Iron Man - 2008
May 28
Saturday, May 30, 2015
Thursday, May 28, 2015
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
Scot's Plaid
Brad Thor
A Thriller
Hidden Order
Excerpt
page 122
Scot Harvath noted Wise's derogatory tone when he used the term bank run. "This is the phony crisis you mentioned?" He nodded. "Are you familiar with something called the Hegelian dialectic?"
"I am. It's where a group or an individual creates a problem, knowing full well in advance how people are going to react to it. They then begin agitating for something to be done about the problem, for things to change. Once the masses are then worked up enough and desperate enough for something to be done, the party behind the problem unveils their solution. The people are thrilled to have a plan, any plan, and so demand that it be implemented. They never seem to realize that they've been manipulated and that they haven't really ushered in change, but actually a much worse version of what they had previously, only now in brand-new packaging."
"That's exactly what happened with the Fed. A problem was manufactured by a powerful group of people who sat on the sidelines waiting for a panicked citizenry to beg for a solution. Once people started begging loud enough, all this group had to do was set the wheels in motion and make it look like everything was unfolding naturally.
"In this case, it was a group of New York bankers colluding to set up a third central bank that would give them a monopoly over the banking system. Shortly after the New Year in 1907, an article appeared in the New York Times by investment banker Paul Warburg, who cautioned that Americans needed to reinstate a central bank if they wanted to avoid any more terrible bank runs.
"One of Warburg's banking partners then gave a speech to the New York Chamber of Commerce warning that if the United States didn't set up a central bank, the country was going to undergo the most severe and far-reaching crash in its history. The sky is falling. The sky is falling. All they needed then was to be proven right. Enter their pal, banker J. P. Morgan. "Once a slew of side bets were placed that the stock market was going to fall, a run was launched on the stock of a company called United Copper--one of J. P. Morgan's biggest competitors. Panic took over the market. It was like all of the water being sucked out to sea before a giant tsunami comes ashore. Suddenly, everyone wanted out.
"New York banks friendly to Morgan and Warburg yanked their money, the stock market dropped nearly fifty percent, and New York's third-largest trust collapsed. From there, the panic spread across the country as citizens rushed to their own banks to pull out all of their money.
"It was an all-out panic and people were screaming for something to be done. Enter once again J. P. Morgan, who pledged his own funds to help stabilize the banking system.
"Rallying other New York bankers to join him, several of whom had helped to exacerbate the panic, Morgan magically stemmed the bleeding and the panic began to subside. But as it did, panic was replaced by a nationwide outcry that something be done so that this kind of thing never happened again."
"Never let a good crisis go to waste, right?" said Harvath. Wise smiled. "Precisely. The people blamed the bankers, but the bankers masterfully blamed 'the system,' which led to everyone clamoring for the system to be reformed.
ISBN 978-1-4767-1710-4
May 24
Monday, May 25, 2015
Tailor's Ham and Sleeve Roll
Sleeve Roll like the one my Grandma made
and Tailor's Ham
Patterns by Thimbles and Acorns
My Grandma and her cousins
Friday, May 22, 2015
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
'Radio Shows' a quilt-block pattern designed by Stacey Peter
'Radio Shows'
a quilt-block pattern
designed by
Stacey Peter
(tbc)
May 19
for 1 block
Monday, May 18, 2015
Sunday, May 17, 2015
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
Monday, May 11, 2015
Sunday, May 10, 2015
North American
MAN, n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insisten trapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada.
When the world was young and Man was new,
And everything was pleasant,
Distinctions Nature never drew
'Mongst king and priest and peaseant.
We're not that way at present,
Save here in the Republic, wher
We have that old re'gime,
For all are kings, however bare
Their backs, howe'er extreme
Their hunger. And, indeed, each has a voice
To accept the tryant of his party's choice.
A citizen who would not vote,
And, therefore, was detested,
Was one day with a tarry coat
(With feathers backed and breasted)
By patriots invested.
"It is your duty," cried the crowd,
"Your ballot true to cast
For the man o' your choice," He humbly bowed,
And explained his wicked past:
"That's what I very gladly would have done,
Dear patriots, but he has never run."
Apperton Duke.
Devil's Dictionary of
Ambrose Bierce
May 10 2015 Sunday
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Contrary Wife
Moody Blues - Knights in White Satin
Lodger, n. A less popular name for the Second Person of that delectable newspaper Trinity, the Roomer, the Bedder and the Mealer.
The Devil's Dictionary of
Ambrose Bierce
May 10
Monday, May 4, 2015
Nautilus
Logic, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The basic of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion--thus:
Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man.
Minor Premise: One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds; there-fore--
Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second.
This may be called the syllogism arithmetical, in which, by combining logic and mathematics, we obtain a double certainty and are twice blessed.
Devil's Dictionary of
Ambrose Bierce
May 7
For 2 blocks
Saturday, May 2, 2015
Friday, May 1, 2015
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