Tag: Beauty Platform

Burning the Midnight Oil for the Beauty Platform and Economic Populism

The problem with the “Good Bank / Bad Bank” (see also Dr. Seuss version) plan is, of course, … {drum roll}

… in order to “rescue” banks that distributed a massive amount of contingency reserves as if it was income … by pretending that massive downsides did not exist …

… we “have to” reward the people who proved to be grossly incompetent in the core competency for senior executive management of a bank.

Except, as Joe Stiglitz points out, we don’t have to at all.

In other words, there is good and bad in the Good Bank / Bad Bank plan. And if we reverse who ends up with the Good Assets and who ends up with the Bad Assets, we can have all of the Good, and avoid most of the Bad.

UPDATE

Keith Olbermann cites “my” plan on the Tonight show … posted at the Big Orange

Burning the Midnight Oil for Real World Economics

NB. New Oil links are now located at the Midnight Oil Blog

A while ago, as an off-shoot of the Beauty Platform, I set out a Beautiful Bail-Out plan.

Two key parts were: 50:50 on money going to help regular home buyers to extricate themselves from the mortgage meltdown, and on bailing out the finance sector from the mess they got themselves into …

… and having the finance sector bail out consisting of both unloading dubious assets and issue of Senior Preferred shares with heavy strings attached.

Now, the Administration did not, in fact, listen to me, but when Senator Dodd was complaining about what banks had done with their bail out money, waddya know … I got a perfect three out of three on what strings needed to be attached to the money:

• Limits on Mergers and Acquisition
  
• No payments of any other dividends
  
• Limits on Executive Compensation
  

… until the Senior Preferred Dividend had been paid for four quarters straight … and kicking back in if the firm in the future ran into problems meeting the Senior Preferred Dividend.

But … does the Beautiful Bail Out model extend to the Big Three?

Move toward a Resiliant Suburbia?

moving solid line | stable divided line | moving solid line … fire moving to earth

stable divided line | stable divided line | stable divided line … earth

The hexagrams …

36. Wounded Brightness Wounded brightness. Beneficial is laborious persistence. Being weakened. It is good to work diligently on the situation. (The brightness is the light of consciousness, one’s aliveness, one’s energy. It being injured means that one’s aliveness is diminished, one is being weakened.)

2. Land Land. A foundation for progress. Beneficial is the persistence of a mare. The noble one has a goal to move to. Being confused at first, later acquiring mastery. It is beneficial that companionship is gained in the southwest, companionship is lost in the northeast. Calm persistence brings good fortune. There is a new potential, for you to develop. At first you’ll not know your way, but you’ll gain a handle on the situation and eventually master it. Just calmly proceed. It is beneficial to make partners and allies, and not to move on with people who have different interests. (At the original place and time of the Yijing, allies were in the southwest, territory they wanted to conquer was in the northeast.)

…

So, Monday a bail-out package described by opponents a excrement on toast went down to defeat because after getting compromises to make it, in my view, worse, the Republican leadership could not then deliver enough Republican votes to get the thing passed “on a bipartisan basis”.

Like they are unwilling to take unpopular votes to protect business interests? What was more than a decade of votes against the Minimum Wage about, then?

So, the first step is to see if the non-finance sector business lobby has been on the phone with the Rebel Replicants, cursing them a blue streak for screwing the pooch so badly before the Christmas shopping season. Perhaps they are, and so perhaps they will toe the line.

And if not, then the Democrats can turn to putting together a Beautiful Financial Rescue Package that the caucus can support. So, what would that look like?

A world of one dominant power is an imperial world … to maintain its dominance that one dominant power must interfere with the affairs of those outside the boundaries of the metropole. It is an intrinsically imperial project, whether proudly so or, as in our case, it is an imperial project that must be pursued while paying lip service to self-determination and democratic expression.

A world of one dominance power is a world, therefore, of war.

But a multi-polar world is not necessarily a world of peace. It can be, under a balance of power, but there is no necessity that it shall be.

So today, it is casting the Beauty Platform for a Multi-Polar world at Peace. A lot of weight for one shiny and three tarnished copper coins to carry … I hope they do not get deformed under the stress, like the pennies that “those mischievous kids” used to put on the railroad tracks.

Question: Peak Oil?

stable solid line | stable divided line | stable solid line

stable divided line | moving divided line | moving divided line

Earth over Fire evolving into Wind over Fire

36. Wounded Brightness	37. Family Members
Wounded brightness. Beneficial is laborious persistence. Being weakened. It is good to work diligently on the situation. (The brightness is the light of consciousness, one’s aliveness, one’s energy. It being injured means that one’s aliveness is diminished, one is being weakened.)	Family members. Beneficial is the women’s dedication. People are there for each other.

Moving Line 5:

Viscount of Ji’s hidden brightness.

It is beneficial to persist.

Tactfully feigning ignorance, in order to avoid being hurt by someone. It is a good idea to persist doing that. (The viscount of Ji feigned madness, in order to escape the abuses of a king.)

Line 6:

Not brightness, but darkness.

At first ascending to heaven,

then going into the earth.

Things seemed so bright at the start, but are turning unlucky.

“Peace in our times?”

Moving broken line | stable broken line | stable broken line

Moving solid line | stable solid line | stable solid line

Trigrams: Heaven over Earth moving to Wind over Thunder

12. Obstruction	42. Benefiting
Obstruction. This is not the other not benefiting the noble one’s persistence. Much goes, little comes. One cannot continue, one is being obstructed. This is frustrating. There is more loss than gain. This isn’t the other going against one’s interests, actually. Blaming someone may make one feel better, but isn’t helpful at solving the problem.	Benefiting. It is beneficial to have a goal to move to. It is beneficial to cross the big river. Benefiting from the situation. It’s a good idea to have a plan for undertaking something, to make good use of the opportunity.

Moving line 1:

Pulling out grass and entangled roots because of its accumulation.

Persistence brings good fortune.

Progressing.

Removing something that has accumulated and is now in the way, weeding it out by the root. Under the surface, things may be more entangled than one thought. Things go well by persevering with this. There is progress being made.

Moving line 4:

Having a higher purpose.

Without fault,

but it is a category separate from happiness.

Working on something that’s important to you, perhaps regarding your personal or spiritual development. There is nothing wrong with that. It is no pleasure to go through this development, but it really needs to be worked with.

… impossible. Whether this is dangling copper fingers in the stream … or just random reframing to nudge our thinking into possibilities that are regular habits of thought obscure … well, its not that crucial a question to me.

First line: divided line

Second line: moving solid line

Third line: divided line

Fourth line: divided line

Fifth line: solid line

Sixth line: moving divided line

Ah, I love symmetry, and this is doubly symmetric … it is both symmetric around the middle, and consists of two identical symmetric trigrams.

29. Abyss Getting accustomed to the abyss. Have confidence and hold on to your heart. For progress, taking action has value. A situation that is unfamiliar and dangerous, that one needs to get into and get accustomed to. Have confidence, and keep in touch with your feelings. Feeling fear is natural in this situation. Taking action is needed in order to have progress.

Casting the Beauty Platform Diaires

NB. Most link collections like these look back. This one looks ahead to diaries posted following this one.

• Casting the Future of Docdharma …
• Casting the future of Docudharma remains …
• Casting about for the Beauty Platform
• Casting the Beauty Platform: Peace in Our Times
• Casting the Beauty Platform: Peak Oil
• Casting the Beauty Platform for a Multi-Polar Peace
• Casting the Beauty Platform for Resiliant Suburbia
  

• Casting the Beauty Platform for the Afghanistan Quagmire

Utsukushikereba sore de ii Ishikawa Chiaki As long as its beautiful, its fine (Lady Elwin’s Translation) ~the countless flowers enveloped in light gaze at tomorrow with eyes free of doubt~ everyone wishes for me to be pure, but waiting in the sky that’s about to be worn out picking flowers to make them their own they’re all just sinful people I stopped making promises with the future because even if I try to run far away from pain look, the chill wind is shaking my hair where should I search for the answer? even if I take a break from this selfish destiny I feel as if somewhere I was saved as if one day even this past that can’t be remade can be put away in a small box the countless flowers enveloped in light gaze at tomorrow with eyes free of doubt the white bell that quietly overlooks us as long as it’s beautiful, it’s fine is this the dream’s continuation? is this a dream I won’t awaken from? I murmured countless times I stopped making promises with the future because even if I try to run far away from pain look, the chill wind is shaking my hair where should I search for the answer?

… but of course, with translations, YMMV … this is the translation done by the fans of the anime that used this as an opening song: