of Lost to come around—although I can remember when the two universes crossed).

So with that, I begin Demockery 3.o, hosted once more on a third party site. These are just words after all, so no glamorous content overload necessary, if it ever was. I will still spew the fire and the brimstone, and intermingle tour diaries with sporadic cultural and political commentary – hopefully now with more frequent updates. I will also try and re-up some of the more interesting commentary from the last few years as I get this version going.

Finally, Demockery is also 10 years old now, hard to believe it was a back then in 99 when this started on the old Yahoo Geocities (!) site, before “blogging” even had a name. Ok, thats it for now, more updates over the next few days as I figure this thing out. J

Welcome Back, Carter

By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Milestone: Thirty years after Jimmy Carter’s malaise speech, we return to the days of rising joblessness, an unresponsive economy, deference to dictators, gutting the military and an energy policy tilting at windmills.

On July 15, 1979, President James Earl Carter gave what has become known as the malaise speech. He didn’t actually use that term. Instead, he spoke of “a crisis in confidence” . . . that struck at the spirit of our national will.

He spoke of an energy crisis that was “the moral equivalent of war” but advocated an energy policy that was the practical equivalent of doing nothing. He spoke of our “intolerable dependence on foreign oil” and of “the crucial goal of 20% of our energy coming from solar power by the year 2000.”

Carter and cardigan, managing malaise in ‘77.

He warned against going down “the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others.” He decried our tendency “to worship self-indulgence and consumption.” Sacrifice would save us while we shared the wealth.

If this sounds familiar, it should.

Barack Obama said during his presidential run: “We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times . . . and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK.”

The Obama administration’s policies constitute a promise kept.

Carter asked us “to take no unnecessary trips, to use carpools or public transportation whenever you can, to park your car one extra day per week, to obey the speed limit and to set your thermostats to save fuel.” And don’t forget your cardigan sweater as you huddle in front of your fireplace.

With the help of solar energy and alternative energy sources like his ill-fated Synthetic Fuels Corp., Carter said, “the battlefield of energy we can win for our nation a new confidence, and we can seize control again of our common destiny.” Yes, we can.

Except we didn’t. We didn’t exploit our abundant domestic resources to increase supply, and the economy suffered. At the end of Carter’s only term, the numbers told the sad story of his presidency: interest rate, 21%; inflation, 13.5%; unemployment, 7%.

Then there was the misery index, the combination of the unemployment and inflation rates that Carter used to great effect in his 1976 campaign to win election. Four years later it stood at 20.5%.

The stimulus package has failed to stimulate as trillions of dollars of debt are being laid upon our children and grandchildren as we build turtle tunnels and try to save marsh mice.  The Obama administration is trying to get money into the economy instead of leaving it where it was in the first place through tax cuts. As we near double-digit unemployment, it is failing as Carter failed, and the cry goes up: Where are the jobs?

On energy, we leave hundreds of billions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas trapped in the ground and offshore places like bankrupt California while we pursue alternative energy like wind and, once again, solar.

When Reagan replaced Carter, he found planes that couldn’t fly and ships that couldn’t sail for want of parts and maintenance. Defense is again being gutted with programs like the F-22 Raptor being tossed aside and Reagan’s SDI missile shield being gutted.

Carter’s belief in diplomacy gave us Ayatollah Khomeini. It was a regime that held American hostages for 444 days. The Obama administration shares Carter’s fondness for thugs like Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose nation goes nuclear while we make nice.

As history repeats itself on the anniversary of the speech MSNBC’s Chris Matthews wrote, we wonder if the “Hardball” host, who has worked for four Democratic politicians, is still getting tingles up his legs.

The Democratic Party apparently has learned nothing in the past three decades.

Will we see a return of the misery index?

The only thing that’s different is the sweater.

The “Misery Index,” is was initiated by economist Arthur Okun, during the Johnson administration.  It’s calculated by simply adding the unemployment rate and the inflation rate.  Currently the number stands at 8.12 (thru 5/09), most of this is due to unemployment because right now inflation is very low.  It will be interesting to see what happens to this figure further into President Obama’s administration – when the Fed has to start printing money to pay for Obama’s stimulus package.  George Melloan of the WSJ, opined in February of this year:

The Obama administration and Congress will call on Ben Bernanke at the Fed to demand that he create more dollars — lots and lots of them. The Fed already is talking of buying longer-term Treasurys to support the market, so it will be more of the same — much more.

And what will be the result? Well, the product of this sort of thing is called inflation. The Fed’s outpouring of dollar liquidity after the September crash replaced the liquidity lost by the financial sector and has so far caused no significant uptick in consumer prices. But the worry lies in what will happen next.

Even when the economy and the securities markets are sluggish, the Fed’s financing of big federal deficits can be inflationary. We learned that in the late 1970s, when the Fed’s deficit financing sent the CPI up to an annual rate of almost 15%. That confounded the Keynesian theorists who believed then, as now, that federal spending “stimulus” would restore economic health.

Inflation is the product of the demand for money as well as of the supply. And if the Fed finances federal deficits in a moribund economy, it can create more money than the economy can use. The result is “stagflation,” a term coined to describe the 1970s experience. As the global economy slows and Congress relies more on the Fed to finance a huge deficit, there is a very real danger of a return of stagflation. I wonder why no one in Congress or the Obama administration has thought of that as a potential consequence of their stimulus package.

What’s really good?

This is probably slightly old, but the offer still stands. Relapse Records is having a sale in honor of Maryland Deathfest 2009 online. All performing Relapse titles are 20% off. That includes Misery Index, Atheist, Brutal Truth, Pig Destroyer, Cephalic Carnage, and more.

All performing non-Relapse titles are 15% off. This includes bands such as General Surgery, Napalm Death, Cattle Decapitation, and Bolt Thrower.

If you actually buy music, you need to hit this offer up.

-JR