Incredibly Chill Deer Alert Gawker (Chuck L)
Woman in Birmingham jailed after making ‘loud sex noises’ BBC. Chuck L: “If this has occurred in the States would her screams have been protected 1st Amendment speech?”
The growing appeal of popular uprisings in Africa Aljazeera
Hundreds missing as China ship sinks BBC
China’s Jobless Growth Miracle Project Syndicate
ECB Bond-Buying Increases Market Volatility, Says Regulatory Body Wall Street Journal
Germany dominance over as demographic crunch worsens Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Telegraph
Why this year’s general election was the most unfair in Britain’s history Independent (Chuck L)
Terror trial collapses after fears of deep embarrassment to security services Guardian. Chuck L: “I am shocked – shocked! – to see a semblance of the rule of law being applied in merry olde Orwellian England.”
Austrian banks and FX lending: tip-toeing authorities and households as carry traders (part 1) A Fistful Of Euros. This is wild.
Grexit?
Creditor powers convene emergency Berlin summit as Greek endgame approaches Telegraph
Creditors Prepare ‘Final’ Text of Greek Bailout Deal Wall Street Journal
Greek Leftists divided over country’s new envoy at IMF. (“In the long run we are all dead”) El Etos followed by Panaritis, Varoufakis Choice for IMF Job Rules Herself Out Greek Reporter
Greece’s creditors urge more intensity after mini-summit Guardian
That 1914 Feeling Paul Krugman. Um, this is what we’ve been warning about for months, except he misses (or omits) that the outtrade is over structural reforms, not the debt levels.
Varoufakis Outlines Plan for Greece’s Return to Market Borrowing – Greek Reporter
A story from the past shows why neocons are dangerous for the global peace and security unbalanced evolutoion
Syraqistan
Anti-IS coalition to discuss strategy at Paris meeting BBC
THE HIGH COST OF DEFEATING THE ISLAMIC STATE Foreign Policy
Iran’s Nuclear Stockpile Grows, Complicating Negotiations New York Times (furzy mouse)
Ukraine/Russia
PUTIN AND THE FIFA INDICTMENTS — WHY DID PUTIN SAY SO MUCH? John Helmer
Can an Exiled Georgian Rescue Ukraine? Bloomberg
Imperial Collapse Watch
This Is Why The Army Sent Anthrax To South Korea, Australia, and 11 States Defense One (furzy mouse)
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
The NSA can’t surveil Americans’ every phone call – at least for now Guaridan
Frustrated NSA Now Forced To Rely On Mass Surveillance Programs That Haven’t Come To Light Yet Onion (Chuck L)
TSA fails internal test, lets fake bombs through The Hill (Chuck L). FWIW, last time in an airport I forgot to remove my liquids and my bag went sailing through anyhow
Trade Traitors
Dagger aimed at the heart of democracy The Hill (Bob H)
Obama’s Trade Deal Faces Bipartisan Peril in the House New York Times. From yesterday, still germane.
Maude Barlow: Water, Free Trade Agreements (TTIP) and Activism Truthout
Australian MPs allowed to see top-secret trade deal text but can’t reveal contents for four years WinstonClose (Chuck L)
Why U.S. billionaires may not be able to buy the 2016 election Reuters (participant-observer-observed)
Banks Behind Hillary Clinton’s Canadian Speeches Really Want The Keystone Pipeline Huffington Post
Andrew Cuomo’s Administration Involved in Federal Corruption Probe of Real Estate Industry International Business Times
Missouri Reports Wide Racial Disparity in Traffic Stops New York Times
Appeals Court: KXL South Approval Legal, Lifts Cloud Over TransCanada Steve Horn. As Horn stresses, the logic of the decision was Orwellian.
Monetary policy and inequality Ben Bernanke. Bernanke attempts to deny that Fed policy post crisis increase inequality. Conveniently ignores that from the Volcker era onward, the Fed has been in the business of disciplining labor.
Class Warfare
Cultural Capital and meritocratic circularity Matt Bruenig
Robert Reich: Crony capitalism is crippling the economy Robert Reich, Salon (reslic)
The Academic Manifesto: From an Occupied to a Public University Springer (Gabriel U)
Price Tag on a Brooklyn Park Reaches $225 Million, and That’s Only the Beginning New York Times (Chuck L)
Antidote du jour. From Acadia National Park in Maine:
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
81 comments
Comments are closed.
Found this…
Study links credit default swaps, mortgage delinquencies
Study links credit default swaps, mortgage delinquencies
May 25, 2015
Researchers at The University of Texas at Dallas recently published the first empirical investigation connecting credit default swaps to mortgage defaults that helped lead to the 2007-2008 financial crisis.
The study, authored by finance and managerial economics professor Dr. Harold H. Zhang and associate professor Dr. Feng Zhao, was published in the April issue of the Journal of Finance.
The researchers found that the presence of credit default swaps further stimulated the strong demand for mortgage-backed securities, which led to lax lending standards in the mortgage origination market and encouraged predatory lending and borrowing practices. Lenders increasingly offered subprime mortgages, which inevitably drove much higher mortgage default rates.
“There are many media reports that to some extent link the financial crisis to the housing market crash, and subsequently, research has confirmed that,” Zhang said. “One of the issues that people have paid particular attention to is the role played by derivative securities, and in this case, credit default swaps.”
A credit default swap (CDS), in essence, acts as an insurance policy, Zhang said. When investors buy mortgage-backed securities, a CDS provides protection to the investor in case the borrower defaults on the loan.
The researchers found a direct effect between credit default swaps and higher loan default rates.
Poor quality loans were originated by lenders, and then were repackaged, securitized and sold to investors. The loans were no longer on the lenders’ books, so they had less incentive to monitor the borrowers. The investors relied on their insurance policy—the CDS—and also neglected to monitor the borrowers.
“That’s how the credit default swaps created more hazard issues and actually exacerbated the financial crisis, because it encouraged origination of poor quality loans,” Zhang said.
But CDS coverage can be a good thing with the right oversight, he said.
“It protects investors,” Zhang said. “It helps reduce the cost of financing for financial institutions, and it increases the efficiency of funds. That’s always the advantage of securitization, but we should also be aware that there is this potential downside.”
For the study, the researchers collaborated with global asset management firm TCW to investigate more than 9 million privately securitized subprime mortgages originated between 2003 and 2007.
Researchers at The University of Texas at Dallas recently published the first empirical investigation connecting credit default swaps to mortgage defaults that helped lead to the 2007-2008 financial crisis.
The study, authored by finance and managerial economics professor Dr. Harold H. Zhang and associate professor Dr. Feng Zhao, was published in the April issue of the Journal of Finance.
The researchers found that the presence of credit default swaps further stimulated the strong demand for mortgage-backed securities, which led to lax lending standards in the mortgage origination market and encouraged predatory lending and borrowing practices. Lenders increasingly offered subprime mortgages, which inevitably drove much higher mortgage default rates.
“There are many media reports that to some extent link the financial crisis to the housing market crash, and subsequently, research has confirmed that,” Zhang said. “One of the issues that people have paid particular attention to is the role played by derivative securities, and in this case, credit default swaps.”
A credit default swap (CDS), in essence, acts as an insurance policy, Zhang said. When investors buy mortgage-backed securities, a CDS provides protection to the investor in case the borrower defaults on the loan.
The researchers found a direct effect between credit default swaps and higher loan default rates.
Poor quality loans were originated by lenders, and then were repackaged, securitized and sold to investors. The loans were no longer on the lenders’ books, so they had less incentive to monitor the borrowers. The investors relied on their insurance policy—the CDS—and also neglected to monitor the borrowers.
“That’s how the credit default swaps created more hazard issues and actually exacerbated the financial crisis, because it encouraged origination of poor quality loans,” Zhang said.
But CDS coverage can be a good thing with the right oversight, he said.
“It protects investors,” Zhang said. “It helps reduce the cost of financing for financial institutions, and it increases the efficiency of funds. That’s always the advantage of securitization, but we should also be aware that there is this potential downside.”
For the study, the researchers collaborated with global asset management firm TCW to investigate more than 9 million privately securitized subprime mortgages originated between 2003 and 2007. – snip
http://phys.org/news/2015-05-links-credit-default-swaps-mortgage.html
Skippy…. Born was right…. was it just as simple as misogamist boys cracking a fat over some gal to big for her pants suit? – sigh….
This is insane. Pellet mills are clear cutting the Southeast so that Europeans can switch from coal and feel better about climate change. The mills are supposed to only use wood waste but are cutting whole trees and removing hardwood forests in favor of softwood tree farms.
http://m.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/how-europes-climate-policies-have-led-to-more-trees-cut-down-in-the-us/2015/06/01/ab1a2d9e-060e-11e5-bc72-f3e16bf50bb6_story.html
Perhaps one reason climate change skeptics continue to have traction is that the “free market solutions” proposed by neoliberals like Al Gore often turn out to be bunkum. Carbon trading comes to mind along with the ethanol boondoggle. Now add wood pellets.
But if it results in higher US housing prices, all is good in the end.
Our species deserves extinction, for the good of every other living thing on the planet…just sayin’
speak for yourself, thank you.
our extinction will cause the extinction of just about every other species bigger than a chestnut
Or, Our extermination of every other species will cause our own extinction.
So untrue, we will be just be a very interesting layer for the insect-evolved geologists of the future. “Apparently they rode around in vehicles that spewed poison, they added poisonous substances to their foodstuffs, their water supplies, and to their atmosphere, and eventually all of these poisons overwhelmed them”.
It could, I mean at a certain point the basic conditions to support life period on the planet don’t exist. Thinking the planet will be fine it’s just ourselves we have to worry about may be entirely too sanguine, we’re going to take life on earth with us. Although those forms of life that someone linked to here, that can endure temperature extremes, of floating through space and so on might make it.
to clarify my post, the conditions which we’ll create that will kill us will kill most other vertebrate species, too.
This didn’t just happen. Many countries such as Finland have always had wood as a large portion of their energy inputs and just burning the so called “waste” is not good either. Point being is we never “transition” away from any energy resource. We simply add new ones to the mix in order to grow.
The “garbage” fired generating plants are in the same position, they seriously need more garbage so hurry up and buy something and throw it out so you can have green energy.
O’Malley at Dartmouth Sunday night. I couldn’t go due to a scheduling conflict or else I could have added to what the article said.
“Woman in Birmingham jailed after making ‘loud sex noises’ BBC. Chuck L: “If this has occurred in the States would her screams have been protected 1st Amendment speech?””
Well, no. Only texting, Facebook pages and porn are protected under the 1st Amendment.
that’s the most british arrest ever.
the british will always be there to suppress anytime someone is enjoying something more than they think they should.
also, this: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/man-on-naked-bike-ride-gets-ejected-after-becoming-aroused-10288167.html
But there will be screams from London Tower.
Saltpeter tablets could make nude bike riding proper and respectable. The brits will work it out, I’m sure.
You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/politics-blog/11645354/Theresa-May-wants-to-ban-pleasure.html
Bernanke refuses to admit that the Fed is complicit in, and the prime enabler of, Congress’s dereliction of duty wrt fiscal policy. He did voice on several occasions that monetary policy could not solve all economic problems, but then resorted to ‘heroic’ and ‘unconventional’ monetary policy actions, as if it could. Thus, he relieved all pressure for Congress to act.
His excuse that Fed policy merely returned asset prices to pre-crisis levels is yet another exercise in bubble denialism, which he learned at the feet of Mr Magoo himself, Alan Greenspan.
Chairman Bernanke was a plutocrat poodle. He is now being handsomely rewarded for his loyalty. He should have the good taste and decency to STFU and collect his millions quietly, rather than trying to justify his actions with arguments that are as hollow as the bubbles the Fed compulsively blows.
And don’t forget fellow Carolinian. Helicopter Ben may have more gravitas than Lindsey but cut from the same cloth (“plutocrat poodle”).
However we did also give the world Steve Colbert and the great Stanley Donen, maker of Hollywood musicals.
Dillon, SC: one hopes that the Bernanke family’s humble abode on East Jefferson Street has been preserved, to serve as a future QE Museum.
It’s a little threadbare, no doubt. But so are hollowed-out, financialized economies that try to fake prosperity with QE.
and boiled peanuts!
Hard to find these days and definitely an acquired taste. I’m not even sure if people even still eat grits (I never liked them). We are being homogenized into the great American megalopolis.
you mean there’s not a boiled peanut stand in front of costco?
“number twelve looks just like you”
definitely an acquired taste
now this is what I’m talk’in about when it comes to acquired taste
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A1karl
Hákarl or kæstur hákarl (Icelandic pronunciation: [ˈhauːkʰardl̥]) (Icelandic for “shark”) is a national dish of Iceland consisting of a Greenland shark (Somniosus microcephalus) or other sleeper shark which has been cured with a particular fermentation process and hung to dry for four to five months. Hákarl is an acquired taste;[1] it has a very particular ammonia-rich smell and fishy taste.
Hákarl is served as part of a þorramatur, a selection of traditional Icelandic food served at þorrablót in midwinter. It is readily available in Icelandic stores and is eaten year round.
Rotten shark is chosen instead of fresh shark meat because the meat of the Greenland shark is poisonous when fresh,[2] due to a high content of urea and trimethylamine oxide, but may be consumed after being processed (see below). Allowing the shark to fully decay and cure removes retained uric acid from the flesh, making it edible.[3] It has a particular ammonia smell, similar to many cleaning products. It is often served in cubes on toothpicks. Those new to it will usually gag involuntarily on the first attempt to eat it because of the high ammonia content.[1] First-timers are sometimes advised to pinch their nose while taking the first bite, as the smell is much stronger than the taste. It is often eaten with a shot of the local spirit, a type of akvavit called brennivín. Eating hákarl is often associated with hardiness and strength.[4]
It comes in two varieties; chewy and reddish glerhákarl (lit. “glassy shark”) from the belly, and white and soft skyrhákarl (lit. “skyr shark”) from the body.
Preparation[edit]
Hákarl is traditionally prepared by gutting and beheading a Greenland or basking shark and placing it in a shallow hole dug in gravelly sand, with the now cleaned cavity resting on a small mound of sand. The shark is then covered with sand and gravel, and stones are placed on top of the sand in order to press the shark. In this way the fluids are pressed out of the body. The shark ferments in this fashion for 6–12 weeks depending on the season.
Following this curing period, the shark is then cut into strips and hung to dry for several months. During this drying period a brown crust will develop, which is removed prior to cutting the shark into small pieces and serving. The modern method is just to press the shark’s meat in a large drained plastic container
Saw that on one of Anthony Bourdain’s shows.
Soft cheese marinated in bo-peep. The thing is, with Black Death (Brennivín), the local liquor, it works. granted I have a pretty liberal notion of what constitutes food.
Conceptually I dig it. End of the road hungry people, trial and error, figure out if they drag a dead rotting shark up on to the beach bury it for a few months so the most toxic compound decompose , they can then hang it to allow the ammonia to dripout/degas …and then FINALLY eat it. Hákarl laughs in the face of Slow Food.
hakarl sounds delicious compared to a kiviak.
turning south, casu marzu sounds rather nasty but is probably not an acquired taste as such: it’s probably quite delicious but overcoming the psychological barrier is the hard part.
Last time I flew, I had a full-sized toothpaste tube in my carry-on. TSA lady looked at it, shrugged, and waved my through. On a slightly more concerning note, I also once took, inadvertantly, about three nice buck-knives with me to Nepal as gifts for friends. Again, had them in my carry-on. No one said anything about them until I got to HK, where the security guy just looked at me, shook his head, and handed me an envelope to put my offending blades in….
good old dayz…pre tsa i flew to the bahamas with a tarantula snuggled between my tshirt & my bra…he (fuz II) felt safe like that. my artist friend loved the gift…fuz was very photogenic. customs pulled me…it was bit dicey but i cleared. today would be soooo different…makes my palms sweat.
Tarantula in your bra?!? My respect level for you just went up dramatically…I’ve done some crazy sh*t in my day, but that blows all my shenanigans right out of the water!
i usually got my head in a book …its always the quiet ones ‘)
Jumping spider is keeping an eye (or 8) on you.
~
“pre TSA days…” That formulation says it all. I remember flying on Chalks (seaplanes) to Andros Island when a nipper. Landed on the roadstead just offshore and took a small boat to shore. I even remember when you could ask to sit in the navigators chair in the cockpit to watch the world rush towards you at 450 knots. (They let me do it too. Having the co-pilot explain the glide characteristics of a 727 to you while you’re flying in one is, no doubt the point of it all, very unnerving.)
The tarantula didn’t ask for asylum, did it?
The tarantula didn’t ask for asylum, did it? yes and i answered.
i better explain b4 a crowd gets this all wrong. a pet store opened in an alternative area of Atl. the store was upscale and had interesting species but somethings was off about it…i just couldn’t put my finger on it. didn’t take long for word to get around…the owner was using the animals as drug mules.
a bunch of us started buying the animals and finding homes or taking care of them…(we weren’t exactly in the best of position(s) to burn the owner). the location was only a few blocks from an atl precinct. deep pockets surrounded to whole affair…a ‘clean’ person w/connections was needed to pull the plug on the store. till then we did what we could and since id grown up with snakes and spiders for pets, i helped out in that area.
it was almost a year before the place was shut down…sad.
Chalks (seaplanes) to Andros
I remember they lost one of their Grumman Mallards in Ft Lauderdale due to a wing separation at the root on take-off due to a hidden stress corrosion cracks.
Spectacular tragedy.
Those Grumman Amphibians are cool planes, I used to spend time in a Widgeon, water landings look like a controlled crash from inside. The funny deal is once they are in the water the only way to maneuver them is by applying differential engine power, consequently any maneuvering results in speeding up (no brakes in water of course).
http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/AAR0704.aspx
I believe we took a Chalks’ Grumman Albatross. Landing was a hoot! Water spraying up and out everywhere. For a kid, it was big time fun. Then we got out and into the small boat and gazed into crystal clear water thirty feet deep. You could see everything gliding, creeping, and lazily swimming about.
A Widgeon! You must have nerves of steel.
oh god, just thinking about that makes my neck hair stand on end. spiders and i do not get along
Lindsey Graham/Rand Paul cage match–fire up the popcorn machine.
http://m.washingtonpost.com/politics/now-the-senates-biggest-feud-is-hitting-the-presidential-campaign-trail/2015/06/01/ba3de11a-0886-11e5-a7ad-b430fc1d3f5c_story.html
Graham at this point is more a creature of Washington than SC, and may not prevail in our early primary. He was practically unopposed by the moribund SC Dems in the last election.
Yah, I had’t realized how riddled your state was with ISIS cells until Lindsey made his announcement. I’m guessing Charleston looks a lot like Mosul these days.
You don’t know the half of it. New Orleans is referred to by Homeland Security now as Basra, LA.
Charleston looks like the Civil War never happened except for a honking big modern bridge to the nearby islands. Locals call it “the Holy City.” Supposedly Bill Murray now lives there part time because of the laid back atmosphere.
An interesting wrinkle to the above story is the suggestion that Lindsey is just running to block Rand Paul for Jeb. However I’m not sure Lindsey is such a lock for the early SC primary.
see you in frogmore!
AZ is really bad too. We’ve got what appear to be churches all over the place, but anyone with half a brain knows they are really mosques. But it’s easy to fool people ’cause they just go to church on Sundays. The Muslims aren’t there on Sundays! But you have to wonder want goes on in these churches the rest the week. Nothing good, I imagine.
But you have to wonder want goes on in these churches the rest the week
Drinking games?
You should see the “private” dressing rooms and bathrooms supplied to the ‘preachers’ in some of the megachurches. I have personally done work in one in Louisiana where the ‘pastors’ bathroom had a Jacuzzi whirlpool tub, a tiled walk in shower, and a steam sauna.
The movie “Marjoe” is quite good about the revival circuit.
HuffPo: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sent a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Mary Jo White on Tuesday, criticizing White’s leadership as “extremely disappointing,” and accusing the regulator of “misleading” her about a rule on CEO pay.
I’m wondering how long it will be before Warren is the victim of an unfortunate fatal accident.
Like Proxmire and Morse, she’ll become the butt of jokes and the object of lighthearted contempt. They don’t have to kill you when they can make you an object of derision.
wait till her 1972 essay on native american sexual technique comes out.
Or the Putin connection…
German dominance over…demographic crunch
What is he saying?
Germans should reproduce more…and hurry up, no time to lose?
Germans should not live too long?
That’s what it takes to maintain dominance?
The most popular baby name in England last year was: Mohammed, maybe some nice German bootlicking porn could inspire the Aryans into increasing their bedroom escapades…
In Australia when they were trying to boost the population they had a program “One for Mum, one for Dad, and one for Australia”
Depending on surveillance programs that have not come to light yet.
The cheapest (not that the government lacks money) and most effective surveillance is for the subjects to report themselves on social media websites.
In the same way, the cheapest and most effective propaganda is one in which people voluntarily crave for more brainwashing, to the point they can’t drop their subscriptions/contracts even if they hate them.
or post on blogs.
Provocative comment.
I am thinking it over, as I post….immortality, as these comments live forever in some gigantic database or remain silent.
Can an Exiled Georgian Rescue Ukraine?
Short answer: no.
The article is comical – a halfhearted attempt to put lipstick on a pig. Appointing this clown is a sign of ‘reform’? A non-Ukrainian wanted for corruption in his own country? What he does have going for him is he is a russia phobe and as Bloomberg puts it, ‘an irritant to the Kremlin’ . More importantly he is a darling to American neoconservative think tanks. He is also all in apparently for the use of excessive force against street protests – a talent he may have to exercise in the near future. Also in the plus column: his neoliberal reforms were so successful that now Georgia is on par, economically, with El Salvador and Swaziland. And in so doing, Bloomberg informs us, he ‘saved the country’. His countrymen were so happy with his performance, that 16% of them today would vote for his party.
Medvedev tweeted about the appointment that the ‘circus has come to town’. In fact, the circus just acquired a new clown.
This is the most pertinent paragraph from the article:
I trust that the NC commentariat does not require translation of why Misha’s show came to Odessa. Interesting too that the article mentioned transnistria and the breakaway republics in Georgia, but not a word on the very real separatism issues in Odessa Oblast and the ongoing SBU repressions against Russians, Bulgarians, and Gagauz. If Mishka’s (Ruskie speakers will get that) performance in Georgia is any indication, Odessa will become even more of a powder keg under his dopey tie-chewing leadership. Keep an eye on Bessarabia.
The fact that Misha has no power base in Odessa, no connections and probably doesn’t speak the language so well means he is guaranteed to fail, at least in his official mission.
You don’t need to be an expert on Odessa (which is kind of its own world) to figure out that.
Russian will suffice, and Mishka’s fluent in it. He is being set up to fail by exploding the ethnic powder keg in Odessa and Transnistria, and hopefully draw Russia into open warfare at last. Shame for Odessa, really, it’s such a beautiful, cosmopolitan city.
Woman in Birmingham jailed after making ‘loud sex noises’ BBC. Chuck L: “If this has occurred in the States would her screams have been protected 1st Amendment speech?”
No wonder why they don’t have a thriving movie industry there….or good delicatessens…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-bsf2x-aeE
Terror trial collapses after fears of deep embarrassment to security services Guardian. Chuck L: “I am shocked – shocked! – to see a semblance of the rule of law being applied in merry olde Orwellian England.”
“The prosecution of a Swedish national accused of terrorist activities in Syria has collapsed at the Old Bailey after it became clear Britain’s security and intelligence agencies would have been deeply embarrassed had a trial gone ahead, the Guardian can reveal.”
Embarrassment….
My deep cynicism and distrust of government comes from my experience working at NSA while I was in the Air Force, as well as a clerk after my enlistment at the IRS. The average person (and the average conservative won’t apply the same skepticism that he applies to government in general to the military or police) can’t fathom how many screw ups are left hidden, uncovered, and unexamined due to “embarrassment.”
One of our legal foundations is “equal justice under law” – the idea that what is good for the goose is good for the gander, and this helps to assure that laws are just if they are applied to everyone. Of course, it fails to work when every example of the law being misapplied to hidden…
The incognito of lower class employment is an effective cloak for any dagger one might wish to hide.” Margaret Cho (just say’n)
‘a clerk after my enlistment at the IRS’
The IRS service center in Fresno? The one I send payments to sometimes?
Don’t audit me, bro!
scraped off the signage on Sunday…
http://www.wheaton.edu/Media-Center/Media-Relations/Statements/Hastert-Statement
May 31, 2015
It is with sadness and shock that the Wheaton College community learned of the indictment by the U.S. Department of Justice of alumnus and former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives J. Dennis Hastert, and of his resignation from the Board of Advisors of the J. Dennis Hastert Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy at Wheaton College.
In light of the charges and allegations that have emerged, the College has re-designated the Center as the Wheaton College Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy at this time.
The Center will continue in its mission “to advance the training of Wheaton College students and the greater community in the understanding of market economies, representative democracies, limited government, and the redeeming effects of the Christian worldview on the practice of business, government and politics.”
Wheaton College serves Jesus Christ and advances His Kingdom through excellence in liberal arts and graduate programs that educate the whole person to build the church and benefit society worldwide. The College has not been implicated in or associated with any of the allegations in this matter.
We commit ourselves to pray for all involved, including Speaker Hastert, his family, and those who may have been harmed by any inappropriate behavior, and to continue the work and mission of the Wheaton College Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy.
Perhaps that’s why we don’t see indictments of the individuals. If the society in which we are inmates is based on the Burkean (i.e. conservative, i.e. right-wing) conceit that social station follows from one’s qualification to hold it, contradictory reality must be destroyed in order to protect the vested’s investment, because they are Important.
Meritocratic circularity. Maybe we ought to give up on the Great Chain of Unequal Being, and go back to choosing officials by lot and evicting them by popular supermajority.
Which line did Corporate counsel slip in .. Ohhh! here it is:The College has not been implicated in or associated with any of the allegations in this matter.
and go back to choosing officials by lot and evicting them by popular supermajority.
I’d settle for periodic vote of confidence followed by an optional ancient Greek style Ostracism.
Okay, I’d take that, as long as it’s no less often than monthly. And ostrakon needs a few more additions in an age of high-speed communications to distinguish it from “going on tour”.
The article on cultural capital is interesting because it reinforces the endlessly obvious fact that our society keeps insisting that people develop “skills” like mathematical and scientific ability and the ability to write proper English, yet what gets people onto the fast track is how they look and present themselves and what school they went to (which is very different from having the practical skills everyone from Obama down keeps prattling on about). The interviews the author of the book under discussion engaged in shows a class of gatekeepers who haven’t advanced much past the “I like the cut of his jib” baloney of four or five generations back. It’s a continuation of elite frat recruiting passing as objective hiring techniques (the only thing missing being the robes and weirdness of “Touch Night” on the Old Campus at Yale, which I have had the dubious distinction of actually seeing take place).
Why do Russian kids start school at the age of seven and yet have more technological skills? Because the Prussian educational model, in which US education is significantly rooted (and which Michigan still practices), is designed to turn out inferiors, not citizens.
That puts the “moar education” movement in a new light, doesn’t it? It’s finishing school and a $100k credential of class pedigree. The technical learning part doesn’t even matter to employers except insofar as it demonstrates self-negation for years at a time.
and yet have more technological skills
link?
At least once upon a time when they put Sputnik and a dog into orbit.
We had to catch up then.
Just curious for a link..
Sputnik wasn’t put up by Russian children nor was it a particularly good example for relative technical prowess.
I read it to mean Russian kids start at the age of seven and yet when they grow up, (not children any more) have more technological skills.
Actually, as it turns out, I was full of it. Recanting the first para of my comment.
+1000. Well done, that person.
Thinking I should skip a week at Club Orlov…
MoveOn.puke has announced that it is ending its Run Warren, Run campaign because the lady has made it clear she is not going to do so. Now MoveOn will move on to work on fighting the TPP.
No mention of Bernie. Not a word.
MoveON only shuts empty barn doors. They gotta keep their powder dry, you know.
It was 1997, I think, when I took a group of 20 birdwatchers to Costa Rica. One of them, an elderly gentleman, fell at a hotel one evening and broke his hip (pelvis). Bear with me. This is a long story. The hotel manager called an ambulance and I went with him (George) for a 1 hr. ride to the nearest hospital. Whereupon they x-rayed him and placed him on a gurney in a hall (there were no rooms available) while I sat in a waiting room killing cockroaches. The technician who made the x-ray showed me the film. I have done better processing in my own darkroom. But it was good enough for him to show me the fracture. However, an x-ray technician is not allowed to declare a fracture. I was to wait for the doctor to come in at 7:00 am. to “read” the x-ray. At some time during the night I was also able to talk to another doctor (a smart young girl) who told me that, barring surgery which wasn’t necessary, (pending decision by the doctor who was to come in) he would be sent home. That is, back to the hotel, where he was expected to remain bedfast for 8 weeks to allow the bone to heal. That wasn’t going to work. I asked around and looked up a private ambulance company to take George over the mountains (3 hrs.) to a clinic in San Jose. That was OK but the drivers had been out all night on emergencies and wanted to sleep before crossing the mountains. They promised to come in the morning. Meanwhile, I called my wife back in the U.S. to see if she could find a way to get George out of there. She and my son made all of the calls in the U.S.; the family, the insurance company, a travel agent, an air-emergency transport company, I don’t know how many others – trying to gather all the necessary information to get him out of there. The air transport guys were easy. Though they did seem relieved that San Jose was on their maps. But they couldn’t leave without knowing the insurance company was on board. And that was more complicated. I’m sure I remember that it was a question of $15,000. Which seemed like a lot of money at the time.
And I was trying to stay in touch charging international calls to a credit card from street corners. So, when the doctor didn’t show up at 7:00 am to read the x-ray, and when at about 9:00 am the ambulance did, I wheeled George’s gurney out the door with a bunch of nurses behind me yelling that I couldn’t do that. Eventually, somebody produced a paper and told me if I would sign it I could go. I hoped it was some kind of liability release. And over the mountains we went to a clinic in San Jose. Where they took x-rays again, admitted George, and put him in a room to make him more comfortable. A Dr. Rocas did that. If I ever see him again I’ll kiss him. With George now in good hands I went off on a cross-town bus to find a hotel near the airport. Where I fell asleep across the bed fully dressed. It was maybe an hour before the phone rang and someone was asking for Sr. Polo. Soy, yo. And he asked again. Soy yo, again. Dad? It was my son. We still laugh about that. We never speak to each other in Spanish. The plane would be there in 45 min. 45 min.? George was still on the other side of the city. I called the clinic. They already knew (I still don’t know how) and George was on his way to the airport. But… I had George’s money and passport. Not that he needed the money. The passport though was a different matter. So, I rushed off to the airport myself. Found people at Security and asked about that flight. And I “paid” somebody to get that passport back to George. And I went back to the hotel knowing that everything had been done. Except that the plane dropped George off in Florida, the first port of entry in the US because the insurance insisted , and went back to Pittsburgh empty. George stayed in an hospital/rehabilitation clinic in Florida 2 months until he could travel home.
I bring this up because of how far we’ve come with OBAMAcare. Today, when an elderly American breaks a bone in a foreign land all you have to do is call the dust-off boys at Ramstein (sp?) airbase and they come with that big plane and, not only do they fly you back to your hometown, but the guberment pays all!
Really about Ramstein AFB? I am an American in Europe (permanent resident) & have never heard of this scenario. I am pretty familiar with Ramstein & have been going there from time to time for well over 20 years. Not necessarily doubting what you describe, but it is news to me.
link here
Gotcha.