The Writing is on the Wall

I thought that this, that I found online, was a valid means of deduction for those still on the edge of McDoom or Obama for President. Who is best qualified due to, or not, of their military service.

I agree with the writer, Madaline.

Her question is, "Name two things you know about McCain that says he is qualified to be the Commander-in-Chief of the United States military?" Before you make a fool of yourself let me eliminate some answers that would be “obvious” choices.

1. His military service. McCain’s military service would be relevant to the job of CIC. But essentially sitting out the Vietnam war by being a prisoner of war for 5 years does not qualify. Yes, he was a prisoner of war and that fact makes him eligible like thousands of other men and women in the US military who also were prisoners of war during the Vietnam conflict, for certain accommodations. But getting an automatic qualification as knowledgeable to be CIC is not one of them.

McCain’s military service does not show any instances in which he served as a leader of any group of men confronting the enemy. His military service gave him no experience in strategy or tactics. He has no military record showing that he ever trusted by any one above him in rank above him to lead his fellow soldiers in arms against an opposing force where it might be necessary for him to employ the use of strategy or tactics.

The only conclusion that can be reached is that he has no skills in that area that he can claim as superior to anyone else. That would include people men or women who have not had military experience. The simple truth is that the generals and other officers that are tasked with using their strategic and tactical skills to confront the military and other enemies of the USA have not demonstrated any faith in McCain’s ability to be able to do the same under combat conditions anymore than they have of non military personal.

Conclusion: His military service gives him no edge on anyone as to his qualifications to be the CIC of the USA. Men may imply otherwise so as to vicariously gain some edge with non military (especially gullible women) that their past military service gives them some particular incite on world affairs. Ladies it doesn’t!

2. His long service on in the Senate and serving on commissions tasked with making military decisions. - This does give one a lot of opportunity to amass the skills necessary to be CIC. BUT, if the person doesn’t have the mental capacity to learn what the opportunity presents, it is a wash. Here is where you will have to decide if his temperament has indicated whether he has the mental stability to have learned enough from that position and whether he has the ability to apply it to the position of CIC.

Most men who have not served in the military tend to be impressed by those who have when it comes to questions of military significance. Men who feel no need to apologize for their courage don’t. They can evaluate a situation based on the facts. Women are born capable of doing this. Yet, they voluntarily give up that critical thinking capacity to the shit for brains men they are with.

The result is a general acceptance that McCain has the edge over Obama when it comes to leading this country in a military crisis.

* * * * *

With McCain confined for much of his service in Vietnam, he held no positions of leadership, he held no positions military strategist, he held no positions of any military oversight of personnel. I do not, whatsoever, denounce his patriotism due to his service, but agree with the premise that he was a pilot shot down and held captive in deplorable conditions for years. He has received his honors and medals for this service. It does not constitute his leading the free world for this at all. There were hundreds, if not thousands of others that were in his same position, and some were held longer of which some were more highly decorated and perhaps, based on McCain's claim of qualifications would be perhaps more qualified for the position.

As noted, his service as a State Senator also, does not immediately imply that one is ready for the top position. It must be noted that the negotiating tactics, the temperament of a person, the health of a person, perhaps even the education of a person, must all be taken into consideration as to the full qualifications as well for this position.

McCain was near the bottom of his class, was known as a rebel in the Academy, he is known in the Senate to have a very short fuse in many negotiations, he is the oldest person who would be taking this position with a VP candidate that is not ready whatsoever for this task should something go wrong with McCain's health. It is widely known of the misuse of public funds, and friends (See yesterdays entry, and Google the Keating Five or see tomorrows entry) to which he has been associated with over the life of his service to the country, as well as, major Washington lobbyists to which he currently has on staff yet touts (lies) publicly that he will end this practice and is not a part of this practice.

The writing is on the wall, on the mirror he looks into when he spouts, written with lipstick that was used on a pig!





(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs

10 Commandments, Seven day week, 365 day year...

The 10 commandments come from Exodus 20:1-17. Here is the verse:

And God spoke all these words, saying: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

1. You shall have no other gods before me.

(okay, so the dude wants to be a dictator)

2. You shall not make for yourself any carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

(Dude, jealousy is not a good trait to have. I don't have children...)

3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.

(well, there goes everybody...)

4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

(there goes the Europeans, since many of them have a 32 hour work week. And there goes most American's since our country declared a 40 hour work week and many have a two day weekend for yard work. Of course, for the Maya or native Indians, and the like, that now shuts them out due to the fact that Dude made it a seven day week and calendar due solely to this commandment. Forget that we had to figure out how manage to create a 365 day rotational year while trying to manage this 7 day thing mathematically)

5. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

(I honor my folks, but there may be some that don't since they may have been molested, beaten, locked in closets, "no wire hangers"...)

6. You shall not murder.

(Most do abide by that one, but there goes Bush...)

7. You shall not commit adultery.

(most abide by this one, but there goes most politicians...)

8. You shall not steal.

(there goes Bush for the year 2000 and 2004...)

9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

(Come one really? People talk behind others backs all the time...there goes everyone I have come across...)

10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s."

(ok, there goes any women due to either their lust for Brad Pitt or Denzel Washington and there goes any men for Halle Berry or Angelina Jolie...I know that jealousy is not very becoming, but it's ok for Dude to be jealous, but we can't? See #2...what about the whole same image thing...)



(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs

The Republican Whistle Blower...

"alles, das notwendig ist" is German for "All that is necessary".

I am including a serious response from a blog to which I read regularly. It is widely known on this blog of this high powered, whistle blowing, RNC insider who has "seen the light". He has spewed much about many things, and it has all transpired, to which he has subsequently enlightened hundreds of thousands and hopefully more in this country and around the globe. I feel that this should be repeated to all who read here in hopes to "spread the word"! Based on the history of mankind, and the fact that his statements have been routinely correct, this is not something that is baseless and should be discarded.

It should be noted that OTW means "other than whites"
* * * * * *

Whistle Blower:
I hope you are well staffed. I know for a fact that the RNC has for years had at the state level an expertly prepared organization whose single job is to prevent, suppress, or steal the vote of the opposition. These state organizations are maintained and funded by the state tax payer. Many of the employees of this organization have unofficial jobs in the system. They are often referred by the RNC as the State Gestapo. The branch within the SS that is assigned the task of dealing with the OTWs attempt at voiting is the KKK faction.

The KKK faction are hard nosed “anything deemed necessary” group. They get that motto from the State Gstapo. Their motto is “alles, das notwendig ist.”

These organizations are made up of some of the most intelligent white people in those states. The leaders have been educated in some of America’s most prestigious schools. They are rabid when it comes to white supremacy. Murder, mayhem. anything necessary has been done over the past two hundred years to keep that white supremacy.

The secret membership has been passed on through southern and other white families for hundreds of years. It provides jobs for the unskilled white person and insures that they get employment over their fellow american competitors for the same job. You would be surprised what those unskilled whites will do for those privileges.

We at the top of the RNC could care less about those white minions we use to maintain control of the country. But we do need them to do our dirty work. So we stoke them with red meat to keep them willing to do anything to preserve white supremacy.

It will take laws at the federal level that will be enforced to deal with this problem. These organizations are well entrenched in 42 of the 50 states. It is not by accident that whites have maintained total control of all the financial wealth in the country.

It has long been an operating principle that black males be given jail sentences whenever possible to disenfranchise the black vote. A cursory check state by state will show laws that are designed to impact the black population disproportionally to the white population.

The same cursory inspection of all the sentences handed out by state court judges will show an incredibly disproportionate sentencing of black males to jail and prison for the same or lessor offenses than whites. When sentenced, blacks are given many more years in prison and almost no chance of a parole. Any state by state investigation would conclude that the consistency by which this occurs state by state could not be coincidental.

The President of the United States will be privy to this information. Obama will learn that all the previous US presidents were privy to the information but did nothing to change or challenge this white conspiracy against the rest of America’s citizens. They have kept this secret even though they knew that white America as a whole, like their OTW citizens, would be appalled to learn of the SS organization. Bush’s parting gift to the SS organization was his issuance of a fiat granting entry into the USA by european (white) visitors. This was done to entice migration to the US by more whites and to stem the influx of OTWs, and the browning of America.

Immigration laws are used as a veiled attempt to stem the browning of America. Immigration is seldom used when illegal whites are confronted. The US is inundated with organized white criminal gangs. These gangs bring the espionage skills of the various now defunct KGB and similar spy agencies with them. They hate America and all it stands for. They are here to use our system that favors the color of their skin and their spy skills to enrich themselves at the expense of America’s security and interests.

They practice murder for hire, drugs, sex slavery, weapon sales, and espionage technology. They have been responsible for the transference of all types of weapons and technology to the enemies of the US. Yet, they are tolerated over the american OTW citizen because of their color. It is insane but true. Color is a serious disease in the SS organization and all the minions are afflicted with it. They will sacrifice government, children and god to it.

For this reason I don’t believe it will be possible for to prevent the states from manipulating the votes to prevent the election of Obama. She will be dealing with a formidable organization of tens of millions of diseased minions.

* * * * * *

This should be a wake up call for all in the United States. We have come too far for this election to be set to the wayside by the extreme right factions who wish to keep themselves blinded to the future promise of what this country has aspired to be and has reached the point of no return as shown by the public demand of change!

Make sure your keep your eyes and ears open on Nov. 4! Good luck, and cover your vote as well as your ass!


(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs

The Democratic Experiment!

This election isn't about black or white (although, there have been some right wing pundits who have suggested just that, but that seems a bit elementary in its deduction), female or male, rich or poor. This election is solely about the future of the unknown. This election is about a country that is changing and how quickly it is changing. About a world that is transforming and looking for a country to lead it through the next phase. A country that is passing its puberty section and into its teen years. This country, this democratic experiment is on the verge of adulthood in its philosophy. It has gone through serious growing pains and is now going into a time of pre-adult experimentation.

This experimentation is necessary and desired by all people. Although they may not wish to admit it, but when people seeing the world is collapsing all around, one cannot think that the old style of politics, social policies and economics can net one different results if things are being handled the same. The world is changing rapidly, and we must all change to find new ways of working within this brave new world. That is not easy for most people to handle. It is scary to venture off into the unknown. But, it is necessary to venture off into the unknown in order to create the dynamic changes needed to grow into the world we are becoming.

What we are experiencing is a time, not much different than that of the sixties. However, due to technology we have seen this political process, war, and social changes take its positive and negative positions substantially different than back in the 1960's. The hippies are now grandparents and their ideologies have filtered into the minds and desires of their children who have new rules and tools with which to create the world they desire and wish to hand down.

The United States is a middle to right wing political base in general. Therefore, to have either a woman candidate, and an African-American candidate shows the major strides that have taken place over the past few decades. Geraldine Ferraro, back in the 1984 campaign, made quite the stir to be the first Vice Presidential candidate that was not a white male. Since this time, we have seen our first African-American Governor(Wilder), Secretary of State(Powell), and most recent the country's first females Secretary of State(Albright and Rice), and Speaker of the House(Pelosi).

We are, as a nation, more populated in the urban areas of the country. Urban area populations tend to have more higher education. Our agrarian background and rural history has tipped and it is showing in the demographic and social acceptance of the populace.

Based on the past eight years of dictato...I mean, Bush administration, in the White House, I couldn't see how any Republican would have been able to win this upcoming election, anyway. They had quite a party history of political failure, war mongering, domestic policy neglect, and debt accumulation to overcome throughout the campaign process.

With that said, I feel that this is not only a historical step for this country, but for the world at large. This election will be exemplary to the rest of the world of the changes that all have been hoping to see in this country for a long time. The hope to show the rest of the world that this democratic experiment takes different paths, but the people's path will prevail. That the rules of this experiment, albeit are sometimes (most times) slow in process, but the end result is still on path in design. It was only in the past four decades that we have seen the minority base find its way through this white male dominated system and to reach the most powerful position in the world, is a major milestone. "...to which, all men are created equal"...it just takes time.

What we will see is that the children today will have,(hopefully) at least, an eight year span to which their example of the world's most powerful position is an African-American. This new generation of children will see on the television, newspapers, magazines, and internet, on a daily basis the Obama children getting in and out of Air Force One, or the President's helicopter, or walking around the White House lawn and become a symbol of what is achievable in America today. The first family will become a beacon to the rest of the world of the change and possibilities that this grand experiment are capable of. The world will see these same images and know the strides that the people of America have overcome to reach this point.

This election holds the power to transform the youth of our country. They will see that an African-American child, raised by a single mother, is able to reach to one of the most respected colleges in the world and rise to the top of their class. The minority inner city children will see that rap music, or athletic ability are not the only out for them for their future.

This is the great Democratic Experiment at its best. We will see it shine on November 4th, 2008. We will see a new generation of thought and policy take hold with a people that want it, but have no idea how to get there. We will see a leader who has the capacity to take people where they want to go because he is a leader who sees no walls or barriers to get there, simply different paths and different approaches. We will see that there is nothing to fear but the fear itself while we continue the great democratic experiment.


(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs

The United States FICO score...

We have purged out some global economic results through watching the unfolding of the crisis throughout the world.

It seems the most powerful participant in the economic arena is the USA. Whether this is liked or not it is the case and has been exemplified with the global situation. It seems to have now been exposed that as the United States stays afloat so does the rest of the world. Ever since the Nixon Administration took the U.S. off the Gold standard and made the dollar the world currency it created a global safety net for the U.S. It is at the very least the means to which the other currencies of the world now are obliged to value their base.

The economic power mongers knew what they were planning at that time, and knew the stability it would create for the United States, and knew it was a ripe time to make that switch in order to guarantee the U.S. dominance in both monetary and military positions.

What we are now beginning to see is the global political pressures mounting due to the balance, or rather known imbalance, of the monetary pressures and the military pressures meeting halfway.

It would be best for the United States to get its financial obligations more in line in order for this imbalance of power to strengthen itself globally again. The respect of position is being lost in the fact that the United States is so heavily debt laden to other nations. The military strength is respected, but the power economically has been lost. We have seen emerging markets, like China and India, begin to create their own individual stability that could be overtaking the imbalance of economic power that the U.S. has held for the past 35 years since the removal of the gold standard. As long as the U.S. continues to be a debtor nation it will reduce its economic power throughout the world and it will become a necessity for the country to rely on military might and pressure to other nations rather than policy and economic partnerships.

As America has been held as the de-facto leader in the global arena, the other countries will not continue to allow this position to be held when the emerging power of another country, based on the debt America has to that country, could cause such economic uncertainty if the country began to sell of its dollars.

China holds the power to do just that. We are witnessing that the power of economic uncertainty is much more dynamic than that of military power and the current most powerful weapon in China's possession. The position that the U.S. continues to hold is if there become a military confrontation it might dismiss its monetary debt.
This would have China lose on both fronts if this were to occur. Whether China would play the sell card is not yet clear, although given the economic uncertainty of our time we may find out shortly. It seems, yet at this time, that the rest of the world still seems dependent on the economic health of America.

It may just be, through this economic crisis, that the U.S. may become the world de-facto leader simply based on the economics of the international interrelations and monetary policies that have become so inbred into today's debtor type of capitalistic society.

Being heralded as and being able to substantiate the claim of de-facto world leader are two different things. Global leadership has reached a tipping point in international politics today. The power players of old have shown that they are incapable of creating this position due to their greed and incompetence and our policies and power players must now change in order for the global transformation of community can be accomplished.

It stems from the fact of entitlement that America has come to own. People in America, and it starts from the examples sitting in the White House, feel that the world must work around the thoughts and ideals of the United States. This may not be altogether true as we are beginning to see today. We must earn the global respect once again, and not assume the de-facto power position, as we are finding the precariousness of that position.

We are seeing through the opinions of other countries and their desire for a major political change that Obama is the desired person at this opportune moment in history to begin to create the necessary changes that we must have globally. Through the global respect of new vision and policies can the other countries begin to fall back in line to the economic leadership of the United States.

We must begin to re-establish ourselves as the leader of the world in policy and monetary stability rather than simply demanding respect through military power. This type of international policy will find its demise to this country if there becomes a global uprise to the current means of global policy that we have experienced over these past eight years.

It is quite simple really, the FICO score of the United States has fallen dramatically in the past eight years. If we are unable to maintain our debt and reduce our debt other nations will reach a point, just as we are seeing banks globally reach a point, to not lend money to those with low FICO scores...






(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs

One World (not three)

ONE WORLD (Not Three)

One world is enough, for all of us
One world is enough, for all of us

It's a subject we rarely mention
But when we do we have this little invention
By pretending they're a different world from me
I shelve my responsibility
One world is enough, for all of us
One world is enough, for all of us

The third world breathes our air tomorrow
We live on the time we borrow
In our world there's no time for sorrow
In their world there is no tomorrow
One world is enough, for all of us
One world is enough, for all of us

Lines are drawn upon the world
Before we get our flags unfurled
Whichever one we pick
It's just a self deluding trick
One world is enough, for all of us
One world is enough, for all of us

I don't want to bring a sour note
Remember this before you vote
We can all sink or we all float
'Cause we're all in the same big boat
One world is enough for all of us
One world is enough for all of us
One world is enough for all of us
One world is enough for all of us
It may seem a million miles away
But it gets a little closer everyday
It may seem a million miles away
But it gets a little closer everyday

Songwriters: Nik Kershaw, Peter Wolf

Photo Op fun!

After another night of phone banking for "The Man" and some Propositions, we decided to take a few moments for a photo op!

There has been a lot of talk about "The Bradley effect". This pertains to Tom Bradley, the African-American, ex-professional basketball player that lost his bid for California Governor in 1982. It was noted that Bradley was ahead in the polls at the time of the vote, however, after the voting was completed he had lost his bid. This discrepancy showed, at that time, that people would voice their desired opinion for an African-American in office, but when if came time to cast their vote they were unable to do so.

Since then, there have been other races, most notable in 1989, L. Douglas Wilder, ran for Governor of Virginia. While pre polls showed Wilder leading by as much as 9%, he did go on to win the election by a 1% margin. It is now thought that the people that were undecided at that time ended up voting for Marshall Coleman, the Republican candidate. This win in such a historically racial and republican state shows the strides that Americans have taken over the years. Virginia should be proud for their foot forward in being the first state to elect an African-American to office as Governor. Virginia allows Governor to be one term, so Wilder subsequently is now Mayor of Richmond Virginia after being voted in with 79% of the vote. He took office in 2005.

Since there have been numerous other campaigns that help to bring this into a more modern perspective. It is noted that since Tom Bradley, the public has become much more urbanized and less racially segregated in their actual individual ideals. Harold Ford, Jr., ran for the Senate seat in Tennessee in 2006. Although, Ford lost by a slim margin, the entry polls and exit polls taken coincided with eachother much more than polls in previous campaigns. Showing that the people polled prior to their casting of their vote did actually vote, based on their exit polls, as to what the polling information was upon entry.

With Obama leading in many polls by 10%, and based on the polls showing that Sarah Palin is viewed as not ready to lead anything, and is now viewed as detrimental to the McCant campaign, it shows that the American people are speaking out for the change that is wanted in America today. The people have also spoken loudly with their wallets by giving the Obama campaign a $150 Million boost this past month.

Now, we find that the only possible recourse for victory for the repugnicant party is to fraudulently change the outcome at the voting booths themselves, much like the discrepencies in 2000.

It has been advised that you take a camera and take pictures of your votes. Take pictures of the voting room and more in order to create the necessary substance for recourse to fight this unfair and illegal practice that we have come to know from the repugnicants.

Make your voices heard, on Nov. 4th...loudly!


(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs

A letter from Blue to Red...

I received this via email from my friend Elliot this morning. You may have read it as I guess it is going around the Internet. If there is a letter from the Red States to the Blue States I would print that, too, but I have not received that.



Dear Red States:
If you manage to steal this election, too, like in 2000, we've decided we're leaving. Splitting. Moving Out. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us. Good riddance, you say? In case you aren't aware, that includes California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California.

To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches. We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood. We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom. We get Harvard. You get Ole' Miss. We get 85% of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama. We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states pay their fair share. Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22% lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms.

Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq , and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we're not willing to spend any more of our resources in Bush's Quagmire.

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80% of the country's fresh water, more than 90% of the pineapple and lettuce, 92% of the nation's fresh fruit, 95% of America's quality wines, 90% of all cheese, 90% of the high tech industry, 95% of the corn and soybeans (thanks Iowa!), most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools plus Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.

With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88% of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92% of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100% of the tornadoes, 90% of the hurricanes, 99% of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100% of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.

We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

Additionally, 38% of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62% believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the war, the death penalty or gun laws, 44% say that evolution is only a theory, 53% that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61% of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties.

Finally, we're taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico.

Peace out,
--Blue States





(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs

The Billionare next door? Or overseas...

I will start today with a quote by Thomas Jefferson in a letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin in 1802:

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."

To truly understand what Bush, Cheney, Bernanke, and Paulson, and the .5% elitists are attempting to do with their "brilliant" ideas to strongarm our House and Senate to pass the "BailOut Package" is to create more unregulated options for the elite to buy stock.

You see, we are currently in the beginning stages of an unprecedented global financial boom. It may be hard to see right now, but that is part of the reason why. This is going to be bigger, longer lasting and with even a greater number of impossibly predictable outcomes than we've ever seen or thought before. The top wealthiest people have been preparing and are currently putting their ducks in a row, so to speak. By doing so, the "average Joe six pack" or "Joe the plumber" is getting left behind. The funny thing is, they have convinced the average taxpayer that is all in their best interests.

According to the highly read and financial industry respected report recently released by McKinsey Global Institute, from years 2005 to 2010 alone, the value of all the stocks, bonds, CDs and other financial assets held worldwide will soar from $118 trillion to $200 trillion. That’s an increase of $82 trillion in 5 years, or 69% in five years!

As I have stated previously in this blog, in the articleThere's a hole in my pocket we are experiencing the largest redistribution of wealth this world has ever seen. It is so profound it will also radically alter the global economic pecking order in a huge fashion.

Right now, Asia and the United States each account for 28% of the world economy. The World Bank estimates that America’s share of the world economy will slip a bit, dropping to 24% by 2030. But Asia’s share will double, reaching a staggering 55%. This simply means that the Asia of tomorrow will be twice as economically powerful as the United States is today. Why is that? And how can we get in the game? Let's take a look.

Our current means of portfolio investment has been coached to us, by our financial industry brokers over the past, you know those people on Wall Street that are the most privy to the rules of the game that helped create and fuel this economic crisis we have found ourselves in, to hold 5%-15% of international funds in ones portfolio. Perhaps you can begin to see that this will be a negative trend in ones future portfolio based on these two paragraphs alone. Keeping this pace, U.S. investor will soon realize that they are being left behind financially. Based on these changing economic indicators and global expansion we need to change our investing practices, not only for an individual investor to survive, but for our country to stay in the game. The questions is, can we?

Jeremy Siegel is a Wharton Professor and best-selling author who recently said investors should should have 40% of their holdings in overseas investments. If the government continues to allow, and pay tax credits (according the the Bush administration and the McCain campaign)for our corporations to send jobs overseas, doesn't it seem prudent to put your money there? It is best to invest in the companies that are the most profitable, right? Not a very American thing to do on both counts, but money has no allegiance to any country.

Doing that though is not as easy as one would think. You see the average American doesn't have the access to the market information that is necessary to capitalize and profit from the Asian boom. Getting your hands on the market intelligence is not as easy as one would like. The seasoned, wealth and well connected investors can and do.

Wall Street has know about this economic trend for a long time, and some could say, are helping to drive this global economic boom. Why do you think there is such a sell off in our stock market today? Perhaps it is partly based because the largest investors and institutions are buying overseas. I mean, have you ever had the chance to be in on an IPO? Chances are NO. These are saved for the wealthiest and largest investors. The rules are different.

Even investors who see and understand what’s happening could end up watching this wealth explosion from the bottom end of the ladder to success. That’s because federal regulations prohibit most American investors from buying many foreign stocks, even though overseas markets clearly will offer the greatest returns in the months and years to come.

Here is why...If a foreign company isn’t registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission, its shares are off-limits to most investors. Due to the costly registration process and myriad of paperwork it is discouraging many of these foreign companies from listing even American Depository Receipts (ADRs), a type of security U.S. investors trust and are willing to buy. These financial vehicles are easy to trade for the average investor, but becoming harder to come by.

Wealthy investors don’t have this dilemma. There is an obscure SEC regulation, Rule 144A, allows them to circumnavigate that rule and form investment pools through investment banks, so they can buy foreign-company shares.

Now, you can begin to see why the $700 Billion is going to the banks and bailing out the wealthy and not the average Joe sixpack...The big question I have then, is when will it reach the little guy? That trickly down thing we all seem to hear about but never see the advantage of?

We'll be looking into this in the coming weeks and bring what information we can muster to the Banter Table. Stay tuned.

God Bless Joe Pesci...?

I've been receiving some interesting feedback via various blog catalogue sites I am on with some of these recent articles. I can see I have hit some nerves. I thought it might be something to tread lightly with, this whole religion thing. I am trying to come at it from a few angles in order to make some points. Again, we must check the ego at the door in order to discuss this topic. We aren't looking at verses in the big book and trying to analyze the inherent truth, what I am going for is the fact that there is not truth. It is simply belief, and pushing that belief onto someone else is arrogant, misleading, and irresponsible to the doctrine that is preached.

Now, I do not wish to make any blanket statements like, there is no God. That is antithesis to what I am trying to say. I don't want to trade one for the other. By this I mean, if one cannot say that God truthfully does exist one cannot also say, based on the premise of the promise and dogma, that God doesn't exist. This is the crux of the crucifix.

Before you go on, please watch this, laugh a bit, and then I'll finish the article...





My continued attempt for a point is that there is no real life example or truth that we can rely on that we have verifiable evidence to substantiate the claims that are worshiped at every church, mosque or synagogue. It is only faith that God is and only faith that religion is about. It has nothing to do with dressing up in your Sunday best, it has nothing to do with the judgements and the tithe. It has nothing to do with death, heaven, hell, virgins, saints, sinners, commandments, Bible, Koran, Tanakh, Torah, but it has to do with yourself and your relationship with your God. Nothing else, and no one else.

Keep it out of politics, keep your beliefs out of someone else's life and God will be much more pleasurable for everyone.

There is a Proposition 8 in California, this Nov. 4, that will allow anyone to marry anyone they choose. Very simple. If you love your God and continue that God loves everyone, and you are to love your neighbor as yourself, and to do unto others as you would have them do unto you, it is a very simple vote. All other rationals are religious rhetoric. If you follow the commandments for your life then this NO vote is what is the truth for you. The passages that may say otherwise and have you act otherwise to those commandments are heresay, and unverifiable as to their truth.

If it passes to YES you are then passing judgement onto others. This is not your position, it is God's. The rules are quite clear.

Also, if you vote yes on Prop 8, you might get a visit from Joe Pesci...




(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs

Is Religion Ridiculous?

You must note that I did not title this "Is God Ridiculous". That is where your mind may have gone to first. That would be the ego getting in the way of this discussion. I thought that I would use the following trailer, for Bill Maher's new movie "Religulous", to augment my discussion a few days back entitled "I'm conCERNed about Religious Dogma". I simply wish to elaborate the idea a bit through humor as the topic can be very touchy for so many people throughout the world.

Again, as we discussed in yesterdays entry "Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets, on my..., of the great book and recent winner of the GetAbstract Book Award, by Bill Bonner and Lila Rajiva, I used the famed F. Scott Fitzgerald's quote, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”

This is what we need in order to have a reasonable discussion on religion. As religion still holds such a powerful force in how politicians throughout the world act and react with one another, either together in conversation or through each owns policy decisions, it is time that we all must take a closer look at ourselves and our part in how we react to religion. Even though many may not know much about, not only other religions of the world, but even the finer details of our own structured dogmatic beliefs we follow, we must separate our ego from those discussions to lead us to a more enlightened and educated place.

Since it is such a personal issue for billions of people throughout the world, who can have very radical differences in the dynamics of their individual beliefs on the same topic, it must go without saying that we need to be able to transcend a singular mindset in order to create the necessary discourse over such a delicate topic to reach educated decisions based on doctrines of faith, to which there is no defined validated truth to substantiate any dogmatic belief structure, of any religious sect throughout the world.

For those that may not be familiar with Bill Maher, he is an American stand-up comedian, television host, political commentator, actor, and author. He hosted the late-night television talk show "Politically Incorrect" on Comedy Central and ABC, and is currently the host of "Real Time with Bill Maher" on HBO. He is one of the current leading political and social observational satirists. As for as his religious beliefs, he is not an atheist. Bill was raised in his Irish American father's Catholic religion, and did not find out that his mother was Jewish until his teenage years; his family stopped attending church when he was thirteen, because of his father's disagreement with the Pope's position on birth control.


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(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs

Mobs, Messiahs and Markets, oh my...

Do you have the ability to hold opposing ideas and discuss them rationally in order to come to a more educated debated result? Or, are you one that will debate only with opposing viewpoints in order to maintain your position to learn, or try to convince? F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote that “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless yet be determined to make them otherwise.”

I have read the book "Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets" a couple of times, and recommend it highly. But you must be able to transcend your singular mindset. The authors run both sides of the fence on nearly every issue they bring up. This can be trying for some as they will be reading some chapters that run the liberal viewpoints to which, if you agreed with, would make one feel good. Then they bring in the contrarian viewpoint using the same examples as the liberal points in order to make their case. What this does is show that anything and everything will always have both views at the same time due to human nature. It is human nature that is the premise of the book in relation to crowd or mob mentality, religion and economics.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I originally read the 400 odd pages in just a few days. Basically the premise is that we don't seem to see just how difficult and complex things really are. We want to be able to understand and have context to things that we may not be able to fully comprehend. Yet, despite this we get involved in speculation on so many levels in an attempt to gain some ground. Does this all revert to the simplistic relations to the opposite sex? Can we be that simple in such a complex world? It seems to be written in our DNA. Now, add this type of behavior to the mass public and you begin to understand why we get some of societies stupid behavior.

We like to think that we have free will. We like to think that we think for ourselves and are able to act freely. Studies show that people are more likely to accept the opinion of a confident con man than the cautious view of someone who actually knows what he is talking about. This is much of why we have found ourselves in the delicate economic situation we have today. Match this action with such an interconnected world and we have exponential problems. Match this with the uneducated masses dealing with some of these delicate economic situations and the exponential problems get even worse. Many people think our elected officials actually know what they are talking about with this economic crisis. These Senators and Congresspersons are just like anyone else, as lawyers, doctors, chiropractors, union leaders, real estate developers, and soldiers. Yet, the masses seem to think because they are in these elected positions they know the ins and outs of hedge funds, derivatives, options, and the many other intricate financial tools that were created by the true .05% elitist select few while no one was watching.

Voltaire, a historically noted skeptic of the revealed truth of the Church, of the divine right of kings, of the wealth and position of the sovereign, and of the "wisdom" of the common man is noted as saying, "Doubt is an uncomfortable position, but certainty is an absurd one."

One would do well today to heed this gem and to be highly skeptical of the economic forecasters, market timers and other investment gurus. After all, these are the same people that put us all into this economic mess. It should be noted that the global markets greatest investors like Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, Peter Lynch, and John Templeton all have confessed that they could never tell just what the market was going to be doing next. They understand the mindset of the mob mentality. They understand that the market is a living entity and is not subject to control. We like to think we can control it, but this, as Voltaire stated, is an absurd notion. So, these investors bought companies that were selling at a low P/E (Price to Earnings) and held them until it was time to sell when the market recognized their true value.

The Emergence Theory that I have discussed recently goes hand in hand with some of the ideas outlined in this book. In the mob mentality there is not leader. There is an energy to which all follow in their own little worlds much like the example of the flock of birds or shoal of fish. They act in unison without a leader. When the markets, or real estate, or election results come in we see how the mob or lemming mentality can be detrimental to our society. If people do not begin to stop and think prior to making such delicate decisions for themselves and rationally think using both sides of an argument to come to an educated result we will find our typical patterns, the imprinted DNA to which we have "free will", continue to emerge.

Authors Bill Bonner and Lila Rajiva tear this theory at the root. Sure, everyone is self-interested… but rational? Their book, "Mobs, Messias, and Markets", has just received the prestigious "GetAbstract Book Award" for 2008.


(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs

I'm conCERNed about religious dogma...

Let me get back to the running banter, again. Another thought was...

...with this CERN concept, that I've been discussing this past week, was to create a background to show that our scientists have enlightened us throughout history of some of the ridiculous concepts and ideas that no or un-education will do to a society. Religious dogma dominated, and in some ways continues to dominate, the free thought processes of our specie. It is like a negative political advertising campaign or a fear based political administration. By breeding religious doctrines and beliefs as truth, it begins to gestate within that dogmatic audience until it becomes dangerous. There is a saying, "it matters not", to which shows that whether the doctrine is true or not, if there is enough mis or dis information that can help to create the belief structure of the doctrine, the people can be led into or to do anything. This is exemplified through Hitler and numerous others over the history of our society.

Now, don't get all up in a bundle. I'm not comparing Hitler to any religious leader. But the point is that the following of any leader must be based on fact. When one is following any administration, doctrine or theory that is based on fact all of those beliefs pertaining to those beliefs can be substantiated and proven hereby allowing the freedom to think and act clearly to those belief structures.

This is not to say that doctrine or religion should not be followed unless there is definable proof. Religion is doctrine that has no proof. All religion is based on belief of doctrine. It is when the doctrine becomes dogma and gets in the way of people being able to think and act clearly as to their belief structure. Then what happens is that people begin to rely on that belief structure as truth, when it is not. People then begin to push their belief structure or their doctrine on to others and use the dogma as their defiant means of truth. This is where the danger lies.

This seems to me to be becoming more dynamic in our system of government, when our founding fathers distinctly stated that there would be a freedom of religion. They did not state that there would be a freedom of God. But the dangerous dogmatic leaders use that to help to substantiate a cause that is not or cannot be delivered as truth. Therein leading people by misinformation.

CERN, and its new massive Hadron Collider, is not only about the splitting atoms or finding the essence of the Big Bang, but it is the continuation of educating the specie to becoming more aware of the truths to our lives, our history and of our future.

Through the scientists desire for proof and truth to their theories and proclamations, they ended up creating new sciences that are the defining cutting edge to what we as a specie know and are able to prove. This has given way to seeing beyond the capacities of what we have previously known or thought possible. This has happened many times in our history. From many others we have experienced profound new ways of looking at our lives based on proof of thoughts that have become substantiated.

In 1633 Galileo was taken to Rome to stand trial before the Inquisition (Catholic Church) for heresy. The church did not want their power diminished by the truths that Galileo was professing. It shook the dogmatic mis and dis information that the church was delivering to uneducated people of the world. The church, or the power holder and administrations of the time believed that, if the people knew more of and began to believe the truth of science to their lives and the world around them, it would begin the demise of the church as an institution.

What CERN today is delivering to people all over the world is finding new questions to answers that already exist. There will be new truths substantiated which will raise more questions as well. But, CERN has delivered a new messenger to the people for their doctrines that they will be teaching. The Internet is an unbiased messenger that has no dogmatic preconceptions as to the content it is sending to educate the global populace. The science, thoughts, discoveries of any person is now being sent instantly for the world to see, process, and rethink for themselves. It allows the commoner or the butcher, baker, or cabinetmaker the opportunity to find the proof to their thoughts rather than taking the word of an administration or dogmatic structure as rote.

When Adam Smith describes the sovereign and the trader we can see that he is discussing the rich and powerful and the poor and uneducated. The sovereign need to make sure the uneducated do not have the answers so that the dominion can remain. The Catholic Church needed to make sure that the commoners wouldn't think further so they imprisoned Galileo and made him denounce his findings that the earth is not the center of our universe or that the earth travels around the sun, and that the sun is the center of our universe.

Due to Galileo and his quest for truth we know that the sun is the center of our galaxy and not even the center of our universe. It took hundreds of more years for the people as a masses to be able to enjoy that information. Today, we are able to research information instantly and disseminate information instantly and substantiate information instantly more that we ever have before.

I will end for the day...but there is so much more to say!


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(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs

Adam Smith today...

I wanted to keep my thoughts going with the current ongoing ideas, however, I needed to inject a bit today due to the current economic situation.

I wanted to dive into a few thoughts from Adam Smith, and his landmark book "Wealth of Nations", Book V, Ch.2, Of the Sources of the General or Public Revenue of the Society...

V.2.8

No two characters seem more inconsistent than those of trader and sovereign. If the trading spirit of the English East India Company renders them very bad sovereigns, the spirit of sovereignty seems to have rendered them equally bad traders. While they were traders only they managed their trade successfully, and were able to pay from their profits a moderate dividend to the proprietors of their stock. Since they became sovereigns, with a revenue which, it is said, was originally more than three millions sterling, they have been obliged to beg extraordinary assistance of government in order to avoid immediate bankruptcy. In their former situation, their servants in India considered themselves as the clerks of merchants: in their present situation, those servants consider themselves as the ministers of sovereigns.


V.2.9

A state may sometimes derive some part of its public revenue from the interest of money, as well as from the profits of stock. If it has amassed a treasure, it may lend a part of that treasure either to foreign states, or to its own subjects.


This seems to me to ring so true to today, just as it did then. Since this first publication back in 1776, I guess it shows that we have(?) come a long way as we look at our current state of affairs and the current band-aids that have plagued the American taxpayer in order to bailout the corporations. This shows us just how important it truly is for this current campaign and the result as to how and who should be running this country for the future. Do to the nature of our economic crisis, as well as, the global economic fallout and the necessary reparations to the perceptions of the world populace to our country this next leader is going to be pivotal to the future global political landscape for generations to come.

Let's look at the relevance to Smith's writings and today's economic crisis.

Recently, we have bailed out some of the largest corporations, and Treasury Secretary Paulson has publicly stated that we should make sure these businesses do not fail. There is some who think that Paulson has self interests involved in which companies succeed and which may fail due to some of the narcissistic patterns of funding and oversight thus far.

Perhaps this is the human pattern of self interest. The current Republican welfare state for the rich shows us that the trickle down theory of economics does not work. Smith tells us that the wages of the poor should be high in relation to their position, and he views that a common street porter was not intellectually inferior to a philosopher. In other words, as to the founding fathers, we are all created equal and should have equal rights and opportunities.

This brings me to Paulson's latest move. If we, as the tax payers and funders of the bailouts to the banks, insurance, and mortgage institutions that we have seen take place, we should also be given the voting rights as the stock holders to these firms. We should be given the opportunity to delegate our individual proxy votes for these companies with transparent oversight to these voting processes. This will give the American people the opportunity to truly protect the investment that our government has put our money into, and to maintain that the people that Paulson has placed into power positions are scrutinized and managed appropriately and fairly as with any other corporation. We, as tax payers, are now the major stock holders to these firms. As a Union of voters we should be given these rights and voting powers just as with any other corporate structure.

The interesting thing about this democratic capitalistic management philosophy that has transpired through the Bush administration is that we are riding a fine line to communism and or dictatorship. I use the first volume of Marx's major work, "Capital", which was published in German in 1867, as an example. In it, Marx focused on the labour(sic) theory of value and what he considered to be the exploitation of labour by capital. The labour(sic) theory of value held that the value of a thing was determined by the labor that went into its production. This contrasts with the modern understanding of mainstream economics, that the value of a thing is determined by what one is willing to give up to obtain the thing. Ironically, Smith is often cited for being the conceptual builder of free markets in Capitalism, and also cited as a main contributor to Communist theory, via Marx.

Smith believed that while human motives were often driven by selfishness and greed, the competition in the free market would tend to benefit society as a whole by keeping prices low, while still building in an incentive for a wide variety of goods and services. Nevertheless, he was wary of businessmen and argued against the formation of monopolies.

It seems that his fears have shown their relevance and we are in this global dilemma. AIG is the world's largest insurance firm, and is now quite possibly the world's fourth largest social benefiting program outside of Social Security, and Medicare which are also nearly bankrupt. For the third largest social welfare program we have the Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae bailouts and the new mortgage holding corporation of the United States of America. Then we have the multiple corporations that make up the new social banking system that has recently become part the nations growing stock portfolio program.

The difference to what the current administration has done here is created the sovereign social state policies that Smith discusses. The sovereign continually declare the welfare state as being dis functional until it is time to meet the needs of the sovereign.

An often-quoted passage from The Wealth of Nations is:

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.

It is for this reason and this reason alone that there MUST be full transparency and accountability to all actions that are taking place in today's economic crisis. We as the major stockholders to all of these new corporate structures must maintain our position of such and demand that.



(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs

Communication Breakdown for My Generation!

So, with this past week of entries, I thought I would try to bring things together a bit so you might now where I am headed with all of this. Here is one idea...

CERN was working way back when with scientists throughout the world and needed to create a system that helped people interact with each other. The isolation of distance was not allowing people to work effectively and expeditiously. This new means of communication and transfer of knowledge allowed them to get more done, become more successful in their research, learn more about their science, themselves, and others. Since then, the world has quickly become flatter, as described in the book, which I have discussed and referenced numerous times in this blog, "The World Is Flat", by Thomas Friedman.

Through, Tim Berners-Lee and Marc Andreessen and the development of the internet and the interactive browser, what has been created is a new system of global interrelations between people. New and vibrant means of communication and interaction have developed. Anyone, nearly anywhere is able to discuss nearly anything with someone else. (I say nearly anything, nearly anywhere due to the fact of governmental controls or intrusion, such as China or even the United States.) In fact, numerous people can connect with numerous other people at the same time without leaving their home or office. There are millions of global communities growing due to this fact. People are reaching out beyond the borders and walls that bind them within their country.

Part of the problem I see in America today is that our business communities, and social communities are thriving on this new way of interaction and communication, but our government is falling behind in their understanding and or use of the technology. The old world ways of education are not copacetic to this new means of global community.

How can a teacher even begin to teach the children of the 21st century for the 21st century and beyond, when the children have a more advanced knowledge of technology and its uses as practices? Also, how can a teacher even begin to teach the children of the 21st century for the 21st century and beyond without these same tools that these children already have? We hear that children today do not interact with each other like "back in the day". I disagree! What needs to be understood is the fact that the days are getting longer and the nights are becoming shorter for our world.

My nieces have a Facebook page, just like hundreds of millions of other people throughout the planet have. I found them as I have one as well, GO HERE. This type of website is designed to create community with friends, relatives, and associates by streamlining technology so that one is able to communicate whenever they want, wherever they want, on whatever they want. They have this page connected to their cell phones, blogs, other websites. For the people that don't understand this, they may feel that technology has gotten out of hand and is isolating the new generation to behind a keyboard or cellphone. The debate is that this isolation is not allowing people to connect...

Communication and community is basically who and how many can stay connected on relevant issues for their group. To be able to share needs, necessities, and ideas. We have grown as a specie from a small tribal community to a now global community. Before the telephone, one's community or social circle was defined by how many people one could come in contact with in a few days time, before the news or information or necessity for the connection became irrelevant. Today, we as a global community can stay connected to relevance continuously. These thoughts and ideas can become more relevant or change just as quickly. This emergent process of human interaction must be respected and understood by our governments, as this is obviously what our specie is yearning for and involved in.

When there are people that have created communities of friends and associates with hundreds if not thousands of members in their community you cannot say that people are unconnected.

Have you heard the saying that goes something like, "When you are pointing a finger, how many fingers are pointing back?" If one has done any study with psychology one knows that when someone is accusatory of another the accusations tend to be what the accuser is guilty of themselves. It's much like looking in a mirror...now make that accusation...Change is inevitable, and constant. Not understanding the change is what creates the wrinkles in society. This is also a constant as new and younger generations look for their own voice, to create their own marks in society. It is just that much may seem out of control to those that do not understand or embrace these changes due to the exponential growth of technology and science.

The ideas of force and not cooperation or the isolationism is putting our country at odds with every other country in the world. Remember the mirror? You see, we are reaching an apex, a tipping point in our global society. What is inevitable is a paradigm shift in human relations. The old world interactions will still exist, however will become antiquated quickly. This new style of human relations is traversing the planet rapidly, as it has been doing these past 10-15 years. There has never been anything like this on this planet before. The changes in technology are exponential. The governments still try to govern the old world ways.



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(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs

Margin calls...

Top down Reaganomics at its best when the markets are free from government intervention...?

Part V

(From Equity Private)




And then we get back to reality...




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The Fuhrer or Amerika continued...

I have had some great feedback on this video series. I am including Part III and Part IV for today. Enjoy the irony...

For Part I and Part II you can go HERE.

(From Equity Private)

Part III




Part IV



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Marc Andreessen with Brad DeLong

Marc Andreessen, born in Cedar Falls, Iowa and raised in New Lisbon, Wisconsin, is known as a entrepreneur(Netscape), an investor(Digg, Twittter, Netvibes), a startup coach, a blogger, and a multi-millionaire software engineer best known as co-author of Mosaic. I mentioned this in yesterdays entry that this was the first widely-used web browser. He became co-founder of Netscape Communications Corporation. He was the chair of Opsware, a software company he founded originally as Loudcloud, when it was acquired by Hewlett-Packard. He is also a co-founder of Ning, a company which provides a platform for social-networking websites. He is on the Board of Directors of Facebook, Open Media Network, and eBay. Andreessen is a frequent keynote speaker and guest at Silicon Valley conferences.

After receiving his Bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign he worked with the university's National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), where he became familiar with Tim Berners-Lee's open standards for the World Wide Web. Andreessen, and a full-time salaried co-worker Eric Bina, worked on creating a user-friendly browser with integrated graphics that would work on a wide range of computers. The resulting code was the Mosaic web browser.

After his graduation from the university in 1993, Andreessen moved to California to work at Enterprise Integration Technologies. Andreessen then met Jim Clark, the recently-departed founder of Silicon Graphics. Clark believed that the Mosaic browser had great commercial possibilities and suggested starting an Internet software company. Soon Mosaic Communications Corporation was in business in Mountain View, California, with Andreessen as co-founder and vice president of technology. The University of Illinois was unhappy with the company's use of the Mosaic name, so Mosaic Communications changed its name to Netscape Communications, and its flagship web browser was the Netscape Navigator.

In the year between the formation of the company and its IPO, Andreessen engaged in extensive public outreach on behalf of his vision of the web browser's potential, something he had in fact done continuously since making the decision to distribute Mosaic for free via the Internet. At the time Andreessen was 23 years old.

Netscape's IPO in 1995 propelled Andreessen into the public's imagination. Featured on the cover of Time and other publications, Andreessen became the poster-boy wunderkind of the Internet bubble generation: young, twenty-something, high-tech, ambitious, and worth millions (or billions) of dollars practically overnight.

Netscape's success attracted the attention of Microsoft, which recognized the web's potential and wanted to put itself at the forefront of the rising Internet revolution. Microsoft licensed the Mosaic source code from Spyglass, Inc., an offshoot of the (ironically!?)University of Illinois, and turned it into Internet Explorer. The resulting battle between the two companies became known as the Browser Wars.

Netscape was acquired in 1999 for $4.2 billion by AOL, which then made Andreessen its Chief Technology Officer.

However, he would soon leave to form Loudcloud, a services-based Web hosting company that underwent an IPO in 2001. Loudcloud sold its hosting business to EDS and changed its name to Opsware in 2003, where Andreessen served as chairman. Opsware was purchased by Hewlett-Packard in September 2007 for approximately $1.6 billion.


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I am borrowing this discussion, originally written on Marc's blog on March 24, 2008, with Marc and Brad DeLong, the UC Berkeley econ professor, and non-conservative on trade and wages.

Brad DeLong on the highly controversial topic of how trade with lower-income countries like China affects, or does not affect, US wages:

Marc:
...To what extent are rich countries obligated to open their markets to poor countries when the consequence is falling wages for the poor in the rich--bearing in mind that the poor in the rich are often wealthier and have more opporunity than the rich in the poor? To what extent do rich countries do themselves well--serve their national interest--by opening their markets to poor countries even when the consequence is falling wages for the poor in the rich?

Brad:
...First, between 1950 and 1997 trade and wages weren't an issue: our foreign trading partners raised their own relative wage levels at least as fast as globalization enhanced their influence, and there was no net effect of trade on wages--no link from greater openness to the global economy to greater inequality here at home.

Second, at times between 1950 and 1997 trade and wages became a political issue as a way of distracting attention from true problems. The voters of Michigan in 1985 did not want to hear that the problems of Michigan's manufacturing industries were home-grown--in the fecklessness of management and in the Reagan administration's budget deficits that pushed up interest rates which pushed up the value of the dollar and made the goods they made uncompetitive on world markets. They wanted, instead, to hear that the Japanese were doing something clever and illegitimate [certainly a widespread assumption in Wisconsin when I was growing up in the 1980's -Marc].

Third: since 1997 or so the link between expanded imports and wage inequality has become real, as our imports now embody a much larger amount of factors competing with our own lesser-skilled than they used to. How large? I don't think we know. Paul Krugman [also a non-conservative -Marc] is now writing a paper for the Brookings Institution in which he essentially throws up his hands at the question. But there are two points worth noting: (a) the effects of trade on pre-tax wage inequality are much smaller than the effects over the past generation of changes in the tax system on after-tax income inequality; (b) the effects of trade on inequality of opportunity are much less than the effects of educational inequities on inequality of opportunity.

Fourth, to the extent that we in the United States begin thinking of trade restrictions as a way to fight inequality, we are setting ourselves up for extraordinary trouble late in this century--extraordinary damage to our long-run national security.

Think of it this way: Consider a world that contains one country that is a true superpower. It is preeminent--economically, technologically, politically, culturally, and militarily. But it lies at the east edge of a vast ocean. And across the ocean is another country--a country with more resources in the long-run, a country that looks likely to in the end supplant the current superpower. What should the superpower's long-run national security strategy be?

I think the answer is clear: if possible, the current superpower should embrace its possible successor. It should bind it as closely as possible with ties of blood, commerce, and culture--so that should the emerging superpower come to its full strength, it will to as great an extent possible share the world view of and regard itself as part of the same civilization as its predecessor: Romans to their Greeks.

In 1877, the rising superpower to the west across the ocean was the United States. The preeminent superpower was Britain. Today the preeminent superpower is the United States. The rising superpower to the west across the ocean is China. that was the rising superpower across the ocean to the west of the world's industrial and military leader. Today it is China.

Throughout the twentieth century it has been greatly to Britain's economic benefit that America has regarded it as a trading partner--a source of opportunities--rather than a politico-military-industrial competitor to be isolated and squashed. And in 1917 and again in 1941 it was to Britain's immeasurable benefit--its veruy soul was on the line--that America regarded it as a friend and an ally rather than as a competitor and an enemy. A world run by those whom de Gaulle called les Anglo-Saxons is a much more comfortable world for Britain than the other possibility--the world in which Europe were run by Adolf Hitler's Saxon-Saxons.

There is a good chance that China is now on the same path to world preeminence that America walked 130 years ago. Come 2047 and again in 2071 and in the years after 2075, America is going to need China. There is nothing more dangerous for America's future national security, nothing more destructive to America's future prosperity, than for Chinese schoolchildren to be taught in 2047 and 2071 and in the years after 2075 that America tried to keep the Chinese as poor as possible for as long as possible.


Marc:
While I am far less certain than Brad and a lot of other smart people that the United States is fated to lose its position of economic preeminence in this century, I certainly agree with Brad's strategy, and I am continually surprised and alarmed to run into many well-meaning people who believe the opposite strategy would be optimal.

Is it the Furher or Amerika?

I thought I would include this interlude into the next section of my study of the impact of CERN, Tim Berners-Lee, Marc Andreessen, and the Internet have on our society today and for the future.

(courtesy of Equity Private)

Part One:




Part Two:



I will have a few of these as interesting interludes in between my multi part entry. As I got this from Andreessen, I thought this would be interesting to look a bit into the mind of Marc. I will follow with more discussion tomorrow on the topic at hand. Keep tuned and thanks!

It CERNtainly all comes full circle...

I CERNtainly find it all a bit interesting. You may have heard of the world's largest hadron particle physics laboratory or what is known in laymen terms as "The Big Collider". CERN Laboratories was founded in 1954. It was the first European collaboration of scientists from numerous countries. It is now a global scientific experiment, located on the borders or Switzerland and France, that has opened their experimental processes recently.

The instruments used at CERN are particle accelerators and detectors. Accelerators boost beams of particles to high energies before they are made to collide with each other or with stationary targets. Detectors observe and record the results of these collisions. By studying what happens when these particles collide, physicists learn about the laws of Nature.

They sent a particle beam through the system to test it, about a month ago. Due to a few glitches then needed to shut down in order to fix a few magnetic switch issues. They will restart again soon. It simply takes a long time for the 27km tunnel that traverses underground through both countries to warm up to a room temperature for people to be enter it and fix the necessary problems, to then be re-cooled to a temperature of -271C or 1.9Kelvin. This is the temperature that helium becomes superfluid. This simply means that the gas flows with virtually no viscosity which allows for greater heat transfer for the hadron particles to fly at nearly the speed of light. The particle beam is shot through the circular tunnel and floats through the helium effortlessly to finally reach a destination of collision with another particle or solid surface.

What may not be known to many about the CERN organization is that the Internet was invented here. Tim Berners-Lee, a scientist at CERN, invented the World Wide Web in 1990. This is where the www comes from in any internet address. The Web, as it is affectionately called, was originally conceived and developed to meet the demand for automatic information sharing between scientists working in different universities and institutes all over the world. It made it easy and quite cost effective (basically free) for scientist throught the world to send information to eachother. CERN is not an isolated laboratory, but rather a focus for an extensive community that now includes about 60 countries and thousands of scientists. Although these scientists typically spend some time on the CERN site, they usually work at universities and national laboratories in their home countries. Good contact is clearly essential.

The basic idea of the WWW was to merge the technologies of personal computers, computer networking and hypertext into a powerful and easy to use global information system. The first proposal for the World Wide Web was made at CERN by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989, and further refined by him and Robert Cailliau in 1990.

By the end of that year, prototype software for a basic system (BASIC) was already being demonstrated. To encourage its adoption, CERN developed a 'help service' and the now familiar Usenet newsgroups were provided. CERN provided a simple browser, which could be run on any system.

In 1991, an early WWW system was released to the high energy physics community via the CERN program library. It included the simple browser, web server software and a library, implementing the essential functions for developers to build their own software. This is known as open sourced software. A wide range of universities and research laboratories started to use it. A little later it was made generally available via the Internet, especially to the community of people working on hypertext systems. Hypertext, or the http of any internet address, is the computer language which overcomes the use of simple text. This is where multiple links and connections are established and other applications and video may be run on it.

The first web server in the United States came on-line in December 1991, once again in a pure research institute: the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in California. At this stage, there were essentially only two kinds of browser. One was the original development version, very sophisticated. The other was the ‘line-mode’ browser, which was easy to install and run on any platform but limited in power and user-friendliness. It was clear that the small team at CERN could not do all the work needed to develop the system further, so Berners-Lee launched a plea via the Internet for other developers to join in.

Early in 1993, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois released a first version of their Mosaic browser, developed by the now famous Marc Andreessen. This was the precursor of the Netscape browser.

By the end of 1994, the Web had 10,000 servers, of which 2,000 were commercial, and 10 million users. Traffic was equivalent to shipping the entire collected works of Shakespeare every second. The technology was continually extended to cater for new needs. Security and tools for e-commerce were the most important features soon to be added.

An essential point was that the Web should remain an open standard for all to use and that no-one should lock it up into a proprietary system. In this spirit, CERN submitted a proposal to the Commission of the European Union under the ESPRIT programme: ‘WebCore’. The goal of the project was an International Consortium, in collaboration with the US Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Berners-Lee officially left CERN at the end of 1994 to work on the Consortium from the MIT base. But with approval of the LHC project clearly in sight, it was decided that further Web development was an activity beyond the Laboratory’s primary mission. A new home for basic Web work was needed.

In January 1995, the International World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was founded ‘to lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its interoperability’.

By 2007 W3C, run jointly by MIT/LCS in the US, INRIA in France, and Keio University in Japan, had more than 430 member organizations from around the world.

Okay...why I went through this is to show the collaborative efforts that science has taken us to share knowledge and information...FREE!

I will be following this up tomorrow with PART TWO of my study of CERN, Marc Andreessen and their true effects on our global society.



(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs

are we done yet...? Can I vote now?...

Well, well, well...

It seems there is a new drinking game at the United States college campuses, and it's called, "not answering the question". Instead of "Maverick", people can get more drunk by just playing, "nope, not gonna answer that one, but darn it, I'll talk about somethin else." Sarah Palin will probably figure out a way to collect royalties for this game, but...McShouldn'thaveshowedup might have to pay out a little.

My wife and I went to a local theater where they were showing the debate on the big screen. It was a great experience to be with such a large audience and feel the emotions of the general public. The safe and expected answers from the McSame-Same camp gave no one in the audience any new news to grasp on to. The Obama camp answered the questions with detail and candor that the American public deserve at this point. Obama showed a calm demeanor, expected of someone who will be dealing with some very delicate issues, many of which will be coming at him quickly and many at a time.

When Tom Brokaw mentioned how he wanted the Senators to answer, in what order is the most important issues that the candidate will tackle, Obama had an order and the issues in detail of what would take place. McStumped, first asked to have those issues again so he could write them down, then simply stated that he would do it all...I wonder how many newspapers he reads every day to have the balls to answer the question like that? When they were asked who would you make to be the new Secretary of the Treasury, Obama has a well known, well versed supporter named Warren Buffet, who would be at least consulted, if not on the list. McShouldn't started with, "Well, it won't be you, Tom!" Like Tom Brokaw is even on his short list. What did Tom do to merit that comment?! Then, Brokaw tried to explain to the Senators that there were time lines agreed upon for the debate by both candidates that should be followed, and there were lights that blink to show them when their time is running short, to which McBlind said that maybe Tom could wave his arms a bit so he could see. If these were jokes, I think he should keep his day job. Better yet, for the sake of the country, old man, perhaps you should head back to the ranch and retire...It is difficult for me to see how anyone who doesn't make $5M/yr, as John McFortherich says is the threshold for being rich, can think he would do anything for his "friends" as he can't even say the words, middle class. This is the second debate to which he never said those words...

Pat Buchanan, a Repugnicant pundit, stated that McCant was good tonight, as he smiled a lot, acknowledged the people and looked at Tom Brokaw, and the audience, and sometimes Obama in the eyes...My god, if this is all it takes to get into the White House, I would be President. Back when I was in 8th and 9th grades we had a small clan of kids, along with my favorite history teacher and tennis coach, that would do stare downs. You would look someone in the eyes until the other person blinked or laughed. I was great at this...Hey, perhaps...nah...

Rhetoric should be disallowed in the public platform of debates or Town Hall discussions during election. I get so bored listening to the questions to McShame being unanswered and delivered with the same boring discovered lies of talking points his campaign continues to try to throw out. I felt sorry for Senator McWon't at some points. Although, I know that he wouldn't feel sorry for me if I were in those shoes, so...fuck 'im.

His continued lies and twisted truths made me feel as if he, not only had the inability to answer the questions, but found himself in an arena that was past his minute multitasking abilities. When he said to the black man in Section F, in answer to his question that with the economy in such disarray what would he do besides the bailout specifically for the people to help change this situation. First he said he would call it a rescue, McDoesn'thaveaclue went on to say to the man who asked the question that he probably had never even heard of Fannie Mae before this year, was an amazing belittlement, to what would seem the minority public, or at least that man and he should be ashamed of himself. For him to continue to espouse that he knows how to fix the economy, yet gave no answers to what that meant, yet only a few weeks ago stated that the economy was sound...it is ridiculous. If felt as though we were watching a man drowning and there was no rope to throw a line.

I'm ready to vote now...can I...

It seemed as though McTired was grasping at whatever he could get his hands onto and smiled to show the people he had some character and feeling...but it went nowhere. This man is a criminal, as was Charles Keating, but who did not do any time. McMobman quipped at one point that we need to redo health care because there may come a day when he needs hair transplants!! This man is not ready to be the President of the United States.

I say end this charade and let Obama take office before the current criminal administration pisses away the entire $700 Billion so the new administration can't do anything with it.

I give Cuddos to Obama for not laughing and calling McSad an idiot! That took a lot of self control in a very delicate and important moment in history. We need that in the White House!

There's a hole in my pocket...

As we have discussed this issue before, we are in the midst of the largest transfer of wealth in the world's history. We, the United States, are selling ourselves off to other countries. We are highly dependent on countries like Saudi Arabia and the rest of the middle east including Iraq for over 70% of our oil needs, as well as, Japan and China for maintaining our financial stability. Who you do you think is giving us all the money for us that we use to live? On the financial side, Japan and China are the one's buying up most of our treasuries bills. Then, the securities are either sold on the open market or directly to the Federal Reserve. The U.S. public debt, as of July 2007 stood at $8.887 trillion. In addition to the national debt, the State and Local debt at the end of 2006 stood at just over $2 trillion. If you look to the right of this blog you will see the running tab of our national debt. Some consider, and perhaps rightly so, that all government liabilities, including those that the government has contracted for but not yet paid, should also be included in the national debt. Corporations must report such liabilities in their annual financial statements under G.A.A.P.(Generally Accepted Accounting Principles).

These “off-balance sheet” items include future payments for federal pensions, Medicare and Social Security. These accounts have been used creatively for years to facilitate a more balanced budget by borrowing from this fund. Through the inclusion of these obligations into the equation would dramatically increase the U.S. national debt to $59.1 trillion. That's 403% of GDP(Gross Domestic Product). On a per capita basis this amounts to $516,348 for every U.S. household! By means of comparison, the average American household currently owes approx. $120,000 for mortgages, car loans, credit cards and all other debt combined. With a declining working population and an increasing retiring population the math simply cannot add up no matter how one tries.

You may not be aware of this but Japan held the biggest note on the US, at the end of 2006, with over $600 Billion. China owned over $400 Billion. I'm sure glad we're all friends, eh? Perhaps this is why our government put China on the favored trade list of countries. Of the U.S. debt owned by foreigners, central banks own 64% with private investors owning nearly all the rest. As of the end of 2006, U.S. treasuries made up 33% of Mainland China’s official foreign exchange reserves and 68% of Japan’s!

The Department of the Treasury publishes The Debt to the Penny and Who Holds It. This up-to-date information divides the debt into two sections – Public and Intergovernmental Holdings. The former grouping includes U.S. citizens and foreigners. “The magnitude of the foreign-owned portion of the national debt is nearly three times the total amount of currency in circulation! Official numbers released by the Federal Reserve for June 2007 show the volume of currency at US$755 billion.” It seems odd, but that number seems to have a familiar ring to it...?

Our country is in debt just as millions of Americans are with their debt. Wow, could this be what we call "trickle down economics"? The irony of it is that China lends us money and buys our treasuries, we are “given” a stimulus check for a few hundred dollars and then we spend it on products made in other countries - like China, at Walmart. Then we have to foot the bill for this debt, at interest!

The problem that will arise with the Repugnicants spouting to "drill, baby, drill" is that the oil drilled in the reserves probably will NOT stay in the United States. This is a free economic world of exchange of goods. In a very short time the United States will not be the most consuming country looking for this commodity. China will begin to surpass our consumption very soon as their economy expands, as well as, their massive population increases its income and needs and desires for oil.

This is a global business and as soon as this is pumped out of the ground it will be sold to the highest bidder. That is capitalism and a global corporatocracy. Perhaps if we were to nationalize the reserves we would mandate that the oil stay in our own backyard. You know, they did this with the inclusion of Eminent Domain for Real Estate. Right! Would you really trust our government to take care of such a delicate issue? They cannot even balance their checkbook.

Brazil is in serious administrative discussions at this very date to nationalize their oil. That country is seeing the upcoming problem and they began converting to ethanol, over ten years ago. This has helped them to become completely energy independent. They do still use oil, however it is oil they drilled for themselves. Now, they begun to export their extra ethanol they produce. Their sugar cane ethanol is much more cost effective than the corn ethanol, our country espouses to. Corn ethanol is a lose lose venture, and it is currently highly subsidized so in financial terms our country is taking one step forward and two steps back on that issue. It sounds good in the sound bites and save a bit of the environment on the exhaust coming out of the cars, but the manufacturing and water consumption for this product is a losing venture. Or, we could begin to trade for ethanol with Brazil. Then will we, simply find ourselves trading OPEC for Brazil? Perhaps this is why there is the private discussions to create the Amero.


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(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs