How did dinosaurs do it? Very carefully, of course NBC (Valissa)
Pesticides ‘damage brains of bees’ BBC
Collision course? A comet heads for Mars PhysOrg
Study finds saliva testing predicts aggression in boys MedicalXpress (Chuck L)
Drier climate will spread diarrhoea Climate News Network
How hard is it to ‘de-anonymize’ cellphone data? MIT News Office (Chuck L)
New e-mails reveal Feds not “forthright” about fake cell tower devices ars technica (Chuck L)
How To Become a Teen Millionaire: Be an Insufferable Startup Brat Gawker (Lambert)
“The First Honest Cable Company” YouTube (furzy mouse)
‘This Is Working’: Portugal, 12 Years after Decriminalizing Drugs Der Spiegel
IMF Report Calls for Governments to Drop $1.9 Trillion Energy Subsidies OilPrice
North Korea ‘readies rocket force’ after US stealth flights BBC
Japan suffers decline in factory output Financial Times
World from Berlin: Turkish Media Exclusion in Neo-Nazi Trial a ‘Global Embarrassment’ Der Spiegel (May S)
Even more Cyprus:
Cypriots show patience and pragmatism as banks reopen Guardian
What happened in Cyprus Economist. Notice the heavy dose of blaming the previous administration. I can’t imagine a neoliberal government would have regulated the banks more than the outgoing group did. It looks like their biggest mistake was not taking a bailout at the same time Spain was being rescued.
Cyprus is very special case, found right solution-German finance minister Reuters (David P). “Special case” = “Don’t even THINK about Luxembourg.”
Italy in limbo after Bersani loses government bid The Journal (Richard Smith). Expected but increases pressure.
Bad loans mount at Monte dei Paschi Financial Times
Meet Bernd Lucke, The German Professor Who Might Be Responsible For Europe’s Harsh New Strategy Clusterstock
Lucke Claiming Greek Bankruptcy Might be Only Weeks Away GQJFTW
Turkey Takes Advantage of Cyprus Desperation OilPrice
Moderate Path on Gay Marriage Could Be Disaster Bloomberg
Ships Costing U.S. $37 Billion Lack Firepower, Navy Told Bloomberg
Public Comments on Keystone XL Pipeline to Be Kept Secret by State Department Kevin Gosztola, Firedoglake
EPA report: More than half nation’s rivers in poor shape Washington Post (Carol B)
Customers Flee Wal-Mart Empty Shelves for Target, Costco Bloomberg
Something is rotten in the state of Walmart Corrente. You HAVE to read this. Insane.
Jobless claims rise. More than 5 million on unemployment rolls. Christian Science Monitor (furzy mouse)
Why So Many Jobs Are Crappy heteconomist
Kotok: Complete Report from Dubai Barry Ritholtz (Lambert)
Guest Contribution: “Is the Federal Reserve Breeding the Next Financial Crisis?” Menzie Chinn
Antidote du jour (furzy mouse):
99 comments
Comments are closed.
Ellen Brown: It Can Happen Here: The Confiscation Scheme Planned for US and UK Depositors
“In the US, depositors have actually been put in a worse position than Cyprus deposit-holders, at least if they are at the big banks that play in the derivatives casino. The regulators have turned a blind eye as banks use their depositaries to fund derivatives exposures. And as bad as that is, the depositors, unlike their Cypriot confreres, aren’t even senior creditors. Remember Lehman? When the investment bank failed, unsecured creditors (and remember, depositors are unsecured creditors) got eight cents on the dollar. One big reason was that derivatives counterparties require collateral for any exposures, meaning they are secured creditors. The 2005 bankruptcy reforms made derivatives counterparties senior to unsecured lenders.”
The thief, as will become apparent, was a special type of thief. This thief was an artist of theft. Other thieves merely stole everything that was not nailed down, but this thief stole the nails as well. t. pratchett
I did point out immediately after that discussion that the US does have deposit insurance that takes care of that, but that it has proven to be insufficient at times in the past (S&L crisis) leading to the need for Congressional appropriations (aka taxpayer hit). Taking this out of context makes it sound like insured deposits are at risk. They aren’t. Deposits in the US aren’t so large that they can’t be backstopped. The risk is taxpayer losses due to possibility of large derivatives losses + derivatives being senior to deposits.
my apologies for posting it out of context…i stay confused in this area. case in point:
The principal investments group, which buys bonds with the bank’s own money and ***excess customer deposits***, has been among Wells Fargo’s most profitable units, said three former employees who requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak on the lender’s behalf.
Read more at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/03/links-32713.html#lzkk6YDFghVYEIK0.99
‘excess customer deposits’ runs a chill thru me…
There are some people who care not so much about deposit insurance.
Yep, government deposit insurance is an ill-conceived substitute for the monetarily sovereign ITSELF providing, as it SHOULD, a risk-free fiat storage and transaction service for its citizens.
‘Yep, government deposit insurance is an ill-conceived substitute for the monetarily sovereign ITSELF providing, as it SHOULD, a risk-free fiat storage and transaction service for its citizens.’
True, but surely in the absence of the latter the former is required. If not ‘next best thing’ then at least more acceptable than the likely alternative…
leading to the need for Congressional appropriations (aka taxpayer hit). Yves Smith
The Fed should cover any FDIC shortfalls or the US Treasury should simply create some new GreenBacks for that purpose. Taxing an economy that is already short of money to replace deposits is not very smart.
Thanks Yves. I don’t understand though. If derivatives are senior to deposits, then all the derivatives bets have to be paid off first before the depositors get paid, right? And if it’s a gigantic derivatives hit, that means a lot more money than the $25B FDIC has available, so the Treasury will have to step in; but Dodd Frank says the taxpayers aren’t going to underwrite bank derivatives losses. So doesn’t that mean the FDIC will have to leave the depositors to their fate? They’ll be bailed in like everybody else.
There’s a video that has gone viral here in Mexico.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WTcdgpwpcw
It takes place in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and shows a thief, Mauricio Fierro, alias El Pepita, leaving his car parked outside a pharmacy which he enters and robs. After El Pepita enters the pharmacy, another thief appears on the scene and steals El Pepita’s car. El Pepita then emerges from the pharmacy with his bag of stolen loot only to discover his car has been stolen. Then a third thief appears on the scene and steals El Pepita’s bag of stolen loot.
When police arrested El Pepita, they allowed a local television news crew into the station for an interview.
“These days the violence is so great,” El Pepita bemoans, “that one goes out to steal and returns poorer than ever.” “We can’t even conduct a dishonest life,” he laments, “they stole my new car.”
To which the reporter asks: “But tell me one thing, you just bought the car?”
“Bought?” responds El Pepita. “I didn’t buy anything, man. I stole the car yesterday.”
“Let me tell you how things are,” continues El Pepita. “These thieves don’t let one enjoy the things we earn with our own sweat. That’s the way things are, man.”
“But wait,” interjects the reporter. “If the car wasn’t yours, what are you complaining about?”
“Bah!” exclaims El Pepita. “This robbery of my robbery is a lack of respect, sir.”
“Then the money wasn’t yours either?” follows up the reporter.
“What do you mean it wasn’t mine, sir?” El Pepita rejoins. “It was my money. I stole it. It’s mine.”
“There is no honor among thieves.”
― American proverb
(i didn’t make it up)
The sad thing is I don’t see a great deal of difference between El Pepita’s thinking and that of the masters of the universe.
If that story hadn’t existed someone would have had to make it up. In fact I wonder if it was made by a Mexican analogue of The Chaser, the team that performed the Tony Abbott household/govt debt ambush that featured on a thread here he other day:
http://www.chaser.com.au/about/
But if it is ‘fair dinkum’ it’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry – both probably.
The crucial point here is not that deposits can be backstopped but that deposits can be confiscated. To restructure bad residential mortgage debt, banks did not need to carry out illegal mass evictions, but they could, so they did. And the variety of simple options for preserving social security hasn’t stopped the Obama administration from trying to cook the books and seize our lifetime FICA contributions.
The risks here are compounded by the uncertainties of corrupt rackeetering organizations interacting with a criminal state. The Germans are right. In this kleptocratic bloc you’d be crazy to trust deposit insurance for anything more than walking-around money.
Deposits are taxed…or confiscated if one believes taxation = confiscation.
So, here we are – we have a preemptory move against non-existing wage inflation (we are not talking about food/energy inflation) by a Big Brother in collusion with other Big Brothers.
1 ringing dinging
2 ringing dinging
…
14 ringing dinging
Hello Welcome to Walmart How May We Help You?
Customer: ah yeah I’d like to place an order for delivery
Walmart: Of course, Item No. Please.
Customer: ah yeah 0073667601103
Walmart: Okay, is there anything further we can add to your order?
Customer: ah yeah can you include the ammo in this order or do I have to wait?
Walmart: No Sir we cannot ship the ammo with this order but as a 2nd order and same day will be no problem
Customer: Cool. ah I won’t be around to sign for it that day.
Walmart: Thats okay Sir, Any dependent can sign for it.
Customer: Cool, go ahead and add a 3 cases of 0001820000834 and will they be Cold?
Walmart: ICE COLD SIR
The problem as someone pointed out in the original article’s comment section is that the delivery man might be a meth addict with a gun, and he’ll use the ammo that you ordered to rob your house while bringing you your carton of eggs.
But you have to give Wal Mart some credit though since without them robot love will not be possible in the future or so WallE will have you believe.
Pay for delivery vs: cost of merchandise ratio means anything worthwhile will be stolen and fenced.
there’s another way of looking at this. there might be 20 million un-employed earnest honest desparate people willing to work Wal-Mart delivery for free “in hopes of getting considered for a full-time job there”.
You deliver for a year for free and you get first dibs on being “invited to apply” for a greeter position.
There ya go. It may be so competitive that not just anyone has the skills to be a deliverer. No. YOu need the B.A. degrees, car, car license, car insurance, criminal background check, credit check, 4 interviews, drug test, writing test, spelling test, vision test (for road signs), urine test, etiqutte test, temperment test (so you’re polite) which consists of 3 hours of role playing and situational reaction in front of a team of company-hired psychologists, and blood test. Then, after 6 months, you hear if you’re in the running.
If by that point you haven’t committed suicide or murder and you’re a narcotized docile sheep on a legal pharmaceutical to keep you from total mental depressed dysfunctionality, the job might be yours.
This is the way an efficient corporation separates the talent from the mass of job applicants. How can anyone complain about it?
And then because of all the medication and abuse, you “go Postal” on the first day ’cause some shopper complains to your manager that your tires ran over a 3″ section of their grass when you parked your car.
It’s hard to be a good worker bee. :)
note that this is just a hypothetical scenario I made up on the spot with no knowledge of Wal-Mart’s practices or any other potential employer or company anywhere. I made it all up. But the funny thing is, depending on how bad things get, reality somewhere might actually be worse even that that.
You might get shot by a SWAT team who thinks you’re a predator of some kind.
maybe thats the reason for Walmarts recent theme song change (seriously)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrbO-Tw-mEY
Suddenly I see I wanna work at Walmart for free and why the hell it means so much to mee
that’s a real song? I guess it is.
suddenly i see
that I was born to work
in this world for free
Yeah now I see
that I gotta pay a daily fee
for being me
Yeah I’ll go to slave
each day so happily
haha hahahahaha I’ll stop.
“there’s another way of looking at this. there might be 20 million un-employed earnest honest desparate people willing to work Wal-Mart delivery for free “in hopes of getting considered for a full-time job there”.
It works in Mexico.
http://consumerist.com/2007/08/01/walmart-uses-4300-unpaid-teenagers-as-baggers-in-its-mexican-stores/
“It works in Mexico”
They Do It in Mexico.
fixed it for ya…the effects of its ‘accomplishments’ is obvious, when considering the awards to the teens self worth and future ability to do more than just survive
Wonder how widespread this Wal-Mart balloon of our-customer-base-is-also-a-source-of-free-labor is likely to become?
It appears to be a trend, as Britain’s Royal Mail recently did a thing whereby you were asked if you minded having undelivered mail to your address – a parcel, while you are out at work, say – being dropped off at your neighbour’s, rather than the traditional filling of a notification card by the postman, and you going to collect your parcel later yourself in person at the depot, with said card.
IANAL, but as far as I understand it, the RM is required to deliver mail from the postbox to the addressee, not to the neighbour of the addressee.
One may love and cherish one’s neighbours, but that is not an excuse for a delivery business to try to cut its own costs by using them as a free depository for parcels that haven’t quite made it to their intended recipient.
Also, who is liable when items go astray, as they surely will?
Take a quick look through this website and ask yourself if you would want anyone of these individuals showing up a your doorstep.
http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/
I’d be willing to bet money that some of the more intelligent Walmart customers are going to incorporate and we’ll see regional Walmart delivery corporations emerge (If people can start a business with the sole intent of constructing IKEA furniture for customers, this doesn’t seem so far-fetched). I call this type of organization a Remora (fish) Business. Shortly after that advertisements, similar in style to those of regional car dealerships will start popping up during the 6 o’clock news hour.
Man o man o man, not only do the job creators keep creating jobs, they are now creating entire markets which create even more jobs. :D
wow, another day of sex links, this time it’s dinosaurs. the women around here must have something on their minds ‘cuase that’s all they’re yacking about evry day now. I guess spring is in the air, I’ve noticed the sun is warmer now too
Dionne Warwick went bankrupt. Holy Cow, how did that happen? I saw it in the paper. You’d think she’d be rolling in royalties,
here she is with Boy George doing “Say a Little Prayer”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NdeiaRqMMmg#!
wow they are good! that’s what everybody needs, somebody to say a little prayer for them, just like Dionne and BG says. It sounds nice. what wonderful world that would be.
Dinosaur Sex – The Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us2ITDCq1Yc
I found more dinosaur sex cartoons than I expected…
The evolution of triceratops http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/rrs/lowres/rrsn69l.jpg
Hey, it’s all about the math! http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs30/f/2008/055/6/6/dinosaur_sex_by_altffour.jpg
Ain’t anthropomorphization grand? http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/183/f/1/Dinosaur_Mates_Demotivator_by_Noguy.jpg
Truth or photoshop? http://www.herpy.net/gallery/data/media/5/dinosaur_mating_stamp3.jpg
Afterglow? http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_aiBq9tbmzT8/SODVU7lB6RI/AAAAAAAADtk/Shh2d09CG9Q/s400/dinosaur_sex.bmp
more tears n feet stompin
(that last one hurt)
Ms Warwick apparently has a large, unpaid tax bill with the US authorities, in the millions.
The traditional narrative is usually the artist being scammed by management over a long period. Not sure if that applies here or not?
Sad state of affairs for a truly great artist.
I’m calling bullshit on the saliva study. It’s well-known male testosterone levels rise and fall with mood, meaning the “research”, if you can call it that, tells us nothing about whether testosterone is causing aggression or aggression is causing heightened testosterone levels.
I’m at the point of suspecting most medical research is junk science.
“All medical research is rubbish” is a better approximation to the truth than almost all medical research.
Are there science-deniers on NC too?
Using words like “all”, “always”, “never”, and “none” almost invariably leads to one being proven wrong.
Well, most science reporting is junk, and this seems to be a good example. Unfortunately, the article itself is behind a paywall, but what’s in the abstract seems to say something significantly different from what the report says about it. It only suggests a correlation between saliva levels and another rating system based on observation of patients being admitted to hospital. And they seem to be saying the results are only applicable to patients in hospital. Which seems to be the point: they’re trying to predict who’s going to act out while they’re in hospital. Apparently this is a problem. I don’t see any reason to doubt the results, they’re just much less significant than the headline of the article would lead you to believe.
The problem is when law enforcement types pick something like this up and run with it-agree its nonsense.
Let’s for a moment assume the research is not bogus, we might ask if saliva can predict aggression in girls as well.
How about saliva testing cats? I think that would be very useful for some of us.
Animals that have been given steroids that elevate testosterone levels display increased levels of aggression. Specifically I’m thinking of horses fresh off the race track that I’ve worked around that have been given steroids as performance boosters. While not all are equally affected, and some seem to not be affected at all, in general they are more likely to pin their ears, bite, kick, rear, and charge. And don’t athletes that abuse anabolic steroids also display personality changes, e.g. increased irritability and aggression? If so, that would tend to support a causal relationship.
Steroid abusers displaying such aggression (‘roid rage) expose themselves to exceedingly high levels, well beyond what a boy’s body will produce. It’s like dosing a rat with a vitamin at many times the level of exposure anyone could conceivably encounter and then declaring the vitamin is toxic when the rat gets sick.
From the Guardian article:
What part of ‘Greece needed two (2) bailouts’ did the Cypriots not understand? Let’s just get a couple of things straight entre nous:
1. CapControls 1.0 will not be over in a week, and they won’t be over in a month, either.
2. Until Cyprus leaves the euro zone, controls will only tighten to plug leaks, as Cyprus slides inexorably toward a second bailout.
Currently southern Europe resembles a group of condemned wretches, trundling their heavy crosses made of dense Black Forest hardwood up Golgotha.
At any moment, they could invoke their password (Shazam! I’m outta here!) and leave. But martyrdom in this macabre euro passion play will at least confer posthumous fame.
As Uncle Joe Stalin might have observed, ‘No depositors, no problem!‘
I’m extrapolating a bit from Paul Krugman’s article du jour:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/29/opinion/krugman-cheating-our-children.html, in which he inveighs against trade deficits.
So I get that debt-that-shall-never-be-repaid stands as a basis for money in this MMT-free zone. But now if there is a large and growing trade deficit, but the actual dollar volumes into and out of the country are several multiples of that trade deficit, could that not constitute America’s attempt at a leveraged buyout of the entire World economy? The end result being that the dollar becomes the actual currency of the World, and people who accumulate lots of them get to own anything, anywhere, dump it anywhere they want and spirit the capital to another feast.
Yawn. Been there, done that.
not to disagree with the premise of krugman’s column, but the blog post he links to suggesting the trade deficit & budget deficit are decoupled indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of sector balances…
to clarify: as long as the private sector is deleveraging and we’re running trade deficits, the government sector has to run deficits…
where krugman goes wrong is when he says “In a famous analysis, Martin Feldstein pronounced them “twin deficits”, linking the external deficit to the budget deficit, a proposition that made sense at the time”, implying that the linkage no longer makes sense…
& our budget deficits arent being “financed by foreigners” either…in that the private sector buys goods from China & oil from the Saudis, the Chinese & Saudis end up holding the Treasury instruments that the private sector has used to pay for those purchases…
Anyone who talks about sectoral balances doesn’t get the current state of globalization – which would be the norm among macro economists, I think. It’s like talking about what the water line should be on the Titanic.
Here’s short summary of sectoral balances:
http://pragcap.com/updated-sectoral-balances
Here’s definition of current account (mostly trade balance)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_account
But “balance of payments” is the sum of current account and capital account. Here’s definition of capital account:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_account
But sectoral balances ignores capital account!
Inflows in the capital account are FDI in US based capital expenditure, and/or dollars being recycled by bilateral trade surplus partners recycling dollars into Treasuries.
Outflows are investment in foreign countries – mostly done by real US multinationals moving production there, banks “expanding” foreign banking operations, or hedge funds and small investors doing passive investments in foreign bonds and stock.
So even if these cap flows netted out to zero – you can see the inflows are an increase in taxpayer liability and the outflow are jobs disappearing, or liability to banking shocks increasing.
Since corporations are controlling much of the outflow in real investment, combined with the fact that they only pay about 20% of total federal tax revenue, there is not much reason to believe that government deficits would be temporary, or the consumer will deleverage without a job, or that the trade deficit would decline ’cause, well, entrepreneur, and, well, SUV!
IMO this has been a steadily worsening problem for 30-40 years now.
here’s Goldman’s Chief Economist Jan Hatzius On Sectoral balances, NGDP Targeting, And The US Recovery; see the chart he presents…
Yup. He’s charting he same thing Roche showed in equation form. Also, Hatzius speak with forked Goldman tongue, but I digress. (Likes NGDP targeting – which is codespeak for the Fed to give boatloads of interest free money to banks even if the Fed’s already cooked numbers do show high inflation -because yobs!)
Also, he ignores capital account – and more importantly what composes it because that leads one to understand whom owns what and whom in the world – in case you were still wondering.
Also, looking at his curves, they look mirror image, except there is an offset. If you look at the area under the curves, government dis-saving has cumulatively increased more than private sector savings – meaning the government is getting broker faster than “we” are all getting rich. Or a few of us anyway.
No, you’re basically illustrating classic stocks vs flows confusion.
Nope. You might want to read the definitions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_of_payments
Re: Fake cell towers aka Stingray after Harris Corp brand of sniffer:
http://epic.org/foia/fbi/stingray/
Stingray also read month-old Slate:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/02/15/stingray_imsi_catcher_fbi_files_unlock_history_behind_cellphone_tracking.html
The gay marriage article does nothing other than quickly illustrate the difficulties living in a “Our Federalism.” It seems the author thinks that such concerns should lead to decision without complications, which begs the question that the difficulties of our federalism aren’t intentional when they always, explicitly have been.
I think I agree with you, but also I think it’s valuable to have a clear-eyed understanding of the consequences, intended or un-.
This was fascinating, though. I’m amazed that, with all the other changes going on around us, people are still so squeamish about polygamy:
“Suppose I married someone of the same sex in New York and that marriage wasn’t recognized in Pennsylvania. If I then decided to marry someone of the opposite sex in Pennsylvania, the state would presumably recognize that marriage while New York recognized my previous one. And both marriages would be recognized by the federal government, which would treat me as a lawful bigamist. That would be good news for 19th century Mormons, who were denied a federal constitutional right to plural marriage — but most people today would find the conclusion truly bizarre.”
Is polyandry allowed for Mormons?
Polyandry has not ever been a permitted practice of the LDS, as far as I know.
Currently, avowed polygamists of any variety have their church membership revoked. As I understand it, this is the case even in nations and communities where more creative marital arrangements are accepted.
What’s in a label? http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/dpi/lowres/dpin93l.jpg
Polyandry was only allowed in Mormonism for the first prophet, Joseph Smith (who married 11 already-married women) and Brigham Young (who married two).
I thought somebody might bring that up.
One of the wives, Zina Diantha Huntington, is my great aunt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zina_Huntington
Since she was married to both Smith and Young, I suppose you have counted her twice. I didn’t include her or the others because their situations were pretty different from what is typically understood as polyandry, and from the practice of polygamy in the LDS church.
The contemporary LDS practice of “spiritual marriages” and unrecorded, handshake divorces or outright abandonment muddies the waters about this topic. Anybody assuming an air of authority about them probably shouldn’t.
Uh, I should point out that as far as I know divorce and abandonment were not “contemporary LDS practices”, at least not more so than for any other population. The “spiritual marriages,” ceremonies which may or may not have been viewed by the participants as binding, earthly arrangements, were an LDS gig at the time.
Sorry for being unclear.
Text of IMF report on oil subsidies:
http://www.imf.org/external/np/pp/eng/2013/012813.pdf
Salient quote from Exec Summary:
”I went to sleep Friday as a rich man. I woke up a poor man’
‘Very bad, very, very bad,” says 65-year-old John Demetriou, rubbing tears from his lined face with thick fingers. ”I lost all my money.”
John now lives in the picturesque fishing village of Liopetri on Cyprus’ south coast. But for 35 years he lived at Bondi Junction and worked days, nights and weekends in Sydney markets selling jewellery and imitation jewellery.
He had left Cyprus in the early 1970s at the height of its war with Turkey, taking his wife and young children to safety in Australia. He built a life from nothing and, gradually, a substantial nest egg. He retired to Cyprus in 2007 with about $1 million, his life savings.
He planned to spend it on his grandchildren – some of whom live in Cyprus – putting them through university and setting them up. There would be medical bills; he has a heart condition. The interest was paying for a comfortable retirement, and trips back to Australia. He also toyed with the idea of buying a boat.
Advertisement
He wanted to leave any big purchases a few years, to be sure this was where he would spend his retirement. There was no hurry. But now it is all gone.
”If I made the decision to stay, I was going to build a house,” John says. ”Unfortunately I didn’t make the decision yet.
”I went to sleep Friday as a rich man. I woke up a poor man.”
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/i-went-to-sleep-friday-as-a-rich-man-i-woke-up-a-poor-man-20130328-2gxab.html
It’s unfortunate indeed.
I wonder if he had paid all cash for a house, that house last night would still be the same house this morning.
Why is Socialism Doing so Darn Well in Deep Red North Dakota? North Dakota’s thriving state bank makes a mockery of Wall Street’s casino banking system — and that’s why financial elites want to crush it. ~Alternet
the markets are closed for a reason, at times harder and harder to grasp
“AND MY BIBLE TELLS ME THAT GOOD FRIDAY COMES BEFORE EASTER. BEFORE THE CROWN WE WEAR, THERE IS THE CROSS THAT WE MUST BEAR. LET US BEAR IT–BEAR IT FOR TRUTH, BEAR IT FOR JUSTICE, AND BEAR IT FOR PEACE. LET US GO OUT THIS MORNING WITH THAT DETERMINATION. AND I HAVE NOT LOST FAITH. I’M NOT IN DESPAIR, BECAUSE I KNOW THAT THERE IS A MORAL ORDER. I HAVEN’T LOST FAITH, BECAUSE THE ARC OF THE MORAL UNIVERSE IS LONG, BUT IT BENDS TOWARD JUSTICE.” MARTIN LUTHER KING
EPA Report: We’ve Been Doing a Terrible Job
How the Monsanto Protection ACt snuck into Law: http://www.salon.com/2013/03/27/how_the_monsanto_protection_act_snuck_into_law/
Here’s the jucy part: Sec. 735. In the event that a determination of non-regulated status made pursuant to section 411 of the Plant Protection Act is or has been invalidated or vacated, the Secretary of Agriculture shall, notwithstanding any other provision of law, upon request by a farmer, grower, farm operator, or producer, immediately grant temporary permit(s) or temporary deregulation in part, subject to necessary and appropriate conditions consistent with section 411(a) or 412(c) of the Plant Protection Act, which interim conditions shall authorize the movement, introduction, continued cultivation, commercialization and other specifically enumerated activities and requirements, including measures designed to mitigate or minimize potential adverse environmental effects, if any, relevant to the Secretary’s evaluation of the petition for non-regulated status, while ensuring that growers or other users are able to move, plant, cultivate, introduce into commerce and carry out other authorized activities in a timely manner: Provided, That all such conditions shall be applicable only for the interim period necessary for the Secretary to complete any required analyses or consultations related to the petition for non-regulated status: Provided further, That nothing in this section shall be construed as limiting the Secretary’s authority under section 411, 412 and 414 of the Plant Protection Act.
It would be good to get that Monsanto Privilege paragraph repealed and stricken from law if possible. Meanwhile, a spreading movement-load of people will just have to publicise to eachother and to others the name of every Mosanto-GMOd bulk agricultural commodity input so that more people can boycott Monsanto and “buycott” Monsanto’s enemies enough to keep those enemies in bussiness. Assuming the Corporate Front Government forbids the repeal of that law, the Monsanto-resisters’ goal might evolve into an effort to “extermicott” Monsanto.
An “extermicott” is a “boycott” designed to exterminate the target and wipe it off the face of the earth. Even if the word “extermicott” doesn’t take off and enter the language, the concept will enter the language under some other label as evermore people understand that we are in a zero-sum war-of-extermination to the death with black hat Corporate perpetrators like Monsanto.
Terrorist American:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/army-veteran-charged-after-fighting-with-syrian-rebel-group-linked-to-al-qaeda/2013/03/28/4cb5a8b2-97db-11e2-b68f-dc5c4b47e519_story.html
Those with an interest in unorthodox science will find this interesting: Earthquake Prediction System on the Suspicious0bservers channel.
From having kept track of the channel, this is built on an older idea that planetary alignments are the major factor in causing earthquakes. A year ago I might have laughed this off, but you may get some mileage out of watching the channel, like I did.
Hmm. Maybe WalMart shoppers could unload the trucks, stock the shelves with the items they were looking for, and go to the “each one check one” checkout system.
I actually thought this was taken from the Onion.
And if we crowd-sourced the management, we could take all the Walton family’s money away from them. Maybe there’s something to be said for socializing the means of production after all.
Hmm. Not a bad idea, but it will be difficult to undo the damage that WalMart has already done to the quality of products–things we can no longer get because WalMart wrecked the company that made them. My own peeve is the Rubbermaid counter drain pan, and I’m not the only person who hates what happened after WalMart forced the sale of Rubbermaid. See http://reviews.rubbermaid.com/7419/RP091309/basic-drain-boards-reviews/reviews.htm
One hopes the Walton kids are emotionally wedded to keeping their money tied up in Walmart. One further hopes that Walmart goes extinct slowly enough for more worker-friendly competitors to fill the vacated space even while it goes extinct completely enough that the Walton kids end up riding their inheritance all the way down to zero.
Maybe the Walmart commanders’ ongoing “out of mind experience” will lead to that result.
I don’t go to Walmart much, but from now on, when I do, I’m going to start picking up non-perishable items and “deciding” I don’t need them when I’m in a completely different department in the store. One of two results to this:
1. Walmart “gets” the monetary velocity being part of a vibrant capitalism idea, and hires more people to restock the shelves, or;
2. Walmart continues to implode on itself — having abandoned sustainable capitalism for unsustainable oligarchy, and leaving a vacuum behind that will be filled by the return of mom and pop stores.
Just fulfilling my role as a job creator. Somebody has to do it.
So volunteer labor + restocking problems due to labor shortage… I’m going to head on down to my Walmart and just start stocking shelves for them. Shouldn’t be that hard to do. Cheese with the bread for sammiches…hamburger behind the the charcoal for one stop grilling..fish with the kitty litter… meow! There are lots of ways to improve things at MY Walmart!
Also some of the Walmart volunteer delivery vehicles will be easy to spot. There is a gallery here.
Mitt Romney will be doing some consulting for WalMart soon. First it will be traffic jams to get into the parking lot to do free deliverys (think daylabor back before the RE crash at Home Despots in major bubble markets), then it will fences be just like at that Chinese factory Mitt bought.
Walmart will need to be putting up some fences to keep the employees out soon. Dare I suggest Walmartis probably already using prioson labor at it’s stores? What could go wrong?
The next step is to include “volunteer” work for Walmart as part of the purchase price for every item. If the local Walmart is the only sizable retailer in the community, then most of the local work force will naturally be working for Walmart. Combine that with credit card debt.
Result? Serfs up!
Dear Sufferin’;
After that, the ugly mob with pitchforks and torches “Hangs Ten!”, (store managers that is.) [Is that a perfect Libertopia or what?]
I highly support this.
Biology’s Ikea?
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21729104.300-quality-control-opens-path-to-synthetic-biologys-ikea.html
Seeing as these are all patented blocks, this should make someone a billionaire just like Ingvar Kamprad:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingvar_Kamprad
Kamprad is (in)famously stingy: ” He always travels economy class in planes, and if he goes by train, if possible, he will sit in second class. He never stays at expensive hotels…” and he was known in the Swiss village (near where I lived) which housed a large IKEA superstore to be seen pushing shopping carts from the parking lot into the store like any lowly employee.
Re: Walmart delivery crowd-sourcing. This makes an interesting complement to the Kunstler/Greer closet conservative crowd awaiting the return of “community Amercia”, die-off optional. It would appear that all our problems, as a species, are entirely tractable if we weren’t such an assembly of assholes, at all levels of society.
Wolf Richter on Citi’s new shipping derivatives, through which they hope to pass off risks for $500 billion in loans:
“But shipping loans are a doozy. After its bubble, the shipping industry fell into a deep crisis. It’s such a problem that Andreas Dombret, member of the Executive Board of the Bundesbank, listed it as one of the four risks to overall financial stability in Germany—in Hamburg alone, there were over 120 shipping companies. He fingered two causes: shipping rates that had plunged during the Financial Crisis and never recovered, and continued overbuilding of ships of ever larger sizes, driven by “cheaply available financial means,” a direct reference to the easy money handed out by central banks.”
http://www.testosteronepit.com/home/2013/3/28/wall-street-craziness-is-back.html
Don’t worry, I’m sure the dudes at Citi are as well-informed about ships as they are about modestly-priced single family homes.
Opposing views of the future of us dollar as reserve currency:
Charles Hughes Smith, Tailwinds Pushing US Dollar Higher:
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogmar13/dollar-higher3-13.html
And Wolf Richter, The Dollar’s Death As Reserve Currency:
http://www.testosteronepit.com/home/2013/3/28/the-dollars-death-as-reserve-currency.html
oops, Testosterone Pit link is from Chriss Street.
Jellyfish robots on the move…
It’s just for research (nudge, nudge… wink, wink)… Giant Robotic Jellyfish Readied for Sea Patrol http://news.discovery.com/tech/robotics/giant-robotic-jellyfish-readied-for-sea-patrol-130329.htm
The real scoop… Autonomous robot jellyfish being developed for military surveillance http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-cetera/autonomous-robot-jellyfish-being-developed-for-military-surveillance-20130329/
I’m betting they’ll also be used for placing and/or detecting underwater mines.
jellyfish drones :-/
(it’d take the piss of the gods ta heal that sting)
Don’t worry too much. I’m sure there are some places down in Soho where you can get Financial Experts and other ‘elites’ to give you a “golden shower.” It’s the essence of trickle down economics, dontcha know?
Friends;
How about that? UPS pays $40 million to end DoJ action over transhipment of “illegal” pharmaceuticals. As in, that overlooked part of “Obamacare,” no that’s “Romneycare,” uh, it’s really “Heritage Foundation Care,” that enjoins the importation of drugs from overseas. You know, the ones made at FDA inspected plants overseas that are in competition with the outrageously overpriced ones foisted on the American public?
Time to invest in Patagonian Beefsteak Mines!
Here’s a link to a story about this. No doubt that BigPharma money is behind this effort to ensure that American consumers get raped on drug pricing.
http://fff.org/explore-freedom/article/obamas-no-fly-list-for-fedex-and-ups/
Three cheers for FedEx for refusing to cooperate!!!
Obviously UPS and FedEx need to apply for a banking license if they want to traffic in illegal drugs….
Headline on the Telegraph’s (UK) website:
North Korea: Kim Jong-un ‘targets George W. Bush’s home state of Texas’.
Yes, I checked – not from The Onion!
I wonder indeed if the DPRK government isn’t a principal investor in the “action” film, “Olympus Has Fallen”, and they are just doing some typical Hollywood hyping to boost theatre takings.
Evidently Comrade Kim don’t like alt.country music.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/9960933/North-Korea-plan-to-attack-US-mainland-revealed-in-photographs.html
But since I’ve got family in Austin, perhaps Dear Leader might be convinced to bomb Nashville instead?
Wow, if Kim nuked Bush’s McMansion, DPRK would instantly go from pariah state to universally beloved Leader of the Free World.
While it doesn’t have the capability to hit the US mainland, did anybody tell their dear leader how grateful Americans would be if N. Korea would hit Texas since they refuse to follow through on threats to secede.
If dear leader can wipe Texas off the map he’ll deserve a pat on the back, not a nuclear send-off.
Palast has a nice investigative piece which shows how the oligopoly sometime has little skirmishes within, which pit one set of oligarchs agains another. In this case international petroleum interests against US petroleum interests. And the Bush White House wanted the internationalists (e.g. House of Saud) to win
http://www.gregpalast.com/how-george-bush-won-the-war-in-iraq-really/
Thank you for the link to the article about Lanny Breuer and his post-“public service” $4 million “job” at Covington & Burling, as well as other members of that firm’s corporate criminal defense team.
Very telling, and disgusting.
Meanwhile, we are treated to the fallout from the massive fraud and theft that has been perpetrated on the American people, coupled with their related Austerity initiatives:
Inadequate Food & Nutrition: http://www.independent.com/news/2013/mar/27/starvation-american-style/?on
Attacks on Public Education: http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2013/03/27/school-closings-protest-could-shut-down-loop-during-afternoon-rush/
http://blackagendareport.com/content/lords-capital-seize-detroit