RE SUSAN CONSTANTINE TV LEGAL PUNDIT BODY LANGUAGE EXPERT

It looks like she has a BS from U. of Phoenix, based on her website.


But, it is not crystal clear there....says degree field... doesn't say what 'field' it is, but rather a Bachelor of Science degree as a 'field' (in what?). Did she get a degree? I cannot tell.


Check out this body language,  Daumier's Zephyr, setting down, in a forest glade, while Flore looks on from concealment:





Terms search: my uncle.

Terms search re big global developmental donors against poverty hunger

For some prior posts here on why this is as bad an idea as has been free trade, 


term search: Margaret MacMillan, Paris 1919, 
or simply, vicious birth.

RE NYT OPINIONATOR THE STONE LET BE: AN ANSWER TO HAMLET'S QUESTION

Just an 'aside', (not that this is not an interesting and thought provoking article):


Curiously, or ironically enough, it, 'let be', had also been Adam Smith's answer, 


with untold bad consequences for whatever nation took it as good advice.


Terms search: laissez faire

Maverick team play conundrum

http://geraldmeaders.blogspot.com/2011/04/attacking-team-in-eminent-domain.html

RE NYT EDITORIAL MURDOCH'S FATAL FLAW

...is not that he never grew up, STILL 22 AT HEART, ETC., and only wants to win.


Rather, those are the maverick executive, yet also maverick team play, principles, on which our society is based, not mere puerile mutterings in an interview.


Terms Search, eg:  Attacking the team, etc., Thurston, Casanova,

RE BBC EDITORIAL J P MORGAN BID RIGGING ON STATE AND LOCAL CONTRACTS and investors losing their ARS on munis

It seems more or less a Hobbesian war of all against all, fraud everywhere. J P paying for sneak previews of rival bids for state and local bond contracts, California, Texas, New Jersey..........




Raymond James recently settled 300m for causing its investors to lose their ARS (auction rate securities, mostly munis, etc., etc., etc.). Bigger banks had settled earlier on ARS losing investors.

RE FROM THE GUTTER, INTO THE SEWER MURDOCH NYT EDITORIAL GRAYLING

Americans are used to being shown a side of a free press favoring the sensational marketing needs of the big media.


Seldom has it been so clearly shown not only that a free press is not an edifying concept, 


but that excessive free press unfettered and unmoored license itself leads to overreaching and to crime.


I had long ago read A C Grayling's book on Wittgenstein.


Terms search, eg: The Casanova hand, Thurston, etc.

RE THE NEXT TO NEXT TO LAST BUBBLE TECH BUBBLE Facebook NOW CALL IT FACEBUBBLE

Facebook: Facebubble

RE BUFFETT DONATES a lot now eg 1.7+ BILLION TO GATES FOUNDATION

Let's take a look at the Gates Foundation to see what they have been about...........................see where all this good ole money is going to go.......


Global development...


'all lives everywhere have equal value'


Sounds real good until you start to look at real politics and commerce; 


then it starts to look more like short sighted developmentalism, albeit with "the conscience of a liberal", like Krugman's motto, somewhat. 


When they get developed, pulled out of poverty, what do you suppose they need (being added to the 3 billion new capitalists)? Ever more of those ever more scarce resources we all want a lot of. 


What do you suppose they want to do? Espouse 'all lives everywhere have equal value'?


Not likely. 


What will they be more likely to do?


They will first and foremost support standing up for their own country, or their own civilization, against others if necessary, including most notoriously, ours.


Why? You may ask?
Because theirs, ultimately, not ours, will be the only one to support them, in their struggle for a decent life.


Terms search: vicious birth, Margaret MacMillan, Paris 1919.

RE SAVING THE US ECONOMY SQUASHED FLAT TRICKLE OUT ECONOMICS

This has long been a myth, unfortunately.
No minor combination of tax hikes, or exonomist's jumping through hoops are going to save this now long beached whale.


They should have thought about 'saving' a domestic economy 40 years ago, or so, when it was still feasible.


As I have pointed out here, the 'domestic' economy has long been hollowed out, and now more or less squashed flat. 


No WPA type blind spending program will revive it now that globalization has taken over here. 


Some liberal pundits have roared for tariffs, way too late, 
when the production horse that would have made higher tariffs feasible (but not without an industrial policy), 


was allowed to roam off into the wild wild west twilight of European and Asian boom land.


Trickle down now only means one thing: trickle out: 


what little is left will now trickle somewhere else.


Term search: hollowed, hollowing out, squashed flat, cartoon.

RE THE UNEXAMINED SOCIETY NYT BROOKS DREAMY SOCIAL SCIENCE HOLISM

He thinks we are in a golden age of behavioral research. 


He thinks he can pick social science winners himself, 


but calls his conservative (anti picking winners) government when it cuts his pet. 


Terms search compartmentalization, specialization, social sciences, Winch, Collins, bonobos, etc.


When even more conservative forces unfortunately take over shortly, 


this behavioral science golden age he adores will be turned on a dime to other ends than are dreamed of in his philosophy.


Terms search facebook, Zuckerbook, 1984, Face Farm, Russians buying facebook stock, etc.


About the last place one would find credible holism is in American behavioral science research itself.

RE NYT BRITISH TORIES SQUIRM AS THEY FEEL THE HEAT IN MURDOCH'S EMBRACE THE HOT FETID BREATH OF CLOSE SCRUTINY

Perhaps the proposed Murdoch deal, now under scrutiny, will face the hot, fetid breath of closer scrutiny, by the British judiciary, not a notoriously liberal group.

RE THE DARK UNDERBELLY OF LAISSEZ FAIRE FREE SPEECH THE MEDIA AND CONSERVATIVE LABOUR MOVEMENTS RUPERT THURSTON ROBERT MACAIRE MURDOCH HOWELL

News of The World.........BBC World News


Smelling the coffee over there in the UK as well as here now.


At least they have something worthwhile, their own corruption, to cover, both Labour and Tory. 


for a change.


Mr Glenn Mulcaire, analogous to 'Robert Macaire', a useful agent provocateur, apparently, for News of The World.


Terms search hacking, 1984, Facebook, Zuckerbook, Russians buying facebook, Goldman, Entrepreneurs, Thurston, Macaire, etc.


Hacking the Royals, not such a great idea, though very laissez faire profitable no doubt.

re the credential society book

Collins pops hard the technocracy, credentialist, meritocratic, symbolic analyst, and education chase, 


bubbles, 


as mostly a lot of bureaucratic gas, 


so prevalent and deeply infesting our commercial, academic, commercial,  political, and educational discourses.

RE BEFORE 1776 TEACHING COMPANY COURSE

Very highly recommended. 


Amazing over view of this very complex period, in very easy-to-follow account. 


Really puts the great power struggle, and mercantilism as related to colonialization, at the center of the pre-rebellion period and colonial development. 


Great lectures on slavery, mercantilism, gold search, some key personalities, colonial agriculture and crops, etc.


Professor Allison, Suffolk University, Boston.

RE RUSSIAN BUYING NEW JERSEY TEAM WHY NOT ALSO STATE AND THEN SOME

http://geraldmeaders.blogspot.com/2011/05/re-russian-billionaire-just-bought-new.html

Re Minnesota, Wyoming, and some other troubled real estate, why not let him, or his friends or fellow cow pokes buy these things?


Doesn't that seem (LAISSEZ) fair?


TERMS SEARCH Why Iowa, Minnesota, Wyoming, New Jersey

RE THE CREDENTIAL SOCIETY BOOK AND SOME RELATED THEMES HERE

I have pressed themes and problems here, caused I believe by excessive specialization, and compartmentalization, and a resulting anti intellectualism, and ineffectiveness, and ALSO market led corruption; 


and come to find that some social scientists had been harping on some of the same topics, in the context of a wider analysis of society, education and the history of education, social stratification, and political and economic power, 


back in the late 70s, 


with such works as The Credential Society, Randall Collins.


Insights on every page. I had wondered why things were the way they were back then, in some ways, re higher education, how much of it there was, and how many went on into it; seldom reflected on lower levels at school as educational segregation was just ending. The market, once again, a strong player in educational corporations, even public ones.

RE BBC OBAMA'S ELECTION FUELED HATE GROUPS FAILURE OF THE MEDIA RE ASSIMILATION'S FAILURE TERRORISM'S RISE NYT DUELING CHEAP SHOT SENSATIONALISMS

Of course Obama's election would have fueled some hate groups here. 


That is a given, not 'news'. The BBC publishes a 'story' now. Why? 


The private media want sensational stories, rather than anything constructive, there or here. 


That has too long been the case in the liberal countries everywhere 


including the UK.


It has contributed to the bozo ization of the population everywhere.


Similarly nyt article on multiculturalism's failure in UK, stoking the fire.


Nyt and BBC duking it out to the bottom, so to speak.


IT'S WHAT'S FOR DINNER.

RE MOODY'S WARNS OVER CHINA BAD DEBT BBC WORLD NEWS ARTICLE

Du.

See DK's July 1 post

'A great author's perspective', re le Carre, 
and comments there.

RE PORTUGAL CUT TO JUNK

What does that imply for its currency?

RE THE MOTHER OF ALL NO-BRAINERS BROOKS NYT EDITORIAL

His criticisms of his own erstwhile party are shocking, and all no doubt true, a thing one can seldom say of Brooks' essays.


Yet, he leaves out a crucial detail: 


(though less filled, perhaps, with an idiot fringe, than the Republicans), nor are the Democrats fit to govern.

RE KEYNES HAYEK

http://www.realecontv.com/videos/in-humor-truth/which-way-will-we-go-.html

RE TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND THE WAR FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

This is the story that is now being told.  


What is wrong with this picture?


There are a lot of things wrong with it.


This so-called war has already been lost, for about 30 years now.


A good account of why and how it has been lost is Trading Places. 


This book shows, in some detail, how it was that many innovative ideas and products, originally created or developed here, ended up in offshore regimes' developmental export lead growth plans, and resulted in foreign industrial empires now threatening the US.  


It also sketches some of the clues to the political underpinnings of this sad commentary, and even made some suggestions for reforms, way back in '88, even then way too late.

TERM SEARCH FOR A REPRISE OF THEMES HERE

Cartoon

RE KRUGMAN NYT IT GETS EVEN WORSE

Terms search: your state, why Iowa, Minnesota, California, New Jersey, etc.

RE THE POWER OF A SIMPLE MAJORITY NYT EDITORIAL

Re filibuster, why have a system like that?


See terms search: drift

RE STRAUSS KAHN AND THE RAW MEDIA DRIVEN LAISSEZ FAIRE SYSTEM FROM ANOTHER ANGLE THAN KRUGMAN'S

I tend to go with the French.


Our media is, after all, a mere creature of our economic ideology, and hardly something for cultural 'edification' of any sort.


I especially like the carnival metaphor here. Also, a lynching, a murder by media. The 'media-judicial machine'. So right.


Terms search why Iowa, the media, cartoon, mise en scene, bonobos, Maverick, etc.

RE KRUGMAN CORPORATE CASH CON NYT JULY 3

IF HE IS RIGHT ABOUT THINGS LIKE THIS, AND I THINK HE IS,

WHAT DOES THAT IMPLY FOR THE DISCIPLINE OF ECONOMICS,

AND ITS SAGE ADVICE, LAISSEZ FAIRE,

IN THE CURRENT GLOBALIZED FORM ECONOMICS HAS TAKEN IT?

RE MY COMMENTS HERE ON THINGS LIKE FACEBOOK FACE FARM ANIMAL BOOK 1984BOOK AND INVESTMENT DECISIONS OF SOME REGIMES RUSSIA ETC

Here is a comment from Randall Collins' blog on this topic:

'The multiple connections of the electronic media would not prevent such a development; and indeed a determined authoritarian government would find the Internet a convenient way of spying on people. Especially as the tendency of technology and capitalist consolidation in the media industries is to bring all the media together into one device, it would be possible for government super-computers to track considerable details about people’s lives, expressed beliefs, and their social connections. In George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four (published in 1948), the television set is not something you watch but something that watches you, at the behest of the secret police. The new media make this increasingly easier for a government to do. Whether a government will do this or not, does not depend on the media themselves. It is a matter for the larger politics of the society. In that respect, too, the findings of sociology, both for micro-sociology and macro-sociology, remain relevant for the electronic network age of the future.'


Call it: 1984 book ANIMAL BOOK, STALIN BERG, STALIN MC BERGER, FACE FARM, ZUCKER FARM, 1984 BERG, ETC.,  ZUCKER BARN, MC BERGBURGER, MC ZUCKER BURG, MC DONALD BERG, MC DONALD BOOK, ETC., ETC., ETC.

RE MY COMMENTS IN A PRIOR POST AND A SOCIOLOGIST RANDALL COLLINS

I don't recommend them, but there is a first time for almost everything/

Re my comment here, in a prior post,


'This is another example of how federalism has failed us all, not just Californians or nonCalifornians, corporations or individuals, investors or parents, rich or poor, black or white, young or old.' 

see some of the writings and analyses of Randall Collins:


 http://sociological-eye.blogspot.com/


I have his early book on credentialism, wonderful so far.

RE WYOMING AND CORRUPTION THE WYOMING PURCHASE AND WHY NOT ALSO IOWA OR GREECE

Why not suggest the same types of solutions for Wyoming incorporations corruption as we have for Minnesota fiscal irresponsibility?


And why not also offer to sell Iowa, just for the hell, and the profitability, of it?


TERMS SEARCH: WHY IOWA


If someone remonstrates that my 'Jeffersonianism' is not quite orthodox, I say, (not that I am one, really) 


'damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead......'


And after all, the Louisiana Purchase itself was on his 'watch'.


Question:


Can Greece be sold 
either to the 
Russians (Orthodox), 
or to the Turks (Muslim)
or to the Chinese (Confusian)?

RE MINNESOTA THE MINNESOTA PURCHASE

Why not suggest the wise feds step in and declare it once again a territory, 


say impose martial law up there; 


discuss rolling it into adjacent states. 


Why not ask: Why not?


Thus for example, why limit it to adjacency?


or, why limit it to existing states; 


why not say China, or Japan as a successor; 


sort of a partial reverse loan federal repayment?


Call it 'The Minnesota Purchase'.

RE THE BUDGET

My view is that we should go to a more or less war footing, and a command economy, in order to introduce the kind of fiscal responsibility, and frugality,  necessary to pay off the Chinese and others in a timely manner.


This seems like a responsible and quite conservative approach to take to such a bad situation. 


Also, no more quantitative easing, which just blatantly dilutes the purchasing power of the debt payments to all the big big property creditor interests out there.

RE MINNESOTA

Perhaps adjacent states sense an opportunity to engulf portions of this wonderful, fiscally beached, behemoth.

RE MAVERICKS HUNKERED DOWN

http://www.realecontv.com/videos/us/secrecy-haven-wyoming.html

Terms search eg: your state, Thurston, Iowa, compartmentalization, specialization, GAC, etc.


Speaking of money laundering, corporate privacy (the only kind that matters much really when it hits the fan), and fraud, in the aftermath of WW II, including the Cold War itself as a 'fraud',   see David Kaiser's current post on Le Carre, etc., and now, my comment there.

RE VENERABILITY BLOGGER

Smart lady, in a rather narrow way. 


She bashes some of the wrong things in the wrong ways. Nothing new, or particularly unpredictable, about that.


Capital Punishment-Markets Through the Looking Glass 


http://marketslookingglass.wordpress.com

RE BOND MARKET

Great stuff:


http://moneymorning.com/2011/07/01/coming-bond-market-crash/

CODY WILLARD

Is a little dingbat.

RE KRUGMAN'S BLOG JUNE 29

Rather choice, to see him quoting Mark, re Baron, re also Friedman. 


Follow his link to Goldman's article....


See also DK's recent post re politicians' shenanigans, in part.

Re politics philosophy aesthetics economics intellectualism experts history past cartoon themes

To reprise some prior posts, covering at the same time many of these themes,


term search: bonobos

RE G.O.P. VS THE WORLD NYT EDITORIAL GREENBERG

This is a not very straight view of party politics in the past century.


Unfortunately, it views party politics in isolation from commerce and trade, the usual failure of political pundits, although he is apparently a historian.


It also paints a highly overly rosy retrospective view of American leadership, in anything, back then, 


and a similarly blinkered view of its potential going forward now.

GOLLAPSE RE NEW INVESTMENT STRATEGY: PREPARING FOR END TIMES NYT EDITORIAL TODAY

Gollapse is indeed coming:


the collapse, in dribs and drabs, of globalist laissez faire ideology.

re Thurston Howell and who do you think they will bail out

He had asked, rhetorically....

Now the Republicans, apparently, re the debt limit and the budget, 


want to make sure the Chinese are paid off, even if no one else, 


the 'big big property' interests, the big big creditor in the equation, so to speak, as Thurston had also muttered.


That is what Thurston would have projected, too.

RE BLIND GROWTH US SEES BIGGER ROLE FOR INDIA AS TRADE ALLY BBC EDITORIAL

What is a 'trade ally' ?


Geithner wants 'growth for its own sake' over there and here, growth is good for India and good for us.


I call this kind of short sighted, economist and big player driven, 'capitalist' expansionism 'blind growth'.


Terms search many terms here, eg trading places, MITI, CHALMERS JOHNSON, trading american interests, ETC.

GREECEFICATION DUE TO EUIZATION AND GLOBALIZATION

I think we are mostly all, in the so called developed world, 


becoming rather Greecified, all at once. Call this 


'Thurston's Economics Lesson'.


Thus gold...........

http://seekingalpha.com/article/277152-european-woes-make-gold-the-premier-asset-to-own

RE LEADERLESS IN EUROPE NYT EDITORIAL

Obviously written by clueless globalist pander......

RE AMERICA AWAKEN ROGER COHEN NYT EDITORIAL

He has seemingly good concepts, but he couches it all in 'politics as usual' here, 


which is what has gotten us to this impasse.


The Presidency, as an office, is not an arbiter, or promoter, of industrial policy, or of energy policy. 


If that is all we are going to do is ask for a 'dynamic president', then hang it up, 


as I have said before many times.


More drastic political reform will be required in order then to get either an industrial, or an energy, policy here.

RE SEEKING ALPHA GERMAN ECONOMIST

Stefan Homberg:

"In a market economy, even in the case of a plumber whose customers don't pay their bills, it's never a question of getting creditors "involved" (in helping to deal with a bankruptcy). Instead, when push comes to shove, it is creditors, and creditors alone, who have to write off their loans. Only then do they have an incentive to carefully choose who they lend money to. A market economy with no personal liability cannot function. The government bailout initiatives create misdirected incentives that continuously exacerbate the problems on the financial markets."

... and further ...

“If the bankruptcy of little Greece were actually to trigger a global financial crisis, new bailout programs couldn't solve the problem: They would actually exacerbate it. If no more states or banks are allowed to go bankrupt because this might precipitate a financial crisis, then we're finished. Then the problem continuously escalates and leads to a much greater crisis.”

This analysis I like.

RE JUSTICES REJECT BAN ON VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES NYT EDITORIAL TODAY

Justice Alito is at least in the real world, see his comment. 


Unfortunately, Justices Scalia and Thomas are not, 


although even Justice Thomas has a ray of insight here, not however underpinned, in a sola scriptura way, to the text to which he normally clings.


The comment about corporate interests is apposite here, which has long been the basis for first amendment excesses of this kind.  


I recently saw an interesting roundtable academic constitutional professorial discussion re the 2011 Court, and some problems of federalism and preemption. 


This is another example of how federalism has failed us all, not just Californians or nonCalifornians, corporations or individuals, investors or parents, rich or poor, black or white, young or old. 


Another interesting point was how the concepts of speech, assembly, and petition were very differently understood prior to and at the time of the founding, 


than has so called 'freedom of speech' now come to operate, in the last 225 years.


Terms search eg: your state, Why Iowa, Iowa, the media, edification, state local, etc.


See also David Kaiser's current post re Presidential conduct and the media. 

RE CURRENCIES EVERYWHERE VOTING WITH THEIR FEET

http://stocks.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2011/Emerging-Markets-Show-Gold-Some-Love-GLD-SGOL-PHYS-GDX-DGL0627.aspx?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+StockAdvice+(Investopedia+Stock+Analysis)#axzz1QUU9nZFp

Terms search this site, related topics, on eg, big banks, banker bashing market fixing

RE EUROPE STIFLES DRIVERS IN FAVOR OF ALTERNATIVES NYT EDITORIAL

Unfortunately, although ostensibly more politically integrated than they, we are not in a political position to undertake so wise a path here.

RE NYT BEHIND GAY MARRIAGE LEGISLATION NY

I happened to be near Woodstock that night.


Although I favor civil ceremony gay liaisons recognized by law, 


I disdain the politics, and the players, typical of this republic, of the outcome here in NY.

TERMS SEARCH IGNORAMITOCRACY

Terms search: team play, maverick executive, 


then, connect the dots.........................................

RE LAWYERS AND ACCOUNTANTS ONCE PUT INTEGRITY FIRST NYT EDITORIAL KPMG experts and themes here

This article dovetails nicely with some themes I have pressed on this blog, largely for those few who might stumble across it some day.


One can generalize this analysis to almost all expert specialties now, as I have pointed out, not just law or accounting.


Terms search, team play, etc.

RE THE WEEK IN PRIVACY (JUST BETWEEN US) NYT BLOG EDITORIAL FACEBOOK RUSSIA AND CRACKING DOWN AGAINST LEAKS TOO

See my prior comments on these topics eg the Russians' 'investor' interest in Facebook, and their praise (nyt article) of Zuckerberg's personality... ostensibly as an entrepreneur, and prior nyt articles on investments they have made; 


and NYT ARTICLES RE Goldman's connections of, and to, these political and technology and financial movers and shakers. 


It is not really just about savvy, or even 'sassy' (recall Saturday Night Live...), entrepreneurial 'investing', anymore..................;


pillaged big public and private databases are daily in the news, hacked into by governments, etc., etc.;


there's also, as I have pointed out, and as this nyt article also shows, a whole other 'agenda' there. 


Dovetails, somehow, perhaps, maybe, with the nyt article yesterday on State and Defense agencies promoting technologies and initiatives for evading censors in all countries; 


where can those two or three or four trends possibly lead?


Question: 
How does all of the above sit with this 'counter trend' (?): 
"US Presses Crackdown against leaks?" Nyt today, too?

SEE DAVID KAISER'S CURRENT ESSAY ON REASON SOROS THE ENLIGHTENMENT POLITICS AND POPPER

Great stuff.


Some themes there have been touched on here at times.
Terms search eg Popper, E H Carr, Wittgenstein, experts, social sciences, Winch,  etc.


Also look at a great course, Science Wars, Teaching Company.

RE DETOUR AROUND CENSORS OF ALL NATION STATES

If one were a foreign government, whether legitimate or not,  would one not perhaps consider such a move on the part of the US an act of aggression if not perhaps a declaration of hostilities?


While physical hostilities are under way in several places, this announcement seems to purport to turn all places into hostile cyber territory for which subversive IT tactics are legitimate.


Perhaps I read too much into the article........


http://geraldmeaders.blogspot.com/2011/06/re-us-underwrites-detour-around-censors.html

RE EPISTEMOLOGY AND THE END OF THE WORLD THE STONE BACK AGAIN

Seems like a good essay. Seems like a worthwhile point to make.
The problem is that this kind of conceptual confusion, or religious confusion, 
should not have been allowed to flourish in the first place.


One irony is this comes from a Notre Dame Professor..........


A good course I have watched recently in part, Science Wars, Goldman, great presentations so far.


TERMS SEARCH COMPARTMENTALIZATION, EXPERTS, 
multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, science, social science, etc.

SIERRA MAGAZINE COAL SUPPLIES ARTICLE AND SELLING OURS

Apparently China had been thot to have 65 year supply.


Apparently drastically overstated, now only 20, maybe less. 


They are going through it like a knife through butter, and want ours and everyone else's.


Apparently our smart entrepreneurs will sell whatever remains here is needed there if the price is right right now.


Similar concepts, of reduced proven reserves, or accelerated usage, may also apply to oil, with even more drastic consequences looming.

A GLOBALIZED VERSION OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION EVERYWHERE

And all at once. 


Spanish protests, Greek protests, Irish protests, you name it, 


this is just Europe...........


All economies, as all economists will now tell you, are 'fragile'.


All have 'structural' problems. 


Wonder why? 


Answer: An economists' induced disease, called globalization.


That, global 'bourgeoisie' revolutions,  that seems what is to come now.......


Sales of military hardware by US manufacturers are up 50% from last year. Wonder who's going to use that on whom?


Really good place for a smart investor to be, but don't expect much of a 'long term'.

RE BRADLEY PATTON ETC RE THE MENU

Stove top braised Australian Indian lamb shanks. 


Various Indian dry spices, even fennel for a Greek 'twang',  tomatoes, onions, garlic, de riguer pepperoncinis, broccoli stalks (!), also side dishes commandeered from other chefs here........ 


2006 Red Truck California zinfandel, dark lindt 85 %, coffee, brandy, etc. 


I picked up a copy of A Soldier's Story for .50. Sounds like a great bargain, doesn't it? 


Read a few pages, and laid it aside.


I had previously reserved Carlo D' Este's book on Patton; 


much more palatable fare.


Sorry, for all you Bradley lovers, out there.

RE LIBYA AND THE GOLD CONNECTION

http://etfdailynews.com/2011/06/15/gaddafi-gold-for-oil-is-the-gold-dinar-behind-the-war-on-libya-nyseslv-nysegld-nyseiau-nysesgol-nyseagol/

Very interesting, going forward.....;


issues and possible motives which most Americans have no idea about.


Perhaps the article has it all wrong.

RE JUSTICE GOES GLOBAL NYT EDITORIAL THOMAS FRIEDMAN SANDEL RAWLS AND BENIGHTEDNESS

Sandel, sounds interesting, perhaps in an amateurish way. 


Better, though, than what Americans are generally thinking about, by a country mile.


Follower of Rawls, perhaps. (Looking, later, at Wikipedia, he is a 'critic'....)


Justice as Fairness; not really doable, ever, as a permanent doctrine, unfortunately.


Unfortunately, Rawls is not really worth criticizing. 


So, Sandel's whole raison d'etre is, so to speak, at least for someone serious,  passe.


Most Americans, and apparently a huge number of Asians, are not privy to this elementary insight.

RE DAVID KAISER'S CURRENT POST PRESIDENT OBAMA'S PROBLEMS AND COMMENT NINE

Comment 9:


Great stuff. Dovetails with my remark there,


re the advantages, if not the qualities of the denizens, of the private sector.


Thanks 
to anonymous.

RE TEAM PLAY VERSUS THE MAVERICK EXECUTIVE

Themes we have harped on here.


See this post for example:


'Home' versus 'away' games, in the global economy.

http://geraldmeaders.blogspot.com/2011/03/re-social-science-palooza-ii-brooks-nyt.html

RE THREE WAYS TO PLAY A CHINA CRASH

http://www.investorplace.com/45310/3-ways-to-play-a-china-crash/

Terms search, many possibilities:
china, rail to rail, bubblelization, uncle, playing three sides, michael lewis, flat, thomas friedman, nixon, wall street, big short, shorting, etc.

re bbc student migration curbs to uk

Not going to happen here. 


We have had a sluice for entry of foreign students for decades.

RE US SAID TO TURN BACK MISSILE SHIPMENT

Perhaps if we had let Patton go forward, back in 1945 46, we would not have had this Cold War WMD proliferation in the first place, etc., etc., etc.


Maybe someone will try to correct my flawed perspective on such a thing.

RE UNWINDING GLOBALIZATION

Here was an article I ran across, looking for Niall Ferguson's blurb on the same topic.

http://www.chinavortex.com/2008/03/unwinding-globalization/

RE TIME MAGAZINE JUNE 2011 WHAT RECOVERY ARTICLE

Great stuff: The Five Myths.


Only criticisms, 


the reality painted to counter these myths is not real or long view enough, 


(and leaves untouched the military implications, now bearing down on us, implications which any rational account of 'economic affairs' should really begin with.).


My personal favorite: The Entrepreneurship Myth.


Terms search many terms on this blog.

RE US UNDERWRITES DETOUR AROUND CENSORS

Sounds at first like a laudable project, freeing ever more hundreds of millions for a new birth of laissez faire self determination, broad vistas of freedom of expression and intercourse everywhere. 


Sounds great for the three billion new capitalists wanting to get ahead in the global marketplace, and being held back by nanny dictators.


Unfortunately, here, we have not had such a great edifying effect from our free press and freedom of expression ('if it bleeds, it leads'), unstinted by scruple or constraint. 


Witness the ongoing decline in the quality of our public and private discourse, underpinned nevertheless by exaggerated, though increasingly monopolistically co opted, freedom of expression, extending to pornography, inanity, dumbing down by the market, and other excesses.


Terms search: Why Iowa, your state, Lorch, why______, state and local government, local government, state government, how interesting is a state,  speech,  press, iowa, 

RE BEGGAR THY NEIGHBOR CRY UNCLE

Terms search, uncle.


Here was a rather good one, using uncle:


http://geraldmeaders.blogspot.com/2010/11/mise-en-scene-maverick-executive-free.html

RE CHINA'S AIRCRAFT CARRIER ETC NYT EDITORIAL TODAY

It considers its sphere of influence all of Asia, and the entire Pacific rim, and the Indian Ocean to the Middle East and Africa. That makes sense. Isn't that ducky, we and several others share deeply cross overlapping spheres of influence throughout the world.  


Oil in South China Sea, yummy; many competing takers for that stuff, all around the sea and elsewhere; say also Shell, Exxon Mobil, etc.


That doesn't look particularly 'flat' to me, but rather blobbalized.


Don't forget how quickly they have been moving into Africa......


We have built them up since about 1980 to be a big big player in global trade and commerce.


Really really smart.

TANKING PONZI GLOBALIZATION

Says it all...........................


There is, apparently, a ponziworld.blogspot.com, and he says this:


"Multi-nationals will bear a significant brunt of the ensuing rage. The soon-to-come trade barriers will put an end to their multi-decade industrial arbitrage even as the cost of capital soars, hence causing profits to evaporate. Meanwhile public sentiment towards country-club CEOs and big business in general will tank amid mass layoffs."


That also looks like to me a possible scenario for the future, unfortunately.

RE STORMY WEATHER ANY SAFE PORTS FOR THE MINNOW

http://community.nasdaq.com/News/2011-06/stormy-weather-but-are-there-any-safe-ports.aspx?storyid=80147&CID=SYN-MKTWCH-20101013-QUOTES-001

Answer: No. 


You're headed for shipwreck on Gilligan's Island.

RE THE AFTERMATH AND FUTURE

After the laissez faire 'system', of the liberal nation state international economic order, has failed, because it is now passe; 


and the 'market state' system now fails, because it is both ideologically unworkable and economically illusory; 


with what, then, is one left?


Most unfortunately, either with or without large scale military imposition and enforcement: cartel socialisms/fascisms, of uneven and unpredictable kinds, within, among, and across individual nation states, and civilizational groupings.


There are many reasons why such convergences of forces and trends lead in these directions.

RE RULE BY RENTIERS

He's right,......., 


but, hey, it was his 'economics', his economists' globalization,  that got us to this rentier class, globally, here.

RE DK'S CURRENT POST AND ANARCHY OR TOTALITARIANISM OR SOME THIRD ALTERNATIVES

Comment 14:


"The main difference between the Nazis and the Tea Party is the Tea Party doesn’t advocate intimidation or violence. That’s the difference. If they did they would resemble the Nazis (or labor movements) a bit more."


I would say that this is the kind of view which a so-called 'party sympathizer', or lower level party member, would naturally, and even rather naively, take; 


whereas the actual views or political goals of the leadership of protototalitarian  party, if it has aspirations to ultimate power of a powerful state, 


are quite other than those promulgated to or from sympathizers. Low level grass roots governance is not what this movement will be about, once securely in power. 


The 'buffering' process among party organization levels works in both directions, as Arendt describes.


Analogies, as well as differences, can be drawn, to the account in Hannah Arendt, The Origins Of Totalitarianism, chapter The Totalitarian Movement, subchapter ii. Totalitarian Organization. 


This sort of fills in the blank, left by comment 14, on DK's current post. 


Wish that weren't the way things have been shaping up.

RE MY COMMENT AND REFERENCE ON DK'S CURRENT POST ESSAY

Professor:
I thought you and readers might possibly appreciate this:

http://news.firedoglake.com/2011/05/10/koch-u-florida-state-university-hands-over-economics-department-to-billionaire-libertarians/

See also my topics on the suggestibility of experts.

All the best,

RE MORE TRADE AND MORE AID NYT EDITORIAL TODAY SAME OLD REFRAIN

See topics here, terms search : trading places, trading American interests, and various terms searches of this site.  See for example:


http://geraldmeaders.blogspot.com/2010/10/re-sherrod-brown-for-our-china-trade.html


Author Robert Z. Lawrence: a long time globalization pander, and ex pat South African.

RE RIGHT WINGERS THEN AND NOW DAVID KAISER CURRENT POST

He rightly points out that the threat from the right now is not (for the moment, my view) totalitarianism, but anarchy.


I would add, of course, however, that this frank anarchy which they now espouse, were it to come to pass, 


(in my judgment, by the way, we have already had a mild species of political anarchy here for some time; even, say, from the founding of the republic!) 


will very quickly, perhaps almost overnight, because of manifold problems of order which such an anarchy would engender, 


morph into a new species of totalitarianism.


Political anarchy is, after all, a sort of political vacuum, into which more powerful, tractive forces, of whatever kind, will immediately move.

RE GOLD AND THE FUTURE

http://wallstcheatsheet.com/stocks/should-you-sell-your-gold-shares-now.html/

UNMORTGAGED HOME BANK FORECLOSED THEN BANK REVERSE FORECLOSED ON

This property was in "Golden Gate Estates".....................a situation, itself, with a long and chequered title history.....


(Perhaps the new homeowners had had 'clear title', aside from the allegations of BOA. 
The fact that they paid cash does not necessarily mean that their title was nevertheless 'clear'.)

http://www.realecontv.com/videos/real-estate/foreclosing-on-the-bank-.html

See terms search: mortgage foreclosure
Re my uncle, terms search eg: GAC, etc., see this article also:
http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/tuma/hrs/chap9.htm


Re my uncle see eg:
http://geraldmeaders.blogspot.com/2010/08/re-gac-and-great-gulf-american-real.html

RE DAVID KAISER'S CURRENT POST

See his 


"Right-wingers, then and now", at historyunfolding.blogspot.com


and my comment, if he chooses to post it.


I am not so taken with the Strauss & Howe generational paradigm, but some other aspects of his views are fine, and the generational paradigm seems, magically even, to dovetail with his exposition.

ADVICE FOR THOMAS FRIEDMAN re advice for china

My advice for Tom is not to try to give China advice.

The flat, interconnected world he describes, as shifting innovation opportunity, entrepreneurship down, 

is concurrently going to be shifting governmental control down, everywhere. Start with, for example, just a small example, the Patriot Act....

Entrepreneurship itself is getting more 'valueless' as time goes on, and as intellectual 'property' has no enforcement protection mechanisms, in an interconnected world except, perhaps,  from out of the mouth of a gun. 

RE CASABLANCA AND CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD

Following up on remarks off blog, on cinema, recently, 
here is a book reference:


I have picked up several times over the years a book by Robert Ray, never quite read it through:


A Certain Tendency of The Hollywood Cinema 1930-1980.


Very good, now somewhat dated book. He actually explains  ideological underpinnings for motion pictures' success or failure. A wealth of illustrations from films.

RE NEWS BBC

Chinese boy sells kidney to buy ipad 2.


Must be worth it.

RE GAMBLING AT THE GLOBAL INVESTMENT TABLE

A lot of talk about a 'safe haven', maybe even gold....


The poker players, and those at the entrepreneurial global market crap table, need some sleep, some day.


Guess what? No safe haven, no 'game over' for them; 


its 'Hotel California', 


deal the next hand, 


you have only the chips you've still got, 


and it will be your turn again, momentarily.


Rather like rats trying to find a way out of a sinking or burning ship. 


Overboard may be the only option, unfortunately. At least the occupants of The Minnow had a chance on the island..... 


Can anyone swim, and if so, for how long?


Terms search eg: terms search, minnow, etc.

RE SHORTING MARKET STATES AND THEIR CURRENCIES

How would one 'defend' against it?


Gold, greenbacks, guns, guts, glory, graft, graffiti, or game over?


As my young readers are fond now of quoting me, 


there probably is no defense, so


"smell the coffee", 
"read my lips"


"game over".

SHORTING GLOBALIZED MARKET STATES

Call it a 'mixed' paradigm..............

CAN YOU SAY SHORTING GLOBALIZATION

The only game left at the Casino is:

SHORTING GLOBALIZATION.

RE MARC FABER INTERVIEW realecontv GREAT STUFF ESPECIALLY THE FERRARIS AND BENTLEYS PARKED OUTSIDE

He has a great sense for political apprehensions; see espcially his connections between Libya, Africa, Pakistan, and China.

http://www.realecontv.com/page/1826.html

RE ITS NOT ABOUT YOU BROOKS NYT EDITORIAL

It is ironic that the very boomer, conservative, individualistic, anarchistic, civil liberties, maverick, globalistic, corporatist, entrepreneurial, politics and ethos that Brooks himself has regularly espoused is what he criticizes here. It smacks of the usual dishonesty. 


Compare with Thomas Friedman's similarly disingenuous article on The Osama Decade. 


Deep hypocrisies.

RE THE BIN LADEN DECADE NYT EDITORIAL THOMAS FRIEDMAN

As usual, a profoundly false and misleading essay throughout.