We Are Our Bacteria New York Times (David L)
Axed scientists join petition against creation of highly pathogenic strains of flu Independent (Chuck L)
The Largest Landfill On Earth: Plastic Garbage In The Oceans? OilPrice
Are the BRICS Nations Too Splintered to Be a Bloc? BusinessWeek
Pain Spreads From China’s Excess Production WSJ China Real Time Report
Chart of the week: Real interest divergence weighs on growth Bruegel
Spain and the IMF: Round the Bend or Out of the Woods? Edward Hugh
UK Foreign Minister William Hague Fired – But Why? Moon of Alabama
Gaza
Egyptian cease-fire plan for Israel-Hamas conflict quickly unravels Christian Science Monitor
Israel to intensify strikes on Gaza BBC
West Bank clashes intensify amid Gaza war Al-Monitor (Chuck L)
Israel Launches Airstrikes After Telling Gaza Residents to Flee ABC. And where are they supposed to go?
Israel’s “Iron Dome” Technology Might Be Achieving Less Than It Seems MIT Technology Review (Chuck L)
Israel’s War Echo Chamber Counterpunch
Big Brother is Watching You Watch:
Germany’s plan to take on NSA: Block eavesdroppers with classical music, and use typewriters Telegraph. This sort of “back to the future” was anticipated in 1982. Robert Heinlein built a novel around a character, Friday, (an enhanced “artificial person”) who was a courier because Important People sent physical documents by hand to avoid surveillance.
Almost 90 Percent of All US Wiretaps Listen for Suspected Drug Deals Vice
Imperial Collapse Watch
Reveal all on US spying Bangkok Post (furzy mouse)
Navy nurse refuses to force-feed Guantánamo captive Miami Herald (Chuck L)
Sequestration’s Impact on Military Spending, 2013 – 2014 Jeff N: “This was news to me, that the sequester cuts to defense were less than expected.”
The Lewinsky affair may have been ‘the best thing to ever happen to’ Hillary’s career, claims new book Daily Mail (Lee)
CBO: Slowing health-care costs yield big savings, but not enough to bring down our big debt Washington Post. More proof of the CBO’s shameless advocacy on this issue.
Hedges and Lessig on Money and Politics Real News. Let’s do a sanity check. Lessig is looking a “buying” five Congresscritters, most likely all members of the House. Charles Keating owned five Senators.
Liberals and Libertarians Find Common Ground in House New York Times
The Inverted World of Mobile Capital Laura Tyson, Project Syndicate (David L)
Cornyn-Cuellar bill panned as “deportation-only agenda in sheep’s clothing” Dallas Morning News
Documents Show General Motors Kept Silent on Fatal Crashes New York Times
Billionaire’s breakup plan would chop California into six states Reuters (Lee)
The Twin Cities discover tactical urbanism — and create improvisational change MinnPost (Chuck L)
Arbitration Clauses Let American Apparel Hide Misconduct New York Times. As in sexual harassment by the founder/CEO for over a decade.
Three New JPMorgan IT Deaths Include Alleged Murder-Suicide Russ Martens and Pam Martens
Operation Choke Point: Payday Lending, Porn Stars, and the ACH System Adam Levitin, Credit Slips
Yellen Warns Investors Wolf Richter
Class Warfare
The Year’s Best Film About Income Inequality Was Nearly Ruined by the 1 Percent Vice
A Push to Give Steadier Shifts to Part-Timers New York Times
Antidote du jour (furzy mouse):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
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Comments are closed.
re: Plastic landfill in the Pacific (size of TX)…free detailed documentary worth the watch
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/garbage-island/
“The problem with plastic is, unless you hammer it with enough pressure to make a diamond, it never fully disintegrates. Over time plastic will photodegrade all the way down to the individual polymers, but those little guys are still in it for the long haul. This means that except for the slim handful of plastics designed specifically to biodegrade, every synthetic molecule ever made still exists.”
“The Lewinsky affair may have been ‘the best thing to ever happen to’ Hillary’s career, claims new book ”
According to the New York Post, which leaked portions of Halper’s new book, Clinton, Inc.: The Audacious Rebuilding of a Political Machine, this morning, the Weekly Standard editor also claims that it was all part of the Clintons’ plans for Hillary to appear distant from Bill in public during the height of gossip about Bill’s philandering.
———————–
I’m hoping (against all odds) we get someone who isn’t a shill for multinational corporations in 2016.
But this ‘book’ is just the usual swill from the wingnut propaganda complex.
~
More post facto thirteen-dimension chess.
Kenneth Starr was played, nay schooled, by Bubba baby!
Mail article says book claims mom and dad paid for Chelsea’s 10 million dollar condo. See, she really is poor….probably needs that clothesline
Meanwhile on the just folks front
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2694294/Pregnant-Chelsea-Clinton-pictured-smiling-dismissed-New-York-jury-duty-serving-day.html
As I said, I’m not a fan of HRC in 2016.
But if you want to make a deal with Bill Kristol’s Weekly Standard and Rupert Murdoch’s N.Y. Post, go right ahead.
You won’t find them criticizing Lizard Cheney, ever.
~
I recall the famous scene from the 1967 film “The Graduate” in which Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) is told the secret of future economic success – “I just want to say one word to you. Just one word. Plastics.”
How we all then sneered at all things plastic, i.e. everything phony and superficial in American life.
Now forty seven years later, all things plastic evokes only images of that dead albatross with a stomach full of plastic debris and oceanic garbage patches.
And much like the “debate” about climate change, one sees the casting of doubt. Is the great Pacific garbage patch just a myth?
Science versus myth.
One word. Just one word. Agnotology.
The plastic gyres in the Pacific and the Atlantic, and surely in the Indian Ocean as well, and maybe the Russians are dumping their shit in the Arctic Ocean…. it all makes me wonder if these giant mountains of plastic trash have finally begun to cause ocean rise. No research on that one yet.
…you’re kidding, Right?
While plastics are certainly affecting ocean ecology, they’re not likely to substantially raise sea levels.
The plastic is real. It is tangible. Global warming, which has been flat for 17 years and 10 months, not so tangible. False equivalencies in my book.
“Flat” only if you’re looking at surface temps, and even then, that’s increased 0.2C in the last 15 years. Most of the heat goes into the oceans.
Glaciers, icefields, and icecaps are melting/shrinking all over the non-Antarctic world in a real and tangible way. Melting that much ice requires a real net-heat increase over what would be non-requried to non-melt all that ice which has in fact been melted. Also, a lot of permafrost is now thawing at the near-subsurface. It needs fresh heat to do that. Its getting that heat from somewhere.
I don’t know about the Antarctic situation. Has the recent area-increase of katabatik wind-driven
sea-ice off the Antarctic coast added more volume to Earth’s stockpile of frozen water than what the recent collapse of the Larsen Ice Shelf subtracted from Earth’s stockpile of frozen water? Is someone doing the science?
Nanex: The Market Is Rigged, With Details
This is analysis and conclusion below is from NANEX.
“…All this evidence points to one inescapable conclusion:
The order cancellations and trade executions just before, and during the trader’s order were not a coincidence. This is premeditated, programmed theft, plain and simple.
Michael Lewis probably said it best when he told 60 minutes that the stock market is rigged.
To the High Frequency Traders (HFT) that make fantastic claims about providing liquidity, perhaps one should ask: “what kind of liquidity”? To the now obvious, ludicrous claim that “everyone’s order uses the same tools that HFT uses”, we’ll just say, the data shows otherwise. To Mary Jo White and other officials who claim the market isn’t rigged and that regulators need to look at the data before making any decisions: well, you made it this far – if things aren’t clear, re-read this expose (or the nearly 3000 others pages we’ve published), or simply call us and we’ll explain it to you. Or dust off Midas and lets us show you how to work with market data.
One more note to the SEC in particular – if you believe that the industry can fix these problems on their own, then we believe you are no longer fit to regulate, because that is not, and never was, how Wall Street works. Honestly, a free for all, no–holds–barred environment would be better than the current system of complicated rules which are partially enforced, but only against some participants. And make no mistake, what is shown above is as close to automatic pilfering as one can get. It probably results in a few firms showing spectacularly perfect trading records; it definitely results in people believing the market is unfair and corrupt.
And to CNBC and other financial media companies who say these problems have all been fixed – we think you might have been lied to. Probably by the ones doing the market rigging. A certain HFT lobbyist group immediately comes to mind – the one that presents the same tired “liquidity, spreads, costs” argument, without data to back it up. This paper shows that the liquidity claim is clearly a lie.
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2014/07/nanex-market-is-rigged-with-details.html
I’m always surprised when people claim the financial markets are “honest” and so on–I really don’t get it. We are talking here of very, very, very large amounts of money that can be made by gaming the system. Everything is in place to do so. It is very complicated and not-transparent, insider trading is very easy and, I believe, inevitable given how the system is set up. For example, to those of us who have played bridge, we know that there are systems of bidding that indicate what we have in our hands and I suggest that such techniques are used in trading and, also, built into software particularly since it should now be obvious that government is far more compromised today by money, influence, threats, and the revolving door of regulators and prosecutors.
Having said that I believe that the system is being unofficially regulated by the oligarchy so that it doesn’t completely explode and also also take advantage of a plunge-protection mechanism that insures against serious drops in the markets—so I think we can feel secure.
rich: “…we think you might have been lied to…”
If by “lied to” you mean “given big bucks to toe the Wall St line” I would agree.
re Tax Inversion.
Gresham’s Dynamic, aka the-Market-made-me-do-it. http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/07/14/reluctantly-patriot-flees-homeland-to-elude-taxes/
McMike;
Oh that is rich! By fleeing for tax reasons, this outfit just negated any ‘patriotism’ they ever had, if any.
Nowhere in the article did I see the issue of penalties for tax arbiters raised. No mention of tariffs, surtaxes for offshore profits, or prohibitions on dealings with local governments at all. The head of the company can legitimately make the ‘race to the bottom’ argument, since that is the environment they must deal with. This, however, ignores any moral or ethical considerations. When a human person is shown to be bereft of ethics or morals, he or she is classed as a defective. Strong social and legal sanctions exist for use with such persons. This is so because of the long history proving the harm such persons can cause society in general. Why then, since corporations are now legally classed as persons, aren’t such sanctions now used on these newly minted ‘persons’ as has been the case with old fashioned wetware persons? The Law hasn’t caught up with society yet; as usual.
I thought the Times piece hit it fairly well, It’s a race to the bottom that the sociopathic companies cannot help themselves but follow.
There is no number aside zero that is low enough, and after they get zero taxes, the companies will ask for subsidies. (too late!)
So: it is up to the adults to eliminate the behavior by saying NO to the incessant whining for more candy… en, oh.
I’d start by eliminating corporate personhood and restoring companies to their place as a legal fiction, a contractual relationship. Period. If companies want to exercise their rights, let the owners and employees do it individually as human persons.
And in the meantime, I’d follow up on Reich’s notion that we remove the protections and subsides from ex-pat companies… and their Directors and shareholders. Treat them like suspicious foreigners. All their communications should be monitored. Any company that engages in behavior that looks like money laundering should be put on the no-fly list and have their accounts frozen, and any that acts up from overseas should be wiped out by a drone.
Threat them like John Walker Lindh. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Walker_Lindh
What if we legislate no foreign companies get any tax dollars, period? Drug companies don’t get access to Medicare/Medicaid, we don’t use mercenaries or military contractors based in the ME, and so on. Sounds to me like that might be great for a whole bunch of home grown entrepreneurs. Tax penalties for inverters might also be a good incentive to stay put.
They can only make the “race to the bottom” argument in bad faith because they themselves (acting through their class-allegiant comrades in Congress/Senate/White House) deliberately passed the FTAs which were deliberately on purpose designed and engineered to create that race to the bottom which they now claim they are merely responding to. Again, the only cure is to take America all the way out of the Globalonial FTA system and restore Belligerent Protectionism in One Country.
Free Trade is the new Slavery. Protectionism is the new Abolition.
I don’t know what this NYT is, but it seems like it is claiming to be some sort of newspaper. If this is the case, do they have anyone on their staff that can check this statement?
“Ms. Bresch, who said the company’s current effective tax rate is about 25 percent”
If the Paper of Record ™ says that the company has WMDs, then it must be so
From the article
But Ms. Bresch is even more nervous about the larger implications: “You know what makes me want to cry? I think whoever the next Facebook is, why would you ever start that company here in the United States?”
Uhhh …. I’m not sure that’s really the example you really want to go with … I suspect because like perhaps much of silicon valley it was SPOOK money all along. But what I know: FACEBOOK doesn’t pay taxes in the first place!
Moon of Alabama article on Haig: Yikes.
The article is interesting, and the comments more so. The depths to which people can sink when they believe they operate with impunity is staggering. For once, I feel a sadness on the death of god. Normally, I think that we are better off without resort to supernatural flummery. But if this is what people do when they know they have power and no one is watching, then, well, I don’t know. I do know that all those people out there who seem to want to trust their President, their Military, and their Intelligence Agencies to do what they do without clear and constant oversight are deluding themselves. Some men and women will handle the grave responsibilities of power appropriately. Too many will use power to indulge their vices and caprices. The price of ignorance is always going to be greater in the long run than the price of “tying the hands” of these elites.
Its a cliché, but it got that way because its so true. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
The thing that is so disheartening is that our system supposedly has all sorts of safeguards, checks, balances, and safeguards – but none of it seems to work. If a majority of congress is corrupt (and not merely venal in taking bribes, but in acquiring office) than the system collapses.
Moon of Alabama really blew me away with that one. Not just pedophiliacs, but a ring of them that has lasted for decades. And now, suddenly (?) David the Pure Cameron is firing all these questionable Lord Ministers? Fun nee. And the timing is most interesting. Apparently conservatism and isolationism are the triggers – even tho’ Cameron is pretending to be anti EU and hoping to be interpreted also as anti austerity. But nevermind all the games Cameron plays with such a heavy hand. He’s could be a ring leader trying to look horrified by his cronies’ behavior. God, what would we do without the elite in the UK to amuse us?
Win the battle against cardiovascular disease, perhaps.
More paedophile phun from Britain.
http://www.cryptogon.com/?p=44427
Alleged that intelligence/police infiltrated paedophile rings in order to gather blackmail material. Whoot. And that they not only infiltrated, but that they then proceeded to help to finance these activities to perpetuate the honeypot. Better and better. The Deep State gets its hooks in (kinda like the NSA, but old school).
So much for “But what about the children?”
Canadian Blogger Jeff Wells at Rigorous Intuition 2.0 has a bunch of articles exploring the issue
of applied pedophilia among the ruling classes of the Western World.
“Israel Launches Airstrikes After Telling Gaza Residents to Flee ABC. And where are they supposed to go?”
….bombing fish in a gulag barrel.
Dem Hacks: I just did a quick perusal of Joan Walsh’s twitter posts for the past week—not a mention of Israel or Gaza, plenty of Cheney and Boehner mentions though. #moral depravity.
The Israelis watching the carnage from the comfort of lawn chairs on a hilltop don’t look very concerned about the “rain of missiles” from Gaza. They seem more concerned about missing any of the deadly fireworks display.
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2014/07/11/theater-of-war-photo-captures-israelis-watching-gaza-being-bombed/
Since these are times of great intensity in the holy land and I know there are many reading this site who have a certain anti-Israel view, I have taken the liberty of – instead of bloviating – posting a few links here on the comments to the links section for the benefit of any readers that don’t suffer from cognitive dissonance, starting with the following very powerful video:
A former jihadist interviewed
Hamas got rich as Gaza was plunged into poverty(Both the article and the embedded 5 minute video – must-watch)
Gaza chose terrorism over building a Palestinian paradise In the past I’ve seen people on here mention that Ha’Aretz is the only balanced Israeli newspaper. Well this article is from Ha’Aretz!
Palestinian UN rep says every missile fired from Gaza at Israel is ‘a crime against humanity’MUST-MUST-WATCH! He says that referring Israel for crimes against humanity could therefore backfire. Also says that Israel warning ahead of attacks makes their following actions legal.
Quote from him: “People should know more before they talk emotionally”. I think he was talking about many left-wing intellectuals who think they are well-versed in the topic but are not.
Today, more than ever, I actually feel peace between us and the Arabs is closer than ever.
Dear tiger;
The peace of the grave perhaps?
‘Gaza chose terrorism over building a Palestinian paradise’
Actually, Gaza chose to elect a government in January 2006 elections. Because the winner [Hamas] did not meet with the approval of the U.S. and Israel, the election result was effectively nullified with mass arrests of Palestinian parliamentarians, a U.S.-led prohibition on money transfers to Gaza, and a tightening of Israel’s ongoing economic siege.
Overruling the results of an internationally-monitored, reasonably fair election was a U.S. and Israeli choice, which predictably led to violence from the cornered Gazans.
It’s all well and good to claim that Palestinians should adopt Gandhian-style nonviolent resistance to Israeli apartheid. It worked for Martin Luther King. But it’s also understandable that after decades of unremitting oppression, chronically underemployed young adults seeing no viable future for themselves are willing to fight. What have they got to lose?
What self-serving Israelis envision is a one-sided peace in which they get to keep all the coast, all the water, all the weapons, and all the offshore oil. Such a deal!
Indeed. And regardless of the fact that their politics isn’t exactly convincing their own citizens; their population is diminishing rapidly while the Palestinians are propagating in a healthy proportion. That is also a long term problem for Israeli occupation. Their’s is a mafia style tactic; if you don’t give us control over your resources, we will simply kill you.
Link 2, concentration camp as “Palestinian Paradise” if not for Gazan bloodlust, is paywalled. Must we now buy a subscription for propaganda or just take your word for it? Anything in there about Gaza’s offshore gas reserves? .
The inhuman behavior of these “Chosen Ones” is inexplicably excused by so many cowardly sheeple who believe the lies of the MSM and of their “leaders” like Barry O’Bomber and MadDog McCain. Any honest observer can see the cruelty and vicious callousness from a mighty army constantly attacking a captive population using any pretext to pretend the Israelis are in danger.
OK, tiger, I will watch/read your links if you will watch mine:
The Gaza Bombardment – What You’re Not Being Told
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXRO1YFreNA
Hmmm …. a trillion cubic feet of natural gas on the Gaza coast. What are the odds that is connected to the assault?
Oh, jeepers, none at all…Because Yahweh.
You will NEVER know “peace,” my friend, if you can even comprehend the meaning of the word. Any more than the people of America will.
Israel is nothing more than a US “mini-me” without oceans for protection and far fewer places to hide. You live in a very dangerous neighborhood. And as the American empire flames out, you will be left to your own devices. Surrounded by a billion Muslims with very long memories and with your only real “benefactor” on its knees.
There are plenty of people on the planet who want what’s left of the energy “riches” in your dangerous neighborhood, and as the struggle intensifies, your paltry, puny “religious” claims to a “homeland” will be recognized for the vile, insignificant garbage that they are. What power bestows, power can take away.
The BRICS are coming for the petrodollar. And perhaps you haven’t noticed, but, in its desperation to maintain its gasping hegemony, the US is legitimizing Nazis in Ukraine. Nazis who feel about jews like jews feel about Palestinians. How certain are you that THAT situation will remain controlled? That the US won’t come to feel that it needs the Nazis more than it needs you? It’s happened before. Recently.
If israel knew what was good for it, israel would make hay while the sun was still shining. It would cease its murderous rampaging immediately and try to make amends for all the wrongs it has perpetrated in its short, bloody life.
Failing that, I guess you had better hope that the rumors of a supreme being that has chosen the jews to rule the earth are true. Soon enough, that supreme being is going to be all you’ve got.
Katniss,
Righteous. Word Up!
Not so fast, Katniss. You are aware that Russia and Israel have a diplomatic hotline, right? To me that looks more like they’re switching suppliers. A good tell would be more circumspection on Israel’s part toward Russia’s interests, e.g. not biting Syria or Iran, however many fighting words they may need to throw around to manufacture consent.
I hope my government is indeed diversifying its friends because I advocate such diversification. I agree that the petrodollar is toast and I think we’ll survive that transition better than America.
The term is not anti-israel: The term is Anti-Imperialism.
or anti-Zionism.
Indeed
How many Palestinian children have your goons murdered so far today?
4, who happened to be playing on the wrong beach.
That were widely reported as of this morning, that is.
Four. Today, anyway.
“The kids were helping their father/uncle fixing fishing nets. The targeted artillery rounds came from an Israeli warship. Killed were Ahed Atef Bakr 10, Zakaria Ahed Bakr 10, Mohamed Ramez Bakr 11, Ismael Mohamed Bakr 9.”
“no warning shot. kids killed by first round, then gunner adjusted and bracketed the survivors.”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/16/witness-gaza-shelling-first-hand-account
What’s interesting is that Israel created Hamas is much the same way the US has recently spawned the ISIS. And so on a strategic level Israel absolutely needs to keep Hamas in power in order to keep the Palestinians split between the secular nationalists Fatah and the Islamists. In addition, the Hamas attacks help Israel to preserve their own internal ethno-nationalist victim identity as well as giving them plenty of victim-centric hasbara to . And so the Israeli policy response is light bombing but certainly no regime change in Gaza.
Although clearly Made in Israel, is now Hamas totally independent of Israel or are their interest aligning here? Just a month or so ago the Palestinians created a “unity” government which puts Israel is a slightly awkward propaganda delivery position. This latest round of rocket exchanges wipes out for at least a couple years any pressure to deal with the Palis. If Hamas were to ever become truly free from the Israeli puppet masters the Israelis could wipe them out in a day. In fact the best deal for Israel, since their G*d never promised it to them, and once Hamas stopped paying divide and rule dividends, would be for Egypt to take over Gaza.
In any case watching how this Hamas/Israel spat works out will give us some clue to how the US/ISIS relationship will evolve.
oops, didn’t finish a sentence. it should be:
…hasbara to export as well.
Big difference IMO. USA had the good sense to put ISIS on the other side of the world where it cant threaten the USA.
Israel decided to spawn an enemy in its own territory.
Occupied territory
The whole world is US territory.
The funny thing about Hamas is they never seem to kill many Israelis.
Hamas killed a fair number of Israelis when Hamas was sending suicide bombers. But they stopped suiciding bombing when they realized it was making Hamas look bad on the world stage. Now they have learned that Israel will respond to non-lethal rocketing with lethal bombing and shelling, thereby making Israel look bad on the world stage. Sic Semper Tyrannis has a very recent blogpost about this.
The US and Israel are basically playground bullies who like to beat up handicapped kids, and the minute they pick a fight with someone their own size, they’ll get their teeth kicked in.
Exactly. They found out in 2006 that taking on well armed, well trained and determined Hezbollah fighters was a very different proposition than murdering rock throwing teenagers in the occupied territories.
Obama found that out in Syria, when Putin checked him. He’s finding that out in Ukraine, too, and now Putin has moved on to Cuba. Yikes!
Putin is said to have likened Obama’s diplomacy skills to a pigeon playing chess (paraphrased): “he struts around knocking over pieces, shits on the board and thinks he’s won.”
Certainly Israeli intel has given aid to Hamas at various points in their development but I’m not sure they control them and I honestly don’t think even as profoundly nasty a fellow Netanyahu is I’m not so sure he asked for this crisis. In favor of your opinion, it is certainly the case thar the hapless missile attacks from Hamas make little sense from a Palestinian POV so we have to figure outside forces are deeply involved as usual.
It seems that many observers believe that Iran and Syria have had a hand in funding Hamas but, lately, the main source of funds are from Turkey and Qatar–this is interesting because Turkey is also a major supporter of ISIL and seems to have allied itself with the Gulf-States in the fight against the Syrian and Iraqi states. Interestingly, there has been a long-term alliance between Israel and Turkey and also considerable friendliness between Israel and the Saudis who both see Iran as the main threat to the region. At the same time, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel are the main U.S. Allies in the region–could it be that very indirectly, the U.S. is encouraging the missile attacks? The problem is that the politics of the region are incredibly murky and filled with intrigue and double and triple dealing both on the level of the nations involved but also within the nations themselves–all the countries involved have viscous factions operating within and without the official entities. Alas, good reporting from the regions is very rare since nothing is ever what it seems to be.
It all makes sense if you keep the alliances straight. Hezbollah is actually a threat to Israel and they are supported by Israel’s enemies — Syria and Iran.
Hamas is a collaborator with Israel and so they are supported by Israel’s allies — Turkey and Qatar.
Israel did create Hamas to act as a counterweight to their then big enemy Fatah. After Oslo Fatah became the Palestinian Authority and Israel used them to keep down Hamas. The whole thing could give you a headache.
Of course at any time in the past twenty years Israel, being the stronger party, could have made peace with the Palestinians. The various surrounding Arab countries were more than willing to do this and the Arab league still has a peace plan on the table.
Which is to say rationality in just as short a supply over there as it is among our own elites. For those who think Homo Sapiens’ DNA heritage isn’t destiny, that reason has the upper hand, you might want to consider the “facts on the ground.”
Sic Semper Tyrannis has very recently run a blogpost about this. If Hamas understands itself to be waging a long term brainwar/mindwar against Israel over which will capture the moral image high ground as use that ground to direct full-spectrum fire against the other; then it makes Grand Strategic sense for Hamas to lure Israel into its ” hundred eyes for no eye at all” response in full view of the media of a watching world. They hope Israel will poison its wells of sympathy and support. If that is what Hamas is doing, and why it is doing it; then one need not invoke secret collaboration between Hamas and GOI to explain Hamas
rocket-launching.
So that’s the strategy now. When presented with evidence that Hamas and its sponsors are to blame for the situation in Gaza, you resort to illogical conspiracy theories that Jews created Hamas.
Let me clue you in on something: did the U.S. create, for example, the mujaheddin which developed into Al-Qaeda? Yes they did, but they didn’t downright create these guys from scratch (ideology, religion, practices, treatment of women etc). Radical Islam existed way before the American revolution or Zionism, and it’s simply a conspiracy theory to suggest these groups would not have existed otherwise (the only exception is ISIS, if it turns out to be a complete fabrication, which I am not completely convinced of despite Lambert and George Washington’s posts)
You are wasting your time tiger. The Zionist war criminal state is doomed , it is inevitable. As went South Africa, so will go Israel. Enjoy it while it lasts – and you no doubt enjoy the many dead children, scumbag that you are.
Tiger,
You may have a case to make on certain points. Israel’s problem is becoming this: however loud you shout, Israel’s creeping annexation of the Occupied West Bank , illegally “annexed” Golan Heights and illegally “annexed” Arab East Jerusalem shouts louder.
It is late, but not yet too late, for Israel to adopt and apply certain confidence-building measures designed to re-rail the derailed Peace Process and send it down the tracks to a Peace Destination.
Those confidence-building measures would begin with rounding up at gunpoint all illegal outlaw Jewisraeli Settlers in the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and in Arab East Jerusalem .
And marching them at gunpoint back into Israel Proper. Such measures would then extend to shutting down every Israeli water well in Golan/AEJ/West Bank, removing every toxic waste dump and spill, every trashpile, etc.; and so forth.
I can understand why liberal/leftish Israelis for a Lesser Israel and a Lesser Palestine would not want to force that issue. It would require a savage civil war with a center-left victory for forcibly impose such a policy against a defeated right and far-right and against a half million settlers.
Actually , a good time (perhaps the last time) to have waged and won such a civil war would have been right after the Rabin Assassination. Perhaps that civil war could have been waged and won at the political/emotional/cultural/juridical level without having to kill a quarter or half million Greater Israel supporters within a week or two . . . in order to establish and secure the broad-spectrume dominance of Left over Right which would have allowed Israel to pursue its half of the Oslo Process to the 2SS result that the Rabinists and the Arafatists had in mind.
Coulda . . . woulda . . . shoulda . . . too late now. Oh, well.
Now the Left would have to kill a million or so Rightists in a week or so in order to establish the dominance required to forcibly chart a new course. Certainly the half-million outlaw settlers would all have to be killed before they could mount any kind of resistance to forcible de-settlement. No chance of that. So Israel may indeed be failing its Darwin finals as a watching world waits and wonders.
Apparently, either all of us suffer ‘cognitive dissonance’ or you do. Surprisingly there hasnt been a single person speaking in your defense.
This is childish. I don’t need approval. I’m not an 18 year old girl. And we Jews have a history of fighting few vs. many anyway.
What is really disturbing is whenever you read comments from an Israeli defender, you just don’t know if you are dealing with a paid Hasbara operative or someone who actually believes Israel is in the right. Hard to have a discussion with someone that is paid to present only one viewpoint and never back off that point regardless of how the discussion proceeds. It is no longer a discussion when one side is paid not to learn but to propagandize.
Illustrating your point, perhaps, the OP is not having any sort of “discussion” at all; s/he has never replied to any of the above responses. Just dropped a couple turds in the punch bowl, and split.
Yes, I imagine the Hasbara brigade has its hands full right about now. Probably can’t bomb but so many websites a day around the world even with overtime. I wonder if they give most websites a warning knock before dropping the big one.
Isn’t Israel, or some semi-official pro-Zionist organization, giving out college money for joining the troll brigade? Whatever happened to doing (comparatively) honorable service to get through school, like painting houses or stripping?
Ahhh, here it is from Electronic Intifada (take it as you will): Israeli Students Get $2000 to Spread State Propaganda on Facebook
Both sides have paid shills who go online and do this, just as exists in Syria, just as exists in American politics. As a matter of fact, some of the people attacking me earlier may have been paid shills, for all I know.
I believe it’s most certainly a bad idea for any of the sides in the conflict to have paid shills and I regret having to be side by side with paid shills, but I cannot control this. Regrettable.
On the other hand, something important must be pointed out: just as you saw earlier today, some posters here thought I was a paid shill who posted 1 post this morning and left, whereas in fact I was at work. That’s an issue. Too many of us Jews listened to our moms and got good careers and nice little families, which means less time to fight antisemitism. It’s a real problem considering that we are few people fighting so many. How can 10 people respond to the facebook posts of 1000 people?
I don’t think paying students is a good thing. Organized NGOs with older more mature employees is better, and even that’s not perfect. But I’m just highlighting the problem. If we don’t defend ourselves, we’re toast. And that’s kind of what our predicament comes down to in the physical war. Yes, we have violated International Law (as have the Palestinians, as per the video I posted above with their UN rep admitting as much), but both sides are just trying to survive. In recent years, behind the headlines, we’re all acting nicer but that still doesn’t answer the question of why should a Jew/Arab obey every international law if they feel they’re going to die otherwise?
Sounds just like HAL, no kidding. Did the “tiger” learn speech patterns from a computer geek? Does NOT pass the Turing Test.
News flash: Israel far and away violates more international laws than any country on earth, even its captive US sponsor and patron. One would in fact have to nurture a very deep and abiding persecution/domination complex to justify Israel’s crimes against humanity over so many decades of colonial occupation. And it indicates a bizarre perversion indeed to defend brutality akin to Nazi Germany — even celebrate the murder of children from a hilltop in Siderot like a sporting event. That would require the uniquely ingrained tribal bigotry with which you so facilely charge others — a glaring lack of self awareness and willful blindness so total it can only be described as pathological.
I was at work all day and now done dinner. I am always here and you can ask Yves. Been here since 2008 and comment every now and then. Participated in 2 occupy groups, and no, not as a spy. It’s amazing how you: attacked me personally instead of the argument. Just assuming I am “from Hasbara”.. ??
I never met anyone who “works for Hasbara”. All day today my high school friends and my friends from later in life have been on facebook, yes, in full force, defending ourselves. Some people better informed than others, to be sure, but at least fighting against what is x% bigotry against Jews and 100-x% non bigoted. How much is x? I don’t know, but I know it’s neither 0 nor 100.
Sounds like the Stepford “perfect husband” gone bad in the wiring, failing wildly at the end of “The Stepford Wives” (re-make w/ Nicole Kidmann). “From Hasbara” etc. — oy veh!
Most likely a paid operative. You find them infesting comment sections on every site imaginable.
http://www.btselem.org/water/discrimination_in_water_supply
I would suppose paradise could use some water first, eh?
Israel is a failed state, propped up with direct financial and resource aid, much of which is extorted from American taxpayers. Let’s cut that off for a few years and then do our comparative paradise analysis..
Root analysis, all roads to peace start with eliminating Zionist racism.
Ha. Israel is a failed state. That’s a funny one.
Israel started as an ultra-socialist project with, yes, a certain amount of capital. But if you know anything about business, project management, and entrepreneurship, you know that the return on capital varies greatly depending on who manages it. I think Israel has demonstrated that it is whatever the antonym of “failed state” is. Shame on you. You, I would say with 90% certainty, are one of those that actually hates Jews.
Please, stop before you put yourself to shame irretrievably.
RE: J.P. Morgan deaths.
Very interesting article and worth reading. While there are no “smoking guns” in the article the pattern can only be a result of three things: 1) a stunning series of coincidences; 2) some kind of shamanic curse; or 3) foul play of the most obvious kind.
First of all I want to make a few things very clear. Many major banks and some corporations are run very much like criminal enterprises. They have the wherewithal and morality to kill people they consider a threat and I submit to you that they have done so and will do so. Without going into detail, if you know where to go and who to talk to, there is an international cadre of hit men and women who will kill for a fee (one older hit man I heard about was said to want to do it for fun so wouldn’t charge)–I know many of you don’t want to believe it and think its fantasy but it isn’t fantasy, I can assure you of that. Many of these killers are associated or were associated with the military and intel services and many others just gang-bangers but it comes to the same thing. Misha Glenny claimed, a few years ago, that 15-20% of the world’s GDP lies in the illegal economy–I believe it is more than that if you count all the illegal activities of major corporations. Each major corporation has a highly sophisticated security system with paramilitary forces, spies, fixers, bag-men and so on this is particularly the case with major NY banks who were, if we know our history, instrumental in influencing and staffing the CIA in its early years and, before WWII, carried out their own covert operations particularly in Latin America but also in Europe and elsewhere.
We in the USA have a hard time believing that legit companies would act like organized crime families–but what’s to stop them? Look at what happened in 2001-2008 and even after. We experienced the biggest crime wave in our history in terms of size of the take as well as its effect on society; this criminal activity was created deliberately, consciously in an organized way by TBTF banks, hedge funds and so on. There is no evidence that Americans who rule either corporations or are in high office are any different than any other people who have had great power, ruled nations, or Dukedoms or whatever. People who crave power know that to be in the game you have to kill people if that is required–and the rewards of power today in this world are beyond the dreams of people in any other period of history. If people who bankrolled Obama can get his Justice Department to not prosecute the largest crime wave in U.S. history then why not kill people at your pleasure–what’s to stop it? Honest prosecutors? Honest cops? If you know anything about both you know that even if you can find honest ones they aren’t stupid and know that if they cross the line (and they will be well-informed where that line is) their lives and their livelihoods will be in danger. This is, in fact, the society we live in. Fortunately, the boundaries are fairly spacious in the U.S. and there’s plenty of scope to operate and live. So as long as we color within the lines in our lives, there is no reason to face the wrath of our elites–but if they want to f—- with you they can and will and, unless you can leverage some other powerful force, you better get our of Dodge fast.
If you take an clear eyed appraisal of the legacy of serial sociopathic behavior by companies, including willful killing and poisoning of millions upon millions of people through deliberate and negligent toxicity, support of local warlord/death squads, and systematically imposed economic suffering on billions more people, it is in fact hard to imagine a rational reason why they would draw the line at a murder here or there, when hundred of billions are at stake.
After all, a street punk will kill you for your tennis shoes. What makes corporate executives any different, except the scale?
JPM: Blood In, Blood Out policy gets official corporate sanction! Not only is your view of corporate behavior spot on but the MIC has produced a multitude of unemployed, over trained killers who have what could be termed “operational blue balls”. When you spend an inordinate amount of time training to do a specific (usually dangerous) task and are then denied the opportunity to fulfill that task it becomes a serious mental burden. The mind is constantly in conflict as it doesn’t know whether or not, when the time came, if you would perform accordingly. It’s big in new recruits but I’ve seen it in firefighters who have never gotten to go into a burning building, police who have never been seriously threatened, high angle rescue crews without a rescue that tests their skills, arborists who haven’t yet topped a very large tree, and of course soldiers.
Ha! Just had the vision of a future Bloomberg article:
Labor Flexibility and Insurance: When Termination Means Something Different
ITT was known to kill people in third world countries who got in the way of their expansion plans. I know a senior exec who quit over that many years ago. ITT, like AIG, also provided cover for CIA operatives by letting them pretend they had jobs there.
Has anyone done any serious research into the number of firms who, during foreign expansion, have had a rough welcome that was conveniently smoothed over? Correlated with known and/or suspected US intel operations in the vicinity? It might give a clue to how prevalent this is.
i luv a challenge and you just nailed one…im still working on it but a bit of history is necessary. from pg 7 of 60 i smell ‘stealth’…for example:
Because no one country is responsible for overall jurisdiction and because
jurisdiction can be unclear, a given MNC may have problems deciding what
laws it needs to obey and where. Some governments, like the U.S. government,
engage in efforts to regulate the activities of U.S. citizens and U.S.-based com-
panies abroad. The U.S. government, for example, has laws against the bribery of
foreign officials to secure contracts.18 The legal name for this kind of regulation is extraterritoriality and it is the subject of much criticism on the part of for-eign governments. MNCs are generally opposed to extraterritorial regulation for
obvious reasons.19
Page 18
The Importance of the Home Country
More recent theorizing about the behavior of MNCs stresses the importance of
the home country. Marked differences in the behavior of MNCs from different
home countries
—
for example, U.S. firms versus Japanese firms
—
suggest that the
way in which the home country structures its domestic economy has an impor-
tant impact on the way in which domestic firms internationalize their business
activities, despite the fact that most economic theories of MNC behavior seem
to imply that the home country context should be largely irrelevant. While there
is a certain convergence in the behavior of firms from different home countries
over time in terms of the way they deal with questions of organizing export ac-
tivities, local production, R&D, and marketing,55 firms of different nationalities retain important distinctive characteristics that are strongly affected by the home
environment.
cont. chapter 14 pg 19 THE CONSEQUENCES OF MNC ACTIVITY
this is a detailed paper of MNC history but not really what your looking for…i’ll keep going ‘)
http://www.indiana.edu/~ipe/spero04.pdf
cont. Finally, there has been intervention through U.S. balance-of-payments policies. In the 1960s, the U.S. government tried to improve its balance of payments by asking U.S. corporations to limit their new foreign investment in developed countries, to increase the amount of foreign investment financed by borrowing abroad, and to increase the return of earnings and short-term assets from their foreign affiliates. This had a serious impact on investment abroad, particularly in Europe, where the policy threatened to dampen economic growth, hurt the balance of payments, and dry up local capital markets when U.S. corporations borrowed on local capital markets instead of borrowing in the United States. The capital restraints were ended in the 1970s following the emergence of the float and the improvement in the U.S. balance-of-payments position. Given the internationalization of capital markets in the 1980s, it is unlikely that similar controls could be imposed today.94
pg 28 ah ha…In conclusion, the potential for the home country to interfere with MNC activities abroad is very real. If one considers the volume of transactions carried out by multinational corporations, however, the number of actual threats of home country interference is relatively small. Home governments of industrialized nations appear to have adopted a policy of avoiding interference in the activities of MNC affiliates, except in unusual circumstances.
… The nature and significance of the multinational corporation’s effect on national politics in developed countries are areas that have not been sufficiently examined and about which little is known.”
roll out the Shock Doctrine: http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/shock-doctrine/
“55 firms of different nationalities retain important distinctive characteristics that are strongly affected by the home environment.”
I think you found a good place to start.
if you get a chance check out the many graphs & charts…the numbers were eye opening
Found this little nugget in the first article: created the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) in 1961 to insure U.S. firms against some of the risks involved in direct investment.
Initially sounds benign but I think we are all familiar with doublespeak. I’d never heard of this group so I’d figure I’d head over to their page and check them out.
“OPIC mobilizes private capital to help solve critical development challenges and in doing so, advances U.S. foreign policy.“
“OPIC achieves its mission by providing investors with financing, guarantees, political risk insurance, and support for private equity investment funds
Sounds a lot like what Yves was talking about. Gets a little more uncomfortably coincidental that most of their initiatives are in/near conflict zones. Skimming through their current projects list I found a few interesting entries (flag Africa, Insurance for filters) listing “consultation services” provided by “unknown” or “none”. We all toss hundreds of thousands of dollars around with no real accounting, right? Saw some money going to the Red Cross as well. Not sure how that “advances US foreign policy” unless… time for another spook ‘vaccination campaign’?
after dictators are ‘inserted’ the first task is to round up Teachers, Writers/Poets and Artist of all mediums…close the information gap fast
All the way back to Sosthenes Benn.
I think we can all agree that Netanyahu is not a good prime minister.
It depends. Good for WHO?
Hes good for Israeli settlers and others of Israels right wing (which is most of it), at least in the short (1-5 years) term.
Netanyahu is done, finito. In Israel, he is hated even in his own party. My family..everyone is sick of him and soon enough he’ll be out. The only good thing he does is talk, like Obama. For us though that is still of some value because he defends us well, whereas Obama’s words don’t do much direct good for anyone.
But besides that, it’s irrelevant who is prime minister of Israel. Just as my Israeli government (and anyone who followed the government blindly) was stupid to focus on Ahmadinejad (an elected prime minister who was going to be out anyway), it’s stupid to focus on Netanyahu. He’s also elected and he’ll also be out.
Meme watch: “Strulturce”–portmanteau of “structure” and “culture”–if it catches on, remember, you heard it here first:
Structure vs. Culture ~Len Krimerman, GEO
following some of the sites links, i found this blog for a strong base…The Education of Mondragón (Mondragón, the world’s largest worker cooperative) https://freeschools.wordpress.com/2008/11/03/the-education-of-mondragon/
Knowledge is power.
Knowledge must be socialized so that power can be democratized.
After the socialization of culture, inevitably follows the socialization of wealth and even of power. We may say that this is the indispensable and prior condition for the democratization and socioeconomic progress of a people.
-Don José María Arizmendiarrieta, Reflections
Re typewriters, it’s worth recalling that European resistance to the NSA Stasi is not limited to steampunk OPSEC, and not limited to Germany. The ECJ is pulling European law back in line with the guidance of the Human Rights Commission (HRC), here regarding data retention and proportionality.
When not trying to ignore the ICCPR, US government apparatchiks fixate on the word arbitrary in ICCPR Article 17. They do so to maintain that the government can do anything it wants as long as its conduct is not opposed to the rule of law itself. Anything goes, they say, right up to the point of wilful disregard of due process that shocks judicial propriety.
The HRC called bullshit on that in its review of US legal obligations, imposing necessity and proportionality tests for surveillance. The NATO Pact states are falling in line with the ECJ and HRC.
The HRC recommendations are below. This is where surveillance law is going in the NATO satellites. The pressure is mounting to extend these protections even to the USSA, despite the NSA voyeurs.
“The State party should:
(a) take all necessary measures to ensure that its surveillance activities, both within and outside the United States, conform to its obligations under the Covenant, including article 17; in particular, measures should be taken to ensure that any interference with the right to privacy complies with the principles of legality, proportionality and necessity regardless of the nationality or location of individuals whose communications are under direct surveillance;
“(b) ensure that any interference with the right to privacy, family, home or correspondence be authorized by laws that (i) are publicly accessible; (ii) contain provisions that ensure that collection of, access to and use of communications data are tailored to specific legitimate aims; (iii) are sufficiently precise specifying in detail the precise circumstances in which any such interference may be permitted; the procedures for authorizing; the categories of persons who may be placed under surveillance; limits on the duration of surveillance; procedures for the use and storage of the data collected; and (iv) provide for effective safeguards against abuse;
“(c) reform the current system of oversight over surveillance activities to ensure its effectiveness, including by providing for judicial involvement in authorization or monitoring of surveillance measures, and considering to establish strong and independent oversight mandates with a view to prevent abuses;
“(d) refrain from imposing mandatory retention of data by third parties;
“(e) ensure that affected persons have access to effective remedies in cases of abuse.”
‘DOJ is pressuring banks to take AML seriously, and that means higher compliance costs for dealing with high-risk businesses.
‘Unless one thinks that there is complete market failure in the banking industry, surely some of our nearly 16,000 banks and credit unions will be willing to take on these high-risk businesses as customers.’ — Adam Levitin, Credit Slips
Surely not. And this has nothing to do with ‘market failure.’ Given the gross uncertainty and disruption associated with DOJ crackdowns, banks ‘just say no’ to politically disfavored businesses.
For Colorado cannabis shops denied bank accounts, and immigrants whose ‘envio dinero’ outlet has closed, there is no ‘high risk premium’ they can pay; they are simply frozen out.
Levitin makes up his own evidence-free speculative assumptions to dismiss little peoples’ financial freeze-out as a ‘fuss’ and an ‘uproar.’ It all makes sense to a Harvard-grad academician who makes his living in the imperial capital. Render under Caesar what is Caesar’s!
I agree. Generally I like Levitin, but it is simply naïve to tug on superman’s cape, spit into the wind, or pull the mask off the ole long ranger. The government ignores the laws it wants to ignore, and enforces what it wants to enforce, written down or not, when it wants. Any bank that plausibly has the resources to defend itself from the government is going to be run by types who play along to get along.
It’s noteworthy that that whole argument is purely made-up speculation – no evidence whatsoever, aside from the usual economists’ “assumptions.”
In reality, banks, even more than other corps, are creatures of the government.
Re: CBO’s latest projections
I find it interesting that the only graphs they show on Social Security are:
1) spending as % of GDP
2) population ratios of >65 to everyone else
There is no actual graph of Social Security’s projected spending vs. revenues. Didn’t they put this in prior reports? They imply a projected demographic disaster, but don’t show one in the actual SS budget. They just state that there’s a gap and it’s expected to grow.
Also, they state that the gap between revenues and spending will grow even AFTER the baby-boomers die off. They’re WAY into speculative territory here, relying on guesses about the lifespan of Americans in the 2040s and 2050s.
Not a peep about how taxes were raised in 1983 to save extra money to prepare.
Not a peep about how lifting the cap on the level of income that’s taxable (~$117k) would wipe out the projected deficits for something like 75 years, i.e.
‘There is no actual graph of Social Security’s projected spending vs. revenues.’
If you mean total federal revenues, such graphs aren’t produced, owing to the convention of treating Soc Sec as an off-balance sheet entity.
A comparison of Soc Sec spending to its own revenues (both expressed as a percentage of taxable payrolls) is shown on page 12 of the Soc Sec trustees report:
http://www.ssa.gov/oact/tr/2013/tr2013.pdf
Soc Sec’s spending crossed above its revenue in 2010, and is expected to remain higher until the trust fund disappears in 2032. Thereafter, spending will equal income and no more.
Since lifespans increase gradually, demographic projections into 2040 and 2050 aren’t all that speculative. In any case, a range of assumptions about the annual percentage reduction in total age-sex-adjusted
death rates is set out on page 8. Pick the lifespan you like; the system still goes bust.
“taxes were raised in 1983 to save extra money to prepare.” It’s increasingly clear that that was a scam – Greenspan approved of it, after all.
There’s a problem with the “trust fund” that even lefties like to gloss over: once we start calling on it, SS is no longer self-sustaining. The payments are then coming straight out of the general fund, competing with everything else. IOW: that was just a tax increase in 1983, not a provision for Social Security.
The real solution is to increase the tax base, as suggested, first by lifting the cap, then by applying it to ALL income – and I, personally, stand to lose by that, unless you exempt retired people. Exempting investment income made sense only as long as we were pretending it was an insurance plan.
Really, Friedman, of all people, had it right: the real solution is a Negative Income Tax or some other guaranteed minimum income, plus things like single-payer health care.
Re: Gut bacteria in the New York Times
While it’s fascinating that humans are host to an amazing array of microbes in our digestive system, I find the hype around declaring that we are our bacteria to be far reaching speculation. There are a great deal of correlation studies being conducted around this subject, matching up “diversity” and health conditions, largely because the tools to do the research are cheap enough and widespread enough for more people to get involved. And in order to get funding, you must connect your microbiome research to a human health condition. So we get headline splashing news about how diversity or particular families are correlated with a range of human health conditions. But we never get the proverbial silver bullet. Causation. No human microbiome study has reached the level of causation. I will pay attention to this field when we get to that level. Otherwise, let’s stop pretending that recent developments like increased type II diabetes and obesity are caused by shifting bacterial populations in our guts. What is more likely is that shifting diets and behaviors are changing which microbes succeed in our guts. Surprise, microbes comete for resources and those that feed on high fructose corn syrup probably take over if you eat an abundance of that. The sugar also is known and proven to cause your diabetes. The two should not be conflated.
Related.
Dr William Davis on the subject:
http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/2014/07/fertilize-garden-called-bowel-flora/
Michael Pollan from last year:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/magazine/say-hello-to-the-100-trillion-bacteria-that-make-up-your-microbiome.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&
Re: “tax inversion” for pharmaceutical companies:
Does it mean that the newly off-shored companies will sell their products to USA for a greater price than what they will be charging in Europe, etc.?? And how is it that a country (USA) with such “high” corporate taxes still can’t afford single-payer, the way Europe can??
http://vimeo.com/18479035
more ‘Pension Smoothing’ on the horizon:
On Monday night the White House endorsed the House Republicans’ plan to keep the Highway Trust Fund—which finances highways, roads and bridges—alive for the next 10 months, saving about 700,000 jobs. While the bill will bring the Transportation Department program back from the brink of a crisis, it uses an accounting trick known as “pension smoothing” to pay for it. Here’s a guide on why the short-term revenue raiser is no good for the long haul.
http://pensionpulse.blogspot.com/2014/07/tricky-gimmick-funding-us-highways.html
forget the cowbells…we’re gone need mo paddles
http://i1.cpcache.com/product/262813361/shits_creek_paddle_store_postcards_package_of_8.jpg?height=460&width=460&qv=90
From the pensionpulse link:
‘By reducing pension contribution requirements, pension smoothing temporarily increases companies’ taxable income to raise revenue for the government.’
Good find! But I wish the author had dug into the dirty details. Many pension plans are assuming 7 to 8% annual returns, with T-notes yielding 2.5% and stocks valued to deliver low to mid single digits. Ain’t gonna happen: mathematically impossible.
‘Kick the can,’ ‘serial bubbles’ and ‘global air superiority’ are not a coherent survival strategy.
maybe that particular ‘dirty detail’ is to be assumed…your right no way no how
Bubbles,
So clear
they float away,
they say
they’re floating away.
The bubbles are so clear,
looking as if it’s not even there
I watch one pop.
My bubbles are gone,
the clearness,
all is gone. Writer365
Didn’t this used to be called embezzlement?
“Navy nurse refuses to force-feed Guantánamo captive Miami Herald”
It’s taken this long for one of the health care workers, including doctors, shrinks, nurses and support staff to have a crisis of conscience? Do no harm…sure.
Congrats to her. More of the above, please.
Surely this is an outgrowth of fin de siecle late-stage education bubble. U of Utah goes full silicon valley.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-07-15/university-of-utah-designs-a-dorm-for-entrepreneurs-that-mimics-google-and-facebook-headquarters
I went there, but it’s not my soul mother, no way.
India: Where Corporate Socialism is a Growth Indusry Counterpunch. Where populism means tax forbearance on gold and diamonds
That wasn’t supposed to be a reply, d’oh. Sorry!
The Raj co-conspirator dynasts of India (the “Yats” types of their day) still claim there is “democracy” in India. This is one of the most brazen lies ever told. The film “Salaam Bombay” captures India still. The self-righteous “Eastern Religion” gurus remain on the mountaintop, no help to the “rabble” below. Talk about pederasty endorsed! The film is explicit anent parental pimping of children. You think the Victorian Occupies didn’t dig it? India is a cesspool of depravity, still Singh-ing songs of sixpence a head. When the Brit Pedo Dragnet sweeps through the House of Lords, be sure it passes through Elite India.
More on David Stockman’s “Keynesian” characterization which was discussed in yesterday’s links:
“Treasury Bond Undervalued” Says Hoisington Second Quarter Review; Path to Fiscal Ruin | Mish
“John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) correctly argued that the severity of the Great Depression was due to under-consumption or over-saving. What Keynes failed to note was that the under-consumption of the 1930s was due to over-spending in the second half of the 1920s. In other words, once circumstances have allowed the under-saving event to occur, the net result will be a long period of economic under-performance.”
Thus, characterizing as “Keynesians” folks who focus almost entirely on the “under-consumption” backside of credit binges – as the overwhelming majority of mainstream economists does – rather than on the booms which precede such busts and how to prevent them (or at least prevent them from getting completely out of hand) – is fair, since that same myopia was exhibited by Keynes himself.
Why is everyone forgetting that Iron Dome doesn’t, you know, actually work.
http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/blog_comments/new_study_journalists_experts_are_massive_bullshitters
Just so I understand what’s going on here… You seem to be excited about the prospect that more innocent lives are at risk of being lost than previously thought? (it’s hard to read tone online so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt)… I hope that Naked Capitalism has not descended into being a site with commenters that prefer more total deaths.
“Just so I understand what’s going on here… You seem to be excited about the prospect that more innocent lives are at risk of being lost than previously thought?”
John Podhoretz, is that you?
Kenneth Roth’s ( http://www.hrw.org/bios/kenneth-roth) tweet:
“Summary of toll through July 15 on both sides of this latest round in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, via @NYTimes. pic.twitter.com/pHLi80RQRp” ( https://twitter.com/KenRoth/status/489475527057895425/photo/1 )
Podhoretz’s reply:
“@KenRoth @nytimes I’m so sorry for you more Jews aren’t dead, since that would make you feel better, obviously” ( https://twitter.com/jpodhoretz/status/489475724387319808 )
Well, that escalated quickly.
( via: https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/489546844855623680 )
The innocent lives being lost are the many victims of the Zionist murderers. Countless children are among those victims.
How in the fuck did you get that intepretation from the comment I made? If my government is going to shell out 100’s of millions for a defensive system for another country, it should, again, actually work.
Iron dome should work given the relative easy predictable trajectory of falling objects. When the rockets wobble making interception difficult, it is because of malfunction and not evasion, this can make interception difficult. While Israel may be densely populated, it is not as dense as say Hong Kong or Gaza, so unguided projectiles consisting primarily of flight fuel (therefore less explosive payload) cause more inconvenience than damage.
That the effect of iron dome is touted in this context is a bonus for the suppliers of the system. I have a problem with the inconsistency of the celebration of success of defense against rockets (with alarms, shelters and iron dome) with the need to then therefore make the rockets the number1 reason to precision bomb innocents in Gaza. If one had a lexan shield and a helmet to protect against kids throwing rocks, does that justify use of a machine gun to disperse the kids? Or should one step back and consider alternatives of tear gas, rubber bullets, water canon or better yet just stepping away.
I’m all for overstating the effect of iron dome, as it is one very good reason to take away justification for the retaliation strikes whose effects are if anything understated. It is one thing to be inconvenienced and terrorized by rockets, warnings of which are lot longer than the knocks and phone calls we hear about, but another to be blown to pieces by high tech weapons.
But there are studies indicating that it probably doesn’t (i.e. 5% interception rate might be too high). Did you read the article?
Well yeah.
They’re still using the rockets as justification to do whatever they want (and the US is going along with it), while claiming that Iron Dome works, so this doesn’t seem like a true statement.
A musical interluded from the ongoing devolution – “Weird Al” Yankovic Music Video: FOIL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-0TEJMJOhk