Homeless World Cup gives Ishikawa man a new start Asahi Shimbun (hat tip Lambert)
Alaska woman, 85, fends off moose attack on husband McClatchy (hat tip Lambert)
A Math Study Provides Hints About the Game’s Gender Gap New York Times (hat tip mathbabe)
Row as China professor calls Hong Kongers ‘dogs’ AFP (hat tip Lambert)
On the Collapse of the Shanghai Composite Credit Writedowns
Berlin ready to see stronger ‘firewall’ Financial Times
Mispricing of sovereign risk and multiple equilibria in the Eurozone Paul De Grauwe, Yuemei Ji, VoxEU
Davos by the Numbers Reuters (hat tip Lambert)
U.S. Bankers Gain Ascendancy at Davos Bloomberg
Citizen Philosophers Boston Review (hat tip reader David J)
Phone hacking: News of the World journalists lied to Milly Dowler police Guardian (hat tip Buzz Potamkin)
‘Licking Their Chops’ on K Street and Capitol Hill Bill Moyers (hat tip reader May S)
Consumer group accuses Hollywood of ‘threatening politicians’ The Hill (hat tip reader 1 SK)
Buffett: Romney Should Pay Higher Taxes ThinkProgress (hat tip reader Faiz)
Mitt Romney Talks With Florida Foreclosure Victims Huffington Post. OMG, a toad hopped out of Mitt’s mouth. He advocated strategic defaults.
The Caging of America New Yorker (hat tip reader May S)
Justices Say GPS Tracker Violated Privacy Rights New York Times
Hayward accused of ‘lying’ in deposition Financial Times. Ooh, BP blowback is getting interesting.
Settlement with mortgage lenders inadequate, activists say Washington Post (hat tip Lambert). So anyone who is unhappy with the banks getting a sweetheart deals is an “activist”? That’s one step removed from being a communist. The official spin is the states have to think about it. So if you haven’t called your AG, please do so!
Political Push Moves a Deal on Mortgages Inches Closer New York Times (hat tip readers Deontos and . You gotta love the attempt at cheerleading. Near doesn’t count. Getting over the goal line does. Not only did the $8 billion carveout for California apparently not impress AG Kamala Harris (she “expressed concern about protecting her ability to investigate wrongdoing in the mortgage arena”) but the magnitude of the bribe pissed off the other states.
Simon Johnson on the Proposed Foreclosure Fraud Settlement: “This is a law enforcement issue.” Dave Dayen, Firedoglake
What Do You Call a “Cornhusker Kickback” for California? Marcy Wheeler
Judicial Watch Sues Obama Admin for Secret Settlement Documents With Mortgage Lenders. From a right wing group, but this is the sort of thing you get with interminable negotiations. This could be highly entertaining.
A 375-Year-Old French Bank Forgives Debts of Paris’ Poorest Good Business (hat tip reader Barbara B)
Complexity Fetishism, the Euro Crisis and a worthy challenge for 2012: Part B Yanis Varofakis (hat tip Andrew). Today’s must read.
Antidote du jour (hat tip reader jsn and Mark Ames):
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Thanks for the moose story.
That moose was fighting the just fight: the couple in question used to stock their freezer full of freshly killed moose flesh. This is one for Jason Hribal – http://www.jasonhribal.com/
They sound like quite a pair, him jumping in snow banks, surviving stomping by moose ..
She takes a good picture, too.
Send her on tour thru the U.S., she’ll be welcomed Everywhere.
The difference between a moose and a mouse is all up to u!
And I thought that I was a lone(ly) aficionado of Pun and Game(s.) Seems I’m not the only alumnus of “Wossamatta U!”
The Administration should carefully consider the ramifications of no ‘big-name’ jail sentences in the housing or insider trading crises…Corzine, Mozilo, Ricciardi, just a few ideas to get them started… .
Did you see the Edelman study showing that the global public’s trust in business and political leaders is plumbing the depths?
http://financeaddict.com/2012/01/trust-in-business-and-politics-reaches-critical-point/
(Also the dolphins and whales were rad!)
Two say they got paid to protest, back closing Chicago schools
Two men told the Chicago Sun-Times they showed up to apply for financial help with their energy bills […] only to be offered money to attend school-related “rallies” held Jan. 6. Watkins denies they were paid to protest, saying money paid was for training.
Thanks for the link.
There seems to be no greater sleazebags than those that seek to profit from the dismantling of our public school system.
it’s worse than “profiting” from school “dismantling”..teachers, their retirements,
unions, administrators, state governments, are being brazenly linked to economic destruction caused by Wall $treet…
this is nothing less than the rape victim being blamed for rape…
(but it’s nothing Naomi Klein’s, “The Shock Doctrine-rise of disaster capitalism”
didn’t discuss years ago, when reflecting upon “Chicago Boys-Mllton Friedman”
Ann Randers in South and Central America, circa 70’s-80’s…)
5+ hour video released two years after Sept. 11th, 1973=”Bloody September”…documentary on Chilean version…complete with Alliende’ assassinated by CIA agent…
On Romney’s taxes…don’t forget that he writes off and the rest of us subsidize the ten percent he tithes to his political spiritual ponzi scheme, the Mormon Church.
Where exactly in our Constitution does it say that
churches and synagogues do not have to pay taxes?
Yeah, yeah, I know “separation of church and state”.
How did the property tax and non-profit exemption get slipped in there? Religious institutions are the biggest and oldest lobbying groups in our nation. Let’s look at
eliminating that scam as a form of economic democracy.
Not taxing churches started with Roman emperor Constantine, after he converted to Christianity in 312 CE (see Robert Hughes’s book Rome, p. 145)so I guess we can blame the pre-Italians.
Further: today a Roman Catholic church cardinal declared that evading taxes is a sin.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/24/italian-cardinal-tax-evasion-sin
Hmmm. I guess one could say churches are not evading taxes because they are not subject to them. But… really
June, I’m always looking for good reading. I enjoyed Hughes’ history of Australia “The Fatal Shore”. Thanks for tipping me to his latest.
i didn’t read the article, but i wouldn’t take such a decree too seriously. that body claims to consider just about everything ordinary people do all the time for fun and their own benefit a sin.
you just have to make sure to confess and get absolved, so you can go and do it again. and you don’t even have to pay them much for that, unlike the old days. it’s a great system i have sometimes wish i could have been indoctrinated in, despite all the self-identified recovering catholics i’ve met.
(please forgive me, any readers who are happily practicing catholics. and please pray for me. thank you.)
I see no difference (tax wise) between a church and a social club so churches SHOULD pay property tax. And I don’t see why ministers are treated separately wrt the income tax.
Politically, tax privileges for the churches is a bribe to keep them out of politics. That should cease.
My Dear Mr. Beard;
Too true! The Churches have already broken their side of that bargain! (As the example of Constantine mentioned above attests, it never was a really workable solution.)
How much money are we talking about here?
Anxiously Yours.
Anxious Beef: Tax-free donations, tax-free property, and tax-free commercial enterprises. So, off the top of my head…a lot.
http://atheism.about.com/od/churchestaxexemptions/a/churchexemption.htm
While posters are advocating the elimination of tax-exemption for churches and synagogues, why not higher education schools as well? Columbia and NYU would be forced to sell, which might lower Manhattan property prices for the 99%ers. And who said we needed public housing in Manhattan? That is tax exempt as well. Move those crime-centers out to the boroughs. That’s a whole different 1% problem. . .
Dirk, great questions. In fact, the Constitution insists not only on freedom OF religion (a private right), but on freedom FROM religion (a public guarantee), this exchange is the *quid pro quo*. So there should be NO public funding directly or indirectly of *religious* or *religion-affiliated* institutions of any kind.
Surely, “God willing” (a favorite Newt phrase), a *religious* entity shall make it on its own merits; and the *tithers* shall be grateful to sacrifice 10% of their NET income to their *God-given* religious entity, from which their *blessings* derive.
George W. Bush, as President of ALL Americans, crossed this red line of separation between State and Church* when he gave to “Churches” and other religious entities the PRIVILEGE of being the *official* State benefactor of the poor and disadvantaged (addicted, whatever), IN LIEU of *charitable* entities of the State (We the People’s nation-state). This was a clear TRANSFER OF POWER from State to Church made by the President of the U.S.A. while in Office. It is known that Bush pushed through this transfer of power, in complicity with others in elected public office.
So, it is CLEAR, that by this deed, this official ACT, George W. Bush violated his Oath of Office to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. And, by this ACT, George W. Bush did, ipso facto, place a power FOREIGN to the interests of the State above the power of the State–an ACT of subversion by President Bush, making him the AGENT of a power whose interests were/are clearly FOREIGN to the Interests of the State: thus, an Agent of a Foreign Power.
Anyone who knows the history of European *Wars of Religion* knows the crucial importance of the stipulation in the Constitution that the People have the right to FROM religion, in particular, for this is the QUO of the QUID granting freedom OF religion. The INTENT of the Framers of the Constitution was CLEAR because it is EXPLICIT: The *quid pro quo* is EXACT: Freedom OF religion in exchange for Freedom FROM religion.
But George W. Bush SUBVERTED the Constitution by crossing the RED LINE stipulated by the EXPLICIT *QUID PRO QUO*. President Bush violated his Oath of Office, and did willingly–and likely with malice aforethought given his PUBLIC attempted *Donation of President Bush to Pope Benedict XVI* of the authority to be the “moral arbiter for the People of the U.S.A.” By this public ACT OF SPEECH while in the Office of President of the nation-state of We the People, George W. Bush did attempt to donate the MORAL AUTHORITY of We the People’s STATE to a FOREIGN POWER: Pope Benedict XVI, the de factor Emperor of the “Holy Roman Empire”–since the 1970’s alleged to comprehending *All Christians*–and the Global Holy Roman Reich IV.
When Barack Obama became President of the U.S.A., he CONTINUED this SUBVERSION of the Constitution of the U.S.A.
For this reason alone–leaving aside other instances of the corruption of the Chief AGENT (Chief Executive) while in the Office of President of the United States of America according to our Constitution–both George W. Bush and Barack Obama were/are TRAITORS to the U.S.A., the Government by/of/for the People, whence:
“J’ACCUSE” of TREASON against We the People, and our Government of the United States of America, Presidents George Walker Bush and Barack Hussein Obama. May they be arrested, detained, prosecuted, and indicted without delay, for the *prima facie* evidence should be sufficient proof of their crimes of treason–of which that given above is only one of several instances.
The CORRUPTION OF the highest AGENCY in United States Government must cease absolutely. Our Founders stipulated that the penalty for high treason is death–at that time: “to be hanged by the neck until dead.” The ABSOLUTE INTEGRITY of the Office of President–the Executive Office as One of Three Branches of Government by/of/for the People–must be restored, and by example of what a President must do and must not do.
WHO has the POWER and the WILL to STAND as a leader of JUSTICE for We the People right now? Who WILL file “The Tyrannicide Brief” [Geoffrey Robertson] against these two traitors to our Government of/by/for the People right now?
William K. Black? *Yves Smith*? Chris Hedges? Glenn Greenwald? Michael Hudson? Paul Krugman? Catherine Austin Fitts? Christopher Stone?
ANYONE? I beseech you to ACT justly, decisively, and at once.
Nova Bernard Thriffiley, Ph.D.
A *Nobody* citizen of the United States of America, 24 January 2012
Anyone want to buy some hornets?
Thank you for your answer. If churches are immune from paying for property taxes and other taxes then why are we taxpayers subsidizing their fire and police protection?
Obviously there is a public benefit from preventing a fire from spreading from a church to other buildings and it befefits society to apprehend a felon in a synagogue but why can’t these tax exempt institutions hire their own security and contract for private fire protection? Homeowners in ?Idaho? saw their homes burn after they didn’t pay special fire fees in addition to property taxes.
Very good, Dirk. Get it out there.
meant to protect religion (marriage) from the Church, which always ends up as an extension of government.
seconded.
that is, i second leonova’s j’accuse.
The trade-off for their tax free ride was that Churches were supposed to stay out of politics. But as everyone knows, they sure as hell don’t. Remember the fight over Prop 8 in California, for example? Focus on the Family and the Mormons gave an arkload a cash to defeat it. And it was done with a shout out over the pulpit for congregants to get out there and give. This runs blatantly counter to the original intent, and they should loose their special status for these transgressions.
Accrued, extremely well said. This is precisely the case: The *quid pro quo* with regard to religion and civic politics was in fact a CONTRACT; and the *religious* zealots have BREACHED this contract repeatedly, showing themselves unworthy of trust in this matter. The STRICT separation of powers (*Church*/*State*) must now be enforced. NO MORE TAX-EXEMPT STATUS for *religious* entities of any kind.
Re: Mortgage Lending and State AG’s agreement—- Here’s a comment I found when the WaPo wrote about us “activists”:
“Sheesh, Wash Post – Susan Webber @ the nakedcapitalism blog had this story last night. With better details about how it is not even real money but credits and such, and how public employee pensions could take the hit for this small ‘settlement.’
When the blogs beat you by 14+ hours it is time for a reality check, Wash Post.
Wake up.”
Unfortunately, I don’t think it is about stupidity and laziness, I think it is about complicity and propoganda, on the part of the MSM.
WaPo isn’t called Pravda for nothing. They have worked very hard to earn the title.
I thought that they had to buy it, like all parvenues sleazing around the salons of the Aristocrats do.
Sounds like Kamala’s playing the
“Cabinet position for my cooperation”
game with Obama.
Maybe Obama will put Kamala in charge of a “reform” task force! That would be sweet. Unlikely, since she’s a woman, though.
Will Schniderman do?
she wants to be governor
although getting her out of the AG office and the state would be good
failure as SFDA
got her start in politics as a short time girl friend of willie brown
Weren’t they all?
Agree w/ you that Harris has her eye on higher office. She wants high profile judgements against some mortgage fraud or the other to burnish her resume’.
How was she a ‘failure’ as District Atty of San Francisco? Were her conviction rates worse than predecessors? Did her office blow any big cases a la OJ? That’s a huge, unsubstantiated, and baseless allegation. She was a competent DA. She has capacity, but unfortunately ruthless ambition.
@ dirk,
if that is the case, it reinforces mr. strether’s point that this problem for obama & co., inc., is very big, and they actually don’t have as much clout to apply as they would need to prevail.
when the mark wakes up, the con is over. the perps are very nervous, we know this. the fix may never be in.
Re: Romney on strategic defaults:
Thanks, Yves, for using that wonderful phrase – one of my personal favorites.
Also, I noted from the article that not only does Romney advocate strategic defaults, he also alludes to Extend and Pretend WRT bank balance sheets.
Must not have any of Wall STreet on his campaign contribution list….
Murdoch’s legal troubles go way beyond phone hacking.
The Varofakis article is great, and so are his supporting posts down in the comments section.
At the same time, I don’t like the term “complexity fetishism.” It does not seem accurate or enlightening. Developing complex models in response to a complex world does not seem idiotic. It just doesn’t work most of the time. It’s just like the human response of worrying. It rarely helps and usually is counterproductive, but it’s a natural instinct for most of us.
His “infinite regress” comment in the comments section is the real story here. Humans thirst for certainty in spite of the world’s (and especially the economy’s) *fundamental* uncertainty. Unfortunately, even many of the economics debunkers (even guest posters on this site…PP) don’t get that they are are subject to the same overconfidence of the complex modelers. Arrogant twits are found on both sides of the debate.
This is the thing about knowledge. Falsification is possible; proof of real world (rather than theoretical) propositions is rarely so.
[Of course, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try our best with the limited facts and thought processes at our disposal.]
According to the laws of the market, if the shipwrecked man is hungrier than the shark, he will eat the shark.
That’s the demand curve and the supply curve.
After that, the math gets complicated. :)
It’s no wonder they need a PhD!
craazyman, your comprehension is radical. One must dig deep to find the simple (not simple-minded) answer to the complex problem.
This is the art of successful, long-term *crisis* and *transition* diagnosis, which must be *simple*, even though the policies and procedures for work-out to th *other side* may be complex–though expressed simply and clearly, of course.
But the lawyer hacks for the .01%–esp. those with Ivy wreaths on their heads–train the Corporate Imperial troops for OBFUSCATION.
I feel guilty now Leonova. I have to confess my radical line was plagiarized from a Spanish political cartoonist whose show is up the Cervantes Institute next to where I work in NY City. I go there at lunch and see exhibits. His drawings are fantastically simple but magnificently expressive. For that one, he had a guy in an intertube among shipwreck debris being circled by shark fins. I was quite taken by it. He had another called “the financier”, a guy who looked like Jeremy Irons playing Klaus von Bulow, for anyone who remembers the 80s, whose desk was cut to resemble the profile of a shark, teeth & all. If you can draw or paint or sing or dance or write novels, nobody can touch you. If they don’t like what you do, their only answer is to do it themselves, and they usually can’t. LOL.
The artist’s critique is incisive.
It seems to me that all Varoufakis is saying is that economists are the paid lackeys of government and Wall Street, but we knew that.
No, he’s explaining how many economists become paid lackeys, and showing the key methological flaw in economic modelling that enables this process of becoming to take place. Different, subtler, and more true to life.
In my Pooh bear thinking, I cannot help returning, once again, to what i think is the fundamental concept here – Whitehead’s Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness, second, perhaps, in its universality only to Ozymandias’ “look upon me, ye mighty, and despair ….”
“he’s explaining how many economists become paid lackeys”
Yes, they sell out. They are co-opted. Membership in the Establishment with its perks is the name of the game. But that has always been the game.
More doom and gloom from George Soros. Not that we need any more doom & gloom, but it’s like Aristotle’s Poetics — Just having the sh-t scared out of you creates a certain form of satisfaction if it’s done well.
I would not call Mr. Soros a “moron” like the guy from Malaysia did. He seems pretty smart to me & I think he may be correct here. All the signals are very jangled right now, even the sky seems full of static. It feels like something is ending. Maybe its a 2012 thingy.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/01/22/george-soros-on-the-coming-u-s-class-war.print.html
So many competing narratives, so little time.
Historically speaking, change is happening all the time but that there are certain time periods where the change is more pronounced and intensive. The we humans tell ourselves and each other all sorts of stories about why things are like are today, and then we mostly gripe. Personally I’d like to see some improvement in story quality and in content… new memes and memeplexes, please :)
How can there NOT be some sort of class war when all the stats show how large the difference between the 1% or the .01% and everyone else, at the same time that economies are collapsing and/or reorganizing?
It’s not “rocket science,” it’s human nature.
so you’re saying you don’t care if the world falls apart — as long as its entertaining? :)
There is much truth to that ;)
Over the course of time all things fal apart, then reorientation and rebuilding occurs. Right now we are in a falling apart time, oh well… wailing and moaning about that won’t change anything, will it? Trying to understand it and accept the nature of reality (non-ideological approach) is more productive and satisfying, IMO.
Uh, can we stop linking to the paywalled Financial Times?
1. Use another browser or two. That gives you another set of free monthly articles
2. Put the title in Google.
About the Toads of Mitt: The banks only own 20% of the mortgages in question. They are treading water quietly to avoid accusations of fraud, forgery, uttering, inducement and etc. from the investors. You can’t make this stuff up. It’s literally an impossible bank-trap. Too bad Florida did not see through Mitt’s toad.
Boston Bruins goalie skips WH event in protest http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-400_162-57364398/boston-bruins-goalie-skips-wh-event-in-protest/
President Barack Obama saluted the NHL’s Boston Bruins for their 2011 Stanley Cup championship on Monday, but one key member of the team skipped the White House visit in protest. “I believe the federal government has grown out of control, threatening the rights, liberties, and property of the people,” Goalie Tim Thomas said in a statement. The decision to stay away, Thomas said, “was not about politics or party, as in my opinion both parties are responsible for the situation we are in as a country.” Even though Thomas, winner of the Vezina Trophy as the league’s top goaltender in the regular season and the playoff MVP, skipped the event, many of the Bruins made it to the White House.
Not “the federal government” but the Corporation-PoliticianAgent Fascist government that has displaced the government of/by/for the People is what he should have been protesting.
To accuse “the federal government” of too much power is to speak the fascist party line–it’s the same old, same old “We need to shrink the federal government into a bathtub” trope.
Actually I agree with both you and Thomas :) People use language differently, depending on many factors. Then again, my own tendency is to be a lumper/connector rather than a splitter/divider.
Knowing how regimented professional team sports are, this took some courage. I applaud Tim Thomas.
It’s time other high-profile people did the same. Hello Tiger Woods? Hello Michael Jordan? Hello Oprah Winfrey? Get off your golden fences, take a stand, and take the lead. Millions will follow.
A great shout-out to the golden-slippered fence sitters, Maximilien.
Re Simon Johnson: Isn’t it interesting how much leeway there is for abuse, serious damage to innocent participants, and clear fraud… Oh my, let’s have another mint julip.
http://www.smh.com.au/queensland/heavy-rain-pummels-southeast-queensland-20120124-1qei9.html
Skippy… for the road.
Right, skippy. The legitimate scientific assessment of *climate change* is a fact.
Why should grounded scientists stoop to contend with anti-climate change propagandists, any more than they would stoop to contend with the Flat Earth Society? Isn’t it time for grounded scientists to pull out all the stops against the *Creationists* and other flat-earthers?
“Climate Change”, better known as “Global Burning”, is a fact outside the US.
Like evolution, it is questionable in the US.
If only Buffett would put money where his mouth is…
I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men’s minds without their being aware of the fact. — Claude Levi-Strauss
Nice quote.
I think Buffett can outgun the Koch brothers.
Valissa, enjoy: “JOSEPH CAMPBELL: MYTHOS I: The Shaping of Our Mythic Tradition” — 2 DVD set: Athena DVD # 0 54961 95519 0 –copyright 1996, 2007 Joseph Campbell Foundation. Would he were alive to teach today.
Now that would be radical.
@myless,
yes but what about this problem, more of the same, trying to use money to strengthen one’s “side,” one is still part of the problem. the people have to do it, or else it isn’t the people doing it, and if it ain’t them, what good is it.
i don’t think i want warren buffett, any more than any other grossly inflatedly wealthy person with more resources than half the world’s sovereign states (i’m ad libbing here, please don’t take this literally, i don’t know where his assets line up next to the ranking of said states), buying with said assets the supposed relief of the oppressed from their current powerlessness, or the supposed installation of some better order.
plus, all that money flooding in could be very destabilizing for fledgling activists some of whom will give in to the temptation to use it to consolidate their own power. well, that’s probably going to happen anyway.
nonetheless, we have got to do it ourselves. when there’s enough momentum from the 99%ers to scare the 1%ers sufficiently, it will turn out that they actually can jump faster than even they knew.
the coming new paradigm for our society has got to find its strength in the determination of the people who are bringing it and signing on to it. no amount of money can force this to happen. it’s got to come through and out of people’s hearts and minds (to coin a phrase), one at a time. if that does not happen, no imitation of it will have any staying power or be worth signing on to.
You have a very good point.
I was thinking if Warren could engage the Koch brothers in some sort Ultimate Fighting Championship, exhausting each other’s resoureces, that will make it easier for the 99% to sneak through with a winning touchdown.
@myless,
thanks and hmmm, your fantasy sounds interesting. makes me wish i could follow football metaphors…sort of wish, that is.
Maximilien:
System Reset
One Idea, one paragraph. I know that is what many want. I’m getting there as fast as I can. Unfortunately, the only people that will understand physics in one paragraph are the people who already understand physics, and physics drives the economy, not the Fed.
The Fed and the empire are very far down the stack of History, from the perspective of the universe. Institutions are popped off the stack, modernized, and placed back on the stack as required, in a decision tree of decision trees.
The work process is root, trunk, branches, twigs, and leaf, with seed/fruit. Not only do most naturally want seeds, but they also have a particular seed in mind, so 7 billion seeds would be required under the request assumption. That’s the problem for the traveling salesman under empire conditions, and the President is very, very far downstream.
Empire economics provides a handful of genetically modified seeds, which will not grow without empire fertilizer, energy distribution certification, and expects each preconceived class to become experts on one seed. Each class, therefore, stands on the assembly line doing make-work, waiting for product, which is eventually replaced with agency make-work all together, leading to tyranny.
Now that we have reached geographic saturation and its result, global communication, the intelligent kids are simply not going to tolerate that kind of stupidity. Democratic communication gives everyone that strives for it a free ticket to the top of the watch tower. The kids have no filter so they see the glorious sh**-show for what it is, BEFORE they enter the casino.
For lack of ponzi participation levels, the empire’s NPV window has shut, which is shutting down the credit system. There is no confidence that this generation of children will repay the debts of former generations. Previous generations naturally assume that this generation must obey the empire as they do, which is a really, really bad assumption.
So, then, there are 5 things that you must understand to participate in modernization benefits:
The social subconscious is a historical system that produces a distribution of individual behaviors, rooting each into the past with anxiety as required to ensure the outcome. Kids are pre-conditioned to empire habituation, but they do not have the habits themselves at birth; their conscious, their imaginary friend, is constructive. Most adults give that up and accept the inelastic empire voice over time, until they no longer hear the voice and simply respond to its impulses.
Kids, with elastic minds, and adults, with inelastic minds, learn differently. Kids enjoy the process, the adventure, so you can saturate their minds with material until the light bulb goes off. Adults have a preconceived objective anchored in mind, consistent with their empire placement, associated tolerance for anxiety, and Pavlov prize expectation.
The universe is elastically recursive, as is the new-born mind. When the elastic mind is presented with material, it will automatically do the algebraic reduction, pattern matching, to place it in perspective over time, based upon individual need. The empire reward and punishment system replaces it with an inelastic/efficient, top-down model, which, of necessity, is full of false assumptions to implement the misdirection. The latter replaces parental example with the empire do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do example.
So, when the empire reaches the end of its useful life, kids must replace it. Study any historical figure you like; the last person standing between the empire and the intelligent kids is the Shepherd, and the kids grow up to replace the empire recursively. They undermine false assumptions from the outside-in, line them up, and let the empire pull the trigger on itself, which is why many Germans want to run from US monetary policy as fast as possible.
Recursion is naturally multi-tasking. If you have four processes, first identify which sub-processes all have in common, then in any three, and then in any 2, before you begin to think about doing any work, which is why the empire pursues increasing complexity. From the opposite perspective, look for processes in the environment that have the same or similar sub-processes. The empire enforces false assumptions to misdirect the pattern matching, as the means to its control.
The black/white market is always the fastest growing market. The empire functions to grow it by creating a centrifuge counterbalance, hiding it. The best and the brightest operate in the eye of the hurricane, where others either will not or cannot operate, preparing for the next iteration, which, in this case, because virtual memory will be fully deployed, will allow much greater participation across all time event horizons.
You need an elastic mind, with which the intelligent kids are prepared to help you, but you must accept the change in system polarity. System reset is a bottom-up process.
kevinearick, what about adults with elastic minds, the *quick* vs. the *dead*. There are quite a few of us who never gave up thinking for ourselves, who still question authority and seek to smash the Potemkin village and other imperial illusions on the scrim of *history*. What the *quick* elders have is DEEP MEMORY, and a huge reality-testing Castle built of brain-neuronal adaptation, as we have separated *truth from fiction* with WISE flexibility over the decades.
In fact, I am a pre-Boomer, one of “the sacrificial generation.” At long last, my time has come, and I will join hands with the *quick* young, helping them to avoid traps they may never have encountered before, helping them to lead into their iconoclastic People’s Century of C.21. “O Fortuna!”
Kevin,
In the social/psychological development cycle there exist opportunities for individuals to escape into freedom and to follow them to genius or anomie and self destruction. But we are social animals born into a power relationship that inevitably determines much of the personalities we will become.
The child emerges from the shelter of the womb as a dependent entity, seeking the security of it’s mother’s heartbeat which is the only world it has known. Without the breast it will starve, and without constant care it is defenseless. As it begins to explore the world and manipulate it toward its own ends — develop self– it still exists in a world of vastly unequal power relationships in which it soon realizes there is a hierarchy of power with the father figure dominant. A large component of the development of religion lies in the need to replace the absolute certainty of the father’s authority with its mirror image and thus avoid the need for developing a world view that is based upon thought and analysis.
By the time the child starts to feel the first inklings of sexual maturity, it has been conditioned by and adapted to hundreds of power relationships where it is overwhelmingly the inferior— from family dynamics to peer groups, the compulsory school system, the tribal/national mythology, and the constraints of the legal system.
The gen Y child of virtual reality and digital peer groups may indeed develop a mind less conditioned by ties to the conventional system of social order, but that world is far removed from the evolutionary developed hierarchy of human needs. I question whether the elastic mind you refer to nurtured in this nutrient bath is worthy of the optimism you accord it.
Interesting that physics drives the economy.
Mathematicians think math drives physics.
Of course, philosophers think logic drives math.
If only. The truth is, economic modeling is so difficult because man is so unpredictable.
As Emanuel Derman says in his book, Models Behaving Badly…
——————
Physics Envy
Creating financial models involving human behavior is like forcing ‘the ugly stepsister’s foot into Cinderella’s pretty glass slipper.’
* DECEMBER 14, 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203430404577094760894401548.html
The basic problem, according to Mr. Derman, is that “in physics you’re playing against God, and He doesn’t change His laws very often. In finance, you’re playing against God’s creatures.” And God’s creatures use “their ephemeral opinions” to value assets. Moreover, most financial models “fail to reflect the complex reality of the world around them.”
——————
Jim, moreover, aren’t *made models* effectively dead the minute they’re made?
equal and opposing force against control
in another dimension…
the unified field equation of unified field equations is a work in PROGRESS…
the architect builds the explicit enterprise for an implicit purpose…
Some equations would be nice.
I dunno Kevin, I think the universe or multiverse is chaotic and un-modelable… and that there is no unified field theory, and that seeking unified equations is inherently utopian and self-defeating in a pluralistic (at all levels) reality.
I’m curious… why do you believe there are unified field equations?
Valissa, they’re out there, they are just inapprehensible so far.
Leonova, I understand that is a popular belief. I challenge that! I encourage the process of scientific discovery, but I challenge underlying monotheistic or monistic assumptions.
is there any defintive answer to the One and Many Problem? I think not, like so many things, it’s in the eye of the beholder ;)
Valissa, this is where science and religion meet and live happily ever after – you either have or you don’t have faith in those monistic assumptions…what I call the Tyranny of One.
Valissa, you wrote “unified field equations” – plural, not *one*.
I am an atheist, and believe in the validity of observation and empirical evidence, which is being obtained continually. I believe that the observer complicates the observation. I believe that all is in motion continually, even if the motion it cannot be detected by humans. I have come to believe that remote viewing is possible, and I have had what might be called *telepathic* and *clairvoyant* experiences and periods of deep insight into the *oneness* of all at the most fundamental of levels (quantum and particle physics). I have experienced “Cosmic Consciousness” such as that described in the book by that name, experienced by such as Dante, Balzac, and Francis Bacon, but I do use such terms as “prophetic” or “mystical.” I am a trained, experienced musician; a research analyst, writer, and a symbolist poet by necessity rather than by desire. I am well-acquainted with dying and death. I consider my own self a laboratory for analysis and discovery.
I believe that some of us are more receptive to cosmic “information” than others, and I believe that information never dies. I believe that there is no *time* apart from sequence, and that there is no “past, present, or future” in reality, but only the illusion of such.
Within this frame, please interpret my comments. Thank you.
The age-old flexible system that comes to mind is the Bonnet Carre Spillway in Louisiana, the gates of which open according to how high the Mississippi River has risen, allowing the surrounding land to flood safely, relieving pressure toward destructive flooding elsewhere. When the Mississippi is not flooding, the gates remain closed, and the vast land surrounding the Spillway land is dry.
Another control feature is the River Lock system, permitting the orderly, contained passage of ships from one level of a body of water to another.
kenivearick, now that’s physics we can believe in.
That physics [equations] drives the economy (actually, Economics) proposition has always seemed odd to me. From what I can gather, it as all pure dumb luck in the first place. Nascent economists were simply not that good at math, and turned to the resident expertise at the time, who were already allegedly describing and predicting natural processes using the same equations. Was that leap of logic applicable, especially to a social “science,” which in fact apparently (thus far at least) contains no empirically verifiable truths of any note? I dunno, but I certainly ain’t buying any of it yet.
economists do not rely on physics ; they attempt to short-circuit, seeking order in disorder, which only lasts so long…; the integral is infinite, division by 0.
That IS in fact a mainstream critique of economics, that they try to imply a static “now” that simply does not exist. At least not for more than an undefinable instant. The ever present “now” is in fact infinitely illusory. Back to the Buddhists admonition to live in the “now,” rather than the illusory past or future. Turns out, their ALL equally illusory, doesn’t it? From a theoretical physics frame of reference, things get VERY WEIRD, VERY QUICKLY, don’t they. Hence, the stupidity of a rather simple social “science” such as economics trying to hang its hat on such things for which it is CLEARLY out of its depth.
kevinearick, “What fools these mortals be.”
Unfortunately, the quants programming these systems think like robots, and not like Mother Nature.
James, as history shows, the brains of quants are not perfect: “Lo, I tell you a mystery.”
Buffett: Romney Should Pay Higher Taxes
Romney: Buffett should just die already and quit voicing inconvenient truths.
And so should David Cay Johnston (author of “Free Lunch”). He relates on CNN how Romney paid no tax on a gift of $100 million to his sons. Ordinary Americans (assuming they had that kind of money) would have been subject to a 35% tax.
http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/24/reuters-tax-columnist-romney-didnt-pay-a-gift-tax-on-100m/
just curious; that’s the point; you don’t build a random number generator by building a random number generator.
I wonder what percentage humanity is of the event horizon?
Skippy… hate double handling with a passion.
@LeonovaBalletRusse – your ass is a fact. The very idea of ANTHROPOGENIC global warming is preposterous.
ballyfage, my ass is a fact?
In the social/psychological development cycle there exist opportunities for individuals to escape into freedom and to follow them to genius or anomie and self destruction. But we are social animals born into a power relationship that inevitably determines much of the personalities we will become.
The child emerges from the shelter of the womb as a dependent entity, seeking the security of it’s mother’s heartbeat which is the only world it has known. Without the breast it will starve, and without constant care it is defenseless. As it begins to explore the world and manipulate it toward its own ends — develop self– it still exists in a world of vastly unequal power relationships in which it soon realizes there is a hierarchy of power with the father figure dominant. A large component of the development of religion lies in the need to replace the absolute certainty of the father’s authority with its mirror image and thus avoid the need for developing a world view that is based upon thought and analysis.
By the time the child starts to feel the first inklings of sexual maturity, it has been conditioned by and adapted to hundreds of power relationships where it is overwhelmingly the inferior— from family dynamics to peer groups, the compulsory school system, the tribal/national mythology, and the constraints of the legal system.
The gen Y child of virtual reality and digital peer groups may indeed develop a mind less conditioned by ties to the conventional system of social order, but that world is far removed from the evolutionary developed hierarchy of human needs. I question whether the elastic mind you refer to nurtured in this nutrient bath is worthy of the optimism you accord it.
Crazy, part of the problem is that most people do not develop the maturity to sustain PEER relationships. They are stuck in the dominance/submission game, a *zero-sum* game, the winner/loser paradigm of the immature (really of the juvenile).
Wow,the Brazilians get to vote for a clown.
No, I mean a real clown.No,I mean one that looks like a clown.
No, I mean one that gets paid to be a clown…….orright,I give up.
Ask child
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw20J_iUp3E
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