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THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND THE REVOLUTION OF 2017
Posted on May 24, 2010 by admin | 30 comments
WASHINGTON, 7 NOVEMBER 2017*. Yesterday Speaker of the House Dennis Kucinich was sworn in as President, replacing President Jeb Bush, who had fled to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, aboard Air Force One seeking asylum in his father's well guarded compound on the grounds of the Bin Laden family's palace. Vice President Dick Cheney, who has been in a coma since August after suffering his fifteenth heart attack, was declared incompetent. President Kucinich immediately announced a wide-ranging package of policies designed to bring an end to the Great Depression, which began with the global financial crisis of 2007. He called for calm and pleaded with leaders of the Revolutionary Tea Party Army that has encircled Washington to call off the attack that had been planned for today, the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution. Commandant Dick Armey said he is willing to meet for a discussion of a ceasefire so long as his militia can take their weapons home.
President Kucinich apparently ordered the Marines to invade Goldman Sachs headquarters in Manhattan early this morning. While there were some reports of small arms fire, most of the 6000 employees were reportedly removed without struggle and are on their way to various jails and prisons in the greater New York area. CEO Timothy Geithner was captured at La Guardia, attempting to board a private jet said to be headed for Riyadh. An anonymous source claimed that Geithner complained that President Bush had left him behind after promising protection. President Kucinich announced that Geithner would be charged with fraud, racketeering, and tax evasion. The case dates back to 2012 but had been put on hold when former President Sarah Palin ordered the attorney general's office to stop its investigation of the Treasury Secretary. President Kucinich said that Goldman, the last remaining bank in America, would be nationalized. He assured depositors that the bank would reopen next Monday under management of a team of presidential appointees led by William Black. All insured deposits will be protected, but it is believed that other claims will not be honored. FBI agents have reportedly moved to seize all assets of current and former Goldman employees. Warrants for the arrest of former Treasury Secretaries Paulson, Rubin, and Summers were also issued.
President Kucinich's package of policies includes universal and comprehensive debt cancellation. Under the plan, all private debts will be declared null and void. The implications are not immediately clear since delinquency rates have already reached 95% on most categories of debt. Several economists said that the new President was only validating reality, but others argued that it gave legal protection to squatters who have refused to leave their foreclosed homes over the past decade. The global movement for the "Year of Jubilee" had been pushing for such debt relief since the crisis began.
The policy proposals, which have been dubbed "New Deal 2.0", also include a universal job guarantee that would provide work and wages for the nation's estimated 75 million unemployed. The plan seems to follow a proposal that then-Representative Kucinich had introduced into the House in 2011. Funding for the program would be provided by Washington, but projects would be created and managed at the local level. At the time, Kucinich had argued that the program would "take workers as they are and where they are", providing a living wage to participants and useful public services and infrastructure to their communities. When asked how the government would pay for the program, Representative Kucinich had said at the time "by crediting bank accounts, of course—that's the only way a sovereign government ever spends." However, his bill had failed to get out of committee; it was revealed that large campaign contributions were subsequently made by hedge fund manager Pete Peterson to all committee members who had opposed the legislation—and although he was never accused of wrong-doing, it was long suspected that there might have been a connection.
President Kucinich also announced a new "Marshall Plan" for war-ravaged Europe, which has descended into near anarchy since the EU collapsed in late 2010. He called on the Italian Red Brigade army to end its siege of Berlin. He promised to begin an airlift of food for Europe's starving millions, to be followed by industrial products to help European nations to begin to produce for domestic consumption. He called for an end to fiscal austerity and argued that since each nation had adopted its own currency with the collapse of the euro, each now had the ability to "spend by crediting bank accounts." Hence, "whatever is technologically feasible is financially feasible."
Wall Street rallied on the news, with Nasdaq reaching a new high of nearly 250 and the Dow hitting 1150—the highest levels seen since the Great Crash of October 2011. The dollar also rose on the news, to $52 per Chinese RMB. Optimism spread to Japanese markets, with the yen remaining close to 132 per dollar.
In his statement, President Kucinich said that the long "nightmare" was coming to an end. He struck a conciliatory tone when he responded to a question about the actions of the administration of President Obama in the early years of the Great Depression, which many believe to have set the stage for the Great Crash. "Look, President Obama as well as his successors followed the advice of economists—who continually called for more fiscal austerity, much like the misguided physicians used to bleed patients to death. They were, and still are, clueless. I promise you that I will ban all economists from my administration. I will not seek, nor will I follow, advice from economists." After a decade of suffering over the course of the second Great Depression, the nation breathed a collective sigh of relief.
The President pointed to the experiences of China, India and Botswana, the only nations to escape the Great Depression. He recalled that just a decade ago, US GDP and the standard of living of the average American were many times higher than those in any of these nations. Indeed, Botswana was widely derided for its policies, which had generated hyperinflation. Yet, each of these countries had adopted a job guarantee and had developed programs that achieved full employment with wage and price stability. And while unemployment rose dramatically all around the globe, these three nations enjoyed full employment and rising living standards—indeed, all three have surpassed the US median real household income level. President Kucinich said that Botswana has offered to send advisors to help get America's fiscal and monetary policy back on track. He proclaimed that the days of misguided fiscal austerity are over, and promised to "spend whatever it takes to get our nation's workers and factories operating at full capacity."
In related news, a handful of economists have declared their support for President Kucinich's policies. Among them is former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, who had recanted his belief in free market economics early in the depression. Over the years he has moved ever further to the left as he embraced reforms ranging from socialized medicine to abolition of private ownership of the means of production. While some economists have dismissed Greenspan's public statements as the rants of "a senile old man" others have noted that the statements have become remarkably cogent in contrast to the testimonies he used to provide as Chairman. An early disciple of Ayn Rand, Greenspan's recent testimonies now include obscure quotes from Marx, Lenin, and Rosa Luxemburg. He has also been calling for the elimination of the Fed, arguing that monetary policy and fiscal policy should be consolidated in the Treasury Department.
*Disclaimer: Some of the events reported here have not been fact-checked**.
**Disclaimer: Actually, none of the events reported here has yet occurred, although some are quite likely.
"What Greece's Bailout Means for U.S. Markets"
Posted on May 24, 2010 by admin | 3 comments
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Repeat After Me: The USA Does NOT Have a 'Greece Problem'
By Marshall Auerback
To paraphrase Shakespeare, things are indeed rotten in the State of Denmark (and Germany, France, Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal, and almost everywhere else in the euro zone). An entire continent appears determined to commit collective hara kiri whilst the rest of the world is encouraged to draw precisely the wrong kinds of lessons from Europe's self-imposed economic meltdown. So-called serious policy makers continue to legitimize the continent's fully-fledged embrace of austerity on the allegedly respectable grounds of "fiscal sustainability."
The latest to pronounce on this matter is the Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King. This is a particularly sad, as the BOE – the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street – has actually played a uniquely constructive role amongst central banks in the area of financial services reform proposals. King, and his associate, Andrew Haldane, Executive Director for Financial Stability at the Bank of England, have been outspoken critics of "too big to fail" banks, and the asymmetric nature of banker compensation ("heads I win, tails the taxpayer loses"). This stands in marked contrast to America's feckless triumvirate of Tim Geithner, Lawrence Summers, and Ben Bernanke, none of whom appears to have encountered a banker's bonus that they didn't like.
But when it comes to matters of "fiscal sustainability" King sounds no better than a court jester (or, at the very least, a member of President Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform). In an interview with The Telegraph, the Bank of England Governor suggests that the US and UK – both sovereign issuers of their own currency – must deal with the challenges posed by their own fiscal deficits, lest a Greece scenario be far behind:
"It is absolutely vital, absolutely vital, for governments to get on top of this problem. We cannot afford to allow concerns about sovereign debt to spread into a wider crisis dealing with sovereign debt. Dealing with a banking crisis was bad enough. This would be worse."
"A wider crisis dealing with sovereign debt"? Anybody's internal BS detector ought to be flashing red when a policy maker makes sweeping statements like this. The Bank of England Governor substantially undermines his own credibility by failing to make 3 key distinctions:
There is a fundamental difference between debt held by the government and debt held in the non-government sector. All debt is not created equal. Private debt has to be serviced using the currency that the state issues.
Likewise, deficit critics, such as King, obfuscate reality when they fail to highlight the differences between the monetary arrangements of sovereign and non-sovereign nations, the latter facing a constraint comparable to private debt.
Related to point 2, there is a fundamental difference between public debt held in the currency of the sovereign government holding the debt and public debt held in a foreign currency. A government can never go insolvent in its own currency. If it is insolvent as a consequence of holdings of foreign debt then it should default and renegotiate the debt in its own currency. In those cases, the debtor has the power not the creditor.
Functionally, the euro dilemma is somewhat akin to the Latin American dilemma, such as countries like Argentina regularly experienced. The nations of the European Monetary Union have given up their monetary sovereignty by giving up their national currencies, and adopting a supranational one. By divorcing fiscal and monetary authorities, they have relinquished their public sector's capacity to provide high levels of employment and output. Non-sovereign countries are limited in their ability to spend by taxation and bond revenues and this applies perfectly well to Greece, Portugal and even countries like Germany and France. Deficit spending in effect requires borrowing in a "foreign currency", according to the dictates of private markets and the nation states are externally constrained.
King implicitly recognizes this fact, as he acknowledges the central design flaw at the heart of the European Monetary Union – "within the Euro Area it's become very clear that there is a need for a fiscal union to make the Monetary Union work."
This is undoubtedly correct: To eliminate this structural problem, the countries of the EMU must either leave the euro zone, or establish a supranational fiscal entity which can fulfill the role of a sovereign government to deficit spend and fill a declining private sector output gap. Otherwise, the euro zone nations remain trapped – forced to forgo spending to repay debt and service their interest payments via a market based system of finance.
But King then inexplicably extrapolates the problems of the euro zone which stem from this uniquely Euro design flaw and exploits it to support a neo-liberal philosophy fundamentally antithetical to fiscal freedom and full employment.
The Bank of England Governor – and others of his ilk – are misguided and disingenuous when they seek to draw broader conclusions from this uniquely euro zone related crisis. Think about Japan – they have had years of deflationary environments with rising public debt obligations and relatively large deficits to GDP. Have they defaulted? Have they even once struggled to pay the interest and settlement on maturity? Of course not, even when they experienced debt downgrades from the major ratings agencies throughout the 1990s.
Retaining the current bifurcated monetary/fiscal structure of the euro zone does leave the individual countries within the EMU in the death throes of debt deflation, barring a relaxation of the self-imposed fiscal constraints, or a substantial fall in the value of the euro (which will facilitate growth via the export sector, at the cost of significantly damaging America's own export sector). This week's €750bn rescue package will buy time, but will not address the insolvency at the core of the problem, and may well exacerbate it, given that the funding is predicated on the maintenance of a harsh austerity regime.
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Spain's Socialist prime minister, angered his trade union allies but was cheered by financial markets on Wednesday when he announced a surprise 5 per cent cut in civil service pay to accelerate cuts to the budget deficit.
The austerity drive – echoing moves by Ireland and Greece – followed intense pressure from Spain's European neighbors, the International Monetary Fund on the spurious grounds that such cuts would establish "credibility" with the markets. Well, that wasn't exactly a winning formula for success when tried before in East Asia during the 1997/98 financial crisis, and it is unlikely to be so again this time.
Indeed, in the current context, the European authorities are simply trying to localize the income deflation in the "PIIGS" through strong orchestrated IMF-style fiscal austerity, while seeking to prevent a strong downward spiral of the euro. But the contradiction in this policy is that a deflation in the "PIIGS" will simply spread to the other members of the euro zone with an effect essentially analogous to that of a competitive devaluation internationally.
The European Union is the largest economic bloc in the world right now. This is why it is so critical that Europeans get out of the EMU straightjacket and allow government deficit spending to do its job. Anything else will entail a deflationary trap, no matter how the euro zone's policy makers initially try to localize the deflation. And the deflation is almost certain to spread outward, if sovereign states such as the US or UK absorb the wrong lessons from Greece, as Mr., King and his fellow deficit-phobes in the US are aggressively advocating.
There are two direct contagion vectors off the fiscal retrenchment being imposed on the periphery countries of the euro zone.
First, to the banking systems of the periphery and the core nations, as private loan defaults spread on domestic private income deflation induced by the fiscal retrenchment. Second, to the core nations that export to the PIIGS and run export led growth strategies. So 30-40% of Germany's exports go to Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal and Spain directly, another 30% to the rest of Europe.
These are far from trivial feedback loops, and of course, the third contagion vector is to rest of world growth as domestic private income deflation combined with a maxi euro devaluation means exporters to the euro zone, and competitors with euro zone firms in global tradable product markets, are going to see top line revenue growth dry up before year end.
Let's repeat this for the 100th time: the US government, the Japanese Government, or the UK government, amongst others, do NOT face a Greek style constraint – they can just credit bank accounts for interest and repayment in the same fashion as if they were buying some helmets for the military or some pencils for a government school. True, individual American states do face a fiscal crisis (much like the EMU nations) as users of the dollar, which is why some 48 out of 50 now face fiscal crises (a problem that could easily be alleviated were the US Federal Government to undertake a comprehensive system of revenue sharing on a per capita basis with the various individual states). But, if any "lesson" is to be learned from Greece, Ireland, or any other euro zone nation, it is not the one that Mr. King is seeking to impart. Rather, it is the futility of imposing arbitrary limits on fiscal policy devoid of economic context. Unfortunately, few are recognizing the latter point. The prevailing "lesson" being drawn from the Greek experience, therefore, will almost certainly lead the US, and the UK, to the same miserable economic outcome along with higher deficits in the process. As they say in Europe, "Finanzkapital uber alles".
Let's Deport Poor People! A Modest Proposal for Latvia's Unemployment Problem (with apologies to Jonathan Swift)
In 1729, Jonathan Swift wrote an essay — "A Modest Proposal" — suggesting that the impoverished Irish ease their economic troubles by selling children as food for rich gentlemen and ladies. In that spirit, we would like to assist all governments who claim to be broke and therefore cannot deal with the persistent problem of unemployment. Latvia clearly shows the way.
On June 2009, the newly appointed Latvian Prime Minister, Valdis Dombrovskis made a national public radio address and said that his country had to accept major cuts in the budget because they would allow the country to receive the next installment of its IMF/European Union bail-out loans. He said the country was faced with looming "national bankruptcy" and then proceeded to ensure the validity of that claim, by implementing the economic equivalent of carpet bombing, in effect turning the Baltic republic into an industrial wasteland via the most virulent form of neo-liberal economics.
Having broken free from the chains of the former Soviet Empire, Latvia promptly surrendered its currency sovereignty by pegging its currency against the Euro. What this means it that it has to use monetary policy to manage the peg and the domestic economy has to shrink if there is are downward pressures on the local currency emerging in the foreign exchange rates. So instead of allowing the currency to make the adjustments necessary, the Latvian government handled the "implied depreciation" by devastating the domestic economy (public sector pay has been cut by 40 per cent over the last year, whilst the economy has contracted by almost a third).
Euro-Bankers to Greece: The Wealthy Won't Pay their Taxes, So Labor Must Do So
The "Greek bailout" should have been called what it is: a TARP for German and other European bankers and global currency speculators. The money is being provided by other governments (mainly the German Treasury, cutting back its domestic spending) into a kind of escrow account for the Greek government to pay foreign bondholders who bought up these securities at plunging prices over the past few weeks. They will make a killing, as will buyers of hundreds of billions of dollars of credit-default swaps on the Greek government bonds, speculators in euro-swaps and other casino-capitalist gamblers. (Parties on the losing side of these swaps now will need to be bailed out as well, and so on ad infinitum.)
This windfall is to be paid by taxpayers – ultimately those of Greece (in effect labor, because the wealthy have been untaxed) – to reimburse Euro-governments, the IMF and even the U.S. Treasury for its commitment to predatory finance. The payment to bondholders is to be used as an excuse to slash Greek public services, pensions and other government spending. It will be a model for other countries to impose similar economic austerity as governments run up budget deficits in the face of falling tax collections from the financial sector being enriched by the translation of junk economics into international policy. So the bankers for their part will have little trouble meeting their bonus forecasts this year. And by the time the whole system collapses, they will have spent the money on hard assets of their own.
Financial lobbyists are using the Greek crisis as an object lesson to warn about the need to cut back public spending on Social Security and Medicare. This is the opposite of what the Greek demonstrators are demanding: to reverse the global tax shift off property and finance onto labor, and to give labor's financial claims for retirement pensions priority over claims by the banks to get fully paid on hundreds of billions of dollars of recklessly bad loans recently reduced to junk status.
Bank lobbyists know that the financial game is over. They are playing for the short run. The financial sector's aim is to take as much bailout money as it can and run, with large enough annual bonuses to lord it over the rest of society after the Clean Slate finally arrives. Less public spending on social programs will leave more bailout money to pay the banks for their exponentially rising bad debts that cannot possibly be paid in the end. It is inevitable that loans and bonds will default in the usual convulsion of bankruptcy.
Greek labor is not yet so pessimistic as to give up the fight. What it recognizes (that its American counterparts do not) is that somebody will control the government. If labor – the demos – loses its spirit, power will be relinquished to foreign creditors to dictate public policy by default. And the more the bankers' interest is served, the worse and more debt-burdened the economy will become. Their gain is bought at the price of domestic austerity. Scheduled payouts by Greek pension funds and government social spending programs must be to replenish German and other European bank capital.
This worldview already has been delivered to Europe's northernmost periphery, where it has elicited a fiscal masochism that banks hope to see in Greece. Having fallen on their swords, Baltic governments would be jealous and even resentful to see Greece rescue its economy where they themselves failed to repudiate arrogant creditor demands. "Seen from the eastern rim of the European Union, the looming austerity drive in crisis-afflicted Greece reads like old news," writes Nina Kolyako. "For almost two years, the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have brought in repeated draconian measures, slashing public spending and hiking taxes to try to dig themselves out of a hole. 'We learned the lessons very painfully, heavily and effectively, that you need to look after the fiscal situation very carefully,' Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius told AFP in a recent interview. 'We understood very clearly that fiscal consolidation was the only way for us to survive.'"
Capitulating in a classic Stockholm syndrome (literally to Swedish banks in this case), Lithuania's government dutifully tightened the screws so much that GDP plunged by over 17 percent. A similar plunge occurred in Latvia. The Baltics have slashed public-sector employment and wages, imposing poverty rather than the Western European levels of prosperity (and progressive taxation to foster a middle class) that was promised after the Baltics achieved their independence from Russia in 1991.
After Latvia's parliament imposed austerity in December 2008, popular protest in January brought down the government (as a similar protest did in Iceland). But the result was merely another neoliberal "occupation regime" run on behalf of foreign banking interests.
So what is unfolding is a Social War on a global scale – not the class war envisioned in the 19th century, but a war of finance against entire economies, against industry, real estate and governments as well as against labor. It is happening in the usual slow motion in which great historical transitions occur. But as in military conflicts, each battle seems frenetic and spurs wild zigzagging on the world's stock and bond exchanges and currency markets.
All this is great news for computer program traders. The average commitment of funds lasts only a few seconds these days as financial markets are buffeted up and down by vast credit waves blown by the storms sweeping today's financially overheating planet.
The coming economic dystopia
The Greek crisis shows how far the "European idea" has shifted from 1957 when the six-member European Economic Community (EEC) was formed. At U.S. prodding, Britain and Scandinavia created the rival seven-member European Free Trade Association (EFTA). Even so, the promise of Euroland – at least before Maastricht and Lisbon – was to elevate labor to middle-class prosperity, not to impose IMF-type austerity programs of the sort that devastated Third World countries. The message to indebted economies is stark: "Drop dead." And they are obediently committing economic hara kiri (emulating Japan in the 1985 Plaza Accords) to endorse the Washington Consensus – the class war of finance against labor and industry.
Political, social, fiscal and economic power is being transferred to the EU bureaucracy and its financial controllers in the European Central Bank (ECB) and the IMF, whose austerity plans and related anti-labor programs direct governments to sell off the public domain, land and subsoil wealth, public enterprises, and to commit future tax revenues to pay creditor nations. This policy already has been imposed on "New Europe" (the post-Soviet economies and Iceland) since autumn 2008. It is now to be imposed on the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain). No wonder there are riots!
For observers who missed Iceland and Latvia last year, Greece is the newest and so far the largest battlefield. At least Iceland and the Baltics have the option of re-denominating loans in their own currency, writing down their foreign debts at will and taxing property to recapture for the government the revenue that has been pledged to foreign bankers. But Greece is locked into a European currency union, run by unelected financial officials who have inverted the historical meaning of democracy. Instead of the economy's most important sector – finance – being subject to electoral politics, central banks (the designated lobbyists for commercial and investment bankers) have been made independent of political checks and balances.
In truly Orwellian fashion, right-wingers in Europe and the United States (such as Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke) call this the "hallmark of democracy." It actually is the stamp of oligarchy, stripping away control over the economy's credit allocation – and hence, forward planning – while giving high finance a stranglehold over public spending programs.
Iceland, Latvia and now Greece are the opening shots in the resulting global campaign to roll back the great democratic reform program of the 19th century and the Progressive Era: taxation of land and the "unearned increment" of price gains for real estate, stocks and bonds, and subordination of the financial sector to the needs of economic growth under democratic direction. This doctrine was still being followed by the post-1945 era of progressive taxation that saw the 20th century's greatest rise in living standards and economic growth. But most countries have reversed the fiscal trend since 1980. Tax collectors have "freed" income from public obligation only to see it pledged to banks for higher loans to bid up property prices.
Houses, office buildings and entire companies are worth whatever banks will lend. So populations (and corporate raiders) have responded to the pro-financial tax shift by borrowing to buy houses (and companies) before prices recede even further out of reach. And taxes on labor now are about to be jacked up to pay off the public debts resulting from the asset-price inflation and financial wreckage that property tax cuts have helped cause. This is the cause of national debts. Governments have run into debt as a result of un-taxing the wealthy in general, not just real estate.
Following Western governments in shifting the fiscal burden off property and finance onto labor over the past few decades, Greece's government is politically unable or unwilling to tax the wealthy, or even well-to-do professionals. But neoliberals blame it and other debtor governments for not selling off enough public land and enterprises to make up the gap. Tax-deductible interest charges make privatizations on credit tax-exempt, so governments will lose the user fees they formerly received – while populations pay higher "tollbooth" charges for hitherto public services.
Just as the U.S. Government has done, it has issued bonds to finance the deficit resulting from these tax cuts. The buyers of these bonds (mainly German banks) are demanding that Greek labor (and now German taxpayers as well) should bear the burden of tax shortfalls. German and other European banks and bondholders are to be repaid at the social cost of drastic cutbacks in pensions and social spending – and if possible, by more privatization sell-offs at distress prices.
The riots in Greece have erupted because labor understands what most journalistic reporting shies away from confronting. Growth in real wages has slowed (and has stopped cold in the United States since about 1979). Home ownership has been achieved at the cost of new buyers taking on a lifetime of mortgage debt. And the post-Soviet economies won their political freedom from Russia, only to find themselves insolvent today, dependent on IMF and EU direction of their economies to obtain the loans to pay their foreign bankers that have loaded down their housing, public enterprises, industry and families with debt.
Bondholders and financial speculators have ganged up to demand EU, IMF and US support for them to take their gains before the financial game crashes. The grab can be done most quickly by shrinking economies under IMF-style austerity plans. Unemployment is to rise while driving economies even further into debt – not only public debt as shrinking markets lead to falling tax revenue, but also foreign debt as import dependency increases.
Creditors are to be paid by letting them appropriate the economic surplus, in the form of debt service at the expense of new capital investment, infrastructure spending, public social spending and rising living standards. Economically, the Greek uprising is a revolt against the policy of sacrificing prosperity to pay foreign creditors in this way.
At the political level the fight is to save Greece from being turned into an anti-state. The classical definition of a "state" or government is the ability to levy taxes and issue money. But Greece has relinquished its fiscal authority to the EU and IMF, which are telling it to violate what political theorists list as the Prime Directive of any government: to act in the long-term national interest. The Greek government is being directed to act on behalf of bank capital, and indeed, that of foreign countries to engage in asset stripping, not to promote long-term growth.
At issue is whether nations will be run by creditors or by popular aims to reap the benefits of economic growth. An oligarchic push for IMF-EU loans to bail out foreign banks and bond speculators at the expense of Greek labor (the intended taxpayers of the future) aims at making labor rather than finance capital take the loss of government arrears resulting from un-taxing wealth. The aim is to enable foreign banks to avoid having to pay the price for acting as enablers in draining the domestic market. Government policy is to be taken out of the hands of voters and subordinated to the IMF and EU acting as instruments of international finance.
This creates a state of affairs in which neither Greece nor the EC are "states" or "governments" in the traditional political sense. The EU and IMF bureaucracy is not elected. And at the point where their foreign-dictated financial plan succeeds, the economy's capital will be stripped and social democracy will collapse.
On Sunday, May 9, German voters expressed their anger at the government's role in bailing out German bankers (euphemized as bailing out "Greece") at the expense of German taxpayers. The European Central Bank [ECB] is not creating free euro-money but is billing national governments). The Social Democrats overtook Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union party in North Rhine-Westphalia. Winning only a bit over a third of the vote – a bit less than the Social Democrats (and down over 10 percentage points from the last election, of which 4 points were lost just in the last week when the bailout package was promoted by Ms. Merkel) – the CDU lost its majority in Germany's upper house.
Many German voters may have wondered whether taxing the poor to pay the rich to engage in usury was really as "Christian" as the party claimed to represent. Or maybe they were concerned that Germany's tax collector is to pay nearly $30 billion as its share in the bailout of bankers – not all of whom are beloved in Germany, even when they are German. And some no doubt saw the game as a financial deception by the banking sector's compliant politicians.
The deception
Europe's financial lobbyists used the crisis as an opportunity to promote a broad series of bailouts. For Swedish and Austrian banks, the EU approved a €60bn extension of the balance-of-payments facility already put in place to help Hungary, Romania and Latvia keep current on their debts to Austrian and Swedish banks respectively. To circumvent the Eurozone's no-bailout principle, this special bailout law is based on Article 122.2 of the EU treaty permitting loans to governments in "exceptional circumstances."
If we give Ms. Merkel credit for understanding the economics at work, then we must accuse her of lying through her teeth. The Baltic debt problem is chronic and structural, not "exceptional." Ms. Merkel also must know that she is being deceptive in pretending to help Latvia by extending loans that the EU limits explicitly to support the lat's exchange rate, not for domestic development. The foreign exchange is to cover the cost of Latvians paying mortgages in euros to Swedish banks, and of Latvian consumers buying food and manufactures that EU governments subsidize while leaving the Baltics in a state of economic and financial dependency.
Latvia thus is being victimized, not helped. The aim is to give Swedish banks a little more time to keep collecting payments on loans that are going to go bad in due course. Foreign exchange spent in facilitating private debt service to foreign banks becomes a national debt, to be paid by Latvian taxpayers. This EU loan thus is an exercise in naked neo-colonialism.
Will the belated shift of German voters to back the Social Democrat red-green coalition with the Green and Left parties do much to stem matters? Probably not. Greek President Papandreou acquiesced in the cave-in despite being head of the Socialist International. So the question is whether Greece really is checkmated, destined to see its public spending, pensions, health care, schooling and living standards rolled back in the way that the Baltics have experienced. They have been an experiment in neoliberal central planning. If they are an example of what the future is to bring, the world will soon see a wave of Greek emigration, Baltic-style.
That evidently is what stock markets around the world anticipated when they soared on Monday morning at the news of Europe's trillion-dollar bailout. What really was bailed out is the principle that economies should be stripped so that finance capital may rule. But the fight surely is not yet over. It will escalate for the remainder of the 2010s, because it is nothing less than an attempt to roll back the history of the 19th and 20th century's struggle to replace the power of vested property and financial interests with principles of progressive taxation and public enterprise.
Is this where Western civilization really is supposed to be leading? Confronted by parliaments controlled by aristocracies, the 19th-century reformers sought to take them over on behalf of democracy. Classical political economy was a reform program to tax away the "free lunch" of land rents, monopoly rents and financial interest extraction. John Maynard Keynes celebrated this program in his gentle term, "euthanasia of the rentiers."
But the vested interests have fought back. Calling social democracy and public regulation "the road to serfdom," They are trying to set Europe's economies on the road to debt peonage. Making an end-run around national elected governments to impose the Washington Consensus, IMF and EU institutions have gained fiscal and economic control over governments and their tax policies to cut taxes on wealth – and borrow from it to finance the resulting fiscal deficits.
America's Tea Partiers and anti-tax rebels have given up the fight to reform governments. Squeezed by debt from which they see no escape, they demand lower taxes – and are willing to see the highest brackets become the major beneficiaries in an even more regressive tax shift. Faced with the corruption of Congress by lobbyists acting on behalf of the vested interests, they reject government itself and seek safety in local gated communities. They see Congress and parliaments throughout the world losing autonomy to the IMF, the EU and other Washington Consensus organizations seeking to impose austerity and shift the tax burden onto labor and industry, off property and off predatory finance.
The only way to prevent a regressive tax shift and debt squeeze is gain control of governments on behalf of the spirit of classical economic and Progressive Era reforms. At least that is what Greek labor is rioting for. Someone must control government, and if democratic forces withdraw from the fight, the financial sector will tighten its grip.
Last week is still only the beginning of how this drama will play out. The response by the post-Soviet economies, which have retained their own currencies, is to come this summer and autumn.
*** A truncated version of this piece appeared at www.counterpunch.org earlier today
"Yes, Virginia. There is a Difference Between Greece and the US"
Posted on May 7, 2010 by admin | 6 comments
By Marshall Auerback*
If we learn the wrong lessons from Greece, our social safety net may wind up in tatters.
Many market analysts, commentators and economists claim to be having a hard time finding a metric in which the US is in better financial shape than Greece. Ken Rogoff, for example, recently warned that a Greek default would usher in a series of sovereign defaults, and suggested recently on NPR that the crisis also had implications for the US. The historian Niall Ferguson made a similar claim a few months ago in the Financial Times. The cries of the deficit hawks grow louder: Repent all ye fiscal profligates, before the "day of reckoning" comes.
Let's dial down the Biblical hysteria a wee bit while there's still time for rational debate. The market's recent response to the intensifying pressures in the euro zone suggests that investors are beginning to differentiate between countries that are sovereign issuers of currency, such as the US or Japan, and non-sovereign issuers, such as Greece or any other nations in the euro zone. The US dollar is rising in value, notwithstanding the federal deficit, while debt distress in the so-called "PIIGS" countries, especially Greece, are intensifying, thereby driving down the euro to fresh 12 month lows against the dollar.
The relative performance of various currencies against the US dollar is highly instructive in this regard. Over the past 3 months, the Australian, New Zealand and Canadian dollars have all registered gains of some 4% against the greenback. The worst performer? Not surprisingly, the euro, down 6.3% over that period. Whether consciously or not, the markets are demonstrating that they understand the distinctions between users of currencies (who face an external funding constraint), and those nations that face no constraint in their deficit spending activities because they are creators of currency.
That the US has the reserve currency is an irrelevant consideration here. The key distinction remains user vs. creator. The euro zone nations are part of the former; Canada, Australia, the UK, Japan and the US are representatives of the latter.
Using "PIIGS" countries as analogues to the US or the UK, as Rogoff, Ferguson and countless other commentators do, is wrong. Their faulty analysis comes as a result of the deficit critics' failure to distinguish between the monetary arrangements of sovereign and non-sovereign nations. Any sovereign government (none within the EMU enjoy that status any longer) can deal with a collapse in revenue and an increase in outlays from a financial perspective without invoking the sort of deadlocks that are now crippling the EMU zone. That is why, for example, the Japanese yen is not in freefall against the dollar, despite having a public debt to GDP ratio in excess of 200%, almost 2.5 times that of the US. In fact, over the past few days the yen has actually appreciated against the dollar. Now why would that be, if the lesson we were supposed to learn was the evils of "unsustainable" government deficit spending?
Fiscal sustainability has no relevance in a system where there are no operational constraints on the ability of a government to spend. US Social Security checks will not bounce. Nor will the Canadian or Japanese equivalents. Similarly, their bonds will always be able to pay out interest.
Note that this doesn't mean that there are no real resource constraints on government spending. Let's be clear: anyone who advances the use of fiscal policy as an effective counter-stabilization tool is always careful to point out that these interventions can come at a cost. That cost could well be inflation if, as a result of the fiscal expansion, we reach full employment, resource constraints begin to appear, but the government continues to spend. But if the economy recovers, tax revenues will increase and safety net spending will fall. In the US, that means we will likely be back to "normal," with deficits around 2-4% depending on the state of the economy, which is where we've been for the past 30 years aside from 1998-2001.
Why won't these deficits be inflationary? As Professor Scott Fullwiler noted in a recent email correspondence with me, once the recovery is underway and the economy gets to a significantly higher capacity utilization where price pressures could emerge, the deficit will be declining substantially. It will also be at least a partially offset by a fall in discretionary spending on social welfare. It's axiomatic that the faster the economy grows, the smaller the deficit becomes, unless the government continues to spend recklessly–which we certainly do not advocate.
And by the time we get to a point where we might have inflation, the deficit is back to 2-3%, which again is where we've been for the past 30 years, while average inflation has been about 2%. Note: inflation does not equal default. You and I could well buy credit default swaps on any country in the world, but we are unable to collect if any of the relevant countries register a positive rate of inflation — even a double digit rate of inflation — because inflation is not tantamount to default. Nor do the ratings agencies recognize default in this manner. Default is defined as a failure to perform a task or fulfill an obligation, especially failure to meet a financial obligation. Inflation is not incorporated into the definition when it comes to questions of national insolvency.
By contrast, the talk of Greek default is prevalent across the markets, and that is a reasonable concern in the context of the euro zone. The default option is considered a foregone conclusion, even allowing for the massive 110 billion euro bailout, which was designed to inspire "shock and awe" among investors but instead has simply engendered shock. If Greece costs 110 billion euros to bail out, how much next time for Spain, Italy, or even France?
If the markets have concerns about national solvency, they won't extend credit. And that is the problem facing all of the euro zone countries. Greece, Portugal, Italy, France, and Germany are all users of the euro-not issuers. In that respect, they are more like any American state or municipality, all of which are users of the US federal government's dollar.
And deficits per se will not create the conditions for default in the US. If the US continues to run net export deficits (all the more likely given the ongoing fall in the value of the euro), and the private domestic sector is to net save, the US government has to net spend–that is, run deficits. That is a basic accounting identity, nothing more, nothing less. If the US government tries under these circumstances to run surpluses, it will first of all force the private domestic sector into deficits (and increasing debt) and ultimately fail because the latter will eventually seek to increase their saving ratio again.
And the same logic applies for Greece. The call is for the IMF/EU package to reduce its budget deficit as a percentage of GDP from the current 13.6% to 8.1% in 2011. How will they achieve that? Trying to engineer a reduction in the deficit via austerity programs (or freezes or whatever else one might like to call them) at a time when private spending is still insufficient to maintain adequate real GDP growth is a recipe for disaster. It will increase the deficit.
Consider Ireland as Exhibit A in this regard. Ireland began cutting back deficit spending in 2008, when its banking crisis began to spread and its budget deficit as a percentage of GDP was 7.3%. The economy promptly contracted by 10% and, surprise, surprise, the deficit exploded to 14.3% of GDP. We would wager heavy odds that a similar fate lies in store for Greece, given the EU's inability to understand or recognize basic financial balances and the interrelationships among the various sectors of the economy. Neither a government, nor the IMF, can predict with any certainty what the outcome will be–ultimately private saving desires will drive the outcome, as Bill Mitchell has noted repeatedly.
Why do we have huge budget deficits across the globe? It's not because our officials have all suddenly become Soviet-style apparatchiks. It is largely because the slower global economy has led to lower revenues (less income=less taxes paid, since most tax revenue is based on income, and lower tax brackets) and higher spending on the social safety net. Gutting this social safety net because we extrapolate the wrong lessons from the euro zone's particular (and self-imposed) predicament constitutes the height of economic ignorance. It also reflects a transparently political agenda, which the US would be ill advised to embrace. The rescue packages, the IMF intervention and all the talk about orderly defaults cannot overcome the EMU's fundamental design flaw. Let neo-liberalism die with the euro.
*This post originally appeared on ND 2.0
"Ugly Divorce Reform Bill Threatens Victims of Domestic Violence"
By June Carbone
Kansas City Star headlines recently announced what those in the field have long known: a tough economy increases the incidence of domestic violence and depletes the resources available to combat it.
What has received less attention is a new Missouri bill that would make matters worse.
House Bill 1234 claims to promote "heterosexual marriage" by making divorce more difficult; what it really does is to strip away hard-won protections for the victims of domestic violence. Indeed, the bill's proposals are so one-sided, it should be renamed "The Full Protection of Batterers Act."
The proposals start by limiting divorce to cases of mutual consent or "marital irresponsibility." Marital irresponsibility, however, includes domestic abuse only in cases of "serious spousal abuse involving injury to petitioner where petitioner was not the initiator of physical violence" or a "history of serious emotional or physical abuse."
Consider what this means. Husband and wife argue. Husband threatens to kill the wife, and beats her up so badly she ends up in the hospital. Wife sues for divorce.
The husband insists that the wife slapped him first (a common allegation whether true or not) and that the episode of "serious" abuse was an isolated incident. Wife, in the hospital with a skull fracture, has no grounds for divorce.
The bill gets worse. It mandates that the assertion of domestic violence "shall not be deemed credible in the absence of physical evidence or convincing testimony by parties unrelated to the spouses."
Consider again what this means. The wife returns home from the hospital. The husband repeatedly threatens her, slaps her without leaving bruises, grabs her and holds her by the neck in front of the teenage children, and tells her in front of his mother and her sister that if she leaves him, she will never see the children again.
This woman has no grounds for divorce. Her testimony, however convincing, is deemed not to be "credible" as a matter of law. The testimony of the children, his mother and her sister (all relatives) do not matter.
The proposed legislation also makes it more difficult to protect children. Impressive empirical evidence demonstrates that exposing children to domestic abuse has lifelong negative consequences even if the abuse is directed only at the spouse.
In response to these studies, every state in the country has expanded the ability of the courts to take domestic violence into account in determining custody. This bill would undo the protections.
It provides that even if a spouse meets the act's tough standards and proves domestic violence to the satisfaction of the court, "a protective order shall not deny the [abuser] parenting time if the petition for dissolution does not allege child abuse or neglect."
In other words, if the husband cracks open his wife's skull, but does not touch the children, he cannot be denied parenting time.
And the new definitions of child abuse are even harder to prove than spousal abuse. Punching and hitting children is not physical abuse unless it causes injury.
Moreover, if repeatedly striking a child causes injury only rarely, it is not abuse where it can be said to be an "infrequent" mistake or a manifestation of parental differences about appropriate discipline.
Yet, interfering with the other spouse's parenting time because the children are terrified is emotional abuse, while threatening to kill a child becomes abuse only if it is "continuing and chronic."
Finally, the bill punishes spouses who allege domestic abuse, but fail to prove it under these draconian standards.
To take only one example, the proposed legislation would threaten a spouse who alleges domestic violence with loss of custody if the court does not find in her favor, while a battering spouse who commits perjury is guaranteed continuing contact with the children unless he has been separately found guilty of child abuse.
Taken together, these measures provide a handbook on how to inflict domestic terror with impunity. The bill threatens all of us as it puts the cycle of violence that brutalizes parents and children outside of public view – until the violence tragically erupts in ways that are impossible to ignore.
June Carbone is the Edward A. Smith/Missouri Chair of Law Professor at the University of Missouri – Kansas City. She is the co-author of "Red Families v Blue Familes: Legal Polarization and the Creation of Culture" (Oxford 03/10). She lives in Kansas City.
Read more: http://voices.kansascity.com/node/8863#ixzz0mzfxoWyD


Each new release of SQL Server brings new DMOs. This article digs into dm_exec_function_stats, which made its debut in Microsoft SQL Server 2016.
As adoption of AI increases and we move from a reactive to a predictive model, IT and data center pros need to carefully weigh risk and reward.
Actifio's copy data management solution is designed to mitigate the storage and security concerns of copy data.
In the week ending Feb. 15, I am recapping IBM Think 2019, which took place in San Francisco this week. Join me in this vlog as I hit the exhibit hall and share clips from sessions at the event.
The company's researchers expect to improve AI compute performance by 1,000 times over the next 10 years.
Microsoft's acquisition of Citus Data expands on the Azure commitment to open source and may provide horizontal scaling for SQL Server.
In the week ending Feb. 8, we've got lots of news around artificial intelligence (AI), between new research in the area and vendors making significant investments in expanding their use of the technology.
Bosch's North American president sheds light on how artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things are changing how industrial companies innovate.


These lovely quails are marching across a planter.
quad—, quadr—, quadri— denote four of something, or a square.
quant— denotes a number of something or a measurement.
quart— denotes a fourth of something.
The mineral quartz has a trigonal crystal form. The name is of Slavic origin.
quin— denotes the number five.
Can you identify additional words to add to the lists of prefixes and suffixes?
Use the words in sentences to clarify their meanings.
Quail belong to the same family as partridges and pheasants.
Quail eggs were sent to the Mir space station in 1990, where they were incubated and successfully hatched.


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2020 Infiniti Q60 Convertible Release Date and Price
Published: September 30, 20199:55 pm Updated: October 8, 20198:28 am
It's been a while since we saw a convertible from Nissan's luxury division. The last vehicle of that type was the famous G37, which was in production until six years ago. Since then, we've been hearing rumors about all kinds of models and many of them refer to the compact coupe Q60, which has been a while for some time. The newest thing we saw is a rendering photo of the potential convertible, though the image is unofficial and doesn't show anything but the coupe with the roof taken off. That's practically the only change that has been made on the image, but toe Q60 in such layout looks pretty impressive. However, the 2020 Infiniti Q60 Convertible probably won't happen.
Will Infiniti make a Q60 Convertible again?
It's hard to say at this point, but know we would like to see this on the road. The current generation comes in a coupe version only and it's been for a while. It was introduced in 2014, so we could say it would be a little bit late for this version. More likely, we would see a convertible after the redesign. The next-generation model is behind the corner and should come in a couple of years. While the coupe model seems certain, the 2020 Infiniti Q60 Convertible definitely won't happen. After the redesign, everything is possible. Speaking of the redesign, we have big expectations from the new model. The current still looks amazing. Aesthetics are impressive, but the car lacks great handling and overall performances, which is the aspect we expect the biggest improvements. Of course, new technologies in other aspects are expected as well.
2020 Infiniti Q60 Specs and Features
Meanwhile, we expect that the 2020 Infiniti Q60 will carry on in the same way. This means a familiar coupe layout, which is characterized by impressive aesthetics, famous for super curvy lines. In terms of mechanics, things will definitely remain the same in the next couple of years.
On the inside, the current generation still looks pretty attractive. The aesthetics are once again amazing, while the overall quality is great as well. We particularly like the seats, which are massive and supportive. The dashboard is highlighted by a dual-screen setup, which looks classy, but actually isn't the most advanced infotainment system you can find on the market. It is a little bit complicated to use and lacks smartphone integration goodies. Also, the list of standard tech features includes satellite radio, HD Radio, Bluetooth, two USB ports, and a six-speaker sound system. In higher trims, you can also get things like a navigation system, a Wi-Fi hot spot, and a premium Bose stereo.
2020 Infiniti Q60 Convertible Engines
The 2020 Infiniti Q60 Convertible may not come, but the coupe version will carry on with familiar engines in the offer. A turbo-four has been discontinued recently, so there are two V6 options in the offer now. Base models will come with a 3.0-liter V6 that delivers 300 horsepower. The same engine is available in a version with 400 horsepower and 350 pound-feet of torque. Both versions come with a 7-speed automatic transmission.
We expect to see a new model by the end of the year. On the other side, the 2020 Infiniti Q60 Convertible probably won't happen and we will have to wait for a complete redesign. The current models feature a starting price of 41.000 dollars.
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2021 Infiniti QX50 Full Redesign Details
Published: November 24, 201912:22 pm Updated: November 28, 20196:28 pm
2020 Infiniti Q30 Redesign, Rumors, Discontinuation
Published: July 23, 20198:01 pm Updated: July 27, 20195:24 pm
2020 Infiniti QX70 Redesign, Release date, Price
2020 Infiniti Q70 Release date, Price, Interior
2022 Infiniti Q70 Comeback Rumors
2022 Nissan GT-R Updates, Special Edition, NISMO, Price
2022 Nissan Micra Preview: Specs, Interior, Price and Features
2022 Nissan Juke Might Get New Powertrain Options!?
2022 Nissan Ariya Price, Canada, Interior, Release date
2020 Nissan Maxima Nismo Specs, Release date
2022 Infiniti QX70 Comeback Rumors
2022 Nissan Quest Comeback: Rumor or Something More?
2021 Infiniti Q50 Minor Updates and Specs
2021 Nissan Pathfinder Redesign is Finally Happening
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The nissanandinfiniti.com website isn't associated, authorized, or in any way affiliated with Nissan, Infiniti or any other automaker. The information contained on this site is not endorsed or obtained by any automaker. Certainly, you may notice that we strive to publish accurate information on all new and future vehicles, however, we don't guarantee the accuracy of all information on the site.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Since I mentioned summer time, I am happy to announce that I will be spending my summer vacation to my favorite island here in the Philippines and luckily, www.tosave.com sent something for me to use for that trip. This is my second collaboration with them and they never fail to make me happy. You can check out www.thestyleberry.com for our first collaboration. I feel so lucky to get contacted by them because some people from Instagram asked me on how I collaborated with ToSave. I know that's TMI so let's talk about the things that I got from them.
First, I felt so curious about this thing called silisponge so I felt happy when I found out that they have this on their website. With no hesitations, I picked one and it's not a plain silisponge because it has some cute pink flower patterns on it.
Next, I got a pink wallet and I will be using it to keep some of my money, cards and IDs. It looks so cute and small so it will be nice to carry inside my sling bag wherever I go.
I also got a white floral cardigan and I will be wearing it on the beach soon! Don't worry I will take photos for you so that you can see it.
Last but not the least is the round beach towel. I have been wanting to own one of this cute towels because it is perfect and cute for the beach. Aside from it, I can take a lot of instagrammable photos with it. I can't wait!
Interested to purchase some of these cute items? Check out www.tosave.com and find more!
pink is my favourite color!!
How cute! Love those round beach towels. Have a happy vacation!


Quadrivalent influenza vaccine /Fluquadri is now available at HCMC.
Special price @ 700 THB!!! From 800 THB.
Only from today - 4th May 2017.
Seasonal Flu Vaccination (Minimal Invasion Intra Dermal) Now Available At HCMC.
Seasonal Flu Vaccination (Minimal Invasion Intra Dermal)Now Available at HCMC.
What is your choice of yogurt?
Place your repeat prescription Order now and have your medication delivered to your door step. No need to go out in the heat.
Dengue Fever: The Silent killer.


Paul Henry's Window Installation is your one-stop for a variety of Marvin patio doors. Whether you're in Warrenton or one of the surrounding areas, we'll help you pick out a perfect Marvin door.
We have earned our reputation as a trustworthy, high-quality door installer in the community since 1990 through our dedication to quality craftsmanship and exemplary customer service. We're also recognized as an authorized dealer by Marvin. And when you choose a Marvin door, you get quality and aesthetic appeal.
See samples of the Marvin doors we offer by visiting our showroom. There, you'll see the complete range of finishes and hardware available to you. Since each door we sell is custom, we are here to make your experience as seamless as possible.
Ask about the Marvin doors we offer at Paul Henry's Window Installation.
For more information about installing Marvin doors in your home, or to schedule your free, no-obligation, in-home consult, call us today at 540-359-6842.


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TranXending Vision
Chapter 500 - Exposed
The shots were deafening. The Shenwu assault rifle roared like an enraged beast. Bullets shot from the muzzle, and some hit the target at 300 metres while some went wide.
It wasn't just the military representatives who saw the vast difference between the Hanwu Weapons Shenwu rifle and the Thunder Horse Military Factory Gust rifle – the purchasers and onlookers could see it too. More importantly, the longer the the Shenwu rifle kept firing, the worse its shaking got. It completely missed before it had got to the end of 500 rounds, and couldn't hit the target at 300 metres anymore.
"What's going on? What's going on!" Ye Kun saw the problem, and he turned ashen. His forehead was beaded with sweat.
"Kun, didn't you say there were no problems? You said there were no problems!" Mu Jianfeng said angrily, "Is this what you meant when you said there were no problems?"
"Teacher, I… It's the same drawings. Why is there such a big difference between the guns which were produced? I don't get it, but I don't believe we have made a mistake in the process. Didn't you see it too? The Thunder Horse Military Factory's rifle is exactly the same as ours." Things had already got to this point, but Ye Kun was still harbouring a shred of hope.
"Humph! 'Ours'?" Mu Jianfeng spoke coldly. "It's the gun you, Hanwu Weapons, manufactured. It had nothing to do with me."
Ye Kun stared blankly. "Teacher, you…"
Mu Jianfeng was done talking. He did not want to exchange any further words with Ye Kun.
The 'teacher' had come when there were advantages to be had, touting past kindness shown and asking for a share. Now that something had happened and they'd run into trouble, the teacher was wiping the slate clean and avoiding being dragged into it. This was Ye Kun's teacher, the old fox Mu Jianfeng. He had lived to this age and got to this level, and he knew what to do.
The Hanwu Weapons shooter was done firing the 500 rounds. The gun muzzle was smoking, and his forehead was hot too, though it was winter. He looked at Ye Kun, and his eyes were full of doubt. He said nothing, but his expression and his eyes told Ye Kun something – the gun he had in his hands was rubbish!
The military representatives were staring daggers at Ye Kun too, stabbing at him with their suspicion and discontent. Ye Kun had loudly proclaimed that Thunder Horse Military Factory had stolen Hanwu Weapons' patented technology earlier and even wanted him arrested and put under investigation. They could clearly see now, however, who had stolen from whom, and not very successfully either!
These military representatives were all of high rank, and every one of them had influence. The actual punishment had not been meted out yet, but Ye Kun's heart chilled when he saw them looking at him with those eyes.
"I believe you've all seen for yourselves. Hanwu Weapons' Chairman Ye said that I stole his company's patented technology, and that our guns were exactly the same. Do you believe his words?" said Xia Lei.
Jeering laughter came from all sides.
Xia Lei far outclassed Ye Kun, and Gust far outclassed Shenwu too. People would not believe Ye Kun now, even if he brought out evidence.
"Chairman Ye, do you not have any explanation for this?" Ling Han's voice was cold and fairly angry.
Ye Kun braced himself. "I'm not sure what happened myself. Our company designed this and it was put into production. I don't know how they came up with the design. How can I question them personally on every step when my company is so big?"
"Then what about you insisting that Xia Lei stole your patented technology?" Ling Han's eyes grew colder.
"That's…" Ye Kun paused for a bit and said slowly, "That's the work of our company's team of lawyers. I'll know more details when I return and check. Rest assured, Mr Ling. This matter must have been a misunderstanding. However, I won't let any perpetrators go free. I'll fire whoever needs firing and hold the relevant persons responsible for their actions."
It was a crafty escape plan. Ye Kun was no greenhorn and he quickly found scapegoats for himself while he distanced himself from the situation and kept a low profile till things blew over.
Ling Han wrinkled his brows. He knew that Ye Kun was trying to crush Thunder Horse Military Factory and that he had attempted to frame Xia Lei, but he could not do anything to Ye Kun without evidence.
Xia Lei walked up to Ye Kun and said softly, "I am actually envious of you, Chairman Ye."
"What are you envious about?" Ye Kun looked away from Xia Lei's eyes, his heart full of resentment and hate. He didn't want to see Xia Lei right then, much less talk to him.
"Look at you, the chairman of Hanwu Weapons. Commit a crime and get zero penalty. I didn't do anything wrong, and I was almost arrested. Say, we're both people – why is there such a big difference? How can I not envy you?" said Xia Lei.
"Don't talk nonsense!" said Ye Kun coldly. "This was a misunderstanding. I've made it clear just now that it must've been my subordinates who'd made a mistake due to misunderstandings. I need some time to investigate and handle this matter. There will be a conclusion to this, so why are you in such a rush?"
"You're getting scapegoats aren't you, Chairman Ye?" laughed Xia Lei.
"Xia Lei!" Ye Kun was mad. "I was being polite! Don't you dare bite off more than you can chew. I've agreed to do an investigation. What more do you want?"
"Justice!" Xia Lei roared at Ye Kun. "I want justice!"
Xia Lei suddenly seemed like a whole other person. He was no longer the elegant businessman but the soldier on the battlefield, the beast in the forest!
Ye Kun was struck dumb but he quickly recovered. "Justice? I'll help you find out who's responsible. Let me tell you that this has nothing to do with me, and you won't find anything linked to me. If you think it's unfair, you can go to court and sue me. I'll fight you to the end."
"I didn't expect you to be so arrogant still at this point." A smile appeared on Xia Lei's face and his tone became cordial. "Chairman Ye, you've done lots of bad deeds these dozens of years and yet you're still Chairman of Hanwu Weapons, enjoying riches and luxuries. Without anyone holding you responsible, your crimes are zero. However, that's because your opponents were other people. Today, your opponent is me. Committing a crime against me will never result in zero responsibility for you."
Ye Kun smiled angrily. "You're being arrogant today too, but just today. I don't feel like sparring verbally with you today, so this is it. You keep performing your oral gymnastics here. I won't entertain you anymore." He waved a hand. "Let's go!"
The group of Hanwu Weapons employees started packing up, preparing to leaving the firing range.
Xia Lei stretched out his hand and grabbed Ye Kun's shoulder.
"What are you doing?" Ye Kun turned back to glare at Xia Lei. "Let go!"
"You can't walk away today, Chairman Ye," said Xia Lei with a smile.
"Hahaha!" Ye Kun laughed. "What, you want to hit me? Fine, go ahead. I won't hit back."
Xia Lei did not hit Ye Kun.
"That's all you have. I can give you ten guts and you won't dare to hit me," Ye Kun said mockingly.
"I won't hit you, but I'll show you something," said Xia Lei.
Ye Kun paused. Nervousness sprung in his heart for some reason.
Xia Lei released Ye Kun's shoulder and said loudly, "Everyone, please look at the big screen!"
There was a large display screen at the side of the firing range, for the purpose of displaying notices and shooting done at the firing range.
The screen changed to another scene at Xia Lei's words, and all eyes were drawn to it.
On the screen was a cafe. Ye Xiaoqi was urging Wu Bin to give the drawings to her, and Wu Bin insisted on seeing the money first. Ye Xiaoqi opened the briefcase and showed him the money, then Wu Bin opened his briefcase and let Ye Xiaoqi see the drawings.
The video paused, and the huge screen showed that it was the drawings for Thunder Horse Military Factory's Gust assault rifle. The company logo could be seen too.
The exchange was complete, and Ye Xiaoqi left the cafe with the briefcase of drawings. She entered the Hanwu Weapons building.
Ling Han's gaze went abruptly to Ye Xiaoqi, who was standing behind Ye Kun.
It wasn't just him – the military representatives looked at her too.
Ye Xiaoqi was Ye Kun's secretary, but would a little secretary do something like this without instructions from Ye Kun?
Thousands of eyes were on Ye Xiaoqi, and her face drained of colour. She panicked and stuttered, "I, I… This has nothing to do with me! It, it's... " She looked at Ye Kun but did not dare to speak further.
Ye Kun panicked too. "What are you saying, Ye Xiaoqi? You be responsible for your own actions!"
Ye Xiaoqi opened her mouth but no words came out. He had just been intimate with her last night, calling her 'baby', and now they were strangers. This Ye Kun abandoned her faster than a rat leaving a sinking ship!
Ye Kun blinked at Ye Xiaoqi, signalling something to her.
The scene stopped playing on the huge screen.
Mu Jianfeng drew close spoke in a low voice next to Ye Xiaoqi, "Take the blame for this. You won't end up in prison. Agree, and you'll spend the rest of your life in luxury."
Ye Xiaoqi was torn. What should she do?
Just as everyone thought that this was the end of it, and that the video was evidence, another scene started playing on the screen.
Ye Kun and Ye Xiaoqi were talking. He praised her for doing a good job, then the two of them went into the rest lounge and tumbled about. This scene had been censored, and no intimate bits were revealed. Their tumbling was short too; about a few seconds.
The screen went quiet again.
Cold sweat broke out on Ye Kun's brow.
"Ahem." Mu Jianfeng stepped away from Ye Xiaoqi. He looked at Xia Lei with a smile on his face. "Nicely done, Xia Lei. You've proved your innocence. Not bad. Thunder Horse Military Factory's Gust assault rifle is undoubtedly the best assault rifle in the world. I am proud that our nation has a talent like you!"
Xia Lei laughed. "Heh heh heh…"
And another video started playing on the screen.
translationraven's Thoughts
Argh! No time for an special event...
Anybody want to do some character artwork for the 500-chapter milestone? I'll feature it in the chapters and credit you.
Send any art entries or questions to: [email protected]
TranXending Vision: The Final Countdown
Thanks to a very clear-headed person's comment on ending the translation at the end of a major arc for some "closure", I decided to look for the best (and closest) arc-end to end my work on TXV. Thank you again, random citizen. I low-key love you. And...
Loading: 8 chapters a week...


Home > Our Work > Databases > FCMD > FCMD Contractors > BP P.L.C.
BP is one of the world's largest energy companies, with interests in more than 100 countries and over 96,000 employees. BP Alternative Energy, formed in 2005, brings together all BP's interests in zero and low-carbon power generation: BP Solar, the company's photovoltaic business; wind power generation; hydrogen power – which combines fossil fuel power generation with carbon capture and storage to provide extremely low carbon power; and BP's natural gas-fired power interests. BP Alternative Energy has an active wind development portfolio in Europe, North America and Asia; the company's hydrogen business includes two announced projects (in Los Angeles and in Peterhead Scotland); BP Solar is a leading global solar company; and; BP also participates in more than 13,000 MW of gas-fired generation around the world.
25 additional instances of misconduct pending resolution.


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Home Android Google Project Tango Tablet Now Selling to Canada and South Korea, More...
Google Project Tango Tablet Now Selling to Canada and South Korea, More Countries by the End of the Month
The famous developer tablet Project Tango reached a new phase today, as it started selling to Canada and South Korea. The product previously went on sale without an invite for the first time this May and now it's going to reach even more country around August 26th.
The 7 inch slate is available in black or white, with 4 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage. It relies on Nvidia's Tegra K1 processor, as well as WiFi and 4G LTE connectivity. Of course, the big deal here are actually the 4 megapixel camera with a big sensor on board, a dedicated motion sensing camera and the depth sensors for scanning areas in 3D.
Google officially stated that it has shipped over 3000 developer devices so far and hundreds of apps have been created. Most have to do with the 3D aspect of the product, allowing users to explore the physical space around them. On August 26th, the device becomes available in Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, UK, Sweden and Switzerland. Last I heard the device was priced at $512.
Google Project Tango
Google Project Tango available in Canada
Google Project Tango available in South Korea
Google Project Tango features
Google Project Tango launch in more countries
Google Project Tango UK launch
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This extraordinary Harvest Home celebration interactively recreates the traditional making of bread and wine, contributing significantly to the presentation of the town of Trebišov as a gateway to the Tokaj Wine Region.
The Zemplín region's cultural traditions, combined with the local harvest festivals, traditional crafts and culinary specialties are attractions for people visiting the festival on the grounds of the Trebišov manor house. The programme includes the telling of stories about the harvest festivals, late summer celebrations of the harvest and about the South Zemplín region.


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Tax and other information specific to Hennepin County. Hennepin is an urban county with a population of about 1.1 million people in 46 municipalities. The City of Minneapolis is the County seat. The County Board of Commissioners is the governing policy board; the Administrator directs County operations. The County organization is comprised of 26 departments, the County Attorney's Office, Sheriff's Office, Court Administration and Public Defender.
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Welcome to Ramsey County, Minnesota. There are 87 counties in the state and Ramsey is the smallest in land value, but the most densely populated for its size in the metro area. We have 18 cities, 1 township and the most colleges and universities of any county in the state. As home for more than 480,000, Ramsey also has the most people per square mile of any Minnesota county. Ramsey County supports a diverse cultural environment in the arts and sciences by making significant contributions to the Landmark Center, the Science Museum, and the Ramsey County Historical Society, which operates the Gibbs Farm Museum. Ramsey County has seven suburban libraries.
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Dictionary Society of North America
Code of Regulations
dated 19 Jun 1991; amended 30 Dec 1992, 20 Mar 2005, 7 Jun 2015, 18 April 2021
The voting members of the Dictionary Society of North America (hereinafter DSNA or Corporation) have adopted this Code of Regulations for the government of the Corporation, the conduct of its affairs, and the management of its property, consistent with its Articles of Incorporation and pursuant to the provisions in Section 1702.11 of the Ohio Revised Code.
This Code of Regulations supersedes any and all previous constitutions of the DSNA. DSNA is recognized as a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) corporation under the federal Internal Revenue Code.
I. NAME
The Name of this Society shall be the Dictionary Society of North America.
II. MEMBERSHIP
A. Membership in the DSNA shall be open to any person interested in the purposes of the Corporation. These include fostering scholarly and professional activities relating to dictionaries, lexicography and lexicology. It shall carry these out by promoting the exchange of information and ideas among members by holding meetings, by encouraging research projects, by means of publications (newsletters, journals, bibliographies, directories and the like) and by any other appropriate means. Membership shall consist of those who have paid to the Executive Director of the Corporation the full current dues required by their category of membership.
B. The categories of membership are Regular, Joint (e.g., member and partner or spouse), Student, Retired, Life, and Institutional.*
1. Student membership is open to any person actively pursuing an academic degree. Applicants may be required to provide proof of student status.
2. Any member or other person approved for membership who has retired from the regular exercise of his/her profession may become a Retired member upon application to the Executive Director.
3. Any member distinguished for the study, making or collecting of dictionaries may be elected by the membership as a Fellow of the DSNA, upon recommendation of the Executive Board. The number of Fellows shall not exceed 15.
4. Any member resident in the United States or North America may become a Life member upon the one-time payment of a sum determined by the Executive Board. In all respects except annual dues payments Life members are as Regular members.
5. An Institutional member may be a corporation, a university or college, a library, a publisher, or similar entity.
C. On or before March 1 of every year or an alternative date set by the Executive Board, each member shall pay to the Executive Director the appropriate amount of dues. Failure to do so automatically terminates membership, provided that timely notice (45 days) has been sent to the member.
D. Regular, Joint, Student, Life, and Retired members, as well as Fellows, shall have the right to vote in the elections of the DSNA. Institutional members shall not have the right to vote.
III. OFFICERS, EXECUTIVE BOARD AND COMMITTEES
A. The officers of the DSNA shall be a President, a Vice-President, and an Executive Director. The Vice President shall also have the title of President-Elect.
1. The President and the Vice-President shall each serve a term of two years and shall not be eligible for reelection in those offices. The Vice-President shall also be President-Elect and shall succeed to the Presidency. The Executive Director shall serve for a term of four years and shall be eligible for re-election for two additional terms.
2. The President shall preside over the meetings of the DSNA and of the Executive Board. Subject to the approval of the Executive Board, the President shall appoint the members of such non-elective committees as are required. The President shall also present an annual report to the Corporation.
3. The Vice-President shall perform the functions of the President in the President's absence or inability to serve. If a vacancy occurs in the position of Vice-President, the Board may fill the vacancy temporarily; it shall be filled permanently in the next election.
4. The Executive Director shall keep all the records of the Corporation. The Executive Director shall also prepare and circulate such publications as are not in the province of an editor, including agendas for meetings and the biennial report, and shall collect the dues and generally administer the financial affairs of the Corporation.
5. The Executive Board may appoint an Associate Executive Director to serve at the pleasure of the Board. The Associate Executive Director shall have such responsibilities as may be assigned by the Executive Director.
B. There shall be an Executive Board composed of the President, the Vice-President, the Executive Director, and four members-at-large. The immediate Past President shall be a non-voting member of the Executive Board. A majority of the members of the Board shall constitute a quorum, one of whom shall be the President or the Vice-President. The vote of a majority of those present shall constitute action by the Board. Other action may be taken by conference call or e-mail.
1. Two members (to be known as "members-at-large" of the Executive Board) shall be elected each biennium, to serve a term of four years. A member-at-large shall not be eligible for immediate re-election. If a vacancy occurs among the members-at-large, the Board may fill the vacancy temporarily; it shall be filled permanently in the next election.
2. The Executive Board shall determine policy, direct the Executive Director, and generally administer the affairs of the Corporation.
C. There shall be a Nominating Committee of four members, representative of the DSNA's different interests.
1. Two members shall be appointed by the Executive Board each biennium for a term of four years.
2. The Nominating Committee shall elect its own chairperson.
3. The Nominating Committee shall nominate at least one person for each elective vacancy.
4. A ballot shall be submitted to the voting members of the DSNA not less than two months prior to every biennial meeting of the Corporation, commencing with the 2021 meeting.
IV. MEETINGS
A. There shall be a meeting of the DSNA at least every two years at a place and time determined by the Executive Board.
1. Special meetings of the DSNA may be called by the Executive Board or shall be called on petition of one-third of the membership.
2. Business which must be transacted may, in the absence of a regular or special meeting, be conducted by mail, telephone, or e-mail.
3. The Executive Director shall give notice of every meeting of the DSNA by mailing or delivering such notice to the usual postal or e-mail address of each member not less than four weeks prior to the time of the meeting.
4. Ten percent of the voting members in good standing shall constitute a quorum at all meetings. At every meeting of the DSNA at which a quorum is present, the Executive Board may act by or through a majority of those in attendance. If less than a quorum should be present at any such meeting, the meeting may be adjourned to such time and place as those present shall determine.
B. The host institution for any meeting shall be empowered by the decision of the Executive Board to appoint a Local Committee at its own discretion but in consultation with the Executive Board, and that Committee shall have the authority to select the papers presented at a particular meeting.
1. Only voting members of the DSNA may offer papers for presentation at a meeting.
2. The Program Committee may invite papers on specified topics from other appropriately qualified persons, but travel and other expenses will not be paid for such speakers from meeting fees or the DSNA annual budget.
V. PUBLICATIONS
A. An annual volume shall be published which shall contain at least a selection of the papers presented by members at meetings of the DSNA.
1. An Editor shall be appointed by the Executive Board to be responsible for the editorial form and content of each annual volume. The Editor shall serve for a term of two years and may be reappointed for up to five additional terms.
2. One or more Associate Editors may be appointed by the Editor, with the approval of the Executive Board.
B. A newsletter shall be published by the DSNA at least twice a year. The publication of this newsletter shall be the responsibility of the Executive Director, or of an Editor appointed by the Executive Board.
C. Other publications furthering the purposes of the DSNA may be published at the discretion of the Executive Board.
D. All members shall receive the regular publications of the DSNA.
VI. AMENDMENTS
A. Any proposed amendment to these regulations must be submitted in writing or electronically to the Executive Director and signed or agreed to by at least ten members of the DSNA.
B. The proposed amendment(s) shall be presented to the members on the same ballot as provided for the regular election of officers.
C. To be considered binding, an amendment must receive the approval of two-thirds of the members who vote.
VII. DISSOLUTION
Proposals to dissolve the DSNA shall be initiated and voted on in the same manner as amendments. In the event of the dissolution of the Dictionary Society of North America as a corporate entity, any assets remaining after the obligations of the DSNA have been paid shall be distributed to such not-for-profit, exempt organizations under Section 501 of the Internal Revenue Code of the United States of America, as it may be then amended, operated for scholarly or educational purposes similar to those of the Corporation, as the Executive Board shall elect.


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PayPal Blocked Access To My Account After Denying Me A Debit Card
paypal debit cards mastercard
(supercharger5150)
Consumerist reader "A.M." has a small business running a Minecraft server that brings in a bit of money via PayPal. He recently applied for a PayPal/Mastercard debit card, only to be denied. That wasn't such a big deal; the real problem was his sudden inability to access the money in his PayPal account.
"I have tried the normal support number… which took them about an half hour to even answer," A.M. wrote to Consumerist. "The person simply redirected me to another department, and after an hour of waiting, we simply gave up. About an half hour later, I decided to attempt to call the executive customer service numbers. Either they weren't in operation, or nobody answered."
We reached out to someone at PayPal who promised to give A.M.'s situation a looking over. It didn't take long for the company to contact him and say the problem would be resolved the next day.
But when the next day came, rather than an e-mail or phone call telling him that things were fixed and he could access his account, A.M. received a poorly written message from PayPal customer service saying, "We understand you no longer want the PayPal Debit Mastercard, unfortunately at this time, we are unable to lift the limitation and still require verification of identity."
The e-mail then goes on to tell him the various forms of ID that are needed and how he can send them by e-mail or snail mail.
So A.M. tried contacting PayPal by phone, asking to speak with the person who had told him only a day earlier that the issue would be resolved by now.
"The CSR said, 'There is no way to find this person again,'" he tells Consumerist.
So rather than continuing to bang his head against the PayPal wall, A.M. photocopied his ID and faxed it over.
Which would have been great. Except the PayPal fax number wasn't working.
And so he had to contact PayPal again and get a working fax number for a supervisor.
The next day, he finally got the good news:
"Our review is complete and we have restored your account," PayPal wrote in its e-mail to A.M. "We appreciate your patience and thank you for your help in making PayPal the safest and most trusted online payment solution."
By "most trusted," PayPal of course means "basically the only thing many sellers can use on eBay."
Regardless, A.M.'s account is back in good standing, though there has yet to be any proper explanation of why he was denied a debit card and why that denial shut down his account. Our PayPal contacts can not discuss specific customer issues, so though we were able to help resolve A.M.'s problem, we're still in the dark as to what actually happened to start this mess.
For his part, A.M. says he is moving a large chunk of his money to a non-PayPal institution.
No More Money for the kids
PayPal Discontinuing Student Accounts
is anyone listening to me
Who Am I Supposed To Call When My Credit Card Info Is Stolen?
making new pals
PayPal And Mastercard Become In-Store Payment Pals
just between us
PayPal Very Quietly Admits That It's Aware Of Random Payment Delays
awkward situations
I've Been Forced To Sign A Bogus Credit Card Bill While Traveling Abroad. What Can I Do?
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I wrote about why it doesn't work–The day the Turkish government banned itself from Twitter.
But here's what I do know. The president of Turkey had to circumvent a court order to tweet, and tens of thousands of citizens were right there to talk with him, give him support, chide him for his previous acts, and to generally comment. Twitter may be banned in Turkey legally, but in reality, the only thing that the government has managed to do is ban its own supporters from Twitter… (read more here)
I also wrote about why it doesn't matter that many people will circumvent: Why everyone is getting Turkey's Twitter ban wrong. (The point is to demonize social media, not any false belief that it is possible to totally kill information).
During the rally, Erdogan also talked about the threat social media, including Facebook and YouTube, poses to family values. He talked about its disruption of privacy, and how these foreign companies do not obey Turkish court orders but obey US and European courts.
In other words, Erdogan's strategy is to demonize social media.
It is a strategy of placing social media outside the sacred sphere, as a disruption of family, as a threat to unity, as an outside blade tearing at the fabric of society. (read more here)
← A loaf of bread, a dead child. Turkey's protest cycle. Update about the YouTube Ban →
4 thoughts on "Turkey's Twitter Ban and Social Media Demonization as a Strategy"
Mehmet Cirak March 24, 2014 at 12:17 pm
Great posts, especially "Everyone is Getting Turkey's Twitter Block Wrong". Exactly depicting my thoughts…
I will share your blog with family and friends. Keep thinking and writing 🙂
BTW, I live in Durham, hope to bump into you one day…
pembeci March 25, 2014 at 8:58 am
A high profile AKP member just defended the Twitter ban along the lines of your insight:
http://t24.com.tr/haber/akpli-soyludan-twitter-yasagini-elestiren-tusiada-tuhaf-yanit/254286 (in Turkish)
Key quote:
"According to these court decisions, you need to ban this (Twitter). It promotes defamation, dishonor, perversion. It accustoms our children to porn. Please save our country from this evil."
Judy Schalock March 30, 2014 at 6:06 pm
Really care about the issue. Thanks for the heads up and glad to know that Berkman is paying attention.
Felsefe April 1, 2014 at 3:44 am
It's hard to believe. Erdogan needed freedom and free thought against secular elite. But now he prohibits it. Twitter policy is one reason, we should say. They just don't care what Turkish courts say. They removed thousands of profiles from USA and Europe but now one from the rest of the world. Is it being used by politicians? Why wouldn't they remove a pornographic- blackmailing profile?