Money Supply

Have you ever wondered how money is created? And what are the rules for doing such a thing?

Have a look at this entry at Wikipedia!

I am not sure I understand the Fractional Reserve Bank Lending Practices. Because this would mean that any bank is allowed to create money...


Posted in: _Economy

QOTD

"Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock."

-Ben Hecht


Posted in: _QOTD

Business as Usual

So we are back to the eternal question "Does the end justify the means?"!

The Bush administration can shout as loud as it wants but nothing can cover the fact that they simply don't comply with International law and that they hide what they are really doing from the public (and here we link back to another post of mine about what democracy needs to survive, i.e. the people have to be informed about what is going on to choose if they want to carry on with their government).


Here is a little list about the recent things they did against International Law:
- Holding prisoners in Guantanamo with no rights to a fair trial
- Torturing people and sending them to secret prisons
- Using white phosphorous on the battle field (white phosphorous is often compared to napalm because it combusts spontaneously when exposed to oxygen and can burn right through skin to the bone).

I guess we as a species are not that different from what we were when we were still animals. It is still the law of the strongest which prevails!


Posted in: _HumanRights , _USA

Peak Oil in sight

Kuwait's biggest field starts to run out of oil.

If you keep in mind that the demand is only growing, and that the production is not increasing (big old oil fields start to give less, and the new findings are dwarfs in comparison), you understand quickly that oil prices are only going up!

Do you understand the consequences of a $100 barrel? what about $200?

I strongly recommend a book called The End of Oil if you are interested about this.
I wrote a review here.


Posted in: _PeakOil

The mysteries of electronic voting

I have to say that the more I hear about the election system in the USA, the more I believe that it is deeply flawed and were I a US citizen, I would not trust anything else than a system where it is possible to recount every vote with near 100% accuracy.

A report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) strongly hints that the '04 Presidential Election could have been easily stolen, and only a handful of people would have been required to performed the work.

Here is the article reporting about that. It is very very disturbing!
At the end of the article, you will find the link to the GAO report.


And as if it was not enough, a recent vote in Ohio seems to have been tampered with as well, in a not very refined way. More about it here.
Here are the numbers, so you get the picture:

ISSUE 1 ($2 Billion State Bond initiative)
PRE-POLLING: 53% Yes, 27% No, 20% Undecided
FINAL RESULT: 54% Yes, 45% No

ISSUE 2 (Allow easier absentee balloting)
PRE-POLLING: 59% Yes, 33% No, 9% Undecided
FINAL RESULT: 36% Yes, 63% No

ISSUE 3 (Revise campaign contribution limits)
PRE-POLLING: 61% Yes, 25% No, 14% Undecided
FINAL RESULT: 33% Yes, 66% No

ISSUE 4 (Ind. Comm. to draw Congressional Districts)
PRE-POLLING: 31% Yes, 45% No, 25% Undecided
FINAL RESULT: 30% Yes, 69% No

ISSUE 5 (Ind. Board instead of Sec. of State to oversee elections)
PRE-POLLING: 41% Yes, 43% No, 16% Undecided
FINAL RESULT: 29% Yes, 70% No


This is statistically IMPOSSIBLE!


My advice to those voting with electronic machines: follow closely how to mid term '06 elections!


Posted in: _Democracy , _USA

Whose Life Is It Anyway?

Another good piece from 60 minutes...

This time it is about workers rights in the USA.
In more than 20 states, the workers have absolutely no rights, i.e. they can be fired for no reasons.

So in order to tackle health insurance costs soaring, the bosses try to get rid of the potential bad apples. Some companies refuse to hire smokers, or fire them if they don't quit. Some others make you go to the gym and follow how much weight you loose.

The problem here is not only that firms can fire at will, but also that they are getting access to very private data which could be used against the employee to discriminate him later on.

They say that 5% of the people represent 50% of the health care costs. So they don't want to have them on their payroll.

My concern with this is that you end up building a society where the difference between the haves and the have-nots is only getting bigger. There is no compassion and solidarity between people.

If the United States really wants to tackle its spiraling health care problems, it should change the way its system work, no stop insuring and healing sick people.


Posted in: _USA , _Society

How being exposed changes your life

60 minutes has a piece on Valerie Plame's exposure as a CIA agent changed her life.

They talk with other CIA agents and discuss how dangerous it is and what the ramifications are for other agents still in action.


Posted in: _USA , _Society

Is the Economy growth heading to 0% in 2006?

Here is a series of interesting articles, about the Economy in 2006.

Very dark perspectives! But there might be some truth to them...
Time will tell!

Renewable Energy: Too Little, Too Late

Things to come

Oil supplies may be lower than OPEC countries want to admit

Zero? Less than zero?

Tough Flying Conditions in the Global Economy

Added Dec, 29th '05: The end of the housing bubble


Posted in: _Economy

Freedom quotes

"Those who would give up liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety, and will lose both." - Benjamin Franklin

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." - Edmund Burke

"The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." - Herrman Goering

"To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve." - John Ashcroft

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/11/the_fbi_is_spyi.html


Posted in: _QOTD , _Society

Dreams are made of this

Why do we sleep? How does it work? Why is it essential for our sanity?

Here is more info about the matter.

The smaller (in size) you are, the more sleep you need.
And a new idea is floating around: sleep may be related to defence against oxidative stress.


Posted in: _Sciences

Docs from the Cheney Energy Task Force

The Cheney Energy Task Force did its work in the beginning of 2001 and was finished in May 2001. The documents were never released and Cheny always refused to let anybody know what they talked about, found out and decided.
After a lot of fighting, they released these few files.

It might be nothing, or it might be an interesting coincidence...


Posted in: _Geopolitics , _PeakOil

Impeachable?

A recent poll claims that 53% of the American people now support impeachment if Bush lied about the war in Iraq.
Let's see where this goes...

At the same time, other people have a another idea to get him impeached! Have a look at the image :)


Posted in: _Fun

Unrest hits Paris

What the f*ck is going on in Paris!!??

Is it a bump on the road or the sign of some deep trouble to come?
10% unemployment (even more in the suburbs) doesn't quite help the situation indeed.
And the Interior Minister seems very gifted to make things worse with carefully chosen words...

Let's hope it will just get out of steam, this time at least!

Here is more info from the Glazblog.


Posted in: _France