Monday, October 16, 2006

Micro Finance Pro and Con


With the announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize going to Bangladesh Banker Mohammed Yunnus and his micro-credit bank Grameen, one has to ask why he did not get the Nobel for Economics, considering the neo-liberal American dweeb that did.

I have blogged here on micro-credit before, and it is, despite its faults and limitations, an alternative to NGO's, development Aid from the OECD States and IMF World Bank loans to the State.


Banker to the poor who changed lives of millions
By Justin Huggler. Mohammed Yunus is not a statesman or world leader. He is not feted everywhere he goes. He is an economics professor who lives in a small apartment in Bangladesh.

Banking for the poor Pakistan Dawn

"A person doesn't have to be rich to become creditworthy. Credit, he says, should be accepted as a human right," Younus told Gulf News in an earlier interview. "Credit is the last hope left to those faced with absolute poverty. That is why I believe that the right to credit should be recognised as a fundamental human right," he said. Righting a wrong with alternative credit



However there is a down side as I mentioned. High interest rates, overblown bueracracy, anxieties about paying back the loans, etc.

The Grameen Bank Founder Muhammed Yunus Gets the Nobel Prize.

Are micro-finance institutions exploiting the poor?

Microcredit, Macro Problems


In the Summer issue of the CATO Journal, the American adovcates of Free Trade find that Banking regulations are a problem in the developing world because of the inherent corruption of monopoly. The author of this particular article finds that both Private and State oversight of these banks are equally corrupt.

Conventional government regulation of banks is likely to backfire because the regulators are frequently incompetent or corrupt. Instead of serving the public interest, regulators often end up serving the banking industry and its political supporters.
The most compelling evidence for this point of view is the many banking crises around the world in which large numbers of banks have failed, leaving governments with the cost of compensating depositors. By one count, there were 168 such crises from 1976 to 2002. The usual cause
is that both governments and private owners have turned banks into pyramid or Ponzi schemes in spite of government regulation. The banks are insolvent (bankrupt) because a high proportion of their loans are bad and will never be repaid. Yet the banks can remain liquid and continue to operate for years because new deposits keep coming in. Such schemes are possible because of explicit or implicit government guarantees and insurance of bank deposits that reduce the incentive for the private sector to monitor the financial health of banks.
Rethinking Bank Regulation: Till Angels Govern
by James R. Barth, Gerard Caprio Jr., and Ross Levine
Reviewed by Robert E. Anderson
Cato Journal
An Interdisciplinary Journal of Public Policy Analysis
Volume 26 Number 2, Spring/Summer 2006


While allowing removing deposit insurance from the banks might appear as a good idea on the surface the experience in Alberta shows that it is not. The Dial Mortgage scandal and the Principal Trust scandal of the early eighties shows that those that use uninsured banks can be ripped off just as easily. And I need not remind readers of the ultimate Ponzi scheme in the U.S. the Savings and Loans debacle of the ninties.

A real alternative would be to create peoples banks, credit unions, with low interest rates and micro-loan economics. This would allow the working poor to develop savings thus capital.

An End to Poverty: The Will and the Means

Having survived the depredations of war, sickness and a natural disaster in rural Bangladesh, Pramila was sure her life would unravel completely when a fire destroyed her grocery store, her entire stock, her two cows and her stored-up crops.

Help was at hand, however, thanks to a revolutionary finance system known as microcredit, pioneered in the 1970s by Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank. “The Grameen Bank visited her the next morning,” Yunus records in his autobiographical book, Banker to the Poor. “Part of the loan she used to start up a small grocery store and the rest she invested in fertilizer for her irrigated land. With the help of her three grown sons, she was able to start paying off the loan. Three months later Grameen gave her a housing loan, and she constructed herself a new house.

“She is currently in her twelfth loan. She owns and leases enough land to sell about 10 mounds of rice paddy [unmilled rice] a year, after feeding her whole family” (see our interview with Professor Yunus: “Banking on Trust”).

The fact is that the Grameen Bank is one model, and just that, one that needs to be refined to overcome its weaknesses. Namely that it remains a monopoly bank rather than a peoples bank.

Micro-financing is a model that could be and should be applied in the advanced industrial countries as well as in the newly industrialized and developing countries. It is the missing element in Welfare Reform in North America which does not provide credit opportunities for the poor. Welfare itself is anti savings and credit which leaves the poor with an all or nothing alternative.
A living wage would be the alternative to welfare in advanced capitalist countries.

The other missing element is median financing to worker/producer owned cooperatives. Allowing workers to both create new businesses on a cooperative model as well as to bail out failing capitalist enterprizes that communities rely upon, but which are shut down as inefficient or unproductive. These need to be placed under worker control, and refinanced by a credit system ideally through credit unions, union pension funds and all three levels of government.

New initiatives for micro-credit individual businesses and worker/producer cooperatives could be financed by venture capital such as Labour Funds, which failed because they were directed at long term risky ventures like Bio-Tech. Instead a tax credit system, as well as government banking gurantees could allow for a pool of capital to be used for these purposes.



See:

Free Trade



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Cherniak Unwitting Tory

The Conservatives messaging that you hear on Mike Duffy and Don Newman over Iggys commments about War Crimes is; "this summer the Liberal Leadership Candidates and MPs attacked Israel." It is their defense of Harpers comment that the Liberals are Anti-Semitic errr.... Anti-Israel/Anti-Israeli.(the two terms seem interchangable in the heat of debate on these political shows)

I scratch my head and ask myself, self where have I heard this before. The Liberal Party did not attack Israel but had an internal kerfuffle over comments made by a volunteer for one of the Leadership Candidates, and comments from one MP.

A tempest in a teapot that got blown out of proportion by Cherniak 's vociferous blogging outrage. So now the Tories are using Cherniak against the party. Delicious. This is what happens when you smear people. Chickens, home, roost.

And it seems that Cherniak just doesn't know when to quit....
Cherniak in the Globe

Also See:

Israel

Lebanon

Zionism

Kinsella

Liberal Leadership Race

Ignatieff




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Does Bilingualism Matter?


Nope not in the ROC, only in Quebec. You can barely be understood in English and you can be PM just look at Jean Chretien, but heavens forbid you can't be understood in Quebecois. As I said before Dion's liability, which will be overlooked, is that he is not fluently bilingual.

Dion's English, like Kennedy's French in Quebec, became hard to comprehend when subjects got complicated.

As for the candidates, they came to rumble. Stéphane Dion picked a fight with Rae over fiscal responsibility. Rae pushed back — switching into French to demonstrate that he's more comfortable in his second language than Dion is in his —

So can we drop this crap about bilingualism when what we are really talking about is whether political candidates are fluent in Quebecois patois.


See:


Liberal Leadership Race




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Naked Newz Update 10/06


Earlier this month we reported the Nude news, stories with Nude in them, this update is for news stories with Naked in them.

Da Newz......

Nice to see she has work after her cocaine debacle.....

Kate Moss has made her most saucy film yet for the Agent Provocateur underwear label.

The supermodel, 32, strips off to just her knickers in the short 30-minute clip.

The film, which begins with Moss wearing a skirt and shirt, is the latest collaboration between the underwear label and the model.

Click here to see a trailer of the movie

A previous clip was so popular that the underwear company's website crashed.


Help crash the website again. Says Rolling Stone she has done more provocative work......

Let’s all just calm down and watch Kate pole dance in that White Stripes video. It’s art. Seriously. It is.


Harry Potter gets Barn chores......

Harry Potter boy star in naked West End role

Daniel Radcliffe may find that the audience is a little too close for comfort when he performs a sensational nude scene on stage in the West End next year. Sixty people from the audience will actually be seated on stage when the Harry Potter star simulates a sex act

Yes but its a sex act with horses like something out of All Creatures Great And Small.

Is being naked sex? I thought it was nudity. Being naked is not sexual, it is natural. Sex is in the mind of the voyuer. And yes being naked is good for the cause just ask PETA.

Would you strip naked for a good cause?
Sometime last year, several female celebrities decided to pose nude for a calendar. They didn't mind because they did it for a "good cause" and any money they received was to be donated (was it for children with cancer? I don't remember). On my campus, similar publications circulated and they were surprisingly popular. Yesterday, there were a group of college-age students parading around the neighborhood half-naked claiming they were raising money for some sort of organization. Is this what our society has come down to? People exploiting their sexuality to raise money in the name of a good cause?

These guys in Germany posed for a good cause.... a rose by any other name......Naked Men's Garden Calendar Fundraiser

These folks also from Germany couldn't wait to do a calendar so they did some direct action... Protestors Strip Naked at Library Threatening to be closed due to lack of use, the Kingsteignton library was the scene of a naked protest held by locals that feel that it is essential the library stay open.

And speaking of performing sex for the public for some folks it just comes naturally....

Naked Truths
Many things have been said of Sook-Yin Lee over the years, but the notion that she lacks sufficient courage has not been among them. Shortbus, which opened here recently, she downplays her iconic boldness to play Sofia, a seemingly gentle couples counsellor with some serious relationship problems of her own. Despite a vigorous—really vigorous, as we see in the movie’s long, highly explicit opening sequence—sex life with her husband, Sofia has never had an orgasm. And thus launches a pursuit that centres the rest of the tale, which takes her repeatedly to the anything-goes nightclub of the title. “Frankly, I don’t think I did any acting before this,” confessed Lee, back in town for the film’s local debut, at the just-wrapped Vancouver International Film Festival.

Wait a minute is this a remake of Deep Throat Canadian style? Well the opening party for the film sort of confirms this...Sex-starved East Village hippies get naked for John Cameron ... Wait a minute when were hippies ever sex starved?


In small town Manitoba they don't want women strippers....but male strippers are popular....

Naked hostility

A strip show set for tomorrow night at the Ste. Anne Hotel has been met by stiff opposition from some area residents, and town council appears to have taken their side. "We don't think exotic dancers are the best image for our community," Mayor Robert Gosselin told the Sun yesterday. Hotel manager Amanda Koltusky said she's surprised at the sudden opposition, especially since it's so close to the show. She said they've been advertising since before the September Long Weekend, and it's not the first time the bar has hosted strippers. Customers were so keen to see four male dancers last April, Koltusky said she had lineups out the door and had to turn people away.

The cheeky writer did manage to get the word stiff in the opening line of an article on strippers.

Its not what you think....
RACING NAKED STREAKS

It's about horse racing.

In New Zealand the Invisible Woman appears......

Invisible to the naked eye
You may have noticed the massive billboards stopping traffic on Fanshawe Street and on the Airport Bendon headquarters building- a seemingly naked woman reclining with "invisible" written across her- as if she were anything but! Then, the full story was revealed...and she was wearing the new "Invisible" bra designed-unlike the billboard model- not to ever be noticed at all! The days of the VBL (Visible Bra Line) are numbered thanks to the brand new, ultimate t-shirt bra from Bendon which eliminates dreaded bulging back fat and “double boobs”, resulting from cup spillage; unsightly symptoms which many women can experience with regular bras.


 The stunning actress, who shot to fame playing a sexy stripper in ‘Sin City’, insists she will never bare all on the big screen and doesn’t care if her prude attitude harms her Hollywood career. She told Elle magazine

Hypocrisy is spelled A L B A ...sure she has morals...they allow her to pose like this... but she is opposed to being seen naked....go figure....

Jessica Says She Will Never Strip Naked For A Movie

The stunning actress, who shot to fame playing a sexy stripper in ‘Sin City’, insists she will never bare all on the big screen and doesn’t care if her prude attitude harms her Hollywood career. She told Elle magazine

“I don’t do nudity. I just don’t. Maybe that makes me a bad actress.

Maybe I won’t get hired in some things. But I have too much anxiety.”

Alba, who was seen almost entirely in a bikini in her 2005 film ‘Into the Blue’, has a no nakedness policy because it goes against her morals.


Bare breasts will get you kicked out of a PG-13 rating, but swearing and violence of course won't.....
Scarlett Johansson Was Stopped From Exposing Her Breasts

Getting naked on stage or screen is not limited to female stars, more guys are doing it now...NAKED AMBITION PERHAPS it's something in our water, but James McAvoy has joined fellow Scot Ewan McGregor as an actor who likes stripping off. Like his more famous countryman, Shameless and Narnia star James is fast gaining a reputation for going nude on stage and film. McAVOY: "I LIKE BEING NAKED ON STAGE'

Of course it is smart to make sure you have no security cameras recording you.....but to get busted for public indecency when you are in the privacy of your office afterhours....well that is pushing it......Ohio Prosecutor Naked in Government Building After-Hours ...Maybe he can sue for violating his presumption of privacy.....

Contrary to the headline no the stockbroker is not naked....
Getting naked isn't such a great idea when you're selling options

However as reported here before, naked short selling is right up there in damaging the political economy of capitalism as hedge funds are...

President and CEO, Richard A. Altomare, a prominent and outspoken critic for over ten years on the adverse effect of naked shorting on smaller public companies, their stockholders, investors and employees and the severe economic damage of this practice on the economics of States and Localities, heartily endorses the well reasoned comment statement to the SEC dated October 4, 2006, on the scandal of naked shorting by the very prestigious North American Securities Administrators Association, Inc. (NASAA).

The sexism of haute coture and RockNRoll culture shows through in the self deprecations of one Posh Spice.....
Victoria says she looks "awful naked" ...Because she has had children and now looks like any other mother. "I've got so much saggy skin on my stomach," Mrs Beckham added: "I might fit into jeans but, trust me, I look really awful naked." Gee what does that say to the other mothers out there ? Get thee into a Burka?

He will eat what? ......
Naked chef doesn't have balls Jamie said: "One thing I won't cook is genitals - the balls and the general genital area. Some countries tend to cook that and I'm not into that. I don't mind offal, but not genitals."

Of course even though he wears the apron in the family his refusal to cook balls may have something to do with a slight castration phobia....mind you his comments should be taken with a grain of salt considering it comes from a guy with his mouth full of offal..... Naked truth spices up debate

THEY were comments intended as food for thought but celebrity chef Jamie Oliver's views on working women and the demise of family life has caused tempers to reach boiling point.
The young father-of-two, who wears the apron in his own home, told Good Housekeeping magazine that working mothers were responsible for crumbling family values because they no longer had time to cook healthy meals or ensure their families shared dinner together.



Like the Naked Chef the nudity is TV title titillation only....Close encounter with A Naked Scientist



Ice T who once upon a time was a rapper before he
became a cop on TV has released a new old album entitled Gangsta Rap...sheesh...he ain't no gangsta he's Mr. Law and Order...maybe he should have called it Gangsta Buster......

Or he could have called it the Two Virgins since he and his wife imitate John and Yoko......

The cover shows both Ice T and his wife, CoCo, spread naked across a bed.

Of course John and Yoko were more political, and politically savvy, than Ice T who will not be spied upon by the FBI.....
'The US vs. John Lennon'
The movie covers Lennon's days as a social activist and war protestor, explaining, for example, the seemingly loony publicity stunt of doing press conferences in bed with wife Yoko Ono in 1969 (immortalized by the song Ballad of John and Yoko). In truth, Lennon was more crafty than crazy, figuring he could grab the world's attention by acting outrageously. Lennon succeeded in the publicity arena, but didn't make much headway on his overall goal: to end the war in Vietnam.

Of course the way to woo a girl is to do yoga for her....naked....shows how flexible you are....
Fiennes steps out with new love he wooed with naked yoga

The new generation of gaming geeks and nerds have their own version of the Snap On Tools calendar...of course the nude gamers are women models... we all know that the majority of gamers are guys....but would nude geeks and nerds sell asks
Joystiq?

Totally Nerdcore has launched a calendar to try and please gamers and simultaneously line their own pockets. It contains full-on nudity, and the site doesn't come close to being SFW, so surf at your own peril. Yes, you can now own a photo of a naked woman wearing nothing but a Nintendo Power Glove, complete with a convenient, built-in hanging loop. It will really tie your game room together.



Spanish political candidate offers 'naked truth' He is wearing clothes in this photo...typical politician can't trust them to really expose themselves to the public.

Albert Rivera, a 26-year old lawyer, holds up a campaign poster showing himself naked, in Barcelona, Spain, Sept. 20, 2006. (AP / Manu Fernandez)

Albert Rivera, a 26-year old lawyer, holds up a campaign poster showing himself naked, in Barcelona, Spain, Sept. 20, 2006. (AP / Manu Fernandez)

And some folks look plain ugly naked, but they may reveal the secrets to a long life.....They're naked and they live longer

they're ugly, they're naked, their homes are underground, but they may hold a secret that could help humans live longer.

The image “http://www.seniorjournal.com/images/Symbols/NakedMoleRat-Wmn.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

Naked Mole-Rat May Hold Answer to Longer Life


This little guy is ugly but you know what's uglier? A naked Troll. Naked Troll Project reaches its goal

Of course this little fella ain't as cute as Suzanne Sommers but then again the science behind his longevity is better than hers, remember she promoted the flaky thigh master
,

SOMERS' HORMONE BOOK CAUSES CONTROVERSY

THREE'S COMPANY star SUZANNE SOMERS has been blasted for writing "nonmedical, misleading and unsubstantiated" claims in her new book on hormone therapies.The 59-year-old actress claims her book AGELESS: THE NAKED TRUTH ABOUT BIOIDENTICAL HORMONES contains a "medically validated approach", which can help maintain "a healthy, vibrant, mentally sharp, sexually active life - while building the body's natural defenses against age-related diseases".However, DOCTOR ERIKA SCHWARTZ, from the SUNY Downstate College of Medicine in New York City, tells the New York Post, "We believe Ageless: The Naked Truth About Bioidentical Hormones is detrimental and dangerous to the thousands of women who will read it.

Speaking of TV and Movies faux-auter director David Lynch, Eraserhead, Twin Peaks, Dune, etc. etc. doesn't like to talk about his movies...Naked Lynch Stripping himself of celluloid, the 'Inland' emperor has no clothes

This gives new meaning to cruising...
Cruise to get religion, get naked, get your Klingon
When Holland America's Maasdam sets sail to the Caribbean in February, the first thing most of the 1,250 passengers will do is shed their clothes. Every stitch. And why not? They will be participating in a nudist cruise — just one of many special-interest sailings that cater to fans of everything from "Star Trek" to chocolate concoctions to the sound of Sinatra. The people who organize such cruises, sometimes chartering an entire ship, say they are a wonderful way for people with similar interests or lifestyles to get together.


If we all fought naked there would be less wars....Naked War by Pickford Brothers


Sometimes women ask the darndest questions.
The near-naked truth Why do men visit strip clubs? Experts offer varied explanations for behavior

And when they don't the answer they want they ask someone else
....
She wasn't satisfied with just one guy....
Boca Raton woman pens book about ‘527 naked men’

More exploitation of gamer grrls by Adult MSM...that is Main Stream Mens Mags.....Tekken Girls Get Wet And Naked in Maxim

Some folks are crazy enough to go looking for the hottest spot on earth and they still wear their clothes.

Pure, Naked Heat Tourists seek out one of Earth's most scorching spots

This is a way to make sure you weigh in and of course it happened in Thailand home of Ladyboys and the worlds largest sex market and the reporters are still shocked...go figure....Boxer goes naked to make weight for world title fight
Caballero stunned reporters by removing his underwear at the weigh-in for his WBA super bantamweight fight with champion Somsak Sithchatchawal of Thailand.

Cheeky Turk......Top designer's hat trick with naked model

Enlarge the image

In a cheeky parody, avantgarde Turkish-born, British based designer Hussein Chalayan shocked the Paris Fashion Week crowd yesterday by sending a model down the runway wearing little more than a hat and a fetching pair of heels. Perhaps this pared-down part his collection will be available shops - as the Emperor's New Clothes range?

She would feel right at home at these Nude Festivals........

Running of the Nudes
Spain has long been famous for the running of the bulls at Pamplona. While Hemingway was a big fan, there are those who object to the cruelty factor and, in protest, have staged their own festival — the Running of the Nudes. The festival takes place at the beginning of July a couple of days before the running of the bulls.

With the exception of the presence of the bulls, the general idea is pretty much the same. Both involve crowds of people running frantically through the streets of Pamplona, except that in the one instance everyone is completely starkers. So if you care for the well-being of bulls and are a bit of an exhibitionist then this is the festival for you.

Hadaka Matsuri
When it comes to running naked through the streets, the Japanese in Inazawa City are old hands. Since 767 BC the Naked Man has been taking a nude journey to the Kounomiya Shrine. The Naked Man’s odyssey currently takes place on January 13 each year. As he walks through the town, the Naked Man is said to absorb all the evil and bad luck of the people who touch him and after he has paid his respects to the Shinto deity, he is driven out of the town, taking all the bad luck with him.

Being the Naked Man is no easy task. In the depths of winter he has to walk the streets in a cotton loin cloth, while 9000 men in similar attire jostle frantically to touch him, while ‘guards’ lining the streets douse them all with icy water. Apparently it is a great honour.


Also See:

Nude

Naked

Sexuality

Gender


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Sunday, October 15, 2006

Mercer Pushes Rae Over the Top


Bob Rae is finally ahead of Michael Ignatieff in a poll of Canadians done by the Toronto Star Canadians favour Rae to lead Liberals

Thanks to two things, one a quick response to the provocation of Harpers comments that Liberals were Anti-Israel (and Anti-Israeli, implying anti-semitism).

The other was that on the same day Rae waxed indignant, Rick Mercer featured him on his satirical TV program. The boys went fishing, and then went skinny dipping.

Video: Skinny-dipping with Bob Rae


A human side to Rae emerged, that went beyond his previously well scripted mushy middle. Anger was palitable in his response to Harper. And self effacing humour, as well as admiting that his government in Ontario had made mistakes, with Mercer. These two factors have to be taken into account when weighing in on the Iggy failures in the same week.

First putting his foot in his mouth, then waiting two days to respond in a scripted fashion to Harpers attacks on the Liberals which were the result of his comments in the first place. And even then he still ended up looking too aloof, too academic, and it was hard to understand his mumblings for his feet in his mouth.

Yep Iggy is looking like toast. Of course the interesting factor in the poll itself, like in the delegate selection is the number of those who said they were undecided. Exactly the same number as those that support Rae.

There is lots of room to move here, and Rae is not a shoe in either, with Kennedy and Dion bringing up the rear, and the all important undecided delegates holding the key to victory. Of course now it might become an anybody but Rae campaign...
Dion, Kennedy join Ignatieff push to disqualify most Rae delegates ...
Which would be political suicide for the Liberals.

However given the Rae is a politician and Iggy wants to be one, well who would you vote for leader if it was your party and you want to defeat Harper. Which is becoming all the more possible, since he had as bad a week as Iggy. As
Chantal Hébert writes, Harper's hopes fading

See:

Liberal Leadership Race

Ignatieff




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