Quotations and comments from "Plutocrats - The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else by Chrystia Freeland
"The rise of the 1 percent is a global phenomenon .."
"The 1 percent is outpacing everyone else in the emerging economies as well."
"Today two terrifically powerful forces are driving economic change: the technology revolution and globalization."
"Globalization is working - the world overall is getting richer. But a lot of the costs of that transition are being borne by specific groups of workers in the developed West."
" ..Credit Suisse calculated that there were about 29.6 million millionaires < > in the world, about half a percent of the total global population. North Americans .. account for 37 percent .. 37.2 percent .. are European ..Asia-Pacific is home to ..19.2 percent .. there are just over 1 million in China{3.4 percent}."
"Forbes classifies 840 of the 1,226 people on its 2012 billionaire ranking as self-made."
"In 2011, after Viktor Yanukovych, whose candidacy was backed by several eastern Ukrainian oligarchs, was elected president, he imprisoned Ms. Tymoshenko, in a politically motivated case redolent of Mikhail Khodorkovsky."
"When it comes to the creation of twenty-first-century billionaires, the USSR's sale of the century is also the most powerful driver, more important than Silicon Valley's technological revolution or the flourishing of finance on Wall Street and in the city of London."
"The fire sale of the assets of the former Soviet Union stands out because it marked such a sharp shift from nearly total state ownership ..But it was also part of a wider global trend."
" .. the seventy richest members of the NPC{National People's Congress in China} made more money in 2011 than the total combined net worth of all the members of all three branches of U.S. government - the president and his cabinet, both houses of congress, and the justices of the supreme court{all 660 members of the three federal branches}."!!
" .. there were 271 billionaires in China in 2011 .."
"China's plutocrats don't fight the state because they are the state - and when any of them forget that, they are treated with summary brutality: between 2003 and 2011, at least fourteen Chinese billionaires were executed."!!{also quoted as a fact in blog # 154}.
Monday, June 10, 2013
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Experimental Blog # 160
Quotations from "Secrets of Silicon Valley" - What Everyone Else Can Learn from the Innovation Capital of the World by Deborah Perry Piscione
"Silicon Valley is a meritocratic culture that rewards innovative ideas, independent thinking, and hubris. It .. also embraces youth, failure, and transparency."
" ..Silicon Valley technologies impact the world's most basic ideas about work, learning, and lifestyles."
"We're just beginning a global startup revolution in talent development and idea creation , a movement so widespread that it could redefine the foundational concept of business and work in the twenty-first century."
" ..Silicon Valley is responsible for creating almost every technological innovation that has and will continue to change the global world in the way we live, work, and socialize."
"No longer does China want to be known as the world's manufacturing plant, but rather seven strategic emerging industries have been targeted for growth: next-generation information technology, biotechnology, new enegry, energy conservation, clean energy vehicles, new materials, and high-end manufacturing equipment."
"Silicon Valley is essentially a one-industry town < > all of its energy and resources go toward creating the best possible high-tech economy."
"Silicon Valley is a meritocratic culture that rewards innovative ideas, independent thinking, and hubris. It .. also embraces youth, failure, and transparency."
" ..Silicon Valley technologies impact the world's most basic ideas about work, learning, and lifestyles."
"We're just beginning a global startup revolution in talent development and idea creation , a movement so widespread that it could redefine the foundational concept of business and work in the twenty-first century."
" ..Silicon Valley is responsible for creating almost every technological innovation that has and will continue to change the global world in the way we live, work, and socialize."
"No longer does China want to be known as the world's manufacturing plant, but rather seven strategic emerging industries have been targeted for growth: next-generation information technology, biotechnology, new enegry, energy conservation, clean energy vehicles, new materials, and high-end manufacturing equipment."
"Silicon Valley is essentially a one-industry town < > all of its energy and resources go toward creating the best possible high-tech economy."
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Experimental Blog # 159
Quotations from "Bend, Not Break - A Life in Two Worlds" by Peng Fu with MeiMei Fox
"When I was little, I thought dragonflies chose to hover just above my family's garden because they liked to admire its beauty."
"I read somewhere that men learn from studying theories, wheras women learn by observing others."
"The Chinese have a proverb:
"The number one strategy is retreat." "
" I possess no extraordinary talents. I simply was born with the couriosity to learn, the tenacity to make a better life, the desire to help others, and a great deal of resilience."
" ...challenging experiences break us all at some point - our bodies and minds, our hearts and egos. When we put ourselves back together, we find that we are no longer perfectly straight, but rather bent and cracked. Yet it is through these cracks that our authenticity shines."
"When I was little, I thought dragonflies chose to hover just above my family's garden because they liked to admire its beauty."
"I read somewhere that men learn from studying theories, wheras women learn by observing others."
"The Chinese have a proverb:
"The number one strategy is retreat." "
" I possess no extraordinary talents. I simply was born with the couriosity to learn, the tenacity to make a better life, the desire to help others, and a great deal of resilience."
" ...challenging experiences break us all at some point - our bodies and minds, our hearts and egos. When we put ourselves back together, we find that we are no longer perfectly straight, but rather bent and cracked. Yet it is through these cracks that our authenticity shines."
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Experimental Blog # 158
Comments on "Animal Wise" - The Thoughts and Emotions of Our Fellow Creatures by Virginia Morell
Although the 18th century philosopher Voltaire and the 19th century scientist Charles Darwin seem to be exceptions, the science of animal cognition, or cognitive ethology, did not become genuinely scientifically respectable until later in the 20th century.
This science attempts to describe the mental lives of other animals, from "ants to apes"; and more specifically in this book: fish, birds, rats, elephants, dolphins, dogs and wolves.
What do their minds contain? Images, smells, sounds, emotions, memories, self-awareness; even imagination and abstract concepts?
The contributions of contempory science women are very noticable and fundamental. In this book they include: Jane Goodall, Victoria Braithwaite, Irene Pepperberg, Karen McComb, Cynthia Moss, Diana Reiss, and Rachel Smolker.
Although the 18th century philosopher Voltaire and the 19th century scientist Charles Darwin seem to be exceptions, the science of animal cognition, or cognitive ethology, did not become genuinely scientifically respectable until later in the 20th century.
This science attempts to describe the mental lives of other animals, from "ants to apes"; and more specifically in this book: fish, birds, rats, elephants, dolphins, dogs and wolves.
What do their minds contain? Images, smells, sounds, emotions, memories, self-awareness; even imagination and abstract concepts?
The contributions of contempory science women are very noticable and fundamental. In this book they include: Jane Goodall, Victoria Braithwaite, Irene Pepperberg, Karen McComb, Cynthia Moss, Diana Reiss, and Rachel Smolker.
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Experimental Blog # 157
Comments on "Gold Rush in the Jungle" - The Race to Discover and Defend the Rarest Animals of Vietnam's "Lost World" by Dan Drollette
During the War in Vietnam, or the American War, or the Second Indochina War, hundreds of thousands of tons of bombs and over 12 million gallons of herbicides destroyed over 850 square miles of forest.
The destruction in Vietnam, although enormous, was concentrated in selected areas of the country's 127,240 square miles of total area. There were many remarkable places where native wildlife flourished; including 63 new species of vertebrates, up to and over 200 pounds, that were unknown to science before 1992.
But, finally, came peace, developement, and "prosperity", as well as, extinction.
During the War in Vietnam, or the American War, or the Second Indochina War, hundreds of thousands of tons of bombs and over 12 million gallons of herbicides destroyed over 850 square miles of forest.
The destruction in Vietnam, although enormous, was concentrated in selected areas of the country's 127,240 square miles of total area. There were many remarkable places where native wildlife flourished; including 63 new species of vertebrates, up to and over 200 pounds, that were unknown to science before 1992.
But, finally, came peace, developement, and "prosperity", as well as, extinction.
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Experimental Blog # 156
Quotations and comments from "Death Zones and Darling Spies" - Seven Years of Vietnam War Reporting by Beverly Deepe Keever
" .. in escalating the U.S. military presence in Vietnam, Kennedy brushed aside the prophetic warning given to him in 1962 by French general Charles de Gaulle: "You will, step by step, be sucked into a bottomless military and political quagmire."
"These newcomers < > about 6,000 < > nearly tenfold the limit of 685 < > allowed < > under international accords agreed upon on July 21, 1954 .. "
"Also, as the American public was to learn years later, breaching this international agreement was Kenndy's secret order initiating covert operations against North Vietnam and Laos conducted by U.S. Special Forces .."
Beginning in 1961, "U.S. helicopters would go on to fly an amazing number of over thirty-six million{!!!} flights over South Vietnam and North Vietnam."
"Unwilling to support either a Communist takeover of Vietnam or continued French colonial rule, Eisenhower vigorously supported Diem as a third force." "If elections had been held in 1956, Eisenhower is quoted as saying that 80 percent of the Vietnamese people would have voted for Ho Chi Minh .."
"Calling Republican Senate leader Everett Dirksen for the second time, Johnson implored him to intervene again with Nixon < >"'They're contacting a foreign power in the middle of a war. < > This is treason." Dirksen responded simply, "I know."" This is regarding Richard Nixon's contacts with the South Vietnamese before the 1968 American election.
"On June 8, 1969, Nixon announced the United States would unilaterally withdraw 25,000 troops from Vietnam. Like a giant yo-yo, U.S. numbers began a free fall, from a peak of 543,000 on March 31, 1969, until on December 31, 1973, "less than 250" U.S. military personnel were assigned in Vietnam."??!!
The last chapter of Beverly Deepe Keever's book is mostly about Pham Xuan An, the author's evidently remarkable "associate and a Communist spy."
" .. in escalating the U.S. military presence in Vietnam, Kennedy brushed aside the prophetic warning given to him in 1962 by French general Charles de Gaulle: "You will, step by step, be sucked into a bottomless military and political quagmire."
"These newcomers < > about 6,000 < > nearly tenfold the limit of 685 < > allowed < > under international accords agreed upon on July 21, 1954 .. "
"Also, as the American public was to learn years later, breaching this international agreement was Kenndy's secret order initiating covert operations against North Vietnam and Laos conducted by U.S. Special Forces .."
Beginning in 1961, "U.S. helicopters would go on to fly an amazing number of over thirty-six million{!!!} flights over South Vietnam and North Vietnam."
"Unwilling to support either a Communist takeover of Vietnam or continued French colonial rule, Eisenhower vigorously supported Diem as a third force." "If elections had been held in 1956, Eisenhower is quoted as saying that 80 percent of the Vietnamese people would have voted for Ho Chi Minh .."
"Calling Republican Senate leader Everett Dirksen for the second time, Johnson implored him to intervene again with Nixon < >"'They're contacting a foreign power in the middle of a war. < > This is treason." Dirksen responded simply, "I know."" This is regarding Richard Nixon's contacts with the South Vietnamese before the 1968 American election.
"On June 8, 1969, Nixon announced the United States would unilaterally withdraw 25,000 troops from Vietnam. Like a giant yo-yo, U.S. numbers began a free fall, from a peak of 543,000 on March 31, 1969, until on December 31, 1973, "less than 250" U.S. military personnel were assigned in Vietnam."??!!
The last chapter of Beverly Deepe Keever's book is mostly about Pham Xuan An, the author's evidently remarkable "associate and a Communist spy."
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Experimental Blog # 155
Quotations and notes from "Almost Everyone's Guide to Science" - The Universe, Life and Everything by John Gribbin with Mary Gribbin
Some important developments in the sciences have been made since 1997 when this book was written, however:
" ...the scientific world view < > has taken only about four hundred years to develop {starting from the time of Galileo,"
"Everything in science is about models and predictions," However, "None of the models is the ultimate Deep Truth, but they all have their part to play." " ..even the best model is only a good one in its own context,"
" ..science is primarily an investigation of our place in the Universe -" "It is all about where we came from, and where we are going."
"When physicists try to describe the way the world works at the most fundamental level, the most important component of their toolkit is the concept of a field."
"Ice can only grow over the poles of our planet if the supply of ocean currents carrying warm water from tropical latitudes is cut off, "
"With the present-day geography of the Earth, the natural state of the planet is to be in the grip of a full ice age."
"Roughly speaking < > the pattern of climate change over the past five million years or so has been one in which full ice ages, each a bit more than a hundred thousand years long, are separated by shorter, relatively warm intervals, each about ten or twenty thousand years long."
" ..cold winters go hand in hand with hot summers, "
"Drought goes hand in hand with the spread of ice, "
" ..the important point about all of these astronmical influences on climate is that they do not change the total amount of heat received by the whole Earth over a whole year. All they can do is rearrange the distribution of heat between the seasons."
Some important developments in the sciences have been made since 1997 when this book was written, however:
" ...the scientific world view < > has taken only about four hundred years to develop {starting from the time of Galileo,"
"Everything in science is about models and predictions," However, "None of the models is the ultimate Deep Truth, but they all have their part to play." " ..even the best model is only a good one in its own context,"
" ..science is primarily an investigation of our place in the Universe -" "It is all about where we came from, and where we are going."
"When physicists try to describe the way the world works at the most fundamental level, the most important component of their toolkit is the concept of a field."
"Ice can only grow over the poles of our planet if the supply of ocean currents carrying warm water from tropical latitudes is cut off, "
"With the present-day geography of the Earth, the natural state of the planet is to be in the grip of a full ice age."
"Roughly speaking < > the pattern of climate change over the past five million years or so has been one in which full ice ages, each a bit more than a hundred thousand years long, are separated by shorter, relatively warm intervals, each about ten or twenty thousand years long."
" ..cold winters go hand in hand with hot summers, "
"Drought goes hand in hand with the spread of ice, "
" ..the important point about all of these astronmical influences on climate is that they do not change the total amount of heat received by the whole Earth over a whole year. All they can do is rearrange the distribution of heat between the seasons."
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