Russia's Greatest Novelists and their masterpieces may be used to guide investors:
"War and Peace, Tolstoy
Just like in Leo Tolstoy’s work, in which the war caused great economic and social destruction but eventually Russia prevailed, the investment backdrop for next year is seen as a “very volatile first half” followed by “a more peaceful second half.”
The Master and Margarita, Bulgakov
the novel’s heroine, is tempted by the promise of an eternal good life just as much as Russia was tempted by “seemingly never-ending oil revenue growth” before 2009.
Crime and Punishment, Dostoyevsky
the preference is to avoid taking any action that may be politically or socially unpalatable,” said Weafer, adding that “eventually they must be confronted,” but this will not necessarily happen next year.
The Queen of Spades, Pushkin,
“The warning is that without reforms, growth may not last,” he added.
Dead Souls, Gogol
the “dead souls” metaphor is “close enough” to the Russian state’s ownership of strategic industries, particularly in oil and gas.
The Cherry Orchard, Chekhov
“Change is inevitable – it is how you handle it that matters,”
A Hero of Our Time, Lermontov
“It will be tough to satisfy the state’s wish to control strategic industries and also to bring in investors,”
Home of the Gentry, Turgenev
there a chance of a return to “a less optimistic and less happy existence full of regret and longing for what might have been?”"
MORE: http://www.emergingmarkets.org/Article/3120819/War-and-Peace-Russian-literature-and-investing.html
SpyWriter Jack King: www.SpyWriter.com | www.FaceBook.com/SpyWriter2
Showing posts with label Economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Economy. Show all posts
22/04/2012
The function of a writer, literature
"The function of a committed writer is to reveal the world so that every reader loses her innocence and assumes all her responsibilities in front of it."
"The function of a writer is to call a spade a spade. If words are sick, it is up to us to cure them. Instead of that, many writers live off this sickness. In many cases modern literature is a cancer of words. There is nothing more deplorable than the literary practice which, I believe, is called poetic prose and which consists of using words for the obscure harmonics which resound about them and which are made up of vague meanings which are in contradiction with the clear meaning."
"That is not all: we are living in an age of mystifications. Some are fundamental ones which are due to the structure of society; some are secondary. At any rate, the social order today rests upon the mystification of consciousness, as does disorder as well."
"There is no guarantee that literature is immortal. If writers lose it, too bad for us. But also, too bad for society. Of course, all that is not very important. The world can do very well without literature. But it can do without man still better."
"Language is our shell and our antennae, it is the prolongation of our senses, a third eye which is going to look into our neighbors heart."
"We are within language as within our body."
"To speak is to act; anything which one names is already no longer quite the same; it has lost its innocence."
"Sartre asserts that if a writer is not fully committed to both political and more importantly economic liberty, he is internally at war with the fundamental free nature of literature."
"Though people say a film, podcast, song or interview changed their life, prose retains a unique ability to not just to crystallize an emotional or intellectual recognition but to spark a chain of insights that illuminates a different path in life."
More: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-future-is-unknown-but-we-know-the-unsustainable-will-implode-2012-4
### END OF POST ###
www.SPYWRITER.com
"The function of a writer is to call a spade a spade. If words are sick, it is up to us to cure them. Instead of that, many writers live off this sickness. In many cases modern literature is a cancer of words. There is nothing more deplorable than the literary practice which, I believe, is called poetic prose and which consists of using words for the obscure harmonics which resound about them and which are made up of vague meanings which are in contradiction with the clear meaning."
"That is not all: we are living in an age of mystifications. Some are fundamental ones which are due to the structure of society; some are secondary. At any rate, the social order today rests upon the mystification of consciousness, as does disorder as well."
"There is no guarantee that literature is immortal. If writers lose it, too bad for us. But also, too bad for society. Of course, all that is not very important. The world can do very well without literature. But it can do without man still better."
"Language is our shell and our antennae, it is the prolongation of our senses, a third eye which is going to look into our neighbors heart."
"We are within language as within our body."
"To speak is to act; anything which one names is already no longer quite the same; it has lost its innocence."
"Sartre asserts that if a writer is not fully committed to both political and more importantly economic liberty, he is internally at war with the fundamental free nature of literature."
"Though people say a film, podcast, song or interview changed their life, prose retains a unique ability to not just to crystallize an emotional or intellectual recognition but to spark a chain of insights that illuminates a different path in life."
More: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-future-is-unknown-but-we-know-the-unsustainable-will-implode-2012-4
### END OF POST ###
www.SPYWRITER.com
25/10/2011
WikiLeaks is dying. WikiJustice is born.
WikiLeaks may cease to exists because there is no way to support it financially (though not for the lack of will among the 99-percenters).
"The shutting down of the WikiLeaks website due to financial problems is unfortunate, even though it had become almost inevitable that its end was nigh. Organisations such as Mastercard, Visa, Western Union and PayPal, though not directly funding WikiLeaks, were effective channels for those who wanted to donate to it from across the world. Once they withdrew support, the donations dried up and the website ran out of cash, after which staying afloat was a struggle. Though no one will officially admit it, the connection between these organisations’ refusal to allow donations to go through them and the United States government’s displeasure at disclosures made by WikiLeaks is too blatant to be ignored." source
How is it possible that no channel exists in the entire world by which a person could support WikiLeaks? It's because of what you always suspected: a handful of companies control the entire financial / economic system:
"The work, to be published in PLoS One, revealed a core of 1318 companies with interlocking ownerships (see image). Each of the 1318 had ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were connected to 20. What's more, although they represented 20 per cent of global operating revenues, the 1318 appeared to collectively own through their shares the majority of the world's large blue chip and manufacturing firms - the "real" economy - representing a further 60 per cent of global revenues.
When the team further untangled the web of ownership, it found much of it tracked back to a "super-entity" of 147 even more tightly knit companies - all of their ownership was held by other members of the super-entity - that controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the network. "In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network," says Glattfelder. Most were financial institutions." source
Do not despair! WikiLeaks may suspend its operations, perhaps even cease to exist, but WIKIJUSTICE will set things straight:
"The shutting down of the WikiLeaks website due to financial problems is unfortunate, even though it had become almost inevitable that its end was nigh. Organisations such as Mastercard, Visa, Western Union and PayPal, though not directly funding WikiLeaks, were effective channels for those who wanted to donate to it from across the world. Once they withdrew support, the donations dried up and the website ran out of cash, after which staying afloat was a struggle. Though no one will officially admit it, the connection between these organisations’ refusal to allow donations to go through them and the United States government’s displeasure at disclosures made by WikiLeaks is too blatant to be ignored." source
How is it possible that no channel exists in the entire world by which a person could support WikiLeaks? It's because of what you always suspected: a handful of companies control the entire financial / economic system:
"The work, to be published in PLoS One, revealed a core of 1318 companies with interlocking ownerships (see image). Each of the 1318 had ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were connected to 20. What's more, although they represented 20 per cent of global operating revenues, the 1318 appeared to collectively own through their shares the majority of the world's large blue chip and manufacturing firms - the "real" economy - representing a further 60 per cent of global revenues.
When the team further untangled the web of ownership, it found much of it tracked back to a "super-entity" of 147 even more tightly knit companies - all of their ownership was held by other members of the super-entity - that controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the network. "In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network," says Glattfelder. Most were financial institutions." source
Do not despair! WikiLeaks may suspend its operations, perhaps even cease to exist, but WIKIJUSTICE will set things straight:
19/08/2011
How to restore profits in America
Worried about the state of the economy? You're not the only one. Others worried before you, and they had a plan... Here's a piece that sends chills for its resemblance to current affairs:
"In 1934 a special Congressional committee was appointed to conduct an investigation of a possible planned coup intended to topple the administration of president Franklin D. Roosevelt and replace it with a government modelled on the policies of Adolph Hitler and Benito Mussolini.
The Congressional committee had discovered that some of the foremost members of the economic elite, many of them household names at the time, had indeed hatched a meticulously detailed and massively funded plot to effect a fascist coup in America. The owners of Bird's Eye, Maxwell House and Heinz, among others, totaling about twenty four major businessmen and Wall Street financiers, planned to assemble a private army of half a million men, composed largely of unemployed veterans. These troops would both constitute the armed force behind the coup and defeat any resistance this in-house revolution might generate. The economic elite would provide the material resources required to sustain the new government.
The plotters hoped that widespread working-class discouragement at the stubborn persistence of the Great Depression would have sufficiently disenchanted the masses with FDR's policies to make the coup an easy ride. And they were appalled at Roosevelt's willingness after 1933 to initiate economic policies that economists and businessmen considered dangerously Leftist departures from economic orthodoxy. Only a fascist-style government, they thought, could enforce the kind of economic 'discipline' that would reverse the Great Depression and restore profits."
Source: CommonDreams, August 2, 2007
Stand by for Jack King's suspense novel that was inspired by the above events: www.spywriter.com
09/01/2011
Jack London's vision of future warfare
"This leads to the economic aspect of future warfare. The maintenance of modern armies means enormous expenditure of money. The expenditure of life would correspond should they be unwise enough to even venture partial attacks in isolated portions of the field. Therefore, the question arises: How long will the working populations which are represented by these armies be able and willing to feed them, to furnish them with the munitions of war, and to replete the ranks of the soldiers from the ranks of the producers? It is inevitable, supposing the home political situation to remain unchanged, that the nation with the greater and more available resources, coupled with the tougher and more tenacious population, will be the victor. Famine, not force, will decide the issue. [...]
The civil population will decide the future war by its capacity for enduring all the privations consequent upon a state of semi-famine when the whole industrial system is thrown out of joint, and by its power and willingness to fill the mouths of the million non-producing soldiers and to furnish them with the sinews of war. At the front will be the chess-game; at home the workers feeding the players. All will depend upon the stamina of the civil population.
In the event of such a war, securities, which are now held largely by the middle classes, would go tumbling and crashing, rending it difficult for the government to float loans on a disrupted and frightened market. The disastrous effect to-day of of a war rumor on any seat of exchange, is common knowledge. If paper money were issued under such conditions, its depreciation would be instant and great. The rise of the necessaries of life will tend to do this and to set into motion the remorseless pendulum of action and reaction. The countries in which more live by trade than by agriculture—the wheat-importing countries—will feel the pinch of famine quickly and bitterly. [...] The very fear of this, on the sensitive capitalistic system, even with danger afar off, is bound to make the market panicky and to send prices skyward. And under such circumstances speculation is sure to exact its exorbitant penalty. The ravages of the commercial crisis in time of peace are too well known to make necessary further comment on what they would be in time of war.
The interruption of the operation of the productive forces, and the difficulty in satisfying the vital needs of the population, lead up to the political aspect of future warfare. Are the peoples, especially of the European countries, homogeneous enough in their political beliefs to stand in the strain? Labor troubles, bread riots, and rebellion are factors, subversive all, which must be taken into account. The mobilization of a whole working population may lead to unpleasant results, conscription to revolution. There are strong tendencies threatening the present social order which cannot be lightly passed over. Also, a strong anti-military propaganda has grown up. The small protesting voices of the past have merged into the roar of the peoples. The world has lifted itself to a higher morality. The aim of the human is to alleviate the ills of the human. Among all classes the opposition to war is keen and growing."
Is it?
Jack London, The Impossibility of War.
14/11/2009
Necessary Sacrifices
"We have come to recognize that there are potential desirable limits to economic growth. There are also potentially desirable limits to the indefinite extension of political democracy. A government which lacks authority will have little ability short of cataclysmic crisis to impose on its people the sacrifices which may be necessary."
Samuel P Huntington
06/02/2008
Citizens' Dividend
The following from The $30,000 solution, by Robert R. Schutz, 1996:
A new concept is emerging, that the modern world’s inherited wealth can eliminate poverty. In Europe it is called the Citizens’ Income. In New Zealand it is called the Universal Income. In South Africa is is called the Basic Income Grant. In Canada the Guaranteed Annual Income. In the US it is the Citizens’ Dividend.
The change would be dramatic. The dividend would give income to millions that at present have no purchasing power. There would be an explosion of local economic activity, and the crippling stress of modern life would be removed.
A Citizens’ Divident would free people to improve their lives. It would provide them with a financial platform from which they can choose the life they want to lead. They could get out of work they find unsatisfying making way for others that want the job. They can avoid work that harms the environment. There would be no need to produce unnecessary or short-lived products just in order to generate employment. And people would not need to amass excessive wealth for their old age.
A Citizens’ Income would do more than anything else to give us a humane and civilized society.
07/01/2008
Plan to destabilize America
There is no surprise in the fact that the Soviets hoped to destabilize and discredit the United States. What does surprise is the subtlety and audacity of their effort. The opening salvo of the KGB’s plan was financial.
Seductive advertising was placed in our media through dummy corporations. The intent was to encourage Americans to spend and borrow. From the KGB’s point of view the way to ruin capitalism was for our citizens to run up record levels of debt, preferably with escalating interest rates, and for the national savings rate to plunge into negative territory.
It would be an added plus for them if we would use the borrowed funds to buy non-durables instead of investing in infrastructure.
Should these conditions develop the KGB felt that our country would encounter economic difficulties that could weaken the dollar, undermine our global leadership, and raise the cost of imports heralding inflation. If by some stroke of luck these conditions should be accompanied by reckless use of energy with no thought to conservation, this country might lose control of its own economic destiny.
The final piece of the KGB’s financial strategy involved benefits. The agency employed all of its influence, which was greater than we had suspected, to lull us into potentially lethal complacency. Its aim was to get our government to grant generous social benefits. Then it would persuade our citizens to take those obligations for granted, but not fund them. If it worked, this strategy would create a time bomb, softly ticking until an explosive wave of retirements hit the system. SOURCE
This sure comes out at just the right time to prove that no KGB input was required to destabilize America... America did it all by itself.
Couple of issues with this article:
In reality KGB's influence in this matter was never as great as the writers' suggest and, there was never any chance for social benefits, generous of otherwise, and none will come even though more and more people will desperately need them.
In fiction - similar "plan" to bring down America in the post- Cold War era is described in my novel THE FIFTH INTERNATIONALE
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