Corruption Continues
Congress votes down rewriting homeowner loans due to the laughable argument of a ‘moral hazard.’ (The stupidity here is amazing.)
“Senator, you don’t understand the moral hazard here,” Durbin paraphrased the banking argument. “People have to be held responsible for their wrongdoing. If you make a mistake, darn it, you’ve got to pay the price. that’s what America is all about.”
“Really, Mr. Banker on wall street? that’s what America is all about?” he railed.
“What price did wall street pay for their miserable decisions, creating rotten portfolios, destroying the credit of America and its businesses?” Durbin said of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout Congress passed, and Durbin supported in the waning days of the Bush administration. “Oh, (the bankers) paid a pretty heavy price. Hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayers’ money sent to them to bail them out and put them back in business, even to fund executive bonuses for those guilty of mismanagement. Moral hazard, huh? How can they argue that with a straight face? They do.”
Pandemic Firewalls
The trick to deal with forced disconnectedness? Use electron flows to hyperlocalize all physical flows.
Gunnison, Colorado. In 1918, town leaders built a veritable barricade, closing down the railroad station and blocking all roads into town. Four thousand townspeople lived on stockpiled supplies and food from hunting or fishing. For 3½ months, while influenza raged in nearly every city in America, Gunnison saw not a single case of flu — not until the spring, when roads were reopened and a handful of residents fell sick.
Idea: Resiliency Study
Here’s a fun project that deserves funding (though is unlikely to get it):
Along the lines of the Mercer standard of living study, build a data set on the resiliency of major cities. This is largely a function of how many flows (from the bottom of Maslow’s pyramid to the top) are generated locally. With a couple case studies (New Orleans, Tsunami) and a suggested plan of action, this could be a very important and useful tool in mitigating the threat of crashing supply chains (either through mismanagement, hacks, or economic meltdown).
My Life As a One Man Publishing House
In my last job I applied my graphic design experience to pioneer a way for small organizations to essentially turn themselves into small scale publishing houses.
This process was accomplished for just the cost of the ISBN numbers – well under $500 – in addition to man hours. I essentially became a one-man publishing house by absorbing the typesetting, cover design, and other expensive by-the hour work myself. Then I partnered with an on-demand printer (zero inventory) and Amazon.com for distribution. (In fact, I’m probably one of the few people in modern history who has written in, edited, typeset, designed and printed a book.) In the end, I generated savings of well over $15,000 ( in comparison to the long term contract required by traditional vanity presses) during the course of just a few months.
If you’re an organization looking for the same kind of capability, I’d be happy to guide you through the process. This could be very useful for the increasingly rich network of think tank 2.0’s that are generating useful insight such as the Center for Threat Awareness, Complex Terrain Laboratory, Red Team Journal, and the Small Wars Journal.
Feel free to get in touch with me, happy to show you some samples.