Category: Communities of Practice

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Defense and the Deficit–Busting the Defense Bubble, Ending Defense Entitlement

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Budgets & Funding, Commercial Intelligence, Corporations, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Peace Intelligence, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy
Winslow Wheeler

Last Saturday's issue of Barron's ran a cover story on the deficit and their own take on how to address it.  In contrast to the recent recommendations from President Obama and the House Republicans, defense was actually “on the table,” not “at” it.  In the absence of any adult thinking on the deficit since the Deficit Commission in December, Barron's addresses a void that remains vast and empty in Congress and the Executive branch.  The article puts on the table a defense recommendation — which I urged to them — that goes significantly deeper than even the Deficit Commission's — in truth fuzzy — recommendation on “security” spending.

Almost immediately, Forbes published at its website a related piece on defense spending and The Pentagon Labyrinth that contains some interesting private sector views on how the public might be beginning to perceive the current size of the defense budget and condition of our armed forces: note the references to “defense entitlement,” “defense bubble,” and “parade ground military.”  It would seem that the paradigm is changing, at least outside Washington DC.  (If you think that the recent killing of bin Laden proves the “parade ground” moniker wrong, I urge you to read the introduction essay in The Pentagon Labyrinth: “Why Is This Handbook Necessay?“.

Bursting The Defense Bubble: End The Entitlement Mentality
Steve Denning, Forbes, 30 April 2011

Grow Up, Guys!
By GENE EPSTEIN
Barron's Cover SATURDAY, APRIL 30, 2011

While the President and GOP sling mud at each other, the debt crisis is growing. Barron's offers some tough-but necessary-ways to alleviate it.

Phi Beta Iota: It is possible to eliminate the deficit by making Medicare prices honest and stopping the borrowing of money for corporate pork that feeds political pork.  It is possible to eliminate personal income taxes by adopting the Automated Payment Transaction (APT) Tax, which actually produces a great deal more revenue which is desperately needed to bail out the equally irresponsible state governments and pension funds (both government and corporate).   America is hosed.  It is not possible to “reset” until Washington can combine intelligence and integrity, and that may require a public revolt on both taxes and the fraudulent corrupt Electoral System that keeps the two-party tyranny in a position to continue looting the Commonwealth.

See Also:

Seven Promises to America–Who Will Do This?

Serious (Honest) Thinking About US Budget

$500 Billion in Cuts is Minimal Mandatory….

US Goverment 2011 Revenue, Costs, & Debt–Two Party Tyranny Lies Straight Up, Media Goes Along

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Secrecy News: Cost of Secrecy >$10B + RECAP

Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Secrets, Military

ANNUAL SECRECY COSTS NOW EXCEED $10 BILLION

The rise in national security secrecy in the first full year of the Obama Administration was matched by a sharp increase in the financial costs of the classification system, according to a new report to the President (pdf).

The estimated costs of the national security classification system grew by 15% last year to reach $10.17 billion, according to the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO).  It was the first time that annual secrecy costs in government were reported to exceed $10 billion.

An additional $1.25 billion was incurred within industry to protect classified information, for a grand total of $11.42 in classification-related costs, also a new record high.

Continue reading “Secrecy News: Cost of Secrecy >$10B + RECAP”

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“Fighting” the Mississippi River

01 Agriculture, 03 Economy, 03 Environmental Degradation, 12 Water, Earth Intelligence, Government, Military
Click on Image to Enlarge

A Levee Breached, and New Worries Downstream

By and

New York Times, May 3, 2011

Roy Presson, with his daughters Catherine, left, and Amanda, looking out at their flooded 2,400-acre farm on Tuesday in Wyatt, Mo

SIKESTON, MO. — With a rapid series of explosions late Monday that could be felt for miles through the Missouri soil, the Army Corps of Engineers successfully blew out some 11,000 feet of Mississippi River levee, taking dangerous pressure off the river above.

. . . . . .

For the people responsible for trying to manage the unmanageable river, each success is replaced by new worries.

“We’re just at the beginning of the beginning,” said Maj. Gen. Michael J. Walsh of the Army Corps of Engineers and president of the Mississippi River Commission.

Full article….

Phi Beta Iota: Severe weather is an act of man, not God.  Between paving over the wetlands and the many contributing factors to environmental degradation, the Earth's natural systems have been distorted to yield increasingly “unmanageable” conditions.

See Also:

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Climate Change

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Environmental Degradation (Other than Emissions)

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Event: 4-5 April Extra-Judicial State Control Over Non-State Nuclear Proliferation

02 Diplomacy, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, Key Players, Law Enforcement, Military, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence

Cooperation to Control Non-State Nuclear Proliferation: Extra-Territorial Jurisdiction and UN Resolutions 1540 and 1373

This workshop will explore theoretical options and practical pathways to extend states' control over non-state actor nuclear proliferation through the use of extra-territorial jurisdiction and international legal cooperation.

UNSC Resolution 1373 and the raft of counter-terrorism treaties related to non-state based nuclear terrorism allow for states to exercise extra-territorial criminal jurisdiction in certain ways. UNSC Resolution 1373 even requires the exercise of such jurisdiction in certain cases. UNSC Resolution 1540, in contrast, focuses on domestic controls.

Workshop Dates: April 4-5, 2011

Host: Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability, The Stanley Foundation and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Venue:

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20036-2103

Learn more….

Tip of the Hat to Contributing Editor Berto Jongman.

Phi Beta Iota: Extra-judicial anything is a crime against humanity.  While the International Tribunals have done some extraordinary work, the reality is that most non-state proliferation is actively aided and condoned by specific states including the permanent members of the UN Security Council.  This is a very troubling line of inquiry.

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USA in a Depression–Employment Hosed

03 Economy, 06 Family, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce, Corruption, Government
Chuck Spinney Recommends...

May 2, 2011

Meanwhile, Back in the Homeland

Economic Terror Wins the Day: We're in a Depression

By MIKE WHITNEY, Counterpunch

On Thursday, Gallup reported that “More than half of Americans say the U.S. economy is in a recession or a depression despite official data that show a moderate recovery…..The April 20-23 Gallup survey… found that only 27 percent said the economy is growing. 29 per cent said the economy is in a depression and 26 per cent said it is in a recession, with another 16 per cent saying it is “slowing down,” Gallup said.”

55 percent of Americans believe we are in a depression or a recession a full 5 years after the housing bubble burst (2006) and 3 years after Lehman Brothers collapsed. (2008)  Gallup's findings jibe with other surveys that indicate growing desperation among the public. For example,  Globescan found that a large number of Americans have given up on free-market capitalism altogether, while other polls show dwindling confidence in government institutions, the Federal Reserve, the Congress, the judicial system and the media.

. . . . . . .

Do you have any idea how bad unemployment really is? Take a look at this from Calculated Risk:

“There are currently 130,738 million payroll jobs in the U.S. (as of March 2011). There were 130,781 million payroll jobs in January 2000. So that is over eleven years with no increase in total payroll jobs.

“And the median household income in constant dollars was $49,777 in 2009. That is barely above the $49,309 in 1997, and below the $51,100 in 1998……

Full story online….

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100+ Inspiring Change Agents on Twitter

11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics
Venessa Miemis

EBD, or ‘emergent by design,’ was the phrase I chose when naming this blog to describe what I was seeing around me in the most inspiring and passionate people and organizations making positive change in themselves and the world around them. To me, that means not being a passive bystander to life and letting it happen to you, but really grabbing life by the short and curlies and manifesting greatness in this epic adventure!

I’ve been on Twitter now for about 2 years, and love finding people doing amazing things. It gives me hope & energizes my spirit. I shared my technique for Twitter a while back – with “How to Use Twitter to Build Intelligence.” Let this be the 2011 curated update.

Here are some people I’d recommend following for their passion, creativity, wisdom, empathy, intelligence, and love. Some I’ve met in real life, many I simply admire from a far. I would be so curious to see what would happen if we got all them together in the same room. (how bout at Contact?) 😉

Who’s on your list of awesome? Let us know in the comments below. And here we are, in no particular order:

Visualizers  ..  Future of Local Economy & Resilient Communities  ..  Facilitation, Collective Intelligence, Organizational Change  ..  Thinkers, Writers, Academics, Researchers, Authors  ..  Futures Thinking  ..  Lifestyle Designers, Minimalists

See photos, links, and one-liners….

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Sleepwalking through America’s Unemployment Crisis

03 Economy, 04 Education, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Government
Mohamed A. El-Erian

Sleepwalking through America’s Unemployment Crisis

Mohamed A. El-Erian

Mohamed A. El-Erian is CEO and co-CIO of PIMCO, and author of When Markets Collide.

NEWPORT BEACH – It was relegated to the Q&A session, rather than featured prominently in the opening statement, at last week’s first-ever press conference of US Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke. It is an issue that too many in Washington, DC are willing to dismiss as “transitory,” despite visible evidence to the contrary. It is extremely vulnerable to high oil and food prices. And it undermines the operational assumptions that underpin the long-standing characterization of the US economy as vibrant and responsive.

The issue is the scope and composition of unemployment in America – a problem that is yet to be sufficiently recognized for its increasingly detrimental impact on the country’s social fabric, its economic potential, and its already-fragile fiscal position and debt dynamics.

Let us start with the facts:

·         At 8.8% almost three years after the onset of the global financial crisis, America’s unemployment rate remains stubbornly (and unusually) high;

·         Rather than reflecting job creation, much of the improvement in recent months (from 9.8% in November last year) is due to workers exiting the labor force, thus driving workforce participation to a multi-year low of 64.2%;

·         If part-time workers eager to work full time are included, almost one in six workers in America are either under- or unemployed;

·         More than six million workers have been unemployed for more than six months, and four million for over a year;

·         Unemployment among 16-19 year olds is at a staggering 24%;

Read rest of article….