Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Points and Kudos to Todde

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/08/links-81716.html#comment-2655048

As far as I can tell Todde is the originator of this sentence and owner of bragging rights to be the first to say it!

Good job Todde!

"Trump wants to be president like a teenager about to get laid wants to be a parent.
My personal opinion is he’s having the time of his life pissing off all the right people."



The Finance Franchise ---Who Owns It?

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2820176

The introduction and conclusion of the link are two pieces of bread with the beef being everything in between.  The "beef" being everything needed to present a top level abstraction of the system entities and their function.  An top level abstraction view of what the existing financial system "is" and "does" and what it should be as a purpose oriented system of things and actions to serve the public Franchisor.

Slow reading but totally comprehensible.  In my rambling and roaming of the World Wide Web I have run into "good stuff" from Cornell before.  This adds much to that.

The introduction is a "water is wet" example.  The greatest deception of finance is its best trick.  The need to explain the trick over and over in the simple introduction tells the magnitude of the simple false perception that must be overcome.  The "beef' describes the real system and then as a logical next step lays out the structure and function of a better one to serve the purpose.

Our purpose.  The public purpose.  The We the People purpose.  To bad that China has a trademark on "People's Republic"!

The link has much to study but I can see the simplicity that it all parses down to when all the top level entities their attributes and their methods are presented in a relational Object Oriented Model.

Throughout the link "Debt" is Money but the term Debt is used.  It is entirely about a Debt based system.  The twist that it takes from the Intro to the Conclusion however points to one unsaid thing:  When the People as a franchisor employ a debt based conceptual object called money it is in fact their "Asset" and the Franchisee is the counter party Liability holder.  The Public loans its Asset to the the Debtor and has the right of ROI Return On Investment for what they own.

Without calling it a paradigm shift to Debt Free Money it appears to me that is essentially what the link is all about at my first parsing.

This link is worth much! 

Franchise.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franchising

I had not considered Debt Free Money from the viewpoint of a Franchise conceptual structure.

Looking at it that way is this then the concluding summation of the link?>>>?......

The Finance Sector is currently the Franchise holder and We the Franchisee.

The new conceptual model makes Us the Franchise holder and the Finance Sector the Franchisee.

The result of the current model is that the Finance Sector is in charge of things and will therefore manage them and their functions to benefit itself.

Kind of like the Central Partners model for Private Equity Investment?

Our entire Finance System might therefore be and implementation of that model?

The same model that Yves devotes so much attention to at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/?
"The Finance Franchise Robert C. Hockett and Saule T. Omarova, SSRN. “[T]he sovereign public acts effectively as franchisor, licensing private financial institutions to earn rents as franchisees in dispensing a vital public resource: the public’s monetized full faith and credit.” What fun!"

The model where "Private Equity" is really something created by the entity that should be the Franchisee in the system but becomes the Franchisor because they are creating their own wholly owned "Franchise Free" business on the side with money that does not come from the Franchisor?

Is that cheating? Maybe simply violation of a "Non-Compete" clause?  Who then are they competing with?

The owner and interests of the real officially established Franchisor.

We the People!

Because we say so.  We said so.  It is proclaimed to be self evident.

The Finance Franchise


Robert C. Hockett


Cornell University - Law School

Saule T. Omarova


Cornell Law School

August 8, 2016

Cornell Legal Studies Research Paper No. 16-29



Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Top Down Breakdown War--Dropping Bombs killing vs Winning Hearts on the Ground

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/08/more-bombs-more-shells-more-napalm-nation-building-through-foreign-intervention.html

The Link compares Top Down (Dropping Bombs from Above) nation building to force citizen compliance to Bottom Up Assembly to win citizen compliance through benefit that the government provides....other than the benefit of not being bombed from above.

Astounding conclusion as to how to win Hearts and Minds!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winning_hearts_and_minds
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearts_and_Minds_%28Vietnam%29
Hearts and Minds will follow quote

The initial link cites the difference between Marines in I Corp and Army responsibility for area of operation.  Its description of the difference is accurate in my judgment.  General Lew Walt addressed newly arrived officers, I was one of those, and spoke of his strategy.  Pacify one village at a time in an expanding circle.  Pacify it with positive benefit offering of what the government could do for the people. Not what the people could be forced to do for the government by force.

Later I went back into Danang from my first ship.  The Army had taken charge.  It was a different feeling.  There was no off base in town liberty in Danang while the Marines were there.  The Army was free to spend off duty time in the city.

General Walt later either said or directly implied in more gentle self judgment terms that he had failed in his mission to pacify his area of responsibility.  If you ever looked General Walt in the eye you would know that his self judgment was as strong and true as his leadership of the Marines in I Corps.  He was responsible and accountable in the finest sense of honor.  He was responsible for the application of the fisted glove as well as the rose in the fisted glove.  In my judgment he administered both to the best of his ability in the circumstances which were extremely difficult.

I often think of potentially key people that I would put in charge of key positions to get the most vital jobs done.

General Lew Walt would absolutely be my first choice as our nations Chief of Police.  I worked for the Admiral in charge of NSA Danang but we all worked for General Walt.  I am not proud of what we did in the big picture from the top down but proud of what General Walt's leadership objective of building from the bottom up and execution of strategy and tactics that served that other approach to the problem of war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_Action_Program
While my assignment was offloading cargo in the Danang harbor I managed to go out to a village on one of these Combined Action Programs with a dentist.  He pulled old blackened teeth.  There were so many in line he showed me how to do it.  It must have hurt, no pain killer administered, but the toothless smiles after I pulled them told me the pain (if there was some or much) was worth it.  I did something beneficial for the person.

I returned to Vietnam 30 years later.  If we had done something beneficial from the bottom 30 years before would things have been any different.  It seemed that the government was doing more that was beneficial to the citizens than it was dominating their compliance from the top down.  That "something more"  might have only been marginal but it was something more than the top down approach and to that extent it was working.

Maybe that is all it would have taken for return on investment of different motivators an lives.

Writing this about General Walt connected my thoughts to General Smedley Butler after reading the background of the Marine's Combined Action Program.  While it may have had that official designation in Vietnam it was not a new strategy of war fighting for the Marines.  General Butler is credited with applying it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler

They fought the war with a rose in the fisted glove.

Where are such leaders today?

There are no roses carried by a Predator.

There are no heroes at the top like Generals Smedley and Butler where things go from the top down through applying winning strategies and tactics from the bottom up to win hearts and minds.  There are no Generals or others in the military to speak out as I have addressed in a prior blog entry.

There are few heroes on the ground to speak through their actions of the better way to fight like Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Thompson_Jr. I am sure that they are out there but like WO Thompson their heroics are not heralded because that is not the way the USA fights its wars by someone firing on our own troops to do the right thing.  By someone coming forward to expose torture or the dirty secrets of how we really fight out wars and why.  Where do we get such men..and women?

"In 1998, 30 years after the massacre, Thompson and the two other members of his crew, Glenn Andreotta and Lawrence Colburn, were awarded the Soldier's Medal (Andreotta posthumously), the United States Army's highest award for bravery not involving direct contact with the enemy.[1] Thompson and Colburn also returned to Sơn Mỹ in 1998, where the massacre took place, to meet with survivors of the massacre. In 1999, Thompson and Colburn received the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award."

Heroes that have the "Right Stuff" do the  "Right Thing" at either from the top down or the bottom up.  today are ostracized. Outcast.

Heroism of this nature is an equal opportunity virtue for those who do not question the price.

Some die in war.

Others make a killing.
https://mic.com/articles/90503/the-story-behind-the-iconic-tank-man-photo-that-changed-the-world#.cVFAgPdHE

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man

Trump is a hero to many.  Why do we get such men....and women?

Crazy world.

From the link that kicked off this blog entry:

"Understanding whether heavily top-down counterinsurgency strategies are likely to achieve their desired objectives remains policy-relevant. The culture of the US Armed Forces has changed only slowly since Vietnam (Long 2016). Moreover, while targeting has improved significantly, insurgents have responded by embedding themselves more tightly amongst civilians, and it is widely accepted that heavy reliance on air power will lead to civilian casualties. Additionally, politicians continue to advocate a top-down approach. Speaking in Fort Dodge earlier this year, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said, “I would bomb the [expletive] out of them [ISIS]. I would just bomb those suckers … I would blow up every single inch”. According to the Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, speaking in New York  in 2015, “[i]t is time to begin a new phase and intensify our efforts [air strikes] to smash the would-be caliphate”. Lessons drawn from the Vietnam War underscore how intensively focusing on top-down strategies could pose challenges to achieving US objectives, particularly when insurgents are tightly embedded amongst civilians as they are in the Middle East."
.......Melissa Dell, Assistant Professor of Economics, Harvard University, and Pablo Querubin, Assistant Professor of Politics and Economics, NYU. Originally published at VoxEU.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/08/what-can-we-do-to-end-the-isolation-of-whistleblowers.html
"Can we as a society create a way to support whistleblowers better than we do? Surely that wouldn’t be hard! Instead of leaving whistleblowers to struggle in isolation, we should be giving them medals of honor for acting in the collective interest to stomp out as much phishing as they could. It’s very strange that we reward the accumulation of capital by any means necessary, and the quest for justice hardly at all." 

Can we as a society create a way to support truth-tellers.  Can we define truth and honesty and honor those that defend it, sacrifice for it and proclaim them heroes?  Can those heroes be at the bottom of the top down breakdown as well as at the top or anywhere in between.  Not everyone can grow up to be the President.  Everyone can be a hero in terms of honesty and courage but that of course is a matter of what we define it to be.  The World Wide Web amongst other things gives the opportunity for almost everyone at the bottom to stand in front of a tank.  

Monday, August 15, 2016

Pokemon Go -- Phoning Home?

What if Pokemon Go was sending all real time video captured by the phone camera to a cloud storage point?

Obviously it is not.  Data use would be too high.

But...But...what if it was.  What if it could in the future offering some inducement for the user to knowingly send video of their Pokemon pursuit?  It would in effect like putting a Google street view cam in the hands of everyone playing Pokemon and then fixing the place of Pokemon appearance to lead users to the geo point and record video.  Putting the character directly in front of the geo point of interest taking video.

Or, simply a few still frame pictures which is not much of a data use load.

If Pokemon Go is not phoning home video now them might it be phoning home snapshots of places that the creators/managers of the game want for some unknown reason?  How did those geographical point pictures get into the game in the first place?

Say that I want a snapshot of a particular place in the USA.  I simply introduce a Pokemon to that point and wait for someone to try and capture it.  Link it to every ball thrown to take a picture and send it.  What if that place was someplace that was rather restricted to the point of not being legally accessible? Who would be breaking the law if they did not take the picture but only got it from a player in an unauthorized place taking a picture of it as a function of playing the game.

The virtual Pokemon could simply be filtered out of the picture.

The possibilities are here....just takes imagination to extract value from them.

This thing is big.

I really don't know much about Pokemon yet.

This link talks about phoney Pokemon Go apps that steal info on the phone.
http://www.12news.com/news/local/hackers-use-pokemon-go-to-infect-your-phone/269874845
 That is one thing to beware of but...............

If the real game was hacked in a manner to send pictures or even bursts of video to a hacking source like the NSA of very specific geo locactions, indoors as well as outdoors then some valuable information could be captured.

My knowledge of Pokemon Go is sadly lacking.  Google is an involved player.
http://fortune.com/2016/07/12/google-pokemon-go/

This from the Naked Capitalism Watercooler 15 August 2016: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/08/200pm-water-cooler-8152016.html
"The Bezzle: “The suddenly vast scale of Pokemon Go adoption is matched by the game’s aggressive use of personal information. Unlike, say, Twitter, Facebook, or Netflix, the app requires uninterrupted use of your location and camera — a ‘trove of sensitive user data,’ as one privacy watchdog put it in a concerned letter to federal regulators” [The Intercept]. “All the more alarming, then, that Pokemon Go is run by a man whose team literally drove one of the greatest privacy debacles of the internet era, in which Google vehicles, in the course of photographing neighborhoods for the Street View feature of the company’s online maps, secretly copied digital traffic from home networks, scooping up passwords, email messages, medical records, financial information, and audio and video files.” That’s not a bug…  "

Operating Systems and Owning it All

This was attached in the Panopticon blog entry.  I liked it enough to boost it to its own entry even if I am the only one that knows why. 

Creating and owning the  Operating System is the key to the kingdom.  Everything else is Application Program.  http://www.businessinsider.com/google-building-new-operating-system-fuchsia-not-based-on-android-linux-kernel-2016-8

The rule of things is that there are only 6 to 8 and certainly no more than 12 major categories of SuperClass entities into which all things are divided and one thing from which they all derive.  Each has in turn 6 to 8 ChildClasses and so on.  All entities at any level are relational to all other entities and ultimately the one Single Entity from which they all derive.  That entity is, of course, a PlaceHolder but nevertheless must be figuratively there to complete the relational pyramid.  That is its sole purpose for being and sole function.

That PlaceHolder "does" nothing but complete the relational circle.  It is nothing.  It is only a SingularThing with no higher order relationship.  It only relates to itself and its only known implementing action is a recursive relationship to Itself.  It is the ultimate conceptual TopDog chasing its tail.  

What is "It"?  

Anything we want it to be.  It does not matter what the conceptual identity of the PlaceHolder is.  It might be more of and eternal catalyst than anything thing else.  Just the ultimate "Given".  Attempting any detailing of the concept beyond that is just spinning your Mobius Strip wheels on the circle of eternity.  

Put it in gear by engaging with a SomeThingEntity below the TopDogPlaceholder that only knows OneTrick to implement the one relationship to AnyOtherThing and that OnlyOtherThing is itself.

Singularity.  

Wander into eternity chasing that or engage with ChildObjects of TopDog and go somewhere.  Those ChildObjects are the 6-8 Operating systems of our real world to which belongs.  Each is a matter of point of view but that is what organizes it all and gives the model structure for our conceptual world and the means to make decisions.

Money is a conceptual social decision making tool OperatingSystem.

Maybe Everything is just Information.  Like everything is just WaveTheory.  

Own the InformationOperatingSystem and own everything it does in terms of Applications.

Good thing that Google business model is do no Evil.  That was Lucifer's too until that entity placed the crown of TopDog upon its head implementing a SupremeRecursiveRelationship.

Ha!  A higher order Entity put an eternal end to that.  There is no binary at the top.  Lucifer thought it was the BringerOfDawn, the MorningStar.  

Biblical and Mythological stories have much to tell us.  They are stories we tell about ourselves.



Sunday, August 14, 2016

Non fui, fui, non sum

A Bon mot: find it
http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/2016/08/visitors.html?m=1

Facing Down the Panopticon - Can't Face It Down, Only Say Hello

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/08/12/facing-down-the-panopticon/

This link starts with a reference to communication slabs being installed in NYC.  Then it leaves this reference and goes on to examine spy trade craft.  More, give me more on those strange monoliths appearing in NYC!  Not in the link.  I have to go get it myself.  Not hard to do.

Take your pick of Google hits and learn all about it.

It is free!  Always the best price.  An excellent business model too.  How to give something away for nothing and make money doing it.  Works for Google.

Yes but what is the price?  Free communication opens the door to free information transiting through a third party owned system that mines it all for the gold nuggets.  The generally applicable gold nuggets but the best ones are probably individual unique user identifiable.  Identifiable as to user, place, time, and specific content.  All that content to be transcribed to text as a person speaks so as to be searchable.  Perhaps only on keyword that are captured as spoken.  Perhaps entire text on targeted cell phone and user.  Phone/User being an combination of two unique entity objects each identified by a unique identifier.  An electronic one for the phone and in the best of all worlds a fingerprint as a biometric identifier on a user iPhone.  That biometric identifier is quick and easy if there was a way to detect that the phone was unlocked for use by a finger print rather than the code number.  That biometric identifier is not necessary, just two factor ID because voice print is probably just as good.

Infrastructure.  The set up is all about infrastructure.  And, of course a no bid exclusive franchise from the city of NYC to do it and turn it into a money tree.

https://www.google.com/?client=seamonkey-a#q=wifi+kiosks+nyc:  
7,500 wifi Kiosks is the plan.  But it is like putting up figurative telephone poles.  All kinds of other things can be hung off of the poles.  Like a camera, gun shot detector, shorter range RFID, etc.  Whatever makes money or is government funded so it does not have to make money.  In effect the kiosks are a virtual road for any "vehicles" to travel.   Aha!  Add another add on:  Whatever special needs, hardware and software, it takes to provide services to self driving vehicles!  Self driving bicycle messenger services?  Self driving Segways?

To the point:  Great service but what is the cost?  The hidden cost to the user?  The surveillance price?  We will never know until someone blows the whistle.  Who is CityBridge?  Who are they behind the curtain of "a consortium" of beneficial ownership and partnership?  Probably more partnership because partnership with a business entity is like partnership of two people.  Special lawful access.  Ownership gets the money.  A partnership (at a price) pays off in benefits.

CityBridge:  Looks like LinkNYC for infrastructure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinkNYC  That creates the road network?  Who are they that will travel on it besides the users?  In other words:  Who are the Users of the Users.  Perhaps more precisely:  Who is the top dog ultimate Biggest User in charge of the operating system and therefore its most beneficial owner of the System on which all the applications are run.  It is a new higher order Operating System conceptual structure and everyone know the golden rule:  She who owns the gold rules!  She who owns the operating system, like Microsoft, Apple, or the One True Church with a franchise to the Golden Rule.......Rules All......and sweeps in the winnings off the table.

CityBridge looks like a consortium based on the old Robber Barons business model that has recognized that some degree of division and cooperation is more beneficial than cutthroat competition.  Maybe more of Mafia model being NYC.  Graft was an operating feature, not a bug.

Look at the beautiful new New York here:  http://screenmediadaily.com/bridging-the-digital-divide-with-street-smart-innovation/  Perhaps it should be designed in the retro 30's style.  The new 30's style?
"The LinkNYC network will provide a range of other services, including free phone calls to any where in the United States, a touchscreen tablet interface to access City services, wayfinding, and 911 and 311 calls. It will also serve as free mobile device charging stations."

Touchscreen?  Can a touchscreen capture a fingerprint anywhere on the screen like an iPhone can capture it on a single button?  Every user then gains access via their fingerprint?  Retina scan?

The big lash-up is a Public/Private endeavor!  I can hear the money sloshing in the trough!  Win/Win.  Win for those in Public employment (under the table) and those in Private Employment (over the table payoff).  Public gets the free scraps and thinks it is winning all the benefit.

Holy Cow! (Batman)

Cash Cow!......Forget it Jake.....its NYC.

"Intersection" What kind of player is this?  http://screenmediadaily.com/titan-and-control-group-complete-merger-and-launch-intersection/   "Intersection Brings Scalable Civic Innovation, Technology and Advertising to Cities"  I really like this euphemism: 
"Scalable Civic Innovation" !!!!  Applications without limit that can run on the Operating System!  Why didn't Apple do this!  It is their business model!

This octopus is sprouting arms faster than I can follow.   To get to the heart of this thing I must stay on track and follow up the forks in the road later rather than taking them now.  The heart of the thing is what entity is in control of the Operating System on which all the application programs are going to run to the benefit of the apps developers.....and greater benefit to the System Owner.  Just like the Banking System.  Hey, did I just discover another business model associated strongly with NYC?

Titan and Control Group. 

I knew it!!  Yes, I did but have not said it.  Clue:  The Giant Squid!!!

It is Google!

http://www.businessinsider.com/google-sidewalk-labs-acquires-titan-outdoor-and-control-group-2015-6

Tron!  I have found the core!  I have identified the Master Control Program!

Its Sunday.  I was going to write about this:

"The God Model of the Debt Based Monetary and Financial System vs The Atheist Model of the Debt Free Based Monetary and Financial System"

There is a big twist:  The God Model is the Evil.  The Atheist (Devil Model) is Good.

God gives with a mandatory payback with interest during the time of the loan.  (Don't know what She does with it but loves all that praise and glory.

It was going to be a long good one but I'll get to it on another Sunday.

New business model applicable too to Kiosk wifi taken from this link: credit to Jim http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/08/links-81416.html#comment-2653812
"The evolution of the high tech industry towards a new type of extractive accumulation coincides nicely with the extractive indifference of Wall Street Finance.
As Zuboff has noted in her recent articles on Surveillance Capitalism, the users of anything digital are neither buyers or seller but increasingly the raw material for a new type of manufacturing process which extracts profits from surveillance (the behavioral data of its customers). This new manufacturing process then converts this behavioral data into prediction products and sells it to any actor with an interest in monetizing probablistic information about our behavior.
This new process of extraction is becoming a reality and nicely merges the theoretical ideas of Zuboff and Hudson."

Jim goes on to say so much more in his post comment at Naked Capitalism.  Excellent thought there on a different but related topic.

Creating and owning the  Operating System is the key to the kingdom.  Everything else is Application Program.  http://www.businessinsider.com/google-building-new-operating-system-fuchsia-not-based-on-android-linux-kernel-2016-8

The rule of things is that there are only 6 to 8 and certainly no more than 12 major categories of SuperClass entities into which all things are divided and one thing from which they all derive.  Each has in turn 6 to 8 ChildClasses and so on.  All entities at any level are relational to all other entities and ultimately the one Single Entity from which they all derive.  That entity is, of course, a PlaceHolder but nevertheless must be figuratively there to complete the relational pyramid.  That is its sole purpose for being and sole function.

That PlaceHolder "does" nothing but complete the relational circle.  It is nothing.  It is only a SingularThing with no higher order relationship.  It only relates to itself and its only known implementing action is a recursive relationship to Itself.  It is the ultimate conceptual TopDog chasing its tail.  

What is "It"?  

Anything we want it to be.  It does not matter what the conceptual identity of the PlaceHolder is.  It might be more of and eternal catalyst than anything thing else.  Just the ultimate "Given".  Attempting any detailing of the concept beyond that is just spinning your Mobius Strip wheels on the circle of eternity.  

Put it in gear by engaging with a SomeThingEntity below the TopDogPlaceholder that only knows OneTrick to implement the one relationship to AnyOtherThing and that OnlyOtherThing is itself.

Singularity.  

Wander into eternity chasing that or engage with ChildObjects of TopDog and go somewhere.  Those ChildObjects are the 6-8 Operating systems of our real world to which belongs.  Each is a matter of point of view but that is what organizes it all and gives the model structure for our conceptual world and the means to make decisions.

Money is a conceptual social decision making tool OperatingSystem.

Maybe Everything is just Information.  Like everything is just WaveTheory.  

Own the InformationOperatingSystem and own everything it does in terms of Applications.

Good thing that Google business model is do no Evil.  That was Lucifer's too until that entity placed the crown of TopDog upon its head implementing a SupremeRecursiveRelationship.

Ha!  A higher order Entity put an eternal end to that.  There is no binary at the top.  Lucifer thought it was the BringerOfDawn, the MorningStar.  

Biblical and Mythological stories have much to tell us.  They are stories we tell about ourselves.










Saturday, August 13, 2016

Money and Finance -- Operating System and Application Programs

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/08/how-the-fed-promoted-financial-dominance-and-shadow-banking-by-promoting-repo.html

Posting the link at the start is my short hand, quick to the point way of kicking off what I want to say about it.  The link says what it is all about without having to restate it in some written terms or interpretation.  Far better than simply linking a token word or phrase to the background link itself.  I like that links are now self explanatory and do this rather than being some jumble of unrelated characters representing a link that have no functional meaning other that "click on this thing in blue to see what it is referring to in the World Wide Web. 

A self explanatory link gets to the point!   Gets there so much quicker than I do after embarking on saying something about it or providing my own lengthy introduction.

Just Sayin.

Everything said about money and finance is said in form of code language.  Natural language is code language.  Code standing for conceptual things and there relationships.  Math is code language.  Things are numbers.  Actions are operators.  Put them together and I guess the result would be an expression.  Something that means something as a function of the relationship of a thing and what two thing related to each other by an action "do" as a result.  Music is a code language.  Relational Rules of the Music Operating System are the framework for the creation of Application Programs that do something we can sing along to. 

The Natural Physical World we live in is a coded system of Natural Law Operating System and its Application Programs.  All written in code that we seek to abstract to a language we can understand and use to create our own applications programs that gives us things like cars and candy bars.

Money and Finance.  Extremely abstract conceptual system!  Abstracted directly to expression using Natural Language Code for high level abstraction specification written in English for us that rule the system, translated to other languages with loss in translation being the result much to the benefit of the creators of money and finance.  In a top down breakdown of the system structure it jumps from "Money is Debt" to represent the "Thing" and "Lending" as the action that implements the relationship of the basic two fundamental entity object things the entire system is built on: 

One Big Entity Thing:  The entity that has it (created it from nothing and called it some "thing" possessing its own attributes, methods and messages to interact with other entity things in the system.

The Other Big Entity Thing:  The entity that does not have what the first big entity thing created out of nothing has and sets the rules for the Other Big Entity Thing to get and use to the ongoing benefit of the First Big Entity as well as its own benefit is some form of risk/reward terms.

The next lower level of top down breakdown of the Money and Finance System is intended to lose any normal person in a maze if they attempt to understand the what it is all about and what it does.  That next lower level is code expressed in Natural Language.  English for us.  The same language Shakespeare used to tell us complicated stories.  He, however used words we understood, at least words understood at the time he used them but translated to expression we understand today. 

The link uses a Natural Language code presentation with code words that a normal person would not understand.  What is a repo?  That is when a tow truck tows away a car that is not paid for.  No, it is shorthand code for http://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/repurchaseagreement.asp Repurchase agreement.  What is that?  Buying back your car after it has been towed away to an impound lot?

If you can't speak the language you can't understand what it says.  In that application language becomes weaponized to use against an adversary for the benefit of the entity that created the language operating system and its application programs.  An "interpreter" is needed.   The interpreter "helps" to understand it.  The interpreter protects its position by never allowing the language to be learned by the user!

The link uses natural language code words applicable to some lower level conceptual structure of the Money and Finance System that I do not understand.  I can't relate them to higher or lower level related concepts in terms of "this concept is a component part of this higher level thing" or 'this concept is a collection of these lower level related concepts".  Out of all this up and down relationship of things and their inter "actions" make a system of Money and Finance.  I can't see or understand what the link is attempting to explain.

 I do get some rough idea of what it might be explaining.

I want to know the Operating System of Money and Finance!  Not some hocus pocus commentary on how the game is played on the field that I can't even see!

If I got a Phd in Economics I might understand it?  That would be entering the seminary to become ordained a Catholic priest.  Blessed by God as and instrument of his corner of the market on exclusive rights to the One True Way Religion on earth based on entry to the beyond.

Economics sucks.  It is all about how the game is played.  It is what Money does.  What Money does is Finance.  Finance in the Natural Language System of expression is a verb.  Money is the noun.  Presenting an explanation of a system in terms of what it does is like explaining the game of baseball by listening to a radio broadcaster talk about the play of the game.  The action on the field. 

I never understood basketball.  It is extremely hard to comprehend the rules of the game, the operating system

Friday, August 12, 2016

William J Astore: Why Do Military Professionals Remain Silent?

Astore is channeling me.  Or me him.  We are on the same page either way.  A guy that I would stand with and behind as much as I stand by my own convictions.  Rare to find those that I would trust and stand with to the very end without doubt.  Again I express my gratitude to another guy I stand with:  Tom Englehardt at TomDispatch.com.  Like Astore we share the same Catholic school background and view of what is morally right and wrong perhaps long after abandoning the teachers of the beliefs but not the essence of what was taught.

What Astore says about the military, every single point pinned to ducks in a row is exactly how I feel as well.  My career was earlier and one step short of O6 by my own choice.  While he was working on Star Wars at the end of the Cold War I said my war was over with the end of Cold War.  It had started at my first assignment: Vietnam.  I wasn't going to study war no more.  As far as I was concerned it was over and my victory march through the Arc of Triumph on a bike in 1986 out the main gate of Defense Depot, Ogden headed for Anchorage via the long hard way.  Been that way ever since with 8 Ironman races behind me, world travel and dedication to dearly departed Jeanette for 20 years of which I am more proud of than a equal period of no less dedication to my country.    It is still the challenge of fighting the good fight of real life long after leaving a church and state institution that taught the basics of fighting it for a cause but did not as an institution live by its teachings.  I have since chose more symbolic challenges that I create for myself.  Some are truly important windmills to joust with others are only games that I know I can win by applying the same dedication devoted to the real ones. 

Astore is also fighting the good fight but in a much more important arena.  I get my jabs in when and where I can but I admire not only his strikes at the system but his skill and honesty in delivering them.  He was and still is a leader that inspires me to do more.  Fortunately I knew many like him during me career.

I could only elaborate on everything he says at the link with sea stories of my own from the past and views from the present. 

This blog entry is simply a salute to him purely out of respect for the honesty and dedication of his character far beyond the tradition of a salute out of respect for the rank if we were both again on active duty.  He said some friends still call him Colonel.  I would simply say "Sir" to him and I don't say that to anyone but the few now days.

Well Done, Sir!  Something that in the navy is not traditionally correct from a junior to a senior, at least I believed that.  More the prerogative of senior to compliment or respond to the actions of a junior.  Still stuck in the tradition but not so much when it is necessary to violate it.  Courage atrophies when not used often.  Courage is an attribute of the military.  We might be strong in arms but the leadership that directs their use is atrophying.

Thursday, August 11, 2016

Pentagon Money Pit

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/08/11/pentagon-money-pit/

It is complicated.  Things are not accounted for.  In order to bring accounts into balance numerical adjustments are made called voucher entries to make the math come out right.  The vouchers are numbers with no explanation to the things they relate to.

That is counting not accounting!

It is all called financial.  That includes real money as well as the things money bought.  Accounting for money itself is one thing.  A well controlled thing.  Accounting for the value of things after they have been bought is another matter.  That connects the physical existence of a bought thing to the mirror image financial representation of that thing as a value of the thing on a financial record.  Either asset or liability.  The representation on the financial record must match the real world existence of the thing.  Then it is accounted for!

It should not be so complex.  Complexity however hides sloppy management and pure ignorance.  That is a business model when accounting is the lowest priority.  War fighting is highest.  The whole intent of the revision of the military financial system was to support the war fighter.  In war, accounting be damned, just get the goods to the war front.  That is is the way it was in Vietnam.  That is the way it is today.  Focus on the operational mission comes first.  Taking care of logistic accountability is an exercise of neglect or cover up.  How can a war be fought when effort is spent on bean counting.  Take care of it after the war is over by writing it all off with a memo.  Trouble is war is never over.

I made Loss by Inventory adjustments when things were not located.  I made Gain by Inventory adjustments when they were found.  Little effort was expended in actually finding things.  Things were put back on the accounting records when someone was told to go out to the record item location and verify the thing was there or do research to find it.  No allowance to provide for the employee expense of finding things that should have been found in the first place if the system was working.  Nobody wants to say that it is not working and they are loosing things they can't find.  You mean you can't do the job you are responsible for?

What a mess.  Audits uncover it.  Audits might as well just change the date on the last audit report and recommendations that were supposed to be corrected.  Same old report over and over.

Anything worth accounting for should have a discrete identity in an block chain management system.  Money, personnel or material.