Kayaking through alligators

"Today's kayak trip through the mangrove
tunnels was so fun and beautiful," she says.
A therapeutic reprieve from the weight of daily life,
"... when I'm on the move, my brain can finally
be where I am and no where else."

An Atlanta lawyer describes her furiously-paced life and her discovery.  "When you are kayaking through the alligators."

"People ask why I don't just sit and do nothing when I'm overwhelmed and exhausted. It's because when I sit I can still think, but when I'm on the move, my brain can finally be where I am and no where else."

She's right, of course. Whether it's an hour's walk around a park or a month's trek through the Omo Valley (I wish), it's a chance to (ctrl/alt/del) reboot and start fresh.

Simple stuff. Take a friend.  They could probably use the break too.

Sanity in two minutes!

Two minutes!

Two minutes is about the amount of time we gain on the way to work by driving at the maximum speed we can manage, running lights, and passing illegally. 

Police did the speed test in Chicago with siren and lights.  They beat the unmarked car, driven across the city at the speed limit and obeying all the rules, by just two minutes.

Those two minutes are critical if you're a first responder, I imagine, but on the way to work?  No, not at all.  Not worth the risks, the insults to others, the reputation for being a jerk, or the mental shape it leaves us in when we arrive.

Drivers here in Southern Maryland are nastier than most.  Perhaps it's a trickle-down from our nation's capital.  Tailgating is common, and pushing rudely through traffic is the norm for many.  Gestures abound.  Think it through ... what is going on in our minds when we drive that way?

... wake up fool, the light's green! 

... come on moron, hang up and drive.

... stupid jerk, speed up or get out of the way.

... no chance maggot, you're not cutting in in front of me!

These are conversations which, if offered face to face, would provoke interesting results.  As a private conversation with just yourself, you only stir up your own soul.

Now, from a heart view, saying those things in private is the same as saying them face to face, isn't it.  Getting emotionally involved in the go-to-work traffic is behaviorally the same as joining a fight in a bar, pretty much.  Responding in kind to the emotions of others, getting angry, focusing it on someone....  It's a character issue.  Ugh..

From a legal perspective, we know we're not supposed to hurt people.  From a character perspective, however, we know that hate and abuse in the privacy of our mind is at its root the same choice; to insult, to put them down, to do them harm.  Disappointing.

Street vendors in Nigeria, a common part

of the traffic scene

Bad driving is perhaps a cultural norm.  Too fast, too close, cutting in, pushing to get in front ....

Djibouti - and a truckload of goats.

The country installed their first

traffic light while we were there.

Everybody kind of ignored it.

     I was surprised to find that drivers in Africa (Kenya, Nigeria, Djibouti, Sao Tome) are actually nicer than Maryland drivers.  Even with city traffic and no functioning traffic lights, they just get along, they make room for each other, and gridlock doesn't happen.  Nobody sweats passing or being passed. Everybody gets where they're going, and everybody else is OK with that. 

TWO MINUTES!
Which brings us back to the 'two minutes'.  That's all we get for driving like a jackass.  That's all the benefit there is to behaving like an impatient child throwing a tantrum.  Publicly.  For everyone to see.

What if we relaxed and enjoyed those extra two minutes, maybe with some pleasant music or a little meditation?   We could start the day refreshed instead of burned and fouled by anger.

If we've done it in our heart (insult, harm, verbal assault, name calling ...), we've done it.  It's the same.   Jesus said calling someone a fool was enough by itself to ... well, you know. 

Thoughts?

Hmmm; how did I come to this understanding?

Good judgement comes with experience, and most of that comes from bad judgement. 

P.S.   A safe following distance is 2-4 seconds.  At speed, that's a few car lengths, at least.   Sure, that leaves room for someone to cut in front of us.  Smile and let 'em.  Graciously make a place for others; we'll all get where we're going.

A Gorilla in the Global Economy?

“Let them eat credit” was a line written by Prof. Raghuram Govind Rajan, and it remains as cleverly appropriate as any on our descent into The Great Recession.  Among the many factors ...

These are structural concerns, not party differences. 
Both parties have brought us here over decades. 
Despite heroic attempts, neither candidate or party
has yet addressed adequately our national concerns
in this arena.

In the U.S., our middle and lower classes scrambled to get by in a decade-long decline of wages and salaries.  The government, the FED, and Wall Street gave us their solution; we were offered cheap credit as a substitute for wage improvements. 

We took it.

Then it took us - and the country, and much of the world - to the cleaners.  The U.S., the E.U. and most national economies were wagged like a dog's tail by the risk-taking (and errors) of a corporate few.

 

Red companies are super-connected, yellow are very connected.
At the core, just 147 corporations, mainly banks

We're beginning to understand why and how the upheaval happened.  Among our discoveries, it seems there's a large gorilla at the heart of the global economy.

 

A surprising study recently by the University of Zurich discovered just 147 corporations* at the core of the entire world's economy (illustrated here).   According to Forbes, those few hold the reins to the entire global economy.

*Their analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a tightly interconnected core group, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.

There are too many corporations in this newly identified core to be a conspiracy for world rule, something that will disappoint the radical conspiracists.  They are also too few in number and too poorly regulated to be particularly predictable, but they are perhaps worth watching.  It's just a naturally-forming network where newcomers connect preferentially to highly connected members.  The structure is inherently unstable and has been subject to large-scale manipulation.

Sample of the international financial network, where the nodes represent

major financial institutions belonging to the core and the links give the

strongest existing relations among them; node colors indicate different

geographical areas: EU (red), US (blue), other countries (green); the 

width and the darkness of the links show their weight; only the most 

prominent links are shown; the network shows a high connectivity, 

with many mutual cross-shareholdings as well as longer cycles; this 

indicates that the financial sector is strongly interdependent, which 

make the network vulnerable to instability.

Many of these firms are financially larger than all but a few of the world's wealthiest countries.  Many are officially identified as 'too big to fail', a vulnerability increased by the interconnectedness of their ownership and control structures.

That the economic future of the world is in the hands of so few is troubling... 

There is nothing wrong with working hard, contributing meaningfully to the marketplace, and becoming wealthy.  What we have, though, is a broken system that funnels most of the world's productivity and most of the power into the hands of the ultra-wealthy and the gigantic corporations that they own.  Their business model, of course, is focused not on serving the citizens of the world but on their bottom line.

There are perhaps benefits to such an economic model, but the likely risks and downside continue to increase in magnitude.  The model is outside the regulatory pervue of any one nation and beyond our national and international attempts to rein it in as yet.

From a local (national, governmental) view, America's contribution to this juncture distributes across Republicans and Democrats.  This trends began in the last century with deregulatory initiatives which each administration has supported at the behest of industry.  Attempts at regulatory reform have had mixed results so far, and are considered inadequate. 

So, who are these few who can so shake the world with their actions?

The top 50 of the super-connected, transnational companies ...

1. Barclays      GB

2. Capital Group Companies Inc    US
3. FMR Corporation                        US
4. AXA                                     FR
5. State Street Corporation            US
6. JP Morgan Chase                      US                      ... some familiar names.
7. Legal & General Group GB                          45 of these are financial sector corporations.
8. Vanguard Group Inc                   US            Together, these 50 control 40% of the world marketplace.
9. UBS AG                       CH                            A third of these are on the 'too big to fail' list.*
10. Merrill Lynch & Co Inc*           US         Several have been caught illegally manipulating the market.
11. Wellington Management Co     US        Each has a history of 'bottom line' motivation.
12. Deutsche Bank AG    DE                        None can claim having served the interests of their host nation.
13. Franklin Resources Inc              US         Many are suspect for illegal market manipulation at
14. Credit Suisse Group       CH                       governmental behest (foreign and domestic firms).
15. Walton Enterprises LLC            US         There are documented cases where such activity
16. Bank of New York Mellon        US            was only inadvertently discovered and thwarted.
17. Natixis                               FR
18. Goldman Sachs Group Inc       US

19. T Rowe Price Group Inc             US
20. Legg Mason Inc                          US
21. Morgan Stanley                       US
22. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial  JP
23. Northern Trust Corporation       US
24. Société Générale               FR
25. Bank of America                      US
26. Lloyds TSB Group plc        GB
27. Invesco plc                          GB
28. Allianz SE 29. TIAA        DE
29. TIAA                                           US
30. Old Mutual Public Limited GB
31. Aviva plc                             GB
32. Schroders plc                      GB
33. Dodge & Cox                             US
34. Lehman Brothers*                   US
35. Sun Life Financial Inc     CA
36. Standard Life plc               DE
37. CNCE                                    FR
38. Nomura Holdings Inc     JP
39. The Depository Trust Company  US
40. Massachusetts Mutual Life        US
41. ING Groep NV         NL
42. Brandes Investment Partners LP
43. Unicredito Italiano SPA
44. Deposit Insurance Corporation of Japan
45. Vereniging Aegon

46. BNP Paribas
47. Affiliated Managers Group Inc
48. Resona Holdings Inc
49. Capital Group International Inc
50. China Petrochemical Group Company
* Lehman still existed in the 2007 dataset used

Here's a Wikepedia breakout of the 2007–2012 global financial crisis elements: Major dimensions 2000s energy crisis 2008–2012 global recession Automotive industry crisis of 2008–2010 Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act European sovereign-debt crisis Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Subprime crisis impact timeline Subprime mortgage crisis United States housing bubble United States housing market correction Countries Belgium Greece Hungary Iceland Ireland Latvia Russia Spain Ukraine Causes Causes of the 2007–2012 global financial crisis Causes of the 2008–2012 global recession Causes of the United States housing bubble Credit rating agencies and the subprime crisis Government policies and the subprime mortgage crisis Summits 34th G8 summit (July 2008) 2008 G-20 Washington summit (November 2008) APEC Peru 2008 (November 2008) 2009 G-20 London Summit (April 2009) Government legislation and spending Banking (Special Provisions) Act 2008 Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) 2008 European Union stimulus plan 2008 United Kingdom bank rescue package Chinese economic stimulus program China–Japan–South Korea trilateral summit Anglo Irish Bank Corporation Act 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 Green New Deal 2008–2009 Keynesian resurgence Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 Federal Reserve responses to the subprime crisis Government intervention during the subprime mortgage crisis National fiscal policy response to the late 2000s recession Regulatory responses to the subprime crisis Subprime mortgage crisis solutions debate Company bailouts, buyouts, or bankruptcies General Motors Chrysler Northern Rock Bear Stearns,  New York City Catholic Building Society Countrywide Financial, Calabasas, California Alliance & Leicester Roskilde Bank Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Derbyshire Building Society Cheshire Building Society Merrill Lynch,  New York City American International Group, New York City Lehman Brothers, New York City  HBOS Washington Mutual, Seattle, Washington Lehman Brothers Bradford & Bingley Fortis Dexia Wachovia, Charlotte, North Carolina Landsbanki Glitnir Kaupthing Bank BankWest (subsidiary of HBOS) Sovereign Bank, Wyomissing, Pennsylvania Barnsley Building Society National City Bank, Cleveland, Ohio Commerce Bancorp, Cherry Hill, New Jersey Scarborough Building Society IndyMac Federal Bank Anglo Irish Bank BTA Bank Alliance Bank Bank of Antigua Straumur Investment Bank Dunfermline Building Society Caja de Ahorros Castilla La Mancha Philippine American Life and General Insurance Company Chesham Building Society (100% Bought) CajaSur So, what happens next?  We could leave such conversation to the wingers, R or L, and go on our plebeian way.  After all, these things are difficult and one person can't make a difference anyway.     Northern Rock Bear Stearns,  New York City Catholic Building Society Countrywide Financial, Calabasas, California Alliance & Leicester Roskilde Bank Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Derbyshire Building Society Cheshire Building Society Merrill Lynch,  New York City American International Group, New York City Lehman Brothers, New York City  HBOS Washington Mutual, Seattle, Washington Lehman Brothers Bradford & Bingley Fortis Dexia Wachovia, Charlotte, North Carolina Landsbanki Glitnir Kaupthing Bank BankWest (subsidiary of HBOS) Sovereign Bank, Wyomissing, Pennsylvania Barnsley Building Society National City Bank, Cleveland, Ohio Commerce Bancorp, Cherry Hill, New Jersey Scarborough Building Society IndyMac Federal Bank Anglo Irish Bank BTA Bank Alliance Bank Bank of Antigua Straumur Investment Bank Dunfermline Building Society Caja de Ahorros Castilla La Mancha Philippine American Life and General Insurance Company Chesham Building Society (100% Bought) CajaSur So, what happens next?  We could leave such conversation to the wingers, R or L, and go on our plebeian way.  After all, these things are difficult and one person can't make a difference anyway.