Posts written by Vninect

A 1997 memo has been dug up from Geithner to Summers, urging the latter to "touch base" with the CEOs of 5 big banks. The reason: the WTO financial agreement negotiations are reaching the end-game. The bankers are about to win. Vice.com offers background on what happened next.

Spoiler alert: it takes us about a decade to notice that we lost.

Stephen Fry makes a case against going to Sochi this winter. As always, he does so eloquently, which makes it extremely linkable.

He chooses to focus on the moral obligation of the IOC and the Prime Minister of Britain to take a stance against systematic discrimination against LGTB people.

But perhaps there is also a case to be made for the individual athletes: those who are openly gay in their own country probably risk being arrested, and in fact, so do the camera people who film those people being successful at sports. I can imagine this falls under the new laws against "homosexual propaganda". A dutch documentary crew has already faced prosecution for producing homosexual propaganda last month for interviewing and filming gays.

In any case, this kind of law will prevent any but the bravest athletes from speaking out for the rights of LGTB while in Russia. And they will certainly be intimidated by the Russian police. I, for one, will disapprove of our athletes being in fascist territory unless they wave a rainbow flag during the opening ceremony.

Question: Did you know steps have been taken since 2007 to create a European Multinational Militarized Police force?

This article says so:

http://newsjunkiepost.com/2013/07/20/egf-e...tarized-police/

If this article is true, it is further evidence of what is described in the OP. And it is truly very alarming.

"Multinational militarized police"... Oh... Shit...

Maybe this one should go somewhere else, but I am in a bit of a hurry so here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgUWYPsvUQk

In an article published recently, scientists found evidence that war is not a fundamental property of human coexistence. Good news everyone! We don't need to kill each other all the time! At least not for genetic reasons..

I don't think it changes the basic points. You simply copied the algebraic error from the report, which slightly earlier describes ulc in plain text as "assuming the numerator is measured in euros per worker and the denominator is measured in numbers of pencils per worker, the unit labor cost is measured in euros per pencil" [bolding mine]. That's not what their algebra says.

I don't think this is correct. From what I can google up, ULC is total wage bill divided by output. Or, a single worker's wage cost divided by a single worker's production.*

So that would be 10/100, or 5/(100/2), equaling 10p.

The boss's salary per unit would still be 20 pounds / 100 units = 20p.

*ULC for countries is seen as a function of labour cost divided by GDP. As pointed out at rwer.com the first figure includes only employed people. "Capital" is not included. Which means that there are actually 2 ways to lower ULC:
1. Lowering employee wages.
2. Raising profit levels and boss wages (as those increase gdp).

Well isn't that convenient.

Disgusting!

This bothers me a lot. Also Orwell. Double-think.

Note also that you can find G4S all over the world. They must be doing something right(wing?).

It's summer time, and that means it's time for a new chapter in Egyptian politics. President Mohammed Morsi has been taken away from the seat of power by the military, and there is talk of drafting a new popular constitution on the double, and presidential elections afterwards.

I found this video helpful in explaining the different episodes until now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5suNtLwbB...ature=endscreen

It has been mentioned a number of times before on this board, in different contexts: the drip feed of neo-liberal religion. It's the constant but subtle introduction of neo-liberal themes in our information streams.

It is interesting to consider why this happens. Who is responsible for the drip feed? Although it works well graphically, there is no evidence of some secret agency infiltrating all media-outlets, and secretly changing the texts, or compelling content creators of all stripes to put neo-liberal phrases in their texts.

Take newspapers. I can understand why they would elect to censor certain articles or phrases that are relevant to a news story (because it would upset their advertisers). I can also understand why it would write positively about a certain (commercial) institution (because the advertisements would be more valuable to that institution).

But I can't quite see a mechanism like that for the drip feed of voluntary unemployment, self-regulating markets, big government bad, austerity is healthy, and what have you. Some of those myths certainly help to 'rationalize' what businesses tend to do, so it makes their lives easier. But having any newspaper repeat the phrases doesn't directly increase an individual company's sales. They just change the collective awareness over (a long) time. And because it changes the entire playing field about equally, and over a considerable period of time, it can't factor in to a business' strategy, generally. Just like destroying the environment is a business externality: we will cease to exist as a species in one or two generations, but burning fossils boosts productivity cheaply now. A drip feed just takes too long and spreads too evenly for any company to have direct benefit.

So it is not a conspiracy, and I don't think there is a structural incentive to insert those phrases, even if it indirectly benefits business. Then why do individual journalists put it in their reports? I'm guessing it's by accident or sloppy thinking. They have accepted it, perhaps, and then confer it to the rest of us. Maybe?

The national broadcasting agency ERT of Greece has been temporarily closed by the government. A government spokesman called the Hellenistic Broadcasting Corporation a 'haven of waste'. They intend to reopen as soon as possible, with only a fraction of the current 2600 head workforce. ERT and the unions do not agree and have occupied the building, continuing their service through satellite and internet. Terrestrial broadcasting towers, however, have been shut down.

http://greece.greekreporter.com/2013/06/11...he-plug-on-ert/

The bottom has not yet been reached.

There were a number of other nuggets of lunacy in that report. Let me pick what I thought was the silliest one.


A strong demonstration effect on the private sector? Are you mad?

Also, note 15 is interesting.


So the IMF appeared to agree with the EC that wages don't matter to competitiveness. But in the public sector, they still argued for the need to demonstrate lowering wages, so Industry can follow that example, and presumably make Greece a more competitive country. Or something like that... Bonkers!

Hiya!

something inspiring.

A quick google search teaches me that many starters' homes here are around €190,000.

....

So €115,000 is a bargain?

Note to self: Find the mystical place where that kind of money is widely considered to be affordable.