Pierre Cloutier: US Dollar will Crash, US & Others Will Finally Follow Iceland Lead and (Hopefully) Strip Banks of All Their Assets While Insuring Bottom-Up

03 Economy, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Government
Pierre Cloutier
Pierre Cloutier

Very good analysis here.

GEAB N°72 is available! Global systemic crisis – Second half of 2013: The reality or the anticipation of the Dollar collapse obliges the world to reorganize on new fundamentals

EXTRACT

Bank failures: Towards an « Icelandation » of the banking crisis’ management

In the face of this shock, our team estimates that most countries, including the United States, will approach management of the crisis in an “Icelandic style”, i.e. not to bail out the banks and to let them collapse (16). We have already had a glimpse with the liquidation of the Irish bank IBRC which has given many people ideas: “How Ireland liquidated its banking albatross in one night” headlined La Tribune (17) admiringly. This possibility seems to increasingly be the solution in the event of the banks backsliding, for the following reasons: first, it seems much more effective than the 2008-2009 bailout plans judging by Iceland’s recovery; second, countries don’t really have the means to pay for new bailouts anymore; finally, one can’t deny that it must be a big temptation for leaders to get rid in a popular fashion of part of the debts and “toxic assets” which encumber their economy.

Read full article.

SchwartzReport: Corrupt and Inept US Government Allows Rampant Food Substitution and Mislabeling — As High as 52% — California and New York City the Worst

03 Economy, 06 Family, 07 Health, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society

schwartz reportToday's issue is a selection of the many stories I have found showing the results arising from the efforts of the Theocratic Right to shape the world as they wish it. I want to be clear that this is only a selection. I could have picked 10 other stories.

Click on Image to Enlarge
Click on Image to Enlarge

Because many of these efforts are either esoteric assaults on regulatory agencies, or programs at the state level, and they get little national discussion, I don't think most people quite realize how pervasive these efforts have been.

This all gets down to voting. All of us who want our country to choose a compassionate and life-affirming course must not only vote, we must take on the responsibility of counseling and assisting others of like mind to vote.

We have to take this very seriously.

— Stephan

Click on Image to Enlarge
Click on Image to Enlarge

ONE STORY ONLY:

Seafood Fraud Study By Oceana Reveals Widespread Mislabeling Nationwide

Oceana, an international ocean advocacy group, has released a report on national seafood fraud [pdf], and the results are disconcerting. The report, which is one of the largest on seafood fraud to date, found that one-third of fish was mislabeled.

Oceana performed DNA testing from 2010 to 2012 on 1,215 fish samples from 674 retail outlets in 21 states. In this study, Oceana found seafood fraud everywhere it tested, with rates hitting as high as 52 percent in Southern California. Here are the full results:

Continue reading “SchwartzReport: Corrupt and Inept US Government Allows Rampant Food Substitution and Mislabeling — As High as 52% — California and New York City the Worst”

SmartPlanet: High-Speed Rail — Teaching Governments, Mobilizing All Eight Tribes to Press Forward on High-Speed Rail and Localized Everything

02 China, 03 Economy

smartplanet logo“The Morning Briefing” is SmartPlanet’s daily roundup of must-reads from the web. This morning we’re reading about high-speed rail.

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Click on Image to Enlarge

1.) Protests bring Italian high-speed rail mega-tunnel to its knees. High-speed rail has garnered a lot of praise recently. The U.S. has a new national high-speed network map. China has unveiled the world’s longest high-speed line. Japan is beginning construction of their long-anticipated Maglev train line. But not all the news surrounding high-speed rail is so rosy.

2.) India and France to strengthen cooperation in railway sector. India and France have singed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen cooperation in the railway sector.

3.) Is there hope for high-speed rail In Austin? A California transit company recently proposed a map of a national high speed rail network that places Austin as a major hub on the east/west southern rail lines. As KUT News reports, Austin would be mere hours away from major cities like Los Angeles and Chicago, not to mention Dallas and Houston.

Continue reading “SmartPlanet: High-Speed Rail — Teaching Governments, Mobilizing All Eight Tribes to Press Forward on High-Speed Rail and Localized Everything”

Yoda: Understanding Governance — Without Money, Righteous; With Money Corrupt

03 Economy, 11 Society, Communities of Practice, Corruption, Economics/True Cost, Ethics
Got Crowd? BE the Force!
Got Crowd? BE the Force!

Confused, force is.

First the good.

Stigmergic Governance Via the Web

In My piece, The End of Entropy  I propose the following:

With a central website, in forum style, to address major issues – divided into local sections, regional sections and global sections, with “votes” at a certain level elevating the problems and solutions to the next level to be voted on by a greater number – we can collectively coordinate to solve the issues of this planet.  Social responsibility will be seen as spending 15 minutes a day (or more) reviewing the issues on this site.  This seed parameter will see an emergence of human unity as a race and as a planet.

What is there proposed is a stigmergic governance – a way to govern society without a governMENT.  In a system with no money or need for exchange, stigmergic governance will work – as long as there are money interests, it is unlikely to, with votes bought, up or down, and other disruptive aspects.  This is what I propose in a free energy/robot system where no money is needed (read The End of Entropy for a picture of how this works).  If You are unfamiliar with the term, stigmergy, a good place to get a handle on the term is here.

A very good illustration of stigmergy is Linux.  In this case, one Individual created a basic program and offered it freely in open source.  Others came along and began to improve upon it, create software to run on it, and so on.  There was no “leader” in this group – those who wanted to get involved did so – and from the initial basic program, a whole creative “empire” came to be…all entirely free and freely.

Read full post.

and now the bad.

Continue reading “Yoda: Understanding Governance — Without Money, Righteous; With Money Corrupt”

Berto Jongman: Special Librarians Association Considers How Librarians Might be Intelligence Discovery Specialists — It Only Took Them TWENTY YEARS From When the Idea was First Presented

03 Economy, 04 Education, IO Impotency, Uncategorized
Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

SLA 2013 Annual Confernce, 9 June

Dr. Edna Reid, intelligence analyst (IA) in the federal government, and Aileen Marshall will present an interactive session about emerging roles for librarians/information professionals as intelligence analysts (IAs), open source specialists, and cyber intelligence analysts. The workshop will involve dissecting job descriptions for IAs, comparing competencies of librarians and IAs, and exploring training opportunities such as the open source specialist certificate. Reforms in the intelligence community (IC) and enhanced recognition of the value of open source/unclassified information (OSINT) can provide new opportunities for you!

Objectives:
• Discover how librarians can make the transition to IAs in the intelligence community (IC).
• Analyze IA job announcements, outline differences between LIS and an IA resumes, and discuss analytical tradecraft associated with IAs. Tradecraft is a skill acquired through experience in a trade.
• Highlight opportunities for librarians/information professionals and the SLA.

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: Special Librarians Association Considers How Librarians Might be Intelligence Discovery Specialists — It Only Took Them TWENTY YEARS From When the Idea was First Presented”

Owl: Sixteen Stabs in the Heart for USA — All From Concentrated Wealth — Single Most Common Cause of Revolution…

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Ineptitude, Law Enforcement
Who?  Who?
Who? Who?

America faces more than a dozen deadlines, all caused by billionaires and wealth transfer

Gaius Pblius

AmericaBlog, 12 February 2013

I’ve identified 16 of these game-over situations facing America today, situations from which there is the possibility of no recovery — not the certainty, but the possibility. As I was working on that article though, looking especially what it would take to reverse each trend, I realized it’s really only one story writ 16 times on 16 separate canvasses.

That story? The song of the predator class, the rich and the rest — “All your money are belong to us.

It’s the story, in other words, of worldwide billionaires and the one thing they’re doing — monomaniacly making money while telling each other tales of their Randian goodness.

America’s 16 deadlines

As I said, I see 16 individual, though interlinked, processes in the country today that have potential game-over, irreversible end-points. You may think there are more, or you may think some could be merged, but I think that’s tweakage, “in the noise,” not a useful distinction. For our purposes, this list is good enough.

Here they are, numbered in no particular order, but grouped:

Continue reading “Owl: Sixteen Stabs in the Heart for USA — All From Concentrated Wealth — Single Most Common Cause of Revolution…”

SchwartzReport: When Corruption Rules — Three Examples

01 Agriculture, 03 Economy, 06 Family, 07 Health, 09 Justice, 11 Society, 12 Water, Commerce, Corruption, Government, Ineptitude

schwartz reportIn the endless blather by the Right about the debt, which is meaningless in the short-term, but which has captured the media, the issues covered in this report rarely get attention. They should. This is the real crisis.

Solve the Real Problems – Poverty Retirement and Health Insecurity – and the Economy Will Recover
KEVIN ZEESE and MARGARET FLOWERS – Truthout.org

When we confront the crises of poverty retirement and health insecurity, we discover that Social Security and Medicare are not the problems; they are the solutions.

schwartz reportWe have endless money for war, and we subsidize Big Oil to the tune of tens of billions of dollars, even as their profits soar to empyrean levels. Yet the basic infrastructure of the country is slowly coming apart in front of us, as this report shows. Millions of jobs could be created if we took our future seriously. But we don't.

America’s Maritime Infrastructure: Crying Out for Dollars
The Economist (U.K.)

NEW ORLEANS — THE Industrial Canal Lock in New Orleans connects two of America’s highest-tonnage waterways: the Mississippi River-which handles more than 6,000 ocean vessels, 150,000 barges and 500m tonnes of cargo each year, as well as much of its grain, corn and soyabean production-and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, which runs from refinery-rich south-eastern Texas to Florida. Ships pass from one to the other via a lock that was built in 1921, and is 600 usable feet long, or half the length of a modern lock. Its replacement was authorised in 1956. Construction on the replacement was authorised in 1998, and then stalled by lawsuits. The most optimistic predictions of the Army Corps of Engineers, which maintains America’s inland waterways, see the new lock being completed in 2030.

schwartz reportSuperbugs, superweeds. There is an inherent problem with an approach to nature that is predicated on dominance as opposed to cooperation. Whether it is antibiotics or herbicides that approach never gets all the “bugs” in a hospital, or the weeds in a farm field. The result: the survivors mutate and become resistant, so strong antibiotics, and stronger poisons are required in a future round until, eventually, the d! rugs and poisons no matter how strong just stop working. That's where we are in our hospitals, and now where we are in our fields. You'd think this progression would be obvious. But the corporate greed for short-term profit just overwhelms good sense.

Nearly Half of All US Farms Now Have Superweeds
TOM PHILPOTT – Mother Jones

But of course there's another way. In a 2012 study I'll never tire of citing, Iowa State University researchers found that if farmers simply diversified their crop rotations, which typically consist of corn one year and soy the next, year after year, to include a “small grain” crop (e.g. oats) as well as offseason cover crops, weeds (including Roundup-resistant ones) can be suppressed with dramatically less fertilizer use-a factor of between 6 and 10 less. And much less herbicide means much less poison entering streams-“potential aquatic toxicity was 200 times less in the longer rotations” than in the regular corn-soy regime, the study authors note. So, despite what the seed giants and the conventional weed specialists insist, there are other ways to respond to the accelerating scourge of “superweeds” than throwing more-and ever-more toxic-chemicals at them.