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His name is Carson C. Block, and he may just cost hedge fund legend John Paulson $500 million.
Block is the founder and research director of Muddy Waters Research, a firm that says it "sees through appearances to a Chinese company's true worth."
Unfortunately for John Paulson, Block saw through to what he thinks is Sino-Forest's true worth, and in releasing his damning report on the Chinese forest operator, sent the stock-price plummeting.
Paulson and Co. is Sino-Forest's largest shareholder, with 34.7 million shares. At least he was at the time of his 13-F filed on April 29. It's conceivable he's sold since then and before this incident. We also don't know how he's hedged, so it's possible his losses aren't quite so severe..
The stock opened at $18 yesterday, and nosedived to under $2.50 after the report -- which compared Sino-Forest to the Madoff Ponzi Scheme -- made the rounds.
So who is Carson Block?
Muddy Waters describes the 34-year-old as "an entrepreneur who's practiced law and pioneered an industry in China."
He founded a company called Love Box Self Storage, "a near luxury service for high income Chinese consumers", according to CNBC, and helped author "Doing Business In China For Dummies."
Prior to his entrepreneur days, he was an attorney for Jones Day in Shanghai, where he acted primarily for foreign clients involved in direct investment and M&A in China.
He speaks Mandarin, and after practicing as a lawyer for one year (he said originally he thought he'd never practice after law school), he switched into research for hedge funds and for his father, who's an investor, Barrons reported earlier this year.
He's also an adjunct professor of the Chicago-Kent College of Law, where he graduated with a JD, and teaches an overseas program in Shanghai for the school.
He earned a B.S in Business Administration from the Marshall School of Business at USC.
He founded Muddy Waters in June of 2010 and told Barrons that what he does, in one sentence is: "exposing what I believe are substantial frauds before they suck up more money from investors."
And Sino-Forest is not the first public company that's come crashing down after one of his reports.
According to CNBC:
After a Muddy Waters' report, Orient Paper fell 50%.
After a Muddy Waters' report, RINO International fell 60%.
China MediaExpress fell 28%, then had to be halted, then the CFO of the company resigned, and then the company was de-listed altogether.
Duoyuan Global Water fell 40%, and the CFO resigned.
Meanwhile, he told Barrons he was looking to expand his business into covering other emerging markets. For those who want to avoid the Muddy Waters' short curse, he specifically named Latin America.
We reached out to Muddy Waters to speak with Block, and we're yet to hear back.
Now meet the 10 Hedge Fund Superstars that John Paulson just promoted to partner >


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Sealed with a Kiss
Traditions of a
Wedding Kiss
Some cultures believe that a kiss is a transfer of spirit between two people. Couples would often embarked on their life together by kissing passionately in front of a group of people.
Romans had three classifications of kissing:
Baseum - kiss on the hand or cheek
Osculum - kiss on the lips
Saveum - kiss of passion
French have over 20 classifications and Germans have over 30 different kinds of kissing!
The history of a kiss dates back to 1500 B.C., so keep the tradition alive and Kiss someone today!
Contact us and let's start incorporating your favorite traditions into the wedding of your dreams with ButterFly Bridal !

subset: commoncrawl


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China's manufacturing sector must reinvent itself if it's to survive @ The Washington Post via Nick.
This city on China's Pearl River Delta was once a manufacturing boomtown, a place that made so many different things, from toys to shoes to furniture, that it became known as "the world's factory." Migrant workers came from all corners of the country to work here, often taking jobs that used to be in the United States. But these days, it's Dongguan that's losing jobs and eyeing the United States with some envy.
"China has to change its manufacturing strategy to be more innovative in technology and compete with a 'reviving' U.S.," wrote Zhang, the researcher, this summer in an op-ed for the China Daily titled "Wake-Up Call for Industry." "China is expected to face fiercer-than-ever competition from the United States in the manufacturing sector, making it all the more urgent for Beijing to expedite its industrial upgrade."


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Star Wars: Hard Merchandise by K.W. Jeter – Review [Lord of the Night]
Lord of the Night reviews the epic conclusion to the Star Wars: The Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy, Hard Merchandise by K.W. Jeter.
"A thrilling conclusion that ties together both trilogy-running stories together in ways that will shock you, and give you a whole new appreciation of the infamous bounty hunter Boba Fett." – The Founding Fields
It's been many years since I first read The Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy, roughly six or seven if I remember correctly, and they are as good as I remember them being. And Hard Merchandise is definitely still the best of the trilogy as I remembered, the ending to this trilogy did not disappoint me and surpasses both The Mandalorian Armor and Slave Ship.
Boba Fett is on the hunt. Having returned from the dead after his defeat at Tatooine he has found himself embroiled in a conspiracy that traces itself back to the days of the infamous Bounty Hunter Wars, of which Fett was the victor. With an aged bounty hunter desperate to get out of the game while he still can, an amnesiac former slave girl who desires only to discover who she really is and why she is elbow-deep in this conspiracy, and a stolen and sub-par ship, Fett must use all his genius and cunning and firepower to make sure that his return from the dead is a permanent one, and not just a temporary stay of execution. Has Boba Fett finally met the challenge he can't conquer? Or will he stop at nothing to discover the truth, and get paid?
The story that Hard Merchandise finishes is a very nicely told story that stretches across three novels and is best read back to back. Hard Merchandise does a very very good job of elaborating on past events, but the majority of this novel is focused on the main story rather than flashbacks which are gotten out of the way early. Jeter brings together and connects the plot that has been building up over the entire trilogy and reveals a master conspiracy of events that were set in motion long before the events of the book, but are now finally coming to a head as the coming Battle of Endor heralds the beginning of a brave new galaxy. I found the full scale of the trilogy events to be staggering, and very impressive to say the very least.
The characters are as strong as they were in the last two books. Boba Fett is still a cunning genius, motivated solely by credits and his own survival, and he does not change at all in the book which I applaud since any change to his character in the book would have been untrue to the character himself and that would have ruined the entire trilogy. Neelah is the character that grows the most as she finally learns her identity and her past, and how that identity meshes with her current self and the lessons she's learned is an amusing moment. Kuat of Kuat I found to be a very grey character, one who is the "antagonist" as far as book classifications go but this series isn't about good vs evil, it's all about survival and doing what you have to do to look out for number 1, and I think that brings a very unique style to these characters none of whom can really be described as good or evil.
The action is much better than in the second book, and on par with the first. This isn't a series that's all about action but when it does get into a fight, it's a good one. The fight scenes were very nicely coreographed so that the reader can picture them very clearly, and in a step by step process that makes physical confrontations so much better to imagine because you aren't confused about how exactly something happened, and the tension in the final battle was very well done. You could really feel Fett's unshakeable will as he refused to give up, and the idea of lots of explosions in space is just classic Star Wars.
The pacing is nicely done. I applaud Jeter's ability to keep a good pace through the book, despite it dealing with many long conversations and explanation of events rather than quick-paced action scenes or shock value moments. Hard Merchandise is a book that I found very easy to read, only a few parts had me going slowly and admittedly there I felt the narration was a bit too dry and long-winded, but after that it went back to smooth sailing and into the finale that was worth the wait.
Now for my favourite quote, i'd say it has to be this one that gives a real look into the mind of Boba Fett,
"It's not a matter of luck. Not for me."
The ending is very well done and meshes with other Star Wars lore perfectly. The conspiracy has ended and each of the characters receives their own personal resolution, and I personally found the last two or three pages to be very heartwarming and a nice way to end such a grey trilogy with just one person coming out with what he deserves. Jeter brings his story to a fine close, one that answers every question and in a satisfying way, and manages to stay true to the theme of the entire series, the grey areas of Star Wars and the simple men and women just trying to make their way in the universe.
For a well-crafted and written story that finishes the entire trilogy in a very satisfying way I give Hard Merchandise a score of 8.8/10. This is my favourite Star Wars trilogy and one that I would recommend to all fans of the classic Star Wars, before The Clone Wars and the Legacy era ruined a lot of it, and especially to any fans of that memorably imposing and menacing character Boba Fett. He may not have gotten a large role in the movies but he has definitely become one of the most popular Star Wars characters through his presence alone, and here exists an entire trilogy devoted to him. On a side note I give Jeter's portrayal of Boba Fett a 10/10, he definitely comes across as the kind of person for whom anything not directly related to his profit margin or his survival is inconsequential, and yet manages to retain that presence that made him so much more than just a bit character in the movies.
That's it for this review. I'm not sure what will come next, I just really really hope it's something from Black Library. Until next time,


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A Power of Attorney does have immense power related to ownership. The one who is given the same will have complete authority of the property on behalf of the owner. When it comes to legal matters questioning the ownership a Power of Attorney is what required to submit to prove the authority. This can be a either a Durable Power of Attorney or a normal Power of Attorney. A Durable Power of Attorney is quite different from a normal Power of Attorney. If you are a small business owner and is considering about legal forms, then a durable power of attorney form must also be included in it. A power of attorney is a document in which you designate someone to act on your behalf. This may be an authority to act for you in every situation, or just in one situation. The validity of a Power of attorney is till the person dies. Whereas a durable power of attorney allows the Power of attorney to continue in the last situation of mental incompetence where the person is unable to make or carry out important decisions regarding his or her affairs.
Authentication of Power Of Attorney is essential for doing business in Qatar shortly. An attestation stamp from Qatar Embassy must be procured for this. If you have your means in another country then authentication of this document is mandatory. The attestation procedure in Qatar can be carried only by best attestation service provider like Bharath International to help the customers.
Mainly Power of attorney are of two types – general power of attorney and limited power of attorney. General power of attorney is a document which is used to make decisions on behalf of the principal on all matters that has been allowed by the state. This agent is allowed to handle bank accounts, sell property, sign checks, and file taxes etc. limited power of attorney only allows the agent to take decisions in some matters say managing the principal's retirement accounts for a particular period of time.
Sometimes you might require someone to handle your business activities. So you require a separate durable power of attorney designating this person to handle all business, financial and legal matters. If in any case you need to go to a foreign country for any of the business dealings of the principal's asset then you need to submit the power of attorney to the relevant authority. For this attestation of power of attorney is required. Otherwise, your power of attorney will not be considered as a valid one.
In case of Qatar you may get a long list certificate attestation services in qatar. Out of which Bharath International is a prominent name in Qatar attestation services. We provide error free 24 hour's attestation service in Qatar.
Do keep in mind about submitting the following documents which are required for attesting the power of attorney:
- Your Original Passport
- Photocopy of your passport
- Proof of Address
- Original Visa
- Two sets of POA
- Copy of recent bank statement
Your documents must be attested that means authenticated by an authorised person, authority or a department using their seal and signature before you enter another country for whatever purpose. Otherwise, your permission to use those documents in that country will be denied. This is applicable to the power of attorney also. It is important to prove the genuinely of your certificates to avoid any future legal issues. When it comes to power attorney it is not advisable to take any risks as this may result in complications in the future. Many people will depend on trusted and genuine agencies like Bharath International for doing business attestation in Qatar.
The power of attorney must be signed by the principal, attorney and the witnesses. This could be done on a stamp paper of required value depending on the state. Later you need to register the power of attorney certificate from the office of Sub Divisional Office or Sub Magistrate Office. Once done with all the procedures your document is now said to be authentic.
Bharath International is an irreplaceable name in certificate attestation for Qatar. All the confusing Qatar attestation procedure is taken care of by our expert team which make our client burden less. Bharath International not only deals with the power of attorney attestation in Qatar we also lend our hands in other certificate attestation in Qatar. We are experts in the field and have experience in dealing with everything related to attestation services. You can always contact us either by text or through phone for any queries.


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Do you believe in romance? Valentines Day is coming up. It is the time of the year for being with that special person in your life. It is the day for showing them how much they mean to you. The only question is how to celebrate it? You could go the classic route of flowers, chocolates or a candlelit dinner for two. However, there is another option open to you. If you are looking for an unusual way of spending Valentines Day, then how about choosing something different?
You can have a date night in a million by experiencing the phenomenon that's sweeping the nation. If you are in the mood for something exciting, why not try one of our enthralling escape room games? More and more people are visiting our locations in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, and Stirling. They can be the perfect place to celebrate that big occasion. Be it a birthday, stag night, hen party, works night out or Christmas do.
Do you feel like doing something a little different this Valentines? Do you like thinking a little out of the box? Why not take your other half to an adventure game from Escape Room Scotland? Think of it. Who wouldn't want to see their significant other locked up in a room for an hour!? lol Or what could be more exciting for a loving couple teaming up to solve a mystery? You could work together to unravel the clues and make your escape inside sixty minutes.
Think of the fun you could have surviving a zombie apocalypse. Burrowing your way out of an underground gold mine. Pulling a bank heist. Busting out of jail. Blasting off in a starship. Defending a Scottish castle or escaping from a gas-filled bunker in the middle of the blitz.
These are a few of the thrills that await you spend Valentine's Day playing one of our escape room games. Who says romance is dead?


text: How are your characters connected? Connection is the inspiration for day 30 of #RPGaDay2019, following Evolve yesterday. I've had quite a few random musings posts recently, and tomorrow's probably will be too, so I'll go concrete today. I'm going to talk about a suggestion I came across when I was starting my new campaign a … Continue reading RPGaDay2019 Day 30 – Connection


text: Finding African clothing for your little one can some time require some serious searching on google or tracking down an African themed market close to your area. This is especially true if you live in America, Europe and Asia as part of the Diaspora. To help you out in finding lovely clothes for your children we've put together a list of wonderful children's fashion shops selling African inspired designs.


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Inside Sources | July 25, 2017
By House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (CA-23) and House Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Phil Roe (TN-01)
App developer, robotics technician, digital animator, and advanced manufacturer—what do all of these careers have in common? They didn't exist 73 years ago when the GI bill was signed into law. When our fighting forces shipped out to the Pacific and to the battlefields of Europe nearly a quarter Americans were farmers. Today, that number is around .01%.
Our economy has undergone radical transformations. With the rise of everything from driverless cars to robotics to artificial intelligence, more changes are to come. It makes you wonder what jobs will exist in 73 years that we don't have or can't imagine today. In fact, research shows that 65 percent of children in elementary school will hold jobs that haven't yet been created.
We should not view these inevitable changes with the fear of so many of the forecasters in the media, but rather take action to use these changes to our advantage. When our soldiers came home from WWII, they became the most economically successful generation in history in large part because they received education with their GI Bill benefits. This next generation of veterans has the potential recreate that success if we reform the GI Bill to fit our changing times.
After all, veterans have the raw potential for success. They have the work ethic, intelligence, ability to thrive under pressure, and sense of duty necessary for any job. What they need when they come home is the type of education that will help them get and master tomorrow's careers.
The House's reforms to the GI bill will set our veterans up for success in two main ways: we give veterans the opportunity to use their education benefits throughout their lives instead of within 15 years of their service, and we will allow veterans to use their benefits for nontraditional education models so they can get needed jobs quickly.
Extending education benefits beyond 15 years is a practical necessity. When new industries emerge and we rely on American workers to fill those jobs, it shouldn't matter if a veteran is five, 15, or 30 years out of the service. If you haven't used your benefits yet, you should be able to get an education at any point in your life. After all, the average worker will change careers throughout his or her life. When old industries pass and new industries emerge, or when a better job is just a few technical courses away, all veterans should have access to education to get those jobs.
For the same reasons, we shouldn't restrict what type of education our veterans can receive. Increasingly, a traditional four-year bachelor's degree doesn't always prepare students for the jobs in need. By 2024, the tech industry alone is expected to add almost 500,000 new jobs to the industry, and many of these tech employers are looking for candidates who have a particular skill set that students don't learn in traditional settings.
Consequently, industry employers have turned to non-traditional technology programs that offer nano degrees and coding experience to find candidates with the skills they need.
Yet currently, veterans are unable to apply their GI education benefits to these courses. That's why within this GI Bill we have a piece of legislation called the VET TEC Act that creates a pilot program for veterans to enroll in non-traditional technology courses and programs that are geared to getting a job after completion. This provision also provides the VA the necessary flexibility to approve these education programs, while also guarding against abuses so our veterans aren't taken advantage of.
Our country faces a future of many great changes and potential rewards if we make the right decisions. We know our greatest asset is our people, and our veterans are the best of the best. With benefits when they need it for education they can use immediately, our veterans will move from the world's greatest fighting force to the world's greatest workforce.


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Democracy Now Headlines for April 9, 2014:
Roy, Arundhati. "Is India on a Totalitarian Path? Arundhati Roy on Corporatism, Nationalism and World's Largest Vote." Democracy Now (April 9, 2014)
Dialogic Cinephilia: Resources for April 10, 2014
Zerkel, Mary. "Dollars for Endless War or Investment in a New Era?" Truthout (April 9, 2014)
Gordon, Paul. "Billionaires Score Big Win With McCutcheon Decision." Truthout (April 10, 2014)
\ Merchant, Brian. "93 Harvard Faculty Members Call on the University to Divest from Fossil Fuels." Motherboard (April 10, 2014)
Chatterjee, Partha. "Nationalism, Internationalism and Cosmopolitanism: some lessons from modern Indian history." London School of Economics and Political Science (April 3, 2014)


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I hope you had a wonderful Independence Day! I think of this day as our birthday, this year being our 242nd one! July 4th is a day in particular that reminds me of how blessed I am to be an American and how thankful I am for the amazing collection of leaders that made it possible, including Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, Hancock, Franklin, Madison, Jay…..and I could go on and on.
It really is interesting that in a set of colonies with only 3 million people (less than 1% of the current population of the US) we were fortunate to have this collection of leaders all at one time.
Yes, we currently have many challenges and issues in our country and in the world, and it can be overwhelming to process the seemingly daily barrage. However, I find it helpful to take some time to be thankful for what we do have as a country and to reflect on the remarkable collection of values-based leaders who set the wheels in motion 242 years ago to make it happen.
I love reading history and world civilization. Here are some notes that my friend, Fred O'Connor, sent me that provided some insight on Independence Day:
Happy 242nd Birthday America!
John Adams wrote from Philadelphia to his Abigail on July 3rd, 1776:
…The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America.—I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.
You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not.—I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States.—Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.
One month before the signing of the document, Congress had accepted a resolution put forward by Richard Henry Lee that stated: "Resolved: That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."
On July 4th, Congress adopted the more poetic Declaration of Independence, chiefly drafted by Thomas Jefferson. The president of Congress, John Hancock, and its secretary, Charles Thompson, immediately signed the handwritten draft. By August 2nd, fifty-six congressional delegates had signed. This document was then sent to the printers and distributed throughout the colonies. General George Washington, one of five delegates absent owing to military operations, did not affix his signature.
Americans began observing the Fourth of July as early as 1777, when the first-ever major celebration in Philadelphia included a parade, a thirteen-shot cannon salute and fireworks, but Congress didn't make it official until 1870, when it was part of a bill passed to recognize major state holidays at a federal level — like Independence Day, Christmas and New Year's Day. In 1941, Congress made the 4th of July a paid holiday for federal employees (and why not!?).
Wishing you and yours the many blessings of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. May we continue to honor, and be worthy of, the great gifts bestowed on all of us – by our Creator, and by brave men and women who came before us.
Have a great week!!!
Featured photo by Stephanie McCabe on Unsplash


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July 15, 2019 – West Bend, WI – American Construction Services of West Bend has been named one of the 2019 Future 50 Award winners by the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce and its Council of Small Business Executives.
According to an article published in BizTimes Magazine:
Established in 1988, the annual program recognizes the fastest-growing companies in southeastern Wisconsin. The list, created using a proprietary financial analysis formula, includes independently-owned companies headquartered in the seven-county Milwaukee region that demonstrate significant growth in both revenue and employment over the past three years. A company can win up to three times.
This year's Future 50 includes 12 manufacturers, 10 construction firms, eight business/professional firms, six information technology businesses, five finance/insurance/real estate companies, three health services firms, three leisure/hospitality businesses, two wholesale/retail trade companies and one other firm. Thirty-two of the companies are first-time winners.
In terms of size, 36 of the 50 are mid-sized, with between 15 and 74 employees. And 38 of the companies have revenues between $1 million and $25 million.
Combined 2018 total employment was 3,156 and revenues for 2018 were $927.2 million, up 28% from last year's winners. The winners project a 22% increase in 2019 revenue, and a 4% increase in employment year-over-year. Click HERE to read more.
American Construction Services was started by Kons Sadownikow in 1980. The company, founded as West Bend/American Building Systems, later became American Companies. In 1997 Kons hired his son Kraig who is now President of American Companies.
"I'm proud of the pace we've been able to grow the company that my father started 39 years ago," said Kraig Sadownikow. "We believe in investing in our people and we work hard as a team to provide exceptional service to our clients. Construction projects are significant investments for a company and I'd personally like to thank each one we've worked with; we don't take your business for granted."
Click HERE to read more about American Companies.


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By Laurie Macfarlane. Originally published at openDemocracy
According to a new OECD working paper, Britain is one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Net wealth is estimated to stand at around $500,000 per household – more than double the equivalent figure in Germany, and triple that in the Netherlands. Only Luxembourg and the USA are wealthier among OECD countries.
On one level, this isn't too surprising – Britain has long been a wealthy country. But in recent decades Britain's economic performance has been poor. Decades of economic mismanagement have left the UK lagging far behind other advanced economies. British workers are now 29%less productivethan workers in France, and 35% less than in Germany. How can this discrepancy between high levels of wealth and low levels of productivity be explained?
The process of how wealth is accumulated has been subject of much debate throughout history. If you pick up an economics textbook today, you'll probably encounter a narrative similar to the following: wealth is created when entrepreneurs combine the factors of production – land, labour and capital – to create something more valuable than the raw inputs. Some of this surplus may be saved, increasing the stock of wealth, while the rest is reinvested in the production process to create more wealth.
How the fruits of wealth creation should be divided between capital, land and labour has been subject of considerable debate throughout history. In 1817, the economist David Ricardo described this as "the principal problem in political economy".
Nowadays, however, this debate attracts much less attention. That's because modern economic theory has developed an answer to this problem, called 'marginal productivity theory'. This theory, developed at the end of the 19th century by the American economist John Bates Clark, states that each factor of production is rewarded in line with its contribution to production. Marginal productivity theory describes a world where, so long as there is sufficient competition and free markets, all will receive their just rewards in relation to their true contribution to society. There is, in Milton Friedman's famous terms, "no such thing as a free lunch".
The aim was to develop a theory of distribution that was based on scientific 'natural laws', free from political or ethical considerations. As Bates Clark wrote in his seminal book, 'The Distribution of Wealth':
"[i]t is the purpose of this work to show that the distribution of income to society is controlled by a natural law, and that this law, if it worked without friction, would give to every agent of production the amount of wealth which that agent creates".
Seen in this light, wealth accumulation is a positive sum game – higher levels of wealth reflect superior productive capacity, and people generally get what they deserve. There is some truth to this, but it is only a very small part of the picture. When it comes to how wealth is created and distributed, many other forces are at work.
Wealth, Property and Plunder
The measure of wealth used by the OECD is 'mean net wealth per household'. This is the value of all of the assets in a country, minus all debts. Assets can be physical, such as buildings and machinery, financial, such as shares and bonds, or intangible, such as intellectual property rights.
But something can only become an asset once it has become property – something that can be alienated, priced, bought and sold. What is considered as property has varied across different jurisdictions and time periods, and is intimately bound up with the evolution of power and class relations.
For example, in 1770 wealth in the southern United States amounted to 600% of national income – more than double the equivalent figure in the northern United States. This stark difference in wealth can summed up by one word: slavery.
For white slave owners in the South, black slaves were physical property – commodities to be owned and traded. And just like any other type of asset, slaves had a market price. As the below chart shows, the appalling scale of slavery meant that enslaved people were the largest source of private wealth in the southern United States in 1770.
When the United States finally abolished slavery in 1865, people who had formerly been slaves ceased to be counted as private property. As a result, slaveowners lost what had previously been their prized possessions, and overnight over half of the wealth in the southern US essentially vanished. All of a sudden, the southern states were no longer "wealthier" than their northern neighbours.
But did the southern states really become any less wealthy in any meaningful sense? Obviously not – the amount of labour, capital and natural resources remained the same. What changed was the rights of certain individuals to exercise an exclusive claimover these resources.
But the wealth that had been generated by slave labour did not disappear, and it wasn't only the USA that benefitted from this. Many of Britain's major cities and ports were built with money that originated in the slave trade. Several major banks, including Barclaysand HSBC, can trace their origins to the financing of the slave trade, or the plundering of other countries' resources. Many of Britain's great properties, which today make up a significant proportion of household wealth, were built on the back of slave wealth. Even today, many millionaires (including many politicians) can trace some of their wealthto the slave trade.
The lesson here is that aggregate wealth is not simply a reflection of the process of accumulation, as theory tends to imply. It is also a reflection of the boundaries of what can and cannot be alienated, priced, bought and sold, and the power dynamics that underpin them. This is not just a historical matter.
Today some goods and services are provided by private firms on a commodified basis, whereas others are provided socially as a collective good. This can often vary significantly between countries. Where a service is provided by private firms (for example, healthcare in the USA), shareholder claims over profits are reflected in the firm's value – and these claims can be bought and sold, for example on the stock market. These claims are also recorded as financial wealth in the national accounts.
However, where a service is provided socially as a collective good (such as the NHS in the UK), there are no claims over profits to be owned and traded among investors. Instead, the claims over these sectors are socialised. Profits are foregone in favour of free, universal access. Because these benefits are non-monetary and accrue to everyone, they are not reflected in any asset prices and are not recorded as "wealth" in the national accounts.
A similar effect is observed with pension provision: while private pensions (funded through capital markets) are included as a component of financial wealth in the OECD's figures, public pensions (funded from general taxation) are excluded. As a result, a country that provides generous universal public pensions will look less wealthy than a country that rely solely on private pensions, all else being equal. The way that we measure national wealth is therefore skewed towards commodification and privatisation, and against socialisation and universal provision.
Capital gGains, Labour Losses
The amount of wealth does not just depend on the number of assets that are accumulated – it also depends on the value of these assets. The value of assets can go up and down over time, otherwise known as capital gains and losses. The price of an asset such as a share in a company or a physical property reflects the discounted value of the expected future returns. If the expected future return on an asset is high, then it will trade at a higher price today. If the expected future return on an asset falls for whatever reason, then its price will also fall.
Marginal productivity theory states that each factor of production will be rewarded in line with its true contribution to production. But although presented as an objective theory of distribution, marginal productivity theory has a strong normative element. It says nothing about the rules and laws that govern the ownership and use of the factors of production, which are essentially political variables. For example, rules that favour capitalists and landlords over workers and tenants, such as repressive trade union legislation and weak tenants' rights, increase returns on capital and land. All else being equal, this will translate into higher stock and property prices, which will increased measured wealth. In contrast, rules that favour workers and tenants, such as minimum wage laws and rent controls, reduce returns on capital and land. This in turn will translate into lower stock and property prices, and lower paper wealth.
Importantly, in both scenarios the productive capacity of the economy is unchanged. The fact that wealth would be higher in the former case, and lower in the latter case, is a result of an asymmetry between how the claims of capitalists and landlords are recorded, and how the claims of workers and tenants are recorded. While future returns to capital and land get capitalised into stock and property prices, future returns to labour – wages – do not get capitalised into asset prices. This is because unlike physical and financial assets, people do not have an "asset price". They cannot become property. As a result, it is possible for measured wealth to increase simply because the balance of power shifts in favour of capitalists and landowners, allowing them to claim a larger slice of the pie at the expense of workers and tenants.
To the early classical economists, this kind of wealth – attained by simply extracting value created by others – was deemed to be unearned, and referred to it as 'economic rent'. However, ever since neoclassical economics replaced classical economics as the dominant school of thinking in the late 19thcentury, economic rent has been increasingly marginalised from economic discourse. To the extent that it is acknowledged, it is usually viewed as being peripheral to the story of wealth accumulation, resulting from 'market frictions', such as monopsony and asymmetric information, which give rise to certain instances of 'market power'. For the most part, economists have tended to focus on the acts of saving and investment which drive the real production process. But on closer inspection, it is clear that economic rent is far from peripheral. Indeed, in many countries it has been the main story of changing wealth patterns.
To see why, let's return to the OECD wealth statistics. Recall that net wealth per household in Britain is more than double what it is in Germany, even though Germany is far more productive than the UK. This can partly be explained by comparing the power dynamics associated with each factor of production.
Let's start with land: Germany has among the strongest tenant protection laws in Europe, and many German cities also impose rent controls. This, along with a banking sector that favours real economy lendingover property lending, means that Germany has not experienced the rampant house price inflation that the UK has. Remarkably, the house price-to-income ratiois lower in Germany today than it was in 1995, while in the UK it has nearly tripled over the same time period. The fact that houses are not lucrative financial assets, and renting is more secure and affordable, means that the majority of people choose to rent rather than own a home in Germany – and therefore do not own any property wealth.
In Britain, the story couldn't be more different. Over the past five decades Britain has become a property owners' paradise, as successive governments have sought to encourage people onto the property ladder. Taxes on land and property have been removed, and subsidies for homeownership introduced. The deregulation of the mortgage credit market in the 1980s meant that banks quickly became hooked on mortgage lending – unleashing a flood of new credit into the housing market. Rent controls were abolished, and the private rental market was deregulated. Today tenant protection is weakerthan almost anywhere else in Europe. Meanwhile, the London property market has served as a laundromat for the world's dirty money. As Donald Toon, head of the National Crime Agency, has described: "Prices are being artificially driven up by overseas criminals who want to sequester their assets here in the UK".
The result has been an unprecedented house price boom. Since 1995, skyrocketing house prices have increased value of Britain's housing stock by over £5 trillion – accounting for three quarters of all household wealth accumulated over the same period. While this has been great news for property owners, it has been disastrous for tenants. As I've written elsewhere, the driving force behind rising house prices has been rapidly escalating land prices, and we have known since the days of Adam Smith and David Ricardo that land is not a source of wealth, but of economic rent. The trillions of pounds of wealth amassed through the British housing market has mostly been gained at the expense of current and future generations who don't own property, who will see more of their incomes eaten up by higher rents and larger mortgage payments.
So while German property owners have not benefited from skyrocketing house prices in the way that they have in Britain, the flipside is that German renters only spend 25% of their incomes on rent on average, while British renters spend 40%. The former is captured in the OECD's measure of wealth, while the discounted value of the latter is not.
Now let's look at capital. In the UK and the US, the goal of the firm has traditionally been to maximise shareholder value. In Germany however, firms are generally expected to have regard for a wider range of stakeholders, including workers. This has led to a different culture of corporate governance, and different power dynamics between capital and labour.
Large companies in Germany must have worker representatives of boards (referred to as 'codetermination'), and they are also required to allow 'works councils' to represent workers in day-to-day disputes over pay and conditions. The evidenceindicates that this system has led to higher wages, less short-termism, greater productivity, even higher levels of income equality. The quid pro quo is that it also tends to result in lower capital returns for shareholders, as workers are able to claim more of the surplus. This in turn means that German firms tend to be valued less than their British counterparts on the stock market, which contributes to lower levels of financial wealth.
None of this means that Germany is poorer than Britain. Instead, it just reflects the fact that German capitalists and landowners have less bargaining power than they do in the UK, while workers and tenants have more power. While lower shareholder returns and house prices are reflected in the OECD's measure of wealth, better pay and conditions and lower rents are not.
All statistics tell a story, but stories can be told from different perspectives. Embedded in the definitions of all economic statistics are value judgements about what is desirable and what is undesirable, which in turn shape the way we think about the economy. At the moment, the way we measure the wealth of nations mainly reflects the fortunes of capitalists and landowners rather than workers and tenants. Britain looks wealthier than Germany on paper, but this does not reflect the lived reality for most people. While it's important not to overstate the extent to which statistics can influence the real world, this is important for at least three reasons.
Firstly, it illustrates how seemingly objective metrics often have ideological assumptions baked into them. While there is already a well-established literature on alternatives to GDP, many economic metrics are used in economic analysis and policy appraisal without any critical appraisal of their underlying ideological assumptions. This needs to change.
Second, it highlights how paper wealth has in many places become decoupled from productive capacity, and how conflating the two can be highly misleading. This is particularly the case where zero sum rentier activity is widespread, as in the case of Britain. Such discrepancies raise the question of whether the way that we currently measure wealth is really the most sensible.
But most importantly, it illustrates that the distribution of wealth has little to do with contribution or productivity, and everything to do with politics and power. As J.W. Mason states: "It's bargaining power, it's politics, all the way down."
For economists who see their discipline as a 'value free' science which is separate from politics, this is uncomfortable territory. But if the aim is to understand the economy as it really exists, then analysing power beyond the narrow concept of 'market power' is essential. Among other things, this means grappling with the power dynamics that underpin ownership and property relations, as well as those that that drive inequalities between different social groups and identities.
It's been 200 years since David Ricardo described the "principal problem" of political economy. Perhaps it's time to revisit it.
Good read. Reads very much like Michael Hudson. I love that Trostkyist!
Thank you, Yves. This article reminds me of Robert Kennedy's speech on the Gross National Product, in that it is readable and understandable for those who get confused by more esoteric economic issues. I am in that large group, and while we don't have the expertise, we instinctively understand that the measures of the economy being used today paper over real situations in our daily lives which we know to be affecting us adversely.
In our lifetimes these measurement factors have worsened, among them the way Social Security adjustments are made and unemployment is accounted for. And there is a crying need for a measurement to be universally applied towards not only social degradation but also degradation of the planetary environment. If the economy is to 'grow' it has to grow with respect to those two important fields.
ChiGal in Carolina
Count me as one confused by even basic economic issues and ditto the thanks for a very readable post.
What is the counter-argument (if there is one other than invisible hand worship)?
Well, just like there is "no free lunch", there is also "no free market". (Someone is always attempting to put a thumb on the scale.)
The whole of neoclassical economics is the counter-argument. The whole rotten edifice.
Britain is essentially becoming a City-State named London. Things that could forestall this development, such as the HS2 project, are now at risk of being scrapped.
But I take issue with the author's singling out of slavery. It really comes down to the control of people. For example, I would argue that of his 1770 comparison, there were large agro-business operations in the south compared to small farm holdings in the south. In fact, some historians have argued that these small northern farm holders resisted slavery, not so much because they were morally opposed to it, but that they were opposed to the competition of the agro-business model that slavery enabled. Today machinery accomplishes the same thing that slavery then achieved – that is – enabling the huge agro-business model.
Of course, 100 years later and the situation was reversed; the north became industrialized; a situation that found hundreds, and later thousands, of workers being controlled by industrialists – from an economic standpoint – slavery 2.0 – with all the trimmings such as child labour, squalor and disease.
Which was worse?
The Rev Kev
I know that this is only a minor point but I was thinking about that John Bates Clark who helped develop the Marginal productivity theory that states states "that each factor of production is rewarded in line with its contribution to production" which is manifestly untrue. He helped develop this theory at the end of the 19th century which I find remarkable as this was in the middle of the Gilded Age when counter proof of his theory could be seen everywhere.
Then again, there are all sorts of Neoliberal theories that were accepted during our own Gilded Age which have been proven to be so much rubbish so would that imply that any economic theory accepted during ages of inequality should be immediately suspect?
It is not a coincidence: Neo-classical Economics as a Stratagem Against Henry George
According to the link that laurie provided above(https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=HOUSE_PRICES), in Q1 2018 Germany's house price to income ratio was 110.9 whereas UK's 108.8. So housing is more affordable in the UK at the moment. And from Q4-2014 to Q1-2018, the UK ratio has been lower. So how come he potrays Germany in a better light?
D m
He was commenting on the change in house price to income ratio from 1995 to now, in which Germany goes from 110.1 to 110.9 (not sure why Laurie says its lower now than in 1995, but it does at least stay the same) and UK goes from 40.3 to 109.2, for a change of 2.7x. Housing is still more affordable in the UK than Germany now, though.
Low house prices in Germany is being ended by the ECB using administrative demands to overwhelm and close community banks and place the housing market under the control of investment banks like UK / USA.
First, I think something got borked with that link. I don't think that's the table that was meant to be shown, considering it doesn't go far enough back to 1995. Also those are just price indices, not price/income ones.
Second, those are indexes for the respective countries (for 2015). So what it means is that German house prices were 10.9% higher in Q1 2018 that they were in 2015 and in UK they were 8.8% higher in Q1 2018 than they were in 2015. It doesn't tell anything about whether UK prices were higher than German ones or vice versa.
Ah! Thank you for that clarification. If one chooses 'price to income ratio' from the drop down menu at the top labelled indicator, then the values change with the UK coming out on top, but by not that much. As of Q1 2018, UK = 111, Germany = 106.4. Not sure if that's great for either of the countries. Any experts around here who can comment on it?
Statistics are interesting. Look at the ratio in London. The North has quite a few cities that have bargain housing stock. The economies of some of these towns, such as Burnley, are not dynamic.
While I agree in general with this post, I'll point out that, in the great scheme of things, there isn't really a big difference between the hoeownership rate in Germany and UK, see page 2 in this paper:
On the other hand, different laws on rent control, financial debt etc. might well influence the level of rents and the value of houses, so I think that this post is still on point.
excellent essay. thanks!
Excellent post!!!
James McRitchie
How about comparing median wealth in these countries instead of average?
"Second, it highlights how paper wealth has in many places become decoupled from productive capacity, and how conflating the two can be highly misleading. This is particularly the case where zero sum rentier activity is widespread, as in the case of Britain. Such discrepancies raise the question of whether the way that we currently measure wealth is really the most sensible."
With housing, important to health and well-being, shortages mean the value of homes goes up (so we're constantly told) and rents go up.
Just think, with this kind of logic one could have a country with over half the population homeless, but on paper, economists would only talk about the great wealth of the few with homes.
Almost there….
Newton Finn
"(W)here a service is provided socially as a collective good (such as the NHS in the UK), there are no claims over profits to be owned and traded among investors. Instead, the claims over these sectors are socialised. Profits are foregone in favour of free, universal access. Because these benefits are non-monetary and accrue to everyone, they are not reflected in any asset prices and are not recorded as "wealth" in the national accounts." As this perceptive article points out, strangely perverted thinking underlies much of "the dismal science." Why can't national wealth include the wealth that everyone owns in common? Certainly, the most vital wealth of humanity is the natural environment that sustains it, without which there would be no one around to measure wealth–which in turn means, if you accept the more radical interpretations of quantum physics, that there would be (absent measurement) literally nothing at all to measure. Is it not becoming increasingly clear that humanity faces today the most critical either/or in its relatively brief history: either evolve out of distracting, distorting, destructive abstractions, or do yourselves in and perhaps take everything else with you? We are indeed living in eschatological times, although not in the way that conservative Christians think.
A reasonable book of economics theory would have to base its definitions on material, physical, experiential facts, beginning with items like wealth, income, money, and so on.. But I have never seen one do this. Hence we observe John Bates Clark's stunning omission of power, which five minutes' observation of actual business practices would have corrected. He had only to walk down the street to any office or factory and look around. Is there any economics, then, which is not propaganda?
Gertrude Stein wrote in a history of English literature that much of English lit was 'History' necessitated by the obviously un-natural situation of England 'owning everything'.
Since owning everything was not natural, an explanation was required, and that explanation would have to be very large/powerful, to match the scale of the mystery, thus, English history.
Today that un-natural situation still exists, but now the USA and Britain share owning everything.
This situation still needs explaining, and probably because our rulers know that literature has its limits, they invented economics.
Thanks for this very readable (to a non-economist) post.
Lee Robertson
Once again the obvious becomes apparent.
lyman alpha blob
Yes, which is why I love articles like this and they aggravate at the same time. Because people who write things like this –
"[i]t is the purpose of this work to show that the distribution of income to society is controlled by a natural law, and that this law, if it worked without friction, would give to every agent of production the amount of wealth which that agent creates".
– should be laughed right out of wahetever ivory tower they are inhabiting. And if the laughing doesn't do it, then thrown out.
How in the hell can it be a natural law when the functioning of the economy being examined directly depends on un-natural laws made by human beings?!?!?! This is just a deliberately obtuse person stringing together fancy sounding words and hoping that noone realizes it's all bu*^#$it.
If people woiuld stop taking this nonsense seriously, the rest of us wouldn't have to waste time debunking it.
And we might get paid a fair share to boot.
(I meant to do pithy and did rambling instead.)
I have had an interest in anthropology, and I almost decided to get a degree in it instead of political economy. Only thing is, much of the theory in modern economics makes no sense in the real world at all, and its flight of fantasy makes no connections to life, people and their societies.
Many accuse anthropology, especially cultural as being mushy, even flaky; I challenge anyone to read its literature especially academic and then mainstream economics say that the latter is more is more rigorous and relevant than the former. (yes, you will find some flaky BS as that is an academic disease. The replication issue is a symptom.)
When I read something in anthropology, or paleontology, or something similar I might not agree with the writers, heck sometimes I cannot even understand it, but I don't feel like I am reading about how many angels can fit onto a head of a pin like I do with economics.
St Jacques
There needs to be a lot of defenestrating at the economics ivory towers. No question about it.
Chauncey Gardiner
As a Yank, this article suggests to me that Margaret Thatcher's neoliberal order has been kept pasted together by private sector debt supported by real estate and 'financial asset' collateral values. Thankfully we in the USA are immune to such considerations.
Honorable men disdain the game but others are addicted to it. The opiate of power is that moment when, for the first time, you have precipitated acts of others to cause events to unfold as you intended and not as the result of natural causality – a seductive suggestion you control the future.
"It turns out I am pretty good at killing folks. And we tortured some folks too."
"The killing of 500,000 Iraqis was worth it."
"Deficits don't matter."
"The oil must flow. Get me Reza Pahlavi."
"Listen to the Mockingbird, listen to the Mockingbird."
"There's light at the end of the tunnel. Go to the light!"
Susan the other
"Ideological metrics." This dovetails with Wray on doing the balances. Accounting is a very dry subject but all of the information is there and the story it tells depends on whose numbers do the telling. It is nice to have someone write it up so calmly! Really like her style. I wish she had expanded another paragraph on "paper wealth" being unproductive – of course it is, it is basically financializing. But the twist is sleight of hand because our ideological burden currently dictates that it is more "productive" to deregulate and extract enormous profits for shareholders. Which has now been exposed as nonsense. My father, a very conservative old fashioned type, used to dismiss people flaunting their money by saying "it was all on paper." Interestingly, on BBC Sunday nite I heard Jeffrey Sachs say he had called up Larry Summers at the White House in 2008-9 to tell him to stop giving the banksters those obscene bonuses and Larry replied that he couldn't – they were sacrosanct because they were "contracts". Contracts should not be the last refuge of plunderers.
Chauncey Gardiner
Thanks for this comment. Not an attorney, but have read that violations of governing law by a party to a contract generally negate the legal enforceability of the contract regardless of language in the contract to the contrary. Don't really know, but suspect Summers' position was related to other considerations.


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Computer System Organization and Architecture
- Course Code: 1304
- Semester: 4th
- Course Type: Scientific Area - Skills Development (SA-SD)
- Course Category: Compulsory (CO)
- Scientific Field: Embedded Computation Systems (ECS)
- Lectures: 4 hours/week
- Lab teaching: 2 hours/week
- ECTS units: 6
- Course webpage: https://www.iee.ihu.gr/~kdiamant/index.php?l=el&p=coa
- Teching and exams language: Greek
- The course is offered to Erasmus students
- Recommended prerequisite courses: (1103) Introduction to computer science
- Coordinator: Diamantaras Konstantinos
- Instructors: Diamantaras Konstantinos, Amanatiadis Dimitrios
Educational goals
The aim of the course is to give the student the understanding of the structure and operation of a modern serial computer system. Starting from the basic organization of the hardware the course introduces the student to the hardware design principles. The course also offers the foundations to evaluate the performance of computer systems and their sub-units. The laboratory part of the course offers an introduction to microprocessor programming and microcontroller programming. With the successful completion of the course the student will be able to:
- To know the basic structural components of the computer
- To understand the interoperability and the importance of the structural elements of the computer and understand the operation of low level programming langiages
- To write programs in the assembly language
- To analyze the architectural components of a computer system and compose the suitable architectural solution for the corresponding application
- To evaluate the performance of a computer system
Course Contents
Course Content
- Hierarchical Architecture of the serial Computer: Units, actions, interconnection structures (busses)
- Cache memory: Description of memory systems, basic cache-related concepts, design and organization of cache memory.
- Main memory: Physical and logical organization of main memory. Connection between cache and main memory
- Input-output system: External units, I/O subcomponents, I/O through interrupts, I/O through programming, Direct Memory Access (DMA)
- External memory: Magnetic disks, RAID systems, optical and electronic disks
- Machine language: Structure, instructino set, operations, operators, instruction format, addressing schemes
- Central Processing Unit: CPU organization, register organization, architecture taxonomy, fetch-execution cycle, pipelining, control flow prediction, short description of RISC and CISC architectures
- Control unit: micro-execution, processor control, hardware implementation, microcode implementation
- Implementation examples of the above architectural choices in real systems
Teaching Methods - Evaluation
Teaching Method
- Face to face lectures
- Laboratory excercises
Teaching Organization
|Semester workload
|Laboratory exercises
|Preparation for laboratory exercises
|Individual study and analysis of literature
Students evaluation
Final exam on the theoretical part of the course (70%)
Laboratory excercises (30%)
30% of the grade in the Lab part is added to the 70% of the grade in the theoretical part only if the student has the required attendance in the Laboratory and his/her grade in the Lab is at least 5.0.
Recommended Bibliography
Recommended Bibliography through "Eudoxus"
- Stallings William, "Οργάνωση και Αρχιτεκτονική Υπολογιστών", ΕΚΔΟΣΕΙΣ Α. ΤΖΙΟΛΑ & ΥΙΟΙ Α.Ε., 10η Έκδοση/2016, ISBN: 978-960-418-580-1, Κωδικός Βιβλίου στον Εύδοξο: 59386815
- ANDREW S. TANENBAUM, "Η ΑΡΧΙΤΕΚΤΟΝΙΚΗ ΤΩΝ ΥΠΟΛΟΓΙΣΤΩΝ: ΜΙΑ ΔΟΜΗΜΕΝΗ ΠΡΟΣΕΓΓΙΣΗ", ΕΚΔΟΣΕΙΣ ΚΛΕΙΔΑΡΙΘΜΟΣ ΕΠΕ, Έκδοση: 4η/2000, ISBN: 960-209-403-6, Κωδικός Βιβλίου στον Εύδοξο: 13759
- Hennessy John L. και Patterson David A. "Αρχιτεκτονική Υπολογιστών", ΕΚΔΟΣΕΙΣ Α. ΤΖΙΟΛΑ & ΥΙΟΙ Α.Ε., 4η Έκδοση/2011, ISBN: 978-960-418-326-5, Κωδικός Βιβλίου στον Εύδοξο: 18548925
Complementary international bibliography
- Stallings William, "Computer Organization and Architecture", 10th edition, Pearson, 2016
- Hennessy John L. and Patterson David A. "Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach", 6th edition, Morgan Kaufmann, 2017


text:
1. It has been here for decades
The virus lives naturally in animals, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. The first two recorded outbreak were in 1976. The Ebola virus (EBOV) is one of five members of the Ebolavirus genus, four of which cause lethal hemorrhagic fever. It was previously called Zaire virus, after the country that is now called the Democratic Republic of Congo.
There are currently two separate Ebola outbreaks underway. In addition to the one in Western Africa, which has already spread to the US and Europe, there is another one in the Congo.
2. There is no cure
Ebola's high mortality rate and gruesome symptoms have given it the air of something out of a horror movie. But statistically speaking, the virus was a minor threat, with outbreaks quickly fading out claiming a few hundred lives at most.
So it's not surprising that institutions researching infectious diseases never invested many resources into finding a cure, preferring to spend money on more wide-spread (and, cynically speaking, more profit-generating) threats.
3. No adequate response
The countries affected by the current outbreak are poor, their healthcare systems are rudimentary, and the tradition-dictated hygiene habits of many of its citizens are not suitable for stopping the infection.
Where Western countries can rally experts in biohazard suits, quarantine every person a suspected carrier had contact with and run blood tests, countries like Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia have neither the resources nor experience to take such measures. And the problems only start with healthcare: the epidemic spreads panic, fear and violence, causing deterioration in whatever social order is in place.
4. The West is not prepared
Or at least not as well prepared as it should be! Even if Ebola manages to get into developed nations with some travelers slipping through airport cordons, the spread of the virus would not be large. It takes between four to 21 days for an infected person to become contagious, which means once a case is discovered, everyone who had contact with the person can be quarantined and tested before they can spread the disease.
5. Epidemic cost: Tens of billions of dollars
Battling the outbreak is difficult and costly. The WHO estimates that by November there could be 10,000 new cases of the disease each week in two months, unless it's taken under control.
This would require having 70 percent of infected people in a care facility and 70 percent of burials done without further infections. Otherwise the breakout would reach a stage, for which there is no plan.


text:
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Order of Carey Baldwin Books
Carey Baldwin is an author of romantic thriller/suspense novels. She is still a full-time practicing physician who writes at night. Carey holds two doctorates – in medicine and in psychology. She lives in the southwestern United States with her family, and enjoys chasing wildflowers in her spare time.
Carey Baldwin became a published novelist in 2012 with the novel First Do No Evil. Below is a list of Carey Baldwin's books in order of when they were originally published:
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Publication Order of Blood Secrets Books
Publication Order of Tangleheart Books
Publication Order of Cassidy & Spenser Books
Publication Order of Standalone Novels
Publication Order of Anthologies
Note: Murder, Secrets, Kisses, and Lies also includes stories by Manda Collins, Lena Diaz, Rachel Grant, Krista Hall and Gwen Hernandez.
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Carey Baldwin Synopsis: Confession is a standalone novel by Carey Baldwin. Faith Clancy has only recently become a psychiatrist when she gets the shock of her life – her first patient confesses to the grisly Saint murders. By law, Faith feels she must contact the authorities, but is this man really the Saint? Or will she help cause more death if she turns the wrong guy over to the police? Faith is going to need all her wits and the help of a powerful adversary, Luke Jericho, if she's going to discover the truth. But she doesn't realize she's about to become an unwitting pawn in a serial killer's diabolical game. For once he's finished with Faith, she'll become his next victim.


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text:
Mastering Chrome Developer Tools v2 Performance Panel
This course has been updated! We now recommend you take the Introduction to Dev Tools, v3 course.
Transcript from the "Performance Panel" Lesson
>> Speaker 1: For this next exercise, what we're gonna be looking at is, some page JANX, some performance stuff, all that. But before we get into it, just kind of wanna give a run down of how this tool works. So, this is just a little demo I made, so basically I'm generating a bunch of stuff, and you can kinda scroll through it.
[00:00:14] And I kind of wanna walk through the performance panel because it's a really scary looking panel. I think a lot of people get overwhelmed with the flame charts and all these things.
>> Speaker 1: There's just a lot going on with it. So I'm gonna open up the DevTools here, kinda make them a little bit bigger.
[00:00:28] I'm gonna hide this drawer with escape, I'm gonna go to performance. And then so kinda like what we've been seeing before with network, you can do a recording, you can refresh and start a recording. These would be if you wanna measure load performance versus when the laps already loaded performance.
[00:00:44] You can clear one, you can load them and you can save them. This is really cool because if you wanna get help on something [LAUGH] like from a DevTools expert. You're like my site's really janky and I don't know why. And they're gonna ask for one of these performance exports, that's what they wanna see, right?
[00:00:58] So you do your little performance thing, you hit export it'll save a HAR file. HAR, email that to whoever is generous enough to offer you help, which has happened to me a lot of times before. And then they'll be able to analyze it as though they were on the site, themselves.
[00:01:11] So cool, so let's start one, so what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna hit Record, and then I'm gonna scroll around up and down, and then I'm gonna hit Stop. And remember, when we're doing CPU performance, we want to keep it small. We don't want to be doing six second of recording.
[00:01:24] We really want to keep it at a second, two at the most. So here's where things get scary, I'm gonna pop this out so we can just kinda see them like. I know there's a lot going on here. SO a few things, let's start at the very bottom, at the very bottom we kinda have this summary screen, right?
[00:01:36] And the summary is like, during that time that you took the recording, here's the kinda stuff I was doing, right? I was idling, I was doing browsery stuff, I was painting, I was rendering or executing a job script, right? So you can kind of get these colors and the colors stay true all throughout the performance page.
[00:01:52] And so, you can see that the majority of what we do as we scrolling around is rendering, right? That's this particular work flow, when you look at your own app you'll see very different things based on what its doing. But this is pretty simple, we can kinda see so let's hide it for now.
[00:02:06] We kinda know what the summary is. The next one from the bottom up, you'll see if I can grab that
>> Speaker 1: That's weird, there we go [LAUGH]. The next one that we'll see is this memory graph, right? And so what this memory is gonna be doing is it's gonna be showing us out of all the things that happened, how much memory was allocated?
[00:02:32] And then it breaks it down by color, it's like well how much of this is JavaScript memory, right? So if you've got big array or something like that, how much of it is documents? How much of it is elements like DOM nodes? And how much of it is event listeners?
[00:02:44] We're gonna get into memory in the next section. So, again, just for making things easier for now, we're gonna hide this. So we've got like two panels hidden. So now we've got something that's a little bit more manageable to deal with. I can go here and just turn off the memory view for now.
[00:02:57] So kind of what we got, I'm gonna go ahead and kinda collapse these. So, again, we're just at kind of this simple screens we've got. Basically, if you think about it, we've got two bars running. So we've got the top one, FPS CPU NET, that's one bar, and everything else that's another bar.
[00:03:11] Both of them have x axis which is time, and the times will always match up, right? So 1500 milliseconds, 1500 milliseconds. So in the top view is sort of your light view your mile high view. The green stuff is frames per second. The lower the green line is, the better, right?
[00:03:31] If you ever sight that its doing absolutely nothing, your going to see it at all the way zero. As it start using a lot like as the frames per second gets higher and higher, you're gonna see it kind of coming up to the top. And when you see a bad example, that's dropping frames, you'll start seeing a red bar across the top of those.
[00:03:49] So a red across the green is bad, higher is more, but it's just doing more work, lower is better for performance. The second thing we're gonna see is what the CPU was doing. So again, like JavaScript is single-threaded, so this is all of the rendering, all of the painting, all of the JavaScript work that's being done.
[00:04:07] So again we can kinda see just like we saw in the summary, we've got a little bit of JavaScript, those yellow spikes. Mostly we've got rendering, we've got very little bit of painting too. So we can kind of just get at, again, starting to get this high-level view.
[00:04:18] And then, the second panel is all these call graphs, right? And we can break them down in different ways. If you remember when we did the mark and measure, we added an additional one, that was user interactions got added to that. It's not there right now cuz we don't have any marks and measures.
[00:04:33] But the things we're gonna want to check out are like the network tab. So this shows over time, it's kind of like an inline view of what network files. So this is very similar to the network panel. But we're really gonna want to check out what's going on on the main thread.
[00:04:47] That's like almost always what I have here. So we'll expand the main thread and we'll see all this stuff. Again, just like we've been looking at, tall not a problem, there is a lot of stuff calling each other. Wide is what we start with look for, and its not necessarily a bit of a problem.
[00:05:00] Again, when Chrome thinks that your doing too much stuff and your dropping frames, they'll start marking these with little red boxes on them. So red boxes are always the way you can tell, I definitely have a problem, I'm dropping frames. But, if you just wanted to see like when I scroll around, it feels really slow, why is it so slow?
[00:05:16] This is the screen that we're gonna wanna start looking at. We'll go into the main thread, we'll start seeing what the widest things are, and we'll start investigating why they're so bad. Somebody asked which part is the CPU usage? That's gonna be this main. So the main is gonna be all of your CPU work.
[00:05:31] That's gonna be responsible for the laying out, the rendering, and the JavaScript stuff, so that will be color coded inside here. So while we're scrolling around on my page, if we wanna see the very longest thing looks to be this, right? These big layout blocks. So again, using this same I can zoom in with my mouse.
[00:05:47] You can go side to side with your mouse. And if you want to go up and down within the thing, you have to hold shift. One thing that's cool, another little tip, is if you click on one of these like I just clicked on that, then you can use W A S D to do it.
[00:06:00] Which is like a like a lot nicer than using your mouse. So use w to zoom in, S to zoom out and then A and D to move side to side which I find a lot nicer, but again it's all up to you. So we've got this big layout things, right?
[00:06:14] And the layout's a little bit deceptive because the layout is browser work. What we really wanna know is what triggered that layout, right? We don't want to, if you have to layout stuff, you've got to layout stuff, right? The only thing we can do there is give is less stuff moving around.
[00:06:28] So what we really wanna see is here in this yellow before the big layout. Like what did we trigger in our yellow JavaScript code before that purple layout happened? So we can kinda start drilling in here. We can see some things, like we can see, we've got some kind of timer firing, right?
[00:06:42] We could look into that. It looks like it's a set time out, somewhere in our code. We can see these like kinda big things here, these DOM garbage collections. Like something is going on That's using a lot of memory, but then the browser is able to garbage collect it.
[00:06:55] We're gonna get into memory a lot deeper later, but it's just, something that we can note here. We just got more of these timers the set timeouts are calling these like init thing. It looks to be like the slowest stuff, I would guess that somewhere in here, like we have this timer firing, it's firing this nit thing.
[00:07:12] And something in that init is causing this layout to happen. It's like this huge recalculate style, right? So we see all these things and we see the recalculate style. So what I would do, again, finding the last wide one appears to me to be this init, right? These are all pretty wide, pretty wide, and then this one's tiny, this is append child.
[00:07:28] So I'm gonna go into the init and now we'll want to go back to our summary. Cuz when you select a box in here, it'll bring it up in the summary. And if you wanna find it, then you can just click here and go to the sources page.
[00:07:41] How are people feeling about this so far? I know this is on the heavy side of things. We can do Q&A or anything like that. We'll get a chance to kind of dive in together, but
>> Speaker 1: I know, there's like a lot going on [LAUGH]. And I know it's getting late but, okay, cool.
[00:07:57] So basically what I'm looking for is like, you ran the whole profile thing, I see that it's like a ton of purple. I see these big recalculate styles, and I wanna know what is it that's causing those, right? So I kinda go in here, and I find what we're executing in our code before that gets triggered.
[00:08:12] So I'll click here and it'll take me into the sources page. This really cool thing happens though, when you run a performance audit, it keeps track of how long every function call took. And it just puts them there for you in the left-side bar just for free, it just does that.
[00:08:26] So what's really cool about that is you can start seeing a color, coordinate them like what things are taking a really long time? So we can pretty easily see that like this init function. Which is the one that keeps calling this recalculate style is doing so, because it keeps appending children, right?
[00:08:42] Like that was what we were seeing here too. Like a timer fires, it calls a function, a function is a set time out, set time out calls it a net. A net calls unappend child. The append child generates this huge amount of recalculate style, right? So if we go into the recalculate style, this is the line that's causing it.
[00:09:01] So what we're doing here, now we can start reading the code. Now that we know like we're way to busy doing recalculate style and I know where it's coming from. We kinda look here and we see this kind of example where basically when a nig gets called, it iterates over this looped 200 times.
[00:09:15] And it keeps making these new boxes and appending them to the DOM, right? So it gets called and its 200 boxes, right? and so the problem that we have here is that we have that the original in that is defined. We need 200 boxes, so we need 200 boxes, so that's fine.
[00:09:29] But what we're getting into here is that the set timeout calls init every single time. So as that set timeout is firing, it just keeps calling init. So its basically like its kinda what we're seeing here. Again, you would see the red dots and lines if you had a paging problem which we don't here.
[00:09:46] But you can see it's like really busy on work here. And what it's doing is it's like doing these layouts. And it's doing these layouts because of the slide on the source code. So you could really trigger down to like, how busy it is, and what's making it so busy.


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If you still haven't heard a T-Rex Mudhoney, do yourself a favour and plug one in next time you're here.
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The Nigerian Millionaire Mentor
About Me: I am the creator/ founder of The Millionaire Mentor Wealth Club (How To Get Rich/ Wealth Secrets of Catholic Black Nigerian Billionaires/ New Day New You/ Rich Retirement Success). My name is Angela Akinbohun. I am 36 years old. I live in Woodbridge, Northern Virginia. I have lived in the Washington, DC area since I was 10 years old. I graduated from CET, The Center for Employment Training, in Alexandria, Virginia in 2013. I studied Business Office Technology and Office Administration. I earned a GED in 2002. I receive small business/ entrepreneur/ startup mentoring from https://www.score.org/ and Empowered Women International/ EWI (http://ewint.org/) and African Women Power (AWP) Network (https://awpnetwork.com/) and We-Fi World Bank (http://we-fi.org/) and Village Capital (https://vilcap.com/). I like to cook, clean, decorate, shop, read, learn, travel, donate money to charity, and volunteer (philanthropy). I like to watch artistic & intellectual films. I like to watch old movies (black and white, and also classic movies). I like to watch documentaries. I like to study the history of fashion, personal style, and costume design. I love to read books, magazines, & newspapers. I like to keep up with the news and politics. I like to visit libraries, archives, art galleries, historic homes, historic sites, monuments, planetariums, aquariums, zoos, safaris, and museums. I come from an upper middle class family. My dad/ father is Yoruba and Hausa, Nigerian. He is a mechanical engineer. My dad works for the U.S. federal government. My dad used to work for METRO/ WMATA public mass transportation in Washington, DC and Marriott Hotels International in Bethesda, Maryland. My mom/ mother is Black-American. She is from The American South (Memphis, Tennessee). She is a retired school teacher. My mom has four/ 04 children and she is a homemaker. I sell apps, software, and SaaS for work. I am a business solutions/ business services specialist (plus digital solutions). I am a motivational & inspirational public speaker. I am a holistic wealth and money coach. I am a life coach. I am a luxury lifestyle expert. I founded and own Ade Crown Global: luxury concierge & lifestyle management company. I own my own skin care business. I am a Black Hair Coach. I have a close relationship with The Nigerian Government, The Nigerian Embassies, The U.S. State Department/ U.S. Department of State (Nigerian Desk), The U.S. Department of Commerce. I have a close relationship with many churches, small and medium sized businesses/ SME's, charities/ nonprofits, and schools/ colleges/ universities, both nationally and internationally. I am a participant, trainee, student in The Coursera Google I.T. and Tech Support Career Training Certification Program Online (Professional Credentials). I am a student at Modern States Education Alliance Philanthropy Project (Harvard, MIT, Wall Street NYC). I will be attending Woolf University (Oxford University UK cryptocurrency) over the next four/ 04 years. I will attend NVCC Community College in Northern Virginia soon.
I am a Catholic holistic wealth, money, and life coach. I tap into the power of the Global Catholic Church Community to make you a success.
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Before I work with a new client I like to have them answer a few questions to screen them and make sure we are compatible. A new potential/ prospective client can answer questions on an online form, online quiz, online survey, online poll, email questions, writen questions, snail mail postal questions, or questions over the phone. I typically work with high income, high net worth, and other types of affluent clients. I specialize in the Black client niche (Black African, Black American, Black Caribbean, Global Black African Diaspora, etc.).
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I don't have a standard pricing system. Let's negotiate.
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I was attending the Roman Catholic church in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia called Saint Mary's. I did a lot of volunteer work, charity, philanthropy, and community outreach at the church. I got to know a lot of entrepreneurs and small business owners. I sell apps, SaaS, and software to small and medium sized businesses (SME's).
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I typically work with high income, high net worth, and other types of affluent clients. I specialize in the Black client niche (Black African, Black American, Black Caribbean, Global Black African Diaspora, etc.).
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The Catholic Advantage: Why Health, Happiness, and Heaven Await the Faithful Hardcover – March 3, 2015 by Bill Donohue (Author).
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There are so many beautiful resorts and hotels in Mykonos. I would say that any 4-5 star resort would be a good choice.
Most of them come with pools, restaurants, a spa and more.
We stayed at the Myconian Ambassador and it was gorgeous! We had a room with our own private pool for the first part of our stay and then switched to a different view and a hot tub room with a balcony.
They had a gorgeous spa with multiple soaking pools and we got a couples massage which was so relaxing. The resort also had little shops, was a two minute walk from the beach and had an amazing all inclusive breakfast buffet.
I would highly recommend this resort.
I can't say much about renting a home there because we didn't really look into it, but you can't go wrong with a resort style accommodation.
Just be sure to look at location (proximity to the beach) and read lots of reviews!
Kikis Tavern – Agios Sostis Beach – They have authentic Greek food and have no electricity! Everything is cooked on a fire grill. The grilled feta cheese and pork chops are amazing. A must try.
Principote, Panormos – This place had an amazing seafood linguini and crab! It's on the pricier side but absolutely delicious.
Fokos Taverna – This is a cute little restaurant in the middle of nowhere near a beach. It feels like something you would see in a movie and is delicious. Fokos is family owned and probably the more authentic Greek food we tasted on the island. It was my favorite spot!
Nobu Sushi Mykonos – Nobu anywhere. Enough said.
In the downtown area and near the windmills there are lots of places to eat! Anything you choose is pretty decent and you must get crepes and Greek coffee at least once on the trip.
If you just plan on staying on your resort and walking distance to a beach, then you don't really need a car but I highly recommend renting a car or buggy to explore the island. There are so many beautiful beaches and sights to see!
We rented buggy's for about 5 days and drove all over the island and spent each day on a different beach.
It was one of the most amazing experiences. There are so many old, historic homes and churches on the island.
Definitely rent some sort of transportation, just remember to drive safe. The drivers in Greece are pretty crazy compared to drivers in the United States. There weren't really any rules on the road.
So much to do and so little time! You need at least 4-5 days to really even get a taste of Mykonos. Especially if you rent some sort of transportation.
Here are some things I would highly recommend seeing:
Nammos Beach – this is an upscale beach where you can often spot celebrities. It's not cheap but so worth it. It's such a beautiful beach and was my favorite daytime hangout.
Agios Sostis Beach – this is more of a locals beach. It is free to visit and is not commercialized. You have to bring your own towels and food and drinks but it's a gorgeous spot and this is where Kiki's Tavern is. You can lounge on the beach and have lunch at Kiki's, that is what we did one day.
Principote Beach – this is a more secluded beach and is a little bit of a drive from the center of Mykonos but is absolutely breathtaking. Principote is more of a boho California vibe but we loved spending a day here.
The famous Windmills – these are near downtown and are so pretty. The coffee shops near the windmills are really cute too. You can sit out on the strip and watch the waves crash against the dock at sunset. It's breathtaking.
Wander through "Little Venice" which is Mykonos 18th Century district.
Visit all of the little shops and restaurants in downtown Mykonos.
This site has some great suggestions for what to see in Mykonos!
Mykonos is not cheap, so keep that in mind when planning a trip there.
Everything from food to lodging to transportation is really inflated. I think it would be really hard to see a lot in Mykonos if you are on a tight budget so make sure you save up a good amount of activity money for your trip!
We felt fairly safe but we travelled with another couple and always stayed together. We didn't carry a lot of valuables around town and mostly kept to ourselves.
The people are friendly and I would highly recommend Mykonos as a place to add to our bucket list!
You can see my Santorini Travel Guide here.
See more photos of our Greece trip here, here and here.
PS: I wrote this post months ago and forgot to post it, but better late than never I guess!