Most Commented Politics Blogs (944)

Winner Take All economic think of Adam Smith and Donald Trump is not the only way to carry out global trade. In 1994 John Forbes Nash Jr and others were awarded the Nobel Prize in economics for their work in mathematical game theory.

Nash's doctoral thesis - titled “Non-Cooperative Games" suggested business negotiations need not be solely a winner take all competition as Smith suggested, but a cooperative dynamic equilibrium.

Ever notice how gas stations, pharmacies and grocery stores cluster together. This is about Nash, not Smith. It is about a cooperative effort to share the market instead fighting each other to the death. Too bad Trump can't set aside his Winner Take All think. The world would be a better place if he did.

Many will miss Biff blogs and comments, but I feel her pain. I too worry about the strident near crazy talk on both sides of the policies (and the crazy tweets) that the US administration has become. Having held my nose to vote for him (fingers not all too tight, considering the Dem alternatives of family wide sociopathy---Monica's destroyed life and Bengazi; and moonbat socialist economics---Bernie, who actually was the most human of all). I still can see the many positives, yet am not blind to the downsides of trumpismso. Finally, someone at the helm who is trying to do what he said he would. Long dysfunctional, fat drunk Ted Kennedy non-policies on uncontrolled guest worker arrangements; silly half century acquiescence to PRC mercantile trade relations( c'mon, 51% control of joint ventures and turn over of all trade/production proprietary secrets?!), sensible infrastructure, a long list of much else. Presidents have all waxed misleading on such, without much follow through. Do the means justify the (possible) ends? I see analogies with new leadership in a failing industry. Without the tough medicine, the factories continue to close, literally, and metaphorically. The wags/workers piss and moan, vehemantly so, but without the courage FINALLY to reset course, the plant, and ship of state, are on the rocks. It boils down, for me, to allowing the basic lobbyist run corruption (under a myriad of disguises/ruses) to continue, or actually trying to shake things up some. Thus, the true meaning behind the "remaking great/draining swamps", sometimes seemingly ungrounded, talk. The ancients knew of this, and evolved the concept of courage in leadership. Lots of sleepless nights, with such leaders. Sadly, many just want to keep on comfortly dreaming.

I see Michael Cohen made it to the news this week. He testified privately Tuesday to the Senate Intelligence Committee and is scheduled to appear (which will be televised) before the House Oversight Committee today.
Thursday he will be in a private meeting before the House Intelligence Committee. Busy guy.
From the story I read this morning, Cohen was automatically disbarred for his felony conviction on five counts of tax evasion and false statements... the list goes on, doesn't it?
But as we all know, Trump had nothing to do with this. Not one iota. Not one.

Former Mass. Gov. & '16 Libertarian VP candidate Bill Weld will challenge Trump in the '20 Repub Presidential Primary.

The above vid is a brief introduction to the challenger.

For the record...
I'm neither endorsing nor denouncing him.
I'm a staunch Independent; I'm giving him a looking over as I would (and will) any candidate of any party.

Y'all can also scroll down to the comments to get some folks' opinions on him.

Nigeria long before never had this type of terrorist hate group.Until Nigeria became the 20th richest country in the world! New big cities are being built that rivals western standard.

When we see the atrocities caused by BOKO HARAM terrorist group, we see the amount of money they have, we see the type of military weapon they possess, and when Africa calls for help to fight this deadly terrorist, America says no, Europe says no.

Well, there is this researcher in the USA well known and an insider to CIA operatives, that said a few months back,that the BOKO HARAM terrorist group is created and being financed and sponsored by the west to destabilise the development of Africa.He is a white man and a US citizen.!

it happened before and can happen again. Just different and no one takes it serious until its too late.

Its kind of hard to imagine unpleasant stuff could happen in your life ,a nice and peaceful life you knew torn to pieces in between gunfires, smokes and bombs .
The roads you walk is blocked, the offices is closed and the coffee shop where you take your regular coffee is blown up to pieces.
But threats and danger will represent it self at any given time of peace if given the opportunity

A horrible and tragic incident happen today, we are not just shocked, but we also deeply mourn and grieve.

But what Indonesia have agreed upon to do is to rise above the situation. We Indonesia wont help anyone in spreading hate and negativity through out the world. Regardless of what ever situation we may encounter in the future, we, INDONESIA, intended to keep our peace. We INDONESIA intended to spread the Love and NOT the Hate
A small voice to represents Indonesia a country of unity in diversity and peace,


WE ARE SENDING A MESSAGE TO THE WORLD,
And we will say it loud and clear



#WEARENOTAFRAID #Kamitidaktakut



There is no room for your war here !


STAY STRONG INDONESIA

..some people are totally against the royals..say they are a cost to the UK tax payer and born privileged.

That maybe the case, but its a demanding job all the same. I am sure that the income from tourism and the good they do globally by and large exceeds any money wasted.

I love prince Charles comments on modern architecture..and I love William and Kate..what a gentlemen he is and what a lovely lady she is..


When they are both King and Queen I think we should all rejoice..Im not a one for Patriotism but I see these two as great Ambassadors for the UK...

"In the early hours of a February morning in 1986, Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos flew into exile. After 21 years as president of the Philippines, Marcos had rigged one too many elections. The army had turned against him, and the people had come out on to the streets in their thousands. The Marcoses had seen the crisis coming and been able to prepare their escape, so when they landed that morning at the Hickham USAF base in Hawaii, they brought plenty of possessions with them.

The official US customs record runs to 23 pages. In the two C-141 transport planes that carried them, they had packed: 23 wooden crates; 12 suitcases and bags, and various boxes, whose contents included enough clothes to fill 67 racks; 413 pieces of jewellery, including 70 pairs of jewel-studded cufflinks; an ivory statue of the infant Jesus with a silver mantle and a diamond necklace; 24 gold bricks, inscribed “To my husband on our 24th anniversary”; and more than 27m Philippine pesos in freshly-printed notes. The total value was $15m.
This was a fortune by any standards, easily enough to see the couple through the rest of their lives.

Yet the new government of the Philippines knew this was only a very small part of the Marcoses’ wealth. The reality, they discovered, was that Ferdinand Marcos had amassed a fortune up to 650 times greater. According to a subsequent estimate by the Philippine supreme court, he had accumulated up to $10bn while in office.

Since his official salary had never risen above $13,500 a year, it was blazingly clear this was stolen wealth on the most spectacular scale. Some of his closest allies also stole billions. As their victim was a nation in which 40% of the people survive on less than $2 a day, the Republic of the Philippines decided urgently to try to retrieve its money.

Even amid the chaos of the revolution, the very first executive order issued by the new president, Cory Aquino, established the Presidential Commission on Good Government, the PCGG. It was to recover “all ill-gotten wealth accumulated by former president Ferdinand Marcos, his immediate family, relatives, subordinates and close associates” and given the power to sequester any assets believed to be the proceeds of crime.

Thirty years later, the PCGG is still working, its 94 lawyers, researchers and administrators housed proudly in a building recovered from the Marcos family. The government gives it an annual budget of $2.2m. Its staff have traced money through jurisdictions all over the world and fought their way through hundreds of court cases. And yet something has gone terribly wrong: to date, the PCGG has recovered only a fraction of what was stolen by the Marcos network; no one has served a prison sentence for their part in the crime.

The PCGG archive tells the inside story of the biggest theft in history, and of the master criminal who organised it: skilful, arrogant, cruel. It also opens a door into the offshore world revealed by the Panama Papers. Marcos was one of the first to exploit the rats’ nest of secret jurisdictions and hidden ownership then in the early stages of being built beneath the floorboards of public life.
But what is most important about Marcos is that he committed his crimes as a politician.

His career starts with a cynicism that now seems familiar – manipulating electorates, using money to buy power and power to make money. But he went one big step further in merging politics and finance, converting the instruments of government into one vast cash machine. A handful of other autocrats were also busy stealing from their people in that era – in Haiti, Nicaragua, Iran – but Marcos stole more and he stole better. Ultimately, he emerges as a laboratory specimen from the early stages of a contemporary epidemic: the global contagion of corruption that has since spread through Africa and South America, the Middle East and parts of Asia. Marcos was a model of the politician as thief."

(Cont'd in Comments section)

"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty." Thomas Jefferson

This is amazing. There are two parts. Be sure to read the 2nd part.....
PART 1...
Thomas Jefferson was a very remarkable man who started learning very early in life and never stopped.
At 5, began studying under his cousin's tutor.
At 9, studied Latin, Greek and French.
At 14, studied classical literature and additional languages.
At 16, entered the College of William and Mary.
Also could write in Greek with one hand while writing the same in Latin with the other.
At 19, studied Law for 5 years starting under George Wythe.
At 23, started his own law practice.
At 25, was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses.
At 31, wrote the widely circulated "Summary View of the Rights of British America " And retired from his law practice.
At 32, was a delegate to the Second Continental Congress.
At 33, wrote the Declaration of Independence . At 34, took three years to revise Virginia's legal code and wrote a Public Education bill and a statute for Religious Freedom.
At 36, was elected the second Governor of Virginia succeeding Patrick Henry.
At 40, served in Congress for two years.
At 41, was the American minister to France and
negotiated commercial treaties with European nations along with Ben Franklin and John Adams..
At 46, served as the first Secretary of State
under George Washington.
At 53, served as Vice President and was elected
president of the American Philosophical Society.
At 55, drafted the Kentucky Resolutions and
became the active head of Republican Party.
At 57, was elected the THIRD president of the
United States.
At 60, obtained the Louisiana Purchase doubling
the nation's size.
At 61, was elected to a second term as President.
At 65, retired to Monticello ..
At 80, helped President Monroe shape the Monroe Doctrine.
At 81, almost single-handedly created the University of Virginia and served as its first president.
At 83, died on the 50th anniversary of the Signing of the Declaration of Independence along with John Adams.

PART 2....

Thomas Jefferson knew because he himself studied the previous failed attempts at government. He understood actual history, the nature of God, His laws and the nature of man. That happens to be way more than what most understand today.

Jefferson really knew his stuff.
A voice from the past to lead us in the future:
John F. Kennedy held a dinner in the White House for a group of the brightest minds in the nation at that time. He made this statement: "This is perhaps the assembly of the most intelligence ever to gather at one time in the White House with the exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.

HIS QUOTES....

"When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe ."
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"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."
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