7/30/10
CELEBRATIN' FREEDUMBS, AGAIN...
The power structure believes that, because of our own ignorance or by Divine Decree, planet Earth will self-destruct sometime in the near future. These men sincerely believe that they are doing the right thing in their attempt to save the human race. Many moral and legal compromises were made in error and must be corrected and those responsible should be made to account for their actions. I can understand the fear and urgency that must have been instrumental in the decision not to tell the public. Obviously I disagree with this decision. Throughout history small but powerful groups of men have consistently felt that they alone were capable of deciding the fates of millions and throughout history have been wrong. This great nation owes its very existence to the Principles of Freedom and Democracy. I believe with all my heart that the United States of America cannot and will not succeed in any effort that ignores those principles.
Something else is happening which is beyond our ability to understand at this time. We must force disclosure of all the facts, discover the truth and act upon the truth.
In any case we MUST force disclosure of the truth or no matter what happens we will surely deserve it. The situation in which we find ourselves is due to our own actions or inaction's over the last 44 years. It is our own fault and we are the only ones who can change it. Through ignorance or misplaced trust we as a people have abdicated our role as the "watch dog" of our government. Our government was founded "of the people, for the people, and by the people". There was no mention or intent to ever abdicate our role and place our total trust in a handful of men who meet secretly and decide our fate for us. In fact the structure of our government was designed to prevent that from ever happening. If we had done our jobs as citizens this could never have happened. Most of us are completely ignorant as to even the most basic functions of our government. We have truly became a nation of sheep. Sheep are always eventually led to the slaughter. I have brought you the truth as I know it. I do not care what you think of me. I have done my duty and no matter what fate lies in store for me, I can truly meet my maker with a clear conscience. I have given my oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies foreign and DOMESTIC, I intend to fulfil that oath.
-M.W.C
7/29/10
SOME LIGHT SUMMER READING...
A good many historians say that most of the world, and especially Americans, move through history suffering from a case of "historical amnesia." People too easily forget the last disaster and lose track of the last atrocity. But we do not forget because of some bout of amnesia-because of some blow to the head or because of too much alcohol. Something deeper and more radical eats away at us. In a sense, we have been programmed to experience "amnesia." Despite the insistence from Freud that the pleasure principle drives people's behavior, everything around us encourages turning aside from tragedy to just have a good time.
Some critics argue, Well, the numbers are just too overwhelming, the scale just too huge, for anyone to even begin to feel the pain and shock of death. Forty thousand die in a mudslide in Central America, another sixty thousand in a Tsunami in Indonesia, perhaps one million or more in Darfur, and tens of millions of human beings from AIDS worldwide. I say the numbers matter little. Something more basic shapes today's attitude toward such a ghostly way of dying. Beneath those euphemisms of death lies a grim reality; but to really see it, we first have to hold in our minds the concept of the human being as something vital and crucial. Human beings first have to come fully alive for us, before we can consider them dead. (In order to truly fall asleep, we must first come fully awake.) And, for a great many people, living seems just too confusing, too remote, or, worse yet, too difficult. The "isness" of being eludes us. A life is easy to come by, but living seems to remain just out of reach. We owe this strange state of affairs to a legacy we inherited from the nineteenth century.
-Sanders
7/24/10
7/19/10
7/17/10
7/13/10
CLOSED SYSTEMS OF PHYSICS AND FINANCE
(Li)took a notoriously tough nut-determining correlation, or how seemingly disparate events are related-and cracked it wide open with a simple and elegant mathematical formula, one that would become ubiquitous in finance worldwide.
For five years, Li's formula, known as a Gaussian copula function, looked like an unambiguously positive breakthrough, a piece of financial technology that allowed hugely complex risks to be modeled with more ease and accuracy than ever before. With his brilliant spark of financial legerdemain, Li made it possible for traders to sell vast quantities of new securities, expanding financial markets to unimaginable levels.
His method was adopted by everybody from bond investors and Wall Street banks to ratings agencies and regulators. And it became so deeply entrenched-and was making people so much money-that warnings about its limitations were largely ignored.
Then the model fell apart. Cracks started appearing early on, when financial markets began behaving in ways that users of Li's formula hadn't expected. The cracks became full-fledged canyons in 2008-when ruptures in the financial system's foundation swallowed up trillions of dollars and put the survival of the global banking system in serious peril.
....Li's Gaussian copula formula will go down in history as instrumental in causing the unfathomable losses that brought the world financial system to its knees.
-Felix Salmon
Dr. Li, after publishing his formula, returned to China in 2008 and has been curiously silent during the debate over the causes and culprits behind the crash. But in the ultimate twist to the story, he has returned to Beijing where he is in charge of the risk management department of China International Capital Corporation.
-Farrell
7/9/10
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