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This used to be a "stock" board?
So silly. 8)~
There's the answer we've been looking for. Don't think he's going in blind to all these stops. They want this tech and it shouldn't take that long to get results from this. Could be a matter of weeks. It's apparent the buying for this little marketing foray began a month ago and hasn't abated yet. Knowing that this stuff is military grade and approved by the NSA how much you figure a program that can secure military and intelligence is worth to a government? Remember, no one's ever been able to secure cell phones and date transfer this way before.
Helloo-oooo-oooo-oooooooooo
22-YEAR-OLD DIASPORA’S CO-FOUNDER ILYA ZHITOMIRSKIY COMMITTED SUICIDE
GeneralSocial Media — 15 November 2011
http://www.coldscoop.com/2011/11/15/22-year-old-diaspora’s-co-founder-ilya-zhitomirskiy-suicided/
The co-founder of an open-source social networking platform Diaspora has passed away. Ilya Zhitomirskiy was only 22 years old. The project which he founded with 3 friends of him from New York University was going to be a good challenge for Facebook, especially from the point of privacy. Diaspora is considered to be a networking platform where you have total control over your privacy, identity, and data.
As Ilya Zhitomirskiy said, he wanted social network users to migrate to websites that were more transparent about privacy policies.
The four young founders wanted to raise $10.000 donation to support their project, but instead they reached $200.000. I think the main intriguing thing in Diaspora project is an individual approach to privacy. Even Facebook’s co-founder Mark Zuckerberg donated money to their project saying: “I think it is cool people are trying to do it. I see a little of myself in them. It’s just their approach that the world could be better. We should try to do it.”
Ilya Zhitomirskiy was found dead at 8:10p.m. Saturday in San Francisco. The early presumption of the cause of his death is suicide, but it is not confirmed officially yet.
Why should he make a suicide when he described himself as “super passionate about building a world of hacker spaces, maker culture, sharing, cycling, and life satisfaction?” To whom did he leave his passions and dreams? I hope his friends will carry on the plans that they created together and won’t give up.
Our sincerest condolences to Ilya’s family, friends, and the entire Diaspora team.
It’s always sad to see someone pass away in this age, and it is even sadder when he is someone who dares to think he can change something in this world.
(video interview Ilya Zhitomirskiy)
THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE
I can't even describe to you how incredibly angry this information makes me but I am glad someone is actually talking about the fraud that has been the aerospace industry for the past 50+ years. You know I've always had suspicions that things were not quite right. From my personal observation we have been at almost a standstill technologically, other than computer advancement since my birth and that things haven't progressed nearly as rapidly as they should have. Technology really should have accelerated with increasing computational capacity but we have been at a virtual standstill with energy consumption and advancement in transportation speed, capacity and method. For all practical purposes outside on your roads and in your skies it is still 1960.
Rumors of pulse jet engine technology has abounded on the fringes for years, now confirmed by recent articles talking about missiles that can hit a target anywhere in the world in 1 hr time. They (the government) are taking us all out on a huge snipe hunt and average joe still thinks that the Apollo program was a huge success for us. The real science is being buried because it would free us from fossil fuels. What they are doing to us as a society is cold, it is cruel and it is calculated.
From the article,
"What determines the L/D ratio, the Lift-to-Drag of an aircraft's aeroshell? Why were the fraud's of the Apollo program, the Shuttle program, designed with high drags and low L/Ds? Not designed aerodynamically, but rather designed with surface features and textures which would heat up and destroy the vehicles -- burn up Christa McAuliffes from here until 'Kingdom Come' (down.) Frauds designed by 'NASA von Braun' et al to re-enter ballistically in 4-5 minutes, thereby incurring ten-twenty times more heating than a 'cool-blue' Spaceplane which takes 50-100 minutes to return from orbit?"
I have long suspected that our almost WWII technology passenger jets were part of the way they keep us hooked on oil consumption. I guess it's true.
"If we use Spaceplane engines, scramjet engines or a mix of jet and rocket engines, instead we could accelerate at one gravity, 1 g, all the way. Our T/W would then equal 1, and our L/D X T/W = 17 x 1 = 17. And a fuel-cost savings factor of about 24/0.25 divided by 17 = 5.6. A fuel cost savings of 82 percent per flight." Oh and you could be basically anywhere in the world, like London to New Zealand in 2 hrs time not 24 hrs. Not only that but seriously they want us all to believe that flying over Canada and Iceland in some huge arch to reach Europe, even Southern Europe somehow is necessary for anything other than burning fuel just drives me nuts. As though using dinosaur jets isn't fuel consumption enough to keep the oil charrade humming along.
This note of his really takes you down the rabbit hole so that you can see how pervasive the manipulation of not only the aerospace industry really is but how we are being abused by a corrupt system. Even here, even NASA. It's all a huge ruse.
the SpacePlane Equation (revisited) ...
by Millennium Twain on Wednesday, November 9, 2011
THG, would you please post this on Nuclear Hubris as you know I can't.
https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150389674089525
If that's who you're talking about......... according to a source I have in Panama........ it is because he's backed by Putin and Mr. P has put the word out you fuck with C. and you're going to have a fight on your hands.
From what I'm hearing, Venezuela, Uruguay and Chile are talking about a combined backed currency (gold, silver, copper, crude etc, etc) and that they have been assured by Russia that is they go through with it that they have their back against the banking cartel.
You mean Chavez?
All I know is who's on the BOD and what the chart looks like.
You think calling them up and asking if they have a contract with the Pentagon pending would reveal anything? :)~
I would probably sell 50% of my physical silver if it weren't for the fact that I'm here (on Cyprus) and it's there in the U.S.A. with a ........ sort of lazy relative who wouldn't get up out of the chair to put out a fire. *lol* Really I am not going to get him to find a coin shop to go unload it. However another portion is stored elsewhere with someone who will go do the deed for me. I'm kinda stuck at 25% liquidity unless the sky was falling hard enough to get the other guy to make a sales run for me. At least it's safe there and that was the whole purpose. Too lazy to steal. hahahahahaha
Spook encryption stock. Funny. :)
Ya if there were news, that thing could slingshot way up. It should be interesting to see what happens over a long holiday weekend where people have lots of socializing time enhanced by holiday alcohol. My bet is at least another 2 days of goodness with bigger volumes for sure.
I am considering selling 25% of my physical Monday and buying back after this thing crashes. Surely I can find a few hundred ounces when the smoke clears? *crossing fingers*
... and that was on a shot trading day too. If they'd had the other 3 hrs I bet the volume would have been huge. I think it's got some legs. Hope so. :) Just keeping my fingers cross and holding my breath. *lol*
No, they're the high class kind that are more likely to make hundreds of millions of dollars on government contract. *lol*
Bloviating wind bag.
Just hope it works out to the good for them. :)
I know it looks oversold as hell but it does every day and just keeps going. It may still have a ways to go?
:)~
I could have spruced it up like a true copywriter but I didn't think it was necessary for this audience.
BTW, hope you make out like a bandit on those shares you picked up.
Thanks for pointing out the obvious.
There is a stock I have been following for a little over a year now called eCrypt Technologies. (E C R Y). Basically I've owned 1000 shares for about that long. The reason I bought it was specifically because of who/what was on their BOD. The company makes supposedly encryption software for cell phones, laptops etc. When I bought it, all they had developed was a program for Blackberry encryption, they have more tricks int he bag now and what they have apparently has been approved as adequate by the NSA for security purposes. Until now they've made no money. Basically they're making about $400 in revenue a quarter and burning close to $90K in the same time. However the reason I was interested in them was who was involved with the company on their BOD which is stacked with a retired Rear Admiral, Jay Cohen who graduated from MIT and the Naval Academy, Curt Weldon a former US Congressman and retired Vice Chairman of the Armed Services Committee and Vice Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. and there is another guy with military, DARPA and McAffee experience. The advisory board is some creepy former military/UN spook and a uber hacker that's worked for the government in the past.
About 8 weeks ago I read an article somewhere, damned if I can find it again though, about how the NSA and the US military are chomping at the bit to use cell phones. All the government agencies are still stuck with land lines apparently because there's been no way to adequately secure them until now. The article talked about there being programs now approved by the NSA for such purposes and that they were moving toward actually using them. So after I read that I started watching to see if anything happened with E C R Y and sure enough....... a few weeks afterward it started to move on no news. I was skeptical at first but it's been going up and up and up now for 4 weeks and no one is even talking about it anywhere. I am now semi-convinced that something is up.
How much you think an encryption program for all government agencies would be worth?
http://www.ecryptinc.com/board-of-directors/
So do tell....... what is the "serious deal"?
I'm going to go grab some lunch here and wait for the market to open in 2:45 min my time. I'm going to be interested to see what happens today. I bet it's going to be an interesting day.
They can live to be 30 years old and over 1000 lbs.
I'd like to know whose cousin got to buy that fish for $5,000! Fuckers.
Credit Suisse Goes For Broke: Predicts End Of Euro, Bank Runs
November 22, 2011 By T Kelly Leave a Comment
Escalating Bank Runs On “Strongest European Banks”
http://exposingthetruth.info/credit-suisse-goes-for-broke-predicts-end-of-euro-bank-runs/
Just because Credit Suisse bankers are people too (even if 1% people, but still people), and just because they know too damn well that “no ECB intervention” means “no bonus”, and very likely “no job”, they go for broke and join Deutsche Bank, JPM, RBS, and everyone else (but, again, not Goldman), in predicting the end of Europe unless Draghi does his rightful duty and remembers that without banker support he will also be lining up at the jobless claims office very soon.
Of course, being a Goldman boy, Draghi will only do what Lloyd tells him to. Either way, here is Credit Suisse’s rejoinder to the global Mutual Assured Destruction tragicomedy, which now makes Honk (as Lagarde calls him) Paulson’s overtures to congress seem like amateur hour. “We seem to have entered the last days of the euro as we currently know it. That doesn’t make a break-up very likely, but it does mean some extraordinary things will almost certainly need to happen – probably by mid-January – to prevent the progressive closure of all the euro zone sovereign bond markets, potentially accompanied by escalating runs on even the strongest banks.
That may sound overdramatic, but it reflects the inexorable logic of investors realizing that – as things currently stand – they simply cannot be sure what exactly they are holding or buying in the euro zone sovereign bond markets…
One paradox is that pressure on Italian and Spanish bond yields may get quite a lot worse even as their new governments start to deliver reforms – 10-year yields spiking above 9% for a short period is not something one could rule out. For that matter, it’s quite possible that we will see French yields above 5%, and even Bund yields rise during this critical fiscal union debate.” Of course, the explicit message is: help us ECB-Wan Kenobi, you are our only hope. The implicit one is: do it, or we pull the trigger and blow it all up to hell.
Full note:
The “Last Days” of the Euro
We seem to have entered the last days of the euro as we currently know it. That doesn’t make a break-up very likely, but it does mean some extraordinary things will almost certainly need to happen – probably by mid-January – to prevent the progressive closure of all the euro zone sovereign bond markets, potentially accompanied by escalating runs on even the strongest banks.
That may sound overdramatic, but it reflects the inexorable logic of investors realizing that – as things currently stand – they simply cannot be sure what exactly they are holding or buying in the euro zone sovereign bond markets.
In the short run, this cannot be fixed by the ECB or by new governments in Greece, Italy or Spain: it’s about markets needing credible signals on the shape of fiscal and political union long before final treaty changes can take place. We suspect this spells the death of “muddle-through” as market pressures effectively force France and Germany to strike a momentous deal on fiscal union much sooner than currently seems possible, or than either would like. Then and only then do we think the ECB will agree to provide the bridge finance needed to prevent systemic collapse.
We think the debate on fiscal union will really heat up from this week when the Commission publishes a new paper on three different options for mutually guaranteed “Eurobonds”, continue at the summit on 9 December and through a key speech by President Sarkozy to the French nation scheduled for the 20th anniversary of the Maastricht Treaty (11 December).
While these discussions may give some short-term relief to markets, it seems likely that the process of reaching agreement will involve some high stakes brinkmanship and market turmoil in subsequent weeks. (Not unlike the US debt ceiling debate this summer, or the messy passage of TARP in 2008.)
One paradox is that pressure on Italian and Spanish bond yields may get quite a lot worse even as their new governments start to deliver reforms – 10-year yields spiking above 9% for a short period is not something one could rule out. For that matter, it’s quite possible that we will see French yields above 5%, and even Bund yields rise during this critical fiscal union debate.
Moreover, this could happen even as the ECB moves more aggressively to lower rates and introduce extra measures to provide banks with longer-term funding. And US bond yields may fall – or at least not rise – despite improving US growth data through end-year. Equally, global equity markets and world wealth could follow a more muted version of their early Q1:2009 sell-off until the political brinkmanship is resolved – see exhibits below.
In short, the fate of the euro is about to be decided.
And the pressure for the necessary political breakthroughs will likely come from investors seeking to protect themselves from the utterly catastrophic consequences of a break-up – a scenario that their own fears should ultimately help to prevent!
Source: http://www.activistpost.com/2011/11/credit-suisse-goes-for-broke-predicts.html
It's still got me scratching my head as to what's behind it but it's working so far.
I really enjoyed this part,
"Useful ones [for IPCC] might be Baldwin, Benestad (written on the solar/cloud
issue – on the right side, i.e anti-Svensmark), Bohm, Brown, Christy (will be
have to involve him ?)"
I don't like it when they piss on Svensmark. However that just goes to who how important his work really is.
I'm really curious as to what is going on. It's never happened with this stock before so I am suspicious that something real could be up and if it's what I think it is, could go a long, long way from here.
Aw come on Nmbr!Ballr......... there are literally tens of dollars to be made here every day. :)~
Think about this too, the broader market is ugly as hell and they just keep buying the daylights out of this thing. Everyone is slapping the ask. No one is sitting around and waiting for the price to pull back, they just keep on buying more.
All I know is that the BOD is stacked with creepy ex-Admirals, Homeland Security and other characters that would play well on the same stage. Couple that with the fact that they have NSA approved encryption software for cell phones and that just last month I read that the Pentagon/NSA are hot and heavy to FINALLY bring cell phones into use at the Pentagon and with the military and ................. well, it's not hard to figure that something is decidedly up with this company and that insiders are most likely accumulating shares. That is the best guess I can make. Think about what a Pentagon/military encryption contract would be worth? Just ponder it a while.
Dollars to doughnuts that most likely the majority of them are foreign national CIA operatives and not even American citizens.
Warning From Wall Street Broker: “The Entire System Has Been Utterly Destroyed”; Recommends “ALL customers Withdraw From All of the Markets”
Mac Slavo
November 18th, 2011
SHTFplan.com
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/warning-from-wall-street-broker-the-entire-system-has-been-utterly-destroyed-recommends-all-customers-withdraw-from-all-of-the-markets_11182011
Editor’s Note: You will rarely, if ever again, see a brokerage firm close their doors not as a result of losing all of their customers’ money, but rather, preemptively in order to prevent them from being wiped out. That’s exactly what Ann Barnhardt of Barnhardt Capital Management did Thursday morning when she advised clients that her firm was liquidating all customer brokerage and options accounts. In a series of letters published on her web site, disseminated by Zero Hedge, and brought to us by The Daily Crux, Ms. Barnhardt takes the unprecedented step of shutting down her firm in order to prevent losses in what she says is a system that “is no longer functioning with integrity and is suicidally risk-laden.”
The reasons for her taking the steps she did to save client investments are, in our opinion, nothing short of heroic (prompting even Rush Limbaugh to give her kudos) given recent developments in the global economic crisis that include the collapse of government primary dealer MF Global and the untennable situation in Europe. While most Wall Street tycoons and brokers continue to manage money in a highly leveraged marketplace on the verge of collapse while talking their books on financial news shows in an effort to instill confidence in their customers who are swallowing the hopium hook, line and sinker, Barnhardt will have none of it and chose, instead, to pull the plug and get her customers out.
This is an absolute must read warning for all American investors. Though Barnhardt’s firm dealt primarily in futures and options trading, she cautions that ALL markets have been infected with systemic contagion, including the underlying cash commodities – known in layman’s terms as the physical delivery of goods. With the recent collapse of MF Global, the details of which suggest direct fraud and theft of customer accounts, and the government’s lack of any serious response, Barnhardt seems to think there is a real possibility of cascading, system-wide failures in the broader financial sector.
Look out folks, because if she is right then we’re in serious trouble – and soon. The takeaway is, if you’re not sure what is happening in the markets then get out and get your money to safety, otherwise it will soon be added to the asset pool of the organizations complicit in orchestrating the destruction of our financial markets and economic system.
Without further ado, prepare to be blown away:
BCM Has Ceased Operations (source)
Posted by Ann Barnhardt – November 17, AD 2011 10:27 AM MST
Dear Clients, Industry Colleagues and Friends of Barnhardt Capital Management,
It is with regret and unflinching moral certainty that I announce that Barnhardt Capital Management has ceased operations. After six years of operating as an independent introducing brokerage, and eight years of employment as a broker before that, I found myself, this morning, for the first time since I was 20 years old, watching the futures and options markets open not as a participant, but as a mere spectator.
The reason for my decision to pull the plug was excruciatingly simple: I could no longer tell my clients that their monies and positions were safe in the futures and options markets – because they are not. And this goes not just for my clients, but for every futures and options account in the United States. The entire system has been utterly destroyed by the MF Global collapse. Given this sad reality, I could not in good conscience take one more step as a commodity broker, soliciting trades that I knew were unsafe or holding funds that I knew to be in jeopardy.
The futures markets are very highly-leveraged and thus require an exceptionally firm base upon which to function. That base was the sacrosanct segregation of customer funds from clearing firm capital, with additional emergency financial backing provided by the exchanges themselves. Up until a few weeks ago, that base existed, and had worked flawlessly. Firms came and went, with some imploding in spectacular fashion. Whenever a firm failure happened, the customer funds were intact and the exchanges would step in to backstop everything and keep customers 100% liquid – even as their clearing firm collapsed and was quickly replaced by another firm within the system.
Everything changed just a few short weeks ago. A firm, led by a crony of the Obama regime, stole all of the non-margined cash held by customers of his firm. Let’s not sugar-coat this or make this crime seem “complex” and “abstract” by drowning ourselves in six-dollar words and uber-technical jargon. Jon Corzine STOLE the customer cash at MF Global. Knowing Jon Corzine, and knowing the abject lawlessness and contempt for humanity of the Marxist Obama regime and its cronies, this is not really a surprise. What was a surprise was the reaction of the exchanges and regulators. Their reaction has been to take a bad situation and make it orders of magnitude worse. Specifically, they froze customers out of their accounts WHILE THE MARKETS CONTINUED TO TRADE, refusing to even allow them to liquidate. This is unfathomable. The risk exposure precedent that has been set is completely intolerable and has destroyed the entire industry paradigm. No informed person can continue to engage these markets, and no moral person can continue to broker or facilitate customer engagement in what is now a massive game of Russian Roulette.
I have learned over the last week that MF Global is almost certainly the mere tip of the iceberg. There is massive industry-wide exposure to European sovereign junk debt. While other firms may not be as heavily leveraged as Corzine had MFG leveraged, and it is now thought that MFG’s leverage may have been in excess of 100:1, they are still suicidally leveraged and will likely stand massive, unmeetable collateral calls in the coming days and weeks as Europe inevitably collapses. I now suspect that the reason the Chicago Mercantile Exchange did not immediately step in to backstop the MFG implosion was because they knew and know that if they backstopped MFG, they would then be expected to backstop all of the other firms in the system when the failures began to cascade – and there simply isn’t that much money in the entire system. In short, the problem is a SYSTEMIC problem, not merely isolated to one firm.
Perhaps the most ominous dynamic that I have yet heard of in regards to this mess is that of the risk of potential CLAWBACK actions. For those who do not know, “clawback” is the process by which a bankruptcy trustee is legally permitted to re-seize assets that left a bankrupt entity in the time period immediately preceding the entity’s collapse. So, using the MF Global customers as an example, any funds that were withdrawn from MFG accounts in the run-up to the collapse, either because of suspicions the customer may have had about MFG from, say, watching the company’s bond yields rise sharply, or from purely organic day-to-day withdrawls, the bankruptcy trustee COULD initiate action to “clawback” those funds. As a hedge broker, this makes my blood run cold. Generally, as the markets move in favor of a hedge position and equity builds in a client’s account, that excess equity is sent back to the customer who then uses that equity to offset cash market transactions OR to pay down a revolving line of credit. Even the possibility that a customer could be penalized and additionally raped AGAIN via a clawback action after already having their customer funds stolen is simply villainous. While there has been no open indication of clawback actions being initiated by the MF Global trustee, I have been told that it is a possibility.
And so, to the very unpleasant crux of the matter. The futures and options markets are no longer viable. It is my recommendation that ALL customers withdraw from all of the markets as soon as possible so that they have the best chance of protecting themselves and their equity. The system is no longer functioning with integrity and is suicidally risk-laden. The rule of law is non-existent, instead replaced with godless, criminal political cronyism.
Remember, derivatives contracts are NOT NECESSARY in the commodities markets. The cash commodity itself is the underlying reality and is not dependent on the futures or options markets. Many people seem to have gotten that backwards over the past decades. From Abel the animal husbandman up until the year 1964, there were no cattle futures contracts at all, and no options contracts until 1984, and yet the cash cattle markets got along just fine.
Finally, I will not, under any circumstance, consider reforming and re-opening Barnhardt Capital Management, or any other iteration of a brokerage business, until Barack Obama has been removed from office AND the government of the United States has been sufficiently reformed and repopulated so as to engender my total and complete confidence in the government, its adherence to and enforcement of the rule of law, and in its competent and just regulatory oversight of any commodities markets that may reform. So long as the government remains criminal, it would serve no purpose whatsoever to attempt to rebuild the futures industry or my firm, because in a lawless environment, the same thievery and fraud would simply happen again, and the criminals would go unpunished, sheltered by the criminal oligarchy.
To my clients, who literally TO THE MAN agreed with my assessment of the situation, and were relieved to be exiting the markets, and many whom I now suspect stayed in the markets as long as they did only out of personal loyalty to me, I can only say thank you for the honor and pleasure of serving you over these last years, with some of my clients having been with me for over twelve years. I will continue to blog at Barnhardt.biz, which will be subtly re-skinned soon, and will continue my cattle marketing consultation business. I will still be here in the office, answering my phones, with the same phone numbers. Alas, my retirement came a few years earlier than I had anticipated, but there was no possible way to continue given the inevitability of the collapse of the global financial markets, the overthrow of our government, and the resulting collapse in the rule of law.
As for me, I can only echo the words of David:
“This is the Lord’s doing; and it is wonderful in our eyes.”
With Best Regards-
Ann Barnhardt
Oh HELL NO!
You get a U.S. government agency involved with this small cold fusion company and that would be the end of it! That's exactly HOW they SUPPRESS everything.
I had some money in a nano-tech lithium ion battery producer that had great potential. A battery big enough and strong enough for a car to go 60 - 100 miles on a charge but the ability to to recharge in 6 minutes. As soon as they got a contract with the U.S. Army that was about 6 or 7 years ago. They've been bogged down doing nothing since then and I can't even remember how much their stock has gone down since then. The government has their hands tied. They'll never go anywhere. The last BS out of them was some electrified bus project in China that has gone nowhere.
Previous Mises Daily IndexState of Incarceration: Spontaneous Order behind Bars
Mises Daily: Monday, November 14, 2011 by James E. Miller
http://mises.org/daily/5806/State-of-Incarceration-Spontaneous-Order-behind-Bars
ArticleCommentsAlso by James E. Miller.AA
A case study from David Skarbek of Duke University that analyzes how the Mexican Mafia developed its own form of governance within the Los Angeles county prison system recently appeared in the American Political Science Review. The following is a portion of the study's abstract:
How can people who lack access to effective government institutions establish property rights and facilitate exchange? The illegal narcotics trade in Los Angeles has flourished despite its inability to rely on state-based formal institutions of governance. An alternative system of governance has emerged from an unexpected source — behind bars. The Mexican Mafia prison gang can extort drug dealers on the street because they wield substantial control over inmates in the county jail system and because drug dealers anticipate future incarceration. The gang's ability to extract resources creates incentives for them to provide governance institutions that mitigate market failures among Hispanic drug-dealing street gangs, including enforcing deals, protecting property rights, and adjudicating disputes.
The formation of "spontaneous order" often comes as a surprise to those who see the state as the end-all to civilization. Spontaneous order was defined by Friedrich Hayek as
A spontaneous order is a system which has developed not through the central direction or patronage of one or a few individuals but through the unintended consequences of the decisions of myriad individuals each pursuing their own interests through voluntary exchange, cooperation, and trial and error.
Through the past 50 years, the Mexican Mafia has developed its own system of property rights, protection, and order within the Los Angeles prison system. This phenomenon began in 1956 as incarcerated Hispanics joined together for the sake of protection. Since the government, which initially locked up the inmates, failed to enforce adequate property rights, an internal system of government emerged as a response. From this establishment of basic protections arose a governing arrangement to both extract wealth over a given geographical area and provide law and order. The Mexican Mafia has essentially created a state within the confines of the United States and the state of California.
Like many states, some have risen to positions of more influence despite the egalitarian model of members having "only one official rank … one vote, and no one can give another member an order." No state would be complete without taxes and the Mexican Mafia doesn't disappoint. By utilizing a form of extortion by taxing profits from drug dealers with the threat of violence upon incarceration, the Mexican Mafia plays the role of enforcer even behind bars. This tax typically runs in the range of 10–30 percent of revenues. In exchange for tax revenues comes protection from fellow inmates if one is unlucky enough to be locked up. In order for the Mexican Mafia to maximize tax revenue from drug sales, this practice strives to mitigate actual violence.
A system of dispute arbitration has also developed to ensure peace. Skarbek points to an example in February of 1994 where representatives of the Mexican Mafia and the representatives of two street gangs known as 18th Street Gang and MS-13 met to resolve animosity stemming from one gang member killing another. After arbitration, peace was reached and a gang war averted for the sake of maintaining cash flow from drug dealing. This process was repeated to settle future conflicts. Drive-by shootings are even regulated by the Mexican Mafia as unauthorized shootings are punishable by death on incarceration.
Though it is based on the threat of coercion, the system of governance by which the Mexican Mafia engages in is quite entrepreneurial. In Man, Economy, and State, Murray Rothbard describes the actions of an entrepreneur in this way:
In his quest for profits he saw that certain factors were underpriced vis-à-vis their potential value products. By recognizing the discrepancy and doing something about it, he shifted factors of production (obviously nonspecific factors) from other productive processes to this one.
The Mexican Mafia engages in such a process by vetting each target's potential for incarceration. Those who have a good chance of being arrested and subsequently locked up are pressured into paying taxes. The same goes to those whose friends or family have a high probability of being jailed. Say what you will about this type of extortion, but the entrepreneurial spirit pops up in even the most unlikely of places.
So what should Austro-libertarians, who recognize the importance of property rights but are wary of coercion, take away from this phenomenon of emergent order? After all, the Mexican Mafia has established a semimonopoly of violence and coercion over a geographical area, meaning it has become its own state even within the jurisdiction of the United States and California government.
First, the demand for basic protection and property rights amidst the failure of public authorities provided the incentive and profit motive for inmates to form the Mexican Mafia and its practice of taxation. Had adequate protection been offered, such an underground system of law and order might not have emerged.
This takes us to the next point: the Mexican Mafia's taxation and protective model was indeed the result of spontaneous order. As Hayek outlined, the original members of the Mexican Mafia established this system to better their own interests.
Where Hayek's insight doesn't apply is the use of coercion by the Mexican Mafia. While emerging order as the result of purposeful action is something to be celebrated when it results in peaceful, voluntary cooperation, the violent tactics employed by the Mexican Mafia are a sight to abhor. As the nonaggression axiom — the foundation for Austro-libertarianism — shows, unjustified aggression toward one's property is morally reprehensible.
And this leads to the final point. The Mexican Mafia's system of governance can be attributed to the state's prohibition of narcotics. If the state regarded property rights as sacrosanct, there would be no laws against drugs and therefore far fewer people in prison. Without the threat of incarceration and subsequent assault, the Mexican Mafia would lose much of its ability to tax.
Like the system of private law and property that developed during the settlement of the American West, the Mexican Mafia's creation of governance is demonstrative of man's ability to develop protective services among the failures of existing governments. In the case of the "not-so-wild" American West, property protection and order were developed to ease the living conditions of settlers in the absence of any governmental structure. In the Mexican Mafia's case, protection and arbitration were not only responses to a lapse of government enforcement but also mechanisms for violent exploitation. The two instances, though similar as emerging orders, yielded two different outcomes: one that decreased the amount of violence through volunteerism and one that utilized state-like force to maintain control.
$20.00 $15.00
Though it's a shame the Mexican Mafia's system of law and order devolved into coercion, Skarbek's case study is an important tool to analyze an instance of spontaneous order, as mankind, possessing infinite desire, continues to transform and adapt to changing circumstances.
Now if only our elected leaders appeared as the tattoo-laden thugs whose behavior they inspire, perhaps the public would be more reluctant to endorse their wielding of coercive power and authority. After all, skin-deep appearances are the only thing separating our friend pictured above from those who legislate in the confines of Congress, state capital buildings, or city hall.
Will Japan build a backup Tokyo?
( Handwriting is on the wall. Tokyo will slowly be abandoned over the next decade or so. It's going to kill everyone there if they don't and you can't do business in a dead city.)
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/02/8601550-will-japan-build-a-backup-tokyo?fb_ref=.TrNpBLMlTA4.like&fb_source=home_multiline
Issei Kato / Reuters
Onlookers get a panoramic view of the city of Tokyo from the first observatory deck during a media preview of the Tokyo Sky Tree tower this week. Some Japanese lawmakers have proposed constructing a "backup city" that could take on the capital's functions in the event of a catastrophe.
By Alan Boyle
It sounds like a story ripped from the parody-filled pages of The Onion, but some Japanese lawmakers really do want to build a "backup city" that would take over the functions of Tokyo, including tourism, in the event of a catastrophe.
The idea was floated last month at a Tokyo luncheon, with a follow-up in The Telegraph last week. "The idea of being able to have a backup, a spare battery for the functions of the nation ... isn't this really a good idea?" Hajime Ishii, a parliamentarian representing the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, was quoted as saying.
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Is building a backup capital city a good idea?
Support for creating an urban Plan B has grown in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan in March and led to the Fukushima nuclear crisis. "Preparations are already under way at various levels at various levels to find ways of mitigating possible far-reaching consequences of a much-expected earthquake striking Tokyo," the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan said.
The lawmakers' plan calls for building an urban center known as IRTBBC (Integrated Resort, Tourism, Business and Backup City) or NEMIC (National Emergency Management International City) on the 1,236-acre site currently occupied by Osaka International Airport at Itami. Today, Itami is used only as a secondary hub for domestic flights, operating in the shadow of the newer Kansai airport.
The new city would take on all the functions of the capital city in the event of an emergency. It would boast office complexes, resort facilities, parks and even casinos. The city's centerpiece would be a tower that would rank among the tallest in the world, coming in at just over 650 meters (2,133 feet). It'd be built to house 50,000 residents and accommodate a workday population of around 200,000 people from the Osaka region, The Telegraph reported.
If the plan goes forward, it would rank among history's most ambitious backup plans. The backers haven't calculated the cost of building the city. For now, Ishii and his fellow lawmakers — including the Democratic Party's Banri Kaieda, Shizuka Kamei of the People's New Party and Ichiro Aisawa of the Liberal Democrats — are merely seeking 14 million yen ($180,000) for a feasibility study.
So far, the reaction has been mixed: Osaka's governor, Toru Hashimoto, has been quoted as saying that his region is willing to accept the capital backup role, while Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara has voiced opposition. And he may not be the only one: It just seems to me that most emergency-management officials, if not most politicians, would prefer to fortify what they have rather than building a whole new complex someplace else. Of course, I could be wrong about that.
The Inevitable Has Happened: Occupy Foreclosures
Linette Lopez | Nov. 1, 2011, 5:56 PM | 25,333 | 169
http://www.businessinsider.com/occupy-oakland-to-encourage-occupation-of-foreclosed-properties-2011-11?utm_source=alerts&nr_email_referer=1
Last night Occupy Oakland's General Assembly did something that is likely to catch on with occupations across the country.
They voted to encourage the occupation of foreclosed properties across their city. After all, the bursting of the property bubble is part of why they're on the streets right now.
There is a movement similar to this under the overall Occupy umbrella, It's called Occupy Vacant Properties, and it has been most visible in San Francisco, where families are even reclaiming their old homes post-foreclosures.
Fire Dog Lake via The Home Defenders League:
My family has been in this neighborhood for 50 years, and since I’ve been evicted, the place has been vacant, like so many homes in the Bayview. Families have been ripped off by banks, scammed by brokers and nothing’s done to them. It’s time for the families and the community to stand up and take back what’s theirs.
Considering all the attention focused on Occupy Oakland right now, it wouldn't be surprising if this caught on like wildfire. Plus, in northern cities during the winter months, this could provide spots to house protesters and maintain the occupations.
And according to Raw Story, there is at least on member of Congress supporting this move. Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) has been calling for families to squat in their foreclosed homes since the beginning of the crises. While what Occupy Oakland is suggesting isn't exactly the same thing (as the protesters will probably stay in homes they never bought), Kaptur likes the idea all the same.
Global Warming is Over Experts Say
http://drudge.pricetweet.us/v3/hop.pl?type=a&hop=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.express.co.uk%2Ffeatures%2Fview%2F280948%2FIs-global-warming-over
“To say that is the biggest mistake he has made. When I saw he was saying that I just thought, ‘Oh my God.’”
RELATED NEWS
***CLIMATE CHANGE LIES EXPOSED***
***THE VOICE OF THE CLIMATE CHANGE SCEPTICS***
***BIG SIBERIAN FREEZE TO HIT BRITAIN***
Prof Muller, of Berkeley University in California, and Prof Curry, who chairs the Department Of Earth And Atmospheric Sciences at America’s Georgia Institute of Technology, were part of the BEST project that carried
out analysis of more than 1.6 billion temperature recordings collected from more than 39,000 weather stations around the world.
Prof Muller appeared on Radio 4’s Today Programme last Friday where he described how BEST’s findings showed that since the Fifties global temperatures had risen by about 1 degree Celsius, a figure which is in line with estimates from Nasa and the Met Office.
When asked whether the rate had stopped over the last 10 years he said they had not. “We see no evidence of it having slowed down,” he replied and a graph issued by the BEST project suggests a continuing and steep increase.
But this last point is one which Prof Curry has furiously rebuttted. In a serious clash of scientific experts Prof Curry has accused Prof Muller of trying to “hide the decline in rates of global warming”.
She says that BEST’s research actually shows that there has been no increase in world temperatures for 13 years.
She has called Prof Muller’s comments “a huge mistake” and has said that she now plans to discuss her future on the project with him. “There is no scientific basis for saying that global warming hasn’t stopped,” she says.
“To say that there is detracts from the credibility of the data, which is very unfortunate.” New research also seems to back up Prof Curry rather than Prof Muller.
A report published by the Global Warming Foundation, which is based on BEST’s findings, includes a graph of world average temperatures over the past 10 years and it is absolutely flat, suggesting that temperatures have remained constant.
This issue is crucial because the levels of carbon dioxide in the air have continued to rise rapidly over the last decade and if temperatures have remained constant during that period it would suggest there is no direct link between carbon gas emissions and global warming.
Previously carbon dioxide emissions – from the burning of fossil fuels and from deforestation – have been considered one of the biggest causes of climate change, the most damaging effects of which are thought to be the melting of the polar ice caps and the rise in sea levels as well as an increase in extreme weather events such as floods and droughts.
“Whatever it is that is going on here it doesn’t look like it’s being dominated by carbon dioxide,” says Prof Curry.
Prof Muller has made it clear that the BEST study was not conducted in order to gauge the causes of global warming, saying the study “made no assessment on how much of this is due to humans and how much is natural”.
He and his scientists – who also included this year’s physics Nobel winner Saul Perlmutter – set out purely to determine once and for all whether climate change had occurred.
The group had been suspicious of previous results which confirmed a rise in global temperatures , believing that their work may have been skewed by the “urban heat island effect” where increasing urbanisation around weather stations was causing the temperature increases recorded over the past 50 years.
But their exhaustive research discovered that the urban heat effect could not explain the global temperature increase of about one degree Celsius since 1950.
IT IS well to point out that Prof Curry is not disputing the one degree Celsius increase. She is disputing Prof Muller’s suggestion that temperatures haven’t levelled off in the last decade.
Indeed she says this global warming standstill since the end of the Nineties – which has been completely unexpected – has wide-reaching consequences for the causes of climate change and has already led many climate scientists to start looking at alternative factors that may have contributed to global warming,
other than carbon gas emissions. In particular she has mentioned the influence of clouds, natural temperature cycles and solar radiation.
What she also seems furious about is the way that Prof Muller went about publishing BEST’s results without consulting her and before a proper peer review could be carried out. “It is not how I would have played it,” she has said. “I was informed only when I got a group email. I think they have made errors and I distance myself from what they did. It would have been smart to consult me.”
This is, you can be sure, not the last we will hear on the debate.
Yes that and whenever he starts talking about all the companies he's worked for in his career it starts sounding like the resume of someone who gets let go a lot.
Cain apparently isn't aware that China has had nukes since 1964, states he's aware the China is working on developing nuclear weapons.
Go to 11:50 to hear it.
The Philosophy of Liberty
They're getting some more MSM coverage in Italy.