Financial topics

[aedens]

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/20 ... /bad-calls
http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/18/rubio ... can-party/
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/201 ... iling_list

[John]

> I wish I could bring up some of McEvedy's population maps.

If the map is being displayed on your screen..

John

John, I bought the Penguin Atlas books back in 1994, and don't have a scanner here.

Go down to Kinkos or some other copy shop, and you can scan them there.

[aedens]

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/1 ... _resi.html
http://history.state.gov/milestones/195 ... ienBienPhu
http://ihr-store.com/ihrstore/index.php

[aedens]

The U.S. is committed to supplying $2 billion a year to Egypt.

[OLD1953]

The shadow system is enormous, and not a happy thing. Neither is the huge and growing number of companies going "private" but selling stock on private exchanges. With no oversight, the assumption is that billionaires won't act to cheat each other in times of stress, and won't lie about it either. I find both assumptions to be somewhat lacking.

Labor movement is slowly growing. Expect violence to show up shortly. Something that must be understood, this is not the same labor movement as the gentle push back and forth of the last thirty years. This is angry people who simply do not care if the company fails, they'll see their pay increased or they'll pull it down. (Don't bother yelling at me about this, it's how it is and I refuse to stick my head in the sand and pretend it's something else. What I want or support is IRRELEVANT to what actually IS.)

http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/18/news/wa ... ck-friday/

[aedens]

typical

[Higgenbotham]

Go down to Kinkos or some other copy shop, and you can scan them there.

From McEvedy's maps:

528 AD
15-22,000 Milan, Ravenna, Smyrna, Sardis, Miletus, Caesarea, Hamadan, Rayy, Istakhr
23-49,000 Carthage, Salonika, Ephesus, Ctesiphon
50-125,000 Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch

737 AD
15-22,000 Toledo, Salonika, Fustat, Mosul, Kufa, Ctesiphon, Wasit, Hamadan, Rayy, Shiraz, Nishapur
23-49,000 Alexandria, Antioch, Damascus, Basra
50-125,000 Constantinople

This is everything on the map(s). The map(s) include all of northern Europe and England. I'm moving from west to east. By 737 AD, the only remaining town in the former Western Roman Empire is Toledo. McEvedy doesn't show Rome on the map in 737 AD at all. I've read some accounts that indicate the population of Rome bottomed out above 15,000.

Cities overall in the Western Mediterranean went into decline, ceasing to function either as centers of production and consumption or centralized administration (as Roman central government broke down). Wars seriously damaged some cities, such as Milan, Trier, and Arles. Rome especially suffered, with its population declining from an estimated 800,000 in the 300s to 25,000 after the turmoil of the Byzantine re-conquest.

http://www.flowofhistory.com/units/birth/5/FC39

[Higgenbotham]

Size does matter and for clarfication proper scaling matters now more than size in some sectors.

a, with others around the world moving toward proper scaling while the US continues to delude itself with "too big to fail" then, you know, we can more easily go the way of Rome or the Soviet Union. The idiocy posted about in the past few days all ties together. I'm positive Obama's advisors couldn't see it in time or they would have done differently and obviously Wall Street and the masses are not awake yet. But one day they will stir and it can end in the blink of an eye when there is nothing left to lose and people lose it. I read today that 40% of all Americans have less than $500 to their name. The 1% are begging for violence and they are begging for these once great American cities to become depopulated shells like Detroit already has, as you have probably seen first hand yourself.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/18/news/wa ... ck-friday/

Thanks for the link OLD. Any political establishment that would build economic dependency on a company like Wal-Mart is dumber than dirt. It's another example of an American enterprise that is not to proper scale and thus has many problems and potential problems forthcoming that leave the country vulnerable. Hillary Clinton was on the Wal-Mart board of directors from 1986 to 1992 back when she was in Arkansas.

LAPHAM: Sure. I mean, much of it is based on government subsidy. I mean, the subsidy to the corporations far exceeds the subsidy given to welfare mothers. And it also, it's the way our politics works, it favors that.

That is why you have so little differentiation between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, because they both are going to the same sources of money. And they're both serving the interests of wealth.

MOYERS: I was watching that Wal-Mart piece, I was reminded that at one time Hillary Clinton was on the board of the Wal-Mart corporation, and...if the Democratic Party is not, and the Republican Party is not speaking for the people like that who lost their jobs or lost their pension plans or lost their savings in the recent corporate debacles, who is speaking for them now?

LAPHAM: No organized political force.

http://www.pbs.org/now/printable/transc ... print.html

[OLD1953]

I honestly believe that almost anyone with a solid populist program based on jailing the wealthy white collar criminals could win elections in virtually every state. Neither party will support such a person, because the donors won't like it. And that's why most political donors give to both sides, they want control of both sides of the debate. When you have both sides, you are nearly guaranteed to be the winner.

Labor now - it's curious to me that some things are just never mentioned in polite society. The union representatives that sit on corporate boards have an obvious conflict of interest. Myself, I'll always bet on them coming down on the side of the most money for them, personally. Not that top level union reps don't get paid, and paid well.

Checked on my little pension from the coal company recently. It is supposed to be one of the safest in the USA. Of course, that little company pension is in the same pot with a much larger union pension, and if that goes bankrupt there will not be a "oh my, what can we ever do" from that crew, there would not be a brick left stuck to another brick, and the company knows it. Money can be (or buy) violence by other means. Non violent labor negotiations are very nearly a contradiction in terms. It seems to be how we have evolved, and there are definite overtones of range war - settlers vs nomadic herders in the company vs labor disputes.

[aedens]

Repost: Obama Coal Eliminate

Coal production is falling in the Appalachian region of the U.S., which includes West Virginia and parts of Kentucky and Virginia. Patriot Coal Corp. has laid off more than 1,200 miners as well as cut health benefits to 2,000 miners and some 20,000 retirees or surviving spouses, reported the
Journal. Alpha Natural Resources Inc. said it was cutting 1,200 jobs. Earlier this year it laid off 700 miners and cut production at more than 20 mines. ConsolEnergy Inc. in early September closed one of its largest mines in southwestern Virginia, which employed 620 miners.
This why I pick stocks and the indexed funds are a percentage of the problem as we say.
The prions I noted and linked before on causation.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/prions/