“There are only two ways of obtaining the means essential to the preservation, the adornment, and the improvement of life: production and plunder…. What keeps the social order from improving (at least to the extent to which it is capable of improving) is the constant endeavor of its members to live and to prosper at one another’s expense.”--French economist Frédéric Bastiat (writing about the redistribution of wealth – or “ plunder” – in 1850 in The Law)
Over the weekend, scientists with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution confirmed that Nereus, one of only four submersibles to have reached the depths of the Mariana Trench, suffered a catastrophic implosion in the Kermadec Trench northeast of New Zealand. It dove to depths ranging from 6,000 to 11,000 meters deep. When it imploded, the vehicle was under pressure as great at 16,000 pounds per square inch. Strangely, University of Southhampton biologist Jonathan Copley wrote about Nereus on his blog, apparently without irony, that the loss of the vehicle was "utterly crushing."
When does an ideal become weaponized? What is the step that arms an ideologue?
Hillary Clinton had a fall in December of 2012 that hospitalized her for 3 days, not 30 days as Rove said. But the political narrative never has confines of truth. (see the Democrats on Romney.) Rove is simply raising a suspicion and hoping it sticks. Hopefully the audience is discerning but they were not in last election.
20% of patients account for 80% of health costs, 5% of 50%.
Martin Wolfe, Financial Times columnist writes: "Low interest rates are certainly unpopular, particularly with cautious rentiers. But cautious rentiers no longer serve a useful economic purpose. What is needed instead are genuinely risk-taking investors. In their absence, governments need to use their balance sheets to build productive assets. There is little sign that they will. If so, central banks will be driven towards cheap money. Get used to it: this will endure."
Cautious interest oriented investors no longer serve a useful purpose!
A college student from New York was waiting for UPS to deliver some weightlifting equipment he had ordered. Instead he received a government drone.
Golden oldie:
The GPIF, Japan’s public pension fund, controls $1.25 trillion. It is the largest pool of government-controlled investment capital on the planet, bigger than the Arab sovereign wealth funds. The GPIF is 70% invested in Japanese bonds but recently has been asked by Japan leadership to invest in higher risk/yield instruments to improve return as the population ages. Does that sound like the "cautious rentier" above? And what will happen when all that money moves out of bonds?
The Catholic Church in England and Wales reports the upturn in the last decade's vocations continues. In 2013 nearly 100 men and women entered convents, seminaries and religious houses across the country.
Who was.... Phineas Gage?
A famous study with rats--eagerly anthropomorphized--showed that the more crowded the circumstances, the more savage the rats. This was not dependent upon the availability of food. It was assumed, logically, that crowding itself was dangerous and unleashed primitive and destructive potential. But what is the nature of "crowding." Is it the creating of arbitrary limits? Do we need space? Is it a rebellion against too much order?
What if it is unpredictability and the threat of instability? That would make the study a lot more important than an indirect attack on apartment living.
CVS is beefing up its Minute Clinics presence and jettisoning cigarette sales in an attempt to position itself as a legitimate medical alternative to those that cannot afford health insurance amid stagnant incomes.
As the competition for our anxieties grows, one standout continues to flow below the radar: water. Perhaps it interferes with the warming narrative but sooner or later water shortages will appear. A good example is the Ogallala Aquifer under the Great Plains which is the source of about 30 percent of the ground water used for irrigation in the United States. Since 1950, agricultural irrigation has reduced the saturated volume of the aquifer by an estimated 9%. Depletion is accelerating, with 2% lost between 2001 and 2009. I predict a subtle campaign focusing on the nation's tendency to shower too much and encourage using open drains for urination (like shower stalls and bathtubs.) Might be a good nonprofit to start.
Rentier: a person who lives on income from property or securities which can include income from patents, copyrights, brand loyalty, real estate (land), interest or profits. This is used disparagingly in Marxist thought to distinguish reinvested income in an economic system, which is less parasitic but no less evil. It would apply currently to an elderly couple living off bond income.
The Puerto Rico Trench in the Atlantic Ocean is as deep as Everest is high.
AAAAaaaaaannnnnnddddd.....a graph:
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