[peabody economics] nothing ever changes

George Peabody set up shop in the aftermath of the 1837 panic:

Because of U.S. debt troubles, Peabody became persona non grata around London (after all, he had sold the Brits much of that debt). But that did not deter him. He bought the depreciated state bonds when they were trading for pennies on the dollar. When these bonds paid interest again, in the late 1840s, Peabody reaped a fortune.

Then along came the next crash, in 1857 and:

Corsair, the Life of J.P. Morgan, tells us that the Panic of 1857 was caused by the collapse of the grain market and by the sudden collapse of Ohio Life and Trust, for a loss of five million dollars. With this collapse nine hundred other American companies failed. Significantly, one not only survived, but prospered from the crash.

In Corsair, we learn that the Bank of England lent George Peabody and Company five million pounds during the panic of 1857. Winkler, in Morgan the Magnificent, says that the Bank of England advanced Peabody one million pounds, an enormous sum at that time, and the equivalent of one hundred million dollars today, to save the firm. However, no other firm received such beneficence during this Panic.

Ron Chernow wrote that the Morgan munificence was reprised in the 1907 panic:

"In the following days, acting like a one-man Federal Reserve system, [J. Pierpont] Morgan decided which firms would fail and which survive. Through a non stop flurry of meetings, he organized rescues of banks and trust companies, averted a shutdown of the New York Stock Exchange, and engineered a financial bailout of New York City."

Morgan is always at hand through the majority controlled Federal Reserve [read July 14, 2008 here] and its close association with the FOMC in altruistically helping out in times of crises, which seem to pop up quite regularly. Morgan seems to be particularly astute in predicting crises and preparing for them - what of the gold swaps?

[bizarre experiment] not so bizarre conclusion

This blog usually tries to steer clear of just commenting on what the Telegraph or other MSM might be running at a given moment but this story requires a comment I don't think many would make.

Research at Oxford University has found believers can draw on their religion to endure suffering with greater fortitude, suggesting Christian martyrs may have been able to reduce the agony of torture or slow death.

Firstly, what is the point of the study and why the electric shocks? This immediately makes one smell a rat, as the shock approach is beloved of a particular type of people who enjoy the Joseph Mengele style of "research".

Secondly, it is attempting to reduce the physical to the metaphysical, the latter which just won't fit into the box and lie still. There is a contract that anyone who is actually Christian [as distinct from Sunday Churchgoer or Christian Right] enters into and it's spelt out clearly in Matthew and John.

It says that you can be redeemed by belief, not only because of the feeling of relief you get that you're actually going to make it to heaven but through the spirit, the third person of the trinity, actually flowing in like a lifeforce. All you need to do, it says, is believe that it is possible.

Almost no one in the MSM or the main blogosphere either dares or is interested in a kooky idea like that. Look at the adjective the Telegraph uses - bizarre. Yes, the experiment seems that way but in my eyes, it had an agenda. The paper mentions that the experimenters "hoped" for a certain result. I'm sure they did and they duly published it.

Does that make you suddenly believe in Christianity's ability to deliver on the Holy Spirit? Does it heck as like. For the majority, all it does is place the whole concept in the kook category in their minds, thereby putting another nail in the coffin of the "Cross superstition" [or so the shockophiles think].

Looking at society in general, you have to be pretty blinkered not to see the assault on Christianity from within and from outside [Winterval, banning the Nativity plays and so on] over the last decade and the obvious question is why this fixation with stomping out something they deny even exists? Why the Muslim fixation with it, for example?

The answer is that it delivers on its promise. So yes, there was a resurrection, there has to have been, as the results of it flow through to a few million worldwide on a daily basis. They're not going out preaching it but just living with the benefits day by day. It's always available if you should one day need it.

But look at the anger, the raised eyebrows and the snorts of bemused disgust such an assertion produces in people who like to deem themselves "rational", people who supposedly take all phenomena into account in their conclusions. This thing just won't die off, won't go away, will it? Non-believers trot out rationalization after rationalization explaining it away, sociological, psychological and other and those rationalizations hold up well when measured against physical phenomena.

Trouble is, you can't measure someone coming alive after three days and the power deriving from that, flowing into millions worldwide, in physical terms. It's like trying to measure Herbert's Dune and the life water or Star Wars' Force or the nature of electricity or why we actually "live" and are sentient, as distinct from being robotic. It is like trying to scientifically measure joie-de-vivre - it just won't fit into the scientific box.

It just is, as quite a few people dotted about here and there can testify to.

[feminist quiz] do you know your heroines

Woman strangling male beast to death

C'mon girls [and guys], let's see how well you know your heroines. The task is to identify which of these famous people:

Germaine Greer, Gloria Steinem, Simone de Beauvoir, Mary Wollstonecraft, Henry Kissinger [oh how I'm missin' yer]

...was behind which quote:

1. Nobody will ever win the Battle of the Sexes. There's just too much fraternizing with the enemy. 2. I do not wish them to have power over men, but over themselves. 3. A woman reading Playboy feels a little like a Jew reading a Nazi manual. 4. One is not born a woman, but becomes one. 5. I didn't fight to get women out from behind vacuum cleaners to get them onto the board of Hoover.

Answers in the correct order

Henry Kissinger [oh how I'm missin' yer], Mary Wollstonecraft, Gloria Steinem, Simone de Beauvoir, Germaine Greer

Bonus questions - which one of these quotes did Simone de Beauvoir not utter?

a. The word love has by no means the same sense for both sexes, and this is one cause of the serious misunderstandings that divide them. b. To catch a husband is an art; to hold him is a job. c. That's what I consider true generosity. You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing. d. It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and our reasons for living. e. One of the things I really like about men is that they are raised to take responsibility for their actions. They don't make excuses, and they don't have a whole lot of tolerance for people who do make excuses, who try to weasel out from their responsibility.

Answer

e. Correct - it was spoken by feminist Marylaine Block.

[quicksand] how to get in and out

First the good news - you're not going to drown in quicksand - only sink down. The bad news is that stuck you will be and if you're in, say, Morecambe Bay, the tide will get you.

The science is here and below is a practical though misnamed video of how to get stuck and then escape:





Lindisfarne is a place where the tide is also treacherous though well known and signposted. Also, there are refuges [see pic above] dotted along the way, which is fine if you're in one car but what if you're a party of twelve people or so?

I've only once experienced this sort of thing. Being down at the beach in northern England, a few of us ventured round a point to look in a well known cave, only accessible from the sea side. That was fine but on the return, some fifteen minutes later, the tide had already started to come in and was round the ankles.

The thing which frightened us a bit was that it had not come in near where the cave was but it had snuck around the sides where we couldn't see it. A few minutes later, now back within safety but still paddling, it had risen to calf height. In forty minutes we would have been swimming over our heads.

Good luck in your ventures!

[tina fey] darling of the american heartland

... the younger American heartland, anyway. She called Paris Hilton a piece of sh-- who looks like a tramp. Judge for yourself.

[small government] provisions in a mixed economy

Local government office in the new society

The Number One rule of the society, by means of constitutional provisions, is to prevent those who hold elected office from reneging on their roles, as listed below and assuming instead a “nannying” or command and control stance.

The Number Two rule of government is to protect, through the judicial arm, the constitution and associated bills at all costs, a constitution written by and voted for by a panel of representatives, meritocratically appointed from each section of society.

These two rules prevent a regulatory society where the government can criminalize those who put them there.

The Number Three rule is to ensure a mixed economy, heavily weighted towards free enterprise, jealously guarding the right and opportunity for private enterprise, with particular emphasis on companies with less than 30% share of the national market [as distinct from global] and turning the haves and have nots in society into the cans and cannots and want tos and want nots. Equal opportunity means government incentive schemes [as below] but not regulation.

The Number Four rule is that government is assigned to legitimately restrict these areas:

1. formal and de facto merging or collusion of economic entities for the purpose of controlling the market economy in their sector[s], based on market share;
2. price fixing, as far as it can be established;
3. derivatives of certain kinds by regulation but not elimination.

The Number Five rule is that government is officially directed that funds from its flat tax rate of 15% over a threshold, corporate and private, are to cover:

1. initiative and start up grants plus patents;
2. social security for the genuinely needy, inc. part pension provisions 1:1;
3. defence provisions [this being the only area where collusion is legitimate, i.e. treaties with other nations but not in defence contracts, which come under Rule 4];
4. telecommunications, power grids and waste collection/disposal.

One fundamental principle is that an enterprise which goes down goes down and is not bailed out by government under any circumstances.

All other areas, including community policing, are handled by the private sector. The bloated bureaucracy is re-employed in both enterprises set up by the contracted government in a one-off changeover and to work in ensuring the rules .

[bloghounds write] doing the rounds today

Cartoon courtesy of Wolfie - pity the writing is unclear here.

Andrew Allison and Donal Blaney both cover the difficulties of going to the loo. Sackers quotes Dr. Faber who says it will be 5 trillion, not 700 billion, Calum wonders why he bothers, Cassandra points the finger at the guilty, Cherie tells us Big Brother is watching and Jeremy explains "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People".

Steve Green discusses the fallout when Brown meets Bush, Deb-acle warns the EU blog-ban has begun, Guthrum sheets it home to Italy in particular, Tony Sharp gives us the latest on this, Dragon Days shows us Donegal, Flipchart laughs at the finger being pointed at the working class and Gallimaufry's suggestion is just too sensible to be taken seriously.

Richard Havers looks at the demise of regional broadcasting, Liz posts junk, Alwyn lays down the Blogging Ten Commandments, Mrs. Nesbitt goes road racing, James is having difficulty with his motor memory, Ordo proves that Burns burns and Sally feels it's time to pack her bags.

Welshcakes has gone all yummy-plummy, Rob at the BSR thinks he might be drunk, Jams brings us the man who saved the world, Wolfie is betting with a man who wants to own an aircraft and Valleys Mam writes of the Cultural Olympiad, as well as on that EU Blog Ban.

Of our fresh faces, Morgan Hen sees a link between Brown and Sauron, Dan McCarthy gives us some tips on leadership strategies and Devika writes of when she looks at you.

[how sweet it is] wonders never cease

Good for football.

[small government] some of the fiscal issues

Tiberius Gracchus asks:

James how can you have a 'smaller government' and eliminate finance - please explain.

Little bit of a misunderstanding over terms here, specifically "finance". Let's also call the concept "limited government". The role of this government can be expressed thus:

Small government is a night watchman. A skeleton crew. A tiny institution restricted to defending our lives, liberty, and property.

Translated into real terms, it means maintaining armed forces, a police force, criminal and civil courts and provision of services, from old age pensions to rubbish collection. It's legislative function is limited - if it ain't broke, don't fix it and its executive function is to ensure that the constitution/bill of rights is protected. The judicial function is to adjudicate on whether this is being done or not.

The U.S. system of the three branches is a good one.

Where the system breaks down is in Trusts and Monopolies, which are the natural consequence of the capitalist way. It is in the nature of a free market to collude and price fix, for the big players to merge and take over. This is the central dilemma. How far can this right to trade be restricted.

I don't see a compromise here as "the thin edge of the wedge" - all systems are a compromise in the end and adjust to realities and new circumstances. Total freedom in the marketplace leads to Monopolies and thus to the military-industrial complex which then presumes to run "the State".

Therefore, the constitution must address this issue of Monopolies and Trusts somewhere within its provisions and other aspects of free market economics. There is an argument which holds that to restrict trade a little is to support and defend trade in general. So yes, we put in anti-Trust laws.

Other than that, government stays out of finance excepting in one particular way - the minting of money based on an agreed commodity, not on fiat paper. The government, the caretaker government does that - not a Fed of top financiers, not a CFR or Trilateral - a small government directly elected by the people.

Having done all that, the government, in its representative capacity, has one other role - to promote small and medium business through its caretaker role. They can act as an agency in this respect, drawing together the knowledge base, advising and helping, not taxing the cr-p out of small business.

So, Tiberius, I meant eliminating the big finance.

[bailout] as sure as night follows day

Did the super-pollies decide at their "sucker" summit to give $700 bn in direct aid to each and every American tax payer, [according to means], to disburse as they saw fit?

President George W Bush has said that legislators will "rise to the occasion" and pass the proposed $700bn (£380bn) Wall Street rescue plan.

Seems not but let's wait and see.

What could it have bought the American people?

No one is delighted the Americans are in this stew, partly of their own making but almost entirely of the banks' greed. What is delightful is that finally the scales might fall away from the eyes and people will see that neither party is worth the time of day and their leaders are in deep collusion with the finance.

In stark, raw profile, the decision on Sunday will show the American people, once and for all, the lie of the land. They are angry, they are hurting and they are after blood. This is middle America we're talking about, of course.

Bad karma for pollies just now. Good karma for a return to realistic prices once this thing is all over and for small government.