We Stand On the Shoulders of Giants

There is a reason for posting this CBS New article below, although it is a somewhat unusual departure from my normal discussions. And as you might suspect, it is for a good reason, both moral and practical.

I have known this man, Victor Lawrence, for almost thirty years. I worked for him in his Advanced Communications Research Department.   He has been both a friend, colleague, and a mentor, and more importantly, a role model.

But most significantly he is beyond doubt one of the kindest, and most humble people I have ever met.

He does more acts of kindness for more people than anyone I have ever seen. It is a way of life for him. You would have to work closely with him to know this, because he rarely talks about it. I will not recount some of the stories because it would be embarrassing to him and those he has helped sometimes in very difficult circumstances, but even after many years I am still amazed to find out about them and all the people he has helped.

So why bring this up?

There are two good reasons.

First, I keep a 'collection' of people I have known in my memory, of many races and creeds and persuasions. And so whenever I hear someone speaking harshly, or disparagingly, of any type of human being, I dip into my collection of true human beings and examples, and remember that they too are an example of whomever is being disparaged. As are we all if you think about it, because we are all just human beings, with our own faults and weaknesses if you look closely enough.  But they rose to become like beacons of light for others.

And secondly, it is useful to remember these good examples, to see people of truly remarkable achievements who are also a humble and complete person, in these days of elephantine greed and arrogant swagger, in service to the will to power. Whenever I am tired or discouraged by events or by wickedness in the world, their memory brings encouragement and hope and support.

And it reminds me especially how unworthy I am to judge anyone, especially out of ignorance. And the deep obligation that I owe to others.  To not acknowledge it by not trying to be kind and of some service, even in my blockheaded weakness, would be a colossal act of ingratitude.

Yes I know that 'inventing the internet' is a misnomer, because no one person 'invented' it. This is the sort of thing that we get from a media that tries to compress a complex reality into a sound byte for a broad audience for whom 'internet' equates to 'modern technology'.  Victor's work is fundamental and far reaching and pervasive for those who are aware of the many ways in which we use digital signal processing today.

Many people can point to their accomplishments.  But only the truly great ones have raised up others along with themselves, and made the world a better place by their simply being a part of it.  And he is one of those, and a worthy example to others and to me.

National Inventors Hall of Fame announces 2016 inductees

"I was so humbled when I found out. I did not believe it, because this is such a great honor," 2016 inductee Victor B. Lawrence told CBS News. "For me, this is something that I was really not expecting, it is really a big honor for me."

While Lawrence himself might not necessarily be a household name, his invention of signal processing in telecommunications has had far-reaching impact. An electrical engineer who spent the majority of his career at Bell Laboratories, Lawrence's work essentially made the modern Internet we know today possible. He improved Internet transmission, made high-speed connections more widely available, and kick-started the spread of the web globally.

"This work that I've done has really filtered almost every aspect of our modern lives. You can find it in communications in DSL, in phones, in EKG machines in medicine - it really infiltrates all aspects of our lives," he said.

Lawrence was born in Ghana, and said that one of his driving passions right now is to bring Internet access to the world's developing countries. He has been instrumental in trying to extend high-capacity fiber optic cable along Africa's west coast.

"I have this passion of brining the Internet to the far off nations of this world, and connect a number of countries that have no or limited Internet access," he said.

Lawrence developed his signature achievement in the 1980s as the world started moving away from data transmissions bogged down by masses of wires and cords to a more wireless future. After completing his PhD from the University of London, he was recruited by AT&T with the aim of finding ways, he said, "we could go from the analog world to the digital world."

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - World Gold Council China Gold Demand Figures Called 'Fallacious'

"The amount of gold withdrawn from the vaults of the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE), which equals Chinese wholesale gold demand, accounted for 45 tonnes in the trading week that ended on 6 November. Year to date SGE withdrawals have reached an astonishing 2,210 tonnes, which is more than the full year record set in 2013 at 2,197 tonnes. With nearly two months of trading left in the Chinese gold market, SGE withdrawals are estimated to reach more than 2,600 tonnes...

How can so much gold be supplied to China without someone buying it and thus being genuine demand? It cannot. Chinese gold demand as disclosed by the World Gold Council (WGC) is fallacious...

Does the mainstream media ever investigate this odd discrepancy?  Of course not.  According to them gold is just a commodity, a pet rock. Nobody cares about 2,500 tonnes of gold that have vanished into a black hole somewhere in China...

Koos Jansen, SGE Withdrawals Break Yearly Record - World Gold Council Hides Insatiable Chinese Gold Demand

It will be interesting to see how this difference of opinions in the precious metals markets resolve.

Gold is trading inversely to the dollar here.

That is not how it always happens, but that is what is happening now, more or less.

There were no deliveries at The Bucket Shop on Friday.

The warehouses saw a little action, with a dribble of gold coming in and about 420,000 ounces of silver bullion leaving.

Today was 'one of those days' where light volumes let stocks rally in a patriotic display of resolve that we will keep calm and bubble on.

I hate to be too negative but most commentary on the metals in the prestige media ranges from useless to ridiculous.  But why should the precious metals be any different from all the other things that the financial media likes to say these days.

Let's see how the rest of the week goes.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Neither Rain, Nor Snow, Nor Gloom of Night

The economic news this morning in the form of the Empire Manufacturing number was awful.

Nevertheless, stocks had plenty of incentive to ramp today, having fallen into an oversold condition and tagged to the point the support levels one would expect them to match if we are seeing a W bottom or a 'cup and handle' setup to ramp equities higher into the end of the year.

The terror attack in Paris, which was horrible and vicious, nevertheless gave Wall Street the chance to look brave and patriotic, and rally paper assets just to spite those who are jealous of our freedom and prosperity.

So what next.

Let's see if stocks can really keep in going and set up that cup and handle and make it active.  We have fallen to the middle of the 'W' if you allow for the slant, so stocks cannot go lower than today's intraday lows or the chart formation is invalidated most likely.

When you are winning, nothing matters.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stiglitz: TPP Is an Anti-Democratic Law For the Benefit of Corporations, Not a Trade Agreement

When you have corporations having a very short-sighted view, paying their CEOs such outrageous monies with less money spent on investment, of course you’re not going to make long-term investments that are going to result in long-term economic growth.

And at the same time, there’s going to be less money to pay for ordinary workers. And paying that low wages to ordinary workers, not giving them security, not giving them paid, you know, family leave, all that results in a less productive labor force.

So what we’ve done is we’ve actually undermined investments in people, investments in the corporation, all for the sake of increasing the income of the people at the very top. So there’s a really close link here between the growing inequality in our society and the weak economic performance.”

Joseph Stiglitz

Stiglitz tends to excuse Obama at some point and blames the Republicans, I think he is being naive at best, wrong-headedly kind perhaps to one of the worst betrayals of a public mandate for reform in American history.

Obama is, at the end of the day, a corporate brand, a clever vehicle to attract and divert reform-hungry Americans who are tired of being misused and lied to.  He has betrayed his supporters at every key turn and on every major political and social issue from financial reform to healthcare.

Nomi Prins: Crony Capitalism and Corruption - An Entirely Rigged Political-Financial System

I think you would do well to watch this video below.

Too big to fail is a seven-year phenomenon created by the most powerful central banks to bolster the largest, most politically connected US and European banks. More than that, it’s a global concern predicated on that handful of private banks controlling too much market share and elite central banks infusing them with boatloads of cheap capital and other aid.

Synthetic bank and market subsidization disguised as ‘monetary policy’ has spawned artificial asset and debt bubbles - everywhere. The most rapacious speculative capital and associated risk flows from these power-players to the least protected, or least regulated, locales.

There is no such thing as isolated 'Big Bank' problems. Rather, complex products, risky practices, leverage and co-dependent transactions have contagion ramifications, particularly in emerging markets whose histories are already lined with disproportionate shares of debt, interest rate and currency related travails.

The notion of free markets, mechanisms where buyers and sellers can meet to exchange securities or various kinds of goods, in which each participant has access to the same information, is a fallacy. Transparency in trading across global financial markets is a fallacy. Not only are markets rigged by, and for, the biggest players, so is the entire political-financial system.

The connection between democracy and free markets is interesting though. Democracy is predicated on the idea that every vote counts equally, and in the utopian perspective, the government adopts policies that benefit or adhere to the majority of those votes. In fact, it's the minority of elite families and private individuals that exercise the most control over America's policies and actions.

The myth of a free market is that every trader or participant is equal, when in fact the biggest players with access to the most information and technology are the ones that have a disproportionate advantage over the smaller players. What we have is a plutocracy of government and markets. The privileged few don't care, or need to care, about democracy any more than they would ever want to have truly "free" markets, though what they do want are markets liberated from as many regulations as possible. In practice, that leads to huge inherent risk.

Michael Lewis' latest book on high frequency trading seems to have struck some sort of a national chord. Yet what he writes about is the mere tip of the iceberg covered in my book. He's talking about rigged markets - which have been a problem since small investors began investing with the big boys, believing they had an equal shot.

I'm talking about an entirely rigged political-financial system.

Nomi Prins