Morning Audibles 7.14.10 - Storm the Bastille

Let's STORM THE BASTILLE! (18th century version of "let's TORCH THE JOINT")...

I suppose it would be rare for something like that to occur nowadays... After all, it wasn't so much intellectual "dissatisfaction" that prompted a revolution, it was HUNGER...


During the reign of Louis XVI, France faced a major economic crisis...


There are ample volumes of history written about the events which led to the eventual FLASHPOINT(S)... The "Storming of the Bastille" being actually the 3rd in the sequence (Interestingly, the Bastille, a prison, only held 7 prisoners at the time, but it it what it "represented" (peasants vs. royalty) that made it important... Factually though, it was more STRATEGIC in that it housed an arsenal of weapons (which is really what the mobs were after)...


During the public demonstrations that started on 12 July the multitude displayed busts of Necker and of Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans. The crowd clashed with the Royal German Cavalry Regiment ("Royal-Allemande") between the Place Vendôme and the Tuileries Palace. The Royal commander, Baron de Besenval, fearing the results a blood bath amongst the poorly armed crowds or defections amongst his own men, withdrew the cavalry towards Sèvres. Meanwhile, unrest was growing among the people of Paris who due to their hostility against the Fiscal Legislation of State's Farmers, started attacking customs posts blamed for causing increased food and wine prices. The people of Paris started to plunder any place where food, guns and supplies could be hoarded. The next day, on 13 July, rumours spread that supplies were being hoarded at Saint-Lazare, a huge property of the clergy, which functioned as convent, hospital, school and even as a jail. An angry mob broke in and plundered the property, seizing 52 wagons of wheat which were taken to the public market. That same day multitudes of people plundered many other places including weapon arsenals. The Royal troops did nothing to stop the spreading of social chaos in Paris...


With 40,000,000 Americans on FOOD stamps (that's about 1 in 9 as you stand in a checkout line and look around you), at least most are getting FED (which is why they're not FED UP, yet)... Likely, that same one that is getting fed in this manner is banging out text messages to their friends on an electronic device that requires a vast array of microchips to get the message from one tomato can, through the string, and to another tomato can...


Of course we, like, know, like, OMG, that like, that message, is like, sooooooooooo important... We probably also know that those devices are going to be like, totally ancient  in like, 6 months, and like, OMG, it would be so like, embarrassing to have anything but like the most rad new model...


So this little fable is CV's "feeble" attempt to connecting the events of July 14th, 1789 with INTC's "record" quarter (and how to understand that, and QUANTIFY it in the slow motion train wreck that is the American economy)... Ironically, one of the reasons that the French economy was so bad back in that time was because of the money it lent to the United States in its war of independence from the British Empire...


More well spent capital...


Retail sales coming up at 8:30...


Let's see how OTHER "geniuses" are spending their capital (and/or PHD's "cooking books" to make it appear as if it's being spent wisely)...