Economics – Page 5 – Public Intelligence Blog

2015/03/102015/03/08

Review (Guest): Altered Genes, Twisted Truth: How the Venture to Genetically Engineer Our Food Has Subverted Science, Corrupted Government, and Systematically Deceived the Public

5 Star, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Economics, Environment (Problems), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Health, Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Public), Justice (Failure, Reform), Misinformation & Propaganda, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Survival & Sustainment, True Cost & Toxicity, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Steven M. Drucker

A meticulously documented account of corporate influence overriding sound science at the U.S. FDA

By n brown on March 7, 2015

Author Steven Druker raises an interesting parallel between computer systems and genetic manipulation. While computer systems – especially those that are life-dependent and life-sustaining – are carefully tested and retested to make sure that no “glitch” or “bug” could cause catastrophic harm, alterations to the far more complex genetic code of plants are made without similar precautions. These novel plants are grown, harvested, and consumed with little or no independent testing.

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2015/03/092015/03/09

Review: On Marx

5 Star, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Economics, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization)

EDIT: I have placed in bold the paragraph everyone is missing.

Alan Ryan

5.0 out of 5 stars Gem of a Book, Author's Synthesis is Priceless, March 6, 2015

I picked this up at Powell's Bookstore in Portland (10 times bigger than Tattered Cover in Denver, both worth going out of your way to visit) and it is a GEM of a book in two ways: the author provides a summary overview of Marxism that is hugely beneficial to anyone looking for a sound critique of capitalism as we know it today; and the author has selected a few pieces by Marx to be read in the original.

Peter Linebaugh's Stop, Thief!: The Commons, Enclosures, and Resistance (Spectre) is what forced me to reconsider Marx's critique of capitalism and I recommend that 2014 publication to anyone who wishes to think critically about capitalism today, with this book as a very fine follow-on.

QUOTE (64): “The modern republic attempts to impose political equality upon an economic inequality it has no way of alleviating.

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2015/03/092015/03/06

Review: Reform or Revolution and Other Writings

4 Star, Economics, Insurgency & Revolution, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization)

Rosa Luxemburg

4.0 out of 5 stars Tedious, Some Valuable Provocative Original Thinking, March 6, 2015

I bought this book along with On Marx: Revolutionary and Utopian (Liveright Classics) at Powell's in Portland, one of the truly great bookstores in the USA along with the Tattered Cover in Denver (which is a tenth the size of Powell's). I bought it largely because of its focus on the general strike versus the partial strike as a tactic that might or might not be possible depending on the country and where it is in its economic degeneration.

Although I received a very good education in political thought from Charles Bednar at Muhlenberg, I confess that it is only now at 63 that I have realized that most of what our government, media, think tanks, and even universities offer in the way of commentary on “political economy” is ideological crap — they do not do their homework, they really have no clue, and they get away with it because everyone else has no clue either.

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2015/03/072015/03/05

Review (Guest): American Coup – How a Terrified Government Is Destroying the Constitution

4 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Atrocities & Genocide, Censorship & Denial of Access, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Justice (Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, True Cost & Toxicity, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

William M. Arkin

4 out of 5 Stars. We Live in “Forever-War”

By Amazon Customer on September 22, 2013

Essentially: We now live in a time of “forever-war.”

The worry about the government instituting martial-law is sooo 1990's because we now truly live a martial life. And we've accepted it. There is no “over there” anymore when it comes to the militarization of our lives. Over there is here. We live to assist the government in everything. See something, say something. And the bottom-line of everything that the government does in the name of national security is not to serve, protect, or assist you but to preserve itself. It's all part of the Continuity of Government (COG) and it's been in place for many years but it spectacularly grew into the multi-headed hydra immediately after 911.

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2015/03/052015/03/04

Review (Guest): Lords of Secrecy – The National Security Elite and America’s Stealth Warfare

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Atrocities & Genocide, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Justice (Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle

Scott Horton

5 out of 5 Stars.

Excessive control that is out of control . . .

By Still Singin' on February 16, 2015

LORDS OF SECRECY is one of the finest books I've read on national security “creep.” Scott Horton manages to retain at least some distance from obvious bias, but some of the information he lays out would cause any legitimate American citizen clenched teeth and a few well-placed emphatic comments.

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2015/02/28

Review: Occupy the Economy – Challenging Capitalism

6 Star Top 10%, America (Founders, Current Situation), Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Civil Society, Congress (Failure, Reform), Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Democracy, Economics, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Misinformation & Propaganda, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, True Cost & Toxicity, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Richard Wolff with David Barsamian

5.0 out of 5 stars SIX STAR Primer on the Necessary Socio-Economic Revolution, February 28, 2015

SIX STAR (my top 10% across 2000+ non-fiction book). This is an extraordinary book full of straight talk and common sense that sets the stage for a socio-economic revolution, first in the USA and then elsewhere. It does not address the many isolated incidents of collaborative capitalism and the commons that are in motion around the world — for that look up Michel Bauwens and the work of others on the economic commons — and it neglects the coincident need for a political revolution which is what my latest book on Open Power is about — but on balance this is easily a six-star offering.

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2014/12/23

Review: Collaborative Commonwealth

4 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Civil Society, Complexity & Resilience, Crime (Government), Economics

Robert A. Needham

4.0 out of 5 stars Buy the Kindle not the Print — Thoughts Worth Considering, December 23, 2014

Enough substance to warrant my finishing the book and writing a summary review.

I accepted this book from a publicist because of my strong interest in “third way” economics. I like the concept of Collaborative Commonwealth very much, an alternative concept is one put forth by Michel Bauwens and others as Open Cooperativism. The two concepts are not as similar as one might think.

What I like most about the book is its very clever use of the water analogy (drops become streams become rivers feed lakes and oceans); its starkly interesting positioning of collaborative commonwealth as being in the sweet spot between the extremes of predatory capitalism and unbridled socialism, and its combination of clear patriotism including a defense of all of the Constitutional Amendments with an equally clear indictment of the US Government as the “gang in possesion” looting the Commonwealth and helping the banksters — including the private bank known as the Federal Reserve — squeeze the last drop of blood out of We the Economic Slaves.

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