Commercial Intelligence – Page 130 – Public Intelligence Blog

As you read this story please keep in mind that 46 million Americans, 17 million of them children, face poverty and hunger. This story is an obscenity, and shows how deeply out of balance our system has become.

Billionaires Collect Millions In Taxpayer Dollars Through Farm Subsidies
ALAN PYKE – Think Progress

The psychology of politics, a mix of neuroscience and psychology, is becoming one of the most interesting areas of science. And it comes not a moment to soon. It can help us understand why the Schism Trend is occurring, so that we can think about it clearly. This essay is far from the last word or the definitive statement but, at least, it is talking about the problem. Click through to see the charts.

Can Science Explain Tea Party Rage?
JOSHUA HOLLAND – BillMoyers.com/Salon

This is some very sad news about our children, and I find it very ironic that it is appearing in Forbes, a publication that depends on, and defends the corporations that make the foods that cause this problem.

Early Puberty In Girls Linked To Obesity…Again
ALICE G. WALTON – FORBES

I see half a dozen stories like this almost every day. Let this one stand for the whole. I talked tonight with Ronlyn over dinner about where one has to get in their own mind so that something like this seems a humane rational action. I can't get to that dark place that makes this action o.k.. I have written Bonnie Fried, the principal of Barber Middle School, where this happened, to let here know my feelings about what was done to this child. Please do me the service of taking a moment to also write her and let her know how you feel about what was done. Nothing reduces the power of the shadow better than shining some light on it. Her email is: bfried@dickinsonisd.org There is a part of me that would prefer to simply let Texas go. But the truth is they would fail, as they are failing now, and that would make them aggressive, as they saw the Blue value states prospering. We would end up with war as they sought to grab what they could not create.
Click through to see the video on this.

Texas School Tosses 6th Grader’s Breakfast in Trash After he Can’t Pay 30 Cents
DAVID EDWARDS – The Raw Story

2013/11/07

Owl: Monbiot: Corporate New World Order Dictatorship Close to Implementation, Democracy and Law for Ordinary People Nearly Dead

01 Poverty, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Transnational Crime, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Government

Monbiot: Corporate New World Order Dictatorship Close to Implementation, Democracy and Law for Ordinary People Nearly Dead

It's coming together piece by major piece for the Elite's plans of absolute and total world domination: imposition of GMO food and many toxic substance for human consumption, covert eugenics via not only food and water, but constant aerial spraying and massive and on-going vaccines of numerous types, a vastly increased and efficient surveillance and military control infrastructure imposed at a maniacally rapid tempo, the destruction of net neutrality and thereby guaranteeing control and closing down of almost all independent information flows on the Internet, and now, as seen so clearly in this article by Monbiot, the forced imminent world-wide imposition of a legal structure that will remove all protections from services and products that cause wide-spread disease in humans and all other living beings and toxify the entire planet and also cause immense cultural and economic dislocation for 50%-99% of all people. In short, as Monbiot says, this major piece will create, “as the Democracy Centre says…”a privatised justice system for global corporations”. This initiative will be key to utterly circumventing virtually ALL citizen-based efforts at protecting itself medically, politically, legally and economically, a citizenry which will be much reduced or weakened by covert eugenics, and those remaining who are not weakened, will be radically coerced and controlled by the military/police state.

2013/11/07

SchwartzReport: Lies & Truths That Matter

Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence

The latest data from NASA on climate change. Click through to see charts and to use the hotlinks to get documentation for this report.

Hottest September On Record, Fastest Pacific Warming In 10,000 Years, Warmest Arctic In 120,000 Years
JOE ROMM – Think Progress

Anyone who reads SR regularly knows that I don't believe we have a healthcare system in this country, we have an illness profit system. The function of healthcare in the U.S. is to produce profit not wellness. Here is an excellent assessment of the situation.

Rip-Off: How Private-sector Health Costs Are Killing the ‘American Dream’
JOSHUA HOLLAND – Moyers & Company/The Raw Story

Here, in a British publication is an excellent assessment of what is happening in the financial world. It is unlikely you will read this in the American corporate media, but it is going to impact your life in a number of ways. Click through to see the charts.

Rise of the Distorporation
The Economist (U.K.)

Yesterday's story about the middle class brought me a slew of email including this report. Since most SR readers are or, increasingly according to the emails I get formerly were, middle class this report should be very alarming.

The Decline of America’s Middle-class Neighborhoods
BEN WALSH – Reuters

Here is an extended essay advancing an argument you have been hearing me say for several years now.

The Super-rich No Longer Need a Middle Class
THOM HARTMANN – Salon

2013/11/06

SchwartzReport: Lies & Truths That Matter

Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence

We can't say we haven't been warned.

Is It Too Late to Prepare for Climate Change?
ELIZABETH KOLBERT – The New Yorker

This is a view from inside the church establishment. Even they see what is happening with their late teen early twenties cohort, and it is not a happy story for them. As I read this, the extremism that is the hallmark of the Theocratic Right, and its obsession with “values” issues like marriage rights, LGBT rights, abortion just don't reflect the world view of young adults, who are walking away.

LifeWay Research Finds Reasons 18- to 22-Year-Olds Drop Out of Church
SCOTT MCCONNELL – Lifeway

Here is the latest on Fukushima and its effect on sealife. The news isn't getting any better.

Radiation From Japan Nuclear Plant Arrives on Alaska Coast
CBC News (Canada)

Continue reading “SchwartzReport: Lies & Truths That Matter”

2013/11/052013/11/05

Stuart Umpleby: The Triple Bottom Line & Current Challenges

Collective Intelligence, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Peace Intelligence

The triple bottom line — people, profits, planet — is a recent business concept. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_bottom_line. We are now facing major issues on all three:

1. People. The safety of people is threatened by a) vulnerable cyber infrastructure. See the National Geographic video American Blackout; and b) inequality leading to lower standards of living for the middle class. See the recent books by Hedrick Smith, Joseph Stiglitz, and Jeffrey Sachs.

2. Profits. See the various films and books on the financial crisis. For example, in the book Thirteen Bankers Simon Johnson, former chief economist at the IMF, and James Kwak say that “too big to fail is too big.” Yet the banks are getting bigger and they have great influence in writing the laws on banking regulation.

3. Planet. I had heard that sea level might rise by 3 feet by the end of the century. The National Geographic program Earth Under Water suggests perhaps as much as 16 feet in 100 years and another 16 feet in the next 100 years. See .

These numbers may be high. However, what actions should we be taking in order to minimize the problem and to prepare for whatever sea level rise occurs?

I think systems science, and reflexivity theory, would be helpful in understanding these phenomena.

Continue reading “Stuart Umpleby: The Triple Bottom Line & Current Challenges”

2013/11/022013/11/02

4th Media: Global Power Project (Part I, II, & III)

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Transnational Crime, Commercial Intelligence

Part I: Global Power Project: Exposing the Institute of International Finance

This is the first of a series of exposés focusing on the Institute of International Finance (IIF), the very “visible hand” of financial markets. It is a continuation of the Global Power Project produced by Occupy.com. Part 1 examines the origins of the IIF.

Founded in 1983, the Institute of International Finance (IIF) describes itself as “the world’s only global association of financial institutions” with a membership that includes “most of the world’s largest commercial banks and investment banks,” along with sovereign wealth funds, asset managers, hedge funds, insurance companies, law firms, multinational corporations, development banks, multilateral agencies, credit ratings agencies and an assortment of other global financial and economic organizations. In short, the Institute of International Finance is the very visible hand of the global financial markets.

As the IIF notes on its website, its “main activities” include providing so-called “impartial analysis and research” to its members in order to “shape regulatory, financial, and economic policy issues….influence the public debate on particular policy proposals….[and work] with policymakers, regulators, and multilateral organizations… with an emphasis on voluntary market-based approaches to crisis prevention and management.”

It is also there to “provide a network for members to exchange views and offer opportunities for effective dialogue among policymakers, regulators, and private sector financial institutions.” The IIF proclaims it “is committed to being the most influential global association of financial institutions,” seeking to “sustain and enhance…. our extensive relationships with policymakers and regulators.”

The Institute of International Finance was formed at the beginning of the debt crisis of the 1980s, designed to establish a formal organization and representation for the interests of the world’s major banks and financial institutions. A meeting at Ditchley Park, England, was hosted by the National Planning Association (NPA) in May of 1982, which brought together senior representatives from major commercial banks in the industrialized Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) countries, as well as the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Jacques de Larosiere; other top IMF and World Bank officials; the Comptroller of the Currency of the U.S., C.T. Conover; and the Head of Banking Supervision at the Bank of England, Peter Cooke, among many others. [1]

Continue reading “4th Media: Global Power Project (Part I, II, & III)”

2013/11/01

SchwartzReport: Lies & Truths That Matter

Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence

Yet more disgusting news about what is happening to the American food system. I just can't say strongly enough: You must give serious consideration to the food you eat. Your health, and your life, and the health and lives of your family depend on your choices.

Ractopamine: The Meat Additive on Your Plate That's Banned Almost Everywhere But America
MARTHA ROSENBERG – AlterNet (U.S.)

I am not the only person who thinks water is destiny. Here is an excellent assessment of where we stand in regards to water.

Blue Gold: The Coming Water Wars
GORDON G. CHANG – World Affairs

Phi Beta Iota: Water War is old news, but the dilitantes around government finally seem to be taking notice. The DNI and CIA are still incapable at serious futures studies, in part because they lack a holistic analytic model and just cannot get a grip on true cost economics. The good news is that any government with integrity is immediately able to combine solar power with water desalination and hydroponic agriculture to rapidly solve multiple challenges at once. Finding an honest government is the hard part. See also Robert David Steele,”Water: Soul of the Earth, Mirror of Our Collective Souls,” Huffington Post (5 January 2011).

Freedom of the press has not, in my lifetime, been under such serious threat as it is now. In some ways it is already too late, because today's corporate media is so corrupted that the freedom to say something is pre-compromised by the fact that few in media address the substantive issues of the day. Most of the reports you see in SR you won't see on your evening news — turn on the news any night and you can see this for yourself.

NSA Chief Says Government Must Stop Media
GLENN GREENWALD, Investigative Journalist – Reader Supported News

This is an essay published in one of the major foreign policy journals. Although it makes some good points, where it is appearing is one of the most important.

The End of Hypocrisy – American Foreign Policy in the Age of Leaks
HENRY FARRELL and MARTHA FINNEMORE, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University – Foreign Affairs