War In Iran

3 Body No Problem

Well-known member
Well they're paid vast sums of money to forecast the future prices of (in his case) oil by people who are staking even vaster sums on it. So if he wasn't right more often than not then he wouldn't be in the job he's in (though I appreciate the midst of a credit crunch isn't the ideal time - nor Dissensus the ideal place - to be saying this).

You are under the misconception that banks make money by betting on future prices of goods. Banks make their money by and large from transaction fees. Hence they have an interest convincing as many customers as possible to invest with them. For this purpose they build up elaborate fronts of 'experts' that magically know more about the future than the rest of us. This game works quite well!
 

vimothy

yurp
Don't banks make their money from borrowing at one rate and lending at another? I know charges are significant, especially if they're being leveled on you personally, but they're not exactly the main source of banks' revenue.
 

3 Body No Problem

Well-known member
Don't banks make their money from borrowing at one rate and lending at another? I know charges are significant, especially if they're being leveled on you personally, but they're not exactly the main source of banks' revenue.

Yes, I was a bit careless in my wording. The revenue models are quite varied and often involve risk-pooling as for example when they lend at a higher-rate than when borrowing, which can be seen as a bet on the future behaviour or lender and borrowers (by some freak accident all lenders might want their money back at the same time etc). But that's quite a different form of risk taking as betting on the oil-price development. While the latter does take place, I doubt it's a serious long-term source of direct revenue.

Also, by "transaction fees" I don't just mean the charges you incur when you overdraw your credit card account.
 

crackerjack

Well-known member
You are under the misconception that banks make money by betting on future prices of goods. Banks make their money by and large from transaction fees. Hence they have an interest convincing as many customers as possible to invest with them. For this purpose they build up elaborate fronts of 'experts' that magically know more about the future than the rest of us. This game works quite well!

No, I'm under the conception that Merrill lynch advise the very rich where to stick their money to get even richer. Since there is a fairly simple gauge to measure their success (is the rich investor, or pension fund or what have you, getting even stupider stinkier richer than before?) these "elaborate fronts" can only work for so long before being rumbled. I don't think getting the customer service rep to undo an extra button on her shirt is gonna cut it when Ruthless Capitalist Bastards Inc want to know why their £1bn investment has turned into shit.
 

3 Body No Problem

Well-known member
No, I'm under the conception that Merrill lynch advise the very rich where to stick their money to get even richer. Since there is a fairly simple gauge to measure their success (is the rich investor, or pension fund or what have you, getting even stupider stinkier richer than before?) these "elaborate fronts" can only work for so long before being rumbled. I don't think getting the customer service rep to undo an extra button on her shirt is gonna cut it when Ruthless Capitalist Bastards Inc want to know why their £1bn investment has turned into shit.

Maybe you are hanging out with the wrong crowd, but investors with £1bn to spare rarely execute unhedged bets on the oil-price on the advice of a Merrill advisor.

They may use advisors to design and carry out complicated investment and arbitrage schemes, but it is the design and execution of sophisticated financial instruments that such investors seek and pay for, not mythical skills in oil-price prediction.
 

vimothy

yurp
I know it's not Iran, but it is in the neighbourhood. Syria puts down a riot in a prison for political dissidents.

IWPR:

The families of detainees at the Saidnaya military prison in Damascus have expressed grave concern for the safety of inmates after a riot was put down by force.

Activists say they know of 20 to 25 prisoners killed since rioting broke out on July 5, but believe the real figure could be significantly higher.

The unrest began during a routine inspection at the prison, which houses many inmates convicted of Islamic extremist activity. According to the London-based Syrian Committee for Human Rights and families who received calls from imprisoned relatives, the trouble was sparked when prison guards stamped on a Koran.

A full-blown riot ensued, and inmates took hostage the prison guard dozens of guards and four military police officers, according to a human rights activist who received a call from a prisoner. Hundreds fled onto the roof of the jail.

Armed units were sent in and opened fire, resulting in many deaths.

Outside, families got as close as they could to the prison, which has been blocked off by security forces since the riot began.​

FT:

“Prisoners sentenced for crimes of terrorism and extremism caused trouble,” said a report carried by the state news agency Sana. The authorities later said they had restored calm but this was disputed by some human rights activists.

“Nobody knows what is going on in there but it seems that the security forces want to finish off a lot of the prisoners who rose up,” said a human rights lawyer in Damascus.

He said a stream of ambulances was taking casualties to the Tishreen military hospital but that roads to the prison and the hospital had been cut off.

Syria is holding thousands of prisoners on political and security charges, most “because of their Islamic beliefs”, said the lawyer.

In recent years, the government of President Bashar al-Assad has also arrested dozens of liberal dissidents.​
 

vimothy

yurp
Iran edging closer -- Omid satellite launch:

[T]he Iranian technological success worries American and other countries national security experts because it places Iran much closer to being able to deliver a nuclear warhead against an enemy.

But there is another reason American military and national security officials are so worried: in at least two earlier ballistic missile launches, the Iranians launched in ways that “appear they were designed to optimize an EMP burst,” according to a Pentagon source with detailed knowledge of the Iranian’s efforts and of space technology.

EMP stands for electro-magnetic pulse and it is one byproduct of a nuclear blast. EMP destroys power sources, communication capabilities and would cripple or destroy the abilities of most satellites to function. A percentage of military communication and other satellites are hardened against EMP but the gravest effect would be on the ground, the space expert said. “As bad as the space part of this is, that is pretty bad, but the ground part of it is much, much worse. Effectively, whoever was subjected to an EMP burst would be shoved back to an agricultural state.” Few civilian assets such as power grids, generators, telephone systems and commercial communications satellites are hardened against EMP.

This is part of the reason why the State Department has expressed “great concern” about the development. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said the satellite launch appeared to indicate Iran was working on a ballistic missile capable of “increasingly long range.” Combine a long-range ICBM with a nuclear payload and you get a new member of an even smaller club, the countries such as the U.S., Russia, China, France and Britain who can play the deadly serious global strategic game of hitting places around the globe with nuclear weapons.

Iran’s success elicited grudging admiration from the space expert. “They have had more success than a lot of other aspirants. Their path has been fairly linear and fairly successful,” this source said. All this occurred, of course, in the face of international sanctions against Iran, which included specific UN prohibitions against work on ballistic missiles.

Another reason for concern about the Iranian accomplishment, the space expert said, is that lofting a satellite into a successful orbit is, in some respects, more technologically challenging than building an ICBM. So Iran would appear to be extremely close to having the ability to send aloft a small nuclear device. And, this expert said, a trigger for a small, unsophisticated nuclear device is relatively easy to design and make if you are not trying to be highly accurate.

1615%5B1%5D.jpg
 

polystyle

Well-known member
The sound of money

The EMP burst.
Intra - Pentagon worry fer ages.
What's been done to possibly prevent one , shield against one ?
Probably not much I'm afraid.

Got a credit card balance ? digital debt ? life savings in a bank ?
Gone in a flash ...
Financial collapse on a scale Einsturzende Neubauten would have been proud of in their heyday.
 

vimothy

yurp
Shit -- how did I miss this?!

To those who knew him, the Hizbullah-supporting car dealer from Nabatiyeh seemed an unlikely Israeli spy. But as Marwan Faqih adjusts to life in military custody, new details have emerged about his secret double life as an undercover agent for the Jewish state.

Sources close to Hizbullah quoted by the Al-Balad daily on Thursday gave a fascinating glimpse into the secret world of international espionage inhabited by Faqih. The paper said that Faqih was accredited as a "safe" supplier of vehicles to Hizbullah after winning the trust of party officials in Nabatiyeh by making regular donations to the group. During the summer 2006 war with Israel, he even handed control of his petrol station over to Hizbullah fighters.

No-one suspected that every car he sold them was fitted with a satellite monitoring device that allowed Israeli intelligence agents to track their every move. In the end, the paper's sources say, it was a routine repair that led to the discovery of Faqih's secret double life....
 

vimothy

yurp
And how come no one is talking about the beats Hitchens got from the SSNP on his recent trip to Lebanon? When he got waterboarded someone even started a new thread!
 

crackerjack

Well-known member
And how come no one is talking about the beats Hitchens got from the SSNP on his recent trip to Lebanon? When he got waterboarded someone even started a new thread!

So comment on the thread if you think it's worth it - lairy pisshead gets attacked by right-wing thugs isn't really news.
 

vimothy

yurp
True. I guess it throws some interesting light on Lebanon's Byzantine politics: defacing Nazi posters (or was it a plaque commemorating a successful operation against IDF soldiers?) is all well and good, but ultimately Hitch is there at the behest of the not-too-liberal Saudis, so perhaps his ire comes across as a little confused...
 

crackerjack

Well-known member
True. I guess it throws some interesting light on Lebanon's Byzantine politics: defacing Nazi posters (or was it a plaque commemorating a successful operation against IDF soldiers?) is all well and good, but ultimately Hitch is there at the behest of the not-too-liberal Saudis, so perhaps his ire comes across as a little confused...

I missed that bit - what's that all about?
 

scottdisco

rip this joint please
Totten has the skinny here on the Hitch hullaballoo - he's good on the vile SSNP and also flags up the very admirable attitude Hitchens has to swastika-encrusted flags (or flags with swastika-like imagery).

(of course there are those in the comments who say Hitch was stupid for what he did, and that's another matter.)

they were invited to Beirut by NOW Lebanon.

NOW Lebanon is independent, non-sectarian, and includes members from all Lebanese political, ethnic, religious and socio-economic groups and persuasions. The single idea that is truly sacred in this forum is the pursuit of an independent, democratic, liberal and prosperous Lebanon, with equal rights and opportunities for all its citizens.

NOW Lebanon is funded entirely by the private sector and individual donations.

in a related link, the Star's Michael Young writes On not debating Christopher Hitchens here
 

vimothy

yurp
Future Movement & M14 get funding from the Saudis. Furthermore, as Andrew Exum notes,

it's not as if [the SSNP are] the only political group in Lebanon that has displayed vaguely fascistic tendencies. As a matter of fact, as any astute observer of Lebanese politics would be quick to point out, the very political coalition hosting Hitchens in Lebanon also contains some political parties which have been accused of fascism from time to time. (No points for guessing which parties.) What's more, members of this coalition have even been accused of accommodating, in the refugee camps, some of those Islamo-fascists Hitchens kept going on about after 9/11.
 
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