Blogs y opiniones de economia en ingles

Articles Multi-trillion dollar asset managers are an easy scapegoat to pin blame on (By Coby Lefkowitz) All we have to work with at any given moment in time is what’s in front of us (By Dave Nadig) The meme battalion becomes a meme brigade (By Drew Dickson) History is the only evidence we have to test our ideas about how the world works. (By Mathew Klein) A corporation that operates against my best interests has me thin...

The post These Are the Goods appeared first on The Irrelevant Investor.

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These wildfires and record temperatures across the globe are another widely ignored warning for the days to come. The cost of this delusion will be measured not in dollars, but in carbon units...






COVID was the wake up call, so the Idiocracy hit the snooze button and went ALL IN risk assets at the end of the longest cycle in U.S. history. Gamblers to the very end. 
The leaders of this denialist paradise are the most corrupt human beings in U.S. history. They've profited mightily from the fact that societal moral collapse has been front-running their death spiral of depravity. And who to trust in this human disaster but the same assholes and policies that got us into it in the first place. I predict that the days of accountability are fast arriving for these serial psychopaths. 
We face an epic meltdown not just in markets but in human mental health as well. The self-indulgent consumption lifestyle has left The Lonely Crowd cleaved of any and all meaningful social connection. The end result is mental health breakdown, suicide, and addiction. Rampant selfishness is leading to societal disintegration. THIS is exceptionalism. Guns don't kill people, psychopaths with guns kill people. What should we resolve the guns or the psychopaths, let's vote for neither. The right is seduced by this notion that nothing has changed and we can easily revert back to the good old days, if we only had the will to do so. Unfortunately, EVERYTHING has changed. Everything has been denatured over the past decades. Which means that the good old days no longer exist in the current paradigm. We must adapt to survive. We cannot live in a Blade Runner reality soundtracked with country music.
Adaptation means that less is more. We must no longer strive for competitive self-destruction. And yet, the system demands that we be fed into the same old meat grinder as usual. Today's super idiots must obey the prime directive. The only vestige that remains of the past is the imperative to recycle proven failure. 
I personally don't worry about the carbon level anymore because this sequence of events will lead to the sharpest drop off in carbon output in global history. In addition, I don't concern myself with societal meltdown, because the Deep State has far more weapons and ammunition than their would be adversaries. In summary, I am not paranoid, I am enlightened. Because finally we see the Creator's Plan coming together.

And it's not carbon neutral. 

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What If An Alien Probe Visited Earth?

Authored by Ross Pomeroy via RealClearScioence.com,

Popular media portrayals of extraterrestrials visiting Earth have tended to display the dramatic: giant spaceraft, killer robots, and nefarious aliens. A more realistic scenario is decidedly more mundane, but still undeniably world-shattering: a single, robotic probe, visiting Earth in orbit or landing as a rover.

Back in 1998, Allen Tough, a Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto and an expert in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) before his death in 2012, postulated that there might be alien civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy with the ability to send out hundreds of small, intelligent probes to explore space. His supposition was reasonable. Today, well-funded collaborations like Breakthrough Starshot here on Earth are now actively working toward such an endeavor.

So what if Tough was right, and tens, hundreds, or even thousands of years ago, a far-off alien civilization dispatched dozens of robotic scouts out into the cosmos and one such rover eventually cruised its way to Earth?

What should be humanity's response?

The first step, according to Tough, would be to confirm that the craft really isn't from Earth, perhaps from a secretive government. A smart, skeptical team, ideally composed of scientists from various countries, would need to be recruited to examine the probe. If it's on land, the rover should probably be quarantined at the area it touched down. If it's in space, a robotic or a crewed mission would undoubtedly be required for an up-close look.

Once the probe's authenticity is confirmed, Tough stresses that the finding should be made public worldwide, with all collected data openly shared.

What to do next depends upon the nature of the probe.

According to SETI Senior Astronomer Seth Shostak, we'd want to find out if it's broadcasting any radio signals out into space, and probably block them at least temporarily. Such signals, especially if they are unidirectional, would likely be attempts to communicate with the aliens who sent it. We might not want the probe revealing too much about humanity before we can ascertain its intent.

If the probe's intent is judged to be benign, or even friendly, we'd next want to try to communicate with it. If it's plainly unintelligent, this could take some time. After unblocking its communications, we'd likely have Earth representatives attempt to share basic information, something like mathematical principles, gestures of friendship, or music. We'd then have to wait for the probe's handlers to respond through it. If the craft traveled for a long time, this could take hundreds of years! Shostak isn't sure humans would be able to wait that long – the desire to disassemble the probe and learn from it's technological guts might be too great.

But how would extraterrestrials feel if we took apart their probe? Shostak doesn't think aliens would be too mad. After all, if genial Martians suddenly appeared and messed with Curiosity, NASA engineers would be ecstatic - nothing would increase the space agency's budget more.

It would be more interesting if the probe or rover was artificially intelligent, thus capable of communicating with humans directly. Tough believed that any alien probe sent expressly for long-distance exploration would likely be capable of learning from, and even communicating with, a race it encountered.

"The probe has presumably already monitored our radio and television broadcasts, learned at least one of our languages, and learned about our culture and history," he wrote.

That certainly would be convenient and fascinating! While it's hard to hypothesize on what exactly an intelligent alien probe might tell us, Tough has a good idea about how we should act around it: show respect, avoid violence, speak and act truthfully, and deal with it fairly and honestly.

He also thought that any communication should be attempted with international scientific cooperation as well as openness to the public, aspirations perhaps as unlikely as an alien probe visiting Earth in the first place!

Tyler Durden Sat, 07/10/2021 - 23:30

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Visualizing Silver's Uses Through The Ages

Silver is one of the most versatile metals on Earth, with a unique combination of uses both as a precious and industrial metal.

Today, silver’s uses span many modern technologies, including solar panels, electric vehicles, and 5G devices. However, as Visual Capitalist notes, the uses of silver in currency, medicine, art, and jewelry have helped advance civilization, trade, and technology for thousands of years.

The Uses of Silver Over Time

The below infographic from Blackrock Silver takes us on a journey of silver’s uses through time, from the past to the future.

3,000 BC – The Middle Ages

The earliest accounts of silver can be traced to 3,000 BC in modern-day Turkey, where its mining spurred trade in the ancient Aegean and Mediterranean seas. Traders and merchants would use hacksilver—rough-cut pieces of silver—as a medium of exchange for goods and services.

Around 1,200 BC, the Ancient Greeks began refining and minting silver coins from the rich deposits found in the mines of Laurion just outside Athens. By 100 BC, modern-day Spain became the center of silver mining for the Roman Empire while silver bullion traveled along the Asian spice trade routes. By the late 1400s, Spain brought its affinity for silver to the New World where it uncovered the largest deposits of silver in history in the dusty hills of Bolivia.

Besides the uses of silver in commerce, people also recognized silver’s ability to fight bacteria. For instance, wine and food containers were often made out of silver to prevent spoilage. In addition, during breakouts of the Bubonic plague in medieval and renaissance Europe, people ate and drank with silver utensils to protect themselves from disease.

The 1800s – 2000s

New medicinal uses of silver came to light in the 19th and 20th centuries. Surgeons stitched post-operative wounds with silver sutures to reduce inflammation. In the early 1900s, doctors prescribed silver nitrate eyedrops to prevent conjunctivitis in newborn babies. Furthermore, in the 1960s, NASA developed a water purifier that dispensed silver ions to kill bacteria and purify water on its spacecraft.

The Industrial Revolution drove the onset of silver’s industrial applications. Thanks to its high light sensitivity and reflectivity, it became a key ingredient in photographic films, windows, and mirrors. Even today, skyscraper windows are often coated with silver to reflect sunlight and keep interior spaces cool.

The 2000s – Present

The uses of silver have come a long way since hacksilver and utensils, evolving with time and technology.

Silver is the most electrically conductive metal, making it a natural choice for electronic devices. Almost every electronic device with a switch or button contains silver, from smartphones to electric vehicles. Solar panels also utilize silver as a conductive layer in photovoltaic cells to transport and store electricity efficiently.

In addition, it has several medicinal applications that range from treating burn wounds and ulcers to eliminating bacteria in air conditioning systems and clothes.

Silver for the Future

Silver has always been useful to industries and technologies due to its unique properties, from its antibacterial nature to high electrical conductivity. Today, silver is critical for the next generation of renewable energy technologies.

For every age, silver proves its value.

Tyler Durden Sat, 07/10/2021 - 23:00

Meet Jigsaw: Google's Intelligence Agency

Via PrivacyToGo.co,

It’s no secret that Google regularly collaborates with intelligence agencies.

They are a known NSA subcontractor. They launched Google Earth using a CIA spy satellite network. Their executive suite’s revolving door with DARPA is well known.

In the wake of the January 6th Capitol event, the FBI used Google location data to pwn attendants with nothing more than a valid Gmail address and smartphone login:

A stark reminder that carrying a tracking device with a Google login, even with the SIM card removed, can mean the difference between freedom and an orange jump suit in the Great Reset era.

But Google also operates its own internal intelligence agency – complete with foreign regime change operations that are now being applied domestically.

And they’ve been doing so without repercussion for over a decade.

From Google Ideas to Google Regime Change

In 2010, Google CEO Eric Schmidt created Google Ideas. In typical Silicon Valley newspeak, Ideas was marketed as a “think/do tank to research issues at the intersection of technology and geopolitics.“

Astute readers know this “think/do” formula well – entities like the Council on Foreign Relations or World Economic Forum draft policy papers (think) and three-letter agencies carry them out (do).

And again, in typical Silicon Valley fashion, Google wanted to streamline this process – bring everything in-house and remake the world in their own image.

To head up Google Ideas, Schmidt tapped a man named Jared Cohen.

He couldn’t have selected a better goon for the job – as a card-carrying member of the Council on Foreign Relations and Rhodes Scholar, Cohen is a textbook Globalist spook. The State Department doubtlessly approved of his sordid credentials, as both Condoleeza Rice and Hillary Clinton enrolled Cohen to knock over foreign governments they disapproved of.

Google Ideas’ role in the 2014 Ukraine regime change operation is well-documented. And before that, their part in overthrowing Mubarak in Egypt was unveiled by way of the Stratfor leaks.

More recently, the role of Google Ideas in the attempted overthrow of Assad in Syria went public thanks to the oft-cited Hillary Clinton email leaks:

Please keep close hold, but my team is planning to launch a tool on Sunday that will publicly track and map the defections in Syria and which parts of the government they are coming from.

Our logic behind this is that while many people are tracking the atrocities, nobody is visually representing and mapping the defections, which we believe are important in encouraging more to defect and giving confidence to the opposition.

Given how hard it is to get information into Syria right now, we are partnering with Al-Jazeera who will take primary ownership over the tool we have built, track the data, verify it, and broadcast it back into Syria. I’ve attached a few visuals that show what the tool will look like. Please keep this very close hold and let me know if there is anything eke you think we need to account for or think about before we launch. We believe this can have an important impact.

-Jared Cohen to State Dept. Officials, July 25, 2012

With all this mounting evidence, surely Google Ideas was decommissioned. Surely Jared Cohen was swiftly ousted from his position at one of America’s premier Big Tech darlings for crimes against humanity, right?

Of course not!

Why scrap all that hard work when you can just rebrand and shift your regime change operations to domestic targets?

Google Jigsaw – USA Psyop Edition

Google Ideas was renamed Google Jigsaw in 2015 after years of bad press and controversy – this time with an eye on performing psychological operations in the United States.

But all that experience data mining and overthrowing Middle Eastern nations wasn’t just thrown out. Rather, Jigsaw repurposed its internal psychological operations program (code-named Operation Abdullah) to instead target “right-wing conspiracy theorists,” as revealed by privacy researcher Rob Braxman.

Using a technique known as the redirect method, Jigsaw attempts to populate outbound links to dissuade potential thought-criminals from looking at wrongthink.

Make no mistake – the redirect method is about more than manipulation of search engine results. It’s one thing to manipulate the content of searches based on query strings, but to target the psychology of the searcher themselves requires an accurate psychological profile of the person doing the searching.

And Google has psych profiles in spades thanks to centralized Google logins: To Android phones, to Gmail accounts, to adjunct services like YouTube, even to children via Google Classroom.

You don’t even need to use Google’s search engine to populate them with weaponized data. In fact, search alone provides far fewer avenues for offensive metadata usage than a cell phone.

We would implore readers to take a look at Jigsaw’s site. It’s a study in how to use front-end design to creep out your visitor, as a snippet of JavaScript code ensures your cursor is tracked in a spotlight throughout your visit:

Jigsaw’s front-end design team has a clear message for you: There’s nowhere to hide.

The site also uses another bit of intelligence tradecraft known as “transferrence” – it’s a simple psychological tactic of shifting blame from yourself to your target.

The four subheaders on Jigsaw’s homepage, Disinformation, Censorship, Toxicity, and Violent Extremism demonstrate this tactic at work.

• There is no greater source of media disinformation than MSM and the information served up by Google search engines.

• Big Tech are at the forefront of destroying free speech through heavy-handed censorship, Google among them.

• Psychological manipulation tactics used by the social justice crowd doubtlessly instill toxicity in those subjected to them.

• And Google’s well-documented history of participating in bloody regime change as described in this article are textbook cases of violent extremism.

Yet Jigsaw markets itself as combating these societal ails. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, just as Google’s former company tag-line of “Don’t Be Evil” was a similar reversal of reality.

And yes, regime change aficionado Jared Cohen is still the CEO of Google Jigsaw. In fact, Jigsaw, LLC was overtly brought back in-house as of October 2020.

In Closing

As we’ve described in previous articles, vast swaths of the State-controlled Panopticon are currently being outsourced to Big Tech companies.

Call this phenomenon a public-private partnership. Call it the Great Reset. Call it Agenda 2030, or Agenda 21, or “stakeholder capitalism,” or any of the other euphemisms dreamt up by these hapless would-be oligarchs to sell neofeudal Technocracy to the public.

Making intelligence services pseudo-independent from the State is simply a mandatory prerequisite for fully globalizing them.

Furthermore, as the Biden administration seeks to reclassify half of the country as domestic extremists, it’s no secret that companies like Google, with their vast data weaponization programs, will play a key role in identifying Public Enemy #1:

You.

There is no “silver bullet” solution to this problem. Nearly all consumer electronics can be exploited at very low levels. Even the Internet itself is a longstanding military intelligence operation.

But this doesn’t mean any action short of becoming a Luddite is meaningless!

If data is the new oil, it’s time to shut off your well:

• Abstain from using Google Mail, Docs, or Search where possible.

• Seek out alternative social media and content creation platforms.

• If your smartphone requires heavy dependence on Apple or Google for logins or closed-source apps, consider privacy-respecting alternatives.

• Familiarize yourself with common data harvesting tactics and take action where you can.

While a full list of meaningful action is beyond the purview of this post (or any single blog entry for that matter), the important takeaway here is this:

We cannot opt out of mass government surveillance. But we knowingly consent to most forms of “privatized” intelligence gathering.

Take the first step and revoke your consent.

Tyler Durden Sat, 07/10/2021 - 22:30

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$431,000,000,000,000 That’s the total global net worth, according to Boston Consulting Group. As we know, a small percentage of the population controls a large portion of this pie. For example, 60,000 people have $100 million or more. They represent 0.0008% of the global population but control 15% of investable assets. Cap Gemini’s most recent World Wealth Report looks within the millionaire cohort to see wha...

The post There’s A Lot of Wealth appeared first on The Irrelevant Investor.



 

 

This week, we speak with Christine Hurtsellers, CEO of Voya Investment Management LLC. The firm manages over $250 billion in assets across fixed income, senior loans, equities, multi-asset strategies and solutions, private equity, and real assets. Hurtsellers has been named to numerous “most influential” finance lists, including Barrons top 10 most influential women in wealth management

We discuss how her firm managed its way through the pandemic: The challenge was keeping employees engaged and mentally healthy even as they were feeling detached during the entire year. She wanted to keep employees connected to their colleagues despite the lack of physical proximity. They are still WFH and plan on returning to the office in the Fall. Post pandemic, Voya will continue with a hybrid system of teamwork in the office but WFH for other kinds of work.

Hurtsellers discusses her prior experience as a bond fund manager —  she was CIO of Fixed Income at Voya, managed the $650 billion retained portfolio of GSE wraps at Freddie Mac, and PM for securitized assets at Alliance Capital Management — affected her outlook on equities, elevating the preservation of capital as a key part of her investment philosophy. Ultra-low yields are

She explains how raising 5 children, including one on the autism spectrum, has given her insights into the challenges for working mothers. This has helped Voya maintain its position as one of the best places to work in finance.

A list of her favorite books is here; A transcript of our conversation is available here Monday.

You can stream and download our full conversation, including the podcast extras on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google, Bloomberg, and Acast. All of our earlier podcasts on your favorite pod hosts can be found here.

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business next week with Matt Ishbia, CEO of United Wholesale Mortgage. UWM is the number 1 wholesale lender and the number 2 overall mortgage lender in the nation. The 9,000 person firm went public in the biggest SPAC ever (UWMC) in January of this year. Ishbia  is also the author of “Running the Corporate Offense: Lessons in Effective Leadership from the Bench to the Boardroom.”

 

 

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

East of Eden by John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

 

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What is the power of slow compounding and why does it matter to long-term investors? Read my thoughts about why it matters for my investing style.

The post The power of slow compounding appeared first on European Dividend Growth Investor.

Thanks to Jason Snipe to coming to hang with us on the podcast this week. Michael, Jason and I get into a lot of stuff here, thanks for making us part of your routine each week. Listen above or find it on your favorite podcast app here.  These were the most read posts on the site this week, in case you missed it: ...

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