Pope On Tyranny

Pope Francis has released a “position paper,” a teaching document which is important but not infallible.  I am responding to the news stories abut the document, not the document, becuase I have not read the document, and the news storries may very well misrepresent what the document says.

***

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis called for renewal of the Roman Catholic Church and attacked unfettered capitalism as "a new tyranny", urging global leaders to fight poverty and growing inequality in the first major work he has authored alone as pontiff.

***Well, capitalism, unfettered or otherwise, is a problem, since it legally protects usury. ***

In it, Francis went further than previous comments criticizing the global economic system, attacking the "idolatry of money" and beseeching politicians to guarantee all citizens "dignified work, education and healthcare".

***Now this is odd.  How do politicians  guarantee all citizens dignified work, education and healthcare?  Only markets can provide this.  Capitalism is not markets, but neither is politics.  I must read the original to see how this is resolved.***

He also called on rich people to share their wealth. "Just as the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say 'thou shalt not' to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills," Francis wrote in the document issued on Tuesday.

***The real wealth is human action, participation in life.  The best way to share wealth is investing in the businesses that create goods and services for fellow man.  Again, I look forward to reading his ideas for sharing the wealth.***

In it, economic inequality features as one of the issues Francis is most concerned about, and the 76-year-old pontiff calls for an overhaul of the financial system and warns that unequal distribution of wealth inevitably leads to violence.

***Yes, and that violence is most welcome by the abusers themselves.  Such a crisis gives them more power.***

"As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets 

***Absolutely correct...  markets need the governance of the players, the buyer and the seller in their natural roles...***

and financial speculation 

***Capitalism is based on financial speculation instead of gainful production.  It well understands gainful production, but only to better play the financial speculator.***

and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world's problems or, for that matter, to any problems," he wrote.

***Right... and the structural causes are all rooted in state interference in the markets.  For example, the outrageous Jim Crow laws were laws, only held in place by the force of the state.  So it is with the structuraly causes of inequality.***

Denying this was simple populism, he called for action "beyond a simple welfare mentality" 

***Excellent, welfare is a trap...***

and added: "I beg the Lord to grant us more politicians who are genuinely disturbed by the state of society, the people, the lives of the poor."

*** Screeeeeech... say what?  I need to read this in context.  Is this a throw-away line or the summary?  Assuming any politicians genuinely were, what could they do?  Assuming all were, what makes anyone think they would agree on a solution?  Assuming  they all agreed, what could they do? Or maybe that analysis is precisely the point, to get us back to the order out of chaos we see in anarchy.***

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USA Lags Estonia on Internet Service

We are 31st in the world...  and the solution?  More regulations!  Of course!

How? The 1996 Telecommunications Act — which was meant to foster competition — allowed cable companies and telecoms companies to simply divide markets and merge their way to monopoly, allowing them to charge customers higher and higher prices without the kind of investment in internet infrastructure, especially in next-generation fiber optic connections, that is ongoing in other countries.

No kidding... you mean the billions we paid in taxes and keep paying to build out the system has got us behind the rest of the world?  Regulating things made things worse?  Who could have seen that coming?!

And of course, blame it on the free market when regulations don't work as promised!

Why, it is just a shortage of regulation and taxes....  and never mind -

1. The slowdown caused by the "spy-on-absolutely-every-communication" by a half dozen rogue agencies...  3rd 4th and 5th iterations copying and storing every bit of communication takes just as much capacity each iteration as the initial messages.

2. I get several hundred pieces of spam a day filtered out.  Spam is now 70% of all traffic.  Can you imagine if traffic went down to a third.  Bill Gates #1 customer is government, and they don't care about spam...  his $70 billion profit is probably largely related to never having to create secure systems. To this day.

We can stop spam with technology and redundant use by deciding no more spying.  But what we will do is more taxes and regulation. It never helped before, but as is always the argument, this time it is different.

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Kissinger on the Ukraine

Well, this is why I never liked him...

In my life, I have seen four wars begun with great enthusiasm and public support, all of which we did not know how to end and from three of which we withdrew unilaterally. The test of policy is how it ends, not how it begins.

No Hank, it matters how you get into a war.  And here is where I disagree with him and Putin:

4. It is incompatible with the rules of the existing world order for Russia to annex Crimea. But it should be possible to put Crimea’s relationship to Ukraine on a less fraught basis. To that end, Russia would recognize Ukraine’s sovereignty over Crimea. Ukraine should reinforce Crimea’s autonomy in elections held in the presence of international observers. The process would include removing any ambiguities about the status of the Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol.

Too late, a snap election has the Crimeans voting themselves back into Russia after 50 years.  Putin should have had them vote themselves into independence, which would have confounded his opponents.  He could have then fashioned a Hong Kong on the Black Sea, and buried the Ukraine, with its ardent desire for bailouts, and the West in its ardent desire to steal more territory.

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Greater North Atlantic Co-prosperity Sphere - TTIP

If it needs regulation it is not Free Trade.  Like American football, the rules determine the outcome.  It was disconcerting to read about Chile and Hong Kong signing a free trade agreement.  Chile changed some rules, Hong Kong changed nothing, Hong Kong already unilaterally had free trade with Chile, for some 200 years.  But celebrate the agreement they did, if only in complement to Chilean politicians' weltanshauung.

Now regulators are talking "free trade"  (regulation + free trade? oxymoronic!)  the TTIP.

All advances in free trade can be made unilaterally.  Once offered, everyone else begins the race to the bottom, free trade.  It is why the powers that be forbid free trade, especially among the crony-capitalists. But the celebrate what they forbid, so most people feel good about it.



Points from the video:

1. it calls the patterns and practices enforced in law the "best possible legal economic political environment"...  the video claims it twice... methinks the lady doth protest too much.

It is a legal, economic, political, environment, but certainly not the best.  Ken Arrow demonstrated back in the 1950s democracies cannot attain the will of the people, or even by vote of the elite. The best cannot be known through the process they have, democracry or whatever, only through human action, freedom.  500 million people making decisions each day is how you arrive at the best plan.

2. The vid insists the EU does not favor particular product, sellers or countries.  Well, they would say that, wouldn't they?  It is embarrassing to hear anyone say such a thing.

3. The EU is needed to combat counterfeiting &  “piracy.”  Now this is an example of believing one’s own PR.  Nobody cares about this non-problem, except the welfare queens in big business.

4. It notes most worldwide growth is outside EU.  Indeed, when your legal econoomic political environment forces a one child policy, your distorted economy gets crushed by competition.

5. Trade policy affect everyone.  True.  Negatively.  Abusers are as deformed as the abused.  Stop making policies now!

Here are some entertaining views of the EU from within the EU.



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I Am Going To Do More Ukraine.

So says a politician, British Labor politician and EU something or other, to an Estonian politician also meddling in the Ukraine.  They outline ways to effect the outcome they want, and that is to take over via the IMF, but gosh, the Ukrainians are doubting the new government, and upset that the snipers who killed so many people came from the outside, in fact not from the deposed government.

The big problem is the people of Ukraine have no faith in any Ukrainian leaders (sound familiar?)

"Go lay some flowers, show you care."   Aha... that will make up for 25 years of abuse, flowers over the blood of victims.  Probably only Russia and China are attuned to what the people actually feel.

This is all so important that she is not going to visit Australia, she is "going to do more Ukraine."  Start at 2 minutes, or you'll see politicians spend 20% of their time listening to muzak.


And in the "never believe your own PR" category, an RT infobabe resigns on air in protest of Russian perfidy.  Young lady, people watch the news for entertainment, not information.  You take yourself too seriously if you think anyone expects or cares about integrity in newsreading.

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Of Course My Opinion Does Not Matter...

But I dunno...  Anthony sent this in, and it looks like it was designed by a shoplifter or smuggler... air travel was once classy...

Now the consumer apparel market has responded: A startup called Jaktogo is making "wearable" luggage that lets you sneak an extra 30 pounds of stuff onto a plane by wearing it on your body. Jaktogo, which has been operating since 2010, makes three versions of its product, the original Jaktogo with 14 various-sized pockets, the sleeveless "Ponchotogo," and, for ladies, the "Dresstogo," which Jaktogo describes as a "balloon shaped skirt."

Maybe they can build in a lunch bucket too.  Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.

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Growing in Hong Kong

The chief of Federation of Hong Kong Industries has this to say about growing in Hong Kong today:

With weak export demand and rising production costs, what strategies should Hong Kong companies adopt?Land costs, wage costs and labour costs will continue to rise. In light of this, Hong Kong companies should give up on the “cheap land” and “low wage” operational mode they have employed in the past. Manufacturers need to transform themselves. They should upgrade and look to increase the value-added aspect of their products. This should include a review of product development, product design, quality improvement, brand building and marketing practices. If this can be achieved, their customers will see their products as genuinely representing value-for-money, and they will then be more willing to accept higher price points.  

So, compete on design...   and then this..

If you have established a private label or own a brand license, for instance, then a client may believe that adopting that brand on a product may raise the profit margin. In that case, he would accept your price increase. The bargaining power of those manufacturers engaged in OEM is not high, however, and any transformation and upgrade programme will require the support of their clients. OEM and branding initiatives, however, can provide an important lifeline. OEM can be used to maintain a steady supply of orders and continue daily operation, while self-developed products can be gradually introduced into new markets. This allows for time to test the water and to build a brand incrementally. 

OEM..  This has always been a Hong Kong strong suit, so the knowledge is there... I don't see Hong Kong having a trouble making the shift to this.

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Creativity & Start - Up

Dennis sends this in...

"Eminent creators choose and become passionately involved in challenging, risky problems that provide a powerful sense of power from the ability to use their talents,"write M.A. Collins and T.M. Amabile in The Handbook of Creativity.

We hear about 'passion" all the time, and I'll say it again, it is from the Greek "to suffer."  Now what apparently only I add (which I learned from a Congolese priest) is behind passion is joy.  And someone else noted joy is always arrived at indirectly through passion, no finding joy directly, it is only on the other side of suffering.

As to creativity:

In the words of Steve Jobs:

"Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things."

Just so...  I've said that in class before after graphing out the work...  it is remarkable who little talent we who are in int'l trade have, we need only bring talented people together.

There is also another dead give-away as to what you should be working on...  when you find yourself looking at other's work, and saying to yourself, "I can do better than that..."  If so, then go get 'em!

I have an all-day LIVE start up boot camp at Orange Coast College in Los Angeles Saturday, 15 March.

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Bitcoins Hacked Again

You see... Mt Gox was poorly run and so it was vulnerable as to how it could be ripped off, and that vulnerability was unique to Mt Gox... everybody knew that.

Of course, that does not mean every other bitcoin operation does not have its own unique vulnerabilities, each well known in turn...

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2014/03/more-bitcoin-exchanges-hacked-flexcoin.html

Or, the incentive in the design of bitcoin invites theft... as people re wondering...

MT Gox stand for "magic the gathering online exchange..."

Everyone who went through the sixties knows to stay the #*@! away from anything named "magic the whatever...."  Sorry to see the kids getting burned...




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Wait, What?

From Bob Wenzel:

And as everyone here recognizes, the future of the United States is tied to the future of Israel.  This is something that every President since Harry Truman has understood.

I didn't know this.  Is this a good idea?  Given the tensions and uncertainties in the world, should any country be tied to any other, for good or ill?  From this speech we can see that we are every bit as "tied" in the sense of intricated to Iran as Israel.

Given the Chinese stepped up shoulder to shoulder with Russia over the Ukraine, and how Lew admits business people worldwide are eager to trade with Iran, hesitating only at the "ton of bricks" awaiting business people, perhaps opinion worldwide is calculating the value of USA hegemony.  At some point the reckoning is going to discredit the USA.  Watch out below!

Free trade is unilateral, and free trade is the way to peace and prosperity.

The USA was formed with the idea of no entangling alliances and no standing army.  People with power will abuse it and get everyone in trouble.  Here is a movie clip the founder fathers all enjoyed, and understood its metaphor:


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Money

What is money? A free market phenomenon: a medium of exchange and a store of value with these characteristics -

1.)  durable. 

2.) portable. 

3.) divisible. 

4.) intrinsic value. 

5. disinfectant (my addition)

The dollar is none of the above... Warehouse receipts are not money.  Fiat currency is not money. They are warehouse receipts or fiat currency.

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Shostak On Stock Market Bubble

If you want a financial analyst who works in history, theory and specific effects, you'll do not better than Shostak.

As to QEVII or wherever we are, how it is affecting wealth, here Shostak is using the word wealth correctly..

An increase in money supply sets in motion an exchange of nothing for something, which amounts to a diversion of real wealth from wealth generating activities to non-wealth generating activities. In the process this diversion weakens wealth generators and this in turn weakens their ability to grow the overall pool of real wealth i.e. weakens their ability to grow the economy.

If one reads wealth as "I am a speculator and I want what will give me the most money with the least investment" then Shostak is against that which will so distort the economy that such opportunities obtain.  If wealth is the widest possible range of goods and services available to the widest group of people spending their own money, then such opportunities will not occur.  One is rather obliged to work for a living, which is a dreadful idea to many.

They would rather rule in hell than serve in heaven.

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"Left" Anarchy?

I linked to http://c4ss.org/ the other day, and then came back for a closer look.  I was mystified as to how an anarchist could be leftist, or rightest for that matter, and then learned how.

The site is curated by some of my heroes, and some not.  But it is quite anarchic in there are many views on any given topic.  Anarchic!

Some of it shows its age, from 1975:

We can no longer attack subsidies for the poor while supporting even greater subsidies for the rich.

Is this where it is leftist?  Does that sentence mean continue subsidies for the poor as long as there are subsidies for the rich?  Certainly end subsidies for the rich first (first in first out) but all subsidies are violence-backed advances in lassitude.

So I dive in deeper to an essay, to see if I can glean "left." First, this essay gets it facts partly right:

And where do the Somebodies get their power? From monopoly. Here, as usual, the State is the chief of sinners. Usury rests on two great monopolies, – the monopoly of land and the monopoly of credit. Were it not for these, it would disappear. Ground-rent exists only because the State stands by to collect it and to protect land-titles rooted in force or fraud. Otherwise the land would be free to all, and no one could control more than he used. Interest and house-rent exist only because the State grants to a certain class of individuals and corporations the exclusive privilege of using its credit and theirs as a basis for the issuance of circulating currency.

You see the error?  Property rights abuse is a different sin that usury.  Real property title is a common end of usurers, but charging rent is not usury.  And exchange in trade is not lending nothing for something, so another fail.

There are three forms of usury: interest on money, rent of land and houses, and profit in exchange. 

On the other hand, it is refreshing to read other anarchists who get "usury" as the heart of the problem. Bravo!  Now to solutions:

The usurer is the Somebody, and the State is his protector. Usury is the serpent gnawing at labor’s vitals, and only liberty can detach and kill it. Give laborers their liberty, and they will keep their wealth. As for the Somebody, he, stripped of his power to steal, must either join their ranks or starve.

OK...  but in an essay dedicated to asking "who is who that gets the surplus wealth?" who is the power that will "give" laborers their liberty?  True, usurers seek their monopoly, but 99% of usury's victims subscribe to it, like the relationship between crackheads and crack.  The heart of the problem is not sought power, but the unsought power victims give their masters.

Monopolists do not give up without a fight, because they neither want to join ranks nor starve.  So, by implication, and effort to give laborers their liberty means violence, and that gets you no where.

The solution is to stop enforcing usury contracts and those same victims will just as perfidiously not pay usury, ending the practice.

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The West Shocked, Shocked At Russia On Ukraine

Lemme see:  USA gets exposed red handed plotting the overthrow of a popularly elected government, after spending five billion to do so, timed to embarrass Russia (during Sochi Olympics), to wrest Russian access to their Black Sea fleet, in a country largely ethnically Russian.

We send in diplomats and stars to support the overthrow.

And we are surprised that Putin moves in?  No one saw that coming, except Sarah Palin?

This worked so well in Libya, Egypt, Syria... we thought we'd try with Ukraine.

The Russians are not having it.

So what is the upshot?  Blame the black guy.

Current score, google search hits:
8 years in Office, Blame Bush - About 39,200,000 results (0.42 seconds) 
6 years in Office, Blame Obama About 192,000,000 results (0.35 seconds) 
If you tell a big enough lie long enough, people begin to believe it.  It is comforting to believe that we can blame someone, and it's "not my fault."

The Ukraine was a Ukrainian problem until we began funding destabilization.

USA military spending is larger than the eleven next largest country's spending, combined.  How come?  We just seem to get into trouble with so much money.  Kinda like Justin Bieber or Richie I.

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China Rejected GMO Corn

Bummer, you ship a hundred tonnes of GMO corn into China, hoping to pull a fast one, and get caught (about a million tonnes was rejected last year.)  The Chinese officials catch it and reject it.  Say this is four TEUs.  My question is, if the seller could not get China to take them, where do they go next?  Who does get the rejected GMO corn?

Well, check this out, real time vessel tracking worldwide.  You can drill down to the ship level.  So you can even watch where a ship goes.  We can assume the container is pulled of the ship that carried it in, is inspected, rejected, at which time the vessel of importation has sailed so it will be another vessel for exportation. So the trick is to find out upon what vessel the rejected GMO corn was laden.

This is probably do-able, country by country.  Once one has this information, one might be able to monetize it with a website announcing where rejected cargoes go, and any other interesting trade intelligence.  Specific intelligence is probably valuable in trade, and companies may very well pay a premium price for something too difficult and technical to do themselves.

I am not inclined to do this work, but it may be gainful employment for a reader.

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No Positions For Scholars

An ABD PhD candidate was explaining to me the situation on the ground as to employment prospects in his field, and his desire to be a professor of philosophy some day, his particular field is ethics.

After the 2008 crash, there was no more money going into professorships so there are five years of unemployed PhDs who have been putting out papers (Publish or Perish) and that is a tough crew against which a newly minted PhD must compete.

A couple of years ago the French floated a plan to raise the retirement age from 62 to 65 and the students took to the streets in protest.  Why would students protest?  Because the French economy is on a conveyor belt and as people drop off at 62 on one end the newly graduated pick up jobs on the other end.  If for three years people did not drop off one end as they awaited the new retirement age, for three years new graduates would not get jobs upon graduation.  But wait it gets worse... after the three years, when the machine starts back up taking new graduates, it would take the newest ones, leaving the graduates for the three year hiatus never to get a job for which they were educated.  No wonder their system is in stress.

So maybe he has actually an advantage, because a school can get five years more service out of him than they can get out of the PhDs who have been cooling their heels for five years.

I don't have a PhD, and not even an ABD, but I do have ADD/ADHD and am employed as a lecturer at UCB.  I shared with him my saga of building a side business from scratch teaching noncredit classes as schools, creating and anthology, and then identifying what is missing to write ones own book.  (It is axiomatic those working are the most attractive new hires.

He was intrigued, and corrected me on the use of anthology to find what no one has touched, pointing out usually an anthology was put out to criticize other philosophers.  Why, it never occurred to me that anyone would criticize another's work, but upon reflection, would it not be better to write something new and missing rather than challenge other's ideas?

And I assured him, noncredit, continuing ed is welcoming of any topic, even, perhaps especially his specialty of ethics.

With the last of my spawn graduating from university the last couple of years, I am acquainted with the misallocation of resources on campuses.  The money is going into pensions and gee-whiz buildings on campus, and not into the classrooms.   Hope that changes soon.  Our professors cannot even afford tweed any longer.  What is the world coming to?

I even wrote a book on building a business in teaching writing consulting publishing, available on kindle and in paperback.

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