Why so silent on the huge elephant in the room?

[Wombaticus Rex]

WR may have been tongue in cheek in mentioning "carrying capacity" but I at least see some useful insight in the perception that economics is a subroutine of ecology that humanity best heed; especially as the predators, militaries, and general greed head narcissists don't.

Not in the least; Nature is the teacher, soil & water the true foundation of civilization, although plumbing sure is nice, too.

FWIW, I don't think your thoughtful (and surprising!) contributions to this thread are out of place in the least bit. Not only is this technically a thread about elephants, but I think it's a testament to the crooked timber that makes RI great. Surely this is a more fertile conversation for it: thank you.

Here in Burlington, there's a small outfit up on UVM campus called The Gund Institute for Ecological Economics involved in quite interesting work, and getting some traction in the process. They are certainly taken more seriously in 2015 than they were in the early days.

Our Purpose
At the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, we integrate natural and social sciences to understand the interactions between people and nature and to help build a sustainable future.

We are a hub for transdisciplinary scholarship, based at the University of Vermont and comprising diverse faculty, students, and collaborators worldwide. Together we conduct research at the interface of ecological, social, and economic systems, develop creative, practical solutions to local and global environmental challenges, and provide future leaders with the tools and understanding necessary to navigate the transition to a sustainable society.

Naturally enough, what that all boils down to is a lot of .pdf reports, but their research is consistently interesting to me -- as is the work Yale Forestry School has been doing in bringing some real data science scale to quantifying what precious little we have left.

[backtoiam]

Piggy backing on what wombaticus and PufPuf93 have said about ecology I can't resist posting the following link as it relates to "sharing space." Considering the current trajectory of biological nanotechnology, and the projected arc of the future evolution of our species in the space, I somehow find this more than relevant. If I remember correctly his first video airing of this technology attracted an enormous amount of hits, not only due to it's obvious educational functions, but due to it's much deeper implications and possible scenarios in the future of natural human evolution as it couples with the technological biological tampering by nanotechnology of the future. Now that I have wandered far from the reservation, the main topic of the thread, I apologize, but I am hoping some will pick up on the broader implications of our etheric world and find it of interest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fvc_6rd2Trw

[divideandconquer]

It is reported on. (Christ's Sake, we're talking about a report.) It is reported on to a specialist audience because they're the only ones who really give a fuck. Changes to VAR Ratios isn't local paper material, although I think portfolio composition would be. The only time I've seen mainstream reporting or activist messaging focus on portfolio holdings, it's in a divestment / shaming context.

Still, something like shifting a significant portion of a fund into tech stocks should be of interest to the average consumavoter type, especially if they're Jim Cramer fans & armchair investors. Or ZeroHedge's demographic.

After all, why can't these multibillion dollar funds pay for XYZ? Because then they're gone. You convert investments into expenses by selling them (presumably to other institutional investors!) -- these funds are being managed by Wall Street (or private actors in California or Boston or Chicago or...) and you get access by withdrawing your funds.

Do you agree that your argument could also be framed as "We should raid the pensions funds of public employees to provide better services for the public?"

Is your concern primarily with the private management of public money, or more with the social impact of austerity theater when all this money is available, by virtue of the fact that motivated private sector expertise generates a much better return on investment than government management does? Do you think JP Morgan administers the EBT card program purely because of corruption, or at least partly because they're one of the only businesses with the infrastructure and scale to actually make that system work?

Okay, messaged received...ordinary people should not concern themselves with the CAFR. Got it.

“Ignorance is the necessary condition, i do not say of happiness, but of life itself. If we knew everything, we could not endure existence a single hour. The sentiments that make it sweet to us, or at any rate tolerable, spring from a falsehood, and are fed on illusions."-- Anatole France

[Wombaticus Rex]

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place." - George Bernard Shaw

Again, I'm all for people learning about the reality they inhabit -- seems like a good idea even in practice -- it's just the framing I'm mocking. This isn't an ARG. I think a lot of your claims outreach the actual material. Such as:

Well, I just think people would be furious upon learning the budget deficits they use as a pretext for austerity measures is calculated from only one-third of the government's total revenue, and that two-thirds of the wealth, generated and created through the use of the people's money, is not reported on at all to ensure that the people do not benefit from the money that they contributed.

You're saying that you've discovered a government report that proves the government doesn't report on this issue. Right?

[Searcher08]

My suggestion is to have a wider frame than CAFR as the keys to the kingdom.

As an indirect answer to some of the questions posed in this thread Catherine Austin Fitts' work is essential reading. She created a company in the late 90s that investigated place based money flows (Hamilton Securities) and which revealed that by re-engineering the local economy to keep money flowing within the local system, that there was massive amount of money made available.
Synchronistically, the article I was looking for has just been re-published a couple of days ago...

https://solari.com/blog/mapping-your-local-financial-ecosystems/
Mapping Your Local Financial Ecosystems
Catherine, Daily Musings, Glossary, How To, Solari Invention Room, The Solari Report on September 12, 2015 at 9:09 pm · 3 Comments

[CAF Note: I am republishing this post – originally published in March 2009 of a taxonomy made in the 1990’s – as a subscriber asked for guidance on the important areas of data collection for mapping a local economy]

One of the greatest opportunities before us is aligning our financial systems with our local living systems — with our people, our culture and our natural environment. Currently, if you map out and make visible our “financial ecosystems” you will find that the incentives in those systems are often at odds with what optimizes the living systems and build wealths locally. Bringing transparency to our financial systems and living systems within a place and finding opportunities to realign is an activity worth considering.

Data in your local area is typically collected by enterprises and agencies responsible for public and private operations and investment. Many years ago, I created a taxonomy of local investment categories to describe the basic areas of data collection.

Investment Categories:

1. Adult Education/Community College/College/Training
2. Agriculture and Food
3. Arts & Culture
4. Child Care
5. Courts & Judiciary
6. Economic Development
7. Energy (gas, electric, nuclear, solar, wind, other)
8. Fire and Emergency Services
9. Health Care
10. Housing
11. K-12 Education
12. Land, Weather and Natural Resources
13. Libraries
14. People Who’s Who: People Who Live and Work in Our Neighborhood and Our Core Competencies
15. Military, National Guard, Troopers, Sheriff, Police, Enforcement, Prosecution & Public Safety
16. Prisons
17. Sewer and Garbage
18. Social Services
19. Sports and Recreation
20. Taxes, Time, Regulatory Powers and Assets Paid/Given to Federal, State and Local Government
21. Telecommunication & Information Systems 22. Transportation
23. Water

Cross-Cutting Categories:

24. Jurisdictions and Boundaries: Who and What Are We a Part of? What are the laws, regulations and procedures to which we are subject?
25. Risk Issues
26. Neighborhood Balance of Trade: Imports/Exports
27. Total Debt Per Person: Federal, State, Local, Consumer, Mortgage and Other
28. Parking Lot

An introduction to some of the key economics literacy you need to understand your local economy and to make sense of all the data available, see my curriculum Economics 101.

For the US, a good place to start are the CAFRs. Participatory budgeting is a very interesting idea that emerged from the economic problems in Latin America. Check it out here. I always thought that community questing would be a great way to learn the economic history and assets of our communities. See: Questing: A Guide to Creating Community Treasure Hunts.

[divideandconquer]

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place." - George Bernard Shaw

Again, I'm all for people learning about the reality they inhabit -- seems like a good idea even in practice -- it's just the framing I'm mocking. This isn't an ARG. I think a lot of your claims outreach the actual material. Such as:

Well, I just think people would be furious upon learning the budget deficits they use as a pretext for austerity measures is calculated from only one-third of the government's total revenue, and that two-thirds of the wealth, generated and created through the use of the people's money, is not reported on at all to ensure that the people do not benefit from the money that they contributed.

You're saying that you've discovered a government report that proves the government doesn't report on this issue. Right?

What's so hard to understand about the total absence of media attention? Yes, there is a Report that shows the total of all financial accounting that the basic general purpose budget reports do not and yes it it reported to a select few, but it's NOT reported--or maybe I should say, advertised--to the public....not by the media (mainstream or alternative), or our wonderful educational system, anyway.

I mean, what do you call it when the government cries poor every chance it gets based only on one-third of its wealth without anyone stepping up to challenge that deception? What about the ever increasing autonomous enterprises, profit centers? What do they do they do with that revenue? It's not included in the general purpose budget that the government presents to the public. That's because it tossed back into the market to grow their wealth and increase ownership. Before you know it, they'll be charging us to breathe

Take Orange County California government in 1994 who lost about $1.5 billion on investments in the now massive derivative market and claimed they needed to declare bankruptcy per their general purpose budget even while holding several billion(about 11.3 billion) in profitable holdings in their investment portfolios as seen in the CAFR. Moreover, once the CAFR was introduced, media attention all but disappeared.

More recently, in 2010, a congressman from Oregon, Rep. Bruce Hanna during general session when the floor was discussing what to do about the state's 3.5 billion dollar budget shortfall (fire employees, cut back on services, close state parks), stood up with the cover page from the state of Oregon CAFR in his hand and pointed out that in less than a few minutes he found 3.5 billion dollars to satisfy the state shortfall and poof, no shortfall when the dots were connected between the state CAFR and the previous selective presentation of the State general purpose operating budget..



However, I think now that more people are finding out about the CAFR, they will eventually include the CAFR in the public budget report, but by that time, the GASB (who since 1999 has taken calculated steps to conceal from the general public's view, massive domestic and international wealth; investment assets and "enterprise funds" all of which could be seen more visibly outlined in the combined financial columns of 1999 and previous CAFRs which required a showing of gross totals) will have completed their agenda to make it all but impossible to comprehend.

Meanwhile, operation dumb down the population is in full force, dwindling attention spans to that of a gnat.

[coffin_dodger]

dwindling attention spans to that of a gnat

i.e. must fly. must mate. must fly. must mate. must fly...ooh, what's that shiny thing? must fly. must mate....

Sad to say, but mostly I'm barely above this level, myself.

[backtoiam]

Yes, there is a Report that shows the total of all financial accounting that the basic general purpose budget reports do not and yes it it reported to a select few, but it's NOT reported--or maybe I should say, advertised--to the public....not by the media (mainstream or alternative), or our wonderful educational system, anyway.

Ok, I decided to bite the hook. I spent two or three hours attempting to look up the CAFRs of several small towns I have lived in. I picked the towns small, and towns that I have personally lived in, because I am familiar with the infrastructure and the sort of money they are willing to spend on the town and it's people. I found three CAFRs and all had millions of dollars of money I would never suspect they should have. These towns have 7000, 12,000, and 28,000 population numbers of residents.

I have lived in larger population densities but I chose small towns to keep the dollar amounts down to numbers I can identify with more readily. These are towns in which the entire infrastructure can be seen by simply driving around town in a few short minutes. The fact that I have lived in these small towns also allows me an insight into what sort of money flows into the infrastructure.

For privacy reasons I won't divulge the names of the towns.

The CAFRs of each of these small towns shows millions of dollars of seemingly "off budget" dollars with very ambiguous descriptions of what these dollars are really for, where they came from, and where they may go, or what they might be used for. I have no proof of it, but I get the very distinct sense that it is intentionally worded so that I can't figure out where the money came from or where it may go. It looks to me like there is a large sum of money tied up in "investments" that the people of these towns will never see the benefit of even one nickel. Why don't they simply add a few more sentences with descriptions of what all this money is for and where it is going?

In a couple of these towns the criminal/ traffic etc...court system seems to have a large pool of money floating around that I can't figure out where it came from or where it might go.

The next thing I will allude to is something I could never prove in any shape or form but from what I am looking at, and from situations I have seen personally with my own eyes, I am wondering if judges might receive a "commission" or a "bonus pay" or a "legal kick back" or a "retirement fund" with shady legal definitions for the fines they collect in some of these small towns.

I have known several small town judges in my lifetime, and have been privy to some of their personal lives. The amount of salary that is publicly shown for these judges could never support the lifestyle they lead. Never. They didn't come from rich families either because I know their family history.

I know one judge that presides over a small court system in a small town in Alabama with a population of about 6000 people. This little town is poor as dirt, but it has a highway running through it, and if you are unfortunate enough to get pulled over on that highway your life might change forever. He lives in Florida and owns a lot of expensive property on the beach in Florida. He has an mailing address in this small town in Alabama, pretends to live there, but he lives in Florida. He flies in his private plane from Florida to Alabama once a week to sit in this court room and strip every nickel he can rape out of any poor soul they can drag through the door. I got caught in their web once and they tried to do some seriously dirty shit to me, and they stole expensive items from my vehicle that I almost never got back. I had connections to the prosecutor so I skated, but barely.
I don't know where cat daddy judge gets all his money but a friend of mine that is a member of "an order" in this area told me that the judge gets "a cut of the action." I didn't ask exactly what "a cut" was because I didn't want to know.

I know another judge in Alabama, a different judge, that also owns a LOT of seriously expensive property on the beach. No way in hell his salary can swing his lifestyle. I went to a small portion of this property and was told "to keep my mouth shut" and never tell anybody that he was the real owner of the property.

There is more but I won't tell it. Every small town judge I have ever known, which is several, has way more money than their publicly admitted salary can account for. Every single one of them owns tons of expensive property. I sat in the court room of the town with 7000 people one day for three hours. I kept up with the fines the judge was handing out to poor folk. In three hours it hit tens of thousands of dollars in a town of 7000 people. Holy shit! Even if they only collected half that money they bought two brand new police cars in three hours.

I smell a rat in the CAFRs, but i'm not surprised.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Interesting synch:
http://shadowproof.com/2015/09/14/moder ... r-tickets/

Modern Debtors Prison: Alabama Jailing Residents Over Tickets

According to a federal class action lawsuit [PDF] filed in Alabama this month, the city of Alexander is incarcerating people who are unable to pay court fees and fines in a modern-day debtors prison. The suit argues the practice not only constitutes false imprisonment, but also violates inmates’ Fourth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights under the Constitution.

The lawsuit, brought against Alexander City and its police chief, Willie Robinson, estimates the practice has impacted more than 200 low-income residents “who obtained traffic tickets or misdemeanors” over the past decade. Nearly 30% of Alexander City residents live below the poverty line.

Incarcerating people for their inability to pay debts is incredibly destabilizing for both the individual and any family or loved ones that may depend on them. Trapped in jail, they are unable to work or take care of their other responsibilities. Their absence may cost them their employment, creating a vicious cycle that makes their financial situation even worse and often leads to further imprisonment for their inability to pay their debts.

In Alexander City, once a person is assessed a fine or is ordered to make a payment at the municipal court, they generally must make their payment in full by the end of that day. Partial payments are not accepted.

If the individual cannot pay, “the judge’s response is to tell them to discuss this in the back room,” located behind the bench and inaccessible to the public. The lawsuit states that in most cases, the defendant is not advised of their right to counsel or what may happen if they wave those rights. Counsel is not always appointed for the defendant, either...

(Much) more at the link.

[Occult Means Hidden]

The accounting equation learned in accounting 101:

Assets = Equity + Liability.

Companies report all three of these categories succinctly. Governments do not really report assets (and don't really have equity either). Why? I think it's because government assets cannot be readily liquidated. Schools and roads, although can be sold, aren't intended to be sold. I think generally CAFRs attempt to quantify these assets. They are "wealth" un-liquefied. But not necessarily income. Once liquefied, can trillions be produced? Yes, but everything would be privatized thereafter as government would cease as we know it. Therein lies the motive for the whole shebang?

Is it unreasonable to suggest that the origin of this as conspiracy could be a psychological operation intended to further the aims of privatization when radicals need a cause? I posit this as possibility, only.

[backtoiam]

wombaticus rex wrote:

Modern Debtors Prison: Alabama Jailing Residents Over Tickets

According to a federal class action lawsuit [PDF] filed in Alabama this month, the city of Alexander is incarcerating people who are unable to pay court fees and fines in a modern-day debtors prison. The suit argues the practice not only constitutes false imprisonment, but also violates inmates’ Fourth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights under the Constitution.

That is no joke either dude. For any of you that live in the Big Apple or large cities, and are not accustomed to traveling down the highway through small rural towns, let me give you some advice. DO NOT break the speed limit. DO NOT attract attention to yourself. If you do, you might not get back home for weeks or longer. If you get poked, 8 times out of 10, you are going to need some serious coins to get yourself out of it. Louisiana and Texas will jack you up in a heartbeat too. In Texas if they don't like the shoes you are wearing you could spend days in a jail cell, legally, just for speeding. They will beat your ass too...

[Sounder]

OMH wrote...

Is it unreasonable to suggest that the origin of this as conspiracy could be a psychological operation intended to further the aims of privatization when radicals need a cause? I posit this as possibility, only.

Thank-you for this suggestion. It would seem to be useful to ponder.

[PufPuf93]

OMH wrote...

Is it unreasonable to suggest that the origin of this as conspiracy could be a psychological operation intended to further the aims of privatization when radicals need a cause? I posit this as possibility, only.

Thank-you for this suggestion. It would seem to be useful to ponder.

I am copacetic with this thought also.

Softening and grooming the body politic to slice from the commons for private profit and control. Groovy. Rock on.

[jingofever]

Over 230,000 separate entities today each with their own investments, each with their own assets.

Are they supposed to be working in concert or did 230,000 separate entities get the same idea independently?

I am guessing that whatever these investments are for they are not supposed to be used to cover a budget deficit that can be fixed using traditional fiscal means. Because cashing out your investments would not fix the underlying problem of spending more than you are taking in, right?

[stefano]

Thanks, d&c and backtoiam (and welcome, backtoiam).

Surely related, and also a scam pulled off against mainly black people by conniving attorneys and judges:

One of the markers of the nation's anti-drug frenzy in the 1980s was a sharp increase in civil asset forfeitures, in which law enforcement agencies seize the cash, cars and other property that they claim are used in the commission of crimes. They are able to target and penalize a suspected drug dealer, for example, even when they can't win a criminal conviction. What's more, instead of turning a seized asset over to the Treasury, police and prosecutors can divide it among their own agencies, giving them an incentive to stage ever-more aggressive and questionable seizures.
[...]
Even in California, though, property valued at more than $25,000 may be kept without a conviction if the police win a civil proceeding that targets the property itself rather than the suspect. The case need not be proved by the well-known "beyond a reasonable doubt" criminal standard but instead a lower civil standard.

Total assets, which present as of a specific time the amounts of future economic benefits owned or managed by the AFF/SADF [Assets Forfeiture Fund and Seized Asset Deposit Fund], increased in FY 2008 to $3,120.7 million from $3,056.5 million in FY 2007, an increase of 2.1 percent. If seized assets, which are not yet owned by the government, are backed out, the adjusted assets of the Fund increased to $1,892.2 million in FY 2008 from $1,790.6 million in FY 2007, an increase of 5.7 percent. This is attributable to an increase in forfeited assets in FY 2008 from FY 2007, indicating a strong current and future potential stream of assets flowing into the AFF. The AFF/SADF fund balances with the U.S. Treasury were lower in FY 2008 than FY 2007.