COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Sunday, October 23, 2011

US Drug Wars and Guatemala

"If your stance on the War on Drugs is because of ethical reasons. Then the more so you should be against it. Why? because the more you should be responsible for your own life and those of your kids. Don't delegate that responsibility to the US Government. Be responsible yourself, for ethical reasons."                 - Giancarlo Ibarguen 






Most of the cocaine shipped north from Central and South America these days travels through Guatemala and into Mexico before eventually crossing the border to the United States. The value of that cocaine, even before it enters the US market, is approximately $40 billion a year. That's nearly the size of Guatemala's entire economy.

The drug cartels in Guatemala act with impunity and effectively control much of the country. As Guatemala's President Alvaro Colom recently told Al Jazeera, "The drug traffickers are much better armed and financed than our military and our government." Guatemala, as a result, has become a very dangerous place to live.

What's the solution? According to Giancarlo Ibarguen, president of the Universidad Francisco Marroquin, the US government should end its war on drugs. REASON

105 comments:

  1. Drugs are part of a sick culture that affects all of North America and is part of the debate on illegal immigration. It is all related. Since 1973, America has killed 40 million American unborn who, if allowed to live, would be supporting the current aging generation. Social Security and Medicare would be financially sound. The 40 million would have been for the most part, English speaking, would have gone to American schools, and who knows, among the ones killed there might have been another Steve Jobs or another Edison. But we killed them all and now we are talking about importing people from Mexico to fill the gap we have created and getting some very undesirable consequences. Kill the unborn life and you disrespect all life. Drugs are just another part of a disrespected life.

    ReplyDelete
  2. but most of them would be blacks....

    hardly working or earning a living..

    It's not like thy would be white, asian or even god forbid Jews...

    ReplyDelete
  3. aoon is telling US another tall tale.

    The hate that he holds for black folk is palpable.

    The statistics he uses, flawed.
    As it relates to blacks, and "most".

    Wonder if he is using the Nuremberg Standard, to decide just what makes someone "black"?

    The hate, though, shines through.

    ReplyDelete
  4. A person that attempts to hyphenate Americans, is not real one, either.

    Not by the Teddy Roosevelt Standard.

    ReplyDelete
  5. www.abortionno.org/Resources/fastfacts.html


    Who's having abortions (race)?

    ... white women obtain 60% of all abortions


    anon facts are wrong, but his haltered is not based upon facts.

    It's his "FEELINGS" that matter.

    ReplyDelete




  6. anon's facts are wrong, but his hatred is not based upon facts.


    mea culpa.

    I should go brew some coffee

    ReplyDelete
  7. .

    Right again rat.

    It pains me to be agreeing with you so much lately.

    :)

    A.. reflects a familiar voice and profile. One we have seen many times before.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  8. Bring me one black, two sugars and a glazed doughnut. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  9. The "Ice Man" had a bag of weed, on his person.

    There is nothing "sick" about the use of marijuana, it's use in Europeon culture is ancient, even medicinal.

    The attempt to exert control over the lives of others, that is symptomatic of "sickness".

    Guatemala has always been a "dangerous" place.

    The most dangerous of all the Central American locales really.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Imagine the power in the simple thought expressed in the last minute of the video. Forget the government. Take all profit out of the drug trade and accept responsibility for yourself and children. Could it make the situation worse?

    ReplyDelete
  11. .

    I view the 'War on Drugs' with the same contempt I share for the implementation of the "War on Terror".

    Still it's a tough one. In my view, you have to control hard drugs, its quality and its use. Otherwise, you quickly see the same dire results that often occurred when taking 'bathtub gin' during prohibition.

    On the other hand, by controlling the drug trade, we see the same offsetting incentives for abuse, the same diminishment of respect for the law, the same incentives for gain, and the same pain inflicted on society that we saw during prohibition.

    Weed is a different animal. I see from a recent poll that now a majority of people in this country would prefer that weed be legalized.

    Would legalizing pot be just one more step on the slippery slope down from the conservative values we had in the beginning of the last century? Probably. However, would the benefits far outweigh the costs?

    Anyone familiar with pot can tell you that you can get thoroughly srewed up on the stuff. Still we allow both smoking and drinking in this country.

    Strictly my opinion, but I think we should keep the restrictions on hard drugs while legalizing pot.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hillary is on Fox with Chris Wallace. There is something bizarre about her hair. She is spinning the Iraqis kicking us out. The whole purpose of our adventure in Iraq was to give them democracy and make their future brighter. What bullshit.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Now Hillary wants an investgation on how Gadaffi got killed. Very important for rule of law! What bullshit.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Unless I missed something, the "law" was a no-fly zone for the Libyan Air Force. Who broke the law, the twenty year old that shot Ghadaffi in the head? Had Ghadaffi been shot in the head thirty years ago, the entire country would not have been wrecked by 7000 NATO sorties.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Which is a more grisly death, a 9mm shot to the head or being pulverized and burned to death with a 500lb bomb?

    ReplyDelete
  16. Deuce said... Now Hillary wants an investgation on how Gadaffi got killed. Very important for rule of law! What bullshit.

    Get the ICC involved. Drag the assassin to the Hague. Great way to get the newly-liberated Libya into the US camp. NOT.

    ReplyDelete
  17. DR: The hate that he holds for black folk is palpable.

    It's all pink on the inside, which is what myself and most of the regulars on the EB really care about.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Deuce said... Which is a more grisly death, a 9mm shot to the head or being pulverized and burned to death with a 500lb bomb?

    It would be divine justice if Qaddafi's final moments hiding in the sewer, and in the hands of the mob, lasted precisely as long and was just as terrifying as the final moments of the hundreds of Americans who went down in a 747 over Scotland. Either way, right now his case in the final docket, and I'm thinking Jesus is shaking his head as he flips through Qaddafi's dossier, because he's not finding very much to work with there with respect to a defense.

    ReplyDelete
  19. I am proud of the LOW abortion rate of American Jews.

    Jewish American rate of successful marriage and low abortion rates are a testimony to Jewish Americans love of children.

    Now the Rat loves to point to Israeli abortions as a murder of 50k Israelis but is always silent about the MILLIONs of abortions in AMeirca..

    I heard there is a sign in Atlanta that calls abortion in America genocide of Black America.

    Me?

    never had an abortion, never personally supported an abortion, never had a wife, sister or mother that ever had an abortion...

    As for the the "hatred" of anon?

    I think he's just stating the obvious..

    If 60% of all AMerican abortions are "white"

    That leaves 40% of all abortions are minority based..

    If african americans make up 12% then obama's support of abortion as birth control is validated.

    AN interesting fact. If all those that got pregnant were brought to term what would the impact be on the population? Would we have even more people on food stamps?

    I am sure Rat would personally step up and donate his portion of governmental welfare to help those in more need.

    Come on Rat, maybe you should be paying for those Federally subsidized horse riding and allow all those babies to be born.

    It's an interesting subject abortion that is. I personally JUST went down to an "occupy" protest and handed out condoms to the protesters (who took them with glee) (and without question)

    Not one person asked my motivation. I was motivated of course, to prevent breeding of the "fleabaggers" and the costs involved in abortion, prenatal care and welfare for the looters.

    I for one, as stated before, am a "breeder" and I do not get direct aid from the US government for my offspring. I guess I am just a Jewish American breeder.

    No abortion here.

    ReplyDelete
  20. But I do like the idea of a charity "condoms for moslems".

    Is that hatred?

    The only argument I could see is that moslems might argue that condoms are not needed when having intercourse with 9 year olds or animals.

    ReplyDelete
  21. 73% of all African American births are to households without fathers.

    If abortion was restricted what would that % be?

    Personally I do not like the idea of births to un-wed mothers.

    But the President of America believes that un-wanted pregnancies are a "mistake" that should be simply "fixed" through abortion.

    And he's a man of color.

    I wonder is it more humane to allow African Americans free abortions before they are born, rather than to allow the mistakes to grow up and become President?

    ReplyDelete
  22. I sure do advocate for the Federals to divest themselves of their interests in that Forest Service land.

    I also advocate for a less broad definition of "navgable", but ...

    The term "navigable waters" of the United States means "navigable waters" as defined in section 502(7) of the FWPCA, and includes:
    (1) all navigable waters of the United States, as defined in judicial decisions prior to the passage of the 1972 Amendments of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, (FWPCA) (Pub. L. 92-500) also known as the Clean Water Act (CWA), and tributaries of such waters as;
    (2) interstate waters;
    (3)
    intrastate lakes, rivers, and streams which are utilized by interstate travelers for recreational or other purposes;

    (4) intrastate lakes, rivers, and streams from which fish or shellfish are taken and sold in interstate commerce.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Think of it, if we could go back in time and give a condom to Obama's mother before her wild sex romps with her "boy toy", now that would be a story.

    Almost as important to the world as if we could have given Hitler's mother one...

    ReplyDelete
  24. I’m back in El Salvador for the first time in thirty years, and I don’t recognize a thing. There are smooth highways from the airport up to San Salvador, the capital, and even at this late hour, along the stretch of dunes dividing the road from the Pacific Ocean, there are cheerful stands at which customers have parked to buy coconuts and típico foods. But I remember a pitted two-lane road, a merciless sun that picked out every detail on the taut skin of corpses, a hole in the sandy ground, the glaring news that four women from the United States, three of them nuns, had just been unearthed from that shallow pit.

    “Is there a monument or a sign marking where the four Americanas were killed during the war?” I ask the driver of the hotel van.

    “Yes, up in the university, the UCA, where they died.”

    “No, those were the six Jesuit priests, years later, in San Salvador. I mean the nuns, in 1980, here.”

    “Oh,” he replies. “I don’t remember.”

    That event, the rape and murder of four religious workers on their way from the airport up to the city, was no doubt memorable to people like Robert White, the US ambassador in El Salvador during the last year of the Carter administration. He stood grimly at the funeral the next day, looking like another potential target of a putschist right-wing junta that had gone rogue. Already that year, Óscar Arnulfo Romero, the fearless archbishop of San Salvador, had been assassinated—to loud rejoicing by a ruling class that used to call him “Beezelbub.” Weeks after his murder, orchestrated in the darkest back channels of the regime by the notorious ideologue Roberto D’Aubuisson, the Reagan administration cranked up its military involvement in El Salvador, and dedicated billions of dollars to the junta’s fight against an insurgent coalition of guerrillas—Marxist radicals grouped under the umbrella name of Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN).

    ReplyDelete
  25. Few agree, with me, that we should be limiting Federal power and authority, rather than expanding it.

    Rather the majority of the commentators want to see the government use that power to their own ends. Varied as they be.

    As for the dead Colonel, in Libya ...

    His killing is strictly an issue for Libyan jurisprudence, not one or the International Community to ponder.

    Unless it was a NATO trooper that put the 9mm round in his head.

    ReplyDelete
  26. WiO: Me?

    never had an abortion, never personally supported an abortion, never had a wife, sister or mother that ever had an abortion...


    I admire your restraint, Pork Rinds. I don't think there is one man in twenty who could honestly say he had never had an abortion.

    ReplyDelete
  27. As of 1988, the most recent agricultural census had been conducted in 1971, but data on the 1980 land reform program corroborates that extremely unequal land distribution patterns persisted throughout the 1970s. According to the 1971 agricultural census, 92 percent of the farms in El Salvador (some 250,500 in all) together comprised only 27 percent of all farm area. The other 73 percent of farmland was combined in only 1,951 farms, or 8 percent of all farms; these parcels were all over 100 hectares. Farms between 100 and 500 hectares represented 15 percent of El Salvador's cultivated area.

    The land distributed under Phase I of the land reform program included the largest plantations--all those larger than 500 hectares. Phase I divided up 469 individual properties, with a combined area of 219,400 hectares, almost 18 percent of all Salvadoran farmland. Nearly 31,400 Salvadoran heads of household benefited directly from Phase I of the land reform; if family members are included, the beneficiaries totaled almost 188,200. Most of these lands were expropriated by the government and divided among 317 cooperatives. The government hoped that the economies of scale possible under a cooperative framework would keep the farms efficient.

    The government guaranteed the former landholders that they would be compensated and had planned to pay them out of the cooperatives' earnings. However, because the cooperatives experienced major difficulties during their initial years, much of the compensation had to be paid by the government. According to a report released by the inspector general of AID in February 1984, the cooperatives established under Phase I of the land reform "had massive capital debt, no working capital, large tracts of nonproductive land, substantially larger labor forces than needed to operate the units, and weak management." By the end of 1985, only 5 percent of the 317 cooperatives formed under the land reform were able to pay their debts, in spite of US$150 million in assistance from AID. Many lacked capital to buy fertilizer, so yields steadily declined. Nevertheless, by the end of 1987 almost all Phase I compensation had been paid. The restrictions placed on Phase II by the Constituent Assembly greatly limited its effect on land tenure because of the small size of the plots. As of 1987, however, phase II of the agrarian reform program had not been implemented.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Another job well done. Mission accomplished.

    ReplyDelete
  29. What is "Occupation" said...

    Think of it, if we could go back in time and give a condom to Obama's mother before her wild sex romps with her "boy toy", now that would be a story.

    Almost as important to the world as if we could have given Hitler's mother one...


    Six million Jews were tortured and exterminated by the SS, in what some call the Holocaust, or the Shoah, but which should be simply referred to as the Unspeakable and WiO waters down the horror and the suffering of all those poor people by suggesting that it was only slightly more terrible than the works of President Obama. If any Goy tried anything like that, the Rabbis would come down on them like a ton of bricks.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Just heard the term "Pray the Gay away"

    Now that's entertainment, I wonder what is the success rate?

    Just think about how many babies will be created by each gay guy being turned back to liking the normal preference.

    ReplyDelete
  31. You hit that nail, squarely on the head, Ms T.

    He has equated male masturbation with abortion, in past threads.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Teresita said...
    WiO: Me?

    never had an abortion, never personally supported an abortion, never had a wife, sister or mother that ever had an abortion...

    I admire your restraint, Pork Rinds. I don't think there is one man in twenty who could honestly say he had never had an abortion.


    I wonder now that "chaz" bono is considered a man if HE could say it as well.

    I was covering all bases. Since gender is now a thing of choice, as per the GLBT movement. Making it clear that in no way was I ever supportive of abortions personally for me.

    What is a womyn, what is a man?

    Nothing is real, perception is reality according to the "alternative" society.

    Ms t, you claim to be female, who really knows. Breast cancer does strike "real" men too.

    ReplyDelete
  33. desert rat said...
    You hit that nail, squarely on the head, Ms T.

    He has equated male masturbation with abortion, in past threads.


    No, the catholic church as rodentboy.

    But you call Israeli abortions murder.

    But you dont call your own shooting of civilians in Central America, in the back of the head murder.

    ReplyDelete
  34. DR: Unless it was a NATO trooper that put the 9mm round in his head.

    Hillary is a sneaky one, you know. The mandate was only to keep Qaddafi from harming civilians. The only thing we were authorized to do was shoot down jets and helicopters that were bombing civilians. Then you got mission creep, and NATO became the air wing of the rebels. Now that Qaddafi is dead (it was a double tap, the first tap was a Predator Hellfire, the second tap was from a rebel rifle), Hillary is trying to back peddle to cover up that mission creep.

    ReplyDelete
  35. The GNP per person in Guatemalaor Salvador is very similar, less than $3000 per year. Food and fuel prices have been going up because of the Feds quantitative easing. The economic incentive to emigrate to the US is huge. The economic incentive to deal in drugs is equally overwhelming. The economic burden on US taxpayers is directly responsible for higher taxes and lowering of wages for US workers.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Deuce said...
    The GNP per person in Guatemalaor Salvador is very similar, less than $3000 per year. Food and fuel prices have been going up because of the Feds quantitative easing. The economic incentive to emigrate to the US is huge. The economic incentive to deal in drugs is equally overwhelming. The economic burden on US taxpayers is directly responsible for higher taxes and lowering of wages for US workers.


    QE1,2 and 3 is causing MILLIONs to starve.

    Is that not the moral equal to promoting 3rd world abortion?

    ReplyDelete
  37. The first shot on Ghadaffi, who was not flying a plane at the time, was from a Nevada based scope dope driven hellfire missile. The same operations crew in Nevada directed two French fighter jets to drop two 500lb bombs on Ghadaffi who was still not in an aircraft. Ghadaffi, winged in both legs, still not in an airplane was "illegaly" shot in the side of his head by a potential twenty year old war criminal. Get it ?

    ReplyDelete
  38. WiO: I was covering all bases. Since gender is now a thing of choice, as per the GLBT movement.

    There is no GLBT movement. There are taxpaying Americans who want the same rights as other Americans, sexual preference notwithstanding. Gender is a matter of birth. A lesbian is a woman who is attracted to women. That's the whole point. This thing Chas Bono did to herself, I don't get it. If I want a Drew Carey, I'll just go out and get myself a Drew Cary, why get a woman who dudes herself out as a fake Drew Carey?

    ReplyDelete
  39. Prior to Hillary calling for an investigation on the possible war crimes of the twenty year old jackal who offed Ghadaffi, she had some very un PC things to say about the NATO no-fly mission sanctioned by the UN (very lawful stuff that.).

    ReplyDelete
  40. LGBT
    From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


    LGBT publications, pride parades, and related events, such as this stage at Bologna Pride 2008 in Italy, increasingly drop the LGBT initialism instead of regularly adding new letters, and dealing with issues of placement of those letters within the new title.
    Part of a series on
    Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) people

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    This box: view · talk · edit
    LGBT (or GLBT) is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s,[1] which many within the community in question felt did not accurately represent all those to whom it referred.[2]
    The term LGBT is intended to emphasize a diversity of "sexuality and gender identity-based cultures" and is sometimes used to refer to anyone who is non-heterosexual or cisgender instead of exclusively to people who are homosexual, bisexual, or transgender.[2][3] To recognize this inclusion, a popular variant adds the letter Q for those who identify as queer and are questioning their sexual identity (e.g., "LGBTQ" or "GLBTQ", recorded since 1996[4]).
    The initialism has become mainstream as a self-designation and has been adopted by the majority "sexuality and gender identity-based" community centers and media in the United States and some other English-speaking countries.[5][6]

    ReplyDelete
  41. Yep, if Chaz Bono is a man?

    Then yes HE could have had numerous abortions.

    ReplyDelete
  42. Then there is this freak of nature.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2019579/Worlds-pregnant-man-Thomas-Beatie-unveils-muscular-body-3-babies.html

    Thomas Beatie

    He's definitely got his figure back: World's first pregnant man unveils muscular physique after three babies in three years
    By FIONA ROBERTS

    Like any new mother, he was keen to lose the babyweight - but few would be quite so worried about getting a six-pack.
    Thomas Beatie, the world's first pregnant man - or male mother - has unveiled his new toned figure, just 12 months after giving birth to his third child in three years.
    Mr Beatie, who now lives in Arizona with his wife Nancy and their three children, garnered international attention around the world when he became the first legally transgender man to become pregnant.


    Yep "men" can have abortions.

    And "men" can be real lesbians.

    ReplyDelete
  43. So Israeli abortions are genocide and the 42 million American abortions are birth control.

    Israeli attacking an Hamas position is a war crime, American attacking a convoy of 70 autos fleeing a war zone is SOP.

    Israel stopping an armed ship aimed at violating Gaza's UN mandated blockade is a war crime, Turkey bombing 80 locations in Iraq is reasonable.

    Bush was a terrorist for waterboarding 3 terrorists. Obama is a hero for using predator drones in 6 nations we are not at war with and killing over a 1000 people including American citizens.

    Yep it's Alice in Wonderland time.

    ReplyDelete
  44. The ONLY postings that equated sperm to life, "PR man", were yours.

    Never supplying a link to the sources of your vile bile.

    You posted it, stand by it ...

    Or walk it back.

    Does not make much difference, your dancing on the head of pin, is amusing, regardless.

    ReplyDelete
  45. Ms T:


    Six million Jews were tortured and exterminated by the SS, in what some call the Holocaust, or the Shoah, but which should be simply referred to as the Unspeakable and WiO waters down the horror and the suffering of all those poor people by suggesting that it was only slightly more terrible than the works of President Obama.



    I am predicting that Obama will cause the deaths of a hundred million people.

    ReplyDelete
  46. Who equated abortion to birth control?
    Introduction of a "straw man".

    Who equated attacking Hamas to a war crime?

    The war crime was the Israeli wanton targeting of civilians, not attacking elements of Hamas.

    There were no non-combatants in the Colonel's caravan.

    Israel boarding commercial shipping in International waters is piracy, not a blockade of specific Israeli ports in Gaza.

    The Turks shelling the PPK positions, in Iraq, a NATO ally responding to actual terrorist attacks, not fear of the threat of them.

    ReplyDelete
  47. desert rat said...
    The ONLY postings that equated sperm to life, "PR man", were yours.


    Interesting point ratboy.

    But as stated it was the Catholic Church's position.

    But dont let facts confuse you.

    ReplyDelete
  48. Over 50% of Americans now favor the legalization of Marijuana. It won't be long, now.

    ReplyDelete
  49. Where's the link, PR man for Allah?

    When the Cheif Rabbinate of Israel describes abortion the Murdering of Souls, I often provide the link, to the easily referenced publications.

    You now claim to speak for the Catholic Church, too?

    ReplyDelete
  50. Liberal policies resulted in fatherless homes in the black community, now spreading to all.

    Liberal's solution to social decay:
    Abort the result.

    As in all things, they invert the norm, then marvel that their "solutions" result in more problems.

    ReplyDelete
  51. Where and when did the Pope announce the equivalency of sperm to a human life?

    ReplyDelete
  52. What's with the trip to El Salvador, Deuce?

    ReplyDelete
  53. Quirk wrote:

    "Anyone familiar with pot can tell you that you can get thoroughly srewed up on the stuff."


    A statement like suggest that you aren't very familiar with pot.




    re: Canadian tar sands. Not long ago I was thinking about the pipeline issue and wondered why Canada just doesn't build refineries here and sell the gas - leverage the raw product into more profitable value added product - instead of spending a bunch building a pipeline to the refineries in the south. It then struck me that, of course, the same folk who own the refineries are probably the ones mining the tar sands.

    ReplyDelete
  54. WiO: I am predicting that Obama will cause the deaths of a hundred million people.

    Deuteronomy 18:22 "When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him."

    ReplyDelete
  55. Ash said...

    Quirk wrote:

    "Anyone familiar with pot can tell you that you can get thoroughly srewed up on the stuff."

    A statement like suggest that you aren't very familiar with pot.


    You can get so baked you have to crawl into the kitchen to get your bag of Doritos. But it's pretty dang safe. Never heard of a pot overdose. I still don't like it.

    ReplyDelete



  56. The Zurich team can. From Orbis 2007, a database listing 37 million companies and investors worldwide, they pulled out all 43,060 TNCs and the share ownerships linking them. Then they constructed a model of which companies controlled others through shareholding networks, coupled with each company's operating revenues, to map the structure of economic power.

    The work, to be published in PloS One, revealed a core of 1318 companies with interlocking ownerships (see image). Each of the 1318 had ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were connected to 20. What's more, although they represented 20 per cent of global operating revenues, the 1318 appeared to collectively own through their shares the majority of the world's large blue chip and manufacturing firms - the "real" economy - representing a further 60 per cent of global revenues.

    When the team further untangled the web of ownership, it found much of it tracked back to a "super-entity" of 147 even more tightly knit companies - all of their ownership was held by other members of the super-entity - that controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the network. "In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network," says Glattfelder. Most were financial institutions. The top 20 included Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and The Goldman Sachs Group.

    John Driffill of the University of London, a macroeconomics expert, says the value of the analysis is not just to see if a small number of people controls the global economy, but rather its insights into economic stability.

    Concentration of power is not good or bad in itself, says the Zurich team, but the core's tight interconnections could be. As the world learned in 2008, such networks are unstable. "If one [company] suffers distress," says Glattfelder, "this propagates."


    Revealed – the capitalist network that runs the world

    ReplyDelete



  57. When the team further untangled the web of ownership, it found much of it tracked back to a "super-entity" of 147 even more tightly knit companies - all of their ownership was held by other members of the super-entity - that controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the network.

    "In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network,"

    says Glattfelder. Most were financial institutions. The top 20 included Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and The Goldman Sachs Group.

    ReplyDelete
  58. Ash said....

    "re: Canadian tar sands. Not long ago I was thinking about the pipeline issue and wondered why Canada just doesn't build refineries here and sell the gas - leverage the raw product into more profitable value added product - instead of spending a bunch building a pipeline to the refineries in the south. It then struck me that, of course, the same folk who own the refineries are probably the ones mining the tar sands."

    ---

    That may be the answer, but there is no market there for Gasoline in those quantities, and maybe there are no economically viable ways to transport those quantities of gasoline as compared to oil pipelines...

    Certainly gas could not be carried in supertankers.

    Where is Buddy Larsen when we need him?
    Where is he, period?

    ReplyDelete
  59. Teresita said...
    WiO: I am predicting that Obama will cause the deaths of a hundred million people.

    Deuteronomy 18:22 "When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him."


    I do not claim to speak for the L-rd.

    I speak for myself.

    Nice try at a lie.

    ReplyDelete
  60. "Most were financial institutions. The top 20 included Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and The Goldman Sachs Group."

    ---

    I wonder what percent of the bailouts have gone to these folks?

    ...enough that there ain't much left for mom and pop's, that's for sure.

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  61. Seems to be an immutable law of human nature, doesn't it?

    One percent gets forty percent/forty percent divides up one percent.

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  62. Or, pretty closely, thereabouts.

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  63. And, of course, probably 40% of that 40% (ie. 16%) goes to the top 1% of that 1% (1 in 10,000.)

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  64. Good points doug - I hadn't considered the difficulties in transporting the refined products (gas, aviation fuel, diesel ect.) but don't those refineries on the Gulf coast ship the product a fair bit? I can see a super-tanker full of gas being a bit worrisome...

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  65. They have semis with gas, RR Tanks with gas...

    Google yielded a paper predicting widespread use of gasoline pipelines, but it was written in 1932 !

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  66. It's corrosive to steel,
    like ETHANOL!

    :-)

    Had to get that in!

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  67. We had a jet fuel pipeline running through our property, but kerosene is quite a bit nicer than gasoline.

    ...and 3 oil pipelines, and one natural gas.

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  68. In California, big refineries tended to by sited in or near big cities.

    No doubt a bunch have been shut down by the NIMBY state of the USA.

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  69. We have huge gasoline pipelines stretchng from Houston to the SE, and West, etc.

    We ship out tankerloads of gasoine every day to Mexico, and SA (Brazil.)

    Probably has more to do with: why have two or three pipelines (one for gasoline, one for diesel, etc.) when you can have one.

    Also, the indigenous Nations might have something to do with that (they're the ones holding up the pipeline to BC, right now.)

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  70. 'bout time for a lecture on how much less flamable/explosive alky is than gas, I'd guess.

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  71. T said:

    "You can get so baked you have to crawl into the kitchen to get your bag of Doritos"

    I've actually never seen anyone get so baked they had to crawl. I've seen loads of drunks who can't walk but the most extreme dysfunction I've seen in a pot is that dealing with a very stoned person can be somewhat like dealing with someone with a sub-normal IQ. I've known quite a few pot heads (smokers of the substance daily) who function at a very high level - one chemical engineer and another one a software programmer are two who immediately come to mind.

    One very sad aspect of the US justice system is that someone who gets busted for enough pot to be deemed a dealer (in many neighborhoods that is one of the few means of earning a living) and they can get 8 years for that. If they happen to have a gun stashed back at their house they can get an additional 10 years. 18 friggin' years for a non-violent crime. America No. 1, riiiight.

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  72. I'd appreciate a link to boatloads of gasoline, Rufus.

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  73. Come on, Doug. Get a brain. I typed "gasoline exports" into the browser and The hits just kept coming

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  74. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  75. Ash: I've known quite a few pot heads (smokers of the substance daily) who function at a very high level - one chemical engineer and another one a software programmer are two who immediately come to mind.

    Pot makes you extremely lackadaisical. When potheads post relies to blogs they just cut and paste, without adding tags for bold or italic text, which makes it hard to tell where the cited text ends and the pothead's commentary begins.

    Potheads also tend to tar people who differ with them on positions related to the Middle-East with an "anti-Semite" or "Nazi" brush, because it's easier than making a well-reasoned rebuttal.

    From time to time, a pothead gets confused about the gender of the people around them. They are often heard saying, "Wow, man..." even when they are talking to women.

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  76. Sorry I don't possess your superior brain Rufus.
    I never searched for "exports"

    I do spend some time searching for other things.

    Searching for Houston Gasoline pipelines yielded several including an ad for these guys, who used to do work for me.

    They know their shit.

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  77. We've done a Hell of a job of spreading radical Islamism around, Allen.

    I just heard about ongoing efforts to completely revamp publications by the FBI and the like to remove descriptions that portray Sharia in a negative light.

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  78. Spreading Sharia law, now that sounds like a war crime to me.

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  79. Doug said...

    Gasoline Pipe oopsie

    Where were you, T?


    Tragic accident.

    Cool thing about that gas pipeline, it's a ready-made trail they keep clear so they can get to it if they need to. Just like a big wide green lawn that goes over hill and dale, use it to access Poo Poo Point.

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  80. Doug: I just heard about ongoing efforts to completely revamp publications by the FBI and the like to remove descriptions that portray Sharia in a negative light.

    I'm so glad NASA has shifted their main mission from manned space travel to promoting relations with Islam, per the President's directions.

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  81. T said...
    I'm so glad NASA has shifted their main mission from manned space travel to promoting relations with Islam, per the President's directions.

    Sun Oct 23, 02:24:00 PM EDT



    Then you will be ecstatic to learn of TSA's expanded role: TSA will begin making spot traffic stops throughout Tennessee in the coming weeks. Whether drivers will be forced to stand shoeless along TN's roadways has not been announced.

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  82. Allen: Then you will be ecstatic to learn of TSA's expanded role: TSA will begin making spot traffic stops throughout Tennessee in the coming weeks. Whether drivers will be forced to stand shoeless along TN's roadways has not been announced.

    Tennessee Shoe Authority?

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  83. T,

    By the way, it is good to see you up and about.

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  84. Allen: "...like we could just ration stuff...like fuck work..."

    Ration fuck work? Why not just make fuck work legal so we don't have to ration it. The sex care providers would appreciate the uptick in business.

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  85. T,

    It sounded better than it looks in print :-)

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  86. Al-Zintani told The Associated Press Khadafy's body was removed from the freezer and taken to a secret location for the autopsy. He said he also examined the body of Muatassim.

    The vast majority of Libyans seemed unconcerned about the circumstances of the hated leader's death.

    "If he (Khadafy) was taken to court, this would create more chaos, and would encourage his supporters," said Salah Zlitni, 31, who owns a pizza parlor in downtown Tripoli. "Now it's over."

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  87. sam said...

    How did your surgery go, T?


    Perfect, sam. There was no cancer in the skin, so he didn't have to do a skin graft from my ass, which would have laid me up an extra six weeks. Modified radical mastectomy, one breast, three lymph nodes under the arm. I have a little bag that collects blood (about 120 ml a day) because the capillaries are still leaking while the skin tries to merge with the tissue that's left. The only stitches are for the tube that collects the blood, there's a nine inch scar that is closed with Super Glue. If you're gonna get sliced up, I really recommend you do it in the 21st Century, they've got it all figured out.

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  88. Nice. Glad to hear it went well.

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  89. It looks like I was on the business end of a horsewhip.

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  90. Polygamy is now legal in Libya. Liberal progress winds the clock back 500 years.

    Anyone surprised W. was received with a standing ovation at the World Series, especially after three years of Obama?

    The George Soros controlled private equity company Cerberus Capital Management could cut off all gun and ammunition sales in the US. Apparently, the American people are totally unaware that Cerberus has for the past decade acquired nearly every gun and ammunition maker in the United States and consolidated them into a holding company called The Freedom Group.

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  91. 30. Joe Hill As for North Korea I would like to see them order their conscript army south when Mon, Dad, and Granny are starving back home.

    When the Nork army finally crosses the DMV and invades the South, there will be nothing but gales of laughter. Sixty years of famine has incrementally reduced them to a race of hobbits, and they don't even realize it.

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  92. Turkey lies in one of the world's most active seismic zones and is crossed by numerous fault lines. In 1999, two earthquakes with a magnitude of more than 7 struck northwestern Turkey, killing about 18,000 people.

    More recently, a 6.0-magnitude quake in March 2010 killed 51 people in eastern Turkey, while in 2003, a 6.4-magnitude earthquake killed 177 people in the southeastern city of Bingol.

    Istanbul, the country's largest city with more than 12 million people, lies in northwestern Turkey near a major fault line. Experts have warned that overcrowding and shoddy construction in Istanbul could kill tens of thousands if a major earthquake struck.

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  93. I'm not one to gloat, sam. I'm sitting on top of a subduction zone where the San Juan plate goes under the North American plate (it makes the Olympic range), and it's three hundred years overdue to slip, and it will probably come in at 9 plus on the Richter scale. Our cities are designed for 8, tops. Five minutes of rocking and rolling, then you get twenty minutes to get above 50 feet of elevation before the tsunami hits. My hut is at 180 feet, but that's a super-Katrina in the making.

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  94. I know of what and where you speak.

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  95. We had a 3.3 here last week. 02:22 am. I was awake in bed. Short and sharp. BANG! Shook the whole house. All the wood framing in the roof creaked. Loud. I thought at first there was a construction crew nearby hammering the earth with some big machinery. I looked a the clock and thought, that's weird. Why would they be working at this time of night? Then I started to formulate 'earthquake' in the back of my mind. Sure enough.

    Epicenter 6 miles SE of my joint.

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