Phi Beta Iota: This is the single most popular graphic at Phi Beta Iota, followed by Graphic: Preconditions of Revolution in the USA Today. Robert Steele is available to help your organization (and sub-sets seeking internal reform, what Gifford Pinchot calls “intrapreneurship” heal and grow. Visit Robert's personal page to learn more.
Rob van Kranenburg outlines a brief history of the next big thing–the internet of things–and argues that U.S. industry and government should be taking a more active role in its evolution.
About a decade ago, I would stand in the middle of a square somewhere and imagine that everything I saw could and would one day be possibly connected.
In my mind that was not such a new idea. Animists in Africa and Asia have for centuries talked about “living” inanimate objects, believing that things had a soul and taking good care of them. Humans are meaning-making machines, so we invest inanimate landscapes and objects with all kinds of qualities that they cannot really possess.
Ten years on, that daydream is becoming a reality with the Internet of Things. Loosely defined as a global process to enhance all objects with some kind of digital address, IoT is already coming to you: to your home as the smart meter that will streamline all your electrical appliances; to your connected car that will have distance sensors and eCall to alert accidents; and to your body as a patch in an intelligent T-shirt or the Siemens hearing aid that aims to pick up the fire truck noise and soften it before you “hear” it. In terms of “the next big thing” this is as big as fire and the book.
And it’s inevitable. Why? Because a confluence of historical factors has come together to make what was once the domain of science fiction a reality. Let’s quickly take a look at those drivers.
Between April and June 2012 more Americans were added to the food stamp program than found jobs.
An alarming data point from the minority side of the Senate Budget Committee: More Americans are being added to food stamps than are finding jobs. The data is detailed in this chart, provided by the committee:
As the chart shows, between April-June 2012 (the most recent three month block for which government data is available), only 200,000 jobs have been created while 265,000 individuals have been added to the food stamp rolls. Additionally, in that time period, 246,000 workers were awarded disability.
Click on Image to Enlarge
Phi Beta Iota: It's actually worse than that — and not something that can be blamed on President Obama or his Administration alone. This is a systemic problem. Accurate statistics that account for the growing eligible workforce show net losses of jobs created.
Dr. Steve Pieczenik, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in three administrations, who earned his Ph.D. at MIT, has revealed that he has been told by a high-ranking general–whom I believe to have been Gen. Richard Myers–that 9/11 was a “false flag” attack, which was done by the government in order to arouse the American people to support wars of aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq. On Alex Jones, he has now asserted that Israel is going to attack Iran on Yom Kippur, which begins on Tuesday, 25 September 2011 (sic). He insists that Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu are at odds over this, where Obama and the Pentagon are opposed to any such attack. I think Pieczenik is very honest and has run risks by revealing that he was told it had been a “false flag” operation to induce the public to support wars of aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq.
I wish that I could believe that the US “won’t be drawn into another unpopular war”. Given the coming November presidential elections, however, where a new war in the Middle East would be overwhelmingly unpopular with the American public, Obama needs plausible deniability, which means that it must appear to the public as though this engagement was initiated by Iran, where the most likely scenario has an Israeli sub torpedo the USS Enterprise, our first nuclear-powered carrier, and blame it on Iran. This would not be the first example of monumental hypocisy by Obama.
Sample entries are carried here — for all others see the index pages. This web site is unique as a historical record of all that was published going back to 1988 (by over 800 authorities), all of which has been ignored by the US Government particularly, other governments generally, because public intelligence in the public interest is the antethesis to corruption, fraud, waste, and abuse. The only obstacle to creating a prosperous world at peace, a world that works for all, is the lack of public intelligence in the public interest — intelligence with integrity. This demands a modern renaissance in education, intelligence, and research, the three fully integrated as Adas Bozeman has said, into “the thing entire.” Design (free), Money (harmonized), Effect (peace & prosperity).
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Phi Beta Iota: This is potentially a good idea but poorly framed — they have no analytic model and the primary emphasis appears to be on getting volunteer writers who can produce high-quality contributions at no cost. If the sponsors were to adopt or create a strategic analytic model, and create global intelligence councils, one for each threat, one for each policy, and then regional integrative councils and one global umbrella council, they just might be able to scale quickly and with relevance.
Everyone has an opinion of QE3. Almost all are wrong.
What has taken place here in its size, and in an almost simultaneous international unified approach has no precedent in economic history.
QE1 and QE2 were not failures. Do you have any idea what the world would have looked like if every major bank in the Western financial world broke?
It is easy to be a naysayer and say let the banks go broke, but you have no idea how hard it would have hit you and yours and maybe gold and silver. This is not to say that Debt Monetization, which QE represents, is correct, but it was the only tool available to central banks that would create infinite cash for the Fed and Treasury to use in a totally discretionary manner. Governments, because of the size of their debt, were incapable of applying the better tool for reviving economic activity, which is fiscal stimulation. One thing for certain is the infrastructure of the USA is collapsing in front of your eyes. Dar es Salaam airport looks better on approach than JFK. Dubai is beyond description. Roads from the Beijing airport are brand new. The USA infrastructure is disgraceful for a major power. New York City roads look like “Mad Max and the Day After.” However when you are the major debtor nation fiscal stimulation is simply not possible. It will not happen because it cannot happen.
Please stop listening to those that tell you QE will have no effect. They are “Ignorant to Infinity.” QE3 is going to have an unprecedented effect, as it is now simultaneous and global in scope.
Please make note of all the governments that screamed at the Fed for the use of QE1 and QE2 that are now applying QE to infinity.
There will be no QE4 because QE3 is going to go on continually with a month or two off now and then. Please recognize that it is hard for markets to discount what they do not believe in and therefore by definition do not anticipate.
Know within 90 days the economic effects of QE3 will be entering markets for money and therefore the markets for gold, silver, and most certainly the dollar.
Gold is going to at least $3500. Silver will certainly perform well also. The real support for the US dollar is .7200 on the USDX and it will trade there. The euro will trade at $1.35 and $1.40.
Ron McEwen of MUX fame said it correctly: “Patience is bitter; but the fruit is sweet!”
