CONTRARY TO WHAT LEFTISTS BELIEVE, PROFIT IS A MEASURE OF HOW WELL A COMPANY SERVES OTHERS AND NOT "GREED"

CONTRARY TO WHAT LEFTISTS BELIEVE, PROFIT IS A MEASURE OF HOW WELL A COMPANY SERVES OTHERS AND NOT "GREED"

MUST SEE TV: WHY CAPITALISM IS MORE MORAL THAN COLLECTIVISM.

Why the vast gulf between Left and Right?  Why do Leftists live in their own little bubble?

There is a famous anecdote about a journalist (possibly Pauline Kael) who was amazed at the election of President Nixon.  "But I don't know anybody who voted for Nixon", she said.  That bubble again.  Wyeth, an Australian  Leftist, spells out at some length how Left and Right seem to live in two different worlds, with very little communication between them.  Wyeth does not know why, however.

I think the answer is obvious.  I think that the separation exists because the Left has a reflex of closing its ears to anything it does not want to hear.  They do that because their beliefs are so easily open to challenge.  They cannot AFFORD to listen.  Reality is against them.  They have to invent a fictional mental world where, for instance, "all men are equal", despite the perfectly obvious fact that all men are different.  All men are (allegedly) equal only in the sight of God -- and Leftists don't generally believe in him/her.

Global warming is a good example of reality denial too.  It is agreed on both sides of the divide that the total amount of warming over the last 150 years has been less than one degree Celsius.  Why is such a triviality worth notice?  Leftists never say.  Global warming scientists theorize that the warming might suddenly leap but that is mere prophecy  -- and we know how successful prophecies generally are.

Conservatives, on the other hand spend most of their time in politics discussing and refuting Leftist arguments.  Read almost anything on Townhall.com, for instance, and it will be discussing and refuting Leftist arguments and policies with appeals to the facts -- anything but ignoring them.  By contrast, the fact that Leftists do NOT generally address conservative arguments is what makes them seem alien to conservatives.  It makes them seem alien to rationality.  Leftists very often mock conservative arguments in a superficial and cherrypicked way but that is a far cry from seriously working through them and honestly addressing ALL the relevant facts

Are conservatives "Right-wing"?

Are conservatives "Right-wing"?

For the excellent reason that Right is the opposite of Left, opponents of the Left are commonly referred to as Rightist -- and that should be the end of the matter. But it is not. The problem arises from the expression "extreme right". What is "the extreme right"?

The answer to that has been greatly distorted by Leftist disinformation about Hitler. Hitler was by the standards of his day a fairly mainstream socialist. Even his ideas about "Aryans" were shared by such Leftist eminences as U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. But Hitler's defeat in war created a desperate need in Leftists to deny all that. So they invariably describe him as "right-wing" to deflect attention from the fact that he was in his day one of them. He was in fact to the Right of Stalin's Communism only -- so the Communist view of Hitler has been conveniently adopted by the Left generally. See here for full details about Hitler's ideas and background.

So Leftists tend to describe all tyrants and dictators as extreme Right on the grounds that their behaviour is like Hitler's. But all the great tyrants of the 20th century -- Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot -- were in fact Leftists so the various postwar tyrants should logically be called "extreme Leftists" -- though that's not logic that Leftists like, of course.  It's only when a tyrant or a tyranny is clearly Communist (as in, for example, Peru, Nicaragua and Nepal) that Leftists will generally desist from calling the tyrant  "Right wing".  It would probably be most accurate to say that most tyrants are wingless:  They believe only in their own personal power

So calling conservatives Rightists does little harm when normal everyday democratic politics is concerned but once we start talking about extremes of belief a large problem arises. Conservatives reject utterly the association with Hitler that Leftists try to pin on them.


There is clearly a lot of variation among postwar tyrants so presumably some are better examples of what Leftists call "right-wing" than others. The Latin American dictators seem to be prime candidates but what do we make of clowns like Idi Amin or democratically elected authoritarians like Lee Kuan Yew? Exactly WHICH dictators are good examples of "Right-wing" seems to be vague.  Leftists appear to have no systematic thinking on that. So some lists include Fascists like Chiang Kai Shek, the monarchs of the Muslim world and even in some cases undoubted Communists like the Kim dynasty of North Korea.


So I too will have to leave vague just who is a good example of an "extreme Rightist".  For the sake of looking at the subject at all, I will use "Hitler-like" or "Fascist" as a specification of what Leftists are talking about when they say "Right wing extremist"  -- and leave it at that.  I have however given separate coverage of the Latin American dictators further below.  They have mostly been Bolivarists, a form of Fascism.  And that Fascism is/was Leftist I set out at length here.

There are also of course a few individuals around in Western countries who are Hitler sentimentalists but they are so few and so unorganized that they are essentially irrelevant to modern politics.  I do however have a discussion of them here.

Extremism versus stability:  Taking things to extremes is the Leftist "modus operandi"


We are accustomed in political discussions to describe both ends of the political spectrum as "extremists". But what are the extremes? In the case of the Left it is easy: Communism. But what is an extreme conservative? The Left are sure that it is someone like Adolf Hitler but the logic of conservative commitment to individual liberty and suspicion of government makes libertarianism a much likelier extreme form of conservatism.

At this point I am going to skip forward a little, however, and say where I think people go wrong. I don't think there IS any such thing as extreme conservatism. Libertarians believe in a lot of stuff that conservatives reject. But I do believe that there is such a thing as extreme Leftism. How come?

I think that the whole polarity of politics is generally misunderstood.  The contest between Left and Right is a contest between stability and the results of irritability/anger/rage. Conservatives are the sheet anchor of society. They ensure that there is some continuity and predictability in our lives. They are the anchor that prevents us all from being blown onto the shoals of arrogant stupidity in the manner of Pol Pot and many others.

For various reasons most people in society have gripes about it. Even conservatives can usually give you a long list of things that they would wish otherwise in the world about them.

But some of the discontented are REALLY discontented -- discontented to the point of anger/rage/hate -- and among them there is a really dangerous group: Those who "know" how to fix everything.

So the political contest ranges across a spectrum from valuing stability to various degrees of revolutionary motivation.

But can there be an extreme of valuing stability? In theory yes but I have yet to hear of ANY conservative-dominated government that lacked an active legislative agenda. BOTH sides of politics have changes they want to legislate for. Conservatives don't want stability at any price any more than they want change that threatens stability. So as far as I can see, ALL conservatives want change PLUS stability. And mostly they get that.

Pulling against that anchor that keeps society going on a fairly even keel, however, there is the Left -- who want every conceivable sort of change. Some just want more social welfare legislation and some want the whole society turned upside down by violent revolution. And the latter are indeed extremists.

So there is no sharp Left/Right dividing line -- just a continuum from strong support for stability amid change to a complete disrespect and disregard for stability among extreme advocates of change.

It is possible that there is somebody somewhere in the world who values stability so much that he/she want NO change in the world about them at all. If so, I have never met such a person. Everybody has gripes and change is a constant. The only question is whether we can manage change without great disruptions to our everyday lives. Conservatives think we can and should. Leftists basically don't care about that. For them change is the goal with stability hardly considered.

Now let me skip back to a question I raised earlier. I think we are now in a better position to answer that question. The question is why do conservatives and Leftists disagree over what extreme conservatism or extreme Rightism is? And the answer is now obvious. If it does not exist, no wonder people disagree over what it is. The theoretical inference would be that an extreme conservative wants ZERO change: he/she wants stability alone. But, as I have noted, such people appear not to exist and if they do exist they are surely too few to matter.

But what about the Leftist conviction that society is riddled by people like Hitler: "Racists" and "Nazis". Leftists never cease describing those they disagree with that way. Even a moderate and compromising Christian gentleman such as George Bush Jr. was constantly accused of being a Nazi during his time in office.

Again our conception of stability versus extremism helps answer that -- particularly if you add in a dash of history.

The historical origins and modern psychology of Anglo-Saxon conservatism

The historical origins and modern psychology of Anglo-Saxon conservatism

By John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.  -- version of late 2013)

"Law, language, literature-these are considerable factors. Common conceptions of what is right and decent, a marked regard for fair play, especially to the weak and poor, a stern sentiment of impartial justice, and above all a love of personal freedom . these are the common conceptions on both sides of the ocean among the English-speaking peoples. 

-- Winston Churchill's view of what characterizes people of British descent both at home and abroad



Conspectus

This monograph relies on one authority and one authority only:  The authority of history.  But I think it may be useful if I pull together at the beginning what I think history teaches us:

Left-leaning psychologists and other Leftist "thinkers" sometimes "study" conservatism -- usually with the obvious motive of proving a  theory which discredits conservatives in some way.  But the shallowness of their actual knowledge of conservatives is shown when they feel the need to consult dictionaries just to find out what conservatism is (e.g. Altemeyer and Wyeth).  That is a remarkably desperate recourse.  Dictionaries record usage but they cannot tell you whether the usage is right or wrong, shallow or profound. They even record mistaken usages.

The problem underlying the recourse to dictionaries is that the Leftist wouldn't know conservatism if he fell over it.  His only concept of conservatism is the caricature of it that circulates in his own little Leftist bubble.  But he does realize dimly that he doesn't know what it is. So with a schoolboy level of sophistication, he turns to his dictionary to find out what it is!

By contrast, in my studies of Leftism, I feel no need to rely on dictionaries.  From many years of reading Leftist writings, I can tell you what Leftism regularly is.  The essential element  of Leftism is the desire to change society. That DRIVES Leftism.  And society is people.  So What the Leftist does or tries to do is to stop people doing what they want to do and make them do things that they don't want to do. They are not alone in that but that underlies all that they do and say.  What changes they want and why they want them is also a big part  of the story and I consider that in detail elsewhere. So conservatives tend to allow the natural world to continue on its way while Leftists forge an inherently unstable world that can be held together only by coercion.  Leftism is quintessentially authoritarian.

The redirection of a large slice of people's spending power via compulsory taxation is only one part of the coercion. There are also many direct commands and prohibitions.  The very expensive "mandates" of Obamacare were under much discussion in late 2013.  Only a Leftist would think that old ladies should be forced to pay for obstetric care.

It may be noted that some people with strongly-held religious views tend to be like Leftists in trying to forge an unnatural world. That helps to explain why Leftists are infinitely tolerant of  Muslim Jihadis and why the major churches tend to support the Left, some of them being very Leftist.  In the 2004 Australian Federal elections, the leaders of ALL the churches came out in favour of the (Leftist) Australian Labor Party.  The only exception was a small Exclusive Brethren group in Tasmania who supported the conservative coalition -- and their "intervention" sparked huge outrage in the media and elsewhere.  (The conservatives won that election in a landslide).

And in England it is sometimes now held that "C of E" stands for "Church of the Environment", because of the Church of England's strong committment to Greenie causes.  Cantuar Welby's scolding of business might also be noted. And a previous Cantuar (Carey, a generally decent man) called his little grandson "pollution" on Greenie grounds.  Pity the children! And, in stark contrast with the Bible, a senior  Anglican cleric has called "homophobia" a sin.  The C of E and most of its First World offshoots no longer have strong feelings about salvation but they have strong feelings about Green/Leftist causes.

Because they focus so much on personal feelings and the promise of salvation rather than on "the world", American evangelicals are something of an exception but, even there, 10 million evangelicals voted for Al Gore in the year 2000 American Federal elections.

But back to conservatism: While conservatives tend to let the natural world run its course, that is not a defining characteristic.  Nor is opposition to change a defining characteristic. What drives conservatism is something quite different.

What Leftists find in their dictionaries is that conservatives are opposed to change. That is indeed the prevailing Leftist conception of conservatives but it ignores one of the most salient facts about politics worldwide -- that conservative governments are just as energetic in legislating as Leftists are. Both sides busily make new laws all the time. And the point of a new law is to change something. The changes that Left and Right desire are different but both sides push for change. On the Leftist's understanding of conservatism, a conservative government that wins an election should do no more than yawn, shut up the legislature and go home until the next election! What conservatives mostly do, however, is reverse Leftist initiatives and STRENGTHEN existing social arrangements rather than tear them down. Both Left and right want change but WHAT changes they want are very different and very differently motivated.

What has happened is that Leftists are so self-righteous that they can rarely accept that conservatives oppose Leftist policies on the merits of those policies. So they have successfully put about the defensive myth that conservatives are opposed to ALL change, regardless of its merits. But those busy conservative legislators put the lie to that towering absurdity. Conservatives have NO attitude to change per se. It is Leftists who do. They long for it.

So in a thoroughly anti-intellectual style, the Leftist ignores some of the most basic facts about politics. That sure is a weird little intellectual bubble that he lives in. EVERY conservative that I know has got a whole list of things that he would like to see changed -- usually reversals of Leftist changes. But Leftist intellectuals clearly just doesn't know any conservatives.

So what really is conservatism?  I have taught both sociology and psychology at major Australian universities but when it comes to politics my psychologist's hat is firmly on.  One can understand conservatism at various levels but to get consistency, you have to drop back to the psychological level.  And at that level it is as plain as a pikestaff.   Conservatives are cautious.  And that is all you need to know to understand the whole of conservatism.

In science, however, explanations just generate new questions and, as a psychologist, I am interested in dropping down to an even lower level of explanation and asking why conservatives are cautious.  And I think that is pretty obvious too. It is in part because they can be.

As all the surveys show, conservatives are the happy and contented people.  And with that disposition, conservatives just don't feel the burning urgency for change that Leftists do.  Leftists cast caution to the winds because they want change so badly.  ANYTHING seems better to them than the existing arrangements.  Conservatives don't have that compulsion.  Leftists are the perpetually dissatified whiners whereas conservatives can afford to take their time and get things right  from the outset.

And why does that difference in happiness exist?  As the happiness research often reminds us, your degree of happiness is inborn and, as such, is pretty fixed.  Leftists are just born miserable.

So we have now  dropped down into a genetic level of explanation. And we can at that level even derive and test a hypothetico-deductive prediction. If conservatives are happy and happiness is genetic, then conservatism should be genetic too.  And it is.  As behaviour geneticists such as Nick Martin have shown,  conservatism has a strong genetic component  -- which suggests that some people are just born cautious.  It is, of course, no surprise that caution and happiness go together.   See also here

So I think I have now gone as low as I can go in explaining conservatism.  There are of course even lower levels of explanation possible (tracing the brain areas involved, studying the DNA) but our understanding of those levels of function is so far  so crude that anyone purporting to offer explanations at that level is merely speculating.

So having gone down the levels of explanation, I now need to go up the levels of explanation too.  What does being cautious lead to?  It rather obviously leads to distrust:  Distrust of the wisdom and goodwill of one's fellow man, both as individuals and in collectivities.  In Christian terms, man is seen as "fallen" and ineluctibly imperfect.

But trust and distrust are matters of degree and conservatives are perfectly willing to give trust when it has been earned.  So where  ideas are concerned, conservatives usually trust only those ideas that have already been shown to work as intended or which extend existing successful ideas.  Leftists, by contrast, trust and put into action ideas that "sound" right to them  -- without bothering to test first whether their ideas really do generate the consequences that they envisage. They usually don't of course.  Leftists are theorists extraordinaire.  They have no use for Mr Gradgrind's "facts".  That theory is  useful only insofar as it is a good guide to facts seems to be beyond their ken.

The enthusiasm for "whole language" methods in teaching kids to read is an example of untested Leftist policy being implemented.  It was widely adopted in the schools but worked so badly that most schools have now reverted to phonics  -- the old "tried and tested" method.

And conservative caution leads to conservatives valuing stability generally  -- because sweeping changes could well not work out well -- and usually don't. Leftists usually seem to think they know it all but conservatives know that they don't.  So conservatives may want various changes but also want to proceed cautiously with change.  They want "safe" change, change off a stable base -- a base that embodies what has worked in the past.

And the traditional conservative advocacy of individual liberty also stems from caution.  It is highly likely that a tyrant won't have your particular interests at heart so you want to be free to pursue your own interests yourself.  And in the economic sphere that is capitalism.

Desperately avoiding default

One thing you have to understand about every federal debt-related action: it's not for the benefit of the borrowers, but for the benefit of the banks. We saw this in 2009 with "mortgage reform" and it will be the same with "student loan reform":

President Barack Obama is prepping new executive steps to help Americans struggling to pay off their student debt, and throwing his support behind Senate Democratic legislation with a similar goal but potentially a much more profound impact.

Obama on Monday will announce he's expanding his "Pay As You Earn" program that lets borrowers pay no more than 10 percent of their monthly income in loan payments, the White House said. Currently, the program is only available to those who started borrowing after October 2007 and kept borrowing after October 2011. Obama plans to start allowing those who borrowed earlier to participate, potentially extending the benefit to millions more borrowers.

 The problem Obama is addressing is that although it is impossible for graduates (and non-graduates) to formally default on their student loans, they will effectively default on them when they simply don't have the money to make their payments.

This is simply reducing the payments in order to keep them on the hook longer and thereby prevent the loans from being correctly recognized as bad loans that have to be written off. As Karl Denninger correctly ascertains, the ultimate goal is to keep the young borrowers on the hook, but force taxpayers to pay off their loans. It about the banks not the borrowers. It's ALWAYS about the banks.

The European Central Bank goes negative on interest rates: Negativity

Negativity

The European Central Bank goes negative on interest rates:

The European Central Bank broke new ground last week; it became the first of the monetary superpowers to cut its deposit rate below zero. This is truly desperate stuff. That nearly six years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Europe is still belatedly trying to address the twin afflictions of deflation and economic depression tells you as much about the political paralysis that grips the euro area as about the severity of the crisis.

These are not uncharted waters. Denmark and Sweden have experimented with negative nominal interest rates, and in any case, the difference between minus 0.1 per cent and the pre-existing deposit rate of zero is so marginal as to be almost irrelevant. Certainly, it’s hard to see why, beyond symbolism, it would make much difference to the eurozone’s beleaguered economies, even combined with other measures announced by the ECB on Thursday to ease credit conditions.

None the less, it is quite something when bankers actually have to pay a fee for the privilege of parking their money with the central bank, which is the effect of a negative deposit rate.

It's important to keep in mind that this is the interest rate paid to bankers by the central bank rather than the interest rate paid to depositors by the banks. Remember, the banks are just borrowing those loan-deposits from the public, so they will still compete on the interest rates they pay. There is a relationship between the two interest rates, of course, but it is not a fixed ratio. Depositors have to worry about bail-ins and manufactured fees more than they have to worry about the interest rates on their savings account going negative.

However, it is indicative of the strong grip that Keynesian economics still has on the central bankers. They are still trying to figure out the best way to fine-tune the magic financial remote for the economy, little realizing that they are the equivalent of children pressing buttons on an outdated remote for a cathode ray tube television, with no batteries in it, pointing it at a flatscreen and wondering why it doesn't work.

Everything revolves around the concept of the demand gap, and the idea that more liquidity will cause people to spend more. But credit money requires someone, somewhere, to borrow something and while one can print money, one can't print borrowers. As Americans learned in 2008, even if one creates a new class of borrowers by loosening the standards, they tend to fall behind on their payments and default so rapidly that it would be better to have never loaned them money in the first place.

As usual, the central bank is belatedly reacting to events; it isn't controlling them. This is merely another indication - not proof, but an indication - that the global economy is in a deflationary scenario rather than the inflationary one most people tend to assume. The takeaway: don't add to your debt with the assumption you'll be able to pay it off with cheaper currency.

Wes Montgomery - Full House Live (Full Album)

00:00 Full House
09:14 I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face
12:43 Blue 'N' Boogle
22:24 Cariba
32:07 Come Rain Or Come Shine (Take 2)
39:04 Come Rain Or Come Shine (Take 1)
46:23 S.O.S. (Take 3)
51:29 S.O.S. (Take 2)
56:18 Born to be Blue

Eric Lau - Gilles Peterson

1. Barney Kessel - Look Of Love
2. Heidi Vogel - Joy You Give 

3. Olutugu – Alter call ft Eska 

4. Yaw - Where Will U Be 

5. Carlos Nino & Miguel Atwood-Ferguson – Find A Way
6. D’angelo - Jonez In My Bones (Live Rehearsal)

7. Georgia Anne Muldrow - Pretty Roses

8. Muhsinah - JetBoat (Boozina Remix)

9. Annabel – January 10th

Rik Mayall, star of The Young Ones, dies aged 56 R.I.P

British comedian and actor Rik Mayall has died aged 56.

He played obnoxious, poetry-writing anarchist Rick in The Young Ones with his friend Adrian Edmondson. The pair later starred in the sitcom Bottom.
A pioneer of the 1980s alternative comedy scene, Mayall also appeared in Blackadder and The New Statesman.

"He was a quiet, polite, caring gentleman. The antithesis of the characters he played”

Laurence Marks Creator, The New Statesman

His manager Roger Davidson said: "It is a terrible shock. All we know... is that Rik died at home. He touched many lives, and always for the better."

Edmondson added: "There were times when Rik and I were writing together when we almost died laughing.
"They were some of the most carefree stupid days I ever had, and I feel privileged to have shared them with him.
"And now he's died for real. Without me. Selfish bastard."

 

 


Police said they were called to reports of a sudden death of a man in his 50s at 13:19 BST on Monday, in Barnes in south west London.
London Ambulance Service said "a man, aged in his 50s, was pronounced dead at the scene".
The Metropolitan Police said the death was not believed to be suspicious.

Rik was inspirational, bonkers, and a great life force”

Nigel Planer

The actor, who was married with three children, was left seriously ill after a quad bike accident in 1998 which left him in a coma for several days.

His big break came at The Comic Strip Club, performing with comedy partner Adrian Edmondson as 20th Century Coyote in the 1980s, which led to cult television hit The Comic Strip Presents.
He co-wrote The Young Ones with Lise Mayer and Ben Elton, which ran for 12 episodes between 1982 and 1985. It shared cult status and schoolboy humour with later sitcom Bottom.
Mayall and Edmondson's slapstick comedy often involved fires, explosions, and hefty blows to the head with a frying pan.
The pair met at Manchester University before forming the on-stage comedy duo The Dangerous Brothers.
It was there Mayall had befriended Elton, who said of his friend: "He changed my life utterly," adding: "He always made me cry with laughter, now he's just made me cry."
Anarchic characters Mayall's film roles included the comedies Drop Dead Fred and Guest House Paradiso.
He also famously played the loud-mouthed and lecherous Lord Flashheart in BBC comedy series Blackadder, starring Rowan Atkinson.
The actor appeared in the second and fourth series, shouting catchphrases such as "woof!" and "let's do-oo-oo it!".
But his early, anarchic characters gave way to the smooth, scheming Conservative politician Alan B'Stard in The New Statesman, which ran on ABC from 1986 to 1992.


Blackadder producer and writer John Lloyd paid tribute, telling the BBC: "It's really a dreadful piece of news."
"He was the most extraordinarily good actor as well as being an amazing stand-up comic. Apart from being great company, he was a great professional," said Lloyd.
Stephen Fry, who appeared with Mayall in Blackadder, described his co-star as "an authentic comedy genius and a prince among men," adding he was "simply distraught" at the news.
Writer Laurence Marks, who created The New Statesman, described Mayall as "a quiet, polite, caring gentleman".
"He was the antithesis of the characters he played," he said, adding that the comedian's health had deteriorated after his quad bike crash 16 years ago.
"I think he lost his long-term memory, so often when we were discussing The New Statesman, he couldn't remember it."
Nigel Planer, who played the hapless hippie Neil in The Young Ones, said he was "very, very sad and upset that we've lost Rik, who was inspirational, bonkers, and a great life force".
He described Mayall as "a brilliant comedian and someone who made everyone else's lives more fun. He will be really, really missed".
'Truly brilliant comedian' Among those paying tribute on Twitter was comedian David Walliams.
He wrote: "I am heartbroken that my comedy idol growing up Rik Mayall has died. He made me want to be a comedian."
"Growing up there was no one funnier," said The Mighty Boosh comedian Noel Fielding. "We will really miss you Rik Mayall you genius."
Alan Davies, who starred opposite Mayall in Jonathan Creek, said the star was "great to be around"
"Funny, funny man and a comic hero in my teens. Terrible news."
The BBC's director of television, Danny Cohen, paid tribute to his "vibrancy and energy".
"If you look at something like Blackadder Two, Rik just had quite a small part in that series as Lord Flashheart - but it's one of the most memorable scenes in any series of Blackadder.
"And I think that tells you something about Rik. He stole scenes because of his energy and his vibrancy and his comic performances and he was truly extraordinary."

Speaking about his 1998 quad bike accident last year, Mayall said doctors had kept him alive on a life-support machine for five days and were about to turn it off when he began to show signs of life.
He used to mark the occasion by exchanging presents with his wife and children and said the near-death experience changed his life.
He said: "The main difference between now and before my accident is I'm just very glad to be alive.
"Other people get moody in their 40s and 50s - men get the male menopause. I missed the whole thing. I was just really happy."

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO): Net Neutrality

a wonderful piece from John Oliver in which he skewers net neutrality and the cable companies.

As funny as this piece is (and it is hilarious), this issue is a tremendously important one that far too few people understand — something that is being counted upon by those looking to gain an advantage from proposed legislation — so share this with as many people as you can.

This won’t interest EVERYBODY, however. If you don’t use the internet, then this one probably isn’t for you...

Steen Jakobsen: Expect A 30% Stock Market Correction in 2014

Steen Jakobsen is one of the few CIOs of major banks who is prepared (and allowed) to say exactly what he thinks about the state of the global economy — even when the story he tells is somewhat alarming.

In this great interview with Chris Martenson, Steen explains why he is 70% in fixed income and why he expects a 30% stock market correction before 2014 is in the books.

There’s plenty more to get your teeth into, so sit back and enjoy Steen’s take...

Stephanie Pomboy Wine Country Conference 2014 "Confessions of Ben Bernanke"

Stephanie Pomboy gave a tour de force performance at this year’s Wine Country Conference in Sonoma in early May, with her presentation of “The Confessions of Ben Bernanke.”

There are many reasons why Stephanie is followed by many of the smartest people in the world of finance, and this presentation gives a glimpse into why...

“The 50-50-90 rule”.

“The 50-50-90 rule: anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there’s a 90% probability you’ll get it wrong.”

— Andy Rooney

Russia-China gas deal could ignite a shift in global trading

Russia-China gas deal could ignite a shift in global trading

“The unipolar model of the world is over”, declared Vladimir Putin last week.

“The global picture has completely changed”.

The St Petersburg International Economic Forum was less well-attended than usual. During previous visits to this annual “Russian Davos”, now in its 18th year, I’ve regularly been mown down by American and West European CEOs, as they’ve purposefully stomped down carpet-tiled corridors, their retinue of aides and cameras in tow.

This year, while plenty of Western executives did make the annual trek to Russia’s beautiful second city, keen to sell more cars, soap powder and financial services in Europe’s most valuable consumer market, the corridors were safer. Many of the top names stayed away.

The sanctions imposed on Russia in response to events in Ukraine put Western business leaders under pressure. Fearing unsavoury headlines, and often responding to specific government requests, some of our best-known corporate pole-climbers gave “Putin’s vanity summit” a miss.

Such absences, along with the UK’s local and European election shenanigans, meant the St Petersburg Forum generated less comment than usual. Yet I’d say this year’s event provided confirmation of one of the most important pieces of news to emerge from Russia since the Soviet Union was dissolved a quarter of a century ago.

I’m referring to the $400bn (£237bn) deal struck between Moscow and Beijing, under which Russia will supply 38bn cubic metres (bcm) of gas to China over 30 years from 2018. Before that happens, the two sides are to share the estimated $77bn cost of building the new “Power of Siberia” pipeline, stretching from Eastern Siberia to China’s populous north-east.

While that will already amount to the world’s biggest construction project, this joint initiative could yet see a second pipeline built to the Western Provinces of the People’s Republic, expanding Russia’s annual Chinese gas sale to 61bcm.

This deal has been a long time coming. Last spring, after a decade of negotiation, state-run energy giants Gazprom and CNPC signed a memorandum of understanding regarding the initial pipeline route. Putin’s visit to China last week, followed by events in St Petersburg, cemented the high politics of the tie-up.

Some say the Ukrainian crisis has forced an “isolated” Russia to do this China deal now, in a scramble for allies. Others judge that Beijing, showing its disapproval of Western adventurism and lingering Cold War attitudes, is deliberately standing next to Moscow in a joint display of strength. Whichever way you spin it, the outcome is the same. Russia, source of a third of all natural gas used in Western Europe, will soon have a major alternative market for its vast exports. And that can only put upward pressure on both wholesale and retail gas prices.

Enemies for much of the Cold War, Russia and China are now building serious commercial ties across their 2,700-mile border. Under-reported in the West, this fast-strengthening relationship will do much to shape the world economy in the years and decades to come.

As recently as 2003, cross-border trade between Russia and China amounted to just $12bn. Over the last decade, that’s expanded more than seven-fold, reaching $90bn last year. Both sides recognise the synergies between the world’s largest energy exporter and the world’s most populous nation and biggest manufacturer.

In 2009, Russia’s oil giant Rosneft secured a $25bn oil swap contract with China. Last year, that relationship deepened, after Rosneft agreed to double oil supplies to China in a deal valued at a colossal $270bn. This reflected Russia’s plan to shift its focus away from saturated and crisis-ridden European energy markets and towards Asia — a plan well in train years before recent events in Ukraine.

Under the latest oil agreement, Russia pumps an extra 300,000 barrels to China daily for the next 25 years, doubling the crude it already sells to the energy-hungry People’s Republic. The speed of change in the direction of Russia’s oil exports has been stark. Russia now sends about 750,000 barrels a day to Asia, a fifth of the oil it sells abroad, helped by the East Siberia Pacific Ocean crude pipeline, linking Russia to China, which opened in 2010....

Interview with Marine Le Pen: “I Don’t Want This European Soviet Union”

Interview with Marine Le Pen: “I Don’t Want This European Soviet Union”http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/interview-with-french-front-national-leader-marine-le-pen-a-972925.html

SPIEGEL: Ms. Le Pen, having won 25 percent of the French vote, your Front National party stands as one of the primary beneficiaries of the May 25 European Parliament election. How could such a thing come to pass?

Le Pen: The French want to regain control of their own country. They want to determine the course of their own economy and their immigration policies. They want their own laws to take precedence over those of the European Union. The French have understood that the EU does not live up to the utopia they were sold. It has distanced itself significantly from a democratic mode of operation.

SPIEGEL: Yet, prior to the election, it was said that the establishment of lead candidates for the two biggest groups — Jean-Claude Juncker for the center-right and Martin Schulz for the center-left — would strengthen democracy in the EU.

Le Pen: That is totally bogus. Everybody knew that the parliament wouldn’t be making the final decision on the next president of the European Commission.

SPIEGEL: Do you want to destroy Europe?

Le Pen: I want to destroy the EU, not Europe! I believe in a Europe of nation-states. I believe in Airbus and Ariane, in a Europe based on cooperation. But I don’t want this European Soviet Union.

SPIEGEL: The EU is a vast project for peace. It has helped ensure 70 years without war on the Continent.

Le Pen: No. Europe is war. Economic war. It is the increase of hostilities between the countries. Germans are denigrated as being cruel, the Greeks as fraudsters, the French as lazy. Ms. Merkel can’t travel to any European country without being protected by hundreds of police. That is not brotherhood.

SPIEGEL: You now intend to head to Brussels only to fight the system.

Le Pen: And why not? The EU is deeply harmful, it is an anti-democratic monster. I want to prevent it from becoming fatter, from continuing to breathe, from grabbing everything with its paws and from extending its tentacles into all areas of our legislation. In our glorious history, millions have died to ensure that our country remains free. Today, we are simply allowing our right to self-determination to be stolen from us.

SPIEGEL: In truth, though, you didn’t win the elections because of the EU, but because the French are furious with their economic situation and with President François Hollande. Have you thanked him?

Le Pen: No. Then I would have had to call Nicolas Sarkozy as well. France is in this situation because the conservative Union for a Popular Movement (Sarkozy’s party) and the Socialists (Hollande’s party) submitted to European treaties. These treaties promote German interests quite well, but they are poor at defending France’s interests.

SPIEGEL: Germany is to be blamed for France’s misery?

Le Pen: Whenever I hear people utter anti-German sentiments, I say: You can’t blame Germany for defending its own interests. I can’t blame Ms. Merkel for saying she wants a strong euro. I place the blame with our own leaders who are not defending our interests. A strong euro is ruining our economy.

SPIEGEL: Why would you say that the euro is only helping Germany?

Le Pen: For a very simple reason: It was created by Germany, for Germany.

SPIEGEL: It was François Mitterand who wanted the euro in order to contain Germany. In fact, it was difficult for the Germans to give up their beloved deutsche mark.

Le Pen: That’s another story. Mitterand wanted to push integration forward with the euro. But from an economic standpoint, the euro is German. Were we to return to our national currencies, the D-Mark would be the only one to appreciate in value, which would be a competitive disadvantage for Germany. Our currency, by contrast, would be devalued, which would give us a bit of room to breathe.

Wall Street concerned over China’s gold hoarding

Wall Street concerned over China’s gold hoarding

The People’s Bank of China, China’s central bank, is the world’s biggest gold hoarder and the bane of Wall Street traders, reports the Chinese-language financial news website BwChinese, citing a Hong Kong financial analyst.

Leung Hai-ming told the portal that China’s central bank took advantage of the US Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing program in 2013, when the price of gold fell by 27%. The bank bought in over 1,000 tonnes of gold, representing almost one third of the world’s 3,756 tonnes last year.

There is reportedly less than 180,000 tonnes of gold reserves left, and only 20% of that remaining gold is tradable. This means that the People’s Bank of China will likely keep hold of the gold, limiting the gold trading volume — a concern for both the US government and Wall Street traders.

Leung said that the US Federal Reserve loans gold to investment banks such as Goldman Sachs, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and others every year to trade in the market. The amount of gold ranges between 400-500 tonnes and the move acts to artificially suppress gold prices. When the prices are in their favor, these investment banks buy back the gold and return it to the Fed.

But this measure is absolutely useless because China’s is hoarding the gold and does not follow the rules, Leung said. When it sees that gold prices are going down, the first thing it does is buy them, and does not sell when prices continue to fall. It seems that Wall Street cannot do anything to counter China on this, according to Leung.

The analyst said that the People’s Bank of China is putting pressure on Washington and Wall Street as the US dollar has been linked with gold prices since its rise as the leading global currency. The Fed hopes to manipulate gold prices in its favor, Leung said, but the Chinese central bank is standing in its way.

Businessman “who bought HK$270m of gold” ends up with rusty metal bars

Police were last night making arrangements with a mainland businessman to check whether HK$270 million of gold bullion he bought in Africa was genuine after part of the consignment was swapped with metal bars.

On Wednesday, Zhao Jingjun, 43, opened part of his shipment in front of his buyer in Hong Kong and discovered the gold had been switched for worthless metal.

A senior officer said it would be the city’s biggest heist in a decade if it was confirmed that all the gold had been stolen.

An initial inquiry showed Zhao purchased 998kg of gold bars from a company in Ghana in mid-April, police said.

The consignment, in 14 cases, was escorted by his staff and delivered from Ghana on a chartered flight late last month.

“Officers were told that his employee confirmed the cases contained the gold before it was loaded onto the chartered flight in Ghana,” a police source said.

The source said the employee left Hong Kong after the consignment was handed to the staff of a logistics company at Chek Lap Kok airport. It was then couriered to a Tsuen Wan warehouse.

The businessman arrived from Hebei province on Monday and checked into the Kowloon Shangri-La hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui. On Wednesday, he had five of the cases couriered to his buyer’s Hung Hom office.

“When he opened the boxes, he found they were filled with metal bars instead of gold bullion,” the source said. “He told officers the cases appeared to have been tampered with.”

Police received a report from Zhao on Wednesday night when he returned to his hotel room.

He went to Tsim Sha Tsui police station yesterday with documents proving he bought the bullion in Ghana and that it was delivered to Hong Kong.

A police investigator said: “We don’t rule out the possibility that the gold bullion may have been switched for metal bars before being delivered to Hong Kong.”

Zhao has reportedly made several such transactions. His business activities include the purchase of iron ore from Australia, Africa and South America.

Four years ago, 265 gold bars were taken from a Yuen Long company. Police arrested three men and recovered most of the HK$90 million in bullion stolen.

Link:  http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1525986/all-glitters-businessman-who-bought-hk27m-gold-ends-metal-barsLinl:

Marine Le Pen: EU robbed us of all liberties, we should fight to get them back (FULL INTERVIEW)

A truly remarkable woman, France may not yet be completely swallowed by the Obama administrations imperialism with people like her there is still hope for the Country. Long live Marine Le Pen. 

EU's foreign policy sovereignty stolen and replaced with USSA sovereignty – Marine Le Pen

By labelling the FN "far-right" the mainstream media seek to marginalise and demonise grass roots movements such as FN - It is subtle and effective (nobody wants to be seen as extremist). Mme Le Pen knows this, which is why she is threatening to sue media organisations labelling them as "far-right" Long Live Marine Le Pen! She is a politician trying to look after the people who have voted for her rater than to promote the "globalisation" agenda of a global elite. 

The EU will indeed collapse. A country needs full control over its currency and other monetary policies.

the leftists are always first to cry racism, but never in favor of their own kind...
what a traitorous bunch of fools. I sincerely hope when Europe finally breaks out in the next civil/race war, these muso appeasing Politicians will be hanging from the streetlamps first.

Marine La Pen the New Joan of Arc! Long Live Marine!!! 

The EU has lost control of its foreign policy to Washington, France's National Front leader Marine Le Pen told RT, calling the bloc's diplomacy a “catastrophe” in which no independent voice of reason could be heard.
“The European Union's diplomacy is a catastrophe,” Le Pen told RT'sSophie Shevardnadze in an exclusive interview to be broadcast Monday. “The EU speaks out on foreign affairs either to create problems, or to make them worse.”
Where Ukraine is concerned, Le Pen believes that Europe had no right to blackmail the country into breaking up its historical and cultural ties to Russia.
“When offering a partnership agreement to Ukraine – which would mean breaking off of its allied relations with Russia – the EU has clearly set blackmail in motion. And that can't help but fuel dissent inside the country,” Le Pen told RT, adding that “pouring oil onto the fire” could lead to an increasing risk of a civil war.
“The EU has been doing nothing but making the situation worse using threats, blackmail and sanctions, which, as we can see now, clearly do not encourage anyone to sit at the negotiation table in order to come up with a peaceful and reasonable solution to the conflict.”
Le Penn, whose National Front party in late May secured a third of France’s seats in the European Parliamentary elections, says the EU's foreign policy has been badly misguided by the United States – Syria and Libya being just some of the most recent examples.
“We've made a great deal of foreign policy mistakes under Washington's influence, but the worst of them is Syria,” Le Penn said.
There are “no independent states left in Europe” that would call for peaceful solutions to conflicts, the National Front leader says.
“We [National Front] have been the only party to stand against the option of intervening in Syria. When the crisis first started, we said France is supplying arms to jihadists, who would spread terror if they win. That's what already happened in Libya.”
“That's the way the US acts in the international arena. But what is even more horrible, is that one can't hear the voices of European countries,” Le Pen added.
Watch the full interview with Marine Le Pen on RT’s SophieCo on Monday, June 9.

Lessons Learned from the Tokyo Commercial Real Estate Market

During the first quarter of 2014, Tokyo held the honor of having the largest commercial real estate market in the world, according to a report published by The Wall Street Journal. What is particularly astonishing about this news report is the fact that this marks the first time that the Japanese capital climbed to the top of the list since a survey of the commercial real estate market in major cities around the world was first launched 10 years ago. Much of the strong demand for commercial real estate in Tokyo has been driven by an increase in international investment, which surged by more than 70 percent year-over-year, catapulting Tokyo past both New York and London. Such growth is even more surprising considering that Tokyo has endured more than 20 years of continual price declines since a bubble collapse in the early 1990s. Prices finally began to increase in 2013 and have been further buoyed by a pro-growth economic program instituted by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. As prices continue to rise in Tokyo, an increasing number of investors are turning their attention beyond the capital to seek out viable property investments. Higher prices have also encouraged some occupants to purchase the properties they previously rented. By comparison, the commercial real estate market in the United States has made significant strides toward recovery in the last year. According to data released by CoStar Group, commercial real estate represents $12 billion of the U.S. economy. Market value declined by 25 percent during the financial crisis as many businesses shut their doors, leaving office spaces empty. Recently, however, the demand for commercial real estate in the United States has strengthened and prices are finally returning, but have not yet managed to attain the same level of activity as that of Japan. So, what can U.S. investors learn from the Japanese commercial real estate market? With financial pundits predicting that commercial real estate recovery will continue to accelerate in 2014, investors should be prepared to jump ahead of the fray or be caught unaware. As prices continue to rebound, investors who have been sitting on the sidelines waiting to see how far the market will drop before jumping in should note that the time to take action could be now. While distressed properties may still remain on the market, they will likely become increasingly fewer. Foreign investment in commercial real estate is already on the rise in the United States, as foreign investors recognize the significant potential that remains untapped in the U.S. market. This is particularly true as a number of countries around the world face record inflation. While countries such as Russia, Japan, and China have traditionally had an interest in commercial real estate investments in the U.S., even the Israelis are now increasingly looking toward the U.S., with Israel becoming the third-largest foreign investor in American commercial real estate in 2013. With foreign investment in U.S. commercial real estate on the rise and prices poised to continue increasing throughout the remainder of the year, the United States could be in position to soon overtake Tokyo. Investors would do well to sit up and pay attention today.

Jim Rickards 9/11 was the most blatant case of Insider trading Ive ever seen, thats from a top legal economist Pentagon CIA advisor.

James G. Rickards is an American lawyer, economist, and investment banker with 35 years of experience working in capital markets on Wall Street. He is a writer and is a regular commentator on finance. Rickards has been advising clients, including the Pentagon and the CIA, of an impending financial collapse, of a decline in the dollar, and a sharp rise in the price of gold for years. Rickards is the author of The New York Times bestseller Currency Wars, published in 2011.

Marine Le Pen: EU will collapse like the Soviet Union

 

 Marine Le Pen "The interests of France lay in a deepening relationship with Russia and taking back Frances sovereignty"  She can lead France out of the EU zone.  She has the sovereign people of France behind her to take back the reins of their sovereignty , re-establish their national identities and usher in their own foreign policies that benefit their own countries and not the EU.

Let's not forget that the lofty purposes the EU originally set for itself included: to give Europeans the convenience of one currency, to enhance mutual prosperity, and to reduce political tensions after centuries of animosity and war. However the inconvenience of not being able to print your own money or set your own interest rates across massively disparate economies would seem to have been overlooked. Hence negating the second two ideals or even making the situation worse, due to the inertia, bureaucracy and cost of such a monstrous dystopian failure.

 

Nationalism is the future, even the left know this hence their hysteria at the mere mention of European countries regaining their sovereignty.

 

 

 

QE And Ultra-Low Interest rates don’t fight deflation – they CAUSE Deflation

Sure, Japan is the template for the West and prime example, 25 years of printing yen with Zero rate bank rates. The RE market is still 80% below it's 1990 peak and struggling to tread water along with the Nikkei stock market which is around 70% down from its heady 1990  >40,000 peak. Low bank rates + QE leads to deflation

“I Died Defending Junk Economics and Market Fundamentalism”

JIM WILLIE BOMBSHELL: CHINA & RUSSIA HAVE ACCUMULATED OVER 40,000 TONS OF GOLD RESERVES FOR USD REPLACEMENT!

Jim Willie Interview providing some of his BOLDEST & MOST SHOCKING Information

• Willie dissects the Holy Grail Gazprom gas deal, which he states is an OPEN DOOR for the dumping of Treasury bonds in exchange for energy
• Russia Liquidating T-bonds through Euroclear in Belgium to acquire gold
• Big Surprise Coming for London Boys: Frankfurt to Become Financial Hub For All of Europe & Asia- Willie reveals insider details
• Large sovereigns (Russia, China, India, Saudi Arabia) now working together to source massive gold reserves for gold-backed USD replacement
• China & Russia Have Accumulated Over 40,000 Tons of Gold Reserves for USD Replacement!!