OVO

Economist's View: Women's Rights, What's in it for Men? [LINK-ZUM]

Our theory suggests that the historical advance of women's rights in the West wasn't due to a sudden enlightenment of mankind after millennia of patriarchy. Rather, it was driven by old-fashioned self-interest deriving from men's concern about their daughters' welfare and their descendants' education. [...] If our theory is correct, it implies that men in today's developing countries can be given a stake in women's rights. Ultimately, inducing developing countries to improve women's rights on their own accord may be a more promising strategy than trying to impose gender equality from the outside.

[Those wicked values of the West - pluralism, secularism and capitalism - are what the world needs much more than the religion of peace or any other superstition. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: atheist, christianity, islam, money, sex

Trevor Blake: The Subprime Mortgage Lending Crisis [LINK-ZUM]

After Wikipedia: "The subprime mortgage crisis is an economic problem manifesting itself through liquidity issues in the banking system owing to foreclosures which accelerated in the United States in late 2006 and triggered a global financial crisis during 2007 and 2008." See also The Giant Pool of Money, an episode of the radio show This American Life.

More educated and articulate minds than mine have writen about this problem so far. But there is one small bit of analysis that I have yet to see. This problem seems to be a demonstration that capitalism is a self-correcting economic system. If one borrows more than one can pay, one will suffer. If one buys more than one can sell, one will suffer. These are some of the terrible and marvelous aspects of capitalism, and they are not found in socialism. Socialism has no self-correcting mechanism, a flaw that makes it a doomed economic system. No one should claim that capitalism can prevent suffering. Natural disasters and human error will make sure that suffering will be with us no matter what economic system we use.

Labels: money

Trevor Blake: OVO 18 Money [LINK-ZUM]

OVO 18 Money has been published. Featuring the work of Anonymous, Dmitry Babenko, Johnny Brainwash, Klint Finley, Witta Kelssling-Jensen, Vincent Al Ken, Ruggero Maggi, Mail Art Paul, Willi Melnikov, Thom Metzger, Emilio Morandi, No Institute, Wes Unruh, Carlos Valdez and Edward Wilson. Download as PDF here. Using OVO (public domain since 1987) in your own projects is encouraged, thus each page of each issue is available as a separate downloadable free image file here.

Labels: art, money, ovo, periodical, trevorblake, zine

Bill Gertz: Outsourced passports netting govt. profits, risking national security [LINK-ZUM]

The United States has outsourced the manufacturing of its electronic passports to overseas companies - including one in Thailand that was victimized by Chinese espionage - raising concerns that cost savings are being put ahead of national security, an investigation by The Washington Times has found.

The Government Printing Office's decision to export the work has proved lucrative, allowing the agency to book more than $100 million in recent profits by charging the State Department more money for blank passports than it actually costs to make them, according to interviews with federal officials and documents obtained by The Times.

[Article continues at link. The nice thing and the ugly thing about government is that it is not a business. It is not supposed to make a profit or even break even. Money saved in this way is penny wise and pound foolish. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: money

ovo tags [LINK-ZUM]

atheist christianity money ovo portland prison science sleep sperm transportation zine

Labels: atheist, christianity, money, ovo, portland, prison, science, sleep, sperm, transportation, zine

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