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Managing Your Managers: Are You Asking the Right Questions?
In the classic management book, The Leadership Pipeline, the authors discuss the key transitions in leadership development, based on their observations of thousands of executives. One of the early turning points, they say, is learning how to be a manager of managers, a skill that can be quite challenging to master.*
Today, more than a decade later, that "rite of passage" remains just as difficult for many executives. Contributing factors are the same – ineffectual training, insufficient structure, and the like – but demographic and competitive factors are taking the "how to manage your managers" conundrum to new levels of acuity in many companies.
Innovation, for example, has become incredibly important for success in the marketplace. Many companies are facing increasing demand on their intellectual capacity at precisely the worst time: when their technical brain trusts are beginning to age out. As older workers retire, the shortage in technically-skilled employees has become acute. Front-line supervisors are tasked with enabling a smaller, less capable workforce to develop more sophisticated solutions for more demanding clients within tighter time frames. It's a burning platform – one that requires a radically different set of employee management skills from front-line supervisors and their managers.
A key priority for our clients is educating managers on how to nurture the skills of their frontline supervisors so that everyone is working at the right scope and power match – instead of micromanaging or making decisions that are best left to the level below. It's not enough to set direction. Managers of managers must develop new supervisory capabilities and skills around innovation and agility in their reports so they in turn can address the performance gaps in the workforce.
Often, the best solutions are the simplest ones with the longest track record. In leadership coaching, we draw on the ancient art (now science) of asking questions. Founded on neuroscience research, our "manager of manager" development programs show leaders questioning techniques that can help guide their reports to examine current ways of solving problems and identify new choices and options that increase their capability for action.
The technique is simple but robust. Managers of managers are taught to recognize two types of questions and their differing impacts – one focused on the near term and the other that takes a longer view. It's kind of like the difference between having your tennis swing critiqued by your doubles partner right before a critical match versus the club pro who is interested in raising your whole game to a higher level.
- Near Term Questions tend to zero in on the immediate problem but not develop in others the capacity for analysis and creativity. Using this type of questioning, the manager of managers, in effect, takes over the problem-solving for the front-line manager and goes for quick resolution.
- Long View Questions approach the problem from a coaching orientation and are designed to help the front-line manager identify patterns and emergent solutions. Having to think about and answer these types of questions will help build managerial skills.
Here are some examples of how questions might be framed differently, depending on your intent:*
Since most managers were rewarded for solving problems, their natural inclination is to go with Near Term questions – a habit that can be hard to break. And, indeed, in times of crisis, that may be called for. The rewards are more far reaching, however, when the alternative approach can be applied. After all, developing problem-solving and managerial skills in others IS the job of a manager of managers. Our program helps these leaders recognize there is always a "fork in the road" – one leading to quick fixes and the other to a more adaptive and innovative future that will benefit them and the business overall.
Many managers tend to jump in and problem solve. If you manage other managers, how have you made the adjustment to developing those key skills in others? Share your thoughts.
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Have You Reviewed Your TIAA-CREF Strategy for 2013?
By Christine Sportes, Associate Vice President/Chief Human Resources Officer
Now that you have completed your annual enrollment for benefits, such as health, dental, vision, and other insurance options, it's once again time to think about the best strategy for managing your retirement plan benefits during the upcoming year. Unlike other benefit plan options, you can make changes to your TIAA-CREF retirement plan throughout the year, but it's best to formulate your strategy in alignment with the calendar or tax year. Generally, each calendar year the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announces increases for dollar limitations on benefits and contributions. During 2012, employees were able to make tax-sheltered plan contributions up to a maximum of $17,000. For those 50 or older, an additional "catch-up" amount of up to $5,500 was allowed, bringing the total maximum pre-tax contribution to $22,500. For 2013, the IRS has increased the pre-tax contribution limit to $17,500. For those 50 or older, the additional "catch-up" contribution remains $5,500, for a total pre-tax contribution limit of $23,000.
For those who may be interested in changing their pre-tax contribution amounts as of January 2013, please note you must submit your completed request form to the Office of Human Resources by 5 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 21, 2012. Requests submitted by this date will become effective as of Jan. 1, 2013. Requests submitted after Dec. 21 will be processed and become effective as of Feb. 1, 2013. Authorization for Salary Reduction for 2013 forms can be accessed at http://humanresources.cua.edu/benefits/retirement.cfm.
Aside from planning your pre-tax contributions for 2013, you may be interested in professional advice from TIAA-CREF representatives who are available to meet with CUA employees. If you are interested in scheduling an on-campus consultation with a TIAA-CREF representative, please check the Office of Human Resources announcement Web page or contact the office at extension 5050 for information.

subset: commoncrawl


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Despite some momentary turbulence, Republican leaders and Gov. Mark Dayton still plan to meet today for budget talks that could last all of the next two days and offer hope of ending a state budget impasse.
As they agreed Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch, R-Buffalo, and House Speaker Kurt Zellers, R-Maple Grove, said they will meet privately with Dayton and Minnesota Management and Budget Commissioner Jim Schowalter.
Koch and Zellers said the group could spend all day today and Saturday discussing budget bills in hopes of finding agreement on individual ones, especially those in which the sides aren't far apart.
How productive that approach will be, however, is unclear.
Dayton hasn't backed off his insistence that Republicans increase their budget proposal and that both sides reach agreement on the entire package of bills before he calls legislators back for a special session.
The proposed meeting almost went off track late Wednesday and Thursday when Koch objected to Dayton's move to include Senate Minority Leader Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, and House Minority Leader Paul Thissen, DFL-Minneapolis.
She and Zellers contended the meetings would have a better chance of succeeding with the original participants.
Koch objected specifically to Dayton's decision to include Bakk.
"He's offered zero solutions," Koch said of Bakk.
Dayton spokeswoman Katie Tinucci defended Dayton's decision to include Thissen and Bakk at the 9 a.m. meeting.
"He insists on the right to bring to the meeting the people necessary to negotiate a fair and balanced budget solution that is in the best interest of Minnesotans," the spokeswoman said in an email.
Thursday afternoon, Koch and Zellers reiterated their commitment to doing what they could to reach a budget deal and prevent a shutdown July 1.
With seven days to go before that could happen, the two sides remain far apart. Republicans want a $34 billion two-year budget tied to existing revenue, whereas Dayton wants to increase taxes on the state's highest earners to pay for a $35.8 billion budget.
Dennis Lien can be reached at 651-228-5588.


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Mahoning County Commissioners do not want to see federal inmates leave the private prison in Youngstown.
Corrections Corporation of America's Northeast Ohio Correctional Center on Hubbard Road in Youngstown houses federal inmates and its contract with the Federal Bureau of Prisons expires in 2015. A facility in Pennsylvania is bidding on the contract with the bureau, meaning the local prison could lose 75 percent of its inmates.
Three commissioners on Thursday passed a resolution supporting CCA. Commissioners said the more than 400 jobs at the prison are vital to the economy.
"We need to support any business in the Valley, and this prison's been here for many years," said Commissioner Carol Rimedio-Righetti. "They never had anyone else bid on another location for this prison. Well, this year they had a bid out there in Pa."
The Federal Bureau of Prisons has until next week to get other bids, and they should award the contract sometime next year.


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I can relate. I don't think the disappointment is worse than breaking a full bottle of SDV, but that's just me.
The Good
For a long time I have been meaning to try out and wear Creed's MI. Let me preface this by saying I own a few bottles of Creeds other fragrances and enjoy them all. Overall I would say that the scents are above average with about average longevity.
Being a resident of Miami, Fl where the heat and humidity carries into these Miami nights, sometimes it's a challenge to pick the right fragrance to wear. My newly single self was headed out last night with the sense of uncertainty being back on the market provides. Last night was very warm and humid.
Recently, a good friend of mine that works a creed counter provided me with some Creed MI samples in an atomizer. As I got ready to head out I new exactly what I was going to be wearing as a fragrance. Before stepping out of the door I gave myself five sprays: each arm, the chest, the shirt, and the hair. I have smelled this fragrance before and really liked it. I caught the beautiful opening in my nose and was loving it. What a perfect summer scent for down here. Before stepping out of the door, I grabbed another 1.5ml spray atomizer due to the poor longevity I keep hearing about.
Walking to my friends house, the hot summer breeze was lifting that amazing scent into my nose. I even got an unsolicited compliment.
The Bad
Waiting around my friends apartment as they get ready and are spraying their fragrance choices. I thought to myself I haven't caught a whiff of MI in a while. Now it has only been around 45mins-1hour and I sniff my arm. The fragrance has basically turned into a skin scent. Sensing olfactory fatigue I asked for opinions on the fragrance and how far away they can smell it from. The scent was only projecting about 1 inch away from skin.
I then sprayed the atomizer to compare the scent. It's amazing when you first spray it and calling it underperforming after an hour is an understatement.
So as the nite progressed I found myself reapplying the fragrance twice, being very careful with my sprays because I only had a 1.5ml atomizer. Now, I went into this open minded with the thought of re-applying is no big deal. But I was upset at the fact that it was necessary to do and a chore I decided that I will not be doing again in the future. Also, its a little awkward when you have to explain to people that you need to carry around an atomizer to reapply the fragrance. We get it, were the fragrance community, but it sounds ridiculous to the outside world. The comment of "why not just wear something you don't have to re-apply" really summed it up.
The Ugly
What I find to be the worst part about this is that MI is such an amazing fragrance. It's scent is a 10/10 and smells so refreshing in the steamy summer Miami nights. I dare to say it, a prefect combo for down here. To have such poor performance is just teasing me and everyone else. I would rather not know a scent like this exists than to know it does and has horrible longevity, projection, and sillage. Based on this, Creed MI would get an absolutely never buy recommendation. Especially at retail! As far as substitutes I have a bottle of Unforgivable and never wear it. Creed's MI has a much superior smell than Unforgivable.
So this has now been my most dissapointing fragrance story to date. This far surpasses the time when I dropped and broke a full (old-style bottle) of Spirituse double vanille, and when airport security forced me to give up a nearly full bottle of Frapin 1270.
Last edited by LiteEmUpGood; 24th June 2012 at 10:53 PM. Reason: changed oz to ml. thanks Sam S
I can relate. I don't think the disappointment is worse than breaking a full bottle of SDV, but that's just me.
"I drank what?" -Socrates
I live in hot and steamy Palm Beach and MI lasts through the day for me. Then again, all the Creeds I own last for me, even Aventus which seems to get lots of poor marks for logetivity.
Longevity on my skin is OK but not great.
I get eight to nine hours from three sprays of MI though Creed is notorious for batch variations with their scents.
1.5oz atomizer? You better not waste that...
Just kidding, I'm sure you meant ml.
On a serious note, I'm sorry you had longevity problems. I wore MI yesterday and got a good 10 hours out of it. I would try to sample another batch before you give up on this masterpiece from Creed.
I'm pretty much on the same page as you op, but I get a little bit longer longevity out my sample. One of my favorite smelling fragrances by far, just doesn't last like I hoped it would. If I buy it, I'm probably going to bring an atomizer around of it when I'm wearing it just to keep it fresh.
MI is pleasant but underwhelming. The longevity is erratic, and the sillage is similarly spotty. Not worth the money ultimately.
Great story OP. I too was underwhelmed by the longevity of MI. I have official samples to which I then decant into a spray atomizer. Seems like no matter how much I spray, I just get around 4 hours. I would say that this is the Creed with the worst longevity.
This may seem a bit silly but do you think it had anything to do with the atomizer rather than the fragrane itself? I was in a similar spot when I was sampling Amouage's Reflection Man with their small atomizer. I would spray and find it very light and it wouldn't last four hours on me. I thought I could live with it and ordered a tester bottle in for a very good price. I was really, really happy that I was getting more projection and longevity on that big bottle than I did with the little atomizer tester.
The way I saw it was that I was only getting a third of a full spray on the small atomizer as opposed to the full spray from the normal bottle. Just thought that a bigger sprayer and stem would lead to a full dose of juice being applied to my skin instead of the little spit I was getting from my atomizer.
Just my observation MI is a great scent on me and I usually get about eight hours with four sprays. Definitely worth the price IMO.
MI last pretty well on me.
Maybe you set your standards to high, I did the same...they are good fragrances without a doubt but everyone loves overhyping everything.
I wore today and I appreciate it for what it is, its nice.
- - - Updated - - -
MI last pretty well on me.
Maybe you set your standards to high, I did the same...they are good fragrances without a doubt but everyone loves overhyping everything.
I wore today and I appreciate it for what it is, its nice.
I get outstanding longevity with my 2010 batch of MI. And by outstanding, I mean 4 hours MAX. I have to really bury my nose into my wrist to smell it that last hour. 4 hour longevity for a supposedly Eau De Parfum strength fragrance that retails for $285 is no bueno. I love the smell, but I never wear it b/c it just doesn't last. If I got 8+ hours this one would be perfect. I've only noticed this problem with MI and SMW. My OS, GIT, Himalaya, Aventus, and Jardin D'Amalfi all last a good while.
"I am a robot and I like cheese"
Top 5:
1. Axe Kilo
2. Lectric Shave
3. Vicks Vapor Rub
4. Febreze Pour Homme
5. Preferred Stock
I put in on before I went to sleep and could honestly still smell it the next morning...close to the skin but still there.
I'm currently wearing MI and it's almost 4 hours since I sprayed it on. Can't deny that it smells real nice and it lasts about 6-8 hours on me. Though I do agree with most basenoters here that getting it at retail (same for all Creeds) is really not ideal.
But if you manage to get a good deal; eg. testers, splits ... then I guess it's worth it.


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North Side footballers bring joy to young cancer patient
Updated 3:23 pm, Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Freddie Loring, coach of the 10U YMCA Texans on the far North Side, is teaching his team lessons that extend far beyond the football field.
In support of Child Cancer Awareness Month, the 10 and 12U Texans raised more than $2,000 from sponsorships for touchdowns they scored in September. Those funds purchased Texans logo beanies and stress balls for pediatric cancer patients at Children's Hospital of San Antonio, and games and toys for the child life center.
"My heart, first of all, is not just to build kids to be better athletes, but more importantly, is building young men into godly men who become leaders in society and who are willing and wanting to serve those who need help," Loring said in a press release.
Local Channel
- Botanical Gardens - Architects Brandpoint
- Suspects in brawl-turned-shooting at S.A. eatery at large San Antonio Express-News
- SAPD: Possibly drunk woman struck by pickup San Antonio Express-News
- Heavy rain causes flooding at San Antonio intesection San Antonio Express-News
- Uresti: 'Very, very disappointed with the verdict' San Antonio Express-News
- SAPD finds man holding knives at homicide scene San Antonio Express-News
- Two hit in shooting at S.A. hotel San Antonio Express-News
- Gov. Greg Abbott on gun control action Peggy Fikac
- Standoff with robbery suspect on interstate affects 'thousands' San Antonio Express-News
- LaMarcus Aldridge Explains Why He Doesn't Call Himself a 'Flashy' Player Sports Illustrated
Team members visited the hospital in October, where they met 6-year-old Andy Pardo, who had been readmitted to Children's Hospital just that day.
The players presented him with Texans goodies, including a signed ball and jersey. They also prayed with Andy and his family.
Andy had played flag football himself. As he recuperated, an idea was born. Could he attend a football practice, or even a game?
The Texans "adopted" Andy as an honorary team member. On Oct. 26, the 10U Texans game was all about Andy.
With advance planning through the Mays Family YMCA and cooperation from the opposing Cardinals team, Andy was able to score a touchdown on a play designed just for him.
"Andy's dad pushed him over the line in his wheelchair," said Vicki Bates, mother of player Tanner Bates, in a news release.
"Texans were blocking, Cardinals were diving just out of the way, missing tackles. Andy spiked the ball in the end zone after his touchdown. There wasn't a dry eye in the stands."
"What the Texans have done for my family is unbelievable," Andy's mother Bebe Pardo said in the release. "They have put a smile on Andy's face as he fights for his life. They let him know they really care for him and pray for a recovery."
"Of all the things you want to teach your kids about compassion for others and works of service, this experience brings it home," said Melissa Russell, mother of players Evan and Grayson Russell.
The 10U Texans team includes boys fromSan Antonio Christian schools, Tuscany Heights, Stone Oak and Cibolo Green elementary schools.
The Texans players and their supporters continue to encourage community members to help aid Andy's family or other pediatric cancer patients financially.
For more information, email Vicki Bates at email@example.com. The hospital's child life coordinator may be reached at email@example.com.
Amy Morgan has sons attending Tejeda Middle and Johnson High schools.


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A New/Old Mom
I'm new to Cafe Mom but old to motherhood. Of three, my oldest is 24 and she recently joined the Navy. My middle daughter, soon to be 21, attends college, My son, 19, is trying to "find himself". He wishes now he had listened to me and had better grades in school.
So, I'm babyboomer mom. No diapers to deal with but I still get to hear wining and complaining. Mother bird is getting ready to push the baby birds out of the nest and out of MY WALLET.
Yup I think they are all ready for the freedom. Good for the older two making something of their lives and i hope their brother catches up to them. I have a step son in his late 20s and he is turning into the perpetual college student, now going for his PhD in the field.
Need some Time for You? Feeling stressed? Kick back, relax & take a break. If you're a woman who just wants to have fun, here's the place :)
Welcome to Cafemom,
I hear that song & dance of yours & know all yours will be fine too,
Here is another group you may find helpful. Nice to meet you :)
Join us at
Time Out for You
Welcome! How exciting that your oldest is joining the Navy. I am sure you are very proud of her, as I'm sure you are of the other two.
I am sure that your son will find his way soon enough. I'm sure it's hard not to say told you so to him, lol.
Welcome to Cafemom. I hope you enjoy it here. Congrats on your daughter joining the Navy. I think that is awesome.


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Atlanta, GA (PRWEB) March 24, 2014
A-1 Express, a recognized leader in same-day delivery, messenger and transportation services, announces postal mail pick up and delivery courier services. The courier makes the announcement to market to new customers its wide range of courier logistic solutions that are available and expand its services for its current client base. A-1 Express pursues to be the best choice in same-day courier solutions nationwide.
The postal mail pick up and delivery courier services is a solution offered to individuals, small business and large corporations. With its courier expertise, A-1 Express can create a mail pick up and delivery services that optimizes time and is cost-effective for all customers. The courier can pick up mail from the client's origin and deliver to the nearest US Postal Service mail facility or to a specific mailing location. Postal mail pick up and deliveries can be performed on an as-needed basis, once per week, multiple times per week, or even daily.
The San Francisco courier is able to provide the mail pick up and deliver services within a window-time agreed upon with the customer to meet their postal mailing needs. Whether morning, afternoon or evening, the courier can perform the deliveries nationwide for multiple business locations. A postal mail pick up and delivery solution can also be created between several offices within a geographical area. With this type of mail routing service, A-1 Express would pick up mail from several offices and deliver all of their mail at one time.
Other A-1 Express services include nationwide courier service solutions, same-day bike messenger service, on-demand same-day delivery, multiple location courier services, long-distance freight same-day delivery, straight truck delivery services, payroll deliveries, less-than-truckload shipping and more. On-demand orders can be placed via phone or online. For any on-demand special requests beyond their postal mail services, customers can contact A-1 Express directly to meet those needs as well.
A-1 Express is a premier same-day courier offering transportation and distribution services. From small packages to palletized freight, A-1 Express delivers fast! As a leader in the courier industry, their goal is to perform optimal courier logistic solutions and superior customer service every time. The courier provides same-day delivery successfully for over 1,500 clients, including Fortune 500 companies throughout the US.


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Three top luxury hotel openings in Paris in 2010
Despite the current crisis, the French capital claims its top spot for new luxury hotels worldwide, with three major deluxe openings: MANDARIN ORIENTAL, SHANGRI LA and RAFFLES. Paris is the European capital which has held a constant pricing among its deluxe hotels during 2009 at an average of EUR 600/night(single), while other major European capitals have cut prices. Plaza Athenee Hotel of The Dorschester Collection Hotels has the highest priced suite in Paris, at EUR 30.000.
The move by French authorities to introduce the five star rating has also been welcomed by the hotels. Until 2009, the most luxurious hotels in Paris would only hold the French four star, at maximum deluxe.
The highest ranking chain hotels in Paris have been Four Seasons and Park Hyatt, yet the arrival of Mandarin Oriental is most likely to change the top hierarchy.


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Slow Cooker Orange Hoisin Chicken
from melskitchencafe.com
*Serves 4 to 6
2 tablespoons frozen orange juice concentrate
¼ cup honey
2 tablespoons soy suace
2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
3 slices peeled fresh ginger, about ¼-inch thick
3 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 tablespoon sesame oil
4 (about 1 1/2 to 2 pounds) boneless, skinless chicken breasts (can use frozen or fresh)
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon cold water
1 tablespoon sesame seeds, toasted (optional)
Chopped green onions for garnish
In a small bowl, combine the orange juice concentrate, honey, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, ginger, garlic and sesame oil. Pour the mixture into a resealable ziploc-type bag. Add the chicken breasts and coat with the sauce. Transfer the coated chicken to the slow cooker, then pour the remaining sauce over the chicken. Cover and cook on low until the chicken is tender and cooked through about 5 to 7 hours.
Transfer the chicken to a plate and cover with foil to keep warm. Strain the sauce through a fine mesh strainer into a small saucepan. In a cup or small bowl, stir together the cornstarch and cold water. Bring the sauce to a boil over high heat, add the cornstarch slurry and cook, stirring a few times, until thickened, 1 or 2 minutes. Pour some of the sauce over the chicken and pass the rest at the table. Serve the chicken over rice garnished with sesame seeds and green onions.


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Here Xenophon presents what in hindsight can be seen as the foundation for a theory of fair exchange in the market.
In one anecdote, the young Cyrus is to judge the fairness of an exchange made between a tall and a short boy. The tall boy forces the pair to exchange tunics, because the tall boy's tunic is too short, shorter than the short boys, which is too tall for him. Cyrus rules the exchange fair because it results in a better fit for both boys.
Later in the biography, Xenophon discusses the concept of division of labor, referencing specialized cooks and workers in a shoemaking shop. Scholars have noted that Adam Smith's early notes about this concept "read like a paraphrase of Xenophon's discussion of the role of the carpenter as a "jack of all trades" in small cities and as a specialist in large cities.(Lowry, S. Todd (2003). "Ancient and Medieval Economics")
Marx attributes to Cyropaedia the idea that the division of labor correlates to the size of a market. Ways and Means
is a short treatise on economic development, and showed an understanding of the importance of taking advantage of economies of scale and advocated laws promoting foreign merchants. Works
Ways and Means
Cyropaedia Xenophon
430 - 354 BC The Oeconomicus
Discusses the administration of agricultural land. In the work, subjective personal value of goods is analyzed and compared with exchange value. Xenophon uses the example of a horse, which may be of no use to a person who does not know how to handle it, but still has exchange value. Although this broadens the idea of value based in individual use to a more general social concept of value that comes through exchange, scholars note that this is not a market theory of value. Hiero
Is a minor work which includes discussion of leaders stimulating private production and technology through various means including public recognition and prize A history of 'The Other Canon' Plato
427– 347 BC) Italian
Renaissance: Il bene Commune
Das Gemeinwohl
The Commonwealth Jean-Baptiste Colbert
(1619-1683) Alexander Hamilton
(1755-1804) Adam Smith
(1723-1790) Thomas Jefferson
1743 – 1826 Pamphlet: Cotton is King
"We must prevent the increase of manufactures, force the surplus labor into agriculture, promote the cultivation of our unimproved western lands until provisions are so multiplied and reduced in price that the slave can be fed so cheaply as to enable us to grow our sugar at three cents a pound. Then without protective duties, we can rival Cuba in the production of that staple and drive her from our markets…" Friedrich List
1789 – 1846) Galbraith:"Here was the strongest, most enduring and, for that matter, most nearly irrefutable of arguments against Adam Smith and his followers and their case for free trade: they were not affirming a universal truth; they were simply urging what was indubitably advantageous for the special case of Britain." Marshall Plan 1948 Milton Friedman
(1912-2006) $13 billion
Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA)
counterpart funds: 60% for investment in industry.
Technical Assistance Program.
Stepping stone to political and economic integration in EU Erik S. Reinert
(1949-) Ha-Joon Chang
1963 Abraham Lincoln protected the steel cronies—by paying a little more for steel,9 the United States created a huge steel industry with many high-paying jobs that also provided a base for government taxation. Economic development is about aligning the public interests of the nation with the private vested interests of the capitalists. George Gemisthos Plethon
(1355-1452) Antonio Serra
(end 16th century) Queen Elisabeth
(1533-1603) Abraham Lincoln
(1809-1865) Aristotle
(384 BC – 322 BC) Imago viva dei Mercantilism Antiquity Great Britain and
Economic Imperialism "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." Conflict between individual and society: "Slavery may be a public calamity for a country, nevertheless some people may do very well in carrying on the slave trade and in holding slaves.", "Every invention has some inconvenience for a number of individuals, and is nevertheless a public blessing." Free trade: "Laissez faire et laissez passer, le monde va de lui même!"
"Lad være og lad gå, verden fortsætter på egen hånd!" "[I]f the whole globe were united by a union like the twenty four states of north America, free trade would indeed be quite as natural as it now is in the union…this state of things may be very desirable…but…it is not the state of the actual world" "That, however, under the existing conditions of the world, the result of general free trade would not be a universal republic, but on the contrary, a universal subjection of the less advanced nations to the supremacy of the predominant manufacturing, commercial, and naval power, is a conclusion for which the reasons are very strong and, according to our views, irrefragable." - The National System of Political Economy fra 1841 beskriver List "Britain used enhanced military power to impose tariffs, taxes, and treaties that furthered the interests of its manufacturers. India, for example, became a net cloth importer by 1816 in part because many Indian states were obliged to accept free trade in textiles."
--"The Human Web: A Bird'S-Eye View of World History" McNeill & McNeill "One looks to underworking the Hindoo, and sinking the rest of the world to his level; the other to raising the standard of man throughout the world to our level. One looks to pauperism, ignorance, depopulation, and barbarism; the other to increasing wealth, comfort, intelligence, combination of action, and civilisation. One looks toward universal war; the other to universal peace. One is the English System; the other we may be proud to call the American system, for it is the only one ever devised the tendency of which was that of elevating while equalizing the condition of man throughout the world."1 Henry C. Carey
1793 – 1879) Free Trade Harmony of interes
"Greed is good." Comparative advantage David Ricardo
(1772 - 1823) Neoclassical principle: Free trade is the goal per se, even before the required stage of industrializationis achieved. Comparative advantage in being poor
- Erik Reinert The American
Economic Revolution The civil War
1861-65 The American System
of Political Economy The Marshall Plan "The premise of neoclassical theory is that, if the investments are made, the acquisition and mastery of new ways of doing things are
relatively easy, even automatic" - Reinert Does capital per se lead to economic development, regardless of the economic structure within which investment is made? Loans are given to poor nations with productive/industrial structures that are unable to absorb such capital profitably. Interest payments often exceed the rate of return on investments made. Brain drain. Similarly, investments in human capital, made without corresponding changes in the productive structure to create demand for the skills acquired, will tend to promote emigration. Development Policy Myrdal advice for 3rd World Countries
"They should be aware of the fact that very much of these theories are partly rationalizations of
the dominant interest in the advanced and rapidly progressing industrial countries…it…would be
pathetic if the young social scientists of the under-developed countries got caught in the predilections of the thinking in the advanced countries, which are hampering the scholars there in their efforts to be rational but would be almost deadening to the intellectual strivings of those in the
under-developed countries. I would instead wish them to have the courage to throw away large
structures of meaningless, irrelevant and sometimes blatantly inadequate doctrines and theoretical
approaches and to start out from fresh thinking right from their needs and their problems. This
would then take them far beyond the realm of both out-moded Western liberal economics and Marxism." Among nations at the same level of development has always been beneficial. Regionalintegration is, therefore, key to development. The problem, however, is that poor neighbouring countries often have little to sell to each other. In Africa, pressures from the United States and the EU, together with the spaghetti bowl of regional integration schemes (Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), East African Community (EAC) Southern African Customs Union (SACU), Southern African Development Community (SADC)) and cross-membership of countries in these schemes, present difficulties for development and discourage policies promoting industrialization under local competition. The pressures to export faced by developing countries undermine, rather than advance, the Listian principle of regional integration that must precede any successful globalization. The EU presses for market access for their apples in Egypt, thereby destroying the century-old tradition of Egypt's buying apples from Lebanon. The present carving up of Africa into different economic spheres is exactly the opposite of what Africa needs, which is stronger economic integration within Africa and a certain degree of development before opening up for globalization. Why Poor Countries Stay Poor Works:
The Republic. Works
Nicomachean Ethics The Republic
Division of labour
The state as the root of welfare Politics.
In transactions, Aristotle used the labels of "natural" and "unnatural". Natural transactions were related to the satisfaction of needs and yielded wealth that was limited in quantity by the purpose it served. Un-natural transactions aimed at monetary gain and the wealth they yielded was potentially without limits. He explained the un-natural wealth had no limits because it became an end in itself rather than a means to another end—satisfaction of needs. This distinction is the basis for Aristotle's moral rejection of usury. Nicomachean Ethics
Therein, Aristotle discusses justice in distribution and exchange. About the state
About the state: Aristotle's "Thus the state is by nature clearly prior to the family and to the individual, since the whole is of necessity prior to the part; for example, if the whole body be destroyed, there will be no foot or hand, except in an equivocal sense, as we might speak of a stone hand. . . . The proof that the state is a creation of nature and prior to the individual is that the individual, when isolated, is not self-sufficing; and therefore he is like a part in relation to the whole." Philosopher Kings
Instead of rhetoric and persuasion, Plato says reason and wisdom should govern:
"Until philosophers rule as kings or those who are now called kings and leading men genuinely and adequately philosophise, that is, until political power and philosophy entirely coincide, while the many natures who at present pursue either one exclusively are forcibly prevented from doing so, cities will have no rest from evils,... nor, I think, will the human race." (Republic 473c-d)
Plato describes these "philosopher kings" as "those who love the sight of truth" (Republic 475c)
A philosopher has the moderate love for wisdom and the courage to act according to wisdom. Wisdom is knowledge about the Good or the right relations between all that exists. Division of the state
Productive. Which represents the abdomen. (Workers) — the labourers, carpenters, plumbers, masons, merchants, farmers, ranchers, etc. These correspond to the "appetite" part of the soul.
Protective. Which represents the chest. (Warriors or Guardians) — those who are adventurous, strong and brave; in the armed forces. These correspond to the "spirit" part of the soul.
Governing. Which represents the head. (Rulers or Philosopher Kings) — those who are intelligent, rational, self-controlled, in love with wisdom, well suited to make decisions for the community. These correspond to the "reason" part of the soul and are very few. It is however said that Plato once disclosed this knowledge to the public in his lecture On the Good (Περ τγαθο), in which the Good (τ γαθόν) is identified with the One (the Unity, τ ν), the fundamental ontological principle. Georgius Gemistus (later Plethon or Pletho, Greek: (c1355 – 1452/1454)
was a Byzantine scholar of Neoplatonic philosophy. He was one of the chief pioneers of the revival of Greek learning in Western Europe. In the dying years of the Byzantine Empire, he advocated a return to the Olympian gods of the ancient world. [1]
He re-introduced Plato's thoughts to Western Europe during the 1438 - 1439 Council of Florence.
Here Pletho met and influenced Cosimo de' Medici to found a new Platonic Academy, which, under Marsilio Ficino, would proceed to translate into Latin all Plato's works. 1613
"Breve trattato delle cause che possono far abbondare li regni d'oro e d'argento dove non sono miniere"
"A Brief Treatise on the Causes that can make Gold and Silver plentiful in Kingdoms where there are no Mines" The problems of establishing the institutions conducive to economic growth faced by mercantilists at the end of the Renaissance are shared today by policy-makers in the developing world, and it can therefore prove to be fruitful, if not necessary, to explore the historical roots of this early innovation system approach. Both List and
Roscher quoted and referred to a certain Antonio Serra, a Neapolitan Mercantilist whom Schumpeter claims was "the first to compose a scientific treatise… on Economic Principles
and Policy" (Schumpeter 1954: 195), as an authority when arguing that Germany shouldfollow England's path to industrialization (List 1841; Roscher 1881: 191). Antonio Serra VS. Marc' Antonio de Santis
Where his rival Marc'Antonio de Santis, to whose work Serra's Breve trattato was a response, sought to improve the Neapolitan economy manipulating monetary and fiscal variables, Serra insisted that the unfavourable monetary and fiscal situation of Naples merely reflected underlying factors in the real economy, factors that could be influenced and developed through governmental interventions in the real, as opposed to the monetary, economy. These two conflicting ways of structuring the economic sphere—one focusing on monetary variables and the other on knowledge and productionp Serra was, in particular, the first
economist to systematically introduce two mechanisms that are at the core of the process of economic development: increasing returns and cumulative causations. Thomas Robert Malthus
1766 – 1834 The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man. Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. Malthus argued that population was held within resource limits by two types of checks: positive ones, which raised the death rate, and preventative ones, which lowered the birth rate. The positive checks included hunger, disease and war; the preventative checks, abortion, birth control, prostitution, postponement of marriage, and celibacy. Malthus assumed a constant labor-demand in his assessment of England[citation needed], and in doing so he ignored the effects of industrialization. As the world became more industrialized, the level of technology and production grew, causing an increase in labor-demand. Thus, even though labor-supply increased, so did the demand for labor. In fact, the labor-demand arguably increased more than the supply, as measured by the historically observed increase in real wages globally with population growth. Between 1798 and 1826 Malthus published six editions of his famous treatise, An Essay on the Principle of Population, Criticism Biography Main ideas Bibliography The American System The Other Canon The new Ways of mercantilism Whereas Aristotle and the Scholastics resisted economic initiatives on the grounds that they inevitably exacerbated social inequality through diverging incomes, the mercantilists realized the economy could be directed towards increasing the material welfare of the entire population: enlightened statecraft could increase the common good. Mercantilist
literature can thus not be properly understood without reference to their cosmological context: the understanding of an expanding cosmos brought an end to the economy as a zero-sum game. Both cosmos and the economy ceased being static and incapable of growth. At the same time a religious reinterpretation meant that innovation was no longer a term of heresy. In 1278 Roger Bacon was arrested in Oxford for "suspicious innovations," when Francis Bacon wrote his Essay on Innovation around 1605 innovation was something to be actively
sought for in order to improve the lot of mankind (Reinert and Daastøl 1997). The zero-sum game Weltanschauung slowly disappeared and the learning economy was born. The overriding economic question of Serra's day was why all the gold and silver thatflowed into Spain from the Americas rapidly flowed out of an increasingly impoverished
Spain and ended up creating unprecedented wealth elsewhere, particularly in Venice and in the Dutch Republic. To Serra the explanation of this phenomenon was to be found in the study of the real economy, not in the study of monetary phenomena. To him, the key to this
mystery was that different economic sectors were subject to different economic laws; manufacturing was subject to increasing returns as production expanded, and agriculture was not. Serra explained the underlying causes in the Realökonomie that determined the flow of
gold in and out of nations. To Serra, a deficit of gold was but a symptom of other ills that could only be explained in the realm of production. As Schumpeter says about Serra's work:
"Essentially the treatise is about the factors on which depend the abundance not of money but
of commodities—natural resources, quality of the people, the development of industry and
trade, the efficiency of government—the implication being that if the economic process as a whole functions properly, the monetary element will take care of itself and not require anyspecific therapy" an argument recently revived by Alessandro Roncaglia's excellent survey of the history of economic thought (Schumpeter 1954: p 195; Roncaglia 2001: 52). Bibliography Alessandro Roncaglia's excellent survey of the history of economic thought The Kingdom of
Naples continued to treat the symptoms of the outflow of gold and silver rather than its
causes, and for a long period joined the rest of Italy in the periphery of the world system.
After this, Serra and his work remained shrouded in darkness for more than a century. It was
seemingly a pure coincidence that the Tuscan mathematician Bartolomeo Intieri [1678-1757]
rediscovered the Breve trattato while stationed as administrator of the Medici estates in
Naples in the middle of the eighteenth century. Intieri is best remembered for having founded
10 the chair of political economy at the University of Naples, the first of its kind anywhere
outside Germany and Sweden/Finland. The chair of political economy was given to the
influential economist Antonio Genovesi2 in 1754 and Intieri gave him the only known copy of
Serra's Breve trattato as an inaugural gift. Genovesi later donated this book to Ferdinando
Galiani, the ardent anti-physiocrat, who was the first author to write on Serra. Galiani gave
the book to his student and fellow economist Giuseppe Palmieri [1721-1793], who gave it to
the Neapolitan nationalist Francesco Salfi, a friend of Baron Pietro Custodi (Custodi 1803:
xxviii). Custodi honored Serra's memory by including it as the first tract in his 50-volume
collection of pre-nineteenth century Italian economic thought (Custodi 1803: xxviii; Ziersch
1905: 29). It is through this 1803 edition that Friedrich List and Wilhelm Roscher were so
heavily influenced by Serra's work. The single known copy of the Breve trattato at the time
thus passed, like a "proverbial lamp of life and learning"— a "lampada di vita"—through the
hands of the greatest Italian economists of the time (Croce 1970: 151).3
This first known copy of Serra's tract was finally donated to the Biblioteca
Ambrosiana in Milan, and eight more copies of the original seem to have been discovered.
Several editions have appeared in Italian, but apart from a translation of a few pages in Arthur
Eli Monroe's 1930 Early Economic Thought (Monroe 1930), the Breve trattato has not been
available for an international audience. 390 years after its first publication, however, this
might be in the process of change. The first complete translation of Serra's 1613 treatise, into
Portuguese, was published in Curitiba, Brazil in 2002 (Serra 2002). It was predated by an
article in a Brazilian student journal, Oikos (Padula 2002), and, given the pertinence of its
message, one can hope that a critical mass of interest for Serra's work soon will be reached
and an English translation published. Serra's Influences The Story of Breve Tratto Main Ideas The link to developing countries today Works We must keep in mind that the core of European colonial policy was to prohibit the establishment of manufacturing – i.e. increasing return activities – in the colonies, such activities being reserved for the Mother Country. Serra's insistence on the role of manufacturing in creating economic welfare is therefore a denunciation of colonial policies of all ages, including that of today's neo-colonialism. Like in the later German tradition, Serra clearly defines economics
as an Erfahrungswissenschaft, a science based on experience rather than on a priori
assumptions. This reasoning also echoes the work of his English contemporary and creator of the modern concept of innovation, Francis Bacon [1561-1626] (Reinert & Daastøl 1997). Very much in the spirit of Bacon's New Atlantis, Serra also summons the vision of a 'neverending frontier of knowledge' when he complains that "there are still people who think everything they do not understand is impossible even though many such things, including ancient and modern discoveries, are now discussed that had once too been thought impossible by everyone" (177). Particular factors, Serra argues, "may occur in only one kingdom and no others," whereas "common factors may appear in all kingdoms alike."
The particular causes are
contextual and consist of the twin factors of agricultural abundance and geography.
The common causes, are results abstract ideas that can come to fruition and improve the state of affairs in any nation, constituting the most important causes of the wealth
of nations;
They are "the quantity of industry," "the quality of the population," "the
extension of trading operations," and "the regulations of the sovereign."
Serra was quite certain that his modelling of the economic sphere included all pertinent causes of wealth, arguing "other causes besides the ones mentioned do not exist, as they are either subordinated
or consequential to the ones mentioned" (39).
The natural causes, while alluded to in the full title of Serra's work, receive brief coverage, as they were of little relevance to his own context. Serra argues that "the natural class comprises only one situation: when there are mines of gold and silver in a country" (20). Causes of Wealth Accidental Causes - two types
Particular factors, Serra argues, "may occur in only one kingdom and no others," whereas "common factors may appear in all kingdoms alike."
geographical locaton
The quantity of industry (most important)
The quality of the population
The existence of extensive trade
The fortuitous regulations of the sovereign
All work dynamically and in synergetic conjunction. Dynanic relationship between the common factors:
Serra here alludes to the concept that German economists used to refer to as "Strukturzusammenhänge" in
economics—the organic synergy of factors in relations of cumulative causation at the core of
the innovation system approach, i.e. the idea that various independent factors cumulatively
influence each other and the end results organically. Increasing returns
Manufactures, Serra argued, are unique because total costs decrease with increasing volumes of production:
"There can be multiplications in manufactures which lead to a multiplication of profits, something which does not happen in agriculture as one cannot multiply it. Nobody, for example, having a territory upon which only a hundred tomola of wheat can be sown, will be able to have a hundred and fifty sown; but among the manufactures,
it is just the other way, since they may be multiplied not only two-fold but two hundred-fold, and with proportionately less expense." Division of labourt - synergy effects
To put this statement in a modern language: Serra sees the multiplication of the division of labour in industries where a large market share—in form
of 'niches'—can be achieved through increasing returns and resulting lower unit costs of production, linking this to a potential for higher profits and higher national welfare. Serra's distinction between increasing and decreasing return activities was thus implicitly built on the theory of the division of labour as it dates back to Xenophon. To this is added a synergy argument in Serra: the greater the division of labour, the richer the city. The possibility of increasing returns was, throughout the entire mercantilist andCameralist traditions, seen in connection with the increased opportunity for division of
labour in manufactures, and therefore highly activity-specific. scale. The concepts of
production and exchange, for example, intersect in Adam Smith because they both represent
time spent in activities classified as "economic." While both indeed can be reduced to "time"
at a certain level of abstraction, many important distinctions are lost in the process. The
economic historian Biernacki argues that "an emblematic contradiction between form and
content runs through the Wealth of Nations: the argument makes labour the font of all value,
preparatory to sale, whereas the language of analysis treats the labour activity—production—
as itself a vending transaction" (Biernacki 1995: 252). Indeed, we find Smith declaring that
"labour was the first price, the original purchase of money that was paid for all things. It was
not by gold or silver, but by labour, that all the wealth of the world was originally
purchased." Biernacki further perceptively argues that Smith equates, or even confuses, "the
original process of production – the creation of a good through the labor activity – with the
socially organized way of acquiring goods through monetary exchange."
In Smithian economics production and exchange become one through the nexus of
labour; the various investments of time in economic pursuits—in trade or manufacture—
become unified in the overriding concept of labour-time, in the abstract, metric unit of
economic activity. "No wonder Smith's usage makes no distinction between commerce and
industry. He assimilates the process of production to that of exchange" (Smith 1976: i, 35;
Biernacki 1995: 252-254). Smith's list of required factors for "putting industry into motion"
are indeed indicative of this: one needs "materials to work upon, tools to work with, and the
wages or recompence for the sake of which the work is done" (Smith 1976: i, 313). Where,
one could ask, is the knowledge, tacit or otherwise, that makes the industrial undertaking
possible? This development continued in the work of David Ricardo [1772-1823], who we all
agree "more than any other single individual set the tone of modern economic theory"
(Arrow 2000: 172). Ricardo indeed argued "the value of a commodity… depends on the
relative quantity of labour which is necessary for its production, and not on the greater or
lesser compensation which is paid for that labour." The qualitative differences between
goods are thus mere reflections of the qualitative disparity present at their production;
knowledge and innovation lose all meaning in a system where technological progress merely
reduces a good's exchange value in terms of embodied labour (Biernacki 245-246). With this
theory the core importance of Man as inventor and producer almost automatically goes over
board, establishing an economic theory based on barter and trade where the built-in result is a
world of economic harmony and of factor-price equalisation.
If one is to operate on the abstraction level in the works of Smith, Ricardo, and
Samuelson's trade theory, where production and exchange melt into the elusive concept of
"labour time," one loses an entire axis of value, namely the measurement of qualitative
difference among economic activities (Reinert 1999). The natural consequence of these
standard assumptions of neoclassical economics is that prices of the factors of production—
capital and labour—will tend to equalize under a system of free trade (Samuelson & Stolper,
1948 & 1949, Samuelson 1953). It can be argued that this theorem is the very foundation of
today's world economic system, and it has its roots in Adam Smith's equation of economic
activities. We argue that by going back to seeing the world through the lenses of Antonio
Serra, we can find the reasons why present globalisation produces such different results in
different countries.
The birth of neo-classical economics in the late nineteenth century dealt the theory of
increasing returns The Quality of the population
The "quality of the population," again a term used by Botero (1590), was the second
most important aspect of Serra's economic engine; a country would be rich if its people were "by nature industrious, or diligent and prone to inventions, and on the watch for opportunities to apply their industry and build up trade not only in their own country but in others" It should be noted in this context that industry signified diligence and assiduousness. The word only gained its modern meaning in the nineteenth century, when it lost the qualitative dimensions it originally had Following the 1798 publication of Thomas Malthus' [1766-1834] Principles of
Population) a large population was generally considered a hindrance to development, thoughearlier economic theorists held the opposite view. This, we will argue, was not the result of their analytical ignorance, as the "Malthusian Principle" itself was well-known centuries before Malthus: "Divested of nonessentials," Schumpeter wrote, "the 'Malthusian' Principle of Population sprang fully developed from the brain of Botero in 158910" (Schumpeter 1954: 254-255). The virtus generativa was stronger than the virtus nutritiva, Giovanni Botero argued, and a population would therefore always grow to a limit of subsistence manipulated by negative and positive checks such as moral restraint and pestilence (Botero 1590: 222-
226). Trade
By this
Serra did not mean only skimming profits from long-distance trade, but also the import of raw
materials, to which great value was added through manufacturing, and the subsequent export of the finished product. Export-led growth through importsubstituting
industrialization has indeed been the basis of almost every single successfulindustrialization policy from Solonic Athens to the Asian Tigers, a mandatory passage point of sorts on the road to the free market (Sombart 1902: ii, 55-56; E. Reinert 1999, Kay and Gwynne 2000: 52; Chang 2002). Clusters of innovation
In Serra's eyes, Venice grew powerful, because she had managed to create a serendipitous cluster of industry, innovation, trade, and people— an effect he very explicitly argued was the result of good governance.
Enforcing each other, these factors together set Venice on a very different trajectory from the one on which Naples found itself. Naples would not be able to
solve her economic problems without creating a productive structure similar to that of Venice. Concluision
The Breve trattato is, in the final analysis, a policy pamphlet seeking to propagate what Serra, echoing the humanist tradition in which he writes, calls the common good. Bernard de Mandeville [1670-1733] Role of the state Unlike the "invisible hand" of Bernard de Mandeville [1670-1733] and Adam Smith, this tradition stressed the importance of the state taking an active role in the establishment of institutions and legislations conducive to economic development How England got rich England's penetration of the world's markets in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries could never have occurred without the careful superintendence of royal charters
granting certain privileges to entrepreneurs in specific sectors of the economy, but the after-
11 And even an English translation, On the Greatnesse of Cities, published in London in 1607.
the-fact nature of Mandeville's and Smith's writing enabled them to take a number of
productive institutions for granted Throughout the five hundred years of political support for industries yielding increasing returns, it is noticeable that – with the exception of the first movers Venice and the Dutch Republic – virtually no nation has ever taken the step from poverty to wealth without passing through a temporary stage of nurturing and protecting such increasing return activities.12 Serra seems to have established an 'iron law of economic development'. This is, however, not reflected today in the policy recommendations of the Washington Consensus. In
terms of economic welfare, the de-industrialization of parts of the Third World in the past decades has been devastating and quite the opposite of what Serra would have recommended
(Reinert 2003 & 2004). Conclusion Throughout the five hundred years of political support for industries yielding increasing returns, it is noticeable that – with the exception of the first movers Venice and the Dutch Republic – virtually no nation has ever taken the step from poverty to wealth without passing through a temporary stage of nurturing and protecting such increasing return activities.12 Serra seems to have established an 'iron law of economic development'. This is, however, not reflected today in the policy recommendations of the Washington Consensus. In terms of economic welfare, the de-industrialization of parts of the Third World in the past
decades has been devastating and quite the opposite of what Serra would have recommended
(Reinert 2003 & 2004). Adam Smith left out
the synergies, linkages, innovations, and differences between increasing and decreasing returnactivities in the economic system. On the macro level we thus lost the dynamic systemic
effects that today are called a National Innovation System. In the early 1980's Paul Krugman had grasped the factor increasing Criticism Biography Causes of Wealth
There are, according to Serra, two main categories of factors affecting the economic development of a nation: the natural and the accidental. Details Natural causes
Receive brief coverage in Serra's work.
Serra argues that "the natural class comprises only one situation: when there are mines of gold and silver in a country" Industry
Division of labor. The greater the division of labour, the richer the city
Cumulative causation
Clusters of innovation
increasing returns and resulting lower unit costs of production, linking this to a potential for higher profits and higher national welfare. The Quality of the population
A country would be rich if its people were "by nature industrious, or diligent and prone to inventions, and on the watch for opportunities to apply their industry and build up trade not only in their own country but in others"
It should be noted in this context that industry signified diligence and assiduousness. The word only gained its modern meaning in the nineteenth century, when it lost the qualitative dimensions it originally had The case of Venice Venice had amassed great wealth for centuries bybeing the nexus of world trade.
Serra: "all the commodities which come from Asia into Europepass through Venice, and from there are distributed into other parts; while commodities whichgo from Europe into Asia are likewise shipped from there."
Naples, however, suffered from an unfavorable location "at the tip of the arm of Italy, where nobody found it convenient to trade" Real vs. Monetary economics Sophisticated Mercantilism approached the problem of increasing national wealth from the standpoint of a state supporting individual initiative, rather than of unilateral state intervention. Unless the sheer size of the industry made it suffer from barriers that were too high for entry by individual actors in the economy—in which case Mercantilism adopted the
approach of modern state capitalism—the state was seen as a guiding force, rather than an actual owner (see, in the tradition of Serra, Costantini 1742: 103-104). Reinhold C. Mueller:
"The single aspect that characterizes Venetian history and historiography is the dominant role of the state in the life of the city and the symbiosis between public and private sectors of the economy, between public and private interests" The state
State determining direction into activity-specific economic activities
Securing the common good
Contrary to Adam Smith and Bernard Mandeville Climate Rage – Naomi Klein, Rolling Stone Magazine
"Justin Lin, chief economist at the World Bank, puts the equation bluntly: "About 75 to 80 percent" of the damages caused by global warming "will be suffered by developing countries, although they only contribute about one-third of greenhouse gases."
"What we need is not something we should be begging for but something that is owed to us, because we are dealing with a crisis not of our making," says Lidy Nacpil, one of the coordinators of Jubilee South, an international organization that has staged demonstrations to promote climate reparations. "Climate debt is not a matter of charity."
nd while developing countries like China and India have also begun to spew large amounts of carbon dioxide, the reasoning goes, they are not equally responsible for the cost of the cleanup, because they have contributed only a small fraction of the 200 years of cumulative pollution that has caused the crisis.
Equally important, the idea is supported by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change — ratified by 192 countries, including the United States. The framework not only asserts that "the largest share of historical and current global emissions of greenhouse gases has originated in developed countries," it clearly states that actions taken to fix the problem should be made "on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities."
Bolivia cannot fuel economic growth with cheap and dirty energy, as the rich countries did, since that would only add to the climate crisis — yet they cannot afford the heavy upfront costs of switching to renewable energies like wind and solar.
The solution, Navarro argued, is three-fold. Rich countries need to pay the costs associated with adapting to a changing climate, make deep cuts to their own emission levels "to make atmospheric space available" for the developing world, and pay Third World countries to leapfrog over fossil fuels and go straight to cleaner alternatives.
"We cannot and will not give up our rightful claim to a fair share of atmospheric space on the promise that, at some future stage, technology will be provided to us," she said.
Angelica Navarro, the chief climate negotiator for Bolivia
"If we are to curb emissions in the next decade, we need a massive mobilization larger than any in history," Navarro declared at the end of her talk. "We need a Marshall Plan for the Earth. This plan must mobilize financing and technology transfer on scales never seen before. It must get technology onto the ground in every country to ensure we reduce emissions while raising people's quality of life. We have only a decade."
The World Bank puts the cost that developing countries face from climate change — everything from crops destroyed by drought and floods to malaria spread by mosquito-infested waters — as high as $100 billion a year. And shifting to renewable energy, according to a team of United Nations researchers, will raise the cost far more: to as much as $600 billion a year over the next decade.
Ecuador's center-left president, Rafael Correa, said something very rare for the leader of an oil-exporting nation: He wanted to leave the oil in the ground. But, he argued, wealthy countries should pay Ecuador — where half the population lives in poverty — not to release that carbon into the atmosphere, as "compensation for the damages caused by the out-of-proportion amount of historical and current emissions of greenhouse gases." He didn't ask for the entire amount; just half. And he committed to spending much of the money to move Ecuador to alternative energy sources like solar and geothermal.
Debt vs. Aid and who til distribute
But to ensure that climate reparations are real, advocates insist, they must be independent of the current system of international aid. Climate money cannot simply be diverted from existing aid programs, such as primary education or HIV prevention. What's more, the funds must be provided as grants, not loans, since the last thing developing countries need is more debt. Furthermore, the money should not be administered by the usual suspects like the World Bank and USAID, which too often push pet projects based on Western agendas, but must be controlled by the United Nations climate convention, where developing countries would have a direct say in how the money is spent.
Nomoney no deal
"No money, no deal," is how one of South Africa's top environmental officials put it. "If need be," says Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, speaking on behalf of the African Union, "we are prepared to walk out."
Obama on Climate Debt
In the past, President Obama has recognized the principle on which climate debt rests. "Yes, the developed nations that caused much of the damage to our climate over the last century still have a responsibility to lead," he acknowledged in his September speech at the United Nations. "We have a responsibility to provide the financial and technical assistance needed to help these [developing] nations adapt to the impacts of climate change and pursue low-carbon development."
Yet as Copenhagen draws near, the U.S. negotiating position appears to be to pretend that 200 years of over-emissions never happened. Todd Stern, the chief U.S. climate negotiator, has scoffed at a Chinese and African proposal that developed countries pay as much as $400 billion a year in climate financing as "wildly unrealistic" and "untethered to reality." Shock Doctrine Naomi Klein on Climate Debt Hurricane Catrina
Disaster Capitalism "Shock and Awe are actions that create fears, dangers, and destruction that are incomprehensible to the people at large, specific elements/sectors of the threat society, or the leadership. Nature in the form of tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, uncontrolled fires, famine, and diseases can engender Shock and Awe."
--"Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance", the military doctrine for the U.S. War on Iraq Naomi Klein "only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable."
"Capitalism and Freedom", Milton Friedman The Chicago School Economy as Science
"The core of such sacred Chicago teachings was that the economic forces of supply and demand, inflation, and unemployment were like the forces of nature, fixed and unchanging. In the truly free market imagined in Chicago classes and texts, these forces existed in perfect equilibrium, supply communicating with demand the the moon pulls the tides." Policy advice:
Corporations should be free to sell their products anywhere in the world, and governments should make no effort to protect local industries or local ownership
All prices, including the price of labour should be determined by the market
No minimum wage
health care,
Postal service
education, retirement pensions
National parks
One critique: Total laizzes faire exists nowhere but in the minds of people Milton Friedman "Just as ecosystem selfregulate, keeping themselves in balance, the market, left to its own devices, would create just the rights number of products at precisely the right prices, produces by workers at just the right wages to buy those products – an Eden of plentiful employment, boundless creativity and zero inflation."
The system is never wrong - rather the world is wrong
Siding with the enemy - Marxism The Case of Chile "The Chile Project" 1956 Chicago Boys Salvador Allende 1970,
A democrat who won on program for nationalizing important sectors of the economy. Nixon: "Make the economy scream" ITT (International Telephone and Telegraph Company) – owned 70% of Chile's soon to be nationalized telephone comapany. Purina, Bank Of America Pfizer.
Block loans to Chile
Boycott Chicago Boys: "The Brick"
Cuts to social spending Pinochet, September 11th. 1973 – on the way to natural equilibrium
Installed chicago Boys as key people
Opened borders for foreign import
Cut governement spending by 10% (except the military)
Eliminated price controls 1974
Inflation reached 375 % - highest in the world
Bread prices through the roof
Chileans lost their work as as markets were flooded with cheap goods
1975 Friedman: Economic "Shock Treatment" - 25% reduction in public spending The "Chilean Miracle"
Unemployment 30%
Debt of 14 billion dollars
Codelco – only nationalized mining company, delivered 85 % of Chile's eyport revenues.
45% of the population had fallen below the poverty line
The richest 10% of chileans had seen their income increase 83% from "Chile under Chicago School rule was offering a glimpse of the future of the global economy, a pattern that would repeat again and again, from Russia to South Africa to Argentina: an urban bubble of frenetic speculation and dubious accounting fueling superprofits and frantic cosumerism, ringed by the ghostly factories and rotting infrastructure of a development past; roughly hakf the population excluded from the economy altogether; out-of-control corruption and cronyism; decimination of nationally owned small and medium-sized businesses; a huge transfer of wealth from public to private hands, followed by a huge transfer of private debts into public hands." Thomas Mores (1478 – 1535) "Utopia" from 1516
The role of the King(the State)
"Why do you suppose they made you king in the first place?... Not for your benefit, but for theirs. They meant you to devote your energies to making their lives more comfortable, and protecting them from injustice. So you're job is to see that they're all alright, not that you are – just as a shepherd's job, strictly speaking, is to feed the sheep, not himself."1 Challenging mainstream economics A battle of Ideas What is a human being? Discovering the human Report on the Subjecy of Manufactures
Invest in insfrastructure
Tariffs and bounties
Sovereign currency
US should go from being af colony producing raw materials to a highly productive economy First Secretary of the treasury Challenging Adam Smith's comparative advantage The American Colonies
Producer of raw materials for the the mother country Begge dele skulle sikres ved målrettede investeringer i industri, infrastruktur, oprettelsen af toldbarrierer, samt en selvstændig møntfod og national bank, således at USA kunne gå fra at være en råvareproducerende koloni til en højproduktiv nation. Wealth of Nations 1776 The nature of economy "If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it of them with some part of the produce of our own industry, employed in a way in which we have some advantage."
--Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith Free Trade "If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it of them with some part of the produce of our own industry, employed in a way in which we have some advantage."
--Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith Productive powers:
Let the machines do the work The American System "[I]f the whole globe were united by a union like the twenty four states of north America, free trade would indeed be quite as natural as it now is in the union…this state of things may be very desirable…but…it is not the state of the actual world" "That, however, under the existing conditions of the world, the result of general free trade would not be a universal republic, but on the contrary, a universal subjection of the less advanced nations to the supremacy of the predominant manufacturing, commercial, and naval power, is a conclusion for which the reasons are very strong and, according to our views, irrefragable." - The National System of Political Economy fra 1841 beskriver List Friedrich List
1789 – 1846 Infant industries Going from poor to rich
Navigation Acts
Tariffs and Bounties
Protecting commerce and technology
State initiated investments into infrastructure
From the end of the 18th century up until 1880 Great Britain was the dominant force in the world The Case of England Edmund Burke
1729 – 1797 "[T]hey should send all their products to us raw, and in their first state; and that they should take every thing from us in the last state of manufacture." The policy Stanley Jevons (1835-1882) "Unfettered commerce…has made the several quarters of the globe our willing tributaries." Don't do as the British tell you, do as they did. "Here was the strongest, most enduring and, for that matter, most nearly irrefutable of arguments against Adam Smith and his followers and their case for free trade: they were not affirming a universal truth; they were simply urging what was indubitably advantageous for the special case of Britain." "One looks to underworking the Hindoo, and sinking the rest of the world to his level; the other to raising the standard of man throughout the world to our level. One looks to pauperism, ignorance, depopulation, and barbarism; the other to increasing wealth, comfort, intelligence, combination of action, and civilisation. One looks toward universal war; the other to universal peace. One is the English System; the other we may be proud to call the American system, for it is the only one ever devised the tendency of which was that of elevating while equalizing the condition of man throughout the world." Henry C. Carey
1793 – 1879) Comparative advantage in being poor
- Erik Reinert
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History of the Other Canon
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Arvid Jensenon 13 November 2012
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|Reviews for Chaos from One World to Another
| MikariStar chapter 1 . 7/8/2006
lol XD Funny! I like how this is going, update soon!
| Waterlily216 chapter 1 . 7/2/2006
-coughs up cake that's being swallowed-
OMG! That was HILARIOUS! Haha, not only was the language funny, but the OOCness was too. Especially Naraku. XD
Update soon! :D
| Optimistic Cynicism chapter 1 . 6/23/2006
What the heck?
That was probably the most random thing i've ever read...
but incredubly funny!
Sessho...breakdancing!...that sounds...um...well...weird, no, not weird...more like OMG THE WORLD'S GONNA END!SESSHO'S BREAKDANCING!


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Seth Russell wrote: > > Libby Miller wrote: <snip /> > > and that we do need something like Gabe's suggestion of bags of reified > > statements [1] at least as an interpretation of the information from a > > source of RDF (I don't think Gabe means that all serializations of RDF > > should follow this format, just the handling of rdf data from other > > sources - I might be wrong...). So this has implications for handling > > the triples we have in a consistent way from different sources, and > > therefore also implications about how we match triples (as in your > > suggestion) and by extension, for querying. > > I must be getting old, I simply cannot follow what Gabe is saying. It seems to > conflate the syntax and the model in a way that I am not used to. I keep > worrying that I am being tricked, and I won't be able to put a statement in a > context, and then put statements about those statements in another context. > Perhaps this has been provided for, but I haven't seen any diagrams that I > understand. Sorry, If I can't see it in a diagram, then I don't believe it. It would help if you would indicate a specific point of mine that you can't follow. I've tried to phrase my points in various ways and would be happy to learn what aspects of my phrasing are throwing things off. BTW, the use of the term "model" earlier in your message made me revisit the thread from last month and Sergey's posting [2]. He makes the point that there is only one model which is "the model" which contains all the statements/triples in existence. It corresponds to the set of Statements which is described in the formal model in the M&S. Sightings of these triples can occur in many places of which places on the web are of most interest to me. An RDF/XML document is a specific place that members of the universal Statements set can either occur in and/or be referred to. The M&S provides a way to capture the fact that these occurences or references happened at a specific place on the web. The URI portion of the reified resource identifier provides this information. In addition, the M&S provides a way of tracing the syntactic context of a statement occurrence to a finer level by associating all the statement occurrences in a particular RDF/XML Description element to a Bag. The reified statement resource and the Description Bag are also used for other purposes than providing traceability and context. Since they are resources, they can be the objects of statements and this is the primary way that the M&S discusses their utility. I happen to think that it is a happy happenstance that they can also be used to provide other critical capabilities for document webs. Hope this helps even if there aren't any pictures :-) Gabe [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-logic/2000Nov/0103.html [2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-interest/2000Oct/0180.html > > Seth Russell -- --------------------------- http://www.jfinity.com/gabeReceived on Thursday, 30 November 2000 00:05:52 UTC
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.1 : Wednesday, 7 January 2015 15:07:33 UTC


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Fassbender Confirmed for X-Men: First Class
Heat Vision is reporting that Michael Fassbender has officially signed on to play Magneto in X-Men: First Class. The Inglorious Basterds star, who was also rumored to be up for a role as a villian in the upcoming Spiderman reboot, will join James McAvoy (as Charles Xavier) and Benjamin Walker (as Hank McCoy) in the X-Men prequel, which will be directed by Matthew Vaughn.
With the movie scheduled to start filming in September, casting rumors have been running wild for several weeks now, and we should be getting some more official confirmations shortly. The official synopsis of the film is here:
"Before Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr took the names Professor X and Magneto, they were two young men discovering their powers for the first time. Before they were archenemies, they were closest of friends, working together, with other Mutants (some familiar, some new), to stop the greatest threat the world has ever known. In the process, a rift between them opened, which began the eternal war between Magneto's Brotherhood and Professor X's X-Men."
Well, that doesn't seem like anything we didn't already know about the movie...but it does sound like everything is coming together nicely so far.
X-Men: First Class is scheduled to open in theaters June 3, 2011.


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We continue the countdown today with number 55, Virginia shortstop Branden Cogswell. In his sophomore campaign with the Cavaliers, Cogswell found himself at the top of the lineup where he started the first 47 games. In 182 at bats, the rising junior posted an impressive .346 average with 63 hits, 55 runs and 22 RBI. The 6'2" infielder recorded 20 multiple hit games despite missing the last 15 games due to an injury. Cogswell played a huge part in the Cavaliers success in 2013 and his efforts on the diamond got him selected to the Second-Team All-ACC as well as named to the watch list for the Wallace Award which is given to the nation's top shortstop.
The Ballston Lake, NY native attended Shenendehowa High School where he batted .500 with 10 homeruns in his senior season. Cogswell quickly proved that he was ready to play at the next level and his collection of accolades definitely supported that statement. In his four years, the slick fielding shortstop was named Player of the Year for Capital District by Albany Times Union as well as the 2011 ABCA/Rawlings High School Third-Team All-American. Cogswell knew he was ready to make the next step in his baseball career and jumped at the opportunity to be a part of the Cavaliers program.
During the 2013 summer, Cogswell spent his time in the prestigious Cape Cod League where he was a member of the Harwich Mariners. In 33 games, the standout shortstop posted a .231 average and collected 28 hits and 8 RBI in the process. The Cavalier's shortstop also had the privilege to compete in the CCBL All-Star game for the East.
After earning his way to a starting spot, Cogswell returns to the Cavaliers for the 2014 season. His presence in the lineup has proven to be positive and he will definitely be a prospect to keep an eye on as the University of Virginia takes the field in 2014.
You can check out the rest of our Top 100 by clicking here.


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"We are summoning our fallen brethren?" Rakmar asked softly. He and the other necrolytes were standing around the altar Gul'dan and Cho'gall had built, as ordered, but Gul'dan could see they were trying to decipher its purpose. Let them. By the time they did, it would be too late.
"Yes," Gul'dan replied, concentrating on the incantation he was about to perform. "Doomhammer slaughtered the other warlocks but their souls linger. We will summon them and instill them in the human bodies." He grinned. "They will be eager to return to this world, and serve the Horde once more."
Rakmar nodded. "That will animate them," he agreed, "but will it give them power? Or will they be little more than walking corpses?" Gul'dan frowned, surprised and not pleased that the necrolyte had figured that out so quickly. "Silence" he commanded, forestalling other questions. "We begin"
He began the ritual, summoning his magic to him and feeling it fill him with power. Not enough power, but soon that would change. In the meantime he concentrated on his task, channeling his energies into the altar before them, priming it for the transformation he was about to evoke. Rakmar and the other necrolytes joined in, lending their own necromantic magic to his incantation.Thus they were distracted and did not notice that Gul'dan had moved from his position until it was too late. "Rrargh!" Gul'dan could not stop the growl from escaping his lips, but it did not matter.He was already positioned right behind Rakmar, curved dagger at the ready, and as the taller orc turned Gul'dan's blade lashed out, catching the necrolyte full across the throat. Blood arced out, spraying them both, and Rakmar toppled backward, clutching the wound, gasping for air. He fell onto the altar, and gasped with horror as he tried to push himself away from it. But Gul'dan was on top of him, straddling the fading necrolyte, and batted his hands away. Then he plunged the dagger into Rakmar's chest, wrenching it about to create a gaping hole. Into this he reached and, with a sharp tug, removed Rakmar's still-beating heart. Before his former assistant's eyes Gul'dan cast the spell he had prepared, his magic enveloping the bloody organ and trapping Rakmar's spirit within. The magic of the altar surged up then, reshaping the heart, shrinking it and hardening it and granting it an unnatural luster. As the necrolyte collapsed, his body now an empty shell, Gul'dan grinned down at him and held up the glowing gem.
"Do not fear, Rakmar" he assured the dead orc. "This is not the end for you. On the contrary. You shall succeed at your task, with my help. You will fight again for the Horde. And Doomhammer will have his undead warriors." He laughed. "That is the good thing about necromancers---we never let anything go to waste."
He glanced up. Cho'gall had killed several more necrolytes already, preserving their hearts and souls as jewels in the same manner. The rest were cowering, their magic still caught up in the altar, unable to flee and too terrified to fight. Gul'dan snorted. Worthless! He would have fought. But this made matters easier for him, at least. He laughed as he rose and stalked toward the remaining Warlocks, licking the blood from his tusks as he approached. Soon they would be warlike enough for even the most bloodthirsty commander.
As he and Doomhammer watched, the corpse stirred. Its fingers closed tightly around the truncheons, which began to glow. That light spread to the body's hand, then up along its arm, slowly infusing the entire form with a green aura.
"Welcome back, Teron Gorefiend," Gul'dan replied, trying to keep the laughter from his voice. "Yes, I have brought you back, to further serve the Horde."
Doomhammer stepped forward, studying the strange creature before him, "Gorefiend? One of your warlocks from the Shadow Council? I killed him myself."
Citation: Rosenberg, Aaron. World of Warcraft: Tides of Darkness. Pocket Star Books. A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. 1230 Avenue of the America. New York, NY 10020. www.SimonandSchuster.com. Pages (135-138)(140-141)
Warlocks are Necromancers. The book refers to the Orc Necrolytes (Necromancers) as Warlocks and vice-versa. Warlocks are immortal, we can imbue our souls into jewels, raising ourselves as undead, or at least our soulstones should raise ourselves as undead in-game, but whatever, you get the point. Soulstones are phylacteries, they store souls, and when the body is destroyed, voila, we become corporal once more. BAM BAM BAM BAM
WTB Major Glyph [Fel Reanimation]: Whoever is raised by your Soulstone will now appear as a Death Knight with a glowing Green aura.
Also, Demons are immortal in the sense that they don't die from aging, and most Warlocks use Fel magic which drains life from others. Warlocks can turn into Demons, and in Rise of the Horde, this Warlock drained the life from two children, aging them prematurely, all the while nourishing himself.
- - - Updated - - -
There is a reason why Warlocks abandon their studies as a Mage or a Shaman. Warlocks abandon their studies as a Mage or a Shaman in pursuit of greater power. Warlocks don't abandon their studies in order to gain less power, they abandon their studies for more power. A Mage who becomes a Warlock doesn't forget the spells he or she learned when he or she was a Mage. Warlocks has access to all the spells a Mage has and much more.
Warlocks bind Demons from other planes. Elementals come from a different plane and can be forced into servitude. Mages don't ask Water Elementals for aid. Mages force the Elements into a particular form and commands them. As evident by the Twililght Hammer Cultists and the Kork'ron Dark Shaman, the Elements can be forced into servitude.
Warlocks were once Shaman or Mages, and it's a known fact that Warlocks have knowledge of conjuring and binding creatures from different planes. It's a known fact that Mages can conjure Elementals, and it's a known fact that the Elements can be forced into servitude.
So there you go peeps:
1) Warlocks are Necromancers
2) Warlocks are immortal
3) Warlocks can turn into Demons
4) Warlocks have Demons and Elementals serving them
5) Warlocks have all the spells a Mage has and more
6) Warlocks who were once Shaman abandoned the Shamanic arts in order to gain more power = Warlocks are more powerful than Shaman
7) Warlocks should get everything in-game
8) Warlocks might get everything in-game once a game developer from Blizzard sees this post
9) Profit?


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I recently purchased some shoes through Amazon from a non-Amazon vendor. Unfortunately, the shoes were too big, so I called the company in the evening to ask for information on their exchange policy. The phone just rang and rang and rang. No answer. So I then emailed the company.
The next day I received an email reply from the sales department with no greeting, no closing, just a rather tersely worded paragraph on their stringent return and exchange policy. I said to myself, this is a company who doesn't care about my business.
What a difference it would have been if instead they had written, "Dear Arden, thank you for purchasing shoes from us. We're sorry they don't fit. We will happily accept your return. Please send them back with the order form in the original box…We appreciate your business."
Sometimes we are so focused on just getting the job done we forget the little everyday courtesies – things like saying "hello", "please" and "thank you" – that can really make our businesses soar.
I attended a presentation on story-telling by speech coach Jean Hamilton, and coincidentally she shared a story about Zappos, a shoe and clothing online retailer known for their wonderful customer service. The story really hit home the impact of small courtesies.
She shared that a Zappos employee was called by a customer to ask for help returning some shoes she had ordered for her husband. The customer shared that sadly, shortly after receiving the shoes, her husband had died in a car accident.
The employee decided on her own accord to send the woman flowers, expressing sympathy for her husband's death. Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO, was very proud of the employee for taking the initiative to do something so thoughtful and was happy she didn't check first to see if it was OK.
I bet the customer will be a lifelong Zappos patron. It was just a simple gesture, but it meant a lot to her.
Another business made a big impact on me simply by sending me a personalized email thanking me for subscribing to their eNewsletter. The email also invited me to share ideas for topics I'd like them to include in future newsletters. I was so impressed.
It doesn't take much to make your business stand out. Or to stand out as a memorable person. What are some things you can do?


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100% of your generous tax-deductible donation will support families in need of financial assistance for hosting or adopting orphans and will care for orphans worldwide.
(Please consider sending a check in the mail due to the PayPal charges for processing fees.)
FTF Orphans' Fund
P.O. Box 5591
Lake Tahoe, Nevada 89449
Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
~ 2 Corinthians 9:6-7
In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.
~Acts 20:35


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Here's some of the article from Life Site News;
By Hilary White
MINNEAPOLIS, January 16, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The American Civil Liberties Union is arguing that men who have sex in public washrooms should be protected under court rulings guaranteeing privacy.
On Tuesday, the ACLU filed an amicus brief to the Minnesota 4th District Court citing a Minnesota Supreme Court ruling 38 years ago that found that people who have sex in closed stalls in public restrooms "have a reasonable expectation of privacy."
In an unrelated story, here's some of this this gem; (emphasis mine)
Disease spread primarily through anal intercourse
By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman
SAN FRANCISCO, January 15, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A new medical study appearing in the Annals of American Medicine shows that homosexuals are spreading a new, highly-infectious and extremely dangerous bacteria amongst themselves, most probably through anal intercourse.
The bacterium, called MRSA USA300, is impervious to front-line antibiotics and can only be treated with rarer drugs, primarily Vancomycin. Researchers say that the bug, which is a type of staphylococcus, is primed to develop immunity to that drug as well.
The study's authors note that the strong link between unhealthy behavior, particularly among homosexuals, is the driving force behind the disease. "Spread of the USA300 clone among men who have sex with men is associated with high-risk behaviors, including use of methamphetamine and other illicit drugs, sex with multiple partners, participation in a group sex party, use of the internet for sexual contacts, skin-abrading sex, and history of sexually transmitted infections," the authors write.
The study, which focused on clinics in the San Francisco area, found that in some cases up to 39% of patients had the MRSA USA300 infections in their genitals or buttocks, although the disease can be spread by general skin-to-skin contact and can even be picked up from surfaces.
Observing that "Infection with multidrug-resistant USA300 MRSA is common among men who have sex with men," the study timidly concludes that "multidrug-resistant MRSA infection might be sexually transmitted in this population," and counsels "further research."
It is estimated that in San Francisco's Castro District, which has the highest concentration of homosexuals in the country, the infection rate is 1 in every 588 residents. One in every 3,800 residents of San Francisco are infected. Homosexuals are 13 times more likely to be infected than others in the city.
Peter LaBarbara, president of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, is hoping that the revelation of yet another homosexual epidemic will have an impact on the public's perception of homosexual behavior. "I think that the media, and Hollywood, and a lot of our policy makers and certainly academia are in a world of 'let's pretend' with regard to homosexual behavior and its consequences," he told LifeSiteNews. "They don't want to focus on the special risks that homosexual behavior, especially between men, have in the public health arena, and issues like this keep coming up."
However, LaBarbara acknowledges that the major media will "invariably spin things in a homosexual direction."
"We saw the identical thing happen 25 years ago with the reporting on AIDS," he said, "but ironically the whole AIDS crisis strengthened the homosexual lobby in this country."