Times (and Technology) Are Changing

Glance through the last few entries, and you will see I have not posted on a regular basis for quite some time.

There is a reason for this.

The last two years I have been CONSUMED with graduate school. Starting in May 2008, I have taken classes continuously. The longest break has been over the Christmas holiday when we were given a month off.

Fortunately, the end is in sight. I have a literature review to write and an ePortfolio to put together, and I will be finished. I hope to finish both projects this summer.  Meanwhile, I hope to become more consistent in writing for this blog.

For anyone looking to enhance their teaching with technology, I would highly recommend the Instructional Technology program at the University of Northern Iowa. You can learn more about it by visiting the website at http://www.uni.edu/itech. With the exception of two on-campus classes during the summer of 2008, the entire program can be completed via distance learning. (I live in Central Iowa, and UNI is located in Cedar Falls, approximately two hours north.)

I am amazed at how rapidly technology continues to change. Looking back two years ago to our first class-Emerging Instructional Technology—I can already see incredible changes.

• Two years ago “netbooks” were still in their infancy, and no one even dreamed of an iPad (except for the engineers at Apple.)
• Social media has really come into its own as a viable method of communicating, marketing, instructing, and connecting.
• “The Cloud” has become the computing platform of choice. Even Microsoft Office, the symbol of desktop dominance now has a cloud component.

Yes, Millie, things are changing!

Hang-on for the ride the next few years as we continue to see rapid development of personal computing devices. This summer the wireless companies will begin to introduce 4G access across the USA, and Google will introduce their “Google TV” later this year. There is an Android Slate on the horizon and a windows-based slate.

Is it All Good?

The challenge for those of us on the consuming end of all this new stuff is what in the world are we going to do with it? Is it possible to become numb to all of the techno whiz that surrounds us on a daily basis? Is it possible for the technology to become more of a distraction than enhancement?

What do you think?

1934

by Jack Kinsella | Omega Letter | Source Document

“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhymes” – Mark Twain

In 1933, Adolf Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany. He took office in January, with Fritz Von Papen as vice-Chancellor to keep him in check. Only twenty years earlier the German Kaiser led his people into a disastrous war with the West.

Germans had had enough of the monarchy and the absolute power it had, and demanded the Kaiser's abdication. Having gotten rid of the Emperor, the new German Republic carefully separated powers between the presidency and the chancellery.

Paul Von Hindenburg

But President Von Hindenburg was 86 years old when Hitler assumed the title of Chancellor of Germany. The timing was perfect.

Hitler's ascendancy was meteoric. In the early 1920's, he was little more than a neighborhood organizer. Over time, as hyper-inflation and catastrophic unemployment hit Germany, Hitler's movement, dubbed 'national socialism' grew into a fringe party.

In 1923, leading what he hoped would be a violent overthrow of the Weimar Republic, Hitler leapt to a table in a beer hall in Bavaria and called on a gathering of officials to support him in the march on Munich.

Instead, they arrested him, put him in prison and outlawed the Nazi party. After his release, Hitler set about reorganizing the national socialists as a movement. In 1927, when the government lifted the ban on national socialism, it became a political party. In 1928, the Nazis managed only 3% of the vote.

It wasn't until 1931 that Hitler began to made inroads within the vast German center-right political monolith still controlled by traditional conservatives like von Hindenburg.

In the 1932 election, thanks to such tactics as voter intimidation, voter registration fraud, voter fraud at the polls, etc. the national socialists managed a solid majority in Parliament.

In January, 1933 and only days after Hitler assumed the chancellorship, there was an explosion followed by a fire in the Parliament building. Hitler declared an emergency and rammed home the 1933 Enabling Act that allowed an emergency suspension of civil rights.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

President von Hindenburg died in August, 1934. Within hours of his death, the German parliament issued the following press release:

"The Reich Government has enacted the following law which is hereby promulgated.

Section 1. The office of Reich President will be combined with that of Reich Chancellor. The existing authority of the Reich President will consequently be transferred to the Führer and Reich Chancellor, Adolf Hitler. He will select his deputy.

Section 2. This law is effective as of the time of the death of Reich President von Hindenburg."
The law was technically illegal since it violated provisions of the German constitution concerning presidential succession as well as the Enabling Act of 1933 which forbade Hitler from altering the presidency.

But whether or not he was legally eligible to serve didn't matter much anymore.

Hitler declared himself Fuhrer and ordered a referendum to retroactively confirm it.

So on August 19, Germany, still grieving its beloved war hero and president, went to the polls and confirmed Adolf Hitler as their Fuhrer, an action that only four years earlier would have been unthinkable.
Desperate times called for desperate measures.

In 1933, Germany was one of the most cultured and honorable nations on earth. German honor was legendary, particularly among German military officers who would rather die than dishonor themselves or their sacred oath of service.

The German culture at the time was such that, despite the World War and its excesses, Germany was THE place for foreign exchange students and was a favored diplomatic posting.

Hitler was widely respected at first for his governing ability. He nationalized much of Germany's banking system and began pouring money into the German infrastructure.

The first interstate highway system in the world was Adolf Hitler's Autobahn. The 'People's Car' (Volkswagen in German) was introduced at Hitler's insistence.

Hitler's political popularity morphed into a kind of cult worship in which he was styled as the German messiah. (The word 'fuhrer' is generally translated 'leader' but it is actually closer to the English word 'lord'.)

Britain's King Edward had so fallen under Hitler's spell that it was necessary to force his abdication to prevent England from being ruled by a Nazi sympathizer. (Edward died in exile in 1972)

In 1934, when Adolf Hitler became the supreme leader of Germany, Germany had both a free press and a legally elected parliament.

The German Republic was a functioning, western-style representative democracy. Germany was known for, and disliked because of its excesses, but it was also known for being one of the world's most honorable countries.

The demands of national socialism required rounding up certain classes of people. Experiments began on efficient ways to euthanize those deemed to be a drain on the German economy or damaging to its culture.

At first, it was baby steps, nationalizing the banks, rounding up firearms, demonizing certain classes of people, etc.

But desperate times call for desperate measures.

The trick to making it all work is making sure the times are desperate enough to justify the measures being advanced.

Here's the point. When von Hindenburg died in August, 1934, Germany was still one of the most honorable and cultured nations in Europe and everybody from King Edward of England to FDR thought Hitler was the greatest thing since sliced bread.

FDR's biggest worry abut Germany in 1934 was that competition posed by growing German industrial power might further damage America's depressed economy.

Only four years later, German Jews were being beaten and killed and their property either destroyed or confiscated during Kristallnacht (The Night of the Broken Glass).

Adolf Hitler: Time Magazine’s Man of the Year, 1938

What is the point I am trying to make here? There is no period in history that more perfectly mirrors the current global situation that that of the 1930s -- and on almost every scale of measurement; economic, political and spiritual.

One of the truisms of history, which has been observed by everyone from philosopher Georges Santayana to George Bernard Shaw is this: "Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it."
George Bernard Shaw put it this way. "One thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history."

So, what does history teach us? I'm not going to spell it out in words -- and that, by itself, should be instructive. Free speech is only free under certain circumstances in this brave, new 21st century world -- and my sense of history tells me this isn't one of them, even in a private letter to subscribing members.
But I can still safely make a few observations. We're hearing a lot about nationalism and socialism, national emergencies and desperate times. And I think I can still safely observe the following about the lessons of history.

A lot can happen in four years.

How Much is a Trillion Dollars?

by Charles H. Coppes

As you probably know, or can't fathom, the House (HR3326) and Senate (60-40), on pure party lines, raised our "debt ceiling" to $14.3 Trillion Bucks (to accommodate the jobless recovery and progressive welfare state for 2010). 

As I often say on radio, a trillion seconds would take 30,000 years.  Sure we could print $100 bills and shorten the astronomical figure to 3,000 years.  But it is still fiscal insanity.  The best thing that came off Gutenberg's press in 1455 was the Holy Bible, but the Devil had other ideas.  So let's consider the following visual for a trillion bucks. 

What does that look like? I mean, these various numbers are tossed around like so many doggie treats, so I thought I'd take Google Sketchup out for a test drive and try to get a sense of what exactly a trillion dollars looks like.

We'll start with a $100 dollar bill. Currently the largest U.S. denomination in general circulation. Most everyone has seen them, slightly fewer have owned them. Guaranteed to make friends wherever they go.

A packet of one hundred $100 bills is less than 1/2" thick and contains $10,000. Fits in your pocket easily and is more than enough for week or two of shamefully decadent fun.

Believe it or not, this next little pile is $1 million dollars (100 packets of $10,000). You could stuff that into a grocery bag and walk around with it.

While a measly $1 million looked a little unimpressive, $100 million is a little more respectable. It fits neatly on a standard pallet...

And $1 BILLION dollars... now we're really getting somewhere...

Next we'll look at ONE TRILLION dollars. This is that number we've been hearing so much about. What is a trillion dollars? Well, it's a million million. It's a thousand billion. It's a one followed by 12 zeros. (i.e. 1,000,000,000,000) …

Notice those pallets are double stacked.
...and remember those are $100 bills.

So the next time you hear someone toss around the phrase "trillion dollars"... that's what they're talking about.

__________________

Charles H. Coppes is the author of America’s Financial Reckoning Day. Learn more at www.chuckcoppes.com.

2010: "The Year of Severe Economic Contraction"

by Mike Whitney | December 15, 2009 | Global Research 

Upbeat reports in the financial media, belie the effects of the ongoing credit contraction. Massive injections of central bank liquidity have prevented the collapse of financial markets, but have done little to ease the deleveraging of households or stimulate activity the broader economy. The crisis has stripped $13 trillion in equity from working families who now find their access to credit either cut off or severely curtailed by the same banks that received hefty taxpayer-funded bailouts. The fiscal strangulation of the millions of people who are no longer considered "creditworthy" is progressively weakening demand and spreading pessimism across all income levels. Growing public desperation was the focus of a special weekend report by Bloomberg News:

"Americans have grown gloomier about both the economy and the nation’s direction over the past three months even as the U.S. shows signs of moving from recession to recovery. Almost half the people now feel less financially secure than when President Barack Obama took office in January, a Bloomberg National Poll shows.

The economy is the country’s top concern, with persistently high unemployment the greatest threat the public sees. Eight of 10 Americans rate joblessness a high risk to the economy in the next two years, outranking the federal budget deficit, which is cited by 7 of 10. An increase in taxes is named as a high risk by almost 6 of 10.

Fewer than 1 in 3 Americans think the economy will improve in the next six months....Only 32 percent of poll respondents believe the country is headed in the right direction, down from 40 percent who said so in September." (Bloomberg)

The near-delirious optimism that followed the 2008 presidential election has fizzled in less than 12 months. While the policies of the Obama administration have improved Wall Street's prospects for record profits and lavish bonuses, ordinary working people continue to fight to keep their jobs and maintain their standard of living. Recent data show that household debt which surged during the boom years is being pared back at a historic pace. Household debt to disposable income has plummeted from 136 percent to 122 percent in a little more than a year, leaving many families with little to spend at the malls or shopping centers.

Severe retrenchment has triggered a shift towards personal thriftiness which is reducing economic activity and strengthening deflationary pressures. 2010 is likely to be even worse, as mushrooming foreclosures and commercial real estate defaults force banks to slash lending accelerating the rate of decline. This is from Bloomberg:

"Foreclosure filings in the U.S. will reach a record for the second consecutive year with 3.9 million notices sent to homeowners in default, RealtyTrac Inc. said. This year’s filings will surpass 2008’s total of 3.2 million as record unemployment and price erosion batter the housing market...

Foreclosure filings exceeded 300,000 for the ninth straight month in November, RealtyTrac said today. A weak labor market and tight credit are "formidable headwinds" for the economy, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said in a Dec. 7 speech in Washington. The 7.2 million jobs lost since the recession began in December 2007 are the most of any postwar economic slump, Labor Department data show. Unemployment, at 10 percent last month, won’t peak until the first quarter, Quigley said." (Bloomberg)

The Obama administration's $787 billion stimulus pushed GDP into positive territory for the first time in more than a year, but the maximum impact has already been felt. President Obama--under advice from his chief advisors-- has shifted his focus from soaring unemployment to long-term deficits. Additional stimulus will be no more than $200 billion, of which, a mere $50 billion will go towards jobs initiatives. At the same time, Fed chair Ben Bernanke will terminate the quantitative easing (QE) program which kept long-term interest rates low while providing financing for the housing market. When the program ends, rates will rise, housing prices will tumble, and liquidity will drain from the system. The end of QE coupled with dwindling stimulus ensures that economy will slide back into recession in the 2nd or 3rd Quarter of 2010.

Policymakers have decided to create conditions that are favorable to financial sector consolidation and the further privatization of public assets. The economy is being strangled by design.

Here's economist Mark Thoma explaining why consumption will not return to pre-crisis levels:

"For the immediate future and likely for much longer than that, slow consumption growth is expected. One way that could change is if the government implements a successful jobs program or uses some other means to increase household income (e.g. a payroll tax cut), and households spend rather than save the extra income..., but the political environment makes a jobs program or further fiscal policy action highly unlikely.

Similarly...the Fed is anxious to unwind its massive policy intervention, not extend it, so monetary policy is unlikely to help much either. Since monetary and fiscal policy authorities are unwilling to provide further help, slow growth is the best outcome we’re likely to get." ("Will Consumption Growth Return to Its Pre-Recession Level?" Mark Thoma, moneywatch.com)

Along with flagging consumption, economists Antonio Fatas and Ilian Mihov show why both investment and employment will not rebound in the way that many bullish analysts expect. By tracking the rate of recovery in the last 5 recessions, the two economists show that demand will remain flat for a prolonged period of time, precipitating a "jobless" and "investmentless" recovery. Their research supports additional stimulus to reduce the output gap and engage the labor force in productive activity. The administration's policies are the exact opposite of the majority of professional economists who believe that deficits need to increase to effect overcapacity and underutilization. Obama is deliberately steering the economy into a double-dip recession.

While financial institutions have been propped up with zero-rates, myriad lending facilities and boatloads of Fed liquidity, the real economy continues to on a downward path. As households rebalance accounts and increase savings, the signs of distress are becoming more apparent. In Europe, the ECB and IMF have begun to use the financial crisis to wrest control of the budgets of deficits-plagued nations to apply business-friendly austerity measures. The economic meltdown--that was generated by overleveraged banks trading dodgy investment paper--is now being used to assert corporate/bank control over sovereign nations. Greece, Ireland, Iceland, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal and Spain are all presently in the crosshairs of neoliberal restructuring. Surely, the same policies will be applied within the United States under the guidance of supply-side economist and chief advisor to the president, Lawrence Summers. Thus, in 2010, economic contraction will continue to force state and local governments to lay off millions of more workers while public assets and services are made available at firesale prices to private industry.
Debt deflation and deleveraging will continue into 2011, while foreclosures, personal bankruptcies and defaults continue to mount. The public's frustration with ineffective government policies, is likely to change from pessimism to rage on short notice. The prospect of social unrest or sporadic incidents of violence can no longer be excluded.

Mike Whitney is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Mike Whitney

500 Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism of "Man-Made" Global Warming

The following link provides a list of peer reviewed papers supporting skepticism of "man-made" global warming or the environmental or economic effects of. Comments, Corrections, Erratum, Replies, Responses and Submitted papers are not included in the peer-reviewed paper count. There are many more listings than just the 500 papers.
http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html