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News Stories Which Highlight the Structure of the System

Started by Telarus, February 16, 2012, 01:06:06 PM

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Telarus

Telarus, KSC,
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Junkenstein

Quote from: Telarus on January 02, 2014, 06:28:52 PM
http://complex.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/12/31/transvestites_erotic_massages_and_metadata_dea_s_colombia_scandal_deepens

Excellent find. I started pulling off a few quotes but then realised I'm pasting practically the entire article.

For me, what's surprising isn't that these things have occured, but the ineptness in which they always occur. It's not hard - Don't look at porn on the company laptop. Don't order hookers from the work phone. Sticking to rule #1 should not be difficult for these people, tet for some reason it always is.

Nine naked Men just walking down the road will cause a heap of trouble for all concerned.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/25/technology-middle-class-jobs-policy

QuoteA widely held view in elite circles is that the rapid rise in inequality in the United States over the last three decades is an unfortunate side-effect of technological progress. In this story, technology has had the effect of eliminating tens of millions of middle wage jobs for factory workers, bookkeepers, and similar occupations.

These were jobs where people with limited education used to be able to raise a family with a middle class standard of living. However computers, robots and other technological innovations are rapidly reducing the need for such work. As a result, the remaining jobs in these sectors are likely to pay less and many people who would have otherwise worked at middle wage jobs must instead crowd into the lower paying sectors of the labor market.

This story is comforting to elites, because it means that inequality is something that happened, not something they did. They won out because they had the skills and intelligence to succeed in a dynamic economy, whereas the huge mass of workers that are falling behind did not. In this story, the best we can do for those left behind is empathy and education. We can increase opportunities to upgrade their skills in the hope that more of them may be able to join the winners.

That's a nice story, but the evidence doesn't support it. My colleagues Larry Mishel, John Schmitt, and Heidi Sheirholz, just published a paper showing that the pattern of job growth in the data doesn't fit this picture at all. This paper touches on a wide variety of issues related to technology and wage inequality, but first and foremost, it shows that the story of the hollowing out of the middle does not fit the data for the 2000s at all.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


minuspace

Quote from: Nigel's Red Velveteen Skinmeat Snacks on January 05, 2014, 05:04:52 AM
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/25/technology-middle-class-jobs-policy

QuoteA widely held view in elite circles is that the rapid rise in inequality in the United States over the last three decades is an unfortunate side-effect of technological progress. In this story, technology has had the effect of eliminating tens of millions of middle wage jobs for factory workers, bookkeepers, and similar occupations.

These were jobs where people with limited education used to be able to raise a family with a middle class standard of living. However computers, robots and other technological innovations are rapidly reducing the need for such work. As a result, the remaining jobs in these sectors are likely to pay less and many people who would have otherwise worked at middle wage jobs must instead crowd into the lower paying sectors of the labor market.

This story is comforting to elites, because it means that inequality is something that happened, not something they did. They won out because they had the skills and intelligence to succeed in a dynamic economy, whereas the huge mass of workers that are falling behind did not. In this story, the best we can do for those left behind is empathy and education. We can increase opportunities to upgrade their skills in the hope that more of them may be able to join the winners.

That's a nice story, but the evidence doesn't support it. My colleagues Larry Mishel, John Schmitt, and Heidi Sheirholz, just published a paper showing that the pattern of job growth in the data doesn't fit this picture at all. This paper touches on a wide variety of issues related to technology and wage inequality, but first and foremost, it shows that the story of the hollowing out of the middle does not fit the data for the 2000s at all.

Without the middle, the few are more than the many.  Primitive mechanics stipulated that the advantage provided by leverage required a center upon which to turn.  Now, with the advent of computers, all we need to do the work is ones and zeros

LMNO


minuspace


The Good Reverend Roger

" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

minuspace

Pills recreate optimal levels of brain plasticity - changing our noodle structure so we can learn things quickly and effortlessly like children again (just dont let yourself be fooled, this time):
http://www.npr.org/2014/01/04/259552442/want-perfect-pitch-you-could-pop-a-pill-for-that

Telarus

There are a few people on FB claiming that this drug kills your liver (overdose regime unspecified).

This, this is COOL.
Telarus, KSC,
.__.  Keeper of the Contradictory Cephalopod, Zenarchist Swordsman,
(0o)  Tender to the Edible Zen Garden, Ratcheting Metallic Sex Doll of The End Times,
/||\   Episkopos of the Amorphous Dreams Cabal

Join the Doll Underground! Experience the Phantasmagorical Safari!

Cain

The FBI has officially changed its factsheet to reflect it is a federally funded national security agency first, and not a crime investigation agency, as it previously claimed.

Cue wailing and gnashing of teeth from ahistorical liberals, who don't remember the FBI was denying the Mafia even existed, while infiltrating every chapter of the Communist Party.

The only difference is now they don't need to pretend any more.

Cain

For example, here is a quote from a Yale law professor in 1971:

Quote"The inescapable message of much of the material wehave covered is that the FBI jeopardizes the whole system of freedom of expression which is the cornerstone of an open society . . . At worst it raises the specter of a police state . . . in essence the FBI conceives of itself as an instrument to prevent radical social change in America . . . the Bureau's view of its function leads it beyond data collection and into political warfare."

Junkenstein

#461
There's no chance that this change in remit is to open them up to new funding streams? It's not like there's a good bit of mystery in FBI funds anyway but perhaps the chance for NSA level funding makes it worth a shift in focus?

I'm just crazy anyway as I thought the purpose of the FBI was to investigate crimes that cross federal borders. I forgot it's actually for bullshit subversion and blackmail antics.

ETA- just had a thought that this may be boston bombing linked. Article mentions the general change of remit post 9/11, can't help but wonder if that ties in at all.
Nine naked Men just walking down the road will cause a heap of trouble for all concerned.

Cain

Most of what the FBI does nowadays comes under "counter-terrorism" anyway, to the point it's degraded the agency's capabilities to deal with organized or white collar crime (not that it had much of an interest in pursuing how those relate to terrorism and national security anyway...like how a banking collape could, you know, wreck the global economy, or even the relationship between big banks and money laundering).

Junkenstein

Which begs the question - Who's responsible for going after serious white-collar crime?

Local police departments tend to shy away from these cases because of the required time, resources and boundary issues. I can't help but suspect that we'll see the rise of some truly astonishing financial crimes in the next few years. By which I mean ones that make those to date look like pocket change.



Nine naked Men just walking down the road will cause a heap of trouble for all concerned.

P3nT4gR4m

What interests me is that the latest banking scam demonstrated just how easy it would be to destroy economy completely, like not our economy or their economy but the whole thing.

It also moved the world a step closer to the edge. I'm personally dying to see it actually happen, just for the inevitable lulzfest. Unfortunately I have no idea of how to pull it off  :sad:

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark