Playing the odds
20 Oct 2011 Leave a Comment
in Money Tags: all, art, articles, blog, books, business, ctwfrank, culture, dailies, design, economics, education, family, film, financial crisis, future, history, humanity, humor, inspiration, irony, Life, linguistics, local, love, media, miscellaneous, money, movies, News, people, personal, philosophy, politics, psychology, random, recipes, religion, reviews, technonology, thoughts, video, videos, writing
What we once mostly called the “economy” or at times the “financial infrastructure” at other times the “fiscal structure” and every once it a while we would call it the “banking structure” or the “commercial structure” of the world, or to be more general; the systematic functional management and administration of wealth and value – ended, or died, or disappeared or was replaced some time ago. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when, but it doesn’t really matter at this point. If anyone might ask the question: “If this is true, then what has existed in its place since?” The answer to that would be a casino, with the only exception being that there is no house.
How to talk like THEM.
14 Oct 2011 1 Comment
in OBSERVATIONS Tags: all, art, articles, blog, books, business, ctwfrank, culture, dailies, design, economics, education, family, film, financial crisis, future, history, humanity, humor, inspiration, irony, Life, linguistics, local, love, media, miscellaneous, money, movies, News, people, peotry, personal, philosophy, politics, psychology, random, religion, reviews, society, technonology, thoughts, video, videos, writing
Have you ever wondered how they do it? I’m referring to any of THEM (or “they”, you know; the same ones who “say” – ‘They say the economy will get better.’) who stand in front of large groups of people and give speeches. It doesn’t have to be any particular one of them; it could be any one of them; politicians, corporate tycoons, millionaires, dictators and the like. How is it that they are able to stand up there for such a long time and talk as much as they do and say NOTHING at all, yet leave us in awe and impressed with the superlative oratory that we were fortunate enough to witness. How is it that they do it? They’re not THAT charismatic or charming or spellbinding, so how can so few talk so much crap and have it result in our applause, admiration, donations or votes? I’m not implying that an impressive and impacting discourse is never genuine, there are those who have the presence, power and passion to communicate a message to a large group of people and succeed with an impeccable power; it’s just there are far too many of them that don’t have any of these talents who manage to get away appearing as if they did every time they open their yapper and I think it’s about time a cat or two is let out of a bag or two. Impressive, impacting, breathtaking and moving speeches can be made by anyone, with the assistance of a little math. In this case; linguistic math. Would you like to learn how you can easily and simply give a knock-out speech that says absolutely nothing of any significance yet leaves the audience impressed, applauding and vowing life-long loyalty? Let’s have some fun.
Below is what I call a ‘linguistic speech matrix’. It breaks down key sections of sentences that contain words to which we are programmed from birth to respond to. This is no joke, try it and you will be blown away. The matrix is in the form of a table, with rows and columns. There are four columns, numbered 1 through 4 which represent sentence segments. These segments are interchangeable with other sentence segments containing the same component key words. The matrix also has several rows and these are indexed by letter, alphabetically (A, B, C, etc). Here’s how you use it: Starting with column 1, pick any row you like for the first part of what will be a 4-part sentence and then pick a different row for columns 2, 3 and 4 to form a sentence. For example; you can start off with F1, D2, G3 and E4. This gives you the following sentence, in this example the content of each cell has a different color font to help identify them: “The burden of daily life proves that the present structure of the organization facilitates the creation of new propositions.” Afterwards, simply continue mixing and matching columns and rows, as long as they are in column sequence 1-2-3-4. The more sentences you form, the longer and more impressive the speech sounds.
The matrix also has a bonus: it is flexible and adaptable so that it can mimic relevance. It accomplishes this with column 4, which contains the wording which is the pivotal object of the sentence. All of the rows in column 4 contain key words that sound important but mean nothing, however you can replace the words in column 4 from the matrix with something current, as long as it can follow “of” in terms of sentence structure. Let’s use the same example as above but in this case, we’ll replace what is in E4 with something current and on the minds of many people, like the economy. You can modify it like this: “The burden of daily life proves that the present structure of the organization facilitates the creation of a new global economic infrastructure.” You can insert relevant topics into the column 4 segment here and there and voila! You’ve just made a top notch, expert level and knock-their’s-socks-off-speech. Just imagine how much fun we could have with this knowledge! Give it a try, it’s the real deal. Now you not only know how to put together a world-class speech, you also have a tool to help you differentiate between an talented speaker and someone who is using a matrix: content. Maybe this will level the playing field some, who knows? Enjoy!
| row/column |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
|
A |
My fellow citizens, | In order to reach the goals of the program | We are obligated to perform a detailed analysis | of the existing financial and administrative conditions. |
|
B |
On the other hand and given the present circumstances | the complexity of analysis performed by management | plays an essential role in the structuring | of the development directives for the future. |
|
C |
Therefore. | the constant increase in the quality and quantity of our activities | demand exact precision and the complete support | of the main participating system. |
|
D |
Regardless, we can not forget that | the present structure of the organization | assists in the preparation and completion | of the member’s attitudes towards their unavoidable duties. |
|
E |
Similarly, | the new distribution of duties of the organization | guarantees the participation of an important group in the formation | of new propositions. |
|
F |
The burden of daily life proves that | the continuous development of different types of activities | complies with important obligations in the determination | of the learning curve, in terms of pogress. |
|
G |
It is not an absolute necessity to argue the complexity and the meaning of these problems, given that | our activity and progress in the areas of information and propaganda | facilitates the creation | of the structure of programs that relate to specific needs. |
|
H |
A diversified base of meaningful experiences teaches us that | the reinforcing and development of the structures | prevents the appreciation of the importance | of the conditions of the appropriate activities |
|
I |
It is the eagerness of the organization and also that | the advice of of several militants | offers us an interesting opportunity to test the validity | of the development model. |
|
J |
Superior ideological principles are what allow that | the beginnings of the process of forms the new attitudes which | implies the process of reconstruction and modernization | of the various types of action. |
|
K |
Additionally, we could very well dare to suggest that | a specific re-launching of all the implied sectors | will have to indicate an authentic starting point | of the basic premises as adopted. |
|
L |
It is obvious to point out that | that the overcoming of outmoded ways of thinking | will, in any case, specify the fundamental basis | of an actual wide-spectrum casuistry, |
|
M |
But we would commit the sin of insincerity if we were to avoid the fact that | an indiscriminate application of conclusive factors | assures us, in any case, of having a sensible investment process | of the resulting elements. |
|
N |
Finally, and as a definitive final statement, it is necessary to add that | the consensual process of various and other concurrent applications | is derived by overcoming the indirect occurrence | of a whole series of ideologically systematized criteria sharing a common front of regenerative acts. |
A most interesting modification to the solution of the global economic crisis…
11 Oct 2011 Leave a Comment
in OBSERVATIONS Tags: all, art, articles, blog, books, business, ctwfrank, culture, dailies, design, economics, education, family, film, financial crisis, future, history, humanity, humor, inspiration, irony, Life, linguistics, local, love, media, miscellaneous, money, movies, News, people, peotry, personal, philosophy, politics, psychology, random, recipes, religion, reviews, society, technonology, thoughts, video, videos, writing
I most definitely hope to be able to say that I “spoke too soon” if I waxed a bit too critical in yesterday’s post: The solution to the global economic crisis. I don’t have all of the details yet, but I just now learned that there is a “Global Insolvency and Restructuring Conference”. From what I have seen so far, these conferences are occurring at regular intervals, given that the web page I just looked at was about the 17th Global Insolvency and Restructuring Conference. Perhaps some of us are looking at possible ways to restructure after the present insolvency bottoms out, and at a good pace too! They’ve already had 17 of them! They must have these conferences on a weekly basis, or possibly on a monthly basis; the last 17 months have been the hardest so far.
What confuses me a little is that the web page for this conference lists the last one in May of 2011. There should have been at least 3 more since May, if not 12. It must be a typo; I mean, come on; there’s no way that this could have been the 17th annual Global Insolvency and Restructuring Conference, could it? That would mean that they have known about the insolvent state of the world for at least 17 years, perhaps more. That couldn’t be possible, could it? 17 years ago; in 1994; there was no clue that the massive hammer punch we took in 2008 would happen or that any of these economic “bubbles” that exploded would exist; right? I mean; if this were the 17th annual Global Insolvency and Restructuring Conference, then. . . have we been insolvent since then or did we know that we would become insolvent? Since 1994?
Excuse me for a moment, I just got a headache; I’m going to take an analgesic.
A quick bit of reality.
10 Oct 2011 2 Comments
in OBSERVATIONS Tags: all, art, articles, blog, books, business, ctwfrank, culture, dailies, design, economics, education, family, film, financial crisis, future, history, humanity, humor, inspiration, irony, Life, linguistics, local, love, media, miscellaneous, money, News, people, peotry, personal, philosophy, politics, psychology, random, recipes, religion, reviews, society, technonology, thoughts, video, videos, writing
Foreword
The constitution prohibits the establishing of laws based on a religious belief or religious law; it is the fundamental basis of the separation of church and state. The constitution makes no such prohibition, nor virtually any other of any kind, to the private sector. That is to say that a private company can base its policies and procedures and/or operating guidelines on religious law and/or religious belief. This is guaranteed by the bill of rights (freedom of religion/freedom of speech).
The Meat and Potatoes:
The concept of “Lending Money” is one so absurd and ridiculous that it belies all logic, yet it is just one more “impossible” scenario that we make a part of our daily lives. Our civilization, as it stands in 2011 could not function at all without the lending of money, after all it is how money is created; you deposit your money in a bank, let’s say $1000.00. The bank, under the pretense that you will not withdraw that money immediately, can take a portion of it; let’s say $500.00 and lends it to someone else as if it were theirs and charges them interest on it. By accepting the loan from the bank (of your money) the beneficiary of the loan now has $500.00 dollars of your money that they bank lent them, but you also have the same $500.00 in your account; you’re just not using it right now. By doing this, the bank created $500.00 dollars, or at least that’s what we believe. In this post, I will not write any math intended to demonstrate how or why money can’t be borrowed or lent, because even though it can’t; we do it every day. In this post, I’ll stick to our present reality – to the last detail.
The lending of money is based on an analysis of credit risk. The function of credit risk analysis is to establish a person or entity’s creditworthiness. Creditworthiness is established by companies like FICO who assign a score in relation to a person’s creditworthiness. In order to determine this score, FICO’s slated objective is to predict the likelihood that a consumer will go 90 days past due or worse in the subsequent 24 months after the score has been calculated. Barring the fact that it is not possible to predict the future, the commercialization of predicting the future is officially classified as fortune-telling. Fortune telling is recognized in many states as a legitimate business as evidenced by the ability to obtain an occupational or business tax license to operate a fortune telling establishment (with a disclaimer that it is for entertainment purposes only). The reason that fortune-telling is classified as a legitimate business category is that fortune-telling is considered an aspect of witchcraft and witchcraft is officially recognized as a RELIGION in the U.S.A. and is therefore protected by the constitution.
In conclusion, even though the lives of every person in the country and most of the world, even governments are determined by their creditworthiness, there is no law regulating creditworthiness, credit scoring or credit rating, if there were, the law would be invalid because it would be based on a religious premise (witchcraft). At the same time, determining a person or company’s creditworthiness is technically an attempt to predict the future, which technically; is an act of witchcraft. When this is applied to the general public, we are able to glimpse our reality: Every person who has a loan, mortgage or credit card or in any way has borrowed money has (whether they know it or now) technically practiced witchcraft. There, that should light a fire or two under someone’s butt; they can’t argue the facts, however. Banks lend money by trying to predict the future of a person’s creditworthiness. The lending of money is the principal financial mechanism of the world’s economy; it is also the active practice of witchcraft, in reality.
It doesn’t get much more real than this.
We can do better.
Why?
09 Oct 2011 Leave a Comment
in OBSERVATIONS Tags: all, art, articles, blog, books, ctwfrank, culture, dailies, design, economics, education, family, financial crisis, future, history, humanity, humor, inspiration, Life, linguistics, local, love, media, miscellaneous, News, people, peotry, personal, philosophy, politics, psychology, random, recipes, religion, reviews, society, technonology, thoughts, video, videos, writing
Q: Why are there many of us?
A: Because it is necessary, otherwise there would be only 1.
Can you Imagine?
04 Oct 2011 Leave a Comment
in Money Tags: all, art, articles, blog, books, business, ctwfrank, culture, dailies, design, economics, education, family, film, financial crisis, future, history, humanity, humor, inspiration, irony, Life, linguistics, local, love, media, miscellaneous, money, movies, News, people, peotry, personal, philosophy, politics, psychology, random, recipes, religion, reviews, society, technonology, thoughts, video, videos, writing
If all the world’s women suddenly declared that they would only have sex with men that have six testicles in their one scrotum, and everyone believed it; no one would have any more sex and the human race would disappear within a generation.
If the last step of purchasing a new car were to precisely recite the smell of the color blue, as dictated by an Ancient Eskimo Chief to his son, who died without keeping a record of the description, and everyone believed it; no new cars would be sold.
If the world’s financial authorities declared that the sum total value of all money, gold, silver and other wealth possessed by all of the people on the planet totaled $34 Trillion and that the total amount of debt owed by all of the people on the planet was valued at $84 trillion, and everyone believed it, then money and wealth would be meaningless and worthless, no one would ever actually be able to own anything and everything in life would be measured by what you owe instead of what you are.
Oh shit, wait a minute. That last one’s an actual fact.
Excuse me….again
26 Sep 2011 1 Comment
in OBSERVATIONS Tags: all, art, articles, blog, books, business, ctwfrank, culture, dailies, design, economics, education, family, film, financial crisis, future, history, humanity, humor, inspiration, irony, Life, linguistics, local, love, media, miscellaneous, money, movies, News, people, peotry, personal, philosophy, politics, psychology, random, recipes, religion, reviews, society, technonology, thoughts, video, videos, writing
Just for the sake of argument, let’s just say that the $84 trillion debt figure is real (LOL). Let’s also say that I wanted to settle that debt, the whole thing, for everyone, and that I had the money with which to do it. This being the case; who would I make the check out to?
It’s just a bombastic question, but a curious one to contemplate.
Are you ready for this? – Part 1
18 Sep 2011 1 Comment
in Money Tags: ctwfrank, education, family, financial crisis, future, history, humanity, humor, Life, local, philosophy, psychology, random, society, thoughts
CALCULATION NO. 182173
CATALOGUE ENTRY IDENTIFICATION NUMBER: 182173
TITLE: The exploitation of a systemic flaw is fraud, regardless of the gain.
DATE RECORDED: 06 February, 2010
Definitions
Systemic Flaw – An inherent defect (such as an invalid premise, a subjective value in an equation or anything that would otherwise be invalid) in the structure, composition, construction or operation of a system, or any of its components, which inhibits its operation in any way, to any degree.
Exploitation:
- use or utilization, especially for profit: the exploitation of newly discovered oil fields.
- selfish utilization: He got ahead through the exploitation of his friends.
- the combined, often varied, use of public-relations and advertising techniques to promote a person, movie, product, etc.
Also: Taking unfair advantage of something or someone else, in any way, but specifically by withholding information or simply lying. In a more traditional sense, exploitation can be defined as the premeditated application of an element, condition or factor that affects the validity or veracity of a mechanism, given the condition that there is singular and unique ownership of the information withheld and when this results in an unfair advantage with the objective of obtaining financial benefits in large amounts.
Fraud:
- deceit, trickery, sharp practice, or breach of confidence, perpetrated for profit or to gain some unfair or dishonest advantage.
- a particular instance of such deceit or trickery: mail fraud; election frauds.
- any deception, trickery, or humbug: That diet book is a fraud and a waste of time.
- a person who makes deceitful pretenses; sham; poseur.
Application and ramifications:
There are so many examples of this math in everyday life that an example should not only be unnecessary – it would also be embarrassing. There is one specific example that is very relevant to right now and therefore must be shared.
In April 2011, The United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on investigations, committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs; published a report on one of the investigations carried out by a one if the committee’s subcommittees: The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
What is this Subcommittee?
Just the name sounds important, doesn’t it? It also sounds very much like something one would see in a James Bond movie and it really just does, doesn’t it? Perhaps not very many people, heck; not very many Americans are familiar with the Senate Committee of Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. You can find out everything available about them here: http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/.
This post is not about this committee or its history, but there are a few details that are extremely important to mention in this summary. Here’s a quick list of some of the key distinguishing aspects/features of this very important Congressional Committee:
- Elements and functions of the present committee can be traced back to the 19th century; however the specific committee that evolved into this present form was the Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Department, created on April 18, 1921.
- The Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Department was renamed the Committee on Government Operations in 1952.
- The Committee on Government Operations was reorganized as the Committee on Governmental Affairs in 1977 and functioned as such until February 17, 2005 when it became The Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs; they’ve been around for a while.
If one were to ask; what have they done? That question would yield an equally impressive answer. The Committee has five Subcommittees of which one is Permanent, in fact this permanent subcommittee wrote the report that was briefly referred to above but has yet to be named…we’re getting there. The five subcommittees are:
- Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
- Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia
- Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security
- Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery and Intergovernmental Affairs
- Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight
Here a quick list of some of investigations the Committee as carried out:
- Report on the investigation of the McCarthy Hearings (1953-1954).
- Report of Credit Card Practices: Unfair Interest Rate Increases.
- Government Contractor abuse.
- The specific report mentioned in this post, also known as the Levin-Coburn Report (but try to find it under that name!)
The above points and descriptions should provide enough to convey to fact that this is a very important and powerful committee that is charged with some very tough duties. The analysis of the events that most Americans Refer to as “The Wall Street Financial Crisis” had to be the most difficult challenge for this group of Senators and yet, they published a lot of very important information. It is doubtful that more than a handful of people actually read the 646 page PDF version of the report, but just in case you might be one that handful, you can find the full version of the report here: http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/_files/Financial_Crisis/FinancialCrisisReport.pdf.
Again, I stress the fact that this post is not about this Subcommittee, it’s not even about their published investigations of the “Financial Crisis; it’s about the math whose title appears at the top. There are several specific sections of the report that contain indispensible information, necessary for clarity of though and which in the most simple and straightforward manner possible indisputably exemplify and justify that the exploitation of a systemic defect is, in fact, fraud. I’m just going to focus on one little item from the report; just one detail. It’s on page 243 of the above linked report and it’s called “INFLATED CREIDT RATINGS….: That is all of the focus I’m going to give it; the report needs no help from me to do what it does so clearly and so well: it proves the math. So here’s what we’re going to do if you choose as much: Download the report from the link above and read Section V: INFLATED CREDIT RATINGS. After you read it, do the math, give it everything you have and if you don’t immediately see and understand that the Entire financial infrastructure of the U.S.A., and the world, is only able to function by exploiting the systemic flaws indicated in the Senate report and others and that ever single loan, credit card, mortgage or other loan ever granted to everyone and anyone is an act of FRAUD and therefore illegal and invalid, then read it again because you missed it.
There are so many things that we consider so important, that in fact are not even real: money is not real, debt is not real credit is not real, buying and hoarding gold and silver in an attempt to salvage wealth is pointless, gold is officially worthless; it’s price is fixed in dollars and dollars have been worthless for more than a while now, it’s technically and factually impossible to borrow money and the use of money to create MORE money for the world’s financial infrastructure is not just what helped get us into the mess we’re in now, it’s also, and more importantly FRAUD.
I think you can do the rest of the math from here.
We can do better, and it would be a good idea to start soon.
Next Post: Wall Street WordPlay.
… and then?
19 Aug 2011 1 Comment
in Money Tags: all, art, articles, blog, books, business, culture, dailies, design, economics, education, family, film, financial crisis, future, history, humanity, linguistics, personal, philosophy, psychology, society, technonology, thoughts, videos, writing
Sometimes, I admit that my iron-clad faith in our ability to overcome the absurd and my never-failing drive to participate in anything that will contemplate something different, my tireless research, my apparently never-ending posts and of course the math, succumb to the tiniest bit of pure 100% punk-ass bitch sissy fear that we will continue to observe, debate, criticize, philosophize, blame anyone for and endlessly complain about the state of the world – and then log out to go to work.
I am sometimes overcome with a wave of sadness at the thought of how we express our outrage and the unacceptability of the status quo, how we lash out in self-contempt for what we have done to ourselves and how we express a desperate desire for change – and then log out because we’re going to a movie or a restaurant. Sometimes I even let myself feel the emotional avalanche that would result if all of a sudden, someday in the future, it turns out that the only thing that the math is able to accomplish is a publishing contract instead of inspiring thought and action. Every day that passes, we draw one day closer to the day that we either decide what we want, together as humans, or run and hide while “things sort themselves out” and “settle down”. Most days, I KNOW that consensus and action based on humanity and the desire to be happy will instigate change and there are those days when I simply hope we will do something and if not then at least I would hope that someone, anyone, would join with me as I walk up to whoever we end up giving the rest of human history to for free and tell them to fuck off; I’m not going to play this game anymore. In the end, what will happen is what the majority of us allow to happen. We know the difference and we know what’s at sake. It we punk out and allow for the existing version of “civilization” to reboot, humanity – even the crappy version we’ve known for the last 30-40 years will become something vile and ugly, and I will be powerless to do anything about it because I’m simply one of us, and we would have spoken.
Fortunately, I don’t have many of those moments, there’s not enough time for that. I shake it off and resume my task of simply participating and doing my best and I know that those dark thoughts of our own impotence and fear are just wild areas, right? I mean, it’s not even remotely possible that we could all sit here and watch whatever is left of us go to shit, on TV with a delivery pizza in hand and act like it’s happening somewhere else, to someone else, right?
There comes a time when awareness has been created, quotations have been analyzed and validated, the inhumanity of the world has been validated and all that is left of for us to do is to walk away from our computers, I-phones, androids and the rest and gather somewhere spacious and green where we can meet each other and hug and smile, and take our world and our lives back with the strength that the love of billions of us can generate. No one drop of blood needs to be shed and not more person needs to suffer or go hungry or feel alone. We, all of us, just have to say “enough” and that is all it will take. We don’t have much time before we confuse ourselves to the point of idiocy. Butch it up, boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen; it’s time to see if there’s any spine left in our backbones. We can figure out HOW we’ll make the world better after we remember that we can and do something – human. To paraphrase the great Master Yoda: Right now we just have to know that we can do better and DO IT – or do it not, there is no try.
Many of us are now awake. What’s next?
We CAN do better.
Just for the record…
16 Aug 2011 Leave a Comment
in OBSERVATIONS Tags: all, art, articles, blog, books, business, culture, dailies, economics, education, family, financial crisis, future, history, humanity, humor, inspiration, irony, Life, money, movies, News, people, peotry, personal, philosophy, politics, psychology, random, recipes, reviews, society, thoughts, video, videos, writing
Intelligence is a choice, not a super-power.
