Originally Posted By DATABOY
There may still be hope...
[ www.youtube.com ]

Amount: $19.00 CAD
Sent on: May 4, 2012
Payment method: PayPal Balance
Subject line of your payment email: AIDEZ LA CAUSE DE REMY COUTURE
Message in your payment email: Il me reste pas même 20$, la raison de ce chiffre. Dommage que les conservateurs t'aient choisi pour tenter d'effrité notre liberté. Résiste pour nous tous.

Originally Posted By RAWALI
they get lost tweaking a patch of fine tuning effects and they lose track of how the whole tune sounded like in their heads.

Originally Posted By Omni
Anybody here was producing music 10 years ago? What were you working with? Is there any particuliar reason why that wouldn't work today?

Originally Posted By BLISSS
Meanwhile Val D'or Sharpton has weighed in and asked the white community to wait before a verdict is reached before starting to riot on the streets.

Originally Posted By V.2-1
You know, if at one point you consider reorienting your career, you should seriously consider journalism. You have extraordinary skills at selective reading and citing people out of context. You'd be a perfect fit for the Journal de Montreal.

This track has reached its download limit.

Originally Posted By KUZUTETSU

Originally Posted By MASA
We all ain't anons.

Originally Posted By BASDINI
i have never understood why people ask the question 'why do people do drugs?' like they expect some sort of deep answer

Originally Posted By BASDINI
it's like asking why do you eat spicy food, drink coffee, or have a mint....there is no real answer.

'better living through chemistry' i guess is about as good as you can hope for...

PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Washington. Now joining us to continue our analysis of the history of the austerity debate in the United States is Professor James Crotty. He's at the PERI institute in Amherst, Massachusetts. He also is an emeritus professor and Sheridan scholar at the economics department at UMass Amherst. Thanks again for joining us, James.

JAMES CROTTY, ECONOMICS PROFESSOR, PERI, UMASS: You're welcome.

JAY: So we left off part one. We were beginning to talk about Reagan and the austerity debate intensify [sic]. So pick us up from there.

CROTTY: Well, Reagan represents a critical conjuncture where we begin to--we have this decision about what path to follow and begin to follow this right-wing path, the 1920s model path. So what Reagan does is a bunch of things. One, he cuts taxes dramatically on the rich and on corporations. He attacks the unions, starting with PATCO, and throughout his administration the union representation is beginning to collapse. He picks up what Carter had started and begins to accelerate deregulation in the economy, so that businesses can do anything that they want to do. He starts the process or accelerates the process of globalization, meaning opening global borders in the United States for finance to go anywhere it wants, for US multinationals to go anywhere they want. And what this means is that capital becomes mobile. It can run away if it doesn't like what's happening in the United States. And this means that capital gets a tremendous amount of power over the working class, because it can leave the country if it doesn't like what--the deal it's getting from its unions. So Reagan also increases defense expenditures substantially. So this is kind of the new model. It looks very much like the 1920s model. It's also an environment in which money is gaining more control over the political process. So it looks a lot like 1929. So what did we get out of this model, which then was--it was--continued to be implemented by George Bush senior, and to some extent continued to be implemented by President Clinton, and then, of course, accelerated again by George Bush the second. So what we got out of this, it's a model that will do a whole bunch of things. One, it slowed growth down. So growth in the United States from 1980 to the present has been significantly slower than it was earlier. Second, inequality has increased enormously, I mean, just enormously. Maybe your viewers know the data, but the top 1 percent of the income distribution, which was, in the late 1920s, which was getting about 24 percent of income, and during the Golden Age, the New Deal plus age, was only getting 10 percent of the income in the United States, went back up till--by the time we get to George Bush senior, or even Bill Clinton, towards 23 or 24 percent of the income distribution. This is the top 1 percent. It's an era in which labor is declining, in which regulation isn't going very well, in which median family income--that's, you know, the income, the purchasing power that a family can get--was right in the middle of the income distribution, which doubled in the Golden Age, now slows down dramatically and is no higher in '93 than it was in '79. It bumps up a bit under Clinton and then bumps down again in the 2000s. And so there's--we have stagnant family income. Now, the other thing that it gets is it's a model which is designed to generate deficit. So, basically, it's cut taxes on the rich and on corporations. That's the primary, maybe the most important thing to do. And if those create deficits, that's fine. We have this starve-the-beast political theory which says if deficits are created, then this creates enormous pressure to cut government expenditures, cut social spending, cut the social safety network, cut the things that people need in the country, which is part of the 1920s model. So it's a model which is designed to produce deficits. And, in fact, it has produced deficits. The single most widely used measure of how large the burden of deficits is, how big it is, is the total government debt in the hands of the public as a percentage of gross domestic product, that is, the income flows in the country. And when Ronald Reagan came into power, that figure, the debt-to-GDP ratio, was 26 percent, which basically is nothing by today's standards. When Reagan left, the deficit was 41 percent, the debt-to-GDP ratio was 41 percent. By the time George Bush senior left the White House, the public debt-to-GDP ratio was 48 percent. So this is a model which generates enormous deficits. It's the party of the we hate deficits, but it's a party whose policies are guaranteed to generate deficits. So Clinton comes in and--.

JAY: And just to interrupt for a second. And the reason for--part of the reason for that is it creates the rationale for undoing the New Deal.

CROTTY: Yes, absolutely. That is the--the starve-the-beast theory is a theory which says that if you cut taxes enough and run up enough deficits, there'll be this tremendous pressure which will develop to slash spending. We're not going to slash defense spending, so it slashes all the New Deal spending. All the money that's spent for schoolkids and poor families and, you know, Medicaid and--that's what we're going to cut. So it's--starving the beast means shrinking the government, forcing the government's social programs, which are an enormous component of the New Deal. The deficits help. See, deficits are a winner in this drive to generate the 1920s again.

JAY: And the other part of this, freedom of American capital to move offshore, is this tremendous development of productive capacity in places like China and Brazil and India, which helps to drive down American wages. So you get a double-whammy: you undo the governnment programs, and you drive down American wages at the same time.

CROTTY: Right. And as you probably have seen recently, it turns out that US multinational corporations, which were leaving the country in the 1990s but created more jobs in America than they did abroad, since 2001 has created several million jobs overseas and has cut several million jobs in the United States. So, I mean, it's a--really, it's a heavy blow to the US economy and to US workers and to the US population.

JAY: Of course, it's a disastrous plan for an overall American economy, 'cause you keep taking real purchasing power out of the economy.

CROTTY: I think that the goal is not to improve the American economy; it's to improve the situation of corporations and the rich. That's what it's designed to do. We enter the George Bush junior era with a debt-to-GDP ratio somewhere around 33 or 32 percent--not so bad, better than it was before. And the Congressional Budget Office, which are the people who do the calculations and computations about this, project in 2001 that over the next ten years there'll be a cumulative surplus of $5 trillion. But Bush does a number of things which lead to an actual ten-year cumulative change of $4.7 trillion, right? Instead of a $5 trillion surplus, we get a $4.7 trillion deficit over ten years, which is where the problem all came from. Well, how did we get there? Well, we first got that with the Bush tax cuts, right? This is an always and ever and all the time cut taxes on the rich and on corporations. So we got tax cuts that lost, I don't know, maybe $4 trillion in revenue over the decade. We had two wars. The two wars also cost [incompr.] trillions of dollars. We then had--and Clinton bears as much responsibility as anybody for this--we had radical deregulation of financial markets, which led to an insane explosion in the financial markets system, which led to a collapse in the economy. When the economy collapsed, the government doesn't get as many revenues, and it has to spend a lot more money. That is the deficit. So that was a big component of the deficits, the creation of the deficits. So the Bush tax cuts, the wars, the collapse in the economy, and then the necessity to try to stop a depression, which led to these stimulus bills, explain where the deficit has come from. If in 2010--if none of those four things had happened, there would be no deficit. So that suggests, well, how should we solve the deficit problem? [incompr.] you'd think logically that we should look at what caused the deficit problem and then try and change that, and that would solve the deficit problem. But that would say undo the Bush tax cuts, and not just as Obama is proposing for everyone who makes under $250,000. It would make sense to undo them all, because the bottom 40 percent of the income distribution got hardly any money from that. The richest 1 percent got 38 percent of the Bush tax cut. So we should be going back to Clinton-era taxes at least, and maybe more. That's what it would suggest. We should stop the wars. They're unpopular wars. Nobody wants them. They're unjust wars. They're wars of choice. We can--if we did that, we would be in a particularly good situation. We should regulate financial markets and stop this insanity, and that would be okay. And if we could, we should get a better economic model which grew faster. So what would happen if we did all those things? Okay, what would happen? So according to the Congressional Budget Office, if we extend the Bush tax cuts or the Bush-Obama tax cuts past 2012, in a decade we'll add $11.6 trillion to our public sector debt, and the debt-to-GDP ratio will be about 100 percent. If we let the 210 tax cuts expire [sic], the cumulative deficit is only $7 trillion, and the debt-to-GDP ratio is 77 percent and holding steady. If we reduce the troops in Afghanistan, the CBO tells us, to 45,000 by 2015 from the current 215,000, the cumulative deficit is $5.7 trillion and the debt-to-GDP ratio's [incompr.] So that's what you would think would be what you probably want to do, rather than all these proposals that the Republicans and Democrats are making. There are other ways to raise revenue. We could increase individual tax rates at the top by more than the Clinton era. We could raise a lot of money that way. We could raise--by modestly increasing those rates, we could raise $1.2 trillion. If we close just 15 percent of the loopholes in the tax laws that allow individuals to pay less taxes than they should would make an increase $1.5 trillion would reduce the deficit by in a year [sic]. If we raise the effective corporate tax rate by eliminating tax loopholes for corporations, we'd get another $1.6 trillion. If we instituted a financial transactions tax, which is very popular--EU is considering doing it, a little tiny tax on the exchange of stocks and bonds and derivatives, which would affect--would have almost no impact on a normal person but would fall on all these computerized, massive speculative trading operations would save $1.5 trillion. Now, this is not a tax policy I'm proposing. I'm just suggesting that if we did that, there would be no deficit.

JAY: So I guess the point here is then you would actually have to have as your objective reducing the deficit, not beating up American workers.

CROTTY: That's right. And it also would--it's what--what would make sense, given where the problems came from, and it would eliminate this idea that we lived beyond our means and we ask too much for the government. And as Alan Simpson, who was the cochair of the president's commission on what to do with Social Security, said, it would deal with the problem of the fact that the American people, he said, treat Social Security as if it were a cow with 315 udders. He didn't say "udders", but that's what he said, that we're all just--the public is just sucking the government dry.

JAY: Yeah, well, just to end off the interview, let me quote one of the stats in one of your recent lectures, which talks about how people are sucking from the cow. Poverty in amongst the elderly in 1959 was 35 percent of the elderly lived in poverty. In 2009, only 8.5 percent lived in poverty, which has to do with the success of Social Security. So getting back, unraveling this cow means getting elderly people back into that 35 percent tile of poverty.

CROTTY: And sick people to die and children to starve and people, old people, to go cold in the winter and on and on and on. That's the beautiful model that these guys have.

JAY: Thanks for joining us, James.

CROTTY: You're welcome.

JAY: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.

Patricia Spottedcrow carries her mattress and belongings to her dorm-style building inside Dr. Eddie Warrior Correctional Center on the first day of her incarceration at the facility. Spottedcrow received a 10-year prison sentence for selling a small amount of marijuana to a police informant with her children present in Kingfisher, Okla. Spottedcrow, a mother of four, had no prior criminal record.

Woman starts her 10-year prison sentence
A 25-year-old mother of four arrives at Taft correctional facility to serve her time for selling $31 of marijuana
by Ginnie Graham
Tulsa World
ginnie.graham@tulsaworld.com
February 20, 2011

After a two-hour trip from Mabel Bassett Correctional Center wearing ankle and wrist shackles, Patricia Spottedcrow and six other women all wearing gray were taken into a barren room with chairs at 11:15 a.m. Dec. 22.

Officers removed the chains, checked their paperwork and conducted a visual, non-invasive strip search.

Each were given a handbook of regulations, and an officer gave an overview of rules and campus logistics.

Visitation is once a week and on holidays, and only immediate family can visit during the first 30 days. Telephone calls must be for approved numbers, which can be arranged through a case worker.

Officers then took each inmate aside to go over specific needs, such as medication, get emergency contact and a status on their mental state.

“Do you know where you’re at?” the officer asked.

“Yes, I’m at Eddie Warrior,” Spottedcrow answered.

Spottedcrow is a first-time offender serving a 10-year sentence for selling $31 of marijuana to an informant in her hometown of Kingfisher. Her children were present during the sales.

She was assigned to Dorm 3 and upper bunk No. 47 and smiled when she discovered another inmate from the bus is in the same housing unit.

Next, the group walked to the laundry building to receive prison-issued clothes and bedding.

She will always have to wear shoes, just like she will never truly have privacy. The dorm-style life means not having personal space and another person or staff member will always be nearby.

Sgt. Skip Taylor, who refers to the women as “ma’am,” asked them to try on the clothing in a nearby changing area and said exchanges can be made only for damage or a change in the inmate’s size.

“I’ll get some women wanting to get new clothes because it gets old for them,” Taylor said. “I’ll ask why they want to exchange and they’ll say, ‘I’ve had them for four months.’ That’s not a reason.”

In a bag, Spottedcrow received three pants, three shirts, three bras, five T-shirts, and five pairs of socks and panties. She keeps the pull-on shoes she was given at Mabel Bassett. Everything is a shade of bluish gray.

Recently, the military donated battle dress uniforms, which are cargo-type pants and shirts that have been dyed to match the gray of the other clothing. They are sought-after because of their durability and fitted look, Taylor said.

A “care package” is given with generic shampoo, soap, razor, toothpaste, toothbrush, a roll of toilet paper, deodorant, sanitary pads, shower shoes and eight pieces of paper and envelopes.

No makeup is provided, but it is on sale in the canteen, which are limited to about two general-store brands. The only makeup allowed is foundation, mascara and lipstick.

Prices are about the same as discount stores, such as Maybelline lipgloss for $4.63 and mascara at $5.54.

Clothing can be purchased, with jeans ranging from about $6 for plus sizes to $46 for Levi brand. Shoes cost between $19 for tennis shoes up to $98 for a pair of Nike brand.

Tobacco products can be used outside the buildings, with a pack of Newports selling for $7.37 and generic cigarettes at $4.16 a pack.

Inmates are limited on what they can spend based on their earned credits, ranging from $10 to $80 a week.

No hair color is allowed, but women can buy perm kits at the canteen and have the prison beautician apply them. Haircuts are free but cannot be exotic, Taylor said.

“It’s a safety issue,” Taylor said. “They can’t do anything to alter their appearance drastically.”

After receiving everything, Taylor told Spottecrow the easiest way to carry it all to the dorm is to roll it inside the bedding.

But Spottedcrow dropped the bundle halfway, and two inmates walking by helped her carry the load.

“I’m glad they stopped to help because I was going to leave that stuff there,” she said.

Inside the dorm, women milled around, reading, knitting, writing, applying makeup and talking. Two women helped Spottedcrow make her bed.

At certain points in the day, the women must be in their bunks for a head count.

Inmates can earn enough privilege over time for an assignment in a cubicle located along the walls. Those women may have a personal television and watch it using headphones.

For the majority who bunk on the floor, one community television is located in a day room. It is turned on from 5 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Friday and from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. on the weekends.

DOC contracts to have the local stations and nine cable channels such as ESPN, Discovery, CNN and TNT. No movie channels are included.

Women who are in the top two tiers of the four-level privilege system have a drawing supervised by staff for control of programming in two-hour increments. The lowest level inmates are not allowed to watch television, and women in the second tier may watch but cannot choose channels.

Meals are served in a large cafeteria with menus planned by nutritionists. In the summers, gardens harvested on prison grounds provide part of the meals, prepared by inmates and overseen by staff.

It is not uncommon for women, especially those coming off substance abuse problems, to gain weight while incarcerated, officials said.

For her first lunch at Eddie Warrior, Spottedcrow was served pinto beans, pineapple, boiled cabbage and cornbread.

“I’m not going to eat this,” she said. “I had this last night at Mabel Bassett. You don’t realize the things you will miss when you’re here, like the food. I’m a picky eater anyway. But I just can’t go through a drive-through somewhere.”

She has been assigned to the labor pool for her first job, meaning she will do basic maintenance around the prison grounds. As she proves her work ethic and stays free of discipline problems, she will earn jobs with more responsibility and wages.

When case manager Ken Goodyear speaks to her about available education and self-improvement programs, Spottedcrow said she wanted to participate in as many as possible.

“Sign up and get on the waiting lists,” he said. Only Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous do not have a wait.

Goodyear suggests she write down questions or thoughts so she can remember to ask a case manager later.

“If you are patient, you’ll be just fine,” he said.

At about 2:30 p.m., Spottedcrow is left in the dorm with the other women. She goes into a nearby empty part of the day room to sit for a while.

“I didn’t sleep at all last night,” she said. “I’m so depressed. You take for granted the things you can control, like what you can eat.”

[ www.dennistubbergen.com ]
Another Nail in the US Dollar’s Coffin?
Posted on December 29, 2011 by Dennis Tubbergen

Last August, I made 5 forecasts for 2012, which I update in my 2012 Market Outlook Forecast. (You can get a complimentary copy by requesting it at [ www.investingapproach.com ] One of those forecasts was that alternatives would emerge to the US Dollar as the world reserve currency. While these alternative options have not emerged as quickly as I once thought they would, due in part I believe to the European debt woes, this process is continuing, albeit slowly. This from a recent Bloomberg article[1] (highlighting added):

Japan and China will promote direct trading of the yen and yuan without using dollars and will encourage the development of a market for companies involved in the exchanges, the Japanese government said.

Japan will also apply to buy Chinese bonds next year, allowing the investment of renminbi that leaves China during the transactions, the Japanese government said in a statement after a meeting between Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in Beijing yesterday. Encouraging direct yen-yuan settlement should reduce currency risks and trading costs, the Japanese and Chinese governments said.

China is Japan’s biggest trading partner with 26.5 trillion yen ($340 billion) in two-way transactions last year, from 9.2 trillion yen a decade earlier. The pacts between the world’s second- and third-largest economies mirror attempts by fund managers to diversify as the two-year-old European debt crisis keeps global financial markets volatile.

“Given the huge size of the trade volume between Asia’s two biggest economies, this agreement is much more significant than any other pacts China has signed with other nations,” said Ren Xianfang, a Beijing-based economist with IHS Global Insight Ltd.

China also announced a 70 billion yuan ($11 billion) currency swap agreement with Thailand last week as part of a plan outlined in October to promote the use of the yuan in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and establish free trade zones.

Central banks from Thailand to Nigeria plan to start buying yuan assets as slowing global growth has capped interest rates in the U.S. and Europe.

The move by China and Japan to strengthen market cooperation “benefits the ease of trade and investments between the two countries,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said today in Beijing. “It strengthens the region’s ability to protect against risks and deal with challenges.”

As the policymakers and many of the politicians in the US continue to dance around the debt and deficit issues, pretending to debate and hold to core ‘principles’ (nothing more than a re-election charade in my opinion), the rest of the world is taking action. Bottom line is if the US policymakers are going to do nothing more than print money to address the deficit and debt issues facing the United States, the rest of the world will begin to take decisive action including finding alternatives to the US Dollar as the world reserve currency.

This recent action by Japan and China is a significant blow to the US Dollar in my view. As the article states, these countries represent two of the world’s largest economies. Via this agreement, these two economies will no longer convert their currencies to US Dollars when trading with each other. Instead, they will simply trade directly.

Mark my words, if China and Japan are making this agreement, I believe it won’t take long to see many ‘second tier’ economies to follow suit, eliminating their need to access US Dollars as well.

These actions will gradually move the US Dollar from the world’s reserve currency to an even more troubled currency of the world’s largest debtor nation; a move that is entirely predictable when one studies history.

Prior to the US Dollar being the world’s reserve currency, many international transactions took place using the British Pound Sterling. However, after World War II the US Dollar was made the world’s reserve currency. The US was the world’s largest creditor nation, a role that Great Britain once enjoyed.

Today, all that has changed. The United States, in real dollar terms, is the world’s largest debtor nation while China is the world’s largest creditor nation, the role that the US once enjoyed. That, in my view, makes it likely that a gradual shift toward the Chinese Yuan as the world’s reserve currency will continue.

Note: Renminbi is the formal term used to refer to Chinese currency. The Yuan is a unit of currency analogous to the dollar. The two terms referring to China’s currency are often used interchangeably with Yuan being then most commonly used term.
[1] Fujioka, Toru. December 26, 2011. “China, Japan to Back Direct Trade of Currencies.” [ www.bloomberg.com ]

[ www.financialsense.com ]
China, Japan Bypass U.S. Dollar in Pivotal Trade Agreement
By Julian Phillips12/28/2011

Print

The cutting out of the dollar in Japan / China trade may be a small start of only $345 billion in global trade, but it is a sea change decision in the global monetary system that markes the beginning of the end of the dollar's role as the sole global reserve currency. This move is irreversible and will lead to more and more currency exchange rate uncertainties. Gold will benefit!

Japan and China will promote direct trading of yen and yuan without using dollars and will encourage the development of a market for companies involved in the exchanges, the Japanese government said over the holiday weekend.

Japan will also apply to buy Chinese bonds next year, allowing the investment of Yuan that leaves China to Japan to remain in China, the Japanese government said. Encouraging direct yen- yuan settlement should reduce currency risks and trading costs.

China also announced a 70 billion yuan ($11 billion) currency swap agreement with Thailand last week as part of a plan outlined in October to promote the use of the yuan in the Association of Southeast Asia Nations and establish free trade zones. Central banks from Thailand to Nigeria plan to start buying yuan assets as the global Yuan market continues to be developed quickly. Investing in Chinese debt has become easier for central banks as issuance of yuan-denominated bonds in Hong Kong more than tripled to 112 billion yuan ($18 billion) this year, and institutions were granted quotas to invest onshore. Japan will start to buy “a small amount” of China’s bonds, a Japanese government official said, on condition of anonymity because of the ministry’s policy, without elaborating. Yes, it is small, but the systems are now in place. Expansion of these is happening and has the potential to burgeon!

China is Japan’s biggest trading partner with $340 billion in two-way transactions last year. The pacts between the world’s second- and third-largest economies mirror attempts by fund managers to diversify as global, financial markets remain volatile and decaying. It marks a major leap forward of the internationalization of the Chinese currency, a step that has been developing for the last few years, from tiny beginnings. It signals that the Chinese banking system has developed to the stage where they can handle international transactions of note. The development of the banking system is clearly far advanced, so expect the enlargement of the international Yuan market to pause, as this leap in size settles in and any teething problems eliminated.

- The next step after that is to go completely global!

First Step of Many, Chinese Trade Bloc the Initial Target, not the Deposing of the Dollar

It would be wrong to see these moves as purposely attacking the dollar. China’s motive is as simple as the world has seen new world power gain strength. We’re witnessing the post-initial steps of the growth of a Chinese empire, encompassing its Asian trading partners and bringing them into a new Asian Yuan currency bloc. Initially, Chinese economic development has focused on internal growth spreading from the South and Eastern parts of China into the hinterland north and west of the country as the nation slowly but steadily lifts itself out of poverty. Financially, China isolated its currency from global influence as its banking system was so underdeveloped. But with government pressure and the capabilities the Chinese people banking is now racing to catch up. The Chinese government wants Chinese banking and trade to succeed and throws its full weight behind these developments. This has resulted in far quicker-than-anticipated entry into the global financial world. Careful to ensure that China benefits fully from these developments and not foreign businesses, China is sucking knowledge and wealth out of the developed world in its quest to fully develop its 1.3 billion people. It’s naive on the part of the developed world –whether it is Europe or the States—to think that China will assist them with their debt and banking problems unless it ties directly into the development of China.

This is a financial war, involving, not lives but livelihoods, and China is winning every step of the way.

The financial world may belittle the present moves as still very small in money terms in a global context, but structurally the move should make the developed financial world jump to attention.

Consequences:

Developed World Losing Power and Heads into Worse Crisis

The reason why the developed world has seen the debt and banking crisis wreak such havoc, so far, is that its growth has diminished to the point where it ‘s having difficulty employing their young.

With such reduced cash flows, the size of debt burdens becomes overwhelming. When the developed world enjoyed strong growth, the present debt burdens were manageable. But not any more! The central banks of the developed world have had to create new money to fill the holes left by the dropping value of financial assets and try to hold such money printing at those levels or see inflation take off; there will, however, come a time when the developed world will have to pay more interest to raise loans as trust in their currencies diminishes. Should this happen, their debt mountain will be completely unsustainable, not only in Europe but in the United States as well.

Should interest rates rise –and the Fed will not let that happen by choice—because of falling foreign investment in the dollar, then Treasury and other Fixed interest markets in the developed world would be in danger of collapsing.

US Dollar as the Sole, Global Reserve Currency to End!

Of considerably more importance is the impact on global foreign exchanges and the role of the U.S. dollar as the world’s sole global reserve currency. For more than two years now Gold, Silver Forecaster have been predicting that the day would come when Chinese exporters/importers would offer and bid prices for goods in the Chinese Yuan. Well it has arrived, albeit confined to Asian trade at the moment.

As of now, $350 billion in global trade will disappear, replaced by Yuan/Yen trade. Where will these dollars go? Over time they will be sold off and head home through a falling exchange rate. That’s why we’ll see the Yuan appreciate, but only initially, as the Chinese ensure that demand is met by foreign sales of Yuan for non-U.S. currencies.

As time passes the process of the internationalization of the Yuan will primarily be at the expense of the dollar. At some point in this process, the rise of the Yuan and the fall of the dollar from its throne will become visible on foreign exchanges and in the financial picture inside the U.S.A. and Europe. At best, we’ll see the Yuan join the world’s current leading currencies in global trade, but rising in the future to potentially the prime global, reserve currency at worst.

But this process could take more than five years or less if the Chinese government pushes it hard.

The consequential pressures on the global currency system, which presently is dependent on the U.S. dollar for its credibility, will undermine the entire global monetary system. When control of the monetary system was entirely in the hands of the developed world, both sides of the Atlantic, gold could be side-lined. But with this new Chinese empire, the new currency bloc has divergent interests from the developed world.

The developed world is seeing the beginning of its loss of control over gold!

Asia, as well as emerging nations worldwide, have seen the importance of gold in their reserves and continue to press for an increase in their holdings –almost preparing for the day when global cooperation is reduced by trade wars, protectionism and the like. The spectre of a world split into two financial and trading parts is now in front of us. While this is still in the future, it’s a visible probability. In such a financial climate, consistent with its history, gold being independent of national obligations and links must return to the system in one form or another. But how?

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Originally Posted By BLISSS
As for Dynv, you get a warning, no more psytrance

Originally Posted By FLO
This Athenian "true democracy" was based on sortition instead of election, with no professionalism (because power corrupts) and so that anybody may have their significant role in the government (although temporarily only).

[...]

Naîtra alors une relation où les dirigeants et les administrateurs vivront en état d’osmose, chacun devenant le parasite de l’autre, un lieu où la bienséance fera office de règles d’éthique, conduisant les uns comme les autres à ne pas trop être curieux, soutenant béatement toutes les initiatives de la direction générale quand ce ne seront pas les exigences du gouvernement ou les propositions d’un administrateur bien branché. Le fait qu’ils soient nommés plutôt qu’élus les amènera à confondre leur rôle de chien de garde, se croyant d’abord au service de l’autorité qui les rémunère, pas comme des fiduciaires de l’organisation.

En fait, le nouveau modèle de gouvernance que le gouvernement s’apprête à implanter dans de nombreux établissements publics transformera leurs conseils d’administration en clubs privés, des lieux de pouvoir où s’échangera maintes informations privilégiées, où seuls seront admis avocats, comptables, administrateurs professionnels, anciens ministres et autres consultants en tout genre qui auront en commun qu’ils sont tous des amis du parti qui souhaitent être rémunérés et siéger au plus grand nombre de conseils d’administration, faisant de cette occupation une lucrative activité.

[...]

Originally Posted By MASA
Again, anarchism is NOT WAR OF ALL AGAINST ALL. It's actually closer to true democracy, aiming at consensus between all elements of society instead of the "tyranny of its majority". Also brings the idea that all should willingly participate towards goals, without the need to be coerced into it.

Originally Posted By ZOMBIENATHAN
It really takes a dozen cops with a dozen guns to take down one dude with a crappy knife? Really? Aren't these people supposed to be trained to deal with that kind of situation? Apparently not, so it's shoot first, and ask questions and disarm later.