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FT.com / In depth - Agitation as middle-class Europe struggles to cope on 2009-03-17
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Economics is convulsing European politics. Governments have fallen in Iceland and Latvia; strikes or protests have erupted in Greece, Ireland, France, Germany, Britain, Lithuania, Ukraine and Bulgaria. Financial turmoil has shaken even the continent’s furthest-flung outposts: the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe has been ravaged by violent strikes, while Russia flew riot police into ice-bound Vladivostok to quell street protests.
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FT.com / In depth - The future of human beings is what matters on 2009-03-11
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When I arrived in the presidency, I found myself faced not only by serious structural problems but, above all, by an inheritance of ingrained inequalities. Most of our governors, even those that enacted reforms in the past, had governed for the few. They concerned themselves with a Brazil in which only a third of the population mattered.
The situation I inherited was one not only of material difficulties but also of deep-rooted prejudices that threatened to paralyse our government and lead us into stagnation. We could not grow, it was said, without threatening economic stability – much less grow and distribute wealth. We would have to choose between the internal market and the external. Either we accepted the unforgiving imperatives of the globalised economy or we would be condemned to fatal isolation.
Over the past six years, we have destroyed those myths.
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H. M., an Unforgettable Amnesiac, Dies at 82 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com on 2008-12-06
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Another system, commonly known as motor learning, is subconscious and depends on other brain systems.
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H. M., an Unforgettable Amnesiac, Dies at 82 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com on 2008-12-06
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Scientists saw that there were at least two systems in the brain for creating new memories. One, known as declarative memory, records names, faces and new experiences and stores them until they are consciously retrieved. This system depends on the function of medial temporal areas, particularly an organ called the hippocampus, now the object of intense study.
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Citizen Journalists Provided Glimpses - NYTimes.com on 2008-11-30
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“When you look at TV, you see one channel at a time, then you go to another channel,” said Dina Mehta, an ethnographer and social media consultant in Mumbai. “On Twitter, you get feeds from many different people at the same time.”Citizen journalists avoided some of the bureaucratic headaches faced by media organizations. At the end of the day on Friday, CNN’s license to transmit live video in India expired, forcing the network’s correspondents to report via telephone. CNN and other channels in the United States relied on live coverage and taped reports from Indian networks.
The cameras and phones carried by people swept up in the attacks were not subject to any such rules. Mr. Shanbhag photographed one of the fires at the Taj hotel and the wreckage outside a popular cafe that was attacked on Wednesday and posted them on his Flickr stream. Some people transmitted video from inside the Taj hotel to news networks via cellphones. And reporters used cellphones to send text messages to hotel guests who had set up barricades in their rooms.
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The End of Wall Street's Boom - National Business News - Portfolio.com on 2008-11-27
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Then came Meredith Whitney with news. Whitney was an obscure analyst of financial firms for Oppenheimer Securities who, on October 31, 2007, ceased to be obscure. On that day, she predicted that Citigroup had so mismanaged its affairs that it would need to slash its dividend or go bust. It’s never entirely clear on any given day what causes what in the stock market, but it was pretty obvious that on October 31, Meredith Whitney caused the market in financial stocks to crash.
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Truthdig - Reports - Bracing for a Major Disappointment on 2008-11-20
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Europeans had never thought of Americans as torturers. When it turned out that the sponsors and defenders of torture occupied the highest offices of government in the United States, with the chief legal enablers of torture in the White House counsel’s office itself, and heading no less than the Department of Justice, a chill passed through the Western alliance. It was noted that the chosen euphemism for torture by the president, lawyers and the CIA was “enhanced measures,” a direct translation of the term employed by the Gestapo.
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PsyArt: An Online Journal for the Psychological Study of the Arts. on 2008-11-19
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As in any such conflict when men compete for the same female object, there is an erotic tension tinged with sado-masochism.
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Humbert tearfully begs the former nymphet to come back to him. Although she definitively refuses him, even telling him that Clare Quilty was the only man she had ever loved, Humbert leaves her with a large sum of money before leaving to pursue Quilty. Humbert submits to humiliation at the beginning of the scene when Lolita's husband Dick ejaculates beer on Humbert's coat while Lolita looks on with faint amusement.
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The New Trough : Rolling Stone on 2008-11-15
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"There is no obligation for banks to lend the money one way or
the other," Jennifer Zuccarelli, a Treasury spokeswoman, tells
Rolling Stone. "But the banks have the understanding" that
the money is intended for loans. "We're not looking to control
their operations."
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"At least for the next quarter, it's
just going to be a cushion," said John Thain, the chief executive
of Merrill Lynch.
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Citigroup, had an even better idea: He hinted that his company
would use its share of the cash — $25 billion — to buy
up competitors and swell even bigger.
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And the folks at Morgan Stanley? They're planning to pay
themselves $10.7 billion this year, much of it in bonuses —
almost exactly the amount they are receiving in the first phase of
the bailout. "You can imagine the devilish grins on the faces of
Morgan Stanley employees," writes Bloomberg columnist Jonathan
Weil. "Not only did we, the taxpayers, save their company...we
funded their 2008 bonus pool."
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It didn't have to be this way. Five days before Paulson struck
his deal with the banks, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown
negotiated a similar bailout — only he extracted meaningful
guarantees for taxpayers: voting rights at the banks, seats on
their boards, 12 percent in annual dividend payments to the
government, a suspension of dividend payments to shareholders,
restrictions on executive bonuses, and a legal requirement that the
banks lend money to homeowners and small businesses.
In sharp contrast, this is what U.S. taxpayers received: no
controlling interest, no voting rights, no seats on the bank boards
and just five percent in dividend payouts to the government, while
shareholders continue to collect billions in dividends every
quarter. What's more, golden parachutes and bonuses already
promised by the banks will still be paid out to executives —
all before taxpayers are paid back.
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the juiciest contract of all: that of "master
custodian."
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bank
president Gerald Hassell
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This raises an interesting point: Has the Treasury partially
nationalized the private banks, as we have been told? Or is it the
other way around? Is it Treasury that has been partially privatized
by Wall Street, its massive rescue plan now entirely in the hands
of a private bank it is directly subsidizing?
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Treasury has blacked out the 10 lines of the "master
custodian" contract that reveal how much Bank of New York Mellon
will be paid.
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Bank of New York Mellon holds $1.2 billion in subprime
mortgage securities. That means that in addition to the $3 billion
it will receive as part of the equity program, it will also be
eligible to apply for taxpayer money from the program it is being
paid to administer. Neither the bank nor Treasury would comment on
this direct conflict of interest.
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On the same day that he allocated the
first $125 billion to the banks, Secretary Paulson announced the
largest federal budget deficit in U.S. history. Buried in his
statement was a preview of the next phase of the financial
disaster. The deficit numbers, he declared, reinforce the need to
"pursue policies that promote economic growth and fiscal
responsibility, and address entitlement reform." He was referring
to Americans who feel entitled to receive Social Security in their
old age and Medicaid when they are sick. Those programs, Paulson
implied, might not be able to survive the budget crisis he is
currently creating for the next administration.
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Paulson abandons plans to buy up America's toxic mortgage assets | Business | The Guardian on 2008-11-13
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Where the money's gone
Of the US treasury's $700bn rescue fund, some $250bn of the $350bn allocated by Congress has been earmarked for capital injections into banks. Of this, $115bn has gone out of the door. Paulson had planned to spend the rest buying "toxic assets" from banks' balance sheets. But instead, it will go towards further capital injections, securing non-bank institutions and averting repossession for struggling homeowners. Another $40bn has been given to stricken insurer AIG, leaving $60bn to dole out before the treasury has to ask Congress for the final $350bn. This year, 19 high street banks have collapsed in the US - more than in the previous four years combined.
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