Yearly Archives: 2012
Philip Pilkington: Of Idiocy and Anomie – Ron Paul vs. the Nanny State Liberals
By Philip Pilkington, a journalist and writer living in Dublin, Ireland
Matt Stoller recently ran a thoughtful piece on this site about Ron Paul. Stoller’s thesis is that Ron Paul confronts Big Government liberals (my term, not Stoller’s) with the dark underbelly of their policy prescriptions. Stoller points out that Paul’s ideology touches at least three very sensitive areas for the modern liberal: their ties between Big War and government spending; their ties to the Federal system and its related monetary apparatus; and their ties to Big Finance.
To deal exhaustively with any of these complex topics is a daunting task and one which I will not pursue here. But Stoller dropped a name when he invoked the contradictions of liberalism; one well worth bringing up: Christopher Lasch.
Read more...Mark Ames: Failing Up With Joshua Foust – Meet The “Evil Genius” Massacre-Denier Who Shills For War Profiteers
Yves here. We cross posted a piece by Mark Ames on a massacre of Kazakh oil workers striking against KazMunaiGaz, a company “owned” by the son-in-law of the Kazakh president for life. Its American JV partners are led by Chevron.
The story got a surprising amount of pushback here and on Ames’ site, and some of reaction did not look organic. That led Ames to do further digging, and the resulting piece below gives a window into how big corporations go about neutralizing embarrassing news coverage. The more the public knows about the modus operandi of people like Foust, the faster they will be forced to seek more honorable lines of employment.
In this blogger’s humble opinion, this piece is a gold standard takedown of a truly deserving target.
Read more...Adam Curtis on Rupert Murdoch
Most people who have seen the work of Adam Curtis, say his BBC series The Century of the Self, or The Trap, or All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace, are struck by his ability to read how mass opinion has been shaped by media and the officialdom.
It would seem hard to convey much in the way of insight on the topic of Rupert Murdoch in a mere five minutes, yet Curtis pulls it off in this short film.
Read more...Rajiv Sethi: Self-Fulfilling Prophecies and the Iowa Caucus
By Rajiv Sethi.
A few days ago Nate Silver made the following intriguing comments on the Iowa Caucus (emphasis added):
There are extremely strong incentives for supporters of Mrs. Bachmann, Mr. Santorum and Mr. Perry to behave tactically, throwing their weight behind whichever one appears to have the best chance of finishing in the top two. What that means is that if any of these candidates appear to have any momentum at all during the final week of the campaign, their support could grow quite quickly as other voters jump on the bandwagon.
This is also a case in which the polling may actually influence voter behavior. In particular, if one of these candidates does well in the highly influential Des Moines Register poll that should be published on New Year’s Eve or thereabouts, that candidate might be a pretty good bet to overperform polling as voters use that as a cue on caucus night to determine which one is most viable…
I’m not sure that this theory actually makes any sense… But it may not matter if the theory is true.
Read more...Crowd-Sourcing the Revolving Door
This chart of Venn Diagrams (New Year’s Day links) is a nifty visualization that shows how many, many people, through the operations of Washington’s revolving door, have held high-level positions both in the Federal government and in major corporations. To take but one example, the set of all Treasury Secretaries includes Hank Paulson and Bob Rubin, which overlaps with the set of all Goldman Sachs COOs. The overlapping is pervasive. Political scientists and the rest of us have names for such cozy arrangements — oligarchy, corporatism, fascism, “crony capitalism” — but one name that doesn’t apply is democracy. On the flip, you’ll find a larger version of the series (and a discussion of its provenance).
However, as at least one reader pointed out in mail, this visualization raises a methodological concern which, readers, I’m hoping you can help address.
Michael Olenick: Is Shadow Housing Inventory Vastly Larger Than Widely Believed?
By Michael Olenick, founder and CEO of Legalprise, and creator of FindtheFraud, a crowd sourced foreclosure document review system (still in alpha)
The turn of the year is the time to make predictions and projections. I’m optimistic that the tide will finally turn for the American middle-class, suffering silently in a one-sided economic war. I don’t think this will be because of altruism, or even justice, but rather simple pragmatism. Specifically, I believe that parasitic financial institutions have pushed the boundaries so far that they’ve put their host, the middle-class itself, at risk. One new bit of information suggests the housing front is in more perilous shape than most pundits believe.
Read more...Links 1/2/12
More Bank Chicanery: Double Charging on Escrow Fees
As we have reported repeatedly, based on independent reports from numerous consumer attorneys and investors, servicer engage in numerous form of petty larceny which they pass off as “mistakes” when caught out. The problem with this excuse is that servicers are set up to be highly routinized environments, so any reasonably widespread error is not a mistake, but policy. However, it is remarkably difficult for borrowers to get servicer internal records, even in litigation, and even then, borrowers need to incur considerable costs (as in hire an expert witness) to dispute the accuracy of the bank’s charges.
Despite the general “missing in action” posture of bank regulators, one office has taken a tough stance of abuses, namely, the US Bankruptcy Trustee.
Read more...Reader Notice
NC may be launching a research project on foreclosures in late January. We hope that some members of the NC community will be willing to lend a hand.
Read more...George Washington: Fly your own drone for under $300
By George Washington. Cross posted from Washington’s Blog.
The Parrot A.R. Drone can be launched and controlled with your iPhone or iPad.
Read more...Thought for the New Year: Step Away from the Computer
Here’s the video of Rich Hickey’s classic experience report on “Hammock-Driven Development.”
When was the last time you thought about something for an entire hour? How about for a whole day? What do you think it takes to become confident in something you’ve never done before? How do you start doing that, and not feel incredibly at risk?
Read more...Missing: 13.3 Billion Deutschmarks
By Wolf Richter, San Francisco based executive, entrepreneur, start up specialist, and author, with extensive international work experience. Cross posted from Testosterone Pit.
In late 2001, German banks sold Euro Starter Kits—sealed plastic pouches with €10.23 in coins. One of many steps in the arduous process of weaning Germans from their D-Mark. I was in Germany on business at the time and bought a Starter Kit as souvenir. I still have it. It’s in the back of a drawer, next to a D-Mark coin. And that coin is part of a vast phenomenon: 13.3 billion Deutschmarks are still missing ten years after the euro made it into German wallets. 163 D-Mark per capita. But now people see a reason to hang on to them.
Read more...
