Wednesday, October 19, 2011

GOLDMAN DEMONIC POWER VERSUS GRAND DIVINE PLAN

Economic performance is generally first measured by GDP, Gross Domestic Power. The gross power of domestics? Much too much of it is "financial", whatever that means.

GDP? Which GDP indeed? GDP as Goldman Demonic Power? Enough of that already!
The problem with the present GDP is that it is too dependent on the financial piracy part of it. It is a bit like saying that the bigger the one who is ravaged by metastatic cancer, the better, while most of her mass is a malignant tumor, and growing.

In truth we need a Grand Divine Plan. Why? Because our technology has what our ancestors would have viewed as divine powers. So we need to adapt our society, and, in particular, our decision making, to that.
To divine material powers have to correspond divine spiritual powers.

The essence of the crisis is that a few hidden secretive bankers are in charge of money creation, and, as they lay out of the reach of democracy, they lend to their co-conspirators. Throwing more public money at the problem of malignant GDP, through the banks, is throwing more gasoline into the roaring fire. While claiming disingenuously that, since it's liquidity, it should work.

Well not all liquids are the same, children! Money changes nature, according to what it is lent for. As demonstrated by the notion of money laundering: dirty money can be cleansed, and that is unlawful. Similarly, not all other ways to manipulate money ought to be lawful.

Fortunately, the Internet, by tapping the raw mental power of all of humankind will allow us to find solutions, a higher level of spirituality, of mental powers, which have escaped our leaders so far (supposing they care... against their own best interests...)
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Updates on politics: wealth to the rich, lies...

Those who admire a parodic version of Reagan, such as Obama and the Tea Party are in power. They are the equivalent of dinosaurs, because what they are trying to do, was tried under the Roman empire: give ever more money to the rich. The largest piece of Obama stimulus was tax cuts, and those tax cuts, over Bush and Obama have gone first to the hyper rich. As I said, the Romans had tried this first.

Those Reaganosaurs do not understand who is supposed to lead a democratic country: that's the government, not the hyper rich. Nor do they understand who leads the economy: that's also the government.
Without the government, there is no direction, no comprehension, no intelligence. So here we are.
The Roman empire collapsed from stupidity unchained. And that stupidity had been preceded by a government taking all the wrong decisions.
Because inasmuch as Obama and his bipartisan partner, the Tea Party, may not like it, they are the government. By refusing to lead, and saying the hyper rich will, they have abdicated their responsibility, And cut off the head: so the economy was running around without one, and now it has stopped moving. Can Obama understand that? Can the Tea Party?
***

Bin Laden was recruited and trained to attack civilian objectives by the CIA (and Saudi intelligence, itself recruited by the CIA). Everything else, while not necessarily a lie, is at best secondary.

Another truth is that, since civilization exists, plutocracy has been fighting democracy. Qadhafi was a plutocrat (worth: 150 billion dollars). The first enemy of plutocracy is the truth.

Right now, democracy is losing in the West, as the bankers have captured the money creation system for themselves, and those who represent the People .

http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Bailing Out Greece Means More Taxes For France & Germany

Naked capitalism has a ridiculous article adopting the fancy fantasy that bailing out Greece, Portugal, Ireland does not augment taxes on Northern Europe, France, Germany, Netherlands, etc. Because it augments debt only, a stupid journalist based in Ireland claims.

According to this, paying all due respect, complete idiot, there is something as free money: just borrow it, become Greek, irish, American, whatever...

See what happens next, as you get downgraded into oblivion, with no more social services... Like in Cameron's kingdom, now complete with entire blocks burning. Do like the city of Half Moon Bay, next to Silicon Valley, and fire your police department: it's safe. Exilarating even.

The main argument therein is contradicted by facts, and basic logic. Totally.

According to decisions taken by Merkel and Sarkozy, which apparently did not reach the Ireland worthy of showing up in "naked capitalism", the French government is to lower deficit/GDP to less than 3% by 2013 (it's 5.4% now). Germany and the Netherlands are similarly committed.

To do so, the French government has announced that it will increase taxes, all over. So EU taxpayers do pay, and the author should listen to French TV; the declarations of the gov are loud and clear.

BTW, how could it be otherwise? Debt is just delayed spending.
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Shamebook

The valuation of \"Facebook\" is rumored to be 100 billion dollars. It has more to do with very well organized crime than anything else (Goldman sachs is one of the main sponsors, of "Facebook", and the valuation). The company makes nearly no profits and has 2,000 employees, worldwide. Some French journalists surprised CIA employees they personally knew, at Facebook headquarters.


This sort of companies make it big, thanks to the enormous interior American market. A French company had a Facebook like company, but because of the smaller French market, and the lack of market manipulations American VCs are connected with the government for, it made just enough to get its ideas stolen.


Such Silicon Valley companies do not have really state of the art technology. American planners confuse tech superiority and market size. Hence a dangerous illusion, because organized crime tricks do not lead to real tech superiority, as the USSR demonstrated.

http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Health Greed USA, Health care, UK

Americans do not realize how uncivilized their society increasingly looks from overseas. And worse is to come: HEALTH GREED instead of health care in the USA is only part of it. USA neoconservatives ask not whether Medicare saves money to society. They ask whether Medicare maximizes greed to their friends.

David Cameron, British PM, June 2011:

"Ask a Briton to describe “American-style” healthcare, and you’ll hear a catalog of horrors that include grossly expensive and unnecessary medical procedures and a privatized system that favors the rich. For a people accustomed to free healthcare for all, regardless of income, the fact that millions of their cousins across the Atlantic have no insurance and can’t afford decent treatment is a farce as well as a tragedy... We will not be selling off the NHS [National Health Service], we will not be moving towards an insurance scheme, we will not introduce an American-style private system...” insisted Prime Minister David Cameron to a group of healthcare workers in a nationally televised address."


Prime Minister David Cameron is, alike Sarkozy, Merkel and Berlusconi, a conservative. None of these leaders would dream to modify seriously their national health system with free basic coverage to all. The German universal health system originated with Chancellor Bismarck, more than 125 years ago.

So why is the USA heading the other way? Why is it devolving? because all civilization are threatened by plutocracy, and the later is a non linear phenomenon, as difficult to extirpate as metastic cancer. it comes to pervade the body politics.

In truth all too many of the people who are elected in the USA, run for office, only so that they will please the plutocrats, knowing full well that they will be rewarded, as the Clintons were rewarded.

We have got to the point, in the USA, where the political system selects particularly for the greedy unconscionable.

The French were very surprised and extremely shocked that the head of the IMF was treated worse than a wild and dangerous beast (beasts don't get chained). All this while he was presumed innocent (his gigantic young and muscular accuser, a dedicated Muslim, who has posed for racy pictures (!) risks only a "misdemeanor, if she invented the whole no-physical-injury "aggression"). Once the Europeans, and others, figure out that the present American plutocratic in its fully ravenous mode, their contempt will have adverse economic consequences for the USA. Banana republic, especially without bananas, do not look like a good place to invest anything whatsoever.
PA

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Sex & Drug Legalization Unavoidable

"Sex Crime Unit", New York. The Pride Of A Big Apple, or Just One More Snake in the Garden of the Beasts?

The "Sex Crime Unit" is famous for punishing the old, weak, overweight, sick, oxygen deprived, brainy head of the International Monetary Fund, the economist Dominique Strauss-Kahn, for "subjecting another person to sexual contact without the later person's consent". Apparently the Jew Strauss-Kahn "attempted" to cavort with a mysterious towering young muscular maid of the fanatical Muslim kind, whose legal migrant status is far from clear.

The old, weak, overweight, sick, oxygen deprived Dominique Strauss-Kahn is supposed to have overwhelmed the physically powerful, without causing any physical injury, probably using his dirty, powerful French mind. Powerful French minds, and the "French Theory", not far behind it, should be illegal, as they cause grave injury to the New York Centered World Trade plutocracy.

It is turning out that Ms tall, young and muscular victim, posed for racy and provocative pictures which ornament the frontcover of a magazine in Switzerland. You will not see those pictures in the USA, for obvious reasons of basic propaganda of the plutocratically financed politicians in New York. Don't be surprised if Ms Provocative shows up at the tribunal in a veil, clutching some beads, shaking all over with fear! Greed does that, sometimes, or more exactly the fear of not satisfying it.

The New York Sex Crime Unit is the object of a cult in America. It has 40 detectives: sex is big in New York, and its crimes numerous. Everybody says that the "Sex Crime Unit" is "very respected". It prosecutes, namely puts in cages and treats as dogs, 1,000 individuals a year. OK, one does not chain dogs, that would be cruel to animals, especially if innocent. Only 20 of those prosecutions of the "very respected Sex Crime Unit", result in condemnations, though. Let's think a second about what that means.

I am not saying that there should not 1,000 inquiries on "Sex Crimes". I think that any "Sex Crime" lead ought to be followed diligently, and even ferociously in the case of possible "pedophilia". But I think that, as for other suspicion of possible criminal activity, prosecution ought to be done very discreetly, to protect the innocent.

So let's consider the innocent. It turns out that the innocent are 98% of those the "very respected Sex Crime Unit" puritanizes and terrorizes every year.

I am just observing that 980 people a year get treated worse than dogs, like criminals, American style, and are found to be innocent, every year, in New York, about alleged sex crimes they did not commit. Although they were publicly humiliated, condemned in the court of public opinion, and punished for all to see, for crimes they did not commit. Punishing the innocent, especially publicly is outlawed in fully civilized society. that is actually why the law exists in the first place.

Now, if you beat a dog, he will turn nasty. especially if you do it for no good reason. Just try it. Moreover, far from being a deterrent, a rush to condemnation and condemnation encourages many to cross the Rubicon. Thus the question is this: is the "Sex Crime Unit" itself crime generating?

If police brutality itself is criminogen, a much needed explanation for the high rate of crime in the USA would offer itself. Criminogen police activity would go a long way towards explaining that about 10 million Americans are actively punished, under official condemnations, every year, with 2.5 million imprisonned. The highest rate in the world.
***


Speaking of Criminogen Police Hyper Activity,

A prestigious United Nation commission found that the "War Against Drugs" has not worked any better than the famous prohibition against alcohol in the USA, in the 1920s. The later had increased considerably organized crime, by making many in the USA accomplice with the mobsters. Prohibition was terminated by president Roosevelt.

Interestingly "drug abuse", which is punished, implies that "drug use", a milder form, should go unpunished. The point is that very dangerous drugs, alcohol, tobacco, and various "medical" neurological drugs, some given to children (Ritalin), are authorized. So why is not mild use of some other drugs also authorized?

The president of Bolivia has insisted that some mild coca should be allowed for sale outside of Bolivia (where it is legal).

Funny aside: although I use tea and coffee, I have never ever used alcohol and tobacco. I just did not like the idea to have to drink something to be merry, or poison the atmosphere, to look cool. Happiness and calm ought to be spiritually generated, for those who live by the superiority

However I have resided at high altitude in Bolivia, and loved coca tea (sold there in grocery stores). It's quite different from normal tea, but extremely nice. Energetic, soothing, friendly to the mind.

I can't imagine how one could abuse it, and what is wrong with it. Thus I deduce the screaming against some drugs is highly hypocritical, and it's not our ex-"blow" (cocaine) using "black" president who is going to contradict me.

Let's remember that coffee, at strong dosage, is forbidden at the Olympic Games. At very high doses (100 cups), coffee is lethal (so is water). However, correct usage of coffee is good for the mind, and for health in general (it has been proven to reduce Alzheimer).
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/

Friday, June 10, 2011

Rentiers, plutocracy, solutions...

Krugman wrote an editorial claiming the "rule by rentiers". I guess that is less controversial than "rule by Pluto". However, Krugman describes "rule by wealth", the usual, non philosophical, meaning of "plutocracy":

"America’s job drought... has already gone on so long that the average unemployed American has been out of work for almost 40 weeks. Yet there is no political will to do anything about the situation. Far from being ready to spend more on job creation, both parties agree that it’s time to slash spending — destroying jobs in the process — with the only difference being one of degree.


Nor is the Federal Reserve riding to the rescue. On Tuesday, Ben Bernanke, the Fed chairman, acknowledged the grimness of the economic picture but indicated that he will do nothing about it.
... similar in Europe, but arguably even worse: European Central Bank’s hard-money, anti-debt-relief rhetoric... What lies behind this trans-Atlantic policy paralysis? I’m increasingly convinced that it’s a response to interest-group pressure. Consciously or not, policy makers are catering almost exclusively to the interests of rentiers — those who derive lots of income from assets, who lent large sums of money in the past, often unwisely, but are now being protected from loss at everyone else’s expense.

Of course, that’s not the way what I call the Pain Caucus makes its case. Instead, the argument against helping the unemployed is framed in terms of economic risks: Do anything to create jobs and interest rates will soar, runaway inflation will break out, and so on. But these risks keep not materializing... The reality is that both small businesses and workers are hurt far more by the weak economy than they would be by, say, modest inflation that helps promote recovery.

No, the only real beneficiaries of Pain Caucus policies (aside from the Chinese government) are the rentiers: bankers and wealthy individuals with lots of bonds in their portfolios.

And that explains why creditor interests bulk so large in policy; not only is this the class that makes big campaign contributions, it’s the class that has personal access to policy makers — many of whom go to work for these people when they exit government through the revolving door. The process of influence doesn’t have to involve raw corruption (although that happens, too). All it requires is the tendency to assume that what’s good for the people you hang out with, the people who seem so impressive in meetings — hey, they’re rich, they’re smart, and they have great tailors — must be good for the economy as a whole.

But the reality is just the opposite: creditor-friendly policies are crippling the economy. This is a negative-sum game, in which the attempt to protect the rentiers from any losses is inflicting much larger losses on everyone else. And the only way to get a real recovery is to stop playing that game. "


I have been saying this, for quite a while. So I will not disagree in first order. However, Krugman's semantics is conflating small rentiers, who typically live off interest from savings, and enormous plutocrats, who he metions, in so many words.

Moreover, as usual, Krugman is short on solutions. I commented the following, and the NYT published it:


4% inflation is best, 2% is too low. 2% is so low that there is not enough reserve, in case of recession. (If inflation becomes negative, durably so, lowering interest rates does not help, because they cannot be lowered below zero.)

Germany has led the pain caucus in Europe, and it has worked pretty well. So now the Germans (and the hard Franc architect Trichet, head of ECB) have the upper hand morally, intellectually, economically.

In any case none of this will not solve the globalization crisis. Which is the emigration of jobs to emerging countries. This is the underlying problem, and plutocracy has a direct hand in it, and it's hard to resist when equivalent jobs cost 5% overseas. What is the plan to invert that globalization, that flight of jobs, overseas, far away?

Well, let me answer it myself: no more speculation on finance by financiers, and massive investments in high tech, accompanied by tough IP protection, and a carbon trade tax, plus tough anti-slavery codes, worldwide.
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Bits and Pieces, Early June 2011

American Aggression Against Aghanistan:
The president of the USA, Jimmy Carter, signed a secret order of attack on the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, July 3, 1979. Thus the Afghan war was started by the USA, not bin Laden, 32 years ago. In other news, Merkel is quite disappointing, indeed. On the other hand, when they have tried all the bad solutions, further integration will be all what's left.
And this is true for the southern, and eastern side of the Mediterranean too, which is more important to Europe than Russia. Because Russia has only one way to go, whereas the fascist-theocratic mix along the shores of the Med could mean unending wars. Thus it has to be developed in secular democracy.
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
***

HEALTH GREED?
American health care is, overall, much more expensive than the better performing health care systems of comparable countries. Therein the first problem. So let's seriate, and do first things first.

How come is USA health care so much more expensive? Because for example health care companies in the USA greed based system, advertize heavily. In most other countries, that's unlawful. The cost of the advertizing can exceed the research, for pharmaceuticals. That money is taken from patients, and is sent by health care plutocrats to their fellow advertizing plutocrats (and that may even be themselves, through shares!)
We call if health care, and that is what they have in many countries. But, in the USA, it ought to be called health greed. And that's not good.
PA
***

The Pluto In Plutocracy:
Plutocracy is not just about wealth ruling, but also about Pluto ruling. The fundamental urge of plutocrats is to make the people suffer, and it's true all over. As they are more crafty on Wall Street than in Russia, more power to them! In any case, for all and any plutocrats, caring about their own country does not register any cash, so it's rarely done.
PA
***

Emotional Dwarves:
Greed does not make the world go 'round. One needs more emotions than that. Public service one of them. This is what the People of the USA will have to learn someday, and throw the old demons out.
PA
***

GOLDMAN SACHS YOU CAN BELIEVE IN:
Future historians will laugh, and wonder why fools such as me believed in Obama's slogan: "Change You Can Believe In!" Indeed, which change would Goldman Sachs, Obama's greatest contributor, believe in exactly? Well exactly zero change, once they pocketed the public money offered to them by their agents in Washington, of course.

So most public money was sent to the vultures feeding on the economy, instead of empowering the public programs which were apparently beyond the feeble imagination of the plutocratic agents to even imagine. In any case, the agents were not paid for that, such was not the mission conferred to them by their private, filthy rich sponsors.

As in many a great power, the nominal leaders have so much hubris that they believe their intricate entanglements of corrupt plots is the way it has to be, and the way it can keep on being. But, ultimately, they are just small servants of what they do not understand, the will, in some men, to hurt most men.
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

High Speed Rail Versus High Idiocy

George Will, a salaried propagandist of the established order, condemns trains. I must admit that only private jets should get government subsidies, in a plutocracy. Whines Will:

"So why is America’s “win the future” administration so fixated on railroads, a technology that was the future two centuries ago? Because progressivism’s aim is the modification of (other people’s) behavior.

Forever seeking Archimedean levers for prying the world in directions they prefer, progressives say they embrace high-speed rail for many reasons—to improve the climate, increase competitiveness, enhance national security, reduce congestion, and rationalize land use. The length of the list of reasons, and the flimsiness of each, points to this conclusion: the real reason for progressives’ passion for trains is their goal of diminishing Americans’ individualism in order to make them more amenable to collectivism."


Trains are a lot more empowering and individualistic than planes, as anybody who has travelled in both will recognize — and planes, not cars, are the main alternative to high-speed rail. Besides, what is empowering at driving a car? One becomes a slave to the art of avoiding accidents and respecting all laws and regulations.

Says Krugman: "And there’s the bit about rail as an antiquated technology; try saying that after riding the Shanghai Maglev."

Will is a clever man, indeed. He goes where the money is, and serves who Adam Smith called \"the masters\" (generations before Karl Marx). Clever he is, but not moral.


American individualism, like American exceptionalism, or Hitler's celebrated attachment to the right of minorities in the name of human rights (one of his main electoral platform points!) are much exaggerated notions. If the American elite is that individualistic, how come most of them think all the same?


By the way, there is a lot of high tech in very high speed trains. Maglev has no advantage over steel wheels, but a lot of disadvantages. Maglev uses a lot of light but flammable materials, and extravagant high magnetic fields, there have been very bad accidents. Whereas steel wheels can go wherever there are rails, not so with maglev.


The maglev speed record is just a mile per hour or so above the (French) high speed, steel wheels record of 575 kilometers per hour. At these speeds non trivial shock waves and resonance have to be solved. Pantographs maintain contact through electronic piloting.


An intermediate technology exists, capable of 250 km/h on conventional lines, where the trains lean in the turns (Russia bought it from French Alstom, which bought it from Italy).


Notice the attack of Will against "progress". This is one of the main point of American plutocratic propaganda: progress itself is the problem. Why so? Of course progress came with laws against slavery, murder and torture all of which handicap the truly wealthy. But there is more. Ultimately plutocracy rests on military force, which rests on lack of progress. Savages need savagery to justify their own existence.

At this point, American technolgical superiority is pretty much reduced to superior people killing technology. No wonder neoconservatives are against progress. more than 50% of the weapons sold, worldwide, are American made. An American president said: "The business of America is business". Does that mean that, nowadays, the business of America has become death?

http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Cooking The Numbers

In "Empire at the End of Decadence" (February, 18, 2011), Charles Blow declares that:
"It’s time for us to stop lying to ourselves about this country. America is great in many ways, but on a whole host of measures — some of which are shown in the accompanying chart — we have become the laggards of the industrialized world. Not only are we not No. 1 — “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” — we are among the worst of the worst.

Yet this reality and the urgency that it ushers in is too hard for many Americans to digest. They would prefer to continue to bathe in platitudes about America’s greatness, to view our eroding empire through the gauzy vapors of past grandeur."



And Charles Blow to quote numbers coming from organizations which have interest to exalt the Reagan view of the world. Even these numbers look bad. The real numbers would be even worse.

One has indeed to understand that many of these numbers go first through a dedicated filter of organizations (CIA, World Bank, Bureau of Labor Statistics, the pro-plutocracy magazine The Economist, etc.).

These organizations are determined to prove the superiority of the present American way of exploitation, as their thriving depends upon it.

For example the "percentage thriving" finds 50% more Americans "thriving", whereas only 33% of the French are "thriving". I know both countries extremely well, and I can tell you, it's not the case. What is perceived as thriving on one side of the Atlantic would be viewed as inimaginable misery, on the other side.

The French do not believe it's cool to claim they are thriving. Self glorifications led to sorry episodes such as Louis XIV or Napoleon. They cost millions of dead, and severely weakened the country. As the protestants were forced to flee by Louis the criminal, they enrich Germany, and eported wine making to South Africa. So later nazi germany invaded with some generals bearing French names.

The terrible wars of the Twentieth Century, which left metropolitan France 20% smaller than it would be otherwise (let alone the loss of the enormous empire, not all parts of it should have been disjoined, in a better world) were another case where glory itself came to be viewed as a colaborator of self extermination.

So the French believe, deep inside, that it is better to complain, and demonstrate. Whereas the Americans fear that if they are not perceived as winners, they will be run over.

So to complain about France as loudly as possible is a major French religion (it literraly ties the French together, for example during the ever popular demonstrations). But many major worries Americans have do not even register in France. For example health care, or child care, or education. Although the unemployment rates cannot be compared; as Krugman observed, France has actually a much higher employment rate of the 24 to 55 population.

This being said, the USA has a disease called hubris. The country takes itself for imperial rime, and is the last one to used the imperial system of units. The USA was also the only "democracy" to re-introduce slavery on its own territory, ot its own citizens since Europe had outlawed it, a full millennium before that.

The USA is a time-wrap. Long has been. Why? Because being primitive in some important ways allowed a self satisfied, oblivious mentality to reign, designed specifically to exterminate the natives. And thus gain a continent, making America's fortune.

Notice that the Boers and the British did not exterminate the natives in South Africa.

Now, this American mentality, lost in self grandeur, and oblivious delusion is backfiring, ever since it went on steroids with that mean and short sighted man, Reagan. Reagan' confusion between fortune and merit has ruled the land, in a last, self destructive spasm of a better forgotten past.
PA

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Hold Your Horses About Egypt.

The new ex-NeoConservatives sing song is to say they brought the Egyptian revolution, after trying everything under Bush, from billions to invasions.

However, what Bush's predecessors had tried, and what they had succeeded to do, is to subjugate the Arabs, using a hefty dose of support for old fashion Islam (Salafism) to do so. Bush's feeble efforts were an attempt to recover control. He did not. Nor is Obama (who is using cheaper and craftier methods).

The (present government of the) USA and its People (Peace be Upon It!) do not want a real Arab revolution, because it would mean oil at $300 a barrel. It would also mean that Israel could not afford anymore, its present leaders and their mean policies.

But this is not over. Right now, it is a coup, not a revolution: we were threatened with Suleiman Aleikum, the Moo-Barack from behind, as I pointed out in a somewhat timely manner, 3 days before Suleiman came crashing down.

A last minute change gives us the only serious democratic institution in Egypt, the army. Vice President Suleiman was livid, as he announced that in a 40 second adress, complete with God's mercy, Mubarak's resignation, and his own personal eclipse.

Speaking of mercy, it would be merciful if my incendiary essay on the subject had been read in high places...

However, the Egyptian army is also plutocratic. Generals are paid by Washington, especially when they retire. The Egyptian army controls as much as 15% of Egypt's GDP, and is fully part of the worldwide plutocracy. So this is not over.

It is far from clear that the Egyptian people will come out on top. A fortiori other Arabs. The obscene Mohammed VI is thriving in Morocco, having gathered 10% of GDP all by his little self.
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/

Friday, February 4, 2011

Will to Intellectual Supremacy

Here is an entire post of Paul Krugman, "Another Kind of Financial Fragility",
followed by my comment, which explains and amplifies what Krugman talks about. Namely, the mental fragility of the top banksters, who are revealing to be affected by the sort of madness hubris leads to:


"Recent events have a lot of economists working hard at trying to determine the causes of financial fragility — the vulnerability of some economies, ours very much included, to disruptive shocks that cause credit and spending to freeze.

But recent events have also highlighted another kind of financial fragility: the sensitive egos of powerful bankers. I’ve been calling this the Ma! He’s looking at me funny! syndrome; it’s quite something to behold.

In a way, it sort of makes sense. Any leading player in the world of finance makes so much money that he more or less literally already has everything money can buy. If he cares about making even more money, it’s purely as a way of keeping score. And once you’re motivated mainly by considerations of prestige, you start to care more about whether the president is saying nice things about you than whether his actual policies are letting you off scot-free from any consequences of your industry’s sins.

Anyway, a good read from Reuters about the fragile ego of Jamie Dimon, who is not only wealthy beyond count but has also received a lot of fawning press. But it’s apparently not good enough.
"
***


This observation of Paul Krugman is right on the mark.

I hold that there is such a thing as the Will to Intellectual Supremacy in human beings. OK, a number of thinkers, culminating with Nietzsche talked about the Will To Power, and even the Will To Knowledge, as Nietzsche did. But this is still different. The Will to Intellectual Supremacy makes people live and die, by, and for, ideas.

The Will to Intellectual Supremacy is specifically human. (Whereas the will to Power is exhibited by plenty of other species, only human have digitalized ideas, something they are equipped to transmit into a culture. Chimps have also ideas, but they can be transmitted only visually.)

An evolutionary advantage is that this Will to Intellectual Supremacy kicks in only when there is plenty enough ideas around, hence enough people, hence a good reason to find any reason to decrease the number of said people.

More importantly, though, the Will to Intellectual Supremacy creates a highly competitive environment for ideas. It makes ideas go to war against each other, and thus allows a selection of the fittest. Thus the will to Intellectual Supremacy strongly urges forward the evolution of ideas towards superior forms (superior in the sense that the enemy gets eaten, or something akin to that).

So Dimon, the bankster, fights to death to impose his views that plutocracy knows best, and is, overall, best. He goes according to instinct. He incarnates an animal force, with intellectual supremacy pretention.

Reasoning with a deamon such as Dimon is like reasoning with an Aztec priest. It is to others to master his ideas, and put them back in the cage they belong to.

And how were the Aztec priests defeated? By rising an army of their victims, having persuaded them that it was a war worth fighting, and that they could win, if they tried hard enough. And that it was shameful to do nothing, because the Aztec horror, a form of extreme plutocracy, did not belong on this Earth.

And now, in some ways, with thermonuclear nukes looming, the situation is potentially much worse, so the fight against plutocracy has to be even more radical.
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Plutocracy Kills Progress

Why has innovation slowed down? It has everything to do with the rise of plutocracy beyond the reasonable, and the promotion of the Dark Side of human psychology, Hades, to the detriment of the Light Side, the Enlightenment of mind, science, and technology..


This is why I like mild inflation: it makes technological implementation more profitable, hence the whole research system behind it, more attractive.


It is also why the prize system for technological innovation is so good: many aviation pioneers went to their death to get prizes, pushing, to do so, weird new machines, with fantastically creative engineering.


Another factor in innovation, sorry to say, is the military, in the technological superiority tradition of the Athenians, Romans and Franks (instead of the brute force of the masses).


The first cars, in the eighteenth century, were actually enormous (steam powered) all terrain vehicles mandated by a French military program. So were the first planes to take off with an engine. So were the first metal monoplanes. All French military programs, and so was initially nuclear energy (Paris 1938, later morphed into the \"Manhattan project\", 1942). Radar (and thus microwave) was also a military program (in many countries simultaneously during WWII).


So what is going on now? Why is innovation dying? Because the USA went from a nation of bold engineers (1941) to a nation of despicable plutocrats (2011). And it has been contagious, at least throughout the West.


Whereas the emerging countries, such as the BRIC, made the correct analysis that the West's superiority was due to science, technology, and many of them, such as now many Arab countries, or India, or Brazil, and China or Russia, in part, from the superiority of the mind, hence communications.)


This is not exactly the first time this sort of devolution, the one affecting the West now, this sort of take over of the Dark Side, happens: it has happened again and again in history. It happened to Athens, it happened to Rome, and there were periodical bouts of it during the European Middle Ages. each time plutocracy took over.


In the case of Athens, the Athenian hyper rich colluded with the thoroughly fascist imperialist Macedonian plutocrats, to crush democracy, and thus science and philosophy.


I use here the concept of \"Pluto\" in its most general meaning, covering the entire Dark Side, not just wealth. But wealth is the greatest facilitator, as it can exploit the exponential growth interest provides with.


The plutocrats themselves are not stupid; they reign through stupidity. Their enemy is intelligence, hence new forms of thinking, hence what feeds them, new philosophy, new ethics, new science, new technology.


If a youth is smart, right now, she will do as Obama does, and extends the hand to plutocrats. And the plutocrats will fill that hand. Thus the smart go to the wolves. And the smartest, like Demosthenes, the philosopher who condemned Macedonia, they may as well swallow poison, before the state police grabs them, as Demosthenes did.




And what is taking poison with them is the highest and best of what makes the human spirit, and stagnation ensues. At best. At worst, great mayhem, as under the Nazis.

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Monday, January 10, 2011

How Economics & Morality Relate

AS CIVILIZATION BLOSSOMS SO DO FASCISM AND PLUTOCRACY.

Economics is house management. Morality is what endures. Yes, that's the origin of the word! Better: it has got to be the origin of the concept: what is right is what endures. If it were not right, it would not endure, indeed. Thus morality contains the concept of sustainability.

Best house management would have to be the one that endures. Indeed, if the economy does not endure, it collapses, thus so does the food production system, and part of the population will not survive.

Hence the best economy is moral, in other words. And redistribution of riches sufficient to prevent accumulation of riches caused by mathematics rather than merit is necessary.

Those who do not believe in redistribution in riches are more primitive that the Neolithics who produced sustainable societies on the scale of centuries. The Neolithics understood the exponential intuitively, and realized that riches brought ever more riches to the very top of society, the more they grew, and that had nothing to do with the merit of the individuals, families, groups or classes thus advantaged.

Piling up riches at the top made society, overall, poorer. Poorer in riches, poorer in culture, intelligence, mind stuff.

The great ages of Athens and Rome, and the Franks, were preceded by revolutions, forced income redistribution, and the destruction of plutocracies. Crete had no extravagant plutocracy (just significant oligarchies). The assassinations (Athens), rebellion (Rome), full war (Franks) turned society upside down, like the plow allows the rich soil down below to come to light.

It was violent, but the best society sprang forth, and made more advanced philosophy the law of the land. All sorts of goodness came out, from superlative economics and military, to excellent poetry, science, and further philosophy and law.

Why such goodness? Democracy blossoms minds in parallel. It is not just the "Open Society" Pericles and his philosophical advisers vaunted, it is the open minds of multitude of minds exchanging thoughts and feeling in an immense eco system of consciousness.

Plutocracy, and its associated fascism is all about a few taking all the decisions. Fascism is not new: it is the number one trick of primate defense. Baboons are expert fascist, when threats appear: they group up behind their most powerful leaders, female with the young hidden inside the group. Then the group does what the most powerful, most decisive males, the Golos, decide to do, and follow them as one: E PLURIBUS UNUM.

A chimpanzee variant of fascism occurs when chimps form a file, behind their leader, stop talking, and stealthily invade another group territory, in the hope of surprising an individual, and killing it. So fascism is so old, at least 40 million years, since there are the likes of baboons, and they thrive, that it has got to have become an instinct.

Plutocracy however is new, it's not in our biological inheritance, but an emerging property: it needed capital to exist. Long ago, capital was a harem, and a territory. But then the genus Homo appeared, and tools became capital too. When the Neolithic started, and the first cities appeared, capital became potentially gigantic: it could be a city, and extend over a country.

Some individuals, families, groups and finally classes were able to exploit the fascist instinct and the exponential, to create the new phenomenon of plutocracy.

The Neolithic was a total success: man took control of the planet. Capital and populations exploded by a factor of 10,000 for population, and much greater for capital.

Both fascism and the exponential exponentiate themselves to ever more tremendous heights as they grow (the growth of exponential is proportional to itself, just as capital and population do before disaster strikes). Thus they have become the nemeses of civilization, the more civilization grows.

Fascism exerts its seduction always. A case in point is what happens in democratic revolutions. They are born out of the desire by the People to redistribute riches. However, as adversity arises, fascism has to come to their defense.

An example is a Corsican artillery captain. Under the vengeful leadership of the British leader Pitt, anxious that France would not become more of a competitor to London after having a successful revolution, as Britain had a century earlier, the plan was conceived to invade France from Provence. Toulon and its two bays were conquered by an army and navy of British, Spanish and French royalists. The commanding republican generals were incompetent. Napoleon schemed to have them replace, then implemented his own plan, and attacked. He was seriously wounded by a bayonet , but the victory was total, and the British fleet, now exposed to French artillery, sailed away the next day. Napoleon was made into a general directly. He would soon lead French armies to great victories (other French generals did too, because, at that point France was republic fighting an obvious coalition of fascists, it was Greece versus Persia, all over again).

Napoleon was a military genius, thus everybody deduced, and especially himself, that he was a genius in all ways: the monkeys, when threatened, love to group up behind a smart, bold warrior. And when not threatened, it is easier to have just one guy doing all the thinking. In the end, Napoleon turned into a bloody tyrant who was still talking to his soldiers as if they were all "comrades" (a trick from Alexander and his "companions").

In the end, intellectual and political fascism led directly to Napoleon's disastrous campaign of 1812, the attempted submission of Russia. Napoleon a giant multinational European army of 700,000 in 5 months, because he was alone to take all the decisions, and thus took a lot of stupid ones. By then he did not have peers to put him back to sanity. That does not mean that plutocracy and fascism can always be corrected for the best. The Mayas collapsed, all by themselves, and stayed 98% collapsed by the time the Spanish showed up, six centuries later.

Right now, as relatively fewer and fewer Americans, go to state of the art schools, American society is ever becoming, relatively speaking, less of a state of the art society. Plutocracy does not mind; they always have India and China to invest in. But beware the history of Germany!
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