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Inversion of Values

Inversion of Values was originally published on Graham Campbell

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Crypto and the Future - As I see it.

For me – The interesting part is where the banks fit in. A mate advises JPMorgan and others. We got talking as he is ex IBM with 50 years service. Setting the scene, not bragging.

Keith has solved the time delay in video / audio communications. You know where they cross to the reporter and there is a time lag?

So – video ATM’s (which he invented with this technology) will replace most bank activities and many branches. (on a side note, another mate has invented software for a ‘person-less’ petrol station that is already in action very successfully in small communities. Think petrol ATM)

I reckon banks will offer franchises to avoid the costs. NZ and Australia both use Post Offices for a lot of things like bill paying already. Mortgages are already handled by mobile managers. So why keep expensive premises? (Smart move would be to bundle all banks under one roof – like shops sell different brands).

. The banks still use XP for ATM machines and OS2Warp in places. . They can’t upgrade because everything is interlinked and they can’t close to test. . Too complicated to replicate and create a test version. . SWIFT is used by every bank in the World to move money (China and Russia have a ‘spare’ version of their own – just in case) . In may 2016 and 2017, the SWIFT system got hacked for 171m and 81m (They came ‘this close’ to succeeding) . The heists were not an isolated incident, said SWIFT . Dec 12, 2016 – “Banks using the SWIFT network, which include both central banks and commercial banks, have been hit with a “meaningful” number of attacks – about a fifth of them resulting in stolen funds” – SWIFT statement. . Hackers are winning 20% of the time – SO FAR, and getting better.

So………..The banks are going to lose to hackers within a few years (Maybe this year – Causing the Black Swan event that crashes the market booms in everything caused by low interest rates they can’t raise for fear of defaults).

‘We’ are in a worse position than when the GFC hit. Banks know Govt will bail them out. Govt. knows it can’t – Stalemate. That’s why we have bail-in laws now, so YOU are GUARANTEED to lose 50% when it goes boom.

So – Crypto is the answer – but it is getting hacked too. The Govt. can’t figure out how to grab it’s share and the banks can’t figure out how to take a % on the way through.

Think of the logistics – Buy a loaf of bread with Ethereum, get dogecoin and ripple for change?

‘Money’ needs to be : – A store of value – A medium of exchange – A unit of account.

Crypto fails on some of those grounds and the volatility works against it becoming ‘Money’ for the time being. Not to mention getting society and large organisations to change (and how? – How do you rework MYOB to handle 1400 cryptocoin types? How do you deploy those new versions worldwide when some places take some coins and not others? Did we mention one wallet per coin? (1400 wallets per business) How do you rework the welfare system or the Forex markets if you remove ‘Money’ as we know it?). Just the introduction of GST caused massive work for many businesses. I printed millions upon millions of stickers for repricing goods in 360+ stores. The programmers toiled months to ‘add-in’ another tax to the accounting system (tax on buy, refunded, then repaid on sale)

Interesting times ahead.

Crypto and the Future – As I see it. was originally published on Graham Campbell

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Racism

  The people who see the hoodie and think that’s racist are the real racists because only if you associate monkey with black person, does it gets racist. All the hoodie does is show your inner judgements (black person = monkey) and hold it right in front of you, then people get offended because they realise, that is they who are racist. To prevent that feeling, they fight the messenger not the actual racist.

Racism was originally published on Graham Campbell

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The Intolerant Tolerance Police

On their mission to purge the world of thoughts and opinions that don’t slot neatly into their moral agenda and worldview, the increasingly intolerant tolerance police have done some severe damage along the way.

We are frequently bombarded with headlines and hand-wringing over meaningless controversies ignited by people who, I’m convinced, wake up in the morning desperate to find the next focus for their endless capacity for moral outrage. For the most part, these so-called scandals are initiated by those who identify themselves as liberals — and the lines of battle are drawn around issues of race, gender, sexual orientation etc.

Our hyper-sensitive social media culture lends itself perfectly to these kinds of non-controversies, where something as simple as a badly worded tweet can, within minutes, direct a storm of abuse and online bullying toward an individual. The end result can range from a person being forced to issue a public apology for their opinion, to losing their job — or even taking their own life.

The examples are numerous, but one recent case stands out.

View image on Twitter

In December, porn star August Ames committed suicide following a tweet expressing her preference not to shoot scenes with an actor who had previously done gay porn. The tweet sparked an onslaught of abuse against Ames who attempted to defend herself against accusations of homophobia, but it was too late. The modern judges of moral acceptability had already made up their minds. Ames deserved to be trashed endlessly online for her unacceptable lapse in moral judgement. One gay porn actor, Jaxton Wheeler, told Ames to apologize or “swallow a cyanide pill” — as if her personal preference was so heinous that she deserved to die for it. Days later she was found dead. The cause of her death was asphyxiation due to hanging.

This is the totalitarianism and petty tyranny of the liberal tolerance doctrine at work. It is not enough to have your opinion and let others have theirs. No, no. We must all share the same exact moral standards and worship the same ideals — or perhaps we deserve to die. At the very least, those who stray deserve to face an avalanche of public abuse before repenting and falling in line.

Ames’ suicide is one of the more shocking stories, but there are countless examples of these moral ‘controversies’.

When actress Lili Reinhart posted a picture of a woman in a Halloween costume — painted head-to-toe in black paint to resemble a mythical demon — she was immediately accused by other Twitter users of being racially insensitive, making fun of black people and of not seeing the ‘racist implications’ of the costume. Of course, Reinhart apologized and deleted the tweet — because that’s the only recourse following such an apparently massive indiscretion.

Read more

Just say sorry: MPs in Westminster sex scandal need ‘only to apologize’

Perhaps one of these uber-enlightened individuals should release a rulebook for everyone else to follow. After all, it’s a minefield out there. So, I nominate the author of a blog post which warned parents of young girls not to allow them to dress up as Disney’s Moana princess for Halloween because it risks “making fun of” Polynesian culture. One can easily imagine the same blogger writing an article complaining that it was ‘racist’ if white girls didn’t want to dress up as Moana. But don’t be fooled into thinking it’s okay for white girls to dress up as white characters, either. Later in the post, the blogger warns that girls dressing up as Elsa from Frozen risks promoting white beauty, which is also highly problematic, apparently.

The internet is littered with these petty controversies.

When Vanity Fair recently poked fun at Hillary Clinton’s long career in politics with a video that advised her to get a new hobby in the new year, like “knitting” or “improv comedy”, it prompted yet another meltdown from the tolerance crew. You can’t tell a woman to take up knitting, they roared, that’s sexist! Or maybe…it’s just a joke? But don’t be silly, jokes aren’t allowed anymore. Never mind that it was a woman who made the comments about Clinton in the light-hearted video.

A couple of years back, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston was forced to cancel an event during which visitors to the museum would be allowed try on a kimono. One outraged group of individuals started a website called Stand Against Yellowface to fight the terrible injustice perpetrated by the Boston museum. But guess who didn’t care? Japanese people. An official from the Japanese consulate in Boston commented: “We actually do not quite understand what their point of protest is.”

Or how about this gem? A janitor at an Indiana university was accused of “racial harassment” for the crime of reading a historical book about the Ku Klux Klan on his lunch break. The book in question was Notre Dame vs. the Klan: How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Ku Klux Klan. Keith John Sampson, the 58 year-old janitor, who was also a student at the university, tried to explain that it was a history book, but that wasn’t good enough for the school’s affirmative action officer, who told Sampson that “his conduct constituted racial harassment” and that he had exhibited “extremely poor judgement” by reading it out in the open. You see, you must educate yourself about the history of slavery in the United States, but you can’t do it in public, because that could be offensive! Are you confused yet?

Read more

‘I’d receive 200 messages threatening rape every day’: Online abuse of women laid bare in new report

In another pathetic non-controversy, Wellesley College students started an online petition to have a statue of a sleepwalking man in underwear removed from their campus. The statue was part of an art exhibition. Within hours of its placement, the petition read, the sculpture had become “a source of undue stress” which caused “apprehension, fear, and triggering thoughts” for students who had experienced sexual harassment at the hands of men — although presumably not at the hands of scantily clad art installations.

Then there’s this guy, who thinks climate change deniers should be arrested. Or this guy, who thinks classic literature like The Great Gatsby or Mrs Dalloway should be marked with “trigger warnings” lest any fragile-minded student come across a passage which might upset their sensibilities. Professors should also “warn” their students, he says, about which passages in a novel may possess “triggering material” and which passages are “safer to read”.

Back in the real world, the average person will read a book’s blurb, decide if it sounds appealing to them, dig in, and then, if they happen to get offended somewhere along the way, they stop reading. It’s a simple process which doesn’t require trigger warnings or the implementation of new reading methods.

The potential for any comment to erupt into a firestorm of controversy is so worrying to today’s authors that hiring “sensitivity readers” in advance of publication has become commonplace. A sensitivity reader provides “feedback on issues like race, religion, gender, sexuality, chronic illness and physical disabilities”. Critics of sensitivity reading say that it could lead to “sanitized books that tiptoe around difficult topics”. It’s not hard to see how that could happen.

The tolerance police are afraid of the very concepts which they claim to hold so dear — like freedom of speech, choice and democracy itself. It doesn’t matter to them what anyone else feels or believes. Only their version of reality counts and only their moral compass is the correct one.

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Teen girl’s ‘sexting’ prosecuted as felony child porn, ACLU fights charges

I recently came across a phrase I had somehow missed until now: No-platforming. It is the practice of banning certain groups from even taking part in a debate if certain cohorts find their views to be offensive. Take, for example, the fact that pro-life women were excluded from the Women’s March in Washington, D.C., last year because their particular views on one issue didn’t line up with the majority.

You’ll have noticed by now, that the running theme in all of these stories is not tolerance, but intolerance. This overly politically correct culture of ours is churning out young adults who have been cocooned and coddled in safe spaces, who have had literature fed to them with trigger warnings, who can’t handle moral or political disagreements without throwing hissy fits, who are more comfortable organizing protests against free speech than fighting for it and who have no idea how to live and let live. They’ve been taught that their right to be offended and have the world fall in line trumps everyone else’s right to speak or to hold an opinion.

It’s no wonder that something as simple as a Halloween costume or a sculpture can send them into meltdown mode. The irony is, while the tolerance police are alienating well-meaning people by going after janitors for reading history books, protesting statues and campaigning for trigger warnings on books, the genuinely mean-spirited, overtly homophobic and racist people aren’t getting any nicer.

It’s almost like this over-the-top, aggressive implementation of the tolerance doctrine isn’t really making the world a more tolerant place at all.

The Intolerant Tolerance Police was originally published on Graham Campbell

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| Jam88.com

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Are malls closing because retailers chose to sell online, or because consumers rather shop online? Or is it more complicated than that?

  The mall experience has become too generic and the overheads imposed on small retailers has stifled innovation. The big chain stores get a better rental price, and sell high margin jewellery and women’s fashion, so it works for them.

For boutique or small businesses, the mall’s charges mean the business owner is working for less than wages and assuming all the risk. Some mall owners deliberately push business to go broke by demanding upgrades in year 2 of a 3 year lease. Owner goes broke, mall bankrupts them and re-lets the place. Thus getting three 3-year term leases over a 3 year period. Adds nicely to the profit.

Customers are getting sick of the sameness, so malls are adding new ‘attractions’ to promote shopping there. No new malls have been built in the USA since 1985 (? from memory).

With people spending so much of their life on social media and mobile devices, I think that online shopping will replace malls. The ‘touch and feel’ of shopping will be lost by shoppers, but we are all so time poor that the shopping activity needs to be almost as instant as ordering a pizza.

Therefore, malls will likely evolve into recreational activities – with related shopping or upsells (“Get a video for only $x extra” – “Tell your friends for a discount” etc.).

Quora :

Are malls closing because retailers chose to sell online, or because consumers rather shop online? Or is it more complicated than that?

Are malls closing because retailers chose to sell online, or because consumers rather shop online? Or is it more complicated than that? was originally published on Graham Campbell

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New Money

Whilst India and many other countries are removing or banning large denomination banknotes on the pretext of preventing crime and money laundering, Russia has embraced new money in the form of a  2000 rouble note. Of course, the action of removing high value notes or introducing ‘New money’ is not to combat tax evasion, but to set the scene for a new electronic bitcoin style currency the Governments can control to ensure they can tax to the max and perform bank and Government bail ins with no resistance or evasion. Russia seems to have set a new, optimistic trend where life is ‘Normal’ and oil is traded in Roubles or Yuan. Watch the last gasp of the western economies as Russia and China take over from the war reliant economies of the UK and USA (and others) as they introduce ‘New Money’ to replace the old.

Russian Central Bank head sings to promote new 2,000 rouble notes

© Банк России / YouTube

The new Russian 2,000 rouble note elicits spontaneous singing, a viral promotional video by Russia’s Central Bank claims, and even its head, Elvira Nabiullina, is getting in on the act.

In the video, a reporter is uses the new bill to buy an ice cream in a large mall. As soon as she hands over the banknote, the saleswoman and other shoppers around her break into a rendition of the famous ’90s Russian rock anthem, “Vladivostok 2000.” The song by Mumiy Troll was written in anticipation of the millennium.

At some point during the video, Central Bank head Nabiulina appears among the numerous singers swapping each other rapidly on screen. The clip has been watched by over half a million people in the two days since its release.

The new 2,000 and 200 rouble notes were introduced in Russia in mid-October and are now being put into circulation. The 200 rouble bills – featuring the landmarks of Crimea – is what the reporter receives as change after getting her ice cream.

Original article here…

New Money was originally published on Graham Campbell

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Latest - Coming soon

I have been out of action for 5 months, so a lot of catching up to do and tales to tell.

Latest – Coming soon was originally published on Life, the Universe and Everything

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Privacy gone wrong

In the wake of the latest London terror attack, the politicians are calling for an end to end encryption of WhatsApp :

‘No place to hide’: UK Home Secretary urges end to WhatsApp encryption after London attack

Problem is, that as part of the 5 eyes alliance :

Wikileaks Vault7 files: iPhone, Android and even WhatsApp messages ‘can be hacked by CIA’

The UK already have access to WhatsApp messages in real time. IF encryption was really hampering investigations, then explain how the UK Police stated :

“The phone in contact with Masood has been linked to a flat located above a curry house in Hagley Road, Birmingham, according to the Daily Mail. Hours after the attack, police arrested two suspects, a woman, 21, and a man, 23, on suspicion of involvement in the attack. In total, eleven people were arrested after the attack, but eight were later released without charge.”

Just does not add up does it? No need for a high IQ to understand that this is just another PR stunt to justify ever increasing surveillance.

Now, this ‘Anti terror’ excuse sounds all good and plausible, even reassuring, trouble is, it’s so far from the truth. The real problem comes from deliberate or accidental mis-use of the  information obtained.

A Government employee researched a company name on a website that claims to have a worldwide database of businesses and owners. Employee thinks they are a smart researcher uncovering hidden assets and puts the results forward as proof the visa applicant is of bad character and needs to be evicted from the country asap. Over 1 year later, I am still waiting on the verdict and unable to work without a visa. One year of life and income lost.

Problem:  The website is scraped from public records that are 9 years out of date. The website is owned by someone other than the listed fake owner. The fake owner owns 4 more websites such as : Getcashquick.com and one that Google refuses to list as it spreads malware, etc. (I recently found another similar site, equally outdated)

Had the lazy employee bothered to cross check with the Government’s own company and director database, guess what?  The company was de-listed shortly after that scape and has been re registered with a new owner for the last 6+ years.

Governments employ lazy idiots to use these systems, not high IQ people with commonsense and the brains to double check before launching the nuclear missile.There is no supervision or cross checking. Managers are too ignorant of their responsibilities and too lazy to perform meaningful work. They await pension day and the plastic gold watch from China before skulking off to the bowling club having dodged any actual work for the last 10 years.

So, the mis-use of data is the real concern, not terrorism. George Orwell’s 1984, albeit some 30 years late.

Want another example?

One Government employee tells another a fake story (Because they added one and one and got eleven. When leaving the room with egg all over the visage, they swore revenge). So, the vengeful Policeman tells a story to a pliable and ignorant employee. The employee feels like they are onto something really special that might get them a payrise and recognition from their boss and peers.

The ingrained laziness ensures they check nothing and head off around the office like the proverbial bull in a china shop. (Not actually true, but I can’t avoid the cliche) spreading the ‘secret’ information.

OOPS – Got it wrong, all actual evidence shows the story to be fake.

Now what? – 4 years have gone by as the employee has tried all sorts of stunts to cover their tracks. Like a doctor burying their mistakes, the employee hopes that various threats and pressures will cause the victim to run away, letting them escape culpability.

Problem? – I have it all in writing, ready to pull them down and award 10 year prison sentences to them both.

and THAT is why this surveillance and bulk meta data collection is a hazard to ordinary, decent living people. Bored, lazy Government workers with vivid imaginations, no commonsense and no brains running amok, causing disaster and harm with no oversight and no checks and balances.

Keep off the radar! 🙂

Privacy gone wrong was originally published on Life, the Universe and Everything

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Gary Webb

Gary Webb was originally published on Life, the Universe and Everything

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Art

Your browser does not support the video tag or the file format of this video.

Art was originally published on Life, the Universe and Everything

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The Pension Scam

Saw an article I now can’t find (of course) about pensions.

The general talk is how we must contribute all our lives in order to get a pension.

The fact is, that, like hospitals, pensions are a revolving obligation. We fund hospitals from taxes (Some of which the Government should keep to build the next one (Remember ‘Saving up’?) and some of the taxes go to fund the day to day operation of the hospital. You don’t need to ‘save up’ for a heart attack do you?

Hospitals are funded on the understanding that they are there all the time, for all of the people.

Same as pensions.

The Government has known for 50 plus years that the ‘Boomers’ will be retiring. No surprise heart attack in that. The Government continuously takes taxes to pay for this retirement on the same basis as funding hospitals. People live, retire and die.

The problem is that the politicians have spent beyond their means and there has been no ‘Saving up’. All income has been spent and then more on the credit card of Government bonds.

So, the con job in the media starts – “Save up for your retirement”,”No pension for millennials” etc.

Hang on – the younger section of the workforce are paying their taxes. They expect hospitals and pensions ready and waiting when required. The taxes come in, doctor’s wages and pensions go out. Revolving door.

Government is now trying to lay the dishonest story that it is ‘Your’ savings paying for ‘Your’ retirement and that YOU need to accept there will be no pension when you retire (Because they have already spent it). So why are you paying for a pension you will not get?

As with most things – The Government is scamming you and the media are duly lapping up the BS and reprinting it.

When Millennials retire, there will be a workforce paying taxes to fund hospitals and pensions.

The Pension Scam was originally published on Life, the Universe and Everything

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Conspiracy Theory

Conspiracy Theory was originally published on Life, the Universe and Everything

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J is For Junk Economics

J is For Junk Economics : A Guide to Reality in an Age of Deception

By Michael Hudson

March 10, 2017 “Information Clearing House” –  ” Michael Hudson, author of the newly released J is for Junk Economics, says the media and academia use well-crafted euphemisms to conceal how the economy really works.

Transcript

Part 2

TheRealNews on Feb 28, 2017

Trump’s infrastructure plan will privatize all the benefits for the financiers and make sure that the population at large gets zero benefit from it while paying the costs, says economist Michael Hudson.

Transcript

Part 3

TheRealNews on Mar 2, 2017

Trump is planning to turn the U.S. economy into a Russian-style kleptocracy, says economist Michael Hudson.

Transcript

Part 4

TheRealNews on Mar 2, 2017

Economist Michael Hudson takes on the mythology surrounding government budgets and explains how the term ‘stability’ has been used as a cover for financial fraud.

Transcript

Part 5

TheRealNews on Mar 4, 2017

Economist Michael Hudson explains why social security does not need to be ‘pre-funded’ by its beneficiaries

Transcript

Michael Hudson is President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City and author of J is for Junk Economics (2017), Killing the Host (2015), The Bubble and Beyond (2012), Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire (1968 & 2003), Trade, Development and Foreign Debt: A History of Theories of Polarization v. Convergence in the World Economy (1992 & 2009) and of The Myth of Aid (1971), amongst many others.  He can be reached via his website, [email protected].

J is For Junk Economics was originally published on Life, the Universe and Everything

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Climate changer

Climate changer was originally published on Life, the Universe and Everything

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The Cult

The Cult was originally published on Life, the Universe and Everything

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Hackers and the future

In response to a question about the geography of hacking, I wrote :

  Ukraine specialises in PhP programming, has lax laws and a population hungry to earn.

Russians specialise in servers. Look on freelancer websites to determine specialities.

China has a lot of cheap labour, Triads and a lot of black market economy money and makes the items for sale.

Personally, I think this is the new reality because Brexit, Middle East conflict etc. leaves a huge population who are anti ‘rules’ and keen to do anything to make money. For example – the Somali pirates a few years ago was a symptom of the USA/UK/Germany dumping medical and radioactive waste in their fishing waters, killing their food source. So piracy syndicates earned money to ‘compensate’. You can’t expect people to just sit there and take it. Given the ease, anonymity and low risk of computing based ‘revenge’ (Versus bank robbery) I am sure you can foretell the future.

The one I worry about is the Swift banking system. Parts run on OS2 and the ATM’s on XP.Can’t update because of risk and can’t run a trial version to test, so the banks sit in fear. Only a spelling mistake saved them from a multi billion loss in India last year. How long before the hackers succeed?

Hackers and the future was originally published on Life, the Universe and Everything