Disqus - Latest Comments for ferdinand_balfoort

Re: British court clears way for Assange’s extradition

ferdinand_balfoort — Thu, 31 May 2012 09:12:44 -0000

So tell me again, why is it so important that a foreign citizen to the nation of Sweden be extradited there over a post coital disagreement regarding the alleged application of prophilactics, which apparently occurred a number of years ago. Are you telling me that this warrants the application of the full resources at the disposal of Justitia Sueciae, the involvement of the UK judiciary, and a considerable expenditure of legal fees, considering the not inconsiderable alternative national and global issues that might want to be focused on currently. I really wonder what is behind all of this.

Re: • America, End Your Fear Of Wall Street

ferdinand_balfoort — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 00:33:35 -0000

Hi James,

well, hoping our efforts are making some impact. At least I am seeing somethings in the other areas of the virtual world we inhabit here.

Check out an article that is of serious nature related to the Federal Reserve and its origins and the risks we run in giving the Fed any further powers. www.globalresearch.ca/index...

Below a small summary I wrote to some friends in this context.

A quick excerpt by way of a summary from a book I am reading about 17th century geopolitics called Quicksilver, part of a trilogy also dealing with science and financial markets, which will illuminate the issue better. Holland in the 17th century in fact did not become great due to its trading prowess, although this was a necessary ingredient. It is now my opinion that Holland achieved its pinnacle of economic well being due to the financial and commodities markets it established in Amsterdam, and equally lost its position due to King William becoming the British monarch and de la Vega, the architect of the Amsterdam Exchange, moving to London ( a clear case of double whammy head hunt, when a nation's leader and the chief architect of the financial systems are both enticed by monetary of geopolitical means.) Not many see the point, but I have read a hypothesis that this is the key reason for the prompt closing of Holland's Golden Age at the end of the 17th century, heralding in a slow and inexorable decline. Not helped by the sudden creativity of the English with assistance from the aforementioned de La Vega, no doubt, in establishing a concept called national debt, which was to be paid off by taxing citizens, to ensure exponential growth through the building of ships and overseas trading centres (colonies).

In late 17th century France it is also clear that the French had no effective financial markets to speak off, as King Louis IV wanted to break the back of the nobility by denying them income earning capacity and tie them to his apron string. I noted that the equivalent of the Dutch East Indies Company (VOC) in France was an eternal failure and went bankrupt each few years, not because the French are stupid but because King Louis IV could not afford to relinquish his hold over nobility. Similarly, England, being ruled by a pompous syphilis addled catholic King James II, was a country market compared to Amsterdam. Somewhere in the book it refers to the 13 or so commodities traded on the Exchange in London compared to the 530 or so in Amsterdam. Neither country were able to challenge Holland effectively, more so due to the fact that their own nobility and trading classes preferred to put their monies through the Amsterdam exchange.

Morale of the story, money has no national loyalty and the country with the biggest exchange is the superpower of the day.

That last point, I am sure, has not gone unnoticed to Paulson, Bernanke and his friends. One of the reasons to keep the Fed opaque and beyond scrutiny, it being a key tool in ensuring that the the USA remains as the most important financial centre in the world.

Ferdinand

Re: • America, End Your Fear Of Wall Street

ferdinand_balfoort — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 03:43:20 -0000

Dear James,

an excellent post as usual. Amazed how you keep up with the various utterances of those whom have been elected to lead us astray into dark alleys with promises of nirvana, in order to rob us blind and administer a date rape type of drug which makes us forget whatever happened and makes us feel happy while our pockets have been emptied of our patrimony.

I just cannot believe, as a career auditor, that Bernanke said those exact words regarding the audit of the financial systems, but what I cannot believe even more is that not many appear to have picked up on the comment. I cannot, for example, recollect BBC or CNN actually reporting on the statements made nor the dire consequences potentially arising from those. I wonder where my own professional institute, the Institute of Internal Auditors, was? I followed up and read some more, for example, www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/..., which was very educational.

The responses by Bernanke remind me of the multitude of different responses I used to get from executives whose area of responsibility or departments were to be audited, from "the systems are too newly implemented and therefore an audit would be a waste of time" or "my department is an essential laboratory to try out new ideas, and therefore controls and audits are not required as they would affect the levels of creativity that contribute so much to this organization" to the much more straightforward such as "you have no experience and qualifications in this field and are therefore not welcome to perform an audit as the results would not be useful" to "I am the cousin of the Chairman and I will ensure you are fired if you persist with your demands to audit my department".

In this context I couldn't help but note Alistair Darling from the UK, being interviewed on Banker's Bonuses, claiming that controlling the level of bonuses would only lead to remuneration and rewards being shifted to other means and payment structures. Basically, the man in charge of the UK finances and a major player in G20 deliberations, told the public to suck eggs. Although the responses on two continents and in two cultural settings reflect their interesting differences in dealing with the public (from bland presentation of essentially a truthfully held belief on the one hand, to a major platitude, a snow job, on the other using typical British diplomatic double speak) one thing could be said for the both of these supposedly superior individuals in key regulatory positions.

This is is that neither of them need to care for public oppobrium and they know it, because the media is generally a toothless watchdog and the public is asleep on feel good pills or alternatively, large quantities of Mexican smuggled Mary J. Just briefly, the same Alistair Darling who shamefacedly admitted he had been helping himself inappropriately to tax payer money through overstated personal claims some months ago, with full aplomb suggesting his friends in the City of London continue doing the same during this interview, because otherwise other means might be found by bankers to remunerate themselves. Wow, is he talking about an alternative by means of personal expense fraud, something he is so experienced with?

So while you, James, and I, and Mr Toad up there (Toad Hall may well be a much more benign place to be in the current environment I gather) are essentially pissing in the wind, the bankers are dancing until some sort of revolution happens in future, safe in the knowledge that whatever they say or do will be forgotten in an environment where the average citizen has evolved a Gold Fish type brain with commensurate short term memory capacities and focus.

Whether there really will be, as you suggest, such a radical change over in 2012 is a very big "IF" in my opinion. If I were a conspiracy theorist I would suspect the substances added to our local water supplies will ensure business as usual at that time. Fortunately we may not need to worry that much further beyond that date. For, as the Mayans predict, on 21 December 2012 all time will stop, based on their detailed calendars. And who cares about bonuses, audits and Wall Street after that, at a time when time is no longer time, and therefore no longer equates to money, if we are to believe the Mayan astrologers?

Ferdinand

Re: • Government vs. Capitalism

ferdinand_balfoort — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 20:33:32 -0000

Dear James,

I think the reality is that the risks of the current close and inappropriate relationships between the financial sector and government are well recognized. It's a bit like the historic separation process of State from Religion which we used to learn about at school. Popes were of varying size and quality similar to statesmen (kings and queens) so the power pendulum tended to swing regularly. No one could afford to upset the balance too much or show his/her cards too clearly. Kings could always be excommunicated with dire consequences, unless you were Henry the VIII and established your own church. Henry the VIII I am ...

So from reading the personalities involved, cards are kept well hidden (at least I fervently hope) to avoid a similar excommunication and/or similar retaliatory action, which would do us no good at all. We may therefore be in for some surprises yet as long as I am not overestimating the collective intellectual capital of our President and Mr Geithner.

I am off to read your next posting,

Cheers,

Ferdinand

Re: • Government vs. Capitalism

ferdinand_balfoort — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 07:34:03 -0000

Dear James,

please read the report called the "Quiet Coup" available on http://commons.globalintegr...

This will take the debate back on track, even though I think drugs policy is an important ingredient in our discussions,

Best regards,

Ferdy

Re: • Government vs. Capitalism

ferdinand_balfoort — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 04:57:57 -0000

Dear James,

I read the two postings, thanks for the references. I picked up on your latest posting in 2009, which goes more towards the model in Holland, which I am familiar with, and also, surprisingly, Lisbon in Portugal, which introduced the same or similar liberalized framework some 5 years ago from recollection.

"Let’s take a page from the early ‘30s; defer to the reasons which led to the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment, and the repeal of federal prohibitionary laws that unsuccessfully attempted to smother the consumption of alcohol. Ask Al Capone’s ghost how he felt about the repeal of prohibition. "

Fast forward to Lisbon in 2009, where no one asked Al Capone at the time about his thoughts on the idea to make a radical change, fortunately. Sense prevailed over vociferous opposition which claimed, amongst others, that Lisbon would soon be awash in drug junkeys parachuting in from all over the world, becoming a "Mecca" for the hallucinatory brigades of space cadets.

Nothing like that happened. The same positive results have been noted as in Holland. Reduced long term number of drug abusers. Reduced criminality. Not sure about the reduction in corruption in law enforcement and government but I hazard a guess it has had a positive effect in reducing this as well.

It seems counter intuitive to legalize something that has so long been a criminal activity. But just listen to Johan Huizinga, a professor, historian and cultural theorist who wrote in the 1930's in a book entitled the same that Homo Sapiens should really be called Homo Ludens (Playing man). We like playing, investigating, searching for adventure and that is how we progress, because it is fun. Even more fun to progress when you are slightly high, hence the propensity of the young to try different things to experience ever greater fun. If you read how the early Taoists used to explore the universe, everything was actually focussed on fun. Alcohol, magic mushrooms, tantric sex and so forth, all part of the arsenal of tools to get a better understanding of the universe and our role in it.

The reason why I brought up the topic before is that fun equals happiness, and hence it is funny that there seems to be a correlation between liberal drugs policies and general levels of happiness in society.

Even more interesting, I believe, is the link between corruption in government and regulatory bodies and the cash machine that the underground drugs machine really is. I read a book on this many years ago and forgot the title, but it claimed those publicized drugs busts on TV are actually part of the plan to keep prices up, and that the opposition to drugs liberalization in government is funded by lobbyists paid by the cartels. Not a crazy thought by all means as the cartels are the biggest beneficiaries from keeping the difference between street price and production costs as big as possible.

The continuous pressure to bribe those in power also creates a venality in authority which is transported into other domains. Just look at the recent bust on organ smuggling from Israel, which implicated pillars of society from religion and government in New Jersey. As the practitioners know, it only takes one step onto the slippery slope, and then the floodgates open. The self same reason why honest cops find it very difficult to survive under the continuing pressure to be on the take by their peers. As long as they are honest they are a living threat to the cozy relationships established between wrongdoers and enforcement authorities. As soon as they take that first step, the sword of Damocles hangs over them for ever and they are drawn into more and more unconscionable behaviour.

Taking away this source of finances will certainly assist in moving away from this model and hopefully reduce corruption levels overall. Liberalization of the playground will reduce the need for massive effort to supervise what Homo Ludens is instinctively going to do, regardless.

Ferdinand

Re: • Government vs. Capitalism

ferdinand_balfoort — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 06:02:28 -0000

Thomas Paine wrote: "Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one."

I have some fun imagining the "banks and bank executives ..... dancing in risk-free ballrooms up to the rafter in money", but I think you left one party off your dance card. The politicians and regulators should not be ignored either for their rhytmic accompaniment in clapping to the beat of the music from the orchestra and the participants.

I don't think the USA has ever seen such a cozy and obvious relationship between big business and government in its history. Too Big to Fail? Was that a reference to government or to the banks? I think we should paraphrase Thomas Paine: " Big business, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one."

The answer is not more regulations and more government intervention, especially if the participants are much too close for comfort and the self same regulations are more than likely bent towards the biggest contributors to election coffers as we have seen extensively in the past 8 years.

An improvement in the general levels of morality and ethics in government and business is required in tandem with a specific plan to separate business from government, similar to the strict separation of religion from state.

It would also help if drug policies are relaxed to neutralize one of the major causes of venality and corruption in government and regulatory bodies. I am currently researching the links between corruption, happiness and drug policies in different countries. My initial observations are that those countries consistently in the top 10 most uncorrupted are also well represented in the world happiness index and surprisingly virtually all benefit from liberal drugs policies.

One could hypothesize that a more liberal stance in anti drug policies is a leitmotif for government and regulation setting in general. One could conclude that less regulation is therefore better for the happiness of citizens and a reduction in corruption.

The alternative is that the research companies who called respondents at random for the Happiness Index were more likely to talk to respondents under influence in countries with more liberal anti drug policies, and consequently obtained a biased sample of extremely happy responses.

A point to ponder.

Ferdinand