In the 90s I did a short class on derivatives at the Sydney Futures Exchange. Oddly I cant recall why. I think a client paid for it. Cost was low because SFE was trying to build its credibility. Thats the thing about derivatives, they dont rely on any actual productive activity.
Chokes,Straddles, Puts, Calls, they are all 'gentlemans agreements'. One party agrees to buy in the future. No outside reality check.
Evidently, if some are not 'gentlemen' the whole apparatus evaporates. If some parties are corporate entities, they can abscond by the simple process of bankruptancy.
Secrecy of the corporation, as if it was a person, is the major weakness, and strength, of Capital.
Excess will eventually drive all into hidden trusts, while the fronts vanish.
Calls for Glastnost will be ignored. Gorbachoff tried that in his system.
The arrest of financier Bernard Madoff Thursday for operating a "Ponzi scheme" costing investors $50 billion made the TV network news. Curiously, a lawsuit the same day against Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin for defrauding Citibank shareholders of more than $122 billion, also described as a "Ponzi scheme," got no airplay whatsoever.
As we shall see, Rubin, a Director of Citibank, profited from the shady practices that destroyed the financial system and sent the world's economies into a tailspin. Then, to repair the damage, he and his banker friends put the taxpayer on the hook for trillions.
Rubin didn't get the same publicity as Madoff because of his close connection to Barack Obama.
Robert Rubin's son Jamie was Obama's main Wall Street fundraiser and is now one of his principal advisers. More significant, Obama's economic team consists of Rubin's proteges
December 13, 2008 by Henry Makow Ph.D. savethemales\
Gene Food
I remain deeply suspicious about Gene Inserts in food Monsanto style (why on earth do they use antibiotics as tests for successful insertion, doesnt the phrase 'resistant bugs' have any resonance?)
Also slightly suspicious about Bill and Melinda Gates foundation
BUT
NATURE reports that B&M are paying ca $23M for 3 years of research into getting nutrition genes into Cassava, and C4 genes into rice.
These are hugely ambitious projects, we currently have almost zero ability to insert big functioning groups of genes into cells. Worth pursuing, it may take decades. Artificial chromosomes may be available rather suddenly, especially if Craig Venter's yacht doesnt sink.
I maintain a strong doubt about the intentions of Monsanto, their golden rice approach leads farmers to jump off water towers...
democracynow
nb Dr Shiva is not so sanguine about B&M
Dr. Shiva stressed that there are very clear lessons that Africa can learn from India's problematic Green Revolution experience. She challenged the new Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), stating that the Green Revolution, coupled with trade liberalization, would negatively impact both farmers and agro-biodiversity on the African continent. She claimed that this initiative, funded by the Rockefeller and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations, "[I]s a strategy for dispossessing Africa of food sovereignty and bio-diversity."Foodfirst has
"Ten Reasons Why the Rockefeller and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations' Alliance for Another Green Revolution Will Not Solve the Problems of Poverty and Hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa."
foodfirst
so I may be too optimistic about B&M Gates
Movies
cahiersducinema
Damn, I've seen hardly any of cahiers top 100:
Citizen Kane (Orson Welles) 48
- La Nuit du chasseur (Charles Laughton) 47
- La Règle du jeu (Jean Renoir) 47
- L’Aurore (Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Murnau) 46
- L’Atalante (Jean Vigo) 43
- M. le Maudit (Fritz Lang) 40
- Chantons sous la pluie (Stanley Donen et Gene Kelly) 39
- Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock) 35
- Les Enfants du Paradis (Marcel Carné) 34
- La Prisonnière du désert (John Ford) 34
- Les Rapaces (Eric von Stroheim) 34
- Rio Bravo(Howard Hawks) 33
- To Be or Not to Be (Ernst Lubitsch) 33
- Voyage à Tokyo (Yasujiro Ozu) 29
- Le Mépris (Jean-Luc Godard) 28
Off to the white house.
Whatever big money is behind Barry, It is usually a good thing to get Dems into USA power. As Chomsky says, chosing the lesser of 2 evils is not a bad act.
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