A Silicon Valley School That Doesn’t Compute New York Times
The problem is not production but distribution Lambert Strether
California bullet train: The high price of speed Los Angeles Times
Pre-Clovis Mastodon Hunting 13,800 Years Ago at the Manis Site, Washington Science
Murdoch Friend Faces Grilling in News Corp. Scandals Bloomberg
Most Greek bailout money has gone to pay off bondholders Washington Post (hat tip reader Externality). I thought that was the plan.
Leaked Greek bailout document: Expansionary fiscal consolidation has failed Rob Parenteau, Credit Writedowns
New euro ’empire’ plot by Brussels Telegraph. A single Treasury? This is an answer (most people think a fiscal authority is the only solution), but no way can it be implemented fast enough to make Mr. Market happy. And it does not solve the problem we’ve stressed, that of the internal imbalances. But reader Swedish Lex notes” “Love the headline! All that is missing is ‘Vader’ and ‘Black Death.'”
Doubts cast on official Gaddafi death account Aljazeera
Woodrow Wilson and Barack Obama Jesse (hat tip Mark Ames)
‘Gruesome’ Qaddafi Video May Trigger UN Probe Bloomberg
Unable to Get Simeone Fired, NPR Drops “World of Opera” David Swanson. In case you haven’t done it yet (particularly if you like opera!) please tell NPR what a bunch of goons they are at 202-513-2300 or mediarelations@npr.org.
Tea Partiers: The self-hating 99 per cent Aljazeera (hat tip Richard Kline)
http://twitter.com/#!/DiceyTroop (hat tip Lambert Strether). Live tweeting of the NY General Assembly, if you want to get a feel for how they work.
The FBI Announces Gangs Have Infiltrated Every Branch Of The Military Clusterstock (hat tip reader Timotheus)
Commodity traders: The trillion dollar club Reuters (hat tip reader Typing Monkey)
Antidote du jour. A Winson’s Bird of Paradise, courtesy reader James B:
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Take off the first letters of NPR & PBS and what do you get?
We get the best press the global inherited rich can buy and its brainwashing effectiveness is complete in many cases.
Just another example of an area that needs ongoing regulation and oversight by the 99%.
FWIW, here’s what i wrote to mediarelations@npr.org:
having read the david swanson, soundprint, and npr accounts of the simeone situation, and reflected on the nature of simeone’s work as a radio host for both soundprint and WDAV, i find i have to agree with swanson’s take as follows on the level of fairness that npr has exercised in the application of its ethics code:
“Clearly Soundprint deserves its full share of condemnation in all of this, and WDAV merits strong support. WDAV will be distributing “World of Opera” on its own and should have our backing. But NPR has lowered itself to the bottom rung of our communications system. Mara Liaason can opinionate on Fox News while providing an objective god’s-eye view on NPR. Scott Simon can publish opinion columns in corporate newspapers while reporting the facts. Cokie Roberts can take corporate speaking fees that could cover most people’s mortgages without being perceived as in any way tarnished. But Lisa Simeone cannot introduce operas while having taken the unforgivable step of supporting a nonviolent movement on behalf of the lower 99% of us. Despicable.”
this situation evokes not only the mccarthy era in america but nazi germany at the earlier stages when people had to join the party to keep their jobs. at such a moment in history, one hopes there will be an outcry saying, “enough”! the compromise must stop right here. enough compromising of the truth on the part of an agency, npr, that claims truth as its highest value offered.
has an alternative path even been considered, or just recoiled from in unthinking denial?
how do we get from a free press to a bought press? it happens step by incremental step, until we wake up one day and find we the people have no access to the truth. exactly how far along that road do you honestly think our society may have come at this point?
i hope at least one person quits npr in protest–that would be an encouraging sign at this point.
below is a copy of my correspondence to date with my local public radio station, regarding my cancelation of my annual pledge in response to the simeone situation.
**************
…
i see today that npr has dropped “world of opera.” would like to see an explanation–hope you will post one.
as of now, my cancelation stands. i will consider pledging again if and when the facts become clearer and npr shows more of the transparency it is now claiming but not demonstrating.
in view of the conflicts of interest (per the clause in the npr ethics code that pertains to conflict of interest, which i assume is the relevant one in simeone’s case, although npr has not bothered to make that known) exhibited in mara liaason, scott simon, and cokie roberts accepting large fees for speaking engagements of the nature they perform, especially given that they are political reporters on npr, i am waiting to see some consistency of npr’s application of its ethics policy.
…
I’m taking a lazy approach to PBS: stop giving.
(Our money is better spent elsewhere.)
The same report talks about Juggalos (a group of white kids who like to paint up as clowns in imitation of a music group; the clown posse) as a gang.
It’s as if Pokemon cards were popular with teenagers-YA crowd, and kept showing up in their pockets when they are busted for the various types of offenses that thuggish teenagers and YA types are invovled with. They would be calling it the Pokeman gang.
Did it occur to them that maybe gang members sometimes want to get a job. The “gang member” has to be old enough to join the army, but have no criminal record.
Indeed, the FBI is pretty shameless when it comes to ginning up schemes in order to get more funding.
The Juggalos are a gang. I see groups of them hanging out on street corners, drinking and doing drugs, and getting into fights all the time.
That said, I don’t think they are a criminal gang, just a gang with criminals. Similar to some of the 1%’er biker clubs.
more about the Juggalos here: http://deadspin.com/5831225/
I think we might be more worried about Bloods, Crips, OMG’s etc…
I wonder if the 1%er biker people feel offended at the 1% banksters giving them a bad name?
The two pictures they have of any actual gang activity in the military are pretty thin too. I guess the Hell’s Angels one is pretty clear cut, but not someone throwing a “westside”. That’s not evidence of gang affiliation. All kinds of people do that often in irony or jest and even if its done seriously the guy might just have some pride in being from CA.
I don’t doubt there are some gang members in the military but come on. The FBI needs to do a better job than that if they are going to convince anyone under the age of 50. Though maybe they don’t need to.
Working weekend in Bruxelles, Part Deux:
The Troika’s leaked analysis of Greek debt sustainability had a sensational impact on the summit. Britain’s Telegraph features an appallingly brutal and funny account of the euro-shambles which resulted. ‘Haircut hawks,’ comrades — read it and weep (or laugh, if you prefer):
But the haircut hawks weren’t finished:
Oh, my! Those who have the SDRs make the rules, apparently. But even Europe’s de facto First Couple are sniping at each other:
Whilst the cheese-eating haircut hawks slanged each other, les Belges headed for le cinema:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/belgium/8843652/Eurozone-summit-despair-and-backbiting-in-the-corridors-of-power.html
Pain au chocolat, mangeurs de fromage, UNICORNS — HELP ME, I’ve fallen on the floor laughing and I can’t get up …
too funny.
Just occured to me that Ecofin = E coffin, and the synchronicity of that German satellite falling to earth.
This suggests to me that the gods are going to make Germany buckle under but it won’t matter in the end.
I say keep the euro going, but let Greece resuscitate the drachma at the same time. That way the euro can be like $100 bills and the drachma like $1s and $5s. If you only had a wallet full of $100s there’s lots of economic transactions you simply couldn’t make, reducing OSE (that’s optimal social efficiency) a term I learned in my abstract cosmology class back the university.
Funny they should mention les Belges heading to le cinema, for in 1831, after Belgian opera-goers walked out a very inspiring opera, La Muette de Portici, they started the revolution that won themselves independence.
Perhaps Estonia’s Singing Revolution would inspire more people to sing, instead of leaving singing to professional singers.
People these days, listen too much to others’ songs and don’t sing their own songs enough.
The euro-shambles gets worser and worser, comrades:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/8844773/Nicolas-Sarkozy-tells-David-Cameron-Were-sick-of-you-telling-us-what-to-do.html
Perfidious Albion vs. les Français égoïstes — quelle folie!
Regarding the Tea Party discussion via the Al-Jazeera link, I recommend that to those who want some context on the roots of that agitation such as they are, distinct from the cooptation of the Political Teapotters by a coterie of loathsome billionaires. David Graeber’s brief but cogent remarks re: the Tea Partisans in his recent guest post on Occupy Wall Street run parallel to the arguments of this article. For those with a cast iron stomach, the New York Slimes did a putative/putrid contrast-and-compare of the Tea Potters and the Occupiers in their edition of Saturday, 22 October 11. (And what a hatchet job, the latter, on the Occupiers. Every disreputable allegation, however bogus, which has been uttered recently against the Occupiers by the Tea Potters, billionare-stabled or free range, is repeated in the print edition on the front page excerpt before the jump to ‘analysis’ on the inner pages. The Times can say, “Oh no, that’s not US saying that, it’s X”: This is how propaganda is done in the major media folks, shop-a-quote.)
I’ve found the inability of the major media to put the Tea Potters in context really quite contemptible if wholly unsurprising. If the American journalist profession at the top wasn’t so uneducated and uninquisitive [Did I really just type that? Yes, call a spade a spade.], it’s patently obvious that this is a garden variety nativist movement. Why is that obvious? Because we have had recurrent agitation by just exactly such nativist movements in territorial North America _for 250 years_, typically on a generational interval, c. 30 years, but in a more major respect every 60 years give or take. I’m not not lying or exaggerating folks, this sequence is one of the most salient examples of historical recurrency one can find, and the temptes-in-a-teapot events are generally well documented. It’s simply inexcueable that American political punditry chooses to remain oblivious to what is directly under their noses, and an enduring stormcock without a point of American politics at the margins.
These recurrent nativist episodes all look very much the same in profile. They are pursued by the same ethnic-demographic community time and again. They are always ‘angry movements.’ Their bark is enormously more massive than their bite: weapons are often brandished, and isolated murders are not uncommon (since sentiment is whipped up so that weak-minded loaners lose it), but insurrections are rare, inept, and total duds. Spasmodic political parties erupt, but immediately fall apart like cloaks of weeds: there’s precious little real solidarity involved. They are nativist, isolationist, anti-non-ethnics, though not necessarily convincedly racist. They are pathetically eager to be co-opted by powerful, i.e. rich, political patrons, because securing favored access to financial flows and land is what these movements are _really_ all about judging from the historical sequence. These nativist eructions have _never_ had a lasting political impact, nor will this one. They are profoundly anti-intellectual; the Know Nothing Party was an archetypal instance of the pattern. They are almost invariably unconstructive in that nothing organizational or institutional is usually effected, unless one counts Jim Crow legislation and the like, i.e. negative or restrictive legislation. Even the Grange movement, coopted for a time by the Populists, was started beforehand for different reasons and long endured for those reasons separate from a temporary convergence.
Now, these nativist eruptions do at times voice substantive grievances. They have been poor whites’ movements, and often complain against discriminatory rationing of credit or access to land, and against court systems rigged against them, which really all were practices used against them by financial and governmental elites at times. Real grievances. But the goal wasn’t ‘fairness,’ but rather ‘access for us.’ Wild cat banks—which bankrupted themselves with speculation and insider looting (Savings & Loan was the redux). Ethnic cleansing of indigenes off land not already controlled by the elite was a principal demand of these nativist movements until there were scarcely any lands left to seize. Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s was yet another. Crackbrained anti-immigrant sentiment now *sheesh* yet again.
This pattern is very pronounced, and it isn’t restricted to the US. One can trace it to the Ulster plantations of the 1570s at least, and I suspect it could be followed centuries earlier. Similar communities in Canada have shown some of the same pattern, and I’m confident it could be documented elsewhere. The principal difference in the Tea Potters at the roots from previous episodes lies in their present locale of residence. Historically, these were overwhelmingly rural communities and hence rural loci of agitation, pursued by folks of modest education but good skills for their way of life; in that respect, they were easier to identify as sequential episodes. But the rural population in the US has enormously declined, especially in the last generation and more. That same population is clustered in suburban counties, often exceedingly monochrome ones as should be no surprise. As well as leaving the land, involuntarily for the most part, many in this community are better educated in the formal sense than historically, since that has been the trend of broader American society, and has been increasingly necessary to get employment. Take a look at the Tea Potters: I just described them demographically in the preceding sentences.
What I would say in conclusion on this latest belch from that body politic is that I expect nothing effective from the Tea Roots, sound and fury nothwithstanding. These have historically been chickenshit movements, to be blunt, crying out for favorable treatment from government and furious that ‘others are preferred.’ Throw them a bone and they slink back under the porch for another generation. I’m serious; just do the historical homework, it’s plain as newsprint. Well, the Class of 2011 fed them red meat, so that onerous task is done . . . .
The Occupiers do not overlap with the Tea Potters at all. Not demographically; not intellectually; not in vision; not in allies; not in solidarity. Yes, there are instances where they have common grievances. There will be few, if any, instances where they pursue common solutions.
Thanks for that analysis, Richard.
Initially I thought that OWS might appeal to Tea Party-ers but that connection does not seem so obvious right now and TPTB/MSM are working to block any such association. At the same time, I think OWS is currently focused on raising awareness so they are not concerned much with appealing to Tea Party types.
Read ZeroHedge’s coverage to see a plutocrat-friendly message to reduce the likelihood of would-be Tea Partiers joining the OWS. Essentially, while many of the diagnostic observations are the same — which lends the medium credibility — the prescriptive message seems to be:
– It’s the very idea of government that’s the problem. So, don’t “fix” our problems by fixing the laws/regulations that have been suborned into championing the interests of the rich. Simply eliminate them. Laissez faire is the road to wealth.
– Don’t raise taxes on the rich.
It’s the same trickle-down Republican message it’s been for the last 30+ years.
And it’s a totally “divide and conquer” approach. TPTB do not want to hear about “the 99%”! They want us to continue to fight each other, while — as George Carlin said — they, the rich, walk away with all the money. (“Simple strategy. Happens to work.”)
Watch for them to start talking about the 66.6%, even more downtrodden than the 99.9%, in order to divide and conquer, after they have divided the 99% from the 99.9%.
What has been constant, not subject to any cycles, for hundreds of years, is another movement called #WallStreetPreoccupiedWithMakingMoney or just #WallStreetPreoccupied. Their fellow travellers stand on the oppressive side of those common people who are sympathetic to the complaints of the Tea Party movement and #OWC, broadly speaking.
All decent people should united against #WallStreetPreoccupied.
Last night, with David Graeber’s brief but cosmopolitan-provincially obtuse remarks re: the tea partiers very much in mind, I sat down at my table with a sheet of paper and a pen and wrote:
“WE ARE THE 99%”
Then I crossed out “99%,” and wrote “90%.” Then I crossed out “90%” and wrote “60%.” Then I crossed out “60% and wrote “50.5%.” Then I crossed out “50.5” and wrote “49.5%.” Then I crossed that out, and replaced it with “13.2%”
I’m an occupier, I’ve hardly slept in a bed the last two weeks, and I’m willfully choosing to engage in civil disobedience and be arrested should that come to pass. Several of my fellow occupiers here have been pepper-sprayed by police, and a friend in Chicago was arrested a few days ago.
I think that David Graeber’s comments in his guest post, and more so Richard’s here, show a central contradiction in the movement as currently conceptualized. I think that for you guys, “We Are The 99%” is a euphemistic slogan that you don’t take seriously, whereas I and many (though certainly not all) of my fellow occupiers really do take it seriously.
There are at least a few original tea partiers here among us. And last week we invited tea partiers to come to our occupation site to speak to us, and to see what we are doing. The one guy – a local talk radio host who used to be a hedge fund manager – was pretty much in line with what you are talking about tea partiers. He seemed to be here only to get a soundbite for his radio show. However, I chatted with some of the normal people carrying “Don’t Tread On Me” flags and wearing t-shirts with the Thomas Jefferson “blood of tyrants” quote. I told one of them that the scene reminded me a bit of the Aerosmith/Run DMC “Walk This Way” video from back in the day. He and I probably don’t agree on very much, and our sensibilities and educations differ enormously, but we were on the same page where it came to the beautiful image of an #OWS/Tea Party mashup. And after the talk radio guy was gone, a local grassroots tea party organizer spoke. She said she’d been down at our occupation a couple of days or so, and for the most part liked what she saw. There is CLEARLY a lot of overlap on the very core point that has brought us occupiers together, and while I’ve been proselytizing David’s book and numerous NakedCapitalism pieces and discussions (including the “On #OccupyWallStreet and the Power of Open Source and Consensual Processes” post that contains Richard’s fantastic comments on our demands), I really resent the way you guys undermine us all with your prejudicial ventilations and lazy assumptions about large classes of working Americans.
Please keep the smart comments, sharp observations, and honest descriptions coming, but please please please try to pick the bad apples out of your barrels before you put them on the internet. You’re supporting us with one hand, but undermining us with the other – and in ways that serve to reinforce the divide and conquer strategies of the current power structure.
Hurray! I have been very concerned about the anti-Tea Partier sentiment partisan interfering with the success OWS. If the OWS is basically lefties, anarchists and old time professional activists it’s toast – what’s new and special about that? [been there, done that, the past is over] If OWS really does represent the 99% as they claim, then that must by definition include all the little people from diverse political backgrounds. It’s time for the elites divide & conquer duopoly game to be disrupted. It’s time for everyone to practice real tolerance and non-judgmentalness and listening instead of demonizing “the other” (burn those mental compartments… burn baby burn so a new persepctive can emerge).
Valissa,
See this:
“if we can continue to build a movement that appeals both to radical anarcho-capitalist libertarians and radical Marxists, then we’re sure to end up with a movement that appeals to Average Jane the Office Worker.”
http://www.facebook.com/notes/jon-lawhead/reflections-on-occupy-wall-street/10150870578600072
nobody,
I think you are overly concerned with a hand full of professional “blog commenters”, that probably share their opinions exclusively on a left-leaning blog or two, where we are sure of gaining the support of a sympathetic audience.
Unlike Yves, who has a successful blog of national standing, and holds herself to a certain standard of professionalism when it comes to journalism, exercising a considerable bit more care when offering up commentary, we commenters are pretty much free to ramble on about the first thing that comes off the top of our head, and ramble many of us do.
But many of the commenters you are concerned over, are just trying to be entertaining and truth betold, it’s easy to see many of them are also just trying to “show off” their intellectual prowess. That is, how well read they are, how witty and clever, what a wonderful formal education they have, etc. I have even read some instances of commenters complaining about the wealthy elite in one paragraph, and in the following paragraph mentioning “by the way”, of personally bumping into one of the 1%, while dining at an expensive restaurant, at one of the nation’s vacation hot spots for Hollywood stars and the very wealthy.
But all in all, I’ve got to say that I enjoy these commenters. Like when we were in high school, and out of curiosity, you decided to find out what was up with that group of “nerds” over at the next lunch table, only to discover that they were really interesting characters with good hearts and you discovered you enjoyed their company more than you did the clique you had been running with.
Now, most of them are admittedly, smarter and better educated that myself (at least in liberal arts), and many of them have a respectable talent for turning a phrase, even if they have trouble making a point. But with the help of google and wikipedia, I can usually sort out the point they are hinting at, and in the process I have to admit, these people have broadened my perspective, informed me of matters and issues I would never have considered, made me stop and think about and sort out my own values and ideas, and though we will never meet, most of them I consider part of my extended virtual family.
If the activists of OWS can narrow the focus of our movement, thus widening the it’s support and power, I’m sure we folks at NC will be among your most ardent supporters. You are a leader, and obviously results oriented, while most of us here, myself included, are finger pointers and complainers, and at the end of the day we will rely on people such as yourself, to lead this movement to success. But hopefully you are a leader of a different stripe, a leader that is a servant of the 99%, all of the 99%. I’ll close with one of my favorite quotes: “”But the greatest among you shall be your servant.” Matthew 23:11.
Keep up the good work and thank you from the center of my heart.
It seems strange for me to be trying these words but I want to urge patience. We are just beginning. I have been supportive of Occupy Portland OR but not living there, yet.
The point I want to make is that it going to take gatherings of millions of us in multiple locations at the same time before this expression of public will gets taken seriously.
The path from here to there is unknown but the fuse has been lit and it don’t look like it is going out. People are learning, being exposed to issues they have not thought about before and developing some strengths around their values that will serve us well when the going gets tough.
Tea party.
Bastard children of monies desire have bad habit of gowning up and asking for their slice of their lords hoard…at the most inappropriate time. If the lord is in attendance to his guests, a challenge may be offered, too prove ones self, deeds too troubling for highness…cough…taking out the trash, as it were.
Skippy…in the end they all suffer the same fate, starved to death, too many impossible tasks, fall guys. Scratch the bass ring you might, but, never grasp it…one ring to rule them all…eh.
Good Sir;
And one “Bright Shining Lie” to glamourize them.
Will Iran be our next “Bright Shining Lie?” I hope not.
“Gangs infiltrate the military” is an actual headline?
Sheesh
That headline goes with “Bankers infiltrate the fed”, “Terrorists infiltrate FBI”, “Exxon infiltrates the DOE”, “Anarchists infiltrate the Bar”, “Pedophiles infiltrate education” and more.
Welcome to human society. Especially one wherein the construct of social interaction renders piracy in all its forms sovereign.
Mr Walker;
I thought that it was a natural match. The internal dynamics of both groups overlap signifigantly. Remember Officer Dim in “A Clockwork Orange?”
On Jesse’s comparison of Obama to Wilson, laid out via Wilson’s speeches as compared to his actions, there is obvious similarity to anyone who has seen Ferguson’s “Inside Job”.
In that regard, I think Wilson’s least remarkable accomplishment was in forging the great ‘compromise’ between the WJ Bryant (progressive) wing of the Democrats and the Aldrich-Rockefeller (conservative) wing of the Republicans that resulted in the passing of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913.
Wilson defeated both Taft and Progressive Party candidate Teddy Roosevelt in that 1912 election. The greater contrast in public policy was not between the Dems and Repubs, but between both and Roosevelt’s Progressives.
From one of Roosevelt’s great speeches on the matter of the national currency and our money system:
“”CURRENCY
We believe that there exists an imperative need for prompt legislation for the improvement of our National currency system. The experience of repeated financial crises in the last forty years has proved that the present method of issuing, through private agencies, notes secured by Government bonds is both harmful and unscientific. This method was adopted as a means of financing the Government during the Civil War through furnishing a domestic market for Government bonds. It was largely successful in fulfilling that purpose; but that need is long past, and the system has outlived this feature of its usefulness. The issue of currency is fundamentally a governmental function. The system to be adopted should have as its basic principles soundness and elasticity. The currency should flow forth readily at the demand of commercial activity, and retire as promptly when the demand diminishes. It should be automatically sufficient for all of the legitimate needs of business in any section of the country. Only by such means can the country be freed from the danger of recurring panics. The control should be lodged with the Government, and should be safeguarded against manipulation by Wall Street or the large interests. It should be made impossible to use the machinery or perquisites of the currency system for any speculative purposes. The country must be safeguarded against the over-expansion or unjust contraction of either credit or circulating medium.””
We are thus yet without the permanent currency system of government-issue envisaged by the progressives of the time.
Fortunately, being more needed now than ever, it’s still available through the Kucinich Bill, H.R. 2990
http://www.monetary.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/HR-2990.pdf
For the Money System Common .
Secretary of State Madame O. J. Simpson is determined to find ‘the real killer’:
http://news.yahoo.com/clinton-backs-calls-investigate-gadhafis-death-131219389.html
‘We came; we saw; he died’ — WHODUNIT?
+1, cute analogy
The Washington Post National: 130 arrests as Occupy Chicago protesters defy order to leave park
By Associated Press, Published: October 22 | Updated: Sunday, October 23, 7:52 AM
CHICAGO — Anti-Wall Street demonstrators of the Occupy Chicago movement stood their ground in a downtown park in noisy but peaceful defiance of police orders to clear out, prompting 130 arrests early Sunday, authorities said…….
Rahm Emmanuel, the friend and protector of Wall Street. Calling him a snake would be an injustice to reptiles.
I think everyone should give City Hall a call and demand Emmanuel’s resignation. Better yet, maybe start a petition for his recall
Dead men tell no tales. Which Empire wants a Pinochet hanging around for a few decades, to tell us (“leak” — in pravda-speek) what they know about Machiavellian US policies? Osama, Saddam, Momo, no book advances for you!
We do need a virtuous ring. A golden ring to hold them and in the light to bind them. We need an economy that comes full circle for society. All of us. To say that pensions are bankrupting the system is equivalent to saying that if pensions are fulfilled the banks will go bankrupt! Good. Nationalize the Federal Reserve System. Now.
Could pre-Clovis be Sasquatch’s ancestors?
I think they found pre-Clovis in some Texas site as well.
Question du Jour – which is scarier: Big Foot or Big Mouth?
About Jesse’s Woodrow Wilson and Barack Obama: I guess I’m for progressive conservative socialism. Without education keeping up with the demands of the business community’s obligation to the environment, all we are left with is dictates from the top down. They better be good.
In terms of high-speed trains generally, my belief is that they are boondoggles which cater to wealthy business commuters, leaving the towns bypassed by “supertrains” with even fewer transportation options than before.
Italy’s “Freccia Rossa” has to travel at speeds that chase other, slower, trains off the tracks. Since the Freccia Rossa service started up, service from the now-bypassed medium-sized town near me (Chiusi) to Florence has been cut nearly in half, causing us to opt for the car if we don’t want to transform what would have been a half-day errand into a day-long affair.
Trainwise, the main effect has been that of using the same infrastructure to move fewer people in a shorter space of time.
Ivan Illich explored these and other counterproductive ramifications of speed in “Energy and Equity”:
http://www.davidtinapple.com/illich/1973_energy_equity.html#5
Hi, I’m on the occupy wall street financial committee and we would love to have a bit of consultation with you at your convenience. Personally a big fan for many years. Please drop me a note or ask for me at the media /finance/info center in the park (evenings and weekends).
Thanks!
Google Follows Microsoft Playbook in Boosting Lobbying Spending http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-21/google-follows-microsoft-playbook-in-boosting-lobbying-spending.html
The lobbying expenditures are part of an effort to give Congress and the Obama administration Google’s view on an array of issues, said Samantha Smith, a company spokeswoman.
“We want to help policy makers understand our business and the work we do to keep the Internet open, to encourage innovation and to create economic opportunity,” she said in a statement. “Lobbying is a part of that process.”
Google first registered to lobby in Washington in June 2007 and spent $2.9 million in the first nine months of 2009. Microsoft spent $5 million during the same period that year and has remained at about that level, spending $5.2 million during the first nine months of 2010 and $5.5 million this year.
“We see this transition happen in every sector,” Kersh said. There’s “an initial resistance to lobbying followed by a recognition that whatever your business model, you have to have an active lobbying presence, both to stave off regulation and to gain benefits from government.”
Google’s lobbying team now includes Richard Gephardt, a former House Democratic leader; Kyle Simmons, former chief of staff to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell; and Charles Black Jr., the former Republican presidential adviser who now is chairman of the Washington-based Prime Policy Group lobbying firm. All were hired in June.
That’s how the system works today. All laid out quite clearly.
The NYT, rocking the official-line stenography!
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/24/business/global/24iht-euro24.html?hp
Alice Schroeder, on so-called black swans
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-23/many-black-swans-make-metaphor-meaningless-commentary-by-alice-schroeder.html
“The black swan was meant to be a rallying cry for preparedness. Instead it has become the opposite: a loathsome excuse for lack of planning by those who should know better. […]
There is a disconnect here, and a big one. If insurers can spot the risk of a gray swan, underwrite and even exclude it, why aren’t those who are exposed to the risk doing a better job of preparing?”
LOL!!!
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/24/us-obama-economy-idUSTRE79N0J920111024
“President Barack Obama this week will announce a series of actions to help the economy that will not require congressional approval, including an initiative to make it easier for homeowners to refinance their mortgages, according to a White House official.”
The great thing about being a cynic is that the entire political world is one big comedy…
Amazing bird. Its tail looks like Salvador Dali’s mustache.