Economy
Related: About this forumSTOCK MARKET WATCH -- Tuesday, 2 July 2013
[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Tuesday, 2 July 2013[font color=black][/font]
SMW for 1 July 2013
AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 1 July 2013
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Dow Jones 14,974.96 +65.36 (0.44%)
S&P 500 1,614.96 +8.68 (0.54%)
Nasdaq 3,434.49 +31.24 (0.92%)
[font color=green]10 Year 2.48% -0.05 (-1.98%)
30 Year 3.48% -0.05 (-1.42%) [font color=black]
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[font size=2]Market Conditions During Trading Hours[/font]
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[font size=2]Euro, Yen, Loonie, Silver and Gold[center]
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Market Data and News:[/font][/font]
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Economic Calendar
Marketwatch Data
Bloomberg Economic News
Yahoo Finance
Google Finance
Bank Tracker
Credit Union Tracker
Daily Job Cuts
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Economic Blogs:[/font][/font]
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The Big Picture
Financial Sense
Calculated Risk
Naked Capitalism
Credit Writedowns
Brad DeLong
Bonddad
Atrios
goldmansachs666
The Stand-Up Economist
The Automatic Earth
Wall Street on Parade
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Essential Reading:[/font][/font]
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Matt Taibi: Secret and Lies of the Bailout
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Government Issues:[/font][/font]
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LegitGov
Open Government
Earmark Database
USA spending.gov
[/center][font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Videos:[/font][/font]
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Charlie Rose talks with Roubini
Charlie Rose talks with Krugman
William Black: This Economic Disaster
Bill Moyers with Kevin Drum and David Corn
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[font color=red]Partial List of Financial Sector Officials Convicted since 1/20/09 [/font][font color=red]
2/2/12 David Higgs and Salmaan Siddiqui, Credit Suisse, plead guilty to conspiracy involving valuation of MBS
3/6/12 Allen Stanford, former Caribbean billionaire and general schmuck, convicted on 13 of 14 counts in $2.2B Ponzi scheme, faces 20+ years in prison
6/4/12 Matthew Kluger, lawyer, sentenced to 12 years in prison, along with co-conspirator stock trader Garrett Bauer (9 years) and co-conspirator Kenneth Robinson (not yet sentenced) for 17 year insider trading scheme.
6/14/12 Allen Stanford sentenced to 110 years without parole.
6/15/12 Rajat Gupta, former Goldman Sachs director, found guilty of insider trading. Could face a decade in prison when sentenced later this year.
6/22/12 Timothy S. Durham, 49, former CEO of Fair Financial Company, convicted of one count conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, 10 counts of wire fraud, and one count of securities fraud.
6/22/12 James F. Cochran, 56, former chairman of the board of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and six counts of wire fraud.
6/22/12 Rick D. Snow, 48, former CFO of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and three counts of wire fraud.
7/13/12 Russell Wassendorf Sr., CEO of collapsed brokerage firm Peregrine Financial Group Inc. arrested and charged with lying to regulators after admitting to authorities he embezzled "millions of dollars" and forged bank statements for "nearly twenty years."
8/22/12 Doug Whitman, Whitman Capital LLC hedge fund founder, convicted of insider trading following a trial in which he spent more than two days on the stand telling jurors he was innocent
10/26/12 UPDATE: Former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta sentenced to two years in federal prison. He will, of course, appeal. . .
11/20/12 Hedge fund manager Matthew Martoma charged with insider trading at SAC Capital Advisors, and prosecutors are looking at Martoma's boss, Steven Cohen, for possible involvement.
02/14/13 Gilbert Lopez, former chief accounting officer of Stanford Financial Group, and former controller Mark Kuhrt sentenced to 20 yrs in prison for their roles in Allen Sanford's $7.2 billion Ponzi scheme.
03/29/13 Michael Sternberg, portfolio mgr at SAC Capital, arrested in NYC, charged with conspiracy and securities fraud. Pled not guilty and freed on $3m bail.
04/04/13 Matthew Marshall Taylor,fmr Goldman Sachs trader arrested, charged by CFTC w/defrauding his employer on $8BN futures bet "by intentionally concealing the true huge size, as well as the risk and potential profits or losses associated."
04/04/13 Matthew Taylor admits guilt, makes plea bargain. Sentencing set for 26 June; faces up to 20 years in prison but will likely only see 3-4 years. Says, "I am truly sorry."
04/11/13 Ex-KPMG LLP partner Scott London charged by federal prosecutors w/passing inside tips to a friend in exchange for cash, jewelry, and concert tickets; expected to plead guilty in May.
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[font size=3][font color=red]This thread contains opinions and observations. Individuals may post their experiences, inferences and opinions on this thread. However, it should not be construed as advice. It is unethical (and probably illegal) for financial recommendations to be given here.[/font][/font][/font color=red][font color=black]
Tansy_Gold
(17,847 posts)Am I the only one here -- probably not -- who remembers some of the DU battles over "Southern heritage"?
It's not just that we've forgotten what "they" did at Gettysburg; it's that the cartoonist would leave us thinking that's the end of it. But it isn't. Because Lincoln wasn't just commemorating the dead; he was challenging the living and the yet to come:
"It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."
That work is still unfinished. And that government is very close to death.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)"The past is never dead. It's not even past."
And he was the quintessential Southerner...William Cuthbert Faulkner, also known as Will Faulkner, was an American writer and Nobel Prize laureate from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of written media, including novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays...19 novels, 125 short stories (not including stories that appear exclusively in novels), 20 screenplays (including uncredited rewrites), one play, six collections of poetry as well as assorted letters and essays....wikipedia
I regret that due to my Yankee upbringing and recent immigrant status (family in USA only about 100 years), I have never been able to read anything written by a true Southerner...the only possible exception being Gone With the Wind, and that was after hating it in junior high. You really need to live through a bad marriage to understand Scarlett.
Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)It's a zombie now. An empire on the verge of collapse.
If you get a chance, watch Amy Goodmans show from today (Monday). Some real bombshells dropping.
http://www.democracynow.org/
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/7/1/was_deadly_benghazi_killing_of_ambassador?autostart=true
Demeter
(85,373 posts)Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)Demeter
(85,373 posts)and anyone who isn't trying to get her mental health care. Or a dictionary.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)to the confederates. If the south had had the media control that the teabaggers have today, they probably would have won. We're in deep shit
Tansy_Gold
(17,847 posts)I have Eric Foner's Reconstruction and really need to read it, because it's always been my understanding that the failures of "reconstruction" really paved the way for the survival of southern conservatism.
Then again, dear goddess, there are so many books I need to read. . . . . . . .
xchrom
(108,903 posts)BRUSSELS/ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece has three days to reassure Europe and the International Monetary Fund it can deliver on conditions attached to its international bailout in order to receive the next tranche of aid, four euro zone officials said on Tuesday.
The lenders are unhappy with progress Greece has made towards reforming its public sector, a senior euro zone official involved in the negotiations said, while another said they might suspend an inspection visit they resumed on Monday.
Athens, which has about 2.2 billion euros of bonds to redeem in August, needs the talks to conclude successfully. If they fail, the International Monetary Fund might have to withdraw from the 240-billion-euro bailout to avoid violating its own rules, which require a borrower to be financed a year ahead.
That would heighten the risk that concerted efforts by policymakers over the past nine months to keep a lid on the euro zone crisis could unravel, at a time when tensions are rising in other countries on the region's periphery.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/greece-has-three-days-to-deliver-on-imf-terms-or-face-consequences-2013-7#ixzz2XsywvprP
Demeter
(85,373 posts)"If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem." - J. Paul Getty
xchrom
(108,903 posts)Here's your headscratcher of the day.
Despite gigantic protests and a possible coup, the Eyptian stock market is on a tear.
The CASE 30 index is up 4.8%.
And it's not just today. The index has been rallying the last 4 days.
Odd.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-egyptian-stock-market-is-soaring-2013-7#ixzz2XszdRbcS
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-egyptian-stock-market-is-soaring-2013-7#ixzz2XszU978O
xchrom
(108,903 posts)It started off as more of a green morning, but as time has gone on, things are breaking down more.
US futures have gone closer to flat, and Europe is breaking down.
Via Bloomberg, here's a chart of Germany's DAX index, which is now off over 1.2%.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/morning-markets-ii-july-2-2013-7#ixzz2Xt0EZiRE
Demeter
(85,373 posts)and the euro will collapse forever without any need of a push.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)The Great Recession has not been a great vacation. Four years since the recovery officially began, many people are still unemployed not because they don't want to work, but because, with three job-seekers for every job opening, they can't find any work. And they are trying to find work. Indeed, a new paper by Rand Ghayad, a visiting scholar at the Boston Fed and a Ph.D. candidate at Northeastern University, shows that unemployment insurance hasn't otherwise made the unemployed less likely to take a job. If anything, it's made them more likely to keep looking.
For a certain class of conservative economists, the unemployed must be funemployed. They just can't conceive of a world where supply can outpace demand; where excess demand for money and money-like assets can push the economy into a slump. (Paul Krugman's classic essay on the Capitol Hill babysitting co-op shows how it can). Their belief that supply creates its own demand is an age-old fallacy called Say's Law, which isn't a law, and hasn't been one for a long, long time. As Krugman points out, it was discredited enough back in the 1930s that it was thought something of a strawman when Keynes debunked it back then. But yesterday's caricature has become today's conviction. Casey Mulligan, for one, has never met a problem he doesn't think is a supply one. Back in December 2008, he argued unemployment was exploding, because people were choosing not to work so they could get mortgage modifications. By 2012, he decided food stamps were really to blame for joblessness. Needless to say, these arguments don't even pass the laugh test, let alone fit the data.
Now, that doesn't mean unemployment today is all demand and no supply -- just mostly. Safety-net spending does increase joblessness on the margin, and that's the point. It cushions the unemployed so they don't have to take the first job they find, but can wait for a better one. The question, of course, is how generous the safety-net should be. It's a matter of not giving the unemployed forever to take a job, but not giving them too little time when there are few jobs for the taking.
And that brings us to the pertinent question: Was 99 weeks of jobless benefits too much?
xchrom
(108,903 posts)Unemployment will fall to about 7 percent in the fourth quarter, according to economists at five of the worlds largest banks, creating more confusion among investors about the Federal Reserves bond-buying plans.
Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said last month that the central bank could stop purchasing assets around the middle of next year when joblessness would likely be in the vicinity of 7 percent. Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Barclays Plc, Citigroup Inc., Deutsche Bank AG and UBS AG all predict the rate will be either at or just above that level in the fourth quarter, six months sooner than Bernanke projected.
It will definitely pose more communication problems for the Fed, said Drew Matus, deputy U.S. chief economist at UBS Securities LLC in Stamford, Connecticut, and a former analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. And once again, those problems will be of its own making.
Bond prices have dropped and market volatility has increased in the last six weeks as investors have struggled to figure out the Feds plans for its asset purchases. Prices will fall further during the next 12 months, as a faster-than-forecast decline in unemployment pressures the Fed into ending its program early, said Joseph LaVorgna, Deutsche Bank chief U.S. economist in New York.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)The repeated claims that U.S. manufacturing is enjoying, or is on the verge of, a renaissance have been undermined again. The latest reality checks were provided by official statistics on manufacturing output.
The Commerce Departments first report on domestic industrys full-year 2012 performance showed an impressive increase in U.S. manufacturers output. Yet the figures released June 6 were hardly profound, even by the standards of the previous decade, which no one considered a golden age for U.S. industry.
President Barack Obama and other proponents of a manufacturing renaissance got even more bad news June 14, when the Federal Reserves industrial-production data for May showed that the sectors rebound from the recession had just about stalled.
Manufacturing output remains smaller than when the last recession began in 2007, despite the huge government stimulus since then.
U.S. manufacturings 6.2 percent inflation-adjusted growth in 2012 was much faster than the 2.5 percent growth of the economy as a whole, and considerably faster than manufacturings 2.5 percent real expansion in 2011. Even so, we are nowhere near a renaissance. In 2010, early in the current recovery, the sector recorded real growth of 6.9 percent; it showed an 8.2 percent expansion in 2004, and grew 6.4 percent in 2000.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)I have been expanding my Ignore list. I am ignoring all those people who can't see the forest for the fog in their minds. There are far too many of these people on a site that purports to be Democratic. One would have hoped that a Democratic site would also be "democratic" and that the intolerant and unforgiving would stick to being intolerant and unforgiving of actual crimes...not people who once were lost and now are found, not artificially and incorrectly designated "crimes against the state" which are actually good works opposing state-committed crimes, for the betterment of all. Or that they might have some innate sense of self-preservation, at least, of their own rights.
I feel that the 12-18 year olds have taken over DU, and we are having to sift through lots of junior-high name-calling and mud-slinging to get to the facts, the history, and the possible solutions of modern problems. I really miss the kind of site moderation that used to reduce such waste of bandwidth to a minimum.
That's why I only read this forum on DU
Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)Mostly for comedy value of some of the Cargo Cult posters. Hey, a sick mind is a terrible thing to waste.
I've been sticking my hand in the crazy a bit too much lately, and have to bite my keyboard more and more lately. I don't want to get tossed, only because this forum means too much to me.
Other than the name calling, what amazes me is the willful blindness and hardheadedness of the people, who no matter how much evidence and proof you lay in front of them, will continue to defend this criminal administration, and system to their dying breath. These people do more damage to the Democratic Party and future elections than a hundred Rand Pauls or Ralph Naders could ever do.
It's times like these that I call into question everything I've learned about politics. I've known Dennis Kucinich since he was a rookie City Councilman. And I was trained by Wellstone's people. One common theme we were always taught was never discount a volunteer on a campaign. If nothing else, send them out putting up signs or some trivial job. Sorry, but I wouldn't let most of these assholes anywhere near a voter. They'll turn off more people than they can persuade.
In the meantime, I'm headed for the gym. Maybe I can finish off this Chomsky book on the treadmill.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)They have completely abandoned their morals and the principles that made the party and the country great for the entire twentieth century.
If this thread it what is left of the Democratic movement.....we are screwn.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)antigop
(12,778 posts)www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-01-10/hillary-clintons-business-legacy-at-the-state-department#p1
Hillary Clinton's Business Legacy at the State Department
Shes pressed the case for U.S. business in Cambodia, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, and other countries in Chinas shadow. Shes also taken a leading part in drafting the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the free-trade pact that would give U.S. companies a leg up on their Chinese competitors.
So those million miles racked up for US business.
If that article doesn't scare the cr*p out of you....
DemReadingDU
(16,000 posts)The bottom line: Clinton has quietly helped negotiate big overseas contracts for Boeing, Lockheed, Westinghouse, and other U.S. companies.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-01-10/hillary-clintons-business-legacy-at-the-state-department#p3
westerebus
(2,976 posts)We went from the neo-cons to the decept-o-cons.
Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)It's all about the swag, and K-Street goodies.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)The number of registered job seekers in Spain fell again in June as more firms hired people on a temporary basis ahead of the peak summer season.
Official statistics showed 4.76 million people were registered as jobless, a 2.6% fall compared to May.
Spain's labour ministry said the non-seasonally adjusted drop was the best monthly drop on record.
However, excluding temporary holiday hiring, the number of registered job seekers actually rose by 996 people.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)Commentary: Without fiscal restraint, growth would be strong indeed
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/call-it-a-stealth-recovery-2013-07-02?siteid=YAHOOB
The U.S. economy is stronger than it appears, and that is why interest rates have begun to rise.
Dont take my word for it, ask the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke.
Back in May, while just about everyone else was bemoaning the weakness of the recovery, Mr. Bernanke determined that the economy had shifted into a higher gear and didnt need as much help from the Fed as it did earlier on.
In Bernankes estimation, it was time to prepare the financial markets for less ease. However, since the markets had grown so dependent on easy money from the Fed, Chairman Ben deemed it prudent to employ the open-mouth policy before actually changing the central banks open-market policy, so he began hinting at a tapering of the Feds bond purchases.
Still, it was quite a shock to the markets to realize that easy money was not actually going to last forever. Some participants figured that the economy must have been stronger than they realized, although they were in the minority.
After all, the unemployment rate was still high, even though it was a half-point below its year-ago level. The percentage of the unemployed who had been out of work for 27 weeks and over was still higher that it was four years earlier. Adding in the underemployed and those who dropped out of the labor force made things even worse.
For its part, business was concerned about a lack of demand, and in some cases, insufficient pricing power.
Nevertheless, the markets got jittery. Stocks tanked, while bond yields jumped.
In an effort to assuage investors, several Fed officials asserted that the markets misinterpreted the Fed heads words. They pointed to the weak job figures as a sign that stimulus would remain.
All well and good, but if you drill down, you will find an economy that is doing a lot better than the conventional wisdom believes...
This debasement of the English language and the precise scientific meanings of words is why propaganda is so destructive.
Without jobs and increasing demand and due payment of productivity gains to the productive: ie: WORKERS, all you have is economic masturbation by computer software: self-stimulation that goes nowhere and does nothing genereative. It's the endpoint of the narcissism that dominates this culture to the exclusion of everything else.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)Two top officials of the Vatican bank resigned Monday just days after a senior cleric with ties to the institution was arrested after police caught him with the equivalent of about $26 million in cash that they say he was trying to bring into Italy from Switzerland.
Paolo Cipriani, the bank's director, and his deputy, Massimo Tulli, stepped down, the Vatican said: http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/breaking-news-leaders-troubled-vatican-bank-resign Ernst von Freyberg, the bank's president, will take over as interim director general.
The resignations are the latest blow to the Vatican bank, which has been plagued by concerns it's used as an offshore tax haven. Last week Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, 61, who was already under investigation for money laundering, was arrested along with two other men...
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=197575772
...In addition to his Rome arrest, Scarano is also under investigation in the southern city of Salerno for alleged money-laundering stemming from a 560,000 euro cash withdrawal he made from his IOR charity account in 2009. Sica, the attorney, has said Scarano arranged complicated transactions with dozens of other people and eventually used the money to pay off a mortgage...
POPE FRANCIS CLEANS HOUSE...WONDER IF HE HIRES OUT....
Tansy_Gold
(17,847 posts)He's barely taken a feather duster to the first end table.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)ULAN BATOR (Reuters) A Mongolian neo-Nazi group has rebranded itself as an environmentalist organization fighting pollution by foreign-owned mines, seeking legitimacy as it sends Swastika-wearing members to check mining permits.
Tsagaan Khass, or White Swastika, has only 100-plus members but it is one of several groups with names like Dayar Mongol (Whole Mongolia), Gal Undesten (Fire Nation) and Khukh Mongol (Blue Mongolia), expanding a wave of resource nationalism as foreign firms seek to exploit the mineral wealth of the vast country, landlocked between Russia and China.
From an office behind a lingerie store in the Mongolian capital, the shaven-headed, jackbooted Tsagaan Khass storm-troopers launch bizarre raids on mining projects, demanding paperwork or soil samples to be studied for contaminants.
Before we used to work in a harsh way, like breaking down doors, but now we have changed and we use other approaches, like demonstrations, the groups leader, Ariunbold Altankhuum, 40, told Reuters, speaking through a translator.
antigop
(12,778 posts)Steinway Musical Instruments, which has been in business for 160 years, said Monday that it has agreed to be bought by Kohlberg for about $438 million.
Steinway pianos have been a status symbol and a must-have luxury in concert halls for more than a century, but the storied company suffered during the recession. While it has recovered, its shares have not returned to their peak, reached just six months before the recession began.
As a (very) amateur musician who loves piano music, this really upsets me. Wanna bet they move production outside the US to save money? Steinway is a quality product. The Van Cliburn competition uses Steinways and music schools like to have them in their studios.
Wanna bet they close the New York factory?
http://www.chron.com/technology/businessinsider/article/Step-Inside-The-Factory-Where-Steinway-Sons-4640570.php
Steinway Musical Instruments is about to be taken private in a $438 million deal with an affiliate of Kohlberg & Company, a private equity investment firm.
Last year we toured the Steinway & Sons factory in Astoria. The company is a subsidiary of Steinway Musical Instruments with two factories: one in New York, the other in Hamburg.
Steinway prides itself on having retained manufacturing jobs in the U.S. since all its Grand pianos are made here.
It does however manufacture and market its two lower end Boston and Essex pianos in Asia
Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)After they strip all the jobs, pensions, relocate to Asia, and borrow more money for dividends.
Really sad to see that happen to an icon.
antigop
(12,778 posts)DemReadingDU
(16,000 posts)Warpy
(111,141 posts)but they'll saddle the original company with enough debt to bankrupt it and cut it loose to die.
The problem is that pianos aren't really selling. Back even 100 years ago, if you wanted to listen to music, you pretty much had to play it on an instrument unless you were some kinda rich city feller with a gramophone. These days everybody's got some sort of device to play other people's music and if they do learn to play piano, they learn on an electronic instrument that takes up a lot less space and is a hell of a lot easier to move when the job dries up and the new one is in another city.
Few of us have the luxury of staying in one place and piano moving costs a fortune, even when it's a fairly light upright.
AnneD
(15,774 posts)Are the equivalent of house flippers. No real improvements, just stripping value...just like buzzards picking bones clean.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)Jaron Lanier is a witheringly caustic critic of big Web entities.
As its title indicates, Jaron Laniers new tech manifesto asks, Who owns the future? But for many of those who will be captivated by Mr. Laniers daringly original insights, another question comes first: Who is Jaron Lanier? He is a mega-wizard in futurist circles. He is the father of virtual reality in the gaudy, reputation-burnishing way that Michael Jackson was the king of pop. Mr. Lanier would undoubtedly be more of a household name if he were not a large, dreadlocked, anything but telegenic figure with facial hair called mossy in a 2011 profile in The New Yorker.
While working on intriguing unannounced projects for Microsoft Research a gigantic lighter-than-air railgun to launch spacecraft and a speculative strategy for repositioning earthquakes Mr. Lanier found time to follow up on his first book, You Are Not a Gadget (2010). That was a feisty, brilliant, predictive work, and the new volume is just as exciting. Mr. Lanier bucks a wave of more conventional diatribes on Big Data to deliver Olympian, contrarian fighting words about the Internets exploitative powers. A self-proclaimed humanist softie, he is a witheringly caustic critic of big Web entities and their business models.
Hes talking to you, Facebook. (Whats Facebook going to do when it grows up?) And to you, Google. (The Google guys would have gotten rich from the search code without having to create the private spying agency.) And to all the other tempting Siren Servers (as he calls them) that depend on accumulating and evaluating consumer data without acknowledging a monetary debt to the people mined for all this free information. One need not be a political ideologue, he says, to believe that people have quantifiable value and deserve to be recompensed for it.
Its true that Mr. Lanier was once driving in Silicon Valley, listening to what he thought was some Internet start-up trumpeting the latest scheme to take over the world, when he realized he was hearing Karl Marxs Das Kapital. (If you select the right passages, Marx can read as being incredibly current.)
Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)AnneD
(15,774 posts)This afternoon finds me in Vancouver, BC Canada. I have been out of pocket for some time while in transit. I have traveled up here via Amtrack, which was an adventure in it's self. I will be here for two weeks, so ask me any Canada question.
Now that I am connected to the Internet I will be checking in. We are on Pacific standard time but I find my body is still on Central standard time so I will post earlier tomorrow.
BTW, yesterday was Canada Day. I saw newly minted citizens being sworn in, talked shop with some first responders that were on the search and rescue team wilderness team, and met some members of the Canadian Military (yes we have a military).
I also learned that Canadians invented: newsprint, zippers, egg containers, yatzee, pictionary, and many other board games, and basketball. Alexander G Bell was Canadian as was the discoverer and developer of the MacIntosh apple.
Demeter, do we have a possible theme here?
When I asked a Canadian how they won their Independence, (trying to remember any battle) in true Canadian fashion he replied...'We asked for it' :eyeroll:
Weather is nice and sunny and very comfortable.
Hope you guys are having a good day.
Happy Hunting and watch out for the bears.
I look as Canadian as the next person, but when I open my mouth, my Texas accent betrays me.
kickysnana
(3,908 posts)AnneD
(15,774 posts)I didn't need a US passport, my tribal role card was enough. But to get back into the US, I needed the passport.
But who said anything about returning.......
DemReadingDU
(16,000 posts)Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)They're really big up there.
Bring us back some health care, and American jokes.
AnneD
(15,774 posts)They don't know I'm American....shhhhhhh.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)Or is this a limited visit?
An advanced scouting party....so to speak. I am finding this very intreresing. This may be one of the times when being aboriginal (as they say here) has it's advantages.
I am just visiting but living here or near the border may be an option. Been mulling this over since GWB first elected.