Policies – Page 729 – Public Intelligence Blog

Here are two excellent items on the greedy cultish institutional culture of Goldman Sachs, which has its own revolving door in and out of the Federal government.

Chuck

Background from November 2009

November 8, 2009

I'm doing ‘God's work'. Meet Mr Goldman Sachs

Average pay this recessionary year for the 30,000 staff is expected to be a record $700,000. Top earners will get tens of millions, several hundred thousand times more than a cleaner at the firm. When they have finished getting “filthy rich by 40”, as the company saying goes, these alpha dogs don’t put their feet up. They parachute into some of the most senior political posts in the US and beyond, prompting accusations that they “rule the world”. Number 85 Broad Street is the home of Goldman Sachs.

New focused report:

Goldman Sachs And The Republicans

Simon Johnson, Baseline Scenario, 2 Feb 2010

Goldman and the other big Wall Street firms have already won big on this round. They will plow even more money into defeating political candidates who have opposed them – for example, on credit card legislation. The Republicans see this coming and are rubbing their hands with glee.

With their incentive structure intact – they get the upside and regular folk get the downside – and their closest friends on their way back to power, Big Finance is ready to roll into the next great global boom-bust cycle.

Phi Beta Iota: President Obama still does not get it–he was funded to keep Senator McCain out of the office, now he is going to be unfunded to put the original Republican sell-outs (Senator Phil Gamm R-TX et al) back in. What the President especially does not get is that the only way to put Goldman Sachs back in its box is to let We the People out of ours. Electoral Reform in time for November 2010 (first four elements) and then 2012 does three things: 1) assures him of a second term; 2) buries the two-party tyranny; and 3) restores honest civil reality-based give and take to our democracy.

2010/02/042010/02/04

Journal: Haiti Update 4 February 2010

02 Diplomacy, 06 Family, 07 Health, 08 Immigration, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society

a haiti after — Aerial View of Destroyed Buildings

Adequacy of Aid. Foreign Food Aid Trickles Into Haiti's Black Market (New York Times, 4 Feb 10). PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – Blocks from where U.S. and U.N. soldiers distribute sacks of rice to Haitian women in earthquake-shattered Port-au-Prince, street vendors are openly selling rice by the cup from bags stamped with U.S. flags. . . . For two weeks, the World Food Program will give out only rice, deciding later whether to add other staples like beans, cooking oil and salt. Phi Beta Iota: This is nuts. We should be carpet bombing this place with ALL possible survival ratios to the point that no one has to buy anything for the next 90 days. Idiocy and lack of imagination.

Adequacy of Aid: Already Bad Health Situation in Haiti Has Gotten Worse – It’s Aftershock (Health Kut 29 Jan 10). For years Haiti has had to deal with inferior medical care and various health concerns. The earthquake that has recently impacted the country has made conditions worse for the country and is likely to end up causing a new series of medical concerns. These concerns are ones that could end up killing hundreds of thousands of people who didn’t die right after the earthquake. Phi Beta Iota: We agree with this, and forecast it within a week of the disaster that the US has now turned into a catastrophe.

Adequacy of Aid. Wickham: A short attention span won't save Haiti (Towntalk Canada, 2 Feb 10). To help Haiti recover, the U.S. has to help it rebuild Port-au-Prince, the capital city that was leveled by the 7.0 magnitude earthquake. The U.S. also has to help rebuild the country's shattered economy. “In 30 seconds Haiti lost 60 percent of its GDP,” Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said during the day-long meeting. It's estimated it will take at least 10 years and $3 billion to rebuild Haiti – and probably a lot more time and money to help shed its identity as the American hemisphere's poorest county. Phi Beta Iota: Haiti is already old news and back-burner, We’re simply not serious, if we were, USG would mandate a pooling of all donations, publish a day to day spending bill, and show planned spending for public comment 90 days out.

Continue reading “Journal: Haiti Update 4 February 2010”

2010/02/042010/02/04

Journal: NIGHTWATCH Extract France & Citizenship

08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, 11 Society, Communities of Practice, Cultural Intelligence

NIGHTWATCH HOME. France: For the record. Prime Minister Francois Fillon said on 3 February he would sign a decree barring a Moroccan man from receiving French citizenship because of his insistence that his French wife conform to the strictest Islamic practices. Fillon said that the man “has no place in our country.”

The French authorities describe the case as being about a religious radical who requires his wife to wear the burqa (the head to toe covering with eye slots); he insists the separation of men and women in his own home, and he refuses to shake the hands of women,” Fillon said.

On 2 February, Immigration Minister Eric Besson said that during checks into the man's application for citizenship, he explicitly stated that he would never allow his wife to leave the house without wearing a full veil and that he believed a woman is “an inferior being.”

Earlier this week a parliamentary panel called for a law to ban the wearing of full Islamic veils in public institutions such as schools, hospitals and transport. “It's French law,” Fillon told Europe 1 radio. “The Code Civile has for a very long time provided that naturalization could be refused to someone who does not respect the values of the French Republic.

A Reader could conclude that political correctness in France favors the Republic’s interests over the individual’s right of self expression and even personal religious observance. In this case, the Republic places respect for women and women’s rights over male dominance prescribed in religious texts. This is a study in democracy.

Continue reading “Journal: NIGHTWATCH Extract France & Citizenship”

2010/02/032010/02/03

Search: usaid energy water nexus

05 Energy, 12 Water

Water Matrix — Must go beyond Water-Energy

Very neat search. Before your search, there was not much. Here are just a couple of links that we found worthy outside of Phi Beta Iota, and then below, our two graphics that the US Government still refuses to contemplate, but which are essential if we are ever to get to coherent sustainable strategy, Whole of Government operations, and a balanced budget. Kudos to AID for getting this duality right, but it's much more complicated than that, and what's good for water or energy might be bad for all the other pieces of the Whole.

The Water-Energy Nexus: Opportunities for Integrated Environmental Management(USAID Global Environment Center, July 2001)

Phi Beta Iota: It says a great deal that this nine year old document is still at the top; we need to do more.

Water Analysis Wheel — Water-Centra Analytic Wheel

Water-Energy Nexus (WENEXA) (US AID India, 2009)

Phi Beta Iota: It might help to stop farmers from selling tanker fulls of water from their land, reducing the national aquifers as the dirt cheap rate of $4 a tanker load. Not their water to sell!

A Study on Water and Energy Nexus in Central Asia (August 31, 2002)

Phi Beta Iota: A marvelous model study. Now imagine its expansion using the graphics below.

THE ENERGY AND WATER NEXUS: SERVICES WITH A GOOD MATCH (September 2004)

Phi Beta Iota: Another excellent model study, including value chains and critical success factors.

Linking Water and Energy Sectors for Sustainable Groundwater Use (no date)

Phi Beta Iota: USAID powerpoint briefing, some contact points, agriculture-water-energy.

Assessing the Water-Energy Nexus in Cape Town (2009)

Phi Beta Iota: Short story with two big points: a sound analytic model and creating the database is both essential and immediately actionable; and what you can learn from data in recommending alternative strategies can reduce need for new financial investments.

Food for thought:

2010/02/03

Journal: New QDR–Pentagon Goes Intellectually AWOL

10 Security, Analysis, Budgets & Funding, Ethics, Military, Reform, Strategy, Threats

The New QDR

The Pentagon Goes Intellectually AWOL

By FRANKLIN C. SPINNEY

Monday, February 1, 2010, was a day that should live in budgetary infamy. The Defense Department released its Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and its accompanying Fiscal Year 2011 budget request, which is the first year of the Fiscal Year 2011-2015 five year plan (2011-2015 FYDP). These documents are available on the internet and can be downloaded in PDF format here: QDR and the FY 2011 budget.

Even by the dismal intellectual standards of Pentagon bureaucracy, the QDR and the FY 2011 budget, taken together, establish a new standard of analytical vacuity, psychological denial, and just plane meaningless drivel. I will keep this short by using just one important case to prove my allegation. Judge for yourself if it is necessary and sufficient to make the point.

. . . . . . .

The chaos in the accounting system provides the intellectual “grease” to lubricate the engine driving narrow bureaucratic agendas that are causing the force structure meltdown. Senior decision makers can not possibly understand the trade offs they are really making when they put together a budget, assuming they wanted to, which is also in doubt.

Phi Beta Iota: The Pentagon is only as competent as the combination of three factors:

Continue reading “Journal: New QDR–Pentagon Goes Intellectually AWOL”

2010/02/022010/02/02

Journal: Politics of Fear–Spending on National Insecurity

10 Security, Analysis, Budgets & Funding, Collective Intelligence, Military, Peace Intelligence, Reform, Threats

Answer: It all depends on what you think should be included, but once this is clear — this spending will be be exempt from any cutbacks needed to reduce the deficit.

The Table prepared by Winslow Wheeler, Director, Straus Military Reform Project within the Center for Defense Information.

Chuck

Defense Spending — Winslow Wheeler, Straus Military Reform Project.

2010/02/012010/09/02

Journal: Apocalypse to Viet-Nam–Worth a Look

03 Economy, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, Peace Intelligence

berto small — Berto Jongman Recommends...

Afghanistan: Mullah Omar Ready to End Al Qaida Ties (Video)

Apocalyptic thinking and the signs of the coming apocalypse by sheikh IMran N. Hosein

Book announcement: how enemies become friends

Book Reviews, Books by Ronald Crelinsten by Tim Stevens

Conflict in N Dimensions Excellent blog by Tim Stevens

Cyber-War and Critical Infrastructure I

Cyber-War and Critical Infrastructure II

Cyber-War and Critical Infrastructure III

Cyber-War: The costs of databreaches in US and UK

Islamic thinking on the role of money and islamic banking by sheikh Imran N. Hosein.

Peace after war New study

Terror Risk High as Obama Ponders Afghan Fiasco (November Prediction of Christmas Day False Flag Operation by Christopher Bollyn) November 18, 2009 The risk of another false-flag terror attack like the terror atrocities of 9-11 is currently very high. This is not a prediction but a warning based on my analysis of 9-11 and the predicament that the U.S. and NATO find themselves in as they try to “pacify” occupied Afghanistan, a nation of fighting men who have always resisted foreign occupiers since Alexander the Great conquered the region and built Kandahar (Alexandria) in 330 B.C.

Terror: New study of the WODC (Scientific Research and Documentation Center of the Ministry of Justice) on Dutch jihadists. For the first time reserachers had access to twelve police investigative files on cases in the periode 2001-2005. An English summary can be found on pages 166-171.

Terror: Remarks on terrorist financing

Vietnam new study on role of CIA

Category: Policies

Journal: Greedy Cultish Goldman Sachs Looting America and Corrupting Democracy