kpete
kpete's Journal
The 1% are the very best destroyers of wealth the world has ever seen
The 1% are the very best destroyers of wealth the world has ever seenOur common treasury in the last 30 years has been captured by industrial psychopaths. That's why we're nearly bankrupt
George Monbiot
The Guardian, Monday 7 November 2011 15.30 EST
(oldie but goodie)
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If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire. The claims that the ultra-rich 1% make for themselves – that they are possessed of unique intelligence or creativity or drive – are examples of the self-attribution fallacy. This means crediting yourself with outcomes for which you weren’t responsible. Many of those who are rich today got there because they were able to capture certain jobs. This capture owes less to talent and intelligence than to a combination of the ruthless exploitation of others and accidents of birth, as such jobs are taken disproportionately by people born in certain places and into certain classes.
The findings of the psychologist Daniel Kahneman, winner of a Nobel economics prize, are devastating to the beliefs that financial high-fliers entertain about themselves. He discovered that their apparent success is a cognitive illusion. For example, he studied the results achieved by 25 wealth advisers across eight years. He found that the consistency of their performance was zero. “The results resembled what you would expect from a dice-rolling contest, not a game of skill.” Those who received the biggest bonuses had simply got lucky.
Such results have been widely replicated. They show that traders and fund managers throughout Wall Street receive their massive remuneration for doing no better than would a chimpanzee flipping a coin. When Kahneman tried to point this out, they blanked him. “The illusion of skill … is deeply ingrained in their culture.”
So much for the financial sector and its super-educated analysts. As for other kinds of business, you tell me. Is your boss possessed of judgment, vision and management skills superior to those of anyone else in the firm, or did he or she get there through bluff, bullshit and bullying?
Read more at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/11/links-113013.html#XEwyTGHEFAo7JPDM.99
The Exorcist
Christo Komarnitski, Cagle Cartoons, Bulgaria
http://www.truthdig.com/cartoon/item/the_exorcist_20131129
Obamas Might Stay in Washington After Presidency Ends
Obamas Might Stay in Washington After Presidency
President Obama told ABC News that he and his family might stay in Washington, D.C. after his second term is over because youngest daughter Sasha will still be in high school as a sophomore.
Said Obama: "So we've gotta--you know we gotta make sure that she's doin' well... until she goes off to college. Sasha will have a big say in where we are."
"If the Obamas do stay in Washington and maintain a residence in the city, President Obama would be the first president to do so since Woodrow Wilson."
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MORE:
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/11/obamas-might-stay-in-washington-after-presidency-ends-2/
This is wonderful. A street musician plays the clarinet and his dog sings.
#t=26
Happy Thanksgiving DU!
http://www.dependablerenegade.com/.a/6a00d8341bf82953ef019b01c96d64970c-800wi
Grammy & MeMe are making the green beans,
mr pete & i put the Turkey in the oven at 10:30 a.m. pst (even though 1/2 of us are now vegetarians)
the potatoes are boiling, the cranberry sauce is chilling and the yams are soaking in brown sugar and orange jucice...
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mimosa time
peace,
kp
If You Lose Chomsky ...
If You Lose Chomsky ...
JOSH MARSHALL – NOVEMBER 27, 2013, 5:19 PM EST11069
Perhaps it had to fall to Noam Chomsky of all people to deliver the ultimate smackdown to 9/11 Truthers.
"There happen to be a lot of people around who spent an hour on the Internet and think they know a lot of physics. But it doesn't work like that ... There's a reason there are graduate schools in these departments."
Video after the jump ...
This is probably more snark on Chomsky than many would like. Chomsky is a radical but also an empiricist, not a conspiracist. I respect that.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/chomsky-not-on-board-with-911-truth
Marissa Alexander gets Thanksgiving & early Christmas present. She was released on bond from prison
Marissa Alexander bonds out of jail
JACKSONVILLE, Fla -- The Jacksonville mother convicted of shooting at her estranged husband has bonded out of jail.
Marissa Alexander was released just before midnight Wednesday. She is now under house arrest.
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A judge ruled in September that Alexander would receive a new trial due to bad jury instructions given in her first trial.
Alexander and her attorneys say she fired the gun as a "warning shot."
http://www.actionnewsjax.com/content/actionbreaking/story/Marissa-Alexander-bonds-out-of-jail/PQj28nZmIkSPEqltjw4WCQ.cspx
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