Adrian

"Friday, 6 Nov 2009 - The dollar will get "utterly destroyed" and become "virtually worthless", said Damon Vickers, chief investment officer of Nine Points Capital Partners. Due to the huge wage disparities between the United States and emerging markets like China, Vickers said that may resolve itself in some type of a global currency crisis. "If the global currency crisis unfolds, then inevitably you get an alignment of a global world government. A new global currency and a new world order, so we may be moving towards that," he said." - Adrian from Bookmarklet

"The best thing that could happen to Microsoft would be successes by Apple (AAPL) or Google (GOOG) that cause a significant loss of sales and market share. The shock would create a sense of urgency and cause the leaders to clean house. The worst thing that could happen is a success with Windows 7, which would reinforce management’s focus on the desktop. Then, as customers move away from the desktop to smartphones and other devices, market share will decline. But if share declines slowly, maybe a point or two a year, the drop will not be enough to overcome the pride that comes with high margins and high profits. Over time, the desktop mafia will experience a shift from pride to hubris. Welcome to the General Motors scenario." - Adrian from Bookmarklet

"In 2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs Group peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting. Goldman's sales and its clandestine wagers, completed at the brink of the housing market meltdown, enabled the nation's premier investment bank to pass most of its potential losses to others before a flood of mortgage defaults staggered the U.S. and global economies." - Adrian from Bookmarklet

"Unreleased TV advertisement for the "Icesave" scheme, produced shortly before the late 2008 Icelandic banking crisis. The advertisement focuses, quite ironically, on the "transparency" of the Icesave business, and from a post-crash perspective illustrates how the clean image of Iceland and its banking system was intended to be sold to world, despite what is now known to be a lack of oversight and transparency." - Adrian from Bookmarklet

Money TransparencyJob securityBanking crisisCredit derivativesInvisible DebtHow and why credit derivatives came into existence Mortgage lending, Countrywide, New Century, etcInvestment banks churning money to collect feesBipartisan problem of promotion of home ownership to buy votesCrony capitalism - Adrian from Bookmarklet

IBM RFID Conditioning - Shopping in the Future as a Chipped Human - Adrian from Bookmarklet

If there is no free market you can't complain about high costs and low quality. If you are looking for some government mechanism that can replace the free market in driving down costs and increasing quality you will not find it ! - Adrian from Bookmarklet

"Daniel Hannan, Conservative MEP for the South East of England, giving a speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg on 22nd October, in which he criticises the EU for promoting democracy neither at home nor abroad." - Adrian from Bookmarklet