'Occupy Wall Street' movement

Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and author Chris Hedges talks about the 'Occupy Wall Street' movement

http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/World/1239665833/ID=2149202610

Kevin O'Leary of CBC's Dragons' Den and Shark Tank cultivates the persona of a ruthless truth-teller.

But he came across as a shallow blowhard during an interview with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges in New York about the Occupy Wall Street movement.

The Twitter-verse backlash against the bullet-headed Toronto businessman was equally brutal.

Hedges, a former New York Times foreign correspondent and prolific author on social issues, sympathizes with the protesters camped on Wall Street.

He might have been forgiven for thinking an interview on Canada's public TV network would be a little more high-toned.

Instead, O'Leary tore into Hedges, whom he misidentified as a protest organizer, and denigrated the protesters with oft-repeated criticism that they're unfocused and leaderless.

"They want to reverse the corporate coup that's taken place in the United States, that's rendered the citizenry impotent," Hedges replied.

"I don't usually appear on shows who descend to character assassination," said Hedges, clearly surprised by the personal attack but refusing to be baited. "You sound like Fox News."

He went on to praise the ideas of Canadian thinkers such as John Ralston Saul, and the prudent banking system that helped Canada avoid the 2008 financial crisis that's one of the motivating forces behind the Wall Street protest. 

Viewers clearly felt the blustering O'Leary was no match for the even-tempered, articulate Hedges.

Warren Frey noted the late Steve Jobs "once chewed out Dragons' Den (expletive) Kevin O'Leary all the way to the Apple parking lot," linking to a Globe and Mail article where O'Leary compares himself to the "tooth fairy" beside the "ferocious" Apple visionary.

Source:

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dailybrew/social-media-pummels-cbc-kevin-o-leary-nasty-185457737.html

Recent Nobel Economics Winners

2010: Peter Diamond and Dale Mortensen, U.S., and Christopher Pissarides, a British and Cypriot citizen, for their analysis of markets with search frictions.
2009: Elinor Ostrom and Oliver E. Williamson, for their analysis of economic governance.
2008: Paul Krugman, U.S., for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity.
2007: Leonid Hurwicz, Eric S. Maskin and Roger B. Myerson, U.S., for laying the foundations of mechanism design theory.
2006: Edmund S. Phelps, U.S., for furthering the understanding of the trade-offs between inflation and its effects on unemployment.
2005: Robert J. Aumann, of Israel and the U.S., and American Thomas C. Schelling, for their work in game-theory analysis.
2004: Finn E. Kydland, Norway, and Edward C. Prescott, U.S., for their contribution to dynamic macroeconomics.
2003: Robert F. Engle, United States, and Clive W.J. Granger, Britain, for their use of statistical methods for economic time series.
2002: Daniel Kahneman, United States and Israel, and Vernon L. Smith, U.S., for pioneering the use of psychological and experimental economics in decision-making.
2001: George A. Akerlof, A. Michael Spence and Joseph E. Stiglitz, U.S., for research into how the control of information affects markets.
2000: James J. Heckman and Daniel L. McFadden, U.S., for their work in developing theories to help analyze labor data and how people make work and travel decisions.
1999: Robert A. Mundell, Canada, for innovative analysis of exchange rates that helped lay the intellectual groundwork for Europe's common currency.
1998: Amartya Sen, India, for contributions to welfare economics, which help explain the economic mechanisms underlying famines and poverty.
1997: Robert C. Merton and Myron S. Scholes, U.S., for developing a formula for the valuation of stock options.

Source:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/10/10/nobel-economics-winners.html

Nobel in economics goes to Sargent, Sims of U.S. - World - CBC News

Nobel in economics goes to Sargent, Sims of U.S. - World - CBC News:

Americans Thomas Sargent and Christopher Sims won the Nobel economics prize on Monday for research that sheds light on the cause-and-effect relationship between the economy and policy instruments such as interest rates and government spending.

Sargent and Sims, both 68, carried out their research independently in the 1970s and '80s, but it is highly relevant today as world governments and central banks seek ways to steer their economies away from another recession.

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Keep a cautious eye on the Tax Man.

"A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away."
- Thomas Jefferson

Changing Times

Gee, where are all the Bankers?

Jailed Protesters but no jailed Perpetrators...

Why Can't We All Just Get Along?

Funny how this sentiment arises over and over but falls on deaf ears.


We can solve many problems in an appropriate way, without any difficulty, if we cultivate harmony, friendship and respect for one another.
Dalai Lama

Its a Mean Old World

WHERE DO WE START TO MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE?

The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there."

— Robert M. Pirsig (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance)

Wall Street Protests Are Growing

"Men., it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one."

- Charles Mackay
Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

If children are considered the future, why the smoking?

For Chinese Students, Smoking Isn’t All Bad - Businessweek:

"In dozens of rural villages in China’s western provinces, one of the first things primary school kids learn is what helps make their education possible: tobacco. The schools are sponsored by local units of China’s state-owned cigarette monopoly, China National Tobacco. “On the gates of these schools you’ll see slogans that say ‘Genius comes from hard work—tobacco helps you become talented,’” says Xu Guihua, secretary general of the Chinese Association on Tobacco Control, a privately funded lobbying group. “They are pinning their hopes on young people taking up smoking.”

Anti-tobacco groups say efforts in China to reduce sales... "


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