America's Most Overpriced Cars | Forbes slideshow |1-13 July 2009

backstory 1, 2


Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

What we are witnessing right now in the streets of Tehran is, first and foremost, a political battle for the future of the Iranian state. But closely linked to this political fight is also an old theological dispute about the nature of Shiism--a dispute that has been roiling Iran for more than a century.

Shiism, like most religions, is no stranger to heated schisms. Shia and Sunnis split over the question of whether Muhammad had designated his son-in-law, Ali, as his successor (Shia believed he had). Some Shia, called Alawites, believe the only divinely designated successor was Ali, while another group, Zaydis, believe there were four imams. A large, intellectually vibrant third group is known as the Ismailis because it believes the line of imams ended with the seventh, Ismail. And the largest Shia sect is called the Ithna Ashari--or the Twelvers. Dominant in Iran, they believe in twelve imams and posit that the last imam went into hiding some 1,100 years ago. His return, bloody and vengeful, will mark the redemptive dawn of the age of justice.

It is within this branch that a further split took place beginning in the late nineteenth century--the moment when the Iranian elite began to confront the challenge of modernity. Ideas like rationalism, individualism, constitutionalism, rule of law, equality, democracy, secularism, privacy, and separation of powers began to find currency in Iran's political discourse. By 1905, these ideas, prevalent primarily among the intelligentsia, led to the Constitutional Revolution--the first of its kind in the Muslim world. The Shia clergy were faced with a historic challenge not unlike what the Catholic Church experienced with the advent of the Renaissance. How two rival ayatollahs reacted to that challenge would divide Iranian Shiism--and lay the groundwork for what is taking place today.(continued)

Bank of America Corp. is trying to avoid paying billions of dollars in fees to U.S. taxpayers for guarantees against losses at Merrill Lynch & Co., saying the rescue agreement was never signed and the funding never used. Regulators contend Bank of America owes at least part of a $4 billion fee it agreed to pay in January -- even without a completed legal document -- because the company benefited from implied U.S. backing on about $118 billion of Merrill Lynch assets, such as mortgage-backed bonds, people familiar with the matter said. The Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank says it owes the Treasury nothing, according to the people, who declined to be identified because the negotiations are confidential.

Money Well Spent? | Teleeewgraph | 12 July 2009

UK Financial Investments (UKFI) said in its annual report that its loss on the two stakes - 70pc of RBS  and 43pc of Lloyds Banking Group - had reached £10.9bn at the end of June. The losses, which are not yet realised, have been wracked up since Gordon Brown was forced to inject billions into the troubled lenders in October....

The Treasury is hoping that the disposals of its stakes will eventually generate a profit for the taxpayer, after bailing out the banks when the system almost collapsed at the end of 2008 in the wake of the failure of Lehman Brothers.

int a = past performance machine (RFC, 20)

Stay tuned for unexpected developments in the great Stimulus III debate!

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Leicester parlance for possible rain.

You can't be me, I'm taken

The real genius of Torchwood: Children of Earth, as well as those shit-scary screaming kids, was its effortless grasp of what is truly to be feared in this world. The series didn't need super-CGI, brilliant acting or massive fight sequences. It didn't even need to take the monster out of the fog: the actual aliens were barely on screen at all. Turns out that the monster was on the other side of the glass the whole time, in Westminster, ready to sell us all out for the promise of a quiet life.

I work in the aircraft repair/parts industry in California and thought I'd let you onto something. Many vendors to the CDF (California division of forestry) air operations have outstanding bills going back to last year.

Business 101/Credit: Always schedule client's payments
(if not on delivery, invoice 50/50 or 33/33/33, customarily). If the payments stop, work stops. (Self) Employers, you know what I'm saying: clients never ask for credit; they always assume.

And, yes, the nature of the business --excluding imminent life-saving service-- is irrelevant to observance of the rule.

My company just put all California agencies on cash or credit card only. Many others are refusing to sell to the CDF because of huge amount of unpaid and late bills. We don't even get Registered Warrants [California "IOUs", ironically, NOT promissory notes]

Finance 101/Credit: Debt is good; equity is bad.
Being the antithesis of the first law of business, this statement expresses a client's perogatives either to default or to defer payment or to transfer payment obligations indefinitely.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

This appears to have caught the eye of one of their editors, who invited me to do an opinion piece for them. 5-700 words, with a "strong thesis" and optionally some concrete policy proposals as well.

So which important bit of Conventional Wisdom can we deconstruct in less than 700 words?

Security? Economics? Terrorism? The transition to a multipolar world? Something else?

Presumably it would be prudent to give them something that has relevance on both sides of the Atlantic, but other than that I think it's a pretty open barrel of fish.

- Jake

Tory Bliar for president prison!