Weekend Economists Ask: Is There a Doctor in the House? July 19-21, 2013

[Demeter]

Let's face it. Our country is sick. Our global and local economies are sick. Our classes are sick of each other, racism is alive and well, and everyone's sick of the Government.

But perhaps the source of contagion is the banking cartel. The Need for Greed suggests that some very unbalanced, nay, CRAZY AS BEDBUGS people are messing it up for everyone. Is there a doctor in the house?



Meet Abraham Maslow

Abraham Harold Maslow (April 1, 1908 – June 8, 1970) was an American psychologist who was best known for creating Maslow's hierarchy of needs, a theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human needs in priority, culminating in self-actualization. Maslow was a psychology professor at Brandeis University, Brooklyn College, New School for Social Research and Columbia University. He stressed the importance of focusing on the positive qualities in people, as opposed to treating them as a "bag of symptoms."

Maslow's hierarchy of needs -- From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



An interpretation of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, represented as a pyramid with the more basic needs at the bottom

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper "A Theory of Human Motivation". Maslow subsequently extended the idea to include his observations of humans' innate curiosity. His theories parallel many other theories of human developmental psychology, some of which focus on describing the stages of growth in humans. Maslow used the terms Physiological, Safety, Belongingness and Love, Esteem, Self-Actualization and Self-Transcendence needs to describe the pattern that human motivations generally move through.

Maslow studied what he called exemplary people such as Albert Einstein, Jane Addams, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Frederick Douglass rather than mentally ill or neurotic people, writing that "the study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy." Maslow studied the healthiest 1% of the college student population.

Maslow's theory was fully expressed in his 1954 book Motivation and Personality. While the hierarchy remains a very popular framework in sociology research and secondary and higher psychology instruction, it has largely been supplanted by attachment theory in graduate and clinical psychology and psychiatry.

And yet, I don't think Humanity has abandoned this pyramid.

Let's talk about it. And about everything else....

[Demeter]

1. SEC says Steve Cohen failed to supervise two of his traders

OBVIOUSLY, THE SEC IS UNFAMILIAR WITH THE CONCEPT OF A "CLIMATE AND CULTURE OF CRIME"

http://news.yahoo.com/sec-charges-steven-cohen-failure-supervise-employees-182133430.html

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday accused hedge fund mogul Steven A. Cohen of failing to supervise two employees who are facing insider trading charges. The SEC's action said Cohen failed to supervise former portfolio manager Mathew Martoma and SAC Capital Advisors executive Michael Steinberg. The SEC charges are part of a long-running probe of Cohen and his $15 billion hedge fund by regulators and federal investigators in which nine one-time SAC employees have been charged or implicated.

"Cohen ignored the red flags and allowed Martoma and Steinberg to execute the trades" in several stocks where the SEC found evidence of insider trading, the agency said. The charges are not part of a civil lawsuit filed on court; rather, they are contained in an administrative proceeding. In a statement announcing the proceeding, the SEC said it would determine a penalty during the proceeding. It is seeking to bar Cohen from the financial industry.

"The SEC's administrative proceeding has no merit," said Jonathan Gasthalter, a spokesman for SAC Capital. "Steve Cohen acted appropriately at all times and will fight this charge vigorously.

"The SEC ignores SAC's exceptional supervisory structure, its extensive compliance policies and procedures, and Steve Cohen's strong support for SAC's compliance program."

The 17-page administrative order charges that in the matters involving Steinberg and Martoma, Cohen "received highly suspicious information that should have caused any reasonable hedge fund manager in Cohen's position" to determine whether the employees had acted appropriately. The order also charges that Cohen "tagged" some of the positions undertaken by the two men in his own portfolio, which entitled them to additional compensation. Cohen personally oversees about $4 billion, along with a small group of traders, in a portfolio called "the Cohen account," which represents a good chunk of the estimated $6 billion he has invested with his 21 year old hedge fund, Reuters has previously reported.

The bulk of the allegations in the administrative order mirror previous allegations the SEC has filed in civil complaints against Martoma and Steinberg, as well as the criminal indictments against the two men. "I think they don't have the evidence for insider trading so they brought this," said Thomas Gorman, a partner at Dorsey & Whitney who is not connected to the case, of the SEC charges against Cohen. "Bringing a case like this under circumstances here is going to be a difficult proof problem for them," Gorman said. "They are going to have to show that Mr. Cohen was not only in charge but that basically he didn't act in good faith. If he acted in good faith and did not induce these acts directly or indirectly then he's not liable."

[GeorgeGist]

2. We don't need the anti-christ ...

we need the anti-Reagan.

[bread_and_roses]

3. Report: 'Global Tax Chaos' Looms As Corporations Pillage the Globe

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/07/19-6

Published on Friday, July 19, 2013 by Common Dreams
Report: 'Global Tax Chaos' Looms As Corporations Pillage the Globe
Tax justice groups warn 'rich men's club' should go even further in tax reform
- Jacob Chamberlain, staff writer

The world is on the brink of "global tax chaos" says a report released by the OECD Friday, which warns that global corporations have become nearly stateless entities, avoiding taxation in rich and poor countries alike.

As the OECD states:

Inaction in this area would likely result in some governments losing corporate tax revenue, the emergence of competing sets of international standards and the replacement of the current consensus-based framework by unilateral measures which could lead to global tax chaos.

The OECD, who was asked by the G20 to take on the project of analyzing the current tax climate, says the "current weaknesses in the rules and the interaction of different tax rules leads to double non-taxation or less than single taxation."

However... global tax watchdogs say the OECD's suggestions are still far from adequate.

"The OECD has done little to dispel its reputation as the 'rich men's club' by effectively ruling out the active participation of developing countries in shaping the tax reform agenda," said the Financial Transparency Coalition (FTC) ...

The group maintains that developing countries’ "communication channels" with the OECD's processes are restricted in comparison to more wealthy nations and therefore any reform processes going forward may not benefit poorer nations as greatly as richer ones.

On that last ... why am I not surprised

[Demeter]

4. THE SPY GAME--CHAPTER WHATEVER

Convicted ex-CIA chief arrested in Panama

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2013/07/2013718183638952745.html

A former CIA station chief, convicted in Italy of kidnapping an Egyptian Muslim cleric, has been arrested in Panama, Italian and Panamanian officials have said. Robert Seldon Lady, the former CIA chief in Milan, entered Panama, crossed the border into Costa Rica and was sent back to Panama where he was detained, according to an Italian official. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a Panamanian police official said Seldon Lady had been arrested by Panama's border authorities and handed over to Interpol.

The CIA declined to comment.

Italy's highest court last year upheld a guilty verdict against Seldon Lady for the kidnapping of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, who was snatched from a Milan street in 2003 and flown to Egypt via Germany for interrogation, where he says he was tortured for seven months. Nasr says he was tortured with electric shocks, beatings, rape threats and genital abuse. The imam, also known as Abu Omar, was a resident in Italy at the time of the abduction.

Seldon Lady was given a nine-year prison sentence and another 22 Americans seven-year sentences in absentia for the abduction of the imam. The Italian trial was the first of its kind against the "rendition" flights practised by the administration of former US President George W Bush, which have been condemned by human rights groups.

The Italian government asked for the former CIA agent - "Mister Bob" - to be held in Panama and now has two months to request his extradition. It was not clear however where Seldon Lady would be taken. Italy and Panama have no bilateral extradition treaty, according to documents on the Italian Justice Ministry's website. A 2006 amnesty in Italy shaves three years off all sentences meted out by Italian courts, meaning if Lady is brought back to Italy, he would face six years in prison.

MIT Moves to Intervene in Release of Aaron Swartz’s Secret Service File

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/07/mit-swartz-intervene/

Lawyers representing MIT are filing a motion to intervene in my FOIA lawsuit over thousands of pages of Secret Service documents about the late activist and coder Aaron Swartz. I am the plaintiff in this lawsuit. In February, the Secret Service denied in full my request for any files it held on Swartz, citing a FOIA exemption that covers sensitive law enforcement records that are part of an ongoing proceeding. Other requestors reported receiving the same response.

When the agency ignored my administrative appeal, I enlisted David Sobel, a top DC-based FOIA litigator, and we filed suit. Two weeks ago U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ordered the government to “promptly” begin releasing Swartz’ records. The government told my lawyer that it would release the first batch tomorrow. But minutes ago, Kollar-Kotelly suspended that order at MIT’s urging, to give the university time to make an argument against the release of some of the material.

Based upon an off-the-record conference call with the parties’ counsel and counsel for non-party Massachusetts Institute of Technology (“MIT”), the Court understands that MIT intends to file a motion to intervene later today, which will include a request for relief relating to the Government’s production of certain documents to Plaintiff. In view of the impending motion, the Court hereby STAYS the obligation of the Government to promptly release to Plaintiff all responsive documents that it has located on a rolling basis, see Min. Order (July 5, 2013), until further order of the Court. Once the Court has had the opportunity to review MIT’s motion to intervene, and has considered the positions of the Plaintiff and the Government as to the motion, it shall order a schedule for further proceedings.

MIT claims it’s afraid the release of Swartz’s file will identify the names of MIT people who helped the Secret Service and federal prosecutors pursue felony charges against Swartz for his bulk downloading of academic articles from MIT’s network in 2011. MIT argues that those people might face threats and harassment if their names become public. But it’s worth noting that names of third parties are already redacted from documents produced under FOIA....

I have never, in fifteen years of reporting, seen a non-governmental party argue for the right to interfere in a Freedom of Information Act release of government documents. My lawyer has been litigating FOIA for decades, and he’s never encountered it either. It’s saddening to see an academic institution set this precedent. We’ll be in court to oppose MIT being granted any right to redact the documents, and to oppose any further delay in filling this seven-month-old FOIA request.

Update: MIT just filed seven documents in the case. You can read the entire collection AT THE LINK.

[westerebus]

43. MIT

A wholly owned subsidiary of the NSA / DARPA / DOE confederation.

[bread_and_roses]

5. In Detroit Bankruptcy, It's the Poor Who Lose

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/07/19-4

Published on Friday, July 19, 2013 by Common Dreams
In Detroit Bankruptcy, It's the Poor Who Lose
City's rush towards bankruptcy spurs fears of further privatization, service gutting, poverty
- Sarah Lazare, staff writer

Update:

... The Detroit emergency manager's filing of city bankruptcy Thursday sparked fears that the impoverished municipality is set to go barreling towards more privatization measures that will further devastate the city's poor.

In the largest Chapter 9 bankruptcy case in US history, the move will allow the city to decimate benefits and pensions for city workers and retirees—the city's 'unsecured' lenders— while gutting public services and diverting public dollars to pay off the big banks who own much of the city's debt.

... The unelected manager, who is a former corporate bankruptcy lawyer, wielded his near absolute 'emergency' powers since taking up his position to push forward plans to cut off poor neighborhoods from essential services and privatize transportation, streetlights, and even garbage pickup throughout the city. Nothing has been safe from his plan for rapid privatization: he was even considering selling off the city's esteemed art museum.

Nearly 60 percent of Detroit children live in poverty and 33 percent of all land sits vacant in a city where more than 80 percent of all residents are black. Half of all streetlights are non-functional, and a majority of public parks have shut down.

[David Zephyr]

17. Yes. This is really a very sad story and, as you say, it crushes the poor.

!

[bread_and_roses]

19. And will crush the unions - a twofer for the 1%

How the hell do we accept that a city in this country can have 60% of its children in poverty? (As far as I'm concerned, ANY children in poverty is unacceptable - but 60%? Seems that even our worthless "Liberal" apologists for the status quo would quail at that? )

[Demeter]

36. The State was happy to collect taxes from the city folk

Not so happy to return them. Many a time the State has screwed over Detroit, but starting in the 60's, Corporations did it too. There was no Engine of Prosperity left to bleed dry so the "impoverished" farmers of the north and west could live it up in idleness...while sneering at the cities of the southeast and southwest.

[bread_and_roses]

6. Above two posts in support of Maslow's hierarchy and

... and your fine irony:

"And yet, I don't think Humanity has abandoned this pyramid."

[Demeter]

7. China Seen Surpassing the U.S. as Superpower, Poll Shows

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-18/china-seen-surpassing-the-u-s-as-superpower-in-polling.html

People around the world see the U.S. as a waning superpower with China poised to supplant it, according to international polling conducted for the Pew Research Center. The polling shows people in many countries already view China as the leading economic power. Among the 39 countries surveyed, six -- including the U.S. and Japan -- had pluralities or majorities saying that China will never replace the U.S.

“Regardless of which country is seen as the economic powerhouse today, many publics believe China will eventually replace the U.S. as the world’s leading superpower, if it has not already done so,” according to the report released today by the Washington-based Pew Center’s Global Attitudes Project.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris said in a March 22 report that China’s economy, now the world’s second-biggest, is on course to overtake the U.S. as the largest in about 2016, when adjusted for relative purchasing power. China has an economic gap to close if it is to do. Its gross domestic product of $8.23 trillion last year was about half the $15.68 trillion of the U.S., according to International Monetary Fund data. That gap narrows when purchasing power is taken into account, putting China’s output at $12.41 trillion, according to the IMF.

China’s military forces are decades behind those of the U.S., as the Chinese work to develop their first aircraft carriers and to expand their ballistic missile arsenal...MORE

[FirstLight]

8. THIS is what stood out to me

"the study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy." Maslow studied the healthiest 1% of the college student population.

How unfortunate that he didn't look at the other percentages of society... Do we have enough information on poverty NOW though? you would think so... we know that poverty increases risks for health issues like diabetes, hypertention, and other stress and poor diet related illnesses. we know that living in poverty actually causes one to feel like they are in a constant state of fight or flight, or chronic depression, or all of the above...we should know this by now

And doesn't the hierarchy of needs just make it that much more clear... if a human is stuck in the lower two levels for a LIFETIME....don't you think that impacts him/her? Don't you think there are entire communities and pockets of people who are STUCK in the same feedback loop for generations?

ya we know a society that reaches trancendence is probably utopia, but shouldn't more of us be able to experience more levels in general???

[bread_and_roses]

20. We know perfectly well how to fix deep poverty - see jtuck004's post below

We know how to fix it and we choose not to. It's that simple.

[Demeter]

9. U.S. fuel export surge gives refiners surprise summer blockbuster

US DRIVERS HAVE BEEN EQUALLY "SURPRISED" AND NOT PLEASANTLY

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/19/us-usa-fuel-exports-analysis-idUSBRE96I05220130719

In the middle of July, U.S. refiners are normally doing a brisk business selling their fuel close to home, revving up output to meet peak driving demand. This year, however, they are in the midst of an unprecedented summer surge in exports of gasoline, diesel and other fuels, as the combination of cheaper shale crude and record-high biofuel credit costs open up new markets overseas.

Refiners like Valero (VLO.N) and traders like Vitol VITOLV.UL have raced this month to book more than 77 tankers to ship fuel from the U.S. Gulf Coast to Africa, Argentina and even Asia, nearly surpassing total bookings in all of July last year, according to data from shipbroker Charles R. Weber Company Inc. It will be months before the full scale of the export boom becomes clear in official U.S. data, but it is already helping sustain a sharp run-up in U.S. crude oil prices to their highest in 16 months. Refiners, enjoying bumper profit margins on export sales, are running their hardest since 2005, drawing down U.S. crude inventories at the fastest rate on record. Freight rates to ship the refined products have spiked...The surge may also intensify debate over two U.S. energy policies that are coming under increasing scrutiny: a mandate to blend biofuel into gasoline that refiners say is driving up the cost of selling fuel domestically; and trade policies that strictly limit crude oil exports while allowing unfettered overseas shipments of refined fuel.

U.S. gasoline is for the first time starting to replace European fuel in West Africa, a major importer. Naphtha has sailed to Taiwan for only the third time in a decade. Growing Latin American economies hindered by limited refining capacity are drawing more and more fuel from the northern hemisphere. Meanwhile a one-third surge in the cost of ethanol credits this month, nearing $1.50 per gallon on Thursday, has given refiners more incentive to sell abroad, relieving them of the need to buy credits to meet biofuel requirements.

While it's uncertain how long the export boom will last, especially as U.S. crude costs rise relative to European markets, it is clear the shipments are the latest sign of an oil market in flux, as the surge in U.S. shale oil production rewrites the rules and redraws the routes of global trade. New shipping routes are emerging "because of a fundamental shift in where oil's being sourced from," said Christos Papanicolaou, director of business development for Greenwich, Connecticut-based Charles R. Weber.

MORE BLATHER AND JUSTIFICATION FOR $4/GALLON GASOLINE...

[Demeter]

10. THE MAKING OF THE MAN MASLOW

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Maslow was the oldest of seven children and was classed as "mentally unstable" by a psychologist.

His parents were first generation Jewish immigrants from Russia who fled from Czarist persecution in the early 20th century. Maslow's parents had decided to live in New York City and in a multiethnic, working-class neighbourhood. His parents were poor and not intellectually oriented, but they valued education. It was a tough time for Maslow, as he experienced anti-Semitism from his teachers and from other children around the neighborhood. He had various encounters with anti-Semitic gangs who would chase and throw rocks at him. Maslow and other optimistic youngsters at the time with his background were in the struggle to overcome such acts of racism and ethnic prejudice in the attempt to establish an idealistic world based on widespread education and monetary justice.

The tension outside of his home was also felt within it, he rarely got along with his mother, and eventually developed a strong revulsion to her. He is quoted as saying,

"What I had reacted to was not only her physical appearance, but also her values and world view, her stinginess, her total selfishness, her lack of love for anyone else in the world – even her own husband and children – her narcissism, her Negro prejudice, her exploitation of everyone, her assumption that anyone was wrong who disagreed with her, her lack of friends, her sloppiness and dirtiness..."

He also grew up with few friends other than his cousin Will, and as a result "...[He] grew up in libraries and among books." It was here that he developed his love for reading and learning. He went to Boys High School, one of the top high schools in Brooklyn. Here, he served as the officer to many academic clubs, and became editor of the Latin Magazine. He also edited Principia, the school's Physics paper, for a year. He developed other strengths as well:

As a young boy, Maslow believed physical strength to be the single most defining characteristic of a true male; hence, he exercised often and took up weight lifting in hopes of being transformed into a more muscular, tough-looking guy, however, he was unable to achieve this due to his humble-looking and chaste figure as well as his studiousness.

College and university

Maslow attended the City College of New York after high school. In 1926 he began taking legal studies classes at night in addition to his undergraduate course load. He hated it and almost immediately dropped out.

In 1927 he transferred to Cornell, but he left after just one semester due to poor grades and high costs. He later graduated from City College and went to graduate school at the University of Wisconsin to study psychology.

In 1928, he married his first cousin Bertha, who was still in high school at the time. The pair had met in Brooklyn years earlier.

Maslow's psychology training at UW was decidedly experimental-behaviorist. At Wisconsin he pursued a line of research which included investigating primate dominance behavior and sexuality. Maslow's early experience with behaviorism would leave him with a strong positivist mindset. Upon the recommendation of Professor Hulsey Cason, Maslow wrote his master's thesis on "learning, retention, and reproduction of verbal material". Maslow regarded the research as embarrassingly trivial, but he completed his thesis the summer of 1931 and was awarded his master's degree in psychology. He was so ashamed of the thesis that he removed it from the psychology library and tore out its catalog listing. Professor Carson admired the research enough to urge Maslow to submit it for publication. Much to Maslow's surprise, his thesis was published as two articles in 1934.

[Demeter]

11. So in one respect, at least, Maslow was an original...

From the Bible to the popular song,
There's one theme that we find right along.
Of all ideals they hail as good,
The most sublime is motherhood.

There was a man, oh, who it seems,
Once carried this ideal to extremes.
He loved his mother and she loved him,
And yet his story is rather grim.

There once lived a man named oedipus rex.
You may have heard about his odd complex.
His name appears in freud's index
'cause he loved his mother.

His rivals used to say quite a bit,
That as a monarch he was most unfit.
But still in all they had to admit
That he loved his mother.

Yes he loved his mother like no other.
His daughter was his sister and his son was his brother.
One thing on which you can depend is,
He sure knew who a boy's best friend is!

When he found what he had done,
He tore his eyes out one by one.
A tragic end to a loyal son
Who loved his mother.

So be sweet and kind to mother,
Now and then have a chat.
Buy her candy or some flowers or a brand new hat.
But maybe you had better let it go at that!

Or you may find yourself with a quite complex complex,
And you may end up like oedipus.
I'd rather marry a duck-billed platypus,
Than end up like old oedipus rex.
The out-patients are out in force tonight, I see.

[David Zephyr]

18. Maslow's hierarchy of needs

I haven't seen that in ages. Thanks.

[Demeter]

12. It's rained twice briefly tonight

and it's supposed to break the heat wave, eventually.

I haven't had a nap or enough fluids, folks. So I'm going to take care of business, and then I'll be back with more news. Maybe some of it will be good...

[Demeter]

13. NO bank failures at 8:30 EDT

[jtuck004]

14. Hitler vs. Bernanke

Hey, why wait until someone throws out "Hitler" in the discussion, just bring it in up front


Article Here:

by MIKE WHITNEY

Why was Adolph Hitler able to lift Germany out of the Great Depression, when policymakers in the US–particularly the Fed–have failed so miserably?
...
“The Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, at a time when its economy was in total collapse, with ruinous war-reparation obligations and zero prospects for foreign investment or credit. Yet through an independent monetary policy of sovereign credit and a full-employment public-works program, the Third Reich was able to turn a bankrupt Germany, stripped of overseas colonies it could exploit, into the strongest economy in Europe within four years, even before armament spending began.” (“Nazism and the German Economic Miracle,” Henry C. K. Liu, Asia Times)
...

Why doesn’t Bernanke do the same thing? Why doesn’t Bernanke purchase Infrastructure bonds or Education bonds instead of Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS) which only benefit the bankers. Why doesn’t Bernanke practice what he preached to the bigwigs at the Japan Society of Monetary Economics, in May 2003 when he outlined steps for monetizing tax cuts. Here’s what he said:
...
Now there’s a novel idea; printing money to help the average working stiff. That ought to increase activity and boost growth, don’t you think? So why is Bernanke still dumping $85 billion per month into a black-hole financial system instead of following his own advice and using his power to put people back to work and get the economy back on track?
...

The economy is in the doldrums because that’s where Bernanke and Co. want it to be.

[Tansy_Gold]

15. EEEEGGGG-zactly.

"The economy is in the doldrums because that’s where Bernanke and Co. want it to be."

[Hotler]

16. Check this tid bit out. "SEC charges city of Miami with fraud."

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged the city of Miami and its former budget director with fraud on Friday for allegedly making misleading statements and omissions in bond documents in order to mask general fund deficits.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100900460?__source=xfinity|mod&par=xfinity

[bread_and_roses]

21. Maslow's hierarchy explains Banning Robin Hood and Howard Zinn

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/07/19

Published on Friday, July 19, 2013 by Zinn Education Project
Indiana’s Anti-Howard Zinn Witch-hunt
by Bill Bigelow

Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States, one of the country’s most widely read history books, died on January 27, 2010. Shortly after, then-Governor of Indiana Mitch Daniels got on his computer and fired off an email to the state’s top education officials: “This terrible anti-American academic has finally passed away.”

But Gov. Daniels, now president of Purdue University, was not content merely to celebrate Howard Zinn’s passing. He demanded that Zinn’s work be hunted down in Indiana schools and suppressed:

... at the Zinn Education Project we’ve heard all week long from Indiana teachers, professors, and parents who have committed themselves to work against censorship in K-12 schools. Their defiance is reminiscent of Indiana’s Green Feather Movement that challenged the McCarthy-era attempt to ban Robin Hood from the elementary school curriculum in 1954.

And this - aside of course from telling the stories that our Corporate Overlords don't want told about our history - is why Zinn is so dangerous:

a point Howard Zinn emphasized when he spoke to teachers at the 2008 National Council for the Social Studies conference in Houston—some of them from Indiana!—not much more than a year before he died. Zinn said: “We’ve never had our injustices rectified from the top, from the president or Congress, or the Supreme Court, no matter what we learned in junior high school about how we have three branches of government, and we have checks and balances, and what a lovely system. No. The changes, important changes that we’ve had in history, have not come from those three branches of government. They have reacted to social movements.”

bold emphasis added

Note that in Maslow's hierarchy we don't get to "belonging" - under which category joining with others to act in concert to change something - until the basic needs of the first two levels are met. Keep people hungry, isolated, desperate and the only "belonging" that will occur is in gangs - for more effective predation. (Maslow is not perfect - the hierarchy does not account for the banding together - "belonging" - that occurs especially among young men when there is no other alternative ... writ large in the "armies" of "third-world" countries rampaging and torturing and killing even children.)

[xchrom]

22. Fed Reviews Rule on Big Banks’ Commodity Trades After Complaints

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-20/fed-reviews-rule-on-big-banks-commodity-trades-after-complaints.html

When the Federal Reserve gave JPMorgan Chase & Co. approval in 2005 for hands-on involvement in commodity markets, it prohibited the bank from expanding into the storage business because of the risk.

Five years later, JPMorgan bought one of the world’s biggest metal warehouse companies.

While the Fed won’t discuss why its regulators let that happen, the central bank announced yesterday that it’s reviewing a 2003 policy decision that set the precedent for letting deposit-taking banks trade physical commodities.

“The Federal Reserve regularly monitors the commodity activities of supervised firms and is reviewing the 2003 determination that certain commodity activities are complementary to financial activities and thus permissible for bank holding companies,” said Barbara Hagenbaugh, a Fed spokeswoman. She declined to elaborate.

[xchrom]

23. World Bank Plugs Poland’s Budget Deficit

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-18/world-bank-plugs-budget-deficit-at-rates-cheaper-than-bun.html

Poland is turning to international lenders to fund a growing budget deficit at loan rates that are lower than those available from debt markets.

The government is seeking 2 billion euros ($2.6 billion) in loans by Aug. 30 to show that “there is another option for financing than market auctions,” Deputy Finance Minister Wojciech Kowalczyk said last week. Poland is set to pay the equivalent of a 0.79 percent yield for an 18-year, 1 billion-euro facility from the World Bank, the lender’s website shows. That compares with 3.65 percent on Poland’s 2035 euro notes and 2.18 percent on German euro bonds maturing in 2031.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who also asked for help from the European Investment Bank, is facing a 2013 budget shortfall 45 percent bigger than earlier estimated amid the slowest economic growth since the 1990s. Poland had 52 billion zloty ($16.1 billion) in outstanding loans from the World Bank, the EIB and the Council of Europe Development Bank as of April 30, according to Finance Ministry data.

“Taking loans from international institutions makes sense when markets are less favorable and investors wonder how the government will finance the higher deficit,” Wojciech Labryga, who helps manage the equivalent of $3 billion at PKO Bank Polski SA’s pension fund in Warsaw, said by phone two days ago. “It can’t fully replace typical market financing, but demonstrates the government has different budget options.”

[xchrom]

24. Detroit Case Scrutinized by $900 Billion G.O. Market

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-19/detroit-scrutinized-by-900-million-g-o-market.html

The fate of a 2 percent sliver of Detroit’s obligations is drawing scrutiny from investors holding a $900 billion chunk of the U.S. municipal-debt market.

Before filing the largest U.S. municipal bankruptcy yesterday, Detroit Emergency Financial Manager Kevyn Orr tried to persuade holders of $369 million of unlimited general obligations, which are supposed to have the full backing of taxpayers, to accept less than 20 cents on the dollar. The borrowings are part of $17 billion in debt and long-term liabilities Orr sought to restructure.

The approach by Orr is fueling debate about the value of a market segment that investors have considered the safest state and city debt, and could signal higher bond costs for some issuers, starting with about $19 billion from Michigan borrowers. Localities from California to Massachusetts use the bonds to borrow for roads, schools and other infrastructure.

“Investors and analysts are going to rethink the general-obligation pledge and what it really means when an issuer is under financial stress,” Ben Watkins, Florida’s director of bond finance, said in an interview. The bonds “have been the gold standard of the municipal-bond market.”

[xchrom]

25. Portugal political crisis talks break down

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23387403


A week of talks by Portugal's three main parties on how to end a political crisis has broken down, leaving the country's bailout programme in doubt.

President Anibal Cavaco Silva is seeking a "national salvation" deal to back austerity policies demanded by EU and IMF lenders.

But opposition leader Antonio Jose Seguro said the governing coalition had rejected most of his party's proposals.

He said it was now up to the president to decide how to end the crisis.

[xchrom]

26. Detroit legal battle over bankruptcy petition

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23381456

A judge in the US state of Michigan has ordered the city of Detroit to withdraw its application for bankruptcy over its debts of $18bn (£12bn).

Judge Rosemarie Aquilina said the petition, filed on Thursday, violated the state's laws and constitution because it threatened pension benefits.

But the state's attorney general immediately appealed against the order.

Earlier, Governor Rick Snyder said the move towards bankruptcy would reverse decades of decay.

[xchrom]

27. FEDS SHOWING LITTLE ENTHUSIASM FOR DETROIT BAILOUT

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_DETROIT_BAILOUT_BLUES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-07-20-04-37-33

WASHINGTON (AP) -- During the bleakest days of the Great Recession, Congress agreed in bipartisan votes to bail out two of Detroit's biggest businesses, General Motors and Chrysler.

Today, however, there seems little appetite from either Democrats or Republicans in Washington for a federal rescue of the birthplace of the automobile industry. Detroit now stands as the largest American city ever to file for bankruptcy protection.

Such a bailout would be huge, perhaps as much as $20 billion. Federal resources are strained, with the national debt at $16.7 trillion and the federal government struggling under the constraints of automatic spending cuts that took effect in March.

President Barack Obama has had a hard enough time getting his present proposals though Congress, where Democrats hold a narrow majority in the Senate and Republicans are in firm control of the House.

[bread_and_roses]

28. Detroit's Collapse Reveals the Awful Dystopia that the United States Is Becoming

http://www.alternet.org/economy/detroits-collapse-reveals-awful-dystopia-united-states-becoming

Informed Comment [1] / By Juan Cole [2]
Detroit's Collapse Reveals the Awful Dystopia that the United States Is Becoming
July 19, 2013 |

The big question is whether Detroit’s bankruptcy and likely further decline [3] is a fluke or whether it tells us something about the dystopia that the United States is becoming. It seems to me that the city’s problems are the difficulties of the country as a whole, especially the issues of deindustrialization, robotification, structural unemployment, the rise of the 1% in gated communities, and the racial divide. The mayor has called on families living in the largely depopulated west of the city to come in toward the center, so that they can be taken care of. It struck me as post-apocalyptic.

... Take robots (and I really just mean highly mechanized and computerized production of commodities). More and more factory work is automated, and advances in computer technology could well make it possible to substantially increase productivity. This rise of the robots violates the deal that the capitalists made with American consumers after the great Depression, which is that they would provide people with well-paying jobs and the workers in turn would buy the commodities the factories produced, in a cycle of consumerism. If the goods can be produced without many workers, and if the workers then end up suffering long-term unemployment (as Detroit does), then who will buy the consumer goods? Capitalism can survive one Detroit, but what if we are heading toward having quite a few of them?

It seems to me that we need to abandon capitalism as production becomes detached from human labor. I think all robot labor should be nationalized and put in the public sector, and all citizens should receive a basic stipend from it. Then, if robots make an automobile, the profits will not go solely to a corporation that owns the robots, but rather to all the citizens. It wouldn’t be practical anyway for the robots to be making things for unemployed, penniless humans. Perhaps we need a 21st century version of ‘from all according to their abilities, to all according to their needs.’

Communally-owned mechanized/ computerized forms of production would also help resolve the problem of increasing income inequality in the United States. The top 1% is now taking home 20% of the national income each month, up from 10% a few decades ago.

(bold emphasis added)

I would simply note that Capitalism does not work for humans - a social animal - even where the predominant mode of production IS human labor. All we have do to see that is look abroad ... or at home, in the fields of Corporate Agra ...

Still, it is not often, even on pubs like Alternet, that we see even a hint of the "C" word.

[hamerfan]

29. Musical Interlude

Tell Me What You Want by the Doobie Brothers:

[bread_and_roses]

30. This article should be titled "Destroy the Banksters before they Destroy Us"

Could the natives be getting restless? I didn't want to use the title of this article because it doesn't really convey the meat of it - I mean we all know already that Wall Street rewards "living, breathing sociopaths" - which is what the title highlights:

http://www.alternet.org/corporate-accountability-and-workplace/wall-st-financiers-we-are-corrupt

Shocking Things Wall Street Financiers Say Off the Record About Their Bloated, Corrupt Industry
Les Leopold

In a shocking new survey commissioned by the Labaton Sucharow law firm, Wall Street insiders say that breaking the law, screwing your clients and covering up crimes is a way of life on Wall Street. The shock is not that cheating is going on. We all know that. The shock is that these financiers would actually admit it on a survey. This should tell us that the Wall Street culture is so brazenly corrupt, so confident of not getting caught, so certain that a passive public won't fight back that those surveyed didn't even bother to lie about the fact that they were living, breathing sociopaths.

Here are some of the key findings of this sample of 250 traders, portfolio managers, investment bankers, hedge fund professionals, financial analysts, investment advisors, asset managers and stock brokers.

There follows a list of the various high crimes we are all familiar with. But what I find interesting is at the end of the article:

The end of finance as we know it

What more evidence do we need before concluding that "the Street" is beyond redemption? Regulatory enforcement is weak and the new regulations are weaker still. It's a fools errand to think we can control trillion-dollar banks and billionaire hedge fund honchos. The only hope is to destroy finance as we know it.

It's time to think outside the box. We should be demanding what we really want, rather than begging for minor reforms that are certain to fail. Here's a plan that just might work:

1. Set up 50 state banks like the one in North Dakota...

2. Nationalize the 20 largest banks

I think Les's suggestions for compensation for the above too generous, but hey, I am a radical (waves to Agent Mike or whomever) ... still, could something be stirring? After all, McDonald's workers are walking out ...

[xchrom]

31. RESIDENTS WORRY IF BANKRUPTCY WILL BETTER DETROIT

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_DETROIT_BANKRUPTCY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-07-19-19-16-41

DETROIT (AP) -- In Detroit, it can take police nearly an hour to respond to a 911 call. Despite razing close to 10,000 vacant houses, three times as many still stand with windows smashed and doors ripped off. At night, many streets and even freeways are dangerously shrouded in darkness because tens of thousands of street lights don't work.

This is Detroit, an insolvent city seeking to find its way through the uncertainty of the largest city in U.S. history to file for bankruptcy.

For decades, residents have heard one city official after another vow to improve city services but little would be done. On Friday - a day after the city filed the unprecedented bankruptcy - they were given a deadline.

Gov. Rick Snyder and Detroit emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, promised weary residents that they would see better city services in 30 to 60 days.

[xchrom]

32. G20 puts growth before austerity, seeks to calm markets

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/07/20/uk-g20-russia-idUKBRE96I0AG20130720

(Reuters) - The Group of 20 nations put growth ahead of austerity, seeking to rebalance a multi-speed global economy and pledging to shift policy carefully so recovery is not derailed by volatile financial markets.

Finance ministers and central bank governors meeting in Moscow on Saturday put the finishing touches to a joint communiqué that delegates said was little changed after they met for dinner on Friday night.

Indications that the U.S. Federal Reserve would scale back its monetary stimulus dominated the debate, with emerging economies most concerned hit by a resulting selloff in stocks and bonds, and a flight to the dollar.

Hosts Russia said G20 policymakers had soft-pedalled on goals to cut government debt in favour of a focus on growth and how to exit central bank stimulus with a minimum of turmoil.

[xchrom]

33. G20 backs fundamental reform of corporate taxation

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/07/19/uk-g20-tax-corporate-idUKBRE96I08A20130719

(Reuters) - The G20 backed a "fundamental" rethink of the rules on taxing multinational corporations on Friday, taking aim at loopholes used by companies such as Apple and Google to avoid billions of dollars in taxes.

The group of leading economies released an action plan drawn up by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) that said the existing system didn't work, especially when it came to taxing companies that trade online.

"It is a major breakthrough and is at the heart of the social contract," France's finance minister, Pierre Moscovici, told a news conference on the sidelines of a meeting of finance ministers from the Group of 20 leading nations in Moscow.

"People and companies have to pay the taxes that are due. It's the only way to operate in a fair and competitive society," added British finance minister George Osborne.

[xchrom]

34. IMF sees weaknesses in banking system

http://elpais.com/elpais/2013/07/15/inenglish/1373912621_451457.html

Spain has made progress in overhauling its financial system a year after seeking a bailout from its European partners to recapitalize its banks, but the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has concluded that some weaknesses remain that have to be addressed.

In its third report in the financial sector reform, the IMF said the government needs to maximize the value of the banks that have been nationalized and improve the performance of the Sareb assets management corporation — the so-called bad bank set up to absorb the toxic assets of lenders over-exposed to the ailing real estate sector — in order to avoid conflicts of interest. It said Sareb needs to take a more realistic approach to the pricing of the assets it has absorbed, while banks as a whole should focus on strengthening their capital rather than paying dividends.

"Actions to recapitalize parts of the banking sector and the asset transfers to Sareb have provided an important boost to the system's liquidity and solvency," the report says. "Notwithstanding this progress, risks to the economy and hence to the financial system remain elevated."

The report highlights the fact that the financial sector continues to exacerbate the recession through a contraction in credit, and higher rates, and urged banks to lend more while at the same time boosting their capital.

[bread_and_roses]

35. A voice from the misery out here in the real world

Now, just to get things straight, I didn't much like "Talk of the Nation" and I think Neal Cohan was chosen because he was so safely enmeshed in the conventional - I once heard him literally sputter in distress when someone said something "out of the box" and one could always hear the nervous stress in his voice if anyone challenged the dominant cultural narrative in any way. (Like the rest of NPR, for that matter - but I listen to it because I'm in the car a lot and there are no commercials - or rather, their commercials are real short). And I think this article is bathetic hagiography. But this quote is powerful - sometimes a real voice broke through ... I didn't hear this show, but this was one.

http://observer.com/2013/04/team-coco-npr-throws-talk-of-the-nations-neal-conan-under-the-bus/

... from the program “Closing The Circle: Revisiting Stories from 2012.” This is from a farmer named Richard Vernon, in South Union, Kentucky. The exchange happened after Mr. Vernon called in to check up on the man. Their conversation was substantively over but Mr. Vernon didn’t want to get off the phone. You can read below but better to listen:

God bless you, Neal. If you only knew what your program, especially your voice, means to me every day. It reaches out to my heart and my mind and my soul and every one of the people who work for the radio. If it had not been for y’all the last several years, through this recession, there were times in my tractor when my cattle were bawling, hungry for something to eat, and the wind is blowing sideways, 35 mile an hour, snowing, and I don’t have enough feed to give them. And I want to get out of the tractor and give up and walk away and just be lost...

(emphasis added)

That one did me in. I am taking a break. I am going to the Dog Park with my dog. I am not going to think about anything else for a while.

[Demeter]

37. Maslow's Academic career

He continued his research at Columbia University, on similar themes. There he found another mentor in Alfred Adler, one of Sigmund Freud's early colleagues. From 1937 to 1951, Maslow was on the faculty of Brooklyn College.

His family life and his experiences influenced his psychological ideas. After World War II, Maslow began to question the way psychologists had come to their conclusions, and though he did not completely disagree, he had his own ideas on how to understand the human mind. He called his new disclipline humanistic psychology.

Maslow was already a 33-year old father and had two children when the United States entered World War II in 1941. He was thus ineligible for the military. However, the horrors of war instead inspired a vision of peace in him and this led to his groundbreaking psychological studies of self-actualizing people. These studies began with his two mentors, anthropologist Ruth Benedict and Gestalt psychologist Max Wertheimer, whom he admired both professionally and personally. These two were so accomplished in both realms, and such "wonderful human beings" as well, that Maslow began taking notes about them and their behavior. This would be the basis of his lifelong research and thinking about mental health and human potential.

He wrote extensively on the subject, borrowing ideas from other psychologists but adding significantly to them, especially the concepts of a hierarchy of needs, metaneeds, metamotivation, self-actualizing persons, and peak experiences. Maslow was a professor at Brandeis University from 1951 to 1969, and then became a resident fellow of the Laughlin Institute in California.

In 1967, Maslow had an almost fatal heart attack, and knew his time was limited.

Maslow considered himself to be a psychological pioneer. He gave future psychologists a push by bringing to light different paths to ponder. He built the framework that later allowed other psychologists to add in more information. Maslow long believed that leadership should be non-intervening. Consistent with this approach, he rejected a nomination in 1963 to be president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology because he felt that the organization should develop an intellectual movement without a leader. He had many concerns about leadership even though he was elected President of the APA.

Death

While jogging, he suffered a severe heart attack and died on June 8, 1970 at the age of 62 in Menlo Park, California.

Legacy

Towards the end of his life, Maslow was concerned with questions such as, "Why don't more people self-actualize if their basic needs are met? How can we humanistically understand the problem of evil?"

In the spring of 1961, Maslow and Tony Sutich founded the Journal of Humanistic Psychology, with Miles Vich as editor until 1971. The journal printed its first issue in early spring 1961 and continues to publish academic papers.

Near the end of his life, he attended Association for Humanistic Psychology’s founding meeting in 1963 where he declined nomination as its president, arguing that the new organization should develop an intellectual movement without a leader which resulted in useful strategy during the field’s early years.

[Demeter]

38. Our Energy Slaves Are in Recession Charles Hugh Smith

Charts of energy consumption are screaming "recession."


http://www.oftwominds.com/blogjuly13/energy-slaves7-13.html

To get a feel for how many energy slaves you have, imagine hiring 40 people to drag you and your car down the street at 3 miles per hour. Replacing the energy in a gallon of gasoline with human labor is imperfect, of course, because the people you hire to drag your vehicle down the street cannot run 70 miles an hour. The gallon (or four liters) of petrol will push your car about 25 to 30 miles at high speeds at a market cost of about $4. Imagine how much it would cost to pay 40 people to drag your 1.5-ton car 25 miles--a lot more than $4. (Weight of 2012 Ford Fusion: 3,285 pounds. Weight of 2012 Honda Civic: 2,765 pounds.)

You get the idea: every bit of fossil fuel you consume is the equivalent of an energy slave. Correspondent David P. (Market Daily Briefing) describes the concept thusly: "Your personal standard of living is derived (largely) from the number of energy slaves you have working for you." Energy Slaves - 5 charts--David kindly shared three of his five charts of energy consumption per capita (i.e. per person). This first is total energy consumption in the U.S. per capita.

The key takeaway here is how closely energy consumption tracks recession: notice how energy consumption cratered in the deep 1980-82 recession, and how it fell off a cliff in 2009, and has continued to weaken despite the official return of "growth." Clearly, improved efficiency of transport, furnaces, electrical appliances, etc. leads to lower consumption while delivering the same output (miles driven, refrigeration, etc.). Just as clearly, higher efficiency cannot possibly account for the steep declines in recessionary periods. People use less energy because they have less money and are feeling less wealthy:



Next up: energy consumption in the residential household sector of the economy. While the downtrend since 2000 (lower highs and lower lows) could be attributed to improved efficiency, that cannot be the reason behind energy consumption's waterfall decline in 2011. That says one thing: recession.



How about the lifeblood of American life, transportation? Once again, the sharp decline in consumption says "recession." Consumption rose slightly in post-recession 2010, but then resumed its dramatic plunge:



Here is David's commentary on his charts. (The charts for the commercial and industrial sectors also show recessionary declines.)

Concept: personal standard of living is derived (largely) from the number of energy slaves you have working for you.

Likewise, increasing or decreasing activity can be tracked by energy (slave) consumption in each sector.

The series are produced monthly by EIA that totals the energy consumption in the US in 4 sectors (Industry, Transport, Commercial, Residential) from all energy sources. They are a very seasonal noisy series, so we use a 12-point moving average to smooth things out. We then divide this by population to arrive at - energy slaves per person per year for each sector in BTU. The MA makes it lag a bit, but the series are so noisy you would likely not see anything interesting if you didn't have some sort of adjustment.

Industrial: 40% (per capita) drop since 1975 points at long-term deindustrialization

Residential: 12% (per capita) drop since 2008 points at real losses in standard of living

Transport: 14% (per capita) drop since 2008 - more standard of living losses

Over a longer time period an argument might be made for decreasing energy use based on increased efficiency. Over shorter timeframes - not so much. And if you look at all the sectors, things are all still trending down except residential.

Thank you, David. Other than a decline in the standard of living (otherwise known as recession), what other dynamics could be in play? There are at least three, though their effects are on the margins of consumption:

1. Telecommuting/working remotely. Working at home eliminates commuting and many business meetings.

2. The "Brown Truck Store": purchasing goods online and having them delivered by UPS, USPS, etc. saves energy by consolidating delivery to the end buyer.

3. Generational shift away from private auto ownership. Gen Y is far more comfortable with car-sharing (ZipCar, City Car Share, etc.), i.e. the access not ownership model: having access to a private vehicle no longer requires the immense expense of owning a vehicle. This generational shift may be one reason miles driven per person has been declining: (via Doug Short): Vehicle Miles Driven: Population-Adjusted Fractionally Off the Post-Crisis Low. Adjusting for population growth, total miles driven in the U.S. is back to the levels of 1995, almost two decades ago.

While there are many positives to declining energy consumption, the question is: does this reflect a better standard of living or a lesser standard of living? In terms of replacing the ownership model with the access model and replacing long commutes with remote work, the answer is "better." In terms of overall economic activity, these charts scream recession, i.e. a declining standard of living.

[Demeter]

39. And just imagine that the energy-saving trends of the 70's had continued

(in other words, no infernal St. Ronnie of Reagan)

Those charts would probably show half as much energy use. And it would be much cheaper and cleaner energy. We have lost a lifetime of savings thanks to that old fossil and his reactionary policies. And his reactionary successors.

[Demeter]

40. The Next American Revolution Charles Hugh Smith

http://www.oftwominds.com/blogjuly13/next-revolution7-13.html

Some July 4th thoughts on revolution as a process rather than an event.

The next American Revolution will not be an event, it will be a process. We naturally turn to the past for templates of the future, but history has a way of remaining remarkably unpredictable. Indeed, all the conventional long-range forecasts made in 1900, 1928, 1958, 1988 and 2000 missed virtually every key development--not just in the distant future, but just a few years out. The point is that extrapolating the present into the future fails to capture sea changes and developments that completely disrupt the supposedly unchanging, permanent Status Quo. The idea that the next revolution will take a new form does not occur to conventional forecasters, who readily assume the next transition will follow past critical junctures: armed insurrection against the central authority (The first American Revolution, 1781), civil war (1861) or global war (1941). I submit that the next American Revolution circa 2021-23 will not repeat or even echo these past transitions. What seems likely to me is the entire project of centralization that characterized the era 1941-2013 will slip into irrelevance as centralization increasingly yields diminishing returns. Everything centralized, from the Federal Reserve to the Too Big To Fail Banks to Medicare to the National Security State depends on the Federal government being a Savior State that must ceaselessly expand its share of the national income and its raw power lest it implode. All Savior States have one, and only one trajectory-- they must ceaselessly expand and concentrate wealth and power or they will fail. They are like the shark, which dies once it stops moving forward: the Savior State must push forward on its trajectory of expansion or it expires. Stasis is not possible, nor is contraction; the promises made to the citizenry cannot be withdrawn without political instability, but the promises cannot be kept without fatally disrupting the neofeudal financialized debtocracy.

You see the dilemma: The Savior State cannot stop expanding, but the financial system that generates its revenues can no longer support its vast machinery of debt and phantom collateral. This is why I suggest all the centralized concentrations of wealth and power will either implode or fade into irrelevance. If all the phantom wealth and collateral vanishes in a market clearing event, the Federal Reserve will simply become irrelevant to the vast majority of people. A handful of nimble speculators may well benefit by picking over the carcass of financialization and centralized omnipotence (i.e. central banking), and perhaps the 1/10th of 1% will still have enough assets influenced by the Fed to care, but the forces of disruption will replace centralization with decentralization...Here is another example: Medicare may not cease to exist, but it will become increasingly irrelevant to most people because it will no longer function. The remaining doctors willing to treat Medicare patients will be working 13-hour days for sketchy pay, and as each one burns out and leaves the system, the system contracts. Eventually it contracts to the point of irrelevance.

The revolution will be in work and social innovations enabled by technology. The conventional view is that technology will magically enable the permanence of the present; this will be proven incorrect, as what technology enables is not the waste, entitlement and centralization that characterize the present but social innovations, some of which are already visible. If we sought to summarize the profound transformation ahead in one sentence, it would be this: wages are no longer an adequate model for distributing the surplus generated by the economy. The current Savior State model responds to this by increasing taxes on the dwindling minority with full-time jobs and increasing entitlement payments to all those without government or private-sector jobs. This model will collapse, politically, socially and economically, as no society or economy can squander half or more of its productive labor force while increasing the burden on the dwindling cohort of productively employed. The inevitable result of this dynamic is a destabilizing Tyranny of the Majority. Tyranny of the Majority, Corporate Welfare and Complicity (April 9, 2010)

Technology is not just disrupting old industries and companies, it is disrupting the entire Savior State/cartel-capitalism model. The disruption has barely begun, but it will pick up speed over the next decade. I suspect the next American Revolution will begin in the 2015-16 timeframe. A series of interlocking crises will lead to reforms that preserve the Savior State/ cartel-capitalism for another few years, at a lower level of consumption, i.e. burn rate. But the process of revolution will be far from complete; this initial response of the centralized neofeudal debtocracy will buy time for the Status Quo, and every conventional onlooker will be infused with optimism and hope that the system established in the Great Depression, World War II and its Cold War aftermath--the secular religion of consumerism (i.e. aggregate demand), permanent war footing and the National Security State, and universal dependence on the Savior State and its ceaseless expansion of concentrated wealth and power--will continue.

But this Springtime for the Savior State/cartel-capitalism partnership will be brief, and by 2018-19 all the systemic flaws and disruptive trends will reassert themselves with renewed vigor. The entire current model of governance, social order and the economy will be revolutionized not by overthrow but by the process of irrelevance. What will become relevant will no longer be in the control of the Savior State or its partner, financialized cartel capitalism.

Those currently holding all the concentrated power and wealth cannot believe they will become irrelevant, but that's the result of projecting the present as if it is permanent and immutable. The new system will be better, more humane, more flexible, more transparent, with more opportunity, for it will be everything the current corrupt, sclerotic, parasitic and exploitive system is not.

[hamerfan]

41. Musical Interlude II

Has finances and a pyramid in common with the OP.
Money by Pink Floyd:

[Demeter]

42. House Republican GSE Bill Would Codify MERS, Pre-Empt Private Property Rights

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/07/house-republican-gse-bill-would-codify-mers-pre-empt-private-property-rights.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

The top Republican on the House Financial Services Committee has tucked a provision into his mortgage finance reform bill that would create a privately held “National Mortgage Data Repository.” The repository would basically look like MERS, the bank-owned electronic database tracking mortgage transfers. The difference is that, while MERS’ activities have drawn legal challenges across the country, the National Mortgage Data Repository would have the force of statute to carry out the exact same behavior. According to the bill text, any document arising from this repository would be seen as presumptively legal, pre-empting state and federal laws on demonstrating the right to foreclose.

Jeb Hensarling, the chair of the House Financial Services Committee, introduced the bill last Thursday. Hensarling has already gotten into trouble this year for taking a ski vacation/fundraiser with Wall Street lobbyists, including an official from the American Securitization Forum, just six weeks after getting the Financial Services Committee gavel. Financial interests donated over $1 million to Hensarling in the last election cycle. It’s not a stretch to suggest that legislation offered by Hensarling at least has the stamp of approval from Wall Street, if it’s not directly written by their lobbyists.

The bill is called the Protecting American Taxpayers and Homeowners (PATH) Act, and it’s the House Republican response to a series of bills and initiatives to resolve Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and set a course for the future of mortgage finance. Most of the bill deals with that: in Hensarling’s vision, Fannie and Freddie are totally dismantled within five years, and private actors take up the slack with virtually no government guarantee. While in the past I’ve trashed the idea of just reconstituting Fannie and Freddie under a different name, in reality, expecting private actors to recreate a secondary mortgage market without any guarantee (or even with one, in my view) is wishful thinking....

GREAT! GET THE GOVERNMENT TO STEAL THE HOUSES FOR YOU!

MUCH MORE BOONDOGGLING AT LINK...THIS IS SEMINAL CRIMINALITY!

[Demeter]

44. The Destruction of Barack Obama By Robert J. Burrowes PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS/DECONSTRUCTION

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article35568.htm

Some people have been surprised or disappointed by certain decisions of President Barack Obama. His war-making, his use of illegal drone strikes, his failure to close Guantanamo, his failure to genuinely help those ordinary Americans who voted him into office, and even his pursuit of whistleblowers like Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden have all raised concerns among those with the audacity to hope that he would be different. But there is no reason for surprise. Obama told us all about himself in his autobiography 'Dreams From My Father'. Most of us just chose not to listen and to then analyse the significance of what he told us.

It takes someone with a particular psychological profile to kill and exploit people. See 'Why Violence?' Most of us cannot kill: we respond to our conscience or feelings such as empathy, sympathy, compassion or even the fear of our guilt or shame if we know our actions will cause harm to others. What happened to Barack Obama that makes him so violent? Let us analyse what he told us now...In his book Obama describes his childhood. This includes, for example, explicit reference to his violent maternal grandfather as well as key behavioural descriptions of himself in contexts that reveal his emotional state, even if this was, and still is, suppressed below his own conscious awareness. In essence, the book contains a largely delusional account of his early life, reflecting his effort to leave his past behind without dealing with the effects of the violence he suffered. One incident he describes clearly reveals his justified but unexpressed fury at his father for abandoning him. Because this fury was suppressed, it left young Barack with a gaping hole in his sense of self-worth: he wasn't worthy of his father's time, attention and love. Moreover, because he was unable either to prevent his abandonment by his father (because his love, as a baby, for his father was insufficient to bond his father to him) or to express his feelings (which would usually include fear, pain and sadness in addition to his obvious anger) about this abandonment, he acquired a deep sense of powerlessness and a large measure of self-hatred too. However, given the extraordinary unpleasantness of these feelings and without support and preferably encouragement to feel them, he unconsciously suppressed his awareness of these as well. But they live in him still.

His book makes it clear that it was his mother who was primarily responsible for 'teaching' young Barack to suppress his awareness of his feelings. She didn't comprehend her child's need to feel the fear raised by his father's abandonment, to cry about it and to get angry about it (perhaps by having a series of 'tantrums') because listening to his feelings frightened her: listening might trigger equivalent feelings in herself (and, as a child, she had been scared into suppressing her awareness of her feelings too). So she scared the young Barack into not having these feelings by, for example, contradicting his perceptions of his father and offering justifications for his father's behaviour. His mother didn't understand the enormous healing power of crying when you feel sad, of consciously feeling scared when something frightening happens to you and of expressing one's legitimate anger when one has been 'done over'. Barack had been abandoned! How would you feel? She didn't understand that evolution intended us to have feelings partly to guide us and partly as a 'safety release valve' so that we can move on from trauma to lead a productive and fulfilling life. Unfortunately, by suppressing his awareness of his feelings (even though the feelings themselves cannot be suppressed out of existence) throughout his childhood and in adult life, they became deeply embedded in his unconscious and play the major role in generating his now-warped behaviours without him even knowing it.

Another incident his book describes occurred after an older boy threw a rock at the young Barack; he powerlessly complained to his stepfather 'It wasn't fair'. This incident confirms that the boy had been terrorised into suppressing his awareness of his anger: the anger that evolution intended would tell him that this behaviour by his assailant was not just unfair - it was an unprovoked, outrageous and violent assault; the anger that would enable him to defend himself powerfully (primarily by showing his anger) against such assaults, thus reducing the likelihood of their repetition; and the anger that would also tell him how to change his behaviour in future so that such assaults were less likely. Why is this important? Because the young Barack had already learned to suppress his justified fear of, and anger at, the abuse of people who were supposed to love him (particularly his father and mother) and of whom he was (unconsciously) terrified (such as his maternal grandfather), he learned to project his own terror, self-hatred and anger onto other people and groups of whom he is not actually afraid ('terrorists' in foreign countries, prisoners at Guantanamo, US citizens), and to use violence to control their behaviour instead. This enables him to regain his desired, but delusionary, sense of 'having control'...Equally instructive is Obama's stepfather's response to this incident. Rather than listen to the young Barack's feelings about the attack, including its obvious injustice, so that he could rebuild his sense of self-esteem, develop his sense of personal power, and learn skills and develop capacities for dealing with conflict nonviolently, his stepfather explicitly taught him to use violence, by giving him boxing lessons, in 'self-defense'. As a result of this and other experience, Obama has a delusional belief in the effectiveness and morality of violence (perceived as 'self-defense') whenever it is used by the United States while believing hypocritically that it 'wasn't fair' when used by 'terrorists': he has no capacity to perceive the dysfunctional and immoral outcomes of using violence in any context.

Moreover, because the young Barack's suppressed anger was also warped by the fear and pain he experienced as a result of the violence he suffered as a child, he now acts vindictively towards people who have the courage to tell the truth, such as Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden. Because he lacks the courage to act on the truth himself, and people such as Manning and Snowden expose the contradiction between how he wants to be perceived (both by himself and others), and how he actually is, he now inflicts unnecessary and/or excessive violence on those who have the courage to do what his own fear prevents him from doing. For Obama, the truth of Manning and Snowden is, literally, terrifying and he will go to great lengths to silence it....In another incident during his life in Indonesia, Obama mentions his mother's generosity in giving money to beggars: a generosity which the young Barack copied despite 'the few coins' in his possession. However, his stepfather regarded this behaviour as 'endearing but silly': he encouraged the boy to ignore beggars and 'make sure you don't end up on the street yourself'. Given Obama's later work as a community organiser, in which he apparently displayed concern for those who were 'less fortunate', his subsequent behaviour as president, in which he has overseen the continuing impoverishment of working and middle class Americans, appears inconsistent. How can we account for this?

The adult Obama lacks integrity: his mind is not integrated in such a way that memories, thoughts, feelings and conscience function seamlessly to drive his behaviour in a consistent direction. And this is why he is such a useful tool of those corporate elites who selected him to govern the United States. Like most people who (unconsciously) feel unloved (an outcome of the fact that loving his father didn't gain him love in return), he now has the unconscious desire to please and to gain approval. And Obama wants this approval from his corporate masters (not merely American voters); it's not love but it's better than nothing. In turn, he has the pleasant face and oratory which they can use to both mask and 'sell' their ruthless exploitation of the people of America and elsewhere around the world, including when he must lie outright to do so (as he did when he denied that the NSA spies on US citizens).

Obama makes it clear that his mother wanted him to have 'values'. What his mother, like most parents, did not realize is that socially positive values are deeply anchored in certain emotions and that these emotions and the values they generate can only emerge as a result of childhood experience (not including lectures and admonishments from adults). The reason that the adult Obama has no conscience and feels little or no love, compassion, empathy and/or sympathy for the victims of his government's violence is simply the logical outcome of his own childhood which was largely devoid of genuine love, compassion, empathy and sympathy. This is another reason why the adult Obama is so violent, both internationally and even domestically. As Obama oversees the increasing militarization of US society and the systematic dismantling of the social contract - the removal of centuries-old constitutional protections and the ongoing encroachments on human rights and civil liberties (including those which protected American citizens from arbitrary detention or execution by their own government), the dramatic expansion of poverty and homelessness, the spying on fellow Americans, the ongoing consolidation of predatory corporate governance - we are simply witnessing the logical outcome of the violence he suffered as a child.

At a personal level, we must understand why Barack Obama is violent and support him to find the courage to travel the journey of emotional healing because, like all perpetrators of violence, he was terrorised and brutalised as a child. At a political level, those of us committed to ending human violence must nonviolently resist his killing and his exploitation. There is a better world for all of us but violence by anyone, for any purpose - even when referred to as 'punishment' - cannot bring it forth.

[hamerfan]

45. Some of these people

Could use a straightening out, but some know what they're talking about.
At least it's good to see the economy is being talked about in other circles:

[link:http://www.acousticguitarforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=303299|

http://www.acousticguitarforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=303299

[bread_and_roses]

46. I am reading "The Constant Gardener"

I have tried to read Le Carre before, but have always been defeated by his murkiness. I am a simple sort, the elliptical is usually beyond me. Besides, the upper-class Brit idioms defeat me. As well as revolt me - I mean, "drinkies?" What sort of adult says "drinkies" for goddess sake? And I find myself utterly floored by the overt class arrogance he describes - is this authentic, I keep asking myself.

But because I had seen the film, I plowed through the first half of this, missing all the nuances because I simply don't understand the references but getting the general gist and knowing there was a point to it. And despite finding the female character, in the book as in the movie, neither appealing nor believable.

But still, I find it incredibly painful to read. And worth reading. Another instance of "the things we all know go on but manage to live our lives as if they didn't and as if everything were really "normal" and OK.

It does not surprise me that the NYT's didn't much care for the novel.

http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/01/07/reviews/010107.07coopert.html

... The old le Carré was animated by an abiding pessimism about simple truths ... Espionage served as a trope for basic human secrecy: the enemy was not outside us but within, and the cold war afforded ''no victory and no virtue,'' as le Carré once said in an interview, but merely ''a condition of human illness and a political misery.'' To this le Carré, ultimate distinctions between good and evil remained stubbornly elusive ...

... in this novel ... moral ambivalence recedes apace. ... illness is no mere metaphor, but a crime perpetuated by corporate profitmongers ... Devils and angels face off in what le Carré calls, in a plangent author's note, ''individual conscience in conflict with corporate greed.''

I am sure the NYT would much prefer that distinctions between good and evil remain "stubbornly elusive" rather than being spelled out, whether clumsily or not.

[Fuddnik]

47. The Nation: Stop Larry Summers Before He Messes Up Again.

By William Greider

Washington insiders are spreading an alarming news alert. Barack Obama, I am told, is on the brink of making a terrible mistake by appointing Lawrence Summers as the new chairman of the Federal Reserve. That sounds improbable, since Summers is a toxic retread from the old boys’ network and a nettlesome egotist who offended just about everyone during his previous tours in government. More to the point, Summers was a central player in the grave governing errors that led to the financial collapse and a ruined economy.

Surely not, I thought, when I heard the gossip. But my source heard it from the White House. Obama’s senior economic advisers—still dominated by Clintonistas and aging acolytes of Robert Rubin—are pushing the president to choose Summers as the successor to Ben Bernanke, whose term ends in January. And they are urging Obama to make the announcement right now, before the opposition can get organized.

To thwart this ploy, Democratic senators and rank-and-file constituents need to sound the alarm promptly and promise, loud and clear, to vote against Summers if Obama once again accepts the choice of the Clinton-Rubin crowd. The former Harvard president was himself a Wall Street player between his government positions. He was a soft-on-banks adviser to Obama during the president’s first term. Choosing Summers now would be another great gift to the mega-banks. But it would be a very tough vote for Democrats who claim the mantle of reform.

There are many reasons to oppose Summers as Fed chair, but the strongest objection is that Obama would be rewarding the same guys who got things disastrously wrong for the country—the Clinton-Rubin policy makers who danced to Wall Street’s tune of financial deregulation and collaborated with the Greenspan Fed and Wall Street to gut prudential regulation like the Glass-Steagall Act. Those actions set the stage for the crisis that devastated middle-class home owners and working people generally.

Summers was an over-confident cheerleader posing as superior intellect. People called him “the smartest man in the room,” and Summers definitely believed it. As Treasury secretary during Bill Clinton’s second term, Summers personally did the knife work that cut up Brooksley Born, the brave regulator earnestly trying to impose meaningful limits on the explosive derivatives market. He still owes Born—and the country—an apology.

(snip)
http://www.thenation.com/blog/175372/stop-larry-summers-he-messes-again

[Tansy_Gold]

52. Oh My Fucking God

Bill Greider was on point in November 2008, too, because I quoted him in my defense here on DU. GMSTA.

I think I need to post on his blog or something.

[xchrom]

48. US TREASURY SECRETARY LEW IN GREECE FOR TALKS

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_GREECE_FINANCIAL_CRISIS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-07-21-06-30-39

ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has arrived in Athens to discuss Greece's efforts to overcome a deep debt crisis.

Greek officials say Lew is meeting with Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras and will later on Sunday meet Prime Minister Antonis Samaras at the Acropolis Museum.

Samaras is due to visit the United States in early August, where he will meet President Barack Obama.

[Demeter]

53. What's he gonna do, Take Notes on How to Steal Everything and Trash a Country?

He can come to Detroit for that! The water's not as warm, but it's scenic.


Poor Greece! The conquered never have any fun.

[xchrom]

49. ATLANTIC CITY REDEVELOPMENT KEEPS POOR ON THE MOVE

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ATLANTIC_CITY_EVICTIONS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-07-20-13-27-36

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) -- As Sandra Taliaferro prepares to move out of her apartment to make way for redevelopment efforts near Atlantic City's newest casino, she recalls the state of the city when she moved there as a teenager more than 50 years ago.

"You weren't allowed to go across Atlantic past a certain time," said Taliaferro, who is black, explaining that the city remained partly racially segregated.

Modern redevelopment efforts are having a similar effect, she said. "Now it's not race; it's money. You've got your side, and I've got my side of town."

At 66, Taliaferro is one of the main critics of the way the state Casino Reinvestment Development Authority has handled plans to overhaul her neighborhood, which sits in the shadows of the year-old Revel Casino-Hotel.

[xchrom]

50. Chinese economy set to turn around, no hard landing - finance minister

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/07/21/uk-china-finmin-idUKBRE96K02M20130721


(Reuters) - China's finance minister denied that the world's second-largest economy was entering a crisis period, adding that he believed growth could even accelerate, as quoted by the official Xinhua news service in an interview.

The report quoted Lou Jiwei, speaking on the sidelines of the G20 conference on Saturday, saying he expected China's economic growth to end the year at 7.5 percent, the official target rate.

A Xinhua report on July 12 that quoted him saying he expected growth to come in at 7 percent caused brief market confusion, but Xinhua later changed the report to quote him as saying 7.5 percent.

"We see domestic power generation and electricity consumption increased by 4 percent, and the service industry's usage of electricity increased 8 percent," Lou said, arguing that the increases showed efforts to shift China's economy towards services from manufacturing were bearing fruit.

[xchrom]

51. Exclusive - Advanced G20 countries apart over debt goals after 2016

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/07/20/uk-g20-debt-idUKBRE96J05X20130720

(Reuters) - Advanced G20 economies will consider numerical targets for public debt reduction after 2016 to boost investor confidence, a senior G20 official told Reuters on Saturday.

The commitment, to be discussed at a summit of leaders of the world's 20 biggest developing and developed economies (G20) in St. Petersburg in early September, will build on a G20 pledge made in 2010 to stabilise debt-to-GDP ratios by 2016, the official said.

Showing just how far apart different Group of 20 powers are on the issue of binding debt targets, another senior G20 source told Reuters that nothing had been committed to.

"There was no agreement on post-2016 targets," the source said. "The numbers put forward simply reflect budgetary plans."

[Demeter]

54. You know what you can do with your "investor confidence"!

Take care of the people, and the public debt will disappear. And the "investors" can find some other turnip to bleed dry.

[Demeter]

55. The heat wave has broken!!!!

Loud cheering and festivity!

I'm changing beds, doing laundry and housework and sorting the garage. And a bylaws meeting at 7. And a real meal for Sunday dinner...ham, potato salad, fruit salad, green salad.

Oh, and posting. Thanks for everyone contributing this weekend. Quite the crowd!

[Demeter]

56. The Battle of the Sexes Just Went into Extra Innings

The Libertarian male's solution: instead of cleaning up his act and developing some redeeming human characteristics, find a woman substitute who doesn't care what kind of person he is, or have any feelings about him....we used to call them whores....

I was talking with a man of the previous generation, who recently buried his wife of 49 years. He talked about putting the relationship first.

Now, isn't that a novel idea? That's one thing Boomer boys forgot...narcissism kills relationships. I don't think women are developing similar narcissistic tendencies. I think we are just giving up.

[Demeter]

59. This is what I call the Hollow in the Pyramid

That third slice of life's needs is the one that requires Other People, and it is therefore extraordinarily hard to meet.

Getting to know people is no guarantee of success....quite the opposite, in many cases.

[Demeter]

62. Why Men Need Women By ADAM GRANT NYT OP ED

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/opinion/sunday/why-men-need-women.html?_r=0

WHAT makes some men miserly and others generous? What motivated Bill Gates, for example, to make more than $28 billion in philanthropic gifts while many of his billionaire peers kept relatively tightfisted control over their personal fortunes? New evidence reveals a surprising answer. The mere presence of female family members — even infants — can be enough to nudge men in the generous direction. In a provocative new study, the researchers Michael Dahl, Cristian Dezso and David Gaddis Ross examined generosity and what inspires it in wealthy men. Rather than looking at large-scale charitable giving, they looked at why some male chief executives paid their employees more generously than others. The researchers tracked the wages that male chief executives at more than 10,000 Danish companies paid their employees over the course of a decade.

Interestingly, the chief executives paid their employees less after becoming fathers. On average, after chief executives had a child, they paid about $100 less in annual compensation per employee. To be a good provider, the researchers write, it’s all too common for a male chief executive to claim “his firm’s resources for himself and his growing family, at the expense of his employees.” But there was a twist. When Professor Dahl’s team examined the data more closely, the changes in pay depended on the gender of the child that the chief executives fathered. They reduced wages after having a son, but not after having a daughter.

Daughters apparently soften fathers and evoke more caretaking tendencies. The speculation is that as we brush our daughters’ hair and take them to dance classes, we become gentler, more empathetic and more other-oriented. There are even studies showing that American legislators with daughters vote more liberally; this is also true of British male voters who have daughters, especially in terms of referendum and policy choices about reproductive rights. “A father takes on some of the preferences of his female offspring,” argue the researchers Andrew Oswald at the University of Warwick and Nattavudh Powdthavee, then at the University of York. For male chief executives, this daughter-driven empathy spike may account for more generous impulses toward employees that temper the temptation toward wage cuts...


...In a provocative 2007 presentation in San Francisco, the psychologist Roy Baumeister asked, “Is there anything good about men?” (The short answer, if you haven’t read “Demonic Males,” by Dale Peterson and Richard Wrangham, is not much.) But our saving grace, Professor Baumeister argues, is that across a wide range of attributes, “men go to extremes more than women.” Men are responsible for the lion’s share of the worst acts of aggression and selfishness, but they also engage in some of the most extreme acts of helping and generosity. On this point, the economists James Andreoni at the University of California, San Diego, and Lise Vesterlund at the University of Pittsburgh report evidence that whereas many women prefer to share evenly, “men are more likely to be either perfectly selfish or perfectly selfless.” It may be that meaningful contact with women is one of the forces that tilt men toward greater selflessness....It’s often said that behind every great man stands a great woman. In light of the profound influence that women can have on men’s generosity, it might be more accurate to say that in front of every great man walks a great woman. If we’re wise, we’ll follow her lead.

Adam Grant is a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of “ Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success.”

[xchrom]

57. A Bizarre Goldman Sachs Aluminum Moving Scheme Has Allegedly Cost US Consumers $5 Billion

http://www.businessinsider.com/goldmans-alleged-aluminum-scam-2013-7

The Federal Reserve is currently "reviewing" a landmark 2003 decision that first allowed regulated banks to trade in physical commodity markets.

Why exactly shouldn't banks be able to trade physical commodities? To see one argument, take a look at a big report from David Kocieniewski in today's New York Times.

According to Kocieniewski, a Goldman Sachs-owned company has been involved in an elaborate plan to move around aluminum in a way that has inflated market prices. The report states that every time an American consumer buys a product containing aluminum, they pay a price that has been affected by this maneuver. Sources told The New York Times that in total the plan has cost American consumers more than $5 billion over the last three years,

Kocieniewski's investigation centers on Metro International Trade Services, an aluminum storage company that Goldman Sachs bought three years ago. According to the Times, since Goldman bought the company the average wait time at the storage facility has gone up more than 20-fold. As the wait times are longer, the companies' revenues for storing the aluminium are higher. This cost is reflected in the market price of aluminum.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/goldmans-alleged-aluminum-scam-2013-7#ixzz2ZghGlEoj

[Demeter]

60. This is the second time this issue has gotten press attention

The first time was during the contango, just before the crash...

Glad somebody's thinking of suing GS. At least, I hope that's where this is leading.

[xchrom]

58. Japan Voted, And 'Abenomics' Won Decisively

http://www.businessinsider.com/abes-ruling-bloc-wins-upper-house-election-2013-7

TOKYO (Reuters) - Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling bloc won a decisive victory in an upper house election on Sunday, cementing his grip on power and setting the stage for Japan's first stable government since the charismatic Junichiro Koizumi left office in 2006.
The victory gives the hawkish leader a stronger mandate for his "Abenomics" recipe to revive the economy and spells his personal political redemption after he led his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to a humiliating defeat in a 2007 upper house election.

The ensuing parliamentary deadlock allowed the opposition to block legislation and led to Abe's resignation two months later. That "twisted parliament" has hampered policies for most of the six years since and led to a string of revolving-door leaders.

"People wanted politics that can make decisions and an administration with a stable grounding, which led to today's result," LDP Vice President Masahiko Komura told public broadcaster NHK.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/abes-ruling-bloc-wins-upper-house-election-2013-7#ixzz2ZgiDVGRR

[Demeter]

61. So, Abe won his election--now he has to win his economy

One successful battle doesn't end a war of this magnitude and duration...

Perhaps Abe will bring REAL Hope and Change...and maybe we won't have to pay for it, either.

Of course, with the Fukushima meltdowns poisoning the world, not sure what good it will do anyone. I'm thinking the only way to stop that disaster is to blow it up with a nuke...and burn up all the "fuel" into relatively inert and much less dangerous fission products. This would wreck a large part of Japan's agricultural land, but it might save the Pacific Ocean and the planet...

We are cursed to live in such "interesting times".

[xchrom]

63. Detroit Bankruptcy Judge Rhodes Is Ponzi-Law Scholar

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-20/detroit-bankruptcy-judge-rhodes-is-ponzi-law-scholar.html

Detroit’s bankruptcy, the largest municipal collapse in U.S. history, will be overseen by a 28-year veteran of the bench and writer on Ponzi-scheme law who’s taking on the biggest case of his career.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven W. Rhodes, 64, was assigned the case by Alice Batchelder, the chief judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, following recommendations by lower-court judges in Detroit, according to a court order filed yesterday.

“It is our unanimous and very strong belief that Honorable Steven W. Rhodes is the bankruptcy judge best qualified to preside over the city of Detroit Chapter 9 case,” Phillip Shefferly, chief of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Detroit, wrote in a letter filed with the court.

Detroit filed the biggest U.S. municipal bankruptcy on July 18, a move the city’s emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, said was the only way to deal with a debt load of $18 billion. The city’s bid for a turnaround is now in the judge’s hands.

[xchrom]

64. Japan warns Britain to stay in the European Union

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/07/21/japan-warns-britain-to-stay-in-the-european-union/

Japan has warned that tens of thousands of British jobs with Japanese firms could be at risk if London pulls out of the European Union, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

Tokyo’s submission to a British government consultation said Japanese companies liked Britain because it offered a gateway to the European market, the Sunday Times said.

Prime Minister David Cameron has vowed to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the EU and then hold a referendum on membership before the end of 2017 if he is still in office.

The Japanese government’s submission to the British Foreign Office review said it was “committed to making its relationship with the EU stronger than ever before”.

[Demeter]

65. Ooooh! A THREAT!

I'm so scared.

[Demeter]

66. HERE'S THE REAL THREAT: The Making of the U.S. Surveillance State, 1898-2020

http://www.nationofchange.org/making-us-surveillance-state-1898-2020-1374412929


READ IT AND WEEP FOR OUR LOST COUNTRY

IF YOU HAVEN'T HAD ENOUGH WITH THAT:

Math Behind Leak Crackdown: 153 Cases, 4 Years, 0 Indictments

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/us/politics/math-behind-leak-crackdown-153-cases-4-years-0-indictments.html?pagewanted=3

EXPLAINS WHY OBAMA IS SUCH A TWO-FACED JERK ABOUT OUR CONSTITUTION, AND:

Glenn Greenwald: Growing Backlash Against NSA Spying Shows Why U.S. Wants to Silence Edward Snowden

By Juan Gonzalez


A COUPLE MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS, AND SUICIDE WILL BE THE ONLY VIABLE OPTION....

I HAVE NO HOPE. I SEE A FUTURE THAT I WOULDN'T WISH ON HITLER.

http://www.nationofchange.org/glenn-greenwald-growing-backlash-against-nsa-spying-shows-why-us-wants-silence-edward-snowden-137441

[kickysnana]

68. Not being able to think your way out of a paper bag became popular then policy

Anyone who can is a threat. How does this apply in the real world?

This week young parents on a farm in Wisconsin let their 2 year old run free on the farm on the road and in the tool shop (not new, when my grandma (b 1905) asked my grandfather's sister about her kids running around on the duplex with a steep roof she said "Well at least they will die happy.&quot . Kid has supper goes out with his 6 year old brother and is not seen again. They start looking for him at about 7:15p. They call the sheriff about 10p . Hundreds of people show up and search overnight. Thousands the next day.

Sheriffs department along with missing children's folks organized the search. There are three cars on the property the Dad is fixing for neighbors. They are locked the keys which "had just been on a desk" could not be found. NOBODY PUT 2 AND 2 TOGETHER AND FORCED OPEN THE TRUNKS until the neighbor came by 24 hours later to retrieve the car with the keys. Keys and toddler are found much too late.

I pretty much kept a 24/7 eye on my kids until they hit 4 and then we had some intensive survival training with test runs before they had walk to Kindergarten. Still the first time I let the 4 year old go down to a 6 unit brownstone half a block away. The four year old managed to drop a real bowling pin off a porch and on to his 6 year old brothers head resulting in 6 stitches and interrogation at the Urgent Care. Me "You do not drop things on your brother's head,and you, do not let your people drop things on your head." I was always grateful because there were genes in the family that made some of our little boys "Try everything they were told not to do to see why."

I do feel terrible for everyone involved but our society is so screwed up these things happen a lot more than they should.

[Demeter]

67. Ladies and Gentlemen of the Thread (the Homily for the Weekend)

I am sorry that the news is this bad, that every update is worse than the last.

Hotler wins. I have no hope, I see no future.

If there's a way out of this, we will find it, if we look, and try, and believe. If there isn't, it was nice knowing you, and I hope we can keep it all going together into the great Unknown. This is a time when we are all going to need friends, real friends, to get by with a little help from our friends, until the present unpleasantness resolves, one way or the other.

If the unpleasantness were due to the needs of the impoverished, dispossessed and disenfranchised, that would be one thing. That would be easily fixable, and common decency would insist upon us fixing it. We know how to do that, we've done it before, and we have structures to facilitate it.

But THIS unpleasantness is due to the mentally ill: the people who have more than enough and are still not satisfied. They need to take MORE, and MORE, and even if they had it all, they STILL wouldn't be satisfied, until every "rival" for even a grain of sand on this planet is DEAD.

This is the crisis of our time. NEVER has Greed ever been this unleashed and rampant upon the globe. And it is global. If we in this nation cannot control our Greedy, why would we expect any OTHER nation to try? Ours started this...at least, in this country, although I expect they did it globally, even China, thanks to Nixon and the BFEE.

And if we cannot control the GREEDY, relieve them of their booty, make reparations to their victims, and cure their mental illness, there will be shooting war, not just in the Middle East, not just in Africa, but EVERYWHERE.

Until the last greedy son-of-a-bitch is dead. And, it may come to that.

I seriously doubt that Hitler could have taken over, were it not for the rapacious war reparations forced upon Germany by the Allies of WWI. I don't think the German psyche was that warped, until Hitler did his Fuhrer thing.

What can we do, when faced with an entire class of Hitlers, prodded into action by the rapacious of our time?

I don't know. But I think we will be finding out. Here endeth the sermon.