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This is my disclaimer up front for those not interested in a totally non WOW post. Come back another day for resto druid funnies and sillies.
I was going to do a rant post today, but given the date, I didn't know if I wanted to be ranting. Now while I'll often share little bits and pieces of myself in a WOW related post, I don't really ever do posts that have absolutely nothing to do with WOW. So why am I doing this today? Well, while I have told this story a number of times, I've never written it all down. I want to remember all the details, so I'd like to get it down on paper, or uh is this e-paper? This is by no means a political or ideological or religious statement whatsoever. It's just my personal 9/11 story.
In September of 2001, I was living in New York, in my last semester of Grad School Round 1. I was living in a student apartment on Columbia's Health Science campus up on 168th and Broadway where my program was located. Half of my classes that semester were during the day and the other half were at night. Thus, I was also working part time where I had interned the previous summer. This office of a public NYC agency was located downtown, about 8 blocks from the WTC towers.
The three years I lived in New York I was even crazier about shoes than I am now. I used to wear 3-4 inch high heels or strappy sandals like all the time. That Tuesday morning, I walked out of my place and headed to the elevator. While I was waiting for the elevator, I was kind of shifting my feet in place, because my feet were still a bit sore from the previous day's beautiful, but killer pair of sandals. The elevator came and the doors opened up, and I thought to myself, "You know what? I can't do this again today. I have to wear some sensible shoes today". While typically I would have just stuck with the shoes I had chosen to wear, that morning I walked back into my place to change into a really comfortable pair of sandals.
Once I changed my shoes, I got myself back out the door and onto the subway to head downtown. I got off the train and headed up the flight of stairs that I always walked out of, a flight of stairs that opened up to a clear straight on view of the WTC towers. Now as I'm heading up the stairs, I see and hear a woman wailing and crying at the top of the stairs. My typical NYC thought? "Oh, there's another crazy person". When I got to the top of the stairs, I quickly realized she wasn't just a crazy person. It was about 8:50 am and the first tower had just been hit.
I stood there confused, wondering what was going on along with everyone else near me. I asked some one else what had just happened. What? A plane? How could this have happened? The mood in the group of people I was standing with was one of confusion and shock. As we were standing there, talking to each other, trying to grasp what we were seeing 7 blocks away, we heard a very very loud sound. People ducked or whipped their heads, the sound was so loud and felt so close to us. I then saw first hand the second plane hit. The mood in the group quickly turned to fear and panic as people realized this wasn't an accident. People started screaming and running.
I then walked into my work building to touch base with my boss and the office director. I was told that because our building was a federal building, it was being immediately evacuated. My boss told me that I should probably get right back on the subway and head back uptown because she was sure that the subways would quickly be shut down. We left the building and I said goodbye to my boss and director, who both immediately got on the subways to head home.
But I couldn't leave. I'm not sure exactly why. I'm not sure if it was curiosity, wanting to know what was going on, or seeing if I could help somehow. But I just couldn't get myself to leave. Instead I got a cup of coffee from my steady coffee cart guy, and walked back south, to an open area about 6 blocks from the towers. I found myself back in a crowd of people who perhaps also couldn't get themselves to leave.
We stood there watching a scene that my eyes told me was real, but my brain told me had to be a movie. We stood there discussing how this could have happened, who could have done this. We stood there sharing information, as someone with a radio was telling us the Pentagon was just hit. We stood there feeling helpless as we could clearly see people hang out of the windows waving their hands, some piece of cloth, their clothes, anything to try to ask for help. We stood there in horror as we saw multiple people make the decision to jump.
While I was in this crowd, I struggled with the decision of whether I could do anything. At the time I had an active EMT certification, and while I hadn't practiced in a year and a half, I knew that I could perform basic functions. So I would start walking closer to the towers, thinking that perhaps I could help. But then I would look up at the magnitude of what was going on and wonder how much I could really do when I knew there were emergency personnel all across the city already responding. Since 9 am I had heard constant sirens heading south. So then, I would walk back north to the open area I was standing in before. But then I would see the people in the buildings, and start walking south again.
I probably did this back and forth two times or so and had returned to the open area with a bunch of other people. What I heard next is something I will never forget. It was this low kind of guttural rumbling sound. It started out really softly at first, like a whisper. I look up and see that it is the sound of the first tower collapsing. Since we were about 6 blocks away, people really started to panic, screaming, and running north.
Thinking back, one thing I learned about myself is that I am pretty calm in the most stressful situations. People were screaming and running around me, but my thought process was one of "Oh, maybe I should walk north now?". Or maybe I wasn't calm, maybe I was just dense? I don't know, but I stood there for a bit looking at the huge smoke cloud that was now rising from where the first tower stood, looking at a smoke cloud that was starting to expand out. It took a police officer waving his arms and yelling at us to head north for me to put some speed to my walk.
On my walk north, I stopped at Canal Street and looked to the left and right, to see thousands of people pouring into the streets and sidewalks all heading north. I also distinctly remember seeing one woman who was so distraught that she was sitting on the sidewalk, hysterically crying. It was comforting to see two strangers tell her that she had to keep walking, help her back up, and give her a bottle of water.
During this walk north, there were incredible lines at the few pay phones since all the cell phones were down. I remember seeing 30-40 people in line at some pay phones. I stood in one of the lines for a little bit, but then quickly decided it wasn't worth it and kept walking north. This was about when I marveled at the fact that I had made the unlikely decision to change my shoes that morning. There was no way I would have been able to walk so far if I had my original shoes on. There were tons of women around me who were walking barefoot. Some manicure/pedicure places along the way were giving out those foam flip flops you get when you get a pedicure and a number of women were wearing those.
I got to midtown around 12:30 pm, and headed for the place where I had interned the previous fall. My cell phone was still not working, and mainly I wanted to get hold of a land line so I could call my family. I stepped into my old office and called my dad's office. I knew that my mom and sister would gather there with my dad to wait for me to contact them. Now I mentioned before how I had been pretty calm this whole entire time. While I teared up as I saw people in the windows of the towers cry for help or jump, I hadn't really cried yet. But talking to my family, I guess I could just let it all go, and I totally broke down.
I stayed at that office for a while, as everyone I used to work with wanted to hear what I had seen. I left around 2 pm, and headed for the subway which was running again. I remember getting on the good old A train and seeing folks in my subway car who were covered in gray dust. I also realized that I still heard sirens in my head, which I had heard constantly since 9 am. I knew that I couldn't be hearing sirens down in the subway, and I was a little concerned about that, but hoped it would go away.
When I got back on campus, the word had spread that they were calling for volunteers. At this time, we all figured that there would be thousands of injured people. Because there was a medical, dental, nursing, and public health school on campus, along with the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, everyone mobilized to help out. I went to sign up and list my skills as well as my cell phone number. Little did we know how few people would be taken to the hospitals.
Now that semester, I had class every Tuesday night. I figured oh, given everything that had happened, it must be canceled right? NYU, other colleges in the city, colleges all across the country ended up canceling classes that day and many the next day. Nope, not Columbia. I had class that Tuesday night. I remember sitting there not listening to a word, replaying everything from that day in my head.
Soon after class let out, the phone calls started. That first night, my closest friends were able to get their calls through. The next day, it was friends and relatives who I didn't talk to as often who called, followed up the subsequent day by long lost friends and international relatives who I hadn't spoken to in forever. It blew my mind how many people ended up contacting me, and I think I realized then how big this was and how much it touched everyone.
That night I lay in bed watching the constant TV coverage. It was strange to see on TV what I had seen first hand, and I started to wonder what I had seen first hand vs what I had seen on TV. I finally realized around 2 am that it was late and that I should go to bed and turned off the TV. As I was trying to fall asleep, I could still hear the sirens in my head. I thought to myself, "Seriously? Am I going crazy? This better be gone tomorrow".
No one was allowed south of Houston Street for a while afterwards. My co-workers and I had to work in a temporary office in midtown. When we were allowed to go back to our offices about three weeks later, I remember tasting a metal taste at the back of my throat from the air. My eyes, which are pretty sensitive, were itchy. I also had the chance then to walk down to the site, which was still a complete disaster area. I remember looking into the storefront window of a jewelry store that faced the WTC towers and seeing a display case that was completely empty except for a thick layer of dust. Realizing what that dust was, I cried.
Its crazy to realize that it's been 8 years. Recalling a lot of the details, I can still feel a lot of the emotions of that day and the subsequent weeks. No way I could ever forget.


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Key points
Global growth is looking healthier as easy monetary policy gets traction, fiscal austerity has come to an end and memories of the GFC fade.
This should underpin profits and share markets but see a resumption of a gradual rising trend in bond yields.
Stronger global growth is positive for Australia and supports the case for the RBA to remain on hold. But with underlying inflationary pressures remaining very low and underemployment very high a rate hike is unlikely until second-half next year.
Despite numerous geopolitical threats (Eurozone elections, tensions between the US and China, North Korea, etc.), worries about the demise of the so-called "Trump trade" and shares being overbought and due for a correction at the start of the year, share markets have proved to be remarkably resilient with only a minor pull back into their recent lows. This despite a more significant fall back in bond yields. Partly this is because the geopolitical threats have not proven to be major problems (at least so far) and Trump remains focussed on his pro-business policy agenda (he has already embarked on deregulation and his tax reform proposals – while lacking in details – indicate that tax reform remains a key objective). More fundamentally though, markets have been underpinned by an improvement in global growth. This is likely to continue.
Global economy best in years
- Numerous indicators point to a stronger global economy.Business condition indicators - commonly called purchasing managers' indexes or PMIs - have moved up to their highest since the post GFC bounce.
This is the case for manufacturing and services sectors and for advanced and emerging countries. This generally points to stronger growth ahead. Believe it or not the Eurozone currently looks to be the star performer on this front.
- The OECD's leading economic indicators (basically a combination of economic indicators that lead economic growth) have turned up decisively.
- Consistent with improving global economic conditions, measures of unemployment are heading down in the major advanced countries (albeit they still have further to go in Europe).
- Asian economies which are always a good barometer of the health of the global economy are seeing a solid rebound in export growth. So much for all the talk that world trade and globalisation had peaked!
- Reflecting the improvement in global growth, for the first time in years the IMF's latest World Economic Outlook update revised up its global growth forecast for the current year (2017) to 3.5% from 3.4% rather than revised it down as had become the norm.
Of course, there is one qualification to all these positive signs (there is always something!) and that is that the US economy looks to have seen a soft start to the year as measured by GDP growth. However, March quarters in the US seem to regularly come in on the soft side initially only to get revised up later and be followed by a bounce back in growth suggesting a seasonal adjustment problem. US unemployment claims running around their lowest since the early 1970s - no mean feat given that the US economy and population are much bigger today - tell us that the US economy remains strong despite a soft March quarter.
So why the turn for the better in global growth?
There are a bunch of factors driving healthier global growth including:
- Years of ultra-easy monetary policy - zero and even negative rates and money printing - have finally got traction.
- Fiscal austerity has largely come to an end.
- Memories of the global financial crisis (GFC) and hence fears of another re-run are gradually receding - after all it is now 9-10 years ago (shares peaked in 2007!) - and so the negative impact on confidence is gradually receding too.
- Deleveraging (or the desire to reduce debt ratios) post the GFC - to the extent that it occurred - has arguably run its course.
Investment implications
The pick-up in global growth is not so strong as to tell us that we are near the peak of the cycle. Spare capacity remains in labour markets, factories are still not running at full capacity, wages growth remains relatively weak (albeit it's trending up a bit in the US) and core inflation remains low (just 0.7% year on year in the Eurozone, 0.1% in Japan, 1.8% in the US and 2.3% in China). Out of interest the US Leading Economic Indicator has only just surpassed its pre GFC high and historically it's then taken six years on average for the next recession to start.
In other words we are a long way from boom times that then give way to a bust. Nevertheless, the implications of the healthier global economy are likely to be:
- Ongoing support for share markets - as stronger growth underpins further gains in profits - which should mean reasonable returns from shares.
- Support for commodity prices - although it's doubtful they will take off given the lagged impact of rising supply but it should mean we have seen the lows.
- A bottoming in the global interest rate cycle. The Fed will continue its gradual tightening in monetary policy in the US with two more rate hikes likely this year and a start to reversing quantitative easing later this year via a phased reduction in the Fed rolling over its bond holdings as they mature. China is likely to continue tightening gradually as well. Other countries will eventually follow (albeit very slowly in Europe and then in Japan - but that could be years away).
- A resumption of the rising trend in government bond yields - after the pause seen since December - which is likely to mean low returns from government bonds.
- A rising trend in bond yields - albeit a gradual one - will weigh on bond proxies such as global real estate investment trusts and listed infrastructure assets constraining their returns relative to the double digit gains they have seen over the last five years in response to the prior plunge in bond yields.
For Australia, the stronger global growth back drop is a positive in supporting export demand and confidence which in turn should help support Australian economic growth pick up towards 3%. Which in turn adds to confidence that the official cash rate has bottomed. However, with downside risks to growth remaining as mining investment is still falling, underemployment remaining very high, wages growth still ultra-weak, the $A remaining relatively strong and core inflation remaining below target we remain of the view that an RBA rate hike is unlikely until the second half of 2018.
Important notes
While every care has been taken in the preparation of this article, AMP Capital Investors Limited (ABN 59 001 777 591, AFSL 232497) and AMP Capital Funds Management Limited (ABN 15 159 557 721, AFSL 426455) (AMP Capital) makes no representations or warranties as to the accuracy or completeness of any statement in it including, without limitation, any forecasts. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance. This article has been prepared for the purpose of providing general information, without taking account of any particular investor's objectives, financial situation or needs. An investor should, before making any investment decisions, consider the appropriateness of the information in this article, and seek professional advice, having regard to the investor's objectives, financial situation and needs. This article is solely for the use of the party to whom it is provided and must not be provided to any other person or entity without the express written consent of AMP Capital.
This article is not intended for distribution or use in any jurisdiction where it would be contrary to applicable laws, regulations or directives and does not constitute a recommendation, offer, solicitation or invitation to invest.

subset: commoncrawl


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Greek Warfare
> Phalanx
The phalanx (Ancient Greek: φάλαγξ, Greek: φάλαγγα, phālanga; plural phalanxes or phalanges; Ancient and Modern Greek: φάλαγγες, phālanges) was a rectangular mass military formation, usually composed entirely of heavy infantry armed with spears, pikes, sarissas, or similar weapons. The term is particularly (and originally) used to describe the use of this formation in Ancient Greek warfare, although the ancient Greek writers used it to also describe any massed infantry formation, regardless of its equipment, as does Arrian in his Array against the Alans when he refers to his legions. In Greek texts, the phalanx may be deployed for battle, on the march, even camped, thus describing the mass of infantry or cavalry that would deploy in line during battle. They marched forward as one entity. The word phalanx is derived from the Greek word phalangos, meaning finger.The term itself, as used today, does not refer to a distinctive military unit or division (e.g., the Roman legion or the contemporary Western-type battalion), but to the general formation of an army's troops. Thus a phalanx does not have a standard combat strength or composition but includes the total number of infantry, which is or will be deployed in action in a single phalanx formation.Sumerian phalanx formation. Detail of a fragment of the victory stele of the king Eannatum of Lagash over Umma, called Stele of the VulturesMany spear-armed troops historically fought in what might be termed phalanx-like formations. The word has come into use in common English to describe "a group of people standing, or moving forward closely together";[1] c.f. "a phalanx of police".[2]This article focuses on the use of the military phalanx formation in Ancient Greece, the Hellenistic world, and other ancient states heavily influenced by Greek civilization.The earliest known depiction of a phalanx-like formation occurs in a Sumerian stele from the 25th century BC. Here the troops seem to have been equipped with spears, helmets, and large shields covering the whole body. Ancient Egyptian infantry were known to have employed similar formations. The first usage of the term phalanx comes from Homer's "(φαλαγξ)", used to describe hoplites fighting in an organized battle line. Homer used the term to differentiate the formation-based combat from the individual duels so often found in his poems.[3]Historians have not arrived at a consensus about the relationship between the Greek formation and these predecessors of the hoplites. The principles of shield wall and spear hedge were almost universally known among the armies of major civilizations throughout history, and so the similarities may be related to convergent evolution instead of diffusion.Traditionally, historians date the origin of the hoplite phalanx of ancient Greece to the 8th century BC in Sparta, but this is under revision. It is perhaps more likely that the formation was devised in the 7th century BC after the introduction of the aspis by the city of Argos, which would have made the formation possible. This is further evidenced by the Chigi vase, dated to 650 BC, identifying hoplites armed with aspis, spear and panoply.[3]Another possible theory as to the birth of Greek phalanx warfare stems from the idea that some of the basic aspects of the phalanx were present in earlier times yet were not fully developed due to the lack of appropriate technology. Two of the basic strategies seen in earlier warfare include the principle of cohesion and the use of large groups of soldiers. This would suggest that the Greek phalanx was rather the culmination and perfection of a slowly developed idea that originated many years earlier. As weaponry and armour advanced through the years in different city-states, the phalanx became complex and effective.[4]Contents [hide]1Overview1.1Pushing1.2Shields1.3Hoplite armament1.4Phalangite armament2Deployment and combat2.1Phalanx composition and strength2.2Phalanx front and depth[21]2.3Stages of combat3Tactics4Weaknesses5Decline6See also7Notes8References9Further reading10External linksOverview[edit]A reconstitution illustration of the Greek hoplites marching in a phalanx formation.The hoplite phalanx of the Archaic and Classical periods in Greece (ca. 800–350 BC) was a formation in which the hoplites would line up in ranks in close order. The hoplites would lock their shields together, and the first few ranks of soldiers would project their spears out over the first rank of shields. The phalanx therefore presented a shield wall and a mass of spear points to the enemy, making frontal assaults against it very difficult. It also allowed a higher proportion of the soldiers to be actively engaged in combat at a given time (rather than just those in the front rank).Battles between two phalanxes usually took place in open, flat plains where it was easier to advance and stay in formation. Rough terrain or hilly regions would have made it difficult to maintain a steady line and would have defeated the purpose of employing the use of a phalanx. As a result, battles between Greek city-states would not take place in any possible location, nor would they be limited to sometimes obvious strategic points. Rather, many times, the two opposing sides would find the most suitable piece of land where the conflict could be settled. Mostly, the battle ended with one of the two fighting sides fleeing to safety.[5]The phalanx usually advanced at a walking pace, although it is possible that they picked up speed during the last several yards. One of the main reasons for this slow approach was to maintain formation. If the phalanx lost its shape as it approached the enemy it would be rendered useless. If the hoplites of the phalanx were to pick up speed toward the latter part of the advance it would have been for the purpose of gaining momentum against the enemy in the initial collision.[6] Herodotus states, of the Greeks at the Battle of Marathon, that "They were the first Greeks we know of to charge their enemy at a run". Many historians believe that this innovation was precipitated by their desire to minimize their losses from Persian archery. The opposing sides would collide, possibly severing many of the spears of the row in front and killing the front part of the enemy army due to the bone breaking collision of the start of the battle. The battle would then rely on the valour of the men in the front line; whilst those in the rear maintained forward pressure on the front ranks with their shields. When in combat, the whole formation would consistently press forward trying to break the enemy formation; thus when two phalanx formations engaged, the struggle essentially became a pushing match.Pushing[edit]This "physical pushing match" theory is the most widely accepted interpretation of the ancient sources. Historians such as Victor Davis Hanson point out that it is difficult to account for exceptionally deep phalanx formations unless they were necessary to facilitate the physical pushing depicted by this theory, as those behind the first two ranks could not take part in the actual spear thrusting.[7]Yet, it should be noted that no Greek art ever depicts anything like a phalanx pushing match and this hypothesis is a product of educated speculation rather than explicit testimony from contemporary sources. The Greek term for "push" was used in the same metaphorical manner as the English word is (for example it was also used to describe the process of rhetorical arguments) and so cannot be said to necessarily describe a literal, physical, push of the enemy, although it is possible that it did. In short, the hypothesis is far from being academically resolved.For instance, if Othismos were to accurately describe a physical pushing match, it would be logical to state that the deeper phalanx would always win an engagement, since the physical strength of individuals would not compensate for even one additional rank on the enemy side. However, there are numerous examples of shallow phalanxes holding off an opponent. For instance, at Delium in 424 the Athenian left flank, a formation eight men deep, held off a formation of Thebans twenty-five deep without immediate collapse.[8] It is difficult with the physical pushing model to imagine eight men withstanding the pushing force of twenty-five opponents for a matter of seconds, let alone half the battle.Such arguments have led to a wave of counter-criticism to physical shoving theorists. Adrian Goldsworthy, in his article "The Othismos, Myths and Heresies: The nature of Hoplite Battle" argues that the physical pushing match model does not fit with the average casualty figures of hoplite warfare, nor the practical realities of moving large formations of men in battle.[9] This debate has yet to be resolved amongst scholars.Practical difficulties with this theory also include the fact that, in a shoving match, an 8-foot spear is too long to fight effectively or even parry attacks. Spears enable a formation of men to keep their enemies at a distance, parry attacks aimed at them and their comrades, and give the necessary reach to strike multiple men in the opposite formation. A pushing match would put enemies so close together that a quick stabbing with a knife would kill the front row almost instantly. The crush of men would also prevent the formation from withdrawing or retreating, which would result in much higher casualties than is recorded. The speed at which this would occur would also end the battle very quickly, instead of prolonged battles lasting hours.Shields[edit]Each individual hoplite carried his shield on the left arm, protecting not only himself but the soldier to the left. This meant that the men at the extreme right of the phalanx were only half-protected. In battle, opposing phalanxes would exploit this weakness by attempting to overlap the enemy's right flank. It also meant that, in battle, a phalanx would tend to drift to the right (as hoplites sought to remain behind the shield of their neighbour). The most experienced hoplites were often placed on the right side of the phalanx, to avoid these problems. Some groups, such as the Spartans at Nemea, tried to use this phenomenon to their advantage. In this case, the phalanx would sacrifice its left side, which typically consisted of allied troops, in an effort to overtake the enemy from the flank. It is unlikely that this strategy worked very often, as it is not mentioned frequently in ancient Greek literature.[10]There was a leader in each row of a phalanx, and a rear rank officer, the ouragos (meaning tail-leader), who kept order in the rear. The phalanx is thus an example of a military formation in which the individualistic elements of battle were suppressed for the good of the whole. The hoplites had to trust their neighbours to protect them, and be willing to protect their neighbours; a phalanx was thus only as strong as its weakest elements. The effectiveness of the phalanx therefore depended on how well the hoplites could maintain this formation while in combat, and how well they could stand their ground, especially when engaged against another phalanx. For this reason, the formation was deliberately organized to group friends and family closely together, thus providing a psychological incentive to support one's fellows, and a disincentive through shame to panic or attempt to flee. The more disciplined and courageous the army, the more likely it was to win – often engagements between the various city-states of Greece would be resolved by one side fleeing before the battle. The Greek word dynamis, the "will to fight", expresses the drive that kept hoplites in formation."Now of those, who dare, abiding one beside another, to advance to the close fray, and the foremost champions, fewer die, and they save the people in the rear; but in men that fear, all excellence is lost. No one could ever in words go through those several ills, which befall a man, if he has been actuated by cowardice. For 'tis grievous to wound in the rear the back of a flying man in hostile war. Shameful too is a corpse lying low in the dust, wounded behind in the back by the point of a spear."— Tyrtaeus, The War Songs Of TyrtaeusThe phalanx of the Ancient Macedonian kingdom and the later Hellenistic successor states was a development of the hoplite phalanx. The 'phalangites' were armed with much longer spears (the sarissa; see below), and less heavily armoured. Since the sarissa was wielded two-handed, phalangites carried much smaller shields that were strapped to their arms. Therefore, although a Macedonian phalanx would have formed up in a similar manner to the hoplite phalanx, it possessed very different tactical properties. With the extra spear length, up to five rows of phalangites could project their weapon beyond the front rank—keeping the enemy troops at a greater distance. The Macedonian phalanx was much less able to form a shield wall, but the lengthened spears would have compensated for this. Such a phalanx formation also reduces the likelihood that battles would degenerate into a pushing match.Hoplite armament[edit]Each hoplite provided his own equipment. The primary hoplite weapon was a spear around 2.4 metres (7.9 ft) in length called a dory. Although accounts of its length vary, it is usually now believed to have been seven to nine feet long (~2.1–2.7 m). It was held one-handed, with the other hand holding the hoplite's shield (called Aspis). The spearhead was usually a curved leaf shape, while the rear of the spear had a spike called a sauroter ('lizard-killer') which was used to stand the spear in the ground (hence the name). It was also used as a secondary weapon if the main shaft snapped or to kill enemies lying on the ground as the formation passed over. This was a common problem, especially for soldiers who were involved with the initial clash with the enemy. Despite the snapping of the spear, Hoplites could easily switch to the sauroter without great consequence.[11] The rear ranks used the secondary end to finish off fallen opponents as the phalanx advanced over them.Throughout the hoplite era, the standard hoplite armour went through many cyclical changes.[12] An Archaic hoplite typically wore a bronze breastplate, a bronze helmet with cheekplates, as well as greaves and other armour. Later, in the classical period, the breastplate became less common, replaced instead with a corselet that some claim was made of layers of linen glued together, or perhaps of leather, sometimes covered in whole or in part with overlapping metal scales.[13][14] Eventually, even greaves became less commonly used, although degrees of heavier armour remained, as attested by Xenophon as late as 401 BC.[15]These changes reflected the balancing of mobility with protection, especially as cavalry became more prominent in the Peloponnesian War[16] and the need to combat light troops, which were increasingly used to negate the hoplites role as the primary force in battle.[17] Yet bronze armour remained in some form until the end of the hoplite era. Some archaeologists have pointed out that bronze armour does not actually provide as much protection from direct blows as more extensive corselet padding, and have suggested its continued use was a matter of status for those who could afford it.[18] In classical Greek dialect, there is no word for swordsmen; yet hoplites also carried a short sword, called a xiphos. The short sword was a secondary weapon, used if the dory was broken or lost. Samples of the xiphos recovered at excavation sites typically were found to be around 60 cm in length. These swords were double sided and could therefore be used in both the swinging and thrusting motion. These short swords were usually used to slice the enemy's throat during close combat.[19]Hoplites carried a circular shield called a hoplon (often referred to as an aspis) made from wood and covered in bronze, measuring roughly 1 metre (3.3 ft) in diameter. It spanned from chin to knee and was very heavy (8–15 kg). This medium-sized shield (and indeed, large for the time) was made possible partly by its dish-like shape, which allowed it to be supported with the rim on the shoulder. This was quite an important feature of the shield, especially for the hoplites that remained in the latter ranks. While these soldiers continued to help press forward, they did not have the added burden of holding up their shield. But the circular shield was not without its disadvantages. Despite its mobility, protective curve, and double straps the circular shape created gaps in the shield wall at both its top and bottom. These gaps left parts of the hoplite exposed to potentially lethal spear thrusts and were a persistent vulnerability for hoplites controlling the front lines.[20]Phalangite armament[edit]The sarissa was the pike used by the Ancient Macedonian army. The actual length of the sarissa is now unknown, but apparently it was twice as long as the dory. This makes it at least 14 feet (4.3 m), but 18 feet (5.5 m) appears more likely. (The cavalry xyston was 12.5 feet (3.8 m) by comparison.) The great length of the pike was balanced by a counterweight at the rear end, which also functions as a butt-spike, allowing the sarissa to be planted into the ground. Because of its great length, weight and differing balance, a sarissa was wielded two-handed. This meant that the aspis was no longer a practical defence. Instead, the phalangites strapped a smaller pelte shield (usually reserved for light skirmishers – peltasts) to their left forearm. Although this reduced the shield wall, the extreme length of the spear prevented most enemies from closing, as the pikes of the first three to five ranks could all be brought to bear in front of the front row. In addition, the last 6-18 ranks of soldiers held their spears in the air over the front ranks, making an effective barrier against missiles[citation needed]. This pike had to be held underhand, as the shield would have obscured the soldier's vision had it been held overhead. It would also be very hard to remove a sarissa from anything it stuck in (the earth, shields, and soldiers of the opposition) if it were thrust downwards, due to its length.Deployment and combat[edit]This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)Two standard Macedonian enomotiæ (32 men each) in loose formation 2m. apart (32 ranks).The same in dense formation; each file 1m. apart (16 ranks).The same in locked shields formation; each file 0,5m. apart (8 ranks - rightmost file not shown).Phalanx composition and strength[edit]The basic combat element of the Greek armies was either the stichos (meaning "file"; usually 8-16 men strong) or the enomotia (meaning "sworn" and made up by 2-4 stichœ; totaling up to 32 men), both led by a dimœrites who was assisted by a decadarchos and two decasterœ (sing. decasteros). Four to a maximum of 32 enomotiæ (depending on the era in question or the city) were forming a lochos led by a lochagos, who in this way was in command of initially 100 hoplites to a maximum of ca. 500 in the late Hellenistic armies. Here, it has to be noted that the military manuals of Asclepiodotus and Aelian use the term lochos to denote a file in the phalanx. A taxis (mora for the Spartans) was the greatest standard hoplitic formation of 500 to 1500 men, led by a strategos (general). The entire army, a total of several taxeis or moræ was led by a generals' council. The commander-in-chief was usually called a polemarchos or a strategos autocrator.Phalanx front and depth[21][edit]Hoplite phalanxes usually deployed in ranks of 8 men or more deep; The Macedonian phalanxes were usually 16 men deep, sometimes reported to have been arrayed 32 men deep. There are some notable extremes; at the battles of Leuctra and Mantinea, the Theban general Epameinondas arranged the left wing of the phalanx into a "hammerhead" of 50 ranks of elite hoplites deep (see below) and when depth was less important, phalanxes just 4 deep are recorded, as at the battle of Marathon.The phalanx depth could vary depending on the needs of the moment and plans of the general. While the phalanx was in march, an eis bathos formation (loose, meaning literally "in depth") was adopted in order to move more freely and maintain order. This was also the initial battle formation as, in addition, it permitted friendly units to pass through whether assaulting or retreating. In this status, the phalanx had twice the normal depth and each hoplite had to occupy about 1.8–2 metres (5 ft 11 in–6 ft 7 in) in width. When enemy infantry was approaching, a rapid switch to the pycne (spelled also pucne) formation (dense or tight formation) was necessary. In that case, each man's space was halved (0.9–1 metre or 2 feet 11 inches–3 feet 3 inches in width) and the formation depth returned to normal. An even denser formation, the synaspismos or sunaspismos (ultra tight or locked shields formation), was used when the phalanx was expected to experience extra pressure, intense missile volleys or frontal cavalry charges. In synaspismos, the rank depth was half that of a normal phalanx and the width each man occupied was as small as 0.45 metres (1.5 ft).Stages of combat[edit]This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)Several stages in hoplite combat can be defined:Ephodos: The hoplites stop singing their pæanes (battle hymns) and move towards the enemy, gradually picking up pace and momentum. In the instants before impact, war cries (alalagmœ, sing. alalagmos) would be made. Notable war cries were the Athenian (elelelelef! elelelelef!) and the Macedonian (alalalalai! alalalalai!) alalagmœ.Krousis: The opposing phalanxes meet each other almost simultaneously along their front. The promachœ (the front-liners) had to be physically and psychologically fit and disciplined to avoid wavering, and were often veterans who had proven themselves in battle before[citation needed].Doratismos: Repeated, rapid spear thrusts in order to disrupt the enemy formation. The use of long spears would keep enemies apart as well as allow men in a row to assist their comrades next to them. The prodding could also open up a man to allow a comrade to spear him. Too hard prodding could get a spear stuck in a shield, which would necessitate someone in the back to lend his to the now-disarmed man.Othismos: Literally "pushing" after most spears have been broken, the hoplites begin to push with their spears and spear shafts against their opponents' shields. This could be the longest phase.[citation needed]Pararrhexis: "Breaching" the opposing phalanx, the enemy formation shatters and the battle ends. Cavalry would be used at this point to mop up the scattered enemy.[22]Tactics[edit]This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)Top: simplified schematic of traditional hoplite order of battle and advance (elite troops in red).Bottom: the diagonal phalanx utilised by the Thebans under Epaminondas. The strong left wing advanced while the weak right wing retreated or remained stationaryDispositions during the Battle of Leuctra, 371 BC.The early history of the phalanx is largely one of combat between hoplite armies from competing Greek city-states. The usual result was rather identical, inflexible formations pushing against each other until one broke. The potential of the phalanx to achieve something more was demonstrated at Battle of Marathon (490 BC). Facing the much larger army of Darius I, the Athenians thinned out their phalanx and consequently lengthened their front, to avoid being outflanked. However, even a reduced-depth phalanx proved unstoppable to the lightly armed Persian infantry. After routing the Persian wings, the hoplites on the Athenian wings wheeled inwards, destroying the elite troop at the Persian centre, resulting in a crushing victory for Athens. Throughout the Greco-Persian Wars the hoplite phalanx was to prove superior to the Persian infantry (e.g. the battles of Thermopylae and Plataea).Perhaps the most prominent example of the phalanx's evolution was the oblique advance, made famous in the Battle of Leuctra. There, the Theban general Epaminondas thinned out the right flank and centre of his phalanx, and deepened his left flank to an unheard-of 50 men deep. In doing so, Epaminondas reversed the convention by which the right flank of the phalanx was strongest. This allowed the Thebans to assault in strength the elite Spartan troops on the right flank of the opposing phalanx. Meanwhile, the centre and right flank of the Theban line were echeloned back, from the opposing phalanx, keeping the weakened parts of the formation from being engaged. Once the Spartan right had been routed by the Theban left, the remainder of the Spartan line also broke. Thus, by localising the attacking power of the hoplites, Epaminondas was able to defeat an enemy previously thought invincible.Philip II of Macedon spent several years in Thebes as a hostage, and paid attention to Epaminondas' innovations. On return to his homeland, he raised a revolutionary new infantry force, which was to change the face of the Greek world. Phillip's phalangites were the first force of professional soldiers seen in Ancient Greece apart from Sparta. They were armed with longer spears (the sarissa) and were drilled more thoroughly in more evolved, complicated tactics and manoeuvres. More importantly, though, Phillip's phalanx was part of a multi-faceted, combined force that included a variety of skirmishers and cavalry, most notably the famous Companion cavalry. The Macedonian phalanx now was used to pin the centre of the enemy line, while cavalry and more mobile infantry struck at the foe's flanks. Its supremacy over the more static armies fielded by the Greek city-states was shown at the Battle of Chaeronea, where Philip II's army crushed the allied Theban and Athenian phalanxes.Weaknesses[edit]The Hoplite Phalanx was weakest when facing an enemy fielding lighter and more flexible troops without its own such supporting troops. An example of this would be the Battle of Lechaeum, where an Athenian contingent led by Iphicrates routed an entire Spartan mora (a unit of anywhere from 500 to 900 hoplites). The Athenian force had a considerable proportion of light missile troops armed with javelins and bows that wore down the Spartans with repeated attacks, causing disarray in the Spartan ranks and an eventual rout when they spotted Athenian heavy infantry reinforcements trying to flank them by boat.The Macedonian Phalanx had weaknesses similar to its hoplitic predecessor. Theoretically indestructible from the front, its flanks and rear were very vulnerable, and once engaged it may not easily disengage or redeploy to face a threat from those directions. Thus, a phalanx facing non-phalangite formations required some sort of protection on its flanks—lighter or at least more mobile infantry, cavalry, etc. This was shown at the Battle of Magnesia, where, once the Seleucid supporting cavalry elements were driven off, the phalanx was static and unable to go on the offensive against its Roman opponents (although they continued to resist stoutly and attempted a fighting withdrawal under a hail of Roman missiles, until the elephants posted on their flanks panicked and disrupted their formation).The Macedonian phalanx could also lose its cohesion without proper coordination or while moving through broken terrain; doing so could create gaps between individual blocks/syntagmata, or could prevent a solid front within those sub-units as well, causing other sections of the line to bunch up.[23] In this event, as in the battles of Cynoscephalae and Pydna, the phalanx became vulnerable to attacks by more flexible units—such as Roman legionary centuries, which were able to avoid the sarissae and engage in hand-to-hand combat with the phalangites.Another important area that must be considered concerns the psychological tendencies of the hoplites. Because the strength of a phalanx depended on the ability of the hoplites to maintain their frontline, it was crucial that a phalanx be able to quickly and efficiently replace fallen soldiers in the front ranks. If a phalanx failed to do this in a structured manner, the opposing phalanx would have an opportunity to breach the line which, many times, would lead to a quick defeat. This then implies that the hoplites ranks closer to the front must be mentally prepared to replace their fallen comrade and adapt to his new position without disrupting the structure of the frontline.[11]Finally, most of the phalanx-centric armies tended to lack supporting echelons behind the main line of battle. This meant that breaking through the line of battle or compromising one of its flanks often ensured victory.Decline[edit]After reaching its zenith in the conquests of Alexander the Great, the phalanx as a military formation began a slow decline, mirrored by the decline in the Macedonian successor states themselves. The combined arms tactics used by Alexander and his father were gradually replaced by a return to the simpler frontal charge tactics of the hoplite phalanx. In the numerous wars of the Successor states the expense of the supporting arms and cavalry, and widespread use of mercenaries, caused the Diadochi to rely on phalanx vs. phalanx tactics.The decline of the diadochi and the phalanx was inextricably linked with the rise of Rome and the Roman legion, from the 3rd century BC. Before the battle of the Caudine Forks, where the clumsiness of the Roman phalanx was displayed by the Samnites, the Romans had originally employed the phalanx themselves,[24] but gradually evolved more flexible tactics resulting in the three-line Roman legion of the middle period of the Roman Republic. The phalanx continued to be employed by the Romans as a tactic for their third military line or triarii of veteran reserve troops armed with the hastae or spear.[25] Rome would eventually conquer most of the Macedonian successor states, and the various Greek city-states and leagues. These territories were incorporated into the Roman Republic, and as these Hellenic states had ceased to exist, so did the armies which had used the traditional phalanx formation. Subsequently, troops raised from these regions by the Romans would have been equipped and fought in line on the Roman model.However, the phalanx did not disappear as a military tactic altogether. There is some question as to whether the phalanx was actually obsolete by the end of its history. In some of the major battles between the Roman Army and Hellenistic phalanxes, Pydna (168 BC), Cynoscephalae (197 BC) and Magnesia (190 BC), the phalanx performed relatively well against the Roman army, initially driving back the Roman infantry. However, at Cynoscephalae and Magnesia, failure to defend the flanks of the Phalanx led to defeat; whilst at Pydna, the loss of cohesion of the Phalanx when pursuing retreating Roman soldiers allowed the Romans to penetrate the formation, where the latter's close combat skills proved decisive. The ancient Greek historian Polybius goes into some detail about the effectiveness of the Roman legion against the Phalanx. He deduces that the Romans refused to fight the phalanx where the phalanx was most effective and offered battle only when they felt that they could exploit the clumsiness and immobility of the phalanx.Spear-armed troops continued to be important elements in many armies until the advent of reliable firearms, but did not necessarily fight in the manner of a phalanx. A meaningful comparison can be made between the Classical phalanx and late medieval pike formations.Particular parallels can be seen in the Middle Ages and Renaissance city-states of the Low Countries (modern Holland and Belgium), the cantons of Switzerland and the city-states of Northern Italy. Armies of the Low Countries were first armed with spears, then pikes, and were defeating French and Burgundian forces by the 14th century. The Swiss first used the halberd in the 14th century but—outreached by Austrian cavalry armed with lances—the Swiss gradually adopted pikes in the later 15th century. Swiss pike phalanxes of the Burgundian Wars were dynamic and aggressive resulting in the destruction of the 'modern' Burgundian army and the death of Charles the Bold. It is tempting to suggest that Swiss military authorities had read Classical sources and were consciously copying Hellenistic practices. Some Italian states raised their own pike units as well as employing Swiss mercenary pikemen in the 15th and 16th century. The Swiss were also copied by German Landsknechts leading to bitterness and rivalry between competing mercenary units.Military historians have also suggested that the Scots, particularly under William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, consciously imitated the Hellenistic phalanx to produce the Scots 'hedgehog' or schiltron. However, this ignores possible Early Middle Ages use of long spears by Picts and others in Scotland. It is possible that long spear tactics (also found in North Wales) were an established part of more irregular warfare in parts of Britain prior to 1066. The Scots certainly used imported French pikes and dynamic tactics at the Battle of Flodden. However, this battle found the Scots pitted against effective light artillery and advancing over bad ground, which disorganised the Scottish phalanxes and left them easy prey to English longbow shooting and attacks by shorter but more effective English polearms called bills. Some have interpreted contemporary sources as describing the bills cutting off the heads of Scots pikes.Pike and shot became a military standard in the 16th and 17th century. With the development of the bayonet the last major use of pike was the early 18th century with the weapon rapidly disappearing in Western European armies by the time of the Battle of Blenheim. A few pikes or half pikes and a few halberds were retained among regimental colour guards but even these were fast disappearing by the time of Napoleon.The pike was briefly reconsidered as a weapon by European armies in the late 18th and early 19th century as protection for riflemen, whose slower rate of fire made them vulnerable. A collapsible pike was invented but never issued. It was also reconsidered by the Confederate Army at the time of the American Civil War and some were even manufactured but these were probably never issued. Pikes were again manufactured for a short time during World War Two, and became known as "Croft's Pikes".See also[edit]EpaminondasHopliteMacedonian phalanxPelopidasPeltastPoint d'appuiRoman infantry tacticsRoman LegionSarissaComparable formationsPike squareSchiltronShield wallTercio
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Economists in the last few years have been shifting toward testing their theoretical models, whether through the experiments of behavioral economics, or, "natural experiments." The reason economists have had issues with testing their models is that experimentation on humans has some natural constraints. Macroeconomists have an even greater problem, as experimentation on whole societies not only presents ethical conundrums, but there's no way to fund or implement experiments on this scale. Macroeconomists turn out to be the paleontologists of economics. Of course economists aren't the only ones who've had this sort of problem with humans. The reason that geneticists focused on organisms such as flies, mice and fish is partly that these taxa breed fast and are easy to maintain in laboratories. But obviously there are things you can do, such as mutagenesis, with model organisms which you can not do with humans. Human genetics has traditionally relied on "natural experiments" of a sort, inbred lineages, recurrent recessive diseases, etc. Genetics has been a supplementary handmaid to medicine by and large. But sometimes history can load the die in genetics' favor as well.
During the "Columbian Exchange" the New and Old World engaged in a massive transfer of ideas and individuals. The Old World received potatoes, maize, and tomatoes (to name a few). The New World...well, the New World received black people and white people. As documented in works such as 1491 the indigenous populations of the New World collapsed with the introduction of Old World diseases. Native peoples disappeared from the Caribbean, and were marginalized on the mainland excepting ecologically remote (e.g., the Guatemalan highlands) or forbidding (e.g., the Peruvian highlands) regions. But of course despite the obliteration of indigenous cultural self-consciousness and identity, the native populations did not totally disappear, they persisted genetically in the numerically dominant mestizo populations of much of Latin America. You don't need genetics to understand what happened, books like Mestizaje in Ibero-America outline in detail using conventional historical archives how Spanish men arrived in New World and entered into relationships with indigenous women. Often several at a time, in contravention of the Catholic Church's requirement of monogamy. But in the post-genomic era we have more to go on than impressions, we can quantitize the extent and nature of the admixture, something of importance when considering medical research. A new paper in PNAS adds some more to the growing body of results on Latin American genomics by including populations which have traditionally been overlooked, and also putting a spotlight on the long term impact of sex-biased admixture. Genome-wide patterns of population structure and admixture among Hispanic/Latino populations:
Hispanic/Latino populations possess a complex genetic structure that reflects recent admixture among and potentially ancient substructure within Native American, European, and West African source populations. Here, we quantify genome-wide patterns of SNP and haplotype variation among 100 individuals with ancestry from Ecuador, Colombia, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic genotyped on the Illumina 610-Quad arrays and 112 Mexicans genotyped on Affymetrix 500K platform. Intersecting these data with previously collected high-density SNP data from 4,305 individuals, we use principal component analysis and clustering methods FRAPPE and STRUCTURE to investigate genome-wide patterns of African, European, and Native American population structure within and among Hispanic/Latino populations. Comparing autosomal, X and Y chromosome, and mtDNA variation, we find evidence of a significant sex bias in admixture proportions consistent with disproportionate contribution of European male and Native American female ancestry to present-day populations. We also find that patterns of linkage-disequilibria in admixed Hispanic/Latino populations are largely affected by the admixture dynamics of the populations, with faster decay of LD in populations of higher African ancestry. Finally, using the locus-specific ancestry inference method LAMP, we reconstruct fine-scale chromosomal patterns of admixture. We document moderate power to differentiate among potential subcontinental source populations within the Native American, European, and African segments of the admixed Hispanic/Latino genomes. Our results suggest future genome-wide association scans in Hispanic/Latino populations may require correction for local genomic ancestry at a subcontinental scale when associating differences in the genome with disease risk, progression, and drug efficacy, as well as for admixture mapping.
The issue here is that "Hispanic" and/or "Latino" is not a race. In fact, as American readers may be aware the category emerged in 1970 as a way of organizing ethnic and racial identity for the Census. Despite a real pan-American consciousness there is obviously a great deal of cultural and genetic variation in Latin America. Caribbean nations which a large African component have a different identity from Mexico, where the non-Spanish segment is indigenous. Conversely, Argentina has a self conception as a white nation, despite some ambiguity in genetics. In this paper they focused on 100 individuals from Mexico, Columbia, Ecuador, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. This gives them a good coverage of different regions of Latin America, and also looks into populations which are not often included in these studies, such as Dominicans. A series of figures highlights the primary results. I've rotated this figure to maintain its resolution. It's a Frappe analysis of the ancestry of individuals within various populations assuming K ancestral populations. With Latin Americans the idea of ancestral populations makes a bit more sense, since we know what the ancestral populations are! They use the HGDP populations as a reference for points of comparison.
Since we're focused on native, Africa and white ancestry, K = 3 is probably more important. No surprise that the Latin America populations exhibit variation in ancestral quanta within them. Some Mexicans look like Europeans. Some Mexicans look like Native Americans. And some Mexicans look mixed. I assume that most readers are aware of this, assuming that they encounter Mexicans at all in their daily life. Of course the ancestry came in through different avenues. The sexual exploitation of black females by white males in the United States is well known, but it does seem that the same dynamic, at least in terms of the genetic combination, existed in Latin America for much of its history, with black females being complemented by indigenous females. Figure 5 illustrates this well. You see the various Latin American populations (the abbreviations should be obvious). The boxes span the 1st to 3rd quartile in ancestry within each subpopulation from each respective ancestral group (the whiskers represent the ranges). Note the differences between the X chromosome, which spends 2/3 of its time in females, and the autosome, which is not sex biased.
Ah, but we can get more precise than that. They typed these individuals on their mtDNA, which is passed purely through women, and their Y chromosomes, which is passed purely through men. These loci do not recombine, and so are transmitted in such a manner that it is relatively easy to reconstruct their phylogenies. There has been a great deal of phylogeographic exploration of these two loci. In the next figure what you see are the position of the individuals in this study in terms of total genome content distance from the three ancestral populations, but, the color of their positions is dictated by the origin of their mtDNA and Y lineages.
The top panel are male lineages, and the bottom panel are female lineages. The preponderance of European ancestry, in relation to native and African ancestry, seems rather clear on the autosomal genome. There is admixture, but you have more people concentrating at the European vertex than at the other two. Most of the Y lineages, presumably men, are European. Some are African, and a few are native. Interestingly they note in the text that several lineages associated with North Africa and the Middle East are found in these populations. Why? The answer seems relatively simple: they were brought by the Muslim invaders, or were Jews, who later became Christian. There have been many phylogeographic analyses of Y lineage distributions, and believe it or not Iberia and North Africa are actually strongly differentiated. The Middle Eastern lineages I'm betting are from Sephardic Jews; most of the "Moors" who settled in Spain are likely to have had more Berber than Arab ancestry. The maternal lineages show a really interesting pattern. There are a preponderance of native mtDNA lineages, and a significant number of African ones. But notice that most people of overwhelming European ancestry nevertheless retain a native maternal lineage! We saw this in Argentina, a population which identifies as white, seems to be highly admixed on the mtDNA. I suspect that what you're seeing is the long reach of the first mothers, whose descendants intermarried with Spanish men who relocated to the New World. The Aztec and Inca nobility gave their daughters to the Spaniards who arrived, and I suspect that the predominantly European elites of Latin America still carry those lineages with them, despite their overwhelming limpieza de sangre. Another important point is that both Dominicans, and especially Puerto Ricans, carry signatures of these first mothers (as well as total genome content). 20 of 27 Puerto Ricans carry native mtDNA. This is somewhat shocking, as these Caribbean islands were reputed to have been nearly devoid of indigenous populations only a generation after First Contact, in large part due to disease. Which brings me back to Neandertals. Non-African humans may carry somewhat less than 5% of their ancestry from this population. But to my knowledge there is no cultural continuity, and we do conceive of ourselves as fundamentally different from the Neander-kind.
And yet genetically the Neandertals are highly successful through us
The chaos, havoc, and population collapse wrecked by the Europeans when they encountered native New World populations may be somewhat analogous to what happened to archaic groups who had to face the oncoming demographic blast of African humans. And yet some of the genetic material of the locals was absorbed just before their extinction. The half-Taino children whose fathers were Spanish may have had the genetic defenses of European diseases which allowed them to survive the hardships of their lives. Granted, these children lost a genuine connection with their Taino ancestors, but the descent of those native peoples still persists onward. Interestingly, some readers of this weblog have had the same reaction to the idea that Neandertals persist in our own genome. Ultimately the reaction and response to this is not a scientific issue, but a normative one. Dare I even say, a spiritual one? Citation:
Bryc K, Velez C, Karafet T, Moreno-Estrada A, Reynolds A, Auton A, Hammer M, Bustamante CD, & Ostrer H (2010). In the Light of Evolution IV: The Human Condition Sackler Colloquium: Genome-wide patterns of population structure and admixture among Hispanic/Latino populations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America PMID: 20445096
Image Credit: Cristiano Del Riccio


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Security News
Top 10 BYOD Risks Facing The Enterprise
Robert Westervelt
BYOD Risks Are Both Simple And Complex
Threats to the enterprise posed by an employee-owned mobile device can be as complex as a sophisticated malware attack designed to snoop on an employee's browsing activity or as simple as a lost phone in a taxicab. The threats are forcing security teams to introduce new policies to reduce the risk. Enforcing them without impacting productivity is a balancing act. Experts say the first step is to understand the perceived risks and weigh them against the company's security posture.
Check out the rest of CRN's BYOD special report, available exclusively on the CRN Tech News App.


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World Bulletin/News Desk
A new generation of drugs designed to trigger the immune system to fight cancer is offering the prospect of a "clinical cure" for some melanoma skin cancer patients who until a few years ago were more likely to be facing a swift death.
Cancer specialists gathering for a European conference at the weekend said the so-called immunotherapy drugs, a class led by Bristol-Myers Squibb's Yervoy, or ipilimumab, have transformed an area of oncology in which until recently doctors barely had time to get to know their patients.
Stephen Hodi, assistant professor of medicine at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in the United States, said he was cautious about using the term cure, but described recent advances as a "paradigm shift".
At the least, he said, the success of this new generation of medicines means some melanoma patients would now be living with a chronic disease, rather than facing imminent death.
"This is a really amazing time ... A few years ago we could never have imagined using the C-word, cure, in melanoma," he said. "But we are headed that way."
"Ipilimumab opened a door, and now the field is moving extremely fast," he told Reuters at the European Cancer Congress (ECC) in Amsterdam.
Yervoy, approved by regulators in 2011, was hailed as a breakthrough treatment in melanoma after it became the first drug ever to extend survival in patients with advanced forms of the melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer.
A type of drug known as a human monoclonal antibody, it activates the body's immune system to fight the cancer by targeting a protein receptor called Cytotoxic T-Lymphocyte Antigen 4, or CTLA-4.
On average, Yervoy added only about four months of life in pivotal trials, but around 20 percent of patients had an impressively durable response to the drug.
Hodi presented new data at the ECC from the largest and longest study of overall survival for patients treated with Yervoy which showed some of them can survive for up to 10 years.
Alexander Eggermont of the Institut Gustave Roussy Comprehensive Cancer Center in France, who specialises in the treatment of melanoma, said Hodi's results suggested some patients could be effectively cured of their cancer - a concept known as a "clinical cure" - with the drug helping the immune to keep the disease in check.
"Patients apparently can keep residual tumours under control for a long time when the immune system is properly 'reset', and the concept of 'clinical cures' becomes a reality," he said in a statement to the conference.
And with a next generation of immunotherapy drugs - designed to disable proteins called PD1 and PDL1 that prevent the immune system from spotting and attacking cancer cells - already being tested alone and in combination with Yervoy, there is "tremendous promise" in the treatment of melanoma, said Hodi.
Bristol-Myers Squibb is conducting late stage trials of its next-generation drug, nivolumab, in advanced melanoma, while rival U.S. drugmaker Merck is developing a competitor, lambrolizumab, which in early-stage trials helped shrink tumours in 38 percent of advanced melanoma patients.
Swiss drugmaker Roche's also has a leading contender - MPDL3280A - in this class.
"These (Yervoy) survival results could even double or triple with anti-PD1/PDL1 monoclonal antibodies, and metastatic melanoma could become a curable disease for perhaps more than 50 percent of patients over the coming five to 10 years," Eggermont said.Güncelleme Tarihi: 28 Eylül 2013, 11:04


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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un convened a key military meeting to discuss bolstering the country's nuclear arsenal and putting its armed forces on high alert, state media reported Sunday, in Kim's first known public appearance in about 20 days.
Kim earlier this month quelled intense rumors about his health by attending a ceremony marking the completion of a fertilizer factory in what at the time was his first public appearance in 20 days. But he hadn't made another public appearance for around 20 more days until the North's official news agency said Sunday that he led a meeting of the Central Military Commission of the ruling Workers' Party.
"Set forth at the meeting were new policies for further increasing the nuclear war deterrence of the country and putting the strategic armed forces on a high alert operation," the Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA, said, without mentioning when the meeting was held.
The meeting discussed increasing the capabilities for deterring "the threatening foreign forces," the report said, an apparent reference to the U.S. and South Korean militaries.
Kim, who heads the military commission, also used the meeting to promote the ranks of dozens of army generals and others in an apparent effort to boost military morale. Among them is military chief Pak Jong Chon, who was made a vice marshal, and Ri Pyong Chol, a senior party official in charge of weapons development, who became a deputy head of the military commission, according to KCNA.
Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, said Kim's "public appearances have more to do with domestic politics than international signaling, but it is interesting for him to reappear in state media about the time the world started noticing he'd been gone for three weeks again."
The meeting was held amid a prolonged deadlock in negotiations with the United States over the North's nuclear program. The two countries' diplomacy faltered when a second summit between Kim and President Donald Trump in February 2019 ended without any agreement due to disputes over U.S.-led sanctions on North Korea.
Frustrated over the lack of progress, Kim later said he would unveil "a new strategic weapon" and would no longer be bound by a self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests. Kim hasn't followed through with those threats, though he did conduct a slew of short-range missile tests.
On Sunday, the North's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper released photos showing Kim clad in his trademark dark Mao suit delivering a speech, writing on a document and pointing a stick at a board on the podium. Elderly military generals wearing olive green uniforms were seen taking notes as Kim, 36, spoke — something that's typical in North Korean state media-distributed photos.
Despite lingering rumors about Kim's health, South Korean officials have said he didn't undergo surgery or any other medical procedure.
South Korea's spy agency recently told lawmakers that it believes the coronavirus pandemic had led Kim to avoid public activities, saying he appeared in public 17 times this year, compared with an average of 50 appearances in the same time period each year since he took power in late 2011.


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Al Lawson, an iconic Democratic lawmaker who served in the Florida Legislature for nearly three decades, has joined a nonprofit board that oversees state-supported scholarships for low-income schoolchildren.
Lawson was selected last week to serve on the corporate board of Step Up For Students, which is a state-approved "scholarship funding organization" that provides Tax Credit Scholarships this year to 51,000 students whose household income meets the threshold for free or reduced-price lunch. (Step Up For Students also oversees this blog.) The program is fueled by $229 million in corporate contributions that receive a dollar-for-dollar tax credit from the state.
"Throughout my legislative career, I was always concerned about students, especially minority students, who had no option when the regular school wasn't working for them," Lawson said. "The most important thing is to give these kids an opportunity to succeed, and this scholarship is one of those opportunities."
Lawson was praised by Step Up board chairman John Kirtley, a Tampa businessman who helped persuade lawmakers to adopt the law in 2001. "Senator Lawson has been a smart, compassionate leader in Florida for years," Kirtley said. "We're thrilled Step Up and our families will benefit from his judgment and experience."
Two-thirds of the students on the scholarship are black or Hispanic, the majority live in homes with only one parent, and their average household income is only 6 percent above poverty. State research shows they are the lowest academic performers in the public schools they left behind and, on their latest standardized test scores, they achieved the same gains in reading and math as students of all incomes nationally.
Lawson, who initially voted against the creation of the scholarship in 2001, told a newspaper reporter in 2007 that he could no longer oppose a learning option aimed at economically disadvantaged students with desperate needs: "When you have a lot of poor kids in your area that need help, and you have people saying, 'We're willing to work with these kids,' … it's hard to say no." By 2010, he was co-sponsor of a bill that expanded the program and made the closing argument on the Senate floor.
Lawson represents a growing chorus of Democrats, and specifically black Democrats, who support the scholarship. In that 2010 session, in fact, he was joined by nearly half the Democratic Caucus and a majority of the Black Caucus. He was later approached in the halls of a Tallahassee hospital by a woman who recognized him and thanked him for his vote in support; she said the scholarship had put her son on a path to college.
"I think it is great that you can get corporate support for students with these kinds of needs," Lawson said. "People who are affluent have always had these options but people who were poor did not. Now I think everyone can have the option."
Lawson left the Legislature in 2010 because of term limits and is president of Lawson and Associates, a public affairs firm in Tallahassee. He was a basketball star at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University and had a brief professional career before later earning his master of public administration from Florida State University and opening an insurance agency.
The Step Up corporate board includes eight members, all of whom serve without compensation.


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"Give me control over a nation's currency and I care not who makes its laws."
— Baron M.A. Rothschild
Wall Street loves cheap money. That's why traders were celebrating last Tuesday when Fed chief Ben Bernanke announced that he'd drop interest rates from 5.25% to 4.75%. The stock market immediately zoomed skyward adding 336 points before the bell rang. The next day the giddiness continued. By mid-morning the Dow was up another 110 points and headed for the stratosphere. Everyone on Wall Street loves Bernanke. He brings them candy and sweets and lets the American worker pay the bill.
So far, the scholarly-looking Bernanke has shown that he is no different than his predecessor Alan Greenspan. Facing his first crisis, the new Fed chief chose to reward his fat-cat friends at the hedge funds and investment banks by savaging the dollar. As soon as he announced his plan to cut the Fed funds rate by .50 basis points, gold soared to $736 per ounce, oil shot up to $82 per barrel, and the euro climbed to a new high of $1.40. These are all the predictable signs of inflation. Food and energy prices will surely follow. The bottom line is that the investor class has been bailed out at the expense of everyone else who trades in dollars.
Bernanke invoked the "Greenspan put," which means that he used his power to protect his friends from the losses they should have incurred from their bad bets. Now, the big market players know that he can be counted on to bail them out whenever they make poor investment decisions. He's also lived up to his nickname, "Helicopter Ben"; ready to deal with every new calamity by tossing trillions of freshly-minted US greenbacks into the jet stream over the NYSE so elated traders can jack up their PEs and fatten their bottom line. We think Bernanke should abandon the helicopter altogether and personally deliver pallet-loads of $100 bills to Wall Street's doorstep, just like Bush does with contractors in Iraq. That way the fund managers can keep stoking the market with cheap cash without dawdling at the Fed's Discount Window.
Despite the merriment on Wall Street, there is a downside to Bernanke's actions. The Fed chief has shown foreign investors that he WILL NOT DEFEND THE DOLLAR. That is a powerful message to anyone who hopes to profit by investing in the US. It alerts them to the fact that the "strong dollar" policy is a fraud and that they're better off getting out of US Treasuries and dollar-backed assets. Apparently, many have already gotten the message. Last month, foreign central banks and investors dumped $9.4 billion of US Treasuries and bonds compared to net purchases in June of $24.7 billion. That means that foreigners have stopped buying our debt that is currently $800 billion per year. That's the last leg holding up the wobbly greenback. The dollar will undoubtedly fall precipitously.
So, why would Bernanke weaken the dollar even more by lowering rates 50 basis points?
Is he crazy or did he panic?
We don't know, but we do know that this is the beginning of Capital flight — the sudden exodus of foreign investment from US debt and equities. Most likely, it will be accompanied by the hissssing sound of gas escaping from a punctured equity bubble followed quickly by a painful round of deflation, massive unemployment and the gnashing of teeth.
The size of the current account deficit, which peaked in 2005 at 6.8% of GDP, has dropped to 5.5% by the end of the second quarter of 2007. This is an indication that the maxed-out American consumer is running out of gas and that our foreign trading partners are slowing their intake of US dollars. Now comes the painful part. As the trade deficit shrinks, foreign investment will become scarcer and the dollar will tumble. That means interest rates will have to go up and American's will face an agonizing economic downturn.
This is all part of the Federal Reserve's master plan for reorganizing the US economy and political system. Since Bush took office in 2000, the dollar has been deliberately weakened; losing more than 40% of its value when compared to the euro. (from $.85 per euro in 2000 to $1.40 per euro in 2007) It has fared even worse against gold. The Fed "rubber stamped" Bush's $400 billion per year tax breaks for the wealthy and looked on approvingly while $4 trillion of national wealth was transferred to foreign investors and banks via the current account deficit (the result of currency deregulation) Also, we now know that Alan Greenspan supported the plan to invade Iraq. He even shamelessly admitted that the war was really about oil, which suggests that he was attempting to preserve the dollar's link to petroleum. That linkage is what maintains the dollar's position as the world's "reserve currency." These things indicate that the Central Bank plays a vital role in the policy decisions that are reshaping American life. We assume that the Fed's members are equally supportive of the repressive police-state measures that have been put in place in anticipation of problems that will undoubtedly arise from the economic meltdown they have painstakingly engineered.
The rate cuts tell us that the Fed is now planning to balance the current account deficit on the backs of the American middle class. Prices at the supermarket and gas pump will rise immediately; probably within the next few months if not weeks. It will be harder to get credit. Wages and living standards will decline. Stocks will fall. Consumer spending will shrivel.
Surprisingly, Bernanke's rate cuts don't even address the underlying problems they are supposed to cure. Millions of homeowners who took out subprime and Alt-a loans are headed for foreclosure. Only a small percentage of these will benefit from the rate cuts and avoid default because of lower "resets" on their loans. Most of them will not qualify for refinancing UNDER ANY TERMS because they don't meet the new standards for securing a loan. Banks and mortgage companies have become much stricter in their lending practices.
The rate cuts don't really help the banks or hedge funds either. Their stocks may lurch upward for a day or two, but that won't last. Money is getting tighter and spending is down. It's not a good time to be holding hundreds of billions in mortgage-backed liabilities (CDOs) that may have been levered many times their original-value. There's no market for these CDOs. They're turkeys. The debt will either have to be written off or the companies will be forced into bankruptcy.
Rate cuts won't stem the tide of insolvencies or fix the deeply ingrained problems in the financial markets. All they will do is forestall the impending recession by sustaining abnormal levels of liquidity. But as consumer spending contracts and unemployment continues to rise, the Fed's "band-aid" approach to these systemic problems will prove to be ineffective. Bernanke is sacrificing the one thing he'll need most in the bumpy months ahead: his credibility.
As economist and author Henry Liu says, "A market that catches on to the impotence of central-bank intervention can go into free fall."
The most compelling argument for interest rate cuts was made by economist Martin Feldstein, in a Wall Street Journal article, "Liquidly Now." Feldstein summarized the issue like this:
Three separate but related forces are now threatening economic activity: a credit market crisis, a decline in house prices and home building, and a reduction in consumer spending. These developments compound the general weakening of the economy earlier in the year, marked by slowing employment growth and declining real spendable income.
The subprime mortgage defaults have triggered a widespread flight from risky assets, with a substantial widening of all credit spreads, and a general freezing of credit markets. Official credit ratings came under suspicion. Investors and lenders became concerned that they did not know how to value complex risky assets.
In recent weeks credit became unavailable. Loans to support private equity deals could not be syndicated, forcing the banks to hold those loans on their own books. Banks are also being forced to honor credit guarantees to previously off-balance-sheet conduits and other backup credit lines, further reducing the banks' capital available to support credit of all types.
The inability of credit markets to function properly will weaken the overall economy in the coming months. And even when the credit market crisis has passed, the wider credit spreads and increased risk aversion will be a damper on economic activity.
In addition to these general credit market problems, the decline of house prices and home building will be a growing drag on the economy. Falling house prices would not only cause further declines in home building but would also shrink household wealth and thus consumer spending."
Feldstein has a good understanding of the problem, but backpedals on the resolution. He says:
"Fed action to lower interest rates cannot solve the credit market problems, but it would help the economy: by stimulating the demand for housing, autos and other consumer durables; by encouraging a more competitive dollar to stimulate increased net exports; by raising share prices to increase both business investment and consumer spending; and by freeing up spendable cash for homeowners with adjustable-rate mortgages."
Feldstein paradoxically wants rate cuts even though he admits that, "lower interest rates cannot solve the credit market problems" but will just stimulate more wasteful "consumer spending."
That's not a cure. That's just more Greenspan snake oil.
"Too much liquidity" is the problem not the solution. The reason the markets are so volatile and likely to implode at any minute is because every asset-class has been foolishly inflated by a monetary policy that followed Feldstein's prescription. Now he wants to avoid the consequences of these misguided policies by re-inflating the bubble and destroying the dollar in the process. It's a bad idea.
The Fed's cuts coincide with the dismal earnings reports from Wall Street's investment giants; Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, Bear Stearns and Goldman Sachs. The four banks have taken a combined 22% haircut in the last quarter and are expected to sustain heavy losses from the billions of dollars of subprime CDOs they'll have to either downgrade or write-off. So far, Bernanke's rate cuts have diverted attention from the grim news and falling profits from America 's investment core.
The big financials aren't the only one's feeling the pinch from the housing meltdown either. There are many others including Bank of America that announced "unprecedented dislocations" in credit markets will have a "meaningful impact" on third-quarter results at its corporate investment bank. "Chief Financial Officer Joe Price told investors at a conference in San Francisco, 'These are quite challenging financial times, and I cannot remember when credit markets in particular have been as volatile and unpredictable as they have been for the last few months."' (Bloomberg News)
Bernanke's rate cuts are "thin gruel" for the banks bottom line, but they do offer a welcome distraction from the relentless drumbeat of bad economic news. The subprime sarcoma has spread to every part of the financial markets. It's not just the steady up tick of foreclosures and mushrooming real estate inventory. The banks are also hoarding capital to cover their losses on unmarketable CDOs and leveraged buyouts (LBOs), which means that new mortgages will slow to a crawl even to credit-worthy applicants. An article in Bloomberg News gives us some idea of how quickly the market for housing-related bonds has deteriorated:
"Sales of US asset-backed securities, such as bonds that repackage subprime loans or credit card debts as well as collateralized debt obligations, FELL 73% FROM A YEAR EARLIER to $30 billion last month, according to estimates from analysts at Deutsche Bank AG." (Bloomberg News)
Bernanke is just prolonging the pain by not allowing the market to complete its cycle so that bad debts to be written off and industry can retool for the future. He's buying time for his banker-friends, but doing considerable damage to the dollar in the process. Jim Rogers, the chairman of Beeland Interests Inc. summed up the rate cuts like this:
"Every time the Fed turns around to save its friends on Wall Street, it makes the situation worse. The dollar's going to collapse; the bond market's going to collapse. There's going to be a lot of problems in the U.S."
Rogers is not alone in his conclusions. Even foreign leaders, like Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, have commented recently on the worrisome state of US markets. Last week, Chavez said on public television that we may be facing a "global financial earthquake" as the result of "irresponsible" US economic policies. Chavez quoted Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz's warning that we may be facing a major economic disaster that could lead to "widespread misery, hunger and severe unrest. And the United States is to blame."
Chavez added that the Bush administration "has had to inject $300 US billion into the private banks this month to avoid a collapse of the dollar and the world economy. . . . The dollar is going down, they don't see that it isn't supported by reality" and because it is "because its fiscal deficit is the largest in history."
Chavez's predictions appear to be accurate as we can see that gold has suddenly skyrocketed while the dollar continues to fall.
The firestorm that began with the Fed's low interest rates in 2002-2003 and evolved into the subprime-lending crisis of 2006-2007 is now threatening the stability of the entire financial system and the broader global economy. The reason for this is that mortgage debt is the foundation upon which all manner of bizarre-sounding debt instruments are now resting. These debt instruments (derivatives) greatly magnify the leverage on the underlying asset which is often is nothing more than a shaky subprime loan.
According to Satyajit Das, a respected authority on derivatives trading, "A single dollar of 'real' capital supports $20 to $30 of loans. This spiral of borrowing on an increasingly thin base of real assets, writ large and in nearly infinite variety, ultimately created a world in which derivatives outstanding earlier this year stood at $485 trillion — or eight times total global gross domestic product of $60 trillion." ("Are We Headed for an Epic Bear Market," Jon Markman)
We are now seeing the first signs that this enormous debt-bubble is beginning to unwind. There's very little the Fed can do to affect the inevitable crash that (we believe) they engineered. As defaults in housing continue to rise; the swaps and derivatives in the secondary market will implode. Trillions in market capitalization will vanish in a flash.
US GDP for the last six years has largely depended on transactions involving the exchange of massively over-levered assets. Production in the real economy has remained flat. The investment banks are at the epicenter of this controversial new system called "structured finance". We continue to believe that the banks that depended on mortgage-backed securities (MBSs) and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) (as well as asset-backed commercial paper) for the bulk of their income; are in deep trouble. Robert E. Lucas alluded to potential bank-woes in an article in the Wall Street Journal, "Mortgages and Monetary Policy":
There is an immediate risk of a payments crisis, a modern analogue to an old-fashioned bank run. Many institutions — not just banks — HAVE PAYMENT OBLIGATIONS THAT ARE FAR IN EXCESS OF THE RESERVES TO WHICH THEY HAVE IMMEDIATE ACCESS. Against these obligations they hold short-term securities that they believed could be liquidated on short notice at little cost. If some of these securities turn out not to be liquid in this sense (and especially if no one is sure who holds them) then everyone wants to get into Treasury bonds.
It's rare when we are in agreement with the far-right viewpoints of the WSJ's Editorial page, but in this case, Lucas nailed it. The banks have "obligations that are far in excess of the reserves to which they have immediate access." This is a direct result of the new market architecture of "structured finance" which stacks debt on debt until the whole system is pushed to the breaking point.
Low interest rates can't fix this "systemic" problem. Only fiscal policy can soften the blow of a deflating credit bubble. Economist Henry Liu offers this constructive "New Deal-type" proposal that is a sensible (and ethical) way to address the prospect of growing unemployment and increasing economic hardship for the middle and lower classes:
"A case can be made that what is needed under current conditions is not more cheap money from the Fed, but full employment with rising wages by government fiscal stimulants to boost consumer demand. The US government should make use of the money that the banks cannot find worthy borrowers to lend to, with money-cautious investors seeking to lend to the government, creating jobs for infrastructure rehabilitation and upgrading education to get the economy moving again off the destructive track of privatized systemic financial manipulation." ("Either Way, It could be an Unkind Cut" Henry C K Liu, Asia Times)
Liu is right. We should be enacting the policies that reflect our values on social justice and the equitable distribution of wealth. Instead, the system is being manipulated by an oligarchy of racketeers who have savaged the currency, drained our treasury, and paved the way for a painful cycle of deflation. The US consumer is now being blamed for the massive current account deficit, as if shopping at Wal-Mart for the lowest prices was a crime. But the Fed is the real culprit. They have been opposed to protective tariffs or currency regulation from the very beginning. No country in the history of the world has ever allowed its industrial base to be so ruthlessly decimated (offshoring, outsourcing, factory closures) just to feed the insatiable avarice of its criminal elites.
The current account deficit is the logical upshot of "free trade." And, free trade is the Orwellian moniker used to describe the millions of decent paying jobs that are sacrificed on the altar of globalization. The workers had no part in creating this destructive self-aggrandizing system.
Nor did they have any say-so in the design of the modern market, which is often referred to as "structured finance." Structured finance has been promoted as a way of using capital more efficiency by distributing risk more evenly throughout the system. In fact, it has turned out to be a colossal swindle that is now threatening to break the banks and bring the stock market crashing down. It is essentially mortgage laundering scheme concocted by the investment banks, winked-at by the so-called regulators, facilitated by the ratings agencies, and exploited by the hedge funds. The victims of this scam are the insurance companies, foreign investors, pension funds and over-leveraged homeowners. Their losses are liable to soar into the trillions of dollars.
Fed chief Alan Greenspan enthusiastically endorsed every dodgy "structured finance" idea; including subprime lending, ARMs, Mortgage-backed securities, currency deregulation, credit expansion and structural changes to the financial services industry. These are the pavers on the road to perdition carefully put in place by the Federal Reserve.
Author Gabriel Kolko summed up "structured finance" in a recent article "The Predicted Financial Storm Has Arrived":
We are at an end of an era . . . Now begins global financial instability. It is impossible to speculate how long today's turmoil will last — but there now exists an uncertainty and lack of confidence that has been unparalleled since the 1930s — and this ignorance and fear is itself a crucial factor. The moment of reckoning for bankers and bosses has arrived. What is very clear is that losses are massive and the entire developed world is now experiencing the worst economic crisis since 1945, one in which troubles in one nation compound those in others.
Internationalization of finance has meant less regulation than ever, and regulation was scarcely very effective even at the national level. . . . Greed's only bounds are what makes money. Existing international institutions-of which the IMF is the most important — or well-intentioned advice will not change this reality.
The people must take over control of their own currency again. The Federal Reserve must be abolished.