18.1.15
16.11.14
Bennies and Bond
While writing this post, I ran across this interesting reference about James Bond:
Ian Fleming's James Bond References[edit]
In the series of books by Ian Fleming, the character James Bond repeatedly makes use of Benzedrine in times of peak stress and typically during the climax of various books. Actually, Ian Fleming first makes reference to Benzedrine in his first book 'Casino Royale' written in 1953. Le Chiffre, alias "Die Nummer", "Mr. Number", "Herr Ziffer" and other translations of "The Number" or "The Cipher" in various languages, is the paymaster of the "Syndicat des Ouvriers d'Alsace" (French for "Alsatian Workmen's Union"), a SMERSH-controlled trade union. In the very early scenes, Le Chiffre is noted to make use of a Benzadrine inhaler as he plays baccarat. This detail is not lost in the 2006 film remake of the same name with 'Le Chiffre' played by Danish actor, Mads Mikkelsen,also uses an inhaler. Benzedrine, however, was now considered to be too 'druggy' so a platinum cased Salbutamol inhaler makes do instead.< 'Casino Royale' 1953 Ian Fleming/ 'Casino Royale' 2006 Filmref> The character of James Bond's first use of Benzedrine is in the form of tablets in the book Live and Let Die [8] "...He still felt perfectly fresh and the elation and clarity of mind produced by the Benzedrine were still with him..." This scene occurs as James Bond is maneuvering through an underwater coral reef toward the island of Surprise off the coast ofJamaica. The next instance of James Bond using Benzedrine is in Moonraker where early in the book he uses a champagne and Benzedrine mixed drink (to which he says "Never Again.") to stay alert to beat the villain Hugo Drax at a game of high stakes contract bridge. Additionally, when James Bond is about to deal with two gangsters in The Spy Who Loved Me over a long night at the "Dreamy Pines Motor Court motel "...He took out two and when I gave him the coffee he swallowed them down. 'Benzedrine.' That'll keep me awake for tonight." says Bond.[9]
11.4.13
Footnote to 4.12.13 Post
Actually, I read Nock's biography of Henry George, got bogged down in one of George's books, quit reading it, then got distracted by reading forays into Taleb, gardening, and the Rosary. I'll have to get my H.G. second-hand (probably through Crunden's excellent Nock bio) in order to delve back into Nock. A person can't be an expert on Nock if he doesn't understand George, and at this time, I don't.
13.1.13
Article Excerpts
"TARP did bar recipients from a whole range of exorbitant pay
practices, which is one reason the biggest banks, like Goldman Sachs,
worked so quickly to repay their TARP loans.
"But there were all sorts of ways around the restrictions. Banks could apply to the Fed and other regulators for waivers, which were often approved (one senior FDIC official tells me he recommended denying "golden parachute" payments to Citigroup officials, only to see them approved by superiors). They could get bailouts through programs other than TARP that did not place limits on bonuses. Or they could simply pay bonuses not prohibited under TARP. In one of the worst episodes, the notorious lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac paid out more than $200 million in bonuses between 2008 and 2010, even though the firms (a) lost more than $100 billion in 2008 alone, and (b) required nearly $400 billion in federal assistance during the bailout period.
"Even worse was the incredible episode in which bailout recipient AIG paid more than $1 million each to 73 employees of AIG Financial Products, the tiny unit widely blamed for having destroyed the insurance giant (and perhaps even triggered the whole crisis) with its reckless issuance of nearly half a trillion dollars in toxic credit-default swaps. The "retention bonuses," paid after the bailout, went to 11 employees who no longer worked for AIG."
* * * * * * *
"Even worse, the $700 billion in TARP loans ended up being dwarfed by more than $7.7 trillion in secret emergency lending that the Fed awarded to Wall Street – loans that were only disclosed to the public after Congress forced an extraordinary one-time audit of the Federal Reserve. The extent of this "secret bailout" didn't come out until November 2011, when Bloomberg Markets, which went to court to win the right to publish the data, detailed how the country's biggest firms secretly received trillions in near-free money throughout the crisis.
"Goldman Sachs, which had made such a big show of being reluctant about accepting $10 billion in TARP money, was quick to cash in on the secret loans being offered by the Fed. By the end of 2008, Goldman had snarfed up $34 billion in federal loans – and it was paying an interest rate of as low as just 0.01 percent for the huge cash infusion. Yet that funding was never disclosed to shareholders or taxpayers, a fact Goldman confirms. "We did not disclose the amount of our participation in the two programs you identify," says Goldman spokesman Michael Duvally."
* * * * * * *
"So what exactly did the bailout accomplish? It built a banking system that discriminates against community banks, makes Too Big to Fail banks even Too Bigger to Failier, increases risk, discourages sound business lending and punishes savings by making it even easier and more profitable to chase high-yield investments than to compete for small depositors. The bailout has also made lying on behalf of our biggest and most corrupt banks the official policy of the United States government. And if any one of those banks fails, it will cause another financial crisis, meaning we're essentially wedded to that policy for the rest of eternity – or at least until the markets call our bluff, which could happen any minute now."
"But there were all sorts of ways around the restrictions. Banks could apply to the Fed and other regulators for waivers, which were often approved (one senior FDIC official tells me he recommended denying "golden parachute" payments to Citigroup officials, only to see them approved by superiors). They could get bailouts through programs other than TARP that did not place limits on bonuses. Or they could simply pay bonuses not prohibited under TARP. In one of the worst episodes, the notorious lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac paid out more than $200 million in bonuses between 2008 and 2010, even though the firms (a) lost more than $100 billion in 2008 alone, and (b) required nearly $400 billion in federal assistance during the bailout period.
"Even worse was the incredible episode in which bailout recipient AIG paid more than $1 million each to 73 employees of AIG Financial Products, the tiny unit widely blamed for having destroyed the insurance giant (and perhaps even triggered the whole crisis) with its reckless issuance of nearly half a trillion dollars in toxic credit-default swaps. The "retention bonuses," paid after the bailout, went to 11 employees who no longer worked for AIG."
* * * * * * *
"Even worse, the $700 billion in TARP loans ended up being dwarfed by more than $7.7 trillion in secret emergency lending that the Fed awarded to Wall Street – loans that were only disclosed to the public after Congress forced an extraordinary one-time audit of the Federal Reserve. The extent of this "secret bailout" didn't come out until November 2011, when Bloomberg Markets, which went to court to win the right to publish the data, detailed how the country's biggest firms secretly received trillions in near-free money throughout the crisis.
"Goldman Sachs, which had made such a big show of being reluctant about accepting $10 billion in TARP money, was quick to cash in on the secret loans being offered by the Fed. By the end of 2008, Goldman had snarfed up $34 billion in federal loans – and it was paying an interest rate of as low as just 0.01 percent for the huge cash infusion. Yet that funding was never disclosed to shareholders or taxpayers, a fact Goldman confirms. "We did not disclose the amount of our participation in the two programs you identify," says Goldman spokesman Michael Duvally."
* * * * * * *
"So what exactly did the bailout accomplish? It built a banking system that discriminates against community banks, makes Too Big to Fail banks even Too Bigger to Failier, increases risk, discourages sound business lending and punishes savings by making it even easier and more profitable to chase high-yield investments than to compete for small depositors. The bailout has also made lying on behalf of our biggest and most corrupt banks the official policy of the United States government. And if any one of those banks fails, it will cause another financial crisis, meaning we're essentially wedded to that policy for the rest of eternity – or at least until the markets call our bluff, which could happen any minute now."
27.4.11
Babbitt
Actually, Nock and those patrons wrote in the age of Babbitt. The folks who created The Nockian Society came a generation later, but the "spirit" of Babbitt (Rotary Clubs, etc.) was still strong.
17.4.11
Ancient versus Modern Armies
Bertrand de Jouvenel's On Power breaks down the alarming differences between pre-1789 armies and modern armies. He shows that the size of armies started to grow with the rise of republics and democracies. As people started to view the "nation" as their own (a public thing) instead of a private possession of the king, it became more natural for the people to die for it, so armies started increasing in size.
4.18.11
"Republic, respublica, by the very force of the term, means the public wealth, or, in good English, the commonwealth; that is, government founded not on personal or private wealth, but on the public wealth, public territory, or domain . . . the king or emperor does not govern in his own private right . . . ". Orestes Brownson, The American Republic (ISI 2003), p. 23.
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