Occasional notes catching my breath on the path... 2008-10-26T12:12:07-00:00 blogadmin http://www.kreps.org/blog/index.php david@kreps.org tag:davidkrepsblog,2008:DavidKrepsBlog Pivot Copyright (c) 2008, Authors of David Kreps Blog 2008-10-26T12:12:00-00:00 2008-10-08T22:58:00-00:00 tag:davidkrepsblog,2008:DavidKrepsBlog.61

Is it possible that it may be to a growing extent the Chinese who are the ones lending large amounts of money to help the Western Central banks prop up our failing banking system? See the US Treasury website, for example - http://www.ustreas.gov/tic/mfh.txt, showing Japan as the biggest foreign owner of US treasury bonds, on a declining scale, and China as the second biggest, rapidly catching up and very soon to overtake Japan. (We in the UK are a distant - but rapidly and massively growing - 3rd after these two giants, with the rest of the world trailing behind.) See recent analysis for China of the current crisis - "In the first half of 2008 China’s GDP continued to grow at a double-digit rate (10.4%), despite a few severe natural disasters that hit many parts of the country really hard, including the snow­storms in south China in January and the Sichuan earthquake in May. Therefore, irrespective of the economic slowdown in the rest of the world, China is still likely to propel its own economic growth and trade at a rather ambitious pace. Thanks to limited exposure to US sub­prime mortgages, most Chinese commercial banks will not be critically impaired by the current crisis. " [pdf] See the journalistic reports that China is indeed so economically strong that its large investments in the West can nonetheless be comfortably written off... Maybe they waited till after the Olympics before they really started to squeeze...? STOP PRESS - Will Hutton's comments are revealing and longer term. A relief?

da5idk 2008-09-07T23:53:00-00:00 2008-09-07T23:02:00-00:00 tag:davidkrepsblog,2008:DavidKrepsBlog.60

Obama wants an 80% cut in US greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. He wants the US to lead the global effort to combat climate change. He says he would invest $150bn over 10 years in clean energy. Let us pray he manages to persuade the American people to vote for him. Whatever else may be unsavoury about him, about US politics, about liberal America in general, at least this man sounds like a decent step in the right direction! If the election goes in the other direction, the world will truly go to the dogs..... ...

da5idk 2008-09-05T20:21:00-00:00 2008-09-05T20:20:00-00:00 tag:davidkrepsblog,2008:DavidKrepsBlog.59

Warhol coined the phrase "15 minutes of fame", which refers to the fleeting condition of celebrity that attaches to an object of media attention, then passes to some new object as soon as the public's attention span is exhausted. In this age of Web 2.0, in a networked society comprising constant internet exposure to one's net-friends on the various social networking sites and chat networks to which so many of us belong and upon which we spend our evenings (and increasingly our lunchtimes and afternoons... breakfast, elevenses, etc) one wonders if we are entering a time whereby we will look to the anonymity of the past, and even dream of a time, in the future, when everyone will be anonymous for 15 minutes...

da5idk 2008-09-05T11:51:00-00:00 2008-09-05T11:50:00-00:00 tag:davidkrepsblog,2008:DavidKrepsBlog.58

---------------- Boys------------------------ -----------are like apples------------------ -------on trees. The best ones----------- -----are at the top of the tree----------- -----Other boys dont want to reach---- ----for the good ones because they---- -are afraid of falling & getting hurt----- -Instead, they get the rotten apples--- -from the ground that arent as nice---- -but easy. So the apples up top think-- --there is something wrong with them-- ---when in reality they're amazing------ ---They just have to wait for the------- -------right boy to come along----------- --------the one who is brave------------- ----------enough to climb----------------- ----------------all the---------------------- ---------------way to---------------------- ---------------the top---------------------- -------------of the tree---------

da5idk 2008-09-01T18:38:00-00:00 2008-09-01T18:28:00-00:00 tag:davidkrepsblog,2008:DavidKrepsBlog.57

Population of China : ================= 1,330,869,743 The West? ======== Population of EU:491,018,677 US-304,089,248 Canada-31,612,897 Austrasia-20,325,926+4,116,900 South Africa-46,586,607 Japan-127,756,815 TOTAL: 978,920,463 in short-hand: China : 1.3bn The West: 0.9bn Stats from http://www.geohive.com/ So, China outnumbers us. So... why should we expect them to do anything but live up to the style of personal one-to-one interaction that they understand? All they ask is that we respect their cultural 'thang' about FACE. We (especially Bush, have been blowing off in their FACE) and they are begging us, 'don't give us any more trouble - we are in China'. But, on the other hand, the Last Great Police State, already economically conquered, is finally beginning to waver politically in the swirl of the information society. This is a phenomenon that knows no geographical limits - and perhaps needs only to complete its global ubiquitous-ness before it begins to expand its cloak of satellites beyond the orbit of the earth and out into the inky blackness, perhaps with a more culturally integrated voice... ..albeit that that cultural integration may hide many unique flavours behind its standard salt & vinegar... It seems the choice for all of us has been made. Globally, we live in a transnational capitalist economy, and pray that the survival of the planet will be profitable. Global integrity sufficient to create a globally interoperable ubiquitous computing environment will require that we continue along cultural lines already in play for decades, centuries, even millenia of tradition, as the legs upon which new heads stand. On the other hand, large scale systems, after all, set parameters for cultural expression and identity. So the truly ubiquitous computing environment in which transnational capitalism can maximise eCommerce will be both globally immersive, leaving no virtual pioneering territory without flag or brand, and inclusive, ensuring soy and ginger flavoured crisps, too..... The Olympics brought the eye of global infotainment to China, and 1.1billion people will never be the same.

da5idk 2008-10-05T16:32:00-00:00 2008-07-18T22:33:00-00:00 tag:davidkrepsblog,2008:DavidKrepsBlog.56

I have signed a petition this evening. Islington Council it seems will appeal against the victory of this bigot in her tribunal, where the judge decided she had a right to be bigoted. I think this is one of those crucial little battles in the longer term defence of our recent freedoms against the bigots' claim that they have a right to discriminate against us, and would encourage anyone interested in the protetion of minority rights to add their name to this protest at the granting of freedom to discriminate dressed up as religious freedom. Prejudice we know is rife amongst the major religions, and needs must tolerate. But their legal right to translate that prejudice into discrimination against those against whom they are prejudiced - this, in a secular society, we must not allow. I urge you to sign the petition. http://www.gopetition.co.uk/online/20471.html

da5idk 2008-07-10T00:11:00-00:00 2008-07-09T21:03:00-00:00 tag:davidkrepsblog,2008:DavidKrepsBlog.55

I like the new Orange advert http://www.i-am-everyone.co.uk/. There are others in this vein – The Sunday Times for example. It is about personalisation. It aims to speak directly to ‘real’ people. Advertisers, it seems, are beginning to realise - no doubt through the reports of sociologists - that there is no 'Public'.... ...to realise that there are many diverse groups of people who all need variously to be catered for in targeted and unique ways. This is in contrast to the formerly popular general attempt to rationalise and generalise for 'the Public' from a 'sample' of a few, which many have begun now to see is fraught with a sociomyopia that oversimplifies and alienates badly enough to work counter to its primary, if piecemeal, aims. We are more complex than we used to think, and efficiency requires less bluntness in our implementation strategies - whatever project it may be that we pursue. Fundamentally, the efficiency of today’s socio-micromanagement is something we must all grasp - across all disciplines and walks of life - as we stand up to the collective social task of environmental behaviour change. This seems to be one story in the multiple narratives we are exposed to that really does seem to carry weight. This is an eco-social, collective responsibility moment for the species, in that it is global, and requires consensus on a geographical and population scale unprecedented in human history –at a moment when we realise how diverse we truly are. The Orange advert speaks to an understanding (within the arts community that informs these marketing tactics) of the unfolding zeitgeist of a humanity at a crisis moment in both its self-realisation and its survival potential, and how the answer to that crisis seems to us all to lie somehow within our understanding of the self, of who each one of us is, and how each one of us in our moment by moment unfolding as persons can contribute, through our self awareness and our actions, to the eco-social behaviour change required of us all to prevent the destruction of our planet. ...

da5idk 2008-02-16T10:47:00-00:00 2008-02-16T10:47:00-00:00 tag:davidkrepsblog,2008:DavidKrepsBlog.50

Without truth there is no honour Without honour there is no justice Without justice there is no peace and without peace there is no love So without love there is no truth

da5idk 2007-12-21T19:23:00-00:00 2007-12-21T19:22:00-00:00 tag:davidkrepsblog,2008:DavidKrepsBlog.45

Guardian article

da5idk