Fish Learn to Cope in a High Carbon Dioxide World, New Study Suggests Science Daily (F. Beard). Yes, but coral reefs and shellfish are another story….]
Is it now possible to blame extreme weather on global warming? Guardian (Lee S)
Spring cleaning in summer Google. No more iGoogle?
Selfishness as Virtue American Interest. Big on procreation. Look, kids are great for those who REALLY want kids, but this planet needs there to be a LOT fewer people, particularly in advanced economies. And I know way too many people who have kids for the wrong reasons…as in parental pressure, social acceptability.
Fracking in Ireland and Being Dependent on Halliburton’s Mud Greg Palast
Irish crash worst since Depression Herald (Ireland). Jeremy B on the second para: WHAT?????
Arafat’s widow calls to exhume his body: A nine-month investigation suggests that the late Palestinian leader may have been poisoned with polonium Aljazzera (bryan willis)
Police raid Sarkozy’s home in funding probe Chicago Tribune (ohmyheck)
The Euro Endangers German Economy Der Spiegel (Aquifer). Hhm, the original headline appears to have been “German Economy Shows Dangerous Signs of Weakening.
Liborfest! And sadly, I’m going to be on a plane when the Treasury hearings are on. If readers can point to live feeds (for those Libor junkies, some have written asking for leads) and any sites that have either the recording for later viewing or a transcript, that would be very much appreciated.
In general, I’d not bet on an American CEO when matched against Oxbridge educated regulators. Just the British mastery of the language puts Yanks at a disadvantage. And they aren’t used to the more direct style of questioning either.
The Guardian has a live blog: Barclays blames ‘senior Whitehall figures’ for Libor scandal as Bob Diamond resigns – live (Lee S)
City faces a double crisis over trust and reputation, FSA’s Lord Turner warns Independent
Diamond lets loose over Libor Financial Times
Financial scandal: Diamond’s not for ever Guardian
Diamond: ‘Unacceptable face of banking’ who showed no remorse Independent
Diamond may face a fight for his £20m final payout Telegraph
Fink Says Diamond ‘Emotion’ May Have Aggravated Regulator Bloomberg
Defiant Barclays Felix Salmon. Agreed.
Diamond’s exit alone won’t restore banking’s reputation Financial Times
Parliamentary inquiry into banking scandal in balance Telegraph
Everything You Wanted to Know About LIBOR, but Were Afraid to Ask Minyanville. This is not bad, but it completely misses the deriviates/swaps part of this. It was derivatives traders at Barclays who were manipulating LIBOR, apparently in cahoots with other banks (meaning LIBOR is not being manipulated for funding benefits, but to take advantage of customer positions). The Barclays statement on the earlier rate manipulation (2005-2008) made it clear that Barclays might not have benefitted. That suggests the traders at least some of the time were manipulating LIBOR to raise it.
Why is Nobody Freaking Out About the LIBOR Banking Scandal? Matt Taibbi (Aquifer)
What’s Next After the Barclays Settlement New York Times
Beez in the Capitation: How Nicki Minaj and John Roberts are Both Constructionists at Heart Moe Tkacik, Gawker
Romney under fire from conservatives Financial Times
Are You Now or Have You Ever Been an “Anti-Labor Leftist”? Counterpunch (MontanaMaven)
What Everybody Needs To Know About Yesterday’s Disastrous Manufacturing Report Clusterstock
Where the Money Lives Nicholas Shaxson, Vanity Fair (readerOfTeaLeaves). On Mitt Romney’s tax haven dealings.
Is Congress to blame for a downshifting US economy? Christian Science Monitor (readerOfTeaLeaves)
Special Report: Crisis forces “dismal science” to get real Reuters (Valissa)
JPMorgan in US power market probe Financial Times (Lee S)
Banks in US reveal ‘living will’ details Financial Times
Antidote du jour:
And a bonus:
138 comments
Comments are closed.
Poms are the gayest of all the dogs. Gawd. But impressively dainty- a friend had several stacks of CDs and Fizzgig tiptoed among them, never knocking them over. Try that with a Lab.
But, yes, queens all of them.
Awesome name for a Pom :)
“Poms are the gayest of all the dogs”
That has a completely different meaning to a British expat in Australia.. Crikey.. I blinked more than twice reading that.
“[You’re afraid of] Snowball? He runs on batteries.”
-Kramer-
homophobe
A babushka with a face
That wouldn’t happen with my step son’s 100 lb pit pull. Her tail feel like a whip.
I have heard somewhere that Pomeranians are very smart.
Matt Taibbi asks: Why is Nobody Freaking Out About the LIBOR Banking Scandal?
Because LIBOR rates only affect approximately $800 trillion dollars worth of speculative bets. I mean, jeepers, it’s not like we’re talking REAL BIG MONEY here, like say, multiple quadrillions.
Note: That was an easy question. Hell, I’ve encountered tougher on the back of a Snapple bottle cap.
Max, Taibbi’s piece was “passe” by nightfall. He must start a running LIborblog.
Taibbi has had four years to come up with something himself on the Libor manipulating, since the time that the matter first came to the attention of the both the media and the relevant authorities. Please point me in the direction of his (early) exposé ! ? !
4th July American independence day….
It seems kind of ironic to a Brit these days. So what do you guys actually celebrate?
Independence from imperialism? …. You are now the grand imperial power so that’s a good thing right?
Freedom of religion, freedom of speech?…. Depends on your religion and how you say it I suppose….Just like the good ole country in the days of lore.
An egalitarian meritocracy?….. That’s obviously not going so well. Rapidly heading towards the standards of Dickensian Britain…. lucky youse.
Well I hope I’m not being too facetious.. Just a bit of a tounge in cheek teasing.. Enjoy your day of break from cubicle drudgery and debt servitude.
Sounds like day of duplicity.
those who are aware what this country has become do not celebrate this day…
@rjs
Seconded.
Dear Andrew;
Thanks. This Export Model will be celebrating King Georges War by slaving away on the sales floor of a big ol DIY Boxxstore.
We were going to be living on the Moon, and we can’t even feed, clothe, or care for all the people in the materially richest nation in human history.
The good point is, ever read the Constitution? It has some good suggestions embedded in it.
Cheers, and keep shopping!
Yes, that’s what seems to be in it. Just “suggestions.”
Bill of Suggestions, that about covers it now
boom goes the fireworks
It occured to me quite recently while hearing those “bombs bursting in mid-air” (fireworks), how truly disgusting that sound was; The sound of innocents all over the world being blown to bits and pieces due to American Imperialism, enabled and backed by the Global Kleptocratic Cartel is what it now reminds me of…
Many others all across this great nation will suddenly also have this same elucidation, become enlightened,.. and start actually doing something about it to stop it!
Love
p.s. AFAIU, atleast the Chinese tradition of using fireworks was entirely ‘spiritually’ based, as opposed to one of acts/reminders of Aggression.
Andrew, here in southern colorado we blast music, bbq, drink beer and light fireworks
Oh, and jam the shit out of this song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8RDcG3hg9g
So they don’t sit on the fence in Colorado!
So I guess CO won’t be requesting any federal help with all those wildfires? Oops…
Conservatives find way to blame President Obama for wildfires
That is a stupid comment, you should be embarrassed. Ohnoes Michelle Malkin blamed something on Democrats. Why would you even link to that, are you fucking stupid? What about my comment made you feel invited to ciclejerk for some Democrats? Because that’s all it is, you’re trying to make the GOP look bad because you want your team to look good. Well go fuck yourself, because I spent all week moving horses around the state and had to tell a pretty little girl that the mare she grew up with panicked and died in the escape.
God damn election years, Democrats blaming Republicans for budget cuts in Colorado Springs – which have absolutely nothing to do with Waldo Canyon – and Republicans trying to blame Obama for govt response times. YOU are the problem, and when I fire off some fireworks today it’s in defiance of hegemonized dumbfucks like yourself.
hondje, ignoramus, stuff your foul language back into your brain and suffer the consequences of your own toxic mess.
Andrew, PuppetPrez = Grand Imperial Wizard in Blackface.
I was thinking Black and White Minstrel show myself. But nice imagery.
Just rub it in, Andrew.
Was this the plan all along? :-)
Cheers
Okay, rub it in, Andrew! But what does it say about your Mad King George? It’s quite astonishing that a clique of “noble” slaveholders wearing wigs and makeup could rouse the indentured serfs to throw off the yoke of tyranny. George had to be quite the idiot to inspire that, no?
BTW, don’t y’all still worship the crown, all googley-eyed, wearing the silliest hats? Your recent Jubilee pomp thingy makes our 4th of July look like a hillbilly shindig. HEE-HAW!
You’re right, of course. We have now reached and even surpassed that zenith of royal hypocrisy and snobbery, but hey, at least we don’t still wear white wigs. Sorry, I couldn’t resist a bit of counter thrust.
On July 4, 1776, slavery was legal in every one of the colonies, without exception. Wealthy Philadelphia businessman Ben Franklin owned two. Up in Boston, John Hancock’s parents owned slaves. Hancock grew up in a slave-run house. Wiki says, no, no, no, Hancock himself never owned slaves, but omits to tell us if he was an abolitionist.
Because if you did not own a slave or two, you were a nobody. Fellow Bostonian Sam Adams was notably too poor (disinterested in money) to own any slaves. Same with Paul Revere, by the way.
In 1772, some English judge made slavery in England illegal. Wilberforce was campaigning to outlaw slavery in the colonies (he succeeded in 1808, by the way, which led to the War of 1812, but I digress). There was sentiment among colonial rulers that the rebellion could be put down by promising to free the slaves. In point of fact, thousands of slaves fled to the British, asking to fight against the rebels.
The British refused, for several reasons. One, they could not possibly have trained and outfitted the vast number of slaves who would have joined them. (Nor could the North, 85 years later.) Moreover, once the war was over, slave armies were just as likely to turn on the British and drive them out. Which made the threat of a slave army a hollow one, but Jefferson could not afford to take that chance.
The situation was so bad that 30% of the slaves in South Carolina – 25,000 in all, died or were displaced or fled during the Revolutionary War. The population of South Carolina was 90% slave. (Conditions worse than those in Iraq over the past ten years.) Conditions in North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland could hardly have been much better.
In 1776, America was a slave nation. North and south, top to bottom. Was it ever any different?
No. Northern colonies outlawed slavery in the 1780’s for the most part, but the northern economy was dependent on the south. Which was dependent on the north.
The south had the money, because that’s why there were slaves. The north had the ships that hauled southern cargo, the north had the banks that managed southern money.
What changed in the first half of the 19th century was the development of real economies in the western states. Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, got no benefits from slaving, while their economies were subject to slave economics, which drove the price of labor to zero.
So you will not be surprised the Republican Party was formed in Ripon, WI, on February 28, 1854, nor that Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky and raised in Illinois. The Civil War was the revolt of the western states against the eastern states. In New York there were draft riots, but not, so far as I am aware, in Chicago.
Where to get more on this? Go to the Wiki article, Slavery in America. There is a most interesting sidebar on the French and slavery.
Enjoy the holiday!
Not so keen on Royalty myself. I’m a Republican in the proper sense of the term. Besides many Brits are pragmatic, they think royalty attracts Amaireekan tourists in checkered trousers. At least that’s what they are told.
We celebrate barbecue, beer, and blowing shit up.
>> It seems kind of ironic to a Brit these days. So what do you guys actually celebrate?
Most Americans can celebrate the day in all its glorious irony, courtesy of their capacity for double think.
“Double think”…hmm. Yes, Orwell was from your side of the pond. More irony, I guess… :-)
noticed at bloomberg: Bob Diamond Would Be Catch, Recruiters Say
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-04/diamond-would-be-catch-for-investment-private-equity.html
so the “liborfest” is all noise; nothing has changed..
rjs, Maybe Diamond can lead the Second American Revolution, and list our grievances against the British Imperial Throne and Treasury, the Crown, the BBA, BoE, and BBC; by STANDING UP and burning his “British passport” in public (televised for YouTube) while DECLARING Jefferson’s “Declaration of Independence” for We the People of America AGAIN?
Will Geoffrey Robertson and Steve Keen help Australia to do the same?
Will “The Ladies from Hell” pipe We the People to victory over .01% Despotism?
I noticed that headline, too! No Bloomberg headline suggesting Diamond should serve jail time. Instead, he’s a star!
“…this planet needs there to be a LOT fewer people, particularly in advanced economies.”
No kidding? I thought the ideas of Reverend Thomas Malthus had been debunked some two centuries ago.
And Neo-Malthusians such as Paul Ehrlich haven’t fared much better in their predictions.
Humans are a source of wealth, not misery. Why is this concept so hard to grasp, even in sophisticated American blogs?
Humans in the soon to be tens of billions are a source of resource depletion and environmental degradation, especially in the absence of non-renewable and therefore unsustainable energy technologies. Why is this so hard to grasp anywhere? Why is this so easy to see in something like local deer populations, but seemingly impossible to fathom in terms of global human populations? Species bias?
And “wealth” is not money, and vice versa. Dollars, aka digital ones and zeros, might indeed grow exponentially forever and ever, Amen. Alas, natural resources most assuredly do not. Seems to be a hard lesson to learn.
A diet of Social Dawinism with healthy pinch of self delusion makes you reach for the kool aid.
Difference between human and deer populations: language, intelligence. The ability to learn and discover how to make much more and much better with much less.
Which explains why, with an exponential growth of population, the environment is likely less, not more, degradated than 100 years ago.
yeah, it’s too bad we haven’t used that ability to leave the planet better instead of worse – the majority of parameters by which we would measure well being for our planet have deteriorated “under our watch” …
Might as well give up. Cornucopians are so high on unfounded hope, they’re hopeless. Does that count as ironic? Who knows.
The commenter is right about one thing, people are a source of wealth… for the wealthy. That’s why they tell the tale of more = better, because it’s better for them.
David Ricardo had the effect of population nailed in the Theory of Rent: the further out you push the margin of cultivation, the poorer the tenants are, even on the good land, but the richer the landlords are.
If intelligence is the key to prosperity, and more population = more intelligence, does that mean Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were really stupid in 1979, when the population was less than four and a half billion? Did they get smarter as the population went up? How intelligent would Einstein be if he was alive today?
i love thwarting logical fallicies … bravo
Love
Well said!
In the long run our ONLY limited resource is living SPACE but even then I have read of a “New Jerusalem” somewhere.
And folks, let’s not endlessly multiply (Occam’s Razor) the root causes of our problems when it is abundantly clear that our money system is at fault.
I interpret that the root cause of our problems is the human’s incapcity to acknowledge and confront that they remain mammals at heart, and that their specie has a looooong history of being mammalian, at heart.
Don’t worry, James. As with hunger, the problem is either quickly fixed, or it’s not a problem for long.
The earth will not suffer global warming or resource depletion. People will, but the earth will be fine.
Not just the people ….
If birth rates were going up just about anywhere in the entire world, I would be more inclined to agree with you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_rate
Well,then there is Utah-
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700251966/Utahs-birthrate-highest-in-US.html?pg=all
“If giving birth were an Olympic event, Utah women would win the all-around team gold medal plus win several specific category contests among Americans.”
“The new estimates say that 83.2 of every 1,000 Utah women ages 15 to 50 gave birth in 2006. The national average was 54.9. So Utah’s rate was 52 percent higher.”
The average number of children per family in Utah is 3.57, so let’s round that up to 4. Pretty sure none of them have ever heard of Malthus….
omy, oh yes, they have. The breed the “Kingdom” of LDS.
LDS birthrates are also dropping, just not as much.
In absolute numbers, more people live in slavery and below the poverty line today than ever. 900 million Indians alone are malnourished. For the young, it affects brain development and keeps them from competing with kids born to wealthy parents.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-13/early-death-assured-in-india-where-900-million-go-hungry.html
So, do you really believe this statement?
>> I thought the ideas of Reverend Thomas Malthus had been debunked some two centuries ago.
>> keeps them from competing with kids born to wealthy parents.
More importantly, people deserve healthy lives “just because”.
Not just to satisfy the Holy Market.
.. the effort it takes to debunk dead assholes these days
Love
link: Is Congress to blame for a downshifting US economy?
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/2012/0703/Is-Congress-to-blame-for-a-downshifting-US-economy
Shriti Vadera is the FACE of the .01% complicit RAJ regime. Red Queen says: !
Can Americans Escape the Deception?
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2012/07/04/can-americans-escape-deception/
Rene, thanks for the excellent link. See:
“The Words We Live By: Your Annotated Guide to the Constitution” by Linda R. Monk (New York, Hyperion, Copyright 2003 Linda R. Monk and The Stonesong Press, Inc.)
“CROWDS AND POWER” by Elias Canetti, translated from the German by Carol Stewart (New York, Continuum Publishing Corporation, 1973; English translation copyright 1962, 1973 by Victor Golancz; copyright 1960 by Classen Verlag Hamburg ).
“Elias Canetti was born in 1905 in Bulgaria and was educated in England, Austria, Germany and Switzerland. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981 ‘for writings marked by a broad outlook, a wealth of ideas and creative power.'”
“A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES: 1492-PRESENT” by Howard Zinn (copyright 1980, 1995, 1998, 1999, 2003 by Howard Zinn; HarperPerennial-Modern Classics/HarperCollins Publishers, 2003).
Cannetti is great. He also said that the most effective leftists he knew were the ones who followed the markets. That’s what you’ve got here, people who know where to drop the wooden shoes in the machine.
There’s something deliciously ironic of the fact that Zinn himself taught A People’s History for free, but to be elegible, you had to commit at least one serious felony.
Thanks Rene. I love and adore Paul Craig Roberts’ outspoken, brave and confrontational viewpoint. I haven’t read or heard him say anything I do not agree with. But it puzzles me how he survives. If what I believe about “Fortress America” is true, then logically PCR should be muffled, manipulated or just put down. Instead he gets to be flat-out sarcastic about our modern-day display of patriotism. “Hot air day is upon us.” And he revives verboten talk about all the 9/11 false flag facts. With the truth staring us in the face, it is only too clear how powerless we are. Here’s a question for the future: How do powerless people win? I think I just saw the ghost of Mahatma Gandhi.
Susanto, do you see Roberts making specific recommendations for change? Is he calling out the Masters of HellonEarth by name?
A Benefit of The Western Economic Crisis: The End of Irrational Consumerism
http://disquietreservations.blogspot.nl/2012/07/benefit-of-western-economic-crisis-end.html
All Psychosis On The Western Front: The Psychological Ramifications of The 9/11 Myth
http://disquietreservations.blogspot.nl/2012/07/all-psychosis-on-western-front.html
Rene, thanks for the VITAL links, rich in pertinent historical references. Re “the Amerian soul” see also:
“THE AMERICAN SOUL” by Jacob Needleman. Interview with Jacob Needleman repeated this past Sunday (1July2012) on “On Being.”
The first link brings up the “MYTH OF 9/11” (discussed also in the second). It is good to have the reaction of Toni Morrison and Cornel West. Morrison’s continual good works demonstrate that she has been our Godmother of Moral Conscience for a long, long, long time.
But who is masquerading as the “Truth Excavator?”
And since We the People the 99% are “all Black now” it is instructive to study the .01% “White” frame of reference to the .01% “quintessence of whiteness” today in:
TONI MORRISON: “Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination” – “The William E. Massey Sr. Lectures in the History of American Civilization” 1990″(Cambridge, MA and London, England; Harvard University Press, 1992);
W.E.B. DU BOIS: “The Souls of White Folk” (1920), in “DARKWATER: Voices from Within the Veil” – With an Introduction by Manning Marable (Mineola, NY; Dover Publications, Inc., 1999).
NOW do we gittit?
I gettit, LBR! And thanks for your generous supply of book titles… Haven’t got time to read them but sometimes I look them up and read the reviews on Amazon and/or Wikipedia. Gives me some extra information in order to construct the backdrop a bit more accurately…
“Playing In the Dark” is a quick read, even though deep and dense. You can read it in bed before lights out, and digest it in your sleep.
Felix Salmon’s piece makes me want to vomit.
re Diamond’s exit alone won’t restore banking’s reputation Financial Times:
If banking has ever had a good reputation it just shows that people can be wowed with their own stolen goods and services.
“Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create money.” – Sir Josiah Stamp, Director of the Bank of England (appointed 1928). Reputed to be the 2nd wealthiest man in England at that time. from http://www.themoneymasters.com/ [emphasis added]
Note: I do not necessarily endorse the sites I quote from.
FB, is Sir James Goldsmith still alive? if so, he might be willing to speak as a C.21 Josiah Stamp.
LIBORFEST – Bob Diamond being questioned by Parliamentary Committee in London LIVE:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18704239
Looks like the right wingers (Tories) are trying to get names of Government officials when Labour was in power in 2008. – Politics as usual!
Bob Diamond calling the committee members by their first names – would he do this at a Senate hearing in the US? His PR should have told him this is a bad move and makes him look like a crass yank.
Maybe it’s part of his special charm. After all, you don’t become CEO based just on your looks…
A “crass yank” putting them in their place, while sitting on evidence that can incriminate them all? When will Diamond STAND and burn his “British” passport before the dead Etonesque eyes/masks of .01% Global Reich Coverup? Will Bob Diamond live to spill the Old Beans?
Some American Revolutionary Patriot needs to tweet Diamond per what side his bread is better-buttered-on STAT!
Diamond is in a strategic position to push the tipping point into the Second American Revolution. Does he think he has a future in “Great Satan?”
July 4th, 2012
Dear Washington,
70+ million Americans have no access to health care.
That includes people without health insurance and people with it who pay outrageous premiums but can’t afford to see a doctor because of the high deductibles.
We are making a demand of our leaders starting today on our country’s birthday.
We don’t have health care.
You don’t have health care.
We don’t have protection from medical bankruptcy.
You don’t have protection from medical bankruptcy.
Why should you have what we don’t? You elites want everything for yourselves and make sure you have it while you tell the American people too bad for you you get nothing.
We demand that you, your staffs and the rest of the elites in Washington GET NO HEALTHCARE.
No doctors, no pills, no tests, no surgeries.
None.
We demand you live like we do until you fix this broken system and every citizen in this country has access to health care.
The Right, the Left, the Center who have no healthcare are joining together to form a tsunami that will sweep over Washington.
Get ready.
Signed,
Americans who have no access to health care in the richest nation on earth
Near the end of the Matt Taibbi piece about the lack of response in the US to the LIBOR revelations. A quote from a Wall Street cynic, who for the first time in the past years was actually stunned:
“It’s like finding out that the whole world is on quicksand,”
Maybe this is a key. Maybe a lot of people are deliberately (but often unconsciously) keeping themselves in a state of not-knowing because it would simply be too frightening and too overwhelming to realize how much of what seems to hold together our incomprehensible and complex world is flimsy or downright non-existent.
Maybe the big difference between us now and the Soviet bloc in 1987 or 1989 is that they had an obvious, already running alternative to jump into. Or thought they did anyway.
My guess is that in the depths of most people’s minds, the most obvious alternative to our current duct tape and wire social structure is chaos.
If any of what I am saying is true, it also points to the absolutely crucial nature of TINA (There Is No Alternative) in keeping the current system in place.
Well then, it is time for us to conceive and act upon another alternative besides chaos – they exist, they simply have to be chosen ….
The deeper the decay goes, the deeper the repair will have to go.
I think part of our difficulty is that at this point in history “conceive of alternatives” actually means “take a big step forward in human evolution”.
If there were a big wave of revulsion now, perhaps simply* restoring the rule of law, one-person=one-vote (not one-dollar=one-vote), and punishing the malefactors and compensating those they hurt would be enough.
But my sense is that media and academia and other sectors are also so thoroughly corrupted, that things will decay for a while longer.
By then, trust and basic social connections will have become so unraveled that just restoring the old system in a cleaned-up form (i.e. Capitalism with a Human Face) will not suffice and we will have to develop new social forms.
(*: I know. This is not exactly simple. But compared to creating a new type of society, it would be. Sigh)
Jessica, correct. The more highly evolved young of the more highly evolved must seize the initiative.
For most people it’s too complicated to even be able to get angry at. It’s so complicated it paralyzes your mind. It’s so complicated it’s like trying to hook up your own flat screen TV and home wireless network. Even the instructions that come in the box are too complicated to follow.
What we really need are people we can dial up and tell us exactly what we should be angry at and why. That’s what I rely on Naked Capitalism for. And Mr. Taibbi.
There’s no way in hell I could ever figure this out for myself — rigging the what market? and for something like a 100th of a percent. That’s like a few pennies. I’d stand there staring at it for about 15 minutes, then I’d give up and go to Youtube for some Abba videos, like Dancing Queen. That you can understand, even if you’re not a 17 year old girl in a disco on a Friday night.
The end result of all this will not be a revolution or even rebellion or probably even criminal prosecutions. It will simply dissolve, the way a migrane eventually fades away. When, I don’t know when. But it will, at some point, simply not be there anymore and that will be that. It’s too complicated for society to figure out and deal with in any other way. There is not much moral satisfaction in that outcome, but eventually nature will reclaim everything man will have ever created. It’s like that. I think.
And I think I like that.
“For most people it’s too complicated to even be able to get angry at.”
One possible path forward would be the development of a moral system in which taking care of yourself by taking advantage of, exploiting, or excluding others” (in contrast with taking care of yourself by making some contribution to society) would be viewed as a major moral failing.
This would cut through the complexity and be easily understood by most everyone. But this is not a matter of intellectual teaching and intellectual understanding. It is a matter of the way we see ourselves, our societies, our universe, and our place in it.
None of our existing religions, not our traditional ones nor newcomers like Buddhism, see this as morally crucial. Neither do science or the like, which for some people, perform the same function of giving life meaning.
It’s not even that complicated.
When the hot women stop sleeping with these types, the game is over.
until then, the game goes on.
ecce homo
That’s it.
OK, Jessica, I’ve had a few already and don’t meen to be a bonehed about such a serious issue as this.
religion’s and pholisophy try to cope with this but run into the problem of consequences, and don’t find these consequences in this world, in fact they find no consequences in this world. and so they invent a hell or “karma” where the consequences play out or the find the consequences in a soul sickening that occurs through the acension of consciousness, which may be a pleasing solution to the contemplative person but it relies on revelation and not instruction, which renders it a matter of chance
there is no way to devine the final consequences in this world. that is the basic problem. and it leave a vacuum that imagination has to fill up. and imagination goes where will goes. and will goes where desire goes, and desire goes where imagination lures it, and so you’re back, like a circle, to where you started.
ecce homo #2:
I think the human race could create a shared understanding that exploiting and excluding are morally unacceptable, like murder or slavery. It would not need to be based on consequences built into this life nor on consequences that can come after this life. We could simply decide to view people who act like our financial leaders in the way we view child molesters. Many of our top bankers have done far, far more harm than Jerry Sandusky (recent big US child rape case for any non-Americans who missed it).
It would need to be something we feel in our bones. Not just an idea that we think.
I do not know if we will create such a morality, but we could and it would serve as a foundation for much of what we need to do.
Yes, the way that wild, green nature is reclaiming parts of Greater New Orleans.
Words to live by:
Gracie Slick, “Greasy Heart”
Audio
(Excuse the freakin’ ad, but that’s Capitalism. They’ll buy a car ad on a video that condemns their whole consumerist system.)
>> Maybe a lot of people are deliberately (but often unconsciously) keeping themselves in a state of not-knowing because it would simply be
Yes, yes, yes. Cue the old Upton Sinclair quote.
NO ONE WANTS TO “KNOW”.
CNBC showing the Diamond questioning live from London.
I can’t keep watching Bob Diamond testify like this…. it’s making me too angry. When are we going to get rid of these people!!!
There needs to be a media campaign on a massive scale. A clear, concise version of what nakedcapitalism does. Easy for Americans to comprehend. TV commercials, radio, funded by nonprofits who wanna get rid of these sociopaths… an OWS 2.0 that doesn’t have a ‘hippy’ image but a “i don’t want to get my money stolen image”.
Enough already with these sociopaths. The guy keeps repeating the same thing, addressing government officials and elected reps by 1st name (while THEY address HIM by last name!!!). Something needs to change…
tiger, some clever artist needs to create mass-market “Snakes in Suits” seated around a conference table serving themselves tranches of the world on golden plates. This would take the place of the Dogs at the Poker Table.
He’s very effective. The financial press will praise him, and all the wrong people are cheering him on.
YVES, re Romney’s riches in Grand Cayman. I interviewed with key rep for Marsh & McLennan in NOLA in the late 1960’s for their swell encampment on Grand Cayman. Connect dots: Marsh&Mac on Grand Cayman, in WTCnot on 9/11.
Dig deep. The trail of blood may reach into the nether regions of Barclays, Libor, BBA, BofE.
1603: An all-powerful Bank of England is needed to re-impose discipline on the City, financial historian Professor Niall Ferguson tells the BBC’s Hardtalk programme
Above is “Live Text” from Diamond BBC hearings live.
Of course NF is a shill for the .01%.
Listen between the lines. Is Diamond keeping his powder dry?
Niall Ferguson, per wikipedia:
“As of 2011[dated info] he was working on the official biography of Henry Kissinger[5] to whom he has been granted unprecedented access.”
Anyone working on an OFFICIAL biography of THAT MONSTER is not someone I would trust.
OK, Bob Diamond just blew any chance of reform: He thinks “the culture” is no problemme — they need to “just fix it, and move on.”
So there. Diamond frames himself in “sociopath/psycopath” category. They all are “Snakes in Suits.” And have you noticed the color-coded ties the principals in the scam are wearing for photo-ops all and sundry? Call it “Bespoke dog-whistle haberdashery” for Made Men.
Re: Benjamin Schwartz/Selfishness as Virtue
Schwartz evidently postulates single adults entirely unlettered, cut off from family and, hence, unfit to raise the youngsters they – in point of fact – do not have or do not plan to have. So his premises are in trouble. Can’t help considering how many high-profile manipulations in these pages were hatched by selfish singles, and conclude the real action must lie elsewhere.
It was a strange book review. The book, Going Solo, is an analysis by one Eric Klinenberg of the fate of social values in a world of isolated people some of whom are raising isolated children. The book reviewer, one Ben Schwartz, who “works in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy” was more than a little incoherent. Maybe the author was too. If this review is a piece containing a lot of conventional platitudes salted with a few cleverly crafted guilt trips, then it qualifies as some kind of propaganda. Was it for or against birth control? I couldn’t tell. But if this “book review” is coming from the “Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy” my bet is that it is a piece that would push for a birthrate that hovered at a maintenance level for the 21st c. needs of the military.
Cannon-Fodder Theory?
Lovely. One of the Brit officials just asked Diamond if he could recite the three driving principles of the fine Quakers who started Barclays. When Diamond could not, the man offered to tattoo “Honesty. Integrity. Plain Dealing” on Diamond’s knuckles.
Any Quakers left in the City? Surely not “Baroness” Raj mouthpiece.
Edit: or as Max Krieger might say: “Baroness” Raj “pie hole.”
Hmm…Sankaty High Yield Asset Investors Ltd. Named for a ferry that took the rich offshore to Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. Interesting!
John Thurso of “Caithness” et al. just put paid to Diamond’s BS. Glass-Steagall on steroids is what the “banks” of the City need. Barclays is busted.
Or maybe Scotland should just secede?
How about the Auld Alliance of Highland Scots and la belle France, and the Piping Celts plus Sunshine States just form the New European Union without Germany?
http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=11170&wfs=true
Full hearing, Microsoft siverlight required…
OK, Gates is busted. Heads on pikes and guillotines globally in order.
China exports ghost town to Africa:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18646243
See timely Gladstone quotation chez Jesse: “Rhyme” — and ask what you can do for your country. Consult:
“THE TYRANNICIDE BRIEF” by Geoffrey Robertson.
From Ritholtz’s place: Max Keiser goes ballistic over LIBORgate (at the 12:00 mark)
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/07/max-keiser-goes-ballistic-on-barclayslibor
Capn, thanks. Max is up against 2 brick walls defending the City.
Max’s outburst comes in the midst of some amazing lies from the “co-panelist.” If you listen to what the industry shill says after the moderator shuts down Keiser, he advocates “common law” remedies, meaning, let somebody sue on the basis of contract or tort. That means, of course, see how good your lawyer is compared to Barclays. For the 99%, that means there is no remedy, especially when one considers, in the U. S., how class action suits have had the legs cut out from under them over the past 30+ years.
As others have expressed, there is only one to way to defend yourself while attacking, in a small way, this extraordinarily corrupt and collapsing system.
Withdraw from it. Don’t work for them. Don’t let you money be handled by them.
And encourage others to do the same–and work with them to create alternatives.
YVES, if the Fed pays interest on bank “reserves,” then why isn’t it paying interest on the SSTF? See latest from Bruce Krasting re Bernanke’s designs on SSTF. Is Zero Interest Rate on Treasuries a Policy toward dumping SSTF into the Hyper Derivatives hopper in a Mega Wealth Transfer public-to-private scheme, enhanced by the slice$dice brigade?
Happy Higgs Day, NC! Tonight I’m going to pretend that’s what all of the fireworks are for. Not really much worth celebrating on the national front.
Gold Price Chart so beautiful that you will want to lick the screen: http://www.sh1ny.com
Paul Blumenthal,
http://www.sh1ny.com Founder
The slope of the floor is acute: looks like 30 degrees NNE.
NOW we need to talk about that ISSUE raised by Frank Baum, that issue that caused William Jennings Bryan to stop talking for the People: WHEN will We the People be permitted to see our own gold and silver MINTED into “official” coin or bullion? Huh? Huh? Huh? “Eliminate the middleman?”
South Florida lifeguard fired after saving man http://www.news4jax.com/news/South-Florida-lifeguard-fired-after-saving-man/-/475880/15403116/-/5ditk1/-/index.html
Perfect. You couldn’t find a story that better captures the zeitgeist.
Perfection of zeitgeist in a nutshell.
“Special Report: Crisis forces “dismal science” to get real” is such an incredible load. It is rather an illustration that 5 years out from the housing bust, 4 years out from the meltdown, 2 1/2 years into the euro crisis, the discipline of economics has done virtually nothing, certainly nothing real. MMT, like it or not, doesn’t even rate a mention in this article about economics seeking to reinvent itself. And if the authors can’t go there, what is the likelihood they will discuss the ideas we do around every day for years now?
In one way, it is absurd. It is rather like a convention of quacks and charlatans reinventing their profession so that they will be taken more seriously. I mean what does such a protestation even mean? The end product will still be quackery and charlatanism. Who cares if it is new and improved? But that is modern economics. Its point is not to describe the real world. Its purpose is to facilitate, legitimize, and defend the systematic looting of kleptocracy. Until we get an economics of kleptocracy, wealth inequality, and class war, all economics is horsesh*t. None of it addresses the world in which we of the 99% live. That is as true of the neoclassicals and their halting reformers as it is of the MMTers.
around every day > around here everyday
The past ain’t even past.
Copernican headache.
Hugh, gotta keep those cush “jobs” in hallowed halls of Elite Academia: keep the endowment flying.
“IMPERIUM” by Ryszard Kapuscinski (Vintage International, 1995, 1994).
An empire is an empire is an empire is an empire is an empire …
“the tyranny of stereotypes” – Sound familiar?
“IMPERIUM” translated from the Polish by Klara Glowczewska.
Higgs boson.
Dark matter filament strand.
I can feel it coming soon – intelligent life elsewhere. Maybe later today or tomorrow morning.
“intelligent life elsewhere” – MLTPB
Skippy… I’m still waiting for a consensus vote on the *intelligent life here* thingy.
@enough
“p.s. AFAIU, atleast the Chinese tradition of using fireworks was entirely ‘spiritually’ based, as opposed to one of acts/reminders of Aggression”
ooohhhhhh bull-shit
Yep, i stand corrected – thanks
I guess i should’ve just said;
Note; (just as an aside) the references/claims in there that Hindu Indians may have been using it (gunpowder) since 5000 BCE.
To clarify my not-well-thought-out postscript;
re: [not invented as a way to “Blow things up”, though neither were the attempts to split the atom initially]
But i suppose almost everything discovered/invented (breakthroughs in tech/bio/etc) was (were) resultant primarily from ‘accidents’ (experiments gone awry) — which came about while seeking (working on) other things unrelated.
Love
You really make it appear really easy together with your presentation but I find this matter to be really one thing that I feel I’d never understand. It kind of feels too complex and very broad for me. I’m taking a look ahead to your subsequent post, I’ll attempt to get the hold of it!