Books

Reality ?

(the teleprompter is out of order)

In All The Presidents’ Bankers, Nomi Prins tells the story of the merry-go-round between bankers and presidents, ~ but ignorance is strength.

Pre-meltdown, “Complex Financial Instruments” were the pride and joy of the experts, nothing much has changed.

Janet M. Tavakoli explains some terms and numbers.

The Fraud Triangle: Need, Opportunity, Rationalization.

The total Global Economy ~ 71 trillion, – but interest rate swaps OTC derivatives are “worth” 560 trillion, – 7 trillions traded every day.

Ending world poverty costs $175 billion * 20 years, – but that’s communism, we much prefer the vile maxim.

By the ways Lockheed-Martin shares from 2000 to date are up 930%

Our own  “theatre director” has replaced journalists with news children (21). It’s not the truthiness, but how it looks.

The latest MSMBS World Headlies

And the politicians continue to debate concocted problems, – from which they miraculously save us. The rest go into the Too Difficult’ Box . Then the D’s Go Marching In: Deflect, Delay, Deny, Discount, Deceive, Divide, Dulcify, Discredit, Destroy, and Deal.

 

Nothing to Hide

Image

Unpacking the nothing-to-hide argument

I’ve Nothing to Hide
The Eternal Value of Privacy
On Propaganda
Brainwashing

They’ve Nothing to Hide:

  • Peanut allergies, The Menace of Our Age.
  • Vladimir saves NATO and picks ties for it’s members.
  • Man-eating Muslims keep No-Such-Agency in the gravy.
  • Court rules to Keep it all in the Family (i.e. the meltdown).
  • –
  • Us annexes Eu to show John Wayne movies in French Cinema.
  • Victoria expands her cockle empire, opens Chevron Shop, map?
  • Angela opens “Perverts-Haven” a new mobile phone sex corp.
  • Edward finds home in the Land of the free (and brave).

Reality Is Not What You Think.

The Privatizing of Public Opinion

Numbered_VoicesThe Ministry of Public Enlightenment is pleased to deliver us all the way into (and out-of) the voting booth. – but why? – Come and join the feast of Fools!

“Today’s pollsters have become our secular priests, and politicians and journalists flock to them for guidance.
…
Susan Herbst has offered a timely and sophisticated analysis of the history and meaning of public opinion. Herbst’s central argument is that the method for measuring public sentiment profoundly shapes the expression and meaning of public opinion. Herbst convincingly challenges the prevailing treatment of polls as simply a neutral measuring mechanism for producing a clear, objective rendering of the mass public’s attitudes. Instead, she argues that public opinion is a constructed category and a mechanism that politicians and others use to control or domesticate the mass public.”

“Data is not information, information is not knowledge, knowledge is not understanding, understanding is not wisdom.” ~ Tim Berners-Lee

Numbered Voices: How Opinion Polling Has Shaped … Politics.
The Privatizing of Public Opinion
Manufacturing Consent

The Asset Striping of the Credit Unions

List of cognitive biases
100 Systematic Thinking Errors (mp3)

Harvest Of Empire

The great wall of ignorance. – What does it say about us?

Harvest Of Empire
Propaganda and the Public Mind

Trauma

Not even Terror can subjugate the Unspoken Voice.

The history is littered with cocaine induced drivel from Vienna’s society and “cognition” modification dictates by old hippies, this may still linger because human suffering is such a fabulous business, – not forgetting Big Parma and cohorts.

The “simple” idea of a lock-down escapes even todays Nobel laureates, but when war criminals get Peace Prizes and Economists get prizes at all, this is not unexpected.

When Shock is the Doctrine of the day and Dragons are a foot, the Tiger is most welcome.

Peter A. Levine

Bonfire of the Vanities

Not only did we successfully privatize the banks but vital functions of state. It is of great comfort to us to know that our information systems are safely in the hands of private corporations (now rescued) which in turn are serviced by international giants.

 

Everyone can recite the mantra “private is better than communism” and inter departmental jealousy did not harm either.

New “Viking” owners, with their new products for the old  vessel, – couldn’t fail, –  the customary and massive taxpayer involvement is unfortunate but of course the  “little people” should not bother their harts. The adage “The Best Way to Rob a Bank…” is only applicable to banks of course.

Buying “consultancy” from “interns” for a decision already made is as old as dirt. Nevertheless, I’m sure they scrupulously vetted: licensing costs, vendor strategy, vendor/product viability, solution manageability, skills availability, third-party support, performance & scalability – undeterred by the Clash of the Titans.

Flagging standardization and international professional standing are platitudes of the propaganda type which at best are totally meaningless.

However locking an entire state in a proprietary software prison is every corporations wet dream.

Will we fire the international corporations (who rule the day) or the unlucky National Audit Officer who happened to inherit a draft report stating some of the facts?

Having just got rid of an “overeager” Director General of the Financial Supervisory Authority my bet is as good as yours.

Groucho Marx was right when he said “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies.”

However, the warm fuzzy feeling of buying iPhone 5 (on micro loan) gets us through the day, – right?

The Draft Report (is)
Regulatory capture
Public–private partnership
Power Economics, and Deep Capture
–
23 Things They Don’t Tell You about Capitalism
Control fraud “reactive” or “opportunistic”
Similar IT disasters…(uk)

Captured “scientific” discipline


23 Things They Don’t Tell You about Capitalism

Ha-Joon Chang dissects 23 mantras from the neoclassical free market priesthood with humor and intellect which is truly singular.

“Kicking Away the Ladder” was the first I read by Ha-Joon Chang, which voiced the silent fact that empires don’t play by their own rules. However, this was well before our collective and enforced education in economics, or rather the peculiar absence there off – so succinctly expressed by Her Majesty the Queen
–
The Methodology of Economics
This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly
The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One
The Price of Inequality
–
Debunking Economics
Inside Job
Complex Systems 
In Growth We Trust (the simple math 1 to 8)
–
It’s save or GIGO
Debt and Democracy
Captured Nobel Prize
Unpacking Mr. Global
–
Jekyll Island 
People & Power
Captured Anniversary
–
& the list is growing

“Mr. Global” kills with impunity, – but is this The Coming Revolt of the Guards?

Are We At Risk From The Epic Quest?

 

The Prize (Part 1 of 8)

Adapted from Daniel Yergin’s book “The PRIZE: Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power”
& (2011) –  The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World 
Conversations with History
–
Turning a Resource Curse Into a Blessing

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