Links 10/7/12

69 comments

  1. Timothy Y. Fong

    According to the article, the increase in consumer debt is federal student loans. This aligns with what I have observed, that a lot of younger people (early 20s) are trying to wait out the financial crisis in graduate school.

    However, if it’s true that the economy is now in permanent crisis, what we’ll have instead is people graduating in the next 3 years who are worse off. Most won’t be able to find a well-paying job, AND they’ll be carrying a burden of extra student debt. Not a good situation.

  2. psychohistorian

    Facebook and Twitter being reported as more tempting than sex is just another notch in the accomplishment list of the marketing and sales forces directed by the global inherited rich toward maintaining a controlled/complacent populace. Of course work was rated at the top….not life or anything socially meaningful……but hey, wonder who paid for the study?

    1. patricia

      It’s a strange study, though. I’ve seen Face/Twit “hankering” mostly among younger people, as a way to keep friends in the moments of their day, which is normal for those in their teens and early 20s. For the older “cravers”, I suspect Twit/Face is a (somewhat ineffective) way to resolve pervasive loneliness.

      Further, to sling sex together with drugs (and hint at addiction) is simply silly. And generally, people aren’t as interested in sex all day long as they are in maintaining a common variety of relationships–Facebook is used more by females than males, after all :-}

      And I wish journalists felt a responsibility to publish poll questions along with analysis when they write of these kinds of studies.

    2. SubjectivObject

      While I appreciate the cogency of your suspicions, in my, umm, subjective state of flippancy, I would suggest that in an overpopulated world, and one which promises a large debt and trauma burden for any forthcoming unfortunate progeny, that a fetish for anything textual, in lieu of the so frequently used, abused, unplanned, and misunderstood sextual, can have positive attributes.

      Take my 13 year old grand daughter, for instance, I am resigned that the more of her public time she fixates on texting, gushing, awesome, trivia, the less attention she has for other’s intimation of …. And hopefully the more time we have, with what time we have, to introduce alternative frames of reference.

      Now take my 12 year old grandson (different family), on his own initiative, he goes to the L I B R A R Y to read, wait for it … BOO ks. (insert my strongest feeble primal gutteral YEAH! here) The force is strong in that one.

  3. gonzomarx

    Ben Goldacre Q & A about his new book on Big Pharma

    “‘It’s appalling … like phone hacking or MPs’ expenses’
    Ben Goldacre’s first book, Bad Science, shredded the claims of homeopaths and fake doctors. For his second he has his sights trained on the pharmaceutical industry”

    http://tinyurl.com/8txogj5

  4. Max424

    I just finished reading a right wing blog that was accusing the Liberal Media Establishment of ignoring the Antarctic.

    Apparently, the Antarctic is not melting away, like the Arctic is.

    So to be fair and balanced, here is really cute video of penguin, a flightless bird of an order, which if I’m not mistaken, lives mostly “down there,” where the ice is still thick.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFfCa96HSxY

    1. skippy

      Ohhh shite…

      Antarctica’s massive ice shelves are shrinking because they are being eaten away from below by warm water, a new study finds. That suggests future sea levels could rise faster than many scientists have been predicting.

      The western chunk of Antarctica is losing seven metres of its floating ice sheet each year. Until now, scientists were not exactly sure how it was happening and whether or how man-made global warming might be a factor. The answer, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature, is that climate change plays an indirect role – but one that has larger repercussions than if Antarctic ice merely were melting from warmer air.

      Hamish Pritchard, a glaciologist at the British Antarctic Survey, said research using an ice-gazing NASA satellite showed that warmer air alone could not explain what was happening to Antarctica. A more detailed examination found a chain of events that explained the shrinking ice shelves.

      Twenty ice shelves showed signs that they were melting from warm water below. Changes in wind currents pushed that relatively warmer water closer to and beneath the floating ice shelves. The wind change probably is caused by a combination of factors, including natural weather variation, the ozone hole and man-made greenhouse gases, Pritchard said in a phone interview.

      As the floating ice shelves melt and thin, that in turn triggers snow and ice on land glaciers to slide down to the floating shelves and eventually into the sea, causing sea level rise, Pritchard said.

      http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2012/04/26/antarctica-ice-melting.html

      Skippy… but look on the bright side:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKFsmZhQWtg&feature=related

      1. Max424

        Nice link.

        An underrated movie, Waterworld, in the sense that it didn’t suck as bad as everyone said it did.

        I saw it when it first came out, in a theater in Athens, back in the day when Greece was still a country.

    1. SubjectivObject

      The subjective nature of [even human] Nature:

      I sent the image to my wife with the caption:

      Sad and Blue for Yue

  5. craazyman

    1. I’m sure there’s folks who post to Facebook and Twitter while having sex. Why is this mutually exclusive?

    2. I respect Mathbabe’s thinking and her point of view (and I know this isn’t her blog), but since she braggs she could pay an $800,000 trading fine by herself if she had to, what is her best 10-bagger, right now, and why. What’s the point of suffering any blog post about economics or finance if it can’t make you money? I can’t think of one. I’d rather read about the Andromeda Galaxy.

    3. Long Hours, No Results — If this article doesn’t crack you up so hard you’re crying tears of pain, you’re not even alive. This is supposed to be insight? That’s what happens when you take the high road in life — top college, law or business school, coddled by a training program at some welcoming womb of money, high salary, lots of comp. for pushing paper — you don’t learn anything about life. Then, years after you’ve become a multi-millionaire for doing virtually nothing of social value, you reflect upon your circumstances and become gently critical of its modest hypocrisies. This, you think, is a form of wisdom born of experience. Not really. It’s only a continuation of your dream. My gentle advice would be, “don’t even try to wake up at this point, just keep sleeping and when you ascend in the final day you’ll have missed the whole thing and you won’t even know.” It will be less confusing, that way.

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      Facebook, Twitter and sex.

      Did they break down their data into full moon nights and non-full moon nights?

    2. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      Long Hours, No Results.

      Thanks for the clarification about that deluded article, Craazyman.

      At first I thought the link e would be a serious piece about the much ado about nothing scheme (except further damaging Nature) that characterized the science/technoloyg obsession of the Homo Not-So-Sapiens Not-So-Sapiens.

    3. Bert_S

      Hi craazy. Remember that you have to want to have sex, Facebook and Twitter at the same time. Nuff said about that.

      Haven’t you read our buddy Haldane’s article yet? He’s still going on about that better econ/financial model crap. He’s using words I remember from college.

      Shouldn’t we get mathbabe to tell him he’s full of crap before they destroy the world with a friggin computer?

      Besides, where’s he gonna get the input data when they are all done? BLS? Obama?

      1. craazyman

        well thankfully I ran out of wine so I can’t get drunk tonight. it’s better that way. that’s the same article from before and you can even tell in the head shot he has nice threads. that wide collar shirt and the silver tie look expensive.

        I don’t begrudge him that at all. I had to buy another suit for work 2 weeks back and thought seriously about something over $1000 but said F*ck that and hit Century 21. Under $250, it was a deal. you can tell if you look close, but I don’t look that close. It’s just work. Actually, you don’t even have to know that much about men’s suits to see it’s a reasonably cheap suit. But it’s not the cheapest you can get.

        The one he had on at INET looked custom tailored to me. That would probably set you back $2000 or more. and here in New York there’s several mid-town tailors that will do it and proably will do it very well.

        If I get a job at the Bank of England I’ll get 4 or 5 done up like that so they move on my body like a ballet. Maybe they need a specialist in contemporary analysis at the Bank of England. I’m a full profeser, although I rarely advertise that, out of modesty.

  6. woah

    “Fraud in the Scientific Literature”

    The fraud is the actual retraction itself. The act of Burrying the truth by retracting information from study.

    1. Susan the other

      Yes indeed, Fraud nullifies science, love and finance. As they say: fraud vitiates everything. Leaves me broken hearated.

        1. Aquifer

          Good for you, nither my hearing nor my tipeing is in very good shap …., but my speling is just fein …. :)

  7. YesMaybe

    Am I the only one who thought the “Who’s in Charge Inside Your Head?” article is bizarre/awful? It starts out talking about parasites which alter behavior, and then it abruptly moves to discussing The Selfish Gene (without mentioning the book or the author by name). Strikes me as just another guy trying to get publicity in order to sell more copies of his book.

    1. craazyman

      Makes you wonder who’s in charge inside THEIR head.

      At some point there’s no more heads and there has to be something really in charge.

      That’s the point when it gets really weird.

  8. Son of Bill Wilson

    “There are those who have got drunk only once, but it has lasted them a lifetime.” – Baltasar Gracián

    Re: They work long hours, but what about the results

    Please tell us more, Robert C. Pozen, senior lecturer at Harvard Business School and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution

    Bob (can I call you Bobby?) I’m on the edge of my seat and can hardly wait to read what you come up with next!

    Oh wait, Bobby Pozner I see you’ve already written a book entitled “Extreme Productivity: Boost Your Results, Reduce Your Hours” !

    Oh goody! I see you have a website, and that you’ve written six books and *hundreds* of articles!

    http://www.brookings.edu/experts/pozenr

    Bob, I can see you’ve been one hell of busy little beaver working as Chairman of MFS Investment Management, John Olin Visiting Professor, Harvard Law School President, George W. Bush’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security, Secretary of Economic Affairs, Commonwealth of Massachusetts Vice Chairman, Fidelity Investments President, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Managing Director and General Counsel, Fidelity Investments Director, Fidelity’s insurance company and credit card bank Partner, Caplin & Drysdale Associate General Counsel, Securities & Exchange Commission Law Professor, Georgetown and New York Universities.

    What’s your secret then, eh Bobby Poz?

    If I buy your book and read it, can I too learn the secret of extreme productivity?

    Should I spend less of my time drinking at home, or in cafés, cellars, bars, restaurants, or in the streets? But there’s nothing like that first taste of beer in the morning. Or Russian vodka at the moment of waking.

    Do I have to give all up then?

    There’s what is drunk with meals, and in the afternoons between them. There’s wine at least some nights, and then whiskey and vodka, and after that beer is pleasant again — for it makes you thirsty. Then there’s what is drunk at the end of the night, at the moment when the day begins anew.

    The rum of Jamaica; the punches, the grappa of Turin, cognac, cocktails; the incomparable mezcal of Mexico. All the wines of France, Czech beer of Pilsen; the wines of Italy, the Chiantis of Tuscany, the wines of Spain, the Riojas of Old Castille, and so on…

    Bob, this hasn’t left me as much time for extreme productivity as I might have liked.

    But as soon as I get over this hangover I’ll rush over to Barnes & Noble and buy a copy of “Extreme Productivity: Boost Your Results, Reduce Your Hours”, so I can get with the program.

    Thanks a lot, Bob.

    1. craazyman

      You need to stop wasting time getting drunk and posting comments on web sites! ;)

      Who cares what you think? Pull yourself up by your shoelaces!

      A few books on business productivity should shape you up and get you focused. Maybe you could be the chairman of some bored somewhere, maybe 15 or 20 boreds. That’s being productive! hoho.

  9. Ms G

    RE: Obama campaign “clarifies” approach to Social Security.

    With thanks to FDL for parsing the weasel-word-laden statement issued by the lady who is Deputy Campaign Manager (Stephanie Cutter) “under the aegis” of something called the “Truth Team” (!!), there is another “point of perspective” to consider side by side with this Message from the Obama Truth Team. I will let the words of Alan Simpson (co-poobah of Obama’s Grand Bargain (TM) Catfood Commission) speak for themselves :

    SIMPSON: I get so damn sick and tired of listening to the little guy, the vulnerable, the veteran – I am a veteran, and the seniors and this and this and this and the meanwhile this country is headed for second-class status while everybody just babbles into the vapor.”

    Live video of Simpson’s stunning candor here:
    http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/10/05/alan-simpson-i-get-so-damn-sick-and-tired-of-listening-to-the-little-guy/

    1. citalopram

      I’m willing to bet that’s a majority consensus in Washington right now. They don’t care what you or I think. They have utter contempt for the working class in this country.

      1. mac

        Do you have a description of exactly who fits into the “working class”?
        Seems to me there are as many as there are folks who use thew phrase.

  10. Aquifer

    Great set of links! Almost want to read them all but don’t have time …

    “…Inside Your Head” – aside from its stand alone value – strikes me as a wonderful analogy for how the !% have infected and highjacked the economy ….

    “Dissolve SEC” – struck a cord I have noticed over the years. Her argument, it seems to me is to stop trying to keep up with the crooks and just throw obstacles or “disincentives” in their way up front ala FTT. Methinks she is part way there, but that still leaves the incentive (mega bucks) to figure out how to avoid the disincentive – buy a few politicians to redefine the activity in such a way that it evades the obstacle, or just pay the fine for ignoring it. The way the STT is handled in NYS is a perfect example of how to “comply” while negating any beneficial result – the STT, is “paid”, indeed, then promptly rebated to the payers!

    I first noticed this approach, which i call “let’s outsmart the dudes” decades ago in a small Town Hall – the council folk would want to stop a developer from doing something crummy, but they wouldn’t just say “No”. Instead they would give a conditional approval based on the developer doing all sorts of things they figured he wouldn’t or couldn’t do then patted themselves on the back for their cleverness. Problem is often developer would “do” those things – not really but present appropriate paper work as proof- and the TB was left with egg on its face – in a position of having to prove this was bullcrap or allowing the activity.

    There would be one councilperson who would argue right from the get-go that they should “Just say No” but the argument was the developer would sue, so clever tricks instead …

    In the end they had to wind up giving permission or defending a “No” rendered more difficult now than if they had said no to begin with ….

    So, to make a long story short, which i never succeed in doing anyway, seems to me the pertinent question should be, though that is seldom ever what it is, “What can we do to stop this activity which is so clearly dangerous?” instead of “What can we do to outsmart, or “disincentivize” the crooks engaged in it?” Stop the alluring gamesmanship of the chase, necessitating the pound of cure, and stick to the simple plain brown paper wrapped ounce of prevention ….

    Seems to me a good start would be to KISS and “just say No” instead of kiss and make up ….

    1. ambrit

      Dear Aquifer;
      You have my sympathies. You might be suffering from ‘Posting Traumatic Stress Syndrome.’ Be of good cheer. There are many here who would gladly help walk you through the process, towards healing. Indeed, NC itself is a valuable therapy tool.
      The process can be simple. Stand up facing the rising sun and say, “Hi. I’m Aquifer. I think too much.” The Universe around you will respond. I guarantee it.
      (Brought to you by: The Cato Institute, Koch Industries, The Pete Peterson Institute, and The Republicrat Party.)

      1. Aquifer

        As a fan of Pooh, a bear of very little brain, and kin to the farmer’s “smart” donkey, I often need to be hit over the head with a 2X4, so is this your way of telling me to sit down and shut up, and that this sentiment is shared by a good many others here?

        1. ZygmuntFraud

          Hi Aquifer,

          Starting about the Democratic Convention, I’ve been reading NC more than before. The usual media just don’t have the wide range of stories as here. Somehow, I was hoping for some palpable change, say in the mainstream media. But going from 100 to 100,000,000 is about the same as doubling twenty times over. So if you are in the enlightened 100, and ther are about 100 enlighened, reaching 100 million (a million times more) takes doubling 20 times over. As you seem to allude to, the topics here are not elementary and can’t easily be summarized to a newcomer in 3 minutes. Anyway, I expect a long route to build awareness.

          For myself, also quite addicted to NC, I aim to do more of the mundane things like taking out the garbage and so forth. But the wish to learn and share say here at NC is a strong one …

        2. ambrit

          Dear Aquifer;
          Just got back from work and checked up on the sites. Good Heavens no! Don’t ever stop what you’re doing! My taste in Snark will be the death of me yet. (Do notice whom I attributed the message to.) [I abase myself and grovel.]
          LAKs, ambrit.

        3. Aquifer

          ambrit – i do appreciate your return. When i get in one of my manic phases i do tend to jabber on and on more than usual and often need to be whacked up side the head …

  11. ambrit

    Friends;
    Just a passing reference to the power of propaganda. Phyllis and I were checking out at the local food store this morning when we noticed a burly, older man striding along wearing a tee shirt that said: “I Stand Behind Our TROOPS. It’s A Lot Better Than Standing In Front Of Them!” If he only knew what he was really saying with that tee shirt.

    1. citalopram

      It’s cheap and easy, ain’t it? Bumper stickers, lapel pins and t-shirts mean so much. I almost forgot the yellow ribbon magnets that I saw all over every SUV after 9/11. Their heart swells with pride by doing something so meaningful and significant.

      The wife and I headed up to the Eggplant Festival in Loomis, Ca yesterday. There was a flier I saw for donating biodegradable trash. All the proceeds will go to vets and our military heroes, it said. My first thought was that I’d never donate to them in the million years!

      It’s an all-volunteer army, and I have zero sympathy for them when they signed up to kill brown people overseas.

  12. jsmith

    Regarding laser pointer:

    Click through the stories to read the actual affadavit about the guy who got busted shining lasers at aircraft. Multiple really high-powered lasers – the kind used in research and light shows – an apartment stuffed with CIA, FBI and military memorabilia, folders and computer disks labeled “CIA information” and “NSA information”. Call me paranoid but all of a sudden the number of instances of people shining high-powered lasers in pilots’ eyes has gone from ~250 a year to over 3,500? Seems a bit odd since the technology’s been around for a while now.

    About cancer:

    It’s all well and good that there is so much attention being paid to breast cancer and prostate cancer but when do we stop “raising awareness” about the cancer epidemic and start demanding that our elite STOP EFFING POISONING US!!!

    It’s beyond the pale that we have to eat, breath and sh*t carcinogens everyday of our lives but then to have any true investigation into the causes of said poisoning be blunted by feel good “awareness” programs which primarily seek to make it seem as if humanity has always been suffering from cancer at the present epidemic rates and in the present forms is cynical and criminal.

    So, there’s a separate foundation to raise awareness for breast cancer and prostate cancer and autism and lung cancer and on and on and on but none of these groups ever seem to get to the point where they could get together and scream – HEY CORPORATIONS, STOP EFFING POISONING US!!

    Again, I’m not againt helping victims recognize the diseases that they’ve been afflicted with and getting them help, however, there is a criminally negligent component to all of these stories that is been white-washed out of the picture.

    Something is causing all of this unnecessary pain, suffering and hardship and it’s about time we stop acting like a bunch of navel-gazing idiots and start demanding that the elite stop effing poisoning us.

    Here’s a site that scratches the surface of this criminality and how we’re being conditioned to accept our own murders.

    http://www.naturalnews.com/027307_cancer_breast_ACS.html

    1. Aquifer

      Cheers, JS! As Stein and others have pointed out, we don’t have a healthcare system, we have a sickcare system – we don’t focus on prevention but on “cure” as if the former weren’t ever so much better and the latter a poor, raggedy, inefficient, insufficient substitute serving more the needs of the “provider” (Big Pharma, et.al.) than the patient. It has seemed to me for some time, after >20 years in medicine, that if we were really serious about healthcare we would be paying more attention to the Dept. of Ag than the Dept of HHS.

      I think that’s why i am such a “Stein pusher” – i read how she got involved in politics – through realizing that what she was doing in her Dr.’s office didn’t amount to much when her patients were just going back into the milieu that made them sick. She figured if she just let her Leg.s know what was happening – they would fix it! But she soon was disillusioned of that notion and came to realize we had to “throw the bums” out if we wanted to fix anything. She describes herself as practicing “political medicine” because the current political system is the “mother of all illnesses”. I was pretty bummed on politics after voting Nader 4 times, even a “lover of lost causes” such as i gets discouraged, but this lady, IMO, is too good to ignore – she is coming from where I and many others, ?including you, are, methinks ….

      I will say again – it is not enough to say “No” to the “bad guys”, WE must put up a good alternative or we are left with them by default – “de fault of the electorate…”

      Instead of donating to cancer societies i donate to the Organic Consumers Assoc. :) (and to Stein’s campaign)

    2. different clue

      A biologist/epidemiologist/etc. named Sandra Steingraber has spent years addressing just this issue of cancer prevention and cancer prevention “prevention” (and just exactly who profits from preventing cancer prevention).
      http://steingraber.com/

  13. rivegauche

    Well said, jsmith. And thank you for this. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer 10-1/2 years ago and researched it, I was shocked to discover the primary role that chemicals in our food (and environment) play in cancer and other diseases and had no idea that pesticides mimic estrogen (one form of breast cancer is estrogen-fueled). It was an eye-opener to learn of all the chemicals in processed, packaged foods and what those do to our bodies.

    I read Natural News, and the education I’ve gotten at Dr. Mercola’s site has been invaluable as well.

    1. rivegauche

      And trying to “wash off” the chemical pesticides or other chemicals used in processing food for the marketplace is useless.

      For a short time after being diagnosed, I was an enthusiastic supporter of the awareness campaigns. After all, my research led me to a heightened, acute awareness of the man-made dangers in our foods and environment, and I wanted to share that. But the awareness events aren’t really about awareness and taking the necessary steps to prevent the diseases. They’re all about being aware of all the medical tests and procedures and surgeries and pharmaceuticals you can choose.

    2. Marylinda

      Learn about GMOs, or Genetically Modified Organisms and
      you’ll find that pesticides are a minor issue.

      Not only for adults but an issue of far more concern to women’s fertility, healthy babies and children is genetically modified food and the pesticides that they have been bio-engineered to be sprayed with.

      The Canadian Health Service has found 70% of Canadian women have Roundup weedkiller in their amniotic fluid.

      In addition, the genetic modification of the cloned seeds for crops like GMO corn, soy, canola and sugar beets itself creates thousands of unknown expressions of gene combinations that the human immune system has never encountered. This creates antibody reactions, inflamation, premature aging, allergies, possible miscarriage, crib death and it is suspected, ADHD and autism.

      Men are not immune. Prostate cancer and even male breast cancer are closely linked to Roundup.

      This video has been viewed a couple of million times in the last month. It’s part of the citizen’s ballot proposition 37 in California, an initiative to label GMOs in food.
      Just put a label on the food.
      Tens of millions are being dumped in the state by Monsanto, Bayer, Syngenta and other out of state corporations that want to keep people in the dark about their food supply.

      1. Go to Youtube.
      2. Search for “genetic roulette movie”
      3. View the full length version.

      The reason I can’t give a URL for it is that it keeps being taken down as “abusive” lots of clicks from St.Louis?, and being reposted.

      1. Aquifer

        GMOs – the “weapons of mass destruction” of the food chain. It is not nice to fool Mother Nature – the karma of reported reduced sperm count/viability in folks exposed to endocrine mimicking chemicals in the environment needs no comment …

      2. rivegauche

        Marylinda, yes GMOs are devastating for many reasons – including much higher quantities of herbicides (RoundUp) used on the GMO crops due to increasingly resistant weeds. Most corn, soy, and canola in the US are GMO unless certified organic, and there’s a race on to see how many other foods can join that bandwagon.

    3. Clotilde

      Everyone’s favorite weedkiller and cancer:

      By genetically engineering plants with the insertion of certain foreign bacterial genes, glyphosate can be applied directly to crop plants without killing them. There is nothing in the genetic engineering technology that does anything to the glyphosate that is applied to the plant and that accumulates in it. Both the toxic proteins produced by the foreign bacterial genes and the glyphosate chemical now are present in the feed and food produced for animal and human consumption. Genetic engineering has introduced other genes for insect resistance where additional toxic proteins accumulate in plant tissues consumed by animals and man. These toxins are found in the blood and readily transferred across the placenta to developing babies in the womb.

      Genetic engineering is more like a virus infection than a normal breeding process and results in a multitude of mutations and epigenetic effects as genetic integrity in the plant is disrupted. These ‘foreign’ bacterial genes are highly promiscuous and easily transferred by wind or insects to other plants; to soil microorganisms during plant residue decomposition, or to intestinal microflora during food digestion where they continue to direct the production of toxins and allergenic proteins. Epigenetic effects are manifest in GMO plants as a yield drag, poor nutrient efficiency, increased disease, and reduced stress tolerance.

      Abandonment of the “Scientific Precautionary Principle” that had provided a level of protection in the past, means that we feed and eat at our own risk – as the genetic engineering companies stipulate emphatically on their technology agreement. Scientific studies and clinical responses show that the assumptions of benign effects and rapid degradation of glyphosate, allergenic proteins, and toxins are invalid. Consequently, we are witnessing the development of super weeds; super pathogens; the loss of natural biological controls of plant, animal, and human pathogens; and degradation of our soils and beneficial microorganisms that are required to produce an abundance of nutrient-dense, safe feed and food. The consequences are observed as lower yields, poor nutritional quality, increased disease, and rampant infertility and birth defects.

      The man that wrote that was the head of the germ warfare
      biodefense lab at the USDA and is the one that blew the whistle on GMOs, Dr. Don Huber.

      http://www.gmfreecymru.org/pivotal_papers/glyphosate_toxic_food.html

  14. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

    Another $181 million raised by one of the two contestants.

    In the Age of Billionaire Leaders, either you amass your own $1 billion + in fortune, or you need to raise that $1 billion from the $0.01%.

  15. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

    Housing: Plenty Of Reasos To Be Pessimistic.

    The ‘Growth By Season Adjustments’ Dark Lord would like you to ignore that link.

  16. Susan the other

    3 Links:
    1. Golem 14 re Jon. Sugarman’s speech in Athens re public debt. Here’s a previous newsflash from Ann Pettifore: The cost of money is no longer a legitimate consideration. As it stands now, debt should be free because when “banks” create credit out of thin air (i.e. money) there can, by definition, be no “market” for money. There is no price left to discover; no market to establish – all there is is political money.
    2. Leads to Andrew Haldane re Diane Coyle. VoxEu. Economics is very complex and cannot be modelled and simplified, it has to be analyzed intelletually from many different angles including sociology, finance, employment, trade and world trade, education, etc. The reason financialization infected the rest of humanity is because we defenestrated public policy.
    3. NEP. J.D.Alt. Letter to My Brother. The fundamentals of money changed in 1971 but the rules did not!! “The Fed’s borrowing (selling bonds) has nothing to do with any need to acquire dollars in order to spend them. The Fed’s bond sales are only a mechanism for managing the banking and current monetary system…” which is an unbelievable can of special interests. And the ultimate monetary question: How to control political spending. Well, first you have to have policies, America. Policies based on beneficial social spending. And since any monetary system, whether the hideous one we have or a new functioning MMT system, are inescapably political, we should always choose the public interest and well being over enrichment of the elite.

    Why is this so difficult to understand?

  17. Hugh

    After the 2008 meltdown there was a window for international efforts to deal with the crisis and its aftermath. This didn’t happen because the people who created the crisis were the same ones who were supposed to to fix it. But as these people, that is the rich and the elites whom they own, are all about looting, they weren’t exactly going to do anything to stop that looting.

    The failure to act at an international level was a failure to come together in a time of crisis. Now we see these failures propagating through smaller and smaller entities. The Eurozone, a regional grouping of countries, has failed to come together to address its problems and is in the process of falling apart. At the same time, regions within individual countries are failing to come together to solve national problems and so re-energizing separatist and secessionist movements, like those in Catalonia and Northern Italy.

    Mainstream economics is nothing more than one of the propaganda arms of kleptocracy. Reading Haldane, there is no agency, and agency is critical to understanding the criminality of looting. Instead we get a dazzling array non-agentive language: economists “succumbed to an intellectual virus”, left untreated, neglect, allowed the infection to spread, disease was contracted, memory loss, balance sheets grew (what? on their own?), no one’s fault, no one’s responsibility, the system became hostage to its weakest link, propagation of fear.

    What makes this funny is that Haldane is calling for an agent based approach to economics even as he ignores the actual agents who produced the crisis. To me, this looks like a convenient case of elite tunnel vision. It is all about more and better models rather than arresting the perpetrators.

  18. Jacinto

    Everything is very open with a precise explanation of the challenges.
    It was definitely informative. Your website is extremely helpful.
    Thanks for sharing!

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