Update Re- "Derivatives for Dummies" (What Every Legislator Should Know About How to Fix Our Economy, but Doesn't)

Remember my posts in May, 2009 (here and here) on "Derivatives for Dummies"?

Well, they're still relevant, because we still haven't done anything about regulating the derivatives that were the source of the biggest loss to our economy (no, it wasn't bad mortgages!) – so the problem has only gotten worse since 2008.

Charles Hugh Smith's oftwominds has an updated discussion, with a description of the current state of the looming, derivatives-driven disaster: "[a]ccording to the Bank of International Settlements, as of June, 2011 total over-the-counter derivatives contracts have an outstanding notional value of 707.57 trillion dollars, (32.4 trillion dollars in CDS’s alone). Where does this kind of money come from, and what does it refer to? We don’t really know, because over-the-counter derivatives are [still] not transparent or regulated." [Emphasis supplied.]

If you don't know what I'm talking about, read my original posts (links at the top of this post). I don't think I've seen a simpler explanation, and it's not nearly as hard to understand as they try to make it seem.

As the hippies used to say, "where the people lead, the leaders will follow."

Re- the US Presidential Campaign Debates

WASHINGTON, DC —"The League of Women Voters is withdrawing its sponsorship of the presidential debate . . . because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter," League President Nancy M. Neuman said today.

"It has become clear to us that the candidates' organizations aim to add debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity and honest answers to tough questions," Neuman said. "The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public."

From a press release dated October 3, 1988.

Why "Getting Back to Normal" is Not an Option

Great article by Sara Robinson at Alternet, summarizing three important kinds of shift we may now face:

1. Per Joseph Stiglitz, we should stop waiting for the economy to "get back to normal"; it ain't gonna happen, because we face a once-in-a-lifetime shift in the basis for wealth creation, from a system based on manufacturing to one based on information. We have too many manufacturing workers and too few information workers. "Austerity and debt reduction will get us nowhere"; "[t]he current economic crisis is doomed to last exactly as long as we put off building [the workforce] necessary to the new information economy."


2. Per Thomas Homer-Dixon, empires rise and fall based on their control of the dominant energy supply, and the US also faces a shift from oil to renewables. He adduces evidence that no empire has ever survived such a shift, because "the reigning hegemons are always too deeply invested in the current system to recognize the change, let alone repond to it in time."
   
   
3. Per Gar Alperovitz, Jeffery Sachs, and Umair Haque, the real shift relates to the nature of our capitalist system. Haque identifies two kinds of good: those having "thin" value, typified by Big Macs, Hummers, and McMansions, tend to be artificial, unsustainable, and meaningless to anyone but the people who produce and consume them. Those having "thick" value tend to be sustainable and to have potential effects or uses that are moral or that multiply meaningfulness.
   
   Alperovitz points toward the growth in worker- or consumer-owned cooperative businesses and co-ops which, if continued, could result in a massive redistribution of labor and wealth. "America’s 30,000 cooperatives provide over 2 million jobs [, and t]he UN has declared 2012 to be the Year of the Co-Op, in recognition of the fact that nearly half the world’s population now belongs to cooperatives."

The sooner we let go of our assumption that going back to the way things were is desirable or even possible, the more we'll be able to help create the new world that's now arising.

Rebecca Mackinnon: Consent of the Networked

If you don't read her book, at least watch this:

(Another irresistible re-blog from Boing Boing).

Support Christian Porn

"Filmed procreation. Porn the way God intended."

Seriously, this is not to be missed. Not only is there a t-shirt shop, but there's a contact email for free clips and trailers, and more!

(Thanks, Ben!)

The Logic of Nonviolence

"Erica Chenoweth has developed a dataset and analyzed the historical record. Below the fold are slides summarizing the results of her study of 323
 non-violent and violent campaigns 
from
 1900‐2006." Lots more at naked capitalism.

(In other words,

Hatred never ceases by hatred;
But by love alone is healed.
This is an ancient and eternal law.

Dhammapada, Ch. 1, the Twin Verses 5, as quoted by Maha Ghosananda.)

Kissmission

Via Oddity Central (thanks Ben!)

Sources on Occupy, Assange

F.w.i.w., based on admittedly hurriedly searches, the best source I've found on the ongoing hearing in the UK Supreme Court on Assange's proposed extradition to Sweden for questioning is The Guardian's blog on Assange; and a good source on ongoing Occupy activity, aside from Tim Poole's livestream coverage, is Greg Mitchell at The Nation.

UPDATE: Apparently the core of Assange's appeal at this point is the argument that the person who issued the warrant for his extradition is not a genuine "judicial official," as required by the European applicable treaty – since the person who issued it was not a judge or other member of the judiciary, but the prosecutor in the case (which is sufficient under Swedish law but not under British law, and it's unclear whether it suffices under the treaty). (Assange recently gave a great summary of the case from his point of view, as well as his current situation, in his interview in Rolling Stone, by the way.) No decision is expected on Assange's appeal for at least a few weeks.