Archive for October, 2017

Are “Prices” A Language? Are Antitrust Laws Grounded In The First Amendment? How Do We Forestall The “Frightful Five” And Other Monopolies? Oh, And Happy Halloween! (October 30, 2017)

Posted in Amazon, Apple, Constitution, Economics, Facebook, First Amendment, Google, Internet, Language, Microsoft, Monopoly, Price, Radio, Technology on October 30, 2017 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K          “Prices for goods and services are a language spoken with numbers (7) not letters (L).”

J          “I love language.  French is the language of love and the language of diplomacy.  Accounting is the language of business.  So Prices are the language of a free market economy?”

K          “Yes.  Russian is one of the languages of literature.”

J          “So is French.”

K          “And English.”

. . .

K          “Monopolies distort Prices which distorts speech.  By distorting Prices, the public is making inaccurate and incomplete decisions and paying more for goods and services while the corporations are not internalizing externalities.”

J          “Price may just be the real Esperanto.”

. . .   

J          “The current monopolies are in part the consequence of acts of commission and even more often acts of omission by the government.”

K          “The problem with my analysis is that the First Amendment is a restriction on government activity not a requirement for government action.”

J          “So the Constitution is unavailing.  We are stuck with Congress, the executive agencies and the courts to protect us.”

K          “They do not speak our language.”

. . .

[See the interview by Terry Gross with the tech columnist Farhad Manjoo with “The New York Times” who cautions that the “Frightful Five” (Amazon, Google/Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook) are more powerful than the governments on the “Fresh Air” radio program titled “How 5 Tech Giants Have Become More Like Governments Than Companies” on October 26, 2017.]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Spanish is the language a man uses to talk to his God;

French is the language a man uses to talk to his wife;

Italian is the language a man uses to talk to his mistress;

German is the language a man uses to talk to his mule.

And English is the language a man uses to fly a plane or to surf the web or to engage in international discourse.  You create it, you talk it.

And Price is the language a man and a woman use to value and exchange resources.

Should You “Friend” The Tech Beasts And Behemoths? (October 23, 2017)

Posted in Amazon, Apple, Cyberactivities, Facebook, Google, Internet, Microsoft, Technology on October 23, 2017 by e-commentary.org

. . .

J          “They don’t befriend me.”

K          “They don’t be a friend of me either.”

. . .

J          “In a land where nothing matters and anything goes and no one cares and no one knows, it is not a surprise that the technological monsters are devouring the populace with little comment or resistance by the people.”

. . .

[See “Tech Giants, Once Seen as Saviors, Are Now Viewed as Threats” in “The New York Times” by David Streitfeld dated October 12, 2017 and “Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend” in the “Sunday Review” of “The New York Times” by Noam Cohen dated October 13, 2017.]

[October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM).   See “High-Frequency Trading = Cybercrime (June 8, 2015).”  The high frequency traders are committing cybercrimes every day.  Consult with them on how to commit and to combat cybercrime.]

Boycott Facebook (August 2, 2010)

Less Government Regulation Series:  Google (November 30, 2009)

‘Legs Network’ Is Big Brother (October 27, 2014)

Net Neutrality (April 20, 2015)

The Great Google Wall (June 27, 2016)

Restraining Google/Alphabet And Damming Amazon (July 17, 2017)

Excellence In Journalism?  Time For A True Trophy (September 24, 2012)

Brave 1984 Farm:  The Best Of All Possible Worlds (March 19, 2012)

A ‘Journalist’ Declares War On Journalists . . . And Journalism (November 28, 2016)

Bumper stickers of the week:

Big Brothers abound

“Legs Network” is Big Brother

Facebook is Big Brother

Google is Big Brother

Twitter is Big Brother

Amazon is Big Brother

ebay is Big Brother

Zillow is Big Brother

_____ is Big Brother

Little Brothers are bound

Second Annual Noble Prize In Jurisprudence (October 16, 2017)

Posted in Awards / Incentives, Civil Rights/Civil Liberties, Constitution, Courts, Judges, Judicial Arrogance, Judiciary, Justice, Law, Law School, Noble Prize in Jurisprudence on October 16, 2017 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K          “A prize dedicated to acknowledging and celebrating the work of someone who really knows something about jurisprudence and the impact of courts, judges, lawyers and police on the lives and livelihood of ordinary citizens.  Someone who lives the conviction that men and women should establish and respect some norms and standards that are promulgated clearly to all and enforced equally in favor of and against all.”

J          “The law schools are vacuous deserts of inbreeding and infighting that gestate little legal gamesters.  The bench is a magnet for wankers who played the legal game profitably and perpetuate the racket for the benefit of the judges and a few lawyers.  Is anyone qualified in America?  Is someone outside American eligible?  Give the nod to another underappreciated and overworked public defender who somehow manages to make a difference.”

K          “They were included within the group of individuals acknowledged and celebrated last year.  The recipient of the second annual Noble Prize In Jurisprudence . . . is John W. Whitehead and the Rutherford Institute for his and its dedication to the protection and defense of civil liberties and human rights.  He and the Institute are indeed public defenders of law and policy who have made and are making a difference.”

. . .

[See the e-commentary at “First Annual Noble Prize In Jurisprudence (October 17, 2016)” and “Award Deadlines (Livelines?) (July 25, 2016)”.]

Bumper sticker of the week:

I wasn’t using my civil liberties anyway

Second Annual Noble Prize In Eco-nomics (October 9, 2017)

Posted in Awards / Incentives, Economics, Economics Nobel, Nobel Prize, Noble Prize, Noble Prize in Eco-nomics on October 9, 2017 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K          “An award dedicated to acknowledging and celebrating the work of someone on the planet who really knows something about eco-nomics.  Eco-nomics is about making and sharing; e-con-omics is about taking and stealing.”

J          “The Noble Prize in Eco-nomics is a delightful and playful replacement for the discredited ‘Nobel’ Prize in Voodoo E-con-omics.  And I get it.  You get what you reward.  You need to reward what you want to get.  Who gets it this year?”

K          “The recipient of the second annual Noble Prize In Eco-nomics is . . . Norbert Häring of Planet Earth and Germany.  His considerable corpus of work is undergirded by the conviction that eco-nomics should be concerned with pursuing the public good not just producing goods.”

. . .

[See “There Is No Nobel Prize in Economics” in “AlterNet” by Yasha Levine dated October 12, 2012, “The Nobel family dissociates itself from the economics prize” in “Real-World Economics Review Blog” by Jorge Buzaglo dated October 22, 2010 and “The Beauty (Pageant?) of Economics” in “Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis” by Ronald A. Wirtz dated September 1, 1999.]

[See the e-commentary at “Announcing The First Annual Noble Prize In Eco-nomics (May 2, 2016)”, “Award Deadlines (Livelines?) (July 25, 2016)”, “From e-con-omics to eco-nomics? (August 1, 2011)” and “Skip the Nobel in Economics (October 6, 2009).”]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Eco-nomics is about good; e-con-omics is about goods

Eco-nomics is about making; e-con-omics is about taking

Eco-nomics is about making good; e-con-omics is about taking goods

“There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.”  Claude-Frédéric Bastiat

Five Red Rich Republican “Catholic” Corporatist “White” Boys . . . Versus . . .  Four Blue Comfortable Democratic “Jewish” Individualist White “Girls” . . . And All By-Products Of The S.I.C.  (October 2, 2017)

Posted in Courts, First Monday In October, Judges, Judicial Arrogance, Judiciary, Justice, Kleptocracy, Law, Schooling Industrial Complex, Supreme Court, Technology on October 2, 2017 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K          “They . . . are . . . back.”

J          “And now a majority does not have our back.”

K          “They are now poised to foist the burdens of existence on the backs of the common man.”

. . .

J          “That is the common thread.  They are all by-products of the S.I.C.”

K          “We need different products, by and by.”

J          “The common thread is that they responded to or rejected the conventional doctrine at the same narrow-minded indoctrinating institutions of the Schooling Industrial Complex (SIC).”

K          “What no one seems to get because no one seems to know and no one seems to care is that scrounging up Supreme Court Justices from the pool of Federal Appellate Court Judges is drawing the worst from the worst.”

J          “I agree.  But no one knows and no one cares.”

. . .

K          “Gorsuch may be a phenotypic Episcopalian, but he is at core a genotypic Catholic.  Thomas acquired deep scars on his journey to ‘Whitehood’ and acceptance and is also a congenital Catholic.  Breyer is intellectually female.  Sotomayor is a secular Jew.  The chasm between the five red rich Republican ‘Catholic’ corporatist ‘white’ boys and the four blue comfortable Democratic ‘Jewish’ individualist white ‘girls’ on the Supreme Court is stark and unprecedented in American history.”

J          “The country believed that it needed to get over and move beyond a debate that arose around Kennedy and his Catholicism that now cannot be raised or even intimated.”

K          “John not Tony.”

J          “John and Tony.  A person simply cannot pledge fealty and loyalty to Rome and to the U.S. Constitution.  Period.”

. . .

K          “To describe it as a war between those who want to ‘Immanentize The Eschaton’ and those who do not want to let others ‘Immanentize The Eschaton’ is too blatant for polite company.  Better to be more discrete and intimate that a group of five is quietly and surreptitiously imposing its religion as the national religion in America.”

J          “What troubles me is that the ‘Immanentize The Eschaton’ wing of the Catholics did not get a foot hold or even one lobbyist on the Court.” 

K          “What if the Court granted the current Pope the right to file an amicus curiae brief in every case?  The current Pope is a member of the ‘Immanentize The Eschaton’ wing.  Would the Supremes be obligated to listen?  To follow without question or hesitation?  That may not be so bad.”

. . .

K          “The Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology is to be announced today.  In the next few decades, the person who proves that an individual is born with the ‘I’ Gene or with the ‘We’ Gene may receive a much deserved Nobel.  At heart, 4.5 Justices have the ‘I’ Gene and 4.5 Justices have the ‘We’ Gene.  Kennedy may still have a heart and a soul and a recessive ‘We’ Gene.”

J          “Tony not John.  The helicopter beanie folks are developing AI (Artificial Intelligence).  They may need to develop AI (Artificial Ignorance) to substitute for the poor decisions and worse judgment of the judges and justices in America.  That is more of a challenge than anyone has contemplated.”

K          “A typical judge pays attention to a high profile case, dismisses the other cases and goes home.  The naïve engineers may not recognize that reality and instead create a sophisticated Digital Decision Device (DDD) that marshals the facts, discerns the law, finds truth, and does justice.”

J          “Unprecedented.  One can only hope.”

. . .

K          “The Supremes are deciding whether we live in a democracy or an oligopoly/kleptocracy in the context of a scam named after Governor Gerry.  The majority on the court owes their jobs to a broken political system and is not likely to fix it.”

J          “The privacy issues turn on whether each Justice personally feels threatened by the changes brought by technology not whether the ordinary person is threatened.”           

. . .

K          “The nascent thought is growing that the Supremes lack legitimacy and accountability in America.  Only the power they exercise that derives from the sword and purse maintains their dominion and domination.”

J          “They have transformed into a lobbying institution on First Street rather than on K Street with the disturbing ability to send out storm troopers to enforce their edicts.”

. . .

[See the e-commentary at “The ‘I’ Gene; The ‘We’ Gene:  Searching For The Genie In All Of Us (April 3, 2017)”, “Immanentizing The Eschaton: Your Supreme Court And The Great Religious War (October 7, 2013)”, “Adjunktification” In The S.I.C. (Schooling Industrial Complex) (March 13, 2017)”, “One Gun Per White Adult Male? A Flintlock Musket? The “One Man, One Gun” Decision (October 4, 2010)”, “Are Courts Irrelevant? Are Courts Illegitimate? (October 3, 2011)” and “The Supreme Court – Unrepresentative And Illegitimate: The 33.3 Percent Solution (October 1, 2012) and the “First Monday In October” e-commentary in 2014, 2015 and 2016.]

Bumper stickers of the week:

There is no law; there is only ideology

Fall falling; leaves leaving; winter winning