On February 28th Karlmagnus, in response to a question about major business managers on PF’s Calcium Imaging thread, ventured the opinion that:-

... since the system is about to collapse, the intellectual outlook of management may be very different at Dow 5000 to what it was at Dow 12000.  No point trying to change their thinking at the top of the bubble; large numbers of the current mob (particularly the investment bankers) will be behind bars by 2012, only peripherally because of their ideas on globalisastion.  Just as 1935’s CEO was a very different animal from 1928’s, so too will 2014’s be very different from today’s.

Requests for elaboration went unanswered.  But evidently, KM had already been at work on this because today the following piece appeared at Prudent Bear.

GW

This is what it will look like

It’s impossible to tell when the world’s stock markets will finally wake up from their easy-money induced stupor, but one thing is clear: when they do so the initial break will look like last Tuesday. A modest event of no apparent global significance will cause a stock market drop that cascades around the world, producing severe declines in other markets. Last Tuesday’s break may or may not have started the climacteric sell-off, but that sell-off cannot be long delayed.

More interesting than the unanswerable question of when precisely a crash will occur is that of which sectors will be worst affected, which relatively unscathed. Current market thinking appears to be that since the crash originated in China, that market is due for a significant downturn, and that emerging markets in general are overpriced and due for a fall. That view fails to reflect an intelligent appraisal of where the true economic vulnerabilities are.

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Soren has, as he promised, interviewed Constantin von Hoffmeister, and the file is uploaded to the Radio page.

The original announcement of the interview was received with protest from some MR regulars.  But the interview itself is a considerable success and, I think, cautions against too hasty a judgement.  I recommend it.  File size 42.4 MB.  Run time 1 hr 1 min 49 secs.

Just to keep you in the picture, the next show is likely to be Fraser II, conducted by James Bowery.  After that Geoff Beck is back.  Sort of.  I will be interviewing him.  But, happily, he will do the editing.

This CSPAN video of Thomas P.M. Barnett before to the National Defense University (warning: requires bittorrent) shows one of the best thought leaders of globalization in one of his best presentations.  Here is the key quote from that presentation:

“This extension of our networks is how we extend our transparency and our security.  Not stopping things at our border.  Everybody’s information network is only as secure as every other network it connects to.  It’s about extending networks.  Not firewalling them.”

Is it just me or did he just contradict himself there?  I mean, I know its only central to his whole paradigm so a contradiction there isn’t very important… but really… I just can’t seem to get myself past such details.  Maybe if I got therapy for OCD…

If he had said something about increasing the ISO standard of intrusion used for each nation already in the network as the network expands, so that the probability failure (1-(p**N) where p is probability of non-failure of a given node and N is number of nodes) is held to some reasonably low constant then he might not be self-contradictory.  But then he would be subject to a simple reductio ad absurdum:

If we follow his maxim of “extend, don’t firewall, the networks” and add “simply increase the standard level of Big Brother intrusion” you get to the point that you do away with the “firewall” between sewage and fresh water (assuming you can remove the smell so the “market value” of the sewage water is high enough to make it profitable).  Of course the level of intrusion here ends up being killing off everyone so there aren’t any intestines harboring bacteria, but who needs humans anyway?  Of course you can be “reasonable” and not kill off all the humans, leaving the details of how to prevent pathogens from spreading through the population to the, uh, rational humans (who processed their own food and water) left after the plague wipes out the rest.

The cunning, effort and sheer bloody manipulativeness that is required to post at majorityrights.com goes sadly unrecognised.  So here, for your edification and enlightenment, are two examples of the kind of thing that has sometimes to be done (it never works, of course, but it is done):-

The first is a letter written to the Schools Minister and Labour MP for Dorset South, Jim Knight.  The writer is one “John Standing” of Brighton, E.Sussex - a man indeed of some standing in the life sciences (though I wouldn’t be too sure about that).  He was moved to protest to Mr Knight by a BBC News article about the nature of the black male.  Well, it’s not about the nature of the black male, that’s the problem.  It’s about white racism:-

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If you look at this week’s Majority Report you’ll notice prominent in the stories is one:

“FREAK! Hollywood Distributes Decent Movie: Astronaut Farmer”

There’s a reason for that, despite the fact that it includes the positive portrayal of rural US land holder employing a Mexican:

It is the first time Hollywood has portrayed NASA’s manned space program as, not only an ersatz substitute for the American Pioneer Spirit, but a pioneer-funded (via taxes on the Americans which the US Founders called “our posterity”) enemy of the American Pioneer Spirit.

“The Civil Rights Movement” had legs, the vigorous support of Hollywood and the vigorous support of academia, while the American Pioneer Spirit’s frontier was relegated to a dysfunctional bureaucracy continually complaining that not enough funding was available to deliver the promise.  This vicious betrayal of the American Pioneer Spirit is central to our time—since it was during the 1960s that the liberalizations we now decry were enacted at the same time it appeared there was a new frontier opening up.  The bottom line is Kennedy’s “New Frontier” was a con game to grab the land of the “posterity” of the founders of the US, on behalf of other interests—thereby rendering the government utterly without legal foundation.

There is a book to be written here but a movie that touches on the theme of the failed promise of JFK’s “New Frontier” is a major accomplishment, even if it is flawed in other ways and even if it comes 35 years too late.

From the Independent today:-

Second generation ethnic minorities make ‘remarkable progress’ in work

Ethnic minorities have gained greater equality in the job market over the past 30 years, according to new research. Second generation minorities, especially men of black Caribbean, Indian and Pakistani heritage, are succeeding in ways their parents could only dream of, a study by Dr Yaojun Li, from Birmingham University, and Professor Anthony Heath, from Oxford University, found.

They are much more likely to gain access to professional and managerial jobs, according to the research, presented to the Royal Geographical Society’s annual conference yesterday.

However, the fortunes of men of black African origins are still very polarised. Although now more likely to be in professional and managerial jobs than white British men, with a large proportion - about 40 per cent - holding these positions, they were also more likely to be unemployed with one in five being out of work.

Indian men are now just as likely as their white British counterparts to hold prestigious positions. But black Caribbean, Pakistani and Bangladeshi men were still less likely to achieve high status jobs, and were more likely to be unemployed and be in unskilled jobs than white British men.

“Even though several ethnic minority groups are still disadvantaged, there has been remarkable progress,” Dr Li said. He said that through the 1980s and early 1990s, black Caribbean, black African, Pakistani and Bangladeshi men were consistently more likely to be unemployed. However, since the mid-1990s the differences had been significantly reduced.

And now, please cast your eye over this, from BBC News:-

Jail office moves for ‘diversity’

Prison service leaders are being criticised amid claims they are relocating an office from Corby because the town is too white.

One of the factors behind the centre moving from Corby to Leicester, with the loss of 90 jobs, is because the city boasts a “diverse workforce”.

... Crown House has handled prison contracts for catering, transport and prisoner escorts for more than 30 years.

Staff do not yet know when their jobs will end.

Almost 94% of the population in Corby are white British, compared with just under 60% in Leicester.

A Prison Service Spokesman said: “The potential sale of the property has given Her Majesty’s Prison Service the opportunity to look at what provides the best option for the Prison Service and therefore the taxpayer in the medium to longer term.

“The key factors that influenced our decision to relocate to Leicester were the closer proximity to a greater number of prison establishments, better transport links, the ability to recruit professional staff and the ability to attract a more diverse workforce.”

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Dr Tomislav Sunic’s new book, Homo Americanus is finally available at Amazon, price $15.99.

I will be reviewing it in the next couple of weeks.  But I can tell you now that it argues the case for equivalency between Homo sovieticus and Homo americanus in every respect save one - where the former failed the test of time the latter has succeeded, but the answer to what succeeds him may be nothing.

American readers will be challenged by this portrait of American culture and Personality.  But the honest reader will recognise its truths, and close the book a wiser man.

If you hire Mexicans to work your land, your family will become landless and probably lose its life in a war coming to your area.

The only way out of this is to turn in those you are conspiring with and even then you will not escape with the land which you held in economic stewardship for the people of the US.