Friday, 24 December 2010

Hypothetical speech in Congress

For those who hope for an honest Congress, the result might not be as you expect. Here's a hypothetical speech showing what we might hear today:

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Fellow members, I rise to ask your support for a new bill. After 30 years in Congress, my approach today will be completely new.

Like the rest of you, I’m a habitual liar; I’ve always considered it to be part of the game of politics. The press and the public seem to know I’m lying, but they never say anything or call me on it. Frankly, even though I don’t see anything wrong with lying, I’m tired of it. It takes way too much work, and the public’s memory is so short that I can screw up in the most horrible ways outside of election season, and still get re-elected if I play my cards right. So, I have decided to use a different approach. I am going to stop lying while I’m on the floor of the House, except during the 90 days before an election, when the voters in my district will believe anything that I say, as long as I act sincere enough.

[[MORE]]The title of my new bill is the Encouraging Class Warfare Act of 2011. So far, it’s about 2,000 pages long. The bill was written by one of the lobbyists for my largest campaign contributor. They assure me that if the bill passes, not only will they will funnel huge amounts of money into my campaign, but they will also feed me all sorts of inside information that I can pass to my friends and family. They also throw really great parties.

I haven’t read a single page in the bill. I don’t really care what’s in it. Some intern on my staff said it would cost billions of dollars. So what? I know you couldn’t care less about what’s in it, either. Like we always do with these things, if you can get some details to my staff about the current hot buttons in your district or for your lobbyists, I will make sure those items get included in the bill too, so we can all feel comfortable about voting for it.

If someone asks you whether you’ve read the bill, you might try my approach. Just say something like “of course not; no one actually reads bills anymore.” Or, “another member (or the President) said he likes this bill, so of course I’m going to vote for it.” Or even, “hey, this bill has lots of pork in it that’s important to my lobbyists!”

Another kid on my staff said something about the bill not being constitutional. I laughed so hard, I nearly blew a gasket. The kid is out on his ear now, of course. I can’t have anyone who cares about such dated and limited notions working for me.

As to how the bill will be paid for, well of course we can’t raise taxes. The people in my district expect me to lie, but they don’t like it when their take-home pay goes down. So, as usual, we will use deficit spending instead. I might even include a small tax cut in the bill, just for fun. No one dares vote against a bill that cuts taxes.

I love inflation! As a hidden tax, it’s the perfect way to raise money, because no one notices slow declines in the purchasing power of the dollars they receive. Even better, we can lay the blame on the evil companies who make the stuff people buy. They are, after all, the ones who are raising prices, not us. Just think about this: since we stopped using silver in our money in the mid-1960’s, the value of a dollar has gone down by about 90%. That means, we, as government, have been able to take 90% of the value of what people have saved, and spend it on our pet projects. How wonderful is that!? We never could have accomplished that level of spending through straight taxes.

Another very cool thing about inflation is that by taking money from the productive people in the country, it helps achieve one of my long-term goals, which is equality for everyone. I hate the idea of anyone having any more than anyone else. I would rather everyone be equally poor than to have anyone be richer than anyone else. After all, if someone is rich while someone else is poor, the rich person should have wanted to help the poor person. Since he didn’t help, it’s our responsibility to right that wrong.

Of course, while I say “rich,” the middle class is really the main target of these attacks. After all, the middle class is where the bulk of the real wealth and earning power is in this country. I say “rich” because they are such an easy target; I love the idea of class warfare, hence the title of my bill. Even though I’m rich, as are my family and friends and all of you, as usual we exclude ourselves from bills like the one I’m putting forward today, while continuing to use and spend the public’s money for personal gain in both property and power. Remember, even after all wealth besides our own has been destroyed, the poor will still need someone to guide and care for them; to make sure that they don’t hurt themselves. We must work to abolish all pain, especially the pain of envy – unless, of course, that pain is for their own good.

Oh, and for those of you who think that deficit spending can’t go on forever: well, you’re right, of course. But it will be a great ride. One of my buddies at Goldman has even helped me use the turmoil to play several of my campaign contributors off against one another. Wonderful times ahead!

Wednesday, 22 December 2010

Anti-drunk driving commercial

This video is a montage of anti-drunk driving commercials that have aired over the last 20 yrs in Australia. Very powerful stuff.

Must-watch for anyone who drives, esp. those with teenage kids who drive:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2mf8DtWWd8

Friday, 3 December 2010

The cause of the financial crisis: government policies

There's been a lot of talk lately that the financial crisis was caused by a "failure of Capitalism," and that the solution is more regulation.

I believe government policies were the primary cause of the crisis, and that more regulation will make things worse, not better. I found a very interesting hour-long talk by John Allison, formerly CEO of BB&T Bank (a large bank in the southeast), where he lays out an argument that supports this view, and thought it might be of interest to summarize it here. In case you're not familiar with Allison, he's one of the few good and honest bankers out there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSxA-vtjRx0

Here's a summary of his arguments:

[[MORE]]Federal Reserve

The government effectively nationalized the monetary system in 1913 with the creation of the Fed. Now that the government owns and controls the monetary system, so if there's a problem, they must be involved.

Before the Fed, most banks were leveraged about 1:1. After the Fed, commercial banks were leveraged 10:1, and investment banks were 30:1.

In the early stages of the crisis, residential real estate values fell by 20% in the US. That destroyed $500B+ in capital in the financial services industry. At 10:1 leverage, that destroyed $5 trillion in liquidity (lending capacity). Appx $200B of that capital was eventually replaced, though, so the net loss of liquidity was about $3T. There is a fear now of another $100B decline in RE values, which would be another $1T loss of liquidity.

Starting in the 1960s, the Vietnam war plus Johnson's Great Society plus a desire to not raise taxes resulted in the government using the Fed to print much more money. That eventually led to high inflation in the early 80s. Savings & Loans financed fixed rate mortgages with certificates of deposit (CDs). When interest rates were raised to fight inflation, the S&Ls costs went up hugely on the liability (CD) side, and they got killed; many S&Ls failed, eventually leading to the S&L crisis.

FDIC

When WaMu went under, the FDIC covered uninsured depositors, which caused WaMu debt holders to suffer huge losses. As a result, the capital markets for banks were effectively destroyed, since investors saw that they had no legal rights with regard to the Treasury, the Fed and the FDIC.

Pick-a-payment (negative amortization) mortgages were a product that was only made possible by the guarantees afforded by the FDIC. All of the major players have failed (Countrywide, WaMu, Golden West).

During the S&L crisis in the 80s, the FSLIC forced S&Ls to hedge their interest rate risk. However, that can't be done with home mortgages, since the banks can't force a prepayment. When interest rates eventually fell, the S&Ls lost billions more on their hedge positions. The FSLIC also strongly encouraged S&Ls to enter the commercial RE business. Since they had no experience in that business, even more S&Ls failed in the early 90s.

Housing Policy

When Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (F&F) first came on the scene in the post-early-90s market, they drove many financial intermediaries out of prime mortgage markets, due to the government guarantees on debt that F&F had, which their competitors did not.

The Community Housing Act (CRA), passed by Congress, required 50% of F&F's portfolios to be in "affordable housing" -- which caused huge market distortions.

F&F were leveraged 1000:1 before they went broke, at which time they owed $5 trillion. That leverage, combined with the Federal guarantees, made their cost of capital well below their competitors'. As time went on, they also drove competitors out of the subprime market too, and pushed some of them, like Golden West, into the pick-a-payment business.

F&F made the broker origination model possible. Brokers fed Countrywide, WaMu, etc, who then fed F&F to meet "affordable housing" goals, which helped keep their support in Congress.

F&F are huge political contributors. Combined with the political desire to push "affordable housing," it was impossible to take any meaningful action against them, in spite of the fact that it was obvious years in advance that they were going broke.

Investment bankers created financial innovations under the belief that the Fed would keep the risk in the financial markets low. Eventually, the originate and sell model replaced originate and hold. Perverse incentives were created for originators, which encouraged first sloppiness, then outright fraud. On top of that, the ratings agencies made huge ratings mistakes. The investment bankers make irresponsible decisions based on "greedy", dumb, pragmatic thinking: i.e. short-term: irrational / lacks integrity / evasion / arrogance.

SEC

The SEC sets the accounting rules used by banks and large financial institutions. Changes in accounting policies artificially created fluctations in accounting results.

One of their rule changes was "fair value accounting," also known as mark-to-market. This concept is not in keeping with a free market, because it assumes a willing buyer, but not a willing seller. The result was that banks had to mark down assets to the value that deep-discounters were willing to pay, rather than keeping them at what they would be worth when the banks were willing to sell.

This impaired the market, because potential bank buyers couldn't be sure that huge markdowns wouldn't be required after they bought something; it generated accounting risk.

If fair value accounting was applied to all businesses in the US at year end 2009 as applied to financial intermediaries, 90% of them would be insolvent, given the lack of liquidity in the markets.

Another accounting system issue is the management of loan loss reserves. The normal policy is to build up reserves in good times. But the SEC forced the use of mathematical models which prevented that approach. The models looked back at past experience. As a result, banks had very low loan losses going into the crisis. Many initial losses happened as a result of raising loss reserves -- which would not have happened if not for the SEC.

The ratings agencies (S&P, Moody's and Fitch) are a government sanctioned monopoly, backed by the SEC. They did a terrible job rating mortgage instruments. The market responded by saying maybe they also failed at rating all sorts of other securities; there was a loss of confidence in the rating system, and liquidity suffered as a result.

As an example, in the Auction Rate Municipal Bond Market insurance companies MBIA and Ambac provided funds to municipal projects such as hospital expansions. They also held a lot of mortgage debt. When mortgage debt ratings were found faulty, Ambac and MBIA's ratings remained AAA -- a failure of the ratings agencies. When this was noticed by the market, the source of funds for the insurance agencies dried up. Without sound ratings, how would an overseas investor expect to know whether some municipal project was financially sound?

The rating agencies also failed when it came to CDOs and related credit instruments. Investment banks split them into separately saleable groups. They were making money selling A, B and C traunches. Then the Fed inverted the yield curve. Borrowing short at a high yield in order to buy long at a lower yield meant there would be a loss.

The only assets the banks could hold that had a positive spread were the high-yielding Cs. The banks thought "the economy is projected to do well; just hold the Cs for now and sell them later." But the traunches were not rated correctly: A, B and C were really D-, F and F-. When the market started coming down, there were 100% losses on the Cs. Merrill Lynch, for example, got caught in this and took huge losses.

Misregulation, not deregulation

Regulatory cost was at an all-time high at the peak of the bubble in 2005 - 2007. Sarbanes Oxley (SOX) was supposed to eliminate fraud in the wake of WorldCom and Enron -- but the banking industry already had their own version of SOX imposed back in 1990 in response to the S&L crisis.

The banking industry spends about $5B/yr complying with the Patriot Act. No terrorists have been captured as a result, nor are any likely to be in the future.

There is an irrational belief in "models"; the risk in the tails of the assumed Gaussian curve aren't as small as the math would lead you to believe. Also, a 1% chance of something happening doesn't mean it will never happen.

Models don't capture human behavior, particularly under stress. The Fed's models did not predict a recession, much less one of the current magnitude. Wachovia and Citigroup both failed when using models to manage risk.

BASEL uses models to determine how much cash banks should hold. As a result, European banks had much less capital than US banks, so they went down even faster.

Regulatory compliance is a huge misdirection of management energy -- away from running their businesses effectively and safely to making bureaucrats happy who know little or nothing about the industry.

Banks regulators have actually tightened lending standards. The myth is that regulators are trying to encourage banks to make more loans. That might be true for the people at the top, but not the regulators. If you're a regulator, the worst thing that can happen is for one of your banks to get into trouble. So, there's a perverse incentive: be extremely conservative, including tightening credit standards.

Tuesday, 30 November 2010

Nine examples of Black Friday violence

Re-posted from The Economic Collapse Blog:

9 Shocking Examples Of Black Friday Violence -- Is This A Foretaste Of The Economic Riots We Can Expect When The Financial System Collapses?

It seems with each passing year the madness on Black Friday gets even worse. This year, there were reports of fights and rioting from coast to coast. It was estimated that over 180 million U.S. shoppers headed for the stores on Friday, and whenever you get that many people together there are going to be problems. But just how crazed ordinary Americans are getting over saving a little bit of money is deeply disturbing when you really start thinking about it. If people will go this wild just to save 40 percent on a television set, then what in the world are they going to do when they have been without food for a couple of days? If Americans will act like psychotic animals just to save 50 bucks, then what in the world will they do when they have lost everything and are desperate to survive?

[[MORE]]All of us had better hope and pray that an economic collapse does not happen any time soon, because it is becoming increasingly apparent that the American people are not morally equipped to be able to handle one. Greed and selfishness have become so rampant in America that large segments of the population have totally forgotten how to be any other way.

If the United States ever experiences a really, really bad economic downturn, this nation could very quickly start looking like New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina from coast to coast. Most Americans would simply not know how to handle it.

The following are 9 shocking examples of Black Friday violence that should make all of us wonder what is happening to America....

#1 At a Target store in Buffalo, New York the crowds waiting impatiently outside suddenly became a chaotic mob once the doors opened at 4 AM on Friday morning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOVD-m8urJU

One man that was lying on the ground remembers thinking "I don't want to die here" while he was being trampled by crazed shoppers....

#2 Crowds were becoming so violent at a Wal-Mart in Sacramento, California that the police actually evacuated the store early Friday morning.

#3 Three women from West Palm Beach, Florida said that $1,000 in presents that they had just purchased at Best Buy were stolen from their vehicle on Friday morning within minutes of being purchased.

#4 One U.S. Marine reservist that was collecting toys for children was stabbed with a knife when he attempted to stop a shoplifter in eastern Georgia on Friday.

#5 Blogger Lynne Elder-Blau has posted about overhearing police officers describe a huge brawl that erupted this year at one well-known store on Black Friday....

Well, the girls and I were in a popular convenience store in Garden City last night while a store employee and a Garden City Police Department Officer were visiting. They were conversing about a large group of customers who got into a knock-down brawl at a nationally-known variety store in Garden City yesterday morning. Several police officers were brought in to break up the ball of adults who were pulling and tugging at products and actually punching other customers in their faces and stomach areas! We're not just talking about a few people who were involved in this violent non-sense. The officer said that there was a large amount of people involved in this particular altercation. Ridiculous!!!

#6 A 21-year-old woman from Middleton, Wisconsin was arrested when she threatened to shoot other shoppers while waiting to get into a Toys R Us store for Black Friday. The other shoppers had objected when she attempted to move to the front of the line.

#7 The following is video of customers literally tearing apart a store display at a Wal-Mart in Douglasville, Georgia as they pushed and shoved each other in an attempt to grab the best deals....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vESlkalBbIk

#8 The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department actually "locked down" a section of a Cerritos, California shopping mall after a wild fight broke out in the food court. There were even reports that some people were flinging chairs at other customers.

#9 At one Wal-Mart in Texas, a near-riot broke out right in the middle of the store as a huge crowd of customers pushed and shoved each other to get a handful of Black Friday deals that were being wheeled out to the floor....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCoR2hcseIw

Remember, the products that these Americans are fighting over are not free. This is how crazy people are willing to go just to get a deep discount on an item.

So what is going to happen someday when people are desperate for food or shelter?

If this is how people act when the sun is shining, how are they going to behave once a really bad storm arrives?

(continues)

Americans, I have some bad news for you

Reposted from Life After the Oil Crash:

Americans, I have some bad news for you:

You have the worst quality of life in the developed world -- by a wide margin.

If you had any idea of how people really lived in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and many parts of Asia, you'd be rioting in the streets calling for a better life. In fact, the average Australian or Singaporean taxi driver has a much better standard of living than the typical American white-collar worker.

I know this because I am an American, and I escaped from the prison you call home.

I have lived all around the world, in wealthy countries and poor ones, and there is only one country I would never consider living in again: The United States of America. The mere thought of it fills me with dread.

[[MORE]]Consider this: you are the only people in the developed world without a single-payer health system. Everyone in Western Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand has a single-payer system. If they get sick, they can devote all their energies to getting well. If you get sick, you have to battle two things at once: your illness and the fear of financial ruin. Millions of Americans go bankrupt every year due to medical bills, and tens of thousands die each year because they have no insurance or insufficient insurance. And don't believe for a second that rot about America having the world's best medical care or the shortest waiting lists: I've been to hospitals in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Singapore, and Thailand, and every one was better than the "good" hospital I used to go to back home. The waits were shorter, the facilities more comfortable, and the doctors just as good.

This is ironic, because you need a good health system more than anyone else in the world. Why? Because your lifestyle is almost designed to make you sick.

Let's start with your diet: Much of the beef you eat has been exposed to fecal matter in processing. Your chicken is contaminated with salmonella. Your stock animals and poultry are pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics. In most other countries, the government would act to protect consumers from this sort of thing; in the United States, the government is bought off by industry to prevent any effective regulations or inspections. In a few years, the majority of all the produce for sale in the United States will be from genetically modified crops, thanks to the cozy relationship between Monsanto Corporation and the United States government. Worse still, due to the vast quantities of high-fructose corn syrup Americans consume, fully one-third of children born in the United States today will be diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes at some point in their lives.

Of course, it's not just the food that's killing you, it's the drugs. If you show any sign of life when you're young, they'll put you on Ritalin. Then, when you get old enough to take a good look around, you'll get depressed, so they'll give you Prozac. If you're a man, this will render you chemically impotent, so you'll need Viagra to get it up. Meanwhile, your steady diet of trans-fat-laden food is guaranteed to give you high cholesterol, so you'll get a prescription for Lipitor. Finally, at the end of the day, you'll lay awake at night worrying about losing your health plan, so you'll need Lunesta to go to sleep.

With a diet guaranteed to make you sick and a health system designed to make sure you stay that way, what you really need is a long vacation somewhere. Unfortunately, you probably can't take one. I'll let you in on little secret: if you go to the beaches of Thailand, the mountains of Nepal, or the coral reefs of Australia, you'll probably be the only American in sight. And you'll be surrounded crowds of happy Germans, French, Italians, Israelis, Scandinavians and wealthy Asians. Why? Because they're paid well enough to afford to visit these places AND they can take vacations long enough to do so. Even if you could scrape together enough money to go to one of these incredible places, by the time you recovered from your jetlag, it would time to get on a plane and rush back to your job.

If you think I'm making this up, check the stats on average annual vacation days by country:

Finland: 44
Italy: 42
France: 39
Germany: 35
UK: 25
Japan: 18
USA: 12

The fact is, they work you like dogs in the United States. This should come as no surprise: the United States never got away from the plantation/sweat shop labor model and any real labor movement was brutally suppressed. Unless you happen to be a member of the ownership class, your options are pretty much limited to barely surviving on service-sector wages or playing musical chairs for a spot in a cubicle (a spot that will be outsourced to India next week anyway). The very best you can hope for is to get a professional degree and then milk the system for a slice of the middle-class pie. And even those who claw their way into the middle class are but one illness or job loss away from poverty. Your jobs aren't secure. Your company has no loyalty to you. They'll play you off against your coworkers for as long as it suits them, then they'll get rid of you.

Of course, you don't have any choice in the matter: the system is designed this way. In most countries in the developed world, higher education is either free or heavily subsidized; in the United States, a university degree can set you back over US$100,000. Thus, you enter the working world with a crushing debt. Forget about taking a year off to travel the world and find yourself -- you've got to start working or watch your credit rating plummet.

If you're "lucky," you might even land a job good enough to qualify you for a home loan. And then you'll spend half your working life just paying the interest on the loan -- welcome to the world of American debt slavery. America has the illusion of great wealth because there's a lot of "stuff" around, but who really owns it? In real terms, the average American is poorer than the poorest ghetto dweller in Manila, because at least they have no debts. If they want to pack up and leave, they can; if you want to leave, you can't, because you've got debts to pay.

All this begs the question: Why would anyone put up with this? Ask any American and you'll get the same answer: because America is the freest country on earth. If you believe this, I've got some more bad news for you: America is actually among the least free countries on earth. Your piss is tested, your emails and phone calls are monitored, your medical records are gathered, and you are never more than one stray comment away from writhing on the ground with two Taser prongs in your ass.

And that's just physical freedom. Mentally, you are truly imprisoned. You don't even know the degree to which you are tormented by fears of medical bankruptcy, job loss, homelessness and violent crime because you've never lived in a country where there is no need to worry about such things.

But it goes much deeper than mere surveillance and anxiety. The fact is, you are not free because your country has been taken over and occupied by another government. Fully 70% of your tax dollars go to the Pentagon, and the Pentagon is the real government of the United States. You are required under pain of death to pay taxes to this occupying government. If you're from the less fortunate classes, you are also required to serve and die in their endless wars, or send your sons and daughters to do so. You have no choice in the matter: there is a socioeconomic draft system in the United States that provides a steady stream of cannon fodder for the military.

If you call a life of surveillance, anxiety and ceaseless toil in the service of a government you didn't elect "freedom," then you and I have a very different idea of what that word means.

If there was some chance that the country could be changed, there might be reason for hope. But can you honestly look around and conclude that anything is going to change? Where would the change come from? The people? Take a good look at your compatriots: the working class in the United States has been brutally propagandized by jackals like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. Members of the working class have been taught to lick the boots of their masters and then bend over for another kick in the ass. They've got these people so well trained that they'll take up arms against the other half of the working class as soon as their masters give the word.

If the people cannot make a change, how about the media? Not a chance. From Fox News to the New York Times, the mass media in the United States is nothing but the public relations wing of the corporatocracy, primarily the military industrial complex. At least the citizens of the former Soviet Union knew that their news was bull****. In America, you grow up thinking you've got a free media, which makes the propaganda doubly effective. If you don't think American media is mere corporate propaganda, ask yourself the following question: have you ever heard a major American news outlet suggest that the country could fund a single-payer health system by cutting military spending?

(continues)

Tuesday, 23 November 2010

U.S. banks will close 5,000 branches, Whitney says

Not to mention cutting 80,000 jobs....

From: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-22/u-s-banks-will-close-5-000-branches-in-18-months-whitney-says.html

US banks will close 5,000 branches, Whitney says

U.S. banks will close 5,000 branches in the next 18 months as they face profit declines from decreased loan demand and lower fee revenue, said Meredith Whitney, the former Oppenheimer & Co. analyst who now runs her own firm.

Banks face an “uphill battle” in generating loan growth as consumers reduce debt and will receive less revenue from fees because of new regulations and the lack of a securitization market, Whitney, 41, said in a report dated Nov. 18 and obtained today by Bloomberg News.

[[MORE]]Whitney has said earnings pressures and new regulation will lead to some lower-income customers losing access to banking services. The number of households without access to the “traditional banking system” will rise to 41 million by 2015 from 30 million in 2009, she said in the Nov. 18 note.

“The most regrettable unintended consequence of some of the quickly written regulatory reform, we believe, will be the inevitable ‘debanking’ of the U.S. financial system,” said Whitney, who started New York-based Meredith Whitney Group after correctly predicting Citigroup Inc.’s dividend cut in 2007. “Fewer ‘bankable’ customers will contribute to the trend in fewer bank branches.”

Whitney also sees slower growth in investment banking. U.S. securities firms may cut as many as 80,000 jobs in the next 18 months as revenue growth slows, she said in September.

(continues)

Friday, 12 November 2010

Anti-nuclear protests in Germany

Reposted from Axis of Logic:

German people in unprecedented rebellion against government: 1000 injured in protests in nuclear protests: police at breaking point

Like the Roman legions vanquished in the Teutoburger Wald in Lower Saxony in 9 AD, the 17,000 police officers that marched into the woods around the nuclear storage facility in Gorleben in northern Germany on Sunday morning looked invincible. Police personnel from France, Croatia and Poland had joined in the biggest security operation ever mounted against protestors against the a train carrying nuclear waste to an depot in an isolated part of Lower Saxony's countryside. Helicopters, water canons and police vehicles, including an armoured surveillance truck, accompanied an endless column of anti-riot police mounted on horses and also marching down the railway tracks into the dense woods. Tens of thousands of anti riot police clattered along the tracks, their helmets and visors gleaming in the morning sun, and wearing body armour, leg guards and carrying batons.

[[MORE]]But by Sunday night, those same police officers were begging the protestors for a respite.

Trapped in black, icy woods without supplies or reinforcements able to reach them because of blockades by a mobile fleet of farmer̢۪s tractors, the exhausted and hungry police officers requested negotiations with the protestors. A water cannon truck was blocked by tractors, and yet the police still had to clear 5000 people lying on the railway track at Harlingen in pitch darkness. The largest ever police operation had descended into chaos and confusion in the autumn woods of Lower Saxony, defeated by the courage and determination of peaceful protestors who marched for miles through woods to find places to lie down on the tracks and to scoop out gravel to delay the progress of the "the train from hell."

The police union head Reiner Wendt gave vent to the general frustration when he issued a press statement via the dpa news agency last night saying the police had reached exhaustion point and needed a break. Behind the scenes, a battle seemed to be raging between the police chiefs tucked up in their warm headquarters and urging more action and the exhausted officers on the ground.

The police on the ground won out. The Castor train -- called a "Chernobyl on wheels" because it has been carrying 133 tonnes of highly radioactive waste to an unsafe depot -- was stopped in the middle of the countryside and Nato barbed wire was placed around it. Lit by floodlights and guarded by a handful of police, the most dangerous train on the planet was forced to a halt after a 63 hour journey across France and Germany.

The defeat of the legions at Teutoburg marked the end of the attempt by the Roman empire to conquer Germania magna. And the failure of the biggest ever police operation two thousand years later in the woods of Lower Saxony to tame women, elderly people and school children protesting the government's nuclear policy, could well also go down as a turning point.

The Berlin government can no longer rely on the discredited mainstream media to control the way people see issues. Too many people recognise it to be a tool of propaganda. The government now needs to resort brute force to bludgon through decisions that enrich corporations and banks and impoverish everyone else. But the police forces at its disposal are simply not sufficient given the scale of the protests now gripping Germany. Only 1,500 police reinforcements could be mustered on Morning from the entire territory to deal with road blockades by thousands of protestors aiming to delay the transport of the nuclear waste on the final leg of its journey.



(continues)

Friday, 5 November 2010

Hail storm in Phoenix

Very impressive hail storm in Phoenix....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx4TUg3TD-s

 

Tuesday, 26 October 2010

Saturday, 4 September 2010

Social commentary via TV

I was born and raised in the US, and lived in California for most of my life. In late 2006, I moved with my wife and two kids to New Zealand. Even though I've traveled quite a bit, I didn't completely know what to expect living in another country. One thing that surprised me was how I slowly began to see the US in quite a different way when I could see it from the outside.

I've had a difficult time explaining this to my friends and family, but I've recently had an experience that I thought I would share, to see if it might help get some small part of it across.

[[MORE]]I think we can use TV shows to gain insight into the societies that create them. They tend to reflect our morals, priorities, interests, etc. Even if we don't agree with the themes and content of a specific show, the standards that are used in script writing are relatively consistent from one show to another, and many themes are repeated time after time: pro-police, pro-government, pro-military, etc, etc. I'm not talking so much about cable or pay-TV shows, since they have enough freedom to do things differently from time to time. I'm talking about advertiser-sponsored broadcast TV; there's a lot of content that sponsors won't allow, on top of limits (censoring) by the FCC, and of course the priorities of the TV networks and the people who run them.

A few weeks ago, I discovered something that I thought was interesting. There is a very popular TV show in New Zealand, called "Outrageous Fortune." It's shown on broadcast TV here, complete with advertising (both traditional and product placement). It's in its sixth season, and I've heard that roughly 1 in 4 people in the country watch it. With that level of success, someone decided that it would be worth showing it in the much larger US market (4M people here vs. 300M there). However, the show as-is has a lot of NZ cultural references (things like Maori terms and local slang) and other "quirks," so they decided to do a remake, which is called "Scoundrels," now in its first season. The scripts are almost, but not quite, identical -- and it is precisely those differences that make for a very interesting social commentary.

Here's a short video that previews the third season of Outrageous Fortune, to give you an idea of what it's like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94OawKbP6bc

What I'd like to suggest is the following: first, watch at least the first two, but hopefully the first 3 or 4 episodes of Scoundrels. Then, watch the same number of eps of Outrageous Fortune, from its first season (available on DVD or torrent). Try not to get distracted by the acting. Instead, listen to the script and look for the words and scenes that were changed, and at the theme and feeling of the story. Then ask yourself why the people who run broadcast TV in the US don't want you to see and hear the things they censored.

One small example is swearing. The usual argument I remember in the US in favor of censorship is that parents supposedly don't want their kids to copy those words; yet shows about violence are perfectly OK. So we're supposed to believe that the kids will uncontrollably copy swearing, but won't copy the violence? That somehow TV will circumvent or replace morality? And yet most normal kids are exposed to swearing regularly in everyday life.

Another example is how sex is portrayed. The NZ version is reasonably explicit at times, including showing topless women and the type of (simulated) sex scenes you might see on HBO or Showtime in the US. Those scenes have been "sanitized" in the US version.

The result is that US TV lives in this "vanilla-ized," conflicted world that tries to portray (semi)-realistic environments, but with a bunch of the stuff that actually happens in reality filtered out; that, in turn, substantially reduces the level of entertainment they provide. A major foundation of entertainment is being able to relate on some level to a show and its characters. The more detached a show is from reality, the less entertaining it becomes.

I'm not sure this will make any sense -- at least not at first. But if you have a chance to watch both shows, I would love to hear your reaction.

Tuesday, 27 July 2010

Sardines

I used to have sardines every once in a while when I was a kid. I didn’t have them again until recently. I bought a can at the local grocery, and was shocked at how tiny they were compared to the ones I remembered. They were only about 2 inches long, and about a quarter inch wide--compared to 8 inches long and 2 or 3 inches wide back then.

My family was in the fishing business for several generations, including starting the first sportfishing business in San Diego in the early 1900s. Over a period of years, the size, number and extent of large game fish, such as marlin, albacore tuna, etc, dropped off dramatically. My grandfather swore that the cause was the canning industry’s overfishing of sardines, which were a primary food source for the game fish. He fought them for many years. Unfortunately, even though the canning industry eventually collapsed in the 1950s (their behavior caused their demise), the stocks of both sardines and game fish have never returned to what they once were.

Saturday, 24 July 2010

Troubleshooting low-carb

Are you eating Paleo, and yet often still hungry at the end of a meal? If so, it may be due to low blood sugar. One of the body’s responses to low blood sugar is to make you feel hungry. Why might your blood sugar so low? One possibility is that you are eating too much protein. The protein will cause insulin to be released, which will then lower your blood sugar (the opposite of what you need at that point). Another is that you had carbs at an earlier time in the day, and that after the initial spike in blood sugar, your body has over-corrected into a blood sugar low. This is “hypoglycemia,” and is very common.

The solution is to cut back on protein and carbs. What happens when you cut back both protein and carbs is that fat, as a percentage of total calories, needs to go up; fat also tends to be very satiating.

This type of diet change does take time. However, once your body enters fat-burning mode (which is indicated by being in ketosis), one benefit is that most people tend to get hungry much less often; for example, I can generally go at least 15 hours between meals without feeling hungry. That also means less cooking. Being in ketosis also means that your insulin levels are at their lowest, which will minimize blood sugar swings, which is part of why it helps resolve hunger issues. You do have to be careful about increasing fat without also decreasing carbs. If you don’t cut back on carbs, the resulting high insulin levels are a pretty sure-fire way to gain weight; yet most people will actually lose weight on a high-fat, low-carb, low-protein diet. In addition to controlling blood sugar, insulin also acts as a “storage hormone,” which causes excess calories to be stored as fat.

[[MORE]]I know many people have trouble giving up sweets. I was in that camp myself, in fact. I tried fake sweets years ago, but found they actually made things worse, by constantly reminding me of what I couldn’t have. My ultimate solution (not for everyone!) was to replace sweets with bitters: things like cocoa, coffee and dark green veggies. After a few months of that, not only do I not find those things bitter any more, on the few occasions when I’ve tasted something sweet, they now generally taste sickly-sweet to me.

If you have fat tolerance issues, you might try taking a lipase-containing supplement with your meals. Lipase is an enzyme that helps to break down fats. You might also try several different types of fat, to see if you tolerate some better than others (butter vs. cream, for example, or cooked vs. not); even the texture can make a difference. A few ideas to help increase your overall fat intake:

  • Add cream when cooking your meat. It helps dissolve the grease, and adds tremendously to the flavor.

  • Mix your avocados with a little olive oil – can be great in salads.

  • Try a half-cream / half-milk beverage as desert; possibly with a little coffee or cocoa (also an option for a quick meal).

  • When cooking eggs, try tossing out an occasional egg white to decrease protein and increase fat. You can also add a few tbsps of cream to your eggs; plenty of cheese is nice, too.

  • If you like bacon, and like the taste but not the greasy feel of the grease, cook the bacon first, then toss about half the resulting grease, and cook eggs in the same pan. Adds lots of flavor to the eggs, and doesn’t taste greasy at all.

  • Use plenty of butter and/or some occasional cream when cooking your veggies.

  • Retain and eat the skin on chicken, rather than tossing it out (plenty of fat; very tasty).

  • Buy less expensive cuts of meat; the ones with a higher fat content (more marbling, etc).

  • Add grated cheese liberally to veggies and meat.

  • Drink your coffee or tea with plenty of cream.

  • For a quick, no-think meal, try full-fat unsweetened / no-fruit yoghurt with a few drops of vanilla; the one I get is only about 5% carbs.


You could also try blenderizing your cream a little before using it, to see if it improves digestability for you by breaking up some of the fat globules (avoid too much blenderizing, though, or you’ll end up making butter).

Also, in addition to a diary, you might consider tracking the composition of the foods you eat on a site like fitday.com—at least for a few days. That will help you see how much of your meals are carbs vs. protein vs. fat. That can also help you find “hidden” sources of carbs in your diet (for me, it was too many nuts).

Tuesday, 13 July 2010

A rebuttal of the China Study

The "China Study" claims to prove the superiority of vegetarianism. Only it doesn't. Here's a link to an interesting rebuttal:

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/obesity/another-china-study/

Sunday, 11 July 2010

Correcting mineral deficiencies

Whether correcting deficiencies with whole foods alone is possible depends on many factors: how bad the deficiencies are, which minerals are deficient, your health status, environmental conditions, etc. For example, if you live in an area with selenium-poor soils, and that's your only deficiency, then eating whole foods that contain selenium should be enough. But if you're unhealthy and have a number of deficiencies that have advanced to the point where your ability to absorb nutrients from your food is impaired, then food alone may not be enough.

There are things you can do to improve how well nutrients are absorbed from your food. As I've mentioned before, chewing really well is an important one. Eating a good variety of food is another (avoid a mono-diet). Juicing (veggie juices) can also help.

I tried a whole food approach for quite a while, without supplementation, and it wasn't enough for me--but I was very unwell at the time. I had to add supplements before I started to make any progress. In fact, after everything corrected, I stopped taking supplements and went back to whole foods only, and found that several minerals in my blood dropped back down well below normal. So for me, I need to continue certain supplements even today.

One issue with using whole foods alone is that there can be considerable
variation in the mineral content of your food. Also, certain types of food are good sources for certain minerals; if you eliminate those foods from your diet, it can be a challenge to get enough of the associated minerals. For example, molybdenum is present in beans; if you don't eat beans, it can be difficult to get enough.

Of course, if you're healthy and live in good environment, I don't think
this is an issue. Paleo people certainly didn't need supplements to survive and thrive.

Saturday, 10 July 2010

Mineral absorbtion and transdermal magnesium

I don't have first-hand experience with transdermal magnesium (Mg). However, many substances are absorbed by the skin and make their way into the blood--including things like formaldehyde from clothes sizing, fire retardant from kids nightclothes (required by law!), perfumes, etc--so it seems reasonable that Mg could be absorbed that way, particularly if it was in an oil-based carrier (although the carrier would be absorbed too). However, the skin is also a natural barrier, so it doesn't absorb most substances very easily or in large quantities (though there are exceptions, such as DMSO).

The gut, on the other hand, has a much larger surface area than the skin, and readily absorbs nutrients that come into contact with it. I am therefore skeptical that Mg applied to the skin would be absorbed any better than Mg when you ingest it. As a technology, transdermal is great for compounds that you want to be absorbed slowly over a period time or in very small doses. But the body needs a fair amount of Mg every day, and of course even more when you're deficient.

[[MORE]]In addition, the gut provides a safety factor that's not present with transdermal (or IV) administration: if you get too much, the body will get rid of it, one way or the other. This isn't as big a deal with Mg as it is with other minerals. Too much copper, for example, when given by IV, can be fatal; but the gut acts as a safety valve and tends to help prevent copper poisoning by causing you to vomit if you accidentally ingest too much. The gut wall can also alter the extent to which certain minerals are absorbed or not absorbed, depending on your current health needs.

I'm not aware of any studies about how long it takes to correct deficiencies, although I imagine they must exist; this is a well-known phenomena in the field of Environmental Medicine. From a theory perspective, keep in mind that many mineral absorption / transport
mechanisms are active -- that is, rather than relying on a concentration gradient to cause them to be absorbed, they have to be actively carried into the body by a transport system of some kind (ion pumps, ion channels, etc).

Another issue is that many minerals serve their ultimate functions in the body by being at the center of an enzyme: zinc, molybdenum, Mg and selenium, for example. Enzymes are complex proteins that actually have to be grown--so it's not a matter of just having some mineral ions floating around in a big soup. Those ions have to be captured and an enzyme has to be grown around them. If you don't have enough of certain minerals, then the associated enzymes are not created in the same amounts as they would be otherwise.

When you're deficient in certain enzymes, it can put a load on others, causing the body to divert more resources in certain directions, and away from the production of other enzymes. Also, certain health conditions or environmental factors--such as leaky gut, candidiasis, food allergies, celiac disease, chronic fatigue (low ATP) and exposure to toxins--can interfere with the absorption of minerals and other nutrients.

The combination of the issues above can conspire to make it difficult for some combinations of mineral deficiencies to correct, and one deficiency can slow down the correction of another. In my case, I found my deficiencies tended to correct one at a time over a period of many months, rather than all at once, even though I always supplemented with everything I was low in.

Glutathione deficiency

I suspect that glutathione (GSH) deficiency is relatively common in modern society. Although the body will create GSH, it needs the sulphur-containing amino acid cysteine in order to do so. Unfortunately, sulphur intake, including cysteine, tends to be fairly low with modern diets. Since GSH is involved with many detoxification reactions, it also gets consumed much more quickly now than in the past, given our regular exposure to things like pesticides.

In addition, in order for GSH to be used properly by the body, the mineral selenium (Se) is required. Se is present in GSH peroxidase, one function of which is to eliminate peroxides such as hydrogen peroxide. Se is also often low in the diet, particularly in certain regions with soils that are naturally low in Se, such as Finland and New Zealand. Low levels of Se in the blood are a well-documented risk factor for cancer.

Just because the chemical pathways exist in the body doesn’t mean that nutrients or their co-factors are being made in the quantity needed. Also, supplementation of the substance itself (such as GSH, which is largely destroyed in the stomach) is often not the best way to address the problem; specific precursors such as cysteine or Se may be much more effective. Getting these precursors through diet is the ideal for the long-term, diet alone may not be enough to correct or even prevent deficiencies (depending on where you live and the source and quality of your food).

Friday, 9 July 2010

More about what "Paleo" means to me

For me, Paleo is not about Paleolithic food or lifestyle reenactment. I enjoy my modern lifestyle very much. There are certain Neolithic foods that I think are proper and healthy--dairy, for example. I also think it’s a good idea to apply scientific reasoning on top of what we know about the way our ancestors ate. In other words, there may be big difference between a diet based on Paleolithic food reenactment and one that is oriented toward optimal health.

One thing that Taubes (Good Calories, Bad Calories) and others have clearly shown is the idea that minimizing insulin levels and insulin resistance is extremely important for long-term health. “High fat Paleo” is one way to accomplish that (it’s not just carbs that cause insulin production; protein does, too).

[[MORE]]In terms of evolutionary reasoning, there were many sources of fat in the Paleolithic world. In addition to the larger animals that Monica mentioned, Paleolithic people also ate the entire animal, including the marrow, skin and the brain, which are fatty. I have no doubt that bird eggs have been consumed by man for ages, and egg yolks are fatty. In fact, many birds are themselves reasonably fatty. Some indigenous peoples consider grubs to be a delicacy, and they are fatty. As a dense calorie source and something that’s normally very tasty and satiating, it wouldn’t surprise me if Paleo people were attracted to fat over protein.

I also don’t think that the exact diet of Paleolithic people is well-known enough or was consistent enough for it to be the sole foundation of what we eat today. Personally, I would rather have my diet be a Paleo-inspired, but science-driven approach.

Thursday, 8 July 2010

Magnesium testing and supplementation

Several studies have shown that most people these days are magnesium (Mg) deficient. However, diagnosing and treating those deficiencies is tricky.

The red blood cell (RBC )Mg test is probably the best "easy" test. Unfortunately, a normal result isn't enough to rule out a deficiency.

The Gold Standard in magnesium testing is the Magnesium Loading Test. The process involves having an IV containing a known amount of Mg, and
measuring 24-hr urine Mg before and after the IV. Using those numbers, you can calculate how much Mg the body held onto, and based on that amount, you can tell if you're deficient or not. Since an IV is costly and time consuming, most docs fall-back to the RBC Mg test if you're lucky, or the plasma test if not. The plasma test is one of the least reliable, most misleading tests around (plasma contains only about 0.3% of total body Mg).

[[MORE]]The reason the blood tests aren't very accurate is because blood is only store of Mg in the body -- it's also present in bones, muscle and other tissues.

After working through massive frustration with doctors on this issue over many years, my solution was self-experimentation. Here are a few things I've learned:

-- Mg oxide and Mg carbonate are pretty much useless when it comes to
correcting deficiencies
-- Time-release Mg chloride tablets work pretty well ("Slow Mag"), but take a long time
-- Liquid Mg chloride works faster than the tablets, but can cause GI upset and headaches because it gets into the body quickly (take with food and in divided doses)
-- The Mg chelates also work well, particularly Mg glycinate and Mg aspartate; orotate and taurate are also good
-- Mg citrate, although not as well absorbed as the chelates, also works well because it can be taken in a higher dose (1 tsp to 1 tbsp at a time), such as with "Natural Calm" (my current favorite form of supplementation)
-- Dark green veggies are a great source of Mg in food (chlorophyll uses Mg in a way that's analogous to how hemoglobin uses iron); chocolate is also a good source
-- Some medications and health conditions can cause the kidneys to leak Mg (where you excrete more than normal); hyperglycemia (high blood sugar) is one way that can happen
-- Something like 80% of the population is Mg deficient
-- Mg is used by over 300 enzymes in the body, and is required in order for muscles to relax
-- High calcium intake can interfere with Mg absorption
-- Common symptoms of Mg deficiency: high blood pressure, asthma, tension headaches, muscle cramps, constipation, anxiety, and depression

Monday, 10 May 2010

Risk factors for cardiac mortality

Great post at Hyperlipid.

The whole article is interesting, but the graph below is the kicker:

Relative risk of CHD episodes vs total and LDL cholesterol and HbA1c

Notice that as HbA1c increases, particularly over about 6.2%, the risk of a cardiac episode increases dramatically.

Also notice that there is no indication that high cholesterol with a low HbA1c increases the risk of cardiac mortality.

In other words, an important goal for any heart disease prevention diet should be to minimize HbA1c. How do you do that? Minimize blood glucose -- and the most effective solution there is to reduce simple carbs and increase fat.

Thursday, 15 April 2010

Which salt to use?

The sea salt I use (Lotus Macrobiotic Sea Salt / fine grain) is 83% sodium chloride and 7% water. A full 10% is a mix of about 80 different minerals, including potassium, sulphur, zinc, magnesium, potassium, manganese, copper, calcium, silicon, iodine and more. It is slightly gray in color, and somewhat chunky (although it dissolves very easily in water).

In comparison, standard table salt is 99.9% sodium chloride. In addition to 0.01% potassium iodide, it sometimes has things like aluminum silicate added to help it stay powdery (some brands also have a small amount of sugar added to them). I think of table salt more as a drug than a food.

[[MORE]]I've tried a number of different brands of sea salt. They vary depending on where and how the salt is harvested and cured/dried. I've noticed a surprising difference in taste from one brand to another. The Lotus brand I mentioned above comes from Spain. I've had another brand that originates in Baja California that's also good. I haven't enjoyed the "Celtic" brands nearly as much.

An tidbit from a (long-term!) evolutionary perspective: human blood has
almost exactly the same concentration of salt as sea water. In fact, I recall reading that in an emergency, sterile sea water has been successfully used instead of blood or saline in people who have suffered from blood loss due to surgery or trauma.

In addition, one of the main techniques that industrial food processors use to increase the shelf life of food is to replace potassium with sodium (salt). Unfortunately, other trace minerals are also removed at the same time.

Tuesday, 30 March 2010

Managing fruit cravings

I find myself many times confusing thirst for hunger. When I develop a food craving these days, the first thing I try to do is take a drink.

If the craving remains, a trick that I’ve used successfully with fruit is to reduce the quantity significantly, and then bury it in cream (unsweetened whipped cream works particularly well with berries). My wife jokes that I’m having a little fruit with my cream. The thing is, though, that it’s much easier to eat a huge bowl of fruit than it is to eat a huge bowl of cream; the cream works to activate satiety, where the fruit does the reverse. At least for me. The added fat also reduces the overall GI, which in turn helps minimize blood sugar swings.

Friday, 26 March 2010

Measuring your nutrient levels

I have found that detecting and then correcting nutrient deficiencies is a very important aspect of treating a number of otherwise "resistant" health conditions. Accurate measurement of your current status is the first step.

Measuring nutrient levels is complicated by the fact that enzymes and molecular pumps in cell walls selectively create concentration gradients between the plasma and the inside of the cell for some nutrients. In general, measuring the level inside red blood cells, as opposed to in the plasma, results in the measurements that most accurately reflect functional ability. However, there are exceptions—for example magnesium, for which there isn’t really a good blood test (a loading test is the best measurement).

[[MORE]]There’s also another class of tests related to “functional” levels of both vitamins and minerals. I know a couple of docs and researchers that swear by those tests, but my personal experience with them hasn’t been very good (and they’re expensive).

You can get some sense of deficiencies from looking at trace mineral levels in hair. The advantage is that the test is cheap and easy to do. Unfortunately, those results are easily contaminated (even from things like chromium on the blades of scissors used to cut the hair, as well as shampoo contents). Mineral levels in hair are generally most useful for detecting heavy metals.

Here are links to a few labs that do the right kind of tests:


http://www.doctorsdata.com/home.asp

http://www.metametrix.com/content/Home
http://www.genovadiagnostics.com/

Correcting deficiencies is a whole other art and science, because so many factors are involved: everything from stomach acid to minerals that compete, to gut dysbiosis, to the form of supplement that’s used, associated microcontaminants, competing foods or drugs (including alcohol), etc, etc.

Thursday, 25 March 2010

What about potatoes?

I generally don’t eat potatoes for two reasons:

  1. They are rich sources of carbs, and will cause an insulin spike when eaten in quantity. For optimal health, as well as weight control, that’s something I strive to avoid.

  2. They are nightshades, which mean they contain toxins that include nicotine and other alkaloids. I also try to minimize toxins in my diet. Although humans are adapted to handling many food toxins, proper and complete detox may be impaired in those with mild to moderate mineral deficiencies—a condition that is surely epidemic for those who ate SAD foods for any length of time.


[[MORE]]In my case I’m pre-diabetic and have arthritis, which are two more reasons that I avoid them (the toxins they contain are pro-inflammatory and can cause or aggravate arthritis in some people). I also know from detailed blood tests that I am still deficient in certain detox-oriented nutrients, in spite of years of supplementation.

Having said that, you might also think of them like fruit or honey: infrequent small amounts won’t be a disaster. The problem for some people is that potatoes can be quite addictive, and if you eat a lot, the insulin spikes can aggravate hunger problems and carb cravings.

I think yams and sweet potatoes are slightly better, because they aren’t nightshades.

BTW, did you know that some vodkas are made from potatoes?

Sunday, 21 March 2010

Managing carb cravings

Like many people who move from a grain-based diet to Paleo, I too had trouble with carb cravings at first.

My solution was two-fold.  First, I had tried a number of times in the past to ease my way into a low-carb diet, and ended up failing every time.  This time, I decided to go cold-turkey.  Although the first two or three weeks were very difficult, it got easier after that.  The other thing I did was to find something that I liked as well as carbs, that was an acceptable Paleo food, but that had also been considered relatively taboo previously.  In my case, that ended up being cream, in several different forms (plain, mixed with a little milk, mixed with baking cocoa, whipped, etc).  If I had a carb craving, I trained myself to have a cup of cream instead.  Rather than just drinking it, I eat it with a spoon to make it last.  At the end of the cup, I found that the carb craving was almost always gone.  If it wasn't, I would drink a large glass of water, and that usually did the trick.

[[MORE]]Two things I found to cause big problems in the craving area were the taste of something sweet (even toothpaste), and the smells of some carb-rich food cooking, such as bread or pizza (often coming from other family members who don't eat like I do).  The problem is that those tastes and smells can cause insulin to be released, which will lower blood sugar, and make you hungry.  My solution was to eliminate anything sweet tasting from my diet for the first three months or so, and to replace the carb-rich smells with fat-rich ones, such as bacon.  At the end of the three months, I found that sweets tasted much sweeter than before, and that I actually preferred slightly bitter foods (unsweetened baking cocoa is an example).

After being on Paleo for about 6 or 8 months (and losing 35+ pounds in the process), I fell off of the diet for about a week.  I didn’t go back to my old ways, but “just” had one carb-rich item a day (rationalizations are a dangerous thing).  However, by that time, my body had adjusted to low-carb, and as a result, I felt really terrible: fatigue, new aches and pains, and even bloating.  Plus, I gained about a pound a day.  After that brief experience which tied the theoretical to the concrete, it was easy to see how bad the carbs were for me, which also made them very easy to avoid.  I never want to feel like that again.

Everyone is different, YMMV, but that's what worked for me.

Cross-posted at Modern Paleo.

Thursday, 11 March 2010

Gluttony, sloth and metabolic syndrome

There was a fabulous post by Peter at Hyperlipid today. I enjoyed his figures so much, I had to pass them on.

http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/2010/03/getting-fat-is-good-official.html

The issue here is correctly identifying cause and effect; something which I’ve noticed is a common problem in many aspects of modern society.

[[MORE]]Here's the diagram from the original paper Peter mentions, which claims that gluttony and sloth cause hyperinsulinemia, which in turn causes a host of additional maladies:



Here's Peter's alternative diagrams, which more accurately represent cause and effect:



Do you consider yourself to be free?

I am not free, though I work toward that goal every day.

  • I can't travel as I wish without government permission.

  • I can't own certain objects without government permission.

  • I can't take certain actions (which don't harm or threaten others) or ingest certain substances without inviting prosecution or imprisonment.

  • I don't fully own much of "my" property: if taxes aren't paid, it can be confiscated; government limits my ability to make changes to my home and land; I can't even freely dispose of it as I might want (large gifts incur taxes)

  • I can't earn a living by doing whatever I want, even if those things don't harm others.

  • Some of my property is regularly confiscated by government without my consent, through inflation and taxes.


A million other aspects of our lives are controlled, restricted and monitored. Residents of Colorado aren't even allowed to catch rain water without risking prosecution, fines and imprisonment.

Saturday, 6 March 2010

Fatigue, mental illness and diet

Based on years of personal experience, I'm increasingly convinced that some forms of fatigue and mental illness, particularly things like depression, anxiety and insomnia, are caused in large part by not getting enough animal products in your diet -- especially Vit B-12 and saturated fat.  B-12 is directly involved with many aspects of brain and nervous system function, and saturated fats are precursors for a number of hormones that affect mood and energy.

[[MORE]]One thing to watch for on the fatigue side is that after a while, Paleo can cause what used to be "subclinical" hypothyroidism to come to the surface. If you're eating right, yet still tired all the time, even when you get plenty of sleep, I would highly recommend having your thyroid levels checked. You might also look at supplementing with a little iodine, particularly if you've stopped using iodized salt.

The best thyroid tests are Free-T3, Free-T4 and ultra-sensitive TSH. See:
http://johndommissemd.com/page/368509
for some info along those lines. You might also try measuring your basal body temperature before you get out of bed in the morning. If it's regularly a degree or more below 98.6, that's suggestive of hypothyroidism.

There are, of course, a number of other issues that can also be at play: everything from sleep apnea (snoring or a morning sore throat are common symptoms) to nutrient deficiencies. Magnesium is by far the most common nutritional deficiency, and correcting it often helps hugely, partly because it allows you to more fully relax, both mentally and physically. Eliminating gluten can help, too, by allowing leaky gut to heal, which then helps you absorb nutrients better while also reducing food allergies.

Treating a cold

I hate going to the doctor, particularly for an illness like a cold that normally falls short of needing prescription medication. One thing I do on my own is to take some vitamin D3 when I first feel cold symptoms coming on. It's a powerful immune system booster, even better than vit C. You can take up to 50,000 IU per day for a few days, or, better yet, get out in the sun, provided it's not winter or overcast.

Another important thing to do is to stay hydrated. With a runny nose and coughing up lots of phlegm, it's easy to get dehydrated. Water will help keep the mucus thin, which in turn helps prevent stagnation and infection.

For a sore throat, I've also found zinc lozenges to be effective about half the time.

[[MORE]]I think it's a good idea to limit physical activity when you're sick. When your body is working hard to fight off an infection, the last thing it needs is to have to divert resources to repairing systems that may have been slightly damaged (as muscles are when heavily loaded), or to dispose of any extra waste products that were generated during the associated metabolic processes. For the latter reason, I don't over-eat while I'm sick. Limiting activity doesn't necessarily mean bed rest, though. It seems like some movement to keep the lymph system active would also be a good idea (since lymph fluid doesn't have a pump of its own, and so is only moved around by physical activity).

I'm also very skeptical about treating fevers, unless they get high enough that they might damage the brain (105+). Fevers are one of the body's natural ways of killing the invaders; why would you want to suppress that?

Thursday, 4 March 2010

Definition of processed foods

When should you consider foods to be "processed"? One suggestion I've heard is that processed foods are those whose character has changed from the original. However, I think that's misleading.

Some foods can undergo a change of character, and yet still be perfectly healthy. The creation of butter by whipping cream for an extended time is one example. Even most cooking processes will change the character of the original foods in some way.

One type of food processing that’s not healthy is when it’s natural shelf life is over-extended through mechanical or chemical treatment. One way that’s done is by removing some of the key nutrients that potential pests like to eat. For example, potassium can be replaced with sodium (salt); unfortunately, many micronutrients are removed at the same time. The final result is that while the caloric content of the food may remain, much of the nutritional content does not.

Another type of food processing is when food is combined with non-foods. For example, chemicals galore, for purposes that range from changing the food’s texture or color to changing its taste or enhancing shelf-life.

How about this definition: I consider foods to be “processed” when they either have essential nutrients removed from them, or when they are combined with non-foods.

Sunday, 28 February 2010

Money Creation and Destruction

When you take out a loan, here's what happens:

1. Let's say that a bank's first and only deposit is $1000 cash. That cash becomes "reserves." 90% of that amount becomes "excess reserves." Banks can only create new loans when they have excess reserves available.

2. A potential borrower comes to the bank, and puts up some form of collateral, such the deed to their house or car. The maximum amount they can borrow is equal to the bank's excess reserves ($900 in this case).

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3. The borrower signs a note, which is a promise to back the loan within a certain time at a certain interest. The collateral is held by the bank in case the borrower defaults.

4. When the loan is funded, the proceeds are credited to the borrower's account. However, a very important point here: the loan is not funded from the bank's reserves. It is funded by creating new money, just for that purpose. As with all accounting transactions, there are two sides to this one. The other side in this case is the creation of an asset with the same value as the money created. That asset is the note.

5. The borrower makes payments on the loan. Interest goes to the bank as income, which they can then use to cover their expenses or to pay out to shareholders, as any company would. Principal goes to pay down the note. Banks don't just keep that money around and re-lend it at a later time. The money is destroyed when it's paid back, and then re-created later if/when needed for a new loan.

6. If the borrower defaults, then when the loss is recognized, the collateral is sold. If the collateral is worth less than the remaining value of the note, the difference is written off against bank earnings. In effect, the money representing bank earnings is destroyed. This happens because although banks can create money, they can't create their own earnings, and they are required to accept the consequences of making loans that don't get paid back (well, at least that's the theory, until gov gets involved via the FDIC, the Fed, TARP, etc).

Here's a video I made that gives a high-level view of the process:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNehYxy77RI

Saturday, 27 February 2010

What is "good"?

When I talk and write, I try to use words to mean very specific things. Unless I spell out potentially ambiguous meanings in advance, I find that the people I'm talking to get easily confused often.

"Good" is one such word. What does it mean for something to be "good"? For me, it means that something rationally supports my life in the long term.

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For example, eating healthy food is good. Acting honestly is good. Being just is good. More generally, acting with rational principles and virtues is good. However, acting on a whim, or simply pleasure seeking is not. For example, getting drunk or high might feel good, but it's not good in the sense I'm talking about here. In fact, feeling good isn't the same as being good.

What about helping someone? If you act voluntarily, out of charity and not a sense of guilt or duty, then that's virtuous, and is therefore good. However, if you act mainly because you feel it's the right thing to do, then you are actually hurting yourself, and it is therefore not good. Giving is good; sacrifice is not.

What about music or art? They can feed my soul, and add enjoyment to my life. That, in turn, rationally supports my life in the long term, so they can be good. The same is true for friends, family and relationships.

What about lying or cheating? You might feel good about doing such a thing. However, it is unprincipled; it does not support your life in the long term, and is therefore not good. This is a big topic, and I'm planning to post more about it later.

Tuesday, 16 February 2010

Organic or not?

Pesticide residues are found in the flesh of fruits and vegetables, not just on the exterior--some foods are more susceptible to retaining residues than others.

Although many pesticides are initially sprayed on the surface of the plants, they are eventually rinsed off by rain or irrigation; they then flow into the soil and are absorbed by the plant’s roots.  Some “systemic” pesticides are applied directly to the soil, and not to the surface of the plant at all.  There are also gas “fumigants,” which can be applied after harvesting to help speed up ripening and to control rot and hard-to-kill pests; they generally need to penetrate the plant material deeply to be effective.

[[MORE]]“Organic” is not the same thing as “pesticide free.”  Many organic foods still use pesticides, although the ones used are generally considered to be “less toxic” (whatever that really means), and the detectable residues are generally lower than in conventionally grown food.  In fact, even food labeled “pesticide free” often isn’t free of residues (unless it’s labeled as No Detectable Residue [NDR]), due to drift and residues from previous crops in the same fields.  That’s yet another reason to grow (or raise) some of your own food, or to buy from a local farmer you trust, if you can.

Here’s a link to a paper with some details:
http://www.consumersunion.org/food/organicsumm.htm

Monday, 15 February 2010

Is fructose really that bad?

Here are links to a couple of papers about fructose:

Fructose consumption as a risk factor for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18395287

Fructose overconsumption causes dyslipidemia and ectopic lipid deposition in healthy subjects with and without a family history of type 2 diabetes
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19403641

[[MORE]]Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease in Humans Is Associated with Increased Plasma Endotoxin and Plasminogen Activator Inhibitor 1 Concentrations and with Fructose Intake
http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/138/8/1452

Here’s a comment by Dr Kurt Harris about fructose:
http://www.paleonu.com/panu-weblog/2009/7/16/calorie-restriction-partial-restoration-not-enhancement.html
Large amounts of fructose (Fru) is one of the elements of our current (neolithic) diet that deviates substantially from the EM2 we evolved under. For a variety of reasons, Fru functions as a metabolic poison and is much worse than glucose.

Excess Fru raises your triglycerides, can cause inflammation in your liver, and causes insulin resistance independent of insulin levels. Big boluses of Fru are sometimes not digested completely. This can cause bacteria to grow in your upper bowel which is not good.

Look at Fru like cigarettes - if you smoke one cigarette a week it will probably not hurt you. The problem is not the one smoke, it is the reinforcement of the desire that leads you to smoke the whole pack.

If you can keep total carbs at 10% and some of that is sucrose, that may not be a problem. But, people like fruit because its sweet, and if you tell them fruit is healthy, they tend to eat a lot of it.

Fruit is not healthy, it is something that tastes good that you can tolerate in small amounts.

The vitamins in sweet fruits can't hold a candle to other foods. The "antioxidants" are probably more than balanced by Fru itself, which is actually an "oxidizing agent"!

As Kurt says, small amounts of fruit are OK.  As with all toxins or poisons, the issue is the dose; if it’s small enough, and if the body is given enough time to heal between doses, then it’s not a problem.  That’s also part of the logic behind only eating fruit in-season.

Another point about sweet tasting foods: even if they are sweet because of artificial sweeteners, they will still provoke an insulin response.  That’s even true for toothpaste.

Although liver disease as such isn't widespread, type 2 diabetes and obesity certainly are--and their underlying cause may be related to liver damage.  According to an MD I work with, elevated liver enzymes are very common with type 2 diabetics (also with Syndrome X), and that is generally a result of having a fatty liver.

What about honey, which is high in fructose?  Due to its carbohydrate content and sweetness, it also has a significant insulin-releasing effect.

Having said that, my great-great-uncle ate the stuff by the gallon and swore that it cured every illness under the sun—yet he lived well into his 90s (one of the oldest of my male relatives).

Of course, anecdotal information proves nothing, but even so I suspect that the jury is still out on the full range of health effects of honey.  I don’t eat much of it myself, but I do eat a little; I treat it like fruit, to be used occasionally, and only in relatively small quantities—as opposed to HFCS or cane sugar, which I avoid entirely.

Saturday, 13 February 2010

Political platforms

Take a look at the following key points for a political platform:

WE DEMAND THAT THE GOVERNMENT UNDERTAKE THE OBLIGATION ABOVE ALL OF PROVIDING CITIZENS WITH ADEQUATE OPPORTUNITIES FOR EMPLOYMENT AND EARNING A LIVING.

THE ACTIVITIES OF THE INDIVIDUAL MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO CLASH WITH THE INTERESTS OF THE COMMUNITY, BUT MUST TAKE PLACE WITHIN ITS CONFINES AND BE FOR THE GOOD OF ALL ...

WE DEMAND THE NATIONALIZATION OF ALL BUSINESSES WHICH HAVE BEEN AMALGAMATED (INTO TRUSTS).

[[MORE]]WE DEMAND THAT THE STATE SHALL SHARE IN THE PROFITS OF LARGE INDUSTRIES.

WE DEMAND THAT PROVISION FOR THE AGED SHALL BE MADE ON A VERY GREATLY INCREASED SCALE.

WE DEMAND A LAND-REFORM SUITABLE TO OUR NATIONAL REQUIREMENTS, THE PASSING OF A LAW FOR THE CONFISCATION OF LAND FOR COMMUNAL PURPOSES; THE ABOLITION OF INTEREST ON MORTGAGES, AND PROHIBITION OF ALL SPECULATION IN LAND.

WE DEMAND AN AGRARIAN REFORM SUITABLE TO OUR NATIONAL REQUIREMENTS; THE ENACTMENT OF A LAW TO EXPROPRIATE WITHOUT COMPENSATION THE OWNERS OF ANY LAND THAT MAY BE NEEDED FOR NATIONAL PURPOSES; THE ABOLITION OF GROUND RENTS; AND THE PROHIBITION OF ALL SPECULATION IN LAND.

...THE STATE SHALL ORGANIZE THOROUGHLY THE WHOLE CULTURAL SYSTEM OF THE NATION ... THE CONCEPTION OF THE STATE IDEA (THE SCIENCE OF CITIZENSHIP) SHALL BE TAUGHT IN THE SCHOOLS FROM THE VERY BEGINNING. WE DEMAND THAT SPECIALLY TALENTED CHILDREN OF POOR PARENTS, NO MATTER WHAT THEIR STATION OR OCCUPATION, SHALL BE EDUCATED AT THE COST OF THE STATE.

IT IS THE DUTY OF THE STATE TO HELP RAISE THE STANDARD OF THE NATION'S HEALTH BY PROVIDING MATERNITY WELFARE CENTRES, BY PROHIBITING JUVENILE LABOUR, BY INCREASING PHYSICAL FITNESS THROUGH THE INTRODUCTION OF COMPULSORY GAMES AND GYMNASTICS....

(WE) COMBAT THE MATERIALISTIC SPIRIT WITHIN AND OUTSIDE US, AND ARE CONVINCED THAT A PERMANENT RECOVERY OF OUR PEOPLE CAN ONLY PROCEED WITHIN ON THE FOUNDATION OF "THE COMMON GOOD BEFORE THE INDIVIDUAL GOOD."

Sound familiar?

This was the platform of the National Socialist Party in Germany in 1922. It came from the "25 point program," which was authored by Hitler and other socialists / fascists of the time.

Monday, 8 February 2010

End game: Detroit

In case you have any doubt about the end game, here's a link to some sobering pics of Detroit:

http://www.marchandmeffre.com/detroit/index.html

Sunday, 7 February 2010

Managing toxic overload

Organohalides (including pesticides) and many other organic toxins are lipid soluble, both in animals and in man -- and some of those chemicals are thryo-toxic (the thyroid gland is particularly sensitive to many xenobiotics); some are also carcinogenic.

So, when you eat more fat, everything else being equal, you are also increasing your intake of fat-soluble toxins.  Eating organic helps, but it isn't a cure-all, due to the prevalence of toxins in the environment.

[[MORE]]The situation is compounded if you start losing weight or when you begin exercising after a long period of not doing do, because the toxins that your body has worked hard to sequester in your fat get released into the blood, which can result in fatigue, brain fog, skin rashes, immune system issues, and a number of other problems.

One way to address this issue (other than donating blood, which clearly only addresses part of the problem) is to stimulate the activity of certain detox enzymes, such as gluthathione S-transferase, and to increase excretion of bile (a fat-rich compound that transports fat-soluble toxins). This can be done by introducing coffee into the lower part of the large intestine (low-volume coffee enema), where caffeine and several related compounds are absorbed into the portal vein and carried directly to the liver, bypassing full-body circulation.  Once in the liver, the choleretic effect and the associated increase in enzyme activity rapidly clears the blood.  This can be particularly effective after exercising, and can also help shorten recovery time.

As with iodine supplements, coffee enemas are another key component of Dr Max Gerson's successful (and controversial) cancer treatment program.  Here's a link to an article with some background:

http://www.gersonhawaii.us/gersonarticle5.html

Wednesday, 20 January 2010

Safety of MRI tests and contrast agents

Are MRI tests safe?

The usual MRI contrast agent is Gadolinium-based, and is not radioactive. MRI machines themselves use magnetic fields and not radiation. Fortunately, it's not possible to have an “overexposure” of magnetism. CAT or PET scans are a much different story, though, since they do use radiation.

I’ve had a number of MRIs, and I consider them to be the safest of the available imaging technologies. If you are having symptoms that warrant the test, then in my opinion it would be foolish to deny the use of a contrast agent if the study was ordered using one. I’m not saying contrast is zero-risk, but the risk of misdiagnosis without contrast (when needed) seems to me to be much higher than the risk of the contrast itself being a problem. I asked a radiologist about the risks once, and he said that although they have everyone sign a liability waiver form due to the theoretical risk, that he personally had never seen anyone react adversely to the contrast agent, nor had any of his co-workers.

The issue is that without contrast, many physical structures and details simply aren’t visible. That also means that a more correct response to not seeing anything with a non-contrast test would be to order one with contrast, not to just say that you’re all done. And if they do see something without contrast, they would have generally seen more details and therefore know more about what’s happening if it had been done with contrast.

However, not all exams require contrast; it depends on which part of the body is being imaged.

Tuesday, 5 January 2010

Managing allergies

I went through a number of years of having severe allergies. However, I was eventually able to largely cure myself; today I’m 90% better than I used to be.  A few things I learned along the way that might be helpful:


    • Allergies are, of course, an immune system issue; immune system support is therefore essential. In addition to avoiding allergens, it's also critical to reduce your exposure to toxins.  Even micro amounts that wouldn't bother a healthy person can be very damaging to the immune system.  This includes things like pesticides, formaldehyde, perfumes, cleaning compounds, etc.

    • [[MORE]]
    • Long-term allergies are almost always associated with poor nutrient status.  Magnesium, in particular, is extremely important, but so are all micronutrients. "Natural Calm" is a good source of magnesium. A good broad-spectrum multivitamin can be extremely helpful, even though they can take a very long time to have a full effect (on the order of several years). "Beyond Any Multiple" (BAM) is a good one.

    • The combination of the above two items means that supplement and food selection is very important: organic, pesticide-free food is crucial.  The issue with supplements is one of purity and freedom from microcontaminants.  Brands such as Thorne, Jarrow, Carlson, Now and Country Life are good.  I’ve had terrible luck with Twin Labs and Allergy Research Group.

    • Myself and many of my highly-allergic friends (but not everyone) have found certain "neutralizers" to be extremely valuable.  These are temporary quick-fix things you can do to turn off an acute allergic reaction.  The one that works best for me is Alka Seltzer Gold.  It works is by rapidly alkalinizing the body, which has a normalizing effect on the immune system. I can be feeling absolutely terrible, exhausted, brain fogged, ready to collapse, and 5 minutes after consuming the Alka Gold, I feel completely normal.

    • You might consider having yourself checked for heavy metals.  High levels can have a very damaging effect on the immune system.

    • Yeast overgrowth can be another issue.  The yeast can cause the gut wall to become leaky, so that small particles of food enter the blood, which then provokes allergies.  A very low carb or even zero carb diet (Paleo or Paleo-like) can be a big help there, although you may also need to take an anti-yeast medicine such as Nystatin for a while to completely clear yourself out.

    • Hormone levels are another thing that often seems to get tweaked when allergies flare up.  In my experience, they often seem to be a precursor to more severe health issues.  Thyroid issues, in particular, are very common—probably in part as a result of not getting enough iodine, which is already low in most people’s diet.  There’s a negative feedback loop here, because you also need adequate levels of thyroid hormone in order to be able to absorb nutrients from your food.  Testing and diagnosis of thyroid levels is (surprisingly) a bit controversial.  One easy at-home test is to measure your basal body temperature, before you get out of bed in the morning.  If it’s more than a degree low, that is almost certainly indicative of a thyroid problem.

    • Active detox programs can help to significantly speed up recovery time.  They aren’t fun, though.

Monday, 4 January 2010

Sugar headaches

There are several different reactions that happen in the body when you consume carbs that can result in headaches. The most common one goes something like this (for refined carbs or sugars): when the carbs first hit your body (starting even with a sweet taste), it causes insulin to be released, in preparation for the upcoming glucose load. As you continue to eat, your blood sugar and insulin levels go up together for a while. The insulin works to move the glucose out of the blood into cells to be used or into storage (fat).

[[MORE]]However, because high-GI foods like sugar and refined carbs cause such a rapid increase in blood glucose (BG), the amount of insulin released can be more than the body really needs. As a result, your BG levels can over-correct, and you can end up hypoglycemic. It is that state of having a low BG that then causes headaches in some people (often along with sudden fatigue). Somewhat paradoxically, the high BG levels that hit before the insulin fully takes effect can also cause headaches in some people. You can get a hint as to which one is affecting you by the time interval between when you eat and when it hits, since BG tends to peak about a half hour or less after you eat, where the low might be two hours or so afterwards.

What happened for me when I first switched to Paleo is that my baseline insulin levels dropped as a result of not consuming carbs, but my body retained insulin sensitivity. That meant that if I did try to eat carbs, I would often over-correct to the low side. However, after maybe six months or so, I became more insulin resistant; the over-corrections to the low side stopped and my baseline BG level increased slightly. From what I've heard, this seems to be a common pattern.

Another sugar-related cause of headaches can be candida overgrowth. Consuming sugar feeds the yeast, which then give off a burst of toxins, which causes a headache. Fortunately, the Paleo diet is also basically an anti-Candida diet, so I would expect that effect to fade over time as well. Candida seems to respond equally badly to low-GI carbs (like berries) that don't produce the big spikes that sugar or refined carbs do.