November 2009

Global Recession: Shapes and Forms

“Debt crisis in millionaires’ playground could herald new phase in global financial meltdown”

“You say it was always obvious to you that because Britain had such a large financial sector we would be among the worst affected and that our recovery would be delayed. Why then did the prime minister say Britain would be leading the world out of recession?”

Others say that wallpapering the cracks in the capitalist wall – with public money – will not fix structural faults.

I sincerely hope though that the Tamerlane HQ will be saved.

Fears of double-dip recession grow as Dubai crashes
A morally bankrupt dictatorship built by slave labour

Done your laundry?

” Depending on which international agency you ask, criminals launder anywhere between $500 billion and $1 trillion worldwide every year. The global effect is staggering in social, economic and security terms.
. . .
Developing countries often bear the brunt of modern money laundering because the governments are still in the process of establishing regulations for their newly privatized financial sectors. This makes them a prime target. ”

Rumors relating to money laundering and connections between the fallen banks and the Russian mob continue. It is told that these are so ’embarrassing’ and reach so high up in the ranks and across boarders, that it will be about the last ‘material’ to be uncovered, – if at all.

In the meantime, low-level bank-employees are being investigated where the sums of money allegedly embezzled are in the range normal people can identify with.

No wonder that people delighted in the story about Tony Musulin – Best Thief of the Year 2009.

Meltdown Iceland
How Money Laundering Works

Left, Right or Wrong

Which is the worse criminal, the “Right” which implicated us in a monstrous crime, or the “Left” which is making us pay for it?

In similar circumstances, Ferdinand Pecora called it “a shocking disclosure of low standards in high places.”

The Wizard of Oz

Dorothy’s adventures may be an allegory but the solution, to get back to “Kansas”, is also a paradox.

Many have struggled long and hard but as they say “resistance is futile”.

The only thing we have to do is to splash some cold water on the wicked witch of the West (stop feeding her) to orchestrate her meltdown.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Story Behind …
Executive Order 11110

Vaguely Familiar (?)

” Our world seems to have been invaded by individuals whose approach to life and love is so drastically different from what has been the established norm for a very long time that we are ill- prepared to deal with their tactics of what Robert Canup calls “plausible lie.” As he demonstrates, this philosophy of the “plausible lie” has overtaken the legal and administrative domains of our world, turning them into machines in which human beings with real emotions are destroyed. ”

” “Likeable,” “Charming,” “Intelligent,” “Alert,” “Impressive,” “Confidence-inspiring,” and “A great success with the ladies”: These are the sorts of descriptions repeatedly used by Cleckley in his famous case-studies of psychopaths. They are also, of course, “irresponsible,” “self-destructive,” and the like. These descriptions highlight the great frustrations and puzzles that surround the study of psychopathy. ”

” Narcissists are possessed of inordinate abilities to charm, to convince, to seduce, and to persuade. Many of them are gifted orators and intellectually endowed. Many of them work in politics, the media, fashion, show business, the arts, medicine, or business, and serve as religious leaders. ”

” By virtue of their standing in the community, their charisma, or their ability to find the willing scapegoats, they do get exempted many times. Having recurrently “got away with it” – they develop a theory of personal immunity, founded upon some kind of societal and even cosmic “order” in which certain people are above punishment. ”

The Mask of Sanity
Bankers and Stockbrokers as Malignant and Psychopathic Narcissists
“Without Conscience” Robert Hare’s Web Site
Snakes In Suits: When Psychopaths Go To Work

The BBC can make you laugh (or throw up)

The much acclaimed, “The Love of Money” has been flickering over our hypnotic screens of late. In it’s final stages we are shown how an angelic PM (or as some say a “one-eyed Scottish idiot”) steps in and saves the world’s financial systems from the abyss, almost singlehandedly.

It may well be that the program tries to clarify what happened in the 80 years up to this fatal date, but somehow it gets lost in this personality cult. Did all the Messianic Saviour’s (national and international) hang upside down in their respective caves – praying to the money god – for all these years?

Or was this ‘threat’ just another ‘lucky’ opportunity to transfer even more public funds into private hands?

The Devil’s Dictionary

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1000 Order-Pulling Words and Phrases

A Letter to the Editor

We are told that this letter (Lost article) did not find its way onto the editorial pages of the once largest newspaper in this country.

Preventing Google translate to start many and deadly wars as did the Babel fish, I have patched-up some of the more insulting passages to the text here. (Lost article)

This will have to suffice until I find a proper translation.

In my not so humble opinion (IMNSHO) I think this letter gives a better glimpse of the situation in my land than many a book written to perception manage the subject.

I myself (with all my respect for television intact) do not believe that the use of the Anti Terrorist Act (Oct. 9) was anything other than U K’s response to the Icelandic governments own Emergency Banking Act (no. 125 7. October 2008). Two governments protecting it’s people (i.e their respective plutocracies) – only unfettered history will tell.

How the men behind Iceland crisis are still calling the shots By Archie Bland

Investigating Iceland’s financiers

Joly delivers her verdict on everything from financial sector bonuses (immoral) to climate change (a grave danger) and the situation in Gaza (tragic).
. . .
“This is what you see all over the world,” she says, egged on by the documentary makers’ account of how ordinary Icelanders are paying for the crimes of the plutocracy. “The rules are not for the elite. The elite are always living above the law.”
. . .
Perhaps her most valuable contribution is the leverage she has over the investigation’s political masters. Her presence reduces the risk of the probe being suppressed
. . .
“We must be very vigilant. Many people in the market have one idea: to get back to business as usual. We must not forget that this system is very ill.”
. . .
“I am here to help. The ­people of ­Iceland have invested me with a great hope, great expectations,” she says. “But it is their country. Only Icelanders can lead this inquiry.”

FT – Stanley Pignal and Andrew Ward

No Such Thing as a Random Sample

Opinion Makers are preparing a “National Assembly” (whole 0.3%) to flash out ideas of how we should mark our future after the horrific failure in our past.

At first look this appears to be a grand idea, Democracy at Work, – finally.

The selection process has been trumpeted as random sample out of the National Registry, i.e “having no definite aim or purpose; not sent or guided in a particular direction; made, done, occurring, etc., without method or conscious choice; haphazard”.

To start off, large sections of people have opted out of being included in ‘samples’ of any kind and the rest just don’t bother or have no knowledge of the possibility. People of foreign nationality although legible to vote in local elections automatically drop out, a primitive ‘random’ record collector is used, and there are many more limitations on the ‘randomness’.

Then there is the simple question of the organizers, who are they (Chamber of Commerce?), and the question who decided on those, who are the specially preselected representatives of special interests, and who decided on the general framework of the meting (consumer panels)?

So we are back to the “Propaganda model”, Agenda Setting by Predetermine, Select, Shape, Control and Restrict by: Selection of Topics, Distribution of Concerns, Emphasis, Framing of Issues, Filtering of Information and Bounding of Debate

Bankers in the Selling Role

The Engineering of Consent

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