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orbemnews · 4 years

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Rich Countries Signed Away a Chance to Vaccinate the World In the coming days, a patent will finally be issued on a five-year-old invention, a feat of molecular engineering that is at the heart of at least five major Covid-19 vaccines. And the United States government will control that patent. The new patent presents an opportunity — and some argue the last best chance — to exact leverage over the drug companies producing the vaccines and pressure them to expand access to less affluent countries. The question is whether the government will do anything at all. The rapid development of Covid-19 vaccines, achieved at record speed and financed by massive public funding in the United States, the European Union and Britain, represents a great triumph of the pandemic. Governments partnered with drugmakers, pouring in billions of dollars to procure raw materials, finance clinical trials and retrofit factories. Billions more were committed to buy the finished product. But this Western success has created stark inequity. Residents of wealthy and middle-income countries have received about 90 percent of the nearly 400 million vaccines delivered so far. Under current projections, many of the rest will have to wait years. A growing chorus of health officials and advocacy groups worldwide are calling for Western governments to use aggressive powers — most of them rarely or never used before — to force companies to publish vaccine recipes, share their know-how and ramp up manufacturing. Public health advocates have pleaded for help, including asking the Biden administration to use its patent to push for broader vaccine access. Governments have resisted. By partnering with drug companies, Western leaders bought their way to the front of the line. But they also ignored years of warnings — and explicit calls from the World Health Organization — to include contract language that would have guaranteed doses for poor countries or encouraged companies to share their knowledge and the patents they control. “It was like a run on toilet paper. Everybody was like, ‘Get out of my way. I’m gonna get that last package of Charmin,’” said Gregg Gonsalves, a Yale epidemiologist. “We just ran for the doses.” The prospect of billions of people waiting years to be vaccinated poses a health threat to even the richest countries. One example: In Britain, where the vaccine rollout has been strong, health officials are tracking a virus variant that emerged in South Africa, where vaccine coverage is weak. That variant may be able to blunt the effect of vaccines, meaning even vaccinated people might get sick. Western health officials said they never intended to exclude others. But with their own countries facing massive death tolls, the focus was at home. Patent sharing, they said, simply never came up. “It was U.S.-centric. It wasn’t anti-global.” said Moncef Slaoui, who was the chief scientific adviser for Operation Warp Speed, a Trump administration program that funded the search for vaccines in the United States. “Everybody was in agreement that vaccine doses, once the U.S. is served, will go elsewhere.” President Biden and Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Union’s executive branch, are reluctant to change course. Mr. Biden has promised to help an Indian company produce about 1 billion doses by the end of 2022 and his administration has donated doses to Mexico and Canada. But he has made it clear that his focus is at home. “We’re going to start off making sure Americans are taken care of first,” Mr. Biden said recently. “But we’re then going to try and help the rest of the world.” Pressuring companies to share patents could be seen as undermining innovation, sabotaging drugmakers or picking drawn-out and expensive fights with the very companies digging a way out of the pandemic. As rich countries fight to keep things as they are, others like South Africa and India have taken the battle to the World Trade Organization, seeking a waiver on patent restrictions for Covid-19 vaccines. Russia and China, meanwhile, have promised to fill the void as part of their vaccine diplomacy. The Gamaleya Institute in Moscow, for example, has entered into partnerships with producers from Kazakhstan to South Korea, according to data from Airfinity, a science analytics company, and UNICEF. Chinese vaccine makers have reached similar deals in the United Arab Emirates, Brazil and Indonesia. Addressing patents would not, by itself, solve the vaccine imbalance. Retrofitting or constructing factories would take time. More raw materials would need to be manufactured. Regulators would have to approve new assembly lines. And as with cooking a complicated dish, giving someone a list of ingredients is no substitute to showing them how to make it. To address these problems, the World Health Organization created a technology pool last year to encourage companies to share know-how with manufacturers in lower-income nations. Not a single vaccine company has signed up. “The problem is that the companies don’t want to do it. And the government is just not very tough with the companies,” said James Love, who leads Knowledge Ecology International, a nonprofit. Drug company executives told European lawmakers recently that they were licensing their vaccines as quickly as possible, but that finding partners with the right technology was challenging. “They don’t have the equipment,” Moderna’s chief executive, Stéphane Bancel, said. “There is no capacity.” But manufacturers from Canada to Bangladesh say they can make vaccines — they just lack patent licensing deals. When the price is right, companies have shared secrets with new manufacturers in just months, ramping up production and retrofitting factories. It helps when the government sweetens the deal. Earlier this month, Mr. Biden announced that the pharmaceutical giant Merck would help make vaccines for its competitor Johnson & Johnson. The government pressured Johnson & Johnson to accept the help and is using wartime procurement powers to secure supplies for the company. It will also pay to retrofit Merck’s production line, with an eye toward making vaccines available to every adult in the United States by May. Despite the hefty government funding, drug companies control nearly all of the intellectual property and stand to make fortunes off the vaccines. A critical exception is the patent expected to be approved soon — a government-led discovery for manipulating a key coronavirus protein. This breakthrough, at the center of the 2020 race for a vaccine, actually came years earlier in a National Institutes of Health lab, where an American scientist named Dr. Barney Graham was in pursuit of a medical moonshot. ‘We’d already done everything’ For years, Dr. Graham specialized in the kind of long, expensive research that only governments bankroll. He searched for a key to unlock universal vaccines — genetic blueprints to be used against any of the roughly two dozen viral families that infect humans. When a new virus emerged, scientists could simply tweak the code and quickly make a vaccine. In 2016, while working on Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, another coronavirus known as MERS, he and his colleagues developed a way to swap a pair of amino acids in the coronavirus spike protein. That bit of molecular engineering, they realized, could be used to develop effective vaccines against any coronavirus. The government, along with its partners at Dartmouth College and the Scripps Research Institute, filed for a patent, which will be issued this month. When Chinese scientists published the genetic code of the new coronavirus in January 2020, Dr. Graham’s team had their cookbook ready. Updated March 20, 2021, 8:52 p.m. ET “We kind of knew exactly what we had to do,” said Jason McLellan, one of the inventors, who now works at the University of Texas at Austin. “We’d already done everything.” Dr. Graham was already working with Moderna on a vaccine for another virus when the outbreak in China inspired his team to change focus. “We just flipped it to coronavirus and said, ‘How fast can we go?’” Dr. Graham recalled. Within a few days, they emailed the vaccine’s genetic blueprint to Moderna to begin manufacturing. By late February, Moderna had produced enough vaccines for government-run clinical trials. “We did the front end. They did the middle. And we did the back end,” Dr. Graham said. Exactly who holds patents for which vaccines won’t be sorted out for months or years. But it is clear now that several of today’s vaccines — including those from Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, Novavax, CureVac and Pfizer-BioNTech — rely on the 2016 invention. Of those, only BioNTech has paid the U.S. government to license the technology. The patent is scheduled to be issued March 30. Patent lawyers and public health advocates say it’s likely that other companies will either have to negotiate a licensing agreement with the government, or face the prospect of a lawsuit worth billions. The government filed such a lawsuit in 2019 against the drugmaker Gilead over H.I.V. medication. This gives the Biden administration leverage to force companies to share technology and expand worldwide production, said Christopher J. Morten, a New York University law professor specializing in medical patents. “We can do this the hard way, where we sue you for patent infringement,” he said the government could assert. “Or just play nice with us and license your tech.” The National Institutes of Health declined to comment on its discussions with the drugmakers but said it did not anticipate a dispute over patent infringement. None of the drug companies responded to repeated questions about the 2016 patent. Experts said the government has stronger leverage on the Moderna vaccine, which was almost entirely funded by taxpayers. New mRNA vaccines, such as those from Moderna, are relatively easier to manufacture than vaccines that rely on live viruses. Scientists compare it to an old-fashioned cassette player: Try one tape. If it’s not right, just pop in another. Moderna expects $18.4 billion in vaccine sales this year, but it is the delivery system — the cassette player — that is its most prized secret. Disclosing it could mean giving away the key to the company’s future. “There should be no division in order to win this battle,” President Emmanuel Macron of France said. Yet European governments had backed their own champions. The European Investment Bank lent nearly $120 million to BioNTech, a German company, and Germany bought a $360 million stake in the biotech firm CureVac after reports that it was being lured to the United States. “We funded the research, on both sides of the Atlantic,” said Udo Bullmann, a German member of the European Parliament. “You could have agreed on a paragraph that says ‘You are obliged to give it to poor countries in a way that they can afford it.’ Of course you could have.” A People’s Vaccine In May, the leaders of Pakistan, Ghana, South Africa and others called for governments to support a “people’s vaccine” that could be quickly manufactured and given for free. They urged the governing body of the World Health Organization to treat vaccines as “global public goods.” Though such a declaration would have had no teeth, the Trump administration moved swiftly to block it. Intent on protecting intellectual property, the government said calls for equitable access to vaccines and treatments sent “the wrong message to innovators.” World leaders ultimately approved a watered-down declaration that recognized extensive immunization — not the vaccines themselves — as a global public good. That same month, the World Health Organization launched the technology-access pool and called on governments to include clauses in their drug contracts guaranteeing equitable distribution. But the world’s richest nations roundly ignored the call. In the United States, Operation Warp Speed went on a summertime spending spree, disbursing over $10 billion to handpicked companies and absorbing the financial risks of bringing a vaccine to market. “Our role was to enable the private sector to be successful,” said Paul Mango, a top adviser to the then health secretary, Alex M. Azar II. The deals came with few strings attached. Large chunks of the contracts are redacted and some remain secret. But public records show that the government used unusual contracts that omitted its right to take over intellectual property or influence the price and availability of vaccines. They did not let the government compel companies to share their technology. British and other European leaders made similar concessions as they ordered enough doses to vaccinate their populations multiple times over. “You have to write the rules of the game, and the place to do that would have been these funding contracts,” said Ellen ’t Hoen, the director of Medicines Law and Policy, an international research group. By comparison, one of the world’s largest health financiers, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, includes grant language requiring equitable access to vaccines. As leverage, the organization retains some right to the intellectual property. Dr. Slaoui, who came to Warp Speed after leading research and development at GlaxoSmithKline, is sympathetic to this idea. But it would have been impractical to demand patent concessions and still deliver on the program’s primary goals of speed and volume, he said. “I can guarantee you that the agreements with the companies would have been much more complex and taken a much longer time,” he said. The European Union, for example, haggled over price and liability provisions, which delayed the rollout. In some ways, this was a trip down a trodden path. When the H1N1 “swine flu” pandemic broke out in 2009, the wealthiest countries cornered the global vaccine market and all but locked out the rest of the world. Experts said at the time that this was a chance to rethink the approach. But the swine flu pandemic fizzled and governments ended up destroying the vaccines they had hoarded. They then forgot to prepare for the future. The International View For months, the United States and European Union have blocked a proposal at the World Trade Organization that would waive intellectual property rights for Covid-19 vaccines and treatments. The application, put forward by South Africa and India with support from most developing nations, has been bogged down in procedural hearings. “Every minute we are deadlocked in the negotiating room, people are dying,” said Mustaqeem De Gama, a South African diplomat who is involved in the talks. But in Brussels and Washington, leaders are still worried about undermining innovation. During the presidential campaign, Mr. Biden’s team gathered top intellectual property lawyers to discuss ways to increase vaccine production. “They were planning on taking the international view on things,” said Ana Santos Rutschman, a Saint Louis University law professor who participated in the sessions. Most of the options were politically thorny. Among them was the use of a federal law allowing the government to seize a company’s patent and give it to another in order to increase supply. Former campaign advisers say the Biden camp was lukewarm to this proposal and others that called for a broader exercise of its powers. The administration has instead promised to give $4 billion to Covax, the global vaccine alliance. The European Union has given nearly $1 billion so far. But Covax aims to vaccinate only 20 percent of people in the world’s poorest countries this year, and faces a $2 billion shortfall even to accomplish that. Dr. Graham, the N.I.H. scientist whose team cracked the coronavirus vaccine code for Moderna, said that pandemic preparedness and vaccine development should be international collaborations, not competitions. “A lot of this would not have happened unless there was a big infusion of government money,” he said. But governments cannot afford to sabotage companies that need profit to survive. Dr. Graham has largely moved on from studying the coronavirus. He is searching for a universal flu vaccine, a silver bullet that could prevent all strains of the disease without an annual tweak. Though he was vaccinated through work, he spent the early part of the year trying to get his wife and grown children onto waiting lists — an ordeal that even one of the key inventors had to endure. “You can imagine how aggravating that is,” he said. Matina Stevis-Gridneff and Monika Pronczuk contributed reporting. Source link Orbem News #Chance #Countries #rich #signed #Vaccinate #World

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lastsonlost · 7 years

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GOD DON’T MAKE ME HAVE TO DEFEND TAYLOR SWIFT

San Francisco — The ACLU of Northern California today sent a letter to Taylor Swift and her attorney refuting their meritless legal defamation threats against a local blogger.

On Sep. 5, PopFront editor Meghan Herning wrote a post titled “Swiftly to the alt-right: Taylor subtly gets the lower case kkk in formation.” The post is a mix of political speech and critical commentary, and discusses the resurgence of white supremacy and the fact that some white supremacists have embraced Swift. It also provides a critical interpretation of some of Swift’s music, lyrics, and videos. The post ends by calling on Swift to personally denounce white supremacy, saying “silence in the face of injustice means support for the oppressor.”

On Oct. 25, Herning received an intimidating letter from Swift and her attorney labeling the blog post as defamatory and demanding that she issue a retraction, remove the story from all media sources, and cease and desist. The letter threatened a lawsuit.

“This is a completely unsupported attempt to suppress constitutionally protected speech,” said ACLU of Northern California attorney Michael Risher.

The letter went on to say that it should serve as an “unequivocal denouncement by Ms. Swift of white supremacy and the alt-right.” But that denunciation would only be known by Herning because the letter also attempts to use copyright law to forbid her from making it public.

“Intimidation tactics like these are unacceptable,” said ACLU attorney Matt Cagle. “Not in her wildest dreams can Ms. Swift use copyright law to suppress this exposure of a threat to constitutionally protected speech.”

Herning contacted the ACLU after receiving the letter from Swift's attorney, and ACLU lawyers determined the legal claims were unsupported. The blog post is opinion protected by the First Amendment.

“The press should not be bullied by high-paid lawyers or frightened into submission by legal jargon,” said Herning. “These scare tactics may have worked for Taylor in the past, but I am not backing down.”

The ACLU has requested a response from Swift and her attorney by Nov. 13 confirming that they will not pursue a lawsuit.

THIS IS THE ORIGINAL POP FRONT ARTICLE RIGHT HERE

Swiftly to the alt-right: Taylor Swift subtly gets the lower case “kkk” in formation with “Look What You Made me Do”

An anti–Marxist Mixtape review.

A little over a decade after her musical debut, Taylor Swift has made a career out of being portrayed as a good girl unjustly wronged. Her song catalog is stocked with tunes about how innocent she is, and how men seem to wrong her. But the most notable moment of the Taylor-as-an-innocent-victim narrative may have come when Kanye West interrupted her Best Female Video acceptance speech at the 2009 Video Music Awards to drunkenly ramble about how Beyoncé should have won.

Kanye upstaging Taylor in that moment not only gave that narrative merit in a lot of people’s eyes, it also looked like the personification of many a long-standing white fear: a black man taking away a white woman’s power. And Taylor has been playing off that narrative ever since, while America has embraced the notion of white victimhood — despite the reality. Kanye West is still hated for that moment, and the media has documented further fights between Taylor Swift and other pop stars such as Katy Perry, Calvin Harris, and Kim Kardashian. There is no shortage of media details about these “feuds”, whatever their purpose may be.

On the other hand, the idea that Taylor Swift is an icon of white supremacist, nationalists, and other fringe groups, seems to finally be getting mainstream attention. But the dog whistles to white supremacy in the lyrics of her latest single are not the first time that some have connected the (subtle) dots. A white supremacist blogger from neo-Nazi site The Daily Stormerwas quoted in a Broadly article in May 2016 as saying, “it is also an established fact that Taylor Swift is secretly a Nazi and is simply waiting for the time when Donald Trump makes it safe for her to come out and announce her Aryan agenda to the world.” What “facts” the blogger is pointing to are unclear (and likely invented); still, his statement exemplifies how neo-Nazis and white supremacists look to her as their pop icon.

And it is fitting: in the past few months, white supremacist trolls have jumped off line and onto the streets. Charlottesville was a coming out story for white supremacists and nationalists, a chance to show who they were and what they want — or really who they didn’t want in “their” country. But the brazen white supremacists on the streets are not the only ones who have bought into the current form of white supremacy. There is still a contingent of the country that agrees with the president and his response to the tragedy of Charlottesville. For all Trump’s tomfoolery and cavorting with white nationalism, his approval rating has stayed steady: almost 40% of the country thinks he is doing a good job. Perhaps this is an affirmation of the racist policies and climate that this administration has capitalized on and intensified, because racism and white supremacy have always existed in America — and the president alone cannot take credit for the movement.

The American eugenics movement — a pseudo-science theory that the human race would be improved by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics that favor the white or anglo race — was alive and well long before Hitler came to power. In fact, the American Eugenics movement actually inspired Hitler. During the Progressive Era of the late 19th and early 20th century, eugenics was considered a method of preserving and improving the dominant groups (a.k.a. “white” groups — a shifting political label) in the population. These early ideas paved the way for racist and nativist reactions to emigration from Europe rather than scientific genetics. Meaning, as the Italian, Irish, and other immigrants poured into the country, eugenics was used as the basis for keeping those groups out. [Source]

The American eugenics movements received extensive funding from various corporate foundations including the Carnegie Institution, Rockefeller Foundation, and the Harriman railroad fortune. Eugenics was championed by Ivy League scholars, Congressmen, and Presidents alike. One of the major campaigns emergent from the Eugenics movement was the restriction of immigration and scapegoating of immigrants, similar to what we see today. Another was the systematic sterilization of the poor and disabled. By 1910, eugenics had become so popular that even women’s suffragists groups were lobbying for eugenics legal reforms. Prominent birth control advocate and Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger advocated for controlling birth rates among poor people, people of color, and the disabled.

Eugenics was popular among those who wanted the US to stay out of World War II, and until the US was attacked at Pearl Harbor, they were successful. Eugenics only fell out of favor because of the Nazi defeat in that war. Yet America never quite defeated the eugenics-based racial hatred in our country and culture, which is why it is no surprise that today the alt-right is echoing the cries of eugenicists. Indeed, signs with slogans like “defend the European race” are not new; the support of Trump for “extreme vetting” is just another form of advocacy for segregation.

Indeed, we often forget that there were many Americans who thought we entered the wrong side of the war. The Nazis received myriad support from the American business community and wealthy, WASP-y Americans, who seemed to see common cause. And while prior to the U.S. entering World War II, American support for the Nazis was never explicitly stated, the silence and refusal to help in the face of racial atrocities said everything. The racialized politics of the era lived on in America through segregation in housing (e.g. redlining), banking, xenophobic immigration policies, reactionaries against the civil rights movement, the Reagan era, the War on Drugs, etc.

Taylor’s lyrics in “Look What You Made Me Do” seem to play to the same subtle, quiet white support of a racial hierarchy. Many on the alt-right see the song as part of a “re-awakening,” in line with Trump’s rise. At one point in the accompanying music video, Taylor lords over an army of models from a podium, akin to what Hitler had in Nazis Germany. The similarities are uncanny and unsettling.

Aziz Ansari has aptly referred to the quiet support of white supremacy as “the lower case kkk”: that is, the quiet racial hatred that has played a role in the social, cultural, legal, and political history of America, and not just the “backwards” south as some may think. Quiet racism only needs subtle encouragement, and it seems that “look what you made me do” fits the criteria perfectly. The song “Look What you made Me Do” evidently speaks to the lower case kkk; and they have embraced it.

The day the song came out, Breitbart jumped on the lyrics on Twitter: “I rose up from the dead, I do it all the time,” a line that they interpreted as racism and racial hatred rising from the dead. Those tired old beliefs about protecting the white race have found new racists to carry the torch (literally) and their beliefs into the 21st century. Breitbart and their loyal followers are central to the movement to be proud of being a racist, white supremacist and have the audacity to equate that with patriotism. And for liberal Bay Area natives like myself, who grew up with a healthy dose of 90’s era “racism is dead” propaganda, it feels like racism has risen from its grave with the stamina of a White Walker. While society at large seemed to reject racism as an abstract concept, the internet provided an “underground” space for racists to congregate without fear of retribution until Donald Trump encouraged them to come out in the open.

Taylor’s are lyrics that connect with whites that are concerned with what they see as the white dispossession of power. Breitbart highlighted another lyric on Twitter, the line, “but I got smarter, I got harder in the nick of time. Honey, I rose up from the dead, I do it all the time.” The lyrics were paired with the image of a story about a loophole for buying AR-15s. And the lyrics speak to even more than just unnecessary gun glorification but also to the white people who have been closeted racists for years.

Later in the song, there is another telling line: “I don’t like your kingdom keys. They once belonged to me. You asked me for a place to sleep. Locked me out and threw a feast (what?).” These lyrics are the most explicit in speaking to white anger and affirming white supremacy. The lyrics speak to the white people resentful of any non-white person having a position of power and privilege. Think of Barack Obama: the fears of white dispossession of power were actualized in his success, which was a huge factor in the appeal of candidate Trump. He is a patriarchal, rich white man that embodied the anger and white supremacist ideology.

From the White House to the streets, chants like, “ you will not replace us” and call and responses like “whose streets” “our streets” were yelled by white men carrying torches in the night in Charlottesville a few short weeks ago are reminiscent of Swift’s lyrics. “I don’t like your kingdom keys, they once belonged to me,” is another way of saying, I will not be replaced and anger over white dispossession of power.

The lyrics validate those who feel that have been wronged, e.g. white people angry about a black president. The chant, “our streets” is similar to saying “you locked me out and threw a feast.” It is about feeling displaced, feeling wronged.

In other words, these lyrics became the voice of the lower case kkk, and Taylor’s sweet, victim image is the perfect vehicle and metaphor for white supremacists’ perceived victimization. With the song at the top of the charts, it makes one wonder: how large is the lower case kkk? How much are people paying attention to the lyrics of the song? It is clear that Breitbart has embraced the song as being a white supremacist anthem, so why wouldn’t Trump’s base — and other white Americans that believe they deserve their white privilege — embrace it as well? And considering Taylor’s fan base is mostly young girls, does the song also serve as indoctrination into white supremacy?

It is hard to believe that Taylor had no idea that the lyrics of her latest single read like a defense of white privilege and white anger — specifically, white people who feel that they are being left behind as other races and groups start to receive dignity and legally recognized rights. “We will not be replaced” and “I don’t like your kingdom keys” are not different in tone or message. Both are saying that whites feel threatened and don’t want to share their privilege. And there is no way to know for sure if Taylor is a Trump supporter or identifies with the white nationalist message, but her silence has not gone unnoticed.

“Quiet racism only needs subtle encouragement, and it seems that ‘look what you made me do’ fits the criteria perfectly.”

Swift is not one for politics. She did not endorse Hillary Clinton until November 8th, 2016 on the eve of the election. She has stayed away from race conversations directly, but her music has been interpreted as racially offensive before. Her song “Shake it Off” has come under fire many times [salon]. The song has long been considered an insult to black America, yet it debuted at the top of the charts and is one of Swift’s biggest hits. It is clear her message of being white, pretty, and consequence-free is one that many in America have embraced. And like the quiet support that Trump received to the surprise of polls, Democrats, and the world, Taylor is giving support to the white nationalist movements through lyrics that speak to their anger, entitlement, and selfishness.

When Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, and Beyonce openly campaigned for Hillary Clinton, Taylor’s political silence appeared to be a rejection of her peers’ support of the inclusive Democrat platform. And when one of the most popular female artists in the world declines to join the many in her field in voicing for progressive politics, it could well be construed as her lending support to the voices rising against embracing diversity and inclusion emblematic of Trump supporters. Further, the single attacks other pop stars in the same way that the alt-right has attacked the “liberal” media. Taylor’s song identifies with the oppressed conservative trope, and the song is indeed their anthem.

Taylor Swift was called “Nazi barbie” by Camille Paglia, who stated that Swift is “a silly, regressive public image of white 50’s America.” That seems to fit nicely with the imagery of the alt-right. Her lyrics are like an affirmation for everything the alt-right has been feeling for years: oppressed, afraid to come out, and made to look like a fool. And now that they feel empowered, it befits the movement to have a white, blonde, conservative pop star that has no doubt been “bullied” by people of color in the media, singing their feelings out loud. And with a president that openly addresses hate groups and justifies racial hatred, this is not a time for neutrality.

And while pop musicians are not respected world leaders, they have a huge audience and their music often reflects their values. So Taylor’s silence is not innocent, it is calculated. And if that is not true, she needs to state her beliefs out loud for the world — no matter what fan base she might lose, because in America 2017, silence in the face of injustice means support for the oppressor.

AS MUCH AS I WOULD LOVE TO SEE KARMA COME TAYLOR SWIFT’S AWAY THIS IS BULLSHIT.

#tAYLOR sWIFT

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disillusioned41 · 4 years

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A week after similar news from Pfizer, the American biotechnology company Moderna announced Monday that a late-stage trial shows its experimental coronavirus vaccine is 94.5% effective, provoking a fresh wave of demands that Big Pharma giants and policymakers worldwide ensure that any Covid-19 vaccine developed using taxpayer money and government support be safe, free, and available to all.

"This is a pivotal moment in the development of our Covid-19 vaccine candidate," Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said in a statement. "Since early January, we have chased this virus with the intent to protect as many people around the world as possible. All along, we have known that each day matters. This positive interim analysis from our phase 3 study has given us the first clinical validation that our vaccine can prevent Covid-19 disease, including severe disease."

An independent board appointed by the National Institutes of Health analyzed the trial results for the Moderna vaccine, which was developed in collaboration with the Vaccine Research Center, part of NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The institute's director, Dr. Anthony Fauci, told the New York Times on Monday that "aspirationally, you would like to see 90, 95%, but I wasn't expecting it. I thought we'd be good, but 94.5% is very impressive."

Moderna plans to apply for emergency use authorization with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) "in the coming weeks" and hopes to have 20 million doses ready by the end of the year, then manufacture 500 to one billion doses in 2021. Like the vaccine developed by the American pharmaceutical company Pfizer and German drugmaker BioNTech—which a phase 3 study found may be more than 90% effective—each person requires two doses.

Campaigners pointed out on Monday that many of Moderna's doses have already been claimed by wealthy countries. According to the London-based group Global Justice Now, 780 million doses have been sold to rich governments, or 78% of the billion doses the company says it can produce by the end up next year.

"We welcome any good news when it comes to a coronavirus breakthrough, but sadly most of the world cannot celebrate today," said Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now. "Moderna's is predicted to be the most expensive potential vaccine on the market, at around $35 a dose, even though it has been made with vast public support. The U.S. government has spent over $1 billion in direct support alone. What's more, well over 78% of what Moderna is likely to produce has already been sold to very wealthy countries."

"At the end of the day these vaccines are a big part of our route out of this crisis," Dearden added. "We appreciate that Moderna has said it won't enforce patents as long the pandemic continues, but this alone is not sufficient to ensure this vaccine benefits humanity. This is truly a taxpayer funded vaccine and should be placed in the public sphere through the World Health Organization so the whole world can benefit."

Amnesty International detailed in a statement that the United States has paid for 100 million doses from Moderna, with an option of 500 million more, while Canada has ordered 56 million, Japan has ordered 50 million, and the European Commission completed talks with the company for up to 160 million.

"Having already sold most of its potential 2021 vaccine supply to rich countries, Moderna must follow through on its promise to allow others to make the vaccine, and provide the knowledge and technology to do so, once the vaccine has proven to be safe and effective," declared Stephen Cockburn, head of Amnesty's Economic and Social Justice Program.

Noting last week's announcement, Cockburn argued that "companies like Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech have a responsibility to respect human rights, and they should play a leading role towards a global solution to Covid-19 by sharing and ensuring affordable prices. They must not act in a way that allows governments to hoard vaccines for a privileged few."

"We can only put an end to Covid-19 if companies ensure that those most in need of life-saving vaccines are not left behind. It's time for companies to live up to their human rights responsibilities and ensure the widest possible access to their innovations," he added, echoing a warning last week from United Nations human rights experts.

As Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen's Access to Medicines program, put it Monday: "This is the people's vaccine. The NIH's vaccine. It is not merely Moderna's vaccine. Federal scientists helped invent it and taxpayers are funding its development. We all have played a role. It should belong to humanity."

Maybarduk directed his message to both outgoing President Donald Trump—who has yet to publicly accept the results of the November 3 election—and President-elect Joe Biden, who said earlier this month that "I want everyone to know on day one, we're going to put our plan to control this virus into action."

According to Maybarduk, "Both the current administration and President-elect Biden have the opportunity to make this vaccine a public good that is free and available to all and help scale up global manufacturing, in order to prevent medical rationing that could become a form of global vaccine apartheid."

"If the NIH vaccine proves safe and effective, it could be one of the most important medical tools of our time. But limited supply could keep this vaccine out of reach for billions of people worldwide, extending their suffering for several years," he warned.

In a separate statement Monday about a new Public Citizen report, Maybarduk delivered a similar message to the global community, saying that "in the worst health crisis in a century, vaccine funders must use every tool at their disposal to share technology and teach the world to make vaccines."

The report, authored by Public Citizen law & policy researcher Zain Rizvi, focuses on the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), which is made up of foundations and governments and co-leads the WHO's Covid-19 vaccine access facility, known as COVAX. The report says in part:

No one corporation can supply the world with a vaccine. CEPI—and COVAX—should make all their contracts publicly available, and enforce corporate compliance with their equitable access conditions. They should also leverage the full extent of their existing authority to increase technology transfer and scale-up affordable supply. Moving forward, they should coordinate with the WHO's sister initiative, the Covid-19 technology access pool, to openly share technology, so that all qualified manufacturers are able to scale-up access.

"CEPI and COVAX should live up to their stated commitments to transparency," Rizvi said Monday. "Accountability begins with transparency."

As of Monday afternoon, there were more than 54.6 million Covid-19 cases and 1.32 million deaths worldwide. The United States continues to lead both counts, with over 11 million infections and 246,500 deaths. With surges occurring nationwide, some state leaders are imposing or reimposing restrictions.

#Common Dreams #us politics #covid 19 #coronavirus #Healthcare #vaxine

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lifebydesign66 · 4 years

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White Supremacy Culture

TAKING IT PERSONAL: WHITE SUPREMACY CULTURE

As a queer-identified, able-bodied and cisgendered woman with class and race privilege, I strive to prioritize naming how social locations shape the ways we move and show up in our lives. I believe those of us with privilege(s) are presented with opportunities to examine our values and actions with honesty, humility and openness. My hope with this imperfect piece is to enliven anti-racist study and exploration. Focusing on racial formation and white supremacy culture in this writing is intentional, however, is not meant to downplay or discount the role of intersecting categories of gender, sexual orientation, ability, nationality/immigration status, age, class or religion. In upcoming pieces, I will discuss interlocking systems of privilege and oppression, the origins of identity politics and delve deeper into white supremacy culture.

DEFINING TERMS

White supremacy culture is the idea (ideology) that white people and the ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and actions of white people are superior to People of Color and their ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and actions.

White supremacy culture is an artificial, historically constructed culture which expresses, justifies and binds together the United States white supremacy system. It is the glue that binds together white-controlled institutions into systems and white-controlled systems into the global white supremacy system. [from Sharon Martinas and the Challenging White Supremacy Workshop] (1)

UNEARTHING MY PRIVILEGE

I didn’t grow up wanting to be a psychotherapist. As far back as I can remember, I’ve loved dinosaurs. The movie Jurassic Park came out in 1993, but I am almost positive I knew the word “paleontologist” before then. I remember sitting in a ditch, filling a small plastic tube--the ones used to hold a single rose--with dirt. I grew up going to museums, zoos and libraries. I saw people who looked like me, white and sometimes women, in positions of authority, which gave me a sense of choice and possibility. My life reflected the race, class, citizenship and gender-conforming privileges of my family, privileges with violent histories.

MY UNSPOKEN QUESTIONS ABOUT PRIVILEGE

As a child, messages about cultural acceptance were confusing at best. My Southern California elementary school had a “Multicultural Day” every year where we learned about celebrations and food from around the world. At the same time, I didn’t understand why people around me were so angry when families came to the United States from Mexico. Many of my classmates were from Mexico and Latin America. There were palpable rifts in the process of making friends. There were also moments of possibility. I remember proudly singing songs in Spanish, dressed up as a fairy in a musical production of “Hansel and Gretel.” Something changed in my fourth grade year when suddenly we weren’t speaking Spanish anymore at school. Instead, we focused on glorifying the genocidal California Mission system. Nationalism, racism and xenophobia prevailed and the rift became an abyss. As I look back, there were moments when a part of me felt uneasy and had questions about the messages I heard from the media, from family members and at school about my classmates and their families, yet I wasn’t even sure how to form the words.

GETTING UNCOMFORTABLE ANSWERS ABOUT WHITE SUPREMACY CULTURE

Those gut-wrenching “something is wrong here” sensations continued, building up as my home life became increasingly scary and unpredictable. Ultimately, my privilege gave me the opportunity to understand my privilege. The private high school I went to effectively prepared me to attend a state college. My intention was to become a wildlife biologist. Barely a semester into college, that plan began to unravel. Too many questions went unanswered. My first sociology class was like a gateway drug. I needed to understand and Ethnic Studies made the most sense of the world. Native American Studies, Ethnic Studies including Black, Latinx and Asian-American Studies and Women’s Studies arose out of demands for higher education to prioritize the knowledge and experiences within these communities. What I learned was shocking, disorienting and powerful. Coming to terms with having been lied to all your life is overwhelming. Where to direct all the anger, sadness and guilt? Part of my answer was--and is-- to stay committed to understanding, reflecting and acting.

WHY RACE WAS INVENTED

In their pivotal text Racial Formation in the United States, Omi and Winant stress that “the emergence of a modern conception of race does not occur until the rise of Europe and the arrival of Europeans in the Americas” (2, p.61). When power-hungry European businessmen came into contact with indigenous civilizations, they found a way to justify mass murder by religious doctrine. Later, when conditions in the United States changed, “European colonial powers established “white” as a legal concept in 1676 after Bacon’s Rebellion, during which indentured servants of European and African descent united against the colonial elite” (3, p.125). Then the wealthy European settler-colonialists gave “white” servants privileges, like land, access to guns and the ability to form militias, effectively squashing the possibility of overthrowing them. Laws made by the wealthy for the wealthy changed the once shared conditions of people from different geographic locations (4). Hence, race is an ever-changing category, created to maintain wealth and power for social, political and economic purposes, enshrined in every aspect of society.

UNDERSTANDING THE SMOG OF CULTURAL RACISM

As Beverly Daniel Tatum explains in her book Why are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? (5), “cultural racism” is a part of our collective experience because it is “like smog in the air.” This smog is made up of “the cultural images and messages that affirm the assumed superiority of Whites and the assumed inferiority of people of color” (p.6). Dr. Daniel Tatum offers countless examples of the ways in which these unspoken and direct messages, from very early in life, shape identity development. In other words, the smog of cultural racism creates the conditions of how we understand ourselves and one another.

TAKING IT PERSONAL: REFLECTIONS TO CONSIDER

How have you noticed the social/political/economic categories of race shift in your lifetime?

What does the “smog” represent to you?

How does the smog of cultural racism show up in your life?

What does it mean to be aware of white supremacy culture?

There are no swift solutions to doing the work of acknowledging privilege. It is an engaged process of openness to unknown and uncomfortable experiences. Over and over, mistakes will be made. What do you need to keep going?

In my client-centered work, I strive to maintain an awareness and respect for personal experiences and intersectional identities. I believe healing happens in powerful community action and when we invite ourselves to be fully honest and aware.

by Ashley Gregory, LMFT

#white supremacy #racism #blacklivesmatter #humanity #human right

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bigyack-com · 5 years

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DealBook: Will It Be Billionaire vs. Billionaire in the 2020 Election?

Good morning. Charles Schwab said it would acquire TD Ameritrade for $26 billion — a deal that brings together two of the largest online brokerage firms totaling roughly $5 trillion in assets. (Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here.)

Michael Bloomberg joins the presidential race

Michael Bloomberg announced yesterday that he would run for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, bringing his huge personal fortune and moderate views to an already crowded race, the NYT’s Alexander Burns writes.He is presenting himself as a multibillion-dollar threat to President Trump. The current president “represents an existential threat to our country and our values,” Mr. Bloomberg said in a statement.• “Defeating Donald Trump — and rebuilding America — is the most urgent and important fight of our lives,” Mr. Bloomberg said.Mr. Bloomberg, 77, faces immense obstacles to winning the Democratic nomination, Mr. Burns writes, including:• Political baggage that includes a complex array of business entanglements• A history of making demeaning comments about women• A record of championing law enforcement policies that disproportionately targeted black and Latino menHis delayed start will leave him scrambling to catch up with other candidates. “As a result, he plans to mount an unconventional primary campaign, bypassing the earliest primary and caucus states, like Iowa and New Hampshire in February, and focusing instead on the delegate-rich March primaries in states such as California and Texas,” Mr. Burns writes.And critics of the wealthy are already lining up. “We do not believe that billionaires have the right to buy elections,” Senator Bernie Sanders, himself a Democratic candidate, said at a rally yesterday, adding: “Multibillionaires like Mr. Bloomberg are not going to get very far in this election.”More: News outlets for Bloomberg L.P., the financial data company owned in large part by Mr. Bloomberg, will not do in-depth investigations of him or any of his Democratic rivals.____________________________Today’s DealBook Briefing was written by Andrew Ross Sorkin, Jamie Condliffe and Gregory Schmidt.____________________________

Uber’s future in London is under threat

Transportation authorities in London announced today that they would not extend Uber’s taxi operating license, Megan Specia of the NYT reports.• Uber originally lost its London license in 2017 because of safety concerns, but was granted a 15-month extension and then a further two-month extension to improve.• But Transport for London said that the company was not “fit and proper” as a license holder, despite the changes made by Uber.The decision does not immediately remove Uber from the streets. The company has 21 days to appeal — which it says it will do, calling the decision “extraordinary and wrong” — and can continue to operate throughout the process.But it does throw into question Uber’s future in London, which is the company’s biggest European market.

The French luxury giant LVMH will buy Tiffany

LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the world’s largest luxury goods company, announced today that it would buy Tiffany & Company for $16.2 billion. It is the largest deal ever in the luxury sector.The agreement comes after weeks of tense discussions between the two companies, which saw LVMH increase its offer to $135 from $120 per share.LVMH gets a prominent American brand from the deal. It already owns names like Dior, Givenchy, Fendi, Château d’Yquem and Dom Pérignon.It signifies LVMH’s increasing interest beyond traditional luxury softgoods like clothing and leather products, Vanessa Friedman, Elizabeth Paton and Andrew write in the NYT, following its purchase of Bulgari in 2011. And it solidifies the reputation of Bernard Arnault, who controls LVMH, as the most aggressive and acquisitive deal-maker in luxury.• It also ends Tiffany’s 182-year history as a stand-alone brand, and reflects the difficulty of remaining independent in an age of increasing consolidation.The deal will also bolster the efforts of both companies in China, where they are competing to tap into the spending power of newly wealthy Chinese consumers.

Is a ‘Phase 2’ trade deal with China wishful thinking?

President Trump’s stated aim for his administration’s trade negotiations with China is to reach a “Phase 1” agreement that solves some of the biggest issues between the two nations, before diving into talks for a “Phase 2” deal that addresses other disagreements. But according to Reuters, the second part could be a long way off.• “The difficulties in getting the first stage done, combined with the White House’s reluctance to work with other countries to pressure Beijing, are dimming hopes for anything more ambitious in the near future,” Reuters writes, citing unnamed sources.• “Officials in Beijing say they don’t anticipate sitting down to discuss a Phase 2 deal before the U.S. election, in part because they want to wait to see if Trump wins a second term.”The first part of the deal is “easy stuff,” according to Representative Jim Costa, Democrat of California. It’s focused on Chinese commitments to buy agricultural products and roll back tariffs. But the second part includes more complicated issues like industrial espionage, forced transfer of technology and checks to ensure those commitments are upheld.It’s “technically possible, but hard to imagine” a “Phase 2” deal being negotiated in the next year, Josh Kallmer, a former official with the U.S. Trade Representative’s office, told Reuters.More: Mr. Trump said that the Hong Kong protests were a “complicating factor” in trade negotiations. And China said that it would raise penalties on violations of intellectual property rights.

U.S. businesses pull back on investment

In an uncertain business environment, many companies are pulling back on capital investment spending, which could put a damper on economic growth, write Theo Francis and Thomas Gryta in the WSJ.The withdrawal began last fall, when trade tensions created unease among businesses, and continued this year as the global economy showed signs of slowing growth.• “Some companies have warned it could continue into next year, when the presidential and congressional election is expected to add even more uncertainty to business decision-making,” the reporters write.Twelve percent of businesses cut or delayed capital spending in the first half of 2019 because of trade tensions, double the rate in the first half of 2018, the Atlanta Fed found. And spending by S&P 500 companies rose less than 1 percent in the third quarter from the second quarter, according to data from S&P Dow Jones Indices.Some projects have been merely delayed, but others are permanently lost, said Nicholas Bloom, an economist at Stanford University. “I think there is a real long-run cost to U.S. growth,” he said.More: Investors are looking past weak data and trade snags, convinced that actions by central banks and a trade deal will keep stocks moving higher.

Private equity’s lesson from Taylor Swift’s music rights fight

When Taylor Swift invoked Carlyle, one of the world’s biggest private equity firms, in a disagreement about her music rights, she sucked the company’s portfolio managers into a world of deal-making where they feel more than a little uncomfortable, Kate Kelly, Joe Coscarelli and Ben Sisario of the NYT report.• In an open letter, Ms. Swift said that the new owners of her former record company were trying to prevent her from playing her old hits.• Ms. Swift said she was “especially asking for help” in solving the problem from the Carlyle Group, which helped back the music manager Scooter Braun in taking over Ms. Swift’s music catalog, via the acquisition of the record label Big Machine.Carlyle reportedly “moved quickly to encourage a deal between the two sides and urged Mr. Braun to reach out to Ms. Swift,” Ms. Kelly, Mr. Coscarelli and Mr. Sisario write.• People on both sides of the disagreement say that Carlyle’s intervention “has brought the bitter fight closer to a resolution.”• “According to the four people close to the discussions, a deal could take various forms, including a partnership or joint-venture arrangement.”But Ms. Swift is thought to want possession of her master recordings from Big Machine, which could cost her hundreds of millions of dollars.There may be a lesson for Carlyle here. “People in private equity look at music copyrights and think, ‘It’s like real estate,’ but it’s not,” said Matt Pincus, the founder of Songs Music Publishing, which was sold in 2017. “You’re dealing with living, breathing artists.”

Can the web’s inventor also fix it?

Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web 30 years ago. And now he’s started a plan to save it.• He had hoped his invention would be used for “the purpose of serving humanity,” he writes in an NYT Op-Ed.• But “communities are being ripped apart as prejudice, hate and disinformation are peddled online,” while “scammers use the web to steal identities, stalkers use it to harass and intimidate their victims, and bad actors subvert democracy using clever digital tactics,” he adds.So Mr. Berners-Lee has unveiled a Contract for the Web, which he describes as a “global plan of action created over the past year by activists, academics, companies, governments and citizens from across the world to make sure our online world is safe, empowering and genuinely for everyone.”• It asks businesses to ensure that the internet is affordable and accessible, that they respect and protect people’s privacy and personal data, and develop technologies that support the best in humanity.• Of governments, it asks that citizens be allowed to gain access to the internet freely at all times, without fear about how their data is collected and used.“Governments must stop blaming platforms for inaction, and companies must become more constructive in shaping future regulation — not just opposing it,” Mr. Berners-Lee writes.

Revolving door

Maurice Lévy, chairman of the advertising company Publicis, was named as WeWork’s interim chief marketing officer. He said that he initially “rejected the idea.”The accounting firm EY may lay off up to 100 members of its financial consulting unit, after a decline in work and a drop-off in fees from regulatory advice.

The speed read

Deals• The pharmaceutical company Novartis reached a deal to buy the Medicines Company, a maker of cholesterol drugs, for $9.7 billion. (Bloomberg)• HP refused to open its books to Xerox and again rejected the company’s $33 billion buyout offer. (FT)• The parent company of the Indian mobile-payments start-up Paytm secured $1 billion in funding from SoftBank and Ant Financial. (Reuters)• SoftBank’s offer to buy stock from founders, investors and employees at WeWork will reportedly go ahead this week. (Reuters)Trump impeachment inquiry • Democratic lawmakers have begun writing a report on their findings from the impeachment hearings but still could hear more testimony. (Reuters)• Representative Devin Nunes, an outspoken defender of President Trump in the hearings, said that reports that he played a role in the effort to dig up dirt on Joe Biden in Ukraine were part of a criminal campaign against him by a “totally corrupt” news media. (NYT)• Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, reportedly asked officials in the budget office whether there was a legal justification for withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine. (NYT)U.S. politics and policy• Mark Cuban, the billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks, bought the domain name democracy.com “to make sure someone didn’t do something crazy with it.” (NYT)• How a Facebook employee helped President Trump win in 2016, and why he switched sides for 2020. (WSJ)• Defense Secretary Mark Esper demanded the resignation of the Navy’s top civilian leader, an abrupt move aimed at ending an extraordinary dispute between Mr. Trump and his own senior military leadership over the fate of a SEAL commando in a war crimes case. (NYT)• Venture capitalists, start-up founders and tech workers have warmed to Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind. (FT)Global politics • In the wake of protests, more than half of the 452 seats in yesterday’s Hong Kong local district council elections flipped from pro-Beijing to pro-democracy candidates. (NYT)• The British Conservative Party unveiled its manifesto ahead of the Dec. 12 general election. It’s focused on Brexit, and includes only modest promises to increase spending. (FT)Tech• Researchers are creating tools to find A.I.-generated fake videos before they become impossible to detect — but is it a losing battle? (NYT)• The F.C.C. voted to ban cellular carriers from using federal subsidies to buy equipment from Huawei and ZTE, claiming that the Chinese companies endanger national security. (NYT )• Elon Musk claimed that Tesla has already received 200,000 orders for its new electric pickup truck. (Reuters)• Is Qualcomm’s dominance in wireless chips a threat to U.S. national security? (WSJ)Best of the rest• How Juul hooked a generation on nicotine. Also, President Trump has argued that banning flavored vaping products such as those made by the company could just lead to a flood of counterfeit alternatives. (NYT)• Canadian officials have called for the removal of the MCAS software, which has been implicated in fatal crashes, from Boeing’s 737 Max jets. (NYT)• As plant-based burgers take off, the beef industry is trying to clean up its image as a polluter. (Bloomberg)• When federal agents raided a secluded resort owned by the U.A.W. in August, it signaled that they were not done with their yearslong investigation into corruption at the union. (NYT)• “Europe’s four biggest investment banks cut $280 billion of assets from their main U.S. holding companies in the past three years.” (FT)• Roger Federer’s retirement gig: sneakers? (NYT)Thanks for reading! We’ll see you tomorrow.We’d love your feedback. Please email thoughts and suggestions to [email protected]. Source link Read the full article

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xxbalamazxx · 5 years

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Capitalism Is The New Communism!

Yes, you read the title right, I said it, Capitalism is the New Communism. In the manner that it is broken, outdated and now no longer a tool of progression rather that of oppression. It is no longer a method, system of the ideal growth of wealth which benefits all. It is now the chains we once fought against. It has been corrupted, perverted, it has been turned into a literal weapon of war. For those that snarl at this, one-word “Sanctions”. Capitalism hurts more then it helps. The base Idealism of capitalism is sound, it is strong. It works in two methods and unlike other systems has a benefit that is supposed to help all. But today it harms more then it helps on all levels. And before I break it down for you, understand there is a difference between Capitalism and Euro-Capitalism.

Basic Capitalism: 1st Basic Principle of capitalism: The capitalist acquires an asset, object, land or anything of value at a minimum cost. (This in itself is harmful as it prevents just and fair wages, often leading into modern slavery.) The Capitalist then resells the object at twice the purchase value. Example: If one buys a Twinkie for $0.25 they resell it at $0.50 this allows for the growth of profit and wealth. 2nd Principle: An asset should be sold at the lowest profitable value. It is better to sell 1000 objects at 100% mark up to make the max profit. Then to sell an asset at a 1000% mark up. (Think wall-mart and most major retail stores.) This prevents assets from sitting in stock. It distributes the product at a fast rate and keeps everything affordable… Example: Twinkie $0.25 product Value, sold at $0.50 retail value. It more people can afford $ 0.50, you can sell millions if not billions in a month. But if you were to mark it up by 1000% that Twinkie becomes $5.00, fewer people are inclined to buy it. The ratio of what you gain vs what you spend is not an equal exchange. So where you may sell 1 Twinkie a day in this case for $5.00. You will only make $150 a month. Fewer sales more profit. But when the Twinkie is $0.50 you will need 300 sales to make up the same amount. The likeliness is, however, you will sell 300 twinkies a day. Thus making more profit. The company benefits and so do the people.

3rd (now Ignored) Principle: A happy worker is a productive worker. A direct worker of a company should share in the profit of that company. This in essence used to mean that as the business became more wealthy so did the workers. Unlike modern-day corporate agents which continue to chokehold employees. Example: In the old formula practices by capitalists, if a company made $100 a week, the company would half the value of profit to $50, this was the intake for the company. The $50 would pay the board and be kept as profit for the company coffer. The other $50 would be divided up among the employees. This also meant if the company made $1000 in a week $500 would be divided, Employees now made more. As the company became

more profitable so did the workers. Now what occurs is if a company makes $ 100, $1.00 is taken off and dived between the workers. The company splits $99.00 leaving nothing for the business itself. This is why companies such as Hanafords, Tesco, Shop & Save, Save A lot, Argos, Walmart CEO's make billions a year. Yet with one economic bump, they crumble and collapse. They set no profit padding, the people are not working harder as there is no incentive… The system is now destroyed. Euro Capitalism: What we are seeing today is what many would call EURO Capitalism or Euro Economics. This process has taken global businessmen by storm. Unlike traditional capitalism, it only has 1 principle. The Principle: Everything is worth what the consumer will pay, or is forced to pay. This is how we now end up with 1000% markups on necessities such as clothes and food. Why we now pay for water and out of control energy prices. They create supply and demand. They have the supply and you have the demand. Because without the necessities you die… As such Capitalism at its most basic core is dead. What we have now are people on a global level being paid just enough to live week to week, most of the time not even that. Most of the time it requires two incomes. So, in essence, it puts the average worker in a cycle of Live to work and work to live. Never getting ahead, not even the illusion of gain is being given. Unless you willing to rob someone or extort them you will never make a profit.

When one is paid just enough to live, but nothing else and thus they need to work to live. This is called slavery. It forces you to obey everything you are commanded to do. You have no savings to get out of the work cycle. No savings for a vacation. You cannot save up for a pension, you cannot afford to look for a new job. All you can afford is to eat the minimal, buy the cheapest and then go to work. This is slavery, in its literal definition. Don’t believe you are a slave? Don’t believe me? African American Slaves, Roman slaves, European slaves all lived the same way… They were given the most minimal of clothes ( Usually potato sacks with holes cut in.) They were fed just enough to allow them to work. They were worked nearly 60 hours a week like you. While never gaining from it, just like you. They could never get ahead. They could never buy themselves out of servitude. However unlike most Americans, but exactly like the Europeans and British, at least they got health care, for the most part, the plantation owners rationalize this as keeping their investment working. What can we do?

The issue here is not just Capitalism, it is the concept of currency, it is outdate. Now, most things are produced through robotics. Food is picked in the most part by 1 man with a large machine, if not completely automated robotics. Assembly lines are monitored by just 3 people as the machines do the work. There is not much that most do outside of design, art, and music, that a machine cannot. For this reason, currency is no longer needed. It is now just a system of oppression. Currency was invented as an incentive to keep people working and socially active and taking care of themselves. We don’t need to do that now. We have machines that do that for us. We need to rethink how we see the world. We need to exchange mandatory currency with something like a credit system, where the average person receives the “ base amount to live” as a mandatory right. Everything after that should be extra from working. No longer should we have a system to put the next generation in chains… Not when you are making $5-$10 an hour while the CEO is Making $14,000,000.000 a year… At minimal, we should be holding them accountable and force that money back to where it belongs. Into your pockets! Into the pockets of those that actually do the work! Read the full article

#capitalism #communism

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alanjporterart · 5 years

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"THE FUTURE, what have I been given to see? I've said in a number of previous blogs, I've seen football results within minutes, or witnessed a future event materialise in days, weeks and even years. In other words, I have no control of how they appear, and I assume strongly, there is a meaning and purpose of why I've been given to receive such images. Again, I reiterate, this gift has been with me all my life, and all events I'm given, do come true. I could write quiet a long thesis on seeing into the future, and the mechanics of how future events unfold and how impending catastrophes can be averted. In my book in 2005,"My Journey with Joseph," there is such a case made by Albert Einstein, who has frequently communicated with me. This sounds unbelievable, but no more than the already few stories, I've mentioned in the previous blogs. I want to talk of the future with Russia, and as I write this blog it is May 20th 2019. This story with Russia began twenty years ago with myself. It was the time, when Vladimir Putin came to prominence in 1999. One day I was shown to be in his presence, and I stood in a room that had a very ornate high ceiling, where I appeared to be in a palace. These various visions of many events I had come many times, when I was in a sleep state, or as I believe in a higher state of consciousness. When I received such visions I'm woken up and so many times at precisely 4.00am. Over these past years, I've been told and shown many things, that are related to Vladimir Putin. You may think it is all bad, but you would be wrong. It's as though what is communicated to me, it is somehow to be passed onto, to help him. In 2004 in Beslan Russia, seven hundred and seventy seven children, teachers and others were taken hostage. This evil act was a revenge attack by Chechnya rebels, where 334 of the hostages were killed, many were children. Again, at exactly 4.00am I received a message saying, at that specific time Vladimir Putin was the most pressurised leader on the planet. I was given a feeling, there was help for him in the coming years a head.

During my time in Banska Bystrica, Slovakia, from mid 2011 to the end of 2014, I received many messages and visions to be given to Vladimir Putin. All I may say, were to give him help. During this time by email to his department, that deals with requests to see him failed. I corresponded thirteen times to try and personally meet him during these years. I did not get a reply. But in a message in 2012, it was revealed to me that he was chosen with four other world leaders who would find theirselves in a THEATRE OF CRISIS. Today that theatre of crisis for all five is inflamed even more. I was given to see in the future, that in 2027 Russia's fortunes could be changed in a way which could not be even visualised or imagined today. I was shown and told that Russia would experience a revolution of inventions, in all arts and sciences. Entrepreneurs would grow the economy to such an extent, that thousands would be induced to go, live and prosper with the promise of the land in Russia. The area of land I talk of would be close to the Chinese border, where the Russian population is small, comparative to the size of the country. This seismic energy will grow from St. Petersburg from the present young generation. I'm given to believe that old enlightened souls from great figures of Russia's past have returned to transform present day Russia. This future cannot and will not occur, if I cannot get to see personally Vladimir Putin. This particular vision of the future for Russia holds a lot more, than what I've just disclosed. There have been many, who have had visions in the past, and the distance in time, when such things were originaly given, were far further into the future, that gave people a comfort zone, to those at that particular time and place. I'm afraid to say, we are not in that comfort zone now, and I have to believe why I'm given such urgency in this moment and time. The new future for Russia, could be under the leadership of President Putin. This message, if acted upon, would bring a new renaissance of prosperity to touch every Russian citizen. History has shown how much the people of Russia have suffered. I have been shown change that will touch Europe, which will see Russia play a big part in the European Union which is presently flawed. The new Russia will have close links with Great Britain, because their present political system is finished. The Russian people will see almost all its wealth returned by those oligarchs, who exploited and took advantage of the situation when President Yeltsin was in power. These oligarchs will have an offer made to them saying, "They will bring their expertise back to Russia with their wealth, which belonged to the Russian people." They would be allowed to keep ten percent of their investments and employ their skills and ideas in making Russia and its people happy and its country wealthy. Russia would become a power of doing good in this world. This is a small glimpse of what I've seen for Russia, which is all conditional on the decisions that will be made. These changes are the same for other countries too, there is another peaceful way forward for every manmade problem that exists. It is my belief, that the nature of humankind can cooperate and prosper together with each other. The present divisions with different religions and faiths can be realigned in the future, that will dismiss further conflicts and wars. Such thoughts, visions and messages I'm given, cannot be fully interpreted in a blog of this size. The next blog will centre on Germany, as Angela Merkel was one of the five names I was given. "

#alanjporterart #visionary #Vision #message #RUSSIA #vladimir putin #putin #change #future #blogger #blog #facebook #kompas #charity #Help

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bitcointradersreview-blog · 5 years

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What is Cryptocurrency: Monetary properties

1) Controlled supply: Most cryptocurrencies limit the supply of the tokens. In Bitcoin, the supply decreases in time and will reach its final number sometime around the year 2140. All cryptocurrencies control the supply of the token by a schedule written in the code. This means the monetary supply of a cryptocurrency in every given moment in the future can roughly be calculated today. There is no surprise.

2) No debt but bearer: The Fiat-money on your bank account is created by debt, and the numbers, you see on your ledger represent nothing but debts. It‘s a system of IOU. Cryptocurrencies don‘t represent debts. They just represent themselves. They are money as hard as coins of gold.

To understand the revolutionary impact of cryptocurrencies you need to consider both properties. Bitcoin as a permissionless, irreversible and pseudonymous means of payment is an attack on the control of banks and governments over the monetary transactions of their citizens. You can‘t hinder someone to use Bitcoin, you can‘t prohibit someone to accept a payment, you can‘t undo a transaction.

What is Cryptocurrency:

As money with a limited, controlled supply that is not changeable by a government, a bank or any other central institution, cryptocurrencies attack the scope of the monetary policy. They take away the control central banks take on inflation or deflation by manipulating the monetary supply.

Sarah Granger. Cryptocurrency “While it’s still fairly new and unstable relative to the gold standard, cryptocurrency is definitely gaining traction and will most certainly have more normalized uses in the next few years. Right now, in particular, it’s increasing in popularity with the post-election market uncertainty. The key will be in making it easy for large-scale adoption (as with anything involving crypto) including developing safeguards and protections for buyers/investors. I expect that within two years, we’ll be in a place where people can shove their money under the virtual mattress through cryptocurrency, and they’ll know that wherever they go, that money will be there.” – Sarah Granger, Author, and Speaker.

Cryptocurrencies: Dawn of a New Economy Mostly due to its revolutionary properties cryptocurrencies have become a success their inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto, didn‘t dare to dream of it. While every other attempt to create a digital cash system didn‘t attract a critical mass of users, Bitcoin had something that provoked enthusiasm and fascination. Sometimes it feels more like religion than technology.

what is cryptocurrency Cryptocurrencies are digital gold. Sound money that is secure from political influence. Money that promises to preserve and increase its value over time. Cryptocurrencies are also a fast and comfortable means of payment with a worldwide scope, and they are private and anonymous enough to serve as a means of payment for black markets and any other outlawed economic activity.

But while cryptocurrencies are more used for payment, its use as a means of speculation and a store of value dwarfs the payment aspects. Cryptocurrencies gave birth to an incredibly dynamic, fast-growing market for investors and speculators. Exchanges like Okcoin, poloniex or shapeshift enables the trade of hundreds of cryptocurrencies. Their daily trade volume exceeds that of major European stock exchanges.

At the same time, the praxis of Initial Coin Distribution (ICO), mostly facilitated by Ethereum‘s smart contracts, gave life to incredibly successful crowdfunding projects, in which often an idea is enough to collect millions of dollars. In the case of “The DAO” it has been more than 150 million dollars.

In this rich ecosystem of coins and token, you experience extreme volatility. It‘s common that a coin gains 10 percent a day – sometimes 100 percent – just to lose the same at the next day. If you are lucky, your coin‘s value grows up to 1000 percent in one or two weeks.

While Bitcoin remains by far the most famous cryptocurrency and most other cryptocurrencies have zero non-speculative impact, investors and users should keep an eye on several cryptocurrencies. Here we present the most popular cryptocurrencies of today.

What is Cryptocurrency

Source: coinmarketcap

Bitcoin

The one and only, the first and most famous cryptocurrency. Bitcoin serves as a digital gold standard in the whole cryptocurrency-industry, is used as a global means of payment and is the de-facto currency of cyber-crime like darknet markets or ransomware. After seven years in existence, Bitcoin‘s price has increased from zero to more than 650 Dollar, and its transaction volume reached more than 200.000 daily transactions.

There is not much more to say: Bitcoin is here to stay.

Ethereum

The brainchild of young crypto-genius Vitalik Buterin has ascended to the second place in the hierarchy of cryptocurrencies. Other than Bitcoin its blockchain does not only validate a set of accounts and balances but of so-called states. This means that Ethereum can not only process transactions but complex contracts and programs.

This flexibility makes Ethereum the perfect instrument for blockchain -application. But it comes at a cost. After the Hack of the DAO – an Ethereum based smart contract – the developers decided to do a hard fork without consensus, which resulted in the emerge of Ethereum Classic. Besides this, there are several clones of Ethereum, and Ethereum itself is a host of several Tokens like DigixDAO and Augur. This makes Ethereum more a family of cryptocurrencies than a single currency.

Ripple

Maybe the less popular – or most hated – project in the cryptocurrency community is Ripple. While Ripple has a native cryptocurrency – XRP – it is more about a network to process IOUs than the cryptocurrency itself. XRP, the currency, doesn‘t serve as a medium to store and exchange value, but more as a token to protect the network against spam.

Ripple Labs created every XRP-token, the company running the Ripple network, and is distributed by them on will. For this reason, Ripple is often called pre-mined in the community and dissed as no real cryptocurrency, and XRP is not considered as a good store of value.

Banks, however, seem to like Ripple. At least they adopt the system with an increasing pace.

Litecoin

Litecoin was one of the first cryptocurrencies after Bitcoin and tagged as the silver to the digital gold bitcoin. Faster than bitcoin, with a larger amount of token and a new mining algorithm, Litecoin was a real innovation, perfectly tailored to be the smaller brother of bitcoin. “It facilitated the emerge of several other cryptocurrencies which used its codebase but made it, even more, lighter“. Examples are Dogecoin or Feathercoin.

While Litecoin failed to find a real use case and lost its second place after bitcoin, it is still actively developed and traded and is hoarded as a backup if Bitcoin fails.

Monero

Monero is the most prominent example of the cryptonite algorithm. This algorithm was invented to add the privacy features Bitcoin is missing. If you use Bitcoin, every transaction is documented in the blockchain and the trail of transactions can be followed. With the introduction of a concept called ring-signatures, the cryptonite algorithm was able to cut through that trail.

The first implementation of cryptonite, Bytecoin, was heavily premined and thus rejected by the community. Monero was the first non-premined clone of bytecoin and raised a lot of awareness. There are several other incarnations of cryptonote with their own little improvements, but none of it did ever achieve the same popularity as Monero.

Monero‘s popularity peaked in summer 2016 when some darknetmarkets decided to accept it as a currency. This resulted in a steady increase in the price, while the actual usage of Monero seems to remain disappointingly small.

Besides those, there are hundreds of cryptocurrencies of several families. Most of them are nothing more than attempts to reach investors and quickly make money, but a lot of them promise playgrounds to test innovations in cryptocurrency-technology.

what is cryptocurrency What is Cryptocurrency: Conclusion The market of cryptocurrencies is fast and wild. Nearly every day new cryptocurrencies emerge, old die, early adopters get wealthy and investors lose money. Every cryptocurrency comes with a promise, mostly a big story to turn the world around. Few survive the first months, and most are pumped and dumped by speculators and live on as zombie coins until the last bagholder loses hope ever to see a return on his investment.

cody-littlewood-and-im-the-founder-and-ceo-of-codelitt“In 2 years from now, I believe cryptocurrencies will be gaining legitimacy as a protocol for business transactions, micropayments, and overtaking Western Union as the preferred remittance tool. Regarding business transactions – you’ll see two paths: There will be financial businesses which use it for it’s no fee, nearly-instant ability to move any amount of money around, and there will be those that utilize it for its blockchain technology. Blockchain technology provides the largest benefit with trustless auditing, single source of truth, smart contracts, and color coins.” – Cody Littlewood, and I’m the founder and CEO of Codelitt Markets are dirty. But this doesn‘t change the fact that cryptocurrencies are here to stay – and here to change the world. This is already happening. People all over the world buy Bitcoin to protect themselves against the devaluation of their national currency. Mostly in Asia, a vivid market for Bitcoin remittance has emerged, and the Bitcoin using darknets of cybercrime are flourishing. More and more companies discover the power of Smart Contracts or token on Ethereum, the first real-world application of blockchain technologies emerge.

The revolution is already happening. Institutional investors start to buy cryptocurrencies. Banks and governments realize that this invention has the potential to draw their control away. Cryptocurrencies change the world. Step by step. You can either stand beside and observe – or you can become part of history in the making.

brad-mills-what-is-cryptocurrency“If the trend continues, the average person will not be able to afford to purchase one whole bitcoin in 2 years. As global economies inflate and markets exhibit signs of recession, the world will turn to Bitcoin as a hedge against fiat turmoil and an escape against capital controls. Bitcoin is the way out, and cryptocurrency as a whole is never going away, it’s going to grow in use and acceptance as it matures.” – Brad Mills: Serial Tech Entrepreneur

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thefortyeightlawsofpower-blog · 7 years

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LAW # 7 : GET OTHERS TO DO THE WORK FOR YOU, BUT ALWAYS TAKE THE CREDIT

JUDGEMENT

Use the wisdom, knowledge, and legwork of other people to further your own cause. Not only will such assistance save you valuable time and energy, it will give you a godlike aura of efficiency and speed. In the end your helpers will be forgotten and you will be remembered. Never do yourself what others can do for you.

TRANSGRESSION AND OBSERVANCE OF THE LAW

In 1883 a young Serbian scientist named Nikola Tesla was working for the European division of the Continental Edison Company. He was a brilliant inventor, and Charles Batchelor, a plant manager and a personal friend of Thomas Edison, persuaded him he should seek his fortune in America, giving him a letter of introduction to Edison himself. So began a life of woe and tribulation that lasted until Tesla’s death.

THE TORTOISE, THE ELEPHANT AND THE HIPPOPOTAMUS

One day the tortoise met the elephant, who trumpeted, “Out of my way, you weakling—I might step on you!” The tortoise was not afraid and stayed where he was, so the elephant stepped on him, but could not crush him. “Do not boast, Mr. Elephant, I am as strong as you are!” said the tortoise, but the elephant just laughed. So the tortoise asked him to come to his hill the next morning. The next day, before sunrise, the tortoise ran down the hill to the river, where he met the hippopotamus, who was just on his way back into the water after his nocturnal feeding. “Mr Hippo! Shall we have a tug-of-war? I bet I’m as strong as you are!” said the tortoise. The hippopotamus laughed at this ridiculous idea, but agreed. The tortoise produced a long rope and told the hippo to hold it in his mouth until the tortoise shouted “Hey!” Then the tortoise ran back up the hill where he found the elephant, who was getting impatient. He gave the elephant the other end of the rope and said, “When I say ‘Hey!’ pull, and you’ll.see which of us is the strongest. ”Then he ran halfway back down the hill, to a place where he couldn’t be seen, and shouted, “Hey!” The elephant and the hippopotamus pulled and pulled, but neither could budge the other-they were of equal strength. They both agreed that the tortoise was as strong as they were. Never do what others can do for you. The tortoise let others do the work for him while he got the credit.

ZAIREAN FABLE

When Tesla met Edison in New York, the famous inventor hired him on the spot. Tesla worked eighteen-hour days, finding ways to improve the primitive Edison dynamos. Finally he offered to redesign them completely. To Edison this seemed a monumental task that could last years without paying off, but he told Tesla, “There’s fifty thousand dollars in it for you—if you can do it.” Tesla labored day and night on the project and after only a year he produced a greatly improved version of the dynamo, complete with automatic controls. He went to Edison to break the good news and receive his $50,000. Edison was pleased with the improvement, for which he and his company would take credit, but when it came to the issue of the money he told the young Serb, “Tesla, you don’t understand our American humor!,” and offered a small raise instead.

Tesla’s obsession was to create an alternating-current system (AC) of electricity. Edison believed in the direct-current system (DC), and not only refused to support Tesla’s research but later did all he could to sabotage him. Tesla turned to the great Pittsburgh magnate George Westinghouse, who had started his own electricity company. Westinghouse completely funded Tesla’s research and offered him a generous royalty agreement on future profits. The AC system Tesla developed is still the standard today—but after patents were filed in his name, other scientists came forward to take credit for the invention, claiming that they had laid the groundwork for him. His name was lost in the shuffle, and the public came to associate the invention with Westinghouse himself.

A year later, Westinghouse was caught in a takeover bid from J. Pierpont Morgan, who made him rescind the generous royalty contract he had signed with Tesla. Westinghouse explained to the scientist that his company would not survive if it had to pay him his full royalties; he persuaded Tesla to accept a buyout of his patents for $216,000—a large sum, no doubt, but far less than the $12 million they were worth at the time. The financiers had divested Tesla of the riches, the patents, and essentially the credit for the greatest invention of his career.

The name of Guglielmo Marconi is forever linked with the invention of radio. But few know that in producing his invention—he broadcast a signal across the English Channel in 1899—Marconi made use of a patent Tesla had filed in 1897, and that his work depended on Tesla’s research. Once again Tesla received no money and no credit. Tesla invented an induction motor as well as the AC power system, and he is the real “father of radio.” Yet none of these discoveries bear his name. As an old man, he lived in poverty.

In 1917, during his later impoverished years, Tesla was told he was to receive the Edison Medal of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. He turned the medal down. “You propose,” he said, “to honor me with a medal which I could pin upon my coat and strut for a vain hour before the members of your Institute. You would decorate my body and continue to let starve, for failure to supply recognition, my mind and its creative products, which have supplied the foundation upon which the major portion of your Institute exists.”

Interpretation

Many harbor the illusion that science, dealing with facts as it does, is beyond the petty rivalries that trouble the rest of the world. Nikola Tesla was one of those. He believed science had nothing to do with politics, and claimed not to care for fame and riches. As he grew older, though, this ruined his scientific work. Not associated with any particular discovery, he could attract no investors to his many ideas. While he pondered great inventions for the future, others stole the patents he had already developed and got the glory for themselves.

He wanted to do everything on his own, but merely exhausted and impoverished himself in the process.

Edison was Tesla’s polar opposite. He wasn’t actually much of a scientific thinker or inventor; he once said that he had no need to be a mathematician because he could always hire one. That was Edison’s main method. He was really a businessman and publicist, spotting the trends and the opportunities that were out there, then hiring the best in the field to do the work for him. If he had to he would steal from his competitors. Yet his name is much better known than Tesla’s, and is associated with more inventions.

To be sure, if the hunter relies on the security of the carriage, utilizes the legs of the six horses, and makes Wang Liang hold their reins, then he will not tire himself and will find it easy to overtake swift animals. Now supposing he discarded the advantage of the carriage, gave up the useful legs of the horses and the skill of Wang Liang, and alighted to run after the animals, then even though his legs were as quick as Lou Chi’s, he would not be in time to overtake the animals. In fact, if good horses and strong carriages are taken into use, then mere bond-men and bondwomen will be good enough to catch the animals.

HAN-FEI-TZU, CHINESE PHILOSOPHER, THIRD CENTURY B.C.

The lesson is twofold: First, the credit for an invention or creation is as important, if not more important, than the invention itself. You must secure the credit for yourself and keep others from stealing it away, or from piggy-backing on your hard work. To accomplish this you must always be vigilant and ruthless, keeping your creation quiet until you can be sure there are no vultures circling overhead. Second, learn to take advantage of other people’s work to further your own cause. Time is precious and life is short. If you try to do it all on your own, you run yourself ragged, waste energy, and burn yourself out. It is far better to conserve your forces, pounce on the work others have done, and find a way to make it your own.

Everybody steals in commerce and industry. I’ve stolen a lot myself. But I know how to steal. Thomas Edison, 1847-1931

KEYS TO POWER

The world of power has the dynamics of the jungle: There are those who live by hunting and killing, and there are also vast numbers of creatures (hyenas, vultures) who live off the hunting of others. These latter, less imaginative types are often incapable of doing the work that is essential for the creation of power. They understand early on, though, that if they wait long enough, they can always find another animal to do the work for them. Do not be naive: At this very moment, while you are slaving away on some project, there are vultures circling above trying to figure out a way to survive and even thrive off your creativity. It is useless to complain about this, or to wear yourself ragged with bitterness, as Tesla did. Better to protect yourself and join the game. Once you have established a power base, become a vulture yourself, and save yourself a lot of time and energy.

A hen who had lost her sight, and was accustomed to scratching up the earth in search of food, although blind, still continued to scratch away most diligently. Of what use was it to the industrious fool? Another sharp-sighted hen who spared her tender feet never moved from her side, and enjoyed, without scratching, the fruit of the other’s labor. For as often as the blind hen scratched up a barley-corn, her watchful companion devoured it.

FABLES, GOITCHOLD LESSING, 1729-1781

Of the two poles of this game, one can be illustrated by the example of the explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa. Balboa had an obsession—the discovery of El Dorado, a legendary city of vast riches.

Early in the sixteenth century, after countless hardships and brushes with death, he found evidence of a great and wealthy empire to the south of Mexico, in present-day Peru. By conquering this empire, the Incan, and seizing its gold, he would make himself the next Cortés. The problem was that even as he made this discovery, word of it spread among hundreds of other conquistadors. He did not understand that half the game was keeping it quiet, and carefully watching those around him. A few years after he discovered the location of the Incan empire, a soldier in his own army, Francisco Pizarro, helped to get him beheaded for treason. Pizarro went on to take what Balboa had spent so many years trying to find.

The other pole is that of the artist Peter Paul Rubens, who, late in his career, found himself deluged with requests for paintings. He created a system: In his large studio he employed dozens of outstanding painters, one specializing in robes, another in backgrounds, and so on. He created a vast production line in which a large number of canvases would be worked on at the same time. When an important client visited the studio, Rubens would shoo his hired painters out for the day. While the client watched from a balcony, Rubens would work at an incredible pace, with unbelievable energy. The client would leave in awe of this prodigious man, who could paint so many masterpieces in so short a time.

This is the essence of the Law: Learn to get others to do the work for you while you take the credit, and you appear to be of godlike strength and power. If you think it important to do all the work yourself, you will never get far, and you will suffer the fate of the Balboas and Teslas of the world. Find people with the skills and creativity you lack. Either hire them, while putting your own name on top of theirs, or find a way to take their work and make it your own. Their creativity thus becomes yours, and you seem a genius to the world.

There is another application of this law that does not require the parasitic use of your contemporaries’ labor: Use the past, a vast storehouse of knowledge and wisdom. Isaac Newton called this “standing on the shoulders of giants.” He meant that in making his discoveries he had built on the achievements of others. A great part of his aura of genius, he knew, was attributable to his shrewd ability to make the most of the insights of ancient, medieval, and Renaissance scientists. Shakespeare borrowed plots, characterizations, and even dialogue from Plutarch, among other writers, for he knew that nobody surpassed Plutarch in the writing of subtle psychology and witty quotes. How many later writers have in their turn borrowed from—plagiarized—Shakespeare ?

We all know how few of today’s politicians write their own speeches. Their own words would not win them a single vote; their eloquence and wit, whatever there is of it, they owe to a speech writer. Other people do the work, they take the credit. The upside of this is that it is a kind of power that is available to everyone. Learn to use the knowledge of the past and you will look like a genius, even when you are really just a clever borrower.

Writers who have delved into human nature, ancient masters of strategy, historians of human stupidity and folly, kings and queens who have learned the hard way how to handle the burdens of power—their knowledge is gathering dust, waiting for you to come and stand on their shoulders. Their wit can be your wit, their skill can be your skill, and they will never come around to tell people how unoriginal you really are. You can slog through life, making endless mistakes, wasting time and energy trying to do things from your own experience. Or you can use the armies of the past. As Bismarck once said, “Fools say that they learn by experience. I prefer to profit by others’ experience.”

Image: The Vulture. Of all the creatures in the jungle, he has it the easiest. The hard work of others becomes his work; their failure to survive becomes his nourishment. Keep an eye on the Vulture—while you are hard at work, he is cir cling above. Do not fight him, join him.

Authority: There is much to be known, life is short, and life is not life without knowledge. It is therefore an excellent device to acquire knowledge from everybody. Thus, by the sweat of another’s brow, you win the reputation of being an oracle. (Baltasar Gracián, 1601-1658)

REVERSAL

There are times when taking the credit for work that others have done is not the wise course: If your power is not firmly enough established, you will seem to be pushing people out of the limelight. To be a brilliant ex ploiter of talent your position must be unshakeable, or you will be accused of deception.

Be sure you know when letting other people share the credit serves your purpose. It is especially important to not be greedy when you have a master above you. President Richard Nixon’s historic visit to the People’s Republic of China was originally his idea, but it might never have come off but for the deft diplomacy of Henry Kissinger. Nor would it have been as successful without Kissinger’s skills. Still, when the time came to take credit, Kissinger adroitly let Nixon take the lion’s share. Knowing that the truth would come out later, he was careful not to jeopardize his standing in the short term by hogging the limelight. Kissinger played the game expertly: He took credit for the work of those below him while graciously giving credit for his own labors to those above. That is the way to play the game.

#PUA #DATING #advice #psychology #life #rules to live by #quoteoftheday #quotes #business #money #rich #famous

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bangkokjacknews · 3 years

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How Landislas Biro invented the ball-point pen

Ballpoint Pen? What’s That Then?

Prior to the 1880’s the only way to write anything down onto paper was to use something that could be fashioned into a nib, such as a feather or piece of wood or shell, and dip it into an inkwell. Or use a pencil. That is unless you had one of those fountain pens that had become popular with the rich and famous but many of them still had to be dipped in ink until the 1880’s when fountain pens began to be mass produced for the first time. However, if you were a humble tradesman you probably couldn’t afford one of those. A tradesman such as the leather tanner, John J. Loud, for example. During the early 1880’s John J. Loud, from Weymouth, Massachusetts, had been experimenting with ideas for things he could use to mark his leather products, without much success. The fountain pen that he had often failed to work and so Loud set about designing a pen that had a thin metal tube with a tiny, rotating steel ball held in place by a small burr. His idea was to fill the tube with ink, let it coat the ball and continue to do so as it rolled across the leather, leaving ink marks in whatever pattern he chose to make, including words, obviously. Loud was excited by his design and even filed a patent for a ‘roller ball tip marking pen’ which was awarded on 30 October 1888 in his own name. The problem Loud faced was that whilst his design worked adequately on leather, and other rough surfaces, it was not so efficient on smooth surfaces, such as paper. Loud realised that with a little development he could refine his design but was told by everybody he approached that he was wasting his time. After all, the perfect pen had already been designed and was now in mass production. Why, they even delivered their own ink in those modern times and there was no more need for dipping, or inkwells, or any smudges. ‘You are too late Mr Loud,’ they told him, ‘we already have the perfect pen thank you.’ And with that John L. Loud went back to stitching handbags, or shoes, and no more was heard of him. No more was heard of his idea either until 1935 when a Hungarian newspaper editor was becoming annoyed by the amount of time he wasted filling up his, by then, old fashioned fountain pen. He was also fed up with clearing up ink smudges and his nib tearing through the newsprint. But he noticed how the ink from his newspaper press dried ten times faster than that of his pen and so Landislas Biro, with some help from his brother Georg, a chemist, set about finding a solution. Over the following few years Landislas experimented with ball tipped designs of the exact nature John J. Loud had patented all those years earlier whilst Georg developed ink samples using the thinner, lighter inks of the printing press. During the summer, whilst taking a break from their work they were at the seaside where they met a fascinating old gentleman who loved their model of a ball point pen. The old man turned out to be Agustin Pedro Justin, the serving president of Argentina who urged the brothers to move to his country where he would help them fund a factory. The following year, as war broke out in Europe, the brothers did just that and fled to Argentina, stopping off in Paris to file a patent along the way. Once they had settled in they found no shortage of investors and established a factory in 1943. But they found their new pen didn’t work very well at all and they had to go back to the drawing board and refine their design. The second version faired a little better but sales throughout the country did not meet their expectations and eventually the money ran out. Although not before American pilots, who had been stationed in Argentina during the war, returned to America full of enthusiasm for the new pens that worked perfectly at altitude and did not need re-filling very often. The U.S Air Force sent specifications to a handful of American companies and one of them, in an attempt to corner the market, paid the Biro brothers half a million dollars for the U.S manufacturing rights to their patent. Meanwhile, a Chicago salesman called Milton Reynolds, who had bought several Biro’s whilst on holiday in Argentina, thought he could avoid any legal problems because the original patents had expired and so he set about copying Biro’s design, (or Loud’s depending upon your viewpoint) with sufficient improvements that allowed him to obtain his own U.S Patent. Reynolds then showed his prototype to his friend Fred Gimbel whose family owned the Gimbel Department Stores who were, at one time, the largest store chain in the world. Gimbel arranged a clever marketing campaign and launched the new ball point pen in New York City on 29 October 1945, just two months after the end of the Second World War. Priced at $12.50, the cost of a single night in a decent New York City hotel room, Gimbel’s sold out their entire stock of 10,000 within two hours as 5000 people crowded into the shop. The New York Police Department had to despatch fifty officers simply to maintain crowd control. Over the following six weeks the Reynolds International Pen Company worked around the clock to make eight million pens in order to keep up with demand. Reynolds became a very wealthy man and even bought a magnificent French estate, the Chateau Mesnil St. Denis to use as the headquarters of his European division. But Reynolds was an astute businessman and realised other companies would soon be flooding the market with cheaper versions of their own ball point pens and so he sold his company and retired to South America in 1947. – Albert Jack Albert Jack AUDIOBOOKS available for download here

Buy Now Audio Books Other Platforms Assorted eBooks More Awesome Inventions with Albert Jack Read the full article

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mastcomm · 5 years

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Your Tuesday Briefing – The New York Times

Coronavirus’s toll includes economies

China on Tuesday reported 72,436 total cases of coronavirus infections, while the death toll now stands at 1,868. Here are the latest updates and maps of where the virus has spread.

In Europe, where wealthy Chinese tourists have become mainstays of hotels, shops and cultural destinations, the outbreak has dealt a blow to businesses after Beijing banned overseas group tours and many countries restricted or barred entry to people from China.

Flight and hotel bookings have been canceled over fears of the virus, and there has also been a drop in tourists from other nations who want to avoid crowded spaces. Apple cut its sales forecast Monday, as both production and demand for its products have been slowed in China because of the outbreak.

The latest: Australia, South Korea and other countries are preparing to evacuate their citizens from the cruise ship Diamond Princess, which has been quarantined in Japan for almost two weeks. Fourteen evacuated Americans were found to have the virus shortly before they boarded chartered flights to the U.S.

Political fallout over floods in Britain

Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain came under fire after his office said on Monday that he had no plans to visit areas with severe flooding after a storm that battered the country over the weekend.

Storm Dennis, classified as a “weather bomb” by the national weather service, slammed areas that were still recovering from heavy rains and strong winds brought by another storm last week. At least one person has died, while hundreds of others have been forced to leave their homes.

The response: Despite more rain predicted on Wednesday, Mr. Johnson has not called a meeting of the government’s emergencies committee to discuss the situation.

Background: Britain is experiencing more frequent and serious flooding because of global warming, experts say. Mohammad Heidarzadeh, a coastal engineering academic, said floods that were once seen every 15 to 20 years are now occurring every two to five years and that the country’s flood defense systems are “not fit to address the current climate situation.”

Another angle: The pressure is piling up on Mr. Johnson after his office appointed an aide who once said black people have lower I.Q.s than white people. The adviser, Andrew Sabisky, quit on Monday after the ensuing uproar, complaining of “media hysteria.”

U.S. efforts to thwart Huawei in Europe fall short

Germany appears poised to follow Britain in allowing Huawei, the Chinese tech giant, to build next-generation 5G networks, despite warnings from the United States.

U.S. officials have lobbied their allies to ban the company out of fear that its equipment could be used by China to spy on or control European and American communication networks. But as those countries are forced to choose between the U.S., a key intelligence ally, and China, a critical trading partner, some like Britain have taken the risk and cooperated with Huawei.

Context: The Huawei issue is part of a broader fight between the U.S. and China as they vie to dominate advanced technologies. The U.S. is now shifting its approach by looking to cut off Huawei from access to American technology and trying to build a credible competitor — but its officials have often contradicted each other’s ideas.

Quote of note: “Many of us in Europe agree that there are significant dangers with Huawei, and the U.S. for at least a year has been telling us, do not use Huawei. Are you offering an alternative?” asked Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Estonia’s former president. “What is it that we should do other than not use Huawei?”

How China tracked Xinjiang detainees

Going on religious pilgrimages, praying, attending funerals, wearing a beard, having too many children.

These are all acts, among other signs of piety, that would have been flagged by the Chinese government and warranted monitoring or even detention for Uighurs living in the western Xinjiang region, according to a leaked government document that was shared with several news media organizations, including The Times.

The document, one of numerous files kept on more than one million people who have been detained, illuminates another piece of the Chinese government’s coercive crackdown on ethnic minorities and what Beijing considers to be wayward thinking.

Follow-up: Three-fourths of the detainees listed have been released, according to an expert who studied the document. But it also shows that many of those released were later assigned work in tightly controlled industrial parks.

If you have 5 minutes, this is worth it

Too much of a cute thing?

Adorable characters like Hello Kitty are used to sell everything in Japan, and fading towns have long used mascots to lure visitors and investment. Above, Sanomaru, a dog with a ramen bowl on its head, represents the city of Sano.

But as their tax bases dwindle along with their populations, communities are increasingly questioning whether the whimsy is worth the expense.

Here’s what else is happening

Libya arms: The European Union said it would launch a naval and air mission to stop arms from reaching Libya, currently embroiled in civil war. Austria and Hungary had initially objected out of concern that ships could enable more migrants to reach Europe.

Burkina Faso shooting: A gunman attacked a church during Sunday Mass and killed at least 24 people in the country’s northwest, security sources said. It was not immediately clear who was responsible, but jihadist groups have been seeking control over rural areas of the country.

Caroline Flack: Fans of the “Love Island” host, who died by suicide over the weekend, are calling for a new law to stop British tabloids from publishing articles that reveal “private information that is detrimental to a celebrity, their mental health and those around them.”

Snapshot: Above, Michael Bloomberg on the campaign trail. He has risen in the polls after entering the race for the U.S. Democratic presidential candidacy, raising the pressure on political reporters employed by his news media outlet.

Artificial intelligence: Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, met with European Union officials on Monday as the E.U. prepares to release a draft of an artificial intelligence policy. That will have important consequences for tech giants like Apple, Facebook and Google.

What we’re reading: This collection of letters. “British newspapers’ letters pages are a peculiar sort of joy,” writes Peter Robins, an editor in our London newsroom. “Recently, readers of The Guardian have been debating how old you have to be before it’s eccentric to keep boiling up your annual 18-pound batch of homemade marmalade. Bidding started at 77 and has escalated rapidly.”

Now, a break from the news

Cook: Cheesy baked pasta with sausage and ricotta is faster to make than lasagna. (Our Five Weeknight Dishes newsletter has more recommendations.)

Read: “Apeirogon,” the latest novel from Colum McCann, delves into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the eyes of two grieving fathers. “I think people wouldn’t have trusted it as much if it wasn’t real,” he said.

Watch: It may feel as if Zoë Kravitz has always been famous, but you can now watch her in her first lead role, as the heartbroken Rob in Hulu’s TV adaptation of “High Fidelity.” She spoke with our reporter about her acting and her life.

Smarter Living: We collected a few items that will help you make the most of an off-season getaway.

And now for the Back Story on …

Somalia’s future

Abdi Latif Dahir is The Times’s East Africa correspondent. A Kenyan of Somali descent, he reports in and about some dozen countries. We reached him in Nairobi, to talk about his latest story, about the young Somalis who are filling in the gaps their government can’t.

This is such a powerful story of resilience and hope. How did you find it?

Late last year, there was a big attack in Mogadishu, the worst by Al Shabab in two years. And one thing stood out. Almost all the news stories mentioned that a lot of university students had died, young people who wanted to be doctors or were studying other specialties that would help the country.

On Jan. 1, I flew to Mogadishu, to follow up on the attack and to write about these students and what they mean to Somalia.

My first story was about that, but also on how things had been getting so much better in Mogadishu — and it was all these young people doing it.

What else inspired you?

I went to this crisis center. They were collecting the names of the victims and reaching out to their families. I wanted to sit amongst them and see what it was like. They were checking in, asking the families, how are you today?

And maybe they’d hear that the hospital bill had been paid so that was OK, but the family hadn’t eaten breakfast that day. So they would corral someone to get food over to them.

I wanted to write about the chutzpah to invent these systems, to stay strong with all that was happening.

People could rattle off all these names of people they’ve known who’ve been killed. But then they would say, we want to stay here and be the ones to fix this country. They’re creating tech hubs, and restaurants and delivery services that are thriving. Because of the attacks on hotels and restaurants, it’s safer to stay home, have friends over and order a meal.

How is it being the East Africa correspondent?

I’ve had the job since November. It’s incredible. This is a dynamic, evolving region that’s changing socially, geopolitically, economically. It’s a great place to be a journalist. Honestly, you could write a story every hour.

That’s it for this briefing. See you next time.

— Sofia

Thank you To Mark Josephson and Eleanor Stanford for the break from the news. Andrea Kannapell, the briefings editor, wrote today’s Back Story. You can reach the team at [email protected].

P.S. • “The Daily” was off for the U.S. Presidents’ Day holiday. But try our “Modern Love” podcast. This week’s is titled “When Cupid Is a Prying Journalist.” • Here’s today’s Mini Crossword puzzle, and a clue: Sound made with two fingers (four letters). You can find all our puzzles here. • Last week, we told you that our Visual Investigations team would be answering reader questions. Here’s the YouTube video of them doing just that.

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cliftonsteen · 5 years

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A Brief History of Manual Brewing Methods

Manually brewing coffee at home has many advantages. It’s relatively inexpensive and easy to do, making it popular with those getting familiar with coffee for the first time. It’s also a brewing method that you can experiment with, making it equally popular with coffee professionals and coffee shops.

Whether you’re a home brewer wanting to know more about which device to invest in, or a barista looking to better understand the origins of the device you use every day, you’ll benefit from knowing the history of the following manual brewing devices.

Here’s how approaches to manual coffee brewing have changed over time, as well as the most popular devices that dominate the market today.

You may also like Melitta, Chemex, & More: A History of Pour Over Coffee

A kettle and thermometer, both used to brew coffee. Credit: Neil Soque

The Beginning of Manual Brewing

While there are no records that tell us exactly when or where people started consuming coffee, most agree that it originated in or near what’s now known as Ethiopia. According to Catherine M.Tucker’s book, Coffee Culture: Local Experiences, Global Connections, the first people to use coffee may have been ancestors of Ethiopia’s Oromo people, who according to early European travellers, mixed ground coffee cherries and beans with animal fat to create “long-lasting, calorically dense food balls”.

As the 15th century came to pass, Turkey’s Ottoman Empire expanded its reach to include parts of North Africa, Central and East Europe, and Asia. This allowed them to control the main trade routes between Asia, Africa, and Europe. It is here that they likely encountered coffee.

After being introduced to the drink, the Turks invented one of the earliest methods of manual brewing coffee. Roasted beans were ground using mortars, added to water, and then boiled in a pot called a cezve. Soon, this brewing method spread from the Sultan’s kitchen to wealthy homes across the Ottoman Empire, until the entire population was enjoying it.

While the Ottoman Turks attempted to keep a monopoly on coffee trade by banning its export, maintaining this proved impossible. The seed was smuggled out of the country and eventually enjoyed across Europe, where various European governments looked to African colonies to provide coffee to meet the growing consumer demand.

As colonial expansion spread, so did the reach of coffee, and by the 18th century, it was a popular beverage drunk across the world. While at this point it was only enjoyed by the wealthy elite, time – and the invention of affordable and easy to access manual brewing devices – would soon result in it being enjoyed by all.

Coffee being brewed on a V60 at a coffee shop in Berlin, Germany. Credit: Julio Guevara

Early Manual Brewing Devices

When coffee arrived in Europe, it was usually prepared by adding ground beans to water in a single pot and boiling it, which is similar to how the Turks enjoyed it. It entered the continent at the same time as the Industrial Revolution was taking place. At the time, most people drank beer or wine as a safer alternative to water. The introduction of coffee allowed people to participate in factory work unhampered by the usual side effects of inebriation.

In the 19th century, the drip method of preparation was developed in France and became dominant. With this method, ground coffee was placed in a container situated between two chambers of a pot, with heated water added to the top chamber. It then percolated or dripped down through the coffee into the bottom serving receptacle.

It was in this century that domestic preparation of coffee took off in earnest. In 1908, a German woman named Amalie Auguste Melitta Bentz invented the first coffee filter, which allowed her to brew coffee without sediments and with a clearer taste. She patented her paper filter idea and established the Melitta company in the same year.

Melitta and her husband presented her filters at the 1909 Leipzig Trade Fair, where it was successful. After some adjustments were made, a cone-shaped filter was created, which became popular due to its improved design.

A cup of black coffee. Credit: Julio Guevara

The Moka Pot

As coffee spread its reach across Europe, France and Germany weren’t the only countries to dabble with creating manual brewing methods. While the 18th century saw large-scale mechanical espresso machines being patented, Italy’s 19th-century economic boom saw locals demanding ways to enjoy a similar quality coffee, efficiently, and at home.

It was in 1933 that Alfonso Bialetti invented the Moka Pot. Designed for use on a stove, the pot had three parts. It passed boiling water that was pressurised by steam through a funnel and ground coffee into the top chamber.

It was an instant success and is still produced by Bialetti today, even as the company experiences increased competition from coffee pod machines and other devices.

You may also like How The Moka Pot Influenced Coffee Consumption

A coffee carafe and cup on a table. Credit: Neil Soque

The French Press

Several years before Alfonso Bialetti invented the Moka Pot, two Frenchmen were creating an early version of the French Press. In 1982, Mayer and Deforge patented a design of this type of brewer, which differed significantly to the one we currently use, as it lacked a seal inside the carafe.

It was in 1929 that two Italians, Attilio Calimani and Giulio Moneta, patented a design for the coffee maker resembling the French Press that we know today. This version included a seal around the plunger disks, keeping them flush with the receptacle and making plunging more efficient.

It was only in 1958 that the most popular design of this brewer was patented, and it was done by a Swiss man called Faliero Bondanini. As it was manufactured in France, it grew in popularity there and was called the Chambord.

This particular version was a total immersion device, which means that the ground coffee is in full contact with hot water for around four minutes when the plunger is pushed down. During pouring, the filter keeps the grinds in the carafe, creating a clean and full-bodied cup of coffee.

While no single company dominates production of the device, the Danish tableware and kitchenware company Bodum has been manufacturing their version of it since 1974, with huge success. Their version is called the Bistro and is available from retailers around the world.

Learn more in French Press – The History & Brewing Guide

A cup of black coffee. Credit: Julio Guevara

The Chemex

In 1841, German chemist and inventor Peter J. Schlumbohm created the Chemex, which was just one of over 2000 inventions he created in his lifetime. Having renounced his place in his family’s chemical business, his years spent earning a PhD in Chemistry at the University of Berlin formed the foundation for his future inventions.

He first exhibited his Chemex coffee maker at the New York World’s Fair in 1939 and formed the Chemex Corporation two years later to manufacture and market it.

Schlumbohm considered the appearance of his inventions to be very important, and his educational influence is apparent in the Chemex’s resembling chemical laboratory apparatus. Its style resembled that of Modernist designers, and it was endorsed by the Museum of Modern Art in 1942.

Using a pour over method, the Chemex works by passing water through a bed of coffee and a paper filter. As the filters are usually 20-30% heavier than typical filters, they retain more suspended oils during brewing and keep out more solids, resulting in a cleaner cup of coffee.

Learn more in Chemex – The History & Brewing Guide

A Chemex collar. Credit: Fernando Pocasangre

The Kalita Wave

Kalita Co. is a Japanese company that has been producing coffee equipment and paper filters since the fifties. They created the Kalita Wave series of coffee drippers in 2010. The device looks similar to the V60 at first sight but has several key differences.

Unlike a V60, the Kalita Wave has a flat bottom with three extraction holes, which eliminates any channelling of water in the coffee bed and slows down the water’s flow through the coffee grounds, for a crisp cup of coffee. The dripper has little contact with the filter, keeping the temperature consistent and dispersing the water evenly.

Thanks to its flat bottom, water flow is restricted in a more stable and predictable way than with other manual drippers. This creates a flatter bed of grounds, for a more even extraction of flavour.

Available in metal, the Kalita Wave is stove-top friendly (like the Moka Pot). It is also available in glass and ceramic.

Read more: Kalita Wave: The Story & Brewing Guide

Coffee being brewed on a Kalita Wave. Credit: Neil Soque

The Hario V60

The Chemex isn’t the only manual brewing device to originate from a chemistry background. The Hario V60 was created by a Tokyo company that produced and sold physical and chemical-use glass products. It’s a relative latecomer to the manual brewing device industry, having only been invented in 2015, and it gets its name from the 60º angle of its cone.

The V60 has three qualities that impact its brewing ability. Firstly, its cone shape lets the water poured over flow towards its centre, for longer contact time with the grounds. Secondly, its single hole means that the flavour of the coffee can be altered by changing the speed at which the water is poured in. Finally, the cone has spiral ribs on the inside, which allows more air to escape and maximises the expansion of the coffee grounds.

The V60 was first introduced in ceramic and glass, then plastic, and finally metal. It was also released in a copper version, for higher thermal conductivity. This allows for better retention of heat and therefore better extraction.

Read more: Hario V60: The History & Brewing Guide

Barista brewing pour over coffee using a V60. Credit: Fernando Pocasangre

The AeroPress

The AeroPress was created by engineer Alan Adler in 2005 and is a notable brewer to come out of the USA. Made of polycarbonate, it contains no BPAs and phthalates and features its brand name lettering in gold, for easier detection of possible counterfeits.

Adler’s invention was created out of a need for a less bitter cup of coffee. He realised that for this to happen, brewing time would need to be shortened. He created a closed chamber to increase the pressure required during brewing, which also resulted in a much faster brewing time, compared to most manual devices on the market.

Being compact, portable, and easy to clean, the AeroPress has carved out its own niche in the industry. It now has its own championship too, with the World AeroPress Championship drawing entries from across the world every year.

Coffee is brewed using an AeroPress. Credit: Fernando Pocasangre

Manual methods have opened a path towards more experimentation for home brewers and coffee shops alike. For both groups, there are no hard or fast rules for how they’re used to brew coffee.

Knowing how each one was created and works will not only allow you to better enjoy the beverage but also to respect the efforts that have been put into creating each device – whether you’re enjoying it at home or using it to serve others.

Enjoyed this? Then Read Everything You Need to Know to Brew Great Pour Over Coffee

Written by Miguel A. Hernández Zambrano. Feature photo: Freshly brewed coffee in a carafe. Feature photo credit: Neil Soque

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biofunmy · 5 years

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No One Needs a Superyacht, but They Keep Selling Them

LONDON — The end of summer is a nervous time for superyacht designers, and not because they fear that the owners of their latest creations may be disappointed with the first outings in the Mediterranean.

The worry is about the designers’ next vessels, because this is the time of year when clients whose boats are still in production come back from holidays with a wish list of new features — usually, based on what they saw on their friends’ yachts or at the Monaco Yacht Show, which ended Sept. 28.

“Right now we are quite far down the line in completing a big yacht in northern Europe for one client who has just spent time on a friend’s boat, which is not necessarily helpful,” said Dickie Bannenberg, the head of one of the world’s best-known superyacht design houses, Bannenberg and Rowell. He was in his London studio, an airy two-story space lined with sleek models of its creations.

“The delivery date is in the first half of next year, and that is sooner than it might seem,” Mr. Bannenberg said. “It’s fine when it’s superficial — let’s say they liked the plates or towels on their friend’s yacht — but if you’re not careful it can verge on, ‘Oh, my friend’s gym was like this, can we have something similar?’ or, ‘I would really like to add a submersible vessel.’”

The complex production schedules of these vessels mean shipyards will resist significant changes. “Re-engineering or rebuilding is going to cost a lot of money,” Mr. Bannenberg, 58, said.

Protecting the Picassos

That end-of-summer tension illustrates some inescapable truths about life dealing in the world’s most expensive consumer products and ultimate discretionary purchases. One vessel alone can cost $5 million to $500 million, with annual operating costs of perhaps 10 percent of that.

This is an industry in which problems include protecting the owner’s Picasso collection from salt air, clumsy crew members and faulty sprinklers.

Or maybe you have to decide whether to build one 330-foot vessel (100 meters) or join a trend of the last few years by opting for a “smaller” 200-foot yacht with a 165-foot support vessel to carry a submarine, helicopter, speedboats and other toys. Aviva, a 320-foot yacht launched in 2017, was the first in the world to include a full-size indoor paddle tennis court.

William Mathieson, the editorial and intelligence director of the Superyacht Group, the leading analyst of the industry, said there are about 3,500 active vessels in the world that meet the loose definition of a superyacht by measuring more than 100 feet; just 55 top 330 feet.

Mr. Bannenberg’s father, Jon Bannenberg, who died in 2002, used to say that nobody in the world needs a superyacht, so it was the designer’s task to make them want one.

Jon, a charismatic Australian, is widely credited with inventing the profession of superyacht designer. In the 1960s, he brought together interior and exterior design skills with an understanding of marine engineering to replace what had previously been relatively simple structures sitting on top of hulls designed by naval architects.

He had waves of clients, starting with Greek shipping tycoons in the 1960s. Then came Middle Eastern royals in the 1970s, German and American industrialists in the 1980s, tech titans from the United States in the 1990s and wealthy Russians.

After Jon’s death, Dickie, who had worked as his father’s project manager for 15 years, brought in Simon Rowell, a hotel designer, as the studio’s creative director.

A short walk from Wandsworth Bridge on the River Thames, the studio holds 15 people, who manipulate detailed computer images of planned vessels, pore over design drawings and phone Italy to order marble fittings.

There are usually six or seven projects at various stages of a construction process that takes four to five years, and that often extends to designing stationery and a logo for crew uniforms, as well as commissioning sculptures to go on board. Jon Bannenberg liked to design the cutlery and crockery, flower vases, the light fittings and door handles.

He ran his practice like a Renaissance artist, training a stream of apprentices who now run some of the world’s top studios, and relying on wealthy patrons for commissions.

Those patrons included J. Paul Getty, Malcolm Forbes and Larry Ellison. Projects were discussed with Fidel Castro and the Shah of Iran that never made it to the water.

Almost inevitably, many people rich enough to spend tens or hundreds of millions of dollars on a yacht have proved to be controversial. The Australian billionaire Alan Bond was a Bannenberg customer before being jailed for fraud, and so was the Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, who commissioned a 280-foot ship called Nabila. Donald Trump bought that one (and renamed it Trump Princess) in 1987 for a reported $30 million, with a running cost of $2.5 million a year, justifying the expenditure by saying it was “the ultimate toy” and that he hoped it would make other yacht owners feel inferior.

A string of Bannenberg yachts were built for the British businessman Gerald Ronson, who also did jail time for fraud, and the American magnate Bennett LeBow was forced to repay millions of dollars to companies he controlled for loans that were spent on his yachts.

The body of Robert Maxwell, the publisher and fraudster, was found floating off the back of his Bannenberg yacht, the Lady Ghislaine, which was named after his daughter who is now in the headlines over her involvement with Jeffrey Epstein, the financier charged with child sex trafficking.

Mr. Epstein, who died in jail in August, represented the retail tycoon Leslie Wexner during the construction of his 300-foot yacht Limitless, another Jon Bannenberg project.

Five imposing models of Limitless still sit on the walls of the studio. Dickie Bannenberg said he never dealt with Mr. Epstein, though Ms. Maxwell “may have come to a design meeting but I have never met her.”

“It’s a tricky one,” Mr. Bannenberg said. “Legally in any industry you have a requirement to know as best you can the source of your client’s money, so in our contracts our lawyers require us to find the beneficial owner behind the project.”

“The shipyard asks the same questions,” he said. “They won’t just build for Mysterious Corporation of Grand Cayman, they need to know who is behind it.” The ownership of some yachts is a tight secret, with the owner’s passion for privacy and security often extending to teams of private guards in every port.

Adam Ramlugon, a lawyer who specializes in superyachts, said the legal obligations to avoid “dirty money” fall on regulated professions rather than on designers and builders themselves.

“It is the designer’s bank and lawyers who are required to know the source of funds, but any company should be very careful because their bank might decide to stop acting for them if they don’t know the source of some money sloshing around in their bank account,” Mr. Ramlugon said.

Mr. Bannenberg said that “in real life, there is a limit to what we can do.”

He recalled being hired by a Moscow shipyard to do design work for a client whom he and Mr. Rowell met “once or twice including one memorably uncomfortable meeting” in a Majorca villa.

One sign that something was odd was that the meeting was held in what felt like a “safe room.” Mr. Bannenberg said that “a much bigger sign came three years later.”

“After the yacht had been delivered, Simon was a bit terrified to notice a newspaper photo of the client being led away in handcuffs by two Spanish police officers wearing balaclavas. He was allegedly the head of an organized crime gang. How could we know that?”

Mr. Rowell, 50, said that “once or twice” the firm has made its own inquiries and decided to stay away from a potential client, but a lot of these problems, especially white-collar crime, “only become obvious with hindsight.”

Doing More With More

The types of buyers and their demands keep changing. More than a decade of heavy spending by Russian and East European clients began drying up after the Russian annexation of Crimea — “we lost one job half an hour after that,” Mr. Bannenberg said — as Western sanctions on Russian oligarchs have continued to bite.

The rising number of billionaires in mainland China has not yet translated into new buyers, and Mr. Bannenberg believes the Chinese face political and cultural restraints “on being so upfront with your wealth.”

More promisingly, there has recently been a pickup in buying from the United States, Mr. Bannenberg said, “because America still has the most high-net-worth individuals.”

The Trump tax cuts have fueled demand for superyachts, according to industry analysts, and shipyard order books are solid. Notably, this is despite recent softness in top-end sales of art, cars and real estate, amid broader fears of an economic slowdown.

Research by the Superyacht Group shows that after peaking in 2008 and then slumping after the financial crisis, the production of luxury yachts has been stable in recent years, with an annual output close to 150 new vessels.

While Americans remain the biggest buyers, the United States’ own yacht output has shrunk, with the global industry consolidating into fewer shipyards. The Italians now make the most vessels, and Dutch and German builders dominate the top of the market.

The most striking change in the industry is a shift in what the boats are actually for, as a new generation of owners want to do more than show off while anchored off Sardinia.

“The clients that approach us nowadays don’t really want a floating palace,” Mr. Rowell said. “They want a boat they are going to live on and even work on, and use for more than two weeks a year.”

The Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen, who died in 2018, is often cited as an example of a more active owner, as he used his yachts for ocean research and roaming the world.

A 600-foot-long monster called REV that emerged from a Romanian shipyard in August took that trend even further: Its Norwegian owner had it designed to double as a marine research vessel capable of supporting 60 scientists. The world’s largest yacht, REV (short for Research Expedition Vessel) can sail around the world without refueling.

“Owners today do realize that these are extraordinary bits of equipment that can go to pretty exciting places that are really difficult to reach, and that changes the way you design the yacht,” Mr. Rowell said. Modern owners sail everywhere from the Northwest Passage to Antarctica.

There is “still a minority of attention seekers, status seekers, whatever you want to call them, who really are happy sitting off St.-Tropez and Cala di Volpe and the Amalfi Coast,” Mr. Bannenberg noted.

There is a movement, he said, “towards a much greater sense of connection between the yacht and the immediate sea, by which I mean swim platforms, ‘beach clubs,’ folding terraces and hull doors that open up to the sea.”

A growing sense of environmental issues is also having an impact, Mr. Bannenberg said. “There are a few yacht-based movements and marine foundations, which are sometimes labeled as a yacht-owner’s guilt trip, that are part of the whole environmental conversation going on at the moment,” he added.

“It all adds up to a much bigger desire to actually interact with the ocean rather than sitting in a glitzy apartment that happens to be floating.”

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