"Today the tyrant rules not by club or fist, but, disguised as a market researcher, he shepherds his flocks in the ways of utility and comfort."
Marshall Mcluhan
We have heard a lot over the last four years on how those responsible for the economic/financial crisis of 2008-2009 have gotten away scot-free. That the policies of Bush have been not only replicated by Obama, but enhanced and refined.
Well we can't say anyone didn't see this coming. But I still find it interesting, especially the timing.
Right on the heels of a fairly large corruption case that could...I repeat could, blow the lid off a lot of other fraudulent practices. And the Euro Zone on a ledge.
In the US, Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan are among those marked down.
USA v. Carollo involved classic cartel activity: not just one corrupt bank, but many, all acting in careful concert against the public interest. In the years since the economic crash of 2008, we've seen numerous hints that such orchestrated corruption exists. The collapses of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, for instance, both pointed to coordinated attacks by powerful banks and hedge funds determined to speed the demise of those firms. In the bankruptcy of Jefferson County, Alabama, we learned that Goldman Sachs accepted a $3 million bribe from J.P.
One longstanding rule in politics is that when you’re a bigwig you ignore attacks from insignificant small fry. The problem with responding is, it elevates your opponent and gives him (or her) even more significance.
The opening day of the G20 summit was threatening to deteriorate into a fractious row between eurozone countries and other non-European members of the G20, notably the US, as EU commission president José Manuel Barroso insisted the origins of the eurozone crisis lay in the unorthodox policies of American capitalism.
Bernstein and Woodward have a very good retrospective of Nixon and Watergate in the Washington Post. For most here - those much younger than I - the whole era is but a small chapter in history. However I believe it is good to reflect on how close the country came to not only a constitutional crisis but a total break down in our democratic form of government.
We've all seem them. The iconic scenes of the train wreck or car wreck with the cars hanging off a cliff. Nobody dares move else they cause the whole thing to plummet into the abyss below.
Seeing a person’s pulse through their skin seems like it should be a power relegated to superhero comics. But researchers at MIT have developed new video processing software that does just that and more — allowing an observer to identify tiny, otherwise imperceptible changes, such as a person’s breathing, blood flow and even the slight vibrating of still guitar strings, just from a few frames of video footage seconds apart.
According to the report, the number of U.S. citizens who died in terrorist attacks increased by two between 2010 and 2011; overall, a comparable number of Americans are crushed to death by their televisions or furniture each year. This is not to diminish the real--albeit shrinking--threat of terrorism, or to minimize the loss and suffering of the 13,000 killed and over 45,000 injured around the world.
The researchers studied about 1,500 skulls that dated from the mid-1800s through the 1980s. They noticed that the skulls gradually became larger, taller, and narrower. As a result, faces have become longer.
"The surprising thing is the skull size increase has not been documented in modern Americans," researcher Dr. Richard Jantz told The Huffington Post. "We might have suspected that that was happening but this documents it ... The shape of the skull has also changed rather dramatically. In fact, shape change has been more dramatic than size change.”
Seeking to tap into a cocktail of historical rivalry, opposing political tastes, and a perception that the British parliament in London does not nurture Scotland's national interests, the "Yes Scotland" campaign says it wants to win a referendum on independence in 2014 and for the country to become fully independent by 2016.
America has crossed a landmark in its demographic make-up, presaging a monumental shift in the country's culture, politics and economics, with minority groups for the first time in US history accounting for more than half of all births.
I sat in a Congressional office the other day with a veteran staffer - who is totally supportive of Occupy's ideas - but not its practice. He believes there is "a real problem in the American culture with radical individualism".
In France, new Socialist president-elect Francois Hollande said his victory marked “a new departure for Europe and hope for the world” because it showed “austerity can no longer be the only option”.
Meanwhile in Greece, where over 60 per cent of voters support anti-austerity parties, parties who reject the extreme belt-tightening that comes with international bail-outs were the big winners in parliamentary elections on Sunday.
And by the same battles I am referring to the same or similar complaints that the revolutionaries in France had during this time period.