From NOEBIE.net
“As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.”
— Gore Vidal, 1925-2012
Anaheim Riots Sparked By Power Imbalance, Police Shootings In Time-Tested Formula. [The Huffington Post] – While much of the country watched in shock, people who study urban unrest and police community relations say that Anaheim, a Southern California city best known as the home of Disneyland and a seat of Orange County conservatism, shares the social tinderbox characteristics that have set other communities ablaze from Detroit to Los Angeles.
California cities’ bankruptcies: Blame the housing bust. [latimes.com] – From reading the voluminous accounts of the fiscal woes of Stockton and San Bernardino, you’d think that municipal unions and feckless city officials are primarily what led these cities down the path to fiscal ruin.
But you’d be wrong. What bankrupted Stockton and San Bernardino were the most severe housing busts in the nation. What bankrupted those two cities were banks peddling subprime mortgages to poorly paid workers.
The super-rich of The Earth had at least twenty-one trillion dollars hidden away in secret tax shelters at the end of 2010, according to a report just released by the Tax Justice Network. The number may be as high as $32 trillion – nearly half of the entire Gross World Product.
At least $21 trillion of unreported private financial wealth was owned by wealthy individuals via tax havens at the end of 2010. This sum is equivalent to the size of the United States and Japanese economies combined.
There may be as much as $32 trillion of hidden financial assets held offshore by high net worth individuals (HNWIs). according to our report The Price of Offshore Revisited, which is thought to be the most detailed and rigorous study ever made of financial assets held in offshore financial centres and secrecy structures.
We consider these numbers to be conservative. This is only financial wealth and excludes a welter of real estate, yachts and other non-fianncial assets owned via offshore structures.
This $32 trillion amounts to more than $4500 for every man, woman and child on the planet that has been squirreled away and not subject to taxation.
Less than 100,000 individuals accounted for nearly $10 trillion of the offshore wealth.
The report shows that when hidden wealth is taken into account, many so-called “debtor nations” are actually wealthy – but their wealth is being imprisoned offshore by the elites and bankers.
The Tax Justice Network is an independent organization launched in the British Houses of Parliament in March of 2003. It is dedicated to high-level research, analysis and advocacy in the field of tax and regulation.
LIBOR For Mortals: An Easy Explainer. [Marketplace.org] – Marketplace explains the London Interbank Offered Rate – what it is, what it means to you and how Barclays (and possibly others) messed it up.
Image courtesy of http://www.public-domain-image.com.
“A folk song is what’s wrong and how to fix it or it could be
who’s hungry and where their mouth is or
who’s out of work and where the job is or
who’s broke and where the money is or
who’s carrying a gun and where the peace is.”
Visit the Official Woody Guthrie Website.
Somewhere on this Weblog there will eventually be an essay about barbecue. It won’t be about how to barbecue. It will be about why grilling over coals or wood is important to some people, or at least to me.
You have been forewarned, and now I must go light the charcoal chimney.
UPDATE:
I’ve created an entire site dedicated to grilling pursuits. Head on over to Grilling With Noebie for essays, recipes, tips, tricks, techniques, photos and more. There are only a few articles up at the moment, but I’ll be adding to it every week.
A Quote from Henry David Thoreau:
“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.”
Happy Independence Day
Get out there and strike a blow for Liberty!
Here is the full text of the Supreme Court opinion in National Federation of Independent Business vs. Sebelius, in which the Court upheld the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.
that awkward thing where
the woman who calls you her husband
reaches for your hand and tries to interlace fingers
she never does that – not in all these years
and it’s like somebody just tried to hand you a spider or
a bucket of something repulsive
and you pull your hand away and shudder
ew
was that out loud?
also, you’re in the same mall
where you strolled with your lover
just days ago
fingers interlaced
where you had your picture taken in one of those
coin-op photo booth things with the curtain
you still carry the pictures
of smiles and passionate kisses
in your wallet
and you’re coming upon the photo booth now
and the woman who calls you her husband
suddenly gets this great idea