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Lessons From Montecitorio And Madama

October 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Lessons from Montecitorio and Madama

Anthony A Kila

Early in August, most European politicians left their parliaments amid farewell dinners and endless last minutes meetings to go home to play normal people with their families on mountains and seaside locations. Things were quite different in Rome, Italy, where members of the Italian parliament, (Palazzo Montecitorio and Palazzo Madama) left with a promise and a threat. They will come back in September to choose and face the day of reckoning for the government led by Silvio Berlusconi and for the speaker of the lower house, Gianfranco Fini.

Italian politics and Italian institutions do not enjoy the admiration and sympathy vote its people, country and culture are showered with. At the mention of Italian politics, many international observers react with expressions like “amusing,” “always in crisis”, “too many intrigues”, “too many power brokers”, “too many political parties” and “too complicated to follow”. These reactions have some truth in them but they are however exaggerated and do not take account of the changes that have occurred in the last decade. In my experience, non-Italians and indeed some Italians always need some introductory explanations when talking about Italian politics, here are some.

Gianfranco Fini is the speaker of the House of Representatives (La camera dei deputati), he comes from the very right wing of Italian politics and now sits tightly in the centre right of the political spectrum. He successfully and almost single-handedly led the MSI, (Movimento Sociale Italiano), into becoming AN, (Alleanza Nazionale). MSI was merely a fringe party with about 4-6% of national electoral support; It was a self defined neo fascist, clearly racist, proudly anti-Semitic, staunch advocate of a strong state, strong executive over parliament and with a third position political ideology, not to be mixed with the third way. AN, on the other hand, was a mainstream national conservative party formed with the influx of conservatives from other Italian moderate parties such as the defunct Christian Democracy (DC), Italian Liberal Party, (PLI) and even the Italian Republican Party (PRI). At its best, AN gained 15.7% electoral support in the 1996 general elections.

Almost every social observer has some ideas about who Silvio Berlusconi is and he appears to need very little introduction. He is probably the most famous Italian leader after Benito Mussolini. Politically, Berlusconi was born when he founded FI, (Forza Italia) in December 1993 and barely three months later led it to a national electoral victory in a breathtaking election within an acrobatic coalition called Polo delle Libertà. In the northern part of the country, the coalition was made up of fierce rivals such as his own party FI, the Northern League, LN (Lega Nord) of Umberto Bossi, the Christian Democratic Centre (CCD) led by Pier Ferdinando Casini and Clemente Mastella, both moderates from the defunct Christian Democracy (DC) and the Union of the Centre (UDC), made up of moderates from the defunct Italian Liberal Party, (PLI). In the south, the coalition was with AN, but without the Lega Nord of Umberto Bossi.

In the last thirteen years, a lot has happened in the centre-right of Italian politics. Some parties and some personalities left the coalition and others have returned. In 2008, Silvio Berlusconi and Gianfranco Fini dissolved their parties to form a mega centre-right movement called PDL (Popolo dellaLibertà) “People of Freedom”. This new party maintained its alliance in the northern part of the country with the Northern League but was formed without their third major ally Pier Ferdinando Casini who went on his own way to form UDC.

In the 2008 general elections, PDL became the first political party in the country by winning 37.4% of votes; no other single party has won that much in Italy since the DC in 1979. The two main leaders of PDL divided their roles: Silvio Berlusconi became the leader of the executive and Gianfranco Finiwas elected speaker of the house.

Notwithstanding, their reservations on his style and some of his social exuberances, most of the members of the PDL accept the charismatic led style of their party and trust Berlusconi’s instinct and capacity to connect with the Italian public. An Italian MP summed it best to me in two words lui vince: he wins.

Gianfranco Fini however does not fall into that category, since about a year; he has become the most relevant critic of Berlusconi. The joke is that he has been more efficient than all the opposition parties put together. He has repeatedly called for a more structured party against Berlusconi’s instinct for a light party that relies on the leader’s charm. He has taken more liberal and centrist stances on issues such as immigration, separation of church and state, stem cells and has shown his discomfort with what appears to some as a crusade against the judiciary in a bid to shield some members of the ruling party from paying for their legal misdeeds. Expectedly, these did not go down well with Berlusconi.

The rift between the two leaders became apparent and irreversible in April this year. Gianfranco Fini’s loyalists formed a group called GI, (Generazione Italia), with the aim of being a forum to better articulate Fini’s position. The same month PDL held its first national committee meeting and it turned out to be a televised showdown between Fini and Berlusconi. On the 29thof July, PDL suspended Gianfranco Fini and his closest supporters from the party. 24hours later, Gianfranco Fini and his supporters formed a new parliamentary group FLI (Futuro eLibertà per Italia) Future and Freedom for Italy. It stems mainly from GI and most of its members come from the right but with some very notable exceptions.

With this move, the ruling majority is clearly in difficulty, as it cannot rely on a stable parliamentary majority anymore. The expected scenarios for those who think a parliamentary system should work the way it does in Westminster is for the Government to go to the parliament to verify its support and or call for a snap election. Above all, one would expect the opposition to be screaming for a snap election so they can get rid of a government they can brand as incompetent and quarrelsome. The politics of Palazzo Montecitorio and Palazzo Madama is however different and it offers unique lessons. In Rome, it is the opposition holding back from going to vote. The Italian main opposition parties, although progressives in their brand, appear more moderate and display a bigger instinct towards a sense of continuity and respect for existing institution. In times of crisis like this, only the Italian opposition will you hear make declarations like for the sake of stability and the economic situation of the country it is better not to vote but rather to suspend partisan politics, form a national coalition or submit the government to some unelected technical independent figure. What do you think? An example of a selfless act informed by great sense of civic responsibility or a fear of losing elections and the realisation that they have no credible alternative proposal?

As for Gianfranco Fini and his FLI, the lesson to be drawn is about the importance of ideology. Although Italian politics has seen a renaissance of its famous transformism with the political birth of Berlusconi and the national elevation of Fini, paradoxically, these are the two of the only three or so centre-right politicians in Italy that cannot change their political collocation. Regardless of the policies he might espouse Gianfranco Fini is, and has to be seen, as a man of the right, at best looking towards the centre. As always in Italy, the centre is crowded and Gianfranco Fini can only operate from the right. In the USA, where we have probably the best example of a perfect bipolar political system a figure like Gianfranco Fini will probably present himself as an independent and if strong enough, try to create a national third force. The fortunes of those that have tried these options are clearly documented.

Gianfranco Fini is reputed to be sharp and hardly ever irrational so it is safe to assume that before anyone of us, he had an idea of the possibility of him being where he is now: stuck in a political swamp. How he gets out of it will be a lesson not to be missed as he will need more than some few articulation of policies, ideas and motivating to do.

Whilst Gianfranco Fini’s position might be a personal headache for him and his loyalist, it is a lesson for the rest of the world especially those developing nations of Africa where politicians tend vie for offices without the minimum attempt to justify their past or articulate their future.

Filed Under: Election Issues Tagged With: , , ,

Can we disenthrill from petty politicing and manage peace?

October 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Recent events and discuss following those events have pointed to several facts about the political and intellectual situation in a country that is just 10 years from a war that has virtually destroyed every aspect of her physical and more importantly human infrastructure.

The physical infrastructure is gradually being reconstructed and from recent observations whilst I was in Sierra Leone a quiet process of modernisation is taking place.

What however is not seeming to reconstruct is the human infrastructure. Instead what seems to be happening with this all important and everlasting resource has left a lot of unanswered questions.

Since my visit to Sierra Leone leading up to the recent events of violence and political bickering, there seems to be a state of   innuendo for which order has been the victim.

The whole social system is either misuse or abuse of a new freedom of expression especially by the numerous radio stations and tabloids and above all a seeming insensitivity of the public to the need for order and self-discipline.

These conditions as they exist are now more or less being augmented and institutionalized by what can be described as heightened political propaganda, impunity and contempt by the political elite who are supposed to be the pace setters for a society just coming from a war situation.

The political elites and more so the ones in the two main political parties seem not to realize that the key reason for the war was their inability to put the interest of this small but resource rich country called Sierra Leone over and above their own individual interests.

The point the political elites are missing or rather willfully circumventing is that of what to tell the people to mobilise them for development or how to mobilise the people for development.

In various commentaries, articles and what have you, there is a seeming loss for knowledge and direction hence hope for the people of Sierra Leone. Why should a country endowed with so many resources and above all a young human resource be the object of hopelessness?

An attempt to answer this all important question can lead to a lot of arguments, postulations and even conspiracy theories all putting the blame one way or the other on the inability of the elites to consolidate and use their position of opportunity, trust and obligation in the development of a political economy that will reflect the actual rather than the exponential realities of the geo-political unit we all love and which we call our motherland, Sierra Leone.

Instead, most if not all have done the opposite. They have misused and abused the respect the populace has for education, which by all intent is right, by abuse of the political destiny of the people of this country.

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A lot who today cry out loud, trying to gain cheap recognition by a populace they have over the years made gullible and insensitive to real facts were the very ones who partook in the destruction they blame on a specific political party ,the APC.

Yes it is the APC Party that has ruled for the longest single period in the post-independence history of Sierra Leone. The party carried on with the business of governance for over two decades but in those two decades never changed the elite or force retirements of public servants and members of bodies charged with the duty to administer the affairs of state.

Of course, by legitimacy and responsibility the APC should take the greater blame especially for over staying in power and creating discontent that led to massive sabotage and misappropriation of state funds leading to a state of bankruptcy of the State.

One answer is the political elite who have benefited most from all the years of misrule by their being coopted into a one party rule, has never and are not prepared to be proactive in the issues of Sierra Leone for as long as they concern progress of the nation. They either quietly participate in the spoils they soon come out to condemn when they want power for themselves or just sit by and see all the negatives of the opponent political party.

The other side of the story, which has never been told or is not told, is that the elite is a self-serving class whose aim is to be in a position to control because their only aspiration is how to get a piece of the cake from the exploitation of the resources. First it was Diamonds, now the resource scene has been made more attractive by the recent Oil finds.

Now is time to ask a few “out of the box” questions. First is the political class, old as well as new, dedicated to national development and if they are why is it that the last fifty years are lost years?

Any attempt to answer this will clearly bring out some pointers if critically examined and shift our focus on only political issues.

If we borrow from Jimmy Kandeh (Silencing the guns in Sierra Leone), in which he said “Sierra Leone’s war was caused by the untrammeled greed of the country’s political class. Predatory accumulation by incumbent political elites and their cronies eroded state capacities, impoverished society, lumpenized youth and elders alike, destroyed public confidence in state institutions and sowed the seeds of state collapse and armed rebellion. Reversing these trend lines will be a tall order and certainly not one that can be accomplished by adhering to the spoils logic of governance that has shaped politics in Sierra Leone since independence.”

This logic of spoils which was compromised and unified during the one party era in which all and sundry who had access to state resources used the spoils of governances, is now transforming into another dimension.

 

 

 

The naked truth for our underdevelopment is not in the prices of goods and services, or what has been done or not done, nor in the ability of the public or private sectors to grow. It lies in our ability to develop first a mindset that will allow us to construct and use a national philosophy that can train the minds of the people to do what it takes to take the country from where it is now to another level where every citizen will have a right to every available resource, contribute to the exploitation and proper use of every available resource and respect their right and obligations as well as that of others.

 

The premises above of course dictates that there should be what can be termed a collective and participatory consciousness that can mobilise all human and other resources for the use and benefit of all in the country.

Of course for this to happen there must be a leadership to direct and manage the synergic path of this national action.

 Leadership in this case is not only being head of state, minister, head of department, district, chief or what have you. It is leadership at all levels and sectors of society that has the ability to direct and work in the interest of nation building no in the interest of having someone in place for a few to have it all.

Also it is not that kind of leadership that master minds schemes and gambits of violence and social disorder. It is a leadership that preaches and practices, by way of examples, peace and logical arguments that will convince the people of the need for change when and where it is needed.

It is above all that kind of leadership that believes in and practices the axiom that one must “Go about their daily affairs with humility, peace and respect for others. And that even though some might misunderstand it as weakness but it is out of our weaknesses we find strength!”

It is above all that kind of leadership that can disenthrall from petty politics and engage the opponents in a politics of ideologies, principles and policies that will make life better for all Sierra Leoneans in the shortest possible time frame.

Finally it is a leadership type that can move away from the traditional political elitist from of politics to a more people oriented without recourse to cheap popularity or subversive gambits to get that popular support. A leadership that can have and keep in focus the management and maintenance of peace as a prerequisite of and for progress.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Election Information Tagged With: , , , , ,

Management Theories X Y And Z – Managing from the Bottom-Up

September 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment

“If we lived in a perfect world, there would
not be a need for managers.”
- Bryce’s Law

“Surround yourself with the best people you can find,
delegate authority, and don’t interfere.”
- Ronald Reagan (1986)

When the American colonies were forming a government in the 18th century, there was a fleeting notion that George Washington should become King with absolute power. Instead, our founding fathers opted for a democratic society where officials were elected by the people. The intent was to give the individual citizen a means to participate in the running of the government. This was a wise decision and has served America well for over 225 years. By being included in the process, people align their loyalties to the government and country, and are quick to come to its defense in times of national emergency. Involving the individual is a simple gesture that has had long range positive effects on our country.

It is an interesting dichotomy that whereas our country involves the individual, most of our other institutions do not. I have been fortunate to have traveled the world and have seen many different types of companies, from large to small, and in just about every field of endeavor imaginable. Most are run top-down with a benevolent (or maybe not so benevolent) dictator at the helm. Assignments, estimates and schedules are pushed down the corporate chain with little regard for the individual employee.

Over the years there has been a lot of discussion about Theories X, Y, and Z in management; whereas “X” is autocratic, “Y” is more of a “carrot and stick” mentality and “Z” promotes individual participation. Remarkably, despite the many years of promoting the rights of the worker, today we primarily live in a Theory X world. Employees are told what to do and when to do it, without any interest in their input. Today, this is commonly
referred to as “micromanagement.” Under this approach, although the work will eventually get done, there is no loyalty to the company by the employee, mistakes are made and quality suffers, and productivity declines since there is no personal sense of urgency by the employee. In other words, the company works, but not like a well-oiled machine.

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More recently, I have noticed this same phenomenon occurring in non-profit volunteer organizations, such as homeowner associations, clubs, school organizations, sports associations, even church groups. The people that run these groups may have the best intentions, but rarely do they know how to actually manage. Sadly, some people get involved with such organizations to satisfy a petty power trip they are on. Consequently, they have little regard for organization and adherence to policies and rules. Instead, they try to micromanage everything. People, particularly volunteers, have a natural aversion to micromanagement and quickly lose interest in their work.

Let us always remember that the word “management” begins with “man” for a purpose: it refers to how we interact with people and, as such, it is not a clerical or administrative function, but, rather, a people function; how to work with the human being, a very challenging task considering you are dealing with human beings who can be emotional, irrational, and just plain “thick.” There is a countless number of books on the subject of
“management” alone. But for our purposes, perhaps the best way to think of “management” is simply “getting people to do what you want, when you want it, and how you want it.” If we lived in a perfect world, there would not be a need for managers; people would know what to do, and projects would be executed on time and within cost. However, as we all know, we live in an imperfect world. People do make mistakes and problems arise, hence, the need for “managers”, people charged with assigning and directing the work of others. Managers are in the business of solving problems; people problems!

Some of the most productive organizations are those where management succeeded in getting the individual workers involved with the running of the company. Sure, management is still in control, but they have stimulated employee interests by encouraging their participation and feedback. Management still has some top-down responsibilities, including:

1. Delegate – prioritize and assign tasks to qualified employees.

2. Control work environment – minimize staff interferences and provide a suitable workplace to operate with the proper tools to perform the work.

3. Review progress – study employee reports and take corrective action where necessary.

Individual employees have bottom-up responsibilities to management:

1. Participate in the planning process – review work specifications and give feedback; estimate amount of time to perform an assignment, assist in the calculation of work schedules with management.

2. Perform work within time and costs constraints.

3. Report activities to management – including the use of time, interferences, and possible delays.

In this bottom-up approach, employees are treated as professionals and are expected to act as such in return. This results in far less supervision as found in micromanagement. Employees are delegated responsibility, supervise their own activities, and report to management on progress. This approach will work in any business, be it a corporation or non-profit volunteer organization. There is only one catch to this approach: some people resist assuming responsibility for their actions and prefer to have someone else tell them what to do; thereby when something goes awry, they can blame the other person for the snafu. This type of person is more suited for a dictator type of organization where they can continue to grouse about management, yet do nothing to help correct the problem. Aside from this, the benefits of the bottom-up approach far outweigh the negatives. It is simple and it works.

Filed Under: Election Information Tagged With: , , , ,

How Everyone Can Win From America’s Presidential Election

September 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Do you know how much money has been spent in today’s ongoing America presidential elections?

Here’s a rough guide: By April 21, 2008, Senator Barrack Obama had spent US8.5 million. Senator Hillary Clinton expended US0.7 million. Candidate John McCain disbursed US.4 million.

On the other hand, according to the Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2008, chronic neglect of the agricultural sector in Asia and the Pacific is condemning 218 million people to continuing extreme poverty, and widening the gap between the region’s rich and poor.

Climate change is emerging as the latest threat to the world’s dwindling fish stocks a new report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) suggests. At least three quarters of the globe’s key fishing grounds may become seriously impacted by changes in circulation as a result of the ocean’s natural pumping systems fading and falling they suggest.

In striking contrast, during every presidential election American candidates spend a large sum not to solve current pressing problems as such, but on self-promotion and advertising purposes instead.

There is one question – Is there any way the election expenditure can be utilized more efficiently? In view of the world’s current pressing problems such as poverty and climate change, is America spending too much on the elections? As the big brother of the world, America’s presidential elections at the least should showcase two points to the world:

1.

Election expenditure by the candidates is maximized to the fullest in terms of campaigning and advertising.Not a single cent has been wasted.

2. While conducting the election, it will be ideal if it could benefit the world directly at the same time.

How can we achieve these two goals?

What is proposed?

A new proposed alternative would be in future, to cap the candidate’s election budget at a minimum amount.

This will have three direct implications on future elections.

First, if the proposal was implemented, in the future no candidate will ever be handicapped by financial difficulty while trying to run a campaign. Since the independent committee in charge has taken into consideration the current financial status of each presidential candidate and the size of their financial base of supporters before deciding the maximum election expenditure, thus no candidate need to worry about financial difficulties.

Second, a cap on the election expenditure for each candidate will give hopeful presidential candidates the incentive to seek out more efficient ways of campaigning and advertising. Since all candidates are campaigning with the same financial resources, thus each will be encouraged by the restriction to maximize the spending power of their expenditure. Thus wastage of expenditure is minimized.

Maximum expenditure not equal to budget capped

Critics of the new proposal may argue that since election expenditure is to be capped, this will then discourage presidential candidates from aggressively seeking out financial support from the American population.

This is where the crux of the proposed alternative, or the third implication lies: There is no cap on how much financial support and resources that each candidate can raise on their own, but the remaining balance of their budget (after taking into account the maximum amount they can spend) will then be disclosed to the public, thereafter donated equally to two entities: The US treasury, selected charities and non-government organizations (NGOs) devoted to world problems.

There will still be incentive for presidential candidates to reach out to the maximum number of financial supporters, because a leader who can raise the largest amount can convincingly argue that this is so because he has the charisma and leadership capability to gain the confidence from the American population.

Second, any candidate who wishes to be president must also have a well-defined plan in coping with the economy. For someone who is able to raise the highest election budget within a short time, it can be argued that he is perceived as financially sound and prudent so supporters have faith to lend their reserves to him.

Long-term implications

Future candidates will not be at a disadvantage if the maximum expenditure rule was implemented. In fact, it may even help them, because since no one is held back by financial woes, they will be encouraged to speak up even more so as to present themselves as a better candidate than the rest. As a result, the American population can judge the candidates more factually based on the clarity of their proposed policies and their characters. In short, just because candidates have less money to spend does not translate into less support from the American population.

If readers feel that the candidates are spending very prudently, then there is no basis for the proposed alternative. But, if you think America can further minimize wastage of resources during the elections, why not give this proposal a second thought?

Summary

In short, below is the simplified version of the new proposed alternative.

Enforce a legal cap on the total election expenditure by each presidential candidate (i.e. a maximum sum)

There is no cap on how much financial support and resources that each candidate can raise on their own, but the remaining balance of their budget (after taking into account the maximum amount they can spend) will then be disclosed to the public, thereafter donated equally to two entities: The US treasury and selected charities and non-government organisations (NGOs).

An independent committee comprising of three selected members will take into consideration the current financial status of each presidential candidate, the size of their financial base of supporters and other related factors before agreeing on the value of the capped amount. The three members are to arrive on an impartial and sound judgement regarding the minimum sum.

The election expenditure of each candidate will be monitored closely to ensure there is no suspected case of election fraud or corruption, which will taint the reputation of future America’s Presidential elections to come.

Sources/Citations:

http://politics.nytimes.com/election-guide/2008/finances/map/index.html“>http://politics.nytimes.com/election-guide/2008/finances/map/index.html

http://www.fec.gov/

http://www.unescap.org/survey2008/press/g11_neglect_agriculture.asp

http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=528&ArticleID=5751&l=en

Filed Under: Election Issues Tagged With: , , , ,

who else wants to gain profit from reading stock charts ?

July 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment

It is the different types of stock that make most of investor become confuse. First of all, before we talk about stock trading, reading stock charts or even trading tools we must know what exactly stock means.

The capital stock (or just stock) of a business entity represents the original capital paid into or invested in the business by its founders. It serves as a security for the creditors of a business since it cannot be withdrawn to the detriment of the creditors. Stock is distinct from the property and the assets of a business which may fluctuate in quantity and value. (wikipedia)

Sometimes they called stock as shares. Basically there is two type of stock, Common stock and preferred stock. Anyone can purchase common shares, regardless of age, income, age or financial situation. The co-ownership shares is mainly in the company you invest as a company grows and earns money, the value of your stock rises. On the other hand, if the company goes wrong or fails, the share price decline. common shareholders do not participate in the day to day operations of a business, but they have the power to elect the board of directors.

With shares, there are also different classes of shares. The different classes of shares in a company are often called Class A and B. The first class, class A, essentially gives the owner of votes per share equipment more than owners of Class B shares The ability to create different classes of shares in a company exists since 1987. Many investors avoid stock that has more than one class, and stocks that have more than one class are not called common stock.

The type most upscale is of course preferred stock rights. The preferred shares are not exactly a stock. It is a mixture of a stock and a bond. The owner of Preferred Shares is not entitled to the assets of the company in bankruptcy, and the holders of preferred shares to obtain the product of the profits of a business before the owners of common shares. If you think you may prefer this preferred stock, know that society generally has the right to buy the stock back from the owner of the equipment and stop paying dividends.

Filed Under: Election Information Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Why Did Voters Change Their Preferences From 2006 to 2010? Part One: 2006 Elections

June 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment

A reader has asked me to comment on my thoughts regarding the following phenomenon:

The fact that US voters ousted Republicans from power by voting for Democrats in the 2006 midterms, voted for “change” with Obama in 2008, and then suddenly reversed course again during the 2010 election in favor of Republicans.

Why such a great change in voter attitudes within a short period of time? Why such a rapid shift in attitudes between 2008 and 2009?

Before looking specifically at the 2006 election, let me examine one factor that contributes to voter attitudes.

VOTER UNHAPPINESS WITH THE CURRENT GOVERNMENT

I would say that one of the most potent factors influencing voter attitudes in 2006, 2008 and 2010 was the desire for change.  The American people are (logically, I’m happy to say) very unhappy with Congress.

Since at least 2006, and perhaps earlier, polls have shown very low support for Congress.  Dec 2010 figures show a record low approval rating of only 14%! The chart also shows that at the time of the elections in 2006, 2008 and 2010, approval of Congress was near then-record lows. This is consistent with the desire for change.

Why the low approval ratings of Congress? I’d argue that people realize Congress is largely a criminal entity. They realize that lobbyists have paid off many members; that Congress does not pass measures the people desire (and in fact Congress often passes measures that contradict the people’s desires). One example would be immigration.  Polls consistently show that large majorities of people want legal and illegal immigration to be reduced (The study of legal immigration found that 76% want legal immigration reduced, and 58% want it reduced by 70%).  Instead, during the Bush years, Congress tried to pass legislation that would eventually legalize criminals who broke into the country and who were taking money from taxpayers!  This problem has been occurring since at least the 1980s, when Reagan provided an amnesty for the illegals!

I use the word “criminal” to describe certain politicians, not “corrupt”, because “corrupt” is not strong enough.  “Corrupt” could imply that these politicians are, aside from the corrupt deals, otherwise good people.  Please. I once read a quote from someone whose name escapes me:  “I can steal a lot more money using a briefcase than I can using a gun”. Many people who have risen to the highest level of government likely have, in my opinion, a long history of misuse of funds, theft, abuse of power, and abuse of others in order to “rise” to their position. They are worse than common thugs are, because it’s more difficult to discover and prosecute their crimes. With political crimes it’s often more difficult for a victim to even determine when they are being victimized (theft from taxpayers).

Voters may realize that both parties are corrupt, that changing the party in power may not change government’s criminal tendencies.  However, the people do get some satisfaction from the fact that they are able to at least fire the criminals in power. (Unless you’re one of the powerful people at the SEC, who sometimes actually want to leave government so that they can enter the lucrative private sector and be rewarded by the same criminal companies whom they failed to police).  I suspect this may have been the case when the SEC’s Enforcement Director, Linda Thomsen, who was in charge when several scandals rocked the SEC the past several years, left the SEC to join Davis Polk and Wardwell.

Here’s one SEC scandal:  The Inspector General of the SEC (a seemingly honest man, surprisingly) found that, regarding sales of counterfeit shares of stocks between Jan 2007 and June 2008, “of the more than 5,000 complaints received by the Division of Enforcement during that time, not one resulted in an investigation”.  That’s almost 14 complaints a day.  Who was in charge of enforcement?  

In July 2007, the SEC disgustingly removed the uptick rule, which was in place since just after the Great Depression.  The removal allowed criminal bankers to pile on together to short a company (bet that the stock price will go down), destroying stock prices, as they did to Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers.  The removal of the uptick rule meant that shorters no longer had to wait until an uptick of a stock’s price before they could short it.

When Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008 (the former in March, the latter in September), there were millions of counterfeit shares of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers in existence.  These shares were sold by criminals intent on making the companies collapse, and the SEC did little to prevent it.

It is little known that just three days after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the entire US and world banking system almost collapsed as 0 billion was withdrawn by panicked US citizens in only one to two hours.  It was estimated that the entire US system would have collapsed by the end of the day after a one-day withdrawal of .5 trillion.

Here’s a second SEC scandal:  Deep Capture reported the saga surrounding an SEC Senior Investigator, Gary Aguirre.  Gary was reportedly fired by the SEC after pursuing a subpoena in order to investigate suspected criminal activity:  “The proximate cause of Aguirre’s complaint was that an insider trading investigation he had been conducting into the activities of Pequot Capital, a powerful Connecticut hedge fund, was derailed (he claimed) once the trail led towards John Mack, the influential boss of Morgan Stanley. Mr. Aguirre claimed that his SEC bosses had maneuvered to kill his investigation while warning Aguirre that Mr. Mack had too much ‘juice’ to pursue.”

After the counterfeit shares destroyed Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley was one of the three largest surviving investment banks.

If you’re not familiar with these major stories, blame media corruption.  But that’s another story.

I want to mention one side note here. Compare the Congressional approval ratings to the average approval rating of each President throughout their terms.

Obama’s approval rating average is listed as 52%, much higher than the approval of Congress during Obama’s term to date (ranging from about 14% to 40%).

Clinton’s average approval rating is listed as 55.1%, much higher than the approval rating of Congress during Clinton’s 1993 to 2000 terms (below 40% during most of that period).

Bush’s average approval rating is listed as 49.4%, which appears to be higher than the approval rating of Congress during at least six of the eight years Bush was in power.

Why do people consistently approve of the President more than they approve of Congress?  After all, isn’t the President leader of his party, aren’t party members in Congress, and don’t all party members almost always vote the same way?

I would argue that the President’s personality affects people’s emotions, and hence interferes with their logic.  In contrast, Congress is a collection of personalities, and therefore has no representative personality that is as likely to create the emotions that override voter logic.  In short, some people who might dislike a President’s policies might still approve of him if they like his personality.

I think that people have voted for change in 2006 and 2010 because they wanted to fire those in power. In 2008 they also thought they were getting change with Obama, change from the typical manner of criminal governance.

2006 ELECTIONS

Why were voters unhappy in 2006?  After all, the economy was riding high, right? Well, overall it was, but I’d venture that the middle class was, relative to the upper class, shrinking, as a result of years of sales of counterfeit shares.  The counterfeit sales related to the public’s investment in many non-blue chip stock companies were shifting wealth from the middle class to the upper class hedge funds.  Also, years’ worth of counterfeit stock sales were illegally forcing public companies out of business and their employees out of a job.. The result was not just harm to the middle class, but gain by the larger companies who took market share away from these smaller companies.

I argue that voter anger in 2006 was largely anger at Bush.  Bush’s approval rating fell below the 50% mark in an AP-Ipsos poll in December 2004 (conducted after his narrow re-election against the unpopular flip flopping John Kerry).  His poll numbers continued to decline, and averaged in the 30s during 2006, the year the Republicans were ousted from power.  People were rightfully angry about the wasteful Iraq War and the government response to Hurricane Katrina.  The middle class were rightfully angry about their weakening position relative to the upper class.  Also, many people were becoming aware of growing evidence suggesting that the government was aware of yet allowed (and perhaps assisted with) the September 11 attacks on its own people.

So, I would conclude that the dramatic shift in voter sentiment in 2006 was largely a result of the unpopularity of Bush and the desire of voters to punish Congress, since Congress had not done much to reflect the will of the people.  Was this a smart decision made by the voters?  Well, they certainly had many valid reasons to be angry with Bush.  But when you have an election, a main question should be to determine whether a change (the election of Democrats) would result in better overall conditions for the US.

Was it reasonable to believe Democrats would pull out of the Iraq War?  I’m not sure that was reasonable, although I do think it was more likely that the Democrats (versus the Republicans) would pull out, especially since the current Republican in power was the one that initiated the Iraq War, and hence may have had more motivation than others to continue with the war in an attempt to establish success.

So, were voters voting for the right reasons when they ousted the Republicans in 2006? I don’t know.  Perhaps they tended to vote as they did to punish Bush rather than out of belief that Democrat policies would be more successful. 

One reason I hesitate to believe that the 2006 voters were voting for the most logical reasons is this:  There are many examples of instances when voters very much regret their choice of President and suddenly change their vote during the midterm elections.  This suggests that perhaps they didn’t vote logically in the first place. The 1994 midterms were one example. The 2006 midterms were another.  And the 2010 elections were another.

In Part Two, I will examine the disturbing 2008 election of Obama in the context of voter psychology.

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Information: from Quantum Theory to Wiki-Leaks

June 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Article by Eli Denver

Basics

Information can be defined in several ways. If you ask a physicist or an engineer they will say that information is a quantity akin to mass, energy, or temperature and is always tied to physical matter. If you ask a statistician, you may hear that information is condensed data, with meaningful patterns extracted in the form of averages, standard deviations, dispersion, etc. In common terms of everyday life information can be defined as a content of data that reduces uncertainty.

The theory of information was born with the works of Claude Elwood Shannon, an MIT master’s student, and later a researcher with Bell Laboratories with his publication titled “A Mathematical Theory of Communication” in 1948. His work set up mathematical models that described the production and transmission of information and dealt with a question of how much information could be transmitted in a given message. This is also where term “bit” first appeared defining a binary digit, a 0 or 1, and replaced the term “bigit”, which was common at the time in Boolean algebra. The Shannon’s work originated in response to AT&T wanting to know how many telephone conversations could be packed into a copper wire. Since then the theory has evolved with the work of many mathematicians, scientists and cryptographers and is now considered the major body of knowledge closely related to quantum theory.

Quantum theory is a science of elementary particles, how can it be related to information? Well, each particle carries a set of data about itself such as charge, spin, momentum, mass, etc. Over its life span, however short in the physical world, a particle may collide with other particles, i.e. transfer information about itself. Even if you take extreme effort to isolate one particle somewhere thousands of light years away, put it into a black box in a vacuum made of absolutely non-reflective material at absolute zero degrees temperature, your particle would still exchange information with the physical world by way of the vacuum fluctuations (vacuum energy). This is the direct result of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle postulating that anywhere there is time, there is energy. Tiny particles of the universe that constantly appear in and out of our 3D space are probing objects and distribute information about them in an attempt to equalize entropy. Now what’s the entropy? In modern terms, entropy is a quantity that describes the probability of distribution of “stuff” in a closed system (think gas particles). The more “ordered” a system is, the less entropy it has, and the more “disordered” or evenly distributed the “stuff” is inside the system, the more the entropy of the system. Since information is always attached to a physical medium (and as a consequence cannot travel faster than the speed of light), natural tendency of any system is to increase its entropy, or to distribute information about arrangement of its particles as equally in the 3D space as possible. In this way, the nature is in constant attempt to have equal probability of distribution of “stuff” in any given volume, and since information is always attached to physical objects what is going on is distribution of information. You cannot hide anything. Presence of any particle in 3D immediately becomes “known” by way of interaction with other particles. We can also say that information about any particle in 3D immediately gets distributed due to the vacuum fluctuations. Another conclusion that can be drawn is that by distributing information, the entropy of the universe is increased as well. Therefore you can think of entropy as a mysterious “documentation” device. The documentation part is where you have to spend energy and to increase entropy if you erase a bit of information out of the physical space (see works of Rolf Landauer).

Information entropy is what will keep governments transparent – more Wikileaks.on the way?

As information obeys the laws of entropy, or the tendency to its even distribution and the fact that it is always attached to physical objects, it is impossible to resist its spread unless energy is applied to preserve it. You could extrapolate this statement a little further. Any government with its files stored on physical media is a collection of information in a much larger system (human society) with relatively low information entropy. Now think of the modern society with millions of people wanting to fill their brains with informational content, availability of broad-band communication channels, and disseminated nature of the communications industry – you will get a very fluid and responsive system that can sense information about physical objects inside of it pretty quickly. This is akin to the prior example, where anything anywhere is hit by the vacuum fluctuations with information about the “anything” leaking out. The vacuum fluctuation in this case is human attention. The governments who stray too far from their surroundings (be it their country’s population or neighboring countries), or governments who are trying to restrain the free distribution of information about themselves, use up more and more energy to resist natural increase in entropy. This can manifest in growing number of government employees, higher taxes on communications channels, covert surveillance, etc. These acts are done to maintain a state of decreased entropy or “order”. The more distant the government cluster is trying to be from its surrounding population, the more energy is required to keep it in that state. Question is how much energy is really needed, and since population of any country is finite, the governments who elect to stay out of equilibrium would have tough time to “make ends meet” eventually. This typically manifests in aggression (either internal or external) in an attempt to access more energy, or results in collapse. What’s the solution? To be transparent and to be at equilibrium with your population and neighboring countries. Any attempt to control dissipation and distribution of information is ultimately futile. Any attempt to control natural course of societal development is ultimately futile as well. As momentum in information distribution builds, it will overwhelm anyone’s attempts to control and restrain it.

Nature of life, you are a channel of energy

We are channels of energy inscribed with patterns of information. The patterns manifest themselves from the way we look, to the way we think, to the way events (and which kind) happen to us. In this context the energy can be thought of the God energy or the God-force. In the physical sense, we fight-off entropy within our own bodies, staying in defined physical shape and not decaying. The energy that helps us do just that is the energy of the Sun. The energy that allows us to exist is the God-force. Think of this: imagine you have a computer. One day you decide to write a program that will sort digital marbles in a certain way to build colorful mosaic patterns. Marbles randomly appear on screen and are made available by another program. You also program a condition that in order for the program to process the marbles to build a pattern, it needs to seek food packets which are spread around the screen. Once the program “eats” a packet, it gets units of energy that are converted into the useful enterprise of putting the colorful patterns together. You run the program, and it works great! It does put some interesting patterns together, in a somewhat random fashion, but they look cool. You spread around some more packets and more beautiful mosaic patterns appear. The computer where your program operates is its universe. The program lives in computer memory has two degrees of freedom, defined as two dimensions of the screen. The marbles are the information the program processes, and the packets you spread around are its food. You in a way now act as the Sun giving its energy that originates as your volition to add more food for the program. All is swell. However (you have probably guessed it). The program will run so long as there is electricity in your house. If somebody flips the power switch, your entire creation with all its output and food packets will be gone into nothingness. The electrical energy that ran your computer and pushed bits and bytes around its circuits was in a way the God-force, without your little program would not be alive.

Now let’s get back to the information theory. Every information channel has an inherent transmitting capacity. You can think of any entity that can be said of being “alive” as a transmitting channel that manifests the universal energy or the God-force. All living entities transmit it, and have inherent capacities for its manifestation. Some channels are quite clear, and some are terribly noisy. Sometimes the noise levels get so high that we are not even able to distinguish the message being transmitted – it is garbled and can represent pretty much anything. Your uncertainty about the content is sky-high. Now let’s think of a pure you, when you were just born. I bet it a pretty sight. Your body contained a lot of clear well-defined content about you. Now as you were growing up you have picked up myriads of information patterns with majority of them running in your brain now and every day, even without you consciously knowing about them. How many of them don’t quite suit you? What are the ones that are very old and don’t reflect the reality anymore? Which ones make you think/act certain way? This is the noise that garbles your messages and lessens your capacity as the medium of the God-force.

In XIX century, French chemist Louis Pasteur discovered the germ theory of disease. He proposed that most infections were caused by tiny micro-organisms called germs. In light of the information theory it can be said that germs introduce or carry information patterns incompatible with patterns of a healthy body. As information is always tied to a physical medium, it can be said that disease is caused by bad information patterns which manifest in the form of germs. How much bad information is in our brains ready to dissipate into neighboring population of cells of other organs? How much information incompatible with your digestion program do you take in with your food? Do cancer patients have bad information clusters tied to some of their cells? Remember, information is the invisible, intangible property like energy or electric charge. Wouldn’t it be helpful to have an anti-virus program that would neutralize those patterns? A sort of filter that would protect you? That’s what the good habits and happiness are for. Good habits rid you and limit your exposure to noisy patterns, and happiness is a natural state you feel once you increase your transmitting capacity of the God-force. In this way, the task at hand can be the measurement of happiness in order to get clear idea of how your “antivirus” program is operating. How do you measure happiness? This will be a theme for some next posts. To begin, you can simply resort to the “don’t worry – be happy” principle.

“Whether you can observe a thing or not depends on the theory which you use. It is the theory which decides what can be observed”

Jeremy Campbell, the British journalist and science writer said the following about information as the fundamental component in nature:

“The view arose of information as an active agent, something that does not just sit there passively, but “informs” the material world, much as the messages of the genes instruct the machinery of the cell to build an organism… Thus information emerged as a universal principle at work in the world, giving shape to shapeless, specifying the peculiar character of living forms and even helping to determine, by means of special codes, the patterns of human thought… Evidently nature can no longer be seen as matter and energy alone. Nor can all her secrets be unlocked with the keys of chemistry and physics… A third component is needed for any explanation of the world that claims to be complete. To the powerful theories of chemistry and physics must be added a late arrival: a theory of information. Nature must be interpreted as matter, energy, and information.”

Our ability to perceive reality depends on processing apparatus that takes data from outside world. In today’s modern scientific experimental realm, something does not exist if it cannot be perceived (data collected about it). However with the development of modeling techniques, it became possible to model abstract objects taken from mathematics. Basically, data is a photography of the universe and the world around us. Our depth of perception depends on how good of the datascopes (computing power and appropriate mathematical models) we have at our disposal.

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