tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77640184086289681132024-02-19T11:36:59.786+02:00What About Marx"Capitalists can buy themselves out of any crisis, so long as they make the workers pay"
- Leninciaoant1http://www.blogger.com/profile/02772023277252383810noreply@blogger.comBlogger42125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764018408628968113.post-43184941998423312782012-12-12T12:57:00.000+02:002012-12-12T12:57:12.588+02:00Links 12/12/2012- MUST READ: <a href="http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.gr/2012/12/apple-to-relaunch-manufacturing-in-us.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+MishsGlobalEconomicTrendAnalysis+%28Mish%27s+Global+Economic+Trend+Analysis%29"><span class="tag">Apple</span> to Relaunch <span class="tag">Manufacturing</span> in US, Net Result +200 <span class="tag">Jobs</span>; Lights Out </a><br />
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- PRINT MORE MONEY - the new head of <span class="tag">BOE<a href="https://www.pheed.com/search/tags?q=%23BOE&t=BOE"></a></span>, a former <span class="tag">Goldman<a href="https://www.pheed.com/search/tags?q=%23Goldman&t=Goldman"></a></span> Sachs executive, is <a href="http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.gr/2012/12/mark-carney-incoming-governor-of-bank.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+MishsGlobalEconomicTrendAnalysis+%28Mish%27s+Global+Economic+Trend+Analysis%29">already hinting at more </a><span class="tag"><a href="http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.gr/2012/12/mark-carney-incoming-governor-of-bank.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+MishsGlobalEconomicTrendAnalysis+%28Mish%27s+Global+Economic+Trend+Analysis%29">QE</a></span><br />
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<span class="tag">- </span><span class="tag">Cox and Archer: <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323353204578127374039087636.html?mod=rss_opinion_main#articleTabs=article">Why $16 Trillion Only Hints at the True U.S. </a><span class="tag"><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323353204578127374039087636.html?mod=rss_opinion_main#articleTabs=article">Debt</a></span></span>. What cannot be repaid, won't.<br />
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- <span class="tag">Recovery?</span> What recovery? The US trade deficit <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2012/12/11/us/politics/ap-us-trade-deficit.html?ref=global-home">increased</a> in Octobe.<br />
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- <a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-10/only-california-school-owes-1-billion-100-million-payday-loan">Only In <span class="tag">California</span>: School Owes $1 Billion On $100 Million 'PayDay' Loan</a>. Actually, the worst part of it is that it's NOT just California...<br />
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- <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/bolton-grandfather-sets-himself-on-fire-after-amassing-secret-loans-and-credit-card-debts-of-150000-8405877.html"><span class="tag">Bolton</span> grandfather sets himself on fire after amassing secret <span class="tag">loans</span> and <span class="tag">credit</span> card <span class="tag">debts</span> of £150,000</a> <br />
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- <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate-intelligence/2012/12/05/chart-unsold-cars-are-piling-up-mainly-american-ones/">Chart: Unsold <span class="tag">Cars </span>Are Piling Up, Mainly American Ones</a><br />
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- Acquisitions/Monopolies forming everywhere: <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324478304578173003312916158.html"><span class="tag">Delta</span> Buys <span class="tag">Virgin</span> Atlantic Stake for $360 Million</a><br />
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- <span class="tag">Chevron<a href="https://www.pheed.com/search/tags?q=%23Chevron&t=Chevron"></a></span>’s standing order: <a href="http://afr.com/p/business/companies/chevron_standing_order_no_sitting_mlivXE921Tj8DwncOM4aAO">no sitting down on the job</a> (in order to increase <span class="tag">productivity<a href="https://www.pheed.com/search/tags?q=%23productivity&t=productivity"></a></span>)<br />
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- Work till you drop- <b><span class="tag">Stakhanov</span> </b>style: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/11/world/europe/putin-rehabilitates-award-that-harks-back-to-soviet-glory.html?ref=global-home&_r=0"><span class="tag">Putin</span> Restores Worker Award of Soviet Era </a> SEE ALSO <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexey_Stakhanov" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexey_Stakhanov</a><br />
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- Welfare, like everything else, is AN INVESTMENT. For example, noone wants to give away hi money to someone who is going to spend it on drugs and alcohol, because that would be "a bad investment". But if someone needs some money in order to get back on his feet, start a business that is, at least in theory, a good one, then it would be "a good investment" to give him some money, as part of "the welfare state". The problem today, from a capitalist's point of view, is that we have many people who have no jobs and are receiving free benefits that are coming out of our pockets, but these people have no chance of finding a job, or starting a business of their own. So, the "welfare state" looks like "a bad investment". Check this out: <a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-11/better-benefits">"she is better off on <span class="tag">benefits</span>" and would not get a <span class="tag">job</span> unless she could continue her luxury lifestyle".</a> <b>SEE ALSO: <a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-10/obama-phone-back-time-its-real">Free phones and internet access for the unemployed</a></b> <br />
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- <a href="http://dailyreckoning.com/the-internet-is-a-dud/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailyreckoning+%28The+Daily+Reckoning%29">The Internet Is a Dud</a><br />
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- Capitalism is about taking risks, you <b>invest </b>resources (time, money, labor, energy, physical resources, etc), and <b>if </b>there is a demand for the product you produce, then you will do well. If not, you will go bankrupt. At least that's the "free-market" version of capitalism, which of course doesn't last long, because sooner or later, monopolies start forming, and since they can control the market, they can enforce their will on the rest without much risk. Still, taking a chance is an integral part of capitalistic growth, and without it there can be no growth: <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-12-06/japans-fear-of-risk-is-getting-dangerous">Japan<span class="tag"></span>'s Fear of <span class="tag">Risk</span> Is Getting Dangerous</a><br />
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- China is buying up every hard asset it can find: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20690364"><span class="tag">PetroChina</span> to buy BHP's stake in Browse LNG project </a><br />
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- U.S. warns Russia <span class="tag"><a href="https://www.pheed.com/search/tags?q=%23Russia&t=Russia"></a></span> about fronting for <span class="tag">Iran<a href="https://www.pheed.com/search/tags?q=%23Iran&t=Iran"></a></span> banks in <span class="tag">SWIFT<a href="https://www.pheed.com/search/tags?q=%23SWIFT&t=SWIFT"></a></span> <a href="http://on.wsj.com/Vz74yn" target="_blank">http://on.wsj.com/Vz74yn</a> Only problem is Russians don't care what <span class="tag">America<a href="https://www.pheed.com/search/tags?q=%23America&t=America"></a></span> thinks, and they don't care about violating the embargo any more.<br />
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- Rosneft -TNK Deal Nears Completion - <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324024004578173010700848822.html?mod=WSJEurope_hpp_LEFTTopStories">Rosneft will control 1/3 of crude output in </a><span class="tag"><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324024004578173010700848822.html?mod=WSJEurope_hpp_LEFTTopStories">Russia</a><a href="https://www.pheed.com/search/tags?q=%23Russia&t=Russia"></a></span> <br />
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- <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/chinas-df-3a-mirv-multiple-us-targets-one-missle-2012-12"><span class="tag">China</span>'s New MIRV Ballistic <span class="tag">Missile</span> Is A Big Deal</a><br />
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- <span class="tag">Africa<a href="https://www.pheed.com/search/tags?q=%23Africa&t=Africa"></a></span> is growing/intergrading into the global market - <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-20681168">there is even a <span class="tag">monopoly</span> board game to prove it</a> :-) As in all the developed capitalistic countries, Africa now is run by a few oligarchs, and this is why the classic board game of monopoly can now be applied to Africa as well.<br />
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<br />ciaoant1http://www.blogger.com/profile/02772023277252383810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764018408628968113.post-84441056504823391012012-12-10T22:28:00.003+02:002012-12-10T22:28:41.749+02:00Links 12/10/2012- Let's print some more money! That will certainly solve all of our problems, right? <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-10/central-banks-ponder-going-beyond-inflation-mandates.html">Central Banks Ponder Going Beyond Inflation Mandates</a>.<br />
Just a quick note on 'money' (=currency) creation: If the newly created currency corresponds to newly created wealth, then, this is NOT inflationary, because the newly printed money are NOT printed "out of thin air". So long as there is growth/production of new wealth, there are more products (which are also of higher value), and there is more and more 'specialized labor', for maximized productivity (the more 'specialized' you are at something, the more productive you are at it). So, this leads to more trade transactions (because there a re more products), and a lot of these new transactions are about products of higher value (for example a new computer has higher value than an old one, it is 'better') ==> As a result, it is logical to create new currency, in order to complete these new transactions (we are talking about a capitalistic society obviously).<br />
Today, we live in an era where everyone is printing 'money' by the trillions, without it corresponding to increased production of wealth. This is the very definition of 'inflating one's currency', and states around the world, especially in the West, have no intention of stopping (why would they? Money-printing is the only way for them to save the bankrupt banks and impoverish the) workers ==> People will stop accepting payment in a currency that is constantly being devalued ==> Hyperinflation.<br />
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- <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/9733547/World-risks-fresh-credit-bubble-Switzerlands-BIS-warns.html">World risks fresh credit bubble, Switzerland's <span class="tag">BIS</span> warns</a> <br />
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- <a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-09/foodstamps-soar-most-16-months-over-1-million-americans-enter-poverty-last-two-month"><span class="tag">Foodstamps</span> Soar By Most In 16 Months: Over 1 Million Americans Enter <span class="tag">Poverty</span> In Last Two Months</a><br />
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- <span class="tag">Protectionism</span> is on the rise: <a href="http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/wto-argentina-trade.l83">Tit-for-tat, EU takes Argentina to WTO</a> SEE ALSO: <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324339204578169230625813300.html"><span class="tag">Russia</span> Sticks a Fork in U.S. Pork</a><br />
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- <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324024004578170804271968638.html"><span class="tag">Car</span> plants are shutting down in </a><span class="tag"><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324024004578170804271968638.html">Europe</a> (because less and less people can buy a car there), BUT <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324024004578171223029789006.html?mod=WSJ_business_whatsNews">the opposite is true for China</a></span>, where more and more people can afford to buy a car.<br />
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- <a href="http://on.ft.com/12h6A5t">China<span class="tag"></span> spent <b>record </b>$57.2bn on outbound <b>acquisitions </b>this year</a> - China has a lot of dollars, that are constantly depreciating in value, so it prefers to spend them in buying HARD assets (gold, energy resources, etc. SEE ALSO:<br />
<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324024004578171000464690408.html?mod=googlenews_wsj"><span class="tag">Huawei</span> Sets Up in <span class="tag">Nokia</span>'s Back Yard </a><br />
<a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/10/us-aig-ilfc-idUSBRE8B900J20121210?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&dlvrit=56943">AIG to sell up to 90 percent of ILFC to Chinese group</a><br />
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- <a href="http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.almanar.com.lb%2Ffrench%2Fadetails.php%3Feid%3D87581%26cid%3D19%26fromval%3D1%26frid%3D19%26seccatid%3D35%26s1%3D1&hl=en&tl=en"><span class="tag">Turkey</span> is not affected by the embargo on <span class="tag">Iran</span></a> Turkeydoes not comply with the US-Western embargo unilaterally imposed on Iran, America's influence is fading away, no?<br />
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- <span class="tag">EDUCATION:</span> <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/business/21567885-skills-shortages-are-getting-worse-even-youth-unemployment-reaches-record-highs-great">Skills shortages are getting worse even as youth <span class="tag">unemployment</span> reaches record highs</a>. The capitalists have A LOT OF unskilled workers who accept poverty wages of 1-2 dollars/day. So, if you have no real "skill", they just don't care about you. They are interested in skilled workers, who are more productive. But as the market is changing at a rapid pace, very few people will actually be able to make a living in the long run...<br />
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- <span class="tag">EDUCATION: </span><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-09/sony-loses-science-talent-as-student-resumes-go-to-dairies-tech.html"><span class="tag">Sony</span> Loses Science Talent as Student Resumes Go to Dairies</a><br />
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- <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/10/business/media/weighing-the-financial-timess-worth-in-the-digital-age.html?_r=0"><span class="tag">Bloomberg</span> buying the </a><span class="tag"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/10/business/media/weighing-the-financial-timess-worth-in-the-digital-age.html?_r=0">Financial Times</a></span>? Talk about concentration of the media...ciaoant1http://www.blogger.com/profile/02772023277252383810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764018408628968113.post-87623207788383436432012-12-09T15:35:00.001+02:002012-12-09T15:43:08.828+02:00Links 12/09/12- EU has long considered <span class="tag">the Nabucco gas pipeline</span>
a priority project needed to break its strong reliance on energy from
Russia, and USA has been backing the project - but now Nabucco is fading
away, because RWE AG (a GERMAN company) is backing off the project. <b>
Germany has sided with Russia, no? </b><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323501404578165392474277234.html">RWE Exit Deals Blow to European Gas Pipeline </a><br />
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- MUST READ: <a href="https://emsnews.wordpress.com/2012/12/09/exporting-gas-and-oil-will-not-erase-the-trade-deficit/">USA - Exporting Gas And Oil Will Not Erase The Trade Deficit</a><br />
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<b>- </b>Japan - "Let's print some more trillions": <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-07/boj-has-done-too-little-says-potential-contender-for-governor.html"><span class="tag">BOJ</span> Has Done Too Little, Says Potential Contender for Governor.</a><br />
Here's Krugman's "explanation" for this non-stop printing of money: "..the U.S. government can't run out of cash (it prints the stuff).." <a href="http://nyti.ms/TJKwOG" target="_blank">http://nyti.ms/TJKwOG</a> .<span class="tag">C</span>an you spell "hyperinflation"?<br />
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- <a href="https://emsnews.wordpress.com/2012/12/07/giant-platinum-coins-will-not-save-us-finances/">Giant Platinum Coins Will Not Save US Finances</a><br />
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- <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/further/2012/12/06-0">Walmart: "Not Financially Feasible" To Take Minimal, Legally Required Steps to Save Workers' Lives</a>. Well, the workers in China are more competitive BECAUSE OF the lack of safety measures, adequate wages, etc. So, every capitalist is now thinking that these things are a liability, no?<br />
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- China continues to spent its dollars on buying up HARD assets, especially gold, energy and land: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/cnooc-nexen-ruling-2012-12">Canada Approves Controversial Oil Company Sale To China</a><br />
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- <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/07/us-asia-wages-idUSBRE8B60A920121207">Analysis: SE Asian governments gamble on making cheap labor less cheap</a><br />
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- Here's an example of how the "liberal age" of capitalism is coming to an end - <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-07/ivy-league-cracks-down-as-students-spiral-out-of-control.html">Ivy League Cracks Down as <span class="tag">Students</span> Spiral Out of Control:</a> “Colleges have been in an arms race to prove to students that they’re cool and give more freedom than the others, Now, maybe the pendulum is starting to swing the other way.”<br />
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- Unemployment statistics in USA are being blatantly manipulated: <a href="http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=214659">NFP: +146k (What?)</a><br />
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- <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324640104578162502375214268.html?mod=WSJ_World_LEFTSecondNews">Turkey Missile Deal Moves Ahead, With Limits - German Cabinet Approves Two Patriot Batteries for Syria Border Zone, Far Less Than Ankara Sought </a><br />
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- <a href="http://en.rian.ru/world/20121208/178001204.html">Japan Deploys Anti-Missile Shield Against North Korea Rocket </a><br />
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- <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/canada-backs-out-of-f-35-deal-2012-12">Canada Rejects The Pricey F-35 Joint Strike Fighter</a><br />
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- "There is no such thing as a free lunch" - getting <b>something for nothing</b> is obviously <b>NOT </b>a situation that can last forever, no? Here's an example: <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323316804578163531826571350.html?mod=WSJ_hp_us_mostpop_read">Google to Rein In Free Version of Software</a><br />
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- TECH: <a href="http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/12/demise-of-pc/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheBigPicture+%28The+Big+Picture%29">By the numbers: The Demise of PCs</a><br />
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- TECH: <a href="http://allthingsd.com/20121207/on-legacy-iphones-and-cannibalization/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider+%28Business+Insider%29">On Legacy iPhones and Cannibalization</a> (This article is far more interesting and it has far wider implications than its name suggests)ciaoant1http://www.blogger.com/profile/02772023277252383810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764018408628968113.post-81683690773042907772012-12-07T13:12:00.002+02:002012-12-07T13:12:41.480+02:00Links 12/07/2012<b><span class="tag">- Europe</span> and <span class="tag">Asia</span> coming together</b> (after all, Europe wants Asia's goods/services and Russia's energy, and Asia-Russia want Europe's goods and services, and its technical know-how, so now that America is no longer able to control Europe like before (due to its decline), Europe & Russia/China are a perfect fit for each other): <a href="http://europe.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2012-12/06/content_15990785.htm">Land bridge to boost Asia-Europe trade</a>:"Trade between China and Shanghai Cooperation Organization members will be greatly boosted, thanks to Eurasian countries' efforts to improve the transportation channel of a new Eurasian land bridge linking China and Europe, experts have said.". SEE ALSO: <a href="http://www.euractiv.com/europes-east/putin-comes-eu-eurasian-union-le-news-516419">Putin to visit Brussels as 'Eurasian Union' leader</a><br />
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- Asia, China in particular, is investing in hard assets, like land, energy, and of course gold: <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-04/record-asia-oil-takeovers-match-u-s-pace-for-first-time-energy.html">Record Asia Oil Takeovers Match U.S. Pace for First Time: Energy</a>. SEE ALSO: <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-05/bank-of-korea-raises-gold-holdings-as-central-banks-buy-1-.html">Bank of Korea Raises Gold Holdings as Central Banks Buy</a><br />
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- <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323316804578160830213287770.html">Southeast Asia at a Crossroads on Wages</a>: This is a "paradigm shift", as the "Western consumer" is dying, and the exporting nations (Asia + Germany) need to find someone else to consume all the goods and services that were previously exported to the West. At the same time, the Asian workers are starting to demand better working conditions, and better wages, which would make them 'better consumers' I suppose, but at the same time, the capitalists never like giving more to the workers. But if they don't, who is going to buy all these goods and services?<br />
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- BTW, <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/apple-return-mac-production-u-2013-004014847--sector.html">Apple is set to return some Mac production to U.S. in 2013</a>, because wages are going up in Asia, and down in the West, so maybe it is preferable to return there (let's not forget that Apple will also save money on shipping costs, and that <b>Apple will also be able to sell more iMacs if they are "made in USA", because some people in the West will gladly pay more money to support their national economies)</b>. After all, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/amid-slowdown-brazil-turns-inward/2012/12/03/32b49050-3a42-11e2-8a97-363b0f9a0ab3_story.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzheads">protectionism is a rising trend</a> (SEE ALSO: <a href="http://whataboutmarx.blogspot.gr/2012/01/trade-wars-protectionism-military.html">Trade wars, protectionism, military spending and war; Who is Nikolai Bukharin?</a>)<br />
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- Meanwhile, back in the PIIGS nations: <a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-04/tuesday-not-humor-jackpot-italian-lottery-supermarket-job">Jackpot In Italian Lottery: Supermarket Job</a> - a supermarket has come up with a novel way of hiring. According to <a href="http://www.deutsche-mittelstands-nachrichten.de/2012/12/48588/">Germany's Mittelstands Nachrichten</a>, <strong>customers
who spend over EUR30 will receive a lottery ticket and the grand prize
winners will be given "temporary part-time assistant jobs" at the
supermarket. </strong>You are not competitive enough -> No investments -> You are left to starve to death -> If and when the wages level drops to a Bulgarian-like level, maybe the capitalists will start reinvesting there. For now, unemployment will continue to rise<br />
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- And it's not just the PIIGS nations, it's the entire West that is not competitive enough (with the exception of Germany, where things are noticeably better in terms of how competitive the labor force is). Here's something from England for example: <a href="http://dollarcollapse.com/welcome-to-the-third-world/welcome-to-the-third-world-part-10-students-become-strippers/">Students Become Strippers</a><br />
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- <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323830404578145182000348430.html?mod=e2tw">Financially Sick Firms Often Grant Bonuses in Months Before Bankruptcy Filing</a>. "So what if I led the company to bankruptcy? I am the boss, so I will take my big fat paycheck and the rest of you can go to hell for all I care!"<br />
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- Santa-Claus is coming to town (if you've been a good little banker that is) - more free bailout money coming to the insolvent banks from Santa-FED: <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/05/us-usa-fed-idUSBRE8B219420121205">Fed to launch fresh bond buying</a><br />
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- The City of London should be deposed as the euro’s main financial centre
so the single currency club can “control” most financial business in
the eurozone, France’s central bank governor has <a href="http://www.leap2020.eu/notes/UK-s-euro-trade-supremacy-under-attack_b4986733.html">said</a>.<br />
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- China is on the rise, but, much like the West a century ago, during the Guilded age, China will too experience a series of crises. The difference is that China will emerge stronger (like the West emerged stronger from the crises of the past century), because China attracts capital investments, and this means that China will continue to grow, despite the crises. Here's an interesting piece by M. Pettis on China's growth :<a href="http://www.mpettis.com/2012/12/04/three-cheers-for-the-new-data/"> Three cheers for the new data?</a><br />
<br />
- Gambling has been around for many many years, and it tends to increase in times of crisis, as people become more desperate in looking for ways to make money. So, it is "a good investment", and this is how <span class="tag">Facebook</span> (and <span class="tag">Zynga</span>) will become profitable: By<a href="http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/05/zynga-gambling-application-nevada/"> incorporating an online gambling service</a>..Many investors think that Facebook's business model is bad, because it is not making any money, but if they were to offer an online gambling service, things will change...(NOTE: I am <b>not</b> advocating gambling -quite the opposite actually- I am simply pointing out how the whole thing works)<br />
<br />
- <span class="tag">Intel</span> probed the market by <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/intel-preparing-to-put-an-end-to-user-replaceable-cpus-7000008024/">announcing</a> the death of socket <span class="tag">#CPUs </span>- when they saw that people hated the idea, they <a href="http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/intel_says_company_committed_sockets2012">backed off</a><br />
<br />
- Germany used to have some "moral standards" when it came to selling arms to other countries. But "moral standards" are a liability in times such as these - so, <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-weapons-exports-on-the-rise-as-merkel-doctrine-takes-hold-a-870596.html">Germany is now selling arms to everyone </a>ciaoant1http://www.blogger.com/profile/02772023277252383810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764018408628968113.post-62079096126285623412012-12-03T13:05:00.000+02:002012-12-03T13:05:09.472+02:00Links 12/03/2012<b>-MUST READ: </b><a href="http://dailyreckoning.com/2008-thats-ancient-history-right/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailyreckoning+%28The+Daily+Reckoning%29">2008? That’s Ancient History, Right?</a> (see also <a href="http://whataboutmarx.blogspot.gr/2012/01/leveragingdeleveraging-give-me-lever.html">Leveraging/Deleveraging: “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world”</a>)<br />
<b></b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Memories are short, and 2008 is ancient history. Consumers can’t
suppress their urge to consume. Lenders can’t suppress their urge to
lend. We’ve learned nothing from the last boom-bust. We are repeating
it, piling error upon error.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“People will spend more of their equity,” Chris Christopher, an
economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Mass., tells Bloomberg.
“It won’t be as much as they spent when prices were gaining at a rapid
pace in 2005 and 2006, but it should have a positive impact on consumer
spending.”</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
As you may have detected in Mr. Christopher’s statement, bankers
(speaking of short memories) are back in the business of making home
equity lines of credit — HELOCs — and consumers are ready to ramp up the
good life again [...]</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[...] Of course, this increase in home prices is a temporary mirage, as
empty homes and those occupied by strategic squatters are held off the
market by legal kinks in the foreclosure hose. ZeroHedge estimates that
an additional 2.5 million homes should be for sale. For now, millions
are living in homes mortgage-free “just to perpetuate the illusion that
‘housing has rebounded,’” writes ZeroHedge. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The problem with this consumer debt is that while analysts cheer on
the consumer purchases, the debt is what market analyst Robert Prechter
calls unproductive. Three years ago, Prechter pointed out in his Elliott
Wave Theorist newsletter that banks had been lending to consumers at
the expense of businesses [...]</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[...] Only business loans are self-liquidating. Healthy businesses generate
cash flow that can pay off debt, while consumer loans “have no basis
for repayment except the borrower’s prospects for employment and,
ultimately, collateral sales,” Prechter wrote.<br />
Lines of credit to businesses are provided with the understanding
that the business borrowers will “revolve the debt,” borrow to pay
vendors and employees and then pay down the debt as their customers pay
them for product. Thus, the debt is directly tied to the business firm’s
production. The funds tend to be borrowed only for short periods of
time. Credit, in this case, aids a business in potentially earning
entrepreneurial profits, which build capital, which ultimately fuels
economic expansion. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Conversely, consumer debts are not self-liquidating, but instead stay
on the banks’ books for long periods of time, with payments being made
only to service the interest and pay down very small portions of the
loan principal balance [...]</blockquote>
<br />
<b>- OIL is still King </b>(and it will continue to be King for the foreseeable future, because it is a lot <b>cheaper </b>than green energy <i>(which has a long way to becoming financially viable, for the moment it only exists because of government subsidies at the expense of the people who pay increased energy bills to sustain the green energy industry)</i> and <b>easier to use/store</b> than gas or nuclear energy): <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/people-are-losing-hope-for-green-energy-2012-11?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider+%28Business+Insider%29">IT'S OVER: Why Everyone Is Losing Hope For Green Energy</a><br />
<br />
- Regardless of the various political games between America and Europe,
that's what happens when you try to deal with everything by using more
and more money-printing: <b>You lose credibility</b> - <a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-30/european-rescue-mechanism-loses-aaa-rating">European Rescue Mechanism Loses AAA Rating</a><br />
<br />
- Ever played Monopoly? (yes, the classic board game). The game starts out as a "free market", but it always ends up creating monopolies/oligopolies. In fact, the only way for this game to end is to form a monopoly, where one player controls the "market" and everyone else goes bankrupt...Here's the latest news on the real-life monopoly game we are all playing: <a href="http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/12/4-companies-provided-half-of-2012-earnings-growth/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheBigPicture+%28The+Big+Picture%29">4 Companies Provided Half of SPX 2012 Earnings Growth</a><br />
<br />
- And talking about monopolies and oligopolies, the few big players in the market are destroying or acquiring everyone else, just like the board game - here's the latest example of an acquisition by google: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-bufferbox-e-commerce-2012-11">Google Is Going On An Acquisition Spree To Compete With Amazon</a><br />
<br />
- And the more concentrated property and wealth become, the more necessary it becomes for those who own it to protect it by all costs, <b>even if it means destroying the competition by not allowing it to compete and create a better product</b> - here's the latest from the "patent wars" on 'intellectual property' and more (SEE ALSO <a href="http://whataboutmarx.blogspot.gr/2012/02/intellectual-property-rights-and-patent.html">Intellectual property rights and "patent wars</a>"):<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/30/america-dysfunctional-patent-system-innovation">America's dysfunctional patent system is stifling innovation</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/supreme-court-gene-patent-case-2012-11">The Supreme Court Is Going To Decide If Biotech Companies Can 'Patent Nature' </a> </li>
</ul>
<b>- TECH: </b>Asia is being incorporated into the global market, and they are growing (in a capitalistic, non-equal way of course) <a href="http://qz.com/32125/25-tablets-2-mobile-data-plans-and-zero-margins-how-the-internet-is-about-to-gain-3-billion-new-users/">$25 tablets, $2 mobile data plans, and zero margins–how the internet is about to gain 3 billion new users</a><br />
<br />
<b>- TECH:</b> <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/staples-3d-printing-2012-11">Staples Will Offer In-Store 3D Printing</a><br />
<br />
- This is old news: <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324020804578149591181529974.html?mod=ITP_pageone_1">Detroit on the Verge of Insolvency, Again </a><br />
<br />
- Free-trade is good, but if we can't compete, we'll just not gonna use it: <a href="http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/japan-trade.l2v">EU okays free trade talks with Japan while protecting cars</a> (SEE ALSO <a href="http://whataboutmarx.blogspot.gr/2012/01/trade-wars-protectionism-military.html">Trade wars, protectionism, military spending and war; Who is Nikolai Bukharin?</a>)ciaoant1http://www.blogger.com/profile/02772023277252383810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764018408628968113.post-19333197100108256562012-11-30T18:04:00.004+02:002012-11-30T18:04:55.608+02:00Links 11/30/2012- <span class="userContent">Japan used to be the best at technical
innovation - now they are the best at...printing money, they do it all
the time! But much longer will it last? <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323751104578150672176149596.html">Japan Approves <strike>Modest</strike> yet another Stimulus Package</a>. SEE ALSO: <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/30/us-japan-boj-idUSBRE8AT00420121130">Special report: After a bashing, BOJ weighs "big bang" war on deflation</a></span><br />
<span class="userContent">Oh, and what about the japanese stock market? </span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[33].[1][2][1]{comment377637092324737_2313745}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[33].[1][2][1]{comment377637092324737_2313745}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]."><span id=".reactRoot[33].[1][2][1]{comment377637092324737_2313745}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]..[0]">The
capitalists, especially the bankers, are of course loving this new round of QE, because
they will get a new bailout package, disguised as "a stimulus package
to help solve the unemployment crisis" -<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/asian-markets-november-30-2012-11"> hence the big move upwards in Japan's stock market after these news</a>... </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[33].[1][2][1]{comment377637092324737_2313745}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[33].[1][2][1]{comment377637092324737_2313745}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]."><span id=".reactRoot[33].[1][2][1]{comment377637092324737_2313745}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]..[0]">- BOE (the Central Bank of England) has just found <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/9712722/UK-banks-face-60bn-black-hole.html">a new multi-billion "black hole" in the British banking system</a>. So, another round of QE is to be expected soon, and then another, and another, etc..Money printing from here to eternity then, <b>at least until the rest of the world decides that it will no longer accept payment in currencies that are continually being debased...</b></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[33].[1][2][1]{comment377637092324737_2313745}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[33].[1][2][1]{comment377637092324737_2313745}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]."><span id=".reactRoot[33].[1][2][1]{comment377637092324737_2313745}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]..[0]">- <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2012/11/30/china-moves-forward-in-opening-gold-market/">China Moves Forward in Opening Gold Market</a>: No surprise really, they are simply getting ready for the day of reckoning for western currencies.</span></span></span><br />
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[33].[1][2][1]{comment377637092324737_2313745}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[33].[1][2][1]{comment377637092324737_2313745}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]."><span id=".reactRoot[33].[1][2][1]{comment377637092324737_2313745}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]..[0]"><b> </b></span></span></span><br />
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[33].[1][2][1]{comment377637092324737_2313745}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[33].[1][2][1]{comment377637092324737_2313745}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]."><span id=".reactRoot[33].[1][2][1]{comment377637092324737_2313745}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]..[0]">- <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2012/11/30/china-introducing-the-middle-easts-future-hegemon/">China’s Oil Quest Comes to Iraq</a>: Let the Americans fiht it out, let them stent all of their money in fighting all these wars an become hated all across the globe, while a the same time China is signing one business deal after the other, in Iraq, in Africa, etc. securing the natural resources they need (energy, land, food, raw materials, etc.).</span></span></span><br />
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[33].[1][2][1]{comment377637092324737_2313745}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[33].[1][2][1]{comment377637092324737_2313745}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]."><span id=".reactRoot[33].[1][2][1]{comment377637092324737_2313745}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]..[0]"><br /></span></span></span>
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[33].[1][2][1]{comment377637092324737_2313745}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[33].[1][2][1]{comment377637092324737_2313745}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]."><span id=".reactRoot[33].[1][2][1]{comment377637092324737_2313745}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]..[0]">- </span></span></span><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323751104578150803540506358.html">Turkey's gold exports continued to surge in Octobe</a>r, confirming Ankara
is still using the commodity to pay for Iranian gas and circumvent
sanctions as U.S. lawmakers mull a package that could specifically
target the complex trade. <b><u>GOLD-FOR-OIL</u> (instead of dollars-for-oil): That is a game-changing deal worth thinking about for the future, as the oil-produsing nations are increasingly rejecting the dollar as means of payment for oil...</b><br />
<br />
MUST READ, via <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21567373-american-universities-represent-declining-value-money-their-students-not-what-it">The Economist: Not what it used to be: American universities represent declining value for money to their students</a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[...] there is growing anxiety in America about higher education. A degree
has always been considered the key to a good job. But rising fees and
increasing student debt, combined with shrinking financial and
educational returns, are undermining at least the perception that
university is a good investment.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[...] Concern springs from a number of things: steep rises in fees,
increases in the levels of debt of both students and universities, and
the declining quality of graduates. Start with the fees. The cost of
university per student has risen by almost five times the rate of
inflation since 1983 (see chart 1), making it less affordable and
increasing the amount of debt a student must take on. Between 2001 and
2010 the cost of a university education soared from 23% of median annual
earnings to 38%; in consequence, debt per student has doubled in the
past 15 years. Two-thirds of graduates now take out loans. Those who
earned bachelor’s degrees in 2011 graduated with an average of $26,000
in debt, according to the Project on Student Debt, a non-profit group.<br />
More debt means more risk, and graduation is far from certain; the
chances of an American student completing a four-year degree within six
years stand at only around 57%. This is poor by international standards:
Australia and Britain, for instance, both do much better.<br />
<br />Despite so many fat years, universities have done little until recently
to improve the courses they offer. University spending is driven by the
need to compete in university league tables that tend to rank almost
everything about a university except the (hard-to-measure) quality of
the graduates it produces. Roger Geiger and Donald Heller of
Pennsylvania State University say that since 1990, in both public and
private colleges, expenditures on instruction have risen more slowly
than in any other category of spending, even as student numbers have
risen. Universities are, however, spending plenty more on administration
and support services [...]</blockquote>
<b>Also worth checking out: </b><a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/11/28/online-schools-ads-public-/1732193/">Online schools spend millions to attract students</a><b><br /></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
- <span class="userContent"><b>LOL, 7$ for a cup of coffee?</b> If the people
can't even understand this simple scum, how can they understand the far
more complex scums that exist out there? <a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/story/starbucks-offering-a-7-cup-of-coffee-2012-11-29">Starbucks offering a $7 cup of coffee</a>, since drinking coffee at Starbucks is about "more than just coffee", it's about "being cool", and this is why Starbucks is able to trick you into giving them 7$ for a cup of coffee. It's the same thing with Apple's overpriced iPhone, which costs way more than all the other smartphones, beacause it is not just 'better', but it is also 'cooler'. Is it a coincidence that Apple has yet to release a cheap smartphone? Apple's phone is about being "being the best", so if Apple releases a cheap version of the iPhone, then owning an iPhone will no longer being associated with "being the best". It will be like owning a Samsung phone, or an LG phone, etc - let's face it, "everyone" can afford a "regular" smartphone, so noone is really impressed when you own a Samsung or a LG (even if it is a great phone). But "everyone" is impressed when you own an iPhone, right? Anyway, I'm getting carried away here, so I'm stopping.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="userContent">- TECH: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20526577">Bend me, shape me: Flexible phones 'out by 2013'</a></span><br />
<br />
<span class="userContent">- </span>ciaoant1http://www.blogger.com/profile/02772023277252383810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764018408628968113.post-25472229424410819862012-11-29T19:10:00.001+02:002012-11-29T19:10:22.973+02:00Links 11/29/2012- China is getting ready for A world without America at the helm - You have to check out the graphs on this article, they are <b>GREAT </b>(although the article itself is way too China-biased, as it was published in the Asia Times): <a href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/NK27Dj02.html">Post-US world born in Phnom Penh</a><br />
<br />
- Yawn: <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323751104578147443715538694.html">More money-printing coming from the FED</a> (Well, how else are they gonna save the banks from bankruptcy, and at the same time reduce the workers wages, if not by money-printing from here to eternity?).<br />
A useful note would be to always check out Jon Hilsenrath's articles on the Wall Street Journal, as he is the 'journalist' the FED has selected to talk to when they want to convey something to the public.<br />
<br />
- And since America is gonna to hyperinflate the dollar, what else is there for those who have savings and want to preserve them but <b>gold</b>?<br />
<a href="http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=44415">How Do the Chinese View the Gold Market?</a><br />
<a href="http://www.financialexpress.com/news/indians-hoard-20k-tonnes-gold-worth-record-1.16-trn/1037761">Indians hoard 20k tonnes gold worth record $1.16 trn</a><br />
<br />
- Poverty, bankruptcies, unemployment are rising in America, the "housing bubble" is still going strong, and since the educational system is not really producing workers that are "competitive enough" in the global market, America now has an "education bubble", as students cannot repay the investment they made when they borrowed money to go to college:<br />
<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/growth-in-college-tuition-vs-growth-in-earnings-for-college-graduates-2012-11">Growth In College Tuition Vs. Growth In Earnings For College Graduates</a><br />
<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/pennsylvanias-capital-is-drowning-in-debt-and-likely-to-threaten-bankruptcy-again-2012-11?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider+%28Business+Insider%29">Pennsylvania's Capital Is Drowning In Debt And Likely To Threaten Bankruptcy Again</a><br />
<a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-28/surprise-right-after-election-new-home-sales-tumble-downward-revised-two-year-high">Surprise: Right After The Election, New Home Sales Tumble From Downward Revised Two Year High</a><br />
<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/mcdonalds-fast-food-strike-nyc-2012-11">MCDONALD'S STRIKER: 'They're Not Paying Us Enough To Survive'</a><br />
<br />
About those unemployed/underemployed workers:<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20512382"> In Spain, they are even having lotteries where the winner gets a job</a>, and the others starve to death. I guess that gambling will never die, in fact it will grow in times such as these, because it gives you [false] <b>HOPE</b>. A few workers will get a job through this lottery system, the others will remain unemployed, but everyone accepts this system, because everyone <i>hopes </i>that "maybe I will be the one that wins the lottery".<br />
<br />
- <br />ALL the major <span class="tag">banks<a href="https://www.pheed.com/search/tags?q=%23banks&t=banks"></a></span> will be saved (via austerity <b>AND money printing</b>). Of course, all this money-printing inflates the <span class="tag">currency<a href="https://www.pheed.com/search/tags?q=%23currency&t=currency"></a></span> and erodes the people's belief in this currency's credibility->The people start moving away from that currency-> <span class="tag">hyperinflation. This is something that is happening everywhere across the West. However, Germany has other plans, as it is in relatively better shape than all the others. So <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/29/business/global/european-commission-approves-bailout-of-four-spanish-banks.html?ref=global-home&_r=0">Germany will accept printing money to save the banks</a> (including the German banks) from bankruptcy, but it will require the PIIGS nations to become little more than protectorates. Furthermore, Germany is NOT going to print "unlimited" amounts of euros, like America is doing, so the euro will be a better choice for those who want to protect their savings. So, more and more "big-time" investors will start opting for the euro instead of the dollar, and this has the Americans worried, because they know that in the long run, they are screwed: <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/currency/9709882/Germany-displaces-China-as-US-Treasurys-currency-villain.html">Germany displaces China as US Treasury's currency villain</a>.</span><br />
<span class="tag"><br /></span>
<span class="tag">- </span><br />The <span class="tag">Arctic<a href="https://www.pheed.com/search/tags?q=%23Arctic&t=Arctic"></a></span> ice cap is melting - Excellent news for energy exploration/drilling/transportation. MELT IT ALL, who cares about the enviroment and all that 'unimportant' stuff (?!): <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20454757">Gas tanker Ob River attempts first winter Arctic crossing.</a><br />
<br />
- TECH: <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/intel-preparing-to-put-an-end-to-user-replaceable-cpus-7000008024/">Intel 'preparing' to put an end to user-replaceable CPUs</a> - From now on,
the CPU will be permanently attached to the motherboard, and the user
will NOT be able to upgrade it or replace it if it breaks down.
And since Intel is now pretty much a monopolist (AMD is on the verge of
bankruptcy), they will have their way...<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[28].[1][2][1]{comment386697694746545_2340166}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[28].[1][2][1]{comment386697694746545_2340166}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]."><span id=".reactRoot[28].[1][2][1]{comment386697694746545_2340166}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]..[0]">In
reality however, most people prefer laptops and smartphones nowadays -
most people don't change their CPUs, they don't even know how. So, most people won't even know the difference. The only 'player' in the CPU market that could hurt Intel, especially in the 'low-budget CPU'</span></span></span>market, is ARM, the company that designs CPUs that are not very strong (but are strong enough for simple tasks) and are already used in smartphones, tablets, etc.ciaoant1http://www.blogger.com/profile/02772023277252383810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764018408628968113.post-69308230406466939402012-11-27T21:20:00.002+02:002012-11-27T21:44:34.934+02:00Links 11/27/2012- <a href="http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/27/india-and-china-deepen-economic-ties/">India and China Deepen Economic Ties</a><br />
<br />
- <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/sample/analysis/saudi-arabia-kings-rumored-death-and-new-line-succession">Saudi Arabia: King's Rumored Death and the New Line of Succession</a><br />
<br />
- <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324469304578144512211939082.html">Intel Views Indonesia as a Lifeline</a> - The West buys gadgets (until it runs out of money), but Asia is growing, no?<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Desktop and laptop sales to millions of first-time computer buyers in Indonesia are likely to bolster revenue at Intel Corp. and offset some of the ground lost in more-mature markets where consumers are turning to tablets. <br />
<br />
The sales of desktops and laptops that use Intel's chips are expected to surge in Southeast Asia's largest economy as rising incomes enable more people to buy computers. Intel has been struggling in more-developed markets, where the most demand growth is coming from sales of smartphones and tablet computers that don't use Intel's processors.</blockquote>
<br />
Everyone is doing it, because this is a great way to be competitive. And everyone knows this:<br />
- <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-factory-working-conditions-2012-11">NOT JUST APPLE: Samsung Under Fire For Allegedly Giving Employees 16-Hour Workdays, One Day Off Per Month</a><br />
<br />
- UK: <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/nov/26/working-people-in-poverty-report">Increasing numbers of working people live in poverty, report finds</a>. This is "great" (!), this means tha tmore and more people are becoming desperate-> They are becoming willing to work for less money ("they are becoming more competitive") -> The profits of the capitalists that will employ <i>some of</i> them (those that actually survive this ordeal) will be higher. Sacrifice an entire generation (the "lost generation" as they are already calling them), in order to gain cheap labor force for the future!<br />
<br />
- TECH/Innovation: <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324851704578137402753846438.html?mod=WSJ_hp_Europe_EditorsPicks">Harnessing Energy From the Body to Run Devices</a>ciaoant1http://www.blogger.com/profile/02772023277252383810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764018408628968113.post-25925642733672617772012-11-23T18:17:00.002+02:002012-11-23T18:19:09.204+02:00Links 11/23/2012 + A story from Bulgaria:Welcome to your future dear PIIGS worker<ul>
<li>Brent to eclipse US crude as world oil benchmark (<a href="http://www.livemint.com/Money/RbQDbxb4SJ1OGYfTYfOUrL/Brent-to-eclipse-US-crude-as-world-oil-benchmark.html">livemint</a>)</li>
<li>Iran doesn't like the dollar - in fact, Iran has been calling for an end to the current "petrodollar" system for years, and this is obviously the biggest reason why America has branded it as a "terrorist-state": Iran urges use of alternative currencies in global trade (<a href="http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/11/22/273998/iran-urges-new-currencies-in-global-trade/">PressTV</a>)</li>
<li>Saudi Arabia Plans $109 Billion Boost for Solar Power (<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-22/saudi-arabia-plans-109-billion-boost-for-solar-power.html">Bloomberg</a>) - Why sell your oil now, when you can just save it for the future, when the "petrodollar" system is over and oil has been reprices MUCH higher in dollar terms (as the dollar is heading for hyperinflation and everyone who is everyone knows it)</li>
<li>What about all those alternative power sources? Well, they are not proving to be as efficient as we once hoped them to be, so, at least for now, we all "have to" pay the price by substituting winds and solar farms, as they cannot be profitable enough by themselves: <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/energy-bills-to-rise-by-170-a-year-to-fund-wind-farms-8346663.html">Energy bills to rise by £170 a year to fund wind farms</a></li>
<li>China today confirmed the first successful carrier landings of its J-15 fighter aboard its first aircraft carrier the Liaoning (<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/chinas-celebrating-the-first-successful-fighter-landings-aboard-its-new-aircraft-carrier-2012-11">BusinessInsider</a>)</li>
</ul>
<br />
<b>And what about the West's demise? Here are some of the latest news:</b><br />
<ul>
<li>After France, Britain's AAA credit rating returns to the spotlight (<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/jeremy-warner/9694412/After-France-Britains-AAA-credit-rating-returns-to-the-spotlight.html">Telegraph</a>)</li>
<li>There are still more than a million young people not in education, employment or training (Neet) in England, despite a dip in the numbers (<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-20444524">BBC</a>)</li>
<li>Greek Milk Costs More Than Anywhere Else In Europe As Suicide Rate Rises By 37% (<a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-22/greek-milk-costs-more-anywhere-else-europe-suicide-rate-rises-37">ZeroHedge</a>)</li>
</ul>
<br />
<b>As a bonus, here is a very interesting article from Bulgaria:</b> <a href="http://b2bnews.bg/index.php/40-000-small-businesses-in-bulgaria-to-go-bankrupt-by-end-2012-706320.html">40.000 Small Businesses in Bulgaria To Go Bankrupt by End-2012</a>.<br />
What does this article show us? Well, it shows us that the model that the ruling class are trying to enforce in the PIIGS countries, if not everywhere ( = improving the competitiveness of the workers by reducing their wages), will never bring back growth. Bulgarian workers are really cheap, but there are even cheaper workers in others countries, so, without any specialized training and education, these workers have a very hard time to find a job, and when they do, they get really low wages...Welcome to your future dear Western workerciaoant1http://www.blogger.com/profile/02772023277252383810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764018408628968113.post-87092807638213752762012-11-22T17:21:00.001+02:002012-11-22T17:21:15.677+02:00Links 11/22/2012<ul>
<li>Fed's Williams (via WSJ's Hilserath): <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324352004578133572151205986.html">PRINT MORE MONEY</a></li>
<li>NATO/USA want to install missiles in Turkey, Russia doesn't like it:<a href="http://en.rian.ru/russia/20121122/177669504.html"> Russia Warns Against NATO Missiles on Syrian Border</a></li>
<li>Why is the Greek stock exchange <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/greek-10-year-bond-yield-drops-to-post-restructuring-low-2012-11?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider+%28Business+Insider%29">rallying</a>? Because everyone who is everyone knows that Greece will not be allowed to default. After all, We've all read about the recent slump of Germany's exports, right?
Well, now Europe couldn't find a solution to Greece's problems, so the euro will take a (short-term) dive, helping the eurozone's exports. You have to admit that this "Greek situation" is kinda convenient for Germany. Via Bloomberg's <a href="https://twitter.com/lindayueh/status/271608342118551552">Linda Yueh:</a>
<i>German Finance Minister Schaeuble: Euro spares <a class="twitter-hashtag pretty-link js-nav" data-query-source="hashtag_click" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Germany&src=hash"><s>#</s><b>Germany</b></a> the ‘problems’ that the Swiss are having, sparing Germany an overvalued currenc</i></li>
<li>Western people, especially the ones in the "PIIGS" countries, are not "competitive enough" -> so they have little or no income -> so, they don't have enough money not even for their own funerals (which used to be very luxurious by the way, people seemed to have forgotten that only Pharaohs get to be buried in the pyramids, most people are there just to build them and then die poor). <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/22/world/europe/spaniards-scrimp-on-funerals-amid-austerity.html?ref=global-home">NYT: Economic Crisis Leaves Hard-Hit Spaniards Scrimping on Funerals</a></li>
<li>Chinese people on the other hand are getting a hard lesson in "how the system works": I<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/22/world/asia/in-china-schools-a-culture-of-bribery-spreads.html?ref=global-home">f you have money, then your child will get a better education, using all available legal <i>and illegal </i>means...</a></li>
<li>Workers in Spain are cheaper than the ones in France, and they are also starting to accept some "third-word" conditions, so <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324352004578133161112410012.html">this is where Renault expands</a>. And let's not forget about those <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324352004578134582563714650.html">workers in China/India, who are ultra-competitive</a>, and they are now starting to be able to afford luxuries such as cars, smartphones, etc. China's middle class is expanding, as manufacturers will <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324352004578134203835480848.html">start to focus on selling their products to them</a>, since the "Western consumer" is slowly dying...</li>
<li>USA, land of the...surveillanced: <a href="http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/11/student-suspension/">Student Suspended for Refusing to Wear a School-Issued RFID Tracker</a></li>
<li>Sorry, your technology is good, but noone really wants your products/can afford them: <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/22/us-sony-panasonic-ratings-idUSBRE8AL07B20121122">Fitch cuts Sony, Panasonic debt ratings to "junk" status </a></li>
<li>BBC: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20396091">How technology opens the door for personalised pricing</a></li>
<li>Independent: <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/mannequin-spies-theyre-no-dummies-as-they-collect-data-on-shoppers-8343017.html">Mannequin spies: They're no dummies as they collect data on shoppers</a></li>
</ul>
<br />ciaoant1http://www.blogger.com/profile/02772023277252383810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764018408628968113.post-42406421610966885102012-11-21T23:51:00.002+02:002012-11-21T23:51:23.875+02:00A few thoughts on the matter of deficits: Do they matter or what?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/8392/testzg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/8392/testzg.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
Family and financial problems have prevented me from updating this blog, and I also have to prepare from moving from Greece to Australia, so my free time is limited.<br />
<br />
However, I just read a couple of articles that caught my eye, and I'd like to share a few quick thoughts on the matter of deficits:<br />
<h4>
<a href="http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Britains-official-public-deficit-climbs-29EWX?OpenDocument&src=hp38">Britain's official public deficit climbs higher</a></h4>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Public sector net borrowing soared to £8.6 billion
($A13.28 billion) last month, the Office for National Statistics said
in a statement on Wednesday.</span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">That compared with £5.9 billion ($A9.11 billion) in October 2011.</span><br />
<div id="adPara" style="margin-top: 10px;">
<center>
</center>
</div>
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Market expectations had been for public
borrowing of £6.0 billion in October, according to analysts polled by
Dow Jones Newswires.</span>
<br />
</blockquote>
Everyone knows that almost all Western nations have been running trade deficits for decades know, and <span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][2][1]{comment389666167776455_70952436}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][2][1]{comment389666167776455_70952436}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]."><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][2][1]{comment389666167776455_70952436}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]..[0]">that it was once -famously- said that "deficits don't matter". This may
sound strange, but I kind of agree: </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][2][1]{comment389666167776455_70952436}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][2][1]{comment389666167776455_70952436}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]."><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][2][1]{comment389666167776455_70952436}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]..[0]">It's not the 'deficits/debts' <i><b>
themselves </b></i>that matter, rather than the<b> 'ability to repay these debts in
the future through future productivity"</b> that actually matters. For
example, there are no people that would loan <b>me </b>1.000.000$, because
noone seriously believes that I will be able to produce enough wealth in
the future to repay such a loan. But there are a lot of people that
would gladly loan 1.000.000$ to APPLE, because they think (rightly or
wrongly so) that APPLE <b>will </b>be able to produce enough wealth in the
future to repay this loan (+ interest of course, why else would the bondholders loan the money?). </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][2][1]{comment389666167776455_70952436}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][2][1]{comment389666167776455_70952436}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]."><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][2][1]{comment389666167776455_70952436}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]..[0]">The problem today is that most corporations (AND countries) have very little (or
zero) CREDIBILITY (i.e noone believes that they will be able to repay
their loans). </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][2][1]{comment389666167776455_70952436}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][2][1]{comment389666167776455_70952436}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]."><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][2][1]{comment389666167776455_70952436}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]..[0]"><b>This is why deficits didn't used to matter, but now they
do:</b> People used to think that "countries are always able to repay their loans",
so they are always credible, and thus "their deficits don't matter [because they will be able to repay their debts in the future through future productivity]".
Now, their credibility is gone, so now "deficits matter"...</span></span></span><br />
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][2][1]{comment389666167776455_70952436}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][2][1]{comment389666167776455_70952436}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]."><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][2][1]{comment389666167776455_70952436}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]..[0]">--- </span></span></span><br />
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][2][1]{comment389666167776455_70952436}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][2][1]{comment389666167776455_70952436}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]."><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][2][1]{comment389666167776455_70952436}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]..[0]"><br /></span></span></span>
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][2][1]{comment389666167776455_70952436}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][2][1]{comment389666167776455_70952436}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]."><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][2][1]{comment389666167776455_70952436}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]..[0]">Here's another interesting article, from the NY Times:</span></span></span><br />
<h4>
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][2][1]{comment389666167776455_70952436}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]"><span class="UFICommentBody" id=".reactRoot[35].[1][2][1]{comment389666167776455_70952436}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]."><span id=".reactRoot[35].[1][2][1]{comment389666167776455_70952436}..[1]..[1]..[0].[0][2]..[0]"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/21/business/global/a-call-for-japan-to-take-bolder-monetary-action.html?hpw">A Call for Japan to Take Bolder Monetary Action </a></span></span></span></h4>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
For years, proponents of aggressive monetary policy have offered this
unusual piece of advice as a way to end Japan’s deflationary slump and
invigorate the economy. Print lots of money, they said. Keep interest
rates at zero. Convince the market that Japan will allow inflation for a
while. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Japan’s central bankers long scoffed at such recklessness, which they
feared would ignite runaway inflation. But now, the bank’s hand could be
forced by an unlikely alliance of economists and lawmakers who have
argued for Japan to take more monetary action after more than a decade
of weak growth and depressed prices. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Championing their cause is the former prime minister <a class="meta-per" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/shinzo_abe/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about Shinzo Abe.">Shinzo Abe</a>, who is favored to return to the top job after nationwide elections next month. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[...] </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Japan’s monetary pump-priming is “like a morphine addiction that is
getting worse,” </b>Ryutaro Kono, chief economist for Japan at BNP Paribas,
said Tuesday.<b> “Fiscal or monetary policy doesn’t have the power to
create new value” for Japan,</b> he said. </blockquote>
Unfortunately, Japan is not the only Western nation that is doing this. It has been doing it for several years now, and it is probably reaching "the end of the road": <b>More and more people are noticing that Japan, and most Western nations actually, are no longer producing a lot of products that the market actually wants and is willing to buy</b> (i.e. "competitive products") [*].<br />
<br />
So, what do these countries do? Well, they can't seem to be able to <b><i>innovate </i></b>their way out of the crisis by creating new, valuable products, so they start printing more and more money: This way, they decrease the wages of the workers, making them more competitive, and thy also use the newly-printed money to recapitalize the banks. <i><b>Here's <a href="http://whataboutmarx.blogspot.gr/2012/02/modern-serfdom-for-workers-and-gold-as.html">something</a> from one of my previous posts: </b></i><br />
<br />
<b>1)</b> Capitalism is based on the exploitation of the workers by the capitalists.<br />
<br />
<b>2)</b> After the collapse of the former USSR, all the workers of the
Soviet block + the Chinese workers were intergraded into the labor
marker that truly became global.<br />
<br />
<b>3)</b> Capitalists off-shored production to Asia, as the workers of
those countries could be exploited much more so than the workers of the
West (as the Western workers had achieved some important victories
through a century of labor struggles, that inhibited the capitalists
ability to exploit them).<br />
<br />
<b>4)</b> As the industrial base of the West was diminishing, capitalism
became more "leveraged" and credit-based, as it needed more and more
"banking loans" to keep the system going:<br />
-If a factory was closed down, either because the owner off-shored
production to Asia or because it just couldn't compete against the
cheaper goods that were made in China, the workers of that factory could
still get a job, or start a business themselves, by getting a loan
from the banks.<br />
-The workers wages have stagnated for a long time (<a href="http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/6641/19056471.gif" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">link</a>),
but they could still "afford" a new house, by getting a mortgage. And
they could also afford rising tuition fees for their children's
education, by getting a student loan. And they could even a new plasma
TV set, by getting another "consumer's loan". And the list goes on and
on.<br />
-This meant that the construction workers could find a job (thanks to
all these mortgages), and the companies that produce this plasma TV set
and the merchants who sell this TV would make a profit. So, there would
be a job for those who make these TV sets, or sell them.<br />
<br />
<b>5)</b> The problem with all this is that the houses that the people
live in are not "their" houses, they belong to the bank. And if you
can't make your payment on your mortgage, then the bank kicks you out.
Can all these debts be repaid? No, of course not.<br />
<br />
<b>6) </b>So, the Western workers earn relatively low wages, and are
deeply in debt, as they had to keep the system going by "overconsuming"
for a very long time. And it's not just the workers, entire states are
heavily indebted and cannot possibly repay their debts.<br />
<br />
<b>7) </b>As the people cannot get any more loans, capitalism can't keep
growing. No jobs for the construction workers, factories close down as
noone can consume all the good that they produce, etc.<br />
<br />
<b>8) </b>But as these debts cannot be repaid, the banks are also in
trouble, as they have to write down heavy losses. This is a very heavy
blow for them, as they are ALL bankrupt, just like Lehman Brothers.<br />
<br />
<b>9) </b>The difference is that, unlike Lehman (and a lot of smaller
banks), the rest of the banks were saves through endless bailouts. Let's
not forget that the banks have become bigger than ever, as capitalism
needed more and more credit. So, the bankers have the politicians in
their pockets, and they managed to get the money they needed (from us).
After all, they are "too big to fail", whereas we are not, we are
"replaceable". So, all the wealth of our societies is being redirected
to the banks, in order to cover their losses, leaving the rest of us to
starve.<br />
<br />
<b>10) </b>But the banks need a lot of dollars. Trillions and trillions
of them. So, this "money" is being "created out of thin air"
(quantitative easing - money printing). This process of money printing
has being going on for many decades now, ever since Nixon abolished the
gold standard. The system needed more credit, and so it became more
leveraged. The gold standard was interfering with capitalism's need for
increased leverage, so they abolished it. And now that the banks have
to be bailed out, they are printing even more money than before -
here's a great chart:<br />
<br />
<br />
<div align="center">
<img alt="" border="0" src="http://dollardaze.org/blog/posts/2008/December/01/1/USMonetaryBase.png" /></div>
<br />
<b>11)</b> All this newly created "money" (currency) goes to the banks,
so that they won't have to face another "Lehman-type" moment, or even a
global collapse of the entire banking sector. But this newly created
'money' isn't based on newly created wealth (new products/services), nor
on wealth's"monetary counterpart", gold (gold, as we have already
explained, is the "monetary representation" of wealth, as capitalism has
a tendency to monetize everything, and so all goods and services have a
value that can now be expressed through gold, in order for the people
to be able to exchange them in the market (buying/selling).<br />
<b><br />
12) </b>As all this newly created "money" is not based on new wealth/gold, it is simply a way to <b>debase the currency and redistribute wealth:</b><br />
The banks get bailed out, by getting all the newly created "money", and
the workers get paid less (as the value of the currency in which they
are getting paid is being diminished). This is <b>necessary </b>for the
capitalists, who get to save the banks, and improve the
"competitiveness" of the working class. The destruction the currencies
is a sacrifice that they have to make, in order to save the banking
sector from collapsing, and at the same time to reduce the wages of the
wokers, so that they become "more competitive", thus attracting capital
investments.<br />
<br />
<b>13) </b>One of the greatest "side-effects" of this process of "money
printing" is that fewer and fewer people want to own/use the various
currencies, as they can easily understand that these currencies will
lose a lot of their current value in the future. More and more
capitalists turn to gold for protection of their wealth, as they realize
that gold is the one thing that will always remain constant. So,
China, Russia, the oil states (and many other rich "players") are
buying <b>gold</b>, and they are trying to dump the dollar when they trade with each other. <b>The
oil states have a "special role" to play in all this, because if and
when they reject the dollar as a means of payment, the world will
experience a great "oil crisis", much bigger than the 1973 oil crisis
(which was the first time the oil states publickly rejected the dollar
and demanded to be paid in gold, as they obviously didn't like America's
decision to abolish the gold standard in order to print as many
dollars as the USA wanted).</b><br />
<br />
<div align="center">
<img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQhDMvO-qCPUwP140PQrljpoPzGDuLEApHUXvCyZa3HemFux4ejf-TCFyN0FEfL59kiobXbQxgOQe1VSxymaXkLZL54mYLYB7ntB4wwEXpnKYOR-Apdggv-Dqp5wIPGLw3zo0LRRdeSjV7/s1600/printing_money.jpg" /></div>
<br />
<b>13)</b> The West is obviously caught between a rock and a hard place. But saving the banks and impoverishing the workers are the <u><b>top priorities,</b></u>
so this process of "money-printing" will continue, despite the various
obstacles, twists and turns. Money printing is today a "systemic
necessity" for capitalism, and there is not much point in putting the
blame <i><b>solely </b></i>on Bernanke, Obama, Bush, the FED or their
English/Japanese/European counterparts (The Europeans are also printing
money, although Germany does not need the same amounts of
"money-printing" as the rest of Europe, as the German workers are
already very competitive, thanks to their high productivity. But Germany
also accepts the need for money-printing, as it is the only way to
save the banks from their "toxic loan situation". And they are VERY
WELL PREPARED for the coming destruction of the dollar
(hyperinflation), as <a href="http://whataboutmarx.blogspot.com/2012/01/if-only-i-had-dime-for-every-time.html" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">the
euro-system has combined the European nation's gold, making it the
"least bad" option in a world of fiat currencies that are being
massively debased</a>). <br />
<br />
<b>14)</b> But gold is not just an inflation hedge or a deflation hedge - it is <b>a measure of trust in the system:</b> The reason why gold was considered to be a "fringe investment", or even "a thing of the past" is because <b>there was a lot of trust the system's ability to grow.</b>
The capitalists don't really like gold's stability, because capitalism
wants to constantly expand. So, the capitalists prefer investments
that return a profit for them, like starting a business, or investing
in stocks, etc.. If and when the economy is doing well, then businesses
make profits, investing on stocks is also profitable, etc. <b>So why
buy gold? Why would anyone want to save his capital for another day,
when he can invest his capital today, and make a lot of money?</b><br />
<br />
<b>15) </b>Things change however, and today the capitalists are <b>not </b>very
confident that the economy will grow in the future (there is no trust
in the system). There is enough capital concentrated in the hands of a
few oligarchs, and there are many cheap workers in Asia - and yet the
capitalists are NOT willing to make a lot of investments (especially in
the West, where the workers are "too expensive"). As the workers lack
the necessary "purchasing power" to buy things, it is obvious that a lot
of products will not be consumed (because the people are too poor to
buy them). <br />
<br />
<b>16) </b><b>But the capitalists prefer to let the workers starve to
death, even if this aggrevates the crisis on the short-term. The more
desperate the workers become, the more inclined they will be to accept
serfdom (or "increased competitiveness", as the capitalists see it). So
even if a few capitalists get killed in the process ("coladeral
damage"), the end result will be <b>great </b>for the rulling class, as
they will have created an "ultra-competitive" world, where a few
oligarchs own almost everything, and the workers work for scraps
(->more profits for the capitalists). It is only then that they will
start investing again (especially in the West). Until thw workers
accept working for scraps, the capitalists will not invest.</b><br />
<br />
<b>17) </b>In order to achieve this goal, the capitalists need <b>a safe place to store their capital: GOLD. </b>
Once the workers have become "desperate enough" to accept serfdom, the
"business cycle" can start again, and they will invest some of their
gold in productive investments. But until they feel confident that they
will make a profit, they choose to save their capital for the future -
and gold is the only thing that will not lose value when everything
else is collapsing.<br />
<br />
<div align="center">
<img alt="" border="0" src="https://pogoprinciple.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/gold_standard.jpg?w=500" /></div>
<br />
<br />
[*] Don't get me wrong, the West is still producing a lot of great products, but, with the notable exception of Germany, they are all running trade deficits (i.e. the goods they buy from the market have a greater market <i>price </i>than they goods they sell on it. <span style="color: #38761d;">Note: Please notice how I used the term market <i>price</i> instead of market <i>value</i>, because these two things are not the same, unless for example you honestly think that footballs players are worth all these millions of dollars that they get. But that is another discussion, for another time</span>).<br />
<br />ciaoant1http://www.blogger.com/profile/02772023277252383810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764018408628968113.post-51701563417312313782012-06-04T14:46:00.002+03:002012-06-04T14:46:30.313+03:00VIDEO: Planned Obsolescence ("The Lightbulb Conspiracy")<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4y-VHFdx3a_U028BTUXxwhEAbAwFtyiSeJVbdZAAycPJXp4llBBHzwFHQIRA_YAR4bt8TlsoWaGBqRfyGx_GYgt3tPcd5QiCKV9mltltzYblH8WrCzfOaWWJPb0LSNx8RX17MbDtcLgU/s1600/Light+BulbConspiracyDocu_poster_492_709.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4y-VHFdx3a_U028BTUXxwhEAbAwFtyiSeJVbdZAAycPJXp4llBBHzwFHQIRA_YAR4bt8TlsoWaGBqRfyGx_GYgt3tPcd5QiCKV9mltltzYblH8WrCzfOaWWJPb0LSNx8RX17MbDtcLgU/s400/Light+BulbConspiracyDocu_poster_492_709.jpg" width="277" /></a></div>
<br />
This <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvFs9N_xeK4">video</a> is well worth an hour of your time: Yes, there are many documentaries out there about over-consumption, consumerism, etc, but this one stands out from the rest, in that it makes this excellent observation on the world economy: Our economy is <b>based </b>on over-consumption and consumerism, even <i>planned obsolescence</i> of products, and cannot function if the people were to overcome these "bad habits".<br />
<br />
The documentary uses the life expectancy of a light bulb or a printer to show how companies are trying to lower the life expectancy of their products. After all, if products were designed to endure for ever, there would be no need for us to work long hours - the global economy would collapse and unemployment would soar, unless of course we were to work for only a few hours a day. But that would be terrible for our rulers, who would probably be made obsolete.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJFpFKoPQvL73SLbSvCeJJ7Q-hqSA2Sdr1Nx9HaL8MFqZL74_c-dBdxeJ2jO2UPjQu1-KJ1moNtBGKZUvhM6ME4PPS9c-l3MpXclua4cJIb8WEoWMCi_lMO9HuAItJYL2GeLJKTQKUpEM/s400/rat_race_sm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJFpFKoPQvL73SLbSvCeJJ7Q-hqSA2Sdr1Nx9HaL8MFqZL74_c-dBdxeJ2jO2UPjQu1-KJ1moNtBGKZUvhM6ME4PPS9c-l3MpXclua4cJIb8WEoWMCi_lMO9HuAItJYL2GeLJKTQKUpEM/s400/rat_race_sm.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<b>Please remember this MUST-READ article from Orion Magazine:</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[...] Just ten years later things looked very different. Cars dominated
the streets and most urban homes had electric lights, electric flat
irons, and vacuum cleaners. In upper-middle-class houses, washing
machines, refrigerators, toasters, curling irons, percolators, heating
pads, and popcorn poppers were becoming commonplace. And although the
first commercial radio station didn’t begin broadcasting until 1920, the
American public, with an adult population of about 122 million people,
bought 4,438,000 radios in the year 1929 alone.<br />
<br />
<b>But despite
the apparent tidal wave of new consumer goods and what appeared to be a
healthy appetite for their consumption among the well-to-do,
industrialists were worried. </b>They feared that the frugal habits
maintained by most American families would be difficult to break.
Perhaps even more threatening was the fact that<b> the industrial
capacity for turning out goods seemed to be increasing at a pace greater
than people’s sense that they needed them.</b><br />
It was this latter
concern that led Charles Kettering, director of General Motors Research,
to write a 1929 magazine article called “Keep the Consumer
Dissatisfied.” He wasn’t suggesting that manufacturers produce shoddy
products. Along with many of his corporate cohorts, <b>he was defining a strategic shift for American industry—from fulfilling basic human needs to creating new ones. </b><br />
<br />
In
a 1927 interview with the magazine Nation’s Business, Secretary of
Labor James J. Davis provided some numbers to illustrate a problem that
the New York Times called “need saturation.” Davis noted that <b>“the
textile mills of this country can produce all the cloth needed in six
months’ operation each year” and that 14 percent of the American shoe
factories could produce a year’s supply of footwear. The magazine went
on to suggest, “It may be that the world’s needs ultimately will be
produced by three days’ work a week.”</b><br />
<b>[...]</b></blockquote>
Businessmen were <b>not </b>happy about this prospect -> Read the rest of the story here: <a href="http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/2962/">http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/2962/</a><br />
<br />
Anyway, back to the documentary, here is a short description of it (via <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1825163/">imdb</a>):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Once upon a time..... products were made to last. Then, at the beginning
of the 1920s, a group of businessmen were struck by the following
insight: 'A product that refuses to wear out is a tragedy of business'
(1928). Thus Planned Obsolescence was born. Shortly after, the first
worldwide cartel was set up expressly to reduce the life span of the
incandescent light bulb, a symbol for innovation and bright new ideas,
and the first official victim of Planned Obsolescence. During the 1950s,
with the birth of the consumer society, the concept took on a whole new
meaning, as explained by flamboyant designer Brooks Stevens: 'Planned
Obsolescence, the desire to own something a little newer, a little
better, a little sooner than is necessary...'. The growth society
flourished, everybody had everything, the waste was piling up
(preferably far away in illegal dumps in the Third World) - until
consumers started rebelling..</blockquote>
And here's a wikipedia article on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence">Planned Obsolescence:</a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Planned obsolescence or built-in obsolescence in industrial design is a policy of planning or designing a product with a limited useful life, so it will become obsolete, that is, unfashionable or no longer functional after a certain period of time. Planned obsolescence has potential benefits for a producer because to obtain continuing use of the product the consumer is under pressure to purchase again, whether from the same manufacturer (a replacement part or a newer model), or from a competitor which might also rely on planned obsolescence. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In some cases, deliberate deprecation of earlier versions of a technology is used to reduce ongoing support costs, especially in the software industry. Though this could be considered planned obsolescence, it differs from the classic form in that the consumer is typically made aware of the limited support lifetime of the product as part of their licensing agreement.<br />
<br />
For an industry, planned obsolescence stimulates demand by encouraging purchasers to buy sooner if they still want a functioning product. Built-in obsolescence is used in many different products. There is, however, the potential backlash of consumers who learn that the manufacturer invested money to make the product obsolete faster; such consumers might turn to a producer (if any exists) that offers a more durable alternative.<br />
<br />
Estimates of planned obsolescence can influence a company's decisions about product engineering. Therefore the company can use the least expensive components that satisfy product lifetime projections. Such decisions are part of a broader discipline known as value engineering. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Origins of planned obsolescence go back at least as far as 1932 with Bernard London's pamphlet Ending the Depression Through Planned Obsolescence. However, the phrase was first popularized in 1954 by Brooks Stevens, an American industrial designer. Stevens was due to give a talk at an advertising conference in Minneapolis in 1954. Without giving it much thought, he used the term as the title of his talk. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
From that point on, "planned obsolescence" became Stevens' catchphrase. By his definition, planned obsolescence was "Instilling in the buyer the desire to own something a little newer, a little better, a little sooner than is necessary.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The term was quickly taken up by others, but Stevens' definition was challenged. By the late 1950s, planned obsolescence had become a commonly-used term for products designed to break easily or to quickly go out of style.<b> In fact, the concept was so widely recognized that in 1959 Volkswagen mocked it in a now-legendary advertising campaign. While acknowledging the widespread use of planned obsolescence among automobile manufacturers, Volkswagen pitched itself as an alternative. "We do not believe in planned obsolescence," the ads suggested. "We don't change a car for the sake of change." </b></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In 1960, cultural critic Vance Packard published The Waste Makers, promoted as an exposé of "the systematic attempt of business to make us wasteful, debt-ridden, permanently discontented individuals." </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Packard divided planned obsolescence into two sub categories: obsolescence of desirability and obsolescence of function. "Obsolescence of desirability", also called "psychological obsolescence", referred to marketers' attempts to wear out a product in the owner's mind. Packard quoted industrial designer George Nelson, who wrote: "Design... is an attempt to make a contribution through change. When no contribution is made or can be made, the only process available for giving the illusion of change is 'styling!'"</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Planned obsolescence tends to work best when a producer has at least an <u>oligopoly. </u></b></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Before introducing a planned obsolescence, the producer has to know that the consumer is at least somewhat likely to buy a replacement from them. In these cases of planned obsolescence, there is an information asymmetry between the producer–who knows how long the product was designed to last–and the consumer, who does not. When a market becomes more competitive, product lifespans tend to increase. When Japanese vehicles with longer lifespans entered the American market in the 1960s and 1970s, American carmakers were forced to respond by building more durable products. </b></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<u><b>Types of obsolescence </b></u></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Technical or functional obsolescence</b><br />
<br />
The design of most consumer products includes an expected average lifetime permeating all stages of development. Thus, it must be decided early in the design of a complex product how long it is designed to last so that each component can be made to those specifications.<br />
<br />
Planned obsolescence is made more likely by making the cost of repairs comparable to the replacement cost, or by refusing to provide service or parts any longer. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Systemic obsolescence</b><br />
<br />
Planned systemic obsolescence is the deliberate attempt to make a product obsolete by altering the system in which it is used in such a way as to make its continued use difficult. New software is frequently introduced that is not compatible with older software. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Style obsolescence</b><br />
<br />
Marketing may be driven primarily by aesthetic design. Product categories in this case display a fashion cycle. By continually introducing new designs, and retargeting or discontinuing others, a manufacturer can "ride the fashion cycle". </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Obsolescence by depletion</b><br />
<br />
When a product consumes a resource, as when a computer printer consumes ink and paper, it is generally understood that this is unavoidable. But some products also consume related resources that need not be consumed. For example, a 4-colour inkjet printer that is used mostly for printing in gray scale and seldom in colour, may be pre-programmed to deplete colour inks while printing black, so that the colour cartridge(s) must be replaced more often. </blockquote>
<b>Innovation is important - it's almost as important as "creative destruction". This is probably the reason why Steve Jobs was so important - he was a capitalist, but he was a capitalist of a dying breed of capitalists: He was an innovator, a creator of new markets, instead of a technocrat who simply fired his employees by the thousands each time his company wasn't doing well because of the luck of innovation (think HP, Nokia, etc.).</b> Of course, Apple's early products (the Macintosh, the mouse, etc.) were much more "useful" that its current products (the ipad, etc). Apple is now essentially relying on the desire of "the common people" to feel special by owning a fashionable item they don't really need (style obsolescence). If all those ipad owners were to stop buying the newest ipad model, Apple would collapse (and the same thing applies to most of the other companies as well). So, "Planned Obsolescence" is the only way for them to rmain in power, and for us to remain poor and unsatisfied.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://workfromhome-sa-solution.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Rat-race-wheel-with-dedicated-worker-working-like-a-slave..gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://workfromhome-sa-solution.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Rat-race-wheel-with-dedicated-worker-working-like-a-slave..gif" width="276" /> </a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Here's the documentary: </b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/lvFs9N_xeK4" width="560"></iframe>
</div>ciaoant1http://www.blogger.com/profile/02772023277252383810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764018408628968113.post-68497541535848007072012-06-01T20:14:00.000+03:002012-06-01T20:14:43.165+03:00Gold and the jobs report: If you only knew the power of the dark side<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmdPNp5r3eJs-SZj_ZwT9ezWlFGCC-_zYlJEU7NNlVNK1Nx2OztuidjnO-SbBvCUzGOg1KeES2VV-XHKu1JQAzbUcO-FyYdblCnj3H8ed_ro0guSowp4VgOR7dbaVr_64Ngl-6CDxDrrM/s1600/gold.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmdPNp5r3eJs-SZj_ZwT9ezWlFGCC-_zYlJEU7NNlVNK1Nx2OztuidjnO-SbBvCUzGOg1KeES2VV-XHKu1JQAzbUcO-FyYdblCnj3H8ed_ro0guSowp4VgOR7dbaVr_64Ngl-6CDxDrrM/s1600/gold.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
Well, in case you haven't noticed, is once again over 1600$/ounce. This "sudden" move was triggered by the US May Jobs Report, which Marketwatch <a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-stocks-sink-after-disappointing-jobs-report-2012-06-01">described</a> as "disappointing":<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-stocks-sink-after-disappointing-jobs-report-2012-06-01"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>U.S. stocks sink after disappointing jobs report</b></span></a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Stocks on Wall Street fell sharply on Friday after a disappointing U.S. jobs report and downbeat data from China and Europe raised serious concerns about the health of the global economy.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Disappointing payroll data in combination with mounting external risks <b>obviously increase the pressure on the Fed to apply further stimulus,”</b> wrote Bernd Weidensteiner, an analyst at Commerzbank AG, in a note, with the euro-zone sovereign debt crisis being the main external risk. </blockquote>
So, there is no recovery after all, is there? The US Jobs Report can -and is- be manipulated. Especially during the last few months, the <i>"Bureau of lies and scams" </i>as <a href="http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=33951">The Burning Platform</a> nicknamed it has been working overtime in order to persuade us that the recovery is real - here is an article dated 05/04/2012:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=33951"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>HERE WE GO AGAIN – FUN WITH THE BUREAU OF LIES & SCAMS</b></span></a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The employment report from the BLS just hit the wires. <br />
AWESOME NEWS!!!!!! <br />
<br />
<b>The unemployment rate FELL to 8.1%. This is the lowest level in years. All hail Obama and his fantastic management of our economy. </b><br />
<br />
So let’s look at how we achieved this reduction in the unemployment rate. Here is a link to the data:<br />
http://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpseea03.htm<br />
<br />
<b>Here are the facts:<br />The working age population rose by 180,000 people<br />The number of employed people DROPPED by 169,000.</b><br />
<br />
<u><b>Hmmmmm.</b></u> Wait a second. If there are more working age people in the population and less employed people, a critical thinking individual might wonder HOW THE FUCK did the unemployment rate DROP?<br />
<br />
Oh don’t worry your mind over such trivialities. Our friendly drones at the BLS have it all figured out. <b>You see 522,000 Americans willingly decided their lives were so fulfilled and their financial situation was so good, they decided to kick back and leave the work force. <br /><br />The country has another new record. There are 88,419,000 of us who don’t want or need a job. The participation rate of 63.6% is now at a 30 year low, back to levels before many women joined the workforce.</b></blockquote>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://robbwolf.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/an-inconvenient-truth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="292" src="http://robbwolf.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/an-inconvenient-truth.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
But wait a minute: IF the government can manipulate the jobs report, why didn't they do it this time around? Well, this is where the plot thickens, as they say. Here's <a href="http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.gr/2012/06/net-asset-value-premiums-of-certain.html">Jesse</a> on the subject:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I looked over the Jobs numbers earlier this morning, and checked the usual suspects. Imaginary additions were 204,000 which are right 'in the groove' for the normal pattern we see for May each year. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
If anything the seasonal adjustment was shaded to the downside, meaning that it would have not taken much or been out of the norm to have taken away LESS jobs in the seasonal adjustment, and brought in a report that was in line with expectations.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>So why put out a weak number when one could have statistically justified a stronger number? Besides 'sand-bagging' now with an eye to the second half of the year? </b></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>There are an important set of central bank decisions coming up, </b>including the FOMC meeting shortly after the Greek elections at mid month. This weak Jobs number gives Bernanke the cards he needs to play in responding to the evolving crisis. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>And you know what that means. </b></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
And this is why gold and silver diverged so hard this morning to the upside. They had been artificially pressed down for the May-June contract expirations, and some might say to lessen the impact of their rally when the inevitability of QE became evident. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I am just wondering how the Feds will try and spin it. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Gentlemen, start your presses. But try not to be too obvious about it. </b></blockquote>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://reason.com/assets/mc/tcavanaugh/bernankehero.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://reason.com/assets/mc/tcavanaugh/bernankehero.jpg" width="298" /></a></div>
It's easy to pin it all to Bernanke and the FED - but as we've <a href="http://whataboutmarx.blogspot.gr/2012/02/modern-serfdom-for-workers-and-gold-as.html">explained</a> before, if you really want to find the root of all evil, you'll have to search harder:<br />
<br />
In a nutshell, the bankers have been handing out one loan after another, in order to substitute for the industrial capital's flight to Asia: The West's productive base has been shrinking for quite a while now, but the loans handed out out by the bankers have been masking this uncomfortable truth for all these decades So, the multinationals have been getting richer and richer by exploiting the -massively underpaid- Asian workforce, and the banks became bigger and bigger (they are now "too big to fail", and Goldman Sachs's CEO even considers himself as <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1226114/Goldman-Sachs-chief-says-Gods-work-defends-banks-bumper-profits.html">doing God's work</a> - talk about hubris).<br />
<br />
But the economy reached a point where the Western worker simply couldn't pay for his mortgage (that's a bit of an over-simplification, but you get the point). So, now the banks are in trouble as well, because if they can't collect the money they were supposed to collect from the recipients of those loans,<b> they are bankrupt (ALL of them)</b>. Let's not forget Lehman's collapse, not to mention the hundreds of other (smaller) banks that have gone bankrupt in USA over the last four years.<br />
<br />
But, as we all know, most banks are being rescued via your -and my- money. But the banks need <b>a lot</b> of money. Well, I know that they have already received huge bailouts, but that's not enough. Banks are failing in Europe (now it's the Spanish banks, then Greece again, etc) and in USA, stocks are going down, and it seems like everything is about to collapse.<br />
<br />
But guess what - no matter how much the banks need, money can be printed in today's economic system - and they will.<br />
<br />
States all over the world have been printing money for quite some time now, and they continue to do so. Savings the banks is more important than preserving the value of their currencies, so...they will inflate these currencies. And as more and more people realize this, these currencies will hyper-inflate, as noone will want to trade ("loss of confidence") in a currency that keeps losing value compared to gold, the only thing that will remain stable, as it always does.<br />
<br />
[By the way, did you hear about China and Japan's <a href="http://europe.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2012-05/30/content_15418505.htm">deal</a> to trade with each other in their own respective currencies, instead of using the dollar? Or maybe about China's <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17988142">deal</a> to buy oil from Iran in exchange for yuan, instead of dollars? Oh, and guess what, China and Russia are <a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/russia-dumps-treasurys-14-consecutive-months-china-slashes-holdings-lowest-over-year">no longer buying a lot of US bonds</a>, are they? They are however buying <a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/story/china-tops-india-as-no-1-gold-consumer-wgc-2012-05-17">gold</a>...]<br />
<br />
<b>As for the workers, printing money is a great way for the ruling class to stealthily lower their wages, making them more "competitive".</b> After all, they do have to compete against the dirt-cheap Asian labor-force, don't they? So, they only way to go forward, according to our rulers, is for us to become really poor, and for them to receive huge bailouts, making them even more powerful than they already are. This is the only way they will return to the West for investments - until the workers accept "modern serfdom", the capitalists will simply let them starve. Hunger will take care of the rest. And since our rulers are already doing God's work, they could even declare themselves to be Gods, like the Pharaohs. And why not? Their will is our command, isn't it?<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/2443/phpwpf8lsam.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/2443/phpwpf8lsam.jpg" width="341" /></a> </div>
<br />
But this process of debasing the currency has to be completed "one step at a time". If they print everything at once, everyone will be on to them, and things will get out of hand. So, they first let the stock market almost crash, and then they "save the day", by printing more and more money. This has already happened a lot of times, and it will probably continue to happen in the future, in both USA and in Europe (Europe is an even more complicated case, since it is a monetary union of many different States: Germany is letting everyone else crash, and only then they allow the ECB to print money (in order to save the German banks among others). But before Germany agrees to money printing, they always hold a conference, where they propose a few new treaties, that give them more and more control over their <strike>fellow eurozone members</strike> protectorates. So, it's a bit more political in the eurozone compared to the situation in USA, but the economics of it are pretty much the same, and the ECB will also print money sooner or later, and one way or another).<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/XkUaV9GZDuk" width="420"></iframe></div>ciaoant1http://www.blogger.com/profile/02772023277252383810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764018408628968113.post-1251324943050984122012-04-23T00:45:00.002+03:002012-04-23T01:02:48.143+03:00Education as a market and the collapse of expectations<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://media.economist.com/images/images-magazine/2010/36/NA/201036NAC223.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://media.economist.com/images/images-magazine/2010/36/NA/201036NAC223.gif" /></a></div>
<br />
This graph (via <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/16960438">The Economist</a>) shows how much tuition fees have risen in US universities during the last few decades.The Economist article was published a couple of years ago, and it correctly pointed out that:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>For decades, college fees have risen faster than Americans’ ability to
pay them. </b>Median household income has grown by a factor of 6.5 in the
past 40 years, but the cost of attending a state college has increased
by a factor of 15 for in-state students and 24 for out-of-state
students. <b>The cost of attending a private college has increased by a
factor of more than 13</b> (a year in the Ivy League will set you back
$38,000, excluding bed and board). Academic inflation makes most other
kinds look modest by comparison.<b> Students may not be getting a good deal
in return.</b></blockquote>
No shit Sherlock. Back in 2010, Student-Loan Debt <b>Surpassed </b>Credit Card debt for the first time ever (source: <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2010/08/09/student-loan-debt-surpasses-credit-cards/">WSJ</a>), and <b style="font-weight: normal;">Mark Kantrowitz</b>, publisher of FinAid.org and FastWeb.com was quoted as saying that:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>“The growth in education debt outstanding is like cooking a lobster,”
Mr. Kantrowitz says. “The increase in total student debt occurs slowly
but steadily, so by the time you notice that the water is boiling,
you’re already cooked.”</b></blockquote>
It gets worse: About a month ago, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303812904577295930047604846.html?mod=WSJ_hp_us_mostpop_read">Student-Loan Debt Topped $1 Trillion</a>, and this whole "bubble in education" thing gathered even more attention by the media. <br />
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<a href="http://www.oftwominds.com/photos2012/student-loan-bubble.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="272" src="http://www.oftwominds.com/photos2012/student-loan-bubble.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/rolfe-winkler/files/2010/04/gyw26j.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://blogs.reuters.com/rolfe-winkler/files/2010/04/gyw26j.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
There is of course a similar situation in a lot of western countries (<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-10952303">England being the most notable example</a>), but the US situation is far more important and big.<br />
<br />
America was the world's superpower, and its economy was the world's most productive economy for a long time after the end of WWII. <b>More and more Americans started attending college, as it was a great way to achieve "upword social mobility" (ie you could get a (good) job easier).</b><br />
<br />
After all, the economy was booming, as we were in the "creative" part of the "creative destruction" process: Capitalism went through a major crisis (Crash of 1929), but after the end of WWII, we needed to rebuild...almost everything (because almost everything had been destroyed during the war).<br />
<br />
So, jobs were relatively easy to come by, and if you had a college degree, you were almost guaranteed a good job, a good income, and a "middle-class lifestyle".<br />
<br />
<b>Yes, life was good.</b> But <a href="http://whataboutmarx.blogspot.com/2012/01/oil-wars-stakes-are-higher-than-just.html">as we have explained before</a>, America started falling behind in its competition with the other powers (especially Japan, Germany, and now China). Production is being outsourced to China, and wages and dropping rapidly, in order to compete with the Asian workers. And now that giving away loans as a way to mask this process cannot continue anymore, things are really bad for the younger generations of workers. <b>How are they even gonna repay these loans, if they can't find a job? And even if they can, odds are this job will not pay enough money to cover these loans.</b><br />
<br />
Is it no accident that some capitalists are already calling them <b>"the lost generation",</b> as they have to be "sacrificed", in order for a new generation of workers to be born, a generation of <strike><b>surfs</b></strike> "very competitive workers".<br />
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<a href="http://www.munciefreepress.com/graphics/edop/112506-edop-3.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="http://www.munciefreepress.com/graphics/edop/112506-edop-3.gif" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br />
In a New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/your-money/student-loans/29money.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1275134734-Fpy4SBhQKxiUX8UGww0YjA">article</a>, published a few years ago, there were a few interesting -and revealing- quotes about this whole situation, citing Ms Munna, a 26-year-old graduate of NY University, who plainly states that <b>“I don’t want to spend the rest of my life slaving away to pay for an
education I got for four years and would happily give back, it feels wrong to me.”</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Like many middle-class families, Cortney Munna and her mother began the
college selection process with a grim determination. They would do
whatever they could to get Cortney into the best possible college, and
they maintained a blind <b><u>faith</u> that the <u>investment</u> would be worth it. </b></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Today, however, Ms. Munna, a 26-year-old graduate of New York University, has <b>nearly $100,000 in student loan debt from her four years in college,</b> and affording the full monthly payments would be a struggle. For much of the time since her 2005 graduation, she’s been enrolled in night school, which allows her to defer loan payments. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[...] Over the course of the next two years, starting when she was still a teenager, she borrowed about $40,000 from Citibank <b>without thinking much about how she would pay it back.</b> How could her mother have let her run up that debt, and why didn’t she try to make her daughter transfer to, say, the best school in the much cheaper state university system in New York? <b>“All I could see was college, and a good college and how proud I was of her,” Cathryn said. <u>“All we needed to do was get this education and get the good job. </u>This is the thing that eats away at me, the naïveté on my part.” </b></blockquote>
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<a href="http://www.oftwominds.com/photos2012/18-34-economy.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.oftwominds.com/photos2012/18-34-economy.png" /></a></div>
<br />
There are a lot of articles about "the education bubble", and education is a topic of huge significance, that we will talk about in future posts. But, if you really want to understand how "the education bubble" was created, <b>all you have to do is think of education like an investment </b>(yes, I know that education should help you develop "critical thinking", "moral values" and all that stuff, but why on earth would<b> </b>the ruling class want you to develop that? They only "moral values" they want you to learn are obedience to your masters, market values, like "everything is for sale" and all that stuff, and of course the necessary technical knowledge to make you more productive in your area of expertise).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://resistancetraining.files.wordpress.com/2007/01/modernschooling.jpg?w=455&h=240" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="210" src="http://resistancetraining.files.wordpress.com/2007/01/modernschooling.jpg?w=455&h=240" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Anyway, as I was saying, <b>all you have to do is think of education like an investment:</b> <u><b>You invest time and money in order to "weaponize" yourself with "marketable skills" and be ready to face the competition when you finally enter the labor market "arena". Capitalism in its purest form forces the workers to compete against each other - and "only the strong survive".</b></u> In today's global labor market, the Asian workers are simply..."destroying the competition". As for the western workers, only a few are "good enough" - the rest are simply redundant. Their <i>"blind <b>faith </b>that the <b>investment </b>would be worth it"</i>, and that <i>"all we needed to do was get this education and get the good job" </i>was misplaced<i> </i>(at best).<br />
<br />
<b>Capitalism is based on <u>faith and speculation</u></b> - these students and their families <b>speculated </b>that getting a college degree was a good investment, because for many years now, it had been the key to securing a good job. So, it was OK to get a student loan, because they speculated that they would be able to repay it + live a comfortable life in the future.<br />
<br />
<b>But the returns on their investment were not as great as they thought.</b> There are other competitors, especially in Asia, that can (generally) do the same things as them, maybe even more, and they are also willing to worker longer hours for less money. Not to mention the fact that <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/us-education-spending-compared-to-the-rest-of-the-developed-world-2012-1">some western education systems are crappy</a> (we shall discuss this in greater detail the future). So, not a lot of western students will be able to get a job and repay their debts. Of course, the western businessmen are quite happy to go along with this, because they get to increase their profits, due to the lower labor costs. But the workers will suffer - debt slavery, unemployment and poverty is their future, and on top of it all, they were caught completely off-guard and are not ready to fight back, as most of them were under the illusion that <i>"all we needed to do was get this education and get the good job"...</i><br />
<br />
Oh, and by the way, here's an interesting piece of <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/167142/colleges-withhold-transcripts-grads-loan-default">news</a>, in case you were thinking of defaulting on your student loans:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Unable to find a job as a music teacher in the current economic crisis, he eventually went into default on his loans, which included Stafford, Perkins and private bank loans. Then this year, he decided to go on to earn a PhD, which would make it possible for him to get hired in his field. He applied to a top-rated university in the Northeast, but when it was time to send his school transcripts, Temple froze him out. “They said as long as I was in default on my loans, they would not issue a transcript!” says Rodriguez.<br />
<br />
A spokesman from Temple confirms that <b>it is school policy to withhold official transcripts from graduates who are in default on their student loans.</b></blockquote>
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<br />
<b style="color: red;">+ A few interesting articles that weren't mentioned in the post, but are worth a read:</b><br />
<ul>
<li>New graduates will have to work until 71 before qualifying for state pension (<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/mar/24/state-pension-retirement-graduates">guardian</a>)</li>
<li>Fifth of new graduates unemployed (<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/fifth-of-new-graduates-unemployed-7542155.html">Independent</a>), but what about the others? Well, A third of graduates take low skilled jobs, according to the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9125984/A-third-of-graduates-take-low-skilled-jobs.html">Telegraph</a>.</li>
<li>If America Spends More Than Most Countries Per Student, Then Why Are Its Schools So Bad? (<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/us-education-spending-compared-to-the-rest-of-the-developed-world-2012-1">BusinessInsider</a>)</li>
<li>Chinese Applicants Flood U.S. Graduate Schools (<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304750404577319922446665462.html?mod=WSJEUROPE_hpp_editorsPicks_1">WSJ</a>)</li>
<li>What Should You Know About the Quebec Student Strikes and Occupations? (<a href="http://www.nextnewdeal.net/rortybomb/what-should-you-know-about-quebec-student-strikes-and-occupations">nextnewdeal</a>)</li>
<li>The US schools with their own police (<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/09/texas-police-schools">guardian</a>) </li>
<li>MUST READ: The Astounding Failure of the US Educational System - John Taylor Gatto (<a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/article/astounding-failure-us-educational-system">ZeroHedge</a>)</li>
</ul>ciaoant1http://www.blogger.com/profile/02772023277252383810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764018408628968113.post-65645978224726131272012-04-21T11:41:00.001+03:002012-04-21T11:41:01.749+03:00Work harder, buy more things, otherwise the economy will collapse<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://workfromhome-sa-solution.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Rat-race-wheel-with-dedicated-worker-working-like-a-slave..gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://workfromhome-sa-solution.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Rat-race-wheel-with-dedicated-worker-working-like-a-slave..gif" width="345" /></a></div>
<b> MUST-READ from Orion Magazine:</b><br />
<br />
[...] Just ten years later things looked very different. Cars dominated the streets and most urban homes had electric lights, electric flat irons, and vacuum cleaners. In upper-middle-class houses, washing machines, refrigerators, toasters, curling irons, percolators, heating pads, and popcorn poppers were becoming commonplace. And although the first commercial radio station didn’t begin broadcasting until 1920, the American public, with an adult population of about 122 million people, bought 4,438,000 radios in the year 1929 alone.<br /><br /><b>But despite the apparent tidal wave of new consumer goods and what appeared to be a healthy appetite for their consumption among the well-to-do, industrialists were worried. </b>They feared that the frugal habits maintained by most American families would be difficult to break. Perhaps even more threatening was the fact that<b> the industrial capacity for turning out goods seemed to be increasing at a pace greater than people’s sense that they needed them.</b><br />It was this latter concern that led Charles Kettering, director of General Motors Research, to write a 1929 magazine article called “Keep the Consumer Dissatisfied.” He wasn’t suggesting that manufacturers produce shoddy products. Along with many of his corporate cohorts, <b>he was defining a strategic shift for American industry—from fulfilling basic human needs to creating new ones. </b><br /><br />In a 1927 interview with the magazine Nation’s Business, Secretary of Labor James J. Davis provided some numbers to illustrate a problem that the New York Times called “need saturation.” Davis noted that <b>“the textile mills of this country can produce all the cloth needed in six months’ operation each year” and that 14 percent of the American shoe factories could produce a year’s supply of footwear. The magazine went on to suggest, “It may be that the world’s needs ultimately will be produced by three days’ work a week.”</b><br />
<b>[...]</b><br />Businessmen were <b>not </b>happy about this prospect -> Read the rest of the story here: <a href="http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/2962/">http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/2962/</a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJFpFKoPQvL73SLbSvCeJJ7Q-hqSA2Sdr1Nx9HaL8MFqZL74_c-dBdxeJ2jO2UPjQu1-KJ1moNtBGKZUvhM6ME4PPS9c-l3MpXclua4cJIb8WEoWMCi_lMO9HuAItJYL2GeLJKTQKUpEM/s1600/rat_race_sm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJFpFKoPQvL73SLbSvCeJJ7Q-hqSA2Sdr1Nx9HaL8MFqZL74_c-dBdxeJ2jO2UPjQu1-KJ1moNtBGKZUvhM6ME4PPS9c-l3MpXclua4cJIb8WEoWMCi_lMO9HuAItJYL2GeLJKTQKUpEM/s400/rat_race_sm.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />ciaoant1http://www.blogger.com/profile/02772023277252383810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764018408628968113.post-52467512904030934242012-04-21T01:33:00.002+03:002012-04-21T01:33:48.057+03:00How many remember this? April 20, 1914: The Ludlow Massacre<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://libcom.org/files/imagecache/article/images/history/Ludlow-strikers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="278" src="http://libcom.org/files/imagecache/article/images/history/Ludlow-strikers.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
This blog hasn't been updated in approximately two months (which feels like a lifetime in our "fast-changing" world). But hopefully I will have more time from now on - and for my first post after such a long while, the choice was easy: On April 20, 1914, a great event happened in USA, an event that is even known to an foreigner like me. And yet, it has been forgotten by (almost) everyone there, judging by what the media are (not) talking about today, on this historic anniversary of <b>the Ludlow Massacre</b>. And you know what they say about those who forget about their past - they are bound to repeat it.<br />
<br />
So what was this "Ludlow Massacre"? It was one of the greatest battles in the history of class war in USA. And since it was named "massacre", you've probably guessed that it was much more brutal than teargassing the OccupyWallStreet protestors - it was more in the "Game Of Thrones" category of hurting your opponent. And this is probably why the big media don't like talking about it: It is much easier to "manufacture consent" when you omit some little details, like the <strike>killing</strike> annihilation of "a few workers" who dared to go on strike.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Here are the details, from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre">wikipedia</a>:</b></u><br />
<br />
The Ludlow Massacre was an<b> attack by the Colorado National Guard on a tent colony of 1200 striking coal miners and their families</b> at Ludlow, Colorado on April 20, 1914.<br /><br />The massacre resulted in the <b>violent deaths of between 19 and 25 people; sources vary but all sources include two women and eleven children, asphyxiated and burned to death under a single tent. The deaths occurred after a day-long fight between strikers and striking workers.</b> Ludlow was the deadliest single incident in the southern Colorado Coal Strike, lasting from September 1913 through December 1914. The strike was organized by the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) against coal mining companies in Colorado. The three largest companies involved were the Rockefeller family-owned Colorado Fuel & Iron Company (CF&I), the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company (RMF), and the Victor-American Fuel Company (VAF).<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://libcom.org/files/ludlow-camp-attacked.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="208" src="http://libcom.org/files/ludlow-camp-attacked.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Red cross workers on the strikers' camp after the attack</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
In retaliation for Ludlow, the miners armed themselves and attacked dozens of mines over the next ten days, destroying property and engaging in several skirmishes with the Colorado National Guard along a 40-mile front from Trinidad to Walsenburg. The entire strike would cost between 69 and 199 lives, described as the <b>"deadliest strike in the history of the United States".</b><br />
<b><br />The Ludlow Massacre was a watershed moment in American labor relations.</b> Historian Howard Zinn has described the Ludlow Massacre as<b> "the culminating act of perhaps the most violent struggle between corporate power and laboring men in American history".</b> Congress responded to public outcry by directing the House Committee on Mines and Mining to investigate the incident. <b>Its report, published in 1915, was influential in promoting child labor laws and an eight-hour work day.</b><br /><br />The Ludlow site, 12 miles (19 km) northwest of Trinidad, Colorado, is now a ghost town. The massacre site is owned by the UMWA, which erected a granite monument in memory of the miners and their families who died that day.[5] The Ludlow Tent Colony Site was designated a National Historic Landmark on January 16, 2009, and dedicated on June 28, 2009. <b>Modern archeological investigation largely supports the strikers' reports of the event.</b><br />
<br />
<b>...</b><br />
<br />
Mining was dangerous and difficult work. Colliers in Colorado were at constant risk for explosion, suffocation, and collapsing mine walls. In 1912, the death rate in Colorado's mines was 7.055 per 1,000 employees, compared to a national rate of 3.15...<b>Miners were generally paid according to tonnage of coal produced, while so-called "dead work", such as shoring up unstable roofs, was often unpaid.</b> <b>According to historian Thomas G. Andrews, the tonnage system drove many poor and ambitious colliers to gamble with their lives by neglecting precautions and taking on risk, with consequences that were often fatal.</b> <br />...<br /><b>Colliers had little opportunity to air their grievances. Many colliers resided in company towns, in which all land, real estate, and amenities were owned by the mine operator,</b> and which were expressly designed to inculcate loyalty and squelch dissent. Welfare Capitalists believed that anger and unrest among the workers could be placated by raising colliers' standard of living, while subsuming it under company management. Company towns indeed brought tangible improvements to the lives of many colliers and their families, including larger houses, better medical care, and broader access to education. <b>However, ownership of the towns provided companies considerable control over all aspects of workers' lives, and this power was not always used to augment public welfare. Historian Philip S. Foner has described company towns as "feudal domain[s], with the company acting as lord and master. ... The 'law' consisted of the company rules. Curfews were imposed. Company guards - brutal thugs armed with machine guns and rifles loaded with soft-point bullets - would not admit any 'suspicious' stranger into the camp and would not permit any miner to leave." Furthermore, miners who raised the ire of the company were liable to find themselves and their families summarily evicted from their homes.</b><br />
...<br />
<b></b>Frustrated by working conditions which they felt were unsafe and unjust, colliers increasingly turned to unionism. Nationwide, organized mines boasted 40 percent fewer fatalities than nonunion mines. Colorado miners had repeatedly attempted to unionize since the state's first strike in 1883. The Western Federation of Miners organized primarily hard rock miners in the gold and silver camps during the 1890s. Beginning in 1900, the UMWA began organizing coal miners in the western states, including southern Colorado. The UMWA decided to focus on the CF&I because of the company's harsh management tactics under the conservative and distant Rockefellers and other investors. To break or prevent strikes, the coal companies hired strike breakers, mainly from Mexico and southern and eastern Europe. <b>CF&I's management mixed immigrants of different nationalities in the mines, a practice which discouraged communication that might lead to organization.</b><br />
<br />
<b>T</b><b>he strike was organized by the <u>United Mine Workers of America (UMWA)</u> against coal mining companies in Colorado.</b>
The three biggest mining companies were the Rockefeller family-owned
Colorado Fuel & Iron Company (CF&I), the Rocky Mountain Fuel
Company (RMF), and the Victor-American Fuel Company (VAF). Ludlow,
located 12 miles (19 km) northwest of Trinidad, Colorado, is now a
ghost town. The massacre site is owned by the UMWA, which erected a
granite monument, in memory of the striking miners and their families
who died that day.
<br />
...<br />
Despite attempts to suppress union activity, secret organizing
continued by the UMWA in the years leading up to 1913. Once everything
had been laid out according to their plan, the UMWA presented, on
behalf of coal miners, <b>a list of seven demands:</b><br />
<br />
<b>-Recognition of the union as bargaining agent<br />
-An increase in tonnage rates (equivalent to a 10% wage increase)<br />
-Enforcement of the eight-hour work day law<br />
-Payment for "dead work" (laying track, timbering, handling impurities, etc.)<br />
-Weight-checkmen elected by the workers (to keep company weightmen honest)<br />
-The right to use any store, and choose their boarding houses and doctors<br />
-Strict enforcement of Colorado's laws (such as mine safety rules,
abolition of scrip), and an end to the dreaded company guard system<span style="color: red;"></span></b><b>.</b><br />
<br />
The major coal companies rejected the demands and in September 1913, the UMWA called a strike.<b>
Those who went on strike were promptly evicted from their company
homes, and they moved to tent villages prepared by the UMWA, with tents
built on wood platforms and furnished with cast iron stoves on land
leased by the union in preparation for a strike</b>.<br />
<br />
<b>Confrontations between striking miners and replacement workers, referred to as "scabs"<span style="color: red;"> </span>by the union, often got out of control, resulting in deaths.</b>
<b>The company hired the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency to help break the
strike by protecting the replacement workers and otherwise making life
difficult for the strikers.</b><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/2c/Ludlow_Death_Car.jpg/320px-Ludlow_Death_Car.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/2c/Ludlow_Death_Car.jpg/320px-Ludlow_Death_Car.jpg" /></a></div>
<u><b> Baldwin-Felts had a reputation for aggressive strike breaking. </b></u>Agents
shone searchlights on the tenvillages at night and randomly fired
into the tents, occasionally killing and maiming people. <b><u>They used an
improvised armored car, mounted with a M1895 Colt-Browning machine gun
that the union called the "Death Special," to patrol the camp's
perimeters.</u> </b>The steel-covered car was built in the CF&I plant in
Pueblo from the chassis of a large touring sedan. Because of frequent
sniping on the tent colonies, miners dug protective pits beneath the
tents where they and their families could seek shelter.<br />
...<b></b><br />
<b>As strike-related violence mounted, Colorado governor Elias M. Ammons
called in the <u>Colorado National Guard</u> on October 28. </b>At first, the
Guard's appearance calmed the situation, but the sympathies of Guard
leaders lay with company management. Guard Adjutant-General John Chase,
who had served during the violent Cripple Creek strike 10 years earlier,
imposed a harsh regime. On March 10, 1914, the body of a replacement
worker was found on the railroad tracks near Forbes, Colorado. The
National Guard said that the man had been murdered by the strikers. In
retaliation, Chase ordered the Forbes tent colony destroyed. The attack
was launched while the inhabitants were attending a funeral of infants
who had died a few days earlier. The attack was witnessed by
photographer Lou Dold, whose images of the destruction appear often in
accounts of the strike.<br />
<br />
<b></b><b>The strikers persevered until the spring of 1914. By then, the state had run out of money to maintain the Guard, and was forced to recall them.</b> The governor and the mining companies, fearing a breakdown in order, left two Guard units in southern Colorado and <u><b>allowed the coal companies to finance a residual militia</b></u> consisting largely of CF&I camp guards in National Guard uniforms. <br />
<br />
<b></b><br />
<b><br /></b><br />
<b>On the morning of April 20, the day after Easter was celebrated by the many Greek immigrants at Ludlow, three Guardsmen appeared at the camp ordering the release of a man they claimed was being held against his will. This request prompted the camp leader, Louis Tikas, to meet with a local militia commander at the train station in Ludlow village, a half mile (0.8 km) from the colony. While this meeting was progressing, two companies of militia installed a machine gun on a ridge near the camp and took a position along a rail route about half a mile south of Ludlow. Anticipating trouble, Tikas ran back to the camp. The miners, fearing for the safety of their families, set out to flank the militia positions. A firefight soon broke out.</b><b><br /></b><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e2/Funeral_for_Ludlow_strikers.JPG/350px-Funeral_for_Ludlow_strikers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e2/Funeral_for_Ludlow_strikers.JPG/350px-Funeral_for_Ludlow_strikers.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Coffins are marched through Trinidad, Colorado, at the funeral for victims of the Ludlow massacre</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b>The fighting raged for the entire day. The militia was reinforced by non-uniformed mine guards later in the afternoon. At dusk, a passing freight train stopped on the tracks in front of the Guards' machine gun placements, allowing many of the miners and their families to escape to an outcrop of hills to the east called the "Black Hills."</b> By 7:00 p.m., the camp was in flames, and the militia descended on it and began to search and loot the camp. Louis Tikas had remained in the camp the entire day and was still there when the fire started. Tikas and two other men were captured by the militia. Tikas and Lt. Karl Linderfelt, commander of one of two Guard companies, had confronted each other several times in the previous months. While two militiamen held Tikas, Linderfelt broke a rifle butt over his head. Tikas and the other two captured miners were later found shot dead. <b>Tikas had been shot in the back.</b> Their bodies lay along the Colorado and Southern Railway tracks for three days in full view of passing trains. The militia officers refused to allow them to be moved until a local of a railway union demanded the bodies be taken away for burial.<br /><br />During the battle, four women and eleven children had been hiding in a pit beneath one tent, where they were trapped when the tent above them was set on fire. Two of the women and all of the children suffocated. <b>These deaths became a rallying cry for the UMWA, who called the incident the "Ludlow Massacre."</b><br />
<br />In addition to the fire victims, Louis Tikas and the other men who were shot to death, three company guards and one militiaman were killed in the day's fighting.<br />
<br />
<b>Although the UMWA failed to win recognition by the company, the
strike had a lasting impact both on conditions at the Colorado mines
and on labor relations nationally. </b>John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
engaged labor relations experts, and future Canadian Prime Minister, W.
L. Mackenzie King to help him develop reforms for the mines and towns,
which included paved roads and recreational facilities, as well as
worker representation on committees dealing with working conditions,
safety, health, and recreation. <b>There was to be no discrimination of
workers who had belonged to unions, and the establishment of a company
union. The Rockefeller plan was accepted by the miners in a vote. </b><i>(this sort of compromise only dooms the workers to re-live over and over again the same kind of oppression - my note</i><b>)</b><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/31/Ludlow_Monument_Cropped.jpg/220px-Ludlow_Monument_Cropped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/31/Ludlow_Monument_Cropped.jpg/220px-Ludlow_Monument_Cropped.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ludlow monument, erected by the United Mine Workers of America</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: red; text-align: center;">
<b>Here are a few excerpts from Rockefeller's</b> <b>testimony</b>, <b>before the Congress:</b></div>
<br />
<u><b>CHAIRMAN:</b></u> And you are willing to go on and let these killings take
place . . . rather than go out there and see if you might do something
to settle those conditions?<br />
<br />
<b><u>ROCKEFELLER:</u> </b>There is just one thing . . . which can be done, as things
are at present, to settle this strike, and that is to unionize the
camps; and our interest in labor is so profound . . . that interest
demands that the camps shall be open [nonunion] camps that we expect to
stand by the [Colorado Fuel and Iron Company] officers at any cost. . .
.<br />
<br />
<b><u>CHAIRMAN:</u> </b>And you will do that if it costs all your property and kills all your employees?<br />
<br />
<u><b>ROCKEFELLER:</b></u> It is a great principle.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="color: red; text-align: center;">
<b>Rockefeller's version of the events - June 10, 1914</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
"There was no Ludlow massacre. The engagement started as a desperate fight for life by two small squads of militia against the entire tent colony … There were no women or children shot by the authorities of the State or representatives of the operators … While this loss of life is profoundly to be regretted, it is unjust in the extreme to lay it at the door of the defenders of law and property, who were in no slightest way responsible for it."<br />
<br />ciaoant1http://www.blogger.com/profile/02772023277252383810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764018408628968113.post-9726970409622975232012-02-08T18:37:00.001+02:002012-02-08T18:38:08.661+02:00Modern serfdom for the workers, endless money-printing and gold as the ultimate anti-investment<div align="center"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://www.businesspundit.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/gold.jpg" /></div><br />
Assuming that we've read some of our previous "big picture" posts (for example <a href="http://whataboutmarx.blogspot.com/2012/01/what-is-money-is-it-same-as-currency.html" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://whataboutmarx.blogspot.com/2012/01/oil-wars-stakes-are-higher-than-just.html" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">here</a>), you probably know that <b>gold has a "special role" to play in today's situation - it is no accident that it's exchange rate vs the dollar and all the other fiat currencies of the world has been rising for the last 10 years or so.</b><br />
<br />
Some may say that "gold is a bubble", but this is <b>not true.</b> The only "bubblish" about gold is the "paper gold" market, that the capitalists have created (this is a subject that we shall discuss in a few days). But <b>physical gold is humanity's "truest" form of money. Ever </b>since private property and trade appeared, people have being exchanging goods and services, and they soon realized that they needed to replace the barter system with a new system, which would employ a new invention, <b>money</b>. Money is a "super-product" that is used as a "benchmark" for all other products: <b>All other goods have a value that can now be expressed through it.</b><br />
<br />
Mankind has used many different forms of money, but gold (and secondarily silver) is the form that dominated over all the other forms. The reason is that gold is durable, easily transferable from one place to another and rare. Many other forms of money where tried, but nothing could beat gold's advantages as money.<br />
<br />
However, ever since Nixon took us off the gold standard, people's perceptions changed a lot: In recent years, gold has been considered somewhat of a "fringe investment", and despite the fact that the world's central banks still keep tonnes of gold (and <b>only </b>gold, not diamonds, nor any other precious metal or commodity) in their vaults, <b>people have almost stopped thinking of gold as money.<br />
</b><br />
<b><i>"Although gold and silver are not by nature money, money is by nature gold and silver."</i></b><br />
-Karl Marx<br />
<br />
<i><b>"Gold is Money. Everything Else is Credit."</b></i><br />
-J.P. Morgan<br />
<br />
It is true that gold has other uses (for example, it is used in industry and in making jewelry), but it is also used as money - so, <b>the value of everything else can be expressed through gold.<br />
<br />
Everything else is credit, </b>as JP Morgan famously declared almost a century ago.<br />
<br />
<b>So, in today's world, where everything's value is expressed in dollars (or euros, etc.), we are in fact using a leveraged form of "money": <u>currency.</u></b><br />
<br />
<b>We have already explained how and why we got here in previous posts. Now it's time to also make "an educated guess" about where we are going next - here are some thoughts on the subject:</b><br />
<br />
<div align="center"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/jmo0465l.jpg" /></div><br />
<b>1)</b> Capitalism is based on the exploitation of the workers by the capitalists.<br />
<br />
<b>2)</b> After the collapse of the former USSR, all the workers of the Soviet block + the Chinese workers were intergraded into the labor marker that truly became global.<br />
<br />
<b>3)</b> Capitalists off-shored production to Asia, as the workers of those countries could be exploited much more so than the workers of the West (as the Western workers had achieved some important victories through a century of labor struggles, that inhibited the capitalists ability to exploit them).<br />
<br />
<b>4)</b> As the industrial base of the West was diminishing, capitalism became more "leveraged" and credit-based, as it needed more and more "banking loans" to keep the system going:<br />
-If a factory was closed down, either because the owner off-shored production to Asia or because it just couldn't compete against the cheaper goods that were made in China, the workers of that factory could still get a job, or start a business themselves, by getting a loan from the banks.<br />
-The workers wages have stagnated for a long time (<a href="http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/6641/19056471.gif" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">link</a>), but they could still "afford" a new house, by getting a mortgage. And they could also afford rising tuition fees for their children's education, by getting a student loan. And they could even a new plasma TV set, by getting another "consumer's loan". And the list goes on and on.<br />
-This meant that the construction workers could find a job (thanks to all these mortgages), and the companies that produce this plasma TV set and the merchants who sell this TV would make a profit. So, there would be a job for those who make these TV sets, or sell them.<br />
<br />
<b>5)</b> The problem with all this is that the houses that the people live in are not "their" houses, they belong to the bank. And if you can't make your payment on your mortgage, then the bank kicks you out. Can all these debts be repaid? No, of course not.<br />
<br />
<b>6) </b>So, the Western workers earn relatively low wages, and are deeply in debt, as they had to keep the system going by "overconsuming" for a very long time. And it's not just the workers, entire states are heavily indebted and cannot possibly repay their debts.<br />
<br />
<b>7) </b>As the people cannot get any more loans, capitalism can't keep growing. No jobs for the construction workers, factories close down as noone can consume all the good that they produce, etc.<br />
<br />
<b>8) </b>But as these debts cannot be repaid, the banks are also in trouble, as they have to write down heavy losses. This is a very heavy blow for them, as they are ALL bankrupt, just like Lehman Brothers.<br />
<br />
<b>9) </b>The difference is that, unlike Lehman (and a lot of smaller banks), the rest of the banks were saves through endless bailouts. Let's not forget that the banks have become bigger than ever, as capitalism needed more and more credit. So, the bankers have the politicians in their pockets, and they managed to get the money they needed (from us). After all, they are "too big to fail", whereas we are not, we are "replaceable". So, all the wealth of our societies is being redirected to the banks, in order to cover their losses, leaving the rest of us to starve.<br />
<br />
<b>10) </b>But the banks need a lot of dollars. Trillions and trillions of them. So, this "money" is being "created out of thin air" (quantitative easing - money printing). This process of money printing has being going on for many decades now, ever since Nixon abolished the gold standard. The system needed more credit, and so it became more leveraged. The gold standard was interfering with capitalism's need for increased leverage, so they abolished it. And now that the banks have to be bailed out, they are printing even more money than before - here's a great chart:<br />
<br />
<div align="center"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://dollardaze.org/blog/posts/2008/December/01/1/USMonetaryBase.png" /></div><br />
<b>11)</b> All this newly created "money" (currency) goes to the banks, so that they won't have to face another "Lehman-type" moment, or even a global collapse of the entire banking sector. But this newly created 'money' isn't based on newly created wealth (new products/services), nor on wealth's"monetary counterpart", gold (gold, as we have already explained, is the "monetary representation" of wealth, as capitalism has a tendency to monetize everything, and so all goods and services have a value that can now be expressed through gold, in order for the people to be able to exchange them in the market (buying/selling).<br />
<b><br />
12) </b>As all this newly created "money" is not based on new wealth/gold, it is simply a way to <b>debase the currency and redistribute wealth:</b><br />
The banks get bailed out, by getting all the newly created "money", and the workers get paid less (as the value of the currency in which they are getting paid is being diminished). This is <b>necessary </b>for the capitalists, who get to save the banks, and improve the "competitiveness" of the working class. The destruction the currencies is a sacrifice that they have to make, in order to save the banking sector from collapsing, and at the same time to reduce the wages of the wokers, so that they become "more competitive", thus attracting capital investments.<br />
<br />
<b>13) </b>One of the greatest "side-effects" of this process of "money printing" is that fewer and fewer people want to own/use the various currencies, as they can easily understand that these currencies will lose a lot of their current value in the future. More and more capitalists turn to gold for protection of their wealth, as they realize that gold is the one thing that will always remain constant. So, China, Russia, the oil states (and many other rich "players") are buying <b>gold</b>, and they are trying to dump the dollar when they trade with each other. <b>The oil states have a "special role" to play in all this, because if and when they reject the dollar as a means of payment, the world will experience a great "oil crisis", much bigger than the 1973 oil crisis (which was the first time the oil states publickly rejected the dollar and demanded to be paid in gold, as they obviously didn't like America's decision to abolish the gold standard in order to print as many dollars as the USA wanted).</b><br />
<br />
<div align="center"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQhDMvO-qCPUwP140PQrljpoPzGDuLEApHUXvCyZa3HemFux4ejf-TCFyN0FEfL59kiobXbQxgOQe1VSxymaXkLZL54mYLYB7ntB4wwEXpnKYOR-Apdggv-Dqp5wIPGLw3zo0LRRdeSjV7/s1600/printing_money.jpg" /></div><br />
<b>13)</b> The West is obviously caught between a rock and a hard place. But saving the banks and impoverishing the workers are the <u><b>top priorities,</b></u> so this process of "money-printing" will continue, despite the various obstacles, twists and turns. Money printing is today a "systemic necessity" for capitalism, and there is not much point in putting the blame <i><b>solely </b></i>on Bernanke, Obama, Bush, the FED or their English/Japanese/European counterparts (The Europeans are also printing money, although Germany does not need the same amounts of "money-printing" as the rest of Europe, as the German workers are already very competitive, thanks to their high productivity. But Germany also accepts the need for money-printing, as it is the only way to save the banks from their "toxic loan situation". And they are VERY WELL PREPARED for the coming destruction of the dollar (hyperinflation), as <a href="http://whataboutmarx.blogspot.com/2012/01/if-only-i-had-dime-for-every-time.html" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">the euro-system has combined the European nation's gold, making it the "least bad" option in a world of fiat currencies that are being massively debased</a>). <br />
<br />
<b>14)</b> But gold is not just an inflation hedge or a deflation hedge - it is <b>a measure of trust in the system:</b> The reason why gold was considered to be a "fringe investment", or even "a thing of the past" is because <b>there was a lot of trust the system's ability to grow.</b> The capitalists don't really like gold's stability, because capitalism wants to constantly expand. So, the capitalists prefer investments that return a profit for them, like starting a business, or investing in stocks, etc.. If and when the economy is doing well, then businesses make profits, investing on stocks is also profitable, etc. <b>So why buy gold? Why would anyone want to save his capital for another day, when he can invest his capital today, and make a lot of money?</b><br />
<br />
<b>15) </b>Things change however, and today the capitalists are <b>not </b>very confident that the economy will grow in the future (there is no trust in the system). There is enough capital concentrated in the hands of a few oligarchs, and there are many cheap workers in Asia - and yet the capitalists are NOT willing to make a lot of investments (especially in the West, where the workers are "too expensive"). As the workers lack the necessary "purchasing power" to buy things, it is obvious that a lot of products will not be consumed (because the people are too poor to buy them). <br />
<br />
<b>16) </b><b>But the capitalists prefer to let the workers starve to death, even if this aggrevates the crisis on the short-term. The more desperate the workers become, the more inclined they will be to accept serfdom (or "increased competitiveness", as the capitalists see it). So even if a few capitalists get killed in the process ("coladeral damage"), the end result will be <b>great </b>for the rulling class, as they will have created an "ultra-competitive" world, where a few oligarchs own almost everything, and the workers work for scraps (->more profits for the capitalists). It is only then that they will start investing again (especially in the West). Until thw workers accept working for scraps, the capitalists will not invest.</b><br />
<br />
<b>17) </b>In order to achieve this goal, the capitalists need <b>a safe place to store their capital: GOLD. </b> Once the workers have become "desperate enough" to accept serfdom, the "business cycle" can start again, and they will invest some of their gold in productive investments. But until they feel confident that they will make a profit, they choose to save their capital for the future - and gold is the only thing that will not lose value when everything else is collapsing.<br />
<br />
<div align="center"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://pogoprinciple.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/gold_standard.jpg?w=500" /></div><br />
Here is a great piece written almost a year ago by James Saft on Reuters - he really seems to be on to something:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/james-saft/2011/04/21/triumph-of-gold-the-anti-investment/" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Triumph of gold, the anti-investment</span></b></a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><div class="quotationText"><b>Rather than being an anti-currency, gold is really an <u>anti-investment,</u> </b>not because it can’t pay off, but because<b> it is the one asset that not only protects you against the bad actions of others but actually rewards you for them.</b><br />
<br />
If central bankers and politicians bring on massive inflation, gold goes up. If the U.S. threatens to slouch or leap towards default, gold goes up.<br />
<b><u><br />
The opposite of buying gold perhaps is to buy equities, because you are betting on creating products, jobs and wealth rather than just protecting yourself.</u></b> On the other hand, a bar of gold has no executives that can loot the company or accountants that can aid in fraud. <b><u>Really the world in which an investment in gold makes you rich is not a very appealing place.</u></b><br />
[...]<br />
<b><u>Gold, then, is a profoundly pessimistic and depressing investment.</u></b> In current circumstances it also, unfortunately, has a heck of an elevator pitch. <br />
[...]<br />
In investing, extreme behavior is becoming more mainstream every day.<br />
<br />
How else can we interpret the extraordinary moves by the University of Texas’ endowment fund to not only buy nearly $1 billion of gold, equal to about 5 percent of its assets, but to insist on taking physical delivery of the precious metal.<br />
<br />
<b><u>It is really hard to say which is more remarkable; that people are behaving in ways that might have been labeled as paranoid a few years ago or the rise of things that plausibly might make them worried.</u></b></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/esEdC0c3YI4" width="420"></iframe></div><br />
<b>Garbage - Only Happy When It Rains</b><br />
<br />
I'm only happy when it rains<br />
I'm only happy when it's complicated<br />
And though I know you can't appreciate it<br />
I'm only happy when it rains<br />
You know I love it when the news is bad<br />
And why it feels so good to feel so sad<br />
I'm only happy when it rains<br />
<br />
Pour your misery down, pour your misery down on me<br />
Pour your misery down, pour your misery down on me<br />
<br />
I'm only happy when it rains<br />
I feel good when things are going wrong<br />
I only listen to the sad sad songs<br />
I'm only happy when it rains<br />
<br />
I only smile in the dark<br />
My only comfort is the night gone black<br />
I didn't accidentally tell you that<br />
I'm only happy when it rains<br />
You'll get the message by the time I'm through<br />
When I complain about me and you<br />
I'm only happy when it rains<br />
<br />
Pour your misery down,<br />
(pour your misery down on me)<br />
Pour your misery down,<br />
(pour your misery down on me)<br />
Pour your misery down,<br />
(pour your misery down on me)<br />
Pour your misery down,<br />
(pour your misery down on me)<br />
Pour your misery down<br />
You can keep me company as long as you don't care<br />
<br />
I'm only happy when it rains<br />
You wanna hear about my new obsession<br />
I'm riding high upon a deep depression<br />
I'm only happy when it rains<br />
<br />
(Pour some misery down on me)<br />
I'm only happy when it rains<br />
(Pour some misery down on me)<br />
I'm only happy when it rains<br />
(Pour some misery down on me)<br />
I'm only happy when it rains<br />
(Pour some misery down on me)<br />
I'm only happy when it rains<br />
<br />
(Pour some misery down on me)<br />
(Pour some misery down on me)<br />
(Pour some misery down on me)<br />
(Pour some misery down on me)<br />
<br />
I'm only happy when it rains<br />
(Pour some misery down on me)<br />
I'm only happy when it rains<br />
(Pour some misery down on me)<br />
I'm only happy when it rains<br />
(Pour some misery down on me)ciaoant1http://www.blogger.com/profile/02772023277252383810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764018408628968113.post-22875117519383824052012-02-06T15:44:00.001+02:002012-02-06T15:45:01.899+02:00"Moral capitalism" and the rise of the "overclass"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/article6292955.ece/ALTERNATES/w940/cartoon22012012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="368" src="http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/article6292955.ece/ALTERNATES/w940/cartoon22012012.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>A few days ago, English Prime Minister David Cameron made <a href="http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-business/article-24029109-camerons-moral-capitalism-vision.do" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">a speech on..."moral capitalism"</a>. There has been much talk about "reforming the system", and "doing something" about "the excesses" of the "golden boys" that led us where we are today. For the time being of course, all this talk is...just talk.<br />
<br />
But, as history has proven, capitalism <b>CAN </b>make some "adjustments" - indeed, capitalism made some important reforms during the 1929 Great Crash (for example by breaking up the big banks, etc.).<br />
<br />
But those reforms can only happen if the capitalists are<b> pressured by the people. </b>During the 1929 crisis, the worker's movement was much stronger than it is today, and communism was not a failed idea of the past. So, there was a lot more pressure by the people, and the capitalists had to make some concessions. And so they did.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div align="center"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://newyork.corante.com/archives/WSJ%20cartoon.jpg" /></div><br />
<b>What about today?</b> Well, the capitalists don't really seem to be too bothered by the protests so far. But as the people become more and more aware of how their masters are bailing themselves out and leave nothing but scraps for the rest of us, they get more and more angry. So, the politicians of the ruling class start making promises to "do something" about the bonuses of the "golden boys" (who would have gone bankrupt if it wasn't for them). Of course, <b>the only thing that the governments would have to do in order to punish the "golden boys" would be to stop the bailouts.</b> But that's obviously “out of the question”, as the banks would all go bankrupt in an instant if that were to happen.<br />
<br />
So, the <b>theatrics </b>begin in order to convince the masses that they are “doing something” to “fix the problem”:<br />
<b><br />
-The politicians make speeches about "moral capitalism"</b>,<b> </b>and the "excesses" of the banks that led us here (when in fact those "excesses" (the huge loans that were handed out by the banks) were the substitute that the capitalists used in order to "mask" the industrial capital's flight to Asia for over 20 years now - the true "root cause" of the crisis, is capitalism's endless thirst for more and more profits at the expense of the workers).<br />
<br />
<b>-The “fat cats” promise to "behave themselves" from now on, </b>and some of them actually do. But that doesn't last long, as history shows - for example, the big banks that were broken up during the 1929 crisis have now become bigger than ever. That’s what happens if your are successful at achieving your goal (more profits). You become bigger and bigger.<br />
<br />
-Some bankers, financial speculators, politicians and industrial capitalists may even go to <b>jail</b>, or at least pay a big <b>fine </b>for breaking a few laws here and there, in order to maximize their profits. <b>They will be used as a sacrificial lamb</b> to appease an offended populace, while the system that produced them remains relatively intact.<br />
<b><br />
And this vicious cycle will go on and on...</b>Unless the working class realizes that the world would be a much better place without those who exploit us. But in order to overthrow them, we, the workers, must have the ability to rule the world for ourselves, instead of being dependant on out masters. <b>Are we ready to do that? </b>Because if we are not, then our masters are quite content to keep doing what they do best: Being rich (and getting richer) at our expense.<br />
<br />
<div align="center"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg844/scaled.php?server=844&filename=optimized34673409.jpg&res=medium" /></div><br />
<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9027846/The-rise-of-the-overclass.html" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The rise of the overclass<br />
We’ve all heard of the 'underclass’: now its mirror image – a super-rich elite that is equally cut off from the rest of us – is defining the political debate.</span></b></a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">When Labour leader Ed Miliband used his conference speech last September to call for a fairer and more humane type of capitalism, he was greeted with widespread derision and mockery. But four months on, every leading politician in Britain is desperately trying to follow Miliband’s lead. What constitutes a fair society is no longer just a matter for academic theorists. <b>Suddenly it’s the hottest subject in politics. </b><br />
<br />
<b>The reason is simple: growing public revulsion at a new class of super-rich who seem to be immune from the restraints that govern the lives of ordinary people. Senior bankers, private equity moguls and hedge fund managers appear cut off from the rest of us.</b> They often pay little or no tax, increasingly live in heavily guarded enclaves, and some have little or no real allegiance to Britain. The sources of their wealth are often mysterious, and appear unrelated to merit. These feral rich pose, in their way, every bit as much of a danger to society as the rioters who stole and pillaged London streets last August. <br />
<br />
Taxpayers spent £60 billion bailing out City bankers to save them from bankruptcy. Yet, rather than displaying contrition or gratitude, these bankers continue to pay themselves multi-million pound salaries, unimaginable sums of money to most of us. <br />
<br />
<b>The injustice is glaring – all the more so in a time of grinding national austerity, when living standards are falling and unemployment is rising. <u>No wonder that, this week, David Cameron – who loves to claim that “we’re all in this together” – entered the fray with a speech trying to define what he called “responsible capitalism”. He senses that this is an issue where the Right is hugely vulnerable</u></b></blockquote><div align="center"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://mkflinn.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/rich-poor.jpg" /></div><br />
<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577170733817181646.html?mod=WSJ_hp_us_mostpop_read" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The New American Divide</span></b></a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">America is coming apart. <b>For most of our nation's history, whatever the inequality in wealth between the richest and poorest citizens, we maintained a cultural equality known nowhere else in the world—for whites, anyway.</b> "The more opulent citizens take great care not to stand aloof from the people," wrote Alexis de Tocqueville, the great chronicler of American democracy, in the 1830s. "On the contrary, they constantly keep on easy terms with the lower classes: They listen to them, they speak to them every day."<br />
<br />
<b>Americans love to see themselves this way. But there's a problem: It's not true anymore, and it has been progressively less true since the 1960s.</b><br />
[...]<br />
Over the past 50 years, that common civic culture has unraveled. <b>We have developed a new upper class with advanced educations, often obtained at elite schools, sharing tastes and preferences that set them apart from mainstream America. At the same time, we have developed a new lower class, characterized not by poverty but by withdrawal from America's core cultural institutions.</b><br />
[..]<br />
<b>The primary indicator of the erosion of industriousness in the working class is the increase of prime-age males with no more than a high school education who say they are not available for work—they are "out of the labor force." That percentage went from a low of 3% in 1968 to 12% in 2008. </b>Twelve percent may not sound like much until you think about the men we're talking about: in the prime of their working lives, their 30s and 40s, when, according to hallowed American tradition, every American man is working or looking for work. Almost one out of eight now aren't. Meanwhile, not much has changed among males with college educations. Only 3% were out of the labor force in 2008. </blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/B00004T77P.01._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/B00004T77P.01._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> <a href="http://robertreich.org/post/13983287902" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The Remarkable Political Stupidity of the Street</span></b></a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><b>The Street’s biggest lobbying groups have just filed a lawsuit against the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, seeking to overturn its new rule limiting speculative trading.<br />
<br />
For years Wall Street has speculated like mad in futures markets – food, oil, other commodities – causing prices to fluctuate wildly. The Street makes bundles from these gyrations, but they have raised costs for consumers.<br />
<br />
In other words, a small portion of what you and I pay for food and energy has been going into the pockets of Wall Street. It’s just another hidden redistribution from the middle class and poor to the rich.</b><br />
<br />
The new Dodd-Frank law authorizes the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to limit such speculative trading. The commission considered 15,000 comments, largely from the Street. It did numerous economic and policy analyses, carefully weighing the benefits to the public of the new regulation against its costs to the Street. It even agreed to delay enforcement of the new rule for at least a year.<br />
<br />
But this wasn’t enough for the Street. The new regulation would still put a crimp in Wall Street’s profits.<br />
<br />
So the Street is going to court. What’s its argument? The commission’s cost-benefit analysis wasn’t adequate. <b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></b></blockquote><div align="center"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlGxPTVP3A9vHrvNEQgD2PA85rl4yag0uwZMHwV8h2qDfUe5RmFxazwYfQzT8AvK7Pzg9wvGLnhd9BQ65oFL05LTDgU1kO7x1znPA2njuowXVNnWYR875eKMvsF1i9TWEclg3B1PQ50uA/s320/learn-to-be-a-serf.png" /></div><br />
<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/revealed-bankers-secret-meetings-with-ministers-6277778.html" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Revealed: bankers' secret meetings with ministers</span></b></a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">The full scale of big banks' lobbying of the Chancellor, George Osborne, to get him to water down banking reforms can be revealed today. Senior bank executives met or called Treasury ministers nine times in the weeks after Sir John Vickers published his landmark proposals on how to prevent another banking crisis, The Independent can reveal.<br />
<br />
<b>Bank bosses are fighting furiously behind the scenes to limit any changes to the way they do business. Fears are growing – articulated by Sir John himself – that the banks are successfully thwarting the Government's plans to overhaul the British banking system and the Treasury is weakening some of the key reforms as a result of intense lobbying.</b></blockquote><div align="center"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://www.businesspundit.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/lobby.jpg" /></div><br />
<a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/revolving-door-from-top-futures-regulator-to-top-futures-lobbyist-20120111" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Revolving Door: From Top Futures Regulator to Top Futures Lobbyist</span></b></a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">While America focused on New Hampshire, a classic example of revolving-door politics took place in Washington, going almost completely unnoticed. It’s a move that ranks up there with the hire of Louisiana congressman Billy Tauzin to head the pharmaceutical lobbying conglomerate PhRMA -- at a salary of over $2 million a year -- immediately after Tauzin helped ram through the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill, a huge handout to the pharmaceutical industry.<br />
<br />
In this case, the hire involves Walter Lukken, who toward the end of the Bush years was the acting head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. As the chief regulator of the commodities markets, it was Lukken’s job to spot and combat speculative abuses and manipulations that might have led to artificial price hikes and other disruptions. </blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWjwvdgO7KsYShe3v_Fd74AfeBCNIsPA2zhbuZkOfh9qO3e31kkv_ygDqxdIdZM2i61rgj_EiAbrvigMDsvZZdcC-Ng5kzZz1-lzyEdO6kSD86Q2V5DPczSIycetyYo97q-B8GzA9ckYk/s400/polyp_cartoon_corporate_social_responsibility.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="355" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWjwvdgO7KsYShe3v_Fd74AfeBCNIsPA2zhbuZkOfh9qO3e31kkv_ygDqxdIdZM2i61rgj_EiAbrvigMDsvZZdcC-Ng5kzZz1-lzyEdO6kSD86Q2V5DPczSIycetyYo97q-B8GzA9ckYk/s400/polyp_cartoon_corporate_social_responsibility.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/hussman-wall-street-is-little-more-than-a-glorified-crack-house-2011-12" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">HUSSMAN: 'Wall Street Is Little More Than A Glorified Crack House'</span></b></a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">Frankly, I am concerned that Wall Street is becoming little more than a glorified crack house. Day after day, the sole focus of Wall Street is on more sugar, stronger sugar, Big Bazookas of sugar, unlimited sugar, and anything that will get somebody to deliver the sugar faster. This is like offering a lollipop to quiet down a 2-year old throwing a tantrum, and expecting that the result will be fewer tantrums.<br />
<br />
What we have increasingly observed over the past decade is nothing but the gradual destruction of the ability of the financial markets to allocate capital for the benefit of future growth.<br />
<br />
<b>Nietzsche famously said "What does not kill me makes me stronger." The corollary is "What constantly rescues me makes me weaker." The world will only stop looking for bailouts when policy makers stop handing them out.</b></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.rts.squat.net/interact/diy/logos/classwar.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="268" src="http://www.rts.squat.net/interact/diy/logos/classwar.gif" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<b><i>“And the great owners, who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners with access to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact: when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed.” </i></b><br />
-John Steinbeckciaoant1http://www.blogger.com/profile/02772023277252383810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764018408628968113.post-79891638293862712512012-02-06T01:24:00.000+02:002012-02-06T01:24:07.044+02:00Paul Lafargue - The Bankruptcy of Capitalism<div align="center"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://bartblog.bartcop.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/class-warfare.jpg" /></div><br />
<a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/lafargue/1900/xx/bankrupt.htm" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Paul Lafargue - The Bankruptcy of Capitalism (1900)</span></b></a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></b>The nineteenth century was the century of capitalism. Capitalism filled that century to overflowing with its commerce, its industry, its manners, its fashions, its literature, its art, its science, its philosophy, its religion, its politics and its civil code, more universal than the laws imposed by Rome upon the nations of the ancient world. The capitalist movement, starting from England, the United States and France, has shaken the foundations of Europe and of the world. It has forced the old feudal monarchies of Austria and Germany and the barbaric despotism of Russia to put themselves in line; and in these last days it has gone into the extreme East, into Japan, where it has overthrown the feudal system and implanted the industry and the politics of capitalism.<br />
<br />
Capitalism has taken possession of our planet; its fleets bring together the continents which oceans had separated; its railroads, spanning mountains and deserts, furrow the earth; the electric wires, the nervous system of the globe, bind all nations together, and their palpitations reverberate in the great centers of population. Now for the first time there is a contemporary history of the world. Events in Australia, the Transvaal, China, are known in London, Paris, New York, at the moment they are brought about, precisely as if they happened in the outskirts of the city where the news is published.<br />
<br />
Civilized nations live off the products of the whole earth. Egypt, India, Louisiana, furnish the cotton, Australia the wool. Japan the silk, China the tea, Brazil the coffee, New Zealand and the United States the meat and grain. The capitalist carries in his stomach and on his back the spoils of the universe.<br />
<br />
The study of natural phenomena has undergone an unprecedented, an unheard-of, development. New sciences, geology, chemistry, physics, etc., have arisen. The industrial application of the forces of nature and of the discoveries of science has taken on a still more startling development; some of the geometrical discoveries of the scientists of Alexandria, two thousand years old, have for the first time been utilized.<br />
<br />
The production of machine industry can provide for all demand and more. The mechanical application of the forces of nature has increased man’s productive forces tenfold, a hundredfold. A few hours’ daily labor, furnished by the able-bodied members of the nation, would produce enough to satisfy the material and intellectual needs of all.<br />
<br />
<b>But what has come of the colossal and wonderful development of science, industry and commerce in the nineteenth century? Has it made humanity stronger, healthier, happier? Has it given leisure to the producers? Has it brought comfort and contentment to the people?</b><br />
<br />
<b>Never</b> has work been so prolonged, so exhausting, so injurious to man's body and so fatal to his intelligence. Never has the industrial labor which undermines health, shortens life and starves the intellect been so general, been imposed on such ever-growing masses of laborers. The men, women and children of the proletariat are bent under the iron yoke of machine industry. <b>Poverty is their reward when they work, starvation when they lose their jobs.<br />
</b><br />
In former stages of society, famine appeared only when the earth refused her harvests. In capitalist society, famine sits at the hearth of the working class when granaries and cellars burst with the fruits of the earth, and when the market is gorged with the products of industry.<br />
<br />
All the toil, all the production, all the suffering of the working class has but served to heighten its physical and mental destitution, to drag it down from poverty into wretchedness.<br />
<br />
Capitalism, controlling the means of production and directing the social and political life of a century of science and industry, has become bankrupt. The capitalists have not even proved competent, like the owners of chattel slaves, to guarantee to their toilers the work to provide their miserable livelihood; capitalism massacred them when they dared demand the right to work – a slave’s right.<br />
<br />
<b>The capitalist class has also made a failure of itself. It has seized upon the social wealth to enjoy it, and never was the ruling class more incapable of enjoyment. The newly rich, those who have built up their fortunes by accumulating the filchings from labor, live like strangers in the midst of luxury and artistic treasures, with which they surround themselves through a foolish vanity, to pay homage to their millions.</b><br />
<br />
<b>The leading capitalists, the millionaires and billionaires, are sad specimens of the human race, useless and hurtful. The mark of degeneracy is upon them. </b>Their sickly offspring are old at birth. Their organs are sapped with diseases. Exquisite meats and wines load down their tables, but the stomach refuses to digest them; women expert in love perfume their couches with youth and beauty, but their senses are benumbed. They own palatial dwellings in enchanting sites, and they have no eyes, no feeling for joyful nature, with its eternal youth and change. Sated and disgusted with everything, they are followed everywhere by ennui as by their shadows. They yawn at rising and when they go to bed. They yawn at their fests and at their orgies. The began yawning in their mother’s womb.<br />
<br />
The pessimism which, in the wake of capitalist property, made its appearance in ancient Greece six centuries before Jesus Christ, and which has since formed the foundation of the moral and religious philosophy of the capitalist class, became the leading characteristic of the philosophy of the second half of the nineteenth century. The pessimism of Theognis sprang from the uncertainties and vicissitudes of life in the Greek cities, torn by the perpetual wars between rich and poor; the pessimism of the capitalist is the bitter fruit of satiety, ennui and the impoverishment of the blood.<br />
<br />
The capitalist class is falling into its second childhood; its decreptitude appears in its literature, now returning to its starting point. Romantic literature, the literary form proper to the capitalist class, which started out with the romantic Christianity of Chateaubriand, is returning to the same point, after passing through the historical novel and the character novel. Capitalism, which in its virile and combative youth in the eighteenth century had wished to emancipate itself from Christianity, resigns itself in its old age to practices of the grossest superstition.<br />
<br />
<b>The capitalist class, bankrupt, old, useless and hurtful, has finished its historic mission; it persists as ruling class only through its acquired momentum. The proletariat of the twentieth century will execute the decree of history; will drive it from its position of social control. Then the stupendous work in science and industry accomplished by civilized humanity, at the price of such toil and suffering, will engender peace and happiness; then will this vale of tears be transformed into an earthly paradise.</b></blockquote>ciaoant1http://www.blogger.com/profile/02772023277252383810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764018408628968113.post-58076128319707361282012-02-05T18:47:00.001+02:002012-02-05T19:35:45.541+02:00Why do some GOP party politicians envision a China-like America?<div align="center"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8LqUke8AgZgVsEsv2ZnQRuw4vYAG8ac6fAw9iNN4H0pCj3KW421yGif8EtTJ5gdDpbXV57lolGT-Ip7JG1gayQTFJtygtC61kV1EgG5ACCOh2B5n9Vka6Is6tDwCLVyb7lvbnRH4XY_E/s400/The+Chinese+Democracy+Tour+2007.jpg" /></div><br />
A few weeks ago, Huffington Post published a very interesting article titled <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-salzman/emerging-gop-view-communi_b_1197976.html" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">"Emerging GOP View: Communist China Is Model for American Capitalism"</a>. The article discusses a<b> growing trend amongst US capitalists, especially those who favor the Republican party, to view China as an example that the USA needs to follow.</b> Here are some key quotes from the Huffington Post article:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">First came Rep. Mike Coffman who wrote in May that China has "enjoyed sustained economic growth based on the free market principles that we have long abandoned in favor of the redistributionist policies of a welfare state."<br />
<br />
Then in November, Michele Bachmann said, essentially, that China is growing like crazy because it lacks America's Great Society programs, which she'd dump.<br />
<br />
And now yesterday, according to a tweet by AFP reporter Olivier Knox, Mitt Romney held up China as a place where people are getting rich on free enterprise and capitalism, while, by implication, Americans are watching on the sidelines getting poor</blockquote>There are many monopolies in China, and a lot of state regulation (especially when it comes to "regulating" the workers rights, so that the capitalists can "freely" make huge profits). So there is not much point in seriously debating whether or not China is based on "free markets".<br />
<br />
But still, <b>China IS growing, and it does attract capital investments like no other country. </b>We have discussed of course (in <a href="http://whataboutmarx.blogspot.com/2012/01/on-china-part-2-is-china-bubble-what.html" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">previous posts</a>) how China is also<b> heading for a crisis,</b> as the Chinese workers are 'too poor' to buy all the products they produce, and as the Westerners can't keep buying them anymore (because they are getting poor), Chinese exports will suffer. Or that there are increasing signs of a Chinese property and housing bubble, as the workers can't buy all the houses they have built (because they are too poor). But China will probably get over any crisis in he long run, because it can attract investments (unlike the Western countries, with the exception of Germany).<br />
<br />
We even remembered John Stapleton, an English Liberal Party politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1852 and 1874 - here's a famous quote of his: <b>"If China," says Mr. Stapleton, M.P., to his constituents, "should become a great manufacturing country, I do not see how the manufacturing population of Europe could sustain the contest without descending to the level of their competitors." (Times, Sept. 3, 1873, p. 8.).</b><br />
<br />
<b>But hey, who cares if some workers live or die?</b> In fact, from a capitalist's point of view, <strike>if</strike> when a crisis hits, then it makes a lot of sense to let <b>some </b>workers suffer or even die, as they can easily be replaced (there are billions of them). So, if some of them die, then there is no problem - on the contrary, their deaths would help keep the unemployment rate lower.<br />
<br />
<b><u>"Know your place in the universe"</u> as the saying goes - but what is a workers place in the universe?</b> Here is FOXCONN's CEO on the subject:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/foxconn-animals-2012-1" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">CEO OF APPLE PARTNER FOXCONN: 'Managing One Million Animals Gives Me A Headache'</span></b></a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">According to WantChinaTimes, Terry Gou, the head of Hon Hai (Foxconn), the largest contract manufacturer in the world, had this to say at a recent meeting with his senior managers:<br />
<br />
<b>"Hon Hai has a workforce of over one million worldwide and as human beings are also animals, to manage one million animals gives me a headache,"</b> said Hon Hai chairman Terry Gou at a recent year-end party, adding that he wants to learn from Chin Shih-chien, director of Taipei Zoo, regarding how animals should be managed.<br />
<br />
As WantChinaTimes put it, Gou "could have chosen his words more carefully." <b>But Gou had indeed invited<u> the zoo director</u> to speak to Hon Hai's top managers in the hope that the zoo-keeper's advice would help them do their jobs better</b></blockquote><b>So, why does China attracts investments? And why does the GOP want to emulate the Chinese model?</b><br />
<br />
It's simple: It's not just the low wages or the long working hours. It's not even the fact that the new generation of Chinese workers is more skilled and educated than the previous ones.<br />
<br />
<b>It's also because the workers have no rights, not really. They pretty much do whatever the capitalists order them to do in order to increase productivity and their profits. </b>And if they have the "audacity" to make some demands, then they are fired or the state sends in the police or the army and crack down on protesters. There is no "free speech", and the list goes on and on.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div align="center"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://www.inprecor.gr/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/%CE%A3%CF%8D%CE%BD%CF%84%CE%B1%CE%BE%CE%B7_%CE%BC%CE%AD%CF%87%CF%81%CE%B9%CF%84%CE%B5%CE%BB%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE%AE%CF%82%CF%80%CF%84%CF%8E%CF%83%CE%B5%CF%89%CF%82_281211-e1325108256240.jpg" /></div><br />
So, the Western capitalists have billions of "man-animals" in China, so they simply have no use for the Western workers, not all of them anyway. And, naturally, they just let them rot, die, while the rest have to accept "austerity measures", that force them to work longer hours for less money. They become "Chinafied" - after all, this is what the GOP members want to do, right? They don't like "the redistributionist policies of a welfare state", because there is no way to compete against China if your workers are living in relatively "humane" conditions", while the Chinese workers are treated like "animals". <b>Capitalism has reached a point where it can only grow in a "China-like business environment" (Germany being the one notable exception).<br />
<br />
So, if humanity is to keep forcing the workers to compete against each other, for the sake of a few capitalists, then this is what happens:</b> If you are a worker, you'll have to accept a very low wage, working long hours, etc., or you'll have to face massive unemployment, as the capitalists can invest their capital in other places (wherever the workers DO accept living in poverty).<br />
<br />
YES, there are some notable exceptions to this - for example Germany is doing pretty well, as it produces better quality products to make up for the relatively "high" German wages. <b>But the general trend is clear: China is the new row model for the capitalists, and the workers have an important choice to make - They can either accept living like "animals", or they can overthrow the capitalists, who make us compete against each other, for their benefit and their benefit alone.</b><br />
<br />
<b>Here is what you, as a worker, have to <i>compete </i>against (from the "New York Times"):</b><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/you-simply-must-read-this-article-that-explains-why-apple-makes-iphones-in-china-and-why-the-us-is-screwed-2012-1" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">This Article Explains Why Apple Makes iPhones In China And Why The US Is Screwed</span></b></a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><div class="quotationText"><b>When one reads about these working conditions — 12-16 hour shifts, pay of ~$1 per hour or less, dormitories with 15 beds in 12x12 rooms — the obvious assumption is that it's all about money:<br />
<br />
Greedy manufacturers want to make bigger profits, so they make their products in places with labor practices that would be illegal in America.<br />
<br />
And money is certainly part of it.</b><br />
<br />
But an amazing new <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?_r=1&ref=charlesduhigg&pagewanted=all" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">article</a> by Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher of the New York Times reveals that there's a lot more to it than that.<br />
<br />
Most of the components of iPhones and iPads — the supply chain — are now manufactured in China, so assembling the phones half-a-world away would create huge logistical challenges. It would also reduce flexibility — the ability to switch easily from one component supplier or manufacturer to another.<br />
<br />
China's factories are now far bigger and more nimble than those in the United States. They can hire (and fire) tens of thousands of workers practically overnight. <b>Because so many of the workers live on-site, they can also press them into service at a moment's notice. And they can change production practices and speeds extremely rapidly. <br />
China now has a far bigger supply of appropriately-qualified engineers than the U.S. does — folks with the technical skills necessary to build complex gadgets but not so credentialed that they cost too much.</b><br />
<br />
And, lastly, China's workforce is much hungrier and more frugal than many of their counterparts in the United States.<br />
<br />
<u><b>On this last point, Duhigg and Bradsher tell the story of Eric Saragoza, an engineer who began working in an Apple factory near Sacramento in 1995. The plant made Macs, and for a few years, Saragoza did well, earning $50,000 a year, getting married and having kids, and buying a house with a pool.<br />
<br />
Soon, however, Apple started shipping jobs overseas, because the costs of manufacturing in Asia were so much lower. Importantly, these reduced costs weren't just about wages — they were about being closer to the supply chain and the willingness of the workforce to put in over-time.<br />
<br />
Saragoza was soon asked to work 12-hour days and come in on Saturdays. But, understandably, he wanted to watch his kids play soccer on the weekends.<br />
<br />
Saragoza's salary was too high for him to take an unskilled job. And he didn't have the experience and credentials necessary to move into senior management. In 2002, his job was eliminated. Apple, meanwhile, turned the Elk Grove plant into an AppleCare facility, with call-center employees making $12 an hour.</b><br />
<br />
<b>Recently, desperate for work, Saragoza took a job at an electronics temp firm. Assigned to the AppleCare plant, he was paid $10 an hour to test repaired iPads before they were sent back to customers. That job paid so little (and was presumably so depressing) that the now 48-year-old Saragoza quit and is looking for work again.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, in Shenzhen, a young project manager named Lina Lin coordinates the manufacture of Apple accessories for a company in the Apple ecosystem. She makes a bit less than Saragoza made a decade ago as an Apple engineer. She lives in an 1,100-square foot apartment with her husband, their in-laws, and their son. They save a quarter of their salaries every month.</b></u></div></blockquote><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-child-labor-2012-1" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Your iPhone Was Built, In Part, By 13 Year-Olds Working 16 Hours A Day For 70 Cents An Hour</span></b></a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><br />
<div class="quotationText"><ul><li>One Foxconn worker Mike Daisey interviewed, outside factory gates manned by guards with guns, was a 13-year old girl. She polished the glass of thousands of new iPhones a day.</li>
<li><b>The 13-year old said Foxconn doesn't really check ages. There are on-site inspections, from time to time, but Foxconn always knows when they're happening. And before the inspectors arrive, Foxconn just replaces the young-looking workers with older ones.</b></li>
<li>In the first two hours outside the factory gates, Daisey meets workers who say they are 14, 13, and 12 years old (along with plenty of older ones). Daisey estimates that about 5% of the workers he talked to were underage.</li>
<li><b>Daisey assumes that Apple, obsessed as it is with details, must know this. Or, if they don't, it's because they don't want to know.</b></li>
<li>Daisey visits other Shenzhen factories, posing as a potential customer. He discovers that most of the factory floors are vast rooms filled with 20,000-30,000 workers apiece. The rooms are quiet: There's no machinery, and there's no talking allowed. When labor costs so little, there's no reason to build anything other than by hand.</li>
<li>A Chinese working "hour" is 60 minutes — unlike an American "hour," which generally includes breaks for Facebook, the bathroom, a phone call, and some conversation. The official work day in China is 8 hours long, but the standard shift is 12 hours. Generally, these shifts extend to 14-16 hours, especially when there's a hot new gadget to build. While Daisey is in Shenzhen, a Foxconn worker dies after working a <b>34-hour shift.</b></li>
<li>Assembly lines can only move as fast as their slowest worker, so all the workers are watched (with cameras). Most people stand.</li>
<li>The workers stay in dormitories. In a 12-by-12 cement cube of a room, Daisey counts 15 beds, stacked like drawers up to the ceiling. Normal-sized Americans would not fit in them.</li>
<li><b>Unions are illegal in China. Anyone found trying to unionize is sent to prison.</b></li>
<li>Daisey interviews dozens of (former) workers who are secretly supporting a union. One group talked about using "hexane," an iPhone screen cleaner. Hexane evaporates faster than other screen cleaners, which allows the production line to go faster. Hexane is also a neuro-toxin. The hands of the workers who tell him about it shake uncontrollably.</li>
<li>Some workers can no longer work because their hands have been destroyed by doing the same thing hundreds of thousands of times over many years (mega-carpal-tunnel). This could have been avoided if the workers had merely shifted jobs. Once the workers' hands no longer work, obviously, they're canned.</li>
<li>One former worker had asked her company to pay her overtime, and when her company refused, she went to the labor board. The labor board put her on a black list that was circulated to every company in the area. The workers on the black list are branded "troublemakers" and companies won't hire them.</li>
<li>One man got his hand crushed in a metal press at Foxconn. Foxconn did not give him medical attention. When the man's hand healed, it no longer worked. So they fired him. (Fortunately, the man was able to get a new job, at a wood-working plant. The hours are much better there, he says — only 70 hours a week).</li>
<li><b>The man, by the way, made the metal casings of iPads at Foxconn. Daisey showed him his iPad. The man had never seen one before. He held it and played with it. He said it was "magic."</b></li>
</ul></div></blockquote> <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/12/nike-1m-indonesian-workers-overtime?CMP=twt_gu" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Nike factory to pay $1m to Indonesian workers for overtime</span></b></a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">Shoe plant workers clocked up <b>nearly 600,000 hours of overtime without pay over two years</b><br />
<br />
A Nike factory has agreed to pay $1m in unpaid overtime to Indonesian workers in a <b>move that could force other suppliers of multinational companies to follow suit.</b><br />
<br />
<b>"This has the potential to send shockwaves through the Indonesian labour movement,"</b> he said, adding that the victory had prepared the union to take on the fight for any workers who had been forced to work overtime without pay. "We have only just begun." <b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></b></blockquote>ciaoant1http://www.blogger.com/profile/02772023277252383810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764018408628968113.post-54139861131910100132012-02-05T11:18:00.001+02:002012-02-05T11:48:11.899+02:00The ‘manure’ of history<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://media5.jimcarroll.com/wp-content/uploads/2004/12/manure.jpg?d7148e" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://media5.jimcarroll.com/wp-content/uploads/2004/12/manure.jpg?d7148e" width="400" /></a></div><br />
Something has changed, fundamentally. This is evident. What is it?<br />
<br />
Before, they all wanted to be the ploughmen of history, to play the active parts, each one of them to play an active part. Nobody wished to be the ‘manure’ of history. But is it possible to plough without first manuring the land? So ploughmen and ‘manure’ are both necessary. In the abstract, they all admitted it. But in practice? Manure for manure, as well draw back, return to the shadows, into obscurity. Now something has changed, since there are those who adapt themselves ‘philosophically’ to being ‘manure’, who know this is what they must be and adapt themselves. It is like the problem of the proverbial dying man.<br />
<br />
But there is a great difference, because at the point of death what is involved is a decisive action, of an instant’s duration. Whereas in the case of the manure, the problem is a long-term one, and poses itself afresh at every moment. You only live once, as the saying goes; your own personality is irreplaceable. You are not faced abruptly with an instant’s choice on which to gamble, a choice in which you have to evaluate the alternatives in a flash and cannot postpone your decision. Here postponement is continual, and your decision has continually to be renewed. This is why you can say that something has changed. There is not even the choice between living for a day as a lion, or a hundred years as a sheep. You don’t live as a lion even for a minute, far from it: <b>you live like something far lower than a sheep for years and years and know that you have to live like that.</b><br />
<i>-A. Gramsci - Prison Notebooks</i><b> </b>(hat tip <a href="http://leninreloaded.blogspot.com/2012/02/antonio-gramsci.html">LeninReloaded</a><b>)<br />
</b>ciaoant1http://www.blogger.com/profile/02772023277252383810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764018408628968113.post-15971414554292400682012-02-04T20:12:00.000+02:002012-02-04T20:12:31.490+02:00Intellectual property rights and "patent wars"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/dro0928l.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/dro0928l.jpg" /></a></div>A few weeks ago, I started writing about China, and I promised I would write a post about their moves in the monetary plain (we have already mentioned how the current monetary system is ending). I haven't forgotten my promise, but I will do it after this weekend. For the time being, we shall discuss another subject, intellectual property rights.<br />
<br />
We have already talked about piracy and control of the internet in our previous posts. But there are many more fronts in this fight - here is a great piece from <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/07/26/138576167/when-patents-attack">npr.org</a> on <b>"patent wars". </b>Most of us have probably heard about one company suing another over pattens and intellectual property rights (for example, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/10/us-kodak-apple-idUSTRE80929C20120110">Kodak sued Apple and HTC over digital image patents</a>, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203806504577183433184318046.html?mod=WSJ_business_IndustryNews_DLW">Motorola Sued Apple Over iPhone 4S and iCloud</a>, and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16746971">Intel bought RealNetworks' patents and video coding tech</a> over the last month alone), but what does it all mean for us and why do patents inhibit progress, discovery and innovation?<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/07/26/138576167/when-patents-attack"><span style="font-size: large;"><u><b>When Patents Attack</b></u></span></a><br />
<blockquote><b>The influential blog Techdirt regularly refers to Intellectual Ventures as a patent troll. IPWatchdog, an intellectual property site, called IV "patent troll public enemy #1." These blogs write about how Intellectual Ventures has amassed one of the largest patent portfolios in existence and is going around to technology companies demanding money to license these patents.</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>Patents are a big deal in the software industry right now. Lawsuits are proliferating. Big technology companies are spending billions of dollars to buy up huge patent portfolios in order to defend themselves. Computer programmers say patents are hindering innovation.</b><br />
<br />
But people at companies that have been approached by Intellectual Ventures don't want to talk publicly.<br />
<br />
"There is a lot of fear about Intellectual Ventures," says Chris Sacca, a venture capitalist who was an early investor in Twitter, among other companies. "You don't want to make yourself a target."<br />
[...]<br />
"I tried to put you in touch with other people in this community to talk to you about this and they almost uniformly said they couldn't talk to you," Sacca told us. "They were afraid to." IV has the power to "literally obliterate startups," Sacca says.<br />
[...]<br />
<b>Imagine an inventor out there — someone with a brilliant idea, a breakthrough. This inventor has a patent, but companies are stealing his idea. And this inventor doesn't have the money or legal savvy to stop them. That's where IV comes in. It buys this inventor's patent, and it makes sure that companies who are using the idea pay for it.</b><br />
<br />
When we asked for an <b>example </b>of an inventor in this situation, someone with a breakthrough, who wasn't getting paid for it, two separate people at IV pointed us to a guy named <b>Chris Crawford.</b><br />
[...]<br />
So we went to talk to Chris Crawford. But that turned out to be harder than we thought — and it led us on a five month journey, where things did not quite fit the story Intellectual Ventures was telling.<br />
<br />
When we followed up with IV to get Chris Crawford's contact info, the company told us it no longer owned Chris Crawford's patent. And Crawford probably wouldn't want to talk right now anyway, the company said, because he was in the middle of litigation.<br />
<br />
We started digging around and found Chris Crawford in Clearwater, Florida. As predicted, he never responded to our many emails and phone calls. You'll never hear from him in this story. But we were able to locate Chris's patent — number 5771354.<br />
<br />
He got it in 1998. <b>And the way IV explained the patent to us, Chris Crawford invented something that we do all the time now: He figured out a way to upgrade the software on your home computer over the Internet. In other words, when you turn on your computer and a little box pops up and says, "Click here to upgrade to the newest version of iTunes," that was Chris Crawford's idea.</b><br />
<br />
But when we looked at the patent, it seemed to claim a lot more than that. The name of the actual invention is "an online back-up system." <b>The patent says this invention makes it possible to connect to an online service provider to do a bunch of stuff — software purchases, online rentals, data back ups, information storage. The patent makes it seem like Chris Crawford invented a lot of the most common things we do on the Internet.</b><br />
<br />
We weren't sure what to make of all this, so we went to see David Martin, who runs a company called M-Cam. It's hired by governments, banks and business to assess patent quality, which the company does with a fancy piece of software. We asked Martin to assess Chris Crawford's patent.<br />
<br />
<b>At the same time Crawford's patent was being prosecuted, more than 5,000 other patents were issued for "the same thing," Martin says.</b><br />
<br />
Crawford's patent was for "an online backup system." Another patent from the same time was for "efficiently backing up files using multiple computer systems." Yet another was for "mirroring data in a remote data storage system."<br />
<br />
And then there were three different patents with three different patent numbers but that all had the same title: "System and method for backing up computer files over a wide area computer network."<br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>Martin says about 30 percent of U.S. patents are essentially on things that have already been invented. In 2000, for example, the patent office granted a patent on making toast — patent number 6080436, "Bread Refreshing Method."</b><br />
<br />
We also asked Rick Mc Leod, a patent lawyer and former software engineer, to evaluate Chris Crawford's patent.<br />
<br />
"None of this was actually new," he told us.<br />
<br />
Mc Leod looked to see if anyone else in the field was already doing the thing Chris Crawford claimed to invent in 1993, when he first filed his patent. Here's what he found:<br />
<blockquote><i>There were institutions, both academic and businesses, that used computers in this way, and I think it's a very interesting collection of things that were well known in the 1980s, with the exception that it adds the word "Internet."</i></blockquote><b>Mc Leod said he didn't think the patent should have been issued in the first place.</b><br />
<br />
For a long time, the patent office would have agreed with Rick Mc Leod. For a long time, the patent office was very reluctant to grant patents for software at all.<br />
[...]<br />
<b>In the 1990s, the Federal courts stepped in and started chipping away at this interpretation. There was a couple big decisions, one in 1994 and another in 1998, which overturned the patent office completely.</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>A flood of software patents followed. A lot of people in Silicon valley wish that had never happened, including a very surprising group: computer programmers.</b><br />
[...]<br />
That same afternoon, we talked to a half dozen different software engineers. All of them <b>hated</b> the patent system, and half of them had patents in their names that they felt shouldn't have been granted. In polls, <b>as many as 80 percent of software engineers say the patent system actually hinders innovation. It doesn't encourage them to come up with new ideas and create new products. It actually gets in their way.</b><br />
<u><b><br />
</b></u><br />
<u><b>Many patents are so broad, engineers say, that everyone's guilty of infringement. This causes huge problems for almost anyone trying to start or grow a business on the Internet.</b></u><br />
<br />
<u><b>"We're at a point in the state of intellectual property where existing patents probably cover every behavior that's happening on the Internet or our mobile phones today," says Chris Sacca, the venture capitalist. "[T]he average Silicon Valley start-up or even medium sized company, no matter how truly innovative they are, I have no doubt that aspects of what they're doing violate patents right now. And that's what's fundamentally broken about this system right now."</b></u><br />
[...]<br />
And, in fact, that's what's happening with Chris Crawford's patent. <b>Intellectual Venures sold it to a company called Oasis research in June of 2010. Less than a month later, Oasis Research used the patent to sue over a dozen different tech companies, including Rackspace, GoDaddy, and AT&T.</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>We called Oasis several times, but no one ever answered the phone.</b><br />
[...]<br />
There was hardly any public information about Oasis Research. No way to know who owned it, or how many employees it had.<br />
<br />
One of the few details that was available was an address: 104 E. Houston street, suite 190, Marshall, Texas.<br />
<br />
So we went to Marshall. The door to Oasis's office was locked, and through the crack under the door we could see there were no lights were on inside.<br />
<br />
It's kind of a cliche to knock on the door of the empty office. But we'd flown a long way. So we knocked. No one answered.<br />
<br />
The office was in a corridor where all the other doors looked exactly the same —locked, nameplates over the door, no light coming out. It was a corridor of silent, empty offices with names like "Software Rights Archive," and "Bulletproof Technology of Texas."<br />
<br />
<b>It turns out a lot of those companies in that corridor, maybe every single one of them, is doing exactly what Oasis Research is doing. They appear to have no employees. They are not coming up with new inventions. The companies are in Marshall, Texas because they are filing lawsuits for patent infringement.</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>Patent lawsuits are big business in Marshall, which is part of the eastern district of Texas.</b><br />
<br />
<b>Many people say that juries in Marshall are friendly to patent owners trying to get a large verdict.</b><br />
[...]<br />
<b>Oasis is a company with no operations, no products, and, as far as we can tell, no employees, that is using a very broad patent from 1998 to sue over a dozen companies.</b><br />
[...]<br />
<u><b>All the big tech companies have started amassing troves of software patents — not to build anything, but to defend themselves. If a company's patent horde is big enough, it can essentially say to the world, "If you try to sue me with your patents, I'll sue you with mine."</b></u><br />
<u><b><br />
</b></u><br />
<u><b>It's mutually assured destruction.</b></u> But instead of arsenals of nuclear weapons, it's arsenals of patents. And this was a problem Intellectual Ventures founder Nathan Myhrvold said he was trying to solve when he first started the company. <br />
[...]<br />
<b>The pitch he heard was, basically, Intellectual Ventures helps defend against lawsuits. Intellectual Ventures has this horde of 35,000 patents — patents that, for a price, companies can use to defend themselves.</b><br />
<br />
Technology companies pay Intellectual Ventures fees ranging "from tens of thousands to the millions and millions of dollars ... to buy themselves insurance that protects them from being sued by any harmful, malevolent outsiders," Sacca says.<br />
<br />
<b>There's an implication in IV's pitch, Sacca says: If you don't join us, who knows what'll happen?</b><br />
<br />
He says it reminds him of "a mafia-style shakedown, where someone comes in the front door of your building and says, 'It would be a shame if this place burnt down. I know the neighborhood really well and I can make sure that doesn't happen.' "<br />
[...]<br />
One former IV patent was used by an NPE to sue 19 different companies, a broad assortment that included Dell, Abercrombie & Fitch, Visa, and UPS.<br />
<br />
These companies all have websites where, when you scroll your mouse over certain sections, pop-up boxes appear. <u><b>The NPE said, "We have the patent on that." Which would make pretty much the entire Internet guilty of infringing the patent.</b></u><br />
[...]<br />
<b>In early July, the bankrupt tech company Nortel put its 6,000 patents up for auction as part of a liquidation. <u>A bidding war broke out among Silicon Valley powerhouses. </u>Google said it wanted the patents purely to defend against lawsuits and it was willing to spend over $3 billion to get them. That wasn't enough, though.</b><br />
<br />
The portfolio eventually sold to Apple and a consortium of other tech companies including Microsoft and Ericsson. The price tag: $4.5 billion dollars.<u><b> Five times the opening bid. More than double what most people involved were expecting. The largest patent auction in history.</b></u><br />
<br />
That's $4.5 billion on patents that these companies almost certainly don't want for their technical secrets. <b>That $4.5 billion<u> won't build anything new,</u> won't bring new products to the shelves, won't open up new factories that can hire people who need jobs. That's $4.5 billion dollars that adds to the price of every product these companies sell you. <u>That's $4.5 billion dollars buying arms for an ongoing patent war.</u></b><br />
<br />
<b>The big companies — Google, Apple, Microsoft — will probably survive. The likely casualties are the companies out there now that no one's ever heard of that could one day take their place.</b></blockquote>ciaoant1http://www.blogger.com/profile/02772023277252383810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764018408628968113.post-36691549846833732412012-02-03T21:32:00.001+02:002012-02-03T21:33:20.263+02:00SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, private property and internet monopolies (part 1)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.southbourne.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Wikipedia-SOPA-Protest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="http://www.southbourne.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Wikipedia-SOPA-Protest.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Wikipedia was one of the many sites that protested the SOPA act</i></div><br />
While I had to spent a few weeks in the hospital, taking care of my sick mother, many things happened in the world - after all, we are in the middle of a crisis, so events tend to unfold very rapidly (and they certainly won't wait for my sick mother to recover)<br />
<br />
<b>Iran </b>is always on the news, Europe sanctions against Iran (something that particularly hurts the weaken European economies that are very much dependent on Iranian oil - Greece in particular is committing economic suicide as a state, in order to please its rulers), Iran sells oil to India in exchange for gold, China is ready to do even more business with Iran, as they could become Iran's <b>only </b>client if the West goes ahead with its sanctions. China may even <b>benefit </b>from this situation, as Iran will probably be forced to sell its oil at a cheaper price.<br />
<br />
Furthermore, the West is even trying to launch an attack against <b>Syria</b>, the only neighbouring country left that isn't under Western rule. If the West succeeds, Iran will be completely surrounded - but Russia (and China) are vetoing this attack (for obvious reasons).<br />
<br />
<b>But hey, who cares about this boring stuff? Maybe we will start caring if (or rather, <b>when</b>) we stop being able to buy oil at "reasonable" prices. For now, let's talk about something else, something that is REALLY serious, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/14/sopa-protect-ip_n_1140180.html?ref=canada&ir=Canada" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">SOPA, PIPA, ACTA and all those other weird laws that inhibit piracy on the internet</a>. I mean, you take away whatever you want, except our "free" internet and our "right" to watch, listen, share and download stuff without having to pay any money for it, right? :-)</b><br />
<br />
<br />
<div align="center"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://kanatyler.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/braveheart.jpg" /></div><br />
Let's face it, we are all hooked in this <b>"culture of free",</b> especially when it comes to the internet: Free movies, free music, free books, free information, free news, free TV shows, free sports live coverage, free porn, you name it, it's there and it's for free. <br />
<br />
And not only is it cheaper, but it can also be <b>better </b>that the paid version if it (for example, the newspaper provides a much slower coverage of the news, and you can't use any video, etc. So, the internet is a much <b>better </b>medium). Furthermore, the internet is an entirely <b>"new realm",</b> and this means that there are many "unexplored regions", and room for innovation. It also means that <b>it hasn't yet reached the stage of the "game" where a few oligarchs control it</b> (whereas the "real" world <b>HAS </b>reached this stage, and there are monopolies and oligopolies wherever you look, controlling everything - banking, oil, media, telecommunications, even the food we eat (think Monsanto)).<br />
<br />
Of course, the ruling class is trying to "establish its authority" on the internet, and a few oligopolies/monopolies are already being formed. And the rich oligarchs are trying to buy whatever they can get their hands on - for example <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703515504576142410532498754.html" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">JP Morgan wants to invent a lot of money in Twitter and other internet projects</a> (and so does <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jan/17/goldman-sachs-facebook-private-placement" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">Goldman Sachs</a> and all the other "big players").<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://img851.imageshack.us/img851/1094/gordongekko.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://img851.imageshack.us/img851/1094/gordongekko.jpg" width="306" /></a></div> <b>So, a familiar pattern emerges: </b>A few "players" start owning everything, and there is no real need for to <b>create </b>something, as they can just <b>own </b>it and demand to be paid by the rest of us for the usage of their property (much like the Monopoly board game).<br />
<br />
<b>But let's be fair, the internet is not yet monopolized, or at least it isn't as monopolized as everything else. This is why we like it, </b>because we can still innovate, and use it for our benefit (for example, we can share music, videos, books, etc. We can even find cool blogs and sites that provide a much clearer view of world that the traditional media, or use tweeter and facebook to better coordinate events such as "the Arab spring"!).<br />
<br />
<b>Was all this "too good to last"?</b><br />
<br />
<br />
<div align="center"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://www.memo.fr/Media/Gutenberg_presse.jpg" /><br />
<i>Gutenberg died on February 3, 1468</i></div><br />
Here is an interesting tidbit from a <a href="http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/adrianhon/100007115/sopa-is-the-equivalent-of-smashing-the-gutenberg-press-and-will-unite-the-internet-against-it/" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">Telegraph article</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">One of the most important technological advances in the past thousand years was Gutenberg's printing press. As one Italian bishop put it, it would take three printers working for three months to produce 300 copies of a book – but it would take three scribes a lifetime each to complete the same number.<br />
<br />
Yet it wasn't only the speed of the printing press that made it so revolutionary – it was its ability to produce practically perfect copies of written text. No longer would students have to worry about errors or omissions introduced by scribes working off second or third-hand copies – they could instead rest assured that their copy was as accurate as the original master.<br />
<br />
<b>Ideas could spread faster, farther, and with more fidelity than ever before – not for nothing does Elizabeth Evenden, a lecturer in the history of books, call the new technology "the internet of its day", with information no longer "coming purely from the pulpits or disseminated by governments."</b><br />
<br />
Over five hundred years on, we can now make 300 copies of a book – and send them across the world – not in three months, but in the blink of an eye. This advance has led to the flowering of online commerce and the exchange of new and diverse ideas between people who would never otherwise have been able to talk, let alone meet [...] </blockquote><b>Yes, we all now have a "printing press" in our very houses, </b>and it is a much better one than the one created by Gutenberg! All it takes is a computer and electricity.<br />
<br />
Of course, the fact that now ideas and news can spread at a much faster pace and reach broader audiences doesn't mean that that "we are more wise than ever". In fact, the world seems to be more complicated and difficult to understand than ever before, as lies can also be spread faster now than ever before. The key to knowledge is not just having more information, but it is having <b>a coherent vision of the world</b>, in order to correctly process all the data you receive from it. To put it in another way, what's the point of having a lot of TV stations, if their content is crap, or if your tv is not working, because it's can't decode the signal it receives?<br />
<br />
Internet provided the people with a powerful - granted, it hasn't always been used very wisely, but still it enables us to listen to alternative opinions except the usual "talking heads" of the "big media". And it also allows us to share things like music or movies, and even enhance them (for example, you can use the information you found on an article to create a better article of your own, etc.).<br />
<br />
This is all great and all, but how can the capitalists ensure that the founding principle on which their system is based will be respected?<br />
<b><br />
Capitalism is a system based on <u>private property.</u></b> This is something that everyone knows, yet surprisingly few people seem to be able to understand what this means. Here is a very interesting chart + commentary from <a href="http://azizonomics.com/2012/01/18/the-internet-today/" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">azizonomics</a>:<br />
<br />
[...] <b>the rising trend of file sharing has given media companies the sense that they are “losing revenue”:</b><br />
<br />
<br />
<div align="center"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://azizonomics.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/cybersource-online-revenue-lost-due-to-fraud-2000-2010-may11.gif?w=500&h=376" /></div><br />
<b>Private property: This is what it comes down to. </b>What the "media companies" are essentially saying is that they <b>own </b>this song, this TV series episode, this e-book or this movie. They paid some money in order to acquire this particular "square" on the real-life "monopoly board", and now they want to collect rent everytime someone steps in <b>their </b>square. This is how the system works, isn't it? I mean, what's the point of buying a square on the Monopoly board, if the other players aren't going to pay you if they step on it? What's the point of financing the creation of a movie or a TV series, if the viewrs ("clients") refuse to pay any money for watching it?<br />
<br />
This is very bad for you, the <b>owner </b>of this particular square. And this is why you must stop this sort of behaviour, which goes against the very core of the system (private property). I mean, the people do respect private property when it comes to paying their electricity bills, or paying the barber who cuts their hair. But when it comes to paying for watching movies, or reading a book, they <b>don't.</b> This is <b>not </b>just an financial matter of "lost revenue", <b>it is also a political and ideological battle: </b><br />
<br />
<b>The people "must" be taught to respect private property laws on the internet, otherwise they might get some "strange ideas" about abolishing private property all together, thus ending all the monopolies that now control their lives and replacing them with a system the producers of wealth cooperate and share everything, from mp3's and movies to...food and electricity, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs".</b><br />
<br />
Here are some more interesting comments by the azizonomics article i mentioned earlier:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">[...] The trouble is file sharing isn’t “lost revenue”. There is no guarantee whatever that a file downloaded is somehow a substitute for a sale. It’s a fundamentally different kind of transaction. For a start, it’s free. Consumers will take things for free that they would never buy, because it costs them less to do so. More importantly, <b>it’s not stealing; it’s copying,</b> and there is a difference. <b>It’s not taking a physical product that someone has manufactured.</b> There’s no direct lost revenue. And ultimately, <b>if enough people copy it, it builds exposure for a product. </b></blockquote>This last point is actually correct - piracy is a good way to build exposure. But this is not as important as respecting private property, as it is the cornerstone upon which capitalism is built on. The article claims that downloading something for free is "not stealing; it’s copying, and there is a difference. It’s not taking a physical product that someone has manufactured". <b>But this is <u>not</u> correct: </b><br />
<br />
Capitalism treats <b>everything </b>as "products" that can be sold or bought (for a profit), or at least that's its "natural instinct". <b>NOTHING </b>is free. You have to fight for every little thing in this life ("there is no such thing as a free lunch" in capitalism as the neoliberals famously -and rightly- declared). Movies, books, music songs, all these things <b>are </b>products -the fact that they are not physical doesn't really matter much. In fact, this is a big problem for the capitalists, as the "digital age" is still new, and <b>the people haven't yet been taught that they must respect private property laws on the "digital products"</b> (whereas they <b>have</b> been taught that they must respect private property laws on the "physical products", as they have been around for many years).<br />
<br />
Here's another good point made by the azizonomics article:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">[...] There are still many ways for big media to<b> monetise their products</b> in this new world: the music industry can stop concentrating on record sales, and started concentrating on concert tickets. Newspapers can move their businesses online, or use Apple’s tablet distribution model. Movie distributors can focus on high-definition content like Blu Ray, which is hard to redistribute online. That’s just off the top of my head.<br />
<br />
<b>But of course, this is creative destruction</b>. Times change, societies change, fortunes will be made and fortunes will be lost.<br />
<br />
<b>So it’s in the interests of the big media elite to harness the power of government to create draconian laws to snub out the copy and paste new media culture that has developed, because that opens up a whole new revenue stream: litigation. If you can’t earn your millions, you might as well litigate your way to them [...] </b></blockquote>This is correct, and if you click the article's link, you will find a lot of interesting graphs about this "creative destruction", as the "old media" are falling, and the "new media" are rising, as they are better, cheaper and they are not as controlled by a few rich oligarchs (who <b>inhibit </b>creation in order to get rich by asking us to respect private property - something that makes a lot of sense for them, the owners of pretty much everything, but makes no real sense to us who have (next to) nothing and are about to go bankrupt, just like it happens on any Monopoly game).<br />
<br />
<br />
<div align="center"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpSP6FajkHiQDQKmxHZ9FelcJkJWgUmqiM91m249lVu2zaej_UYl6G2_MbhrmIXHZtMqgCJNELr1KxvnvpF2kw1UuBxBCMNNrLOw18NbSGGxXqkfDu3ToQfULcWHgx2AanPWCOh1QGv2o/s320/social_media_monopoly-700x700-500x500.jpg" /></div><br />
Here is a great article from the people of <b>Pirate Bay</b> (some of them got <a href="http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/292296/20120203/pirate-bay-founders-prison-sentence-redirects-site.htm" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">arrested</a> today). It accurately describes a "cycle of events" that <b>always </b>leads to the formation of monopolies, that control our lives and inhibit growth and creation. <b>This cycle must finally be broken </b>- but this can only happen if our system of private property is <b>replaced by a system run by those who work and actually produce wealth, not by those who own it and use it to control everyone else, with their own profits as their only "moral guide" in life. Today's system has trully reached a point of incredible decay, as it gives people the inceptive to fight against each other in order to survive. </b>A few people will survive only by destroying the lives of many others.<br />
<br />
This is what we are witnessing today before our very eyes - the internet is but one of many fronts, although its "digital" nature makes it a more compelling case, as the people haven't yet been taught to "respect private property" and they try to "make up excuses for their disobedience" ("it's not stealing; it's copying", etc.). <b>But true victory can only come for the people only if and when they abolish private property all together - otherwise, they will over and over again be destined to repeat this vicious cycle:</b><br />
<br />
<a href="http://dailyreckoning.com/a-message-from-the-people-at-thepiratebay-org/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailyreckoning+%28The+Daily+Reckoning%29" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">A Message from the People at ThePirateBay.org</span></b></a> <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"> <b>Over a century ago Thomas Edison got the patent for a device which would “do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear”. He called it the Kinetoscope. He was not only amongst the first to record video, <u>he was also the first person to own the copyright to a motion picture.</u><br />
<br />
Because of Edison’s patents for the motion pictures,<u> it was close to financially impossible to create motion pictures in the North American east coast. The movie studios therefor relocated to California, and founded what we today call Hollywood. The reason was mostly because there was no patent.</u><br />
<br />
There was also no copyright to speak of, so the studios could copy old stories and make movies out of them — like Fantasia, one of Disney’s biggest hits ever.</b><br />
<br />
<b>So, the whole basis of this industry, that today is screaming about losing control over immaterial rights, is that they circumvented immaterial rights. They copied (or put in their terminology: “stole”) other people’s creative works, without paying for it.</b> They did it in order to make a huge profit. Today, they’re all successful and most of the studios are on the Fortune 500 list of the richest companies in the world. Congratulations — <b><u>it’s all based on being able to re-use other people’s creative works. And today they hold the rights to what other people create.</u></b><br />
<br />
<b>If you want to get something released, you have to abide [by] their rules. The ones they created after circumventing other people’s rules.<br />
<br />
The reason they are always complaining about “pirates” today is simple. We’ve done what they did.</b> <b><u>We circumvented the rules they created and created our own.</u></b> <b><u>We crushed their monopoly by giving people something more efficient.</u></b> <b><u>We allow people to have direct communication between each other, circumventing the profitable middle [men, who] in some cases take over 107% of the profits (yes, you pay to work for them).</u></b><br />
<br />
It’s all based on the fact that we’re competition.<u><b> We’ve proven that their existence in their current form is no longer needed.</b></u> We’re just better than they are.<br />
<br />
<b>And the funny part is that our rules are very similar to the founding ideas of the USA. We fight for freedom of speech. We see all people as equal. We believe that the public, not the elite, should rule the nation. We believe that laws should be created to serve the public, not the rich corporations.</b><br />
<br />
The Pirate Bay is truly an international community. The team is spread all over the globe — but we’ve stayed out of the USA. We have Swedish roots and a Swedish friend said this:<br />
<br />
The word SOPA means “trash” in Swedish. The word PIPA means “a pipe” in Swedish. This is of course not a coincidence. They want to make the Internet into a one way pipe, with them at the top, shoving trash through the pipe down to the rest of us obedient consumers.<br />
<br />
The public opinion on this matter is clear. Ask anyone on the street and you’ll learn that no one wants to be fed with trash. Why the US government [wants] the American people to be fed with trash is beyond our imagination, but we hope that you will stop them, before we all drown [...] </blockquote>ciaoant1http://www.blogger.com/profile/02772023277252383810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764018408628968113.post-31454175040557391782012-01-18T18:39:00.000+02:002012-01-18T18:39:35.697+02:00How's that for competitiveness? Jon Stewart's video on the Foxconn workers and moreSorry for not posting during the last few days, but i had to deal with a medical emergency (my mother was in the hospital), so there was no time for me to write. I will resume writing about China, in the third and final post on the subject, where we shall discuss China's moves on the monetary plain, as it seeks to end the dollar's rain as the world reserve currency.<br />
<br />
But for now, let's talk about something else - let's talk about my sick mother who went to the hospital and got better:<br />
<br />
You see, if you get sick, you <i>can </i>(?) go to the hospital and get well. But what happens if you you have no or little money? Then you obviously or you are forced to carry this medical problem/injury for a long time, maybe even forever.<br />
<br />
Not everyone is supposeed to make it - in fact the system <b>relies </b><b></b>on NOT everyone making it, as it tries to rationalize why a lot of people "should" die (mass murder) just because they were born in poverty, or because they just happened to be born during a war or a generalized capitalistic crisis.<br />
<br />
The system has been very good at "rationalizing" this muss murdering process for a long time - in fact, there are many people who are <b>genuinly surprised</b> that the capitalist system is now leading them to their death or to mass poverty, as they don't even understand that this is <b>not </b>a failure of the system, but a necessary process for it to continue to function.<br />
<br />
<br />
Think of it like <b>monopoly:</b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://asdfhj.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/board300x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://asdfhj.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/board300x300.jpg" /></a></div><br />
Monopoly is a great simulation board game for the capitalist system, as it is based on the concept of <b>private property </b>(of course, the real thing is much more complicated than the board game).<br />
<br />
In the early stages of the game, all the little squares of the board that represent streets, airports, the electric company, etc., are for sale. So, all the players can buy them. It's fun, isn't it?<br />
<br />
But as game progresses, then sooner or later a few players (those who are luckier and/or better investors) will end up owning almost everything, forming powerful monopolies/oligopolies. As for the rest of the players, they end up going bankrupt one by one, as they own less and less, and they have to pay rent to the rich players on almsost every turn, as the rich players end up owning all the squares of the board. This is NOT a "failure" of the game, it is in fact <b>its purpose</b>. I mean, <b>how can you play monopoly without bankrupting most of the players? It is simply not possible,</b> and it is only a matter of time before it happens.<br />
<br />
Real-life capitalism is of course a <b>great </b>system for creating new, better "squares" in order to replace the older ones, especially through technological advances (for example, M. Zuckerberg created Facebook, an entirely new "square in the board" and he now earns a lot of money ("rent") as everyone wants to use it). <br />
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So, the real-life "board" is constantly changing, and it does provide opportunities for someone to create a new "square". This makes the real-life game much more "interesting", and it also helps in delaying the inevitable bankruptcy of a lot of people. But, especially it times like these, when there aren't a lot of new "squares" being created, the process of bankrupting a lot of players cannot be stopped. It is the nature of the game - a lot of players <b>must </b>go bankrupt, so that a few oligarchs can own everything.<br />
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Sure, there are plenty of squares to go around for everybody - in fact, this is what marxism is all about: Abolishing private property, as it is the only way for the working class people, the majority of the population, to actually be able to produce without having to live in poverty, when at the same time a few oligarchs are living like kings. And, surprise surprise, they seem to prefer it of the workers live in poverty, just like the oligarxhs of the past, the oligarxhs they once violently overthrew during the Frech Revolution. Capitalism has created a lot of wealth, enough for everyone - and we whould praise capitalism for this great achievement. But capitalism has also helped a tiny minority of the population to control almost all the squares of the board. So, most of us will have to suffer greatly, or we have to abolish private property, so that all the squares of the board are free for everyone. This will of course NOT go down well with the oligarxhs, who will never accept this. But if they are not aliminated by us, then a lot of us WILL be elimited by them. This is a process that is becoming increasingly clear as time goes by. And let's not forget this very important fact: In the earleier stages of the "game", the palyers that were eliminated were usually people from the poorer countries (Third world countries, etc.). But now that the global workforce also includes the Asian workers, there are a lot of Western people who are deemed "not-competitive". So, for the first time in years, a lot of the people that are going bankrupt are Westerners, not just "unimportant" people from "unimportant" places.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.craigbellamy.net/images/freetrade.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://www.craigbellamy.net/images/freetrade.jpg" width="284" /></a></div><br />
Let's take a closer look at what it takes for a worker to be "competivie enough" to stay in the game and not go bankrupt. After all, the capitalists want us to give them incentives to do business in the West, instead of Asia, right? So, it would be a good idea to check out what is it about the Asian workers that they like so much:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/11/article-2084971-0F6811F700000578-728_634x481.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="302" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/11/article-2084971-0F6811F700000578-728_634x481.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/11/article-2084971-0F68120300000578-201_634x421.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/11/article-2084971-0F68120300000578-201_634x421.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><h1><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2084971/Hong-Kongs-cage-homes-Tens-thousands-living-6ft-2ft-rabbit-hutches.html"><u><span style="font-size: large;">Cage dogs of Hong Kong: The tragedy of tens of thousands living in 6ft by 2ft rabbit hutches - in a city with more Louis Vuitton shops than Paris</span></u></a><u><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></u></h1><blockquote>Hong Kong, one of the world's richest cities, is abuzz with a luxury property boom that has seen homes exchanged for record sums.</blockquote><blockquote><b>But the wealth of the city has a darker side, with tens of thousands priced out of housing altogether and forced to live in the most degrading conditions.</b></blockquote><blockquote>These pictures by British photographer Brian Cassey capture the <b>misery of people - some estimates put the figure as high as 100,000 - who are forced to live in cages measuring just 6ft by 2 1/2ft.</b><br />
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Unscrupulous landlords are charging around US$200 a month for each cage, which are packed 20 to a room, and up to three levels high. Cockroaches, wall lizards, lice and rats are common.</blockquote><b>And if that isn't enough, you should definately check out Jon Stewart's latest video from "The Daily Show", about the Chinese workers at Foxconn:</b><br />
<b>How's </b><br />
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</tbody></table>ciaoant1http://www.blogger.com/profile/02772023277252383810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7764018408628968113.post-77441185512209418182012-01-13T17:58:00.000+02:002012-01-13T17:58:28.780+02:00On 100 Year Anniversery of 'Bread and Roses' Strike, Many Draw Connections to Today's Hurdles<b><i>Repost from <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/01/11-4">"Common Dreams"</a>:</i></b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.commondreams.org/sites/commondreams.org/files/imce-images/bread-and-roses-strikeold.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="204" src="http://www.commondreams.org/sites/commondreams.org/files/imce-images/bread-and-roses-strikeold.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="image-right" style="width: 325px;"><span class="caption">Bread and Roses Strikers March </span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>January 12, 2012 was the 100 year anniversary of the 'Bread and Roses' textile workers Strike in Lawrence, Mass. The dire conditions leading up to the strike remind some of the current socio-political climate and offer lessons for workers' struggles today.</div><br />
<b>The Boston Globe <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/01/11/bread-roses-strike-resonates-occupy-protests-over-income-inequality/7Y8vzzWSr1H48qIGlL4kKM/story.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">reports today</a></b>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><div class="rteindent1">The action, known as the Bread and Roses Strike, not only called attention to horrific conditions in the mills, but also to the concentration of wealth and power in the United States, an issue that 100 years later would spur protesters to Occupy Wall Street, Boston, and other cities across the country. </div></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">The essence of the Lawrence strike resonates loudly in today’s Main Street vs. Wall Street fight, with income disparities brought to light by the 1912 walkout reexamined through the lens of high unemployment, a shrinking middle class, and the view that most economic benefits have flowed to the wealthiest Americans. [...] </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div class="rteindent1">The desperation that drove poor textile workers to abandon their jobs for the picket lines is echoed in the frustration that drove people to camp out in financial districts across the country.</div><br />
James Green, a labor historian at UMass Boston, sees similarities to the 1912 uprising in many recent events, not only in the Occupy movement but in the Tea Party, the aggressive tactics of striking Verizon workers last summer, and customers railing against new Bank of America fees.</blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.commondreams.org/sites/commondreams.org/files/imce-images/occu_0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://www.commondreams.org/sites/commondreams.org/files/imce-images/occu_0.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
Steve Early recently <a href="http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/12504/one_hundred_years_after_lawrence_strike_the_cry_for_bread_roses_still_reson/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">examined</a> contemporary Lawrence for<b> In These Times</b>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><div class="rteindent1">Lawrence remains a city of the working poor, better known for its sub-standard housing, high unemployment, political corruption, and troublesome street crime. Ninety percent of its public school students are Hispanic and few speak English as a first language. Although not condemned to factory work at an early age, these children struggle to learn under tenement-like conditions. A recent report by the teachers’ union describes “crowded classrooms and physical infrastructure in distress: leaking roofs, poor air quality, persistent mold problems, crumbling walls and rodent infestation.” Demoralized teachers have been working without a new contract for two years; student performance is so dismal that a state take-over the school system has been actively considered.</div><div class="rteindent1"></div><div class="rteindent1">When worker solidarity prevailed over corporate power in the icy streets of Lawrence a century ago, it made the promise of a better life real for many. The Bread and Roses strike became a consciousness-raising experience, not only for textile workers and their families, but the nation as a whole. Nevertheless, at <a href="http://breadandrosescentennial.org/" rel="nofollow">centennial events</a> in Lawrence over the next several months, it will be hard not to notice that many immigrant workers there still lack “bread and roses”—in the form of living wage jobs, affordable housing, and better schools.</div><div class="rteindent1"></div><div class="rteindent1">But that injustice will not be cured until U.S. workers and their allies, in Lawrence and elsewhere, find a way to make history again, not just celebrate it.</div></blockquote><div>Writing for <b>Common Dreams</b> last week John de Graaf and David Batker<b> </b><a href="http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/09-7" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">remind us</a>:</div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div class="rteindent1">The strike is commonly referred to as the “Bread and Roses” strike, because some women were said to have held up a banner declaring, “We want bread, and roses, too!” [...]</div><div></div><div class="rteindent1">Hearts starve as well as bodies. We do not live by bread alone. It’s an old message with wellsprings deep in our religious traditions, and one the Bread and Roses centennial calls back to our attention. And it’s a message we should not forget.</div></blockquote><div style="text-align: center;">***</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Here's another interesting article from the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/study-americans-believe-conflict-between-rich-poor-is-growing/2012/01/11/gIQAZHibrP_story.html">"Washington Post"</a>: </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://images.icanhascheezburger.com/completestore/2008/9/14/128658751481253598.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="285" src="http://images.icanhascheezburger.com/completestore/2008/9/14/128658751481253598.jpg" width="400" /></a></div></div><h1><span style="font-size: large;">Study: Americans believe conflict between rich, poor is growing </span></h1><blockquote>About two-thirds of the public now believes there are strong conflicts between the rich and poor in America, making class a likelier source of tension than traditional flash points of race or nationality, <a href="http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/01/11/rising-share-of-americans-see-conflict-between-rich-and-poor/">a study from the Pew Research Center found</a>. <br />
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“It is kind of amazing,” said Richard Morin, a senior editor at Pew who authored the study. “This is people not only sensing conflict, but people sensing an intensity of these conflicts — that’s what makes it striking and politically important.”</blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.rts.squat.net/interact/diy/logos/classwar.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="268" src="http://www.rts.squat.net/interact/diy/logos/classwar.gif" width="400" /></a></div> ciaoant1http://www.blogger.com/profile/02772023277252383810noreply@blogger.com