We were saving these ideas for the last chapter of the book. Sadly, things are going so fast; the convergence of factors, other than the obvious, pushing us towards the vortex of a storm touching on the ideas behind our next to last chapter, the last chapter being a description of the ills brought on by the coming worldwide economic cataclysm


America

On September 28th, 2015, we wrote of the driving factor behind increased market volatility, “excessive debt, prime and subprime with no liquidity, a reminder of 2007-2008.” It is clear that new, small, and medium sized businesses can not finance or refinance in such an environment. A recovery propelled by business growth is impossible in the current debt environment. In 2006 63.4% of the U.S. population over 16 years of age was employed. Entering 2016, 59.5% of the population is employed. In constant dollars from 2006 to the present average hourly wages have remained at approximately $20.50 while real (inflation adjusted) mean household income of the middle quadrille has hovered at about $54,000 per annum. Poverty statistics as a ratio of the population from 2006 to 2016 have increased from about 16.8% to more than 19.5%. It is difficult to envision a consumer led exit from the U.S. economic malaise given these statistics. Finance is in the throws of a second “Big Short” for those of you who have seen the movie. Derivatives outstanding within American financial institutions have a face value of more than the world’s total financial assets. Don’t assume that these positions are being managed or regulated by folks smarter and more careful then those in control in 2007. They are not! The cracks are beginning to show and spread whilst the underlying banking assets, severely impaired previously, have yet to be marked to market. Financial institutions are not likely to lead the charge towards a growing economy. In fact, it is more likely we will see a repeat of “The Big Short” in the near future. Government – Helpless – After years of monetary manipulation which accomplished little or nothing the Fed continues to bumble along! There has been little fiscal stimulation and none on the horizon. Helpless!

It is unlikely America will lead the world out of the present morass. With Donald Trump heralded as a hero by the uneducated masses we have only ourselves to thank for the inept economic management of our country. Intelligent leadership seems a dream of the past.

CHINA

What can China do? Nothing. China is in free-fall. Communist dictatorships are not and were never known for forward thinking in economically trying times. China arrests its businessmen, politicians et all (perhaps warranted), closes and manipulates markets, destroys it’s currency, overextends its credit markets in the hope of masking it’s economic catastrophe. It will not lead the world out of recession

EMERGING NATIONS

Emerging nations? Totally dependent on selling natural recourses to China et al. No help there.

EUROPE

Europe? Perhaps the greatest catastrophe on the cusp of discovery. We know that Sovereign debt and bank finance are interdependent. We have seen evidence of that everywhere and evidence of the results when the interdependence breaks down such as in Cyprus and Greece. Neither Cyprus nor Greece is healed with Greece heading for another meaningful debacle. What goes unsaid, for now, is the tightrope the rest of Europe walks. The Southern nations – Italy, Spain and Portugal are on the line of no return with Portugal probably having crossed it. Northern Europe is not far behind with France closest on the heels of the four other significant impending failures. The seriousness of further European defaults to the world economy cannot be overemphasized. With one currency as one nation goes down the rest follow. Diverse currencies allow escapes not available to a large currency block such as the Euro. Compounding the problems of Europe are the long standing banking mores which obfuscate the depth of European banks’ illiquidity and careless lending policies, sometimes bordering on corruption. As regulations and, more so transparency, are enforced on the European banking community it will become apparent that all is not right in the States of Euroland. Prior to the “European Crisis” in, some say 2010 or 2011, practices in play in most banking institutions included reciprocity in lending (you wash my hand I wash yours, we protect each other’s back) - not possible after 2011, careless analysis and regulation as to quality of lending, lassitude as to tracking use of funds (lots of Euros wandered off to the pockets of favored parties), little or no tracking and follow up as to “friend’s loans”, no marks to market or, at least, delayed and inadequate marks against delinquent loans, the creation of vehicles to house gone bad loans which would reduce or eliminate the requirements for mark downs of the bank’s equity, outright conflict of interest and fraudulent transactions. The list is long and goes on but, suffice it to say, the European banking system is awash with mortal problems which are just beginning to surface and are unlikely to be concealed as effectively as in the U.S. – There are too many conflicting political interests within Euroland to preserve the silence of the pack ( the countries and banks themselves.) In the next to last chapter of the book which, I’m afraid, will come out subsequent to the impending crisis we will delineate in detail the methodology by which the many European banks function. It is a lively topic.

In conclusion, 2007-2008 is likely to be repeated in the foreseeable future. This time there are no engines of restoration on the horizon. The catalyst will not be the usual blah blah we read in the financial press. It will be the collapse of the financial structure of Europe, both Sovereign and private. World liquidity, which is strained today, will find its home at “zero”. The recovery will be long and painful.



Asher Edelman

January 12th, 2016

Jason Poirier dit Caulier and Patrick Verelst are pleased to invite you for the opening of the exhibition ‘LUPE’, paintings by Patrick Verelst on 21 November 2015 from 14-18h.





“I was fascinated by a scene in the Laurel & Hardy movie “Hollywood party”, where a girl at the bar gets in a fit of rage because she isn’t allowed a drink. I looked her up in the credits and found out that her name was Lupe Velez, a Hollywood actress that became famous because of the story surrounding her suicide in 1944, at age 36. During her movie career she became notorious because of her temper and stormy love affairs. She slashed her lover Gary Cooper with a knife, (ending the relation, Cooper reportedly had lost 45 pounds and was suffering from nervous exhaustion), did the same to her later husband Johnny ’Tarzan’ Weismuller, and once to herself. When I learned about her basically kind, but probably bipolar personality, and about the extremely gifted actress and dancer she was, I decided to make some paintings about her demons and the slashing thereof. I later found out that Andy Warhol made a factory movie about her in 1965, featuring Edie Sedgwick in the titular role."
Patrick Verelst (Antwerp, 1948) is both an in- and outsider of the art world. He has been working in the gallery circuit as assistant or gallery owner. Today he is a private dealer. Only to an intimate circle he is also know as a painter.
He worked as gallery assistant for Wide White Space Gallery in Antwerp, John Weber Gallery in New York, and — together with Marc Poirier dit Caulier— ran the Gallery Patrick Verelst – Marc Poirier dit Caulier Gallery in Antwerp. 
In the 80ies he moved to New York working as assistant at the John Weber and Leo Castelli Gallery. He returned to Antwerp to reopen a gallery with exhibitions of Julian Schnabel, Keith Haring, Ronnie Cutrone, Jonathan Lasker, Walter Swennen and others.
In the early eighties few works were sporadically included in shows at Isy Brachot, Brussels, Montevideo, Antwerp, Olsen Gallery New York, Museum d’Hondt Dhaenens, Deurle and ICC Antwerp.
Patrick Verelst has always continued painting, but destroyed most of the works by force of habit. It was the correspondence between him and Jasper Johns that convinced him to keep some of his paintings, as the latter persuaded him not to destroy them anymore. For years his paintings have never seen an audience, but in memory of his friendship with Marc Poirier dit Caulier he has now decided to exhibit them, not as a starting point of a new artistic carreer, but to openly invite viewers to a lesser-known side of his practice.
From 21 November till 12 December 2015
On friday and Saturday, from 14-18h
PLUS-ONE.BE
@plus_one_art (instagram) PLUS ONE
Sint-Hubertusstraat 58+
2600 Berchem — Belgium

Hard Cover, 340x210mm. Copied typoscript, letters are sometimes difficult to read. Unique document on the camp on the river banks near Antwerp where 16.500 American soldiers and 2500 German prisoners lived from July 1945 until april 1946. ' By May 1945, Tophat was a pretty luxurious place with her five movie theaters, good food, a gift PX, officer’s and enlisted men’s clubs, an ice-cream bar, a 20-seat barber shop where the haircuts were free (but you were encourage to tip the barber on your way out), and excellent English-speaking Belgian service personnel.' Ills. and map that show, together with the text, how life in Camp Tophat was. Decorative cover with tophat in gilt in the middle of the front cover. 86 p. Exceptional!. Belgisch of Nederlands posttarief naar keuze. Very Good.
Ambulant Antikwariaat Othello
Book number: 000298
€ 250.00

Deze website is het voorlopige resultaat van eigen research door het Media Expert Research System naar het automatisch aansturen van een kennissysteem vanuit een MySql-database.

De website is de zgn. front end van dit Content Management System. Het achterliggende database-beheer is de zgn. back end.
Om het in een beeld te vatten: het ziet er een beetje uit als een ijsberg waarvan je slechts het topje ziet.
Nog tijdens de research-fase werden wij gevraagd om voor een externe partner een verzameling van ca. 50.000 items te inventariseren en aan te sturen via dit CMS. De basis is een multimediaal platform (Statistics, Text, Image, Movie, Sound - STIMS). Deze uitdaging moet resulteren in een selectieve en toch geïntegreerde vorm van kennis-opslag en kennis-ontsluiting. De toepassing is tailor-made in nauw overleg met de partner maar steunt op het basismodel dat MERS hanteert. Er wordt gestreefd naar een grote gebruiksvriendelijkheid en die laat een dynamisch vernieuwen van de website toe.
Het CMS wil ook zeer gewild losbreken uit het carcan van hyperspecialisatie die de wetenschap teistert sinds WO II. Maatschappelijk heeft dat geleid naar atomisering en vereenzaming van mensen en het wordt tijd dat we onszelf bijeenrapen.
De volgende fase in het onderzoek zal peilen naar de inkoppeling van meerdere databases (datawarehousing). Het systeem draait nu reeds volledig 'in the cloud' zodat aansturing, upload, editing en visualisatie ontkoppeld zijn van een locatie.

Vault.com, the career website, released a ranking today of the most prestigious consulting firms. A little like the Oscars, which turns to the movie industry to tally its votes, Vault’s list comes from a survey of consultants who are asked to rank their peers and competitors. Vault ran its survey from March through July 2011 and gathered votes from 5,000 consultants at 60 firms, ranging from giant companies like McKinsey and Bain to small outfits like Bates White in Washington, D.C.

For the prestige ranking, consultants were not allowed to vote for their own firms, and they were asked only to rate firms with which they were familiar. Vault has been running the survey for a decade, and every year McKinsey has come out on top. In fact, the top five are unchanged from last year, though PricewaterhouseCoopers moved up two spots to #6, Ernst & Young climbed one spot to #8 and Mercer LLC fell three spots to #9. Herewith, the top ten:

1. McKinsey & Company
2. The Boston Consulting Group
3. Bain & Company
4. Booz & Company
5. Deloitte Consulting
6. PricewaterhouseCoopers
7. Monitor Group
8. Ernst & Young
9. Mercer LLC
10. Accenture

Now that your big eyes have finally opened,
Now that you're wondering how must they feel,
Meaning them that you've chased across America's movie screens.
Now that you're wondering how can it be real
That the ones you've called colorful, noble and proud
In your school propaganda
They starve in their splendor?
You've asked for my comment I simply will render:
My country 'tis of thy people you're dying.

Now that the longhouses breed superstition
You force us to send our toddlers away
To your schools where they're taught to despise their traditions.
You forbid them their languages, then further say
That American history really began
When Columbus set sail out of Europe, then stress
That the nation of leeches that conquered this land
Are the biggest and bravest and boldest and best.
And yet where in your history books is the tale
Of the genocide basic to this country's birth,
Of the preachers who lied, how the Bill of Rights failed,
How a nation of patriots returned to their earth?
And where will it tell of the Liberty Bell
As it rang with a thud
O'er Kinzua mud,
And of brave Uncle Sam in Alaska this year?

My country 'tis of thy people you're dying.

Hear how the bargain was made for the West:
With her shivering children in zero degrees,
Blankets for your land, so the treaties attest,
Oh well, blankets for land is a bargain indeed,
And the blankets were those Uncle Sam had collected
From smallpox-diseased dying soldiers that day.
And the tribes were wiped out and the history books censored,
A hundred years of your statesmen have felt it's better this way.
And yet a few of the conquered have somehow survived,
Their blood runs the redder though genes have paled.
From the Gran Canyon's caverns to craven sad hills
The wounded, the losers, the robbed sing their tale.
From Los Angeles County to upstate New York
The white nation fattens while others grow lean;
Oh the tricked and evicted they know what I mean.

My country 'tis of thy people you're dying.

The past it just crumbled, the future just threatens;
Our life blood shut up in your chemical tanks.
And now here you come, bill of sale in your hands
And surprise in your eyes that we're lacking in thanks
For the blessings of civilization you've brought us,
The lessons you've taught us, the ruin you've wrought us --
Oh see what our trust in America's brought us.

My country 'tis of thy people you're dying.

Now that the pride of the sires receives charity,
Now that we're harmless and safe behind laws,
Now that my life's to be known as your "heritage,"
Now that even the graves have been robbed,
Now that our own chosen way is a novelty --
Hands on our hearts we salute you your victory,
Choke on your blue white and scarlet hypocrisy
Pitying the blindness that you've never seen
That the eagles of war whose wings lent you glory
They were never no more than carrion crows,
Pushed the wrens from their nest, stole their eggs, changed their story;
The mockingbird sings it, it's all that he knows.
"Ah what can I do?" say a powerless few
With a lump in your throat and a tear in your eye --
Can't you see that their poverty's profiting you.

My country 'tis of thy people you're dying.

The German Newsweek (Die Deutsche Wochenschau) was the unified newsreel of Germany from 1940-1945. The concept of a weekly newsreel was much older, dating back to WWI, and in the 1930s, there were several different weekly newsreels in Germany. With the outbreak of WWII, these were unified and from June 1940 shown under the title of "The German Newsweek". It was one of the most important aspects of German propaganda.

Each week, over 2000 copies were sent to theaters and movie houses throughout Germany and shown to the general public, as private TV ownership was extremly rare during WWII. Over 700 episodes were produced, and many of the historical WWII footage we nowadays have comes from the Wochenschau.

This is issue No. 512, which was released on June 26th, 1940, four days after the armistice with France was signed. At 44 Minutes, its the longest Newsweek ever produced.

The first part of this issue shows footage from Operation Juno, a German navy mission in the Norwegian Sea, during which German ships, including the two battleships Gneisenau and Scharnhorst, destroyed a number of British ships, including the aircraft carrier HMS Glorious.
The rest of the Newsweek is however completly on France; it shows the breakthrough at the Maginot Line, the capture of cities in Alsace-Lorraine, like Strasbourg, Volmar and Metz, the German advance on Verdun, tank battles between German and French tanks.
Then, a large section is dedicated to footage of Hitler and his Generals, and then of a meeting between Hitler and Mussolini in Munich.
Finally, the Newsweek shows footage of German soldiers parading through Paris, and of the signing of the armistice in Compiegne.