text:
Weighing the Good against the Bad: Syracuse Athletics and Daryl Gross
Follow The Fizz on Twitter for the latest SU athletics news
via Syracuse.com
In his time as Syracuse's Athletic Director, Dr. Daryl Gross has gotten his fair share of criticism. Much of it is warranted, but right now, Gross has the Orange moving in the right direction as a whole, and is the right man to lead the Orange into the ACC.
Gross's tenure has not been without the bad. Of course, there was the hiring on Greg Robinson, which SU is still recovering from more than nine years after the decision was made and six years after he was fired. Yes, that hire may have set back SU football about five years, but the two coaches Gross has hired since look like slam dunks. Doug Marrone did such a good job righting the ship that he was hired away to the NFL. And even though it is just one season, Scott Shafer looks like he is on his way to being a great college coach as well, as Gross even said as much last week to Syracuse.com. As bad a hire Robinson was, the program was already on a decline following the great years under Coach Mac and the early part of Pasqualoni's tenure.
The next big criticism of Gross is the delay of the new football practice facilities. This is very much warranted. Syracuse's football facilities need updating, and they needed to be updated before the Orange moved into the ACC. But it still hasn't happened. Now, construction is not expected to begin until at least after Memorial Day weekend. This means there is likely no chance these facilities are ready for next season. While the designs of the practice facility may be another point of contention, it almost doesn't matter what the building looks like at this point, it is just important that the building gets done as soon as possible.
Lastly, football game attendance has been a notable problem. It has not been at the level it should be as a major conference program. The attendance needs to get better, but this is unfairly put on Dr. Gross. The attendance being in the 30,000s is not only Dr. Gross' problem, but also falls on the students, the school, the team and the fans.
Ultimately, it is important to look at the good things Dr. Gross has done for Syracuse University. He has brought the university into the ACC, bringing in more revenue to the athletic department. He has moved on from the Groober era by hiring both Doug Marrone and Scott Shafer. The football team has played in, and won, a bowl game three of the last four seasons. The basketball program is poised for success for years to come, and it looks like there is a plan to elevate Mike Hopkins to head coach when Jim Boeheim decides to retire.
Gross is moving into a territory where his biggest negative, hiring Greg Robinson, is nearly 10 years in the past. He has since taken steps to grow the football program through advertising, creating the "New York's College Team" slogan, and hiring the right coaches. Gross moved the Orange into the ACC at the right time and brought more money into the school. Doc Gross has show that even with the problems he has had, he is the right person to lead the Orange as they continue to transition into the ACC.
Posted by: Seth Goldberg
Related Items:daryl gross, Syracuse athletics
How would the Proposed NCAA Player Endorsement Plan Affect Syracuse?
Takeaways from John Wildhack's Introductory Press Conference
Syracuse Tabs John Wildhack As New Athletic Director
Syracuse's NFL Prospects & How The Draft Has Morphed Into Bedlam
Building a "No-Fly" Zone: DB Gerald Robinson Jr. Talks 2015 Syracuse Commitment


text:
Landscapes for the People Images
Historical Photographs by park unit taken by George Alexander Grant, first chief photographer of the National Park Service [1929-54]
Whitman Mission National Historic Site
George Grant visited Whitman Mission in 1941.
Whitman Monument dediated November 29, 1897, the 50th anniversary of the massacre. It stands om a knoll overlooking the Whitman Mission site and the valley of the Walla Walla River. The graves of the victims of the massacre are located at the northwest corner of the knoll. Whitman Mission National Historic Site, 1941.
whmi

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Team Corratec makes one-two in San Felipe and Gómez resists the attack
Foreign cyclists maintained the winning streak in the Vuelta a Venezuela 2022, because this time it was the turn of Team Corratec from Italy, with the victory of Serbian Veljko Stojnic in the sixth stage; while the Venezuelan Luis Gómez (Team Carabobo Hernández Foundation) kept the yellow jersey of leader of the tour.
Stojnic took advantage of his escape in the last two laps of the circuit in San Felipe (Yaracuy) to claim victory with a time of 2 hours, 57 minutes and 45 seconds, escorted by his teammate Rajovic (17″) and the local Enríquez Díaz (17″) closed the podium. Andean Pride) at 18″.
The 131.4-kilometre section traveled was divided into 16 ring roads of 7.1 km. After a first reconnaissance lap, Leomar Briceño (Ciclocorse-Meditrom-Adisp) and Juan Sarmiento escaped and made the one-two in the first sprint.
Very soon the lot was compact again, with Gómez stuck in the middle, under the gaze of his main opponents, César Sanabria (Fina Arroz Venezuela País de Futuro) Jhonny Araujo (Bolivarian Government of Trujillo Orbea) the Colombian Weimar Roldán (Team Medellín EPM-Colombia), Miguel Ubeto (Banesco) and Carlos Torres (Great Transportation Mission Venezuela La Guaira).
The second sprint was held on the sixth lap, with victory for Reinaldo Arocha (Gran Misión Transporte Venezuela La Guaira), followed by José García (William García-Amadeus) and Isaac Yaguaro (Lotería del Táchira).
Dangerous escape…
Cristhian Lata (William García-Amadeus) took the third emotion (ninth ring road), escorted by Yaguaro and Arocha, who remained in front of a small batch of nine runners, where the second in the general classification, the one born in Nirgua, was Cesar Sanabria.
The fourth sprint (12th lap) was won by Serbian Dusan Rajovic (Team Corratec Italia) and Sanabria gained two seconds, which placed him at that time as temporary leader of the Creole tour; while third passed Yaguaro.
The lot hunted down the escapees, but another Serb at the service of Italy, Veljko Stojnic took command with two laps to go, to stay until the end and pass the finish line with reverence for the San Felipe fans.
After six sections disputed, the Italian squad, which dresses in red wine, adds its third partial award. Stefano Gandin (1st), Rajovic (2nd) and Veljko (6th), the latter also taking third place in the first chapter.
Applause for Elvins González
In this sixth stage, a minute of applause was given to sports journalist Elvins Humberto González, after his physical disappearance yesterday, Thursday, July 28.
The riders at the starting line, Eliezer Rojas, president of the Venezuelan Cycling Federation; Along with the general commissioner of the race, representatives of the media and the general public gave a last goodbye to Elvins, who for more than three decades practiced the profession with passion and dedication, especially in cycling and soccer sources.
seventh chapter
The tour arrives in Valencia, with the penultimate and seventh stages, with the 125.8-kilometre circuit between Paseo Cabriales, Cedeño and Fernando Figueredo avenues, where the protagonists will give 17 circumambulations, where four sprints will be played.
All the results here: https://www.copaci.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/resultVVZLA20226.pdf


text:
Laz Alonso
Lazaro Alonso is an American actor. He is known for playing Tsu'tey in James Cameron's science fiction film Avatar and Fenix Calderon in the film Fast & Furious. Alonso has had roles in other films such as Jarhead, This Christmas, Miracle at St. Anna and Detroit. As of 2019, Alonso is part of the main cast of Amazon Prime Video original series The Boys (based on the comic book series of the same name) playing the character known as Marvin T. "MM (Mother's Milk)" Milk.
Alonso began his career hosting shows on the BET network. Alonso appeared in music videos by Toni Braxton and Aaliyah.
Also has had supporting roles in films such as Stomp the Yard, Down for Life, Jarhead, G, Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood, This Christmas and Miracle at St. Anna.
In 2009, he played Fenix Calderon, the main antagonist in the film Fast & Furious, the fourth installment in the Fast & Furious film series. Alonso had a major role as the Na'vi warrior Tsu'tey in James Cameron's science fiction adventure film Avatar.
Alonso also played one of the lead characters on the 2011, TV series Breakout Kings during its first season and the first episode of season two.
He has made television guest starring appearances on The Unit, Bones, CSI: Miami, NCIS, The Practice and Eyes.
He was the lead in the 2013, NBC drama Deception.
Alonso also played one of the main characters, Detective Billy Soto, on the NBC series The Mysteries of Laura.
Previous PostPrevious Tomer Capone
Next PostNext Henry Thomas


text:
Hyundai Taps Power Of Groupon For Service Leads
2011.04.19 00:00:00 No. 1145
First-ever Groupon Promotion for an Automaker Nets More than 1,300 Customers in Chicago Trial
FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif., April 19, 2011 – Continuing to explore new and innovative ways to connect drivers and dealerships, 1,323 shoppers took advantage of Hyundai's weekend-long Groupon promotion for a $29 oil change, inspection and tire rotation offered by 10 Chicago-area Hyundai dealers. Chicago-based Groupon uses collective buying power to develop daily deals on a wide range of consumer items in more than 500 markets around the world. This was the first-ever promotion by an automaker.
"We're always looking for innovative ways to build dealers' service business. Our Central Region team and a number of Chicago dealers recognized the power of Groupon to offer a compelling deal and generate new service leads," said Brian O'Malley, general manager of Hyundai Motor America's Central Region. "Based on initial response, we can clearly call the pilot program a success in driving traffic. If the long-term results are as encouraging as the initial data and dealers are supportive, we'll certainly look at other ways to use Groupon in the future."
The first-of-its-kind promotion by an automaker was piloted to test the level of acceptance, gauge interest from both Hyundai owners and non-Hyundai owners, and drive ongoing business to Hyundai service centers. The 10 dealerships participating in the trial averaged more than 130 new service customer leads each. As coupons are redeemed and appointments scheduled, Hyundai will track these customers to determine the promotion's long-term benefit and share the results with Hyundai dealer organizations as a case study on innovative tactics to build business.
Hyundai Motor America, headquartered in Fountain Valley, Calif., is a subsidiary of Hyundai Motor Co. of Korea. Hyundai vehicles are distributed throughout the United States by Hyundai Motor America and are sold and serviced through more than 800 dealerships nationwide. All Hyundai vehicles sold in the U.S. are covered by the Hyundai Assurance program, which includes the 5-year/60,000-mile fully transferable new vehicle warranty, Hyundai's 10-year/100,000-mile powertrain warranty and 5-years of complimentary Roadside Assistance.
Journalists are invited to visit our news media website: www.hyundainews.com and follow us on Twitter: @Hyundai.com
Sponsoring Jindo Senior's Welfare Center One Stop Complex Service Program
Hyundai Adds Sport Coupe Variant To Its Award-Winning Elantra Line-Up
Elantra Gt Makes North American Debut At Chicago Auto Show
HMC Donates 100 Million Won to the General Social Service Center in Yongsan
Groupon Service Chicago
[HMC] Technology Research Center's First Socially Responsible Corporation Launches H&S Duriban, Inc.
Hyundai i40 Continues Its Winning Ways On First Birthday
Send email to friends


text:
A Rule for Conservative Anti-Poverty Plans: Keep It Simple
Today's byzantine set of assistance programs is enough to baffle a policy specialist, much less the intended beneficiaries. Reformers need to streamline the system.
Rich Pedroncelli/AP
In an interview with Playboy in 1970, William F. Buckley proposed an antipoverty idea: free food for all Americans. The federal government would provide grocery stores with quantities of cheap dried foods. Anybody who wanted—"you, me, Nelson Rockefeller," he quipped—could help themselves to as much as they cared to take. Buckley's suggested list of free foods included powdered skim milk, soybeans, bulgur wheat, and lard.
Not all the kinks had been worked out of Buckley's idea (bulgur wheat?). But the moral foundation of Buckley's idea was simple and strong: No American should go hungry. In the 1960s, many conservatives grappled with the question of how to put a subsistence floor under poor Americans. Such an idea carried the endorsement of Friedrich Hayek himself, who endorsed a guaranteed minimum income in his last major work, Law, Legislation and Liberty, published in 1973:
There is no reason why in a free society government should not assure to all, protection against severe deprivation in the form of an assured minimum income, or a floor below which nobody need descend. To enter into such an insurance against extreme misfortune may well be in the interest of all; or it may be felt to be a clear moral duty of all to assist, within the organised community, those who cannot help themselves. So long as such a uniform minimum income is provided outside the market to all those who, for any reason, are unable to earn in the market an adequate maintenance, this need not lead to a restriction of freedom, or conflict with the Rule of Law.
Milton Friedman realized Hayek's concept by devising an elegant "negative income tax." The Nixon administration actually submitted to Congress a version of Friedman's idea—renamed the "Family Assistance Plan"—around the time of Buckley's interview.
These kinds of ideas passed out of favor in the years after 1970. In the 1960s, male participation in the labor force had dropped steeply:
Evidence accumulated that a guaranteed income severely undermined work incentives. Even the most forceful administration proponent of the Family Assistance Plan, future senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, eventually abandoned the idea.
Instead, federal and state governments enacted particular programs for particular subgroups among the poor and near poor: the disabled, low-wage workers, new mothers, rural renters, home-heating-fuel users, children whose families earned just slightly too much to qualify for Medicaid, and so on. The result as of 2014 is a welter of programs that would baffle a policy specialist, never mind the poor, the sick, and the ill-educated—culminating in the gnarled intricacies of Obamacare itself.
Paul Ryan's anti-poverty concept recognizes the burden of complexity upon the poor. In his proposed pilot program, a caseworker could help poor people sort through all available benefits and choose a package that met their particular needs.
Meanwhile, progressives are pushing for new programs that promise clarity and simplicity to hard pressed Americans: a higher minimum wage; universal pre-kindergarten education (and the hundreds of thousands of government jobs that would be created to staff all those pre-kindergartens), and—yes—a renewed attempt at a guaranteed minimum income.
A few days ago, I suggested that mother's allowances and acceptance of wider use of food stamps deserve consideration in a conservative antipoverty program. These are uncomfortable ideas for some. They imply an acceptance of some kind of social welfare as a "new normal." But prolonged high unemployment is also the new normal. Stagnant wages are the new normal too. Without returning all to the way to the "old normal" of a guaranteed income, some mode of topping up wages seems needed.
Among the great merits of food stamps and mother's allowances is their simplicity from the user's point of view. Everyone knows whether or not she is a mother of a child under age 18. Food-stamp funds arrive seamlessly on an EBT card. Food-stamp fraud does occur, at an estimated rate of about 4 cents on the dollar, but because of the program's simple design, it loses much less to improper payments than more complicated means-tested programs such as Medicaid (estimated by the General Accounting Office at 8 cents on the dollar) and the most vulnerable of them all, the Earned-Income Tax Credit (GAO estimate of overpayment: 28 cents on the dollar).
As Paul Ryan has rightly said, we're at the beginning, not the end, of the conservative anti-poverty debate. One of the most useful guidelines for that debate is the old Navy rule: "Keep it simple, stupid."


Having the blues never felt so good!
PB&J seeks to reignite public interest in partnered dancing and grow Blues as a dance form through the exploration of various styles of movement and promotion of both solo and partnered social dancing.
This organization was created and is run by dancers. We love Blues music and we want you to love it too. Come dance with us!


We Bestchainsawexpert.com are extremely happy and overwhelmed to get you in the 'About Us' page. Thank you very much to show your interest to know a bit more about our review blog. My name is Brian Berkowitz, a Web Entrepreneur from USA. I and my team run this Chain Saw based site.
Most of the time, we get a numerous basic and frequently asked questions regarding Chain Saw and opinion from our regular readers. Some of our readers are eager to know about our aims while a group of them is highly interested to ken our regular web activities.
We are a Researcher Team who has lots of experience on Chain Saw based information to thousands of info-hungry people who are curious to get his Chain Saw effectively. On the way of our service to the people, this Product Review blog is one of our humble tries.
What is the motive of Bestchainsawexpert.com?
The main motive of Bestchainsawexpert.com is helping to the millions of people in the world to get all essential information and resource about Your Chain Saw beside this we'll help taking right decision on Buying. Most of our blog posts present valuable information & review about the top Class Chain Saw, their uses, buying guide and many more.
However, every single blog post or Product review we publish is backed and packed up with useful authentic information for the readers of our blog that values a lot.


text:
This cookie statement was last updated on April 7, 2020 and applies to citizens of the European Economic Area.
Our website, https://www.cheltenhamspineclinic.co.uk (hereinafter: "the website") uses cookies and other related technologies (for convenience all technologies are referred to as "cookies"). Cookies are also placed by third parties we have engaged. In the document below we inform you about the use of cookies on our website.
We use analytical cookies to optimise the website experience for our users. With these analytical cookies we get insights in the usage of our website. We ask your permission to place analytical cookies.
persist:hs-beacon-message-1ae02e91-5865-4f13-b220-7daed946ba25
persist:hs-beacon-1ae02e91-5865-4f13-b220-7daed946ba25
vchideactivationmsg_vc11
When you visit our website for the first time, we will show you a pop-up with an explanation about cookies. As soon as you click on "All cookies", you consent to us using all cookies and plug-ins as described in the pop-up and this Cookie Policy. You can disable the use of cookies via your browser, but please note that our website may no longer work properly.
Cheltenham Spine Clinic Ltd
28A The Hundred, Romsey, Hampshire, SO51 8BW
Website: https://www.cheltenhamspineclinic.co.uk
Email: enquiries@cheltenhamspineclinic.co.uk
This Cookie Policy was synchronised with cookiedatabase.org on April 7, 2020


Three Indiana County high school officials are walking 24 miles a day, from Meyersdale to Washington, D.C., to raise awareness about the nation's energy crisis.
United High School Principal Lewis Kindja, Assistant Principal Aaron Steinly and physical education teacher Justin Henning are hoping that by walking the 216 miles during nine days (which begins June 5) to the nation's capitol they will motivate and inspire teachers and students to get involved in finding a solution to the energy crisis.
"We've been trying to get United to go green as well as raise energy awareness through education," Steinly said.
But what had started out nearly three months ago as just an awareness walk has led to an inundation of community support and recognition from legislators.
"(President) Mike Eckhart of the American Council on Renewable Energy will meet with us and the organization is hosting us at the reflection pole at 12:30 p.m. along with other legislators," Steinly said.
The participants have already been contacted by multiple congressmen and senators, he said.
Kindja said he never anticipated the walk to gain so much recognition.
Steinly said they have been acknowledged locally and nationally by the media.
"This shows that two principals from rural Pennsylvania can make such an incredible impact," he said.
The men have been training daily to prepare for the walk.
The walk has also inspired students in the United School District to be involved in some way.
Students in one of the high school classes have mapped out a workout plan and nutritional information for food during the trip.
Teachers will start to incorporate alternative energy in the school's curriculum.
Individuals, businesses ad organizations have made donations to the effort.
Giant Eagle in Indiana has donated all the food for the duration of the walk. Laurel Auto Group in Johnstown has purchased a new hybrid Toyota Highlander as the "chase vehicle," which will haul food, clothing and other supplies. Wright Knox Motor Lines has funded all overnight stays at motels and bed and breakfasts.
The Pennsylvania Department of Education and Education Secretary Gerald Zahorchak have supported the walk and are partners.
Kindja said he hopes students throughout the country have the same opportunities he and Steinly had, which is another reason they want to raise energy awareness.
"I think we both strongly believe in this and we truly want our children to believe in it," he said.
Steinly said it is time to bring the situation to the forefront.
"Let's walk the talk and show people this is important," he said.
For more information about the walk or partners who have contributed, visit www.principalsforchange.org.


text:
Q: Bing Maps v8 pushpin tooltip I'm starting to migrate my code from the Bing Maps AJAX v7 API to the new v8, but some things have changed. My existing code to add a tooltip to a pushpin doesn't work anymore. Anyone have tackled this problem?

A: I figured out. Since the new control is drawn inside a html5 canvas, the controls are not accessible by normal means. But I used the infobox control to mimic a tooltip. code:
html

javascript:
function getMap() {
   PanningRectLimit = Microsoft.Maps.LocationRect.fromCorners(new Microsoft.Maps.Location(30.181359, -95.662621), new Microsoft.Maps.Location(29.603220, -95.077050));

   MapOptions = {
    credentials: "yourkey", center: new Microsoft.Maps.Location(29.871261, -95.364891), showLocateMeButton: false, maxBounds: PanningRectLimit,
    mapTypeId: Microsoft.Maps.MapTypeId.road, zoom: 9, enableClickableLogo: false, tileBuffer: 2, showMapTypeSelector: false, useInertia: false, enableSearchLogo: false, disableKeyboardInput: true
};

   map = new Microsoft.Maps.Map(document.getElementById("MapPlace"), MapOptions);

   LayerOffices = new Microsoft.Maps.Layer({ visible: true, zIndex: 2 });
   infobox = new Microsoft.Maps.Infobox(LastValidLocation, { description: 'description', showCloseButton: false, showPointer: false });

   var off1 = new Microsoft.Maps.Pushpin(new Microsoft.Maps.Location(mylat, mylng), { typeName: 'Office1', enableHoverStyle: true });
   var off2 = new Microsoft.Maps.Pushpin(new Microsoft.Maps.Location(mylat2, mylng2), { typeName: 'Office2', enableHoverStyle: true });

   Microsoft.Maps.Events.addHandler(off1 , 'mouseover', tooltipPin);
   Microsoft.Maps.Events.addHandler(off2 , 'mouseover', tooltipPin);
   Microsoft.Maps.Events.addHandler(off1 , 'mouseout', tooltipPin2);
   Microsoft.Maps.Events.addHandler(off2 , 'mouseout', tooltipPin2);

   LayerOffices.add(off1);
   LayerOffices.add(off2);

   map.layers.insert(LayerOffices);
}

function tooltipPin(e) {
   var loc = e.target.getLocation();
   infobox.setMap(map);
   infobox.setLocation(loc);
   infobox.setHtmlContent('

mydescription

');
};

function tooltipPin2(e) {
   infobox.setHtmlContent('

');
};

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Copyright © Finn Road Park. All rights reserved.
At Finn Road Park we are proud of our sites. Each site is cement padded complete with water, electric and sewer hook-ups. A picnic table and fire pit complete each site. We make it easy so you can get right to relaxing.
We keep it simple so you can customize your stay to your likings. In addition to our full service sites we offer a clean and modern bath house; a playground with all the cool toys your remember as a kid; a picnic pavilion to use or rent for special occasions; nature trails for walking, running, or biking; and free WiFi. Many of our guests choose Finn Road Park for ease of using the boat launch with access to the Saginaw Bay for fantastic Walleye fishing.


text:
Q: Why does WSDL change break vb.net application? I am accessing a web service that is coded in c# - I am coding my application in vb.net. The owner of the webservice made a WSDL enhancement recently by adding a few values in an enum and a few other string values to the classes that are exposed in the WSDL.
When the partner updated this WSDL my application stopped properly binding values to my objects. Portions of my objects were populated with values, but portions of the objects were not... they were NULL.
I opened the complied code and updated the web reference and the code started working again. My code is working fine but I am trying to understand why this happened. Is this some artifact of coding in VB.net or is this just something to deal with? My concern is just for future planning.
Thank you for your help.

A: They changed their API and broke compatibility with their old one.  The fact that they published a WSDL has made fixing the change easier on you, but once their updated web service started running, clients built from that original WSDL were going to work or not work (depending on the nature of the change).  You can take heart that this would have happened in any other language as well.  A common practice to manage this breakage is to host updated WSDLs on different URLs (usually with the version number in the URL).  This makes it easier to run different versions in parallel and not break old apps.  From time to time you will need to break your API, so having good communication with your customers is also key.  I like to make my APIs that I deprecate read only first with error messages that help a developer understand what is going on, and I fire off an email or pick up the phone as soon as I see an API call to a deprecated API.  This obviously wouldn't work for a PayPal, but if it's an option it can keep partners happy, and so far it has been worth my time.


text:
/**
 * The class responsible for trying to find the best next move.
 *
 * @author jkadams
 */

function Solver(depthNewCards, depthNoNewCards) {
  this.depthNewCards = depthNewCards;
  this.depthNoNewCards = depthNoNewCards;
  this.nextMove = null;
  this.seen = {};
}

var times = [];

Solver.prototype.findBestMove = function(game) {
  var startTime = new Date();
  this.seen = {};
  this.moveScores(game, 0);
  var endTime = new Date();
  times.push(endTime-startTime);
  switch (this.nextMove) {
    case 0:
      return 'LEFT';
    case 1:
      return 'UP';
    case 2:
      return 'RIGHT';
    case 3:
      return 'DOWN';
    default:
      return 'NONE';
  }
};

Solver.LOSE_SCORE = 1000;

Solver.finalBoardScore = function(game) {
  var score = 0;
  var pieces1 = game.pieces1;
  var pieces2 = game.pieces2;
  for (var c = 0; c < MeldGame.COLUMNS; c++) {
    if (pieces1 & 0xF) score++;
    if ((pieces1 >> 16) & 0xF) score++;
    if (pieces2 & 0xF) score++;
    if ((pieces2 >> 16) & 0xF) score++;
    pieces1 >>= 4;
    pieces2 >>= 4;
  }
  if (score == 16) {
    if (game.isGameOver()) {
      score = Solver.LOSE_SCORE; // no possible moves
    }
  }
  return score;
};

Solver.prototype.moveScores = function(game, depthGone) {
  var gameString = game.pieces1 + '/' + game.pieces2 + '/' + game.nextValue;
  if (this.seen[gameString] != null) {
    return this.seen[gameString];
  }

  if (depthGone == this.depthNewCards + this.depthNoNewCards) {
    return Solver.finalBoardScore(game);
  }

  // If we're using the nextValue, try 1/2/3.
  // Otherwise, just use 1 and it will go unused.
  var nextPieceRange = depthGone < this.depthNewCards - 1 ? 3 : 1;
  // If the next card is a bonus card, and we're at depth 0, try all possible.
  var bonusMax = 6;
  if (depthGone == 0 && game.nextValue == MeldGame.NEXT_BONUS) {
    bonusMax = game.highestValue() / 8;
  }
  var bestMove = null;
  var bestScore = Solver.LOSE_SCORE;
  for (var moveDirection = 0; moveDirection < 4; moveDirection++) {
    var tempGame = game.copy();
    var newLocations = tempGame.move(moveDirection);
    var sum = 0;
    var count = 0;
    var expectedScore;
    if (newLocations != 0) {
      if (depthGone < this.depthNewCards) {
        // Add new cards at this depth.
        for (var newLocation = 0; newLocation < 4; newLocation++) {
          if ((newLocations & (1 << newLocation)) == 0) {
            continue;
          }
          for (var nextPiece = 1; nextPiece <= nextPieceRange; nextPiece++) {
            for (var bonus = 6; bonus <= bonusMax; bonus *= 2) {
              var randomGame = tempGame.copy();
              randomGame.respondToUser(moveDirection, newLocation, nextPiece, bonus);
              sum += this.moveScores(randomGame, depthGone + 1);
              count++;
            }
          }
        }
        expectedScore = sum / count; // should we use the undrawn stack instead?
      } else {
        // Ignore new cards, just try to get rid of existing cards.
        expectedScore = this.moveScores(tempGame, depthGone + 1);
      }

      if (bestMove == null || expectedScore < bestScore) {
        bestScore = expectedScore;
        bestMove = moveDirection;
      }
    }
  }
  if (depthGone == 0) {
    this.nextMove = bestMove;
  }
  this.seen[gameString] = bestScore;
  return bestScore;
};

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Ireland DPA will not investigate Facebook or Apple over involvement in the Prism program
Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP
Ireland August 5 2013
As reported by Bloomberg BNA, the Irish Office of the Data Protection Commissioner ("ODPC") has stated that it will not investigate complaints relating to the alleged involvement of Facebook Ireland Inc. ("Facebook") and Apple Distribution International ("Apple") in the PRISM surveillance program.
In June 2013, privacy activist group europe-v-facebook.org filed separate complaints with the ODPC against Apple and Facebook, stating that their participation in the PRISM program was in breach of the EU Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC (the "Data Protection Directive") and Ireland's implementing law, the Data Protection Acts 1988 and 2003. The PRISM surveillance program involves the transfer of EU citizens' data to the U.S. National Security Agency (the "NSA"), through the NSA's PRISM program.
Rebutting the complaints in a letter of response dated July 23, 2013, the ODPC announced that it would not investigate Apple or Facebook, each of which has Irish headquarters, as both companies transfer data to their U.S. entities, which are certified under the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor program. The ODPC stressed in its letter of response "that an Irish-based data controller has met their data protection obligations in relation to the transfer of personal data to the U.S. if the U.S. based entity is 'Safe Harbor' registered." The letter of response also stated that the ODPC further considered "that the agreed 'Safe Harbor' Programme envisages and addresses the access to personal data for law enforcement purposes" held by U.S.-based data processors.
The ODPC's assessment contrasts that of the German Data Protection Commissioners at both the Federal and State levels. The German Commissioners issued a press release on July 24, 2013, stating that there is a high probability that the Safe Harbor principles are being violated under the PRISM surveillance program because personal data transferred by German companies to foreign countries may be accessed by the NSA without complying with the principles of necessity, proportionality and purpose limitation.
In a statement released on July 25, 2013, europe-v-facebook's spokesman criticized the "different reaction in the member states" to the PRISM surveillance program, going on to opine that "European fundamental rights are not worth the paper they are written on." europe-v-facebook is now considering whether it can appeal the ODPC's decision in the Irish courts or the European Court of Human Rights.
IT & Data Protection
Data Protection Directive
Data Protection Commissioner
The Schrems Saga Continues: Schrems II Case Heard Before the CJEU *
Irish DPC Publishes New Cookie Guidance *
BREAKING: Unexpected Outcome of Schrems II Case: CJEU Invalidates EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework but Standard Contractual Clauses Remain Valid *
Irish Data Protection Commissioner Appointed to Second Term *
Irish DPA Issues €450,000 Fine Against Twitter for Data Breach Following EDPB Decision under the GDPR Consistency Mechanism *
Related Ireland articles
ODPC publishes 2016 Annual Report *
Europe-v-Facebook: no 'like' for ODPC audit *
Data Protection Commissioner to investigate Schrems complaint *
Luxembourg DPA will not investigate Microsoft or Skype over involvement in the PRISM program * - USA
Safe Harbor in doubt following EU ruling * - European Union
European legal opinion on Facebook NSAPrism to be handed down later this month * - European Union
Terry V Thiele
Director, Sustainable Product Strategies
The Lubrizol Corporation
"The problem with the information age is that it leaves one drinking from a firehose. The service succeeds in reducing that torrent to manageable gulps of high value analyses addressing topics of immediacy. "


text:
EGM Review: Scribblenauts Unmasked: A DC Comics Adventure
It should've left its mask on
I've been reading and obsessing over DC Comics properties for the better part of my entire life. Whenever a new piece of media is released in conjunction with my favorite superheroes, I must ravenously consume it and add it to my near-encyclopedic lexicon of DC lore. So, with the release of Scribblenauts Unmasked: A DC Comics Adventure, it was only fitting that I'd see what kind of an effect Maxwell's magical notebook could have on the DC Universe. Unfortunately, this was a crossover that I wish could be erased like so many adjectives describing Maxwell's adversaries.
Here's the basic story: Maxwell, much like myself, obsesses over DC comic books and superheroes. While pontificating to his sister, Lily, one day about how great life would be if he could live in the DC Universe, the pair come to the conclusion that if Maxwell were to take a piece of paper from his magical notebook—which allows anything he writes down to be brought into existence—with the word "Gotham" on it and slap it against Lily's magic globe (which lets her travel anywhere in the world), they might be able to make Maxwell's dream come true.
While the experiment works, in a drastic turn of events, Maxwell fails to realize that words are also written on the reverse side of that magical piece of paper—including "Doppelganger," who now ruthlessly aids the DCU's villains in wreaking havoc on Gotham, Atlantis, Metropolis, Themyscira, Central City, and other DCU locales with a magical notebook of his own. In order to correct this grievous error, Maxwell promises Batman, Superman, and the rest of the Justice League to clean up Doppelganger's mess and bring him down.
Anyone familiar with the Scribblenauts games will instantly recognize the basic mechanics of solving puzzles and progressing by writing down objects that would make sense to the situation—for example, writing "lasso" and then tying the rope to a box that you need to pull off a cliff. Of course, more drastic and ridiculous objects could do the same, and players are encouraged to let their imaginations run wild. The major difference now is that you can draw inspiration from the DC Universe. Instead of asking for a gun, you can ask for Mr. Freeze's freeze gun or Adam Strange's laser gun. And if you're not sure how to spell something, the game also provides you with access to the Batcomputer, with thousands of objects and people specific to the DCU that you can call upon by scrolling through and simply tapping on them. After all, it's not always easy to remember how to spell "Dkrtzy RRR of Sector 188 from the Green Lantern Corps."
But for as many well-known superhero elements as you'll find, the game is a bit of a grind. Several levels are locked off until you solve a certain number of minor problems in order to meet a "Superhero Reputation" quota. To do this, though, you have to constantly replay the same levels, never advancing the story, and saving the same old man again and again or beat up a bunch of B-list supervillains who randomly appear for no good reason. And just summoning an army of Batmen can solve most of these minor problems.
It's a shame, because when the game does progress, there's some enjoyment to be had. It's fun taking on the story-related bosses, whose ranks include many of the DCU's most infamous evildoers. Sadly, there's only one such encounter per level. That means the game features a dozen inventive boss fights and around 100 uninspired tasks required to access them all.
Because of that curious decision, the pacing of Scribblenauts Unmasked is akin to that one Family Guy joke where Peter hits his knee, and he holds it because he's in pain, and it's funny. But then it doesn't stop, and it's not funny anymore. Then it goes on so long that it's funny again because you can't believe it's still going. That's Scribblenauts Unmasked. It starts off as a ton of fun to pull in all these zany DCU objects and use them against—or with—your favorite characters. Then it becomes a grind, because it's insanely repetitive to get to the next story beat. Then you get to the final boss, and you laugh because you can't believe they were able to cram six hours' worth of "content" into the game and decide to charge you 60 bucks.
Developer: 5th Cell • Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment • ESRB: E10+ • Release Date: 09.24.2013
While certain elements will appeal to DC Comics fans, there simply isn't enough substance here to make Scribblenauts Unmasked worth a purchase—the gimmick wears off way too quickly.
The Good The expansive amount of DC Comics material on display.
The Bad Grinding through the story with repetitive missions.
The Ugly You can get virtually the same game $20 cheaper on the 3DS.
Scribblenauts Unmasked: A DC Comics Adventure is available on Wii U, 3DS, and PC. Primary version reviewed was for Wii U.
Tags: 5th Cell, comics, dc, nintendo, ray carsillo, review, Scibblenauts Unmasked: A DC Comics Adventure, video games, warner bros., Wii U
« Hands-On: Deep Down
Call of Duty: Ghosts Trailer Explains 'Squads' »


This Confidentiality Agreement ("Agreement") is made and agreed to by Simon & Co., Inc. ("Simon"), representative for the Property, and the undersigned ("Purchaser") and/or the undersigned ("Buying Broker") regarding the property known as 1928 W. Buckeye Road Phoenix, AZ ("Property").
Purchaser and/or Buying Broker Has Requested information from Simon for the purpose of evaluating a possible acquisition of the Property. The Owner of the property has authorized Simon to deliver information concerning the Property, much of which is highly confidential, only to those potential purchasers who sign this Agreement.
Purchaser and/or Buying Broker will not disclose, permit the disclosure of, release, disseminate or transfer, any information obtained hereunder ("Information") to any other person or entity.
If Purchaser and/or Buying Broker is a corporation, partnership, limited liability company or other non-natural legal entity, the person(s) signing this Agreement on its behalf will take all appropriate precautions to limit the dissemination of the Information only to those persons within the entity who have need to know of the information, and who are specifically aware of the Agreement and agree to honor it.
This Agreement applies to all Information received from Broker, now or in the future, which is not readily available to the general public and shall include any marketing materials. Purchaser and/or Buying Broker understands that all information shall be deemed confidential, valuable and proprietary such that its unauthorized disclosure, even without intent to harm, could cause substantial and irreparable harm to the Owner of the Property and Simon.
All information shall be used for the sole purpose of evaluating the potential acquisition of the Property, and it shall not at any time, or in any manner, be used for any other purpose.
If, upon review of this Information, Purchaser no longer has any further interest in the subject property or does not wish to pursue negotiations leading to its acquisition, Purchaser agrees to return said Information in its entirety and original form to Simon. If delivered electronically, Purchaser and/or Buying Broker shall permanently destroy all Information. Photocopying or other duplication is strictly prohibited.
Purchaser and/or Buying Broker shall not contact directly any persons concerning the Property, other than Simon, without Simon's written permission.
Neither Simon nor Owner of the Property make any representations or warranty, express or implied, as to the accuracy or completeness of any information provided by them. Purchaser and/or Buying Broker assumes full and complete responsibility for reconfirmation and verification of all Information received and expressly waives all rights of recourse against Simon and the Owner of the Property with respect to the same.
The Persons signing on behalf of Purchaser and Broker represent that they have the authority to bind the party for whom they sign.


The campaign is designed to consolidate Age UK's position in the funeral plan marketplace. Working together with their partner, Dignity, they provide one of Britain's best funeral plans.
Age UK's amazing heritage as the UK's largest charity working for older people is another key differentiator in this crowded marketplace. Age UK understand the needs of older people. And buying an Age UK Enterprises Funeral Plan will also help support Age UK's charitable work.
The campaign concentrates on the real, emotional reason for purchase: it's another important way to look after your family. The TV ad centres on the relationship between a mum and her grown-up son. He may have a family of his own now, but that doesn't mean she won't look after him every chance she gets. After all, she's been doing it all his life. In a small way, that might mean cooking his favourite meal. And just as naturally, it means planning now so that her funeral doesn't leave her family with unnecessary worries.
The TV ad is matched by direct mail, and supported by posters and take-one leaflets in local Age UKs across the country.


The Global Financial consulting Market 2018 Research Report is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the Financial consulting Market industry.
The report provides a basic overview of the industry including definitions and classifications. The Financial consulting Market analysis is provided for the international markets including development trends, competitive landscape analysis, and key regions development status.
The report firstly introduced the Financial consulting Market basics: definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain overview; industry policies and plans; product specifications; manufacturing processes; cost structures and so on. Then it analyzed the world's main region market conditions, including the product price, profit, capacity, production, capacity utilization, supply, demand and industry growth rate etc. In the end, the report introduced new project SWOT analysis, investment feasibility analysis, and investment return analysis.
The report includes six parts, dealing with: 1.) basic information; 2.) the Asia Financial consulting  Market; 3.) the North American Financial consulting  Market; 4.) the European Financial consulting  Market; 5.) market entry and investment feasibility; and 6.) the report conclusion.


1. Educate your facility managers and personnel about recognizing MRSA.
2. Implement a hand washing initiative and training program for aggressive hand washing and hand sanitizing.
3. Implement a 2-step cleaning program that uses standard infection control procedures.
• Surface must be cleaned before applying disinfectant.
• Use of disinfectants should be reserved only for surfaces touched by skin.
• Disinfectant must be given proper dwell time to perform.
• Environmentally preferred products provide better indoor air quality and will not burden an individual's immune system.
This entry was posted in Cleaning Tips, Home Safety, Uncategorized and tagged Clean, Clean and Healthy, Cleaning, cleaning supplies, cleaning tips, deep cleaning, Employees, flu, germs, Health and Safety, healthy environment, Home Safety, house cleaning, Markatos, markatos cleaning, markatos services, MRSA, office cleaning, office safety, OSHA, prevention, regulations, safe and accessible, safety, safety first, Safety Tips, standards, tips. Bookmark the permalink.


Two RMNodes for the same NodeId are used in RM sometimes after NM is reconnected. Scheduler and RMContext use different RMNode reference for the same NodeId sometimes after NM is reconnected, which is not correct. Scheduler and RMContext should always use same RMNode reference for the same NodeId.
MAPREDUCE-6398 Two RMNodes for the same NodeId are used in RM sometimes after NM is reconnected.


Audio Interface Competition - Announcing Winner!
Audio Interface Competition – Announcing Winner!
Welcome to the "Audio Interface Competition – Announcing Winner!" post. Today I'll announce the winner of the audio interface Focursrite Scarlett 2i2.


text:
Where the Water Meets the Land: Connecting Brownfields and Urban Waters Restoration
August 22, 2019	| Adi Nochur |
"You used to be able to tell what dye the plant was processing by the color of the river that day," Lesly Melendez told us as we stood at the site of a former commercial laundry facility on Brooks Street in Lawrence, Massachusetts. "We didn't know it was a brownfield at the time," she added, using a common term to describe land that has real or suspected contamination from hazardous substances.
Groundwork Lawrence Deputy Director Lesly Melendez, here in front of Dr. Nina Scarito Park, gives a tour of the Spicket River Greenway.
Photo: Adi Nochur
The beautiful riverfront park that stretched out before us, named for renowned local obstetrician Dr. Nina Scarito, belied this industrial history. Lesly, a lifelong resident of Lawrence and the current Deputy Director of Groundwork Lawrence, has played a pivotal role in this brownfield-to-park transformation. As she led our small group last month on a tour of the Spicket River Greenway, a recently completed 3.5-mile walking and biking trail connecting numerous Lawrence parks, community gardens, and open spaces (several also located on former industrial brownfield sites), it was hard not to be impressed by the community's vision and determination. Lawrence, a city long known for textile mills and famous for the 1912 Bread and Roses labor strike, is now charting a new course forward, one that seeks to reconnect people to the natural resources that have always been in their backyards, yet just out of reach.
The tour got me thinking about the connections between land, water, and community development. In my role as Deputy Director of Capacity Building at Groundwork USA (Groundwork Lawrence is part of our national Network) and a co-coordinator of the Urban Waters Learning Network, I am tasked with helping communities across the country devise strategies to redevelop contaminated brownfield sites and restore neglected waterways. Lesly's testimony serves as a powerful reminder that these issues cannot be separated, that revitalizing land, water, and community must go hand in hand.
Revitalizing land, water, and community must go hand in hand. Adi Nochur, Groundwork USA
What challenges and opportunities arise where the water meets the land? For many years, cities like Lawrence turned their backs on their waterfronts, as industrial facilities choked off public access. These sites historically served as engines of both prosperity and pollution. When they finally closed, the wealth left the community, but the contamination remained.
Thanks to the dogged efforts of people like Lesly all over the country, the tide is now turning. Communities and governments at all levels are working together to clean up polluted land and water and to bring new uses to old sites. People are now reconnecting with their waterways as places of active transportation and recreation through projects like the Spicket River Greenway (though Lesly was quick to remind us that public access to the river is still lacking in several places). While there will always be a role for waterfront industry, a new paradigm calls for that industry to co-exist with the public and to be sustainable. Rather than excluding and polluting, new industry must be inviting and regenerating.
The Spicket River in Lawrence, Mass., seen from the Spicket River Greenway.
Yet as waterfront redevelopment attracts new residents and investment, the threat of a new form of exclusion emerges. Increased rents and property values due to environmental improvements can lead to displacement of longtime residents, who ironically are often the ones on the front lines advocating for change in the first place. The push for waterfront transformation therefore cannot be separated from conversations about affordable housing and equitable community engagement. Who exactly is welcome as our waterfronts are redeveloped?
Furthermore, what does waterfront transformation mean in an era of worsening climate crisis? Lesly pointed out that the Spicket River, which was channelized to power mills during Lawrence's industrial era, now routinely floods during rainstorms, threatening low-lying homes and businesses. Groundwork USA's new Climate Safe Neighborhoods initiative further shows how communities subjected to housing discrimination in the past are the same communities that are most vulnerable to extreme heat and flooding in the present. Not coincidentally, these communities are also threatened by economic displacement and real estate speculation; once again, the need to address multiple issues together is clear. As our climate gets hotter, can our waters keep us cool without submerging us?
It will take careful, community-driven planning to create places that are resilient to economic and environmental shocks and that thrive in the face of changing conditions. Equitably transforming brownfields and urban waters is a critical component of this process. Groundwork USA and the Urban Waters Learning Network have produced and will continue to produce tools and resources to address these interconnected issues. We invite you to send us your ideas about how we can better serve your communities' needs for equitable redevelopment of brownfields and waterways. Stay tuned for upcoming webinars from Groundwork USA and the Urban Waters Learning Network that continue these conversations!
–Adi Nochur is the Deputy Director of Capacity Building at Groundwork USA.
Groundwork Lawrence


Vinyl re-issue in splatter wax with poster and insert of the EP from '87 of the undisputed fathers of Death Metal!! From this band, DEATH took his influences!!
Limited vinyl re-issue on red wax of the 3rd album from '92 of this mythic band from Florida, undboubtedly one of their best works!! Includes 2 bonus.
Vinyl re-issue on 180gr. wax of the 3rd album from '91 by this legendary dutch band, now with Patrick Mameli on vocals, for many their best work!!


Hypnotherapy Courses in Dublin for people who want to start a successful therapy practice. Download the free Essentials now.
This is a short video course that will teach you how to deliver your very first session of clinical hypnotherapy. You will get ten mini-lessons approximately 3 minutes each sent to your inbox. This video course is essential if you are thinking of taking hypnotherapy courses in Dublin. It will help boost your confidence and give you the basic skills you need to feel comfortable and relaxed learning hypnotherapy.
Download the FREE Hypnotherapy Essentials Course by clicking on the link below.
There are so many different hypnotherapy courses run by different schools and individuals. Therefore it's very important that you pick a school where the following are delivered as standard.
Hypnotherapy training to diploma level must be a minimum of 120 hours of live classroom interaction. Anything below this standard does not constitute 'diploma' level. Therefore you won't be adequately covered by public liability and professional indemnity insurance even if you are insured.
Hypnotherapy trainers need to be more than just great hypnotherapists. They also need to be trained educators that are capable of delivering an adult education curriculum to the highest standards and can work with a wide variety of learners. Your tutor needs to be able to draw the best out of you so that you can get the best out of the course and out of your self.
The hypnotherapy curriculum should be up-to-date and should not rely on old stage hypnosis techniques or outdated psychology. For example, glove anesthesia to manage pain has been rejected as a valid intervention. This technique was proven to be clinically ineffective in the 1970's. There are far more effective and evidenced based pain control techniques available to the modern, progressive hypnotherapist.
The delivery method for diploma level courses should be blended learning. This includes evidence-based theory, coupled with the live demonstration of techniques that are matched to suit the needs of students in the group. Ample time should be given to allow students to practice techniques. Guidance and supervision should be given to students to ensure they can proper develop their skills.
Post diploma Continued Professional Development and access to on-going supervision is essential. Both of these options should be provided by all schools and made available to all graduates. As graduates begin to build a successful practice they often end up with a heavy case load. Having properly qualified supervisors to support them during their practice development is essential to their long term growth and professional development.
But before you make any decisions on which hypnotherapy course to choose. Why not download the free Essentials of Hypnotherapy and start building your confidence and skill-set today.


text:
08:37: AM Sunday January 17, 2021
BMI Sets Revenue Records With $1.283 Billion
Posted on September 12, 2019 at September 12, 2019 by Khalif
BMI (Broadcast Music, Inc.) ended its fiscal year on June 30 once again breaking revenue records with $1.283 billion, up 7% over the previous year. BMI also distributed and administered $1.196 billion to its songwriters, composers and publishers, its highest distributions ever, and a 7% or $78 million increase over last year. These results mark the most reported public performance revenues and highest royalty distributions of any music rights organization in the world.
In making the announcement, BMI President & CEO Mike O'Neill, said, "BMI values the trust our affiliates place in us, and we are gratified to once again generate record revenues on their behalf. Our achievements are a direct result of the unrivaled creativity of the songwriters and composers we represent and the worldwide popularity of their music." O'Neill added, "We always strive to do better, and we will continue to work hard to champion the rights of our creators and protect the value of their copyrights."
The $1.196 billion in total distributions includes domestic and international royalties, as well as royalties from direct deals that BMI administers on behalf of its publishers. Distributions from direct deals grew $9 million in FY '19 for a total of $62 million, holding steady at 5% of BMI's total distributions.
The company achieved these milestones while maintaining its record-low overhead rate. When factoring in the impact of direct deal administration, BMI continues to distribute nearly 90 cents of every dollar directly back to its songwriters, composers and publishers.
BMI's total domestic revenue, encompassing digital, media and general licensing, topped out at $943 million, a $63 million, or 7%, increase. That growth was driven by a $47 million increase in digital revenue, up 22% year-to-year for a total of $262 million. New deals with the growing video-on-demand streaming market, including Twitch and Amazon Channels, as well as new licensees in the eFitness market, such as Peloton and Flywheel, helped drive that success.
General licensing, which is generated from businesses like bars and restaurants, hotels and fitness centers, along with other income, also posted record results of $169 million, an 8% gain year-to-year, representing 18% of BMI's domestic revenue pie. The company added approximately 16,500 new businesses to its growing portfolio in this sector.
Revenue from cable and satellite sources once again generated the largest portion of BMI's domestic revenue at 30%, while traditional radio and television accounted for 24% of the overall domestic total. Notably, BMI's digital revenue has now grown to encompass 28% of the company's total domestic revenue portfolio and is now the second biggest contributor to that total.
BMI's international revenue also reached an all-time high of $340 million, an increase of $21 million, or 7% over the previous year. The strength of BMI's repertoire of film, television and songs helped the company achieve these record results in spite of a negative foreign exchange hit of $23 million caused by the strengthening dollar overseas.
In addition, BMI saw its affiliate membership surpass one million for the first time ever, with over 90,000 new songwriters, composers and publishers joining the organization this year. Notable new signings included Lil Nas X, Kendrick Lamar, Brandi Carlile, Willie Colón, and Sarah Schachner, among others, while agreements were extended with Imagine Dragons, Eminem, Shakira, John Legend, Harry Gregson-Williams, Eric Church, P!nk, Rihanna, Ben Decter, J Balvin, Hozier, Halsey, Horacio Palencia, and many more.
BMI processed 2.19 trillion performances in FY '19, a 29% increase over last year. Of that total, 98% were digital performances, reinforcing the critical need for fair compensation for songwriters, whose musical contributions provide the very foundation of the streaming services' businesses.
ABOUT BMI:
Celebrating over 79 years of service to songwriters, composers, music publishers and businesses, Broadcast Music, Inc.® (BMI®) is a global leader in music rights management, serving as an advocate for the value of music. BMI represents the public performance rights in over 15 million musical works created and owned by more than one million songwriters, composers, and music publishers. The Company negotiates music license agreements and distributes the fees it generates as royalties to its affiliated writers and publishers when their songs are performed in public. In 1939, BMI created a groundbreaking open-door policy becoming the only performing rights organization to welcome and represent the creators of blues, jazz, country, and American roots music. Today, the musical compositions in BMI's repertoire, from chart toppers to perennial favorites, span all genres of music and are consistently among the most-performed hits of the year. For additional information and the latest BMI news, visit bmi.com, follow us on Twitter @BMI or stay connected through Broadcast Music, Inc.'s Facebook page. Sign up for BMI's The Weekly™ and receive our e-newsletter every week to stay up to date on all things music.
Khalif
Missy Elliott Pays Tribute to Aaliyah's 'Timeless Music & Style' 20 Years After 'One in a Million' Was Released
Posted by Tim - December 12, 2016 0
Dec. 10 marked the 20-year anniversary of Aaliyah's hit R&B single "One in a Million," released in 1996. The song, co-written by Missy Elliott and Timbaland, appeared…
Rep. Maxine Waters Says The Trump Administration Is A Bunch Of "Scumbags"
Posted by Tim - February 22, 2017 0
Rep. Maxine Waters has seemingly become the spine the Democrats so desperately need to tackle the GOP, and the Trump…
AT&T Celebrates the Power of Sisterhood with Luvvie Ajayi at the Black Enterprise Women of Power Summit
Posted by Khalif - March 15, 2017 0
Best-selling author and digital strategist Luvvie Ajayi joins AT&T* at the Black Enterprise Women of Power Summit in Phoenix March…
Van Jones On Trump's Win "This Was A Whitelash Against A Black President"
Posted by Tim - November 9, 2016 0
Political commentator Van Jones didn't hold back his reservations and fear on CNN Tuesday night (Nov.9) about the reality of…
Big Sean, Migos, Lin-Manuel Miranda & Ice Cube Rap With Kids
One of the challenges in educating the youth these days is keeping them engaged. With so many distractions, it's tough…
Townes Media Group, LLC.


More and more businesses are leveraging smart technologies to run their operations. But where can businesses purchase all of the smart technologies they need, know that they'll integrate together, and still fit their needs?
Unfortunately, the marketplace isn't mature, and so it's difficult to find one place to buy everything reliably. Right now if a business wants to upgrade their facilities and operations, they're forced to go to many different suppliers and sites. Big Pipe's mission is to consolidate the entire process for businesses that want to upgrade their tech infrastructure.
Through Big Pipe, businesses can browse and order through a catalog of smart technologies that are all compatible. But that is just scratching the surface to what Big Pipe is really all about. Above all, why should businesses need hundreds of applications to run their smart technologies?
Big Pipe is your master control center for any device sold on the application.
Thanks to Big Pipe, there is no more need to install hundreds of applications to manage these smart technologies. Through the app, users can set up their new smart gadgets, configure how and when they should work, and monitor them 24/7.
Businesses don't need to navigate through multiple ecosystems, logins, and headaches to manage their smart technologies. Everything sold on Big Pipe will work on the Big Pipe application. This smooths out operations for businesses, and they can handle all of their smart technologies in one dedicated place.
Big Pipe was designed to be built as an iPhone and Android application using React Native and with REST APIs, supporting iOS 11, iOS 12, and Android 8, Android 9. For the administrator and server-side, we will be programming with PHP with Laravel.
Are you impressed with Big Pipe? Hire us to help you with your app too!
Do you have a question about how we built Big Pipe? Give us a call at (800) 490-1476 or drop us an email at Hello@ChopDawg.com. We'd be happy to help!


Sami Hyypia has resigned as manager of Brighton and Hove Albion just six months into his tenure at the Amex Stadium.
The former Liverpool defender took over from Oscar Garcia on a three-year contract in the summer, but leaves with the Seagulls in the Sky Bet Championship relegation zone after winning just one of their last 18 league games.
The 41-year-old Finn, who previously managed Bayer Leverkusen, saw his side draw 1-1 with Wolves at the weekend after conceding a late equaliser, with their next fixture at home to Reading on Friday.
Hyypia's assistant Nathan Jones will take charge of the team on Boxing Day.
Brighton lost their opening two league games this season but then recorded back-to-back victories before embarking on their current dismal run of league form - with a 1-0 win over Wigan last month representing their only Championship success since August.
A run to the fourth round of the Capital One Cup provided some relief, but that ended with a 2-0 loss at Tottenham Hotspur, and a 1-0 home defeat to fellow strugglers Millwall 10 days ago left Hyypia admitting his future at the club was uncertain.


text:
previous post: Britain – wrong problem, wrong solution
next post: One quarter shorter, three quarters deeper
What is Wall Street for?
Last night, I was listening to the ABC Current Affairs program PM and they were running a segment – 'Occupy Wall Street' protest growing and they were interviewing American journalist Jeff Madrick. At one point in the interview he said: "I hope the American establishment has the courage to ask one fundamental question; what is Wall Street for? What are they supposed to do?" The answer to those questions are in order: not much that is worth anything; and not what it was created to do.
Madrick was talking about the Occupy Wall Street action that is now into its third week and is spreading to other cities including Los Angeles and Chicago. The obvious aim is to demonstrate against the unproductive financial corporations who misappropriate real income for their own gain and corrupt politicians to avoid appropriate regulation.
These are grass roots movements that are increasingly being organised via the Internet through social networking capacity.
The movement describes itself in this way:
Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. We are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use of nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants.
Key publications are changing their titles as the "Occupation" continues:
Madrick was asked whether the movement "can last that long?" and he replied:
… let's keep in mind the history of protests. All protests begin small. We never can predict which ones will take off. Martin Luther King did not lead his march the first day. He decided to go out and fight for integration in America.
The Vietnam War was not stopped the first day. Young people who were much like these people now went out and started protesting. They were called all kinds of names and mocked in the early and mid 1960s continually by the mainstream press, which we know in retrospect was dead wrong about the Vietnam War.
So that is how protests start. Can I say this will end in complete victory? No, you can never say that. But it may begin to change public opinion enough to give Congress people in Washington the courage of their own convictions. Many of them are disgusted by what's happening and can't get any traction for their own ideas and maybe they will begin to get the courage to come forward.
The Vietnam Moratorium movement was a case in point where persistence finally ended a corrupt war that had been supported by the whole military-industrial complex of the US as a major profit-making venture.
It is arguable how successful these mass demonstrations were. The conservatives claim that governments ignored the protests and for several years the protesters were singled out as traitors.
Sentiment in the US changed after the Kent State massacre (May 4, 1970s) and the anti-war movement swelled after that. Then the New York Times started publishing the Pentagon Papers (June 13, 1971) which probably accelerated things. The anti-war movement became mainstream at that point (and was no longer considered to be a bunch of traitors). It is clear that when Nixon announced the end of US involvement in January 1973 that the political shift had occurred in response to the growing citizen dissent.
But the point is that citizens can if there is solidarity around an issue force their political representatives to listen.
Madrick was then asked "what material, constructive and positive changes do you think that they can make? How would you shape the agenda?" and he said:
Well first of all we've got to get over this obsession with austerity economics and we need very serious stimulus in this economy. But secondly we have to reinvest in this economy in significant ways. Third, we really need a different regulation scheme for Wall Street which will be very difficult to do given the power and money on Wall Street.
We have not solved the problems of how to make a financial system allocate our precious savings to productive resources. We've got to work on that. The prosecution of wrongdoing on Wall Street has been almost negligible.
Is it really true there was almost no wrongdoing on Wall Street that led to this crisis? Just a bunch of well meaning but foolish people who made a lot of money by abusing a system innocently? I hardly think so.
And we can go on but I hope they ask one fundamental question and I hope the American establishment has the courage to ask one fundamental question; what is Wall Street for? What are they supposed to do?
Do we need a Wall Street that takes 40 per cent of American profits? No way. Let's rethink that. But the American establishment seems anyway afraid to ask that question and we have to start asking that.
To get us in the mood I took the liberty to re-write the lyrics to Edwin Starr's classic 1969 song – War. For some reason I started singing:
Wall Street, yeah
What is it good for
Say it again, y'all
Wall Street, good God
Ohhh, Wall Street, I despise
Because it means destruction
Of innocent lives
You can enjoy the real song on YouTube and I would recommend singing my lyrics to imbue an appropriate level of determination before you start your local "Occupy Wall Street" cell.
There are many lessons to be learned from the crisis but unfortunately policy makers seem incapable of absorbing the main ones. First, politicians are in denial about the effectiveness of fiscal policy because their conservative paymasters (the media and corporations etc), who took the bailouts to save their own skins, are now vehemently enforcing the mainstream neo-liberal line. 1937, 1997, 2011. Public awareness of what is going on is low and needs to change.
A series of short messages need to be created by the alternative press/media/social networks to disabuse people of the ridiculous idea that if you cut public spending private spending suddenly bounces forth to fill (overly) the gap. The austerity proponents are ruining lives all around the globe – unnecessarily and without any empirical support.
Second, there has been no meaningful policy aimed at curbing the size and impact of the unproductive financial sector. Those who caused the crisis are trading freely as before and the paradigm that supports their parasitic behaviour continues to justify it as "efficient" "optimal" and "wealth generating". The crisis has demonstrated beyond doubt that we can do without Wall Street. How does that message get out?
Third, the public debate is still entertaining the mainstream idea that somehow unemployment is a supply-side problem – excessive wages, poor skills and attitudes etc. They avoid explaining how these "causes" suddenly triggered a mass loss of jobs in about 2 quarters of 2008. It is like in the Great Depression – some 30 per cent of the labour force suddenly became lazy and walked off their jobs. There are academic articles that try to make that case.
Fourth, relatedly, is the denial that the massive redistribution of income to profits is not a basic cause of the crisis. The diminution in the wage share in GDP engineered by neo-liberal policy changes aimed at reducing the power of workers to gain real wage increases in an environment of persistent excess supply of labour provided the real income bonanza which allowed the financial sector to grow so quickly. It also meant that growth in real income via consumption could only be maintained by credit growth.
The two trends were linked. The financial sector took the real income as gambling chips in the casino we call the financial markets and kept the real economy going by pushing increasing volumes of debt onto households and firms. It was an unsustainable growth strategy. It has to change. There has to be a fundamental redistribution of income back to workers such that real wages grow in proportion to productivity growth.
Fifth, the ruse now is that crisis is actually about sovereign debt rather than private debt. All sorts of lies are spread about this – government insolvency risk; bankrupting our grandchildren; hyperinflation; escalating interest rates; turning Greek; and the rest of it. The crisis is about excessive private debt. There is no sovereign debt crisis. There is a crisis in the EMU about national government debt but those governments are not sovereign. They surrendered that capacity when they joined the EMU and now exclusively trade in a foreign currency and incur liabilities in that currency. All conflations between the EMU situation and elsewhere with respect to government debt are erroneous and reveal only the ignorance of the person making them.
The "Occupy Wall Street" exercise needs to become more fully organised around clear themes. I suspect (from what I have heard on radio and seen on TV) that there is a "looseness" about the action. Looseness in the sense that there is no clear agenda means that the action is less likely to spread and persist. The Vietnam anti-war movement was highly focused against conscription, against the war and against the involvement of capitalist firms in the production of napalm etc.
This focus allowed the movement to effectively educate a broader population and allowed the message to spread.
Would we suffer if Wall Street was closed? The "What is Wall Street For?" question is related to the "How much of the transactions of Wall Street are related to real activity?" question.
Real activity is what generates increases in our material standard of living. Real wealth is not nominal wealth. We gain real income by employing people to transform inputs into outputs which are of use to us.
So what does "Wall Street" do?
Free market proponents have historically justified speculative transactions, particularly in an increasingly integrated global economy accelerated by innovations in information technology, and financial instruments allow capital to be efficiently allocated across different uses.
From a Keynesian perspective, the concern was whether the government retains any power over domestic economic policy. From the perspective of financial markets and regulators, the concern is over the risks for economic activity introduced by the systemic risks of global financial markets trading complex derivative instruments.
From the perspective of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) there is no question that governments can still use fiscal and monetary policy to pursue public purpose but the real question is why allow an essentially unproductive financial sector to gain access to real income at all.
Speculation is the act of taking a net asset position (long) or a net liability position (short) in some asset class, say a foreign currency. Speculation is simply defined as the purchase or sale of goods or assets in the expectation of gains from favourable price changes.
In this case, people take a punt on future exchange rates and deliberately take a risky position hoping that the rates will move favourably and deliver them a profit. There are several preconditions that have to exist before speculation is possible. Most importantly, speculators exploit uncertainty about the future price level.
The pro-market types claim that financial markets are productive because they reduce uncertainty for real producers. They use the example of hedging which is used to reduce exposure to across-border transactions.
When is speculation reasonable?
It would be wrong to consider all hedging and speculation to be damaging. When it accompanies trade flows and provides security to a trading concern then it can be beneficial. When we talk about hedging in this context we are referring to a strategy to avoid foreign exchange risk (sometimes called covering an open position).
Take the example of an Australian manufacturer which exports into the world market. The firm incurs all their costs in $AUD but contracts, say in $USD and has to deliver in say 3 months time whereupon the foreign purchaser will pay them in USD. Any rise in the AUD against the USD in the meantime will damage the firm's revenue (in $AUD) but not alter its costs – thus the firm is exposed to losses or profit squeeze. Any fall in the $AUD will benefit the firm when it comes time for the foreign buyer to pay up on the delivery contract.
The firm might "hedge this exposure" in the forward exchange markets by buying a contract to sell $USD at a preferable exchange parity against the $AUD in 3-months time. So say it had worked out that a $USD rate of $AUD1.20 would be profitable then it will seek a 3-month forward contract to sell the contract amount of $USD at that rate.
So in 3-months the firm will get the contract amount (say $USD1000) and sells it to the counter-party at the agreed rate for $AUD (thus, $AUD1200) thereby avoiding all exchange rate exposure.
The same sort of arrangement might benefit an importer who has to deliver foreign exchange at some future date.
Whatever the basis of the contract, a counter-party (the speculator) is required to insure the hedger. While the hedger is willing to pay to cover its foreign exchange risk. the speculator accepts the foreign exchange risk (an open position) and hopes to profit from the contract.
In the case above, if the $AUD appreciates in the 3-month period (say to $AUD1.10) then the speculator who has to deliver $AUD1200 to the manufacturer at $AUD1.20 per USD has to buy $AUD1200 for $USD1091, which means it loses $USD91 less the hedge fee it charges.
If the $AUD depreciates (say to $AUD1.30) then the speculator gains pays $USD923 or the $AUD1200 and gets $USD1000 back, thus making a profit of $USD77 plus its hedging fee.
The important point is that the risk is transferred to the speculator and it is likely that arrangements like this increase the volume of international trade because the trading firm bears none of the risk of the exchange rate exposure involved in the cross-border transactions.
It is more complicated than this but in general this example demonstrates when speculation is beneficial. The common element is when it is helping the facilitate trade in real goods and services which improve material standards of living.
It would be futile to deter speculative behaviour that assists international trade in goods and services even though from a MMT perspective the benefits of trade are evaluated differently.
Speculation is beneficial because it provides hedgers with opportunities to lay off risks. It also helps to smooth price movements. In the first sense speculation acts like insurance. Speculators become agents who are prepared to bear the risk of unexpected price or interest rate changes while others divest themselves of the risk.
In return the risk-averse parties are prepared to pay the speculators a fee. So a hedger who has an open position may seek to use the forward market.
Speculation also may reduce the amplitude of price movements by pushing down the value of assets that are deemed to over market value and vice versa. Speculators add volume to the market promoting continuous price adjustment and liquidity.
But the mainstream economists underplay the fact that speculation can be destructive because they emphasise rational behaviour. Sometimes investors seem to go mad and get too greedy. In this case, speculative manias driven by herd-like behaviour is destructive to economic activity.
The Rolling Stone article from July 9, 2009 – The Great American Bubble Machine – is a good introduction to the way hedge funds operate.
In 2009, the WIFO (Austrian Institute for Economic Research) Report – A General Financial Transaction Tax: A Short Cut of the Pros, the Cons and a Proposal – outlined the explosion of global financial flows and derivative markets in recent decades.
WIFO describe this dominance as follows:
Observation 1: The volume of financial transactions in the global economy is 73.5 times higher than nominal world GDP, in 1990 this ratio amounted to "only" 15.3. Spot transactions of stocks, bonds and foreign exchange have expanded roughly in tandem with nominal world GDP. Hence, the overall increase in financial trading is exclusively due to the spectacular boom of the derivatives markets …
Observation 2: Futures and options trading on exchanges has expanded much stronger since 2000 than OTC transactions (the latter are the exclusive domain of professionals). In 2007, transaction volume of exchange-traded derivatives was 42.1 times higher than world GDP, the respective ratio of OTC transactions was 23.5% …
In other words, most of the financial flows comprise wealth-shuffling speculation transactions which have nothing to do with the facilitation of trade in real goods and services across national boundaries. This is significant and conditions what my conclusions are later.
Over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives markets became increasingly dominant in overall trading as the financial markets grew. Unlike options contracts, OTC contracts are non-standardised and are negotiated on a party by party basis. Forward contracts and swaps are generally OTC. They are more customised and less liquid.
An example might be the case of a company purchasing a foreign currency forward contract from a bank dealer. The two principals negotiate the amount, delivery time and price of the forward transaction. The negotiation will reflect the needs of the company. They are not traded in secondary markets because of their customised nature. They are also not marked-to-market because of the lack of adequate price information. So huge losses can accumulate and counter-party default becomes a major risk. Credit risk in the OTC market is huge.
If we compare the BIS estimate of "Amounts outstanding of over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives" in December 2010 – $US 601.048.366 trillion – to the World Bank estimate of World GDP for 2010 (published in the BIS since mid-1998 in $US billions.
What about foreign exchange transactions? This BIS publication (December 13, 2010) – The $4 trillion question: what explains FX growth since the 2007 survey? – provides a useful analysis of the relationship between foreign exchange turnover and international trade.
It concludes that:
FX turnover is several times larger than the total output of the economy … The FX turnover/GDP ratio is smallest for the largest economies, the United States and Japan. In these two countries, FX turnover is more than 14 times GDP. In most cases … FX market turnover is many times larger than equity trading volumes. Again, the ratio of FX turnover to equity turnover is smallest for the United States and Japan, but still sizeable …
Gross trade flows are defined as the sum of imports and exports of goods and services. FX turnover is much higher than underlying trade flows …
Overall, looking at developments since 1992, it is clear that FX turnover has increased more than underlying economic activity, whether measured by GDP, equity turnover or gross trade flows.
Wall Street used to be about providing capital for productive businesses. So a firm would sell shares or issue corporate paper (bonds) and Wall Street would facilitate the capital provision. That was a productive activity. Clearly, speculators (investors) would bet on the company making returns which was the incentive to participate in its ownership.
Wall Street (and I am using this term as a general description of the financial markets rather than some geograpically-specific set of firms) no longer serves that purpose. Now it is a wealth-shuffling casino.
The trading in derivative products of increasing complexity is divorced from the capital-provision function that the investment banks used to play. The focus is not on the prospects of the firm but on macro issues – how stable is the currency etc.
On top of that minor changes in macro aggregates (growth, etc) trigger automated trading decisions which quickly diffuse through all the share and index prices. So the share prices of a specific firm become hostage to the casino.
Some would suggest that providing capital for firms constitutes a miniscule percentage of the volume of Wall Street transactions.
I had lunch with a banker today and his organisation is the classic financial intermediary – carefully crafted deposit base, low risk hedging activities and well-managed loan book. No sneaky off-balance sheet transactions just astute management of its liquidity. It represents what we have to get back to.
Wall Street does not create jobs or prosperity for the wider population. When we talk about "investors" on Wall Street this is a grand mis-nomer. They are not investing in productive capacity.
The question that has to be answered is why would we want to allow destabilising financial flows anyway? If they are not facilitating the production and movement of real goods and services what public purpose do they serve?
It is clear they have made a small number of people fabulously wealthy. It is also clear that they have damaged the prospects for disadvantaged workers in many less developed countries.
More obvious to all of us now, when the system comes unstuck through the complexity of these transactions and the impossibility of correctly pricing risk, the real economies across the globe suffer. The consequences have been devastating in terms of lost employment and income and lost wealth.
There is no public purpose being served by allowing these trades to occur even if the imposition of the Tobin Tax (or something like it) might deter some of the volatility in exchange rates.
Solution: All governments should sign an agreement which would make all financial transactions that cannot be shown to facilitate trade in real good and services illegal. Simple as that. Speculative attacks on a nation's currency would be judged in the same way as an armed invasion of the country – illegal.
This would smooth out the volatility in currencies and allow fiscal policy to pursue full employment and price stability without the destabilising external sector transactions.
Please see these blogs – Operational design arising from modern monetary theory and Asset bubbles and the conduct of banks .
In Australia there is a mini-fightback going on at present. The Sydney Morning Herald article (October 4, 2011) – Toxic Rembrandts – ratings agency 'sandbagged' – provides a fairly comprehensive report on the first days of a Federal Court of Australia hearing which is "the first legal case against a credit ratings agency".
The action is being "brought by 12 NSW local councils, who quickly lost 90 per cent of their capital after buying the "grotesquely complicated" Rembrandt-structured finance products in 2007" which Standard & Poor's had been "bulldozed" by ABN Amro into "delivering its premiere "AAA" credit rating for a high-risk, and ultimately disastrous, financial product."
The evidence is compelling so far. It has been revealed that:
1. "S&P didn't … bother to do its own research for an "independent" report on the Rembrandt notes" – but "cut and pasted a chunk of ABN Amro's own analysis of the notes – even though this was the very bank seeking the credit rating and trying to sell the notes."
2. "one employee of S&P chided another, writing, "You are the wuss for bending over in front of bankers and taking it… You rate something AAA, when it is really A-?""
3. "ABN Amro concocted them, S&P was cajoled into delivering its AAA rating in late 2006, Local Government Financial Services (LGFS) bought them and on-sold them to the councils, despite it being also a financial advisor to the councils".
The councils lost 90 per cent of their investment.
There is a string of E-mails being made available to the court which show how ABN Amro coerced S&P into rating the dud derivatives. The evidence adds to "the notorious email which came to light during a US congressional inquiry into the role of ratings agencies in 2009. In that, one S&P staffer said to the other, "We'd rate a cow" if they paid us."
I have run out of time … there is much more to write on this topic.
So what is Wall Street for? Answer: nothing that we cannot do without in its entirety.
And cue:
That is enough for today!
Michael Norrish says:
Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at 19:44
Great stuff! But this sentence
Free market proponents historically justified speculative transactions particularly in an increasingly integrated global economy accelerated by innovations in information technology and financial instruments allows capital to be allocated across uses efficiently.
is mangled.
"Free market proponents [have] historically justified speculative transactions[,] particularly in an increasingly integrated global economy accelerated by innovations in information technology[,] and financial instruments [allow] capital to be [efficiently] allocated across [different] uses."
Norme says:
I watched a protester interviewed on the BBC. He came across as a conspiracy advocate, unfortunately. He should have read this before he spoke.
Bill, you gonna be in New York soon? Maybe you can speak to the occupiers, give them direction and a purpose. Excellent article.
Ralph Musgrave says:
The head of the UK's Financial Services Authority, Lord Turner said that much of the City of London's activities were "socially useless". See:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/aug/27/fsa-bonus-city-banks-tax
Benedict@Large says:
Thursday, October 6, 2011 at 0:21
Norme:
The news coverage you cite is hardly unique. The media here in the US (apparently now including the some bureaus of the foreign press) has been trying to marginalize the protesters by focusing in on people and actions that can be made fun of. This is quite typical of [left wing!!!] protests and [corporate] media here, and is the step always taken after Step 1 (completely ignoring the protests) is no longer practical.
[Note that right wing protests here, even when they are paid astroturf, are ALWAYS treated seriously and with the ultimate of respect.]
CybrWeez says:
I'm not sure about that view of "right wing protests". The Tea Party protests, when portrayed by media, tend to show people that can be made fun of, usually racist people. It may just be all media prefers compliant populace, but probably more likely reason is that the crazies sell more.
Nice article Bill. I was born late 70s, so haven't seen a productive, general protest in my lifetime. That may bias my feeling that nothing will happen.
Dan Kervick says:
Great stuff, Bill.
You and the protesters – and people like Bill Black – are right to emphasize that there was a lot of wrongdoing that helped precipitate this crisis, and that the wrongdoing has not been prosecuted.
But I think it is important for the protesters to recognize that illegal acts are only a small part of the systemic problem. That's the problem with a bad and defective financial and economic system. People can fuck up the world by doing things that are perfectly legal. To the extent people focus on illegal conduct, they might draw the mistaken conclusion that we can fix our problems simply by enforcing existing laws. But we can't. We need new laws.
William Wilson says:
Very interesting article-
Toxic Rembrandts – ratings agency 'sandbagged'
October 4, 2011.
"Although the likes of US pension funds have attempted to sue the agencies – indeed the Californian giant "Calpers" fund has been trying to get a case to trial for two years – this is the first case in the world to get to trial.
In the US, the First Amendment protections for free speech have assisted the agencies in deflecting claims – so far at least. After all, they contend their ratings are "just an opinion".
The importance of this lawsuit is that a successful claim could set a precedent for further actions for bogus ratings in Australia, and indeed worldwide."
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/toxic-rembrandts–ratings-agency-sandbagged-20111004-1l71d.html
I had seen the remark regarding 'First Ammendment protections' regarding failed attempts to sue the ratings agencies, but was skeptical as such an argument would appear to be ridiculous assuming one is aware that those organizations are paid by the seller to provide optimalized opinions. Does anyone know whether there is any substance to such a claim?
Benedict, great point.
Dan Furlano says:
This is an interesting video that never made it on Fox.
p_al says:
Prof Bill,
"If we compare the BIS estimate of "Amounts outstanding of over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives" in December 2010 – $US 601.048.366 trillion –"
Should be $US 601.048 billions, as per http://www.bis.org/statistics/otcder/dt1920a.pdf
Dear p_al (at 2011/10/06 at 4:05)
Thanks for your comment. I am always happy for people to correct errors I make.
But in this case, if you read the publication you cite you will see that the December 2010 total is $US 601,048 billion not as you have read it $US 601.048 billion. The comma is the difference.
In any case, the transactions dwarf real activity by a considerable margin which is the point.
Dear Michael Norrish (at 2011/10/05 at 19:44) and Dale (at 2011/10/05 at 21:36).
Thanks for the grammar help.
In general I type the blog very quickly to get it done and sometimes my next paragraph is in my mind before I finish the last. Haste makes waste as my parents told me! I also realise there are spelling errors occasionally – I do check it quickly but the spell-checker is based on US spelling which means there are red underlines on the text all the time (labour, organised etc) and so my eyes get blurry trying to discern the differences and the "true" errors.
All help is appreciated.
@Ralph,
Regarding the regulators comments.
That was back in 09. It is now '11, nothing has changed yet except for tentative plans in '20.
Thursday, October 6, 2011 at 11:08
A beautiful dream but how would this be achieved? A detailed proposal on the specifics would be needed before we could get politicians to take it seriously. But this is definitely the medicine we need to repair much of the problems in the global economy.
Not to defend "Wall Sreet',
but in the case of your '12NSWs' wouldn't it be simpler for your legislature to require more conservative financing operations for NSWs?
Dear JB (at 2011/10/06 at 12:32)
The legislation requires them only to invest in top-rated assets. That is why the banks bribed/paid the rating agencies to get AAA ratings. Yes, the legislation is stupid in that it implicitly assumes the rating agencies will be honest. But the intent is there to avoid these problems. The councils were victims of deceit – that is what the action will find I suspect.
Alex Heyworth says:
Good post. I recommend The Big Short as a highly entertaining expose of Wall St shenanigans. Its focus is on the few traders who recognized the shenanigans for what they were and made fortunes betting against the ratings agencies, but it is very thorough in detailing the unstable towers of "derivatives of derivatives of derivatives" concocted by the Masters of the Universe to fool investors and enrich themselves.
MamMoTh says:
Friday, October 7, 2011 at 2:12
There is no need to ban any kind of speculation like there is no need to ban casinos at all, although they serve no public purpose either.
The key is just to isolate these activities from those that serve public purpose like the banking system guaranteeing the payment system works smoothly and extending loans to individuals and companies based on risk analysis.
There was a recent BBC business program for the Lehman's collapse anniversary where they interviewed the PWC guy brought in to deal with the bankruptcy. Three years after the collapse, there are still more than 700 PWC staffers working on trying to figure out who own who and how much!
Ron Kuivinen says:
Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 18:14
I understand George Soros, some unions and even communists are supporting these protests. George Soros is know for manupulationg money on the market. There's supposed to be many more organizations also in support of these protests. Does the name Jeffrey Immult mean anything to you? Last time around Obama got a lot of campaign money from wall street.