Month: September 2013

Big Donors Land Top Diplomatic Assignments [Video]

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RTAmerica  September 28 2013

Last week, President Barack Obama nominated his pick, Bruce Heyman, for the highly coveted ambassadorship to Canada. Heyman is a career investment banker, and currently serves as the managing director for Goldman Sachs’ Private Wealth Management Group. A Canadian newspaper says that Heymans’ regional focus at Goldman Sachs is Canada. RT’s Ameera David takes a look at Heyman’s other qualifications for this and other top diplomatic spots.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/PiuOUzxgkio&w=500]

Crony Capitalism

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TheOutsiderClub September 26 2013

Make no mistake; I’m a big fan of capitalism.

Since grade school, I’ve harbored a competitive nature. My siblings have always given me a hard time for being an overachiever.

And despite everything I think is wrong with our “competitive capitalistic economy,” I still believe good, healthy competition brings out the best people have to offer.

I believe hard work should be rewarded and success shouldn’t come easily — but when it does, it should come freely and naturally, not through some sort of manipulative scheme that keeps you on top by preventing everyone else from climbing.

Unfortunately, this is no longer the case…

Since the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the world has begun to awaken to the troubles of modern-day capitalism, better known as “crony capitalism.”

Free Market

The world finally broke free of the chains of tyranny and a life determined solely by one’s predisposition in the 18th century… yet somehow, we’ve managed to take a lot of wrong turns in the centuries that followed.

We’ve regressed to the state we once fought so hard to escape in the spirit of revolution, and our once celebrated free market is under attack from within.

The brilliance behind a free market mentality is that each individual has an opportunity to channel the power vested within to climb the social, economic, and professional ladder.

This is a powerful thing. It’s incentive to really strive for your goals… to make something of yourself… to dream something, and to do it — without jumping through obnoxious, unnecessary hoops and getting tied up in all that red tape.

A free market mentality means being born poor doesn’t have to be a death sentence. Instead, it could be a character-building obstacle course, a breeding ground for innovation and advancement. When we see individuals overcoming poverty, we’re generally experiencing economic growth as a whole.

We cheer one another on, because we all benefit from this progression.

Unless, of course, that economic capital is stolen by one’s “rulers or their friends or allies,” according to Hunter Lewis, author of Crony Capitalism and former CEO of Cambridge Associates…

Government Takeover

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How Courageous We Are!

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sorendreier September 20 2013

Almost forty years ago, when my second son was young, I started having dreams of an atomic bomb exploding. One time it was in a playground… another time I could see it in the distance. In every dream my son would be in my arms, my precious little baby, and I would be running and searching, experiencing tremendous fear. It was not a fear that he or we would die… it was a fear that his life would be worse than death, and I could not save him from it.

Well, no atomic bombs fell nearby, he lived and experienced easy and hard times, became daddy to two beautiful children, ­­made a good life for himself and his family, and happily for me, he kept on loving his ‘spiritually minded’ mother.

I don’t know what triggered the dreams. It could have been that I was tapping into the fear of the collective mind… also could have been the arguments going on at the time regarding nuclear power. I remember asking a business executive, “What about the radioactive waste… what about future generations?” He responded, “By that time they’ll have figured out how to handle it.” I heard my inner voice say, “I could never get with this person… he’s an absolute idiot.”

Well… I was young. Idiots are not absolute… they can change.  When the threat becomes immediate even the most cold-hearted can wake up… and I imagine quite a few have. But the point is, life has sent me into fear plenty of times, so I know how overwhelming, controlling and confining it can be.  And the funny thing about it… there is no benefit to it: being aware, yes; perceiving danger, yes; avoiding danger, yes; but fear… it’s a lose/lose.

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