reveinfo.htm Reversing information (information cracking)

Reversing Information

Reversing information
[The Economist] ~ [The Financial time]
(service provided by fravia+)

Start: End July 1998 ~ Updated: End July 1999

Ok, since I read anyway "The Economist" every week, I think that I can as well deliver to my readers some short 'insights' that will, I hope, help others to reverse elsewhere the (bogus) information they continuously receive.

Understand me well, please: The Economist is one of the BEST(*) information sources of this planet, because even our enemies: the greedy corporations that control this world, need some places where they can exchange real bits of information (they cannot just read the 'silly propaganda to keep slaves quiet' that you find on all TV-channels and most newspapers and magazines). By all means, read The Economist, a magazine that even Karl Marx did avidly read, for reasons that will be obvious if you peruse it... This said don't really expect me to provide this service continuously, I will add here some particularly OBVIOUS economist snippets when I have the time / remember it / find something worth. OK, I'll begin right now...
fravia+

*): Le Monde Diplomatique, Neue Z¸rcher Zeitung, The Economist, El Pais.

Snippets
The Economist's most famous trick, among other rhetorical tools, is its 'given as acquired' attitude. The Economist's wishes are given as 'facts', and the effort to establish a 'we know better' common point of view between information dealer and reader is almost always evident. Note also how the Economist uses ANONYMITY in a very clever way: its articles are NEVER (well almost never) signed.

Various Snippets
When	Where	What
July 25th - 31st 1998	Germany's economic conjurors, p.31	"in their election manifesto (The Social Democrats) promise to roll back even the modest reforms the coalition has introduced -such as cuts in sick pay and widow's pensions, and weaker job protection for workers in small business"
This is most amusing: any reader can immediatly understand what scenario would represent a 'non modest reform', according to The Economist (and -therefore- according to the powers that be, don't forget it)
June 20th - 26th 1998	The ever-spreading tentacles of Hong-Kong, Survey, p.19	"Mr Allen Wong runs VTech, a Hong Kong company that has 60% of the world market for kiddies' computer and other electronic learning devices, and also makes cordless telephones... he now employs 22,000 Chinese women in two factories, most of them brought in by bus from Sichuan province deep inside China, because the wages the locals want are already too high. The women get 500 Yuan ($60) a month, plus board and lodging, compared with the $770 a month people get for similar work in Hong Kong. Now Mr Wong is scouting for even cheaper labour in Thailand"
An incredible snippet of information: "the way Hong kong is moving up-market" according to The Economist!
February 14th - 20th 1998	Giving the customer what he want, p.23	"Most West European producers of sex videos use East European actors wherever possible. 'They cost less and do more' an exevcutive at Germany's Silwa production explains, bluntly... Stars' fees have dropped sharply. Even excruciating or humiliating acts usually cost the producer only two or three hundred dollars, roughly a third of the fees paid ten years ago ... For the ruthless ('pimp enrepreneurs'), the road to riches is clear and brutal: cut costs by treating your workers abominably Women and girls can be enticed (or kidnapped) from poor countries, smuggled into rich ones and worked as sex slaves."
This is not amusing at all: an article about "sex trade" that describes bluntly -better than many specific studies- which kind of commercial freedom are the East European 'enjoying' right now