Greed is alive and well in America...

...from TPM: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/01/greedy_and_stupid.php

 

wondering where your financial bailout money went?

Matrix revisited

I just think the whole concept of us being part of a holographic projection is mindboggling. Film at 11.

 

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126911.300-our-world-may-be-a-giant-hologram.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

Ya gotta laff

A History of the Past:
'Life Reeked With Joy'
by Anders Henriksson

Possibly as an act of vengeance, a history professor--compiling, verbatim, several decades' worth of freshman papers--offers some of his students’ more striking insights into European history from the Middle Ages to the present.

History, as we know, is always bias, because human beings have to be studied by other human beings, not by independent observers of another species.

During the Middle Ages, everybody was middle aged. Church and state were co-operatic. Middle Evil society was made up of monks, lords, and surfs. It is unfortunate that we do not have a medivel European laid out on a table before us, ready for dissection. After a revival of infantile commerce slowly creeped into Europe, merchants appeared. Some were sitters and some were drifters. They roamed from town to town exposing themselves and organized big fairies in the countryside. Mideval people were violent. Murder during this period was nothing. Everybody killed someone. England fought numerously for land in France and ended up wining and losing. The Crusades were a series of military expaditions made by Christians seeking to free the holy land (the “Home Town” of Christ) from the Islams.

In the 1400 hundreds most Englishmen were perpendicular. A class of yeowls arose. Finally, Europe caught the Black Death. The bubonic plague is a social disease in the sense that it can be transmitted by intercourse and other etceteras. It was spread from port to port by inflected rats. Victims of the Black Death grew boobs on their necks. The plague also helped the emergance of the English language as the national language of England, France and Italy.

The Middle Ages slimpared to a halt. The renasence bolted in from the blue. Life reeked with joy. Italy became robust, and more individuals felt the value of their human being. Italy, of course, was much closer to the rest of the world, thanks to northern Europe. Man was determined to civilise himself and his brothers, even if heads had to roll! It became sheik to be educated. Art was on a more associated level. Europe was full of incredable churches with great art bulging out their doors. Renaissance merchants were beautiful and almost lifelike.

The Reformnation happened when German nobles resented the idea that tithes were going to Papal France or the Pope thus enriching Catholic coiffures. Traditions had become oppressive so they too were crushed in the wake of man’s quest for ressurection above the ­not-­just-­social beast he had become. An angry Martin Luther nailed 95 theocrats to a church door. Theologically, Luthar was into reorientation mutation. Calvinism was the most convenient religion since the days of the ancients. Anabaptist services tended to be migratory. The Popes, of course, were usually Catholic. Monks went right on seeing themselves as worms. The last Jesuit priest died in the 19th century.

After the refirmation were wars both foreign and infernal. If the Spanish could gain the Netherlands they would have a stronghold throughout northern Europe which would include their posetions in Italy, Burgangy, central Europe and India thus serrounding France. The German Emperor’s lower passage was blocked by the French for years and years.

Louis XIV became King of the Sun. He gave the people food and artillery. If he didn’t like someone, he sent them to the gallows to row for the rest of their lives. Vauban was the royal minister of flirtation. In Russia the 17th century was known as the time of the bounding of the serfs. Russian nobles wore clothes only to humour Peter the Great. Peter filled his government with accidental people and built a new capital near the European boarder. Orthodox priests became government antennae.

The enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltare wrote a book called Candy that got him into trouble with Frederick the Great. Philosophers were unknown yet, and the fundamental stake was one of religious toleration slightly confused with defeatism. France was in a very serious state. Taxation was a great drain on the state budget. The French revolution was accomplished before it happened. The revolution evolved through monarchial, republican and tolarian phases until it catapulted into Napolean. Napoleon was ill with bladder problems and was very tense and unrestrained.

History, a record of things left behind by past generations, started in 1815. Throughout the comparatively radical years 1815–1870 the western European continent was undergoing a Rampant period of economic modification. Industrialization was precipitating in England. Problems were so complexicated that in Paris, out of a city population of one million people, two million able bodies were on the loose.

Great Brittian, the USA and other European countrys had demicratic leanings. The middle class was tired and needed a rest. The old order could see the lid holding down new ideas beginning to shake. Among the goals of the chartists were universal suferage and an anal parliment. Voting was done by ballad.

A new time zone of national unification roared over the horizon. Founder of the new Italy was Cavour, an intelligent Sardine from the north. Nationalism aided Itally because nationalism is the growth of an army. We can see that nationalism succeeded for Itally because of France’s big army. Napoleon ­III-­IV mounted the French thrown. One thinks of Napoleon III as a live extension of the late, but great, Napoleon. Here too was the new Germany: loud, bold, vulgar and full of reality.

Culture fomented from Europe’s tip to its top. Richard Strauss, who was violent but methodical like his wife made him, plunged into vicious and perverse plays. Dramatized were adventures in seduction and abortion. Music reeked with reality. Wagner was master of music, and people did not forget his contribution. When he died they labled his seat “historical.” Other countries had their own artists. France had Chekhov.

World War I broke out around 1912–1914. Germany was on one side of France and Russia was on the other. At war people get killed, and then they aren’t people any more, but friends. Peace was proclaimed at Versigh, which was attended by George Loid, Primal Minister of England. President Wilson arrived with 14 pointers. In 1937 Lenin revolted Russia. Communism raged among the peasants, and the civil war “team colours” were red and white.

Germany was displaced after WWI. This gave rise to Hitler. Germany was morbidly overexcited and unbalanced. Berlin became the decadent capital, where all forms of sexual deprivations were practised. A huge ­anti-­semantic movement arose. Attractive slogans like”death to all Jews” were used by governmental groups. Hitler remilitarized the Rineland over a squirmish between Germany and France. The appeasers were blinded by the great red of the Soviets. Moosealini rested his foundations on eight million bayonets and invaded Hi Lee Salasy. Germany invaded Poland, France invaded Belgium, and Russia invaded everybody. War screeched to an end when a nukuleer explosion was dropped on Heroshima. A whole generation had been wipe out in two world wars, and their forlorne families were left to pick up the peaces.

According to Fromm, individuation began historically in medieval times. This was a period of small childhood. There is increasing experience as adolescence experiences its life development. The last stage is us.

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Anders Henriksson is assistant Professor of history at Shepherd College. Born in Rochester, New York, he received a B.A. from the University of Rochester (1971), and an M.A.(1972) and a Ph.D. (1978) from the University of Toronto. He is the author of The Tsar’s Loyal Germans: The Riga German Community, Social Change, and the Nationality Question, 1855–1905 (1983).


Reprinted from Spring 1983 Wilson Quarterly
This article may not be resold, reprinted, or redistributed for compensation of any kind without prior written permission from the author. For further reprint information, please contact Permissions, The Wilson Quarterly, One Woodrow Wilson Plaza, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C.
Phone:202/691-4200
E-mail:wq@wilsoncenter.org

Puppet Masters of the World Unite!

I really hope that they do not. But the article suggests that sometimes organisms are not in charge of their own destiny.

 

It would make a great SF story:

 

A parasite is found to attach itself to the human brain possibly changing the hosts brain chemistry. Once the first parasite is found then others are found. The research is inconclusive. Then it is found that the humans have a blind spot in their psyche for what ever parasite or parasites that infect them. What is the long range effects of this symbiosis? Has our intelligence improved to help us or the parasites? Are we really in charge of our destiny?

 

 

 

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2008/12/16/the-puppet-masters-medicine-chest/

 

Why do you do the things you do?

 

 

 

 

Xmas Lost and Found

'tis part of the yearly dance

we dress up

we preen

we prance

 

a time of Mass

of holy vows

a time of crass

"holy cows"

 

we buy forgiveness

purchase smiles

wrap up guilt

travel miles

 

all that said

it really being

a magic time

for children's dreams

Good Advice From Robert Reich

http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2008/12/hybrid-vehicle-one-third-bailout-two.html

I agree that we let the financials file chapter 11 and help the Big Three.

bailout blues

The Following is from Daggatt Blog.

 

bailout blues

Yesterday was full of yet more truly boggling bailout news.

The Washington Post reported that those “fiscal conservatives” in the Bush administration managed to slip by a stealth $140 billion tax break for the financial industry in the fog on the financial bailout:

The financial world was fixated on Capitol Hilll as Congress battled over the Bush administration's request for a $700 billion bailout of the banking industry. In the midst of this late-September drama, the Treasury Department issued a five-sentence notice that attracted almost no public attention.

But corporate tax lawyers quickly realized the enormous implications of the document: Administration officials had just given American banks a windfall of as much as $140 billion.

By way of comparison, during the campaign Obama proposed spending $150 billion over ten years to help wean our economy from fossil fuels. That sounds like a lot of money, but it is the equivalent of a mere “five sentence notice” providing the financial industry with yet another tax massive break. “How are we going to PAY for all of Obama’s proposals?” reasonable people ask. Another financial industry tax break … not so much.

Another way of thinking of Obama’s decade-long transformation of America’s energy economy: The cost of bailing out ONE insurance company that is not even subject to federal regulation. It was reported yesterday that the cost of bailing out one company – ONE COMPANY – AIG has now reached $150 billion. Because of its counterparty exposure on derivatives that the federal government was prohibited from regulating:

The federal government announced on Monday an overhaul of its bailout of the insurance giant American International Group, saying it would purchase $40 billion of the company’s stock, after signs that the initial bailout was putting too much strain on the company. …

When the reorganized deal is complete, taxpayers will have invested and lent a total of $150 billion to A.I.G., the most the government has ever directed to a single private enterprise.

Some might say, if a company is too big to fail … it is too big. But that would be interfering with the “free market.”

Oh, and did I mention that HALF of the bailout funds going to the nine biggest banks – funds that were supposed to free up the credit markets and get banks lending again – will be paid out to shareholders as dividends over the next two years:

U.S. banks getting more than $163 billion from the Treasury Department for new lending are on pace to pay more than half of that sum to their shareholders, with government permission, over the next three years.

The government said it was giving banks more money so they could make more loans. Dollars paid to shareholders don't serve that purpose, but Treasury officials say that suspending quarterly dividend payments would have deterred banks from participating in the voluntary program.

Critics, including economists and members of Congress, question why banks should get government money if they already have enough money to pay dividends -- or conversely, why banks that need government money are still spending so much on
dividends.

Treasury Secretary Paulson’s primary concern throughout this crisis, apparently, is to avoid making the federal bailout too painful for bank shareholders. If the big, bad Democrats in Congress hadn’t insisted on equity in exchange for bailout funds, Paulson would have just given the banks a disguised equity infusion by overpaying for bad assets. For example, we wouldn’t want to “penalize” bank executives for the rewards they have “earned” for their brilliant risk-management strategies:

Financial giants getting injections of federal cash owed their executives more than $40 billion for past years' pay and pensions as of the end of 2007, a Wall Street Journal analysis shows.

The government is seeking to rein in executive pay at banks getting federal money, and a leading congressman and a state official have demanded that some of them make clear how much they intend to pay in bonuses this year.

But overlooked in these efforts is the total size of debts that financial firms receiving taxpayer assistance previously incurred to their executives, which at some firms exceed what they owe in pensions to their entire work forces.

And you don’t even want to KNOW where the $2 TRILLION in Fed bailout funds are going. (If you are having trouble comprehending these sums, just think of it as roughly one Iraq War.) Even if you DID want to know, they aren’t telling (presumably because it might cause you to “lose confidence” in the recipients – so you can just lose confidence in the entire system instead). From Bloomberg:

The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system. Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn't require approval by Congress, Americans have no idea where their money is going or what securities the banks are pledging in return.

I feel like I’m coming off as some kind of raging populist. But, seriously, when President Obama takes office and starts talking about things like extending unemployment benefits and children’s health insurance and other economic stimulus measures, we’re going to have to endure a lot of hand-wringing over the cost of those initiatives. Because the recipients don’t have the ability to bring down the global financial system. But let’s put the cost in perspective.

No wonder Obama was elected. Chris Rock summed it up:

"[Bush has] made it hard for a white man to run for president. People are saying, 'After Bush, I'm not sure we can take another chance on a white guy."

Election Angst...

Election angst is not to be mistaken or conflated with all my other angst. The everyday angst of just getting out of bed. The angst of getting old and all the other domesticated angst that populate my life. The angst, that my life is what Socrates was referring to when he said, "an unexamined life is not worth living."

 

Election angst is the fear that what will happen will be exactly the opposite of what I hope and voted for on the national level. The Gore factor once again. The stealing of another election. That knot in my stomach that will not go away until the results tomorrow verify what course we as a country have set for ourselves. 

 

I personally do not think our nation will be able to heal itself if McCain wins. His campaign has shown us that he is not a positive force. He works from fear. His lies are as facile as Bush lies. He divides. He will not make the kind of choices that are needed to bring us back to our pre Bush world leadership role. His anger will put all of us in harms way. His choice of VP is a sample of his decision making ability.

 

Actually I am not looking for an ideologue. I don't want the dogma of party politics to shape our future. I want someone who can lead. Inspire. Has a vision that we all can buy into. To make us better as a nation, as a people, as individuals. Obama seems to have that ability. And more than anything that is the reason I have voted for for him.

 

Having voted for Obama. I now carry the election angst that my vote mean something. That we can rise again after the damage wrought by the neocons and Bush.

Why Ask Why?

I have on my wall here at work a sign with Why repeated 5 times. This is like a Quality Mantra. By asking why 5 times you can, more times than not, get to the root of a problem. I have had this conversation with Dick when we go to lunch...this root of the problem or problem solving world I have inherited makes perfect sense when dealing with business, but boring conversation. Which probably says a lot for the fact that Dick and I have this conversation at all. Plus the fact that asking why 5 times in a social setting could get you clobbered. Am thinking we all have had that 2 or 3 year old looking at us and asking why for the umpteenth time. Our frustration level rises and we end the conversation with, "Because I said so!"

Actually, am thinking that as adults we are socially engineered to except the "Because I said so!"  as the final say on much of what we do and know. Oh it is not exactly stated as "Because I said so!" but much of instruction seems to be impervious to the why line of questioning. We become so unquestioning in much of what we do that I am thinking we do not want to think. Because to question something is the first sign intelligent thought. And by example it is almost a forgone conclusion that if we get an email rant that even remotely meshes with our concept of the universe we will pass it on without even asking one why. We start to become non questioning from that first dismissive "Because I said so!" retort from our parents or other adults. 

 

I am asking myself why I am inflicting this upon you. I know it is not interesting by any stretch of the imagination. And I have rambled horribly without much thought.

 

Again Why.

 

Who knows...did not have anything of real import to say...just seem to think of weird stuff...but in this time of political hyperbole maybe we could step out of our comfort zone and ask the why of some things...

Daggatt Through the Heart

http://daggatt.blogspot.com/2008/10/moyers-interviews-soros.html

 

A snippet of Bill Moyers interview with Soros. Worth the time to read. 

Links to Reality

As usual Brin is spot on and worth the read

http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2008/09/scary-stuff-political-lamp-is-lit.html


Below a link to Russ Daggats Blog (daggat blog) for Sept 23, 2008 in it he includes a letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders from Warren Buffet from 2002. It describes the "derivatives and the trading activities that go with them: We view them as time bombs, both for the parties that deal in them and the economic system."
http://daggatt.blogspot.com/2008/09/financial-weapons-of-mass-destruction.html prescient

Issues over the Horizon

http://www.rand.org/publications/randreview/issues/summer2008/horizon.html

 

(the following lifted from the Rand website linked above)

Some interesting perspectives on the future, worth a read.

Eleven Emerging Challenges

To celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the RAND Corporation and to uphold its tradition of taking on the big issues of tomorrow, a call went out to all RAND staff around the world, inviting them to propose essays on “important policy issues not currently receiving the attention they deserve in the public debate” — issues, in other words, that might be on the back burner today but will likely become front-burner issues within the next five years.

More than 100 issues were raised. The final product: the 11 essays published here. These were selected either because they highlight major public policy problems that have eluded the mainstream media radar or because they point toward major public policy solutions that have been likewise overlooked — or both.

Despite the wide range of topics, from corporate malfeasance to antimicrobial resistance, common themes emerge. The biggest one is the shaky financial footing that threatens to undermine several pillars of the public interest: Medicare, Social Security, roads, bridges, water systems, power grids, elections, military operations, diplomatic endeavors, and public health. At the same time, there are national and global reasons for hope. There is even a concluding vision of a new and better form of statecraft.

Readers might be tempted to connect the issues outlined here with those being debated on the U.S. presidential campaign trail, but that is not the intent. Our goal is to raise public awareness of several salient issues that will likely grow in prominence regardless of the election outcome.

—John Godges