Archive for the 'Elite' Category
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg On The “Growth In Populations That We Don’t Want To Have Too Many Of”
July 9th, 2009Here’s an interesting moment of clarity. Via: New York Times: Q: If you were a lawyer again, what would you want to accomplish as a future feminist legal agenda? JUSTICE GINSBURG: Reproductive choice has to be straightened out. There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to me so […]
U.S. Federal Prosecutor: Stolen Goldman Sachs Software Could be Used to “Manipulate Markets in Unfair Ways”
July 8th, 2009This isn’t a free market; it’s a black magic trick, involving supercomputers, psychological operations and lots and lots of leverage. —CBOT Resembles Carnival Act as Billion Dollar Black Box Operators Move In Imagine my shock. Via: CNBC / Reuters: The purported theft of a Goldman Sachs trading platform threatens to cost it millions of dollars, […]
And Now… Pope Proposes New Financial World Order Guided by Ethics
July 7th, 2009Via: AP: Pope Benedict XVI called Tuesday for a new world financial order guided by ethics, dignity and the search for the common good in the third encyclical of his pontificate. In “Charity in Truth,” Benedict denounced the profit-at-all-cost mentality of the globalized economy and lamented that greed had brought about the worst economic downturn […]
Programmer Steals Software That Runs Goldman Sachs’ Automated Trading Systems
July 6th, 2009Update: Programmer Out on Bail Via: Reuters: A former Goldman Sachs Group Inc computer programer accused of stealing secret trading codes from the financial firm has been released from federal custody after posting bail, authorities said on Monday. Sergey Aleynikov, 39, was arrested by the FBI on Friday and charged with “theft of trade secrets.” […]
Afghan Drug Trade: “Most of the government officials are involved.”
July 5th, 2009Via: McClatchy: When it’s harvest time in the poppy fields of Kandahar, dust-covered Taliban fighters pull up on their motorbikes to collect a 10 percent tax on the crop. Afghan police arrive in Ford Ranger pickups — bought with U.S. aid money — and demand their cut of the cash in exchange for promises to […]
Flood of Afghan Heroin Fuels Drug Plague in Russia
July 5th, 2009Via: McClatchy: The drugs usually reach Russia from Tajikistan and Kazakhstan in trucks or, in smaller amounts, tucked away in train compartments or nervous travelers’ stomachs. The trade is nothing new in Russia, but after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, it exploded. Afghan opium production climbed from 3,400 metric tons in 2002 to […]
U.S.-Built Bridge is Windfall for Illegal Afghan Drug Trade
July 5th, 2009Via: McClatchy: In August 2007, the presidents of Afghanistan and Tajikistan walked side by side with the U.S. commerce secretary across a new $37 million concrete bridge that the Army Corps of Engineers designed to link two of Central Asia’s poorest countries. Dressed in a gray suit with an American flag pin in his lapel, […]
Fears for the World’s Poor Countries as the Rich Grab Land to Grow Food
July 5th, 2009A pants shitting, must read. Via: Guardian: The acquisition of farmland from the world’s poor by rich countries and international corporations is accelerating at an alarming rate, with an area half the size of Europe’s farmland targeted in the last six months, reports from UN officials and agriculture experts say. New reports from the UN […]
India Joins Russia, China in Questioning U.S. Dollar Dominance
July 4th, 2009Via: Bloomberg: Suresh Tendulkar, an economic adviser to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, said he is urging the government to diversify its $264.6 billion foreign-exchange reserves and hold fewer dollars. “The major part of Indian reserves is in dollars — that is something that’s a problem for us,” Tendulkar, chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic […]
‘Rogue Broker’ Blamed for Oil Spike
July 3rd, 2009If I buy a wheat contract, I should have to take delivery of the physical wheat on the specified date. If I sell a wheat contract, I should have to deliver the physical wheat on the specified date. I should not be allowed to buy or sell those leveraged contracts without having to take delivery, […]
