The Laborers Who Keep Dick Pics and Beheadings Out of Your Facebook Feed Wired. Martha R: “The newest shit job for outsource workers and new college grads in U.S. And more to contemplate than just the jobs.
High-paid consultant to plead guilty in Chicago red light camera case ars technica (Chuck L)
Ebola
US nurse angry over Ebola quarantine BBC. By contrast, the doctor in New York who is hospitalized is getting worse.
Ebola Cases Top 10,000 in Current Outbreak, WHO Says Wall Street Journal
Hong Kong tycoons reluctant to take side amid Occupy turmoil People’s Daily Online
Japan Market Access Still Hurdle for TPP Trade Deal Wall Street Journal. Even worse than this suggests. The Japanese have basically told the US in uncharacteristically blunt terms that the US has to negotiate, not bully, and the USTR is not getting the message.
Home Prices Drop in 69 of 70 Chinese Cities; Did the Pool of Greater Fools Run Out? Michael Shedlock
Why Europe is doomed, in 3 paragraphs Washington Post
Putin’s speech at the Valdai Club – full transcript Vineyard of the Saker (Scott)
Ukraine
Ukraine votes in snap elections BBC
Ukraine: Winter And Reigniting The War Moon of Alabama
Syraqistan
The Horror Before the Beheadings New York Times. Oversized headline on the front page. This sort of thing makes me expect military escalation is around the corner.
ISIS Affiliate Turns on Egypt: 26 Killed, 26 Injured Newsweek
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
U.S. weighs passport, border changes in wake of Ottawa attack Reuters (EM)
ALL THE NSA WILL SAY ABOUT ITS ALARMINGLY ENTREPRENEURIAL TOP SPY IS THAT SHE’S RESIGNING Intercept
Let the Democrats Rot Counterpunch
Northrop must face whistleblower anti-missile lawsuit: U.S. judge Reuters (EM)
Ex-Pentagon Janitor Writes Tell-All Book Roasting Leon Panetta Duffelblog
Where Hucksters Rule Counterpunch
The Democratic Embrace of Al Sharpton Wall Street Journal. The fact that ANYONE is willing to appear on a stage with Al Sharpton is a sign of how far American has fallen. A serious leftie buddy is planning to vote Republican over this.
Another 150,000 Detroit Residents Are About To Become Homeless Under GOP Governor’s Emergency Manager Addicting Info (Susan M)
Obama set to visit Detroit area Nov. 1 Detroit News. Susan M: “And Obama? Well, he’s due to visit on Dia de los muertos AFTER the blight bundle is sold.”
Saying No to a Party New York Times
North Carolina Fights To Take Voting Site Away From Pesky College Kids Bill Moyers (furzy mouse)
Combating a Flood of Early 401(k) Withdrawals New York Times (JCC)
Law Lets I.R.S. Seize Accounts on Suspicion, No Crime Required New York Times (Scott)
Shareholders, Disarmed by a Delaware Court Gretchen Morgenson, New York Times. Aieee!
Deutsche Bank lawyer found dead by suicide in New York Reuters (TF)
How Mainstream Economic Thinking Imperils America YouTube (martha r). Jeff Madrick on his new book, Seven Bad Ideas: How Mainstream Economists Have Damaged America and the World, followed by a panel. While the talk is informative, NC readers are likely to be frustrated with how, um, judicious Madrick is in his criticisms.
Class Warfare
The class warfare of Halloween Cathy O’Neil. Lordie.
The Zombie System: How Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails Der Spiegel (Jeff J). Would’t call this splits among the elite. More like cracks starting at the edge.
Antidote du jour (Lambert):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
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Ebola Quarantine-does that extend to the staff taking care of the doctor at Bellevue? I agree the NJ response to the returning nurse was way way over the top but if she doesn’t get Ebola she should count her blessings as well.
The first word that pops up in my mind when I read almost anything is “effective”.
Thermometers as a screening tool for a virus that has an incubation time range of between 2 days and 21 days is a very bad joke. Even the “standard” blood test they use has a lower threshold where it is not accurate. I read one lab researcher mention he somehow “cultures” his samples and finds previously invisible populations of virus appear.
The 8 cop cars with sirens blaring taking the Ebola Terrorist Nurse to the hospital is a real hoot, as long as it doesn’t happen to you. Yes, I get it. But we are talking about nipping a possible pandemic at the nub in this country. Sure the people trying to help in Africa are admirable.
But then we are back to that word “effective” again.
I watched a clip of the President’s Saturday talk yesterday on NewsHour. It was weird. It seem to be speeded up, computer-generated imagery, rather than a person talking. Perhaps it was his attempt to portray calmness and resolve in a collapsing world.
To avoid the low risk of establishing a high risk Ebola hot spot from an infected person entering the USA a mandatory quarantine is necessary. Humans being human in a voluntary system will go ride subways, bowl or eat out; anything, except staying in a room all by themselves for 21 days. A volunteer system assumes there is zero risk if no fever, self-reporting, and no risky behavior. As long as the epidemic persists, if exposed persons are not quarantined when leaving a hot zone, someone, somewhere, will come in contact with the bodily fluids of a contagious person. But, rather than make this risk zero, globalization requires free travel, open markets and risk. Who will prevail, the state governors or the neo-liberals?
If there are more Ebola cases in the USA, centers will have to be set up to hold exposed individuals and families for the 21 day waiting period. They will have to be isolated, secure, easy to disinfect, and within ground transportation of the four biohazard hospitals. When the troops come back home from West Africa, they will be placed in barbed-wire circled barracks out in the boonies to stare at each other and police up grounds; waiting to see if anyone gets sick, for three weeks, before going home.
They could speed up the 21 day waiting time by doing a blood test.
The only open question is what kind of blood test procedure is accurate enough. There are about 700 clinical trials on Ebola being “meta-studied” by I think it was John Hopkins. I only read one so far that determined that 1 – 10 organisms delivered by a lab aerosol delivery method did infect a monkey thru the respiratory system.
So that implies a very low level exposure can resist the immune system and the infection grows.
It’s very possible that a safe waiting period can be determined and any infection will have grown to sufficient population, so that when doing the blood test you are close to 100% certainty of its accuracy.
The reason I know these things is I happen to be a Master Home Brewer of Exceptionally Fine Craft Beers, and we do that with yeast cultures for our fermentation containers all the time. It’s exponential growth, and we size our yeast starter to fully populate the fermenter in 4 hours. The yeast needs to “crowd out” any non-pathogenic germs that may have got past sanitation procedures. No pathogens have grown in beer for at least 5000 years, but there are plenty of germs that will make it smell and taste like an old pair of gym socks.
Now that it sounds like they will be sending thousands and thousands of people to W. Africa, they had better work out an exit procedure. Blood tests somewhere safe in W. Africa may be the answer, but we have plenty of people capable of working out the logistics, I’m sure.
Since it now looks like the doc in NY has the virus, it will be interesting to see another example of the effectiveness of the American medical system, focused on profit and trying to cut cost by the typical 10% this year again instead of making sure that all the prudent bases are covered.
When or are people going to wake up and remember the purpose of government, not to service the rich and their banks and corporations but the rest of us?
Even worse than this suggests. The Japanese have basically told the US in uncharacteristically blunt terms that the US has to negotiate, not bully, and the USTR is not getting the message.
Our next target for regime change.
~
I don’t agree with everything in Putin’s address (linked above), but he is demanding negotiations and a polycentric world. Makes a body realize that the Iranians and their concerns about U.S. meddling have a point, too.
This is a real threat.
Just like klepto-capitalism only works if growth, empire only works if you can vanquish the opposition and main unilateral control. The UN has been a stage for kabuki relative to global power machinations but the real power moves are made elsewhere.
And now they are being challenged. While Putin is the lead, please note that he has powerful friends.
Do the world leaders love their children? (given Fukushima, one wonders about some). If we don’t migrate to nuclear war then negotiation must ensue and the US empire as the face of the global plutocrats will fall.
It would be good for humanity if that were to occur, IMO.
In case foreign opposition fails to stop the TPP, it would be nice to have some more U.S. legislators who oppose it. See these URLs about Green Party members and the TPP around the U.S.:
National:
http://www.gp.org/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/details/4/656.html
Illinois:
http://www.wadeincongress.org/join_me_to_stop_the_tpp_feb_1
Florida:
http://www.browardgreenparty.org/?p=42
Michigan:
https://secure.gpus.org/secure/GreenPartyForum/showthread.php?tid=577
Colorado:
http://denvergreenparty.org/tpp-a-gift-to-the-oil-and-gas-industry/
There are plenty more; just do a web search for:
TPP “Green Party”
Meanwhile in S.C.
http://m.washingtonpost.com/politics/what-if-they-held-an-election-and-nobody-campaigned/2014/10/25/33341812-5a24-11e4-b812-38518ae74c67_story.html
Among other reasons to euthanize the Democratic Party is that they have given up on an entire region of the country–the one I live in. That may be an exaggeration but only somewhat so. The reason is probably that to succeed here they’d have to embrace the sort of New Deal populism that they now try to undermine. This is, after all, one of the poorest parts of the country (not so much S.C.) and those poor people–not so dumb as many think–can spot insincerity on economic issues a mile away. You can’t beat something with nothing.
Up until 2 cycles ago our House seat was held for 9 terms by a Democrat. This year they didn’t even field a candidate. Yeah, they’re that dumb.
Well, firing Howard Dean after the 2008 election didn’t help. The Democrats are run by the kind of people who came up with ideas like the executive parking lot.
black illinois senator carol braun was elected by accident. The democratic machine had their incumbent in place and those who were working her campaign in the last few weeks before the primary were going thru the motions…already talking about which campaign they were going to go to next…even her african prince dude had no real interest in trying to win…but a front page piece in the chicago reader (wonder how that happened), a fumbled word or two by the incumbent (wonder how that could have made the papers) and a lunatic volunteer on the phones (since no one could be even bothered to pick up the phone when people were calling) somehow talked a few hundred woman into bringing down checks to the downtown office to buy signs to put on their lawns (no one had ever “asked” for someone to pay for the privilege of signage, especially on a “dead” campaign)…and POOF she won…like magic…or more like actually working… more often than not in life one needs to keep falling forward. The more one finds resistance, the more likely, the other side is weaker than one expected. How many americans died in europe fighting world war one ? On election night, 1916, former supreme court justice Hughes and most of the country, expected he had won the election…but overnight (must have been field marshal Karl roves great uncle), questions arose as to the actual vote results in California, and magically, Wilson ends up winning by a few thousand votes…and then keeps his presidency…What you do and don’t do matters.
In the twelve months after that election…
Nov-30= Austrian emperor Franz Joseph dies
Dec 15= Verdun’s death tally reaches 700 thousand
Dec 30= Raz Putin, the hypnotist is accidented
Jan 9= Russian armaments factory workers strike amid food distribution problems in russia
Jan 16= Germans attempt secret treaty with Mexico to open a front against the US
Feb 26= Germany and US break ties, Germany declares total submarine warfare
Mar 12=Czar orders Duma to disband, they refuse, and his basic troops refuse orders to fire on serfs
Mar 16= Czar forced to abdicate by fellow nobles
Apr 6= Congress votes for war in Europe
Apr 10= Lenin is sent to Russia by Germans who drag him off the bar stool…he had not been in Russia for over 10 years and had no real support
Apr 20= French failure at Soissons
May 18= US Selective Service is born- Volunteering for war is abolished in America
June 16= First Congress of Soviets held…by controlling the media/propoganda portion, Lenins brothers old revolutionaries are able to push him forward as the NEW “fearlessleader” (like the entebe failures created ‘bobo frikin-yahoo’ in Israel today)
June 27=Pershing arrives with american doughboys
July 8= Wilson issues “Controls” proclamation- taking full control of all items in the US to Insure they do not get into german hands
July 20= Kerensky takes over for Lvov as Russian Prime Minister
Aug 29= Wilson rebuffs Pope Benedict in ignoring pleas for peace with Germany. The peacemonster in Europe spreads as the presence of Doughboys creates fear among the old monarchs and nobles still in power in europe who rightfully fear losing their controls over their subjects by the presence of these freebirds
Sept 17= Germans take Riga as Lenin creates strife within Russia to please his patrons, the Kaiser, etc
Oct 27= Doughboys start to engage in the war & their willingness to die fighting strikes fear in germans
Nov 7= Lenin bribes a few dozen Petrograd military and police officers to let him claim victory and…
Nov 21= The Hindenburg line is broken
Nov 30= Dandy Col. Dougie MacArthur shows up with his “rainbow” division in europe
and so my fellow netizens, ask not who you can do for your country, ask who your country can do for you…
Some interesting thoughts on Eichmann in Jerusalem from Corey Robin today:
Dayenu in Reverse: The Passover Cannon of Ardent’s Critics
read that earlier in the day.
It appears my speculative Magic-8 Ball of horrifying events is fully functional. Hoo boy!
RE: ISIS Affiliate Turns on Egypt: 26 Killed, 26 Injured
The Muslim Brotherhood has probably suffered a massive loss of prestige since being overthrown by a military coup. This event sealed the failure of the Arab Spring to enact nominal political reforms in that region of the world. The cumulative effect of these events could’ve easily attracted more people to ABM and widened the recruitment base for both ABM and the Islamic State in Egypt. Considering Egypt has a history of Islamist insurrection that also includes the assassination of a head of state (Sadat) Sisi is undoubtedly worried and is taking this attack very seriously.
The Sharpton article’s comment thread is one happy whirling pinwheel of joyful multiculturalism.
What a delicious fantasy it is to imagine the author’s scathing pen-lashing moral-outrage treatment inflicted on corporate malfeasants instead of liberal education, single motherhood and rape suvivors http://www.nationalreview.com/author/heather-mac-donald
Sharpton’s always struck me as somewhat on the bafoonish side, an eye-rolling irritant within the black community, and something of an also-ran. If we’re going to get harrumphish over unpaid back-taxes then surely we can extend our outrage to the more corpulent sea-creatures as well as the middling ones?
However, If indeed he led groups of protestors to arson and murder, well that is something horrible and he ought to be roundly condemned for it. Whyever was he not charged for incitement?
Sharpton is what he had always been: a self-promoting huckster. The mainstream Democrats have now adopted him as their house-negro-renegade, which allows them to ignore principled renegades like Cornell West and the Black Agenda Report. I’ve seen reports that the young people in Ferguson and elsewhere are rejecting phonies like Sharpton.
For years I’ve been expecting Fox News to pair up Hannity with Sharpton, Sharpton being the “liberal” co-anchor for the fair and balanced news commentary show.
For a good ten years the only TV station that would have him on was Fox. He would have been forgotten, if not for them. Rupert strikes again.
Even sharpton is even too smart for Hannity. Height competition among midgets. Sharpton doesn’t take punches well, he fights back, and that’s not the role of a librul on fox.
I suspect that Sharpton is an “asset”. When you consider his outrageous actions in the Tawana Brawley case and Freddie’s Fashion Mart, the TPTB couldn’t have a better tool furthering the divide between black america and the white bourgeoisie, the gap which MLK made some progress in closing in the 60’s.
As referenced above, that’s why Fox kept putting him on the air. Who was the best-est buddy of the mullahs in Iran? John “bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb iran” McCain.
Perhaps Sharpton enjoys a measure of Black Privilege?
The Zombie System: How Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails: Der Spiegel
Some choice quotes
———————————
Be it in Japan, Europe or the United States, companies are hardly investing in new machinery or factories anymore. Instead, prices are exploding on the global stock, real estate and bond markets, a dangerous boom driven by cheap money, not by sustainable growth. Experts with the Bank for International Settlements have already identified “worrisome signs” of an impending crash in many areas. In addition to creating new risks, the West’s crisis policy is also exacerbating conflicts in the industrialized nations themselves. While workers’ wages are stagnating and traditional savings accounts are yielding almost nothing, the wealthier classes — those that derive most of their income by allowing their money to work for them — are profiting handsomely.
According to the latest Global Wealth Report by the Boston Consulting Group, worldwide private wealth grew by about 15 percent last year, almost twice as fast as in the 12 months previous.
The data expose a dangerous malfunction in capitalism’s engine room. Banks, mutual funds and investment firms used to ensure that citizens’ savings were transformed into technical advances, growth and new jobs. Today they organize the redistribution of social wealth from the bottom to the top. The middle class has also been negatively affected: For years, many average earners have seen their prosperity shrinking instead of growing.
————————————
In this sense, the crisis of capitalism has turned into a crisis of democracy. Many feel that their countries are no longer being governed by parliaments and legislatures, but by bank lobbyists, which apply the logic of suicide bombers to secure their privileges: Either they are rescued or they drag the entire sector to its death.
———————————–
But when Mayo, a lending expert, worked for well-known players like UBS and Prudential Securities, he quickly learned that the glittering facades of the American financial industry concealed an abyss of lies and corruption. Mayo met people who recommended buying shares in technology companies in which they themselves held stakes. He saw how top executives diverted funds into their own pockets during mergers. And he met a bank director who only merged his bank with a lender in Florida because he liked boating in the Keys.
What bothered Mayo most of all was that his employers penalized him for doing his job: writing critical analyses of banks. He lost his job at Lehman Brothers because he had downgraded a financial institution with which the Lehman investment department wanted to do business. Credit Suisse fired him because he recommended selling most US bank stocks.
————————————-
In Europe, however, this process has dragged on for years, under pressure from the financial lobby. The condition of the industry is now so dismal that experts are using metaphors from the world of horror films to describe it. “Zombie banks” are those that are being kept alive artificially with government bailouts and, like the zombies in Hollywood films, are wreaking havoc throughout Europe. They are too sick to lend money to the real economy but healthy enough to speculate with financial investments. Many banks today, says Bonn economist Martin Hellwig, can only “survive in the market by speculating.”
What distinguishes the current situation from the wild years before the financial crisis is that speculators were once driven by greed but have since turned into speculators motivated by need.
—————————
From the Zombie system;
“…on the verge of losing: the ability to allow as many layers of society as possible to benefit from economic advancement and participate in political life.”
Gosh! that sounds a lot like a pyramid scheme doesn’t it.
Its sort of like a food pyramid. And the country is eating lots of fats, oils and sweets from the top of the pyramid while studiously avoiding the breads, rice, cereals and pastas, and not even getting enough of… Anything thats not fats oils and sweets.
Is it any wonder the country is sick? All we eat is financial candy.
Mass – Besides totally missing the point you are very wrong on your food consumption analysis.
Sorry ^_^
So theyre like people with medical gambling addiction who keep trying to gamble telling themselves they can fix their gambling/financial problems by gambling and winning.
. . .speculate with financial investments.
I mean, really? This is how they survive? It is always worse than one imagines.
And to think that these people earn in a year what most earn in a lifetime.
Capitalism, the amassing of large amounts of capital in private hands, which then invests it in an expanding enterprise for a return, was invented to finance the industrial revolution. It is a terrible system for handling times of contraction and impoverishment, it was not designed for that and in such period it shows all its flaws and none of its advantages. As the world runs into peak resources and its population shrinks to a more sustainable level, the world is entering a long period of economic contraction.
I would add:
“Top bank executives are once again making as much as they did before the crisis, even though the government had to bail out a large share of banks. The biggest major banks did not shrink, as was intended, but instead have become even larger.”
Does art imitate reality – I see they making “Dumb and Dumber II” ???
Speaking of terms……..
Shouldn’t we be calling the banks and their owner vampires instead of zombies?
I think the unenlightened public are the zombies.
A gem of an NC link today. Nothing left unsaid in this piece in Counterpunch by Rob Urie: “Let the Democrats Rot” (subtitled “Neo-liberals be damned)
Anyone who has an interest or missed the URL to the above article which describes that dressing is the only real difference in right and left politician for the most part.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/10/24/let-the-democrats-rot/
Important except no mention of the blind, religious belief in technology as our savior. No need to question or regulate something with that kind of status right?
“Piercing the Technology Bubble”
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/10/25/piercing-technology-bubble
“This weekend, October 25 and 26, I will be joining leading critics, from the United States and abroad, of corporate-controlled technologies, who are also proponents of appropriate technologies for the people (Vandana Shiva, Anuradha Mittal, Helen Caldicott, Wes Jackson, Bill McKibben), convening at the historic Cooper Union Great Hall on “Techno-Utopianism and the Fate of the Earth”.”
“A major part of the Cooper Union conference on “Techno-Utopianism and the Fate of the Earth” will relate to what Mr. Mander calls “Which Way Out? Ingredients of Change.” Interestingly, there is no panel or topic focusing on the fundamental reality that there is no ethical or legal framework within which these technologies must operate. Consider GMO seeds, nanotechnology, weaponized drones, synthetic biology, medical robotics, weapons systems, surveillance devices and more! Where is the regulatory law? Where is the civic discussion of what these “machines” and technology portend for our societal and moral values?”
Some technology is extremely useful, such as refrigeration, the telegraph, and, of course, the wheel. This all reminds me of chapter 4 in Ha-Joon Chang’s book 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism. That chapter is entitled “The washing machine has changed the world more than the internet has”.
Whoa! Thanks for the link Vatch. I have not seen that one (that alone is astonishing to me) and it looks to be along the lines of what I understand.
“The washing machine has changed the world more than the internet has”.
As an aside I have had better luck surfing the launder mats than surfing the internet…0_- (thats my attempt at a wink).
Or the Pill. Must not forget that. Changed the course of human history, and will continue to do so, until its technology becomes unsustainable due to collapse of the global economy….or the complete takeover by religious fanatics of the reins of power.
Regarding your comment, I personally know several former Democrats who now virulently hate the Party and its Leader. I have been of some help in allowing them to see the truth of things honestly, but still it’s nice to know that I’ve made a dent in the number of delusional people in the world.
Putin, holy crap. Can you imagine any American political asshole coming out with something that rational? Inconceivable. They would choke on the words.
“See? A wolf!”
“Ooh! Do a bunny! Do a bunny!”
Re antidote, of course.
My take was; “Ooooh! I really do need to see a therapist!”
“This sort of thing makes me expect military escalation is around the corner.” Unlike me. With me its the manifest incompetence and complacency about Ebola that makes me expect that military escalation is around the corner. Distraction, eh?
Re. Mathbabes’ piece on Halloween;
I too kept trick-or-treating well into my teens. We, being rowdy boys, would, alas, get chased around by the cops a bit. The class consciousness part of this Americanized version of the Saturnalia has always been around, just not so prominently. I well remember being run out of a certain part of town by the police for being “disruptive and obnoxious.” We weren’t being lewd or destructive, just, sarcastic. (Making fun of people who tell you to get out of “our respectable neighbourhood” is not appreciated.) The little kids were far and away the coolest part of the experience. “Are you really a monster?” from one little girl got me to take the mask off and assure her. Once they got the game, the little kids ‘played’ the best. “I’m going to blast you with my magic wand!” Then you clutch your chest and die gruesomely. This, by the way, was in the good old days when kids could, and were encouraged to, trick-or-treat in little groups by themselves. Community insured their safety. Being bigger kids, we saw that in action. Some oldster would come over and check us out. If we were a known quantity, things went smoothly. If not so well known, references were exchanged. “I’m Lesters kid brother” did the trick one year. It’s a long winded way of getting to the point, but, the older society model had ‘soft power’ methods of insuring safety and freedom. Today, fear has been ‘leveraged’ to replace local organic norms with harsher and more predatory norms imposed from without. I wonder if we’ll ever get back to Vincente Minellis fabulous Halloween in “Meet Me in St. Louis?”
Thanks for this Ambrit- sometimes I think my own memories & experience is just some redacted fantasy, that never was. Nice to know if delusion it is, is shared by others.
Trick or treating alone one year (canyou IMAGINE) a ‘gang’ of teens adopted me as their little sister. Sure, probably got them some acceptable cover, but they escorted me back home safely with my bag of sweet loot.
RIP, Jack Bruce, the legendary voice of Cream. Your hauntingly powerful voice will forever give me goosebumps:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkae0-TgrRU
http://www.beeldengeluidwiki.nl/index.php/Bestand:FTA001009845_007_con.png
Let’s not forget the bass & guitar lines for “Sunshine of Your Love”, either.
He also collaborated with Robin Trower on the excellent Bridge of Sighs and other albums.
Worth checking out if you’re into the whole blues rock thing.
i saw him with john mayall’s blues breakers, fox theater…i’ll never forget it. he started out in jazz…those must’ve the dayz. in the middle of a show, geeked up ginger baker jumped off drums and plummeted jack in the face…now that’s live.
I.R.S. seizing accounts…
Cops seizing cars and other possessions on drug suspicion stops…and smartphones with pictures….
Red light traffic camera revenues…
Litigation awards (billion dollar fines on banksters, tobacco companies)….When it clearly states on all filings that the cases are being brought on behalf of the people (the plaintiff)…
Where does the money go?
Shouldn’t the money be given back to the PEOPLE?
How did it come to be that the servant now says to the masters, the People, “I know how best to spend your money so it will trickle down to you?????”
“At the end, people break up long term relationships over money. Here, the people simply want the money that belongs to the people…keep the marriage. But everything is about money – it’s what makes the world go around.”
“By the way, the Constitution authorizes Congress to make (create, produce, manufacture) laws. But the laws ownership doesn’t belong to the government. Similarly, the Constitution authorizes Congress to coin and regulate its supply. Coining doesn’t imply ownership here. And that money does not belong to government. That money belongs to the People.”
The government is a household. QED.
That’s how I see it.
In practice, it is also implied, as the government has acted as such , since the founding, that it has to budget spending and fund it with taxation. That has been the understanding…because coining money doesn’t mean ownership.
“We authorize you to sue big banks, in our name, but any monetary award belongs to us, the people.”
Too often, the government commingles the people’s money with its.
Hmmm. If you knivw a household that can issue currency, I’d like to meet them.
QED, forsooth.
“Putin’s speech at the Valdai Club – full transcript Vineyard of the Saker (Scott)”‘
My, my. My first thought was it must be fake – it’s written in English.
Then, a speech writer wrote that, Putin is just reading it.
But whoever wrote it, they sound like the first rational, intelligent, knowledgeable and in command of the facts, world statesman I’ve heard in a long time.
We could just print across the top “The Anti-NeoLibCon Manifesto” and hand it to Congress as a homework assignment to work on.
I have watched a number of subtitled videos of Putin’s speeches, as well as some totally unscripted press interviews (quite lengthy, I might add). I’ve watched some of Lavrov’s speeches as well. IMHO, both gentlemen represent the finest in what used to be known as “statesmanship.” Both have a complete grasp of the issues and can speak to them off the cuff – no teleprompters necessary. I’ve not seen anything like this in our U.S. politicians in a long time; it has made the Russians a joy to watch. The differences in what we see here in the U.S. in terms of our politicians relative to the Russians is stunning.
I agree.
I never in my life thought there would come a time when I thought a Russian leader was more RATIONAL and coherent than….well, than EVERY major American politician.
Now whether Putin actually is … is another question. But when any critical question is put (on the rare occasions American politicians subject themselves to scrutiny) one only gets either irrationality (Graham, McCain) or deflection (State and Pentagon spokespersons).
Must be some mistake, it didn’t have the phrase “I’m going to shirtfront him” in there…oh wait that would be the Australian PM’s speech…sigh.
The Anti-NeoLibCon Manfiesto – Excellent! Reading the exact words from Putin’s lips rather than the MSM bastardized version of what they think he says and does makes such a difference. Finally someone speaking deeply and thoughtfully on matters, not with just glib throwaway sound bites, and with an anti-confrontational stance.
Putin and Lavrov are making much more sense than anyone else at the moment. Paul Craig Roberts said of Putin’s speech: “No one can read Putin’s remarks without concluding that Putin is the leader of the world.”
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/10/25/vladimir-putin-leader-moral-world-paul-craig-roberts/
Maybe the world is starting to turn…but unfortunately not sure its going to turn in time
Time to worry when they start calling Putin the leader of the FREE world. hahaha.
RE: “No one can read Putin’s remarks without concluding that Putin is the leader of the world.”
Sorry but that’s simply not true. (Have a look, for example, at the recent file of Al Jazeera’s “Inside Story” program and see the recent one with three guests discussing “Will Elections Fix Ukraine’s Problems?” [ http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestory/2014/10/ukraine-elections-2014102419572262160.html ]
Well, (LOL), it’s official then. I’m “no one.” I have long suspected this.
I never know what I’m going to learn here at Naked Capitalism. Today, we learn from the Antidote that cats are vulnerable to lycanthropy. That’s right, cats can turn into werewolves!
Let’s hope they can’t turn into vampire squids!
Could the editors please lower-case all-but-lead-chars-of-title-and-proper-names in future for Intercept and Helmer (and any other such) links? The linked articles are often good, BUT THE SHOUTING IS GETTING BLOODY ANNOYING. Thank you.
[Highlight-text and ctrl-l (or ctrl-k) works in many editors, but YMMV]
A comment about this site. GREAT!! However I strenuously object to citing subscription-only content such as the Financial Times or Wall Street Journal. Please stop doing that.
paywalls are simple to get around, of course it takes the effort to rearrange the headline and typing.
upon entering someone’s home, do you militantly bark off orders for them to rearrange their furniture to fit your ‘exceptional’ ego?
click the cute kittens at the top right of the page, make a LARGE donation and all will be forgiven…THIS TIME.
LOL!
Good for you Aby! Somebody has to educate the newbies.
Re: Detroit. Here’s a more comprehensive version of the Detroit eviction story: http://www.businessinsider.com/detroit-foreclosures-may-evict-150000-people-2014-10… it really qualifies to go under the Class Warfare header.
Can someone give me an example of another country that destroyed its infrastructure like the US is doing?
And its population along with it?
First they came for Detroit and I said nothing………..
Today, Britain and France come to mind for starters– with Britain by far the prototype example ahead of France. Currently, I think that Britain may be significantly ahead of the U.S. in self-desrtuction but that could change. The two nations (that is, Britain and the U.S.) do so much alike that is so nearly incredibly stupid that it’s often very hard to distinguish one from the other. France–despite its revolutions and anticlerical philosophers, didn’t esablish a church like the (protestant) Church of England to counter Rome’s authority— was never so much a nation after the form of Weber’s Protestant Ethic in the Spirit of Capitalism but, despite this, it does a fair job of aping the worst of what is the self-descructive insanity of Anglo-American style cut-throat captialism.
And get this: (yet to be revealed) ONE BUYER http://www.businessweek.com/…/buying-derelict-detroit…
From the article: “When Szymanski joined the treasurer’s office four years ago, he called the treasurer of Cuyahoga County in Ohio to compare notes. His counterpart, whose domain includes Cleveland and was a bellwether during the housing crisis, asked: “Are you sitting down? We are foreclosing on 4,500 properties.” Szymanski says he replied: “I hope you’re laying down.” At the time, Wayne County had 42,000 properties in foreclosure.”
Pretty damned close to home. (Carla and I live in Cuyahoga County – ground zero for the foreclosure crisis.) Wait. I know, hang a chandelier and build a bridge to the breakwall on the inner harbor and call it “the lakefront.” Give Public Square a makeover. You know what? To hell with selling tax liens to private equity investors (your brother’s pension fund), sell the whole lot to PE in one fell swoop. Click through to see the video interview with Dan Gilbert (Quicken Loans, Cavs, Casino owner – Detroit and Cleveland BIG footprint). This is the sort of wheeling and dealing we can expect here in Cleveland. As the raze and rebuild craze continues on its misguided way… Moving Ohio Forward. (Moving Ohio Forward is our AG’s name for the “big” settlement. They spent much of it on razing blight and tossed in a few loan mods if you knew where to look.)
OK, but that quote paints a broad stroke with an uneven brush such that it verges on free-association alienation rage poetics. And any time someone uses the word “ontology” I retch. It’s important to be a critical thinker, but there is crazy smart like the unabomer and true humble smart like Warren Mosler. That’s how it seems to me.
Detroit is a grim nasty business. God.
Gee, some one else woke up to the issues with over building housing and business structures in China. Shenzhen is just north of Hong Kong and one can travel out of Hong Kong to it by fast train or coach. Unfortunately, I did not know this and came in from Shanghai by plane. Great for the Delta mileage; but, it is a pain in the butt by air. I wrote about the over building of housing and malls in Shenzhen three years ago. The mall was fabulous and bigger than Woodfield, IL and completely empty.
Hangzhou is southeast of Shanghai and Ningbo is south of Shanghai. Much of the new construction going on around Shanghai in housing and commercial remains empty. Much of it is also not built to house the poor. As my one Chinese and female engineer mentioned, this construction is strictly for GDP. It was the first time I had seen her so out spoken on China politics.