A sandwich table decorated for the filthy rich

 In the early 1960s, a financial revolution was initiated which, through loopholes, created today's paradise for the corrupt and the criminal. In his book "Moneyland", Oliver Bullough shows how money laundering in Estonia, trafficing in Asia, forest wreckage at Borneo and foundations in the Netherlands are parts of the same ecosystem.

 Probably, few readers of this article have heard of Siegmund Warburg. Nevertheless, he has more than most of us contributed to shaping the world during the post-war era. This and much more you can learn from reading Oliver Bullough's book "Moneyland: Why Thieves and Crooks Now Rule The World & How to Take It Back" (Profile Books). As the subtitle indicates, it is about a global shift of power, where the big winners are players of doubtful background.

 Bullough is a freelance journalist and author who has mostly reported from the former Soviet Union. "Moneyland", his third book, released in the autumn of 2018, has received brilliant reviews in English-language media. Recently the Sunday Times appointed it as the Business Book of the Year. And for those who want to understand the world beyond President Trump's twittering and what is happening with the Swedish Academy and the Nobel price, "Moneyland" is a must.

 According to the author, the idea of ​​the book was born in a toilet after the Majdan insurgency in Ukraine 2014. Exclusive television screens in comfortable seating height made him realize why things went wrong in many of the former Soviet states. The answer was unrestrained corruption. The plant was owned by a Ukrainian company owned by a British, owned by a foundation in Lichtenstein - nowhere was the president's name specified. The ownership structure is a standard template for how corrupt individuals all over the world hide illegal assets.

 Yanukovych was not so much president as he was the leader of a criminal consortium plundering the assets of the Ukrainian people as a business idea. He tumbled in vulgar luxery that seems inevitable when doubtful taste meets abnormal wealth. But Ukraine is just the first stop on a journey that takes us farther and beyond into what Bullough describes as a virtual country where national borders, laws, taxes and morals are overshadowed. A country where only the richest can aspire to citizenship. Welcome to Moneyland! - the dark backyard of globalization.

 In July 1944, the Allies negotiated a new financial system in Bretton Woods, USA. According to the architects of the system, unregulated financial markets caused the instability that preceded the takeover of Nazis and led to war. If future wars were to be avoided and the democratic order is protected, capital must be regulated and free trade encouraged, was their conclusion. The restrictions of Bretton Woods on capital movements set limits to how rational it was to steal for corrupt individuals - too much money was simply difficult to handle and spend.

 However, in the early 1960s, a financial revolution began to open the ports of Eldorado for the corrupt and criminal. At the heart of this process, was Sigmund Warburg, owner of the bank S G Warburg & Co. in the City of London (mentioned in the introduction). He was one of actors in the intergovernmental bond market during the interwar period. He saw the potential of the considerable amount of unproductive dollars, known as euro banknotes or eurodollars, on accounts outside the United States, mainly in Switzerland and City of London. The only problem was that the United States had sole right to issue bonds in dollars under the Bretton Woods agreement.

 However, Warburg employees succeeded in identifying a number of loopholes in the regulatory framework, and in 1962 the first dollar bond was issued outside the United States. These became known as eurobonds, today the world largest financial product in terms of turnover. The holding was anonymous as it was not registered and the certificate was a piece of paper that could easily be transferred from one country to another. The international capital had blown their shackles and the basic foundation for Moneyland was made. It meant a crack in Bretton Woods, which eventually undermined the US's ability to maintain the system as its guarantor. 1973 definitely put an end to it. Since then, tha banking system of various countries have competed in deregulations to attract the capital, that is increasingly ripping across the world, in pursuit of returns - usually they show very little interest in the origins of that capital.

 Bretton Woods was bypassed by the fact that the transactions in the bonds - despite being registered on the London Stock Exchange - were transferred to a legally undefined site, offshore as it was called. The Bank of England understood that a gold mine was in progress and decided to overlook the actions of the procedure. City's bankers then took on the concept and created the modern offshore industry, the best ever tool for money laundering and tax evasion. Offshore usually points to the Channel Islands, Guernsey, Jersey and Isle of Man, as well as England's ancient crown colonies, Nevis, the Cayman Islands, whose legislation was tailored to managing capital that for various reasons fled from its homelands. Moneyland had found its structure.

 Bulluogh is an initiated and educational ciceron into the gloomy world of legal loopholes that makes the planet a smorgasbord for the truly rich. In Moneyland, they can buy citizenship and diplomatic status, register their ownership where they do not get taxed and hide their assets from governments and transparency.

 Bullough describes the luxury consumption of corrupt authorities, which can not be described as anything less than pathological, not least in contrast to the situation in their home countries. Creativity knows no limits when Moneyland's financial engineers serve their clients. A piquant example is the rich Chinese who pick up eggs from their wives and allow paid surrogate mothers in Japan to become pregnant with these - all to have children who are Japanese citizens who then can act as anchors for capital and investment.

 Globalization has made capital transnational while laws remain national, according to Bullough, this asymmetry represents the engine of the global "kleptomania economy". This relationship also makes this crime almost untouchable - it may take months or years before an investigator gets an answer to a simple ownership question from another jurisdiction and then the reviewed assets have often moved elsewhere. It is no coincidence that the great revelations in recent years have been made by activists and journalists who through networks can coordinate their efforts globally.

 Moneyland, however, also offers protection against unwelcome scrutiny. An individual who gets his business inspected can make use of Britain's notoriously hard injunction laws relating to offenses, which reach far beyond the country's borders. Bullough himself has been forced to renounce publications after legal threats. But most vulnerable are the activists and journalists who find themselves closest to the source of corruption - abuse, prison and murder are common means when Moneyland protects their own.

 The illegitimate capital each year leaving Africa is estimated to amount to three times the total aid to the continent. Every year about 3 billion dollars from developing countries are embezzeled. 50 per cent of Russia's total wealth, is estimated to be located abroad. These money could have gone to healthcare, education and development. Instead, the greater part is sucked up by the financial system of the West, which therby assists the industrial robbery. Bullough's hometown of London is in many ways the capital citiy of Moneyland. There, illegitimate capital transforms into real estate in the luxury segment. There are lawyers and auditors who know everything about money and money laundering. It is from the City of London that the  major parts of the offshore systems are controlled.

 There is, however, an actor who strikes hard when irregularities in the financial world are discovered, namely the United States. At the time of the financial crisis in 2008, the US Department of Justice forced the Swiss banks to open their client registers, which ended the country's infamous banking secrecy and its leading position as a trustee of dirty capital. But the United States does not make the same demands on its own states. This means that, among other things, Nevada and South Dakota, with their purposeful (tax excempt) foundations, attract the money forced away from traditional tax havens when the United States is increasing the pressure. The US is thus well on its way to becoming the world's largest tax haven and hideout for stolen property.

 Bullough is very clear to point out that Moneyland is the result of pack behavior, driven by mutual interests, and not by any conspiracy. On the one hand, we have the individuals who systematically rob their homelands and constantly seek ways to escape, hide and spend "their" money. On the other hand, we have those who get rich by showing how to do. Together they constitute the world's most profitable interest groups and they have billions of reasons to ensure the existence of Moneyland.

 The grip of "Moneyland" as an allegory for the complex of seemingly autonomous structures that allow for corruption is brilliant. Money laundering in Estonia, trafficking in Asia, illegal logging on Borneo and foundations in the Netherlands are seen as isolated phenomena, but Bullough shows that they are parts of the same ecosystem and how Moneyland is the point of intersection of the destiny of the world today. As long as its fi nancial structures delivers, environmental crime and drug trafficking will be an extremely profitable business. As long as corruption is growing, the flow of refugees and asylum seekers will grow and terrorist organizations have a safe recruitment base of bitter young men. The institutionalized corruption erodes democracy and the rule of law throughout the world, especially as kleptocracy needs the protection of an authoritarian regime. And the capital accumulated in Moneyland is used to buy influence and affect the political development of democratic countries.

 "Moneyland explains so much," writes Bullough and refers to the concept. But it also applies to the book. Let us hope that some publisher will ensure that even Swedish readers get to know one of the most important publications of the year.

      

Gunnar Wiman Freelance writer understrecket@svd.se

Todde

Also check:  http://axiom1b.blogspot.com/2018/12/greed-fraud-banks-accountants-attorneys.html

Dan Brown’s latest book - Origin

 Where do we come from? Where are we heading?

 A very interesting book that can lead you to interesting reflections.

 Here are some (the most rewarding and interesting) excerpt from Dan Brown's book: Where do we come from? Where are we going? - Our beginning and our destiny.

 Let's be children again, let's lie under the stars with our minds open to all possibilities. Let's be like the explorers of ancient times, those who left everything behind and went out into the wide ocean. Those who first saw the glimpse of a coast no one saw before. Those who fell on their knees and were filled with the wonder that the world was far greater than they imagined in their wildest imagination. All that previously taken for granted was dissolved and destroyed with these new discoveries.

 Brain Operating System - How are modern humans capable of drawing logical and analytical conclusions while accepting religious beliefs that should be crumbled at least rationally? The answer turns out to be quite simple - the human brain. Why does it believe what it believes in? The brain has an operating system like an organic computer. A regulatory framework that organizes and sorts the chaotic flows it recieves throughout the day. Words, a song that sticks, a siren, the taste of chocolate. As you can probably imagine, it infinitely uses a variety of information of different kinds, and the brain must try to make a living. In fact, one's perception of reality is defined by the brain's operating system. Unfortunately, we have been playing a joke, because the programmed human brain had a bad sense of humor. In other words, it is not our fault that we believe in the sources we believe in. Astrological charts, Jesus walking on water, Founder of Scientology L Ron Hubbard, Egyptian God Osiris, Hindu lighthouse elephant god Ganesha and a marble statue of Virgin Mary who cried physical tears. Combating Chaos, Creating Order.

 And as a programmer, I have to ask myself what kind of bizarre operating system would come to such illogical conclusions? If we could look into the human brain and interpret its systems, we would find something like this: fight chaos, create order. This is the basis of our brain programming. Our operation to organize is enrolled in our DNA. Data Vacuum, Faith, Religion and Science - For the human brain, any answer is better than no answer. We feel a great discomfort when we face insufficient data. So our brains begin to invent the facts. Which at least gives an illusion of order and therefore creates a myriad of philosophis and mythologies and religions. To convince us that in any case there is order and reason in the invisible world.

 Because not all religions give the same answer, large groups of people can start fighting against each other over which answers they regard as correct and which version of God is the only true one. Religion has always had exclusive rights to spiritual issues. Something that makes us not question its teachings, even when they seem to be in violation of common sense. But faith means by definition that one trusts something that can not be seen or touched. Accepting some beliefs as facts, even though you do not have empirical evidence for it. In turn, it understands that we choose to believe in different things, because there is no universal truth.

 Research is the true opposite of belief. Research is based on finding physical evidence of what has not yet been known, and replacing superstitions and misconceptions in favor of concrete facts.

 The age of religion is (hopefully?) nearing its end, and the tides of science are beginning to grow. Life and Entropy - How did life evolve? It's not possible to answer that question and that's the point. As for the creation process, going over the threshold where dead chemicals form living organisms, science fails to give us an answer. There are no mechanisms in chemistry that explain how life evolved. In fact, the very idea that cells would merge and form life forms is in direct conflict with the law of entropy.

 Entropy is just a finer way of saying things go from order to chaos. In scientific language, we usually say that an organized system will inevitably sooner or later collapse. "I've just put together millions of sand grains into a castle. Now let's see what the universe has to say about that matter. Just a few seconds later, a wave rinses across the beach and flushes away the castle. Yes, the universe found my ordered sand grains and took control over them, spread them out over the sand. That's how entropy works." Waves rolling over the beach never form the sand to a castle. Entropy dissolves structure. Sandcastles never occur spontaneously in this universe, they just disappear.When you heat coffee and remove a hot-hot cup from a microwave, you focus on heat energy in a cup. If you put the cup on the kitchen counter and allow it to stand for one hour, the heat disappears into the room and distributes it evenly. Just like sand on a beach. Entropy again, and the process is irreversible. No matter how long you wait, the universe will never heat the coffee again, nor repair a broken egg or build a downcast sand castle.

 We live in a universe that is entropic by nature. A host whose physical laws are built by chance, not order (or is there something behind this phenomenon that creates order?). So the question is, how can lifeless chemicals in some magical way organize themselves into complex compounds of life forms?

 The Purpose of the Universe - (Kirch describes a theory of Jeremy England) ... The universe was driven by a single purpose, a goal of spreading energy. One could easily say that when the universe found areas of focused energy it spread that energy. The classic example was what Kirsch mentioned, the coffee cup on the kitchen counter. The coffee always cooled by sending out the heat to other molecules in the room, according to the second principle of thermodynamics. "We know that the universe wants entropy (disorder). Simply put, matter is self-organizing in order to better disseminate energy. In order to achieve disorder, nature creates small pockets of order. These pockets are used to escalate the chaos of a system and thereby increase the entropy factor. In other words, the laws of physics created mechanisms to disperse energy. Lightning sends away the energy of the cloud into the earth, spread it out, thus increasing the system's general entropy. Or Big Bang. A violent proliferation of power. What does entropy have to do with the beginning of life? Well, it turns out that life is an extremely effective tool for spreading energy. For example, a tree absorbs the intense energy of the sun. Uses it to grow, then emits infrared light. A much less focused form of energy. Photosynthesis is an extremely effective entropy machine. The concentrated energy of the sun is dissolved and weakened by the tree, thus creating a general increase in the universe's entropy. The same can be said about all living organisms.

 Sometimes people consume organized matter in the form of food, then transforms it into energy, and then sends back heat energy. In general, I would say life is not subject to the laws of physics, but life began because of these laws. "When strong sunlight hit a piece of fertile soil, the physical laws of the earth would create a flower as a means to disperse that energy.

 If sulfur is ejected down in the depths of the ocean it will create areas of boiling water and life would occur in these places and spread the energy. If Professor England's theory is correct, then the entire cosmos operating system could be summarized in one single command - propagate energy. 

 As for spirituality, I consider this theory as agnostic. I'm just trying to describe how it's in the universe. The spiritual conclusions I leave to priests and philosophers.

 Life, codes, patterns and DNA 

 Physics laws alone can give rise to life. Edmund's discovery was fascinating and definitely explosive, but for Langdon it gave rise to a supplementary question that he was surprised to observe that no-one asked: If the laws of physics are so powerful that they can create life, who created the laws?

 To me the question of God or who/what created life, lies in understanding the difference between codes and patterns. Codes and patterns are two very different things. Most people mix them together and are confused. A pattern is a distinctly organized sequence or structure. Patterns are found everywhere in nature, the spiral-shaped flowering bushes of the sunflower, the hexagonal cells of the bees honeycomb, the circular rings on the water when a fish speaks and so forth.

 Codes are special, codes must contain information. They have to do something more than just form a pattern. Codes must transfer facts and information. Examples of codes are 1) written languages 2)music notes 3) mathematical equations 4) data languages ​​and even 5) simple symbols like the crucifix. All of these examples can convey a message in a way that spiral-growing sunflower seeds can not. The other difference between codes and patterns is that codes do not occur spontaneously in the world. Music notes do not grow on trees and symbols do not draw themselves in the sand. A code is a fully conscious idea of ​intelligence. Codes do not grow organically, they must be created. The genetic code, it's a paradox. The genetic code obviously contained information, specific instructions on how to build organisms. Conclusion: DNA has been created by an intelligent consciousness!

 Ever since I was a child, I have suspeted that there is a consciousness behind the universe. When I study the accuracy of mathematics, the reliability of the physics and the symmetry of cosmos, it does not feel like it's a cold and unfeeling science I see. But the footprint of something alive. Shadow of a greater force we can not understand.

Man has created a number of codes - the alphabet, the numbers and symbols of mathematics and the tones of music. So who / what created the DNA code? Who created the atoms, which are a code for chemistry?

 Nila Pihl 2018  - check: www.duga.se (If you do not read Swedish – use Google translate)

Also check: http://axiom1b.blogspot.com/2017/05/william-marshall-greatest-knight-of.html

What is Karma?

 In the West, there are great misunderstandings about what the word Karma actually means.

 Karma's law is "The Law of Cause and Effect". The indo-European root word is

kwer-¹ witch means to make.

 Most of us in the western world have learned that the law ofKarma is about eye for eye and tooth for tooth. But that idea comes from the Sumerian system of laws, commonly known as the laws of Hammurabi. Hammurabi's laws were written on stone pillars in Mesopotamia about 1800 BC. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi

 In order to understand the law of Karma, first of all, we need to define the different spheres of existence that the individual operates in. We call these spheres of existence dynamics. They are parts of the driving force (dynamics) that life gives man - actually the immortal being (= your true self) living in a human nature  (your false self).

 Part 1 (= 1D) of this dynamic priciple is to survive as a human nature or the ego that most human beings define themselves by and which society confirms as "your existence."

 Part 2 (= 2D) of life's dynamics for mankind is the drive to exist as family. In our modern society most often husband + wife + child(ren).

 Part 3 (= 3D) of life's dynamics is the urge to exist through groups or with friends (see the article on "Friendship" at: http://axiom1b.blogspot.com/2015/03/friends-true-friend-is-someone-you-know.html )

 Part 4 (= 4D) of life's dynamics is the urge to exist through culture, civilization or as all of humanity.

 A common misunderstanding about karma is that it only has to do with the karma of your human nature (= 1D). But if so you forget that man is not a lonesam being. On the contrary, man is a being striving for togetherness. He wants to belong to some kind of community. The person who remains alone, without friends remains unhappy.

 Another misunderstanding, which is very common in Asia, is that it is important to avoid committing harmful acts to get good karma. But if you only choose to avoid all sorts of harmful actions, then the risk is great that you forget what is VERY IMPORTANT: To Perform good deeds (= actions favoring the greater majority). It is by performing good deeds that you create positive karma for your future.

 Even Jesus pointed out that it is the good deeds that make you blessed (in the Gospel of Thomas and in "Sermon on the Mount").

 If you live in a society affected by negative karma that society created its negative karma by comitting harmful actions in the past on these four dynamics. Patriarchal cultures have created negative karma for all who are connected with them. 

 If you live in a city where a clan chief has taken control of a neighborhood, you may be affected by that clan's negative karma if you only stay in the area that the clan chief controls. This is an example of negative 3D karma that can affect you.

 If you live in a civilization that has created equal rights for women and men, you will benefit from the positive karma that the enlightened women and men of that civilization has created. That is an example of positive karma on the 4D.

 Perhaps the most difficult concept of understanding what karma is to understand what CAUSE really means. The very word cause means that which creates effect. From a non-materialistic point of view, cause originates from spiritual beings, who creates effect. For the materialists of science, all cause has to arise from what can be measured inside the physical universe (consisting of Matter, Energy, Space and Time).

 The law of Karma then becomes (from a spiritual perspective) the law of how spiritual beings create effect.

 If you follow different causal chains backwards, through all relay points in the physical universe, you eventually find spiritul beingenesses as cause.

 If you meditate on this, you have an opportunity to "get to know yourself (your true self)", but doing so on your own is not easy.

 We recommend that you try to find a well-trained meditor who can help you get past the mental barriers that lock you in a fixed mindset. Check:

 https://www.duga.se/ and use google translate

 On the road to increased self-awareness, you may find that you are actually much more CAUSE than you have dared to acknowledge.

NOTE! NOTE! NOTE! It is by performing harmful actions (whether deliberately or unconsciously) the individual worsens their ability to create (= be CAUSE). That's what makes the individual create NEGATIVE karma. Negative karma is the same as lost ability to be CAUSE. Every harmful act results in the individual withdrawing himself from that area. It is when the individual withdraws himselt from responsibility that causes him to suffer from negative karma. If the individual accepts full responsibility for his harmful acts he will not suffer from negative karma.
  As the individual is not just an egobeing (1D), the individual can accept responsibility not only for his 1D but also for the higher dynamics and thus avoid negative karma even on these higher dynamics of life (2D, 3D and 4D)

Todde

Kolla även: http://axiom1b.blogspot.com/2017/11/cause-andor-effect-thinking-in.html

Thomas Jefferson & Tripoli Pirates

 I have read the book "Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates" (ISBN 9780143129431) and learned something new:  The United States first war after the war of freedom was not the 1812 war against England but Jefferson's war against Tripoli from 1801 to 1804.    England and France was paying tributaries to the North African states (Morocco, Libya, Tunisia and Algeria) each year so that these states would not let their pirates hijack English and French ships.  When the United States declared independance from Britain, the United States merchant ships ceased to be protected by England's agreement with the North African states and their pirate ships.  Suddenly, the US trade fleet was prey for the North African pirates. Neither George Washington nor John Adams tried when they were the first and second presidents of the United States to put an end to these hijackings of American ships or the enslavement of American sailors. But Thomas Jefferson (USA's third president) had openly argued against this already before he became president (1801).
The first commander (Adams - not the 2nd president of the USA) of the new US Navy asked the muslim leader in Tripoli how the barbary states could justify "making war upon nations who had done them no injury?"
The response was nothing less than chilling: according to his holy book, the Quaran, Abdrahaman explained "All nations which have not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the fathful to plunder and enslave"
Christian sailors were, plain and simple, fair game.  After the war of liberation, the new American nation stopped having an army and the United States had no fleet. Jefferson realized that it was necessary for the United States to build a fleet that was strong enough to defeat and conquer the North African pirate states and immediately took action to achieve this. Already after a few years, the United States had a fleet of just over half a dozen battleships and frigates.  At the same time the US Marin Corps were created. There were not so many individuals (a dozen) belonging to the US Marines who followed the new United States navy to the Mediterranean in the early 19th century, but they were both brave, devoted, totally loyal to the new nation and more than willing to sacrifice their own lives for the cause.
 The worst "pirate state" was ruled by a Muslim Arab (he was the "dey" of Tripoli) who had taken over the capital of Tripoli by depositing the legitimate heiress (his older brother) and kept the brother's wife and children as hostage in Tripoli, while the brother hid as a refugee in Egypt. One of the most dedicated marines soldiers realized that if he could get the fugitive brother Hamat to join the Americans, the United States navy and soldiers could help him

to be reintegrated to the throne of Tripoli. It would immediately improve the US position. He managed to contact Hamat, who was able to mobilize a few hundred Arab warriors, and so began the March towards Tripoli - 10 US Marines and hundreds of Arab camel-raid warriors. They had to travel over 300 miles through the desert. They were running out of water and food, but the navy soldiers promised that the US fleet would meet them with new supplies before they arrived at the first smaller society they needed to conquer. Before the caravan arrived at the meeting place, unrest spread among the Arab camel riders. They worried about water and food supplies. Would there be enough for all of them? They decided to loot the food and water supplies. Ten US Marines stood in front of the stores and did not give way by a single inch when the rebellious Arabs approached the stores. It made the Arabs retreat. Some Arabs left. Most of them calmed down. The caravan could continue its march. When the caravan arrived at the meeting place, nobody could catch a glimpse of any ship with necessities. Worry spread again among the Arabs. The marines soldiers calmed them down by informing them that a proper fire would be lit on an adjacent mountain. When the night came, the fire was lit. In the morning, the ship showed up at the beach. With renewed water supplies and supplies, the little army continued towards the first village, which was easily taken. Meanwhile, as the caravan had traveled through the desert, the captain responsible for the US Mediterranean fleet had attempted to set the American enslaved sailors free. But the "dey" had requested an excessive amount of money, so the captain could not reap any honor for solving the situation. As soon as the US marines and Hamat's Arab warriors managed to capture the village, rumors spread that a party of Arabs and US Marines was on their way to Tripoli to remove the sitting "dey" and reintroduce the rightful heir on his throne. So now the "dey" became very anxious and suddenly very willing to negotiate the ransom money, to release the American seamen. "The Dey" and the captain agreed on a sum of only 20% of the original solvency sum and a peace agreement between Tripoli and the United States was signed. When the dedicated leader of the navy soldiers who had struggled to get through the desert found out that the captain had cheated on him he got very upset. He would never had agreed to pay a single dollar to get his countrymen released. He had already agreed with Hamat to release his countrymen without having to pay any ransom.

 Eventually, the information about the development of events in North Africa reached the US government. It soon became clear who desreved the honor for the defeat of the north African pirates (the other North African pirate homelands realized that the time had arrived when it was was necessary to make peace with the United States and cease harassing American ships and crews).
The patriotic marines were not satisfied with the North African states who committed pirate activities and enslaved sailors from Christian lands. It was not enough that they released American enslaved sailors. They demanded that all seamen of all Christian countries be released and that all merchant ships from Christian countries should be permitted to travel outside North Africa's coasts without being attacked and robbed.
The marines got their way, but the ransom money could not be returned.
 The US fleet was significantly smaller than both the Brittish and French fleets. But it was the United States Navy and the US Marines that made the North African countries stop robbing Christian merchant ships.
 Thruogh the US war against Muslim pirate countries, both the US navy and US marines were created. This later allowed the United States to fight Britain in the war that began in 1812.  The United States Marine Corps has subsequently performed one heroic effort after another in later wars of the USA.
The first war that the US fought under President Jefferson's leadership has been forgotten by most historians. This is not hard to understand as the world's focus by this time was directed towards what happened in Europe during the Napoleonic Wars.  But Jefferson was no meak president.  Jefferson already showed when he violated almost all rules about the powers he had as president when he bought the "Louisiana territory" from Napoleonic France. Todd June 2018

Also check:

http://axiom1b.blogspot.com/2016/09/ww3-radical-muslims-freedom-of-speach.html

400 years of fear of private entrepreneurs

 Are profits in the welfare state a mistake or, on the contrary, a driving force needed for everyone's best? The current dispute has been debated since the beginning of the 17th century. This has been made obvious by a new dissertation which points to a remarkable continuity regarding both hope and suspicion.

 "These entrepreneurs do not undertake the task unless they are able to make a good profit themselves, and they are not interested in the wealth of the nation but rather want to create benefits for themselves at the cost of the people." Such opinions are very politically correct today. But these words are not pronounced by a contemporary politician but (in modernized language) written by Axel Oxenstierna (1583 - 1654).

 In other words, our view of private entrepreneurs and profits is not new, but seems to be typical of the political culture in Sweden. Even though the country in the early 1600s was very different in many respects, there were obvious similarities in attitudes and values.  A young historian at Stockholm University, Mr Linnarsson, has taken onto himself the task of examining how Sweden has regarded profit for a longer period of time, from the 1600s to the present day. Despite the extensive time span, Linnarsson has succeeded in summarizing the "Problem of Profits" in an essay: "Public and Public Duty Debates for 400 Years" (Nordic Academic Press). He has, of course, been forced to neglect lots of possible perspectives and insights. The source material has nevertheless been overwhelming.

Another student, Mats Hallenberg has in a earlier study - "State Power for sale", (2008) thoroughly elaborated the attempts by Axel Oxenstierna and the government leadership in the early 1600s to outsource tax collection. It proved to be a sensitive subject and aroused so much local dissatisfaction that it was soon abandoned. Linnarsson has chosen four instances in history, but he confined himself entirely to what has been negotiated in parliament.
 Common denominator of the four instances has been that they concerned the choice between government and private operations and that discussions always included the question of which choice would best benefit the public good. Oxenstierna's opinion is characteristic: the finding that the entrepreneurs wanted to make a profit was clear, but the core issue was whether this caused nuisance or loss to the general public. The answer was never obvious.  When the government had chosen to outsource the collection of taxes to a contracted private company, this was conditional upon the tax revenue for the state thus becoming larger and more secure. The public reaction against these "collectors" overly nitious and effective administrators, paradoxically, made this arrangement for political reasons impossible.
 Linnarsson, in his interesting survey, found out that the lines of debate were strikingly formulated on the question of what used to be the general rule. Although, in ancient Rome, the idea of ​maximum benefit (salus populi) for all citizens had been formulated (summum bonum), that was something that tore away with the imperial era and the Roman empire's later dissolution.  With the renaissance humanists' feedback to ancient culture and literature, this thought was again raised, even though it was not reflected in political reality as quickly. It is therefore of interest to note that such thoughts became natural in the Swedish parliament in the 17th century. Although you might include much less and narrower in the term public interest in the 1600s or 1700s compared to what we now do, the very fact that the term was also related to concrete choices between public and private matters.

The first example in Linnarssons study is about a debate in the first Swedish period of parlamentarism (1718-1772) around the general collection of customs duties. This had since 1726 benn outsourced to the private General Legislative Society. Customs and taxes are rarely popular. When the matter was discussed in the Parlament in 1765, the question was whether the state should take back the right to collect duties or if private entrepreneurs should continue to do this. In the latter case, it would mean, for the private entrepreneur, i.e. the General Legislative Society, a fixed lease to the Crown, regardless of how much this then practically entered into customs duties. The more duties that could be collected, the greater became the profit for society. It was basically the same system as Oxenstierna and the state had created for the collection of taxes in the 1600's.
 In our days, such a system would hardly have been possible, but paradoxically, one of the reasons that in 1726 the redemption of customs duties had passed to private administration was the crown's dissatisfaction with the efficiency of recovery. Several politicans therefore argued in the debate that the state would actually benefit by continuing to let private companies collect. Then you could also be sure of the size of the customs income. The result, however, was that the state took over the collection.  One could say that this 250-year-old parliamentary debate created a pattern for the following debates for and against profits in matters of relevance to the general good. On the one hand, there were those who claimed that private activities are most favorable in the long term also for the state or citizens. Others claimed, however, that private profits in practice drain the treasury and thus favored that the state collects taxes and duties.  Linnarsson has also downloaded a parliamentary debate from the 19th century and one from the turn of the century - 1900. The first was the extension of railroads, the other concerned the proposal to create a national telephone network.
As far as the extension of railroads are concerned, the question was promptly addressed to either party, state or private actors who would best serve the public interest. There was a lot of uncertainty about whether the state had sufficient competence and therefore should choose foreign railway builders. The decision was nevertheless that the building of railroads should be handled by the state.

The case became even more popular during the many years of debate on the telephone network. There, many MPs feared that the private company that controlled large parts of Stockholm's network could not be purchased without seriously hurting the public interests. The state simply lacked resources to buy and manage the private AB Stockholm phone business. It took many years for the state's telegraph company to reach such a level that a merger in 1918 could happen without inconvenience.
 In both of these debates it became even more clear that it was not only a matter of choice between state or private, but primarily about what best served the public interest. From the point of view of being more aware of the individual's interests towards the state, one later became more prone in safeguarding the government's interests towards the private. The modern state thus gained increasing importance for the general wellbeing. Linnarsson's last example takes us on to today's debate. He has studied the intense conflicts of the 1980s on private nursery homes, which heated the debate in all directions. In essence, the issue raised the advent of a new law "Lex Pysslingen", which intended to put a stop to government grants to private companies as  owners of nursery homes.                     Those who advocated the new law were convinced that private involvement was driven solely by the profits of the individual, which could be good for the business and also for the public. The bourgeois opposition argued instead that diversity benefitted freedom and that this in itself had a qualitative value. In other words, freedom of choice was regarded as an essential aspect of good welfare. Without it, the quality of care would be worse. There were those who argued that diversity and market would increase efficiency, but that was not the most public argument. Linnarsson's presentation reveals that the modern debate with emotional opinions is by no means new. Even far back in time, there has been suspicion against private profits, yet largely balanced against the requirement for efficiency in the business. The public good would not be served by a public system that did not work. Only mowadays has freedom of choice become an aspect of welfare. This is probably due to the fact that the concept of welfare covers many more areas than earlier. This presupposes confidence that the state always protects and favors everyone. Everyone pays taxes to get a share of the common welfare. But when you discover that not everyone gets the same quality of school, care or other services, many want to make their own choices. The nursery homes debate in the 80's and our current school debate clearly shows this. The idea of ​​the general good can of course not be justified with what we today put into our "concepts of welfare". The general good did not always mean an equal use of common benefits or the like. Instead, it was "the general best" more clearly linked to the interests of the state and only indirectly to the wellbeing of citizens. Linnarsson has highlighted a significant trait in the Swedish political discussion of centuries. The interesting lesson is not to be found in the details, which vary over the centuries, but in a suspicion that has always been present against profits for the individual  and the question on to what degree this favors or does not favor the general good. Certainly already Oxenstierna ventilated his disbeief in the profit interests of private players, but that did not prevent him from exploiting them when he thought it was good for the state. Is such a pragmatism possible in our time? 

 Erland Sellberg Professor em. in history of ideas  at Stockholm University --- The original article in Swedish is available at: https://www.svd.se/400-ar-av-radsla-for-privata-entreprenorer   Also check: http://axiom1b.blogspot.se/2017/10/do-elites-have-responsibility-for.html