This is How Facebook "Accidentally" Blocked DNC Email Leak Scandal

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Submitted by Everett Numbers via TheAntiMedia.org,

Once again, the impartiality of Facebook’s news feature is being called into question. This time, the social network claims it“accidentally” obstructed all links to the leaked Democratic National Committee emails published by Wikileaks just ahead of the party’s convention.

This past Friday morning, the infamous publisher of anonymous leaks released nearly 20,000 internal emails between members of the formal governing body of the Democratic Party. The news, where it was seen, provoked outrage, especially among supporters of Bernie Sanders, who was shown to have received unfair treatment by officially impartial party operators.

While social media outlets have helped facilitate the spread of uncovered information in the past, Facebook is no trusted ally of Wikileaks.

“@Facebook is blocking #DNCLeak email links,” Wikileaks tweeted Saturday evening, following other individual reports of Facebook suppressing the documents hours earlier.“Monday is the Democratic National Convention.”

 

@SwiftOnSecurity @wikileaks It's been fixed.

— Alex Stamos (@alexstamos) July 24, 2016

 

In a reply about three hours later, Twitter user @SwiftOnSecurity said,“@wikileaks Facebook has an automated system for detecting spam/malicious links, that sometimes have false positives. /cc @alexstamos”

Then, without elaborating, Facebook Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos replied to both tweets: “It’s been fixed,” Stamos said.

Wikileaks later tweeted that Facebook explained it all away as an“accident.”

 

.@Facebook says it has unblocked the posting of links to https://t.co/nxEDEZBO1j and that the blocking was 'an accident'.

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) July 24, 2016

 

A Facebook representative attempted to clarify, telling Gizmodo, “Like other services, our anti-spam systems briefly flagged links to these documents as unsafe. We quickly corrected this error on Saturday evening.”

But tech blogs aren’t just letting this go. The Next Web said Facebook’s correction “is great — but also not really the point,” adding that there seems to be a “very tight reign on what’s allowed on Facebook.”

Complaining about Facebook is nothing new, but this episode of newswire censorship amounts to more than ignored demands for a Dislike button.

In May, former employees of the social networking service blew the whistle on how news stories and trends were generated on the platform. Instead of an unbiased algorithm, human “curators” were revealed to be making decisions on what deserved to be a top headline.

More recently, Facebook took down and re-uploaded a Facebook Live video showing the immediate aftermath of the police shooting death of Philando Castile — an anomaly the site chalked up to a “technical glitch,” TechCrunch reported.

One of the more peculiar cases of Facebook post policing occurred in November 2015, when U.K. student Roua Naboulsi had a lengthy status update removed. Her criticism of the selective sentimentality over the terrorist mass shooting attack in Paris, France, asking why the same response didn’t come for brown-skinned victims of terror, garnered 9,000 shares and 12,000 likes before Facebook took it down, RT reported.

In a twist, Facebook also faced harsh criticism for what it refused to censor earlier this month; it shared a graphic Instagram video of victims in the Bastille Day attack in Nice, France, proving that as egregious as Facebook’s latest censorship campaign may be, it is merely yet another expression of the same pattern.

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Leid Stories—Hillary Makes History with Democratic Party Nomination, and Possibly with Federal Probe of Massive Fraud by Clinton Foundation–07.27.16

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Hillary Clinton made history last night. With an official vote by Democratic Party delegates and superdelegates, she won the nomination as the party’s standard bearer for president in November’s general election, the first woman to head a major party ticket. But news of a different, though familiar, kind this morning, as Clinton finds herself at the center of yet another federal investigation. The IRS has launched a probe into the operations of the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, looking into massive fraud, Leid Stories has learned. Several countries also have launched tandem investigations of the foundation’s operations in their jurisdictions. Most recently, in the United States, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) requested that FBI Director James Comey, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, and Federal Trade Commission chairperson Edith Ramirez undertake a three-pronged investigation into what she called “a “lawless, pay-to-play enterprise that has been operating under a cloak of philanthropy for years.” The federal agencies’ probes should focus on the relationships between big-money donors to the foundation and U.S. foreign-policy decisions made during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, Blackburn said. Charles Ortel, a former Wall Street investor who exposed General Electric’s multibillion-dollar stock fraud in 2007-2008, since February last [...]

The post Leid Stories—Hillary Makes History with Democratic Party Nomination, and Possibly with Federal Probe of Massive Fraud by Clinton Foundation–07.27.16 appeared first on Progressive Radio Network.

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Half The Population Of America And Canada Uses Facebook At Least Once A Day

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While we, like everyone else, were stunned by Facebook's financial results, which showed torrid growth in virtually every metric, from user growth to revenue to earnings to eyeball monetization, one specific number sticks out: according to Mark Zuckerberg, there are now 175 million daily active users in the US and Canada. Considering that there are about 325 million Americans and about 35 million Canadians, this means that every single day half the population of the US and Canada uses Facebook at least once.

 

And just as mindboggling, with 226 million monthly active users in these two countries, it means that nearly two-thirds of every single American and Canadian uses Facebook at least once a month.

 

While we have no reason to doubt the validity of these numbers, we hope economists who still are confused why America's productivity is going down the drain, will finally figure it out.

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Hillary’s Knight in Shining Armor

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(ANTIMEDIA) Last Friday, Wikileaks released over 19,000 emails from top officials within the Democratic National Committee, including now-former chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. The leak revealed a mountain of unethical and possible criminal behavior. Emails exposed the committee’s nonchalant racism toward blacks and latinos, employees’ strategies to undermine presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, which included guidance from one of Hillary Clinton’s lawyers, and cooperation with multiple major news outlets; one Politico writer even sent stories to the committee for approval before his own editor, to name a few revelations.

The story spread on social media in spite of reported censorship by both Twitter and Facebook. A statement from the Clinton campaign released Saturday expressed complete confidence in the way they had run their campaign. It also seemingly threw Schultz under the bus. Schultz resigned her position on Sunday, only to be immediately hired by Hillary Clinton. In a public statement, Clinton thanked her “longtime friend” for all of her hard work on the committee.

“There’s simply no one better at taking the fight to the Republicans than Debbie,” Clinton said, “which is why I am glad that she has agreed to serve as honorary chair of my campaign’s 50-state program to gain ground and elect Democrats in every part of the country, and will continue to serve as a surrogate for my campaign nationally, in Florida, and in other key states.”

In a bizarre twist, the initial statement from Clinton’s camp went on to blame the Russian government for the leak. Campaign manager Robert Mook appeared on ABC’s This Week Sunday morning, accusing Russia of leaking the emails to help Donald Trump. He referenced “experts” but no actual evidence.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange asserts “there is no proof whatsoever” to back up these claims, but Hillary’s friends at the FBI have now gotten involved. A spokesperson for the bureau announced Monday that an investigation had been launched.

“The FBI is investigating a cyber intrusion involving the DNC and are working to determine the nature and scope of the matter. A compromise of this nature is something we take very seriously, and the FBI will continue to investigate and hold accountable those who pose a threat in cyberspace,” the agency said.

Listen, FBI: we know this is no surprise. Politicians have always been mocked and described as dishonest, corrupt crooks, and political campaigns aren’t exactly known for their integrity. However twisted and backward this system has become, though, the fact remains they are public servants. They are paid by the people to represent the people, yet they take the money and mislead the people. You’re not supposed to protect them when they get caught.

Scandals were exposed by investigative journalists long before Wikileaks started making waves in the political landscape. But times have changed — drastically. Major news networks now work with and for corrupt politicians, effectively helping them deceive the very people they claim to represent in order to gain power. As technology continues to evolve, investigative journalists and whistleblowers have been forced to adapt, utilizing the back alleys and underground tunnels of cyberspace to obtain and distribute information. Unequivocal freedom of the press has been bound, gagged, and kicked into a shallow grave by the U.S. government — and this is just another example of FBI mercenaries being sent to kill the messenger so it stays there.

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This article (Hillary’s Knight in Shining Armor) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Josie Wales and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11 pm Eastern/8 pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, please email the error and name of the article at edits@theantimedia.org.

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Assange: "A Lot More Material" Will Be Released

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One month ago, when Wikileaks' Julian Assange told ITV's Richard Peston that he would publish "enough evidence" to indict Hillary Clinton, few took him seriously. And while Hillary has not been indicted - yet - last Friday's leak has already managed to wreak havoc and has led to revelations of cronyism and collusion within the Democratic party and the media, the resignation of the DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, as well as chaos on the first day of the Democratic convention.

Hence, why we believe Assange will be taken more seriously this time.

Earlier today, Assange told CNN that Wikileaks might release "a lot more material" relevant to the US electoral campaign. Assange spoke to CNN following the release of nearly 20,000 hacked Democratic National Committee emails.

The topic then turned to the topic du jour: "did Putin do it"?

Assange refused to confirm or deny a Russian origin for the mass email leak, saying Wikileaks tries to create ambiguity to protect all its sources.

"Perhaps one day the source or sources will step forward and that might be an interesting moment some people may have egg on their faces. But to exclude certain actors is to make it easier to find out who our sources are," Assange told CNN.

The Kremlin has rejected allegations its behind the hacking, calling suggestions it ordered the release of the emails to influence US politics the "usual fun and games" of the US election campaigns, while the Russian foreign minister had an even simpler reaction to the same question: "I don't want to use four-letter words." Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, added, "This is not really good for bilateral relations."

All of this now appears to be irrelevant, and as we speculated earlier, the "anti-Russia" narrative is now in motion and moments ago Obama said that it's 'possible' Putin is trying to sway vote for Trump.

Which brings us to the next point: speaking from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he faces extradition over sexual assault allegations, Assange told CNN that Democratic Party officials were using the specter of Russian involvement to distract from the content of the emails, which have had tumultuous affect on the party at the start of its national convention, where it is expected to make Hillary Clinton its presidential nominee.

"It raises questions about the natural instincts of Clinton that when confronted with a serious domestic political scandal, she tries to blame the Russians, blame the Chinese, et cetera," Assange told CNN.

"Because if she does that while in government, it could lead to problems," he added.

Actually Julian, she already has done that, most recently when the Inspector General accused her of violating State Department rules for maintaining a personal email server: her response - blame the state department for having an "anti-Clinton" bias, and use the oldest, or rather youngest, defense in the book, one used by young children everywhere: "others did it" (something which we subsequently learned was incorrect).

Then again, when the entire objective press is engaged in a full court press to crush the messenger (or the source), and ignore the message, none of this matters.

Assange's full interview is below.

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Global Central Banks Are All-In: QE Running At Record $180 Billion Per Month (And Rising)

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The monetary policy beatings will continue until morale improves. Eight long years after monetary policy experimentation went extreme, Reuters reports the amount of QE stimulus being pumped into the world financial system has never been higher... and it's about to get bigger.

As Jamie McGeever reports, The European Central Bank and Bank of Japan are buying around $180 billion of assets a month, according to Deutsche Bank, a larger global total than at any point since 2009, even when the Federal Reserve's QE programme was in full flow.

 

And if market consensus proves accurate, that total is about to rise by billions more -- with the ECB, BOJ and even Bank of England all expected to expand their QE programmes soon to try and bolster fragile growth and lift stubbornly low inflation.

The $180 billion total is roughly split down the middle between the ECB and BOJ, according to Deutsche, and is measured on a rolling 12-month basis. But against GDP, Japan is the biggest 'loser'...

 

And that is why stock markets around the world have soared since February amid a collapse in everything fundamental...

 

Charts: Reuters, DB, and Bloomberg

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France’s Minister of the Interior Is Withholding All Security Camera Evidence of the Nice Truck Massacre and Demands that the Evidence be Destroyed

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France’s Minister of the Interior Is Withholding All Security Camera Evidence of the Nice Truck Massacre and Demands that the Evidence be Destroyed

Obviously, the real evidence does not support the concocted evidence and the official story.

The person who prepared this — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnSNvvpI97M — is a bit crude in his language, but his point is nevertheless sound.

We have not been shown any security camera evidence of the Nice event. Instead, we have seen cell phone video taken by Richard Gutjahr who happens to be married to a former Israeli intelligence agent who is currently an Israeli politician. Amazingly, Gutjahr also happened to be on the scene at the Munich shooting and again furnished the cell phone video and testimony for that event. As former US Representative Cynthia McKinney asked, how did it happen that the same person is performing the same role for both the Nice and Munich events?

Why does the official story have to rely on Gutjahr’s cell phone video when, at least in Nice, there is massive security camera video evidence?

The post France’s Minister of the Interior Is Withholding All Security Camera Evidence of the Nice Truck Massacre and Demands that the Evidence be Destroyed appeared first on PaulCraigRoberts.org.

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Italy Races To Arrange €5 Billion Bailout For Monte Paschi Before Friday's Stress Test

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As we noted over the weekend, Italy's bank stress test the result of which is due out on Friday, is a "near-term stress event", and one which Italy's most troubled bank, Monte dei Paschi di Siena, is expected to fail. It is Monte Paschi's massive non-performing debt load that is also the reason why over the past month Italy's Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has been desperately spinning Brexit as a catalyst event which would get Germany's blessing to enact a taxpayer-funded, public, bailout of not just the world's oldest, and Italy's third largest, bank but also of the entire Italian banking sector. Alas that has not panned out as expected, and Italy never got Germany's - or Dijsselbloem's - permission to launch another TARP.

Which explains why moments ago the FT reported that Italy was last night "racing to secure a privately backed bailout of Monte dei Paschi di Siena, the most exposed of the country’s troubled lenders, including a plan to raise €5 billion of fresh capital so as to avert nationalisation, according to bankers and European officials."

As a reminder, Monte Paschi has been bailed out by the state twice has raised over €8 billion of capital in the past two years, money which it quickly burned through, and as of this moment it has a market cap of just over €800 million. In other words, all else equal, the Sienna bank is looking at dilution of nearly 90%. Which would be a concern if the stock wasn't already trading as if it was insolvent, and if it hadn't been halted already over the past two days despite a recent short-selling ban which did absolutely nothing to the bank's long-term prospects.

In any event, with a public bailout of the picture, what's the Italian government to do ahead of a failed stress test (unless of course the ECB "passes" Monte Paschi and thus loses all credibility)? Resort to the only option it has - a private recapitalization. 

According to the FT, "people directly involved in the Monte Paschi discussions say they are aiming for a private rescue of the bank to be announced before the stress test results are published after US markets close on Friday. "

But they admit that the negotiations could go down to the wire or run into or beyond the weekend. This raises the prospect of shares in Monte Paschi and other Italian banks coming under renewed pressure when markets reopen on Monday, which many fear could prove lethal.

 

“If there isn’t a plan then investors will read the [stress test] results and on Monday kill the share,” said a person familiar with the thinking of the government of Matteo Renzi, Italy’s prime minister who has been working frantically to find a solution.

That, in turn, would unleash a bail-in and spark not only mass anger at the unpopular Renzi regime, but potentially also a bank run. The FT adds:

Mr Renzi, whose political future is tied to a constitutional referendum in the autumn, is desperate to avoid any hit to retail investors — and potential voters — which would come if the private solution fails and there is a state rescue instead.

Any such rescue would be under EU rules, which would mean a so-called bail-in, where junior Monte Paschi bonds would be converted to shares, and compensation given to retail investors. Italian officials and senior bankers fears this would lead to a replay — on a larger scale — of the travails of Portugal’s Novo Banco, where the largest investors took the hit while retail bondholders were shielded, resulting in a collapse in investor sentiment and capital flight

What would a "private" bailout look like? "The privately backed plan, which is still under discussion and could change, would involve a multi-layered deal to rid Monte Paschi of €10bn of net non-performing loans and recapitalisation worth up to €5bn, say people involved in the talks."

The plan (or lack thereof) follows failed attempts by Renzi to find a “white knight” buyer for Monte Paschi, including Italy’s stronger capitalised banks, Intesa Sanpaolo and UBI Banca, say senior bankers.

But since a failure of Monte Paschi could likely unleash a countrywide panic, and lead to run on deposits across the entire sector, other banks may have no choice but to forcibly "chip in."

And yet, according to the FT, their contributions will still be negligible:

To clean up the lender, at least €10bn of its NPLs would be spun off into a special purpose vehicle. This would then be securitised, with shareholders taking the more risky junior tranche of debt and Atlante taking the mezzanine tranche.

This in turn goes back to a plan we detailed before, namely one involving a JPM-led securitization vehicle. "The least-risky senior tranche would be backed up to €7bn of bridge loans from a pool of banks likely to include JPMorgan of the US and Mediobanca, the Italian investment bank. The longer term aim would be for the senior tranche to be guaranteed by a government-backed scheme, known by the acronym GACS."

But even here, there is a problem, because to boost its capital, Monte Paschi would launch a rights issue of up to €5bn, its third in three years and worth more than five times its current market value.

Needless to say, "analysts believe this fund raising would be difficult given the bank’s reputation for scorching investors capital."

And then there is one final, and far bigger, problem: Monte Paschi is just the tip of the iceberg.

Analysts also said the problems in Italian banking would not be solved by the rescue of Monte Paschi.

 

Carlo Tommaselli, analyst at Credit Suisse, has argued that Italy’s banking sector needs €30bn “to solve the NPL issue”.

Putting that in context, of the €360bn of loans which are unlikely to be repaid in full, €200bn are loans to creditors already deemed insolvent. Of those, €85bn are not already written down on banks’ books.

In other words, while largely under the radar, the fate of the Italian banking sector may depend on a very improbably bailout that has to be concluded in the next 48 hours: one which would involve a huge leap of faith by the private sector, and if unsuccessful, it could lead to the first major Bail In of a major bank on Italian soil, leading to further contagion, bank runs, and ultimately, a wholesale banking sector failure and bailout.

One thing we are certain of is that a bailout will come - sooner or later, and that as improbable as it may seem, Monte Paschi will get the funds it needs as the alternative would risk shaking up the entire European financial system which as we have covered since 2013 (ahem Deutsche Bank) is so frail, even a modest "fat tail" event could topple it. And just to be thorough, it is not only Germany's banks which stand to suffer. As we showed over the weekend, the one country most exposed to French banks the same one that in recent weeks has had far bigger problems of a terrorist nature: France.

 

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Chilling Testimony From A Cancer Cell Specialist Makes One Thing Utterly Obvious About Our Food

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Photo credit: Pesticide Action Network

There’s no doubt about it: The world’s demand for organically grown produce is growing rapidly, so much so that dozens of countries around the world have already banned the chemicals that are so commonly sprayed on conventionally grown food. If you’re someone who believes organic farming is unsustainable, ask yourself, how are so many countries (like Russia, Switzerland, or Bulgaria, to name a few) able to feed their citizens this way?  If so many countries can successfully grow organics, what’s the real reason that countries like the United States continue to spray billions of pounds of chemicals on our food every single year? Is it really just to ward off pests?

Every person on the planet can feed themselves with just 100 square feet of well managed land. In 2008, the UN Conference of Trade and development supported organics, saying that organic agriculture can be more conducive to food security in Africa than most conventional production systems, and is more likely to be sustainable in the long term. You can read that full report HERE.

Below is a video of Kathleen Collins, a cancer cell specialist at UC Berkely, speaking about methyl iodide, and the type of DNA damage it causes. Methyl iodide is still sprayed on our food in some areas, and is still used in some prescription medications. According to the EPA,  acute (short-term) exposure to methyl iodide by inhalation may depress the central nervous system (CNS), irritate the lungs and skin, and affect the kidneys. Massive acute inhalation exposure to methyl iodide has also led to pulmonary edema. Acute inhalation exposure of humans to methyl iodide has resulted in nausea, vomiting, vertigo, ataxia, slurred speech, drowsiness, skin blistering, and eye irritation. Chronic (long-term) exposure of humans to methyl iodide by inhalation may affect the CNS and cause skin burns. The EPA has not classified methyl iodide for potential carcinogenicity, even though scientists like Dr. Collins have made it quite clear that it should be.

According to the Pesticide Action Network:

Methyl iodide causes late term miscarriages, contaminates groundwater and is so reliably carcinogenic that it’s used to create cancer cells in laboratories. It is included in California’s Proposition 65 list of chemicals known to cause cancer. The pesticide poses the most direct risks to farm workers and neighboring communities because of the large quantities that would be applied to fields and its tendency to drift off site through the air. Use of methyl iodide is anticipated to be similar to methyl bromide and could top 6-10 million pounds a year in California alone.

Scientists Witness 90 Percent Drop In Pesticide Accumulation Within The Human Body After Going Organic

This agent is just one of many harmful ingredients used in the pesticides sprayed on our food. But there is still hope, as studies have shown that switching to organic produce dramatically reduces pesticide accumulation within the body.

For example, a recent study conducted by researchers from RMIT University, published in the journal Environmental Research, found that an organic diet for just one week significantly reduced pesticide exposure in adults by 90 percent.  (source)

Cynthia Curl, an assistant professor in the School of Allied Health Sciences Department of Community and Environmental Health at Boise State University, recently published a pesticide exposure study in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. Results of her research indicated that among individuals eating similar amounts of vegetables and fruits, the ones who reported eating organic produce had significantly lower OP pesticide exposure than those who normally consume conventionally grown produce. You can read more about that here.

Another great example comes from a supermarket chain in Sweden which challenged a family to go completely organic for just two weeks. The transition was monitored and studied by The Swedish Environmental Research Institute to see firsthand whether or not an organic diet positively impacted the lives of the family. You can watch a video of that experiment and view the results HERE.

We have covered this topic extensively, and you can find many more articles about pesticides and organics by browsing the site. Below is another article that you might be interested in reading:

A Pregnant Woman Eating Organic vs Eating Conventional

Methyl Iodide Seems To Be Predominately Sprayed On Strawberries

Below is another great video for anybody who believes it’s not possible to sustainably grow organic produce. It’s being done all over the world, and Jim Cochran is one of many people doing it successfully.

The companies that manufacture these pesticides (big biotech companies like Monsanto) hold tremendous amounts of power over government policy. Perhaps this is why so much of the world has gone organic, yet North America continues to lag behind.

The chemical is approved for spraying in  California’s strawberry fields at rates up to 110 pounds per acre on much of the state’s 38,000 acres in strawberry production, totaling millions of pounds of use. Though methyl iodide will likely be used primarily on strawberries, it is also registered for use on tomatoes, peppers, nurseries, and on soils prior to replanting orchards and vineyards. Although it is still sprayed around the country, it was banned in California a couple of years ago when all of this information came to light (source).

 

 

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Why Real Reform Is Impossible: We Can't Believe the Mighty Titanic Could Actually Sink

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Unfortunately for those partying on the upper First Class decks, they are as doomed as the steerage passengers when the ship goes down.

Why did passengers remain on the Titanic even as its bow sank deeper into the ice-cold Atlantic? They believed the experts and authorities because they wanted to believe the ship was "unsinkable." And why did they want to believe the ship was "unsinkable"?

Two visceral realities fueled their misplaced faith in the ship's supposed safety:

1) The warm ship seemed so mighty, and the alternative--open lifeboats drifting in the dark cold night--seemed so vulnerable, uncomfortable and risky.

2) It was much easier to believe the experts' assurances that the ship was safe than it was to clamber into a small lifeboat and bob around the open Atlantic.

We all know which alternative turned out to be safe and which one was fatally unsafe. The apparently risky open lifeboats were the sole source of survival and the enormous, complex "unsinkable" ship sank, ending the lives of everyone who clung to the appealing fantasy that the mighty ship was too technologically advanced to sink.

We are all on a Titanic, a complex system that experts and authorities declare safe and unsinkable for all time. Our money, our government, our Social Security, our Medicare and our entire debt-based way of life is mighty and invulnerable. Those few who see the eventual need to prepare "risky" lifeboats are mocked and ridiculed.

But the status quo's bow is already sinking into the ice-cold waters of reality.The only way the status quo can support the debt-based financial system and government that funds all these vast systems is if the economy creates 10 million more "breadwinner" jobs (in David Stockman's definition, a job that earns enough to support a family of four) a decade.

These new jobs are needed to raise the additional $1 trillion per year in payroll and income taxes needed to keep the fiscal ship afloat, and to provide the household income needed to support trillions more in private-sector debt--new home mortgages, auto loans, student loans, credit card debt, etc.--that's needed to support consumption.

If the status quo can't create at least 10 million new breadwinner jobs a decade, it sinks just as surely as the Titanic, which was doomed the moment the fifth watertight compartment was ripped open by the iceberg.

And please don't tell me we can raise $1 trillion in new annual taxes by "taxing the owners of the robots," another "unsinkable" fantasy I dismantle in my books Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform and A Radically Beneficial World.

Now that software and robotics are commoditized, the scarcity value of these tools and the goods they produce is plummeting. Take a look at profits in commoditized goods: they're razor-thin, and getting thinner by the day. As the cost of software/automation tools drops, they become affordable to an ever-larger pool of owners/producers, which means the competition from new owners will increase until there is no profit at all.

And exactly how do you extract $1 trillion in phantom profits from "owners of robots" who happen to be overseas? The belief in "taxing the owners of robots" is identical to the doomed souls on board the Titanic believing the ship was unsinkable.

The belief in the status quo's permanence is exactly like the belief in the Titanic's invulnerability. The systems we depend on are so vast and seem so mighty, it doesn't seem possible that they could unravel and fail. But their eventual unraveling and failure are already baked in and cannot be undone by the modest tweaks of what passes for "reform" in the status quo.

The financial realities of systemically stagnant jobs, incomes and tax revenues have already ripped a fatal gash below the waterline of the status quo. The bow is sinking but the parties on the First Class deck continue. The passengers in steerage are getting anxious because they see the cold water sloshing around the lower decks, but few on the upper decks care what mere steerage passengers are experiencing.

Unfortunately for those partying on the upper First Class decks, they are as doomed as the steerage passengers when the ship goes down.

As the supposedly risk-free status quo decays, the supposedly "risky" lifeboats-- decentralized private-sector arrangements of multiple income streams derived from ownership of productive assets that are debt-free and not dependent on debt-based government funding or global corporate cartels--will be cooperating and collaborating with each other.

Those seeking lifeboats will benefit from the Mobile Creative credo: trust your network, not the corporation or the state.

My new book is #10 on Kindle short reads -> politics and social science: Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform ($3.95 Kindle ebook, $8.95 print edition) For more, please visit the book's website.

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