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alexsmitposts · 5 years ago

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“Mobbed up” American Policy, the Global Shakedown Those who accept the policies of the Trump administration, cancellation of the JCPOA with Iran, seizing oil fields in Syria, endless sanctions on nation after nation, Europe blackmailed, endless threats emanating almost hourly from Trump’s iPhone as “national policy” or even criminally deranged is simply not paying attention. There is a method, and it isn’t the madness it appears to be. Trump and company have remade the “business environment of the world” in a way Americans are quite familiar with. We call it “organized crime.” Currently, representatives of American political leaders are operating in over 60 nations. These aren’t diplomats, though some actually are, technically at least, but most are simply “business agents,” often with long criminal histories. They sell “the friendship” of the United States in return for anything of value and the buyers, nations terrified of the United States, are ready to sign anything, give up anything. From the film, The Godfather: Michael: Well when Johnny was first starting out, he was signed to this contract with a big-band leader. And as his career got better and better he wanted to get out of it. Now, Johnny is my father’s godson. My father went to see the bandleader, and offered him $10,000 to let Johnny go, but the bandleader said no. So the next day, my father went to see the bandleader again, only this time with Luca Brasi. Within an hour, the bandleader signed the release, with a certified check of $1,000. Kay: How did he do that? Michael: My father made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Kay: What was that? Michael: Luca Brasi held a gun to his head, and my father assured him that either his brains or his signature would be on the contract. Today, Luca Brasi has been superseded by a drone assassination or, just perhaps, a color revolution at the hands of Google and Facebook. Some of what you read is almost common knowledge. Despite broad censorship, it is relatively commonly known that Jared Kushner’s shaky personal finances received a generous bailout from Saudi Arabia, real estate loans but also broad partnerships for his father in law also, including Saudi Arabia’s first official brothel. There is also the glaring issue of Netanyahu’s corruption, of which only the most minor areas are subject to his current criminal indictment in Israel. In truth, Netanyahu has made billions, receiving kickbacks for military contracts from the US, Germany and other nations, but going much further as well. Netanyahu, while prime minister of Israel, has been co-employed by the Adelson casino operations group, making presentations on their behalf tied to trades for stolen American intelligence and technology. The list of political leaders in the Middle East profiting from ISIS and al Qaeda would be frightening but it began much earlier. The vital Baku-Kirkuk-Ceyhan oil pipeline that services 30% of the world’s oil reserves and passes through a number of nations began pumping stolen oil a decade before ISIS existed. ISIS simply took over operations from the American occupiers of Iraq, or, more likely, “partnered with,” adding new players to existing pirate operations that included Exxon and BP in what Iraq estimates as $1 trillion in stolen assets. There are stories that are told, in part at least, told then buried, pushed out of sight and considered unimportant as an endless flow of wild conspiracy theories fabricated by “official sources” dominates the fake information flow. It is impossible for someone working in banking, oil, defense or even in relatively innocent NGOs, though few exist today that are not turned subverted or controlled by intelligence agencies, without stumbling over ham-handed resource looting around the world. In recent days, moves against Nigeria by Trump have been directly tied to oil deals where hefty commissions are demanded by American politicians, in some cases up to 3% of gross sale, based on Platts Marketscan prices. In Sudan, for instance, many members of the current government still face international criminal charges tied to Darfur atrocities. Moreover, Sudan is still “terror listed” and is being financially choked by American sanctions. Most recently, representatives, albeit “private” of the White House demanded and received $350 million in diamonds from that poverty-stricken nation, in trade for “efforts” on behalf of leaders facing prosecution seeking US intervention. In fact, the original division of that nation, the separation of South Sudan, was predicated on negotiations between Washington, Khartoum and the UAE over “delisting” then President Omar al-Bashir as a war criminal. I acted as intermediary in those negotiations and continue to consult with the Khartoum government. Similar shakedowns are going on in Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Morocco, and the list can go on forever. When it gets to the Western Hemisphere, into Central and South America, Smedley Butler’s words again serve us well. Nothing done today is without historical context. Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC. War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses. I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we’ll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag. I wouldn’t go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket. There isn’t a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its “finger men” to point out enemies, its “muscle men” to destroy enemies, its “brain men” to plan war preparations, and a “Big Boss” Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism. It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service. I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested. During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents. As close as we come to Butler in recent times is General Wesley Clark. In 2007, Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, made the following statement: “About ten days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in. He said, ‘Sir, you’ve got to come in and talk to me a second.’ I said, ‘Well, you’re too busy.’ He said, ‘No, no.” He says, ‘We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq.’ This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, ‘We’re going to war with Iraq? Why?” He said, ‘I don’t know.’ He said, ‘I guess they don’t know what else to do.’ So I said, ‘Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al-Qaeda?” He said, ‘No, no.” He says, ‘There’s nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq.’ He said, ‘I guess it’s like we don’t know what to do about terrorists, but we’ve got a good military and we can take down governments.” And he said, ‘I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail.’ So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, ‘Are we still going to war with Iraq?’ And he said, ‘Oh, it’s worse than that.’ He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, “I just got this down from upstairs’ — meaning the Secretary of Defense’s office — ‘today.’ And he said, ‘This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.’ I said, ‘Is it classified?’ He said, ‘Yes, sir.” I said, ‘Well, don’t show it to me.’ And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, “You remember that?” He said, ‘Sir, I didn’t show you that memo! I didn’t show it to you!’” Conclusion It isn’t just the United States or Israel, running “shakedown” or “protection rackets” like Meyer Lansky’s Murder Incorporated or Al Capone’s Chicago based operations from the 1920s. It isn’t just the United States, but it is mostly the United States. A small army of “hungry travelers,” representing the private interests of the White House, Pentagon and Congress, fully backed by the CIA and the militarized social media and internet giants that can and have put thousands of paid rioters (and the snipers to kill them) on the streets time and time again, in nation after nation. The weapons, terror lists, sanctions, advanced arms to unfriendly neighbors or, now at the top of the list, crushing the value of a national currency as we have seen in Lebanon, Syria, Iran but also in Pakistan. A longer list? Venezuela, Argentina, Turkey, Brazil, India and the Philippines, but the vulnerable nations include any with significant debt, collapse the currency, apply sanctions, begin orchestrated social media warfare and then send in the clowns, the bagmen for Washington. The long and short of it? There is no more American foreign policy, only power and influence, money laundering, bank accounts in the Cayman Islands and a nation whose political and even military leaders are tired of working for gangsters. They have decided to be the gangsters.

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your-dietician · 3 years ago

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Jim Phelan's impact extended well beyond the basketball court | Sports

New Post has been published on https://tattlepress.com/ncaa-basketball/jim-phelans-impact-extended-well-beyond-the-basketball-court-sports/

Jim Phelan's impact extended well beyond the basketball court | Sports

The basketballs still bounced in Memorial Gymnasium on the campus of Mount St. Mary’s University on Thursday evening less than 48 hours after the passing of legendary head coach Jim Phelan. The sneakers still squeaked, the jumpers were still on target, and the players still competed. The defending Northeast Conference Champions were competing in a mid-week pickup game in the old gym where Phelan had built the Mountaineer program. They competed just as hard as Phelan had coached for the 49 years he was the head coach on the beautiful campus just south of the Mason-Dixon line.

All of it just the way Coach would have wanted it.

Phelan won 830 games at the Mount in a career that spanned 49 years from 1954 until he retired after the 2002-03 season. Remarkable in any era and downright preposterous in today’s revolving door coaching world, Phelan coached them all at Mount. St. Mary’s. When Phelan took over in the spring of 1954, the program had won 471 games in its 45 seasons under 16 different head coaches. By the time Phelan coached his last game, the school had a basketball identity. The win total had nearly tripled under his guidance to 1,301.

At the time of his passing, no one has won more games at Mount St. Mary’s than Jim Phelan. That is not overly surprising considering he ranks 13th all-time on the NCAA wins list. But what I meant to say was that Jim Phelan has more wins at Mount St. Mary’s than everyone else – combined. His 830 victories are 112 more than the other 21 coaches have racked up.

Along the way, his teams reached the NCAA Division 1 Tournament twice, the NCAA Division 2 Final Four on five occasions, winning the national championship in overtime in 1962 over Sacramento State.

As mind-blowing as those numbers might be, they aren’t the most impressive numbers or the most important numbers. Those numbers lie in the 217 student-athletes that he coached and guided through the years. Doctors, lawyers, investment bankers, school administrators among them, many kept in close contact with Phelan throughout the years.

“I consider it one of the great blessings of my life,” former Mountaineer Tony Hayden said of playing for Phelan via telephone from his Philadelphia area home late this week. “I think his flexibility with people was something. He didn’t coach everyone the same way. He recognized some people needed more urging than others, and some you had to back off a little bit. He was a player’s coach.”

Phelan grew up in Philadelphia, had a standout career at LaSalle, and played briefly for the Philadelphia Warriors in the NBA before becoming a coach. His first coaching job was at his alma mater as an assistant for one season in 1953-54. LaSalle won the national championship that season. Phelan headed to Emmitsburg shortly after that and never left.

Hayden joined the team a year after the Mount made its first trip to the NCAA Big Dance, facing Kentucky in the NCAA Tournament the year before. In those press conferences before the tournament action, fans got to see a part of Phelan that Hayden thinks might have often been hidden, the fact that Phelan was “funny, really funny.”

His sense of humor was on display during the pre-tournament press conference. Matched up with the daunting task of playing the top-rated Wildcats, Phelan quipped, “Kentucky has ten McDonald’s All-Americans. I have ten guys that eat at McDonald’s.”

Always viewed as an offensive coach, players were more likely to earn a spot on the bench for the shot they failed to take rather than the one they missed.

Silas Cheung shot the 1995 team into the NCAA Tournament, lighting up Rider’s Alumni Gymnasium with 5 second-half trifectas en route to a 19-point NCAA bid NEC Tournament MVP producing effort.

“He’d say, ‘Silas, if you’re not going to shoot it, you might as well be next to me. That’s why you’re in there.” Cheung recalled.

Cheung also talked about a recent visit he shared with Phelan and his wife Dottie about a month and a half ago.

“He’s just so genuine. They both are just great people. Dottie is always so sweet. I am very thankful I got to see them recently.”

He recalled Phelan’s efforts and noted that he always made time for his players and that he led by example as much as with his words.

“He just wanted to make sure that he helped turn you into a good man, a good father, a good person. He helped you through things. If you fell, you got up. He always made sure he had the time for you,” Cheung said.

As word of Phelan’s death spread on Tuesday, many who knew him, played for him or against him, coached with him or on the opposite bench, took to social media to express their memories, sadness, and admiration for him. Among them was one of the Mount’s all-time greats Riley Inge, the starting point guard against Kentucky in that NCAA Tournament game. Inge shared a pair of stories that he had kept to himself until now about Phelan’s profound impact on his life. A summary of Inge’s Facebook post is included here with his permission:

Inge recalled that he joined the Mount mid-season during the school’s second semester and that he was joining classes midstream and, in some cases, continuations of first semester courses. He noted that his professors had concerns about the situation, and a meeting between Mount President Robert Wickenheiser, Phelan, himself, and various department heads occurred. He recalls being uncomfortable and feeling unwanted when Phelan says, “I get paid to coach and win basketball games. You all get paid to teach students. Riley’s a student here now. Teach him what he needs to know, and I guarantee you he will graduate with a degree from Mount St. Mary’s.”

The words gave Inge chills. He admits that at that moment, he had no intention of graduating. He was thinking about going to the NBA, having a productive career, and becoming a coach.

“But when he guaranteed my graduation, I felt like I couldn’t make him a liar and let him down.”

Inge graduated in 1998. Inge also noted that his graduation came two years after his eligibility expired but that Phelan made sure he had the opportunity even when he was no longer scoring baskets and winning games for him. A promise Inge said Phelan had made to his Inge’s mother. Inge concluded his post with the following,

I’m telling y’all he cared about his people and he was a special guy. If you were fortunate enough to know him or be coached by him, you were a lucky person. Again, thank you coach for believing in me when I didn’t believe in myself. — Inge

Regardless of ability, frequently walk-ons don’t get much playing time on a college basketball team. Without a Division 1 scholarship offer upon graduating from St. Joseph’s Prep in Philadelphia, Hayden received the same opportunity Phelan gave his players on scholarship — to earn his playing time. An option that might not have occurred with another coach. Hayden started from day one.

“He did things a little differently,” Hayden admitted. “He certainly charted his own course. Like with the bowtie.”

Ah, yes, the bowtie. Phelan’s signature bowtie. Out of respect for his college coach Ken Loeffler who wore a bowtie, Phelan wore a bowtie in his first game. The Mount won. So he wore it the next game. The Mount won again, and the tradition was born. He wore the bowtie for all but one season. He gave it up when his daughter said it was “gross”, but an uncharacteristic losing season brought the bowtie back the following year.

I always find that when you talk to coaches, particularly those nearing the end of their career or already done coaching, they remember the losses more than the wins. Those are the ones that are hard to shake. Phelan had a way of turning the page and moving on.

With Phelan that always seemed to be deeply tied to his love and devotion to his family. His wife Dottie and his five children have always been at the center of the equation for Phelan. It’s a fact that all of the players I spoke with in the recent days brought up.

Jamion Christian played for Phelan’s final three teams. Christian’s first head coaching job came at Mount St. Mary’s and he will enter his third season as the George Washington head coach this season. He said he attempts to bring many of the same things he saw with Phelan to his players.

“As a coach the way you live your life around your players and in front of your players is important. When you look at coach, the relationship he had with his family and the way he incorporated you within that family. He cared tremendously about you and cared about what was best for you. He would fight for that for you.” George Washington head coach Jamion Christian said.

My roots to the Mount are deep. Phelan’s 1981 team was a glorious group that hooked me. The offensive style and the excitement of Memorial Gymnasium, particularly the night of March 7, 1981 reeled me in. Two weeks shy of my 8th birthday, I was impressionable. And the sights that unfolded that evening were unreal.

Playing in the NCAA Division II South Atlantic Regional final against Elizabeth City State, the Mount saw a late lead evaporate and trailed by one with 2 seconds left and needed to go the length of the floor and score to survive and advance.

As Mark Purdy wrote in The Gettysburg Times on Monday following the win:

Coach Jim Phelan had a plan. So did (Dennis) Dempsey.

As the story goes, Dempsey wanted to attempt to draw a foul on the inbounds play by getting the defender to run into him. Phelan was simply designing a play to hope that a half-court heave fell in. Dempsey, who had unsuccessfully tried the play in practice earlier in the week, convinced Phelan it was worth a whirl. He was right. The Elizabeth City State defender plowed into Dempsey and the referee called the foul. Dempsey calmly made both free throws and a devastated ECSU team called a timeout it didn’t have. The Mount made more free throws and ran out the clock.

“We didn’t call the play. He called the play,” Phelan said of the heroics afterwards.

That made me a Mount fan.

But it’s that family culture that has kept me. A culture of family that Jim Phelan used to build his basketball program. It’s something that every individual I’ve talked to about Phelan in the last few days has at the front of their minds.

A family culture that is truly special. A family culture that is truly infectious. A family culture set in motion by a Hall of Famer in every way. A family culture that will continue.

“Our family culture is something that has been passed down at the Mount,” current head coach Dan Engelstad said on Friday. “Coach Phelan passed that down to Coach (Milan) Brown and gave him his blessing and he in turn passed that down to me. The family dynamic has always been important here. I want to keep that. Because a closer family makes for a more enjoyable journey. I want to make him proud, not just in words, but in the way I live it.”

Someday, and it might be sooner than later based on what I saw in that pickup game, the Mount will win for the 1,661st time in school history. With that win, all of the other coaches will finally have more wins than Jim Phelan.

As Mount St. Mary’s fans, we’ll do what we do with wins.

We’ll put a bowtie on it and remember how we got there.

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orbemnews · 4 years ago

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Bankers, Please Return to Your Desks Manhattan calling Goldman Sachs has joined JPMorgan Chase in telling its bankers that it’s almost time to come back to the office. David Solomon, Goldman’s C.E.O., sent a memo to employees advising them to “make plans to be in a position to return to the office” by June 14 in the U.S. and June 21 in Britain. JPMorgan plans to open its offices on May 17 on a voluntary basis and require that workers return to their desks in rotations starting in July. Goldman and JPMorgan’s moves put pressure on other banks to put an end to remote work, several bankers told DealBook. While many thought they could work from home through the summer, some executives are keen to get employees back into the office sooner. (Retail branches have been open throughout the pandemic.) Other major banks aren’t expecting employees to return in meaningful numbers for several months: Citigroup expects to have about 30 percent of its North America-based employees back in the office by the end of the summer. Bank of America’s C.E.O., Brian Moynihan, said recently that a return to the office probably wouldn’t take place until after Labor Day. Wells Fargo said it was “optimistic” that workers would be able to return to the office on Sept. 6. These decisions may be complicated by where the banks’ offices are. It could be easier to coax workers back to JPMorgan’s headquarters in Midtown East, for example, than to Times Square, home to Barclays and Morgan Stanley, where businesses were especially hard-hit by the pandemic and a handful of highly publicized crimes have recently taken place. “People are so on edge and so uncertain about their own future that all these situations are exaggerated,” Kathryn Wylde, the president of the Partnership for New York City, told The Times. Jamie Dimon appears eager for the end of remote working. “I’m about to cancel all my Zoom meetings,” the JPMorgan chief said at an event hosted by The Wall Street Journal. Working from home “does not work for younger people, it doesn’t work for those who want to hustle, it doesn’t work in terms of spontaneous idea generation,” he noted. Dimon said his bank had lost some business because rivals had visited a potential client in person and JPMorgan’s bankers hadn’t. He acknowledged that there was some pushback on the bank’s plans, but didn’t seem willing to give in. “Yes, people don’t like commuting, but so what,” he said. In other Manhattan workplace moves, the New York Stock Exchange issued guidance that allows trading firms to increase their staff on the floor if the employees provide proof of vaccination. And the United Nations is taking a more cautious approach to reopening than its host city, saying that it was premature to plan for an in-person General Assembly in September. Even Eric Yuan, Zoom’s C.E.O., has Zoom fatigue. As a result, he has stopped scheduling back-to-back video chats. “I’m so tired of that,” he said. HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING Business groups oppose voting restrictions in Texas. A coalition including HP and Microsoft published a letter yesterday criticizing “any changes that would restrict eligible voters’ access to the ballot.” A second letter, signed by more than 100 Houston executives, criticized the Texas legislation as “voter suppression.” Both show how companies are more willing to wade into the debate over voting limits after Georgia enacted a bill with restrictions last month. More details emerge about the Gates divorce. Cascade Investment, a holding company owned by Bill Gates, transferred over $1.8 billion worth of assets to Melinda Gates on Monday, the day that the two announced their plans to split. And although they will retain their roles as co-chairs and trustees of the Gates Foundation, questions remain about whether they will focus more on their individual philanthropies after they divorce. The White House alters its Covid-19 vaccination strategy. The Biden administration will shift emphasis from mass inoculation sites to smaller ones like pharmacies to get more people in the U.S. vaccinated. Meanwhile, the campaign to vaccinate the world is floundering, with the virus spreading more rapidly than ever, driven by new waves in South America and India. Corporate America responds to India’s pandemic surge. The Global Task Force on Pandemic Response, organized by the Chamber of Commerce, Microsoft, IBM and Accenture, with support from the Business Roundtable, will organize assistance to the country. It will begin by sending 1,000 ventilators and 25,000 oxygen concentrators by the end of the month. Pfizer reveals how its Covid-19 vaccine has boosted its financials. The drugmaker said it had collected $3.5 billion in sales from the shot, likely equating to roughly $900 million in pretax profits. It plans to seek emergency approval to use the vaccine in children age 2 to 11 in September and full approval for use in adults this month. Janet Yellen states the obvious, and markets shudder Janet Yellen, the Treasury secretary and former Fed chair, got in a bit of a tangle yesterday. She rattled the markets at one event — then used her appearance at a second conference to clarify her remarks. Today in Business Updated May 4, 2021, 6:53 p.m. ET “It may be that interest rates will have to rise somewhat to make sure that our economy doesn’t overheat,” she said at the first event, hosted by The Atlantic. Investors seized on those words — tech stocks tumbled most of all on the prospects of higher rates — and critics said she was improperly interfering in monetary policy. Fed officials have said that any spike in inflation linked to robust government spending and a postpandemic reopening is likely to be temporary; the central bank has pledged to keep interest rates low for a long time. “Let me be clear, it’s not something I’m predicting or recommending,” Yellen said at the second event, hosted by The Wall Street Journal, a few hours later. “If anybody appreciates the independence of the Fed, I think that person is me.” Indeed, when she was the Fed chair, Yellen had to deal with persistent jawboning from Donald Trump, who spoke out more explicitly about Fed policy than many previous presidents. Stocks pared their losses. “Markets were unhappy at this statement of the blindingly obvious,” Paul Donovan of UBS wrote in a note to clients today. He and other market watchers have noted that Yellen’s comments essentially described the mechanics of monetary policy and weren’t framed as a prediction. Still, her words carry extra weight, given her previous job. The brief freakout over the mere notion of higher interest rates also revealed how dependent the markets have become on extraordinarily easy monetary policy over the past year. “This trial is going to be a sprawling mess of irrelevant, prejudicial evidence.” — Amy Saharia, a lawyer for Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of Theranos, at her client’s first appearance in court over criminal fraud charges in more than a year. A federal prosecutor responded that Holmes “defrauded patients by saying tests were accurate and reliable when they weren’t — and she knew it.” Dogecoin does its thing Dogecoin, the cryptocurrency that started as a joke, is still on a tear, after another surge pushed it up a whopping 14,000 percent so far this year. One theory is that the upcoming appearance of Elon Musk, a noted Dogecoin superfan, as host of “Saturday Night Live” could get more people interested in trading the crypto token. (It’s as good a reason as any for those who try to rationalize its movements.) The latest bout of Dogecoin mania has overshadowed what’s going on in Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency, which set records this week and made its 27-year-old co-creator, Vitalik Buterin, a billionaire (in dollars). Ethereum is up more than 350 percent for the year to date, outpacing Bitcoin’s relatively pedestrian 90 percent gain — which, for context, outpaces every stock in the S&P 500. Who decides Trump’s fate on Facebook At 9 a.m. Eastern today, the Facebook Oversight Board will announce whether it believes Facebook was justified in barring Donald Trump after he used the platform to incite a mob of supporters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6. Here’s what you need to know about what Mark Zuckerberg has called Facebook’s “Supreme Court,” whose decision could influence how all social networks treat political speech. What is the Facebook Oversight Board? Facebook assembled the board to vet its most sensitive decisions on moderating content. It consists of 20 members, including experts in human rights, constitutional law and journalism. The board’s cases, which are referred by Facebook or the public, are reviewed by a panel of five members, who consider whether the company’s decision is consistent with its rules and human rights laws. A majority of the full board must approve the final decision. Does the board have any power? Only what Facebook gives it. The company has said it will abide by the board’s rulings, and the board’s charter emphasizes its independence. But Facebook has no legal obligation to follow those decisions, and it funds the organization through a $130 million trust. What exactly will the board decide in this case? It could vote to reinstate Trump’s Facebook account or uphold the ban. Or it could provide a ruling with more nuance, such as finding that the ban was appropriate at the time it was initiated but is no longer necessary. In addition to a ruling in this case, Facebook has asked for broader policy recommendations. “Basically the board is setting the tone here for what they’re going to do going forward — how much power they’re going to have, how much power they’re not going to have, whether they’re even going to be constrained by how the question was posed to them with Facebook,” Kate Klonick, an assistant professor of law at St. John’s University, told NPR. THE SPEED READ Deals Tiger Global, the big tech investment firm, reportedly plans to raise $10 billion for its next fund. (FT) Listing news roundup: Jessica Alba’s Honest Company raised $413 million in its I.P.O. at a $1.5 billion valuation; JAB’s Krispy Kreme filed confidentially to go public; and the Equinox gym chain is reportedly in talks to merge with a SPAC founded by Chamath Palihapitiya. (Bloomberg) Politics and policy How two Black C.E.O.s got corporate America to pay attention to voting rights. (WaPo) U.S. officials are pushing Taiwanese chip makers to prioritize American automakers’ demands to ease supply shortages. (Reuters) Inside the debate about who would actually pay President Biden’s corporate tax increase. (WSJ) Tech China is building electric car plants nearly as fast as Europe and the U.S. combined. (NYT) The privacy-focused messaging app Signal said Facebook had blocked it from buying Instagram ads about the social network’s user-data gathering practices. (Insider) Best of the rest A majority of G.E. shareholders voted to reject a $230 million compensation package for the company’s C.E.O., Larry Culp. (FT) Pandora, the world’s largest jewelry maker, is abandoning mined diamonds for lab-created ones. (NYT) We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to [email protected]. Source link Orbem News #bankers #desks #return

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greatopoo · 4 years ago

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Real Estate Selling best Websites

Best Real Estate Websites for Selling House

In Real estate Selling a house can be a somehow difficult task if you don't have the right tools to use in this modern time. A poll by the National Association of Realtors reported 51% of buyers found their homes on the internet, 30% found homes via an agent, along with a dwindling 7% found their eventual home via a lawn sign or house that was open. This ought to tell you one thing: if you’re selling a house, you don’t only need to be on the web, bust you should be on the right real estate internet sites. You might be wondering what exactly those internet sites? I’m glad you asked because I’ve made a listing of favorites below. Best Real Estate Agent Websites # Zillow

Best for: Buyers, tenants, sellers, locating brokers, locating mortgage lenders About: Regardless if you’re buying, purchasing or surfing Zillow has something for you. If you’re listing a house on Zillow yourself, you’ll get access to some sales yield calculator to determine the estimated value, a local news feed, and tools to assist you to price your home correctly. They have Mobile App: iOS | Android # Realtor.com

Best for Buyers, sellers locating brokers, locating mortgage lenders. Real estate Selling a house on Realtor, Sellers can compute what their home’s worth, discover how to start the home-selling process, and learn how to select only the right broker for their needs. And, Realtor.com is accredited from the National Association of REALTORS, so you can trust the content you find here. Mobile App: iOS | Android # Redfin

Best for Buyers, sellers Redfin helps you sell your home for as much as a 1% listing fee. Within this entry package, you’ll get the support of a native Redfin Agent, professional images plus a 3D walkthrough, premium positioning onRedfin.com, a lawn sign, and open houses. Able to pay? Their two% Listing Fee service includes everything at the 1 percent plan, plus, a custom home improvement plan, vetted service providers, and cost coverage for job direction, deep cleaning, professional staging and more. You can simply use their Mobile App: iOS or Android. # Trulia

Best for: Buyers, sellers, locating a broker About: Trulia goes beyond static listings. They supply insights from the people who live in your neighborhoods to provide buyers map overlays that provide deeper comprehension of the neighborhood they are purchasing into. See the costs of recently sold homes in your neighborhood and home values in your community. And, get advice from local realtors, agents and others on Trulia and real estate community users. They also have a nice Mobile App: iOS | Android you can use. #MLS

Best for: Buyers, sellers, realtors MLS.com is a free Multiple Listing Service search for real estate MLS listings from accredited Realtors along with other real estate professionals that are members of their local MLS List home for sale, new homes, resale homes, new construction, acreage, lots, land, commercial property, and investment property here. #CENTURY 21 Real Estate

Best for: Buyers, sellers, finding a broker. Did you know that the typical home sale today involves over 20 steps after the initial contract is accepted? Oh yes. CENTURY 21 brokers walk you through each step to move toward a quick-and-easy. Together, you’ll produce a marketing plan, add value to your home before purchasing, set the right cost, and show your home at its best. With CENTURY 21, you may expect a traditional, full-service approach to real estate. Just need to get their Mobile App: iOS | Android #RE/MAX \

Best for: Buyers, sellers, finding a broker About: No matter if you’re looking to sell your home locally or expand your real estate internationally, commercially, or into the luxury realm -- RE/MAX might help. And with franchises and brokers offered in all 50 states, you’re sure to find one that specializes in your town and needs. Available also on Mobile App: iOS | Android # Coldwell Banker Realtors.

Best for: Buyers, sellers, finding a broker. CBx is Coldwell Banker technology giving its agents an edge. It provides precise pricing, utilizes data to find the right buyers for your home, and strategically markets your property from focusing on only the most qualified prospective buyers. Request estimate on Coldwell Banker on their internet site to get started, or simply download Mobile App: iOS | Android # HomeFinder

Best for: Buyers, sellers HomeFinder is a listing tool. For $39 a month, you’ll be able to upload as many images of your home as you’d like, easily share your list on a social network, and get priority sorting, which implies your list will appear ahead of basic properties. HomeFinder also gives you the option of allowing home buyers or tenants to email or phone you directly. You can use their Mobile App: iOS | Android #Craigslist

Best for Adventurous buyers, sellers. Craigslist is a place you can possibly sell or at least advertise your home on Craigslist. And with 50 billion page views every month, it’s easy to see why many people choose Craigslist as a real estate hub. Produce a brand new post, click “housing provided,” and optimize your ad with a killer headline, great images, and copy. Clearly, however, beware of scammers and undesirable investors. With a good strategy, listing your house on Craigslist might give you delight and expected results. #Facebook

Best for: Sellers Do you wish to sell your home, fast? Locate a Facebook-friendly realtor and start conducting advertisements. Ensure your broker is left up to date on the most recent within this social network giant ‘therefore changes in the algorithm because you’ll want to know whether or not to make videos, static images, or text ahead posts to get the maximum bang for your dollar. Facebook’s targeting abilities enable you or your representative to get your home’s ad in front of the people who'll find it most applicable, and a link back to your realtor’s site or the MLS list will funnel leads directly to your doorstep. #Homes.com

Best for: Buyers, sellers, locating an agent Let Homes.com know exactly what matters most to you at a home and they’ll match you with properties that meet your demands, plus they’ll give you a distinguishing match score so you know precisely how much of your match every home is. See a home you like? Snap a picture and Homes.com will assist you to source a few similar options. Just like a dating website for your residence, Homes.com guarantees to find the ideal buyer or home for you. Their Mobile App: iOS | Android #PropertyRecord.com

Best for: Vendors Present property value, land value, number of baths, and government real estate records are only a couple of the facts you’ll know from this info aggregator. It could not be fancy, however, it uses an advanced algorithm and real reviews to give you a report on any home you’d prefer to market. #Movoto

Best for: Buyers, sellers Movoto taps into the MLS to provide up-to-date listings you can peruse with confidence. Find your dream home? They'll connect you within minutes to one of their regional agents. And you'll get access to their cutting edge communication tools, AI, and data scientists to get a real estate experience that modern. Mobile App: iOS | Android #Open Listing

Best for: Buyers Feeling Purchasing your home on-line. Open Listing makes it feasible to search homes available on the market, book tours with brokers who will not pressure you to purchase, submit your supply on-line with the assistance of a locally based broker, and also get a 50% commission refund whenever you close. Selling your home is among the largest financial decisions you’ll actually make. Don’t pick the wrong website or broker. Start with this listing and find the right fit for your needs. Are you a realtor hoping to cultivate your company? Check out these guidelines for starting a real estate business, a listing of top real estate sites and this information will give you the best insight as to the steps to take in dealing with your real estate business. Mobile App: iOS Read the full article

#realestateagent #realestateagentwebsite #realestatelistings #realestatesellingahouse #webiteforsellingahouse

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oliveratlanta · 5 years ago

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As investment pours in, a ‘new Stone Mountain Village’ aims to rise

The village’s Main Street and its proximity to Georgia’s most popular tourist attraction, as seen about five years ago. | Courtesy of Stone Mountain Downtown Development Authority

Brewers, developers, creatives, and other entrepreneurs call the village an up-and-coming, historic gem among metro Atlanta downtowns—its reputation be damned

The tour of what Jelani Linder and other enthused locals are calling the “new Stone Mountain Village” begins on a chilly Friday afternoon, at a local joint opened in 2018 called Stoned Pizza Kitchen, where every pun is intended. Linder, a Coldwell Banker Commercial Metro Brokers agent, is an unabashed ambassador for the village and a seasoned tour guide. He holds a masters degree in urban planning from the University of Georgia, serves as Stone Mountain’s Downtown Development Authority chair, and recently bought one of the city’s few new houses nearby with his wife, Shani. Before all of that, though, Linder grew up in another DeKalb County city, Decatur, when it was hardscrabble—back when his pals considered venturing into tony Oakhurst dangerous and gentrifying Kirkwood “a sin.”

Linder sees in Stone Mountain Village the next hip place, a refuge for Atlanta’s priced-out populace, and to prove it, we trek down East Mountain Street to—what else—the renovation project that’s becoming the city’s first big brewery.

“Once people can get over the perception, they get it,” Linder says of his city, en route. “It’s like a cult here, I’ll be honest with you, when people buy in. The enthusiasm, the excitement.”

Scheduled to open in March in a long-abandoned Pure filling station and auto shop, Outrun Brewing Company eschews the typical brewery motif of brick, reclaimed wood, and pipes; instead there’s pink neon, an arcade game the business is named for, and a “retro-futurism” vibe that feels like Stranger Things meets Miami Vice meets Milwaukee. The proprietors are two funny suds aficionados, Josh Miller and Ryan Silva, who met each other while running brewing operations at Decatur’s Three Taverns. It’s not long before they start echoing Linder’s boosterism, lending some credence to his “cult” quip.

Inside the forthcoming Outrun.

The former filling station’s patio affords mountain views.

Miller: “There’s so many new businesses coming into Stone Mountain. It’s potentially the next big area.”

Silva: “It’s not much different than Decatur 15 or 20 years ago. It could be another Decatur.”

Miller: “People always say, ‘You’re all the way out in Stone Mountain’—all the way out? Have you driven the 15-minute drive? I take Memorial [Drive] from the eastside, and there’s never traffic, no matter what time it is.”

Silva: “The reality is, a lot of people can’t afford to live in [Atlanta], and that’s fine. We’re trying to bridge the gap between the city and the severely underserved suburbs. We wanted to be in on it from the start, not the tail end. We want to be part of building the community up and the struggles that are part of that.”

(Whether the small city could handle an influx of new residents remains to be seen, however. More on that shortly.)

Miller: “There’s so much raw potential here. All it takes is a couple of people saying, ‘Hey, let’s try something.’ And I think that’s happening now. That’s how these towns get started. It’s going to be a whole new world.”

Linder, grinning near the entrance: “If you look at our street grid, it’s what Suwanee and all these new communities are trying to duplicate. We’ve had it for 100 years—now we’re just trying to fill in the gaps.”

Jelani and Shani Linder, outside a forthcoming barbecue restaurant from a Decatur chef.

The residue

Beyond the brewery’s garage doors, the future patio for Adirondack chairs, and a towering magnolia stands an amenity that no other historic downtown in metro Atlanta can claim: the world’s largest piece of exposed granite, like the pate of a balding giant. Stone Mountain Park—the rock and private adventure grounds—is Georgia’s most popular tourist attraction (4 million annual guests strong) and one of the most-visited in the entire Southeast. There’s a 3,200-acre wonderland of trails and recreational sites around the mountain, all free to anyone who might, say, grab a pizza or beer in the village and walk or bike six blocks to the park.

Getty Images

The park is also home to the country’s largest shrine to the Confederacy, the enormous bas-relief sculpture of three Civil War leaders carved into the northern face, and a long, sullied history of Ku Klux Klan rallies and racist gatherings, including KKK parades as recently as the 1980s and an alt-right rally in 2016. The monadnock’s climbable, moonscape beauty includes a carving of Gen. Robert E. Lee as tall as a nine-story building—recently decried as the “largest shrine to white supremacy in the history of the world”—and the boulevard ringing it all bears the general’s name. The park was promptly closed last year when white supremacists attempted to rally during Atlanta’s Super Bowl. And though a group called Georgia Tourism Product Development Team has stepped in to help counter the reputation with reality, as the AJC reported last year, social media has played no small part in wedding the majority-black area with images of chanting, Confederate-flag waving white nationalists.

Sure, the symbols harken back to important American history. But they represent a glaring contrast to what’s becoming a more charming, diversified, and progressive former railroad village just beyond the park gates, where a wave of private investment promises to turn dead storefronts into a more organic type of attraction.

“This growth was bound to happen,” says Dorian DeBarr, Decide DeKalb Development Authority’s interim president. “As investors educated themselves and took an opportunity to actually experience what the village has to offer, it was a no-brainer.”

Main Street scenes today.

More broadly, DeKalb saw a surge of capital investment in 2019 to more than $1.1 billion—eight times the previous year—and growth as an entertainment industry destination, with productions as disparate as Dolly Parton Presents, Watchmen, Bad Boys 3, and Jumanji: The Next Level filming nearby. The mountain itself, of course, was immortalized in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s most iconic speech, and this village of less than two square miles is where TV, music, and film superstar Donald Glover grew up.

So the contrast runs deep, like the granite. And for some, it stings.

“When you look at South DeKalb as a whole, it’s majority black, so you have to take that into consideration,” says Alan Peterson, the city’s Downtown Development Director with the DDA. “The monument, it’s state-owned. It’s history. It happened. There’s nothing we can do about it, and we’re just trying to move forward.”

The decline

Linder estimates that, as of a few years ago, between 60 and 70 percent of the early 20th century storefronts along Stone Mountain’s Main Street were vacant. Which makes a scathing Facebook review of the “ghost town” village, deposited on the city government’s page in 2016, no surprise:

“Only a few businesses remain and I can’t for the life of me understand how they are sustaining,” wrote one unimpressed patron. “The look on tourist faces when they visit downtown varies from shear surprise [sic], to disappointment and all-out disgust.”

The vacant, circa-1905 Stone Mountain Inn building is located down the block from most recent retail activity.

That description conflicts with the bustling hub the village used to be. During Reconstruction, the Main Street area sprang into a center of tourism and industry hinged on quarrying. Local granite was shipped across the world, used in Tokyo’s Imperial Hotel, the Panama Canal, and in at least one building in almost every state in the U.S., including in the foundation of the Lincoln Memorial.

When the grounds around the mountain operated as a less-commercialized state park, the village was where tourists came for lunch, souvenirs, even a store that peddled butterflies, often riding a train that connected the two attractions. The state still owns the mountain but is leasing commercial operations for at least the next quarter-century to Norcross-based Herschend Family Entertainment, which owns or operates many other themed tourist hubs, such as Dollywood in Tennessee. The privatization deal began in 1988, and longtime locals say the village’s vibrancy soon changed, as the park’s main entrance was shifted to a U.S. Highway 78 exit, the village train ceased, and visitors began skirting the old town.

“I mean, they’re in business—nobody can blame [Herschend] for trying to keep the business in the park,” says Rory Webb, co-owner of Main Street bistro Stone Mountain Public House, who lives in a historic village house nearby. “But when they did all that, they virtually strangled the town. And I think a lot of the businesses weren’t willing or able to change with the times, to morph.”

Another struggle has been the misperception of rampant crime.

Business owners and longtime residents say two or three police officers from the city’s small department are seen patrolling the city’s 1.7 miles at most times, lending a sense of quietude—a bubble, even. Stone Mountain Police Department statistics show violent crime rates in 2019 at four per every 1,000 residents—or about 1/6 of the national average. An average of 21 property crimes, however, were reported per month last year, so it’s relatively safe but not exactly Mayberry.

“The worst thing is, a lot of people hear ‘Stone Mountain,’ and they think of unincorporated Stone Mountain,” says Webb. “You turn the news on, and there’s a stabbing or shooting in Stone Mountain, but you look, and it’s the DeKalb police, not inside the village.”

“It’s frustrating,” the DDA’s Peterson concurs. “We’re a small city, and our police force does a great job.”

The Main Street DIY crafts hub Stillwell’s Emporium, decorated for the village’s Mardi Gras parade in February.

Back on the walking tour, the Linders lead the way into a CBD retailer that opened next to the new pizza parlor in January, The Rose & Hemp. Behind the counter, founder Scott Koester says he and his wife, with a baby on the way, traded a 1,250-square-foot East Lake bungalow for a house they bought more than three times that size outside the village’s limits. He plans to live there for decades.

Koester was easily sold on the business location, he says, after parking across the street one day—in a lot where a free, open-container Friday music series, Tunes by the Tracks, will happen again this spring—and taking one look at Main Street’s bones.

“I can’t speak to the past, because I don’t know, I haven’t been here,” says Koester. “But it seems like a lot of people are coming together, to work together and make this a place people want to come.”

Directly above the shop, Lauren Godfrey and Ebonee Thompson, two friends and tech-company coworkers, are putting the finishing touches on the city’s first large coworking space, C3 Village, a sort of warmer WeWork with endearingly creaky floors and a lounge designed to resemble a Friends set. Like the brewers, CBD entrepreneur, and many others, they spoke of building a village of business allies and not competitors, each boat rising with a tide.

“Look, I’m a black girl from Florida, she’s a white girl from Georgia, and I think that it speaks to the story that people from completely different backgrounds can come together and create something so magical, something so passionate,” says Thompson, whose background in tourism has also landed her a deal to run the city’s new social media campaign. “That speaks volumes to what this community can do.”

Thompson and Godfrey, in the circa-1940 space they’ve renovated themselves into a coworking hub.

The upswing

As part of the city’s refined pitch to more investors, Peterson says the DDA is in the process of tabulating how much private investment—hundreds of thousands, at least—Stone Mountain has recently seen.

In January, the city inked a $155,000 contract with Atlanta architecture and engineering firm Pond to create a new downtown masterplan. Expected to be ready by August, the plan will aim to boost village esthetics and channel area visitors in from main arteries (by way of enhanced signage, as a starting point). Changes could also include additional bike lanes and green space meant to build off cyclist traffic that the popular PATH trail brings. A current city motto—“Atlanta’s Mountain Town”—is destined for the Dumpster, Peterson says.

Beyond the buildouts for forthcoming businesses, the makings of a buzzy, urban-style place are already here, headed by a diverse set of proprietors: a bike shop, arts center, theater, makers studio, antique shops, health store, new coffee house Gilly Brew Bar, event center and music studio 5380 Studios, a pie shop, and longstanding eateries like Public House, Sweet Potato Cafe (in a funky bungalow off Main Street), and the stalwart Wells Cargo Cafe.

Gilly’s coffee house occupies the 1834 former home of Stone Mountain’s first mayor, where both Union and Confederate casualties were hospitalized during the Civil War. A new restaurant is also planned.

“I mean, Stone Mountain is one of the largest attractions in the Southeast,” says Gilly barista Ivan Solis. “It’s kind of crazy how many people go there, but don’t come here. It’s kind of weird.”

Around the corner from the brewery in a circa-1900 brick building, however, could be the most-hyped new attraction on the walking tour: 13th Colony BBQ, a venture by Stone Mountain native Jonathan Hartnett of Decatur’s Las Brasas. That’s expected to open in April, on the corner opposite Stoned Pizza Kitchen, lending another commercial jolt to the village’s nucleic intersection.

“People love to see old historic buildings from the early 1900s repurposed,” says David Downs, a Realtor with Keller Knapp Realty, who fell for the village during group cycling rides from Decatur—and who’s bought and renovated three Main Street buildings in recent years. “You can’t build history.”

Housing outlook

As a tangerine sunset flares over the pines, the walking tour concludes at a development called Hearthstone Park that could lend a glimpse at Stone Mountain Village’s residential future—where the Linders both own a home and, as real estate agents, are actively selling others.

Jelani, who’s been a village resident and homeowner since 2006, says Hearthstone marks the city’s first new housing development in nearly 20 years. Thirty-four standalone houses are planned around a central park, each with three bedrooms and mountain views. A starting price of $285,000 buys 1,500 square feet and change, while the $350,000 range gets a finished basement and 2,400 square feet.

“This is a half-million dollar product intown, at least,” Jelani notes in the model unit’s living room. “It’s something for people getting pushed out, or empty-nesters.”

For existing housing stock, Neighborhood Scout pegs the median Stone Mountain home value at just $127,724, with a majority built between 1970 and 1999. Per recent sales records, the low $200,000s buys a livable three-bedroom, midcentury bungalow within a few blocks of the village.

But the renovated classics near Main Street are harder to come by, often trading by word of mouth before listing. “When older homes do come on the market,” says Shani, “they go like that—snap!”

Census estimates show the city’s population has inched up by less than 500 people since 2010. And Jelani says infill opportunities in city limits are limited. So one can’t help but wonder, should the droves come seeking relatively affordable housing in a unique, walkable, outdoorsy setting—amidst a metro expected to ballon with 3 million more people by 2050—where they all might fit.

But that’s a matter for another, more sober day.

It being Friday night, the Public House—the village’s de facto Cheers—comes alive with clinking glasses, ragtime music, and karaoke crowds. In the back, huddled around a booth, Webb the co-owner describes how the village retains an overtly friendly, come-on-over southernness without the yesteryear stigma. He points to a crowd that’s diverse—and by all indications, defiantly proud of it.

“You either fall in love with the village, or you don’t,” says Webb. “And if you do, you got to live here. It’s the best hidden gem in Georgia.”

From the mountain’s summit, with downtown and Midtown Atlanta beyond, and the village below.

source https://atlanta.curbed.com/2020/2/28/21128454/stone-mountain-village-park-atlanta-restaurants-brewery-main-street

#OliverAtlanta

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mycryptosuite · 1 year ago

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Saturday National Confirmed Two Sure For 24/06/2023

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courtneytincher · 5 years ago

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G-7 Leaders Squabble as World Economy Teeters

(Bloomberg) -- Want to receive this post in your inbox every day? Sign up for the Balance of Power newsletter, and follow Bloomberg Politics on Twitter and Facebook for more.Historians may look back at this weekend’s gathering of world leaders in the French port city of Biarritz as a squandered opportunity.The global economy is weakening, trade wars are escalating and major economies like Germany are sliding toward recession. But Group of Seven allies are so divided there’s little hope for the type of coordinated response that sprang from similar meetings a decade ago.Amid the growing financial crisis in 2008, then-President George W. Bush called an emergency G-20 meeting that yielded a roadmap to combat the worldwide slowdown. Along with subsequent multilateral actions, it’s widely seen as having helped avoid a deeper downturn.Now disagreements over everything from Iran’s nuclear program to Brexit to the future of the global trading system likely will stand in the way of unified solutions.U.S. President Donald Trump has dismissed accusations his tariff assault on China and threats to impose duties on Europe’s auto industry are contributing to any slowdown.As Shawn Donnan, Raymond Colitt and Toru Fujioka write, the brightest economic hope for this round may be just that things don’t get any worse.And while the world’s political leaders squabble, it may be left to central bankers conducting their own retreat some 5,000 miles away in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to save the day.Global HeadlinesAmazon brouhaha | French President Emmanuel Macron’s call on the G-7 to tackle the fires raging in the Amazon jungle has set up the summit's first flash point. It’s sure to irritate Trump, who pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord, and has already riled Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who said discussing the issue without his nation’s involvement reflects a “colonial mentality.”Seeds of discontent | Top Trump officials met yesterday to consider options for quelling a backlash in politically important farm states, Jennifer A. Dlouhy and Mario Parker report. The topic of discussion? Recent administration moves that would slow biofuel use. They’re trying to blunt anger in Iowa and other states critical to the president’s re-election in 2020.Trump’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, has produced a new film called “Claws of the Red Dragon” attacking Huawei Technologies, an attempt to steel the president’s resolve to confront China. Click here for more on why — even if Trump faces another Republican primary challenger — it’s unlikely to lead to much. Online army | The technology underpinning Hong Kong’s leaderless protests is a major reason there’s no end in sight: Online discussion groups are the movement’s backbone, and authorities who've tried to subdue it can’t simply lock up the masterminds and send everyone home. And no single leader has emerged with enough clout to call demonstrators off — or negotiate with the government. One of the biggest tests of unity will come this weekend, when netizens are again planning to disrupt airport operations.Tiring of war | From his heavily fortified compound west of Libya’s capital, Ghassan Salame has a ringside seat as two forces battle for control of the country. The United Nation’s special envoy, his mission is to end fighting between the internationally-recognized government and its chief rival, commander Khalifa Haftar, that’s been fueled by the ambitions of regional powers. His argument, writes Samer Khalil Al-Atrush? No one can win this deadlocked contest.Pyongyang criticism | North Korea’s top diplomat has blamed Michael Pompeo for stalled nuclear talks with the U.S., saying the secretary of state “casts a dark shadow” over the negotiations. Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho said Pompeo was more focused on his own political aspirations than getting a result. It’s the latest statement from North Korea seeking a more favorable negotiating framework before Kim Jong Un restarts talks.What to WatchItalian President Sergio Mattarella gave the center-left Democrats until Tuesday to form a coalition with their long-time rivals, the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, following the government’s collapse. Trump’s lawyers will be in a New York court today trying to block Democrats’ access to financial records from Deutsche Bank and Capital One — and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has much at stake over the outcome.And finally ... Prime Minister Boris Johnson believes a U.K. economy free of the EU will see depressed British port cities roar back into life as tax-exempt zones. He’d be well advised to have a look at the concrete bunker on the edge of Luxembourg’s airport. As Hugo Miller and Stephanie Bodoni report, the reality can be a nightmare as such duty-free facilities face growing criticism for being conduits of money laundering and tax evasion. \--With assistance from Karen Leigh.To contact the author of this story: Kathleen Hunter in London at [email protected] contact the editor responsible for this story: Ruth Pollard at [email protected], Karl MaierFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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tamboradventure · 5 years ago

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We Need to Stop Telling Women They’ll Get Assaulted If They Travel Solo

Posted: 7/25/2019 | July 25th, 2019

Kristin Addis from Be My Travel Muse writes our semi-regular column on solo female travel. In this column, she goes deep into the shaming culture surrounding solo female travel and how women are often told it’s not safe to travel (while men are told no such thing). It’s not an easy topic but one that’s very pertinent and needs to be discussed.

Many of us solo travelers receive pushback. Depending on what other people think we should be doing with our lives instead, the pressure can range from mild guilting to quite disturbing warnings.

“You’ll never get another job, never find a partner, never have children (or settle down in time to have them), and never have financial security,” they say.

“You’ll be an easier victim, get robbed, or be killed.”

But one thing sticks out when we consider solo female vs. solo male travelers:

Women are told much more often than men that they will “get raped” if they travel alone.

Based on my own research conducted by polling large, travel-focused Facebook groups, out of nearly 1,000 responses, 69% of female respondents reported being told they’d get raped if they traveled solo vs. 6.6% of men*.

Certainly, if we consider the data on sexual assault of women vs. men, many more women are victims than men worldwide. In the US, according to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s 2010 report, nearly 1 in 5 women in the US have been raped at some point in their lives. The stats are similar in Canada, where over 600,000 sexual assaults are reported by women per year, which is estimated to only be 5% of cases while the rest go unreported. A 2014 report by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights shows similar numbers.

However, when we delve deeper into the numbers, we see that the overwhelming majority of this violence is inflicted by someone the victim knows. According to Statistics Canada, only 16% of violent assaults against women are carried out by a total stranger and in the US it’s estimated at around 22%.

What about when women travel abroad? I found that in countries with a lower socioeconomic status and even higher rates of sexual violence, the likelihood that the perpetrator was someone that the victim did not already know was also low, according to the World Health Organization’s global and regional estimates.

Further, the numbers show that getting sexually attacked abroad is rare. The number one crime is stolen passports. Unfortunately, the US does not report on sexual assault abroad, but the 2014 British Behaviour Abroad report does, and it shows that the government provided assistance to an average of 280 sexual assault victims abroad out of over 19,000 yearly consular assistance cases from 2009 to 2014.

Obviously, many sexual assaults go unreported abroad as well, and the world is generally not a safe place for women. Coercion still happens and the binge drinking culture in hostels doesn’t help keep women safe. However, based on all of the aforementioned research, it appears that most of the rapes that occur abroad take place between people who know each other and does not target tourists.

This suggests that, by traveling, a woman is potentially putting herself in a less threatening sexual-violence situation than when she’s at home.

This led me to wonder: Why is it that the warning to women that they’ll “get assaulted” if they travel alone is so pervasive, even when the data does not support this? Is it because whenever tragedy does befall a solo female traveler, it’s front-page news that also often suggests that it’s her fault?

Contrast this to when a solo male meets tragedy and is referred to as an adventurer and “lover of life.” Why is the opposite so often true for a woman — who, as many in the comment sections of these articles can’t help but point out, shouldn’t have been traveling alone?

Why are men allowed to travel alone and women aren’t?

Is it simply too threatening, whether consciously — or more likely unconsciously — to see a woman going against the typical status quo and having more self-agency? Is it too abnormal to see a woman deciding that she does not need a partner or a friend or any kind of chaperone on a journey to another country (which, for those from the US, is likely to be statistically safer)?

When a woman goes against the status quo, it triggers people’s fear of change and their discomfort over a life not fully lived. This is why even women caution other women about the dangers of solo travel. The warning almost always comes from someone who has not actually tried to travel alone and does not have any firsthand experience.

Moreover, even though the world population has exploded, women are still guilted about turning away from the traditional gender role of getting married and having babies. But this has only been “tradition” for a few hundred years. Whole villages, including men, used to be involved in child-rearing, but modern motherhood is often a solitary job. That sure does make it easy to take a woman’s — and indeed any human being’s — greatest power, which is giving life, and make it a burden. It takes away autonomy and takes one out of the workforce. It keeps women dependent and out of positions of power.

The results speak for themselves. Women are paid less, on average, than men the world over. There are fewer female CEOs and fewer women in government (except for in Rwanda, which also has the cleanest capital in the world), even though people do better under female leadership.

Thankfully, we’re seeing a worldwide shift and a discussion about the patriarchy coming to the forefront of mainstream media — something that’s been a long time coming, after centuries of female subjugation — but we have a long way to go.

Then there is the psychological effect of this pervasive warning given to solo female travelers to consider. Casting doubt on a woman’s sexual safety can powerfully affect her psyche, especially if she experienced sexual trauma at some point in her life already and has an altered emotional response to such threats.

That said, this warning about rape affects women whether they’ve experienced sexual trauma or not. A study conducted at a US university found that women who had not been victims of rape were still more likely to assume typical gender roles after being read a realistic description of a rape that had occurred on their own college campus, where the threat would feel more imminent to them.

Several similar studies referenced in the same book, Sex, Power, Conflict: Evolutionary and Feminist Perspectives, edited by David M. Buss and Neil M. Malamuth, found that just the threat of rape eroded trust of men by women and negatively affected women’s self-esteem and self-agency.

The threat of rape is a psychological weapon that is likely to discourage her not just from traveling but from trusting herself and her own abilities.

If a woman is mistrustful of men, and even worse, of her own self and abilities, then how in the world is she supposed to work up the courage to travel the world, especially solo? It’s much easier to keep a woman “in her place” if she doesn’t become independent, experience other cultures, and come to believe in herself and her abilities.

How, in light of this information, can we see telling a woman she’ll “get raped” as anything other than cruel and manipulative?

None of this is to lay blame on men, but rather lay out the facts: it’s false that a woman is more likely to get raped by traveling than she is by staying home.

We need to ask why female autonomy is such a scary concept in modern society. We need to recognize that by holding a woman back from her independence, even well-meaning friends and parents are killing her budding sense of self.

It’s up to all of us to support women who wish to grow and flourish in whatever ways they choose, including by traveling the world, especially solo. It’s the one thing in my life that built up more self-confidence and bravery than anything else I’ve done. I hope everyone gets to experience that at least once.

(Note: Unfortunately, there is a dearth of data on those who identify as nonbinary. Apart from the option I included in my own data collection — which still has too few responses to be statistically helpful — I didn’t see this group referenced in governmental research numbers. With that in mind, this post uses the data I do have access to, which focuses on those who identify as male or female.)

Conquering Mountains: The Guide to Solo Female Travel

For a complete A-to-Z guide on solo female travel, check out Kristin’s new book, Conquering Mountains. Besides discussing many of the practical tips of preparing and planning your trip, the book addresses the fears, safety, and emotional concerns women have about traveling alone. It features over 20 interviews with other female travel writers and travelers. Click here to learn more about the book and start reading it today!

Kristin Addis is a solo female travel expert who inspires women to travel the world in an authentic and adventurous way. A former investment banker who sold all of her belongings and left California in 2012, Kristin has solo traveled the world for over four years, covering every continent (except for Antarctica, but it’s on her list). There’s almost nothing she won’t try and almost nowhere she won’t explore. You can find more of her musings at Be My Travel Muse or on Instagram and Facebook.

Book Your Trip: Logistical Tips and Tricks

Book Your Flight Find a cheap flight by using Skyscanner or Momondo. They are my two favorite search engines because they search websites and airlines around the globe so you always know no stone is left unturned.

Book Your Accommodation You can book your hostel with Hostelworld as they have the largest inventory. If you want to stay somewher eother than a hotel, use Booking.com as they consistently return the cheapest rates for guesthouses and cheap hotels. I use them all the time.

Don’t Forget Travel Insurance Travel insurance will protect you against illness, injury, theft, and cancellations. It’s comprehensive protection in case anything goes wrong. I never go on a trip without it as I’ve had to use it many times in the past. I’ve been using World Nomads for ten years. My favorite companies that offer the best service and value are:

World Nomads (for everyone below 70)

Insure My Trip (for those over 70)

Looking for the best companies to save money with? Check out my resource page for the best companies to use when you travel! I list all the ones I use to save money when I travel – and I think will help you too!

The post We Need to Stop Telling Women They’ll Get Assaulted If They Travel Solo appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

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biofunmy · 5 years ago

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DealBook Briefing: Tech’s Cold War Just Started

Good Monday. (Want this by email? Sign up here.)

U.S. tech companies cut off Huawei

Google, Qualcomm and Broadcom are among the companies that have reportedly frozen their supply of components and software to the Chinese technology giant to comply with a crackdown by the Trump administration.

• “Google has suspended business with Huawei that requires the transfer of hardware, software and technical services except those publicly available via open source licensing,” Reuters reported, citing unidentified sources.

• “Chipmakers including Intel, Qualcomm, Xilinx and Broadcom have told their employees they will not supply Huawei till further notice,” Bloomberg added, also citing unnamed sources.

The moves follow a Trump administration clampdown. The Commerce Department announced last week that U.S. companies would need special permission to sell some products to Huawei.

It’s not yet clear how long or deep the crackdown will be. Some commentators have said that it could be a short-lived part of U.S. trade war posturing. But the administration has been vocal about its concerns over possible threats to national security, and Huawei has said that it was prepared for being frozen out.

How the moves could hurt Huawei. Existing products would continue to receive Google updates, but future devices would have to use the open-source version of the operating system, without services like YouTube and Google Maps. The chip freeze-out means it might be forced to use its stockpile of U.S. components.

“We can now expect China to redouble efforts to roll out a homegrown smartphone operating system, design its own chips, develop its own semiconductor technology (including design tools and manufacturing equipment), and implement its own technology standards,” Tim Culpan of Bloomberg Opinion writes. “This can only accelerate the process of creating a digital iron curtain that separates the world into two distinct, mutually exclusive technological spheres.”

More: U.S. intelligence chiefs have warned American tech companies of the dangers of doing business in China. Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, is doing something similar.

Deutsche Bank staff flagged activity in Trump and Kushner accounts

Anti-money laundering specialists at the German lender recommended in 2016 and 2017 that transactions involving Donald Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, be reported to a federal financial crimes watchdog, David Enrich of the NYT reports.

Transactions set off automated alerts designed to detect illicit activity, Mr. Enrich writes, citing current and former bank employees. Compliance staffers then prepared reports to send to the Treasury Department.

Executives rejected the recommendations, and the reports were never filed. The kinds of all-cash deals made by real estate developers like the Trump and Kushner families can prompt anti-money laundering reviews, and bank executives can choose not to report activity if they conclude employees’ concerns are unwarranted.

But the decisions reflected Deutsche Bank’s lax approach to money laundering laws, former employees told Mr. Enrich. They saw the move as part of the lender’s tendency to protect relationships with lucrative clients.

“It’s the D.B. way,” Tammy McFadden, a former Deutsche Bank anti-money laundering specialist who reviewed some of the transactions, told the NYT. “You present them with everything, and you give them a recommendation, and nothing happens.”

The billionaire paying off student loans

Robert F. Smith stunned 396 young men graduating yesterday from Morehouse College, a historically black college in Atlanta, by announcing that he, America’s richest black man, would pay off all their student debt.

“We’re going to put a little fuel in your bus,” Mr. Smith, the commencement speaker, told the crowd. He later said, “Let’s make sure every class has the same opportunity going forward, because we are enough to take care of our own community.”

“This was a liberation gift, meaning this frees these young men from having to make their career decisions based on their debt,” David Thomas, the college president, told the NYT.

Mr. Smith “had become increasingly concerned in recent years about the degree to which students leave college saddled with heavy debts, including many at Morehouse,” the NYT reported, citing a person familiar with his thinking.

But details remain unsettled, including how students will demonstrate the amount of debt they have and how it will be paid off. Also unclear: the total amount Mr. Smith will contribute.

Mr. Smith built his fortune, estimated at $5 billion, through a career as a Goldman Sachs banker and as founder of Vista Equity Partners, a tech investment firm whose returns are believed to be among the best in private equity.

Trump scrapped some tariffs

As of today, U.S. tariffs on metal imports from Mexico and Canada have been lifted, Ana Swanson of the NYT reports

• That removes “a major irritant for two important allies that in exchange agreed to stop punishing American farmers with their own taxes on pork, cheese and milk.”

• President Trump also “postponed a decision on whether to impose tariffs on automobiles imported from Europe, Japan and other countries for six months.”

The U-turn is tied to the newly negotiated Nafta, called the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. “Mr. Trump had described the tariffs as a source of leverage in negotiating a revision to that deal, which has yet to be ratified,” Ms. Swanson writes. “But both Republicans and Democrats had said they would not sign off on that deal until the White House removed metal tariffs on Canada and Mexico.”

Together, “the actions remove the threat of an all-encompassing global trade war and allow Mr. Trump to focus on pushing China to agree to the United States’ trade terms, as well as pressuring Europe and Japan to reach a trade deal before the 2020 election,” Ms. Swanson writes.

More: Big companies have tightened spending as trade fears intensify.

Cleaning up Facebook brings its A.I. whiz to tears

Facebook says artificial intelligence is a solution to its toxic content problems. Mike Schroepfer, its chief technology officer, says it won’t solve everything — and the scale of the problem has made him cry, Cade Metz and Mike Isaac of the NYT report.

• Mr. Schroepfer “is the person at Facebook leading the efforts to build the automated tools to sort through and erase the millions of such posts. But the task is Sisyphean, he acknowledged over the course of three interviews.”

• “Every time Mr. Schroepfer and his more than 150 engineering specialists create A.I. solutions that flag and squelch noxious material, new and dubious posts that the A.I. systems have never seen before pop up — and are thus not caught.”

• “In two of the interviews, he started with an optimistic message that A.I. could be the solution, before becoming emotional. At one point, he said coming to work had sometimes become a struggle. Each time, he choked up when discussing the scale of the issues that Facebook was confronting and his responsibilities in changing them.”

• “I do think there’s an endgame here,” Mr. Schroepfer said, adding: “I don’t think it’s ‘everything’s solved,’ and we all pack up and go home.”

New York’s predatory taxi industry

Brian Rosenthal of the NYT takes a deep dive into how bankers and officials made money from the sale of New York City taxi medallions, even as lending turned predatory and Uber and Lyft devastated many drivers.

What the bankers did:

• “Between 2002 and 2014, the price of a medallion rose to more than $1 million from $200,000, even though city records showed that driver incomes barely changed.”

• “The investigation found example after example of drivers trapped in exploitative loans, including hundreds who signed interest-only loans that required them to pay exorbitant fees, forfeit their legal rights and give up almost all their monthly income, indefinitely.”

What city officials did:

• “For more than a decade, the agencies reduced oversight of the taxi trade, exempted it from regulations, subsidized its operations and promoted its practices, records and interviews showed.”

• Under the Bloomberg and de Blasio administrations, New York City “made more than $855 million by selling taxi medallions and collecting taxes on private sales, according to the city.”

• “When the medallion market collapsed, the government largely abandoned the drivers who bore the brunt of the crisis. Officials did not bail out borrowers or persuade banks to soften loan terms.”

‘Game of Thrones’ is over. What now for HBO?

The series finale for “Game of Thrones” concluded a major TV phenomenon. But HBO has a plan to move on from its hit, Gerry Smith of Bloomberg reports.

• HBO plans to increase its original programming 50 percent this year, “creating more chances for another blockbuster,” Mr. Smith writes.

• Shows in the pipeline include adaptations of the graphic novel “Watchmen” as well as “His Dark Materials,” the series of fantasy novels by Philip Pullman.

But “Game of Thrones” sets a high bar. The penultimate episode drew 18.4 million viewers across all HBO platforms.

“The finale was a mass live-viewing experience of the kind that is now almost unheard for serialized television — or almost any TV program that isn’t the Super Bowl,” John Jurgenson of the WSJ writes.

Replicating that in the streaming era will be difficult. Mr. Smith points out that “about 500 scripted TV shows” are fighting for attention.

The speed read

Deals

• T-Mobile and Sprint reportedly plan to announce concessions like the sale of a prepaid mobile service and a pledge to hold down prices to win regulatory approval of their merger. (Bloomberg)

• Big investors like BlackRock didn’t buy more shares in Uber’s I.P.O., helping to spoil the company’s public debut. Relatedly: Why Uber, and investors, shouldn’t worry too much about the first day of trading. (WSJ, FT)

• CBS reportedly floated a $5 billion takeover bid for Starz, the premium-cable network. (WSJ)

• The e-cigarette maker NJOY reportedly had to slash its valuation target to $2 billion from $5 billion to draw investors to its latest fund-raising round. (WSJ)

• Catalyst, the private equity firm co-founded by Jim Sorenson, plans to raise $150 million to invest in opportunity zones. (Bloomberg)

Politics and policy

• The Republican National Committee accepted donations from Steve Wynn, the casino magnate who was ousted amid accusations of sexual misconduct. (NYT)

• The Trump administration warned that increased border crossings would cost $1.4 billion in additional housing for migrants. (NYT)

• Representative Justin Amash of Michigan became the first congressional Republican to call for President Trump’s impeachment. (NYT)

• The G.O.P. is stuck: It has to choose whether to focus on cultural issues or the strength of the economy for its 2020 message. (NYT)

• Social media disinformation was rampant in the 2016 election. Expect it to be worse next year. (NYT)

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India appears to be headed for re-election, exit polls show. (NYT)

Boeing

• Boeing has discovered that 737 Max flight simulators do not accurately replicate the conditions that led to two fatal crashes. (NYT)

• Global aviation regulators are to meet in Texas this week to determine when the 737 Max 8 can fly again. (FT)

Tech

• Tech jobs can propel people into the middle class — but bright spots are few and far between. (NYT)

• Nvidia has ridden a wave of demand for A.I. computer chips, but now it faces fierce competition. (WSJ)

• The Trump administration is reportedly set to adopt a set of O.E.C.D. guidelines for the development and use of A.I., the first set of such rules it will have endorsed. (Politico)

• San Francisco has banned facial recognition technology. New York City can’t decide whether to be transparent about its use. (NYT Editorial)

• The world’s most popular live-stream gamers get as much as $50,000 an hour to play new video games online. (WSJ)

Best of the rest

• Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure is at risk of major disruption, even from small attacks. (NYT)

• Why value added taxes, largely ignored by the U.S., have found favor in much of the world. (NYT)

• How powerful consultants have been “pitting states against each other to win tax breaks for new factories.” (WSJ)

• U.S. meat prices are poised to rise as a result of China’s swine fever epidemic. (WSJ)

• Male managers are increasingly nervous about mentoring women. (Axios)

Thanks for reading! We’ll see you tomorrow.

We’d love your feedback. Please email thoughts and suggestions to [email protected].

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wishingfornever · 6 years ago

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2/16/2018 – No Contact: Mass Tragedy

There was a school shooting yesterday. I think? May have been the day before. It was mentioned yesterday but I was so sleepy I couldn’t recall.

Gun control in the US… or at least the debate begins. I was actually raised in a household with a lot of guns. Go figure, it’s one of the reasons why Esther was SO concerned that I’d kill Dennis and why Dennis feared for his life. OoooOOOooo.

I’m reminded that Dennis is the biggest fucking coward. Obviously I didn’t kill him and I wouldn’t have killed him.

Whatever. Not the point. The point is, in the US there is always a delay when talking about gun control. Like, so much. “Can’t talk about gun control; you’re using these victims to push an agenda.” So, the best you can do to even bring it up is to wait… then they’ll forget about it and it’s no longer an issue. Out of sight is out of mind, so to speak.

I’m pro gun. I believe the populous should always have access to firearms as a whole. As a whole. A whole. The individual, however, should not.

What does that mean?

It means if the individual is unfit to own a gun then they shouldn’t own a gun. Simple. The same way that you need a driver’s license to own a car. The difference between a car and a gun is that your car isn’t protected by the Bill of Rights. In order to operate a car, however, you can’t be drunk and a lot of medications say you shouldn’t be behind the wheel of a car when on them.

Irresponsibility is certainly an issue. However, that’s not the ONLY problem.

I’d like to think medications are a big part of it. Not necessarily the medications themselves, but the reason people need them. I’m under the impression that if the US were to embrace a healthcare system that would allow for people to afford therapists, then there would be far less shootings. Why do I think this?

Because the US isn’t the only nation that allows guns to their population.

Iceland and Switzerland are two GREAT examples. Switzerland has allowed their citizens and foreigners with permanent residence to own automatic weapons. No mass shootings. Why?

The right wingers will say because EVERYONE is armed… but that’s not true. The left wingers will say that it’s because the government tracks EVERYTHING and you can’t fire a bullet without them knowing… but that’s also not true.

The fact of the matter is, Switzerland is actually… kind of… happy? The US is an impoverished, third world shithole despite being the wealthiest and most first world nation in the world. The citizenry of Switzerland aren’t impoverished and live in first world conditions despite being technically a third world nation that is renowned for it’s banks. Not everyone is a banker, obviously.

Switzerland has a higher Human Development Index than the US. The HDI in the US is dropping. And when income inequality is taken into account, the US drops even more. Switzerland has nationalized healthcare, so their people are taken care of. The US? That shit keeps get taken away because “muh taxes.” Your taxes are going to the poor whether you’d like it or not, Mr American Taxpayer. If someone is on foodstamps despite having a job, then their company isn’t paying them enough. If you want to pay less for taxes then you should push for a higher minimum wage.

Simple enough. Tax money goes to foodstamps, which less money can go to foodstamps if the people on foodstamps can afford their own food. Or that taxmoney can go to medicare, like every other first world nation, so you can save a bit more later on. In the US, prices for medical treatments are SUPER high without good reason.

The US population is relatively disgruntled. Switzerland, which has a lot of guns themselves including FULLY automatic rifles, doesn’t have the mass shootings the US does. It’s because the Swiss aren’t as unhappy as the US. They can get all the treatment they need to prevent wanting to murder everyone. There is less stress and inconvenience in Switzerland. There is just more of everything that makes a Swiss citizen human and less of everything that makes a Swiss citizen… well… American.

The US isn’t the best country in the world because it’s a country that constantly contradicts itself and ignores it’s own problems while misattributing them wholly.

At Dollar General, I see people come in from their jobs while still in uniform. Not even like “Dollar General” jobs where you have to purchase and assemble your own uniform. Like, legitimate customized colors with the companies name on it. Jobs that pay MORE than just minimum wage, yet they’re still on foodstamps. Why? What is the purpose of having a job if it isn’t enough to keep you alive?

Of course, the shooter was 19, I think? Apparently, he bragged about killing animals which is a clear sign of being a serial killer later in life. He’s not the sort of person to have guns because he’s, and hear me out on this, NOT THE SORT OF PERSON WHO SHOULD OWN GUNS. Want to know what is more expensive than guns? Therapy.

He apparently posted on Facebook really dumb things. Like, looking back it’s obvious. He was reported to the FBI and they couldn’t find out anything beyond his name. Youtube should have sent them his Email address and FBI could have used that email address to look him up on Facebook, just to see if he’s posted anything similar there because Facebook has made privacy a very unpopular thing.

Don’t need to even do NSA and track him through his email and watch him closely or whatever it is they do. Spoiler alert, they do nothing of important value. If this guy was posting dumb shit and the NSA didn’t get involved, then they’re literally worthless. Save some money and disband the NSA. Not like spying on your own citizens (and our own allies) actually works, it seems.

Ugh… this is my day off. Don’t want to get too angry… btw, time is 11am. Been up since at least 9am. Went to bed at about 9pm. So, about 12 hours? I think that’s not bad. Catching up and I’m ready to face the day. I’m going to relax today. Worry about everything tomorrow. No working on my book, no calling dad, no productivity. This is a break day. I want to have breakfast soon. Almost 12 and no food. Not cooking eggs. Going to be cereal.

But then again, a breakfast sandwich sounds pretty kick ass right about now… Or even a regular sandwich…

So, Pizza Hut just sent me an email. Stuffed crust large two topping pizza… for 10 dollars. My god. Such a brilliant deal.

Thing is, I order online so it seems that there is always access to a large two topping pizza for 7.99 and you can have it stuffed crust for 2 dollars more. Which makes it 9.99. If I order it like that, I literally save myself a penny…

Now, that may seem pretty dumb. And it is. However, they basically just sent me an email to tell me that they have a SPECIAL deal for something that I already know about and have done on occasion. They also want a penny more for this information.

Current Time; 11:50. I am drunk. I was drinking as part of a stream for NGParadox. I like him, charming fellow. British, but he’s worth it if you can get past that shitty accent. I went out for pizza… free pizza. Adela didn’t have any. She said she vomited 7 times. Jesus, I hope she’s okay, I just remembered.

I hope she gets better. She doesn’t want pizza. I ate most of it.

I am drubk. Current time is 1am tomorrow. Relly drunk. So drunk that I’m revealing something. Yesterday, I was so tired I bought a candle. Or the day before yesterday? When I went back to work I bought a candle. I bought a candle when I felt on the verge of blacking out from Dollar General and wrote “Esther returns to me” on it. I am so drunk right now. I lit it that night with a lighter nad it’s still burning.

It’s an intention candle. I’m not sure why but I’m placing faith in the universe. I’ve actually prayed if you can believe it. I prayed that Esther would come back into my life. If tht’s not pathetic, I don’t know what is.

Can you believe that? After all this time, I still care for her? And she said I wouldn’t because I’m a narcessist. Fuck her. I love her regardless of what a total bitch she’s been. It won’t help though. There is no power in the universe, but it’s welcome to prove me wrong through delivery of Esther. Are you there, infinite power of the universe? Did you hear my prayers?

I don’t think it did. It gives me hope, though… thinking something divine is looking out for me. I microwaved the remaining too slives of pizza. Finished the stream I as watching, bound to sleep soon. Why do I care so much about her? Why can’t I just move on? This is creepy for her… why am I such a piece of shit?

Whatever. Remind me tomorrow to share some stories about what happene when I bought alcohol. Night

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otcsocialnetwork · 6 years ago

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$NHPI – Updated DD 3.0 : Woodbrook Group

Updated DD 3.0 : Woodbrook Group Adding to Q’s DD 2.0 post that’s stickied: Quick summary of what we know already plus more supplemental information Quick Recap: Micheal Doherty (CEO – Woodbrook Group) and Ziad K. Abdelnour (President – Blackhawk Parnters) are both Partners at Inter-M Traders. Inter-M Traders shares the same address as Blackhawk and Woodbrook Group as well. Well also know that Felicitas Management Holdings Limited / Mutual Trust Limited / Robusto Asset Management / Hygieia Limited / CBS Global are all apart of Woodbrook Group. See the sticky material at top from Q7 and Sibware for more on Inter-M and Doherty. Lets dig into Abdelnour – This guy is no joke: He’s Founder and Chairman of Financial Policy Council – New York based Think Tank designed to formulate and promote sound & smart policies based on the principles of free enterprise and wealth creation. http://www.financialpolicycouncil.org/ I also recently found out that he was a former President at Arab Bankers Association of North America: more on this later below Quote:As Founder and Chairman of the Financial Policy Council, Ziad K. Abdelnour is also a Wall Street Financier, Author, Philanthropist, Activist, Lobbyist, Oil & Gas Trader & President & CEO of Blackhawk Partners, Inc., a New York based private equity “family office” that focuses on originating, structuring, advising and acting as equity investor in management-led buyouts, strategic minority equity investments, equity private placements, consolidations, buildups, and growth capital financing in companies and projects based both in the US and emerging markets and the trading of key physical commodities. Since 1985, Mr. Abdelnour has been involved in over 125 transactions worth in aggregate over $10 billion in the investment banking, high yield bond and distressed debt markets and has been widely recognized for playing an integral role in those three key market sectors. Mr. Abdelnour serves on the board of Elate Partners, a Chinese investment group backed by large institutional, strategic and wealthy individual investors from China. Mr. Abdelnour also serves on the Advisory board of DPG Investments, a recognized premier multi strategy global merchant banking, alternative investment, management and advisory firm. On a more personal level, Mr. Abdelnour, former President of the Arab Bankers Association of North America. Mr. Abdelnour is also a regular speaker on Private Equity, Physical Commodities trading and Middle East geo-political analysis at industry conferences & TV outlets nationwide including but not limited to Fox News, Newsmax, etc… and a key “influencer” in his own right having a hard core constituency of over 2 million viewers having read his blog postings and analyses since January 2014. Mr. Abdelnour holds an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and a BS in Economics, Summa Cum Laude, from the American University of Beirut. He was recently listed as one of the 500 Most Influential CEOs in the World. Three things stand out here: Elate Partners / DPG Investments / Arab Bankers Association of North America Look at the bold portion in that quote: Elate Partners, a Chinese investment group backed by large institutional, strategic and wealthy individual investors from China. Do you want to know who else is apart of Elate Partners? Andrew Eros – He’s the CFA – Chartered Financial Analyst at Elate. He’s ALSO the Associate Real Estate Partner at guess where? Blackhawk Partners. Then there’s a company called DPG Investments: A large private investment firm led by Chairmen and CEO Daniel P. Galvanoni – WHO IS ALSO a Partner at BLACKHAWK. To add more to this: Ziad K. Abdelnour is a Partner and INTERNATIONAL Advisor at DPG Investments. Images below will help to tie this all together: Check out the team at Blackhawk – most notable in red \ Andrew Eros, CFA Elate and Partner at Blackhawk \ Daniel Galvanoni – Associate Partner Quote: Daniel Galvanoni is a Los Angeles based merchant banker who thrives in the structuring of complex financial transactions targeting private equity funds, hedge funds, REITS, equity portfolios, private merchant banks, pension funds, and life companies. In addition, Mr. Galvanoni’s emphasis rests strongly in ultra high net worth family office partnerships, predominantly based in North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Besides being the lead partner at Blackhawk bringing a West coast presence to the Firm, Mr. Galvanoni brings in a mutually profitable relationship second to none – especially when it comes to middle market buyouts – being the Chairman and Founder of DPG Investments, LLC; a multi strategy investment, advisory and merchant banking firm managing diverse assets comprised of private equity interests, short term high yield notes, and private investment partnerships. As of to date, DPG is actively managing over 30 operating private partnerships and portfolio investments/interests in which Mr. Galvanoni takes an active role by adding strategic value to DPG positions in its portfolio on an annual basis. The Capital Markets Group of DPG Investments focuses on the structuring and securing of both debt and equity for multi strategy alternative investment fund managers globally.Since the formation of DPG Investments, Daniel has originated over $1 billion in high yield debt and equity into DPG sponsored transactions and advisory mandates. Daniel also currently serves as a board member with DPG Realty Capital, DPG Investments, DPG Advisors and Fintramex. Ziad Abdelnour, Blackhawk Partners CEO serves on the International Advisory Board of the Family Office of DPG Investments as well. \ \ Then we have Demetri Michalakis – Partner at both Inter-M Traders and Blackhawk: \ Quote: Besides being one of Blackhawk’s key partners developing the Firm’s physical commodities trading business to the four corners of the world, Demetri is also the Managing Partner of Inter-M Traders, a firm in partnership with Blackhawk Partners The we have his Bloomberg Profile For Ziad K. Abdelnour: \ \ He’s the former President of Arab Bankers Association of North America. \ Quote:ABANA convenes hundreds of distinguished guests each year to celebrate the most accomplished individuals working in the Middle East, North Africa and North America. ABANA members are drivers behind many of today’s discussions around global financial and economic issues and they share a commitment to improved business flows and understanding between the US and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. ABANA’s eighty member institutions and 600 members are engaged in a diverse range of financial and commercial ventures. The majority of ABANA members are based in the US, and approximately 15% are based in the MENA region. Learn how to become a member of ABAN. ABANA is governed by a 20-person board of directors who are elected by its membership Take a look at some of the members here: \ \ \ It’s a pretty big deal to be afflaited with this PLUS to be PRESIDENT of it. I mean look who the President was after Abdelnour – Amer Bisat, Managing Director at BlackRock, who concluded two terms as ABANA president. Yeah, that BlackRock: the 10th largest AUM company at $6.3 Trillion Something else I found: Ziad is also the Managing Director at TerraNova Capital: Quote:TerraNova is a global firm with operations and investments throughout the world. In addition to our national presence in the U.S., we have extensive experience in Asia, the U.K., Europe, Africa and Australia. \ Blackhawk and TerraNova offices are basically in walking distance as well. \ And all of this ties back to Woodbrook Group and their companies. There is some serious SERIOUS money behind this. And you have to know that they are heavily invested in Woodbrook Group. Then here’s some supplemental information you may find interesting: I wonder if Billionaire and former Director & Executive VP of NHPI, Alan Kestenbaum still holds his shares here. He’s the founder and CEO of the steel juggernaut Stelco Holdings Inc. that trades on the NAZ at $19.00. He’s still a present board member for NHPI as well. \ \ On top of all of this: Former CEO David Ambrose, as of October, still holds 320,000,000 common shares (28%) and has EVEN gone as far to say this: Quote:In addition, Mr. Ambrose has agreed to assume, indemnify, and defend the Company from an liabilities arising prior to the Agreement. THAT IS HUGE… then we have this: Then we have Michael Doherty like all kinds of tweets relating to NHPI and pending news. Even saying this in a Facebook message “We are working closely with the SEC and lawyers to make sure everything is within the law.” And a follow up that they are now just waiting on the SEC. \ This seems to have been in the works for quite some time which explains why we still have not heard any news or pre-news. Every T will get crossed and every I dotted before anything is released. http://dlvr.it/Qsk02n

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mikemortgage · 6 years ago

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Terence Corcoran: Arresting StatCan’s bank raid for detailed information on all of us

When news broke earlier this year that the accounts of maybe 600,000 Canadian Facebook users had been compromised, Ottawa swung into action to shut down this alarming example of creeping surveillance capitalism. Scott Brison, then acting minister of democratic institutions, said his government had dispatched Canada’s national spy agency to make sure the privacy of Canadians had not been compromised. “Social media platforms have a responsibility to protect the privacy and personal data of citizens,” said Brison.

But when news broke last week that Statistics Canada wants to expand its inventory of data on Canadians by collecting real hard-core personal information on the banking activities of 500,000 Canadians annually, the Trudeau government was suddenly not at all concerned about privacy breaches or even the principle of privacy protection. Instead of waving a red flag over the prospect that StatCan would end up with computers full of private financial details on millions of citizens, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau brushed off privacy concerns, which he implied take a back seat to the government’s need for “high quality and timely data.” Such data, he said, are “critical to ensuring government programs remain relevant and effective for Canadians.”

Spoken like a true central planner and enthusiastic purveyor of policy-based evidence making. Nobody seems to know why StatCan wants to begin collecting personal banking information on individual Canadians, information that Canada’s bankers are rightly reluctant to provide. In the all-new era of fintech and blockchain, the great concern among regulators is how data privacy will be protected. At StatCan, the concern is: “How do we get our hands on the data?”

Philip Cross: Canada’s civil service has forgotten it's supposed to serve 'us'

Ontario's former privacy commissioner resigns from Sidewalk Labs over concerns personal data won't be protected

StatCan vaults into the 21st century

An official tweet Wednesday from Anil Arora, Chief Statistician of Canada, failed to clarify the agency’s motives. He called the bank data collection plan a “pilot project.” He said more than 75 per cent of Canadian consumer purchases are conducted online and that StatCan “has to have access to these data in order to provide all Canadians with the timely and quality statistics they need in areas such as housing and debt and the impacts of transitioning to a GIG economy.”

The gig economy? Is that an economic phenomenon big enough to justify the accumulation of personal banking transactions of most of the population? As for the consumer purchases of Canadians, online or otherwise, credit card data might be more informative, although one hopes StatCan has not gone after that data as well as the credit bureau information it has surprisingly already collected.

StatCan’s assurances on privacy protection are not all that reassuring. In a document dated October 2018 — obtained by David Akin at Global News— the chief statistician describes his agency’s “Generic Privacy Impact Assessment related to the acquisition of financial transactions information.” It is clear that the names of millions of Canadians, their bank account numbers and transactions, their bill payments and personal activities, will be collected and stored in government computers. StatCan is not merely getting useful generic data on the spending and banking habits of Canadians, it is collecting the actual spending and banking habits and names of individual Canadians.

It is one thing to collect and analyze statistics based on anonymous data. It is quite another to “require” — Arora’s word — that the banks provide “individual payments and income history.” Even though billions of bits of private, individual and personal information will be collected, StatCan says that, “Under no circumstances will the personal information obtained from financial institutions be used to perform credit, expenditure or income checks on individual Canadians.” He said none of the resulting statistical reports will include any personal data.

That’s not good enough.

There are two larger issues here, aside from the obvious breach of individual privacy without permission and the fact that detailed day-to-day banking information on Canadians is a much more deeply personal than daily Facebook activities.

The first issue is security. StatCan says billions of bits of personal data will be collected using a “secure file transfer protocol” and stored behind “network firewall and access rules” with “functional and current anti-virus software.” Only people with “work-related need” will have access. All very nice, but we’ve heard all this before from any number of corporations and government agencies that have suffered data breaches.

The second and more important issue is the use to which the data will be put, not just today but in the future. StatCan itself has in the past shown a willingness to jump aboard political trends. It is famous for cranking out research on the 1% wealth gap, income distribution and pay inequities. It jumped aboard the marijuana bandwagon with a “Cannabis Stats Hub” which seemed to be promoting a booming industry and a Liberal agenda.

StatCan’s explanation of its current objectives are already vague. But a decade or two from now, some new interventionist government with bold planning ideas and a fresh ideological agenda could decide to dig deeper into the personal banking data storehouse.

Politics is filled with planners and interventionists whose need for more data is universal and never-ending. In future, current privacy rules — such as they are — could easily be overthrown in the name of the public interest.

In this internet era of Big Data, there are constant warnings about the risks of “surveillance capitalism” through the likes of Google and Facebook. The greater risk has always been surveillance statism.

Kudos to Canada’s Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien for launching an investigation into Statistics Canada’s bank data raid.

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coin-river-blog · 6 years ago

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The Daily

In today’s Bitcoin in Brief we mention some optimistic mid to long term predictions for crypto markets. And while decentralized currencies are hurting in a bearish month, the prospects for state-issued virtual money look even dimmer. Another senior Swiss central banker has noted the diminishing enthusiasm of governments to mint digital coins. Venezuela gives an example – Caracas has recently fired the nation’s crypto superintendent, reportedly for failing to raise billions through Maduro’s favorite El Petro.

Also read: Bitcoin in Brief: Plagiary, Numerology, and Nano Does a No-No

Bottom Line: Bitcoin Will Recover

It takes a lot of optimism to make bullish predictions at a moment like this, but if it’s a relatively long term prognosis for growth, preceded by a short term one for further drop, then it does sound like a safe bet. Todd Gordon, founder of Tradinganalysis.com, is one of those analysts who believe the bottom line is that Bitcoin will eventually recover, by early 2019 to be precise.

“I did expect Bitcoin to drop, I thought for a long time we’re going to drop below $5,000,” Gordon told CNBC. He actually expects BTC prices to decrease a little more than that but he is also positive that the market will turn somewhere in the $3,000 to $4,000 range. “I think by the time this contest is over in February, we’ll be well back above $10,000 and in a pretty good shape,” he added.

According to Todd Gordon, the correction we have seen from $19,000 down, in terms of percentage drop, is “inconsequential,” and “very much expected,” compared to the gains since 2015, when Bitcoin took about a 78 percent hit in the aftermath of the Mt. Gox hack. “Right now we are about two thirds of the way through that equal correction,” he said.

Gordon noted that his prediction is based on a “beautiful uptrend” on a percent change chart. “You can’t look on bitcoin on a traditional, linear, arithmetic chart,” he warned. The expert emphasized that the current 17 percent average weekly high-to-low range is the “lowest bitcoin is ever seen,” as the movement has reached 30-40 percent at times in the past. “If I am down 30 percent on bitcoin in this contest, that’s nothing – it can make that up in two weeks,” the analyst added.

Others Like the $10,000 Mark Too

Other members of the crypto space have made similar predictions about the mid-term prospects for bitcoin. At the end of May, blockchain venture capitalist Spencer Bogart said he expected the price of BTC to rise again above $10,000 per coin by the end of 2018, noting that the cryptocurrency is still worth buying, despite its continued losses.

“In the past, when the value of BTC dropped by 50 or 60 percent, a cloud of fear used to develop and people seriously questioned if bitcoin was over,” Bogart told CNBC. However, he highlighted a key difference between today and the crashes of the past – the exponential amount of development and adoption we have seen since those times. Bogart, a partner ат Blockchain Capital, also noted that most coins are overvalued in comparison with bitcoin. He advised investors to sell cryptos like cardano, tron, IOTA and NEO, but stressed they should hold cryptocurrencies like bitcoin cash (BCH), ethereum, ripple, and EOS.

Most cryptocurrencies saw losses of up to 20 percent over a 24-hour period yesterday. Many observes attributed the latest dump to the recent measures taken by Japan’s financial regulator. The Financial Services Agency issued six new business improvement orders to crypto exchanges Bitflyer, Tech Bureau, Bitpoint Japan, Btcbox, Bitbank, and Quoine. In recent weeks markets have been also reacting to a number of negative events such as the hacks of Korean exchanges Coinrail and Bithumb, as well as the exposure of scams and suspected market manipulations.

Enthusiasm for State-Backed Cryptos Dying Out

Countries are unlikely to issue national cryptocurrencies any time soon, according to a high ranking representative of the Swiss National Bank’s management. Central banks around the world have become skeptical of introducing state-backed digital currencies, Thomas Moser, an alternate member of the governing board of SBN, told Business Insider.

“In the beginning, there was a lot of interest and enthusiasm about issuing their own national cryptocurrency but I think, in the meantime, that enthusiasm has slowed again because of the implications it would have for financial stability,” Moser explained. Nevertheless, he said he would not be surprised if national cryptocurrencies emerged in the longer term but noted that currently everyone is waiting for someone else to do it first.

Thomas Moser thinks that to some extent it makes sense to have an electronic version of the banknote but warned the implications are substantial. “The advantages are relatively small but the unknown risks are potentially large so I think the balance is to be cautious.”

Moser’s comments reflect the position of another senior representative of Schweizerische Nationalbank. In April, Andrea Maechler, member of its governing board, stated that “private-sector digital currencies” are better and less risky than any version offered by a central bank. A government-backed coin “would deliver scarcely any advantages, but would give rise to incalculable risks,” she warned, noting that it would make it easier for people to withdraw money if they felt a bank was in trouble.

Venezuela’s Crypto Superintendent Reportedly Fired

Carlos Vargas, Venezuela’s Superintendent of Cryptocurrency, has recently left his post. Some local media reported that actually he has been fired by President Maduro after his team failed to deliver on the promises to raise billions through the initial coin offering of the national oil-backed cryptocurrency, the Petro.

According to a publication by Caracas Chronicles, only 2,266 petros have been transferred so far on the distributed ledger that tracks their movement. Even if all of them were sold at $60 per coin, the outlet speculates, the government has raised no more than $136,000. That’s way below the once promised $5 billion.

Very little is known about the new superintendent, Jocelit Ramírez, and his team. He is believed to be very close to Vice President Tareck El Aissami.

Despite threats by officials to restrict decentralized cryptocurrencies and crack down on exchanges, Venezuelan bitcoin trade on platforms like Localbitcoins has spiked in recent months, largely due to the unattractiveness of the hyperinflated national fiat, the bolivar. The socialist government in Caracas has had hard time convincing its partners to accept the petro in bilateral trade. Several weeks ago, India rejected Maduro’s proposal to buy Venezuelan oil at discounted petro prices.

What are your expectations for the future of decentralized cryptocurrencies and state-issued digital coins? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

Make sure you do not miss any important Bitcoin-related news! Follow our news feed any which way you prefer; via Twitter, Facebook, Telegram, RSS or email (scroll down to the bottom of this page to subscribe). We’ve got daily, weekly and quarterly summaries in newsletter form. Bitcoin never sleeps. Neither do we.

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bogdanandrei045 · 6 years ago

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In Need Of Populism

For the last seventy to eighty years more or less, the one country that kept to a certain extent the western world in a state of quasi freedom, throughout means of institutionalised democracy, has succumbed to ignorance.

Moreover, the last two to three years have seen an unbelievable change in the global geo political landscape: so many countries are undertaking the path towards becoming what has been already called by other commentators ‘illiberal Democracies’. This move is perpetrated by a new wave of right - wing political movements, on the rise, and their impact is increasingly becoming more dangerous and real than ever.

One of the first things to take into consideration here is the correlation that has been created between the current president of the US and the political movement that so many wrongly attributed to him, namely populism.

The link that has been created between the two is strikingly dodgy, since the two entities must be considered as completely separated.

On the one hand one we have the ultimate representative of the most destructive social class that the human race has ever produced: businessman, bankers, wall street self made man that have all rejoiced at the news that this guy, has managed to trigger the idiotic public into bringing him in power.

He is a representative of all what is substantially wrong on every level of human, intellectual, ethical, moral and social behaviour; a pathological liar, an adamant misogynist and nevertheless the reverse of the ideal of having to rely , as a member of the youth, on a more experienced elder that should be that provider of insights that helps a youngster living the most happy of possible lives.

A self - consumed shadow of what a human being should not be, whose mind is totally lost in the myriad of lies that he has said and implemented just for the sake of reaching and staying in power.

The perfect product of a society that for so many years has been educated to respect and worship success, gain, things and status whilst walking on the back of hundreds of thousands of ‘tax - payers’, foreigners, or simply others, which only fault was to be born an inch further away from the border set by his predecessors in order to define the wealth and contours of a nation.

The main defeat for the people in electing such a person to the highest office (and here it is very important to remember for myself, that he is just another person, afflicted by stomach pains and mortality just like the rest of us) is that he has and will set back the agenda of progress forwarded up till now, by who knows how many years.

Another invisible force operating here, is the complete apathy of the people.

It’s presence and implementation is injected constantly into our psyches, on a daily basis.

It is a process that through merchandising and increasingly objectifying every aspect of the human life, has brain washed us into believing that in order to exist we must have a social media presence, buy and possess things.

It has been imposed on us in the form of a labour system that requires us to slave in precarious jobs and occupations that so often we dislike and become the death of our souls and our interests.

It is sold to us as the only way we can gain status.

Status, defined by what we buy and what we materially have. Philosophically is the texture that underlies the ability we individually have to wear the mask of existence.

A mask that has become the only thing that matters, and that is the meter by which we have begun to interact with each-other, to express ourselves, to perceive reality, and to elect our leaders.

Forget values, democracy, or ideals; today is how many followers you can have on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter that really makes a difference in the world.

But is it really?

Of course it is not.

This illusion that we have chosen and prefer adopting, instead of confronting our real selves, is one of the main contributing factors to the increasingly successful and sophisticated controlling mechanism exercised by the ruling classes.

It plays the trick of allowing the individual to believe that personal satisfaction is something that can be achieved quickly, without thinking twice about it, always fuelled by the desire to be one step in front of whoever like you is running this never ending marathon.

It creates this need in the individual to achieve the next and the following target.

It makes one completely ignorant in regards to the absolute necessity to create the time for one self to internalise, understand and deal with the consequences and responsibilities that derive by achieving the afore mentioned target.

While the normal people, those for example and here I quote “that have a shower at the end of the day”, are made to believe that short term gratification is the sure path to definitive success, those whom are really in power are playing by a total different set of rules: one of which sees them adherring to a long term plan that pursues the goal to maximize their grasp on what real power is and extend it to the highest degree possible.

Is this Illusion that mainly allowed characters like Trump, Mnuchin, Farage, Le Pen, Orban, Salvini, Jong - Un, Putin, Jinpin and so on to to be the ones behind the wheels of our collective human destinies, in this day and age.

The deconstruction of the public ability to critically think about issues, has made it possible for the ruling class to implement policies that every person belonging, for example, to the generations that have seen the succession of the two world wars would have considered abhorrent.

These pre planned ways of organising society have been facilitated by liberal strategies using things such as political correctness, specialisation of labour and the creation of safe spaces. The whole package has been then sold to us as the basic requirement to be able to pursue individual well being.

We have been removed from the process of critically thinking about everything and indoctrinated to consider politically correctness as the only way we can move the debate forward.

We learned to become accustomed to the idea that one is supposed to become proficient in one subject and pursue it for the rest of ones life.

We came to believe in the power to be free and in the importance of self expression without having the minimum idea of what to do with the responsibilities and consequences deriving from the adoption of these necessary ideals.

We grew to love the slavery system that has been built in darkness all around us and that has flourished on the remains of that protestant ethic, that Weber indicated as the soul of the capitalistic modus operandi.

In this process, we fooled ourselves into thinking that we could endure this state of affairs forever.

The truth is, we cannot anymore.

Bogdan Andrei.

#USA #politics #society #Donald Trump

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dragnews · 6 years ago

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Italy’s President Appoints a Technocrat, and Moves from Quiet to Contentious

ROME — He’s been called “gray,” “invisible” and “gentle to the point of seeming fragile.” Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister, once compared him to “a monk.”

But on Monday, Italy’s quiet, white-haired president, Sergio Mattarella, emerged as the most contentious figure in Italian and European politics. His refusal to confirm a euroskeptic economist as a government minister set off the collapse of a populist coalition hours before it was expected to take control of the European Union’s fourth largest economy.

Mr. Mattarella’s defenders hailed him as the courageous protector of Italy’s democracy, institutions and financial health, while fuming populists sought to make the usually revered figure of the Italian head of state the country’s public enemy No. 1. They called for his impeachment, saying he had overstepped his constitutional bounds with delusions of grandeur, blocked the will of the people and destroyed Italian democracy.

In response, Mr. Mattarella privately plugged along.

On Monday morning, as markets rose and fell with the whiplashing events in Italy, Mr. Mattarella gave a new mandate to form a government to Carlo Cottarelli, a respected economist, former International Monetary Fund official and Italian government appointee, who told reporters that he would form a caretaker government only with the goal of passing a budget and guiding Italy to new elections.

If Parliament votes in support of his caretaker government, elections would take place in early 2019. If it does not, which seems much more likely, he would quit “immediately” and elections would take place sometime after August.

Mr. Cottarelli’s main goal in speaking on Monday seemed to be to assure nervous investors in Italy and abroad that the country was in good hands. He guaranteed, “in the most absolute way, that a government led by me would assure a cautious management of our national accounts,” and that Italy’s “continuous participation in the eurozone” was essential.

It was Mr. Mattarella’s loyalty to the euro that prompted the 11th-hour collapse of the nascent government of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement and the anti-immigrant League.

He determined that the alliance’s proposed economy minister, Paolo Savona, the co-author of a guide to leaving the eurozone, could lead Italy to abandon the euro without sufficient public debate, being that the parties maintained vague and shifting positions on the issue during the campaign leading up to the March 4 elections.

But in deliberately forcing a new election over the euro, which a majority of Italians say they support, the usually careful and measured Mr. Mattarella expressly put an explosive issue with the potential of transforming Europe front and center. And by using his constitutional powers to block the new government in order to protect Italian savings accounts from increasingly wary markets, he also handed the gifted and gleefully hostile populist parties the talking point of a lifetime before the elections.

The coming vote “will be a referendum on Europe, on the euro and on the Italian constitutional model,” Francesco Verderami, a political analyst, wrote in Corriere della Sera on Monday. “Because it is equally clear that the presidency of the republic — which has been threatened with impeachment — during the electoral campaign is sure to be one of the targets of the populist and nationalist forces.”

It did not take long for that to come to pass.

Luigi Di Maio, Five Star’s political leader, called on party members to demonstrate their opposition to Mr. Mattarella and “the darkest night of Italian democracy” by hanging Italian flags out their windows, marching in the streets and flooding the social networks where the party developed its support.

In a Facebook post, Mr. Di Maio said that Mr. Mattarella had prompted problems in the markets by creating uncertainty. “We don’t want to leave the euro,” he insisted, calling the party’s well-documented ambivalence to the common currency “a lie created by the counselors of Mattarella.”

He also said he would work to impeach Mr. Mattarella, and to ensure that “after the election there will not be the same president.” His partner in the populist alliance, Matteo Salvini, the leader of the League, added that “The gravest fact is that the president of the republic chose the European markets ahead of the Italian people.”

On Monday, several analysts and politicians accused Mr. Salvini, who rebuffed Mr. Mattarella’s appeal to substitute the proposed economy minister with a top League official, of purposefully blowing up the government in order to bank increased electoral support in new elections. He wants to be prime minister.

Leading members of the Five Star Movement proclaimed the new technical government dead on arrival and said they would introduce impeachment proceedings against Mr. Mattarella in Parliament.

But their efforts to intimidate Mr. Mattarella last week, saying he should not get in the way of Italian voters, failed. Some supporters argued that the potential blowback and risk in coming elections was worth keeping the populists, who have shown disregard for Italian institutions, away from power.

Mario Calabrese, the editor of the left-leaning daily La Repubblica, wrote in a front-page editorial, “If the president had given in, folding before the ultimatums and threats, and if he went back on his only objection, the state’s checks and balances would have broken into pieces.”

Mr. Berlusconi, the former prime minister and coalition partner of Mr. Salvini, also gave his support to Mr. Mattarella, saying the Five Star Movement was “irresponsible as always, talking about impeachment.”

“Forza Italia waits for the determination of the head of state, but when necessary will be ready for the vote,” he added, referring to his party.

That supportive language caused signs of a fracture with Mr. Salvini, who said Mr. Berlusconi’s defense of Mr. Mattarella made him sound like Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany. Mr. Salvini hinted that he was also open to running with the Five Star Movement in the coming election, saying that the policy agenda the two parties had hammered out was not “scrap paper,” and that there was “a good base for working together.”

Both he and the Five Star Movement unveiled campaign language in which they accused Italy of being held hostage by Germany, international markets, bankers and the overreaching president who did their bidding.

Constitutional scholars debated on Monday whether Mr. Mattarella was within his rights. In Corriere della Sera, Italy’s leading paper, Massimo Luciani, a professor of constitutional law at La Sapienza University in Rome, said Mr. Mattarella “exercised his constitutional rights” because he “believed that the choice of a certain minister for a key government position put the interests of our country at risk.”

He added, “This is an institutional evaluation.”

But Paolo Flores D’Arcais wrote in the political magazine MicroMega that while the president can object to the appointment of a minister if “he finds in the candidate’s past behavior something that conflicts with honorability,” Mr. Mattarella’s problem with the economy minister was his position on the euro.

“It falls beyond the powers of the president of the republic to judge the candidates’ political opinions in the single ministries,” he wrote.

At first, markets seemed more appreciative of Mr. Mattarella’s rejection of the populist government, but they then fell sharply, with stocks and bonds falling as investors digested the increased uncertainty.

“Developments in Italy are likely to keep the financial markets on tenterhooks,” analysts at the German lender Commerzbank said in a note to clients Monday morning. Referring to polls that indicate that Italy’s populist parties are likely to win any snap election called this year, they continued, “The entry into office of an Italian government that is on a confrontational course with the E.U. and disregards its rules is only postponed.”

Italy’s benchmark stock index, the FTSE MIB, was down more than 2 percent in afternoon trading in Europe, and the country’s bonds took a beating. The yield on the main 10-year Italian government bond, which moves inversely to its price, rose to as much as 2.69 percent, its highest level since August 2014.

The “spread” between Italian government bonds and their German counterparts, in particular, has widened considerably since the start of the year, indicating investors see Italian debt as a riskier investment.

That “spread,” a word often uttered with venom by Italian populists, was also the focus of Mr. Mattarella’s remarks Sunday night, and Mr. Cottarelli’s on Monday morning.

But it is the coming election, and the promised centrality of the euro in it, that makes many in Europe nervous. Mr. Mattarella, a 76-year-old Sicilian, has shown he is not easily shaken.

The son of a government minister, he decided to go into politics after his older brother, Piersanti, then the governor of Sicily, was shot and killed by the Mafia. Mr. Mattarella pulled his bloodied brother out of the car.

The first time he ran for office was in the 1970s, when he ran for a position in his university. He regretted it right away, his friend Vito Riggio once told La Repubblica, recalling that the quiet Sicilian had found himself surrounded by screaming, rabid student protesters.

“The more they screamed, the more he lowered his voice,” Mr. Riggio was quoted as saying. “At a certain point, he said to the most enraged one, ‘Excuse me, but why are you screaming? We are here to discuss. No?’ ”

Follow Jason Horowitz on Twitter: @jasondhorowitz.

Prashant Rao contributed reporting from London.

The post Italy’s President Appoints a Technocrat, and Moves from Quiet to Contentious appeared first on World The News.

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