Monday, April 26, 2010

you've got to be carefully taught

You've got to be taught
To hate and fear
You've got to be taught
From year to year
It's got to be drummed
in your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught

You've got to be taught
To be afraid
Of people whose eyes
are oddly made
And people whose skin
Is a different shade
You've got to be carefully taught

You've got to be taught
Before it's too late
Before you are 6 or 7 or 8
To hate all the people
your relatives hate
You've got to be carefully taught

Rodgers & Hammerstein.

Should go well on some national unity syllabus.

Friday, April 23, 2010

deconstruction of a country

This is a stab at economics....

Wot's deconstruction??


The IMF has already performed (Q: when? If one feels up for another surprise) a complete audit of the United States banking system/Federal Reserve.

The (first) significance is that audits by the IMF are (or were, rather) something which they have had only previously done to broke third world nations.

One would ask for the definition of a "broke third world nation" . Well the International Monetary Fund considers a nation-state with a total debt-to-GDP ratio of 200 percent or more to be a "de-constructed Third World nation-state."

As per Al Martin:

What "de-constructed" actually means is that a political regime in that country, or series of political regimes, have, through a long period of fraud, abuse, graft, corruption and mismanagement, effectively collapsed the economy of that country.

This is where thing get cute. Mostly from the CIA World factbook. (and the beauty of cut and paste).

Rank↓ Country - Entity↓ External debt
(millions US$)↓
Date of information↓ External debt
per capita (US$)↓
Date of population*↓ External debt (% of GDP)↓
1 United States[4] $13,399,859 6/30/2009 $43,646 30-July-09 94%
2 United Kingdom[5] $9,191,104 12/22/2009 $150,673 November 2009 365.44%
3 Germany $5,208,000 6/30/2009 $63,350 30-Jun-07 185.2%
4 France $5,021,000 6/30/2009 $76,718 1 January 2010 227.35%
5 Spain $2,478,000 9/30/2008 $49,619 30 June 2007 est. 150.65%
6 Luxembourg $1,994,000 6/30/2009 $3,970,514 2010 est. 4,973.68%
7 Ireland $1,841,000 6/30/2007 $448,032 30-Jun-08 960.86%
8 Japan $1,492,000 6/30/2007 $4,528 30-Jun-07 34.93%
9 Switzerland $1,340,000 6/30/2007 $174,520 30-Jun-07 441.95%
10 Belgium

The United Stated look pretty good , unless one follows Al Martin , and his newsletter which in April 2005 stated that the ratio of total U.S. debt to gross domestic product (GDP) actually rose from 78 percent in 2000 to 308 percent in April 2005. This in 2005...

On the plus side, if everyone is in a banana republic, then no one is in a banana republic...
On the minus side, everyone is in a banana republic, without the bananas....


Footnotes:

1. The current official debt-GDP ratio for 2010 is 94.27% [usgovernmentspending.com]

2. (Al Martin is a former contributor to the Presidential Council of Economic Advisors and retired naval intelligence officer - he is NOT a Bush fanboy.)


Saturday, March 13, 2010

A rose by any name

testing. testing.

We have a movement by the powers-that-be to restrict the word "Allah" to muslims only. A bit of 1984, since all Arabic speaking peoples of the Abrahamic faiths use it, but no matter. This is Malaysia, and Malaysia bole!!

Being curious, I popped up my recollection of one of Karen Armstrong books . In essence it is mentioned the word "Al-Lah" seems to be al-"the" and Lah-"God". However, in the manner of all semitic languages, it behoves one to check on the etymology of the brother-enemy. The brother you know may be your bigger/elder brother after all.

El, Eloah, Elohim- yep, in hebrew, means what you think they mean. More or less....


(Never understood why, of all people, Karen Armstrong's books were banned. Perhaps the powers-that-be have no idea she was a catholic nun who became an ex-catholic nun...
There seem to be rumours that she has converted to Islam. In fact a perfect poster-girl for some faith-propagation department. But then the last talk she gave in KL, she quoted a Somebody of Al-Azhar-
"In Europe I saw Islam all-around, but I found no Muslims. In Cairo I found Muslims all over, but I found no Islam."

So. Maybe, just maybe, it makes her books are banned after all).





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