Wednesday, 28 August 2013

Atheism in India: He’s not the son of God | The Economist

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The Secret Seven on the Trail by Enid Blyton - review | Children's books | theguardian.com

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Departing DHS secretary warns of 'serious' cyber-threat, devastating natural disaster -- Puppet Masters -- Sott.net

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Former JP Morgan banker arrested in Spain over 'London Whale' charges that cost $6bn -- Puppet Masters -- Sott.net

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U.N. delays Syria chemical weapons investigation over 'safety' fears -- Puppet Masters -- Sott.net

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Western intervention looms after reported Syrian chemical weapons attacks | WGN-TV

Chemical weapons give tremendous advantages to those that use them, however, the international response to use of such weapons is swift and harsh!
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Possibility Of Syria Strike Spreads Fear Across Middle East

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Angela Kane: The Myth of the UN Gun Grab

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Syria Chemical Weapon Attack: Angela Kane, The UN High Commissioner Who Could Provide The Evidence For War

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Assad responsible for Syria chemical weapons attack: Biden | Business Standard

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Chemical attacks in Syria: reports mapped | News | theguardian.com

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Syria's warning to the west: military action will have grave consequences | World news | The Guardian

Fear is further use of chemicals by Syria!
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Russia does best to stymy action against chemical warfare in Syria

Denial that it has occurred won't be accepted by international community.

Evidence of culpability is not something the agents of such weapons will give out. 

No one has brought forward convincing proof who the new enemy is! The new enemy knows how to use chemical weapons and then escape. Who would do that? How would they do it? Why would they do,it?

Use of chemical weapons is likely to be work of special teams who have knowledge of what to do, when to do it, and how to pull out without being caught hiding their tracks as they go about their nasty business. They have the ability to be unseen by regular troops.  Such covert teams one has to suppose are trained by military staff already experienced in chemical warfare. Where do such people come from?

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Video of children dead from chemical warfare

Alarmingly, the Syrian authorities are really dragging their feet on getting UN inspectors to places where it is claimed atrocities took place. 

Why is use of such weapons necessary? 
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Chemical weapons in Syria: How did we get here? - CNN.com

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Student calls India a traveller's heaven, but a woman's hell

Abuse of women in India can be traumatic! 
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3 Ways 3-D Printing Could Revolutionize Healthcare | HealthBiz Decoded

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Arthritis and Broccoli’s Benefits in Preventing Arthritis

You should absolutely say yes to broccoli next time it is offered as a side?
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Parallels Access Review: Controlling a PC or Mac, iPad-Style - WSJ.com

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'Go Wi-Fi Service' not safe

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Bottom Line's Mind Boosting Secrets

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Khrushchev and his stupid stupid ideas about capitalism and America!

Bob!   Cc: others

I take these economic policy things too seriously to let that one slide by, so here goes my humble opinion and wickedly cryptic thought process!

America in reality saved the Russians from certain financial disaster. Barack Obama is the best friend the Russians could have at the present time, not because he is a socialist, but because he is a liberal thinker, just like me and all my real friends.  Russia never had it so good and its not because of Putin or Khrushchev. Vladimir Putin is a disaster for Russia and is like George Bush, a man with little real positive power for good, a weakling as a statesman and one who, in my humble opinion, belongs on the rubbish heap of history.  Russia could be a great power, but not under its present Putin leadership which is totally crappy, in my view!

The ignorant Russian Khrushchev had no idea about socialism or economics and should never have been given access to such a powerful position appearing before the UN and threatening the world with nuclear holocaust. He was a stupid tired and cranky old alcoholic. Shows how adrift the Russian system took their people. He may even have been responsible for President Kennedy's death?

The use of the terms capitalism, socialism, and communism really date one. These are no longer concepts that have much analytical merit and belong in the detritus of past mistakes at understanding the basic organisation of economies and societies. 

The authority on the decline of capitalism and the rise of socialism is the highly respected business cycle economist Joseph Schumpeter a former economic history professor at Harvard and in my view a genius ranking along with Veblen, Marx, Hayek, Lord Kahn, Lord Keynes (Cambridge), Lord Kaldor and Milton Friedman (Chicago). 

As an economic thinker and analyst, Joseph Schumpeter introduced technology and innovation into capitalist business cycle theory.  His understanding of economic growth processes was remarkable. Few modern historians and economists can match his breadth of research and analytical skills. He was, however, weak in his overall understanding of banking seeing it mainly from the viewpoint of technology and innovation. In other words, he was a poor balance sheet manager and accountant.  He even caused a bank to collapse? 

On the other hand, :) Lord Keynes saw the general economic employment system as a zero sum short term game, in the 1930's trumping Schumpeter in academic popularity who had a clearer idea of the long term, but John Keynes failed to understand industry dynamics and how much employment would be driven by the international distribution of human and material resources with banks, firms and governments breaking all the rules in a relentless drive towards unambiguous control.

My political science Professor Gad Horowitz at McGill told me that economists trying to understand socialism was a lost cause and then proceeded to point me in the direction of the Marxist theorist Herbert Marcuse who accurately said technology ruled the roost.   However, I don't think Gad was right in his thinking about Schumpeterian economics, which has mostly stood the test of time.  Schumpeter was 'the' expert on the decline of capitalism and the rise of socialism, and he wrote the book 'Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy'.  

I have immense respect for the Schumpeterian approach to understand the rise and fall of firm-based industries, markets and products within the capitalist system.  In time, the capitalist system with government support has succeeded. It would have failed without government support in subsidizing basic research and science. It fails, for example, now to grasp the weakness of economic growth emerging from cell phone technology that despite obscene profits cannot begin to undertake the social health research necessary and that after a major crisis in the future will inevitably be subsidised by governments. 

What Schumpeter foresaw that Marx missed was the critical role of product differentiation and new product innovation. Socialist ideas fail when they do not include technology innovation.  Our ideas about capitalism also fail for a similar reason that they do not take into account the critical role of government in science. Without governments footing the bill, capitalism and socialism would both be completely on the scrap heap of historical concepts.  

My own dissertation showed the application of concepts of Schumpeterian competitive destruction dynamics to high technology industrial cycles in Britain over forty years. 

Lord Kaldor, a Hungarian, was my faculty adviser at Cambridge, a gifted orator, and the inventor of the details of the consumption tax. The historian Professor Grant was my tutor along with Michael Posner a member of Harold Wilson's cabinet (who incidentally sang for several years in the Balliol choir section in Oxford University alongside my father, and regularly played pool with him in the evenings at Mansfield College). My father was an out and out socialist who worked in the Montreal docks and labour relations boards to see that sailors, dock workers and seamen were treated fairly. Dad saw capitalism for what it is, a system of exploitation of working people. That concept has stood the test of time.

Lord Kaldor was a genius in the economics of growth and particularly the relationship between population growth and market productivity.

You must realise that socialism was defined by Marx / Engels and the anti-capitalists is a situation of interest rates approaching zero.  Many uneducated American economists don't understand the slightest concept of socialism or economic development, which is why they appear so funny to those that do. Some would say that because interest rates are close to zero, we must have socialism? 

American law is currently in the process of deflating the US economy by handsomely fining those banks that caused the problems of bad loans / assets. When those banks have paid up the huge amounts that they owe the American people, then money supply and government debt can gradually return to a more normal level. This shrinkage will lead to higher interest rates and the American government debt will again become very manageable. The problem is the leakage of US dollars overseas, which will lead to further deflations and devaluations in countries such as Brazil and India as banks waste futures. 

What has caused the American debt to balloon has been spending on the US military and that has shrunk the non military capitalist economy relative to what it should have been.  The Reagan years of military build up were only a more recent expression of why American capitalism has been unable to achieve its domestic productivity potential and used China as an escape hatch to keep profits high.

Obama has produced a capitalist economy par excellence when defined in terms of the real interest rate used by all Marxist economics, namely the rate of profit. Obama is the antithesis of socialism and the greatest expression / exponent of American liberalism and small scale capitalism. American bankers, however, are the creators of socialist forces seeing that they require huge government subsidies to survive, when in reality they should be allowed to fail. It will be interesting to see whether high interest rates lead to wholescale banking collapses which is what one would expect from banks that don't have the slightest idea about effective balance sheet management.

Khrushchev would not understand why capitalism has succeeded so magnificently under the management of a black man. Obama has saved the US economy from ruin in many ways! The lawyers will do the rest. President Bush his predecessor was in my opinion really a very stupid man.

Yes! President Barak Obama is the greatest capitalist president ever, for many many reasons! He saved the American automobile industry from almost certain collapse.

Sorry to disappoint the bastard Khrushchev!

Arthur


On 28 Aug 2013, at 12:16 PM, Bob wrote:

Arthur, perhaps he was on the right trail of eventuality?

 

Good thoughts for a wonderful day 

Nikita Khrushchev Quote

September 29, 1959

DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN HE APPEARED AT THE U.N. AND BANGED HIS SHOE ON THE PODIUM ?

THIS WAS HIS ENTIRE QUOTE:




 





WE'RE ALMOST THERE !

 

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Two Skills Wall Street Always Needs - Business Insider

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Forgotten Operating Systems - Business Insider

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JPMorgan To Be Hit With $6 Billion Fine - Business Insider

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Cactus Needles Clean Up Oil Spills - Business Insider

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The double bubble cycle

Such a double cycle occurred in Thailand with the Asian crisis because of an inappropriate policy stance with their housing bubble!  The stock market took the brunt of the second deflation. 
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Trump University Sued - Business Insider

Burt!

Trump was quite a smarmy guy and the complete opposite of what it takes to recover America's reputation as a country of genuine opportunity?


Arthur

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Here's The Saddest Line In The New York Attorney General's Lawsuit Against Donald Trump's Alleged 'Sham' 'University' - Business Insider

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Tuesday, 27 August 2013

Russia / Syria / Iran alliance a threat to long term world peace.

Some personal thoughts on the extreme violence of the emerging conflict.

Do something that cannot be ignored! It's a trap and the monkey (USA) has all but reached into it.  We all question America's motivation given its military capabilities, which we are about to see in action once again. What surprises will there be this time, we wonder?  The peaceful road is not an option any more. Those that would deceive have seen to that whether secret security forces of America, Russia, Iran, al ?.. , Syria. ....?  Children being poisoned in this mad war is the last straw. Reason no longer rules. 

The world has grown very used to various Islamic factions perpetually at war with themselves and everyone else, it seems. By stomping on human rights these rigid and mostly violent old regimes offer no futures to ordinary people. No religious leaders offer peace processes that are credible. The talk is always of keeping the status quo? None are self sacrificial except to blow up people on the way to a selfish heaven. America with it's intelligent compassionate leaders, a break from the Rumsfield mentality of the past, offers hope, but the best people are stepping into policy quicksand while Russia is pouring in water and shaking the framework.

Syria has had every opportunity to come clean with its people. Unfortunately, Russia's propaganda machine continually misleads everyone about the real solutions and options because it wants to trip America and the West at every opportunity, which lowers everyone's desire for sense of decency and understanding.  It is Russia that the West must blame. Russia gives hope to a dictator who is about to blow his head off as he presses the delivery button for poisonous weapons of mass destruction heading Israel's way?

No America is nothing like what Russia would have you believe it is. Children and innocents die while the world hesitates to stop the use of chemical weapons because of Russian disinformation. A monster dictator governing Syria moves along with Iranian and Russian weapons and technical help. 

When the people of Syria spontaneously rebelled at the closed political system in Syria people in Russia flinched because that is the direction Russia wishes to take the world. This is a war conflict between Russia and United States which could have momentous consequences as the possibility of the use of nuclear warheads looms. How do you counter poison gas scuds thrown at Tel Aviv? 

It's a war about values and human rights and certainly one the west cannot afford to lose. Russia has shown its direction is towards dictatorship and reconstruction of intolerant regimes where homophobia and discrimination against women rule. That is not a path the world really wants. It is an old system of control and deceit being played by tired old Russians and former KGB, the master hands at the game of disinformation! The unambiguous control exercised and demanded by Iranian political and religious leaders is no better!

Iran at every step uses religion and exploitive terror to further it's goals of regional disruptor. This is war in its ugliest form, make no mistake. Russia's unscrupulous meddling in the Middle East and it's propaganda machine attacking American, Arab and Western credibility at every step helps no one. 

Time for the West to stand up for its values of honesty and fair play despite the enormous scandal of Russian propaganda and weaponry in aiding a failed violent regime. Know your enemy, and Russia / RT is not our friend in this? 

Unfortunately, Syria stands as a major stumbling block to stability in the Middle East which craves a break towards reason and tolerance only to have Russia and Iran stirring the pot! 
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Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner makes its first appearance - CNN.com

http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/26/travel/boeing-787-9-dreamliner


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America’s Nine Most Damaged Brands - 24/7 Wall St.

http://247wallst.com/special-report/2013/04/10/americas-nine-most-damaged-brands-2/


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Apple delineates its ecosystem: The Mac's new advantage vs. Windows | ZDNet

http://www.zdnet.com/apple-delineates-its-ecosystem-the-macs-new-advantage-vs-windows-7000016643/


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Paul Krugman is (finally) wrong about something: Apple Macintosh | ZDNet

As PC users, we did not see the fuller picture, but we did get screwed by viruses and poor hardware!

http://www.zdnet.com/paul-krugman-is-finally-wrong-about-something-apple-macintosh-7000019879/?s_cid=e552&ttag=e552


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Paul Krugman is (finally) wrong about something: Apple Macintosh | ZDNet

http://www.zdnet.com/paul-krugman-is-finally-wrong-about-something-apple-macintosh-7000019879/?s_cid=e552&ttag=e552


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The Decline of E-Empires - NYTimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/26/opinion/krugman-the-decline-of-e-empires.html?ref=opinion&_r=0


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Microsoft's Ballmer: Why Microsoft doesn't want to be IBM (or Apple) and more | ZDNet

http://www.zdnet.com/microsofts-ballmer-why-microsoft-doesnt-want-to-be-ibm-or-apple-and-more-7000019812/


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Microsoft's Ballmer on his biggest regret, the next CEO and more | ZDNet

http://www.zdnet.com/microsofts-ballmer-on-his-biggest-regret-the-next-ceo-and-more-7000019810/


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Single Android flaw can be used to target entire enterprise | ZDNet

The future problem is with Android security! Need one say more?

http://www.zdnet.com/single-android-flaw-can-be-used-to-target-entire-enterprise-7000019097/


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How Snowden got the NSA documents | ZDNet

http://www.zdnet.com/how-snowden-got-the-nsa-documents-7000019860/?s_cid=e552&ttag=e552


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Apple patent could remotely disable protesters' phone cameras | ZDNet

Interesting article on the future control mechanisms?

http://www.zdnet.com/apple-patent-could-remotely-disable-protesters-phone-cameras-7000003640/


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Is Germany the best place to start your start-up? | ZDNet

http://www.zdnet.com/is-germany-the-best-place-to-start-your-start-up-7000007907/


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Is England the best place to start your start-up? | ZDNet

http://www.zdnet.com/uk/is-england-the-best-place-to-start-your-start-up-7000008286/


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Startup-Ecosystem-Report-2012.pdf

Interesting analysis of key locations for new business!

http://cdn2.blog.digital.telefonica.com.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Startup-Ecosystem-Report-2012.pdf

Arthur

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Monday, 26 August 2013

Carney plans to put freeze on interest rates for three years - BelfastTelegraph.co.uk

This is an interesting approach. The problem is that such a monetary policy is not a great way for the savings side of the equation and assumes profits of business is the only important income savings component. This may be the case because debt overhang is so intrenched that paying down debt has to be seen as the best alternative to saving.  The math justifies Carney's approach because paying down debt needs to be the order of the debt. However, the long term is needed because we are faced with huge debt overhangs. Nothing builds debt more rapidly than banks being involved with the housing market. Banks now operate on a maturity mismatch basis that the monetary theorists do not understand. We need another academic like Lord Keynes to relight the text book for full employment in a fully transformed world economy. Barring that we have to settle for people like Carney to follow a tightrope policy path. 

One has to wonder whether a generation of non-saving will develop should incomes not rise because fiscal policy does little more than stimulate a subsidised construction industry funded by foreign banks desperate to avoid restrained lending policies at home. Foreign banks will blow up a home financing balloon in London that only those desperate or stupid will partake in. Best for most to sit tight for four years and watch the debacle? Desperate times call for desperate measures and Cameron seems to hope, like Brown before him, that an impossible mismatch can be undertaken without financial calamity. It is a gamble that I would not recommend since it plays into the weaknesses of foreign banks escaping tough markets in USA, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece. Sure they can lend easy money, but should they?

Rebuilding manufacturing industry is a tough challenge because there is a need for small concerns across Britain to invest in highly efficient capital and people with a skill and knowledge base.  Producers may see the opportunities but be put off because demand for larger amounts of domestic product justified on the basis of increasing efficiency is not there or still not price competitive with the likes of India or China. Should firms focus on technical niches they might have a growth path. In the past, firms have suffered from undercapitalised and under-skilled employees. It's a fact that modestly efficient work forces cannot hope to compete in the long run with low wage exports from China. The devil is the firm that uses the local skilled labour to undercut the competitors local skilled labour with low wage imports. 

Increased capitalisation of the workplace with more skilled workers and state of the art machines are probably only possible in a huge diversified and growing market like Europe, so the membership within the EU is critical for the future of Scottish and British industry. The serious talk of political separation by Scotland is damaging to employment prospects in that region and if achieved with reduce economic opportunities narrowing the options for those wanting to invest in Scotland's skills.

In the end, banks may be the main beneficiary of a lax monetary policy that may catch them off guard with bad loans should consumers not opt to repay existing debts while they can. If they don't the underlying maturity mismatch of home and consumer loans will lengthen and grow.

The maintenance of low interest rates as part of a design for a 'soft landing' from excessive lending to housing sector interests was in the first place appropriate for domestic housing. However, what the British banks did was link the US housing market to returns in the UK. One has to wonder at the outright stupidity of British institutions in letting American banks off load their bad balance sheets to British investors. It was only going to be sustainable as a currency interest rate gamble and like so many, was not justified by the data nor the mathematics. 
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