In Finance, it is as you mention “will all have been redefined as subordinate to finance and its contracts, and our citizenship will have become second to one’s contractual place in a web of private debts” (aside: even “equity” the concept,….has verrrrry tenuous “value”…actually none at all….all that money wasted in capital markets: http://antisophism.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-failure-of-conventional-equity.html )

In Technology, entire legions of undergrads are literally “creaming their pants” for an opportunity to slave away (for pay) on algorithms that will subject human beings to algorithmic measurement/judgement/and eventually algorithmic justice. People are “busy” staring into their personal cpu screens constantly. at the expense of human interaction. These are the “cool ideals” of Gen Y.

In media….well less said about the propoganda fields the better.

In Government…unprecedented spying using the above mentioned technology fields means an end to individuality and presumptions of privacy and freedom of expression. Less said the better here too.

Everywhere it’s about Golem and not Humans.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-17/us-mint-sells-record-63500-ounces-gold-one-day

I have just re-read this incredibly prophetic article that was revealing and informative when it was written. Now, in light of the recent situation in Cyprus, it takes on additional new meaning …

Cheers mate …

“Nearly three months after MF Global Holdings Ltd collapsed, officials hunting for an estimated $1.2 billion in missing customer money increasingly believe that much of it might never be recovered, according to people familiar with the investigation.”

Some of that First World War information is at best misleading, thus:-

– Norway only exported iron ore as a transit trade; it was actually Swedish, but going through ice free Norwegian ports during winter (this was the strategic significance of the 1940 Narvik campaign). The ore could still get through without that, but German stockpiles – or more expensive overland transport to southern Sweden – would have been needed to buffer the winter interruption.

– Norway did not depend on Britain for coal, precisely. It was just that that was its cheapest and most convenient supplier. But precisely because that would have created a strategic dependency, Norway second sourced by operating its own coal mines in Spitzbergen (there is no coal in Norway proper). That led to the peculiar condominium arrangements there between Norway and the U.S.S.R., that were formalised in the 1920s or thereabouts.

– It was indeed the case that Germany had insufficient glycerine production for a sustained war – in 1914. But on the one hand, it had sufficient stockpiled for the short term needs it anticipated, and on the other hand before that stockpile ran out it found a way to produce enough by fermentation (spiking yeast nutrient with sodium bisulphite to tilt production away from ethanol, which was later improved further by developing more suitable yeast strains). This is a striking analogue with Britain’s finding a method of fermenting enough acetone for sustained war needs, which first gave Chaim Weizmann his Zionist political leverage as its developer.

The constraints, though real, were not as rigid as your information makes it appear.

Actually, It does get worse. With the “claw back” provisions in the bankruptcy laws, it is possible that even if you “took your stuff” back before the bankruptcy, you could be liable to have the bankruptcy judge take back your own money. There are many in the MF Global situation that are worried about just this eventuality.