Pope condemns idolatry of cash in capitalism | World news | theguardian.com

Pope condemns idolatry of cash in capitalism | World news | theguardian.com: 'We do not want this globalised economic system that does so much harm.' At the centre has to be man and woman, as God wants – not money."

At least one world leader is sending the right message. If an agnostic like me can be drawn toward Rome, the Catholic church is starting to have a future again.

Can NSA Know Everything About "The Lives of Others"?

Yesterday in this BlogSpot I wondered about the dangers for you, me and other free citizens of free countries should the big data capabilities of NSA ever come under the control of an authoritarian government. As examples of such governments I cited Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy because certain economic and political conditions which eased those dictators' rise to power are also present–perhaps to a lesser degree– in certain western democracies such as the United States of America.

Today, thanks to this post in Yves Smith's excellent blog, Naked Capitalism, I remembered a better example: the former Democratic Republic of Germany, when East Germany was still a nominally independent country. Their intelligence agency, the Stasi, developed the most detailed big data base on its citizens that the world has ever known. The Oscar winning German film, "The Lives of Others" shows just how nasty the former East German Government could be in using their big data against their own citizens. It is chilling to read in Smith's usually reliable blog that agents of the US government have allegedly made menaces reminiscent of Stasi tactics against citizens of the United States who have dared question the legality of big data operations.

Additionally, it appears that the whole project is just as futile as it is potentially dangerous to individual freedoms, as the title of this post indicates:
Top National Security Experts: Spying Program Doesn't Make Us Safer, and Spying Leaks Don't Harm America.

By the way, If you haven't seen that film, please buy, rent or download it as soon as possible.

Big Data and Other Fascist Tendencies

Just about every blogger and columnist is getting into this act. Here is one of the more perceptive:

The Price of the Panopticon - NYTimes.com: THE revelation that the federal government has been secretly gathering records on the phone calls and online activities of millions of Americans and foreigners seems not to have alarmed most Americans. A poll conducted by the Pew Research Center over the four days immediately after the news first broke found that just 41 percent of Americans deemed it unacceptable that the National Security Agency “has been getting secret court orders to track telephone calls of millions of Americans to investigate terrorism.”

So most people aren't very concerned about this yet. But just imagine if such big data capabilities came under the control of an authoritarian government such as Mussolini's Italy or Hitler's Germany. Can't happen in my country? Hopefully not.

Now, think back to the circumstances surrounding Hitler's and Mussolini's rise to power:

• Deep economic depression.
• Resurgent extreme nationalism.
• Strong alliances between big business and government.
• Convergent interests between big business and a professional military establishment.

Does any of this look familiar?

Excess German savings, not thrift, caused the European crisis

Michael Pettis explains this so thoroughly and clearly that even members of the Merkel government should be able to understand why their policies are the problem - not those of Spain, Portugal or Italy. Here is Pettis's conclusion, but I encourage you to read the whole long blog post, especially if you don't yet agree entirely with the following:

Excess German savings, not thrift, caused the European crisis: "As long as it is part of the euro Spain has no choice but to respond to changes in German savings rates. There is nothing mysterious about this process. It is simply the way the balance of payments works, and thrift has nothing to do with it. If Germany does not take steps to force down its savings rate by increasing the household share of GDP, then either all of Europe becomes like Germany, in which case growth slows to a crawl and some other country – maybe the US? – will be forced to resolve Europe’s demand deficiency either through higher unemployment or through higher debt, or Europe must break apart to free Spain and the other peripheral countries from German savings imbalances.

I don’t imagine the rest of the world can absorb demand deficiency from a Germanic Europe, and if Europe tries to force it the result will almost certainly be an eventual collapse in trade relations, so either Germany rebalances or Europe breaks apart. It is hard for me to see many other options."

(Via.)

Subversive Rectifier Won't Give Up

Somehow this delights me. I can't quite explain why.

‘Vigilante Copy Editor’ - NYTimes.com: ‘Vigilante Copy Editor’

Vigilante Copy Editor: A filmmaker searches for a mysterious vandal who has been correcting grammar on placards in the sculpture garden of the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.
By JAY DOCKENDORF

Where Have All the Jobs Gone? - NYTimes.com

Why can't we organize Job Guarantees for everyone? Jared Bernstein makes a convincing argument here. Ed Balls, British Labour Party leader, today announced that they are for it. MMT economists have been proposing Job Guarantees for years. What's not to like?

Where Have All the Jobs Gone? - NYTimes.com: While the high jobless numbers are partly a legacy of the Great Recession, the fact is that our economy has generated too few jobs for most of the last 30 years and is likely to continue to do so. The only viable response is a return to an idea that once animated domestic policy making: full employment, the notion that everyone who wants to work should be able to find a job, and if the market isn’t up to the task, then the government must fill the gap.

Why strong regulatory agencies matter | The Center for Public Integrity

More deaths and injuries here than in Boston, but which one got more headlines?

Why strong regulatory agencies matter | The Center for Public Integrity: I have always believed that if we are doing our job right at the Center for Public Integrity, then our investigations should anticipate the news. That was the case on Wednesday. The Center posted an important story early that morning about the U.S. Chemical Safety Board’s failure to complete its investigations into chemical accidents in a timely manner. Further, we reported that a former member of the board believed the agency was being “grossly mismanaged.”
Later that same day, an explosion tore through a fertilizer plant north of Waco in Central Texas, killing more than a dozen people and injuring more than 150, authorities say.