Monday, April 23, 2012

 
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/04/michael-hudson-productivity-the-miracle-of-compound-interest-and-poverty.html

Very long but pretty good, here is an excerpt for flavor:

The Inversion of Classical Free Market Reform to its Diametric Opposite

Classical political economy sought to mobilize democratic government to tax the rentiers: landlord, monopolists and bankers. The objective was to create an industrial surplus and, in the process, raise productivity, wage levels and living standards. To keep prices low and hence national economies competitive, governments were to undertake society’s largest spending programs: basic infrastructure such as transportation, power production, communications – all of which happen to be natural monopolies as well. So the aim was not only to provide basic infrastructure needs freely or at subsidized prices, but to prevent private owners from erecting tollbooths on roads and charging monopoly prices for power, phone systems (as in Telmex in Mexico or similar phone monopolies in the post-Soviet kleptocracies).

Post-classical economics (deceptively called neoclassical) seeks to untax the rentiers, and shift the costs of government onto labor and even onto industry. To achieve this, democracy is rolled back to oligarchies. But this time they are controlled not by landlords as in the case of Europe’s landed aristocracies, but bankers and financiers. And their aim is to privatize the public domain with its monopolies. Bankers advance the credit to buyers, who install tollbooths and raise prices for basic needs. By paying out their revenue in a tax-exempt form, as interest, they keep their income out of the hands of government – forcing national treasuries to tax labor and industry, consumers and producers rather than finance, insurance and real estate. Governments thus become the protectors of monopoly and its financing.

It is a short-term policy. By raising domestic price levels, financialized economies price themselves out of global markets – unless than can create a world order in which all economies are symmetrically debt-burdened. This is where the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and World Trade Organization are brought into play – to financialize globalization, excluding countries as pariahs if they do not join this self-destructive and self-terminating system.


 
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31134.htm

Thursday, April 19, 2012

 
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2012/04/50-shades-of-publishing-part-i.html#more

 
http://www.salon.com/2012/04/18/attacks_on_rt_and_assange_reveal_much_about_the_critics/singleton/

Friday, April 13, 2012

 
http://www.salon.com/2012/04/13/the_real_criminals_in_the_tarek_mehanna_case/singleton/

Thought provoking.

 
http://www.salon.com/2012/04/13/making_politicians_look_bad_a_fireable_offense/singleton/

Really outstanding article here on why the press lies to us.

Sunday, April 08, 2012

 

Lian wrote:
I don't think the intent of the author was that these actions would be squicky and wierd but rather romantic. If I am I will just have to use a different example of the Hero vampire. Its not like a rare trope I just picked Twilight since I thought it was generally a well known example of such.


Author intent only matters when you can't pervert the story into something better by ignoring it. Also she herself seems to have a very traumatized point of view (Bella blacks out during sex and is horrifically injured by the act, and the child is a vile demonspawn that nearly kills her AND HAS TO BE CHEWED OUT).

Edward is a perfect example of a garden-variety abyssal using their depraved abusive social charms to entrance someone, all the while wanting really bad to kill her. Stephanie herself said that Twilight came to her in a dream, wherein there was a vampire and a girl in a clearing who wanted really bad to kill her.

All examples of "unambiguous hero vampires" I know of, exemplify "heroism" by killing tons of shit. The abyssal that kills tons of shit is not rebelling against his purpose, he's fulfilling it. The Neverborn don't object to you killing akuma and slavers; the book specifically states this. Most Exalted stories require large amounts of killing, and we all know the world of Exalted has massive amounts of foes that need to be killed. There is nothing wrong with this, and an abyssal in a slaughtertastic Exalted game can and should come off as a 100% normal member of the party, because they SHOULD fit right in with murder-happy, gore-drenched action heroes.

It is only in scenarios where "kill the badguys" isn't the alpha and omega of the quest that abyssals show their broken nature.

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