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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 19-Mar-2012
19-Mar-12 World View -- Beloved head of Egypt's Coptic Christian Orthodox Church draws huge crowds

Web Log - March, 2012

19-Mar-12 World View -- Beloved head of Egypt's Coptic Christian Orthodox Church draws huge crowds

A flood of Syria's refugees causes security problems for Turkey

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com.

France's far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon gains in presidential polls
Accusations against Goldman Sachs continue to gain traction
Psychopaths on Wall Street
A flood of Syria's refugees causes security problems for Turkey
Black market for weapons to Syria's opposition is drying up
Head of Egypt's Coptic Christian Orthodox Church draws huge crowds
Pope Shenouda helped keep Egypt calm for decades

France's far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon gains in presidential polls

Jean-luc Mélenchon on Sunday (AP)

Jean-luc Mélenchon on Sunday (AP)

Although it's expected that the main battles in France's coming presidential election will be fought between Socialist frontrunner François Hollande and rightwing president Nicolas Sarkozy, the ultra-far-left-wing Jean-Luc Mélenchon has been gaining in the polls, and recently surged above 10%. On Sunday, he led thousands of supporters in a festive campaign march to Bastille square in Paris where he gave a fiery speech calling for a "civic insurrection" and promising to "rebuild the republic." A one-time Trotskyist and former teacher, he leads a coalition of far left groups, including France's once-powerful Communist party. France24 and Guardian

A flood of Syria's refugees causes security problems for Turkey

Syrian refugee tent city in Turkey (Zaman)

Syrian refugee tent city in Turkey (Zaman)

With Syria's army now assaulting residential neighborhoods near Turkey's border, refugees are flooding into Turkey. Turkey has said it has made contingency plans to accommodate as many as half a million refugees on its soil, in tent cities and refugee camps. However, Turkey is getting increasingly concerned about security issues, and has been discussing a "buffer zone" for a long time, without taking any action. This would be a region on Syria's soil, guarded by Turkey's army, where Syrians could flee and be safe. According to a Turkish analyst:

"This [buffer zone] will be a temporary fix for the security of Turkey. You need to take precautions for emerging threats posed by the influx of refugees. There may be Syrian intelligence operatives who are attempting to infiltrate Turkey or Kurdish terrorists may use civilian refugees as a cover to stage attacks on Turkish targets. Turkey should obtain the consent of international opinion before proceeding with an action against Syria."

Russia and China have vetoed every attempt to even criticize Syria's president Bashar al-Assad in the United Nations Security Council, and have indicated that they will continue to do so. However, the above statement doesn't mention the United Nations. What form of "consent of international opinion" will be acceptable remains to be seen. Zaman (Istanbul)

Black market for weapons to Syria's opposition is drying up

Syria's opposition fighters have been purchasing black market weapons in Tripoli, in northern Lebanon. But the supply of weapons is drying up, with potentially serious implications for the uprising. LA Times

Head of Egypt's Coptic Christian Orthodox Church draws huge crowds

The body of Pope Shenouda III, the head of Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church, is displayed for public viewing inside the Abassiya Cathedral in Cairo, on Sunday (Gulf News)

The body of Pope Shenouda III, the head of Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church, is displayed for public viewing inside the Abassiya Cathedral in Cairo, on Sunday (Gulf News)

Tens of thousands of people queued at Abassiya Cathedral in central Cairo on Sunday, where the body of Pope Shenouda III, the head of Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church, was seated on a ceremonial throne wearing gold and red embroidered religious vestments, a golden mitre on his head and holding a gold-topped staff. Christians comprise about a tenth of Egypt's 80 million people. Shenouda had served as the 117th Pope of Alexandria since November 1971, leading the Orthodox community who make up most of Egypt's Christians. Shenouda was considered a great peacemaker, especially since the beginning of the Egyptian uprising, early last year. He frequently said, "Egypt is not a nation we live in, rather it is a nation that lives in us." Reuters

Pope Shenouda helped keep Egypt calm for decades

Pope Shenouda spent much of his 40 years at the head of Egypt's Coptic Christian church devoted to creating peace between Christians and Muslims in Egypt. A climax of his efforts came in 1985, when he returned from three years in exile, where he had been sent by Egypt's president Anwar Sadat. Shenouda had been bitterly opposed to Sadat's Camp David peace agreement with Israel, which he described as treachery because it betrayed Palestinians and Arabs by normalizing relations with Jews. After Sadat's assassination, the new president Hosni Mubarak reversed Sadat's decree and brought Shenouda back to Cairo, to the cheers of millions of Copts. Senouda might have triggered massive riots by Christians against Muslims by condemning Sadat's actions. Instead, he said, "All Copts open their hearts to their brothers, the Muslims. We feel they are our flesh and our blood in this beloved nation." Gulf News

Accusations against Goldman Sachs continue to gain traction

It's been absolutely amazing this week to see the Generation-X analysts and politicians pull together to defuse the scandal ignited by Greg Smith's letter describing the toxic culture at Goldman Sachs. (See "15-Mar-12 News -- Resigning Goldman Sachs exec attacks toxic Generation-X culture")

As readers know, I've been writing a lot lately about how Gen-Xers refuse to blame other Gen-Xers for almost anything, including serious crimes.

This is despite the fact that we've had a catastrophe in the last few years, where Gen-X financial engineers purposely created tens of trillions of dollars in fraudulent synthetic securities, and then sold them to investors, especially loathsome Boomer investors, thus creating the current financial crisis, which is far from over. Thus, the Obama Justice Department is refusing to investigate and prosecute these crimes. What makes the Gen-X culture different from the Boomer culture is not that more Gen-Xers than Boomers are crooks, but that Gen-Xers almost unanimously refuse to blame other Gen-Xers for anything. From the point of view of generational theory, this is a pattern that's occurred throughout history and explains, for example, why ordinary Germans in the 1930s refused to blame the Nazis for the Holocaust. (See "The Legacy of World War I and the Holocaust" and "Proposed explanation for repeated Jewish persecution throughout history" from last month.)

Greg Smith's letter described how Goldman Sachs' executives extracted as much money as possible from their clients by advising them to buy securities that they knew were defective. This is at the heart of the financial crisis, since banksters sold tens of trillions of these securities to investors, knowing that they were fraudulent.

It's been clear this week that Gen-Xers ABSOLUTELY HATE this whole thing, because it blames the banksters. As a Boomer, I'm ABSOLUTELY FURIOUS that these crimes were committed, and I'm APPALLED that the Justice Dept. refuses to prosecute them. Some of the most bizarre conversations I've had recently have been with Gen-Xers trying to give excuses why the Obama Justice Department isn't prosecuting the banksters.

Here are some of the excuses I've been hearing all week on CNBC and Bloomberg TV:

"Greg Smith did the same thing for ten years." This is an interesting excuse because it indirectly admits that the frauds were committed, but tries to excuse them because the accuser also committed them.

"Goldman Sachs was just making money, which is what every corporation does." Another fascinating excuse, because it admits the crime. So according to these Gen-X analysts, it would be OK for a car company to sell you a car with, say, defective brakes, if they could make more money doing so. This excuse shows how pathetic the Gen-X culture is. (As usual, I'm not talking about all Gen-Xers. I'm talking about how the culture has changed since Gen-Xers reached middle management positions in the last ten years.)

"What Greg Smith described wasn't illegal." Of course, it was illegal. Where do these analysts think the tens of trillions of dollars in fraudulent securities came from? Do they think they were hatched from eggs? It's provable that what Greg Smith described was illegal, and if the Justice Dept. started subpoenaing witnesses, e-mail messages, memos, and data base records, there would be numerous criminal referrals.

"The NY Times had no business publishing Greg Smith's letter." This one is really hilarious. The NY Times has been fully immersed in the most toxic aspects of the Gen-X culture, but they suddenly broke the Gen-X code of not blaming other Gen-Xers. Does this mean that the Times is reforming? I'll need a lot more evidence before I believe it.

What's surprising is that Greg Smith's letter is not forgotten by the public already, which is what a lot of mainstream people expected.

When I was growing up in the 1950s, my teachers and my parents all hated bankers and I never understood why. I certainly do now. Banksters in the 1930s were doing exactly the same kinds of things that they're doing today, and they were hated for decades.

I remember how shocked I was in 2008 when I heard that banks were still going to give their employees million dollar bonuses, after they had created the financial crisis. Banksters have created an enormous amount of hatred -- not in the mainstream analysts or politicians, but in the vast majority of ordinary people. The mainstream analysts on CNBC and Bloomberg TV keep praying that this whole thing will blow over, but history tells us that it won't blow over for decades. Bloomberg

Psychopaths on Wall Street

There is a suspicion, as I've stated many times, that although few Gen-Xers may be crooks, those few crooks were attracted to banking where they could put their skills to good use in defrauding people. There is some evidence that there are a disproportionate number of "financial psychopaths" on Wall Street. These people generally lack empathy and interest in what other people feel or think. At the same time, they display an abundance of charm, charisma, intelligence, credentials, an unparalleled capacity for lying, fabrication, and manipulation, and a drive for thrill seeking. An organization that wishes to screen such people out might look for the following characteristics:

Glibness and superficial charm
Lack of empathy
Consistent decisions in their self interest, even where it is ethically questionable
Chronic, sometimes transparent lies, even with regard to minor things
Lack of remorse
Failure to take responsibility for their actions, and instead blaming others
Shallow emotions
Ignoring responsibilities
Persistent focus on gratifying their own needs at the expense of others
Conning and manipulative behavior

Unfortunately for the rest of us, these characteristics are the sort that make a lot of money for corrupt banking institutions. Harvard Business Review

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 19-Mar-12 World View -- Beloved head of Egypt's Coptic Christian Orthodox Church draws huge crowds thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (19-Mar-2012) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 19-Mar-2012 19-Mar-12 World View -- Beloved head of Egypt's Coptic Christian Orthodox Church draws huge crowds

France's far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon gains in presidential polls

A flood of Syria's refugees causes security problems for Turkey

Black market for weapons to Syria's opposition is drying up

Head of Egypt's Coptic Christian Orthodox Church draws huge crowds

Pope Shenouda helped keep Egypt calm for decades

Accusations against Goldman Sachs continue to gain traction

Psychopaths on Wall Street

Web Log Pages

Generational Dynamics Web Log for 19-Mar-2012
19-Mar-12 World View -- Beloved head of Egypt's Coptic Christian Orthodox Church draws huge crowds