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01 February 2015

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SAC Brat

I think I would like to see a movie about Medal of Honor recipient Robert Howard if the makers could manage not to muck it up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_L._Howard

The Fort Benning museum has a good Medal of Honor display in it.

bks

Prediction:
Left Coast Anarchists: 21
Right Coast Fascists.: 17

--bks

Fred

I think we should all make a submission:

http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=128034

"The competition will focus on issues related to the Arab-Muslim world and is designed to encourage strategic thinking and meaningful research on a crucial part of the world."

turcopolier

All

We watched "Fury" yesterday. This is one of the better war movies I have seen and it is unusual to see a film based on the experience of armored troops. The time in the film is April, 1945. This tank crew of the 2nd Armored Division ("Hell on Wheels") The war in Europe ended at the end of that month. pl

LeaNder

I wanted to introduce this before.

I love How to Geek, but admittedly I have not the time to follow it closely.

Here is a link to my favorite section:

http://www.howtogeek.com/trivia/which-country-has-the-highest-number-of-atomic-element-discoveries-to-its-name/?show

zanzibar

Interview of the new Greek Finance Minister on BBC Newsnight.

http://youtu.be/BiIO4YciewU

Once again as shown on this interview, big media is only interested in manufacturing controversial soundbites. Yanis Varoufakis made a very important point that insolvency cannot be solved by more liquidity. A point I made here on SST in 2008. Ultimately, an insolvent's balance sheet has to be restructured to move forward. No doubt, extend and pretend can continue for a long time as we have seen in Japan.

Another point that has consistently been obfuscated is that German and French private banks were bailed out of their speculative positions on Greek debt and the risk transferred to EU taxpayers. Not as is trumpeted in the media that Greece was bailed out.

While I believe that the Syriza government has the wrong policies to bring Greece out of its economic depression, they are correct that Greece is financially bankrupt. The best template for recovery from an economic & financial depression due to excess debt is our experience from the 1920-21 depression (when our economy contracted by 24%) and the policies enacted by President Harding & Congress to counteract it. The lesson that FDR & Bernanke chose not to learn. The depression that the corporate media refuses to discuss since the policy response does not fit contemporary neo-keynesian & neo-monetarist free lunch thinking. Anyone interested in learning about that should read Jim Grant's excellent book - The Forgotten Depression.

Origin

What is going on here? Everything is like a hall of mirrors.
http://www.juancole.com/2015/02/guerrillas-assassinated-hizbullah.html

nick b

rick,

Bugs Bunny last open thread, Southpark this open thread, am I detecting a theme?

BTW, couldn't get the s/p episode to play. Is it me or the link?

LeaNder

The trilateral commission IWF, Europe and who is the third I forget

https://www.google.co.jp/search?q=Trilateral+commission+Greece&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=mnTOVN_OBee1mAWy2IGwCw

Europe's public face on Greece and the IWF
http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/assistance_eu_ms/greek_loan_facility/index_en.htm

turcopolier

Origin
This is not a wilderness of mirrors. Imad Mughniya was a bad dude. He needed killing. He was on the big list for many years. That was part of a long standing program for killing off terrorist leaders. But... The truth changed and the US now needs to defeat IS. To that end an unacknowledged de-confliction of operations with the SAG exists and HB is a necessary ally of the SAG. Simple. pl

turcopolier

Fred

"I think we should all make a submission." I will take that as a compliment. pl

William R. Cumming

Quick and dirty research shows the 4th Amendment arose directly out of abuse of colonials where they would enter a private home, seize papers, and then argue they purported to show sedition against the KING!

BabelFish

Sitting with family, waiting for the start of the Super Bowl. And, yes, I have My Pat The Patriot old school hat on.

We are watching a charming light French farce, Le Chef, which stars the French 'Everyman' actor, Jean Reno. It can be streamed on Netflix.

John Minnerath

PL
If you liked it I think I'll watch it this evening.

nick b

I can't get it to work for me. So I found the clip on the Southpark UK site. It was worth the effort! Hysterical!

MK Logan

Fred,

Mine will be "The Underpants Gnomes of Freedom"

http://southpark.cc.com/clips/151040/the-underpants-business

Fred

Zanzibar,

Very interesting comments from the new finance minister.

optimax

rick

It's worse being a Browns fan.

Ed Sullivan would have appreciated this act.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojj-jKJsSUA

LeaNder

Fred, it's very, very important they cut the line on further privatization under these conditions. That's one of the only few point he manged to get over. ... I agree with Yanis Varoufakis, by the way. I like the BBC too, but I think this was a very, very horrible interview.

A German journalist with Greek background was on one of our main talk shows today. I think what he told is the essence of the problem. For three years now he tried to start a firm, he has very modern "oil mills". He and his Greek partners have tried every possible bureaucratic lane possible, to no avail. That's the essence of the problem.

I inherited my fathers skepticism concerning the ideas of well-paid consulting firms. He relied on solid experiences in that context over his career. Later I watched it myself.

How deeply did the experts behind these programs descend into the depth and specifics of the Greek problem? Greece has been ruled for many, many decades by the same two clans and their respective parties. And everything was controlled by a select group of families. The bureaucracy is rotten. But this results not only everyday corruption, there is also significant business corruption. Apparently German firms obey these laws too when they open their branches their. Not that this is foreign to them, but it was regulated by law a quite sometime ago by now. No more chance to hide bribes in specific categories in your tax declaration.

Let me give you another example, the German journalist that tries to start a business there for three years now told us this today: The Greek Higher Court ruled the dismissal of about 5000 civil servants unlawful. Now Greece has signed a treaty that they can only hire a new civil servant once a certain number reaches pension age. All they try to do is to modify the treaty so it makes sense to the them, they can fulfill demands but also their law in this case the ruling Greek court order. This is only one minor example. I can understand that they are tired to play the beggar at the European court under rules that may not make sense to them.

Greece suffers an enormous brain drain. Is that any wonder under these conditions? What would you do if you had your exams in your pocket and can easily move to any other European country? Maybe if there is a solid program some of them will come back with a little experience?

The past cannot be changed, the political challenge is to deal with this in a way it makes sense to the Greek too.

What I found highly interesting was that a female stock exchange specialist supported the Greek too in that talk show. The programs, she said make no sense for them. For her it's about how to deal with it and move forward. The political challenge is to find a solutions without causing a European chain reaction. ;)

I am pleased they don't want to leave the Euro zone. But let's see what happens. The right probably would have simply declared bankruptcy in their place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_government-debt_crisis

optimax

Anarchists always blow it by doing something stupid like throwing a bomb into a crowd.

William R. Cumming

Wondering if ISIS understands the Japanese skill of beheadings is far more advanced than the rest of the world. Will Samurai Swords be popular in the Japanese expeditionary forces traveling in the future to MENA?

Fred

LeaNder,

To paraphrase Captain Renault Casablanca "I'm shocked, shocked" to find that no German bank or government agency knew there was corruption in Greece before the collapse in 2008. Is anyone going after banker bonus, banker salaries of those who made these loans? No. Is anyone screwing Greek youth out of a reasonable economic future to ensure German banks are paid in full - yes they are.

Europe has a big problem on its hands and just getting payment on these (past and current loans) isn't going the resolve the bigger problem that is being created by the economic enslavement of a generation. Look what happened in Weimar when the vengeful allies got paid in full after enforcing the Versailles treaty by crushing the German economy.

William Fitzgerald

P.L.

I saw it at Christmas time. It was really good on tank crew procedures and dynamics. I thought the best action scene was when the platoon came out of the tree line in line formation to try to take out the Tiger. Brad Pitt was excellent as the platoon sergeant and the rest of the cast was generally good. Thumbs up! as far as I'm concerned.

WPFIII

LeaNder

Fred, I have no skin in the game of finances. Our top institute was run by a Swiss banker, his successors apparently have to face quite a few of serious law suits. Whenever it caught my attention in--from my perspective--dubious deals it was also deeply entangled with US banks. Let me give you one example: cross border leasing.

This is not my field of expertise, and the only close expert I would have in this context has shifted very, very much to the right. There are reasons for this. ... Now he is close to the ground, working for small to medium size firms over here.

The context of his expertise would be a branch of economy that does not exist in the US, as far as I know. We have (had?) a basic difference between a macro and a micro perspective in this field. In any case he was trained with a banking background, followed by university in the macro economic perspective. Not with a perspective on the real factual business, that means. Where it is usually only about cutting one factor: employees. ... The same rules are applied over and over again.

But as much as I love the British, I experienced Britain as a class society, should I be grateful to the US? did they have more influence on Germany?

If I may reduce that to my own field, I preferred a good old cockney accent, midlands, or Scotland to Oxfordian anytime during my time in England. It's not the fault of the people. They have a great humor.

Maybe that's why I have a certain respect for my European brothers that imitate "Oxfordian" so perfectly. I never could force myself to imitate that type of English.

Charles I

I found this reference to Chinese appetites, and this time of year I am always mindful of the fact that the NFL, a ten billion/yr, publicly subsidized, private club pays NO taxes.

Why Is China Buying Up Our Farmland?

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/propublica/2015/02/muckreads_chinese_acquisitions_heroin_treatments_and_california_s_trucks.html

Bacon & bbq lovers, n.b.:" The country now owns 1 in 4 pigs raised in the U.S."

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