Leapfrog at Quiksilver : Mooney out, Agnes in
Déjà vu all over again. That’s the only way to describe the shifting of the deck chairs on the Titanic…sorry, the executive reshuffle at Quiksilver.
After little more than two years at the helm, former Disney licensing suit Andy Mooney got shown the door last Friday and the salts marched back into the boardroom, global president Pierre Agnes becoming CEO, Torquay-based Greg Healy moving into the president’s office, while US co-founder Bob McKnight came back from God’s waiting room as chairman. Not that McKnight had gone very far away during the Mooney experiment: I’m told that he never actually vacated his comfy big office overflowing with sports memorabilia.
While some Quik watchers (including this correspondent) could not see the point of Mooney from the outset, the market liked him and his plan to cut spending and develop new revenue streams through licensing the brand for a little while, sending ZQK up over eight bucks until it plummeted back down to the twos after a string of quarterly losses and the realisation that sacking the surf team (including Kelly) maybe wasn’t the best way to fix the balance sheet. It’s not clear what the market thinks of the back to the future plan yet, although the stock dipped as low as $1.90 in after hours trading following the Mooney announcement.
Regardless of the fact that McKnight has contributed much to the company’s growth over nearly 40 years, bringing him back as a steward in response to yet another fiscal crisis – current year guidance slashed from its December prediction – will be seen by the market for what it is, an attempted retreat in desperation to core values that no longer really exist for the brand. And let’s not forget that over the past 14 years since he sold Frenchman Bernard Mariette to his board to begin the Quiksilver-Rossignol era (and that was the name of the company for a brief moment in time), the McKnight stewardship has limped from one disaster to another.
But an even stranger move is the installation of former team rider and store manager Pierre Agnes as chief executive officer of an American public company. At a time when what Quiksilver arguably needs in the top job is a headkicker like Chainsaw Al Dunlap, they’ve got some one whose only qualifications seem to be his 27 years in the trenches for Quik, and the fact that he’s a guts-up goofy foot.
The Wall Street Journal reported from a Quiksilver press release on Friday that “Mr Agnes’s primary focus will be on improving operational execution and efficiencies, and identifying growth opportunities, especially in the U.S. wholesale channel.” Unless he’s picked up some amazing new skill sets in the few short months he’s been ensconced in the presidential office at Huntington Beach, it seems unlikely that the dour and often uncommunicative Agnes will be able to implement meaningful change. For investors and Quiksilver middle management with long memories, the appointment must be a painful reminder of the last time the company sought the French solution to an American problem.
In the wake of 9/11, the US company found itself in a crisis of inventory as the market contracted in the spring of 2002. Unable to choose a successor as CEO from a group of modest talents, McKnight had formed an “office of the president” that was supposed to make decisions for him but in fact specialised in inertia. In desperation, he brought in Bernard Mariette, the hard-drinking, bon vivant president of Quiksilver Europe, over all their heads. Mariette won over the board by slashing inventory, and after that the office of inertia was totally powerless, and there were no checks or balances on the man one board member called “our mad Mozart”.
After five years of Mariette’s presidency the global company was on its knees, but you would never have known it when Quiksilver executives and athletes from all over the world gathered in Paris in February 2007 to celebrate Mariette receiving a legion d’affaires medallion from the French treasury. At the inevitable champagne bender that followed, there was much gushing about how great Mariette was, but no one knew where to look when Pierre Agnes professed “love for life” to the boss he had hated when he first met him and would soon hate again.
Agnes is no Mariette but he does bring distinctly French sensibilities to a very American job. Times have changed too, with the company mantra being domestic survival rather than world domination. We can expect interesting times ahead, and I doubt that the door to the executive suite at HB has stopped revolving yet. //PHIL JARRATT
Disclosure: The writer was a Quiksilver executive from 1999 to 2007.
Comments
I thought Kelly left of his own accord?
I maybe wrong but I think Quiks salvation lies in the snow. They want to sell garments? Sell to snowboarders and skiers.
Having Candide Thovex on board is a good start.
Quik has been investing in snow for a while. They bought up Mervin manufacturing (Lib Tech, Gnu) before selling it again a while back, up untill they sold alot of the Mervin riders were on Quiksilver Outerwear.
I think, in sponsorship terms, he was given an offer he could only refuse.
Stealing Phil's thunder there Stu
Thought it was too clever to be original. Sorry Phil...
At what point will you quit burying further into the sand?
Phil, why not write about the banks Quik used to finance their "boom?"
Then, list the land developers in Indo, Maldives, Hawaii, Tahiti, etc...?
Lastly, do a simple acrostic our 3 year old kids could complete showing which banks financed which corporation and development. Hell, go a step further and look at who finances this thing called Surf Journalism.
When we say "follow the money," we don't mean stop at the first round about... keep driving and see where the road leads.
Surfers have been the biggest tools in the shed of the land developers who built on land owned by a bank. It's not hard. It's just not fun. Or funny.
For an example of this article look up almost anything written about Enron around a decade ago. All the focus on the fucktards at the corporation but nearly nothing written about who they were financed by.
Hence, the fun that will come when the financing for pro surf contests comes to light. It's a joke too ironic, funny, and sad to be told at one sitting.
I think most know where that path led...
So will my 58 year old overweight boss from Brisbane still be able get quiksilver brand glasses from OPSM or not?
Rotty name names. I don't know of anybody in OZ who is willing to discuss the inner machinations of QS except maybe Phil Grace (and I doubt he would go on record) who has more an inside line on Quicksilver than this Phil (what is it with Phil's and Quicksilver?). I think he is telling us as much as he knows. Why don't you give Greg Healy a call in Torquay I am sure he would be happy to have an in depth chat to you about where the money comes from.
For as long as I have noticed Blasphemy-Rottmouth's moniker on message boards (it stands out) there's been an allusion to some great conspiracy/cover-up, beyond what we already know (that the surf industry is run by a bunch of overgrown, unscrupulous kids doing a hack-kneed job at cashing in while the could).
So come on man, put some meat on those bones or give it a rest!
No offense, but you sound like ten year old children asking their parents to drive the car. You need to step on the gas and take this forward. Quit begging for mummy's regurgitation for your sustenance.
No one needs to spell out names. It's all fucking PUBLIC INFORMATION!!!
So sleuth away.
Or just read what's freerly right before your eyes. Public library is perfect for free wifi and quiet time witha a flask of single malt. Just try making a list of the banks who funded every surfing endeavor you ever imagined. And watch it unfold.
Catharsis.
Again - another allusion. I have little interest in the surf industry's mechanisations, nor who funded them. If you had something of real substance I would read it, if not I will gladly continue satisfying my own greedy self interest.
Your last sentence is exactly everything that's wrong with the commercialization of surfing and dumb articles like these that don't challenge the greedy self interest of surfers who've been used like Spiccoli-whores by the banking industry to drive up real estate all around the world for half a century or more.
That too hard too digest, piglet?
Maybe you're afraid that if you stated outright exactly what it is you believe in then it would be revealed as the monstrous load of dribble that it is.
If you don't think my comment above was an outright statement then it proves one thing: this is why it was / has / will be so easy for banks to use the corporatization of surfing and your collective willing and inherent naivety to buy up... literally, the world.
Usury.
You are a deaf, dumb, and blind whore. The biggest tool in the Bankster's shed because you cost them nothing but your soul while they profit off your lifestyle.
Rottmouth, could you please just realise that I have no idea what you are talking about and just let know what it is.
Why say something in ten words when you can say nothing in 200 overly melodramatic allusions eh ?
Your choice of avatar is very revealing of the impression you fancy that you give.
Free your mind.
You all know so little.
You're all pathetic because it's so obvious. These truths I know.
But rather than tell you, I'm just going to sit here and try to make it all about me.
Ugh, sooo good. Feels so good.
I like this Rottmouth guy but I really can't be fucked looking up who is funding what. Doesn't matter who's running Quick your still paying an exorbitant amount of coin to wear a logo and that's why people aren't purchasing their shit anymore.
Quote B-R " If you want to be rebellious: avoid tattoos, wear boardshorts sewn by the seamstress down the street, and design a spaceship that will take you beyond earth’s decaying atmosphere."
hehe:)
Lulz. Mammaries.
It's too bad no one is willing to challenge the most powerful fuckers on earth. Banksters own every government, the land you live on, and all the weaponry used on both sides of every war... and they've used surfing to turn coastlines into trillions of dollars in profits since WWII. You'd have to be an Aussie to think coastlines and remote islands were always prized real estate.
Anyone got blueprints for that spaceship?
Anyways. Good time in SoCal this past week and catching up. Time to head home.
So banks have a vested interest in real estate price increases and work with industry businessmen to lend them money to fund development. THIS IS NOT NEWS, this is their business model. Banks make money lending(creating) money> need people to borrow money> buddy up with people who can and will instigate borrowing and booms. How else would the best and brightest get their quarterly bonuses? What else do we expect from "shrewd" businessman, even those in the surf industry? If you could build a big shiney ego intoxicating resort in a tropical paradise with perfect waves out the front and make enough money to effectively retire in one hit, would you be like "nah mate, I'm all about me b&h's and a 6'ie of golds after a hard days slog in the pits cause im not a bankers stooge nor care for their 6.2% effective interest rates" most rational people would take option 1.
Here's a nugget for you- the banks aren't driving up prices on real estate, they are driving down the value of money. And when you drive down the value of money you make it easier for those shut out of the financial system to get a way in - the key for developing world's progress. The unfortunate part is that these changes aren't evenly distributed.
Best of luck on your crusade.
"Most rational people" is a funny statement.
A very Western-centric, capitalistic, usury brainwashed view of the way the banking system works.
But keep that arsehole lubed... Plenty of big dicks in suits looking to stick their money suction poles in you.
Ha!
While you obviously have a way with words you are still, for all intents and purposes, a fucking idiot. Any fool can focus on glaring problems and find the deep conspiracies that are out there, somewhere, holding the rest of us poor plebs back. Its a lot hard to make a full and balanced assessment of both pros and cons and recognise that it ain't all some great emotionally addictive conspiracy instigated by the lizard people. This is because benefits don't jump around screaming in peoples faces like problems do.
What are the pros of banking? What are the magnitude of these compared to the cons? If you can't answer that then you don't actually know your topic. Nice to be emotionally engaged with a made up unwinnable war though right?
Like I said, good luck on your crusade.
I fail to understand how the banks owning everything I spoke of being a conspiracy theory.
I also fail to see how anyone can look at the world now, and except for the 1% who own the world's wealth, not see the benefits aren't worth reading (mostly because these benefits are preached in every Murdoch owned media, surf media, and pretty much anywhere you look in Western media), while the negatives are just talked about because of either a) fear of repercussions or b) apathy.
It's clear where surfers stand: A-pathetically buying recycled board shorts before riding a jet to a private wave owned by developers beholden to banks who pit nations against each other for the right of passage in say... the waters in the Maldives (currently being waged by China vs USA vs India).
Check @surfmediatruths for the facts behind all above. Or talk to Muhammad Nasheed himself about the coup in Maldives, his jailing, and the political unrest over the military wanting a base where developers want to essentially privatize an island. And remember who is financing ALL of this. Surfers and the surf media have been making these island's real estate go higher and higher. So who wins? The bank that bought them first. And the one who is funding whoever is in power today over there.
I'm going to get some shut eye. A state of mind you are familiar with.
But I obviously don't know whereof I speak.
Typed a long post, lost it.
Summary - access to finance/debt is a critical component of alleviating poverty. Banks don't own everything, that's hyperbole. Surfers have contradictions around environmental credentials - agreed.
You finally put it out there, what you have been alluding to for so long! Well done. Interesting, I don't know anything about it.
And finally
"By almost any measure, the world is better than it has ever been. People are living longer, healthier lives. Many nations that were aid recipients are now self-sufficient. You might think that such striking progress would be widely celebrated, but in fact, Melinda and I are struck by how many people think the world is getting worse"
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Who-We-Are/Resources-and-Media/Annual-Let...
Citing a letter from a billionaire to support the idea the world is better off because of usury.
Lovely.
Ha! Make no mistake, he is right and the developing world is being lifted out of poverty as we speak, even if you prefer Macs.
>UN Millennium Development Goals. (oh sorry probably another non-trustable lizardman source)
How do you, as a Sentient being, make the leap from "access to finance / debt is a critical component of alleviating debt" to straight away saying banks don't own everything? Who the fuck is going to get out of debt without financial support from a bank of some sort?
It's the concept of usury.
Look it up. Usury.
Look up where it started, who perpetuates it and who it relies on.
It's simple slavery in every first, second and third world context.
As to completing the loop back to Phil's meaningless article, you are reporting shit that doesn't matter. Quiksilver is just a pawn in the banking scheme. The WSL is another pawn. All directly connected to the biggest financiers on the planet who use the surfing's basically free advertising to drive up the value of their land holdings around the world.
Speaking as a whiter than white man with roots in gypsy Eastern Europe, we've all bought into the system. Comments here won't fix it. But it was a fun talk, MK. And Blowin too. I used some harsh language earlier but I'm just a Half Seppo getting as drunk as possible before the taxi takes me to the airport.
Cheers!
Sorry - "alleviating poverty" edit fix up but you grabbed it first.
referring to Gates is crazy
How about reading the most substantive study of debt
Debt: The first 5000 years by David Graeber. He knows what he is talking about and it isn't in line with Mr Gates who only knows how to rip people off then offer some "charity" back to those he has ripped off.
hahaha come on clif, the guy isn't even a financier. He is very shrewd and sells computer programs that the world has been very happy to buy. Just because he made a lot of money providing a product, doesn't mean he is a "debt merchant" , and I am pretty sure he never ripped off underprivileged people in the developing world, who he is now trying to help. In fact, more likely than not it was the developing world that ripped his software.
My original link was to UN millenium development goals but i lost all that text and just posted the gates link, but anyhoo...
MK1,
Have you read anything about the Internet?
The entire thing, including Bill Gates and Steve Jobs work was funded initially by the U.S. Government who was being funded by the State Department who funds each and every war the Seppos wage. This is no conspiracy. It is fact. Google is your friend.
Stop digging. And start driving, mate. It's much more fun.
Something tells me Uganda wasn't ripping off Homeywell and the like in the 1960's.
Just a tinfoil hunch.
Le Canard enchaine (major French newspaper) has reported this morning that Pierre Agnes with the full backing of the board have re-signed Kelly for the next 5 years at $5,000,000pa with an additional 5% in stock options.
Not bad, $25,000,000 + in the twilight of your career.
I suppose that's how he could splash the cash down on the film rights to the Thai sticks book. Chump change for him.
Still half an hour to go. I'm impressed.
Bastard got me, I went looking all over the place for confirmation!
Booyah!!!
Cheers BB, made me smile:)
At last something amusing on this thread! Good on ya, Zen.
shock horror QS have gone back to.....the nepotism that got them in trouble in the beginning.
Phils knows only too well that Q/S has always been a boys club ,that education and qualification mean little at Quik.....and if you are mates...well you get a job.
It s all just a cycle..the brands that have prostituted themselves for short term gain are now looking at becoming Super market brands.....but its great to see the emergence of new young brands.....will they learn the lessons of the past??
Im not sure why what happens at boardroom level of a multinational corporation has to do with surfing or why anyone gives a fuck. All it concerns is those who are payed to endorse them when it comes to surfing people would still take part regardless.
" I am pretty sure he [Bill Gates] never ripped off underprivileged people in the developing world, who he is now trying to help. In fact, more likely than not it was the developing world that ripped his software." MK1
Quite the summation of the surfing world's ignorance of technology, the international chessboard, and ingdignance towards any esoteric thought.
Also, why Stu Nettle didn't write this article. Phil Jarratt did. A puppet looking for a shekel. So cute. Phil could write a book people would buy, but he can't. Yet everyone asks me to name names. Ask Phil you fucking neophytes.
Blasphemy knows his shit. Core nation states (first world) backed by the world bank and the IMF have been stripping wealth from the periphery (second and third world) for decades under the guise of "development" . For every dollar lent 13 are paid back.
Sounds fair? Keep going rotmouth tell it how it is.
hehe;)
The IMF and World Bank are your friends. Trust them.
Too bad Rottmouth is too caught up in the 12 Years a slave narrative that he seems to enjoy smearing himself with to realise that he is probably in the top 2 percentile of worlds wealthiest people as most Aussies and Septics are.
He's at an airport for fucks sake - life must be hard for the poor oppressed world traveller.
As for debt, well that's up to the individual. There is always a way around it.
No debt = no enslavement.
So if you're in debt and " enslaved " then it's your own stupid enterprise that got you there. Or your own choice, which is something slaves aren't allowed the luxury of my fine, witless friend.
So rather than fancying yourself as Dorothy ripping back the curtain on the hidden machinations of the world and busting your arse spreading the bad news to the punters on the internet, why don't you spend some time actually enjoying the fact that YOU are the real master of your world.
As for clueless surfers being played for chumps by the worlds banks as they get pitted in crystal caverns on some exotic isle....you don't think that's a fair and just transaction ?
Bankers, in their 2 dimensional stupidity, might think they are getting the winning share but as anyone that has pondered for a couple of seconds would realise - life is a finite resource to be utilised getting barrelled as often as possible in beautiful locations with people whose company you enjoy. If you can achieve this by merely flipping a few coins in the direction of some pasty skinned bean counter then you've created for yourself an Earthly paradise that the bean counter is always a few dollars short of.
That last sentence is a beauty. Amen to that. I'd rather experience than own.
And Rottmouth, if you showed more respect for others and a little less superciliousness you'd find a more receptive audience here who might just be less resistive to your ideas. Isn't that what you want? Otherwise why engage in the conversation at all other than to feed your own ego?
The trouble with narcissists is they have to make it about them.
In this case we have a guy who is coming to a high school level of understanding of how the world works, despite his advanced years, without realising that the rest of us got there years ago. So we have the privilege of seeing a person trumpeting The Truth, as though they're the only ones who understand, and the rest of us are ignorant. This of course gives them an inflated sense of self importance. See just about any thread on sites like reddit for further examples.
So it's not that people are resistant to his ideas, it's that they figured them out long ago and don't appreciate the condescension that they're somehow ignorant because they don't blather on about it like he does. After all, it's hard to maintain teenage rage beyond your 20s. Of course when you figure this stuff out a bit later in life, you thrash around sanctimoniously thinking you've unearthed Something Big.
Yeah banks run the world and the sheeple just trundle along feeding the machine to pay for their "freedom" to have a mortgage that keeps the banks in power. It's all built on the backs of the working man and the impoverished brown people. This patriarchy will do everything they can to maintain this status quo and we're all unwitting participants - useful idiots, if you will.
And welcome to the monthly meeting of the Green Left Weekly/Allied Socialist Club. Average age of attendees, 21.
Of course much of that is true, but there's more nuance to it than this predictable picture paints. And once you go through the process of thinking about it properly (as I suspect most here have done a long time ago), the nuances become more important. The rage fades as your understanding grows.
Then along comes the latest teenager with an internet connection (or in this case, slightly delayed adult) and tells you you're an ignorant fool because You Don't Know What I Know. So what is there to do but shake your head and wonder if and when they'll catch up to the rest of us.
Yet you fools read this shit published in surf media and say nothing about it.
You learned this back in high school? Impossible. You're Aussie. And you've done nothing to battle it. And the surf media has done nothing to expose the pyramid scheme SIMA and the WSL have been running. You just read articles like Phil's, Nick Carroll and the rest and blather on about how bitchin' their perpetuation of the myth is.
If you learned all this in high school, where are your articles on the corrupt price fixing in SIMA or the WSL and surf media colluding to lie to millions of public shareholders? See the latest lawsuits and investigations into Quik and Bong? I remember being laughed at here years ago for predicting all this. By you, precisely. Where are your comments calling out the surf corporations and pro surfers for being tools of the banks? Where has anybody been in following up on the sham of Andy Irons enablement by Billabong, Stapelburg, and the ASP? Where were your articles calling out Kelly Slater for marching in an anti-Monsanto shindig wearing QUIKSILVER gear head to toe?
Why do the smartest guys in the room always seem to be blind, deaf, and unable to speak? Oh right, they're on Reddit. The surfing forum at Reddit is full of regular Noam Chomsky's.
Again, why keep asking me to name names? I am just an idiot right? A dancing monkey with a silly moniker and no "street cred" like your homies here. So, Why don't you ask Phil Jarrett, Graham Stapelburg, Michael Tomson, Doug Palladini, etc...?
What are you afraid of?
Still laughing at you, but you still don't understand why. So the only thing's changed is my avatar.
trying to invoke the battler identity? goose. you don't understand what that means.
So I guess one more thing's changed.
I'm laughing harder now.
You changed something?
Your laugh sounds the same as ever. I thought they put Pee Wee away for good?
While we're at it, you ask why I want my voice to be heard?
Where else do you hear it? I haven't blogged in years, just regurgitated old shit for Chas and Shearer, and have never taken a dime from anyone. Ever. So bash my free punching bag while I lick the sweat off your back.
If you add up all Nick Carroll's articles and comments at real surf, here, and everywhere on his crusade to neuter Anonymous commentary, I would be millions of words behind him, or Shearer, or Maurice Cole, or any of the blow hards that fill the helium balloon you huff everyday. I speak little compared to Chas or Derrick or Samuels. I just don't fuck around.
I am slothful. No doubt. But even YOU can't handle the truth. You just pretend you learned it in high school so you could become a successful toilet plunger in Lennox.
And that, is a good hoot.
Also, your rage doesn't subside when you get older if you keep reading. It grows.
The only thing growing in the comments of surf media and their authors is pathetic apathy.
I would love you to justify each and every life lost since WWII that has been financed by the banking industry and then justify the barrels they've got because they "earned" it.
Go on.
Blowin.
Let's hear your fart.
Blowin...?
+1
Couldn't have been bothered articulating it but glad you did.
x2
Interesting stuff
Stu, Phil any comments!
When the Surf Media has really only Fred Pawle's story on Sarge, Stu Nettle poaching Twitter accounts regarding viewer numbers from a year or more ago and blogs from 4 years ago, and a few needles from a few others addressing racism and gender bias... You are left with 99% drivel. Including all you "smart" cunts here who figured everything out in high school and have since done fuckall but read this drivel, swallow it, and put your next trip to Bali on your credit cards.
99% of surf media is conservative tripe clothed in faux liberalism fed by inbred and completely corrupt bullshit artists like Surfrider.
If you aren't angry about the world and the microcosm that surfing represents, then you deserve the tripe that satisfies you here and everywhere else the "thinking surfers" congregate.
One last thing: fuck the Inertia.
Hey B-R
Did you get burnt some time in the past by this?
Just a question thats all, I'm actually trying to piece together all of this stuff;)
I think I'm a little out of the loop here, so I might just leave eh:)
Nope.
Just assholes abide. Surfers sticking their skinny dicks out for the corporations that are filling their spots with more skinny dicks and the banks who fund the whole clown show because they get first dibs on prime real estate.
But you all knew that.
Which is why you all live and work where you do.
Cuntfucks.
I kind of know where you are going with this whole realm and do have respect upon your posts. and what you are personifying..?
Hey B-R , I can feel some resentment here from some powers to be with journalism etc,
I ended up googling yourself and fuck me was gobsmacked at the amount of writing you have done , I had no idea. Your way of words really take me back as well;)
Hence quoting a piece you wrote awhile ago, with the seamstress and the spaceship haha
But I suppose not many on here understand my thought of weird concepts as well.
Cheers, IMO keep it up, entertaining to say the least;)
"So we have the privilege of seeing a person trumpeting The Truth, as though they're the only ones who understand, and the rest of us are ignorant. This of course gives them an inflated sense of self importance. "
This pretty much sums it up. All conspiracies thrive on it.
So B-R, I would like to know how I am a tool of the banks and the surfing industry. I have no debts, have a piece of paper that says I own the land I live on, so I'm pretty sure a bank doesn't own it.
I buy things with money that is mine. Apart from wetsuits I largely don't engage with the giant surf corporation, and I am living as best I can within what is a largely corrupt world.
What questions would you have me ask? Which bank funds Quiksilver. Well, largely it is a side issue, it doesn't matter to me. I know how the banking system works as well as most, and quite frankly it doesn't touch me personally, and largely my actions aren't helping them either. Buying goods and services hardly makes me a tool of the banks, it just means that I continue to live in a world where you can't opt out. What do you suggest, taking up breatharianism and meditating in a cave?
And for all your brilliant analysis, yes that was ironic, the banks employ people. Banks aren't actual entities, they are just mechanisms, machines, which people work in.
If the people in those banks earn huge amounts of money, but never get to spend a weekend at a quiet seaside beach getting fantastic waves, then I am way ahead of them, regardless of how much they make or own.
You would be better off arguing that the banks are in fact the pawns of the military industrial complex, and that it is really the military that runs everything largely through USA.
But what's the point? Even if you know how the world works, getting angry about it is the response of a child.
Everything I have read from you is basically angry, abusive, and belittles everyone who isn't 'in the know', which is everyone because it is a secret society with 1 member.
I'm happy for you to carry on, continue to be angry, pointless, blathering, to continue to find out about things that many of us worked out years ago, and got over.
There are really only three options. Change the world, live within it as best you can, or opt out.
Sorry for choosing the only real available option.
Fucken banks, secretly controlling surfing in a cynical plan to drive up real estate prices. I knew it.
Cuntfucks.
This blottomouth dude is onto something here.
I too dream of surfing in a world without banking.
Maybe one day people will Google it and wake up.
Rottentalos
You're a complete nutter.
Maybe Sir Bob can help.
But, knowing you, and your true identity, (as well as knowing your cash is not under your mattress), and your extensive use of banks and bankers,
that is highly doubtable.
Plenty of hypocrites.... Thanks for the perfect example...
Yew!
Thanks Memla. I had some fun for a while. But alas, I'm off to the woods. You all enjoy slavery to the system of usury to whatever extent blesses your little hearts.
If I had a heart, I would feel sorry for you.
Meantime, pray for the poor Ziff family and the WSL, getting a clown suit put on them by Braithy and Shearer and "others" on Twitter.
Laird bless.
And Batfink... The Military Industrial Complex, who invented the Internet, is funded by banks.
You should have your mommy write a letter to your school principal.
The above statement is an irrefutable fact.
So there is that.
Toodles.
Remember, the USA is trillions of dollars in debt.
Just think about that statement.
ah ol mate rotty.....so who owns and runs the banks.....and when will they take you out as their public enemy 1#????
Brutus,
I am saying stuff you Aussie blokes were taught in middle school so I have nothing to fear. Aside from two visits by the FBI since I started blogging 5 years ago and stopped 2 years ago, I have no fear.
Russell Brand is probably more up your alley for "dissidence" as a brand.
I am just a ghost. I mean nothing to most and something to a select few.
I am sorry to have hijacked this thread. But I am grateful Stu and Ben let idiots like me speak. If only other surfing websites would open their minds... ever so slightly.
Oh, and you can Google who owns the banks. I would start with the Rothchilds family and work your way down to Jamie Dimon.
"The Rothschilds are the wonders of modern banking ... we see the descendants of Judah, after a persecution of two thousand years, peering above kings, rising higher than emperors, and holding a whole continent in the hollow of their hands. The Rothschilds govern a Christian world. Not a cabinet moves without their advice. They stretch their hand, with equal ease, from Petersburgh to Vienna, from Vienna to Paris, from Paris to London, from London to Washington. Baron Rothschild, the head of the house, is the true king of Judah, the prince of the captivity, the Messiah so long looked for by this extraordinary people. He holds the keys of peace or war, blessing or cursing. ... They are the brokers and counselors of the kings of Europe and of the republican chiefs of America. What more can they desire?" ~ Niles
Blasphemy where do you draw a line? Minimising personal debts living a modest lifestyle with little reliance on supermarkets etc you are still part of the system and banks and governments will still profit from your existence regardless unless your homeless jobless living in the woods you are still part of the system.
How do you remove yourself from being part of the problem?
Mr mouth,
Too much Blue Pill... That is all.
Roller,
Too much Bolsa Chica logging for you. I respect you effort and all. But your financial knowledge is deep enough to make your trolling remarks sad. Mike or Mark can spruik them for you.
BRM - debt is a foundation of civilisation, its critical for development beyond the small allotments of land for toil. To proclaim: the US is in $XYZ debt! is to tell half the story, the flip side of the debt is........? Yes the debts are huge but they aren't 'hard'. When the debt commeth so commeth the asset's value, along with the cash to dilute the first. More debt = less value of same debt. Around and around we go. Don't make the mistake of seeing the debt values as 'hard'. They aren't, can't afford to be and won't be. That's why I said real estate hasn't gone up but money has gone down.
Ever wondered why we have inflation? It's not, as some would argue, to give more to the issuers of money (bankers), its to ease the burden of the debts. It is a by product of debt issuance (more money) but it critical for debt easement. When the debts are too high - Print and Print and Print. That's the long story of global finance. Bankers don't own the world but they are very powerful for so long as we believe in them. Remember a debt that can't be repaid won't be repaid. And who owns whom then? Borrow, dilute, repay ad nauseam. The bankers win and the borrowers win. The depositors lose but they always would, being productive and dealing in hard money is too slow for humans. Just ask the Greeks.
Clif posted about Debt the first 5000 years, and seeing as that was really big I read the wiki page, it says "A second major argument of the book is that, contrary to standard accounts of the history of money, debt is likely the oldest means of trade, with cash and barter transactions being later developments."
The first argument in the book is that debt has been made precise and mathematical to our detriment - but check the history of sovereign default - it is far more prevalent now than in history, coming with central banks and going off the gold standard. Money and debt is now softer than ever. So soft that it's losing its value. Many development banks are now providing finance to the developing world at sub 2% rates. AGHH THE HORROR!!
It isn't a treadmill of debt unless we chose it to be. Its really a treadmill of desire. Our all to human unstoppable desire for more. Don't waste your time raging against the shadows. We have met the enemy and he is us.
You may argue the system is set up for bankers to own it all, but its really set up for us to reach beyond our current means and fulfil all our crazy desires. The bankers do very well off that but humanity on aggregate, is still better for it. The developing world desperately needs access to finance, the banks may rub their hands with greedy glee but the developing world will still be better.
Caveat- I'm not pro banking but their is another side to the argument you won't hear on the angry internet.
Cheers.
Haha yes, a big book. Quite the feat. A good summary is here, if anyone is interested:
http://thenewinquiry.com/blogs/zunguzungu/david-graebers-debt-my-first-5...
Key point:
"At the heart of the book is the revisionist argument that money did not spontaneously emerge to address a social need – the inefficiency of barter in facilitating humanity’s natural tendency to trade and commerce, as economists have been saying since Adam Smith – but was, rather, part of a calculated effort by state-societies to build markets for their own benefit, primarily to fund the war-machines they built around them."
"the real function of money itself, its ability to take the complex (even fundamentally contradictory and irreducibly ambiguous) relations of human social life and makes them seem simple, simple enough to be a vector for exploitation and violence. When we are merely “in someone’s debt,” there are a range of different ways we (and they) can behave about that, and a variety of different opportunities to re-negotiate or re-orient. When we owe someone a particular amount of money, on the other hand, it is suddenly incredibly easy and simple to apply violence (implicit or explicit) and moral force to demand payment."
True Cliffy, I understand that concept, but....?
I myself have no such thing as applying violence or a moral force to such things as banks...?
I live with it and thats cool.
I just like Rottos way of making others realise about bank shit and it's so true;)
I hate banks, they have us all by the the balls or flaps;)
Rotty should've been a surgeon, It's a mans world in the operating theatre especially to cut to the bone;)
MK1,
I get the moniker now. MK Ultra and the whole Spectre of things. Your comment is valid and typical of any Western, brainwashed servant who decries any resistance against a system that has brought he / she wealth in the form of property. I am pig in your pen. I make,no bones about it. Why should I? I only comment from the outside on surfing while there are dozens of journalists who've written movies, books and articles on Hollywood esotericism.
Which is a funny thing.
Is it not?
Property? So,even sold you his dirt and you bought ad nauseum until now. So wither the Surfrider? The Dirk Ziff? The Nation? State? Or Seashepard? What do they own?
They sure seem well funded.
Just follow the money. Therin lies every answer.
Who mentioned property?
Anyway, good luck!
Wharfkie,
Crazy to get these questions from such well adjusted Aussies. Well, mate, I would suggest doing whatever you you can to be a ghost in the government's system. Use fake names, IP addresses, etc... Or just do what the majority here do and act like middle aged mid-western American farmers: "well fuck it we already know everything anyway."
The problem then BR is you are almost eliminating yourself from the game altogether and left being powerless to help change except for commentary online.
I don't have the answer but minimising debt is a start living within your means without a reliance on mass consumerism. Sourcing your food, appliances and clothing from companies whom act ethically both socially and environmentally. Support small business owners instead of large corporations and consider where your vote counts in elections and don't just tick the major parties on your ballot sheet.
Lastly,
Why draw a line? I am a surfer. There is no such thing as a singular line.
I think Wharfjunkie put it Best: how are you not a slave?
I don't have that answer. I only ask that you realize what you are and accept it as some here eagerly do, and others who continue the fight.
To own some dirt , to house my children, to grow some food, slavery to the bank is the only way .I don't agree with having to pay for dirt on planet earth, but I was not born into money, did not inherit land blah blah. But I was born into a system that is inherently corrupt and seriously fumed up. Yes I am a slave, but I am awake.
The situation you describe is so far from actual slavery its ridiculous to even begin to associate the two. Enjoy, life is good.
Same Bro, I hear ya;)
Wrong shit, fuck those cunt banks, the late bloomers and the early bloomers to say the least...?
Banks, more banks and hopefully some good banks where we surf hehe.
Same NZer, I'm not asleep either, well try not to be;)
Fuck those bank fucks
Quote Rotty "Living things existed long before humans – living things will continue to exist long after humans. I do believe that a less material existence is our proper life, and that our futile presence on this terraqueous orb is itself an ancillary, or merely virtual phenomenon. Life is, at its base, a hideous thing. And with each successive demonic hint of historical truth we discover, that hideousness increases a thousandfold. Science, already employed by despotic corporations willing to bargain with the vampires of the deep, will perhaps be the ultimate exterminator of our species – for its reserve of unimaginable horrors could never be borne forth by mortal brains if loosed upon the world."
Yeah;)
Compared to some yes my life is good. However ,tell me how working 80 hrs a week to get by is considered reasonable. How can a bit of dirt with a house be worth half a million. Shits fucked up. The only way out of the system is to be in the system.
I hear you,
Maybe back 28 years if we had money and not fun...!
IE riding the snow, living in caves catching helos or walking to live in a cave and walk for the love of it....!
$15,ooo for a block of shite at Meadow Lea just before you exit town on the way to TC, or Glenhu Bay, now worth 300plus...?
I was a late comer to the system Inzder and I'm realising hard know.
But hey I'm still enjoying life, I love it;)
I wouldn't change anything welly, if I had the money back in those glorious early snow times, I wouldn't have lived in a cave. I would have missed out on watching all the yuppies eat flash food up T.C while I survived on carrots smeared with peanut butter. I am rich in life experience and love telling my kids how my life was back then, they buzz out. After the cave we migrated to beacon point in the pines and constructed another makeshift abode which had the epic view of T.C to wake up too. The big dump early 95 had us fucked as all the snowed flattened our set up, so we had to retreat to the beacon point campaign ground kitchen floor until the thaw, now beacon point is fucked with no character and squillion dollar houses. We had it better than thenew comers ever will. No power ,phone etc, just the thrill of the pow,good mates and a big bag of gorse. Yeah I'm behind the 8 Ball, who would have thought a house at fitzy beach would be worth a million when you couldn't give them away 30years ago. Now with the oil price fucked and my job gone the 8 ball keeps getting further away. Good old NZ ay , house prices triple quadruple etc but wages for the bottom teirs have moved fuck all. When a bloke can't house and feed his family on 40hours a week, even 50 or 60 It proves shit is wrong when all these fat cat bankers can get paid obscene amounts and fuck over millions of people and walk away richer. I'm with rottmouth
Fuck just lost a great post too you;(
Tommorrow;)
Here is my simplified post NZer.
We are embodied memories;)
The realm we both experienced is worth gold to both of us eh.
Sorry to hear about your job, hope something comes up soon champ.
Take care and get some nice Naki waves for me;)
Mr. mouth,
I don't even own a log. let alone ride one.
Mouth Taos, but you keep up the flowery Blue Pill bullshite. It fits you well.
wow, so much illusion hypnotism. DEbt- banks land prices driven u
blashphemy rottmouth and co, surely you are all aware that there in not enough ACTUAL money that could cover all the debts, credits etc etc.
THe real reason for the anger and leaning towards conspiracies and control is be cause you promised yourself you would remember but you've forgotten.
NONE OF THIS IS REAL- ITS A VIRTUAL REALITY that shakespeare described perfectly, the world is but a stage and we are all actors.
BUT it's just a story, a fiction.
Most of this thread has come from the ego personality or avatar if you will that thinks it has gained knowledge, wisdom, power etc etc etc. And the need to have this personality recognised, realised-LOVED- is so strong you will do anything to have it noticed. Nothing matters-really nothing matters- think about it, nothing matters unless you think it does and if you are worried about your body's/personality's survival you are really entranced by this visual reality PLanet Earth 3D.
Nothing matters- phew, what a fucking relief!!!!!!!!
Someone tripped over their speed bump on the way out of the garage!
What fun...
Take a big deep mouthful of come big boy;)
You love it.
what more can i say to that, than, go mountain climbing big boy and see if you can lick and mount a beautiful crevace.
Gold;)
Lost ya mobile number Ravo...? Me phone went all spastic from a fall, had to get a new one.
What is it and will come down and have a beer with ya and talk about Yowies, body surfing, Sheepio! and not those god damn banks.......!
who woulda thunk?
Andy Mooney's got a new job... at Fender!
"As a longtime fan and user of Fender products, it's a dream come true to be asked to lead a brand and company that I personally have so much admiration for," Mooney said in a statement.
http://www.billboard.com/articles/business/6583236/fender-andy-mooney-ce...