Das ist gut!

Instrumental music should only be played by Russo/Nordics. They're the best!!

(though he was born in Argentina...)

isn't it lack of government oversight that got us into this mess in the first place???

Were the riots of the 60s a result of government failing to enforce Jim Crow laws? Rather than put law enforcement under a single umbrella, you need to understand the difference between a good law and a bad law. Before you even make the jump to regulation, ask yourself if the regulators are being regulated by the constitution? Nope. Sort that one out first, there's your problem. "Regulation" is an extremely general term used by politicians to great effect to blame others for problems and changes in market behavior that they create. We have a central bank in this country that price fixes interest rates since 1913. This is a socialist idea that was passed on the basis of its objective rather than its result. It turns out that letting a pseudo-government agency set interest rates results in an artificial lowering to delay politically inconvenient recessions. This artificial price fix results in the wrong kind of investment decisions and incentives, leading to phony bubbles that carry with them the seeds of their own destruction. I'll explain below.

In order for credit to exist, savings must exist. That's what credit is, someone else loaning their money out to someone at interest rather than spending it. Everyone wants a low rate of interest as a borrower. Everyone wants a high rate of interest as a saver. By definition, savings is underconsumption. Someone, somewhere, has to be saving rather than spending money in order for real credit to exist. These two forces are at odds with each other, to find the happiest medium between savings and production. That's completely perverted by a price fixing system where the government is dictating the interest rate for political purposes. Too easy dictation in the 90s caused the tech stock bubble, worthless tech stocks were trading at hundreds time earnings. When that "growth" came crashing down in 2000, Bush didn't want to have the recession occurring under his first term or he wouldn't get re-elected. So he and Greenspan lowered interest rates to 1% for a whole year to keep businesses borrowing and consumers consuming. The problem is, where is the savings coming from to allow both to happen at once? Overseas. We are the world's largest debtor nation now, borrowing from everyone to consume products that they make. They accumulate our paper money. We get their products. 70 billion a month trade deficit and still going. That's our economy the last twenty years. We abuse a reserve currency of the world status gained under the gold standard to export our now inflationary currency all over the world. That's coming to and end at some point. The Fed is increasing its balance sheet like there's no tomorrow, trying to replace the credit no longer being loaned to us with a printing press. It won't work. It didn't work in Weimar, it didn't work in Argentina, it didn't work in Zimbabwe, and it won't work here. The inflation is in the pipeline, it will hit during Obama's term. Obama and McCain are both socialists, the pork filled bailout bill they voted on ought to be evidence of that. Neither one understands that the recession needs to happen like the druggie needs withdrawal, and the more you try to stop the failures and painful reallocations with more drugs, the longer you're going to be in rehab.

So where did all that money from tech stocks filter into? With such low rates of interest and a removal of houses from the government's own inflation calculations, inflation shifted from tech stocks into real estate rather than being purged in a recession. So nobody but a few libertarian economists who learned a type of economics that isn't taught here could see the problem, one of them being Ron Paul's economic advisor Peter Schiff. In that mania, lending standards were abandoned to take advantage of the artificial demand created by the dictated low interest.

In other words, the market got drunk, but it was the FED THAT SPIKED THE PUNCHBOWL.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfascZSTU4o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucDkoqwflF4

You can see the austrian view (Schiff) directly in conflict with the pro-government keynesian/monetarist view that is predominantly taught in this country (Laffer/Swonk). That's why none of the so-called "harvard educated, brilliant, phd holding" managers of a these banks and investment firms were not only oblivious to what was going to happen, but regularly confuse weaknesses for strengths. It's that ass-backwards, we teach the economic equivalent of astrology. Why? Because who has the most to gain from a sexy interventionist theory that says inflation is necessary to prevent hoarding and politicians spending its citizens' money for them can stimulate economic growth? Why, it's the benefactors of inflation!

I'll address Necrodancer later, I gotta go. He seems awfully confused on what socialism is and how socialist we are.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'margaret thatcher, british, europe, dana gould, argetina, battleship' to 'margaret thatcher, british, europe, dana gould, argentina, battleship' - edited by videosiftbannedme

0:00-40:00: really good/must see. this is a great description of our monetary system.
40:00-43:30 completely false
46:00-49:00 completely false
49:00+ going downhill real quick
60:00+ getting into ridiculous nonsense at this point
65:00+ are you serious, I thought you just said business was bad 5 minutes ago?
69:00+ efficiency and abundance are the enemies of profit? so if you are mining gold bars, and figured out a process to extract 10 gold bars instead of only 1, you are unhappy because then the prices of gold goes down? wtf are you talking about?
71:00+ eliminating the need for prisons? are you crazy?
73:00+ a world of flying boomerang airplanes, what the hell is this? I need to donate to whatever the opposition of the venus project is, christ.
74:20+ a world with super robots producing food and labor so no humans have to work? thats your ace in the hole solution to everything? hello, didn't we see how that ended in the terminator and the matrix?
79:30+ false, all of those mediums require massive resources to construct
82:00+ good idea, lets replace airplanes with trains. would be a fun trip from Argentina to Australia on a train. By the way, all the technology you have been talking about was developed through corporate greed under the evil monetary system, how do you explain that one?
85:00+ robot doctors? really? so you are going to be okay with a robot grabbing your balls and telling you to turn your head and cough?
86:00+ no legal system at all because crimes are caused by money? so rape and murder--thats just due to bounced checks? pendulums in cars to correct for drunk driving? this is getting really hard to watch...

sorry I'm losing it...the venus project is just insane.

Roubini has some very good ideas on how to do this right, and not be a scam:

HOME (Home Owners’ Mortgage Enterprise): A 10 Step Plan to Resolve the Financial Crisis
Nouriel Roubini | Sep 24, 2008

Even if the Treasury TARP plan is implemented fairly and efficiently the US will not avoid a severe U-shaped18-month recession and a severe financial and banking crisis: the recession train has already left the station in Q1 and the financial/banking crisis will be severe regardless of what the Treasury and the Fed do from now on. What a proper rescue plan can do is to avoid having the US experience a multi-year L-shaped recession and extreme financial crisis like the one that led to a decade long stagnation in Japan in the 1990s after the bursting of their real estate and equity bubbles.

I have also argued that, in order to resolve this financial crisis it is not enough to take the bad/toxic assets off the balance sheet of the financial institutions (a new RTC); it is also necessary and fundamental to reduce the debt overhang of millions of insolvent households via a significant debt reduction on their mortgages (an HOLC program like the one that was implement during the Great Depression); and also recapitalize undercapitalized banks with public capital in the form of preferred shares (as the RFC did with 4000 banks during the Great Depression). An RTC scheme without an HOLC and RFC component would not resolve two fundamental problems: millions of households are insolvent and unable to service their mortgages; the financial system is vastly undercapitalized and needs capital to avoid an ugly credit crunch and to foster new credit creation that is needed for future growth.

That is why I proposed the creation of a HOME (Home Owners’ Mortgage Enterprise) that would be a combination of an RTC, a HOLC and a RFC. Let me flesh out this proposal and its key elements and compare it to the Treasury TARP proposal that in its current form has many flaws.

There are 10 steps in this HOME proposal to resolve this most severe financial crisis. Here they are:

First, like in the Treasury TARP plan you need to buy illiquid/toxic assets and take them off the balance sheet of banks and financial institutions to reliquify them and allow new credit creation. The biggest problem here – as the debate between Bernanke and senators yesterday is one of the proper valuation and the proper price at which the government should buy these assets (the RTC did not have this problem as it was working out assets of failed S&Ls): if the government buys the asset at at price that is too high (too small of discount relative to face value) the fiscal cost will be huge and you massively subsidize reckless bankers and their shareholders. If you buy at a discount that is too high you minimize the fiscal cost in the short run but many banks could go bust and the eventual fiscal cost of bailing out the depositors of failed banks could be large. You can debate endlessly whether such assets should be bought at current market price or at prices closer to hold to maturity values (as Bernanke suggested). Given that these assets are impaired pricing the long run value of them is mission impossible. Thus, there is only one solution to this fundamental uncertainty: avoid the government overpaying by having the government having some of the positive benefits of an upside gain in case the banks’ values recover after the bailout. I.e. you need for the government to have some equity in the banks whose assets are purchased by the government. This leads to step 2 of the proposal.

Second, in exchange for the purchase of illiquid asset (at whatever price it is agreed) the government gets preferred shares in the financial institutions that senior to existing common and preferred shares and that are convertible into common shares to allow government to participate into any future upside.

Third, even if the government gets preferred shares as in step 2, the banks will need more capital if they are undercapitalized and they have not fully reserved/provisioned for the losses coming from writing down the asset being sold to the government. So you will need to inject further actual public capital in the form of preferred shares in the financial institutions ( this is what the RFC did during the Great Depression).

Fourth, given the risk to the government deriving from the public injection of capital in the financial system the existing shareholders of the banks need to take a first-tier loss to minimize the risks for the government share. How to do that? First, you need to suspend dividend payments on common share and possibly even existing preferred shared; you also need to force to partially match the public capital injection with new Tier 1 capital.

Fifth, public and private recapitalization of financial institutions unfairly benefits unsecured creditors (all creditors but insured depositors) of such institutions. So, you also need to convert some of this unsecured debt (the sub debt and other debt unsecured debt) into equity (a debt for equity swap). Such swap further reduce the leverage of the financial system (leading to a lower debt to equity ratio for financial institutions).

Sixth, after this crisis is resolved the banking and financial system may need lower capital than before this crisis so as to avoid new asset and credit bubbles; and if you recapitalize some banks that will be able to lend more (still with lower leverage ratios) you still need to let other insolvent banks and financial institutions to go bust and disappear. Only healthier institution should survive. So you need to a systematic triage between banks that are distressed, undercapitalized and illiquid but solvent once the private and public recapitalization occurs from those that are fundamentally insolvent and that need to be shut down. You need to destroy the bad apples to let the good ones or the sick but curable ones survive and thrive.

Seventh, as in the case of the RTC the assets of the banks that are bankrupt and are allowed to fail go to the HOME for workout (debt restructuring/reduction).

Eighth, you need an HOLC-like program for debt reduction of the household sector. Households in the US have too much debt (subprime, near prime, prime mortgages, home equity loans, credit cards, auto loans and student loans) while their assets (values of their homes and stocks) are plunging leading to a sharp fall in their net worth. And households are getting buried under this mountain of mounting debt and rising debt servicing burdens. Thus, a fraction of the household sector – as well as a fraction of the financial sector and a fraction of the corporate sector and of the local government sector – is insolvent and needs debt relief. When a country (say Russia, Ecuador or Argentina) has too much debt and is insolvent it defaults and gets debt reduction and is then able to resume fast growth; when a firm is distressed with excessive debt it goes into bankruptcy court and gets debt relief that allows it to resume investment, production and growth; when a household is financially distressed it also needs debt relief to be able to have more discretionary income to spend. So any unsustainable debt problem requires debt reduction. The lack of debt relief to the distressed households is the reason why this financial crisis is becoming more severe and the economic recession - with a sharp fall now in real consumption spending – now worsening. The fiscal actions taken so far (income relief to households via tax rebates) and bailouts of distressed financial institutions (Bear Stearns creditors’ bailout, Fannie and Freddie and AIG) do not resolve the fundamental debt problem for two reasons. First, you cannot grow yourself out of a debt problem: when debt to disposable income is too high increasing the denominator with tax rebates is ineffective and only temporary; i.e. you need to reduce the nominator (the debt). Second, rescuing distressed institutions without reducing the debt problem of the borrowers does not resolve the fundamental insolvency of the debtor that limits its ability to consume and spend and thus drags the economy into a more severe economic contraction. So of the five possible uses of fiscal policy – income relief to households (the 2008 tax rebate), rescue/bailout of financial institutions (Bears Stearns, Fannie and Freddie, AIG), purchase of assets of failed institutions (an RTC-like institution), recapitalization of undercapitalized financial institutions (an RFC-like institution), government purchase of distressed mortgages to provide debt relief to households (an HOLC-like institution) – the last option is the most important and effective to resolve this severe financial and economic crisis. During the Great Depression the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation was create to buy mortgages from bank at a discount price, reduce further the face value of such mortgages and refinance distressed homeowners into new mortgages with lower face value and lower fixed rate mortgage rates. This massive program allowed millions of households to avoid losing their homes and ending up in foreclosure. The HOLC bought mortgages for two year and managed such assets for 18 years at a relatively low fiscal cost (as the assets were bought at a discount and reducing the face value of the mortgages allowed home owners to avoid defaulting on the refinanced mortgages). A new HOLC will be the macro equivalent of creating a large “bad bank” where the bad assets of financial institutions are taken off their balance sheets and restructured/reduced.

Ninth, we need to avoid a situation where the recapitalization of the banks and the resolution of this financial crisis leads to another credit and asset bubble. Many things need to be done to avoid this risk but a rapid change of the Basel II capital adequacy ratios to reduce their the pro-cyclicality would be essential.

Tenth, start implementing rapidly a reform of the system of regulation and supervision of financial institutions in a world of financial globalization. With the collapse of most of the shadow banking system most of these shadow banks are now being folded in the traditional banks and will be regulated like banks. Indeed all institutions of large size and that are systemically important (commercial banks, investment banks, non-bank mortgage lenders, hedge funds, private equity funds, etc.) should be supervised and regulated in a similar way. To make the financial system more stable over time and avoid severe financial crises like the current one will require that both banks and former shadow banks be regulated and supervised better than they have been in the last decade. After all traditional banks have performed as poorly – and some more poorly – and have lost more money than shadow banks during this severe financial crisis. So both the poor regulation and supervision of banks (as regulators were asleep at the wheel while the laissez fair ideology and voodoo-cult of self-regulation and market discipline and internal risk management became dominant) and the lack of sensible regulation of shadow banks lies behind the current financial disaster. Thus, folding shadow banks back into the traditional banking system will make the overall financial system more stable only if the proper reform of the regulation and supervision of financial institutions in a world of financial globalization will be undertaken. This important matter is the subject of the chapter (titled “Financial Crises, Financial Stability, and Reform: Supervision and Regulation of the Financial System in a World of Financial Globalization”) that I have written for the recently published World Economic Forum’s Financial Development Report.

This chapter analyzes in detail the episodes of financial crisis in emerging market economies and advanced economy; discusses the causes and consequences of such crisis; measures the economic and fiscal costs of such crises; discusses the debate on whether monetary and credit policy should target asset prices and asset bubbles; studies the weaknesses of financial regulation and supervision in advanced economies financial systems that led to the recent crises; and finally considers eleven separate key issues in the reform of the regulation and supervision of financial institutions in a world of financial globalization that are necessary to prevent future crisis and make them less virulent. These eleven issues that are key in reforming financial regulation and supervision are: the distorted compensation system of bankers/traders and the related agency problems between financial institutions shareholders and their managers; the flaws of the originate and distribute securitization model; regulatory arbitrage and the instability of the shadow banking system given its reliance on short term liquid financing, high leverage and long term illiquid lending; the weaknesses of self-regulation and market discipline and the need of greater rules-based regulation; pro-cyclical capital requirements and other issues with the Basel II capital requirements; the distorted incentives of credit rating agencies; asset valuation and fair value accounting in a world where assets can be highly illiquid and hard to price; the lack of transparency in financial markets; the inadequate regulatory regime; the lack of international coordination of regulatory policies; and the issue of who will regulate the regulators, i.e. how to avoid the regulatory capture by the financial industry of the regulators and supervisors of financial institutions.

So now that the shadow banking system is being folded in the formal banking system it is high time to rethink how both banks and the former non-bank financial institutions should be properly regulated and supervised.

http://www.rgemonitor.com/roubini-monitor/253739/home_home_owners_mortgage_enterprise_a_10_step_plan_to_resolve_the_financial_crisis

i smell a book deal in this woman's future

btw, argentina is almost as prudish when it comes to such matters

Fuck all man, with whats in the can already the things like 6 hrs long....
Cool....Argentina....Some Nazis couldn't carry anymore gold so they grabbed herr Lang's grip.....

Clam down MG, Eklek is from Albania, Andorra, Argentina, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Canada (French-speaking), Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Estonia, Faroes, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Indonesia, Iceland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Moldova, Netherlands, Norway, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, South Africa, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine, Uruguay, Venezuela, or Vietnam, so it's okay for him/her to use this convention.

I asked the internet.

I didn't know the CIA was making new drugs for Argentina.

here are some items that you may have overlooked in the article about thimerisol.(that have nothing to do with wakefields paper)

1.) In 1977, a Russian study found that adults exposed to much lower concentrations of ethylmercury than those given to American children still suffered brain damage years later. Russia banned thimerosal from children's vaccines twenty years ago, and Denmark, Austria, Japan, Great Britain and all the Scandinavian countries have since followed suit.

2.) Internal documents reveal that Eli Lilly, which first developed thimerosal, knew from the start that its product could cause damage -- and even death -- in both animals and humans. In 1930, the company tested thimerosal by administering it to twenty-two patients with terminal meningitis, all of whom died within weeks of being injected -- a fact Lilly didn't bother to report in its study declaring thimerosal safe. In 1935, researchers at another vaccine manufacturer, Pittman-Moore, warned Lilly that its claims about thimerosal's safety "did not check with ours."

3.) During the Second World War, when the Department of Defense used the preservative in vaccines on soldiers, it required Lilly to label it "poison."

4.) In 1967, a study in Applied Microbiology found that thimerosal killed mice when added to injected vaccines. Four years later, Lilly's own studies discerned that thimerosal was "toxic to tissue cells" in concentrations as low as one part per million -- 100 times weaker than the concentration in a typical vaccine. Even so, the company continued to promote thimerosal as "nontoxic" and also incorporated it into topical disinfectants.

5.) The same year that the CDC approved the new vaccines, Dr. Maurice Hilleman, one of the fathers of Merck's vaccine programs, warned the company that six-month-olds who were administered the shots would suffer dangerous exposure to mercury. He recommended that thimerosal be discontinued, "especially when used on infants and children," noting that the industry knew of nontoxic alternatives. "The best way to go," he added, "is to switch to dispensing the actual vaccines without adding preservatives."

6.) Before 1989, American preschoolers received eleven vaccinations -- for polio, diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis and measles-mumps-rubella. A decade later, thanks to federal recommendations, children were receiving a total of twenty-two immunizations by the time they reached first grade.

At two months, when the infant brain is still at a critical stage of development, infants routinely received three inoculations that contained a total of 62.5 micrograms of ethylmercury -- a level 99 times greater than the EPA's limit for daily exposure to methylmercury, a related neurotoxin. Although the vaccine industry insists that ethylmercury poses little danger because it breaks down rapidly and is removed by the body, several studies -- including one published in April by the National Institutes of Health -- suggest that ethylmercury is actually more toxic to developing brains and stays in the brain longer than methylmercury.

The House Government Reform Committee discovered that four of the eight CDC advisers who approved guidelines for a rotavirus vaccine "had financial ties to the pharmaceutical companies that were developing different versions of the vaccine."

7.) Paul Patriarca of the FDA blasted federal regulators for failing to adequately scrutinize the danger posed by the added baby vaccines. "I'm not sure there will be an easy way out of the potential perception that the FDA, CDC and immunization-policy bodies may have been asleep at the switch re: thimerosal until now," Patriarca wrote. The close ties between regulatory officials and the pharmaceutical industry, he added, "will also raise questions about various advisory bodies regarding aggressive recommendations for use" of thimerosal in child vaccines.

But rather than conduct more studies to test the link to autism and other forms of brain damage, the CDC placed politics over science. The agency turned its database on childhood vaccines -- which had been developed largely at taxpayer expense -- over to a private agency, America's Health Insurance Plans, ensuring that it could not be used for additional research. It also instructed the Institute of Medicine, an advisory organization that is part of the National Academy of Sciences, to produce a study debunking the link between thimerosal and brain disorders. The CDC "wants us to declare, well, that these things are pretty safe," Dr. Marie McCormick, who chaired the IOM's Immunization Safety Review Committee, told her fellow researchers when they first met in January 2001. "We are not ever going to come down that [autism] is a true side effect" of thimerosal exposure. According to transcripts of the meeting, the committee's chief staffer, Kathleen Stratton, predicted that the IOM would conclude that the evidence was "inadequate to accept or reject a causal relation" between thimerosal and autism. That, she added, was the result "Walt wants" -- a reference to Dr. Walter Orenstein, director of the National Immunization Program for the CDC.

Even in public, federal officials made it clear that their primary goal in studying thimerosal was to dispel doubts about vaccines. "Four current studies are taking place to rule out the proposed link between autism and thimerosal," Dr. Gordon Douglas, then-director of strategic planning for vaccine research at the National Institutes of Health, assured a Princeton University gathering in May 2001. "In order to undo the harmful effects of research claiming to link the [measles] vaccine to an elevated risk of autism, we need to conduct and publicize additional studies to assure parents of safety." Douglas formerly served as president of vaccinations for Merck, where he ignored warnings about thimerosal's risks.

9.) In May of last year, the Institute of Medicine issued its final report. Its conclusion: There is no proven link between autism and thimerosal in vaccines. Rather than reviewing the large body of literature describing the toxicity of thimerosal, the report relied on four disastrously flawed epidemiological studies examining European countries, where children received much smaller doses of thimerosal than American kids. It also cited a new version of the Verstraeten study, published in the journal Pediatrics, that had been reworked to reduce the link between thimerosal and autism. The new study included children too young to have been diagnosed with autism and overlooked others who showed signs of the disease. The IOM declared the case closed and -- in a startling position for a scientific body -- recommended that no further research be conducted.

The report may have satisfied the CDC, but it convinced no one. Rep. David Weldon, a Republican physician from Florida who serves on the House Government Reform Committee, attacked the Institute of Medicine, saying it relied on a handful of studies that were "fatally flawed" by "poor design" and failed to represent "all the available scientific and medical research." CDC officials are not interested in an honest search for the truth, Weldon told me, because "an association between vaccines and autism would force them to admit that their policies irreparably damaged thousands of children. Who would want to make that conclusion about themselves?"

10.) the government continues to ship vaccines preserved with thimerosal to developing countries -- some of which are now experiencing a sudden explosion in autism rates. In China, where the disease was virtually unknown prior to the introduction of thimerosal by U.S. drug manufacturers in 1999, news reports indicate that there are now more than 1.8 million autistics. Although reliable numbers are hard to come by, autistic disorders also appear to be soaring in India, Argentina, Nicaragua and other developing countries that are now using thimerosal-laced vaccines.

oh, because the date resets when it gets published?

In reply to this comment by maatc:
I think it is the other way around. youdiejoes version was first. his was sifted 2 days ago, hers was queued 3 days ago

but you are right. dupes are taking over! (good thing there is us humans

In reply to this comment by looris:
*blog

I blogged both videos. Why?

It's clear that the other one is a dupe, and this one has to stay.

But I hope it's also clear that this dupe problem is getting more and more serious.

I think it's very bad that sometimes a video gets a lot of votes, and have to be discarded, while the first one doesn't even hit front page.

I think it is the other way around. youdiejoes version was first. his was sifted 2 days ago, hers was queued 3 days ago

but you are right. dupes are taking over! (good thing there is us humans

In reply to this comment by looris:
*blog

I blogged both videos. Why?

It's clear that the other one is a dupe, and this one has to stay.

But I hope it's also clear that this dupe problem is getting more and more serious.

I think it's very bad that sometimes a video gets a lot of votes, and have to be discarded, while the first one doesn't even hit front page.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Village-in-Argentina-Stars-in-New-Guinness-Rube-Goldberg-Ad#comment-252884

*blog

Thanks, dude. I appreciate it. I can't believe how lucky I've been with some of my selections these days. It's nice to know that other people are interested in the some of the same things I am.

Thanks for your support too.

In reply to this comment by silvercord:
Nice Sift, Kronos. And congrats on the GOLD!!

This doc was so fascinating, I had to translate the interesting bits (which is about 90% of it):

Ants transnmit secret mesasges, and follow invisible paths. Their code is just now beginning to be cracked. Ants are not ordinary creatures. They can support 100 X their mass. Each ant individually has some extrordinary ability, so when they unite, they become a true superpower.

<Title: The Secret Organization of Ants>

We are in central Europe. These wood ants are in search of food. Their actions look random, each ant doing something different, but in reality, they are all working together, each doing its own specific job. In a single year, One colony can consume more than 10,000,000 insects.

Despite being so small, ants are one of the most formidable predators on the planet. They eat more meat than lions, tigres and bears combined.

When attacked by a predator, or subjected to a scientific experiment, wood ants all react in the same way. To defend their nest, the workers shoot formic acid. The life of a single ant is worth little. The sole goal is the survival of the colony.

A shot of acid in the nose or eyes is enough to make the bear turn away. The hive is now exposed, and about to face an enemy far more powerful than the bear. The bees don’t stand a chance.

The adults, having expended so much effort, seek out a much more energy-giving staple, honeydew – a sugar- and vitamin-rich stubstance secreted by aphids. In exchange for the production of honeydew, the aphids receive the ants’ protection. In a single year, a colony of wood ants may consume 100kg of honeydew.

In Indonesia, this relationship has been taken even a step further. These Indonesian ants still protect and drink from the aphids, but here they carry the aphids themselves from plant to plant, and even direct the aphids to the best, sweetest parts of the flower. They act as shepherds, tending to their flocks. These Indonesian ants are the only creatures on Earth to own domestic animals, besides humans.

When they detect a coming storm, they remove their livestock to the shelter of large leaves. After the storm, work resumes. The largest aphids, the mothers, receive preferencial treatment. They travel on the heads of the ants. The smallest make the jouney in the mandibles of their guardians.

Other speceis have developped far less pacificstic relationships. These are the carnivorous plants from the island of borneo. Some of their leaves form urns with ultra-splippery rims. Each pouch containds deadly liquid. This liquid digests insects that fall into the trap. All the insects climb up, attracted by the smell of its nectar. This giant carpenter ant isn’t the only ant about. This miniscule campanotus can walk the very dangerous rim without falling in. Once the giant falls in, it has no means for escape, and the tiny campanotus is put to the task. Unique among ants, it can swim underwater. It can also survive the liquid that is slowly digesting the carpenter ant. They eat their host’s victims, and in exchange, ensure their host’s protection from herbivores.

The tiny ants’ secret is demonstrated by their ability to walk the rim of the plant and get out of the water. Back in the laboratory, these ants are put in a centrifuge, and subjected to a spinning force 100X that of gravity, the ants still cling to the smooth surface. This secret lies in the miscroscopic film of liquid at the end of their legs. This skill is essential for building the nests.

Ant descended from wasps, and first appeard more than 100,000,000 years ago. Some species have retained primitive characteristics. These Australian ants still have the sting of their ancestors. Different from other species, the workers are nearly as big as the queen, and they lay their own eggs, though, non-fertile ones, which serve to nourish the larvae. Only the queen gives life to the next generation. Among other species, the organization of these ants is heirarchical. When a queen dies, several workers become fertile, and seek to replace her by eliminating their rivals. What follows is a ritualistic attack, where the ants attempt to wear out their opponents by striking them with their antennae, and pinching them with their beaks.

These conflicts are an exception among ants. Ants generally strive for the good of the colony. There are thousands of species of ants, and their prosperity rests not in the strength or abilities of the individuals, but in the organization of their society.

There is an immense diversity in this insect group, but all species of ants share a common trait: they all function as societies. No species of ant known lives apart from the others. The evolutionary transition from solitary to social has only affected 3-5% of animals, including humans, but this minority enjoys domination in almost all land habitats.

One of the most impressive examples can be seen in the pampas of Argentina. The ants are so organized in their gathering of food, that they represent a serious menace to the herds of something <cattle>?. Something else about the roof of their somethings. And I’m going to bed now.