Howard Zinn points out some facts about the American Revolution
that your High School History books leave out.

Who actually gained from that victory over
England? It's very important to ask about any
policy, and especially about war: Who gained what?
And it's very important to notice differences
among the various parts of the population. That's
one thing were not accustomed to in this country
because we don't think in class terms. We think,
"Oh, we all have the same interests." For
instance, we think that we all had the same
interests in independence from England. We did not
have all the same interests.

That like most wars, the only people who really benefit from them
are the rich land owners and business men. Nearly everyone
else gets screwed.

C
 

Kirk:  You are in error. You did not discover
         your mistake.
Kirk:  You have made two errors. You are flawed
         and imperfect and have not corrected by
         sterilization.
Kirk:  You have made three errors.
Nomad: Error. Error. Error. Examine.
Kirk:  You are flawed and imperfect! Execute your
         prime function!
Nomad: I shall analyze error. Analyze ... error ...

Here is a very good explanation of how a lack of understanding
of math and probabilities brought Lehman Brothers (and a lot of others)
down.

I especially like this analogy.

There is also a second and more subtle source of
error. Whether you can make money from selling the
CDO insurance for the bank depends on whether the
borrowers return the money, which in turns depends
on the economy. So if the economy goes down, you
are a lot more likely to lose money. If you are an
active investor, then you probably have invested in
the stock market as well. Now if the market crashes
you lose both the money invested in the stock
market and in the CDO. Suppose, on the other hand,
that instead of spending the money on CDO, you bet
on whether Manchester United will win the European
Champion League. This time in order to lose all
your money you need both the market to go down and
Manchester United to lose their match - this
is less likely than just having the market go down.
Therefore, investing on CDO is a riskier choice
than betting for Manchester United. The error in
our model is that we have not taken into account
this extra risk due to its dependence of CDO on the
market.

Or the NY Mets, if you prefer.

C

Nice religion you got there. But to be fair, Christianity ain't a whole
hell of a lot better.

C

Yes...not just the insurers. I know for a fact the there are labs and
hospitals that double-dip if you don't pay attention. One lab that I
have to use will bill you for the full amount before they get anything
from the insurance company and if you are gullible enough or  intimidated
and pay, they will also take from the insurance company not refund
your over payment. I also know of at least on local hospital that uses
the same tactics.

The whole system is one big rip off.

C

Now they want permission to commit the same fraud that helped
trash our economy the last time.

I am at a loss as to what should be done to these people for even
thinking of this.

And The National Association of Mortgage Brokers (NAMB) and
The National Association of Realtors (NAR)  are try to keep their
brand of fraud and chicanery from being outlawed or regulated
as well.

Un-freaking believable.

C

From another 1950s Sci-Fi.

The universe grows smaller every day, and the
threat of aggression by any group, anywhere, can
no longer be tolerated. There must be security
for all, or no one is secure. Now, this does not
mean giving up any freedom, except the freedom to
act irresponsibly. Your ancestors knew this when
they made laws to govern themselves and hired
policemen to enforce them. We, of the other
planets, have long accepted this principle. We
have an organization for the mutual protection of
all planets and for the complete elimination of
aggression. The test of any such higher authority
is, of course, the police force that supports it.
For our policemen, we created a race of robots.
Their function is to patrol the planets in
spaceships like this one and preserve the peace.
In matters of aggression, we have given them
absolute power over us. This power cannot be
revoked. At the first sign of violence, they act
automatically against the aggressor. The penalty
for provoking their action is too terrible to
risk. The result is, we live in peace, without
arms or armies, secure in the knowledge that we
are free from aggression and war. Free to pursue
more... profitable enterprises. Now, we do not
pretend to have achieved perfection, but we do
have a system, and it works. I came here to give
you these facts. It is no concern of ours how you
run your own planet, but if you threaten to
extend your violence, this Earth of yours will be
reduced to a burned-out cinder. Your choice is
simple: join us and live in peace, or pursue your
present course and face obliteration. We shall be
waiting for your answer. The decision rests with
you. - Klaatu

Worth thinking about.

C

And the environmental problems it causes. Nope...not religion
or culture or even economics. Its SEX.

"Having a large rather than a small family is less of a planned
 decision than an automatic outcome of human sexuality," Prof.
Guillebaud will say. "For a fertile couple, nothing is easier."

And by golly we have to do something about this now if we are
to save the planet. Forget CO2 and global warming...these are
but a side effect. It's all those people having SEX.

C

This is a good analysis of the Iranian people. George Friedman
reminds us the those with iPods, Twitter and easy access to the
phone are not necessarily the majority in Iran.

Americans and Europeans have been misreading Iran
for 30 years. Even after the shah fell, the myth
has survived that a mass movement of people
exists demanding liberalization - a movement that
if encouraged by the West eventually would form a
majority and rule the country. We call this
outlook "iPod liberalism," the idea that anyone
who listens to rock 'n' roll on an iPod, writes
blogs and knows what it means to Twitter must be
an enthusiastic supporter of Western liberalism.
Even more significantly, this outlook fails to
recognize that iPod owners represent a small
minority in Iran- a country that is poor,
pious and content on the whole with the
revolution forged 30 years ago.

He goes on to say about Ahmadinejad's popularity.

First, Ahmadinejad speaks of piety. Among vast
swathes of Iranian society, the willingness to
speak unaffectedly about religion is crucial.
Though it may be difficult for Americans and
Europeans to believe, there are people in the
world to whom economic progress is not of the
essence; people who want to maintain their
communities as they are and live the way their
grandparents lived. These are people who see
modernization - whether from the shah or Mousavi
- as unattractive. They forgive Ahmadinejad his
economic failures.

Second, Ahmadinejad speaks of corruption. There
is a sense in the countryside that the ayatollahs
- who enjoy enormous wealth and power, and often
have lifestyles that reflect this - have
corrupted the Islamic Revolution. Ahmadinejad is
disliked by many of the religious elite precisely
because he has systematically raised the
corruption issue, which resonates in the
countryside.

Third, Ahmadinejad is a spokesman for Iranian
national security, a tremendously popular stance.
It must always be remembered that Iran fought a
war with Iraq in the 1980s that lasted eight
years, cost untold lives and suffering, and
effectively ended in its defeat. Iranians,
particularly the poor, experienced this war on an
intimate level. They fought in the war, and lost
husbands and sons in it. As in other countries,
memories of a lost war don't necessarily
delegitimize the regime. Rather, they can
generate hopes for a resurgent Iran, thus
validating the sacrifices made in that war -
something Ahmadinejad taps into. By arguing that
Iran should not back down but become a major
power, he speaks to the veterans and their
families, who want something positive to emerge
from all their sacrifices in the war.

Kind of sounds like the republicans and those who still
like 'Bush. But in Iran there are many more of them than
the "professionals", students and liberal thinkers.

C

Anyone who has lived in "Hurricane alley", Florida, the Gulf states
parts of the eastern seaboard - and has been through a Hurricane
knows not to go out into the "Eye". Even though the weather may
look likes it's clearing - the winds and rains can start up again from
the opposite direction with even greater ferocity than before.

Here Sandy B. Lewis and William D. Cohan express their own wisdom
concerning the current financial Typhoon we are jut entering the
middle of.

 The storm is not over, not by a long shot. Huge
structural flaws remain in the architecture of our
financial system, and many of the fixes that the Obama
administration has proposed will do little to address
them and may make them worse. At another fund-raising
event, for Senator Harry Reid, President Obama said:
"We didn't ask for the challenges that we face. But we
are determined to answer the call to meet those
challenges, to cast aside the old arguments and
overcome the stubborn divisions and move forward as one
people and one nation .... It will take time but I
promise you, I promise you, I'll always tell you the
truth about the challenges we face."

Keeping that statement in mind - as well as an abiding
faith in the importance of properly functioning capital
markets - we have come up with a set of questions meant
to challenge a popular president, with vast majorities
in Congress, to find the flaws in the system, to figure
out what's being done to fix them and to get to the
truth about the difficulties we face as we set out to
restore the proper functioning of our markets and our
standing in the world.

And a few questions concerning what has, and more importantly
has not, been done so far.

Six months ago, nobody believed that our banking system
was well designed, functioning smoothly or properly
regulated - so why then are we so desperately anxious
to restore that model as the status quo? Nearly every
new program emanating these days from the Treasury
Department - the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan
Facility, the Public Private Investment Program, the
"stress tests" of major banks - appears to have been
designed to either paper over or to prop up a system
that has clearly failed.

Why indeed...

Why is so much effort being put into propping up those
at the top of the economic pyramid - the money-center
banks, the insurance companies, the hedge funds and so
forth - when during a period of deflation like the one
we are in, any recovery will come only by restoring the
confidence of the people down at the bottom of the
pyramid?

Confidence will return only when jobs can be found and
mortgage payments are made.

And...

Instead of promising the imminent return of good times,
why isn't Mr. Obama talking more about the importance
of living within our means and not spending money we
don't have on things we don't need? We used to be a
frugal nation. The president should be talking about
kicking our addictions to easy credit, to quick fixes
and to a culture of more is better (and Congress's new
credit-card legislation, while perhaps eliminating some
of the worst aspects of that industry, certainly didn't
send the right message about personal finance).

Gas-guzzling S.U.V.'s, cigarette boats, no-income
mortgages and private jets should be relegated to the
junk heaps of history, or better yet, put in a museum
dedicated to never forgetting the greed and avarice
that led us so far astray.

Like George Carlin said "Money you don't have on things
you don't need."

Why is the morphine drip still in the veins of the
financial system? These trillions in profligate federal
spending are intended to make us feel better again even
though feeling pain, and dealing with it responsibly,
would be healthier in the long run. It is time to stop
rescuing the banks that got us into this mess. If that
means more bank failures on a grander scale or the
dismemberment of Citigroup, so be it. Depositors will
be protected - up to $250,000 per account - but
shareholders, creditors and, sadly, many employees
will, for the long-term health of the system, need to
feel the market's wrath.

Absolutely. (and people called me sick and twisted)

They go on from here but I think you get the message.
It's a good read and I recommend it.

C

I simply could not believe this headline on the BBC science page.

Scientists hampered by brain shortage

Of course politics and goverment have had this problem for decades.

C

Just to prove their case on torture.

Republicans ignited a firestorm of
controversy on Thursday by revealing some of
what they had been told at a closed-door
Intelligence Committee hearing on the
interrogation of terrorism suspects.

Democrats immediately blasted the GOP
lawmakers for publicly discussing classified
information, while Republicans said Democrats
are trying to hide the truth that enhanced
interrogation of detainees is effective.

GOP members on the Intelligence Committee on
Thursday told The Hill in on-the-record
interviews that they were informed that the
controversial methods have led to information
that prevented terrorist attacks.

When told of the GOP claims, Democrats
strongly criticized the members who revealed
information that was provided at the closed
House Intelligence Subcommittee on Oversight
and Investigations hearing. Democrats on the
panel said they could not respond
substantively, pointing out that the hearing
was closed.

Of course what would you expect from a party whose members still
think beating slaves is a pretty neat idea. And whose former leader
got his yayas from blowing animals to pieces with fire crackers.

To them torture is just another fun game.


C

Oh if only this would happen to the vast majority of
slime on Wall Street.

Mr. Araya, 38 years old, lost his job in
2007 as a crude oil trader on the New
York Mercantile Exchange. After visiting
dozens of headhunters with no luck, he
applied in August 2008 to be a host at
the Palm to support his wife, two young
daughters and mortgage payments. His
salary has plunged from $200,000 to
$25,000.

If life were fair and just, all the clowns from BoA, AIG, CITI
and the rest would be living the same kind of live.

Oh where are the rice patties when you need them.


C

It isn't working. Imagine my total lack of surprise.

A U.S. government plan to rid banks of bad
loans is stalling and may soon be put on hold,
the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday,
citing people familiar with the matter.

The Legacy Loans Program, which is being
crafted by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp,
is part of the $1 trillion Public Private
Investment Program the government announced in
March to encourage banks to sell securities and
loans weighing on their balance sheets to
willing investors.

Prospective buyers and sellers have expressed
reluctance to the FDIC about participating for
fear the program's rules will change in a
political atmosphere hostile to Wall Street,
the Journal reported. It also said that some
banks that might have sold troubled loans into
the program earlier in the year have become
less eager as they regained a sense of
stability.

FDIC spokesmen were not immediately available
for comment.

I'll be they weren't. And I just can't believe how anyone could
pass up such a sweat deal.

C

And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste,
it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the
gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
Kahlil Gibran

Matthew B. Crawford makes a good case for working with your
hands. A fairly long read but worth while.

I used to earn my living that way. Now currently employed as a
computer security programmer and DNS administrator. No where
near as satisfying as my previous occupation of electronics
servicing. Staring at a display eight hours a day. Not much
to show for it.

I really enjoyed repairing electronic equipment, audio, video etc.
but the profession does not really exist anymore. At least the
one I knew. Oh they call it the same thing when it's done at all
but now it just consists of following a flowchart to replace a
circuit board.  If the board is no longer available the unit is
marked as "Not Repairable" and that is that.

So now I build and repair my own equipment and repair things
for friends and family that I can. But to be fair today's gadgets
are really not very repairable. The parts are far too small and get
obsolete far to quickly.

I have a lot of respect for those who still work with their hands.
The mechanics, plumbers and carpenters. Skills I have yet to
master myself.

Far, far to many intellectuals look down the noses at them.
Though I'll wager few if any could master the skills needed
to work in the trades.

C

Lawrence Wilkerson thinks this is the most spineless congress
he has seen in 65 years and I tend to agree.

"We could have less feckless leadership in
the Congress in terms of oversight,"
Wilkerson said. "And I'm not just talking
about the Select Committees in the House and
the Senate for Intelligence. I' talking
about the leadership in the Congress.

"This has been the most feckless Congress
ever since 2000 that I've seen in my 65
years," Wilkerson added. "I just don't think
there's leadership over there. It's
spineless, it lacks courage, lacks political
will.

He continued: "I shudder for the fact that
we've got to face these economic and
financial challenges we\u2019ve got to face
- Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea and other
things - and we don't have a Congress that
has any leadership."

Not surprising though. It's what you get when you elect weaselly
Ivy League lawyers and Wall Street stooges. It's the best
money can buy. Or the banksters are will to spend on.


C