The causes of the real estate bubble were fraud on the part of mortgage brokers and fraud by the banks and rating agencies creating supposedly AAA rated mortgage backed securitues that were actually junk bonds. They were both criminal and or civil offenses, that probably could have been prosecuted in the more extreme cases if anyone had cared, and in all cases they could have been reined in by the Fed under its existing regulatory powers, or brought under control by regulation from Congress and the White House.
It is a very standard regulatory mandate for central banks and governments to set standards for mortgages. Letting people who have no income get huge liar loans, using predatory teaser rates to get people in to loans they couldn't afford, and letting rating agencies rate securities as AAA that weren't were all things that the Bush administration could and should have prevented. The government could have also stopped Fannie and Freddie Mac from creating a big chunk of the market for toxic loans and securities since they are government backed entities.
If people want to speculate in the stock market there is almost nothing the government can do about it. The only power it has is for the SEC to make sure the companies are abiding by securities regulations, which can prevent fraud, but can't prevent speculation. The dot com bubble was speculation way more than it was fraud.
The dot com bubble was a speculative bubble in the stock markets. There was very little Clinton could do to stop it.
The real estate bubble was largely due to predatory behavior by mortgage brokers and bankers. The Fed probably could have stopped it with their existing powers just by stopping abusive mortgage and securitization practices.
The dot com bubble mostly burned investors speculating in the stock market. When you speculate in stock markets you should expect the possibility you will get burned.
The real estate bubble mostly burned working class people who thought they were doing the right thing investing in homes. There were plenty of speculators in the market, and people getting loans they should have known they couldn't afford, but the families who bought homes to live in and were given predatory loans with teaser rates and ballooning adjustable rates that were designed to fail soon after they were bundled in to securities and sold, they were just robbed. So were the pension funds that bought AAA securities that were in fact total garbage.
This UCLA commencement address by Dr. Michael Burry is a pretty good primer. Burry did the math when he was at Scion Capital, a hedge fund, and to him it was painfully obvious there was a housing bubble and he could even estimate when it would pop when the predatory loans started to blow. He made a fortune. Since then he's been hounded by the Fed, Congress and FBI trying to nail him for capitalizing on what was either stupidity or willful negligence on their part.
There are so many things wrong in your post I'm not sure I can cover them all in limited time.
Citing the unemployment rate a year in to Obama's term and somehow blaming it on him is one of the more spectacular ones. The economy had just entered free fall when Obama took office. There was absolutely nothing anyone was going to do to stop it in a year, other than squander even larger amounts of borrowed money on stimulus than they did.
"was able to get his agenda through the Democratic Congress, where Bush could not"
Speaking of FACTS you just went off the rails dude. Bush had Republican control of the House for six years, and Senate control for four years. Democrats are pathetic and hopeless in the opposition obstructuing anything. The Republicans are extremely good at it.
Bush gutted every regulatory body in sight, especially the SEC, through executive orders and appointments which contributed more than anything to corporate running amuck. He rammed through huge tax cuts which started the downhill slide in to huge deficits, passed Medicare D which also added to the huge deficits, passed No Child Left Behind which did nothing but damage to the educational system, passed the Patriot act which eviscerated civil liberties, and ran two staggeringly expensive and largely pointless wars whose only lasting accomplishment will be a huge pile of debt and a bunch of traumatized vets.
The only two things Obama managed to pass were Obamacare which was a huge giveaway to the insurance and drug companies & will hopefully overturned tomorrow. And then there was the stimulus package, a mostly stupid squandering of money but considering the economy was in free fall it probably had to be done in some form . Other than the hasn't dont much of anything since he can't get anything past the Republicans in the House. So called "financial reform" and regulation didn't fix anything by the time Wall Street was done lobbying it in to the ground.
There is plenty of blame to go around for the collapse, Clinton, Rubin, Summers, Geithner, Greenspan, Frank and Dodd all deserve some. But you can't change the simple fact the economy spiralled out of control and blew up on Bush's watch, Paulson helped, and they deserve massive amounts of credit.
Seeing as how Bush ran the U.S. in to a ditch and left Obama a thankless, nearly impossible job running a country in ruins, I think Obama has been pretty kind to him. You also glossed over the fact that Cheney did multuple hatchet jobs on Obama so Bush didn't really need to. Cheney has been anything but respectful to Obama.
I'm no fan of Obama but no matter how you look at it Bush-Cheney was one of the worst presidents in U.S. history and almost single handedly started the U.S. on the road to decline and collapse.
I've often wondered if the Bush administration intentionally let Lehman blow. They knew that Republicans were so unpopular at that point they would lose the White House, so maybe they decided to completely wreck the economy on their way out so they could blame the economy on Obama four years later and win it right back.
It will be mind boggling if the Republicans manage to put a vulture capitalist in the White House after Wall/Fleet Street's misdeeds of the last decade.
The U.S. froze Japan's assets in June 1940 when Japan entered Northern French Indochina when France was invaded by Germany. When Japan seized the rest of French Indonesia in the summer of 1941, either FDR or Dean Acheson depending on which histories you believe, effectively embargoed Japan's oil supplies in concert with Great Britain. Japan either had to cave to U.S. demands or seize the oil rich Dutch East Indies.
As far as the Japanese were concerned the asset freeze and oil embargo were acts of war and they were at war with the U.S. three to six months before Pearl Harbor and Japan opted to seize the East Indies to restore their oil supplies.
Apologies, there are so many sharks circling the money in the water its probably impossible to list them all. I didn't even get to the standard contractor leeches CSC, EDS, SRI, HP, IBM. I could go on all night, so much money to be had, so little time.
How about cyber-industrial complex instead. Cyber warfare and defense is becoming the new way to milk the Federal government for contracts and money, from the same people who've brought you the defense-industrial complex for the last 70 years, so it shall continue, whether you like it or not.
General and special relativity were cited in most of the nominations for his prize, and I think it had a clause citing his contributions to theoretical physics.
I think there was still distrust of the theories on relativity in some circles at the the time so they gave it to him on a safer discovery though many of the people involved wanted him to get it for relativity.
As I recall general relativity took four years to confirm experimentally from the time it was published in 1915 until observations of a full eclipse established that space did bend around the Sun. Some of the teams involved had flawed experiments which seemed to disprove it, and Einsteins hopes for a Nobel Prize were frequenty dashed when, for example, an attempt to observe an eclipse during World War I ended when the German team was arrested in Russia for espionage.
One wonders how long it would have taken to prove general relativity if we didn't happen to have a moon just the right size to create a full eclipse of the Sun.
It wasn't until 1959 that better tests, using radio frequencies, were designed that better proved the predictions of the theory.
In the case of Superstring theory they have run in to an even tougher challenge since the things that need to be observed are the size of the Planck length so they are impossible to observer with current technology.
In quantum mechanics there is still a dispute over a possible hidden mechanism behind quantum entanglement and "spooky action at a distance"
The U.S. law on computer intrusions specifically exempts law enforcement and intelligence agencies:
"(f) This section does not prohibit any lawfully authorized investigative, protective, or intelligence activity of a law enforcement agency of the United States, a State, or a political subdivision of a State, or of an intelligence agency of the United States."
This is the price we pay for electing people who are willing to criminalize nearly every action of ordinary citizens, and almost no action by government officials, even when they engage in actions that most people would consider criminal.
For example:
- torturing people - computer hacking - spying on people without a warrant - snatching people for rendition in violation of the laws and sovereignty of the countries where they are snatched - holding people, sometimes the wrong people, in indefinite detention without a hearing - assassinating people including U.S. citizens without a trial - using drones to assassinate people, often innocent civilians, in countries where no state of war exists while violating the sovereignty of nations we are not at war with
This list goes on for a long time so I'll stop now.
Its probably not the primary purpose but it is a pretty effective way to flaunt that you are above the law, all laws including the constitution and to flaunt that you have power.
In reading the U.S. Criminal Code on computer intrusions Section 1030. Fraud and related activity in connection with computers it is interesting to note that Congress went out of their way to exempt various 3 letter Federal agencies from laws against hacking computers while everyone else goes to Federal prison for it:
"f) This section does not prohibit any lawfully authorized investigative, protective, or intelligence activity of a law enforcement agency of the United States, a State, or a political subdivision of a State, or of an intelligence agency of the United States"
Someone is also flaunting the fact that they can leak apparently classified information and get away with it. If its being done with the knowledge of people like Obama it is especially arrogant because the Obama administration has been one of the most aggressive in going after people for leaking stuff that they don't want leaked, while they are one of the most prolific leakers of classified information they see and advantage in leaking. Thomas Drake, formerly of the NSA, being one of the sadder cases of a whistleblower being abused by Obama and Holder.
I'm guessing the people who thought relativity and quantuam mechanics were bupkis probably used similar lines of reasoning.
You might want to try reading Brian Greene's "The Elegant Universe". It a fairly approachable book on superstring theory and hidden dimensions for laymen.
The theories are very elegant and well thought out but are inherently difficult to prove since the sizes of the things that need to be seen are so small that they are currently unseeable, or energies required are so huge we can't produce them, so there is currently no way to experimentally prove the theories. The main superstring theories suggest 10, 11 or 26 dimensions of which we can actually see only four.
No one is advocating embracing superstring theory, hidden dimensions or multiverses as fact, since even their advocates know they are only theories, but neither should they be discarded as "bupkis" until they are disproved since they may be a way forward in understanding and resolving unresolved conflicts in quantum mechanics in particular. They are regrettably as difficult to disprove as they are to prove.
I'm of the opinion if smart people want to keep thinking about these things they probably should. Just because they are very hard problems doesn't mean they should be given up on. If smart people like the people that wrote this paper can figure out novel ways to test these hard problems, more power to them.
If you want to get everyone to gleefully participate in a pervasive surveillence state would the best approach be:
A) Spawn something in a big brother agency with a 3 letter acronym, maybe called Total Information Awareness, that is creepy, makes everyone afraid, and once they are afraid they stop saying the things you want to eavesdrop on
B) A social network or a search portal created by a bunch of 20 somethings in a dorm room that seems kind of a cool, is maybe even useful, goes viral, and gets everyone on the planet to willingly graph out all the people they know and disclose all their interests on a day to day basis, bascially creating an intelligence bonanza
If you opt for B, you just tap all the Internet traffic so you can listen to all of Facebook and Google's traffic, you get a pervasive surveillence state, the 20 somethings who created it for you don't even need to help, no one freaks or even cares, you get a lot better information than if you try to pry it out of people old school and no one notices they've become hamsters in a plastic cage.
So you have definitively established that the mitochondria has no role in the function of the brain even though neurons have hundreds of mitochondria and they are essential to meeting the energy needs of neurons.
"Which is better, one government printing money or many?"
The answer depends on where you have your assets and how you make your money.
If you have a lot of assets in a particular currency its better if everyone else prints money and the central bank where your money is doesn't.
If you have a lot of debts in a particular currency its better if that central bank prints a lot of money and no one else does because you get to pay back your debts in debased currency, thats why debtor governments are so fond of the printing press.
If you make your living exporting goods you want your central bank to debase your currency. If you make your living importing things like oil or food you want a strong currency.
Economics is a complex system for creating winners and losers. It is an extremely juicy target for political manipulation which is why economics and banking history is a history of nearly continuous corruption.
I just happen to be old school, which is pretty similar to the modern German school, that when people work hard, save money and are responsible, central bankers shouldn't be allowed to steal it from them in the night by debasing their currency. Respobsible people also shouldn't be forced to gamble on FX, gold or stocks to try to avoid being screwed when their central bank runs a printing press to bail out debtor banks and debtor governments.
There was a controversial 2005 paper that did suggest Ashkenazi Jews may have above average math and verbal intelligence, and inferior spatial intelligence
Some 40% of Ashkenazi Jews have mitochondrial DNA descended from just four women. If those four women had DNA that encouraged above average intelligence it would be quite plausible for the same tendency to extend to a large percentage of Ashkenazi Jews.
Physical characteristics of our brains are determined to a significant extent by our genes, along with nutrition and other factors, but it is entirely plausabile that there are genetic factors that would result in above average intelligence, just like there are genetic factors that result in above average strength, stamina or speed.
Its just a matter of time before someone is going to try to genetically engineer superintelligent humans.
P.S.
Last laugh at all the people, especially interkin3tic, who fileted me on the slashdot thread a few weeks about $1000 DNA sequencing when I pointed out how neo nazi's would immediately latch on to it as a way to determine racial purity. Assorted liberals asserted that we had moved beyond Nazi's, eugenics and race and it would never happen again. I pointed out then Hungary already had a neo Nazi government going down this path again, and today here you are.
The person I was replying to was trying to paint Noam Chomksy as a crackpot and unqualified to offer an opinion on any subject not directly involving linguisitics. I disagree, Kthx.
It is also apparently deeply entrenched conditioning that no one can actually criticize the Fed without someone like yourself going batshit crazy in its defense. Did it ever occur to the Fed might in fact be a bad or at least problematic institution even if its not a conspiracy involving the "Gnomes of Zurich" or the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion". Trotting out the fringe conspiracy theories is a convenient way to avoid discussing if the Fed might be broken and a potential threat to America's well being. You kind of prove there MUST be a conspiracy of some kind because no one can mention the Fed without someone like you going off the deep end in its defense.
About all I can say is I hope you live in America and have all your money in U.S. dollars because you will eventually get what you deserve for believing the Fed is your friend. Germans well remember the Weimar Republic and what happens when you print money to get out of a hole.
"Neil DeGrasse Tyson . . . top geniuses of our time"
I wont argue about Dawkins and Chomsky though your use of genius is a little extravegent, they've done some good work, but Tyson, LOL. He is a show boating charlatan. What research or theories has he actually originated that rank him as a "top genius of our time". He did receive a gold medal on the U of T dance team so he has that going for him.
There is a role for talking heads on TV who try to explain science to the masses but if you've ever actually listened to him talk you quickly deduce that he is not a "top genius of our time". He is a top self promoter of our time and primarily out to self enrich himself. Michio Kaku has developed pretty much the same affliction though at least Kaku did do actual research somewhere back there.
Chomsky's politics are quite sophisticated and thoroughly plausible, they certainly aren't "strange". He IS bucking the narrative that America's elites spoon feed ordinary Americans. As a result, he gets painted as a crackpot because those elites really dont want anyone to listen to what he is actually saying. You should actually listen to what he says if for no other reason to broaden your intellectual horizons even if you still disagree with him.
If you get outside of the propaganda bubble in the U.S. he has views that aren't even particularly out of the main stream. Ron Paul receives exactly the same treatment from American elites. Paul was dismissed as a crackpot up until the 2008 financial crisis and the massive shenanigans the Fed and the Treasury department pulled to save the bankers, now a lot of people realize most of the issues he's raised with the Fed for decades were, in fact . . . right on the money.
The Federal Reserve IS a conspiracy, the only source of controversy is who exactly is behind it. The one group that is obviously involved is Wall Street bankers since they hold most of the power in the Fed and they abuse it handsomely to enrich themselves. Do you see a problem with:
A. The Fed being largely run by bankers and having the power to print money and distribute it to BANKERS, In the process they get to debase America's currency at their whim and when they do they steal money out of the pockets of responsible savers to the benefit of irresponsible debtors including and especially the Federal government.
B. The Federal Reserve is the primary regulator of banks and it is run by BANKERS. This is generally referred to as the fox guarding the chicken coop. Its a key reason why we are having financial crises originating in the banking system because the regulatory system is completely captured.
C. The Fed gets to set interest rates for banks to zero, and give them huge loans for free to gamble on stocks, commodities, etc. One reason commodity prices are seeing huge spikes recently, banks have a huge liquidity spigot and no place to blow it. The last thing they want to do with it since 2008 is actually loan it to businesses or home buyers and create actual jobs.
D. The Fed gets to manipulate the Consumer Price Index so it reports inflation dramatically below real inflation, real inflation has been running 10-20% in recent years in food and energy, the things people buy every day. Couple high real inflation with near zero percent interests on bank deposits and you have something called "financial repression". It is a system where the Fed or any central bank completely screws people, especially old people, who are responsible, save money and don't want to play in the rigged casino that are our stock markets now. Its a system designed to transfer their money to banks, gamblers on the stock marker and to debtors.
E. For the last few years the Fed has been printing money and buying trillions in U.S. government debt with it. Once you start doing that you have turned in to a banana republic and its just a matter of time before your currency collapses and you have hyperinflation.
The only thing you can say for letting the bankers (the Fed) guard the chicken coop (our money) is that letting government and politicians guard it would probably be even worse.
DEA has had license plate reading cameras on U.S. highways for a while. In particular they record every car on some routes in California, Texas, Arizona and recently Utah using ELSAG cameras though they usually make no attempt to hide them.
They analyze the data looking for people transporting drugs from the Mexican border among other things. Maybe they are just expanding the program to watch the traffic along the northern border too.
So, yea welcome to the big brother police state, we've been in it a while now. Say cheese!!
Uh, China is one of Iran's allies, so is Russia. India is on reasonably good terms with them as well. After spending 10 years and a trillion dollars the U.S. turned Iraq in to an Iranian ally too. They aren't really short of powerful friends and having lots of oil buys friends.
China is banking on getting Iran's oil when the EU stops buying it this summer, India probably is too. Sanctioning oil seldom ever works except to enrich people who trade in sanctioned oil, its a very fungible commodity so its almost impossible to embargo. It helped make Marc Rich very rich.
Slashdot Mirror
The causes of the real estate bubble were fraud on the part of mortgage brokers and fraud by the banks and rating agencies creating supposedly AAA rated mortgage backed securitues that were actually junk bonds. They were both criminal and or civil offenses, that probably could have been prosecuted in the more extreme cases if anyone had cared, and in all cases they could have been reined in by the Fed under its existing regulatory powers, or brought under control by regulation from Congress and the White House.
It is a very standard regulatory mandate for central banks and governments to set standards for mortgages. Letting people who have no income get huge liar loans, using predatory teaser rates to get people in to loans they couldn't afford, and letting rating agencies rate securities as AAA that weren't were all things that the Bush administration could and should have prevented. The government could have also stopped Fannie and Freddie Mac from creating a big chunk of the market for toxic loans and securities since they are government backed entities.
If people want to speculate in the stock market there is almost nothing the government can do about it. The only power it has is for the SEC to make sure the companies are abiding by securities regulations, which can prevent fraud, but can't prevent speculation. The dot com bubble was speculation way more than it was fraud.
The dot com bubble was a speculative bubble in the stock markets. There was very little Clinton could do to stop it.
The real estate bubble was largely due to predatory behavior by mortgage brokers and bankers. The Fed probably could have stopped it with their existing powers just by stopping abusive mortgage and securitization practices.
The dot com bubble mostly burned investors speculating in the stock market. When you speculate in stock markets you should expect the possibility you will get burned.
The real estate bubble mostly burned working class people who thought they were doing the right thing investing in homes. There were plenty of speculators in the market, and people getting loans they should have known they couldn't afford, but the families who bought homes to live in and were given predatory loans with teaser rates and ballooning adjustable rates that were designed to fail soon after they were bundled in to securities and sold, they were just robbed. So were the pension funds that bought AAA securities that were in fact total garbage.
This UCLA commencement address by Dr. Michael Burry is a pretty good primer. Burry did the math when he was at Scion Capital, a hedge fund, and to him it was painfully obvious there was a housing bubble and he could even estimate when it would pop when the predatory loans started to blow. He made a fortune. Since then he's been hounded by the Fed, Congress and FBI trying to nail him for capitalizing on what was either stupidity or willful negligence on their part.
There are so many things wrong in your post I'm not sure I can cover them all in limited time.
Citing the unemployment rate a year in to Obama's term and somehow blaming it on him is one of the more spectacular ones. The economy had just entered free fall when Obama took office. There was absolutely nothing anyone was going to do to stop it in a year, other than squander even larger amounts of borrowed money on stimulus than they did.
"was able to get his agenda through the Democratic Congress, where Bush could not"
Speaking of FACTS you just went off the rails dude. Bush had Republican control of the House for six years, and Senate control for four years. Democrats are pathetic and hopeless in the opposition obstructuing anything. The Republicans are extremely good at it.
Bush gutted every regulatory body in sight, especially the SEC, through executive orders and appointments which contributed more than anything to corporate running amuck. He rammed through huge tax cuts which started the downhill slide in to huge deficits, passed Medicare D which also added to the huge deficits, passed No Child Left Behind which did nothing but damage to the educational system, passed the Patriot act which eviscerated civil liberties, and ran two staggeringly expensive and largely pointless wars whose only lasting accomplishment will be a huge pile of debt and a bunch of traumatized vets.
The only two things Obama managed to pass were Obamacare which was a huge giveaway to the insurance and drug companies & will hopefully overturned tomorrow. And then there was the stimulus package, a mostly stupid squandering of money but considering the economy was in free fall it probably had to be done in some form . Other than the hasn't dont much of anything since he can't get anything past the Republicans in the House. So called "financial reform" and regulation didn't fix anything by the time Wall Street was done lobbying it in to the ground.
There is plenty of blame to go around for the collapse, Clinton, Rubin, Summers, Geithner, Greenspan, Frank and Dodd all deserve some. But you can't change the simple fact the economy spiralled out of control and blew up on Bush's watch, Paulson helped, and they deserve massive amounts of credit.
Seeing as how Bush ran the U.S. in to a ditch and left Obama a thankless, nearly impossible job running a country in ruins, I think Obama has been pretty kind to him. You also glossed over the fact that Cheney did multuple hatchet jobs on Obama so Bush didn't really need to. Cheney has been anything but respectful to Obama.
I'm no fan of Obama but no matter how you look at it Bush-Cheney was one of the worst presidents in U.S. history and almost single handedly started the U.S. on the road to decline and collapse.
I've often wondered if the Bush administration intentionally let Lehman blow. They knew that Republicans were so unpopular at that point they would lose the White House, so maybe they decided to completely wreck the economy on their way out so they could blame the economy on Obama four years later and win it right back.
It will be mind boggling if the Republicans manage to put a vulture capitalist in the White House after Wall/Fleet Street's misdeeds of the last decade.
The U.S. froze Japan's assets in June 1940 when Japan entered Northern French Indochina when France was invaded by Germany. When Japan seized the rest of French Indonesia in the summer of 1941, either FDR or Dean Acheson depending on which histories you believe, effectively embargoed Japan's oil supplies in concert with Great Britain. Japan either had to cave to U.S. demands or seize the oil rich Dutch East Indies.
As far as the Japanese were concerned the asset freeze and oil embargo were acts of war and they were at war with the U.S. three to six months before Pearl Harbor and Japan opted to seize the East Indies to restore their oil supplies.
Apologies, there are so many sharks circling the money in the water its probably impossible to list them all. I didn't even get to the standard contractor leeches CSC, EDS, SRI, HP, IBM. I could go on all night, so much money to be had, so little time.
How about cyber-industrial complex instead. Cyber warfare and defense is becoming the new way to milk the Federal government for contracts and money, from the same people who've brought you the defense-industrial complex for the last 70 years, so it shall continue, whether you like it or not.
These would be Lockheed, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, plus a few new players like Palantir. Wonder how Palantir is able to buying up all the free real estate in Silicon Valley?
Chances are they will be gutting your Internet freedoms as a regrettable side effect of making the Internet safe for freedom.
General and special relativity were cited in most of the nominations for his prize, and I think it had a clause citing his contributions to theoretical physics.
I think there was still distrust of the theories on relativity in some circles at the the time so they gave it to him on a safer discovery though many of the people involved wanted him to get it for relativity.
I could misremember though.
As I recall general relativity took four years to confirm experimentally from the time it was published in 1915 until observations of a full eclipse established that space did bend around the Sun. Some of the teams involved had flawed experiments which seemed to disprove it, and Einsteins hopes for a Nobel Prize were frequenty dashed when, for example, an attempt to observe an eclipse during World War I ended when the German team was arrested in Russia for espionage.
One wonders how long it would have taken to prove general relativity if we didn't happen to have a moon just the right size to create a full eclipse of the Sun.
It wasn't until 1959 that better tests, using radio frequencies, were designed that better proved the predictions of the theory.
In the case of Superstring theory they have run in to an even tougher challenge since the things that need to be observed are the size of the Planck length so they are impossible to observer with current technology.
In quantum mechanics there is still a dispute over a possible hidden mechanism behind quantum entanglement and "spooky action at a distance"
The U.S. law on computer intrusions specifically exempts law enforcement and intelligence agencies:
"(f) This section does not prohibit any lawfully authorized investigative, protective, or intelligence activity of a law enforcement agency of the United States, a State, or a political subdivision of a State, or of an intelligence agency of the United States."
This is the price we pay for electing people who are willing to criminalize nearly every action of ordinary citizens, and almost no action by government officials, even when they engage in actions that most people would consider criminal.
For example:
- torturing people
- computer hacking
- spying on people without a warrant
- snatching people for rendition in violation of the laws and sovereignty of the countries where they are snatched
- holding people, sometimes the wrong people, in indefinite detention without a hearing
- assassinating people including U.S. citizens without a trial
- using drones to assassinate people, often innocent civilians, in countries where no state of war exists while violating the sovereignty of nations we are not at war with
This list goes on for a long time so I'll stop now.
"So what is the purpose?"
Its probably not the primary purpose but it is a pretty effective way to flaunt that you are above the law, all laws including the constitution and to flaunt that you have power.
In reading the U.S. Criminal Code on computer intrusions Section 1030. Fraud and related activity in connection with computers it is interesting to note that Congress went out of their way to exempt various 3 letter Federal agencies from laws against hacking computers while everyone else goes to Federal prison for it:
"f) This section does not prohibit any lawfully authorized investigative, protective, or intelligence activity of a law enforcement agency of the United States, a State, or a political subdivision of a State, or of an intelligence agency of the United States"
Someone is also flaunting the fact that they can leak apparently classified information and get away with it. If its being done with the knowledge of people like Obama it is especially arrogant because the Obama administration has been one of the most aggressive in going after people for leaking stuff that they don't want leaked, while they are one of the most prolific leakers of classified information they see and advantage in leaking. Thomas Drake, formerly of the NSA, being one of the sadder cases of a whistleblower being abused by Obama and Holder.
I'm guessing the people who thought relativity and quantuam mechanics were bupkis probably used similar lines of reasoning.
You might want to try reading Brian Greene's "The Elegant Universe". It a fairly approachable book on superstring theory and hidden dimensions for laymen.
The theories are very elegant and well thought out but are inherently difficult to prove since the sizes of the things that need to be seen are so small that they are currently unseeable, or energies required are so huge we can't produce them, so there is currently no way to experimentally prove the theories. The main superstring theories suggest 10, 11 or 26 dimensions of which we can actually see only four.
No one is advocating embracing superstring theory, hidden dimensions or multiverses as fact, since even their advocates know they are only theories, but neither should they be discarded as "bupkis" until they are disproved since they may be a way forward in understanding and resolving unresolved conflicts in quantum mechanics in particular. They are regrettably as difficult to disprove as they are to prove.
I'm of the opinion if smart people want to keep thinking about these things they probably should. Just because they are very hard problems doesn't mean they should be given up on. If smart people like the people that wrote this paper can figure out novel ways to test these hard problems, more power to them.
If you want to get everyone to gleefully participate in a pervasive surveillence state would the best approach be:
A) Spawn something in a big brother agency with a 3 letter acronym, maybe called Total Information Awareness, that is creepy, makes everyone afraid, and once they are afraid they stop saying the things you want to eavesdrop on
B) A social network or a search portal created by a bunch of 20 somethings in a dorm room that seems kind of a cool, is maybe even useful, goes viral, and gets everyone on the planet to willingly graph out all the people they know and disclose all their interests on a day to day basis, bascially creating an intelligence bonanza
If you opt for B, you just tap all the Internet traffic so you can listen to all of Facebook and Google's traffic, you get a pervasive surveillence state, the 20 somethings who created it for you don't even need to help, no one freaks or even cares, you get a lot better information than if you try to pry it out of people old school and no one notices they've become hamsters in a plastic cage.
Here is one of many papers, "Neuronal degeneration and mitochondrial dysfunction", where mitochondrial DNA does seem to "affect a damn thing in your body outside the Mitochondria".
Would you like to retract your kneejerk claim now or later?
So you have definitively established that the mitochondria has no role in the function of the brain even though neurons have hundreds of mitochondria and they are essential to meeting the energy needs of neurons.
Please do share with us your innovative research.
"Which is better, one government printing money or many?"
The answer depends on where you have your assets and how you make your money.
If you have a lot of assets in a particular currency its better if everyone else prints money and the central bank where your money is doesn't.
If you have a lot of debts in a particular currency its better if that central bank prints a lot of money and no one else does because you get to pay back your debts in debased currency, thats why debtor governments are so fond of the printing press.
If you make your living exporting goods you want your central bank to debase your currency. If you make your living importing things like oil or food you want a strong currency.
Economics is a complex system for creating winners and losers. It is an extremely juicy target for political manipulation which is why economics and banking history is a history of nearly continuous corruption.
I just happen to be old school, which is pretty similar to the modern German school, that when people work hard, save money and are responsible, central bankers shouldn't be allowed to steal it from them in the night by debasing their currency. Respobsible people also shouldn't be forced to gamble on FX, gold or stocks to try to avoid being screwed when their central bank runs a printing press to bail out debtor banks and debtor governments.
There was a controversial 2005 paper that did suggest Ashkenazi Jews may have above average math and verbal intelligence, and inferior spatial intelligence
Some 40% of Ashkenazi Jews have mitochondrial DNA descended from just four women. If those four women had DNA that encouraged above average intelligence it would be quite plausible for the same tendency to extend to a large percentage of Ashkenazi Jews.
Physical characteristics of our brains are determined to a significant extent by our genes, along with nutrition and other factors, but it is entirely plausabile that there are genetic factors that would result in above average intelligence, just like there are genetic factors that result in above average strength, stamina or speed.
Its just a matter of time before someone is going to try to genetically engineer superintelligent humans.
P.S.
Last laugh at all the people, especially interkin3tic, who fileted me on the slashdot thread a few weeks about $1000 DNA sequencing when I pointed out how neo nazi's would immediately latch on to it as a way to determine racial purity. Assorted liberals asserted that we had moved beyond Nazi's, eugenics and race and it would never happen again. I pointed out then Hungary already had a neo Nazi government going down this path again, and today here you are.
The person I was replying to was trying to paint Noam Chomksy as a crackpot and unqualified to offer an opinion on any subject not directly involving linguisitics. I disagree, Kthx.
It is also apparently deeply entrenched conditioning that no one can actually criticize the Fed without someone like yourself going batshit crazy in its defense. Did it ever occur to the Fed might in fact be a bad or at least problematic institution even if its not a conspiracy involving the "Gnomes of Zurich" or the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion". Trotting out the fringe conspiracy theories is a convenient way to avoid discussing if the Fed might be broken and a potential threat to America's well being. You kind of prove there MUST be a conspiracy of some kind because no one can mention the Fed without someone like you going off the deep end in its defense.
About all I can say is I hope you live in America and have all your money in U.S. dollars because you will eventually get what you deserve for believing the Fed is your friend. Germans well remember the Weimar Republic and what happens when you print money to get out of a hole.
"Neil DeGrasse Tyson . . . top geniuses of our time"
I wont argue about Dawkins and Chomsky though your use of genius is a little extravegent, they've done some good work, but Tyson, LOL. He is a show boating charlatan. What research or theories has he actually originated that rank him as a "top genius of our time". He did receive a gold medal on the U of T dance team so he has that going for him.
There is a role for talking heads on TV who try to explain science to the masses but if you've ever actually listened to him talk you quickly deduce that he is not a "top genius of our time". He is a top self promoter of our time and primarily out to self enrich himself. Michio Kaku has developed pretty much the same affliction though at least Kaku did do actual research somewhere back there.
Chomsky's politics are quite sophisticated and thoroughly plausible, they certainly aren't "strange". He IS bucking the narrative that America's elites spoon feed ordinary Americans. As a result, he gets painted as a crackpot because those elites really dont want anyone to listen to what he is actually saying. You should actually listen to what he says if for no other reason to broaden your intellectual horizons even if you still disagree with him.
If you get outside of the propaganda bubble in the U.S. he has views that aren't even particularly out of the main stream. Ron Paul receives exactly the same treatment from American elites. Paul was dismissed as a crackpot up until the 2008 financial crisis and the massive shenanigans the Fed and the Treasury department pulled to save the bankers, now a lot of people realize most of the issues he's raised with the Fed for decades were, in fact . . . right on the money.
The Federal Reserve IS a conspiracy, the only source of controversy is who exactly is behind it. The one group that is obviously involved is Wall Street bankers since they hold most of the power in the Fed and they abuse it handsomely to enrich themselves. Do you see a problem with:
A. The Fed being largely run by bankers and having the power to print money and distribute it to BANKERS, In the process they get to debase America's currency at their whim and when they do they steal money out of the pockets of responsible savers to the benefit of irresponsible debtors including and especially the Federal government.
B. The Federal Reserve is the primary regulator of banks and it is run by BANKERS. This is generally referred to as the fox guarding the chicken coop. Its a key reason why we are having financial crises originating in the banking system because the regulatory system is completely captured.
C. The Fed gets to set interest rates for banks to zero, and give them huge loans for free to gamble on stocks, commodities, etc. One reason commodity prices are seeing huge spikes recently, banks have a huge liquidity spigot and no place to blow it. The last thing they want to do with it since 2008 is actually loan it to businesses or home buyers and create actual jobs.
D. The Fed gets to manipulate the Consumer Price Index so it reports inflation dramatically below real inflation, real inflation has been running 10-20% in recent years in food and energy, the things people buy every day. Couple high real inflation with near zero percent interests on bank deposits and you have something called "financial repression". It is a system where the Fed or any central bank completely screws people, especially old people, who are responsible, save money and don't want to play in the rigged casino that are our stock markets now. Its a system designed to transfer their money to banks, gamblers on the stock marker and to debtors.
E. For the last few years the Fed has been printing money and buying trillions in U.S. government debt with it. Once you start doing that you have turned in to a banana republic and its just a matter of time before your currency collapses and you have hyperinflation.
The only thing you can say for letting the bankers (the Fed) guard the chicken coop (our money) is that letting government and politicians guard it would probably be even worse.
Fortran is NOT an extremely rare skill. Its widely used in engineering and scientific programming.
Feynman's Lectures on Physics is probably as good or better than any online course you will find.
DEA has had license plate reading cameras on U.S. highways for a while. In particular they record every car on some routes in California, Texas, Arizona and recently Utah using ELSAG cameras though they usually make no attempt to hide them.
They analyze the data looking for people transporting drugs from the Mexican border among other things. Maybe they are just expanding the program to watch the traffic along the northern border too.
So, yea welcome to the big brother police state, we've been in it a while now. Say cheese!!
Uh, China is one of Iran's allies, so is Russia. India is on reasonably good terms with them as well. After spending 10 years and a trillion dollars the U.S. turned Iraq in to an Iranian ally too. They aren't really short of powerful friends and having lots of oil buys friends.
China is banking on getting Iran's oil when the EU stops buying it this summer, India probably is too. Sanctioning oil seldom ever works except to enrich people who trade in sanctioned oil, its a very fungible commodity so its almost impossible to embargo. It helped make Marc Rich very rich.
You left out cyber-industrial complex