charles hugh smith-Economic Darwinism and the Next Financial Crisis
BBC News – Poverty significantly saps our mental abilities say researchers
Jean Lievens: Millennials and the “Sharing” Economy
01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 11 Society, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Gift Intelligence
A new generation of cash-strapped ‘millennials' have very different expectations about jobs, credit and money. As Michelle Fleury reports, they are using the internet for a new ‘sharing economy'.
The cash-strapped millennials using ‘sharing economy'
The ‘millennials' are the generation that came of age after the 2008 financial crisis.
Cash-strapped and internet-savvy, they have very different expectations about jobs, credit and money.
Part of the new ‘sharing economy', they have taken to the idea of sharing rather than buying with a vengeance.
Michelle Fleury reports from New York.
Eagle: Charles Hugh Smith on Speculative Credit Bubbles and Human Misery Created by Complicity of Corrupt Governments and Central Banks
01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Federal Reserve, Government, Idiocy, Law Enforcement, World BankThe Immense (and Needless) Human Misery Caused by Speculative Credit Bubbles (August 27, 2013)
Financialization and the Neocolonial Model of credit-based exploitation leave immense human suffering in their wake when speculative credit bubbles inevitably implode.
Discussions of the global financial crisis tend to be bloodless accounts of policy and “growth.” This detachment masks the immense and totally needless human misery created by financial engineering. A correspondent with first-hand knowledge of the situation in Cyprus filed this account:
“RE: the Cyprus economic crisis, the politicians are unbowed by the chaos they caused, still behaving as they have always done, preaching populist platitudes, corrupt as ever, unapologetic. A poll showed that 99% of Cypriots believe their government is corrupt.Yesterday, the former president, Demetris Christofias, appeared before a tribunal investigating the causes of the economic collapse. He tried to force the tribunal to do what he told them, saying, “I am not just any witness, I was the President of the Republic for 5 years”. They told him where to get off and he stormed out.
Little hope for this country. Money leaving. Best talent leaving. Foreign investment in a planned energy hub has been hijacked by the politicians. Cyprus is returning back to what it always was: a tourist destination run by shopkeepers and farmers.Sad days. Most people feel betrayed by the politicians and big powers.”
This report highlights a key dynamic of speculative credit/banking bubbles: they require the complicity of central banks and the state. Speculative bubbles based solely on cash have very short lifespans, as the bubble bursts violently as soon as the gamblers' cash has been sucked into the vortex.
SchwartzReport: Lies, More Lies, Still More Lies, Then Some More Lies…
Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, GovernmentWhen your government lies to you over and over, as is the case in the U.S. today, the result is a loss of faith in the institutions of the state. I saw this happening in the old Soviet Union. People openly talked about how nothing the government said could be trusted. At the time it struck me as a very dangerous trend. Now it is happening here. This statement by the National Institute on Drug Abuse is an exa! mple. It is deceitful and dishonest in intent, and in fact, and the Obama Administration should be ashamed of itself. The lying that is coming out of the administration on in everything from national security to Marijuana is a disgrace. Click through to see some a very good compendium of actual facts.
Federal Drug Agency Denies Marijuana Is Less Toxic Than Alcohol
ROBIN WILKEY – The Huffington Post
This is a very serious issue that is getting almost no coverage in corporate media. Given its implications this is quite revealing of the state of American media. I have been digging into this for the past couple of weeks, and I am still unclear whether articles like this are alarmist, or an accurate representation of! what is going on. But one thing is clear, this is a major issue and appears to be a critical step in the rise of the Non-geographical corporate State's acquisition of power. A world without democracy, ruled by a technocratic elite serving the interests of US and global capital – protecting “investor rights” against national laws and regulations – is now being created in secret negotiations over free-trade treaties, one of which, the TransPacific Parnership (TPP), may be sewn up this fall. Can popular will stop it?
NAFTA on Steroids: The TransPacific Partnership and Global Neoliberalism
CLIFF DURAND, Research Associate, Center for Global Justice and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Morgan State – Truthout
One of the more interesting trends going on right now as the decision by the Millenials to abandon Christianity. I think this is happening because the Theocratic Right lives in a realm of fantasy that Millenials can see is utterly bogus — 6,000 year old Earth, inerrant Bible, Creationism, and Clima! te Denierism.
Hemant Mehta on Rising Atheism Among Millenials: ‘It’s not That Christianity Is Unpopular, It’s That It’s Untrue
GEORGE CHIDI – The Raw Story
Here is some good news about the anti-GMO movement with which I am in complete agreement (See my esssay, The Great Experiment: Genetically Modified Organisms, Scientific Integrity, and National Wellness.)
Big Food Stocks and Anti-GMO Sentiment: The Right to Choose Movement Gains Strength
MINYANVILLE – NASDAQ
SchwartzReport: Swedish Energy From Garbage Others Pay For; San Francisco to Get Its Own Bank
Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence
Here is some very good news about garbage, at least for Sweden. One can only wonder why we can't seem to muster the political will to do something similar.
Models of Sustainability: Sweden Runs Out of Garbage
ALAN PIERCE – The Pachamama Alliance
Here is the best news I have read about banking in several years.
San Francisco Strikes Blow to Wall Street: City May Now Get Its Own Public Bank
ELLEN BROWN – AlterNet (U.S.)
Graphic: What Google [and NSA] Know About You
Advanced Cyber/IO, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Government
Pierre Cloutier: A View of Concern About the North American Union
Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence
A respected commentator in French (here is Google translation to English):
A new ideological and geopolitical discourse is now to appear in the American economic and military circles political leaders. Faced with the rise of Chinese power, soon to be, inevitably, the largest economy in the world in terms of production, we begin to hear a new speech in Washington: The world's leading power for at least two decades to come, will not China, but the whole formed by the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
This set, they say, should be considered as a single country: economic integration, which began with the introduction of NAFTA, is now well advanced. The three countries have the same ideology, the same interest in defense and cooperate closely on all fronts, economic, cultural and military. Mexico has become a modern country where the rule of law is respected, as in the other two countries. Mexico and Canada Americanized high speed and the economic and cultural integration is considerable
This scenario is not unlikely. This set is indeed the first power in the world and will be long: a current total population of 470 million, which will be 540 million in 2030. A total GDP of 19,000 billion, which will be at least 25,000 billion by 2018. In both cases, much higher than China.
The United States, who are naturally a leader of the coalition, would delay and, as the Roman Empire, the time of its decline. All American strategy will therefore focus on the success of this economic integration, complemented by political integration, using for it the mass media. And integration may be easier to achieve than that tempt members of the European Union: The Americans are only three, with a dominant power may try to dictate.
This would have significant geopolitical consequences. Domination of North America to South America, and Europe, which does not measure, for example, the consequences of such a union on commercial negotiation begins with the United States alone.
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