Plato and Aristotle were pro-fascist, pro-plutocratic. They naturally recommended intellectual fascism, and thus, censorship in general, and suspicion towards art and poetry, or the imagination.
The imagination branches out possibilities and probabilities into the future. Art, poetry just put it down into a material medium. To be against it, is to be against freedom of minds, and the future. A tall order. But not tall enough for fascism and plutocracy, whose very essence is to crack down on independent minds, and the future.
Aristotle was more open to art than Plato. However, even the invention of the word "catharsis" and the concept attached to it by Aristotle is suspicious. The qualities in poetry Plato thought so negative were useful to "purge" violent and destructive emotions. Such was the importance of performance art for Aristotle: a will to control permeates his "Poetics".
By enacting violence and destructive emotions on the stage, poetry "purged" audiences of these negative traits. Thus catharsis elevated the human personality and made better domesticated citizens, ready to serve Aristotle's pupil, Alexander.
We are far from the rebellious spirit the Franks would impose later to the Roman (Catholic!)empire.
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Monday, August 30, 2010
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Carbon Tax To Reduce China
Krugman accuses China of playing games with its overvalued currency. He threatens trade sanctions.
Instead of talking sanctions, why don't we talk carbon tax? That would be more polite.
Let me explain for those who are not in the know: any item bought from China has a hidden cost in carbon pollution which is much greater than in goods locally produced (no transportation costs) and, moreover, China uses much more very polluting coal to produce said goods. By slapping on Chinese goods the cost of this pollution that everyone pays for one could cripple Chinese trade. And Chinese pollution is a serious problem, not just in China: it's a major contributor to pollution, worldwide, even in the Arctic, where mercury vapor from burning Chinese coal poisons the sea life.
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Instead of talking sanctions, why don't we talk carbon tax? That would be more polite.
Let me explain for those who are not in the know: any item bought from China has a hidden cost in carbon pollution which is much greater than in goods locally produced (no transportation costs) and, moreover, China uses much more very polluting coal to produce said goods. By slapping on Chinese goods the cost of this pollution that everyone pays for one could cripple Chinese trade. And Chinese pollution is a serious problem, not just in China: it's a major contributor to pollution, worldwide, even in the Arctic, where mercury vapor from burning Chinese coal poisons the sea life.
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Friday, June 11, 2010
Trading Vipers
From a pirate of finance: "newsflash: people with no hands on experience of derivative markets should stop writing things that make them look stupid."Pete D
Reply:
@ Pete D: What is stupid is to derivate most of the universe free, investable capital, towards a derivative universe. because it is the path of destruction of civilization.
Not all trading is allowed: for example, one cannot buy and sell people anymore. Although it was long lawful in the USA. Progress is often about making unlawful tomorrow what was lawful, yesterday. Those who don’t understand that are stupid. Ultimately capital represents energy, and deliberately wasting capital in mutual bets in derivative universes is a crime, because, in the fullness of time, we have only that much energy to waste before switching to a more sustainable civilization. If we don't switch, we must deperish.
But of course, some people are so stupid that all they understand is their pocket, and how to fill it.
A viper’s brain is fast, about one thing, and it does only that one thing really better than any other creatures: inject poison, and swallow. I do not expect vipers to understand much more than that. Derivative traders and vipers may be fast and well fed, but they do not a civilization make.
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
PA
Reply:
@ Pete D: What is stupid is to derivate most of the universe free, investable capital, towards a derivative universe. because it is the path of destruction of civilization.
Not all trading is allowed: for example, one cannot buy and sell people anymore. Although it was long lawful in the USA. Progress is often about making unlawful tomorrow what was lawful, yesterday. Those who don’t understand that are stupid. Ultimately capital represents energy, and deliberately wasting capital in mutual bets in derivative universes is a crime, because, in the fullness of time, we have only that much energy to waste before switching to a more sustainable civilization. If we don't switch, we must deperish.
But of course, some people are so stupid that all they understand is their pocket, and how to fill it.
A viper’s brain is fast, about one thing, and it does only that one thing really better than any other creatures: inject poison, and swallow. I do not expect vipers to understand much more than that. Derivative traders and vipers may be fast and well fed, but they do not a civilization make.
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
PA
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Way Out
The way out of the present Great Depression should have three axes:
1) a higher inflation target, around 4%. The European Central Bank targeted 1%, which is 1% removed from deflation, which is a trap with no exit.
2) government organized stimulus, New Deal style. It worked in the 1930s, in the USA and Germany.
3) national banks investing in the real economy (an old European trick now used by China and India)
Let's notice that Japan would be in depression, if not for massive government spending. Now, of course Japan has a total debt of 200% of GDP, nearly twice the one of Greece.
The American plutocrats' obsession about Greece not be ready for the euro is neither here nor there.
The drachma was converted at the wrong rate.
Moreover, the present crisis is made to bring the euro down to parity with the dollar quickly. Europe is punishing China and the USA for atrocious behavior at the Copenhagen climate conference. The euro is still more than 20% overvalued right now (mid May 2010).
American economists may have to enjoy the future double dip, if they do not mind USA plutocracy more than they do the European Union.
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
1) a higher inflation target, around 4%. The European Central Bank targeted 1%, which is 1% removed from deflation, which is a trap with no exit.
2) government organized stimulus, New Deal style. It worked in the 1930s, in the USA and Germany.
3) national banks investing in the real economy (an old European trick now used by China and India)
Let's notice that Japan would be in depression, if not for massive government spending. Now, of course Japan has a total debt of 200% of GDP, nearly twice the one of Greece.
The American plutocrats' obsession about Greece not be ready for the euro is neither here nor there.
The drachma was converted at the wrong rate.
Moreover, the present crisis is made to bring the euro down to parity with the dollar quickly. Europe is punishing China and the USA for atrocious behavior at the Copenhagen climate conference. The euro is still more than 20% overvalued right now (mid May 2010).
American economists may have to enjoy the future double dip, if they do not mind USA plutocracy more than they do the European Union.
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Monday, May 10, 2010
American Plutocrats No Pasaran Mañana.
Paul Krugman, playing half clueless, bemoans that the Euro did not head back up in the stratosphere, where it can't breathe: "Yes, I know — the point is not to lift the euro. Still, the exchange rate is a quick measure of the impact on eurozone confidence, which bounced with the policy announcement but doesn’t seem to be staying up …"
OK, let's repeat slowly, so Krugman can learn the half of the lesson he did not quite digest yet:
To relaunch growth in Europe, the Euro, and its poodle, the Pound, have to come down big time. So rescue all you want, but go down. Go down at a more sedate pace, but go down. Down is a long way down.
The Euro was established by fixing parity against the very long term value of the French Franc. More recently, under the EMu and the Ecu, the long term average was a bit higher, at 1.07.
In any case, the support of the European Union for the economy of the USA is over: time to care about number one, namely Europe. The modern version of Smoot Hawley bill, Obama's ill conceived plan to double USA exports, will not pass. No pasaran.
Smoot-Hawley, passed in July 1930, boosted tariffs by 50%, and caused the Great Depression of the 1930s. To lift the Euro by 60% belongs to the same sort of ilk. Fortunately this time Europe is unified and democratic, and, while the somewhat confused Merkel went to find solace with her Russian friends, Sarkozy and company did what needed to be done (OK, they may have started the whole thing as a device to lower the Euro, agreed, so they were well placed to stop what they started...)
Notice that, last time this battle cry was offered, by "La Pasionara" during the attack against the Spanish republic by the fascist forces of Italy and Germany, with a rebel army from spanish Morocco headed by traitor general Franco,they passed nevertheless. And stayed for several decades.
But they passed, because they flew overhead, fueled by Texas oil (it was one of the rare things that made Adolf Hitler laugh). The Spanish Navy had blockaded Africa, where the fascist rebel force was, so Hitler's Luftwaffe organized an aerial bridge into Spain. That is also what we are talking about when we defend the Euro.
Nowadays, though, the risk has come down. There is less oil in Texas, and we know where the Gulf oil goes, and the US Army is searching for oil in all the wrong places...
Those who bathe in crude shall drown in it too.
PA
OK, let's repeat slowly, so Krugman can learn the half of the lesson he did not quite digest yet:
To relaunch growth in Europe, the Euro, and its poodle, the Pound, have to come down big time. So rescue all you want, but go down. Go down at a more sedate pace, but go down. Down is a long way down.
The Euro was established by fixing parity against the very long term value of the French Franc. More recently, under the EMu and the Ecu, the long term average was a bit higher, at 1.07.
In any case, the support of the European Union for the economy of the USA is over: time to care about number one, namely Europe. The modern version of Smoot Hawley bill, Obama's ill conceived plan to double USA exports, will not pass. No pasaran.
Smoot-Hawley, passed in July 1930, boosted tariffs by 50%, and caused the Great Depression of the 1930s. To lift the Euro by 60% belongs to the same sort of ilk. Fortunately this time Europe is unified and democratic, and, while the somewhat confused Merkel went to find solace with her Russian friends, Sarkozy and company did what needed to be done (OK, they may have started the whole thing as a device to lower the Euro, agreed, so they were well placed to stop what they started...)
Notice that, last time this battle cry was offered, by "La Pasionara" during the attack against the Spanish republic by the fascist forces of Italy and Germany, with a rebel army from spanish Morocco headed by traitor general Franco,they passed nevertheless. And stayed for several decades.
But they passed, because they flew overhead, fueled by Texas oil (it was one of the rare things that made Adolf Hitler laugh). The Spanish Navy had blockaded Africa, where the fascist rebel force was, so Hitler's Luftwaffe organized an aerial bridge into Spain. That is also what we are talking about when we defend the Euro.
Nowadays, though, the risk has come down. There is less oil in Texas, and we know where the Gulf oil goes, and the US Army is searching for oil in all the wrong places...
Those who bathe in crude shall drown in it too.
PA
Monday, May 3, 2010
Fusion-Fission Solution
Oil and the like can be extracted at increasingly unbearable cost (same holds for coal and sand oil, shale oil, etc...). It's not just a question of CO2, but of exhausted technology. Something similar happened to the Romans: they called it: "the world is getting old".
A program to build Fusion-Fission thermonuclear power plants program should be started in a hurry. Besides enormous clean energy production, it would allow to get rid of nuclear waste, all over the world, and produce plenty of electricity to run an electrical economy (besides renewable energies).
All indicates that, differently from PURE thermonuclear fusion plants, the technology exists already, it's just a matter of putting together the details. Existing thermonuclear reactor (such as the JET, Joint European Torus) can produce plenty of fast neutrons to split, among other things, conventional, not very radioactive U 238. Future reactors such as ITER aim at producing ten times as much energy thermonuclearly as is put in. But the walls will take a beating.
In a fusion-fission reactor, the walls are made of a fissionable materials (U238 split under fast neutrons, as produced by thermonuclear fusion; enriched in U235 uranium splits under slow neutrons). So the walls get destroyed, made progressively less radioactive (I simplify), but that produces energy. This way all nuclear waste can be burned.
The reason why fusion-fission has not been pushed so far is that Beyond Pain (BP) companies such as BP have zero interest to see it appear.
PA
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
A program to build Fusion-Fission thermonuclear power plants program should be started in a hurry. Besides enormous clean energy production, it would allow to get rid of nuclear waste, all over the world, and produce plenty of electricity to run an electrical economy (besides renewable energies).
All indicates that, differently from PURE thermonuclear fusion plants, the technology exists already, it's just a matter of putting together the details. Existing thermonuclear reactor (such as the JET, Joint European Torus) can produce plenty of fast neutrons to split, among other things, conventional, not very radioactive U 238. Future reactors such as ITER aim at producing ten times as much energy thermonuclearly as is put in. But the walls will take a beating.
In a fusion-fission reactor, the walls are made of a fissionable materials (U238 split under fast neutrons, as produced by thermonuclear fusion; enriched in U235 uranium splits under slow neutrons). So the walls get destroyed, made progressively less radioactive (I simplify), but that produces energy. This way all nuclear waste can be burned.
The reason why fusion-fission has not been pushed so far is that Beyond Pain (BP) companies such as BP have zero interest to see it appear.
PA
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
WHY BIG BANKERS ARE OUTLAWS.
1) We are living in a state of law. Supposedly.
2) That state is democracy, the rule of the demos, the people.
3) Political leaders have recently given PRIVATE unelected individuals, the bankers, the means, and the right to create money, the money everybody uses, through debt, starting from PUBLIC funds.
3) Contradicts the union of 1) and 2).
Thus, the present system incite, big, money creating BANKERS TO BECOME GANGSTERS, and OUTLAWS.
It is as simple as that. Thus one needs to get rid of the private fractional reserve PUBLICLY funded money creating system.
PA
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
2) That state is democracy, the rule of the demos, the people.
3) Political leaders have recently given PRIVATE unelected individuals, the bankers, the means, and the right to create money, the money everybody uses, through debt, starting from PUBLIC funds.
3) Contradicts the union of 1) and 2).
Thus, the present system incite, big, money creating BANKERS TO BECOME GANGSTERS, and OUTLAWS.
It is as simple as that. Thus one needs to get rid of the private fractional reserve PUBLICLY funded money creating system.
PA
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
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