Your Sunday music. Enjoy
All posts by Cain
The Arctic Scramble
While the eyes of conspiracy theorists are permamently fixed on the Middle East and Central Asia as the Last Great Battleground for easy access to oil, it looks like both NATO and Russia are capable of hiring slightly more intelligent people.
At least, those intelligent enough to realize that sitting under the Arctic circle are massive oil reserves, so far claimed by no-one. And as the economic crisis continues to deepen, both are considering sending in military forces to show everyone who really owns the oil and gas hidden under the ice.
Russia is especially worried. Their much inflated and hysterically claimed resurgence only came about due to stable political leadership, ie; Putin, along with the strategic use of Russian oil and gas reserves to improve the economy and rebuild its military power. With the current economic crisis, consumption is down and oil prices have plummeted, putting Russia in a very precarious position. Economic growth is not assured and Russia’s economy has not really diversified in recent years, arms sales aside.
NATO claims that global warming means sea routes previously closed would open again, and that military forces in the region could act as a stablizing factor to ensure possible rivalries don’t get out of hand. And while this is true, we’d be fools to consider that the Russian interest in massive energy resources is not also a facor.
It is tempting to put a Cold War pun here, but I will refrain. But I do wonder how China, Japan and other rising powers (such as India) would react to renewed tension in the Arctic circle. Concentrating such a crisis away from Eastern Europe, the Far East or South Asia may have interesting repurcussions on previously stable alliances.
Keep an eye on this one. It’s going to be a slow burner.
Private equity meltdown?
Nassim Nicholas Taleb has long been a favourite of ours at PD.com, well before the current crisis had materialized. And since he has been proven remarkably right about the current crisis and how it is unfolding, its worth paying attention to him when he speaks.
Private-equity firms may follow banks into failure should U.S. stocks extend their worst rout since the Great Depression, said Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of the best- selling finance book “The Black Swan. 
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has dropped 4.7 percent this year following a 38 percent plunge in 2008 that was the worst in 71 years. Blackstone Group LP, manager of the world’s largest buyout fund, fell 78 percent since the end of 2007.
“Banks are being bailed out, and private-equity firms are going to go next,†Taleb said in an interview with Bloomberg Radio. “These people in a bull market look like geniuses. And now they don’t look that intelligent, and it’s going to get a lot worse for them. If the S&P goes down 20 percent from here, what will happen to private equity firms? They’re all under water.â€
Layman’s terms. You know all those venture capitalist companies with tons of money to throw at possibly profitable projects? These are those guys. And private equity was a boom market in the early 2000s, which is why, as Taleb says, these guys looked like geniuses. Unfortunately, much of this boom was created by loose lending standards. Now, why does that sound familiar…?
Private equity funds are raised by people with money to put them in the specific funds. And, as we’ve noticed, the banks are not lending right now. So unless you have the money to hand, cash for these firms and their managed funds is not immediately apparent.
The upshot of this is that there is going to be another round of bailouts, probably every bit as expensive as the banks. Possibly slightly more helpful, in that such venture capital firms actually do invest and thus help create jobs. But so long as the banks refuse to lend, this is a temporary solution at best.
Don’t piss off flight attendants
Or, alternately, everyone at once should piss off flight attendants. Thanks to Cory Doctorow, I found this very interesting article at Daily Kos, which just illustrates perfectly how laws intended for use against dangerous criminals invariably end up being used to discipline and punish those who fail to show enough fealty to the status quo.
The lesson to take from this? If you’re going to try and annoy flight staff, do it in such a way that you cannot be personally blamed for it. Anonymity is the key. There is no use getting needlessly put on such a list, and thus drawing more attention to yourself from unfriendly agencies, but equally you shouldn’t take this shit sitting down. As it were.
Cain’s introduction
Most of you know me, so this is probably unnecessary. But for those of you who do not, or for those who chance upon this place, this will be a little introduction.
Obviously, my internet pseudonym is Cain. I’m one of the administrators of the PD forums, purely due to cronyism and the general admin of this blog. At least, the actual blogging part, since I have no experience with things like servers and domains and all that business.
I’m 23 (don’t start now) and a postgrad in the UK. Currently unemployed, but I’ll take whatever is going, especially if its a writing gig. Anyway, my little personal area on this blog will be dealing with politics, warfare and economics. Unsurprising, for those who know me. I’ve got some experience in the political sciences, but on top of that, I take a genuine interest in what is going on around me, and I think that is what really counts. I am a politics junkie. I usually only pay minimal attention to the headlines however. Much of what is really happening is implied, or obscured by personality-based reporting. As such, I prefer to delve behind the headlines and pay attention to what power-brokers are actually doing, who benefits from their actions and the web of relationships and enemies that comprise the political world. I also take a personal interest in military theory and the changing nature of warfare. And of course, with the current situation, at least some grip on economics is desirable.
My section will be called “Tactical Polyvalence” (see the categories at the top of the entry), mainly as a homage to Foucault’s ideas on power. In that, I hope to draw attention to less reported on stories, detail corruption and influence peddling in high places and document methods of conflict and violence being considered by the powers that be. I’ll also probably take the occasional snide swipe at some political bloggers or “journalists”, but I promise to try and keep that to a minimum.
Verwirrung 2.0
For those of you who read Warren Ellis’ excellent blog, you may be aware that today is meant to be the fifth Annual Rabbit Hole Day, in celebration of the birthday of Lewis Carroll.
However, we are not doing that. Not as such. Instead, we have decided to launch our revamped blog. Myself and Cramulus threw some ideas around while drunk a few weeks back, and this was essentially the result. We want Verwirrung to be more than just a blog for the Principia Discordia community. We want the blog to be a place where we can network, link, confer and argue with people, as part of our drive to improve and understand the crazy world around us.
So, first off, our blogging is going to increase. By a lot. Secondly, our writers are each going to concentrate on a particular sphere of interest, in addition to using the blog to write about whatever they feel. So, for example, we will have writers here concentrating on the Law of Fives and how the brain works, on the art of pranking and operation mindfuck, some idiot dealing with politics and warfare, a guy investigating online subcultures, someone keeping a close eye on the world of religion, someone who can help you prepare for any situation, a guy interested in how maps do not correspond to reality, a biology expert and much, much more.
Secondly, we want our blog to be more of a community. We want to break into the blogosphere, have people reading us and agreeing or disagreeing, but in short to have a lot more in the way of connectivity with the rest of the world.
Our focus is going to be on the near future, in all our fields. What will happen 20 minutes in the future. We want to equip you with knowledge you will find useful, and hopefully you can equip us in return. I don’t need to tell anyone here that rough times have started, and this is probably the first recession of the internet age. Lets see what we can do with this incredible tool, while the power is still on.
And most of all, we want to have a good time. I’ll let each of the writers introduce themselves individually. Bye for now.
I coulda cleaned up on this…if I had any money to bet
Iceland’s coalition government just fell into squabbling over…well, pretty much everything, it seems, but mostly whose economic policy sucks more and who should really run the country.
That sounds so familiar.
Anyway, yes. This has been in the works for a while now. The collapse of the Icelandic government should come as no surprise. When 10% of your GDP gets wiped off, people get pissed. There is a lesson in that, I think.
Keep an eye on the Baltic states and Hungary too. Oh, and Italy. The Italian government is pretty brutal, for a democracy, but all that means is that people are going to be even more pissed off and violent when they finally decide to act.
Online virtual bank run
Now, this is fascinating. No, I’m being earnest here. I’ve always thought virtual words and games, like Second Life, to name a famous example, are not very noteworthy in and of themselves, but for the purposes of economics, wonderful. Implenting crazy economic theories in real life, is, of course, somewhat dubious, ethically (has anyone told Milton Friedman or Vladimir Lenin this), but online, you can study the cause and effect of changes to a macro-economic system. It turns economics into a far more testable subject. This may also be the case for other social sciences, especially political science, although I haven’t seen that pursued so far.
Anyway, the point of this is that in the massive world of Eve Online, a banker has vanished with 86 billion, causing a run on the banks.
Hat tip to Alex Tabarrok of Marginal Revolution
The new face of radicalism: flash picnics
No, I’m not making this up.
In exactly a week’s time, in a supermarket somewhere in or around Paris, a couple of dozen young French activists are going to choose an aisle, unfold tables, put on some music and, taking what they want from the shelves, start a little picnic. The group “L’Appel et la Pioche” (The call and the pick axe) will have struck again – fruit and veg, dairy or the fish counter will have been transformed into a flash protest against global capitalism, rampant consumerism, bank bail-outs, poor housing, expensive food, profit margins and pretty much everything else that is wrong in the world.
The “supermarket picnic” will go on for as long as it can – before the security guards throw the activists out or the police arrive. Shoppers will be invited to join in, either bringing what they want from the shelves or just taking something lifted lightly from among the crisps, sweets or quality fruit already on the tables.
“L’Appel et la Pioche” have struck four times so far and have no intention of stopping what they claim is a highly effective new way of protesting.
“Everyone is bored of demonstrations. And handing out tracts at 6am at a market is neither effective nor fun,” said Leïla Chaïbi, 26, the leader of the group. “This is fun, festive, non-threatening and attracts the media. It’s the perfect way of getting our message across.”
Linked to a new left-wing political party committed to a renewal of politics and activism, Chaïbi’s group represents more than just a radical fringe and has been gaining nationwide attention.
Death from above just got a whole lot more silent
Via grinding.be
Georgia-based researchers have announced plans to eliminate one of the last remaining weaknesses of the deadly robotic aerial kill flotillas now poised to end humanity’s dominance over planet Earth. The airborne machine spies and automated assassins are now to receive whisper mode, and prowl the skies in eerie silence.
But I’m sure this technology will never fall into the wrong hands or be abused.