Nassim Nicholas Taleb - my hero - and a voice of reason amid the idiots who pass for financial gurus

i picked up taleb's book in the dubai airport back in february... i'd never heard of it before but as soon as i got into it, i realized i was reading a very fundamental, profound work... i was so impressed with it, in fact, that i made it one of two required texts for my mba seminar on leadership that starts in june... i will virtually guarantee you, there will be only one or two of the students in the class that will have heard of it before they saw it on the required reading list... sad, eh...?

anyway, here's taleb, giving his none-too-rosy financial outlook...

PBS NEWS HOUR Interview with Nassim Nicholas Taleb, famous economist and author of "The Black Swan" and Dr. Mandelbrot, professor of Mathematics. Both say that the present economy more serious than the Great Depression, and the economy during the American Revolution.

here's the view from brasscheck tv...

A sobering discussion on the nature of the current economic crisis and why this one may be very different from ones in the past.

The problem: globalization adds exponentially to the complexity of potential outcomes, but the banking system is not designed to absorb the kind of rapid and massive changes globalization makes possible.

These aren't two hippies railing against the system. This is one of most insightful mathematicians and one of the most accomplished options traders of our time.

like i've repeatedly said, let's get on with it... watching this slow-mo train wreck is getting really boring...

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Who is Bernie Madoff protecting...? And the better question is WHY...?

from brasscheck tv...

Here is a guy who stole over $65 BILLION from some of the sharpest people on earth in broad daylight and no one - not the banks, not the venture funds, not the federal government - have been able to figure out: 1) how he did it and 2) who else was involved.

Serious, lethal-minded people know very well how to keep things secret and anyone who thinks earth-shaking secrets can't be kept secure for long, long periods of time is an absolute idiot.

So who is Bernie Madoff protecting?

If the Feds fail to figure it out, you can bet that their incompetence is intentional

.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

forget the tin-foil hat... i'm moving to a tin-foil HOUSE...

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The myth of thinking you're safe if you get sick and have health insurance

half the families that filed bankruptcies last year did so because of health-related crises... 75% of the families that filed bankruptcies had health insurance at the onset of the health crisis that precipitated bankruptcy...

elizabeth warren, a harvard law professor in a very interesting piece from the deleted scenes of michael moore's movie, "sicko"...



from brasscheck tv...

The All-American Scam

More than half of bankruptcies in America are the result of medical bills.

A full 75% of those had health insurance!

In Canada, the UK, Japan and Western Europe, an outcome like this is impossible.

Americans are told they have the best health care system in the world and if they pay thousands of dollars a year for health insurance they'll be protected.

just more major stuff that manages to stay under wraps in our highly propagandized news media...

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"Tweet, tweet, tweet and then they puke down your throat"

scott ritter on how to get the information we need to function as responsible citizens...



brasscheck tv...

The US has - hands down - the most propagandized population in the world.

Even people in North Korea have a firmer grasp of reality.

Why is this so?

It's the news media. They've mastered the art of reporting nothing and making it seem like it's something.

They're also very creative and convincing first class liars. Kind of like Bush Republicans.

What's the solution?

Scott Ritter has an answer and thanks to the Internet, more and more people in the US are breaking free of the info-lock.

what ritter is really talking about here is how we need to hone our skills in pattern recognition... if we truly want to be informed in this day and age, it is vital that we dedicate ourselves to the acquisition of solid information, information that it is OUR responsibility to make sense out of...

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McCain is the "endless war" candidate

from robert greenwald and brave new films via brasscheck tv...

The Third Reich's man
in the White House

What can you say to insanity like this?

McCain is already predicting new wars when there are no legitimate ones on the horizon.

He says he's prepared to stay in Iraq 100 years - and once raised it to 10,000 years.

Then again, we've been in Germany for over 60 years. Or has Nazi Germany been in us?

Personally, I no longer see a moral difference between the Third Reich and the current government of the United States of America.

what do you say to insanity like this...? the answer is simple... no... not only no, but HELL NO...!

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What is money and how it works - a primer

this video makes a very important point right up front... money, as fundamental as it is to our lives in today's societies, is never explained or taught in such a way as to create a real understanding of where it came from or how it works...

from brasscheck tv...

It's a strange system
and it's not in our best interests

One of the last things John F. Kennedy did before he was assassinated was declare his intention to reform the central banking system of the United States.

No connection between these two events?

Congressman Louis McFadden, Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee from 1927-33, opposed the Federal Reserve System. There were three reported attempts on his life before he finally died of "heart failure."

Here's what he said about the Federal Reserve from the floor of Congress:

"Mr. Chairman, we have in this Country one of the most
corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks, hereinafter called the Fed.

The Fed has cheated the Government of these United States and the people of the United States out of enough money to pay the Nation's debt. The depredations and iniquities of the Fed has cost enough money to pay the National debt several times over.

This evil institution has impoverished and ruined the people of these United States, has bankrupted itself, and has practically bankrupted our Government. It has done this through the defects of the law under which it operates, through the mal-administration of that law by the Fed and through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it."

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REAL U.S. citizens know and support the U.S. CONSTITUTION

yeah, i know... a radical concept...

scott ritter speaks in new orleans, via brasscheck tv...



it's all about CITIZENSHIP, people...!

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"Removed" video restored - for a while, anyway

i had a post up the other day, a clip from a local newscast in ohio describing the kind of degrading and quite likely criminal behavior that was inflicted on a perfectly innocent woman by sheriff's deputies in stark county, ohio... the video was subsequently removed from youtube, citing "copyright violation..." it's now back up, at least for the time being...



meanwhile, i've continued to read posts at other weblogs screaming bloody murder about the strip search of a woman in saudi arabia who was "caught" at a starbucks, drinking coffee with a man... commenters to those posts have been quick to engage in islamophobia and to decry the heathen conduct of the "thugs" who live by the koran... my point is, we've got our own "thugs" right here...

i have the same visceral reaction to people in the u.s. attacking the behavior of people of other countries that i do to those who sanctimoniously drive around with bumper stickers reading "free tibet..." should the "thugs" in saudi arabia be stopped...? absolutely... should tibet be free...? no question... but, ferchrissake, people, wake up and smell the coffee, and, once you have, look out your kitchen window to see what's happening in your own backyard...

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Domestic Abu Ghraib - our corrupt police state [UPDATE] [UPDATE II]

brasscheck tv...

This is common treatment for women in US jails

The is absolutely nothing unusual about women being stripped naked and left without covering of any kind in cold jail cells for hours at a time.

It's a popular humiliation technique used in corrupt police departments throughout the country.

If it weren't for this video, a TV local station's news report, and the Internet, no one would know that this particular event ever happened.

Keep in mind that this woman called the police for help after she was assaulted.

The piece of self-propelled human garbage who runs this Sheriff's Department is Timothy A. Swanson.

He says - and I quote - that the thugs who work for him "did everything by the book.

Here's his web site: http://www.sheriff.co.stark.oh.us/

and we wonder how something like the atrocities at abu ghraib could have happened...

[UPDATE]

ah, yes... let's not look at what's happening in ohio, ferchrissake... we'd MUCH RATHER demonize our middle east brethren...

Saudis Arrest, Strip Search Woman for Having a Business Meeting With a Man

Posted by Lucinda Marshall, Feminist Peace Network at 1:17 PM on February 5, 2008.

Doesn’t it give you a warm fuzzy feeling that these misogynist thugs are our allies?

[UPDATE II]

here's what it says on the youtube site...

"This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by WKYC-TV"

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How to kill democracy

brasscheck tv...

From Episode Two of the film series "The Century of the Self" by Adam Curtis. The nephew of Sigmund Freud, Edward Bernays started his ... all » business life as a publicist. While still in his twenties, he was part of the propaganda effort that drove the United States into in World War I (WW I.)

He personally advised several US presidents starting with Woodrow Wilson and counseled numerous corporations and business associations. Hitler's propaganda chief and Nazi henchman Joseph Goebbels was a reader and fan of Bernay's writing in particular Bernay's book "Crystalizing Public Opinion."

In this short excerpt from Curtis's film we see one example of Bernays at work.

Bernays was one of the engineers of the Cold War. He perfected the technique of manufacturing a distant but ever-threatening enemy and then creating a constant state of fear by generating false news reports that endlessly re-stated and exagerated the threat.

The stated purpose of Bernay's methods was to give those in power greater control over what he called "the mass mind." It worked well in the 1950s and sadly, it appears to be working quite well today... but maybe not forever.

more of the REAL history of the u.s...

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Rep. Barbara Lee: "Let us not become the evil that we deplore" on Michael Ruppert's "From the Wilderness"

an excellent, informative, and comprehensive backgrounder on just exactly how we got to where we are today...



from brasscheck tv...

the Rockefeller family - CFC - Bush - 9/11 - Bin Laden - Carlyle Group - the CIA - investment banks - patriot act - internment camps - financial fraud - iran contra - cocaine - heroin - Wall Street - the drug trade - S & L crisis - the DEA - Iraq - Iran - Pakistan - nuclear weapons - looting social security - smallpox vaccine - Citibank and more

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When somebody doesn't WANT you to see something, you'd better look at it

from brasscheck tv...

The Video Google Censored

Google took this video down after three days and then when I attempted to post it to YouTube it was rejected.

This video is an important companion piece to the video that I call "Inside Job" (see the Brasscheck TV archive.)

"Inside Job" shows that thousands of eye witnesses and millions of live TV viewers heard and heard about MULTIPLE explosions in the Twin Towers that preceded their sudden and inexplicable collapse.

"The 9/11 Solution" shows that even as the World Trade Center was burning and immediately after the collapses, a stream of disinformation laying down the key official 9/11 myths was being actively being put in place via the US mass media (i.e. the impact of the planes weakened the structures, the "intense" fires caused the collapses, Bin Laden was the only possible suspect.)

i think it's particularly important to keep our eye on things that someone clearly doesn't WANT us to see...

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The amazing, disappearing presidential candidate, circa 1992, an excerpt from the movie Spin [UPDATE: Rap video from disappearing Mike Gravel]

from brasscheck tv...

US elections are rigged long before the voting results are falsified.

The news media helps the process along by making (or trying to make) legitimate candidates disappear.

In the 2008 campaign for president, the candidate the news media is trying to trivialize and marginalize Ron Paul. [profmarcus: also Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel, both of whom are also being subjected to outright ridicule]

In 1992, the "disappeared" candidate was Democrat Larry Agran.

The good news is that the Internet has made this kind of chicanery, much more difficult.

here's "spin" from which the above excerpt was taken...

Artist Brian Springer spent a year scouring the airwaves with a satellite dish grabbing back channel news feeds not intended for public consumption. The result of his research is SPIN, one of the most insightful films ever made about the mechanics of how television is used as a tool of social control to distort and limit the American public's perception of reality.

Take the time to watch it from beginning to end and you'll never look at TV reporting the same again.

[UPDATE]

mike gravel is a perfect example of what's being talked about above... if not for alternative news sources like raw story and youtube, we would never even know about this...

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Let's talk a little bit about the Federal Reserve, shall we...?

brasscheck tv...

It's been a long time since a US Congressman spoke intelligently about the Fed's role in impoverishing Americans through its currency manipulations.

Keep in mind: the Fed is not a government agency. It is a privately owned and controlled institution that's been given a monopoly over the creation of money for the United States - a violation of the US Constitution.

here's more...

It happened in 1913.

And practically no one noticed.

In 1913, the money-creation function of the US Congress was taken over by a privately-owned banking cartel.

Called the "Federal Reserve," the Federal Reserve is neither federal, nor a reserve. What it is in fact is a privately owned monopoly that controls America's money supply.

Hard to believe, isn't it? And yet it's true. Thanks to video and the Internet this basic fact of American life now finally has a chance to spread to the public.

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