Her new opinion piece HERE
Step 1) insist that raising the minimum wage will result in people being fired.
Step 2) Show lower unemployment in countries with higher minimum wages
Step 3) Ignore the whole velocity of money and marginal utilities ideas presented in econ 101
Step 4) Create Red Herring
Step 5) Scape Goat the Red Herring
Immigration policies are partly a red herring in terms of buying down the price of wages. It is contributory but not solely responsible. Oddly enough her friends over at the Chamber of Commerce are very very much for expanding permissive immigration/guest worker policies. (You don't say!)
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Monday, March 17, 2014
Good Gravy In the Crimea
As many have seen in recent days the events surrounding the so-called protests in The Ukraine have continued to escalate though not in a linear fashion. The West (EU/US/NATO) was engaging in a campaign of agents provocateur to bring into power a regime favorable to a NATO and EU alliance.
That evidence is in plain view via the diplomatic efforts of the USA including and living up to the trope of 'Cookie Pushing'. Additionally the US ambassador (cookie pusher) also had a conversation leaked where she was discussing who among the opposition parties were most acceptable to the US/EU. Well we all know 'acceptable' is code word for who can be most easily pressured or bought off. Of course the media made a big ado about her other comment in that call, 'Fuck the EU'. Well that was just her being candid about whose national interest was most at play here. What upset the EU wasn't the comment but rather they probably thought the USA had at least some of their interest in mind and this revealed that it was clearly playing all sides against each other.
Russia on the other hand during most of this was hosting the Olympic Games. So while the world was watching Putin began various staging maneuvers and then as quickly as he could inserted special forces into the Crimea as the Ukraine's government began to collapse. Sevastopol is Russia's largest naval base in the area, the people are Russian speaking (so bet on them all getting Russian passports as a token/piece of propaganda) and though many favor an independent Crimea it is unlikely to happen. Russia appears resurgent.
The United States, having destabilized Syria was attempting a similar method of attack in the Ukraine. Much of this policy comes from white papers written by Susan Powers, Cass Sunstein and others like them. All of these policies are underwritten By George Soros and the Tides Foundation at large as part of the 'Open Society' Project. Of course in this society there is this philosophy of the 'Right to Protect' where Team America World Police is more of a reality than a comedy. These same leftists who criticized G.W. Bush for his foreign excursions are simply continuing the same imperialist policies; albeit in a more nuanced fashion.
The Crimea is an important location both geographically and historically. Geographically is it strategically located in the Black Sea and cordons off the Sea of Azov. Its many excellent ports are dominated by the Russian Navy and up until quite recently Sevastopol was a closed city belonging to the Russians though inside Ukrainian lands.
UPDATE
Crimean citizens voted in a referendum over the weekend to become independent of The Ukraine and to join Russia by a staggering 96.8%. This means a couple things. First it further legitimizes Putin's push westward to reclaim former Soviet republics and secondly that EU/US/NATO policy is failing. For good or ill the US has pushed a destabilization of the Ukraine in order to get them closer to the EU/NATO side. Additionally covert/false flag operations inside Kiev resulted in the overthrow of current/former (depending on your POV) Yanukovych. The people installed by the US/EU/NATO are now dealing with insurrection and the threat of invasion and annexation. The United States will not stop Russia militarily.
As a result of the Crimean referendum the US/EU have imposed travel sanctions against Russian officials. Russia will likely respond with the same. It is odd for a nation such as mine (the USA) to go out openly against a people deciding what nation they wish to be a part of. Self-determination is a part of our culture and a part of the UN charter and one would think that we would be for a nation or a group of people to decide what political affiliation they want. Instead we are installing puppet governments and opposing democratic movements world wide.
The question then becomes..not why because we know that there is some national interest driving this...but rather 'What is the national interest being so keenly hidden from the public that is driving this conflict?'. When you have George Soros coming out and saying that the future of the EU depends on the Ukraine it is something special. And more so...why is the EU in such dire need of expansion to include the Ukraine?
And here we get into some dark territory. The Ukraine's economy is the size of the estimated fraud within the EU economy as it is so much larger. The Ukraine has a precarious amount of debt that is cannot repay. The real power struggle seems outlined HERE without the author really knowing it. This is why George Soros is speaking out (or one of the reasons). The other reasons have to do with natural gas/oil exploration and transportation in the region. This has absolutely nothing to do with what is good for the people of the Ukraine on any side. They are meat-sack numbers as a friend once told me. That is how the government sees you and that is how they will treat you. The Ukraine would be used as another location in the ever present race to the bottom in terms of labor pricing. At the same time more immigration would happen in Europe as a search for more jobs would happen. The flood of Ukrainians into Poland and Germany and nations farther west would begin to drive the price of labor lower for everyone. The increased profits over time would flow upward and that is what Soros is after. It is just more piracy.
The Ukrainians are pawns in an international banking scheme and Russia is simply trying to get a larger part of that scheme. No one is a good guy here and it would be foolish to think so. Is one evil better than than the other? I for one don't like evil at all and the people of Crimea had a slim chance to choose neither. Instead they chose to be closer to their historical and ethnic ties. Only time will tell if that is preferable to real independence or partnership with the EU.
That evidence is in plain view via the diplomatic efforts of the USA including and living up to the trope of 'Cookie Pushing'. Additionally the US ambassador (cookie pusher) also had a conversation leaked where she was discussing who among the opposition parties were most acceptable to the US/EU. Well we all know 'acceptable' is code word for who can be most easily pressured or bought off. Of course the media made a big ado about her other comment in that call, 'Fuck the EU'. Well that was just her being candid about whose national interest was most at play here. What upset the EU wasn't the comment but rather they probably thought the USA had at least some of their interest in mind and this revealed that it was clearly playing all sides against each other.
Russia on the other hand during most of this was hosting the Olympic Games. So while the world was watching Putin began various staging maneuvers and then as quickly as he could inserted special forces into the Crimea as the Ukraine's government began to collapse. Sevastopol is Russia's largest naval base in the area, the people are Russian speaking (so bet on them all getting Russian passports as a token/piece of propaganda) and though many favor an independent Crimea it is unlikely to happen. Russia appears resurgent.
The United States, having destabilized Syria was attempting a similar method of attack in the Ukraine. Much of this policy comes from white papers written by Susan Powers, Cass Sunstein and others like them. All of these policies are underwritten By George Soros and the Tides Foundation at large as part of the 'Open Society' Project. Of course in this society there is this philosophy of the 'Right to Protect' where Team America World Police is more of a reality than a comedy. These same leftists who criticized G.W. Bush for his foreign excursions are simply continuing the same imperialist policies; albeit in a more nuanced fashion.
The Crimea is an important location both geographically and historically. Geographically is it strategically located in the Black Sea and cordons off the Sea of Azov. Its many excellent ports are dominated by the Russian Navy and up until quite recently Sevastopol was a closed city belonging to the Russians though inside Ukrainian lands.
UPDATE
Crimean citizens voted in a referendum over the weekend to become independent of The Ukraine and to join Russia by a staggering 96.8%. This means a couple things. First it further legitimizes Putin's push westward to reclaim former Soviet republics and secondly that EU/US/NATO policy is failing. For good or ill the US has pushed a destabilization of the Ukraine in order to get them closer to the EU/NATO side. Additionally covert/false flag operations inside Kiev resulted in the overthrow of current/former (depending on your POV) Yanukovych. The people installed by the US/EU/NATO are now dealing with insurrection and the threat of invasion and annexation. The United States will not stop Russia militarily.
As a result of the Crimean referendum the US/EU have imposed travel sanctions against Russian officials. Russia will likely respond with the same. It is odd for a nation such as mine (the USA) to go out openly against a people deciding what nation they wish to be a part of. Self-determination is a part of our culture and a part of the UN charter and one would think that we would be for a nation or a group of people to decide what political affiliation they want. Instead we are installing puppet governments and opposing democratic movements world wide.
The question then becomes..not why because we know that there is some national interest driving this...but rather 'What is the national interest being so keenly hidden from the public that is driving this conflict?'. When you have George Soros coming out and saying that the future of the EU depends on the Ukraine it is something special. And more so...why is the EU in such dire need of expansion to include the Ukraine?
And here we get into some dark territory. The Ukraine's economy is the size of the estimated fraud within the EU economy as it is so much larger. The Ukraine has a precarious amount of debt that is cannot repay. The real power struggle seems outlined HERE without the author really knowing it. This is why George Soros is speaking out (or one of the reasons). The other reasons have to do with natural gas/oil exploration and transportation in the region. This has absolutely nothing to do with what is good for the people of the Ukraine on any side. They are meat-sack numbers as a friend once told me. That is how the government sees you and that is how they will treat you. The Ukraine would be used as another location in the ever present race to the bottom in terms of labor pricing. At the same time more immigration would happen in Europe as a search for more jobs would happen. The flood of Ukrainians into Poland and Germany and nations farther west would begin to drive the price of labor lower for everyone. The increased profits over time would flow upward and that is what Soros is after. It is just more piracy.
The Ukrainians are pawns in an international banking scheme and Russia is simply trying to get a larger part of that scheme. No one is a good guy here and it would be foolish to think so. Is one evil better than than the other? I for one don't like evil at all and the people of Crimea had a slim chance to choose neither. Instead they chose to be closer to their historical and ethnic ties. Only time will tell if that is preferable to real independence or partnership with the EU.
Friday, March 14, 2014
Afloat in a Starry Sea
I don't know about anyone else but now just like when I was young I look up at the night sky with awe. Out there just beyond my grasp is an entire universe of *stuff*. By stuff I mean more stars, more planets, more of everything we have here.
In our own solar system we have for the purposes of our species at present an infinite amount of material for construction and fuel and living space. And yet still more exists in our local neighborhood however that may be defined by cosmologists. And farther out EVEN MORE. And yet here we sit...floating in this starry sea of stuff acting as if scarcity is an actual thing rather than a self-imposed limit.
The United States alone could go to the moon and start a colony there if it so desired. As a nation it could do this within five years. The EU and China could also engage in such an activity. So why would they not do it you ask? Risk aversion, political power, general ineptitude and lack of foresight.
What does the Moon have?
Helium 3 - This is important for nuclear fusion and even charged particle drives (ion drives) and likely other applications we haven't even considered yet.
A Dark Side: Useful for deep solar system and space obervatories and automated interferometric sensor equipment and for communications beyond line of sight in the solar system.
A Light Side: Solar power, habitation areas dug into the lunar regolith.
How can we do these things?
We already have the patents and engineering designs for habitation modules and subselene nuclear powered tunnel boring machines that melt their way through the lunar rock using liquid lithium pipes and automated muck removal systems. That by the way was worked out in the 1980's. Today's machines would be more efficient by a large degree.
So what use would the moon be other than for fusion/ion fuel?
A low gravity staging point for exploration and exploitation of the solar system and its resources. It is the natural jumping-off point for a Mars expedition and colony. It is a ready-made observatory and it doesn't really have an environment to despoil aside from the portions that we want to inhabit or view from Earth.
Can we do it?
Yes
Should we do it?
Yes
Is it worth the cost?/
Yes
Why haven't we done it?
Distractions intentional and otherwise to keep people under the thumbs of terrestrial powers.
Biological adaptations are necessary for living life away from our home. Low gravity causes calcium to leech out of our bones, the lack of tidal pull may effect our reproductive cycles and there are many other effects that come from having evolved on this planet.
A better human:
A better human will most-likely be thought of as trans-human or post-human. This theoretical person would have a great deal of artificial genetic manipulation for his/her cardio-vascular, musculo-skeletal and nervous systems. His/Her entire system will be adaptable to environments other than Earth. I don't mean that future humans will breathe methane...but that their bones won't crumble in micro-gravity nor will hormone production be disrupted and they would likely have a higher tolerance to radiation dosing.
Humans optimized for space travel would also likely be hairless completely and have vision capabilities at least at 20/20 if not better and be able to see and process colors in the infra-red and ultra-violet. Their cognitive abilities would be enhanced to require less sleep and irregularities of schedule would become less of a problem. We have drugs like modafinil, caffeine, and nicotine that already have this effect on our minds and bodies. Why not hard-wire these effects into features? Also likely would be enough manipulation that no human past a certain point would age past their mid 30's and never get cancer except from outside sources. All genetic faults would be corrected or removed.
It could take generations of therapies for this to happen, but it would first happen to humans off Earth. The benefits would be realized on Earth on an industrial scale. Sickness and frailty...gone. We're not talking of a master race or picking a child's sex, hair or eye color...this is about eliminating blindness, deafness, down syndrome, ALS, chromosomal defects that hold back the entire species!
The path to the starry sea is a long, broad and windy path with many other paths feeding into it.
A greater understanding:
Right now all that we conceive of is from the Big Bang onward. Yet tantalizing evidence exists for something beyond our realm. Some celestial phenomena from quasars to even the cosmic background radiation maps suggest energy is leaking INTO our universe from some outside medium. Additionally physicists think that our universe is flat and gravity curves or distorts this relatively 2-D space. We also know that the universe is still expanding and the rate of expansion is increasing. What is speculative is the continued duration of that expansion and rate of increase. What is also speculative is what exactly the universe is expanding into as a medium.
It would seem to me that we are as a small boat floating atop a dark sea of some unknown form of energy or some sort of Hyper/Hypo Space. This might also indicate the possibility of a multi-verse...a sea filled with islands of expanding and contracting 'Verses'. The apparent energy exchange could be evidence of this in the same way that small ripples in a pond or glass of water are evidence of the edge or shoreline or some reflective boundary. It is evidence and we need more of it to come to any conclusion as to the actual implications which are likely far more profound than what we can imagine today.
In our own solar system we have for the purposes of our species at present an infinite amount of material for construction and fuel and living space. And yet still more exists in our local neighborhood however that may be defined by cosmologists. And farther out EVEN MORE. And yet here we sit...floating in this starry sea of stuff acting as if scarcity is an actual thing rather than a self-imposed limit.
The United States alone could go to the moon and start a colony there if it so desired. As a nation it could do this within five years. The EU and China could also engage in such an activity. So why would they not do it you ask? Risk aversion, political power, general ineptitude and lack of foresight.
What does the Moon have?
Helium 3 - This is important for nuclear fusion and even charged particle drives (ion drives) and likely other applications we haven't even considered yet.
A Dark Side: Useful for deep solar system and space obervatories and automated interferometric sensor equipment and for communications beyond line of sight in the solar system.
A Light Side: Solar power, habitation areas dug into the lunar regolith.
How can we do these things?
We already have the patents and engineering designs for habitation modules and subselene nuclear powered tunnel boring machines that melt their way through the lunar rock using liquid lithium pipes and automated muck removal systems. That by the way was worked out in the 1980's. Today's machines would be more efficient by a large degree.
So what use would the moon be other than for fusion/ion fuel?
A low gravity staging point for exploration and exploitation of the solar system and its resources. It is the natural jumping-off point for a Mars expedition and colony. It is a ready-made observatory and it doesn't really have an environment to despoil aside from the portions that we want to inhabit or view from Earth.
Can we do it?
Yes
Should we do it?
Yes
Is it worth the cost?/
Yes
Why haven't we done it?
Distractions intentional and otherwise to keep people under the thumbs of terrestrial powers.
Biological adaptations are necessary for living life away from our home. Low gravity causes calcium to leech out of our bones, the lack of tidal pull may effect our reproductive cycles and there are many other effects that come from having evolved on this planet.
A better human:
A better human will most-likely be thought of as trans-human or post-human. This theoretical person would have a great deal of artificial genetic manipulation for his/her cardio-vascular, musculo-skeletal and nervous systems. His/Her entire system will be adaptable to environments other than Earth. I don't mean that future humans will breathe methane...but that their bones won't crumble in micro-gravity nor will hormone production be disrupted and they would likely have a higher tolerance to radiation dosing.
Humans optimized for space travel would also likely be hairless completely and have vision capabilities at least at 20/20 if not better and be able to see and process colors in the infra-red and ultra-violet. Their cognitive abilities would be enhanced to require less sleep and irregularities of schedule would become less of a problem. We have drugs like modafinil, caffeine, and nicotine that already have this effect on our minds and bodies. Why not hard-wire these effects into features? Also likely would be enough manipulation that no human past a certain point would age past their mid 30's and never get cancer except from outside sources. All genetic faults would be corrected or removed.
It could take generations of therapies for this to happen, but it would first happen to humans off Earth. The benefits would be realized on Earth on an industrial scale. Sickness and frailty...gone. We're not talking of a master race or picking a child's sex, hair or eye color...this is about eliminating blindness, deafness, down syndrome, ALS, chromosomal defects that hold back the entire species!
The path to the starry sea is a long, broad and windy path with many other paths feeding into it.
A greater understanding:
Right now all that we conceive of is from the Big Bang onward. Yet tantalizing evidence exists for something beyond our realm. Some celestial phenomena from quasars to even the cosmic background radiation maps suggest energy is leaking INTO our universe from some outside medium. Additionally physicists think that our universe is flat and gravity curves or distorts this relatively 2-D space. We also know that the universe is still expanding and the rate of expansion is increasing. What is speculative is the continued duration of that expansion and rate of increase. What is also speculative is what exactly the universe is expanding into as a medium.
It would seem to me that we are as a small boat floating atop a dark sea of some unknown form of energy or some sort of Hyper/Hypo Space. This might also indicate the possibility of a multi-verse...a sea filled with islands of expanding and contracting 'Verses'. The apparent energy exchange could be evidence of this in the same way that small ripples in a pond or glass of water are evidence of the edge or shoreline or some reflective boundary. It is evidence and we need more of it to come to any conclusion as to the actual implications which are likely far more profound than what we can imagine today.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)