George Galloway on “The Real Deal” show 31/05/09

http://worldpressnetwork.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=473&start=20#p8668

You can see this and other shows 24×7 on SpideredNews.com TV:

http://www.spiderednews.com/index.htm?vid=155746

The above and other George Galloway videos can be seen on SpideredNews’ channel on Viddler :
http://www.viddler.com/explore/SpideredNews

Archive can be seen at :
http://video.google.co.uk/videosearch?q=george%20galloway%20show%20spiderednews

http://video.google.co.uk/videosearch?q=george%20galloway%20show%20spiderednews

Other videos for George Galloway can be seen on:
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White House economist who calculated 640,329 jobs were saved or created answers critics saying, "It must be a bicycle because a vest doesn't have sleeves."

Politico summarizes today’s Obama Administration announcement of 640,329 saved or created jobs.  In the article are these “mentions” of several key analytical factors used by the Administration to arrive at the precise figure:

• So how many were saved and how many created? They don’t know.
• They said they also can’t tell the difference between private sector jobs and government jobs.
• The data isn’t perfect.” … “Further updates and corrections will be needed
• … “there’s no data element in any government data set that is absolutely precise.”
• But for all the detail, the data do not show whether the jobs are in the government or in the private sector.
• That’s because … much of the money was sent to states, which in turn hired a mix of contractors and government employees to carry out tasks.
• … the White House’s earlier estimate that 90 percent of the jobs would be in the private sector, though, is “still valid.”
• The issue of whether governments can accurately count jobs “saved” – since that is a hypothetical has provoked debate among economists since the White House began using the “saved or created” formulation earlier this year.

Seems a little flimsy sir!  Based on all the variables, how did you reach such a precise number?

“What we have to do is rely on the fact that our public officials are honest.”

Oh!  Why didn’t you say that in the beginning?

From the Frugal Cafe Blog Zone … “Exaggeration Proclamation: Obama’s Economic Plan Overstated, by Thousands, Jobs Claimed Were Created“

Seeking Charity From Retired YoVille Players

Like most games, Yo Ville has players that have retired, moved on to other things, other games, and with their retirement from the game, a lot of rare items have gone into retirement with them, so of them never to be resurrected again…this post hopes to find some of these players, convince them to bring these rare items back into the game through gifting them…well, gifting them to me actually.

Many items on Yo Ville have a limited run time in the stores and shops in town.  Last years Halloween costumes retired, replaced with new ones this year.  Certain furniture lines once common are now gone, catching a glimpse of them a rare treat, especially for many of us who are new to the game.  Perhaps the best known example is the entire Mafia line that is now gone…I paid 20,000 coins for my own Mafia Bar, and have only spotted the matching Mafia Bar Stools once, and they were not for sale…how many of these bars are lanquishing in obscurity, buried in some YoVille apartment that has been collecting dust and cobwebs for six or more months now?

My goal…bring these items back into the game by getting retired players to gift their entire inventories to me so that I can feed them back into the game through my extensive list of YoVille buddies and friends.  The concept is a simple one…getting retired players to sign into Yo Ville, empty their apartments and homes, find me, and spend a few minutes gifting your inventory of items to me.  If you are never going to play the game again, why not?  If I am online, you can even make a trade with me and give me what ever excess coins you still have.  Yo Ville wins, as the entire community gets too see some of these items brought back into circulation.  Yes, I win because I would in some ways become YoVille’s first antique dealer, and the player wins as they get a chance to get their hands on items they right now can only dream of owning.

So, please pass this article along, share it with your friends, and lets bring some of those items out of retirement and back into the community.

So that you can send me and invite, and easily find me my Facebook email is smartinellighs@aol.com and my name on YoVille is “The Dudester”.  Even if only one percent of the players have retired from the game, that means 40.000 plus player inventories and coin stash are laying dormant, likely gone forever…lets change that equation.

TARP-Loving Joe Loves Bailing Out Banks but Not Providing Healthcare. By Donna Smith

Via: Common Dreams.

Are we to believe Senator Joe Lieberman objects to a public health insurance plan because he’s a raging believer in the free market or in protecting taxpayers funds? That’s just not true Joe. You’re a TARP-lover, aren’t you? Come on, tell the truth.

Joe loved voting for the Troubled Asset Relief Program last fall. Bailout fun and taxpayer debt — all for those bankers. Joe was front and center. A lot of lawmakers were, and those votes were recorded.

Welfare for the wealthy bankers, that’s what you supported, Joe. Too bad you don’t think working people in Connecticut deserve healthcare. Wealth-care is your goal. Sad.

As one of the Senators who voted boldly and proudly to bail out the banks last fall, Senator Lieberman is not all about free market or avoidance of government funding. He just wants to help the bankers and profiteers socialize their risks while allowing them to keep private their profits. He’ll let you and me put up the cash for the bankers and brokers — he has no trouble at all doling out taxpayer money when it matters to him. Our healthcare just doesn’t rise to that level for him.

Here’s what FOX news wrote today about their friend Joe:

Sen. Joe Lieberman reaffirmed his pledge Wednesday to withhold his vote for the Senate’s sweeping health care reform bill if it includes a so-called “public option,” saying a government-run plan is “unnecessary” and threatens to drive up costs for taxpayers.

“It’s not free,” the Connecticut senator told Fox News on Wednesday.

Lieberman, an Independent Democrat, said a day earlier that he would back a Republican filibuster against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s health care reform bill if a government-backed insurance plan remains in the package. He warned Wednesday that the plan would have several negative side effects.

“Someone’s going to have to pay for it and you bet it’s going to be the taxpayer,” Lieberman said, adding that a government-run insurance plan will drive up premiums — despite claims from some Democrats that it would lead to an improved system because it will create healthy competition.

Oh, Joe, come on now. You voted to put the very same taxpayers on the hook for trillions for banker and Wall Street bailouts, didn’t you?

Seems like you don’t much give a damn about taxpayer liability when your deepest and most abiding concern is for the wealthy and for Joe Lieberman. Shame on you. Are you going to tell seniors in Connecticut next that you hate their government run and funded Medicare and it has to go? How about veterans getting their healthcare from the VA? Is that the sort of healthcare you hate too, Joe?

Shame, shame… follow the money. Joe sure does. Oh you TARP lovers have some answering to do to the rest of the nation now, don’t you?

You see you cannot vote for your wealthy friends and contributors’ interests and profits so blatantly and then follow it by blocking the basic human rights of your constituents without getting caught. Your fingers aren’t just in the cookie jar; they’re deep in the bank vault grabbing the hard earned money of those taxpayers you are failing to protect.

Donna Smith is a community organizer for the California Nurses Association and National Co-Chair for the Progressive Democrats of America Healthcare Not Warfare campaign.

Brazil planning to cut taxes to stimulate domestic consumption

Brazil planning to cut taxes to stimulate domestic consumption PDF | Print | E-mail

Brazil is considering extending stimulus tax cuts on home appliances even as the country’s economic recovery shows signs of gaining momentum. Tax cuts helped Brazilian auto industry sales to soar.

Finance Minister Guido Mantega said Monday he would decide by the end of the month whether to extend tax cuts on home appliances. The decision hinges on a commitment by retailers and manufacturers to hire more workers and provide better financing to consumers, he told reporters in Sao Paulo.

The International Monetary Fund last week said Brazil and other Latin American economies emerging quickly from the global financial crisis should consider removing fiscal stimulus measures as strong capital inflows put pressure on currencies to appreciate.

Brazil in April cut taxes by as much as 10 percentage points on several home appliances, providing incentives for consumers to boost spending and lead the 1.6 trillion US dollars economy out of its first recession since 2003. Retail sales in August rose for the fourth straight month, by 0.7% from July.

Brazil is expected to grow 4.8% next year, according to a last week Central Bank survey of about 100 economists. In July, economists were forecasting 2010 growth of 3.5%.

President Lula da Silva said Monday the country needs lower taxes to spur domestic demand and meet a World Bank forecast to become the world’s fifth-largest economy by the time it hosts the 2016 Olympics.

Lula da Silva addressing the nation in his weekly radio program said lower taxes coupled with government steps to boost credit will encourage Brazilians to “purchase what they still don’t have.”

Mercosur, Tuesday, October 27th 2009 – 5:23 am UTC

Casual Observations

If you watch The Simpsons (or remember when it was truly great), you’ll recall Helen Lovejoy’s plea, “Won’t somebody think of the children?” I just had what must have been the 3rd voicemail reminder from the local middle school reminding parents to submit the order forms for the cookie sale the school just had. Which brings me to the Lovejoyean point: I am quite surprised that teachers or administrators fail to see the somewhat hypocritical nature of these fundraising ventures. Picture this: the student comes home with this catalog of ‘gourmet’ cookie dough and pizza mix that you are sort of strong-armed into buying. I use the term ’strong-armed’ because the classrooms will have this unnecessary scoreboard that tallies the sales of this crap per student. If your child’s name is near the bottom of this thermometer looking thing, then they expect a little guilt and shame to loosen the wallets. I guess it’s okay to teach students about the ‘eat or be eaten’ philosophy this early. I’m not a teacher after all. So yeah, right there you have this superfluous competition. Yet at the same time, the school districts and the local governments proudly announce that they’re cutting back the availability of junk food on campus while the big government informs us that we are still grossly overweight, yet they the schools turn around and force the kids to sell – that’s right, you’re learning – cookie dough and pizza mix. By the way, the stuff that these organizations are hawking is ridiculous. A tube of dough that makes up less than two dozen cookies* lists close to $10 and the pizza stuff cooks up the equivalent of a small Tony’s pepperoni that I can find in the freezer at Dillons for less than $2. So all this profiteering goes back to the schools (right?) and yet we have kids who spell ’skills’ with a freaking ‘z’ at the end. Is it just me?

*Purchased cookies are stale and hard. Fresh cookies are soft and chewy. Science has now perfected the fresh stale cookie.

Remember when we started the slouch towards Iraq and many questioned why the Bush daughters couldn’t enlist and put on a uniform (sans underwear cuz that’s how they roll)? I do. I’m sure they do too, but you know, after a few pitchers of Mai Tai’s… The underlying message at that time was that of a certain elitism. My well-to-do kids versus your so-so kids. Well, Barack Obama had his George Bush moment last week. Did you catch it? It was a little subliminal but the message was there. Some kids are more important than your kids. Late last week you had the White House declaring that swine flu was ‘an epidemic’ and a national emergency. You had Sibelius literally pounding the podium with her Manolo demanding that everyone should get innoculated immediately. Lost in all this was the fact that less than 1000 people have died from the flu. Even more lost was the fact that the actual immunizations kill more people than the flu itself. Lost in all this was why weren’t Malia and Sasha innoculated? Still waiting for that change…

Long-term mobile phone users could face a higher risk of developing cancer in later life, according to a decade-long study. The report, to be published later this year, has reportedly found that heavy mobile phone use is linked to brain tumors. The survey of 12,800 people in 13 countries has been overseen by the World Health Organization.

Think about it. Who is at risk here? Practically the entire spectrum of the truly useless. Coked-out starlets, reality show douchebags, lawyers, Wall Street executives walking on eggshells hoping that their million dollar office doesn’t get reported, Kardashians, rappers, drug dealers, Ashton Kutcher. Goddamn! Meanwhile, the useful professionals such as doctors, writers, hobos, painters, garbagemen and prostitutes will not suffer one iota. My eyes are tearing up here.

Genius. Absolute genius.
Take Star Wars, cut it up into 15 second increments. Then allow the general public to recreate in any medium the 15 second scene. What? You don’t have a Princess Leia wig? Don’t sweat it – an old set of headphones will suffice. You can’t reproduce the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon? Hey, the driver and passenger seats of your Tercel will work just fine. Need a Jabba The Hutt? Ask that guy that plays WoW all day in his mom’s basement.

Go to http://www.starwarsuncut.com and put in your proverbial 2 cents. It’s far far better than Spaceballs or that Thumb Wars crap.

Can't be any worse than Attack of the Clones.

Flu crisis, criminal opportunity. But who is the criminal?

Forsythe (http://www.lockergnome.com/forsythe/author/forsythe/) at Lockergnome writes an article reporting increasing warning over criminal attempts for flu crisis (full story at http://www.lockergnome.com/forsythe/2009/10/24/flu-crisis-is-a-criminal-opportunity).

I think that hasn’t been a time in human histry that was not an opportunity for criminals.

But at the same time I think that, though a real problem exists with flu spreading, sometime big Pharma companies wave on this fear to sell more. And this is a criminal offense too in my opinion.

This post as a comment also at  http://www.lockergnome.com/forsythe/2009/10/24/flu-crisis-is-a-criminal-opportunity/#comment-40470

Rising Youth Violence: Not a Racial Issue, but a Parenting Issue

      I had posted a recent youth violence story out of South Florida, where a teenager was set on fire by five of his classmates. The violence was done by youth, and not on racial lines. Then there is the young blackteenager who was brutally beat to death in Chicago by a group of black teenagers.

      Paul White, writing in the Christian Science Monitor, says that racism is not the issue, but parenting:

The question is not whether young blacks, particularly males, get involved in violent incidents more frequently than other races. The question is why.

White and black liberals blame this disparity on a racist society that misinterprets and discriminates against black culture.

White and black conservatives explain these statistics as the result of less respect for the law, caused solely by poor parenting. They cite as proof that high-achieving blacks have been well-parented.

This is not a new problem. Consider a memo written in 1965 to President Lyndon Johnson from Assistant Labor Secretary Daniel Moynihan in which the secretary expressed his great concern over the high rate of out-of-wedlock births among blacks (25 percent at that time). Unaddressed, Mr. Moynihan predicted, this large number of fatherless children would result in increasing school failure, criminal delinquency, and joblessness. Sadly, because liberals across the board condemned this call for action as racist propaganda, President Johnson didn’t want to risk heated public debate and so did nothing.

The recent Chicago incident, and countless others that occur daily, are the result of not heeding Moynihan’s warning 44 years ago. The previous out-of-wedlock birthrate has almost tripled, and 7 out of 10 black children now grow up not only without a father, but also in disproportionate poverty. That means millions of young kids lack adequate parental guidance to make the transition to become successful adults.

See the article in the Christian Science Monitor: http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20091022/cm_csm/ywhite

Over 100 Banks fall for 2009

Today the Federal Deposit Insurance corporation shuttered six banks in the Midwest and the southeast US to day the largest number of closing on one day in years. Three banks in Florida, one in Georgia, Minnesota; Wisconsin and Illinois each.

The bank failures has slowly drained the FDIC insurance fund. So far the closures have cost the fund over $25 billion. By 2013 bank failure could cause the federal government up to $100 billion. To build up the fund the FDIC is demanding that banks  pay in three years advance a total of $45 billion.

The growing list of banks in trouble as of June is 416 up from 252 from beginning of the year. On the other hand the number of banks closing seems to slow down for example in July the FDIC shuttered 24 banks, in September 11 were closed and in October so far 11.

Whenever a bank fails to maintain operational set by the FDIC, the fed swoop in and immediately shut the financial institution and find a buyer or take over the deposits. The quickly reopen the bank between 24 and 72 hours.

The FDIC’s main priority, spokesman Andrew Gray said, is to keep up the confidence of the American People with the banking industry. “As evidenced by the stability of insured deposits throughout last year, the mission has been a success.” He said.

Those in banking and law industries say the FDIC’s main goal to provide confidence in banking. That means the fed uses a go slow approach not to cause fear or panic in the minds of the public.

“The FDIC was set up to create confidence and prevent bank runs,” says Mark Williams, a former bank examiner for the Federal Reserve. Being too aggressive about bank closing “can be counter to the mission.”

Maryland banking regulator Sarah Bloom Raskin says, Technically it’s the states who decide, but in reality it’s the FDIC calling you and to say” when the bank will closed.

Small banks have hard hit by bad real estates, commerical and industrial loans that went south during this recession.

Here are the banks in question that have been taken over by the feds.

Partners Bank and Hillcrest Bank Florida, both based in Naples were closed on Friday and its assets have been bought by Stonegate Bank in Fort Lauderdale both banks and branches will become branches of Stonegate Bank. Partner Bank had only  two branches both in Naples. Hillcrest Bank Florida had six branches they will become  Stonegate Bank.

Flagship National Bank based in Bradenton was closed by the FDIC and is assets and  four branches in Sarasota,Bradenton. First Federal Bank of Florida in Lake City will take the assets and branches of Flagship National and will open as branches of First Federal Bank Florida.

American United Bank in the Atlanta suburb of Lawenceville,GA was shut by regulators on Friday. This bank has only one branch. It will be come a branch of Ameris Bank of Moultrie, Ga and assume all $111 in assets.

Racine based Bank of Elmwood was closed by regulators and it’s assets and 5 branches in Racine and Kenosha will become a branch of  Tri-City National Bank of Oak Creek, Wisconsin near Milwaukee.

Riverview Community Bank based in Minneapolis suburb was shuttered by regulators. Otsego based Central Bank will assume all assets and two branches of Riverview Community.

and Lastly First DuPage Bank in the Westmont, IL a western suburb of Chicago was closed by state and federal regulators Friday. It’s sole branch will become a branch of First Midwest Bank based in Itasca,IL also in the western suburbs of Chicago.

AP via My Way News

Chicago Tribune

Marco News Eagle

South Florida Business Journal

Market Watch

Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Governor blames budget woes on 'Judges going absolutely crazy'

The Sacramento Bee published an article today, Friday October 23, in which the headline was exactly what the title of this post is. The entire article can be read here.

Basically the article says that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is now blaming judges, especially on the Federal level, for the ongoing budget crisis that California is currently embroiled in. Judges have been striking down some of the budget gimmicks that were included in the most current California budget as either un-constitutional or outright illegal.

He complained in particular about judicial actions that have struck down some state worker furloughs, required reductions in the prison population, imposed restrictions on water delivery in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and this week blocked cuts to in-home care services.

Judges have only been striking down or altering those things in the budget that are in fact illegal or un-constitutional. Its a good thing too, since if something is illegal it is illegal. Right?

Well, not if your the Governor of California apparently.

Gov. Schwarzenegger’s response to this was…

In his defense, Schwarzenegger said, “Every decision that we make we run by the legal department and the experts, and their opinion is that those things are legal.”

The governor blamed judges for not considering the state’s fiscal straits when issuing their opinions.

Now, I know this may be a minor point but would the State of California take any one of our fiscal straights into consideration if we committed a crime or violated another persons rights. I don’t think so. When a judge and jury find a person guilty of stealing copper wire (something that was a major problem last year in the state) they certainly didn’t take into consideration the fact that the person may have been doing it because they were in severe ‘financial straights’.

He followed up with this little comment that I actually find incredibly offensive comming from the Governor of a state.

“Whenever they agree with me, they’re right, very simple,” Schwarzenegger said wryly when told they sometimes rule in his favor. “When they don’t agree with me, they’re wrong and they’re interfering with our governing of the state.”

Tell me please where a person gets that kind of unbridled hubris. I have found that when I am wrong at the beginning I am still wrong no matter who it is that agrees with me. If alot of people agree with me when I am wrong, that just means that alot of other people are also wrong. There was no mention of his being right or wrong, only that “Whenever they agree with me, they’re right, very simple,” Schwarzenegger said wryly when told they sometimes rule in his favor. “When they don’t agree with me, they’re wrong and they’re interfering with our governing of the state.”

You can’t make this stuff up, nobody would believe you if you did.

I realize that the State of California is in some dire straights when it comes to the budget and that something needed to be done to avert a total meltdown. The problem is that the things that the Governor and California legislature did or refused to do solved absolutely nothing. It merely kicked the can down the road until next year. Once it comes time to do the next budget they will still have the exact same problems they did this time around only it will be compounded by falling tax reciepts and other factors as well.

“The budget is about trying to push off fiscal problems into the future, and one way to do that is to do things that may be legally dubious because you know it’s going to take the courts time to strike them down,” said Vikram Amar, a constitutional law professor at the University of California, Davis. “Doing things that are arguably illegal is a form of borrowing because no court has told you yet that you can’t.”

And that was precisely the reason that these things were included in the budget in the first place. Because no court had told them they couldn’t do them to push back the budget problems another year, they included them in the budget knowing that they were on legally shaky ground.

When tackling a two-year deficit of $60 billion in the past year, state leaders pursued solutions that experts warned were legally risky. But without enacting them, leaders risked further damage to California’s credit rating as it paid bills with IOUs.

I am afraid I have to say that it is not the judges that have gone “absolutely crazy”, it is our Governor that has lost his mind and gone absolutely crazy along with the legislators that passed this budget in the first place.

You have to know that with a state government that would do these sorts of things and say these sorts of things California’s problems are very far from being over and may have only just begun.

'Even coal-state senators should be ashamed.'

‘Many Republican senators are “intent on derailing any Obama initiative.”’:

‘As the world turns to Copenhagen this December, the US, which never ratified the Kyoto Protocol, may once again fail to sign up to save the world from serious climate change. Ideology plays a part, Jeffrey Sachs notes, as many Republican senators are “intent on derailing any Obama initiative.” But the bigger problem is economic: No fewer than 25 states produce coal, and the odds of winning even Democratic senators’ votes from those states are daunting.

‘President Obama is negotiating with coal-state senators, and he has the power to order the EPA to impose limits on coal plants and automakers. But the near-impossibility of scoring 67 votes in the Senate raises the real prospect of the US “irresponsibly” shirking environmental progress when even China and India are coming around. “Even coal-state senators should be ashamed,” Sachs writes.’
—Jason Farago Source: Globe and Mail

More odds and ends

The Galleon insider-trading case, in which billionaire Raj Rajaratnam was charged and the securities-rating firm Moody’s was implicated? Has been assigned to Judge Jed Rakoff. Yeah, this Jed Rakoff. (I hope the judge is taking extremely good care of his health, if you know what I mean, because he is making life intolerable for some very, very wealthy and powerful people.)

Former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, who got us both into and out of the ‘81-’82 recession, thinks we need to kind of restore the Glass-Steagall Act, which kept commercial banks from doing investments (and being dragged under when those investments went south) before its 1999 repeal. But he’s having trouble selling that idea to all the Goldman Sachs alumni on Team Obama.

If this hearing in fact happens tomorrow — I read or heard somewhere it could get delayed — it could get real ugly real fast for Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. Hell, it might even get ugly for current Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. I’d be OK with any and/or all suffering some consequences, because you don’t have to be a Harvard MBA to know Bank of America shareholders got screwed.

Speaking of Hank Paulson, turns out that while he was still secretary, he met in Moscow with the board of Goldman Sachs. But nothing improper happened. Really. Move along; nothing to see here. These are not the droids banksters you’re looking for.

Dana Perino, concern troll. Memo: advice on how to conduct yourself from a PR standpoint from someone who used to take money to call people traitors and supporters of terrorists is probably not worth what you’re paying for it.

You can too get a hip replacement under the Canadian health-care system even if you’re of retirement age. Ignore the urban legends/propaganda.

Sen. Richard Burr’s health-care reform plan: fail. Not epic fail, not actual sabotage of what the bill purports to support, but also not enough recognition of certain economic and financial realities.

Shorter Congressman Jeb Hanserling (R-Texas): I’m here to protect banks; screw the consumers.

Another Republican, this time John McCain, thinks another earmark, this one $325,000 for earthquake study in Memphis, is a waste of money, and once again is wrong. Three words: New Madrid Fault.

Shorter Timothy Noah: Whatever happened to, you know, reporting?; or, The public option was always popular, you morons — you just pretended otherwise or weren’t paying attention.

More Noah, because this is just so good and so true: “Political reporters are momentum junkies, forever plotting out momentary trends to infinity. If they were meteorologists, they’d interpret 90-degree temperatures in July to predict 160-degree temperatures in December.”

The House Judiciary Committee voted 20-9 today to strip the health-insurance industry of its federal antitrust exemption. This is such a good idea that three Republicans even went along with it. I dearly hope my own representative, Howard Coble, was one of them. (thomas.loc.gov hasn’t been updated yet so I don’t know.)

John Cole righteously dopeslaps neocon pinhead Pete Wehner.

Sure, Sarah Palin’s $29 book can become a bestseller — when you sell it for $9 or give it away with a magazine subscription.

The Bush and Obama administrations actually threatened not to share intelligence with the U.K. if it released evidence of our torture of a guy named Binyam Mohammed. (Yeah, let’s stop sharing info with our oldest and most trusted ally. Genius.) Fortunately, Britain’s highest court is calling their bluff.

The maker of Tasers, which has long claimed that Tasers aren’t lethal, now concedes that they might be, potentially, well, a little bit, um, lethal. I’m guessing someone finally talked to their lawyer and figured that just maybe they might want to do a little butt-covering.

Socialism … and its potential benefits.

OTOH, let’s foster competition and innovation, not hinder it.

Finally, a bit of a health-care roundup:

Expand Medicare to include — well, anyone who wants in? That’s a public option even some Blue Dogs can believe in. And even if we choose a real public option, the Congressional Budget Office says it won’t cost as much as opponents have been claiming.

Apparently, U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter had no idea that some people were unable to start their own businesses, or stuck in jobs they hate or aren’t suited for, because they can’t afford the health insurance costs they’d have to pay if they made those moves. I mean, c’mon, how imaginative do you have to be before that possibility occurs to you? (The main reason I was able to leave the N&R when they offered buyouts ahead of layoffs was that we didn’t have our health insurance through the N&R.)

Last but not least, Al Franken humbles a Hudson Institute hack on health-care finance:
Senator Al Franken: I think we disagree on whether or not the healthcare reform we’re talking about now in Congress should pass. And you said that, kind of the way we’re going will increase bankruptcies. I want to ask you, how many bankruptcies because of medical crises were there last year in Switzerland?

Diana Furchtgott-Roth: I don’t have that number in front of me but I could find out and get back to you.

Franken: I can tell you how many it was. It’s zero. Do you know how many medical bankruptcies there were last year in France?

Furchtgott-Roth: I don’t have that number but I can get back to you if you like.

Franken: The number is zero.

…

Philippines economic rebound seen in 2010

October 19, 2009, 6:11pm. Source: Manila Bulletin

European businessmen see the Philippines to possibly make an economic rebound in 2010 with growth to be potentially driven by electronics, agri-business, tourism, business process outsourcing (BPO), property development, and retail.

European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ECCP) executive vice president Henry Schumacher said investors may have good reasons to be cautiously optimistic on the country’s prospects next year with most of the six industries seen to perform better next year.

“We are looking at 2010 with guarded optimism,’ Schumacher said after hearing the presentation of the leaders of these major growth drivers at the ECCP’s recent forum dubbed Economic Outlook 2010: The Philippine Business Environment in Light of Developments in the World Economy.

Presenting their respective industry’s projections for 2010 were Philippine Agricultural Development and Commercial Corp. president Mariz Agbon, Business Process Association of the Philippines chief executive officer Oscar Sañez, Jones Lang Lasalle Philippines Inc. chairman Jose Fernando Camus, Semiconductor Electronics Industries in the Philippines Inc. chairman Arthur Young, Philippine Travel Agencies Association president Ma. Paz Alberto, and Philippine Retail Association vice president Paul Santos.

Young said the electronics industry, which directly employs 450,000 individuals and another 1.20 million indirectly, expects a double-digit growth in 2010 and rake in $29 billion to $30 billion in export revenues. This, Young said, will help the industry recover lost footing in 2008 and 2009 when the industry suffered declining export receipts.

Young sees the uptick in consumer spending in the United States and increase in the purchase of hybrid cars, smart phones, PDAs, laptops, flat panels and medical equipment in fast-growing markets such as China and India as good reasons to be optimistic.

Sañez, meanwhile, said revenues from the BPO sector is expected to grow to $9.50 billion in 2010 and then $12 billion in 2011, especially with big investments spreading rapidly to the countryside. Aside from the voice segment, growth will be strong in back-office services such as publishing, finance, corporate services, design, and creative services.

Agbon, for his part, said businessmen from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Korea have expressed interest to invest in the country’s agriculture sector which makes the outlook over the next five years very positive.

Agbon said the 2005 to 2010 medium term plan of creating two million hectares of agricultural land is also almost accomplished with 1.60 million hectares already covered.

On the tourism side, Alberto said there will be a notable expansion in tourist arrivals over the next two years with major hotels slated to open next year. Arrivals, both of foreign visitors and balikbayans, could go up by 16 percent as they come here to enjoy shopping; eco-tourism; and from meetings, incentives, conventions, and exhibitions.

The passage of the new Tourism Law, Alberto said, will help the country address its deficiencies in promotions, infrastructure and product diversity.

Camus said tourism and BPO firms will help the property sector intensify its growth with the need for more Grade A office spaces for the outsourcing firms, as well as new hotels and airports to service the influx of tourists.

Santos said retail expansion in 2010 will be more pronounced in the provinces as retailers have noticed that people are willing to spend money where they live if given the opportunity. Consumer spending will also go to higher gears due to the 2010 general elections.

One Location For All Job Seekers

Along with many other people, I have been through the experience of job hunting in this bad economy.  Not fun.  Many companies list open positions on both job boards (CareerBuilder, Monster, etc.) as well as their own websites.  Every time you click on a job that looks interesting you are taken to a different website.  If you want to apply to companies A, B, and C, you can bet that it will be on three different sites.  I can’t tell you how many times I have had to enter my entire educational and professional history from scratch, despite having a resume ready to go.  Sure Monster and CareerBuilder have the features to simply forward your resume, but 90% of the time clicking the ‘apply’ link takes you to a new website.  Create a login. Fill out personal info. Education. Experience. Repeat. I’ve had jobs that took over 30 minutes to apply for with my resume sitting untouched on my desktop.  When you apply to a lot of jobs this eats up quite a bit of time.

I’ve got a business idea for someone out there  – create a website where users enter all their work information once and make it compatible with other companies systems.  I want to enter my personal info, education, work history, references, and anything else relevent to a job search one time only.  I would like to see a feature similar to Facebook connect where you could login to other companies websites with an existing ID.  Applying for a job on for any company should be as simple as logging in and clicking submit.

Considering that many companies already offer this type of service, and there isn’t one company popular enough to be an industry standard, the solution might be to create a non-profit organization instead of a private company.  If you could get some of the Fortune 500 and sites like Monster and CareerBuilder to sign on – you’d be set.  Or someone could just fix the economy, whatever is easier.

Tax raid on banks planned by ministers

While the move to raid to raid banks is laudable,what is questionable is the media’s disclosure of it in advance.
The element of surprise will be lost.
Overenthusiasm for ’scoop’ should not blind media of its responsibility of serving the public.

‘Ministers are drawing up plans for a tax raid on Britain’s banks worth hundreds of millions of pounds, The Sunday Telegraph has learned.’-Telegaph Oct 17, 2009 ‘
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/6360827/Tax-raid-on-banks-planned-by-ministers.html

Debunking 'The Recession Is Over' Talk

The Dow touched 10.000 points (inflation adjusted and other factors like the Dollar ripping the 10.000 into a mere 1998 value) and everyone was happy, on Wall Street. The bearish commentators like Nouriel Roubini and Senate Candidate Peter Schiff had to warn again about this fluffy stock market and financial recovery. Across the pond, Germany declared ‘out of recession’, and the ones who still love their Pound more or less start buying houses and other living space again.

The academic declaration for when we are out of this shit is not as clear as when we are in it;

In a 1975 New York Times article, economic statistician Julius Shiskin suggested several rules of thumb for identifying a recession, one of which was “two down quarters of GDP”. In time, the other rules of thumb were forgotten, and a recession is now often defined simply as a period when GDP falls (negative real economic growth) for at least two quarters. Some economists prefer a definition of a 1.5% rise in unemployment within 12 months.

In the United States the Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is generally seen as the authority for dating US recessions. The NBER defines an economic recession as: “a significant decline in [the] economic activity spread across the country, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP growth, real personal income, employment (non-farm payrolls), industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales.” Almost universally, academics, economists, policy makers, and businesses defer to the determination by the NBER for the precise dating of a recession’s onset and end. (Wikipedia)

We should just turn it the other way around I suggest, say when the economy is growing in real GDP (inflation adjusted).

What counts and what not?

Suggested by academics, that we have to include many economic indicators, that when real GDP grows again over several months period then the recession is over, why are we having the ‘recession is over‘ talk when it is clearly not the case? Especially in real terms (inflation adjusted). We haven’t seen a real GDP growth over more than a few months, unemployment is still rising (workers who stop looking for work, 16.8% USA, not even include), and consumers pay down household debt of 124% of their disposable income (USA). With what disposable income do you want to consume?

To make the case for Germany; unemployment hit already +8% and will rise more when government aid for part-time worker, circa 1.4mio in September, runs out. Wages, inflation adjusted, were and are shrinking instead of rising across the whole economy. And unemployment statistics do not include ONE-EURO Jobs, 1.52mio in September.

The ‘green shoots’ talk is overrated, there is still a widening output gap, there is still stimulus spending, there is still rising unemployment. I know that unemployment, aka Main Street, lacks 6 months behind Wall Street gains. And a lot of pundits talk about that and we just have to wait. A 10.000 doesn’t and should not count, with third-quarter-release-number-effects in mind, as sign for recovery. It is vaporware. Period. Media stations and econ pundits were all amazed by the dive the world economy took. We should not have been listening and reading them during pre-storm, and we should not listening and reading mainstream media now.

My Yardstick

A lot has been done to save fragile economies, to a certain degree of success. But we are very far from reaching the finish line. We haven’t even implemented exit strategies. Although the ECB already tries to combat exess liquidity (a correct action).

My measure for economic recovery is much simpler.

When we have started creating jobs, have restored the financial sector in a sensible way to support the real economy and major economies start to pay down their debt by lasting fiscal reforms, then we are on our way to global recovery out of a global recession for the next decade.

It has to be seen if this process (starting with job gains) kicks in in the middle of 2010 or if underlying economic fundamentals (household debt, global trade, financial sector et. al.) can’t be corrected as fast as mainstream medias, econ pundits and politicians wishful thinking. Forecasts aren’t ironed, especially in volatile times.

More hiccups to come as people on the floor have another party.

——————————

+10 Further Readings (incl a vidcast):

• The Big Picture – Wise Words From Economists?
• Financial Armageddon – Bullishness At A Contrarian Extreme
• Financial Armageddon – Getting close To A ‘Recallibration’?
• NYTimes – By Some Reliable Measures, The Recession Is Over
• Reuters – Recession over, unemployment seen at 10 percent
• Bloomberg – Roubini Sees ‘Light at the End of Tunnel’ Of Recession
• Telegraph – Global markets rally is ‘too much, too fast’ (Roubini, Soros, Prechter)
• Wealthdaily – Roubini, soros, Prechter … Oh My
• YouTube – Peter Schiff: DOW 10.000 – So What?
• Business Week – Five reasons it’s too soon to declare the recession over
• DW-World.com – IMF and World Bank warn: Crisis not over yet
• DW-World.com – Slow economic recovery has begun, says IMF

China sovereign fund buys 45% stake in Russian oil company

BEIJING, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) — China Investment Corporation (CIC), the nation’s sovereign wealth fund, announced Friday that it had closed the first phase settlement for the purchase of a 45 percent stake in Nobel Oil Group.

The 300-million-dollar investment would be completed in two phases. In the first phase, which was completed by the end of September, CIC had spent 100 million U.S. dollars for holding the Russian oil company’s stakes, and 50 million dollars for operating expense of the oil fields, according to the announcement.

It said that the remaining 150 million dollars would be paid off in the second phase, in nine months, to buy oil and gas reserves amounting 150 million barrels around existing ones.

When the purchase was done, CIC will hold 45 percent of the company’s stake while the Russian company will own 50 percent and the rest 5 percent will go to a Hong Kong investor.

The was CIC’ second move within one month to buy shares in overseas oil and gas companies. At the end of September, CIC paid 939 million U.S. dollars for a stake in Kazakhstan oil and gas company JSC KazMunaiGas Exploration Production (KMG EP).

Zhuang Jian, a senior economist with the Asian Development Bank, said that under the forecast of excessive fluidity and devaluation of the U payday loan in advance.S. dollars, CIC’s investment in bulk commodities like oil and gas would be a better option to mitigate risks in China’s huge foreign exchange reserves.

These deals show that CIC is attaching more attention to resource commodities and intends to diversify its assets arrangement from its early preference of investing in financial sectors, said Chen Fengying, director of Institute of World Economic Studies under China Institute of Contemporary International Relations.

Chen also said that future price hikes of resource commodities, resulting from devaluation of the dollars and recovery of the world economy, might bring better profits to CIC.

Launched in September 2007 with a registered capital of 200 billion U.S. dollars from China’s huge foreign exchange reserves, CIC has been criticized for suffering book value losses after it purchased stakes in Blackstone Group and Morgan Stanley in 2007.

China sovereign fund buys 45% stake in Russian oil company

$400 per gallon gas to drive debate over cost of war in Afghanistan. By Roxana Tiron

Via: TheHill.com.

The Pentagon pays an average of $400 to put a gallon of fuel into a combat vehicle or aircraft in Afghanistan.

The statistic is likely to play into the escalating debate in Congress over the cost of a war that entered its ninth year last week.

Pentagon officials have told the House Appropriations  Defense Subcommittee a gallon of fuel costs the military about $400 by the time it arrives in the remote locations in Afghanistan where U.S. troops operate.

“It is a number that we were not aware of and it is worrisome,” Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), the chairman of the House Appropriations Defense panel, said in an interview with The Hill. “When I heard that figure from the Defense Department, we started looking into it.”

The Pentagon comptroller’s office provided the fuel statistic to the committee staff when it was asked for a breakdown of why every 1,000 troops deployed to Afghanistan costs $1 billion. The Obama administration uses this estimate in calculating the cost of sending more troops to Afghanistan.

The Obama administration is engaged in an internal debate over its future strategy in Afghanistan. Part of this debate concerns whether to increase the number of U.S. troops in that country.

The top U.S. general in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal, reportedly has requested that about 40,000 additional troops be sent.
Democrats in Congress are divided over whether to send more combat troops to stabilize Afghanistan in the face of waning public support for the war.

Any additional troops and operations likely will have to be paid for through a supplemental spending bill next year, something Murtha has said he already anticipates.

Afghanistan — with its lack of infrastructure, challenging geography and increased roadside bomb attacks — is a logistical nightmare for the U.S. military, according to congressional sources, and it is expensive to transport fuel and other supplies.

A landlocked country, Afghanistan has no seaports and a shortage of airports and navigable roads. The nearest port is in Karachi, Pakistan, where fuel for U.S. troops is shipped.

From there, commercial trucks transport the fuel through Pakistan and Afghanistan, sometimes changing carriers. Fuel is then transferred to storage locations in Afghanistan for movement within the country. Military transport is used to distribute fuel to forward operating bases. For many remote locations, this means fuel supplies must be provided by air.

One of the most expensive ways to supply fuel is by transporting it in bladders carried by helicopter; the amount that can be flown at one time can barely satisfy the need for fuel.

The cheapest way to transport fuel is usually by ship. Other reasonable methods to provide fuel are by rail and pipeline. The prices go up exponentially when aircraft are used, according to congressional sources.

The $400 per gallon reflects what in Pentagon parlance is known as the “fully burdened cost of fuel.”

“The fully burdened cost of fuel is a recognition that there are a lot of other factors that come into play,” said Mark Iden, the deputy director of operations at the Defense Energy Support Center (DESC), which provides fuel and energy to all U.S. military services worldwide.

The DESC provides one gallon of JP8 fuel, which is used for both aircraft and ground vehicles, at a standard price of $2.78, said Iden.

The Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. James Conway, told a Navy Energy Forum this week that transporting fuel miles into Afghanistan and Iraq along risky and dangerous routes can raise the cost of a $1.04 gallon up to $400, according to Aviation Week which covered the forum.

“These are fairly major problems for us,” Conway said, according to the publication.

The fully burdened cost of fuel accounts for the cost of transporting it to where it is needed, said Kevin Geiss, program director for energy security in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations and Environment.

And moving fuel by convoy or even airlift is expensive, according to the Army news release from July 16, which quoted Geiss. In some places, Geiss said, analysts have estimated the fully burdened cost of fuel might even be as high as $1,000 per gallon.

Energy consumed by a combat vehicle may not even be for actual mobility of the vehicle, Geiss said, but instead to run the systems onboard the vehicle, including the communications equipment and the cooling systems to protect the electronics onboard.

Some 8o percent of U.S. military casualties in Afghanistan are due to improvised explosive devices,  many of which are placed in the path of supply convoys — making it even more imperative to use aircraft for transportation.

According to a Government Accountability Office report published earlier this year, 44 trucks and 220,000 gallons of fuel were lost due to attacks or other events while delivering fuel to Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan in June 2008 alone.

High fuel demand, coupled with the volatility of fuel prices, also have significant implications for the Department of Defense’s operating costs, the GAO said. The fully burdened cost of fuel — that is, the total ownership cost of buying, moving and protecting fuel in systems during combat — has been reported to be many times higher than the price of a gallon of fuel itself, according to the report.

The Marines in Afghanistan, for example, reportedly run through some 800,000 gallons of fuel a day. That reflects the logistical challenges of running the counterinsurgency operations but also the need for fuel during the extreme weather conditions in Afghanistan — hot summers and freezing winters.

With the military boosting the number of the all-terrain-mine resistant ambush-protected vehicles  (M-ATVs) in Afghanistan meant to survive roadside bombs, the fuel consumption will likely rise even higher, since those vehicles are considered gas-guzzlers.

The Pentagon comptroller’s office did not return requests for comment by press time.

The Best Place to Live

If you were walking along a dusty country road and kicked a rusty can in the middle of the road, and and an Arabian genie would puff out of the can and said, “Thank you Master for exiting me out of my cage.  Please tell me where you would like to spend the rest of your life and I will take care of all your expenses for the rest of your life.  Where would it be? Which country in the world would you choose?

I would choose Spain without hesistating a second.  I’ve always had a dream to drive through La Mancha following the route of Don Quixote or visiting the El Prado Museum and enjoy the paintings of Velásquez or walking through the stone streets of Toledo where El Greco used to live.  Yep, I would tell my genie to take me to Spain and pay my bills for the rest of my days.

In a recent Human Development Index compiled by the UN Development Program (UNDP), amongst a list of 182 countries, Norway is the best place to live.  The study is based on such criteria as life expectancy, literacy, school enrollment and gross domestic product (GDP) per capita.

Norway, Australia and Iceland took the first three spots while Niger ranks at the very bottom, just below Afghanistan. China moved up seven places on the list to rank as the 92nd most developed country due to improvements in education as well as income levels and life expectancy.  The United States ranks 13th, down one spot from last year.

The UNDP said the index highlights the grave disparities between rich and poor countries.  A child born in Niger can expect to live to just over 50, which is 30 years less than a child born in Norway. For every dollar a person earns in Niger, 85 dollars are earned in Norway.

The top ten best countries to live according to the UNDP are:

1. Norway
2. Australia
3. Iceland
4. Canada
5. Ireland
6. The Netherlands
7. Sweden
8. France
9. Switzerland
10. Japan

It’s interesting that seven out of the ten best countries to live, are located in Europe.  Not a single country was located in Latin America; and sadly, Spain was not on the list.  (Sigh…) Any comments?  Good Day.

Dad Talk to Jeff Latta

Okay, so yesterday I posted on the plight of the 53 year old retired man that can’t afford his $1,000 mortgage.

The story reads that his mortgage is 93% of his pension.  I managed to do the math and calculate how much this guy would have left over.  What I didn’t do was calculate what he made per year; $20,640.  And his mortgage?  Well, assuming he has a 7% rate and given a $1,600 payment, that means he borrowed $240,000.  That, ladies and gentlegerms, is a QUARTER OF A MILLION DOLLARS!  And brother is making a cool 20k a year.

I hereby make this covenant with you, gentle reader.  I will not, I swear to you, I will NOT raise my son to think that it’s okay to borrow $240,000 and then retire at 53 knowing your fixed income will be $20,000.  And more than that, he will not ever, EVER, consider it someone else’s burden to pay for or bail him out of that dumb ass decision.

I swear to you.

Now, son…about that whole pumpkin farm thing you got goin’ on…..

Mobile media revenues to grow 33% in next year

Despite continued economic malaise across the globe, the Mobile Entertainment Forum’s latest Business Confidence Index anticipates average mobile media revenue growth of 33 percent for the coming year–a 6 percent increase over what the BCI predicted at the beginning of 2009. “The results point to a divide between the established and emerging markets,” said MEF executive director Rimma Perelmuter in a prepared statement. “Our members in the established markets such as Western Europe and North America are forecasting relatively stable revenues but see emerging markets such as Central and Latin America, as well as India, driving proportionately larger revenue increases for the coming year. With the majority of respondents also telling us that their actual performance for the last quarter was either in line with or better than budgeted, the industry has demonstrated resilience and confidence of heading in the right direction. “

According to the BCI results, mobile applications are developing into tangible revenue streams–the MEF said apps will generate 14 percent of anticipated mobile media revenues over the next year, with consumer purchases yielding more than half of this revenue. “Paid-for content is still a big revenue generator for the mobile media sector, with respondents predicting that 63 percent of their revenue over the next quarter will come from both subscription and one-off purchases,” said Mark Harding, Director of Digital Content at KPMG, who analyzed the survey results. “Games, video, music, social networking and infotainment continue to lead the way.”

Read more: http://www.fiercemobilecontent.com/story/mef-poll-mobile-media-revenues-grow-33-next-year/2009-10-12?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal#ixzz0ToN51IIW

Andrew Lahde Appreciation Day - October 17, 2009

Andrew Lahde might not be a name you know well, but you should.  Lahde was the sole principal at Lahde Capital Management, a small California hedge fund that returned between 866% and 1000% (depending on who you believe) within a year betting on the decline of the sub-prime mortgage market.  And then he called it quits — at the peak of the market.   Ladhe tapped because he, well, hated his job.

Lahde, an MBA from the Anderson School at UCLA, honed his skill not at Goldman Sachs,  Morgan Stanley, or some big name hedge fund, but from the more modest platforms of Roth Capital, Gerard Klauer Mattison, Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management and TD Waterhouse.

In November 2007, he called the forthcoming decline of the U.S. financial services industry, our domestic currency, and the global equity markets.  The problem was nobody knew who he was.  He had no platform.

So today we remember and salute Lahde by re-publishing his farewell missive, dated October 17, 2008, that someone called the “best thing written since Don Quixote“. The letter address a broad range of topics, and I don’t support all of his positions, but it is worth the read, because it serves as a reminder of how disconnected we became from reality.

Enjoy.

/bryan

Today I write not to gloat. Given the pain that nearly everyone is experiencing, that would be entirely inappropriate. Nor am I writing to make further predictions, as most of my forecasts in previous letters have unfolded or are in the process of unfolding. Instead, I am writing to say goodbye.

Recently, on the front page of Section C of the Wall Street Journal, a hedge fund manager who was also closing up shop (a $300 million fund), was quoted as saying, “What I have learned about the hedge fund business is that I hate it.” I could not agree more with that statement. I was in this game for the money. The low hanging fruit, i.e. idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale, and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking. These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government. All of this behavior supporting the Aristocracy only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless America.

There are far too many people for me to sincerely thank for my success. However, I do not want to sound like a Hollywood actor accepting an award. The money was reward enough. Furthermore, the endless list of those deserving thanks know who they are.

I will no longer manage money for other people or institutions. I have enough of my own wealth to manage. Some people, who think they have arrived at a reasonable estimate of my net worth, might be surprised that I would call it quits with such a small war chest. That is fine; I am content with my rewards. Moreover, I will let others try to amass nine, ten or eleven figure net worths. Meanwhile, their lives suck. Appointments back to back, booked solid for the next three months, they lookforward to their two week vacation in January during which they will likely be glued to their Blackberries or other such devices. What is the point? They will all be forgotten in fifty years anyway. Steve Balmer, Steven Cohen, and Larry Ellison will all be forgotten. I do not understand the legacy thing. Nearly everyone will be forgotten. Give up on leaving your mark. Throw the Blackberry away and enjoy life.

So this is it. With all due respect, I am dropping out. Please do not expect any type of reply to emails or voicemails within normal time frames or at all. Andy Springer and his company will be handling the dissolution of the fund. And don’t worry about my employees, they were always employed by Mr. Springer’s company and only one (who has been well-rewarded) will lose his job.

I have no interest in any deals in which anyone would like me to participate. I truly do not have a strong opinion about any market right now, other than to say that things will continue to get worse for some time, probably years. I am content sitting on the sidelines and waiting. After all, sitting and waiting is how we made money from the subprime debacle. I now have time to repair my health, which was destroyed by the stress I layered onto myself over the past two years, as well as my entire life – where I had to compete for spaces in universities and graduate schools, jobs and assets under management – with those who had all the advantages (rich parents) that I did not. May meritocracy be part of a new form of government, which needs to be established.

On the issue of the U.S. Government, I would like to make a modest proposal. First, I point out the obvious flaws, whereby legislation was repeatedly brought forth to Congress over the past eight years, which would have reigned in the predatory lending practices of now mostly defunct institutions. These institutions regularly filled the coffers of both parties in return for voting down all of this legislation designed to protect the common citizen. This is an outrage, yet no one seems to know or care about it. Since Thomas Jefferson and Adam Smith passed, I would argue that there has been a dearth of worthy philosophers in this country, at least ones focused on improving government. Capitalism worked for two hundred years, but times change, and systems become corrupt. George Soros, a man of staggering wealth, has stated that he would like to be remembered as a philosopher. My suggestion is that this great man start and sponsor a forum for great minds to come together to create a new system of government that truly represents the common man’s interest, while at the same time creating rewards great enough to attract the best and brightest minds to serve in government roles without having to rely on corruption to further their interests or lifestyles. This forum could be similar to the one used to create the operating system, Linux, which competes with Microsoft’s near monopoly. I believe there is an answer, but for now the system is clearly broken.

Lastly, while I still have an audience, I would like to bring attention to an alternative food and energy source. You won’t see it included in BP’s, “Feel good. We are working on sustainable solutions,” television commercials, nor is it mentioned in ADM’s similar commercials. But hemp has been used for at least 5,000 years for cloth and food, as well as just about everything that is produced from petroleum products. Hemp is not marijuana and vice versa. Hemp is the male plant and it grows like a weed, hence the slang term. The original American flag was made of hemp fiber and our Constitution was printed on paper made of hemp. It was used as recently as World War II by the U.S. Government, and then promptly made illegal after the war was won. At a time when rhetoric is flying about becoming more self-sufficient in terms of energy, why is it illegal to grow this plant in this country? Ah, the female. The evil female plant – marijuana. It gets you high, it makes you laugh, it does not produce a hangover. Unlike alcohol, it does not result in bar fights or wife beating. So, why is this innocuous plant illegal? Is it a gateway drug? No, that would be alcohol, which is so heavily advertised in this country. My only conclusion as to why it is illegal, is that Corporate America, which owns Congress, would rather sell you Paxil, Zoloft, Xanax and other addictive drugs, than allow you to grow a plant in your home without some of the profits going into their coffers. This policy is ludicrous. It has surely contributed to our dependency on foreign energy sources. Our policies have other countries literally laughing at our stupidity, most notably Canada, as well as several European nations (both Eastern and Western). You would not know this by paying attention to U.S. media sources though, as they tend not to elaborate on who is laughing at the United States this week. Please people, let’s stop the rhetoric and start thinking about how we can truly become self-sufficient.

With that I say goodbye and good luck.

All the best,

Andrew Lahde”

Corporate Media Says Trust Government - "Get Your Damn Vaccine!"

Kurt Nimmo / Infowars – October 11, 2009

The vaccination propaganda is now kicking into overdrive. Earlier today, I switched on the tube and randomly hit two news channels — CNN and Fox — and there was the get the vaccine propaganda. Both channels told me to get the vaccine. Both downplayed the “myths” and “disinformation” about the dangers of the seasonal and H1N1 vaccines.

Supposed experts interviewed by ABC News claim it is unethical to refuse the vaccine. “Does Americans’ right to determine what is best for themselves and their families trump the federal government’s efforts to head off what it believes could be a flu pandemic?” writes Patrick Jonsson for ABC News. “The US government says it has no intention of forcing vaccinations, but its entire flu strategy could be undermined – endangering public health, they say – if a substantial portion of the US population opts out of the $3 billion program.”

The corporate media’s own polls reveal that around two-thirds of parents have serious reservations about the vaccines’ effectiveness and safety. Millions of people simply distrust the government and do not buy into the propaganda.

“Many of the concerns by parents are based on the perception that this vaccine has been rushed into production and may not be safe,” Tom Skinner, a CDC spokesman, told Fox News. “We understand parents’ concerns – they want what is best for their children. We often tell people the best antidote for fear is information. And we ask them to really seek out sound and reliable information from sources they trust.”

According to the CDC, parents need to stop listening to a large number of doctors and virologists who say the vaccines are dangerous and instead get their information exclusively from the corporate media.

The government and the corporate media hate the idea millions of Americans are doing their own research before sticking a needle in their kids. “Just get your damn vaccine,” demanded Dr. Nancy Snyderman, NBC’s chief medical editor. Snyderman dropped all pretense and revealed the real attitude of the government and the Mockingbird corporate media.

How dare you question the government. Just shut up and roll up your sleeve…

MSNBC

Now you will be told it is irresponsible and unethical not to get a vaccine loaded up with mercury, squalene, preservatives, “attenuated” viruses, and formaldehyde.

Link to entire article below…

http://www.infowars.com/corporate-media-is-not-taking-the-vaccine-unethical/

Ex-prep school dean charged with 4th sex assault

LITCHFIELD, Conn. – The former dean of an exclusive Connecticut boarding school has been charged with sexually assaulting a fourth student.

Forty-four-year-old Robert Reinhardt, who was fired from The Gunnery school in Washington, Conn., in June, was arraigned Tuesday in Litchfield Superior Court on charges of second-degree sexual assault and giving alcohol to a minor.

State police say the charges involve a man in his early 20s who alleges Reinhardt sexually assaulted him when he was a junior and senior at the school in 2003 and 2004 accounting course onlie.

Reinhardt, of Telford, Pa., is charged with sexually assaulting three other students.

Reinhardt’s lawyer says his client will fight the charges.

The former dean posted another $200,000 bail and is due back in court Oct. 16.

Ex-prep school dean charged with 4th sex assault

The Dems make no sense to me

Job losses, people losing their homes, unemployment at an all time high. People can’t find work and can’t pay their bills, can’t put food on the table. And the Obama administration is worried about getting free health care for all, including 12,000,000+ illegal aliens, and global warming, and constantly raising taxes to pay for their nitwit ideas? I don’t get this. This makes no sense to me. Seems to me that their priorities are out of order.

Can We Really Trust The Leading Economic Indicators?

Can We Really Trust The Leading Economic Indicators?

by Michael Shedlock

Leading economic indicators are soaring and inquiring minds are wondering if they signal a strong recovery is in the works. First let’s consider the Bullish case from the ECRI.

Please consider U.S. recovery ‘unlikely to falter’ anytime soon-ECRI

Oct 2 (Reuters) – An index of future U.S. economic growth slipped in the latest week, but its yearly growth rate climbed to a new record high, indicating a smooth recovery in the near-term, a research group said on Friday.

The Economic Cycle Research Institute, a New York-based independent forecasting group, said its Weekly Leading Index slipped to 127.1 in the week to Sept. 25 from an upwardly revised 127.9 the prior week, which was originally reported as 127.8.

Last week’s figure marked a 60-week high.

The index’s yearly growth rate rose to new all-time high of 25.1 percent in the latest reading from 24.3 percent the prior week.

“With WLI growth rising to yet another record high, the economic recovery is highly unlikely to falter in the next few months,” said ECRI Managing Director Lakshman Achuthan.

Double Dip Recession Out Of The Question

In August the ECRI said U.S. double-dip recession “out of the question”.

“With WLI growth continuing to surge through late summer, a double dip back into recession in the fourth quarter is simply out of the question,” said ECRI Managing Director Lakshman Achuthan, reinstating the group’s recent warning to ignore negative analyst projections.

I would agree that a slip back into recession in the 4th quarter is unlikely, assuming of course it is even possible. Bear in mind, we have not had an official end of this recession declared yet.

However, putting such a short-term target on things while telling people to “ignore negative analyst projections” is quite a bit over the top.

Strongest Recovery Since Early 1980s

Also in August the ECRI declared US recovery may be strongest since early 1980s.

ECRI Says Inflation On Cusp Of Upswing

In October, the ECRI issued an inflation warning. Please consider US inflation on ‘cusp of cyclical upswing’.

Oct 2 (Reuters) – A monthly gauge of U.S. inflation pressures continued to rise in September to an 11-month high, suggesting an upswing in prices expected in an economic recovery, a research group said on Friday.

The Economic Cycle Research Institute’s U.S. Future Inflation Gauge (USFIG), designed to anticipate cyclical swings in the rate of inflation, rose to 90.6 in September from an upwardly revised 89.7 in August, which was originally reported at 89.6.

“The upturns in the USFIG and its components have become fairly pronounced, pervasive and persistent. Thus, while this is not yet a significant policy concern, U.S. inflation is on the cusp of a cyclical upswing,” said Lakshman Achuthan, managing director at ECRI.

Cusp of Inflation?

I will gladly take the opposite side of the ECRI’s inflation warning.

Yield Curve As Of 2009-10-08

click on chart for sharper image

Since June the 3 month T-Bill has floated near zero, while the 10-Year Treasury Note yield has fallen from 4 to 3.17, a huge 83 basis points flattening of the curve. This is certainly not what one would expect to see on the “cusp of inflation”.

Unfortunately we do not know the exact makeup of the ECRI’s WLI (Weekly Leading Indicator’s Index). After all they are selling a proprietary service.

However, we do know from the ECRI’s Business Cycle Glossary that the well-known monthly Index of Leading Economic Indicators (LEI), originally developed by ECRI’s founder, Geoffrey H. Moore, also oversaw the development of the WLI, which represents the latest in a long series of advances made since the introduction of the original LEI.

WLI is weekly while LEI is monthly.

Conference Board (LEI) Leading Economic Indicators

click on chart for sharper image

Please consider the latest (September 21) Conference Board release of Global Business Cycle Indicators

“Since reaching a peak in July 2007, the LEI fell for twenty months – the longest downtrend since the mid 1970s – but it has been rising since April and its gains have become very widespread,” says Ataman Ozyildirim, Economist at The Conference Board. “The six-month growth rate of the LEI continues to accelerate. At the same time, the downtrend in the coincident economic index, measuring current economic activity, seems to be stabilizing, with the index flat so far this quarter.”

Says Ken Goldstein, Economist at The Conference Board: “The LEI has risen for five consecutive months and the coincident economic index has stopped falling. Taken together, this suggests that the recession is bottoming out. These numbers are consistent with the view that after a very severe downturn, a recovery is very near. But, the intensity and pattern of that recovery is more uncertain.”

Unlike the ECRI’s WLI, we do know the makeup of the Conference Board’s LEI.

Not Your Normal Leading Economic Indicator

Chris Puplava took a good hard look at the LEI in Fool Me Once, Shame on You. Fool Me Twice, Shame on Me.

One of the things that many market commentators and research houses have pointed at to support their bullish outlook on the stock market are the leading economic indicators. I have had the sneaky suspicion that the aggressive and unprecedented actions on the part of the Fed have played a significant role in the LEI given a misleading signal as to an economic turnaround it is forecasting, while the economic components would likely paint a different picture. It is important to understand the makeup of the Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index (LEI) and the weights that each component makes up of the LEI. Below is the breakdown of the ten indicators that make up the LEI and their respective weights in the index. As seen below, the three financial indicators make up approximately 50% of the LEI while the seven economic components make up the other 50%, with the M2 money supply alone making up 35.8% of the total LEI. Money makes the world go round, I guess, according to the LEI.

Shown below are the YOY rate of change growth rates in the Conference Board’s LEI and my indexes of the economic and monetary components separated out. What is a clear take away is that the monetary LEI is doing the heavy lifting as the economic LEI remains in negative territory.

What you can also see is that beginning in the 1980s the growth rate between the monetary and economic LEI began to show a greater disparity in their growth rates than they did in the 1970s. What this would tend to imply is that a greater level of monetary stimulus measures were needed to translate into improved economic growth rates. This aligns with the second chart below that shows the dollar increase in debt per dollar increase in GDP, which shows higher amounts of debt were needed to produce a dollar of GDP, and we are fast approaching the “Zero Hour” in which rising debt does not translate into increased economic growth, or the “pay the piper” moment for our economy.

Zero Hour – Debt Fails To Add To GDP

Further illustrating the notion that it is taking record stimulus just to keep growth going is the YOY growth rate difference between the Monetary LEI and the Economic LEI, with the disparity between the two growth rates at the highest level in the last half century.

The above charts simply illustrate that our economy is fundamentally weak and instead of allowing our economy to sober up after its debt binge, our monetary and governmental authorities are trying to keep the economy drunk and chugging along, using greater amounts of monetary alcohol than ever before.

There is much more in Chris’ article including a series of charts on consumer confidence numbers.

Inquiring minds will want to take a look.

M2 LEI

M2 is the highest weighted component in the LEI weighing in at a whopping 35.80%.

Interestingly the M2 annualized rate of return is falling rapidly and total bank credit is both negative and dropping like a rock.

M2 – Annualized Rate of Change

M2 is actually down since May-August due to the decline in the rate of growth of bank lending over the summer.

If the May-June rate of deceleration were to persist, M2 could conceivably start start contracting by year end or early ‘10.

Total Bank Credit – Annualized Rate of Change

The above charts are from Competitive Currency Debasement – A Look at Rampant Monetary Expansion In China.

For a comparison of US monetary expansion vs. China, please click on the preceding link.

Weekly Hours Do Not Suggest Strength

The second largest component of the LEI is Average Weekly Manufacturing Hours, weighing in at 25.49 percent.

Inquiring minds are thus interested in Table B-2 of the BLS Monthly Employment Report.

Table B-2. Average weekly hours of production and nonsupervisory workers

click on chart for sharper image

For some reason the LEI is unconcerned with non-manufacturing hours at an anemic 33.0, down a tick since August and essentially going nowhere since May.

Manufacturing hours dropped from 39.9 to 39.8 month to month but reached 39.9 in July and August, up .4 from June. Temporary boost from Cash-For-Clunkers?

Payroll Hours Changes August To September (Major Categories)

• Total Private -.1
• Goods producing -.1
• Mining and Logging -.2
• Construction -.4
• Manufacturing -.1
• Durable Goods -.1
• Nondurable Goods -.1

That is the best we could do in spite of a ridiculous give away on Cash-For-Clunkers, and a free $8,000 down payment on homes, a trillion dollar deficit, numerous bailout programs, and the Fed expanding its balance sheet by trillions of dollars.

The third largest component of the LEI is the 10-year treasury bond less the Fed Funds Rate. That component has been sinking rapidly since May as the above chart on the yield curve shows (ie the 10-year treasury note has fallen 83 basis points while the Fed Funds Rate has been flat).

Somehow, the LEI is going up with manufacturing hours stalled, the yield curve flattening substantially, and the rate of change in M2 falling fast. Those three components make up 71.2% of the LEI.

If you think this makes little sense, you are not alone. Not only do I question the makeup of the LEI components, I question the conclusions based on the makeup as given.

Nonetheless, it is quite possible the LEI and WLI work quite fine in average recessions. There are probably many combination of weightings that would produce acceptable results. However, what I suspect but cannot prove, is the LEI or WLI criteria applied to data in 1930 would have shown something that did not happen: a big recovery was coming.

Bear in mind current conditions are closer to those that existed during the great depression than any time sense.

Conceptually, I like Chris’ approach of separating out the monetary from the non-monetary leading indicators. The divergence is staggering. Let’s not mistake a false recovery in the financial sector for a true recovery in the real economy.

Finally, as I have pointed out many times, the Fed cannot force consumers to borrow or banks to lend. Without an increase in debt, it is highly unlikely for any kind of meaningful recovery. Moreover, given the problem is excess consumption and excess debt, we should not even be rooting for another borrowing binge to take place.

Mike “Mish” Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
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Mike “Mish” Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

Dead Man Walking

Mike Whitney

Credit is everything. Without credit expansion there’s no recovery because there’s no pick-up in overall demand. But credit growth is going backwards. The banks have tightened lending standards and the pool of credit-worthy applicants has vanished. Bank lending is off 14 per cent since October 2008. Private credit is presently decreasing at a 10.5 per cent annual rate. The situation is getting worse, not better.

Read the full article

Monsters of Tomorrow

Today offspring are tomorrow monsters; 

            The optimist Biosphere/Earth has its own stabilizing mechanism; it is indifferent to power-avid pessimist man. This unattached earth/biosphere mechanism may burn, suffocate, or drown man and it would not even notice or care for its existence.   

            Through the ages earth/biosphere underwent changes and man either thrived and developed or died consequent to the environmental changes.  All the time, man got curious about his environment and wanted to understand and then uncover the mysteries of that power surrounding him and controlling his life cycle. By the bye, man formulated general laws of nature; then, before he could fathom a tiny portion of the complex mysteries and the multiple interactions among the sparse and conditioned laws this impatient and anxious man endeavored to modify and transform nature to his own wants and restricted interests.

            Man wants to alter earth and the biosphere with the tacit understanding that he will not be affected. Man keeps forgetting, intentionally, that he is what he is because of earth and biosphere. Man can alter earth and biosphere; biosphere will, imperturbably, react at its own pace; the offspring of today are the monsters of tomorrow; if the monster is permitted to exist at all.

            The Western “modern” mind insisted that “the genesis of man (species and child development) is a process of primarily interacting with things; human interactions are a secondary and not a significant factor”.  In fact, most early scientist and researchers lived in their islands of palaces or laboratories with little contact with people.  They were intent on mastering their material environment.  Ayn Rand’s writings incarnated the mentality of the individual attribute of spirit and intelligence. She wrote: “The spirit is an individual attribute. Collective brain does not exist.  Man living in relation to others has no reality.”  Ayn Rand was expressing the prevalent pre-supposition at the turn of the century and she was formulating their radical consequences.

            Jules Verne stories of individualistic heroes and his successors of visionaries, explorers, adventurers, exploiters, and colonial expansionists refused to admit limitations to their intelligence and undertaking power.  They had grand “destiny” to impose and prove: man is born to reign and dominate and not to complain. Something broke then we fix it. Something blocked expansion then we erased it: there are always solutions to difficulties. There are no inherent problems to the enterprising man; as Napoleon said “Impossible is not in my vocabulary”.

            Jules Verne never missed a good shooting spree story at savages; in “Five weeks in balloon” they are shooting at the African negros from the top of a balloon; in “The children of captain Grant” they are shooting at will on Maoris in New Guinea from the top of rocky hills; in “The travel around the world in 80 days” they are killing the Sioux Indians from the doors of moving wagons; in “From Earth to the moon” they are annihilating the Seminole Indians; in “Mathias Sandorf” the savage Senoussis of Libya are exterminated.      

            Colonialism was initiated and undertaken by “democratically” elected government; thus fascism, Nazism, and communism have nothing to do with the spirit of “modernizing” the “barbaric” people. Our current modern man is typified by “Hot Air” Charles Branson; I don’t means his cross Atlantic, Pacific, or around the world balloons and airliners but gases emanating from his ass hole. The Western heroes are children who do not want to be rebuffed from the game: the entire planet is their game land. “When we were children, we were told not to feel afraid or cry: it was shameful. It was a time, and still is pretty much, when growing up meant to vanquish fear; to live in the delusion of the all conquering man.”

            Human intelligence and know how are intrinsically community intelligence. It is the community that initiates man to things and behavior.  Man needs at least 16 years of inter-communal aid and secure before he gets aware of his individuality and begins to revolt and seek a semblance of independence.

            We are at a junction when man is capable of envisioning a limited earth (weight, circumference, volume, and extractable minerals) and limits to the biosphere (thickness, density, and constituents).  There are intersections at several levels of consciousness. We are beginning to comprehend the limitations of technology to containing the power of nature such as tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes, and changing climates; the catastrophic consequences of mastering nuclear energy (Chernobyl is a striking example); the long term problems of gigantic projects such as deviating rivers, and building monster dams.  We realize that our survival is intrinsically linked to the biosphere.  It is a junction of the meeting of man’s brain with the limits of biosphere and our recognition that biosphere is much more complex and that it has indeed engendered our kind of intelligence.

            We are harassed with the dictum “Science is neutral; experiments are unbiased”. One of the urgent tasks of the United Nations is to investigate how science and research are financed or funded.  Everything has a political direction and I contend that sciences, research, and technologies are primarily driven by deep pocket political interest groups.  We can no longer keep fighting those biased and politically oriented “research” results instead of focusing on the reality of earth/biosphere degradations.

Note: read my follow up post “The illusion of knowing…”

That wonderful room

There was a time, now gone by for most of us, when you shared a bathroom without a fuss … And then one day along the way a landlord became magnanimous…
Now it seems so funny but think of the cost in money …
An outhouse you know is cheap and dug when it’s sunny.
To have the luxury of indoor plumbing at hand, not down the hall but in your room, how grand !
But some day you may come to rest in another land where sanitation is not the best and then you’ll understand !
You’ll forget the tailor and draper when out back you go to find alas there is no pape.
You will feel so sad, have to go in the woods like old Jake the trapper and you’ll  know just what you had.
That wonderful room with a crapper .

Banking Implosion and Other Follow-ups

I have written on several occasions concerning my fears of the banking system collapse.  Three more banks failed this week bringing the total number of branches closed near the 4,000 mark.  These continued bank failures are occurring at even a faster rate than I anticipated.  FDIC payouts have exceeded $55 billion already.  I had anticipated a collapse of FDIC in January or February, but it is looking like that may occur sooner, much sooner.

When you combine this information with other things floating out there, it is really looking gloomy.  This week, the president of the World Bank says it will be out of funding for under developed countries and businesses with 12 months.  The recent G20 conference refused to discuss the currency instabilities, and finally next weeks Treasury T-Bill auction will not be attended by its biggest customer, China.

All of these events are pointing to an imminent collapse of the entire banking system internationally, starting with the collapse of the US system.  I think some of these dire predictions will start floating up from the “banking community”  itself starting as early as next week.  The predictive linguistics which I am monitoring is suggesting a seminal event on the the 25th of October.  This is doubly interesting, since that is also the date that seems to be the start of some type of military action against Iran.  What does it all mean?  I have no idea really, except to say that the ACTUAL events that are unfolding seem to not only support our earlier predictions and forecast, they seem to be unfolding at an accelerated rate.

In other events, we had said to expect some type of unexpected storm event in the SE during the week of the 14th of September, and indeed we did have signifcant rain events in the southeast, but in retrospect, it seems that SE may have meant SE Asia.  A series of typhoons have devastated a number of SE Pacific islands including the Philippines causing several hundred deaths and billions in property damage.  These events point out the difficulties of working with predictive linguistics.  The info is usually very accurate, but how we interpret that information is where this is not yet a science.

On another note, we have talked in the past about the potential of a planet X or Nibiru approaching and also the fact that we are fast approaching the point of passage of our solar system through the galactic plane.  Our concern here was the earth being bombarded by massive cosmic energies, including massive influences on our magnetosphere.  Well sure enough, it seems “something” is really screwing with the magnetosphere of earth. (see below)

It seems strangely odd that no one in MSM reported this event.  What ever slammed us literally turned the magnetic field that protects us from destructive cosmic energy and radiation into itself.  It is also curious that this event happened at the very same time the swarm of 6+ earthquakes rocked the South Pacific and Indonesia.  What was not surprising was to hear that this week we are experiencing swarms of quakes in Central California and a volcano erupting in the Aleutian Islands.  Whenever you push on a plate as violently as to create a 8.0 quake on one side you will have an equal response on the other side.  But the most shocking event is how the USGS, Cal Tech, and others are downplaying these events, and even calling them NORMAL!  How do they do that with such a straight face.  If I lived in Central or Southern California, I think I would make a good check of my things to make sure they are battened down. Chances are there is going to be a whole lot of shakin’ going on in the next few weeks.

As we move forward, it seems that the things I have come to believe will happen, are happening.  The feeling is beyond sobering.  The new series FLASH FORWARD has debuted and I think it is curiously relevant.  If you have not caught it yet, basically the whole world’s population went unconscious at exactly the same time for 2 minutes and 17 seconds, and when everyone wakes up, they have all experienced dreams of future events.  Why no one knows yet, but it does bring to focus an interesting dynamic and question.  If you could see your future, including your death, would you want to see it?  In my case, I was interested in understanding my reality as much as I could to understand my role and direction in it.  That was the force what motivated me initially.  Now, however, I am deep in the rabbit hole and am not really comfortable with what I have come to know.  On one hand, I am more prepared for the “unexpected”, but having the pre-knowledge and then actually seeing it unfold in the accurately specific ways as I saw it is somewhat spooky.

One thing remains to give me peace.  It is the nature of us.  Humans have this great capacity to survive.  We also are capable of great compassion and sense of tribe, especially when we are tried.  We, in the whole, will survive and I am convinced we have a great and fantastic future.  Take a moment, especially with the ones you love the most, to tell them how much they really mean to you.  Take a moment to re-enforce a sense of family and community.  Something tells me we really need to do that right now.

Anyway here is Uncle Willie’s thoughts for the day.

Gore Vidal: "We'll have a Dictatorship soon in the US"

Tim Teeman, The Times Online, September 30, 2009

A conversation with Gore Vidal unfolds at his pace. He answers questions imperiously, occasionally playfully, with a piercing, lethal dryness. He is 83 and in a wheelchair (a result of hypothermia suffered in the war, his left knee is made of titanium). But he can walk (“Of course I can”) and after a recent performance of Mother Courage at London’s National Theatre he stood to deliver an anti-war speech to the audience.

How was his friend Fiona Shaw in the title role? “Very good.” Where did they meet? Silence. The US? “Well, it wasn’t Russia.” What’s he writing at the moment? “It’s a little boring to talk about. Most writers seem to do little else but talk about themselves and their work, in majestic terms.” He means self-glorifying? “You’ve stumbled on the phrase,” he says, regally enough. “Continue to use it.”

Vidal is sitting in the Connaught Hotel in Mayfair, where he has been coming to stay for 60 years. He is wearing a brown suit jacket, brown jumper, tracksuit bottoms; his white hair twirled into a Tintin-esque quiff and with his hooded eyes, delicate yet craggy features and arch expression, he looks like Quentin Crisp, but accessorised with a low, lugubrious growl rather than camp lisp.

He points to an apartment opposite the hotel where Churchill stayed during the Second World War, as Downing Street was “getting hammered by the Nazis. The crowds would cheer him from the street, he knew great PR.”

In a flash, this memory reminds you of the swathe of history Vidal has experienced with great intimacy: he was friends with JFK, fought in the war, his father Gene, an Olympic decathlete and aeronautics teacher, founded TWA among other airlines and had a relationship with Amelia Earhart. (Vidal first flew and landed a plane when he was 10.) He was a screenwriter for MGM in the dying days of the studio system, toyed with being a politician, he has written 24 novels and is hailed as one of the world’s greatest essayists.

He has crossed every boundary, I say. “Crashed many barriers,” he corrects me.

Last year he famously switched allegiance from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama during the Democratic nomination process for president. Now, he reveals, he regrets his change of heart. How’s Obama doing? “Dreadfully. I was hopeful. He was the most intelligent person we’ve had in that position for a long time. But he’s inexperienced. He has a total inability to understand military matters. He’s acting as if Afghanistan is the magic talisman: solve that and you solve terrorism.”

Read More Here

Ground your determination for alternative life styles

Brain, senses, and sixth sense; (October 3, 2009)

 

            There is this modern tendency to consider man as plainly a brain that controls all our behavior and actions.  The senses are considered as supplement to our brain to execute the various brains’ commends. How about this venue that it is our brain that created and developed our five senses?  There are many animals and living creatures with less numbers of senses and many with senses far more developed than man. Our brain is an amalgam of cells, nerves, neurons, axons, synapses, and chemical molecules (hormones).  Our brain has developed four specialized parts in addition to our primitive brain but all working together to achieving an elementary input/output task by firing electrical and chemical signals to the specialized glands and members.

            Man can atrophy one sense or develop all his five senses and permit the brain to create a new compartment for a sixth sense in order to handle complementary inputs that cross the current normal threshold for a qualitative shift to what could be the emergence of an additional sense or a new specialized lobe.  In the last century, almost everything was designed to rely exclusively on the eyes and ears.

            First, let me offer preliminary knowledge of our brains, constituents, and functions. The sensorial perceptions are mainly located in the parietal lobes (the top back of the head); the taste, touch, temperature and pain are solicited in that compartment; these lobes also integrate the hearing and visual signals and link them to our global sensorial memory.  The temporal lobes (on both sides of the head) are the locations of musical signals (intensity and tonality of the sounds), and the comprehension of the meaning of words. The frontal lobes or cortex (upper and front of the head) are the newly developed brains and locate the functions of organization, reflection, planning, and modulate our emotions. Voluntary movements take their sources in the posterior section of these lobes.  The occipital lobes (back of the head) are engaged in reading, and decoding visual information (shape, color, and movement of objects are analyzed in these lobes).

            There are specialized neurons that can be activated when an action is executed or when an action is also observed (mirror neurons).  These mirror neurons are the biological basis for empathy, imitation, and training; almost every decision is influenced by our emotions.  Neurons have the potential to flow or transfer from one brain to another when recycling cognitive aptitudes such as reading and writing are elevated.  Neurons and connections are modified when training tasks are memorized. It is the quantity of synapses (connections) that differentiate among intelligence. There are phases in our sleep when brain activities are most intense while muscular activities are extremely inhibited; this phase is called “paradox sleep”.  We produce new neurons at every stage of growth, especially in the hippocampus and the smell brains. Almost 10% of our synapses are established when we are born and they increase with our activities and cognitive demands (efforts, mental and physical, mean increase in fresh synapses and neurons).

            We have 8 varieties of intelligence; mainly the visual, spatial, naturalist, logic-mathematics, corporal, musical, inter-personal, and intra-personal intelligences. The new battery of experiments for testing cognitive and movements capabilities are designed to account for our eight kinds of intelligences.

           

            Each brain compartment has a daily program to activate depending on the daily strength of activations of the synapses and a longer term memory.  When we fast the brain compartments for the senses, mainly the smell and the taste buds, send frenzied signals for feedback; the daily program is mainly saying “you activate me or I will be forced to delete the daily program very shortly”; the cortex sends signals for the brain senses to cool down their engines because it is bombarded by counter-mending instructions; it is saying to the brains senses “I am not able to function properly because I am overwhelmed by increased rate of urgent though  superfluous instructions to control your damned activities”.  The tag of war among the brains induces the fasting individual to go to sleep or be diverted to ignore the senses signals by daydreaming activities.

 

            The cortex was developed to specialize in comprehending the interactions among the senses. Man can consciously interpret the interactions of three senses simultaneously; this is no small feat. Not only you have to weight the strength and potency of each one of the three senses but you have to interpret the interactions between two senses out of the three and then the three senses altogether.  This conscious capacity to interpret the interactions of three senses simultaneously at every moment is what we call developing a sixth sense for forecasting events, foreseeing changes, and planning ahead for incoming changes in climate and survival.  Man can interpret interactions among three variables (in experiments) but his abilities to interpret senses interactions are faltering due to the deficiencies in the senses of smell, touch, and taste.

            Before the advent of modern man, people could occasionally experience their power of premonition or forecasting accurately; this is the main reason people elected elders as shaman leaders and believed in their spiritual power because they experienced it personally and was not a matter of faith at all.  Modern man has elected unconsciously to atrophy several of his senses on the basis that smart machines, fast communications, and powerful programs for analyzing huge quantity of data could easily supplant human cortex power. That might be true for the few specialists but surely human mental capabilities have significantly dwarfed compared to man seven thousand years ago. We might grow in length, weight, and physical power but our mental potentials of making good use of our senses is waning and we are no longer fit to survive in catastrophic events.

            As holistic man we have degraded in the past four centuries for individual survival because four of our senses have been gradually atrophied.  The consistent atrophy of our senses of touch, taste, and smell has damped our capabilities for developing our sixth sense to forecast emerging needed precautions for the near future. What is needed urgently is that the newer generations be initiated at schools and in the communities to get in touch with the deficient senses.  Weekly lab sessions to acquire the ability to discriminate among odors, texture, and tastes should be formalized and encouraged.  The whole gamut of subtleties in numbers and flavors of the deficient senses should be re-integrated in our brains in order to acquire stronger affection to nature, the environment, and the surrounding habitat and relationship among communities.

            Man can prove to the brain that he appreciates living on earth and enjoying its nature and environment or he may instruct his brain that he prefers to return to caves or being confined to capsules roaming the sky amid the planets. These choices will be reflected in our teaching methods, community behavior, and new professions that encourage the atrophied senses to emerge as valid and effective resources for the next generations.

            So far, the activists for “back to nature” and caring for the environment are mostly urban dweller with moistly abstract concepts on climate changes and natural degradations.  It is far more effective to ground our determination for alternative life styles by rejuvenating our faltering senses and appreciating what gifts we are wasting.