Igor Yopsvoyomatsky, editor-in-chief of paranoiaisfact.com, guest columnist for the Daily Event,
answers readers' questions.

Dear Igor,

When the upcoming terrorist trials were announced my husband Todd rented a back hoe and started digging an underground bunker in our front yard. He's down there now, about sixty feet underground, and won't even come up for cuddles. Todd says the trials are the first step in the terrorist takeover of our country. That Obama is a sleeper agent of Al Qaeda, charged with sowing discord and confusion and leading to the dismantling of democratic institutions in the name of security, forced conversion to Islam and imposition of Sharia on the US. Is this paranoia or fact?

Sara P.
Anchorage, Alaska.

Dear Sara,

This is paranoia with a germ of fact. Obama is not an agent of Al Qaeda. But he is a dupe. The naivete of his administration is matched only by its serene self-assurance. They are like the chess player who makes a move without considering his opponent's response.

Look for three unintended consequences of the trials.

1. SECURITY. The NYPD will establish a security perimeter around the courthouse. Within this perimeter it will be discovered that there are hundreds of Arab, South Asian and African Muslims selling halal food, souvenirs and clothing. Millions of man hours and hundreds of millions of dollars will be spent vetting each of these individuals and a number of them will be questioned because of association with mosques, imams and/or organizations on the watch list. There will be an outcry from the Muslim community. Ethnic profiling will be alleged, lawsuits commenced, predictable positions taken on both sides of the issue. In the end the US will be made to look like the polarized polity that it is fast becoming.

All employees of the NYPD, Corrections Department and Federal Marshall service will be checked. Muslim officers will object, saying they are being singled out, their loyalty questioned. In addition the net will drag up compromising information on all employees. Harassment and invasion of privacy will be alleged. Unions will threaten job actions and litigation.

2. THE JURY. It will not be possible for these men to tried by a "jury of their peers." No normal person would expose him/herself to the inconvenient and perhaps hazardous interruption of their life for months. Not to mention the danger it might pose to their families when (not if, because it will happen) their identities are revealed. Only those with a secret agenda will vie to be accepted---zealots of both persuasions, publicity seekers who will try to profit from their jury service and, last but most troubling, possible terrorist moles. It would only take one recalcitrant juror to force a mistrial, which would be a huge propaganda victory for the enemy. The prosecution, fully aware of this, will try to impanel a foolproof jury. Everybody in the pool will be secretly vetted by the FBI. When (not if, because it will happen) this is disclosed there will be the inevitable reaction. The eventual jury, no matter how diverse, will be labeled as "stacked." Its decision, no matter how carefully deliberated, will be seen as "fixed" by most of the world. Obama's intention to show that the US is a nation of laws will backfire.

3. A SENSATIONAL OUTBURST. Terrorists are master manipulators of the media. This trial will give them the opportunity to take the world stage. Condemning the US is old news. They know they'll need something sensational to dominate the news cycle. Look for one of the defendants, maybe KSM himself, to rise in open court and declare:

"I must clear my conscience. I was recruited, paid and trained by the CIA and Mossad to carry out this operation. The intent was to cause world outrage and justify launching the war against Islam and the invasion of Iraq. I was never waterboarded or tortured in any way. On the contrary I have lived in luxury since my alleged arrest and have been told that the CIA and Mossad will provide plastic surgery, millions of dollars and a new identity for me once this travesty is over."

This cynical confession will ignite an explosion of controversy. There will be violent protests against the US, Israel and the so-called moderate Arab nations that will be seen to have been complicit. Tens of thousands of demonstrators will descend upon the Federal Court Building. New York will suffer paralytic gridlock.

The terrorists know that the first blow is the one that impacts global consciousness. Neither the US nor Israel nor the Saudis will be able to successfully disprove this lie. Tens of millions will be added to the millions who already believe that 9/11 was a US-Israeli plot.

Todd is right, Sara. An ordeal lies ahead. My advice is to keep a low profile. Do not say or do anything to draw attention to yourself. Stay in Anchorage where you'll be safe.

Your friend,
Igor

The Daily Event is proud to have guest columnist Igor Yopsvoyomatsky, editor-in chief of paranoiaisfact.com, to answers readers' questions.

Dear Igor,

I sell souvenirs to tourists on the Staten Island Ferry and after eight years of Dubya I can't give America away. Nobody wants Statue of Liberty piggy banks,  FBI caps, "Brooklyn Rules" tees...Not even Michael Jackson wind up dolls. People used to be in awe of how cool we were--NYC, DC, the Grand Canyon, Hollywood. Now they come to sneer and feel superior.  Our plunging dollar makes us a cheap date. Our leaders get no respect. After Bush trashed the American brand I thought Obama would turn it around, but his novelty has quickly faded and now I'm stuck with a gross of  "Yes I Can" hoodies.  I'm afraid America will never be cool again. Is this paranoia or fact?

Distressed Peddler
Sunnyside, Queens

Dear Distressed,

This is fact. According to a recent Pew survey,the US ranked 117th on the cool index, right under Tierra Del Fuego. Only Russia, China, the UK and Zimbabwe were considered less cool than the US.

America created the 20th. Century in its own image. Victorious in two wars, innovative in industry and the arts, it was a magnet for the best minds and most energetic workers in the world. Everyone loved Detroit cars, Broadway musicals, Hollywood movies, American cigarettes and Elvis. American Capitalism vanquished Soviet Communism by promising eternal, exponential wealth. 

America was cool.

Now the American financial house of cards has collapsed. General Motors is begging Government handouts, Broadway is ruled by British imports,Hollywood is a limping subdivision of bloated conglomerates, the Marlboro Man died of lung cancer and Graceland is controlled by  Scientology.

Uncool.

In its ascendancy, the US had the coolest leaders. FDR betrayed his class to bring the US out of the Depression. Harry Truman fired MacArthur and stood up to Stalin. Dwight D. Eisenhower, wartime commander and Five Star General, turned on his brethren to warn  about the "Military-Industrial Complex." JFK,  brought hipness, taste and sophistication into the White House and  called Krushchev's bluff in Cuba.  Even Lyndon Johnson had the dignity to withdraw from public life when the people rejected him.

Cool.

During its  slow decline the US has experienced an unbroken chain of bizarre nonentities. Nixon inexplicably recorded his own incriminating statements; Carter, a peanut farmer with delusions of prophecy,  left office with a 19% interest rate; Reagan, an underpaid Warner Bros. contract player, actually believed that the rich would allow a minuscule portion of their wealth to "trickle down" to the working class; Clinton, a glib, small town Lothario, enabled Wall Street to take over the American economy. The Bushes are the greatest argument against ruling class inbreeding since the Hapsburgs. Obama has seen ingratiation turn into antagonism and doesn't know what to do about it.

Uncool.

American celebrities were the coolest in the world. Could anyone top Marilyn or Einstein (he was a citizen), Astaire, Grace Kelly, Jonas Salk, Jackie O, Brando, Duke Ellington, Broadway Joe--the list is truly endless. 

Now you have OJ, MJ, Lindsay Lohan, Elliot Spitzer. You have the dangerous nonentities of reality TV. Sports stars who turn themselves into bionic chimeras with steroids and surgery.

But don't feel too bad, Distressed. At least you can complain. Three quarters of the world must suffer in silence. They live  under the heel of oligarchical thugs who maintain their power by censorship, repression, torture, rape and outright massacre. 

Uncool

China hasn't been cool since Confucius, France since Sartre and Belmondo; the UK since James Bond and he wasn't even real. Italy has a seventy-three year old President who brags to teenage girls about his sexual prowess. Russia was cool with Rasputin, but Putin  poses shirtless like Mr. Universe and  Medvedev,  the little man who wasn't there, makes pronouncements that no one hears.

The entire planet is totally, hopelessly...

Uncool.

NEW YORK, N.Y., August 18..Leah Schldkraut has a rallying cry: "Interns of the world unite. You have  nothing to lose but your non-paying, exploitative jobs."

Schildkraut, youth labor specialist of the Anarcho-Feminist coalition, issued a call today for "all unpaid interns in all fields" to observe a general strike on August 21st. "Demand an end to this insidious form of bourgeois slavery," she urged. "Withhold your valuable labor until you are given a retroactive minimum wage and shorter hours." 

In a press conference outside the Goldman Sachs headquarters on Maiden Lane in downtown Manhattan, Schildkraut denounced the "pernicious culture of unpaid internship, which not only exploits eager young people but widens the divide between the classes and the races by reducing the dwindling opportunities for middle-class and minority workers." 

Schildkraut harangued an indifferent  lunchtime crowd of  financial workers, who hurried by, immersed in their Blackberries. "Interns have been brainwashed into believing that the corporations are doing them a favor when in truth their labor is needed," she declared. "They are covering seven figure executives on their summer vacations. They are helping to grease the trillion dollar corporate wheels during the dog days, while their mentors"---she paused, then scornfully repeated---"their mentors--- are off on luxurious vacations paid for by the sweat and sorrow of bankrupted, dispossessed and demoralized workers."

"In the newest turn of the exploiter's screw you now have to pay for the privilege of working for nothing," Schildkraut charged. She cited a recent article in the New York Times which revealed the existence of companies that arrange unpaid summer internships for a fee. "Thousands  of families have laid out $8,000 to a company called Universe of Dreams which promises to secure hard-to-get internships at prime employers," she said.  "Many employers allow these companies  to choose their interns, without even bothering to interview all the applicants themselves..." 

The effect of this, Schildkraut said, is to exclude lower and middle class students from the intern market. "Even if they want to work for free their families cannot afford the extortionate fees of the recruiters." 

Schildkraut paused, trembling with indignation, and gathered herself. "Amnesty International, which represents the rights of political prisoners and oppressed peoples all over the world uses these recruiters to find interns, who will work long hours for no compensation. Do they not see the contradiction in this? No, they do not!"

Schildkraut also decried the "phony furlough" tactics of employers and state governments in which they give employees a forced unpaid holiday ostensibly to save money, but really "to get free labor."

"So-called furloughed employees of the state government of California have come to work anyway to keep up with a punishing workload that will pile up and affect their productivity ratings. They know their supervisors are watching. If they don't work for free their chances for promotion and advancement will be compromised..."

A young Asian man carrying bags of takeout Chinese tried to sneak  past Schildkraut into the Goldman Sachs building, but she jumped in front of him. 

"Excuse me, are you an intern?"

The young  Asian man ducked and covered his face. "No intern" he said..."Food delivery..."

Schildkraut pursued him. "But didn't I see you this morning in a suit carrying a laptop?"

A man at the curb called out. "Be careful, dude. Big Brother is watching..."

He pushed her away, muttering through clenched teeth. "Get outta my face, bitch. if the security cameras show me talking to you I'm done..."

The man at the curb laughed scornfully. "You won't sell your revolution on Wall Street, girl." He identified himself as Efraim Durg, a freelance lobbyist.  "These people know they're being exploited and they don't care." 

"They don't understand that corporations are using the downturn as an excuse to institutionalize free labor,"  Schildkraut said. She quoted a study that showed the disparity between is rich and poor is at its greatest since 1917. "The capitalist system is creating an atmosphere of fear in order to have a more pliable work force." 

" They know that, baby," Durg said with a patronizing smile. "This is what they have to do in order to get the plum job that will allow them to support gouging landlords,  eat in overpriced restaurants, become secretive and vindictive and plot against their fellow workers. It's either that or live with their parents, wait tables and sink into dissipation and despair..."

Schildkraut approached him with a suspicious look. "Who do you work for?" she asked.

"Nobody," Durg replied brightly. "I'm on the cutting edge of the New Economy--the unknown intern. I'm lobbying for Goldman, but they didn't hire me and don't even know I exist. I'm hoping Lloyd Blankfein will pass by and say: hey this kid's got originality and initiative. Let's give him a chance to work for nothing."

WALL STREET, N.Y., May 1...Declaring that "only collective action can restore our faith in ourselves and each other,"  writer Igor Yopsvoyomatsky yesterday urged every American to "stop spending"  for one day next week.  

Speaking to a boisterous crowd in New York's  financial district, Yopsvoyomatsky said: "The neuro-economic manipulators have addicted us to consumption in order to enrich themselves.  And like drug addicts we must steal and lie to indulge our habit." 

He called on all Americans to " break the daisy chain of deceit that has strangled our lives. Stop lying and cheating and bribing each other." 

He called for a "no sale Sunday"  to protest the exploitation of the "consuming classes." 

"Can you go cold turkey on frivolous expense?" he challenged. "Can you show the manipulators that you can bring their system to a crashing halt?"

Yopsvoyomatsky, a recent immigrant from Pinsk, was on the first stop of a publicity tour to promote his new book "The Sociopathology of the Financial System " He led a contingent of "Desktop Desperadoes," writers who claim their books are so subversive they cannot even pay to have them published to Border's Books, hoping to have what he called a "guerilla signing." When turned away by store security he set up a table outside the store, grabbed a cordless mic and harangued the lunchtime crowd.

"Do you know what happens to sheep? They are slaughtered. Lemmings follow each other to mutual destruction. Rats under stress consume themselves. This is what they are doing to you."

"Who?" someone asked.

"Them..." Yopsvoyomatsky pointed to a skyscraper across the street. "The sleek, well-tailored men in the corner offices with the gleaming limousines waiting to whisk them to gourmet restaurants for caviar and champagne and later"--he sighed with a wistful look--"into the arms of their beautiful mistresses..."

A broker, unshaven, tie askew, shirt flopping untucked out of his trousers, stopped in disbelief. "Who?" he demanded.

Grunting with the strain,Yopsvoyomatsky hoisted his eleven hundred page book. "It is all here in painstaking analytic detail. They have created a polity of thieves..."

"A what?" the harried broker demanded.

Yopsvoyomatsky riffled the pages. "Under socialism people cheated and stole because they had nothing. Under capitalism they cheat and steal because they don't have enough. Under socialism the nomenklatura had it all..."

The broker shook his head with an angry squint.

"The what?"

"The privileged classes," Yopsvoyomatsky said.  "The ones with the powerful jobs, who shopped in special stores, had Black Sea dachas. Even a special lane to drive their cars. They had everything. The rest of us had to cheat, steal and bribe to survive..."

"That was Russia," the broker said. 

"What is the difference?" Yopsvoyomatsky said. "You have here capitalist nomenklatura. Bankers, hedge fund, private equity. They are allowed to create and circulate wealth among themselves. When they are ensnared by their own greed their cronies in government free them. Then they return the favor by hiring cronies to eight figure jobs...But they have done something much worse..."

"Tell them, Igor," a Desktop Desperado shouted and confided to a friend: "this is cool..."

"They have turned all of us into thieves, cheaters and liars so that we can continue buying pointless electronic toys they foist on us," Yopsvoyomatsky shouted. "You sir..." He approached the broker. "You give buy recommendation on bad stock to increase the value of your holdings..."

"That's a lie!" the broker shouted.

"Your client who you lied to owns restaurant that charges you thirty dollars for a piece of  farm-raised fish that they say is wild caught. A taxi driver who buys gasoline for price inflated by your speculation fixes the meter to raise the fare. At home, the plumber who lost mortgage on sub-prime insured by your CDO charges you thousands when all he had to do was replace a washer. And to add insult to injury he is having an affair with your wife, who is angry because she saw passionate e mail from your receptionist..."

The broker gulped and reddened. "So that's why he's been coming every day...And billing me for his time..."

"You open your mail, sir. The phone company has billed you two dollars for fictitious calls, calculating that you won't spend an hour on the phone to get the money back. Your credit card interest has been arbitrarily doubled and you have penalty for not paying. The hideously expensive private school wants a contribution or it won't even consider your superbly gifted children. The nanny has given your credit card  and account numbers to identity thieves in Slovakia. Meanwhile, her twenty dollar prepaid phone only has seventeen dollars in calls..."

" My God, you're right," the broker said with a stricken look. "We're all stealing from each other."

A contingent of motorcycle cops from the security checkpoint up the block arrived. "You are creating a traffic hazard, sir. You'll have to disperse..."

Yopsvoyomatsky climbed on his rickety table. "And look. They send the Cossacks  to attack us ..." The legs buckled and the table collapsed. Yopsvoyomatsky tumbled and was stunned by one of his falling books. "Police brutality," he shouted. 

He marched down Broadway, shouting: 

"What do we want?"

The crowd shouted, "No sale Sunday!"

"When do we want it?"

The crowd was puzzled. 

"Sunday?"

He arrived at the bronze statue of a bull, the symbol of BoA Merrill Lynch at Bowling Green.

"This bull my friends is perfect symbol of capitalism..."He paused for effect..." A bull screws passive cows. It takes huge shits wherever and whenever it wants and it gores anybody who comes into its pasture..." As the crowd roared he jumped on the bull's back. "We will show this bull what we think of it..."

Police moved in quickly and took Yopsvoyomatsky into custody. He was charged with obstructing commerce, orating without a permit and attempted sodomy of a financial icon.

Ivan Yopsvoyomatsky, editor of paranoiaisfact.com and columnist for The Daily Event
answers readers' questions

Dear Igor,

I just shot my broker. He had assured me that quant funds would earn great returns no matter which way the market went. This morning I nailed my banker as he was getting into his car. He had urged me to take a sub prime mortgage, saying the rising value of my home would be my collateral for high yield investments. My boss called me a sissy and told me my 401k was safe because the ratings agencies had Triple A'd every derivative and anyway AIG was insuring them. I blasted his fat ass in the executive washroom after lunch. Now I'm standing over Bernie's (that's my broker) body with a Glock in my hand, getting up the nerve to use it on myself. It seems certain that I will die a failure. Is that paranoia or fact?

Troubled
Greenwich, Connecticut.

Dear Troubled,

That is paranoia. Reading between the lines I would guess that you are penniless and your family has abandoned you. But don't despair. You can still go out with a bang, proving to the world, your embittered wife and scornful children, that you are a savvy investor.

Now, listen carefully: Take your finger off the trigger and remove the Glock from your mouth. Get in your car and drive to the nearest Wal-Mart. Get out, leaving the Glock in the glove compartment, and walk in. Feast your eyes on the aisles and aisles and of gaudy packaging. Wal-Mart is unequaled in its compliance and logistics systems. No one can restock faster than Wal-Mart. Doesn't that give you a comforting feeling?

Now for a big surprise. Go to the firearms and ammunition department. What do you see? Empty shelves, disheveled display cases. It is as if the place had been looted by a desperate mob.

Wal-Mart is selling guns and ammo faster than it can restock them. This is the Black Swan that Nassim Taleb writes about--the unexpected deviation from the curve. The economy may be whimpering, but the gun market is banging.

Cheer up, Troubled. I think we've found a wrinkle the smart money overlooked.

Now, boot up your laptop and check some stock prices.

Cabelas, an outdoor outfitter, which sells rifles and ammo, has gone up 35% on stronger than projected earnings.

Firearms manufacturer, Smith and Wesson is up 50%.

Ruger, its closest competitor, has increased 40%.

Olin, another gun maker, has raised earnings guidances for its Winchester ammunition division.

Gunshow dealers report that customers are buying two and three guns, stocking up on ammunition, 50 boxes at a time.

Gun stores all over the country report increased sales to a demographic that never bought a gun--young professionals.

Rich Wyatt, owner of Gunsmoke, a firearms training facility outside of Denver, is quoted as saying: "We are getting Prius-driving Obama types buying guns for the first time."

Wal-Mart, canny merchandiser that it is, has been taken by surprise. After the election it reduced its firearm inventory in anticipation of President Obama issuing an executive order limiting gun and ammo sales. There were rumors that he would pressure the states into repealing carry permits for concealed weapons and would restore the assault weapons ban that had expired in 2004. The order was never issued, the pressure hasn't come. But the rumors provoked an unexpected response: gun sales exploded. Applications for concealed carry permits shot into the hundreds of thousands.

"If I had known it would be this good in the gun business I might have voted for Obama," says Wyatt.

There is an old Russian proverb: "You won't see the seed until the tree has grown." The underlying causes of this phenomenon were there all along.

1. The fear that a liberal president would put a stop to gun sales.

2. The fear, in a crashing economy, that violent robberies would increase and people wouldn't even be safe in their homes.

3.. The sudden rash of mass shootings, making people feel they needed protection in public places.

4. The sudden shortage of firearms as dealers smuggle them across the border into Mexico to be sold to the cartels at three times the retail price.

Now, perhaps, you are getting frustrated, smacking your forehead and saying "I should have seen this coming." Remember, analysis is retrospective, not predictive. There is still time to jump on this bandwagon. Invest in the Paranoid Fund.

We're betting that a bloody class war will erupt in the next eighteen months. People will barricade themselves in foreclosed houses. Bankrupts will invade the homes of their more solvent neighbors. Twittering hordes will pour out of the urban ghettos to loot and pillage in the suburbs. The cartels will lay siege to border towns in Texas and California. Bankers will use bailout money to hire private police, fortify their automobiles, have their children home-schooled to prevent kidnapping.

If you doubt our prognostications look at yourself. Only last year you were a normal family man with a job, a home and a foreseeable future. Today you are a destitute, deserted triple murderer contemplating suicide.

You are our demographic.

We are looking at companies that will prosper in the Apocalypse. Guns and ammo, alarm systems, body armor and personal protection, alcohol, tobacco, pharmaceuticals, caffeinated drinks. We guarantee that our fund will grow in an up or down market. You will be able to leverage your position into other investments. Your investment will be insured by AIG, which is back and stronger than ever.

Instead of a suicide note you can leave your family a piece of the Ammo Fund. There will be tears at your funeral, fresh flowers on your grave.

There is no time for a prospectus. Write us a check right now. If you're sending cash, crumple the bills into tiny balls the size of discarded pieces of chewing gum and wrap them in a piece of paper to fool the desperadoes at the Post Office.

Okay, now drop it in the mail.

Have you done it? Good.

Now you can pick up that Glock, brother, and rest in peace.

THE DAILY EVENT FUTURE BEAT

Sparing no expense in its determination to pique the interest of its demanding, easily distracted readership, the Daily Event has sent reporter Dale Arden hurtling at near light speed--and great personal risk--through a space/time wormhole into the future. This is her first dispatch.

EXOPLANET IN DEFAULT BLAMES "EARTHGREED"

SPACE STATION MAMMON, March 27, 2059...Plagued by non-performing loans, fund redemptions and collateral calls the planet Gliese 581c edged closer to bankruptcy yesterday.

Trading on the Gliesian "Astral" was halted after it plunged to As11,000 to the dollar on the Near Space Currency Exchange.

Rhapsodia, which is what Gliesians called their planet, B.C. (Before Contact) had been trying to negotiate bridge loans and an extension on payments due, said Chief Monetizer Etaoin Shrdlu, but "our terrestrial counter-parties have turned their backs on us." He said that Gliese 581c with a mass 1.5 times the size of earth is "too big to fail," and warned that "unless we receive emergency aid we'll all be consumed in a financial super nova that will reduce our bi-solar system to a shantytown of barren asteroids."

In Beijing, Galactic Reserve Bank Chairman Heng Mao agreed that "we cannot easily overcome the gravity of this situation," but accused Gliese of "gamma ray rhetoric."

"The Gliesians have created an unsustainable consumer economy based on easy credit, baseless speculation and chaotic deregulation," Heng said. "To bail them out now would be to throw more money down a black hole."

The Earth-Gliese Articles of Confederation promise "sempiternal harmony" to the peoples of both planets, but in recent years the union has been shaken by accusations of mismanagement, malfeasance and corruption. This is a tragic development to elderly earth scientists who remember the morning of April 24, 2007 when news came from the La Silla Paranol Observatory in Southern Chile that an exoplanet had been discovered orbiting the red dwarf Gliese about 20.5 light years from earth. To the gleeful astronomers who had been "planet hunting" for years it was a possible kindred spirit in the vast, ever-expanding universe. Orbiting in what they called "the Goldilocks zone," not too hot or too cold, it had atmospheric conditions that could support life forms similar to earth' s. The temperature range was between 32 and 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Some computer models posited a rocky, mountainous surface; others detected a "seaworld" of temperate oceans with a profusion of life forms flourishing beneath the surface.

Radio waves were instantly beamed from observatories and satellites all over the planet. For years there was no response, but the scientists persisted. Then on December 24, 2015, a faint wave was received. Some described it as "tentative, almost reluctant." Later it emerged that the Gliesians, a shy people, had been unnerved by this bombardment of signals, not understanding that there was an intense competition on earth to see who would be the first to communicate with them.

Scientists on both planets worked tirelessly to develop a rudimentary code. A technology was perfected to transmit graphics...then photographs...then videos. Linguistics specialists created a new language and soon the planets were conversing with fluent comprehension.

In those heady days the two planets were exhilarated to learn that they were not alone in the universe. Every bit of information was a revelation. The computer models had been half right. Gliese 581c was half-rock, half-ocean. In grainy images transmitted across 20.5 light years the rock people looked like centaurs, half-being, half-vehicle with bulbous heads and four suction casters for climbing. The sea dwellers were like mermaids, half-being, half-motorized tail. Anthropologists were amazed at how closely they resembled creatures from earthly myths. But some were alarmed. On Fox News Network Bill O'Reilly warned that "these Gliesians obviously visited earth in our prehistory, planted commands in our preconscious minds, and now plan to return to enslave us."

In spite of their physical differences the Gliesians were a united people. They were stressless and amiable, each group supplying the needs of the other. They had achieved voluntary immortality, controlling their moments of what they called "inception" and "cessation." Eager to please their new friends on earth they agreed to change the name of their planet to Gliese.

"They live in tranquil cooperation," Dr. Phil said, and was overheard muttering to an assistant: "if this spreads to earth it will put us all out of business."

But analysts soon found that there was one area in which the Gliesians were deficient: They had no economy.

"They were less sophisticated than the most primitive village in the Amazon," says economist Elliot Gruber-Yonge. "They didn't even understand potlatch."

"We had been humbled by their superior lifestyle," adds psychologist Anne Grosspiske. "Now we realized we had something to teach them."

Economists set to work helping the Gliesians build an economic system.

"First, we created a currency, the astral, which would replace barter and capricious generosity as a way of dispensing and acquiring services " says Gruber-Yonge. "Then, we encouraged the Gliesians to value their assets. This was tremendously exciting as they realized that some of them owned property that was more valuable than their neighbors." A flourishing real estate market grew up overnight. Luxurious caves and underwater palaces were built. Earth attorneys helped the Gliesians devise a legal system to enforce contracts and settle disputes.

"The next step was to get the Gliesians to value their own labor," says Gruber-Yonge. "Many were delighted to see that their skills were worth more than their neighbors." Compensation schedules were created. An elite separated itself from the mass. Comparative wealth created rich and poor, upper and lower class..." Gruber-Yonge pauses with a reverent look. "It was alike watching the six days of creation."

The inevitable conflicts of a flourishing economy caused tension and resentment, which the legal system expanded to resolve. Police agencies were created to enforce the laws. Prisons were built.

Meanwhile, bankers on earth created an exchange to trade in Gliesian stocks, property and currency. The Chinese, who had run out of places on earth to invest, were enthusiastic about this new market. Astrals were converted to dollars. Fortunes were made.

"The Gliesians were amazed at how we could create wealth out of thin air," says Gruber-Yonge. "They formed hundreds of corporations for their new stock exchange. They checked the prices every day. Used their astrals to invest in the earth markets."

Earth bankers converted stimulus billions into astrals, which they lent to Gliesian monetizers, who then lent them to their fledgling capitalists and returned the interest to earth in the form of astrals, which were quickly converted into dollars. Earth bankers traded astral futures among themselves and made gigantic bets in the Gliesian markets.

"Gliesians were fascinated by the concept of leverage," Gruber-Yonge says. "To them it was magical. They praised us to the sky."

With the astral pegged at one to two dollars profits were astronomical.

"In a leveraged developing economy there are no losers," Gruber-Yonge says. "A fishtail (we called them rockheads and fishtails) borrowed a milliion astrals to build an underwater yo yo factory and sold it for forty million three months later."

But slowly, imperceptibly a consumer economy took hold.

"Gliesans were purchasing and manufacturing products they didn't really need," says Gruber-Yonge ruefully. "They were caught up in a spending and leveraging frenzy. Then, they woke up one morning and there was nothing left to buy."

With sagging demand factories closed, jobs were lost, loans and mortgages were delinquent. Earth banks began to report losses as Gliesians defaulted. The astral plunged. The dollar was in crisis. The Chinese, enraged that once again their trillion dollar investment had been devalued, called for the creation of "an intergalactic reserve currency that is disconnected from individual planets and remains stable."

Earth governments intervened and nationalized the banks, wiping out the Gliesian shareholders.

Gliese, faced with massive unemployment, plunging property values and social unrest, appealed to earth.

"Your greed has brought us to the brink of this precipice. You will create more credit for your banks and recover your wealth, but we are ruined."

And now the Gliesians learned a new economic concept--the write-off. Earth bankers sent their regrets. There was nothing they could do.

This morning in what was described as an energy-saving move, Earth switched off its communication links with Gliese.

As the signal faded, a Gliesian could be heard lamenting:

"We'll never be able to call ourselves Rhapsodia again."

NORTH HOLLYWOOD, Ca, March 5...At the age of 102, blacklisted screenwriter Art Ostrovsky says he is witnessing something he never thought he would live to see--the overthrow of Capitalism. 

His rheumy eyes brighten, his crabbed fingers tremble around a glass of vodka. "I waited 80 years for the Revolution to come to America," he says. "Now I can feel it in the wind..."

In this rundown garden apartment complex off Magnolia Boulevard in North Hollywood, Ostrovsky is a puzzle to his neighbors, mostly new arrivals from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. They call him "el viejito" in humorous reference to a popular brand of Tequila and know him as the skeletal old man teetering on his walker in a daily promenade around the courtyard, with a stoic West Indian home care worker in attendance. They occasionally look in on him in the cluttered apartment where along with floating dust devils, spider webs and the resident mouse scurrying in the crawl space he has lived for sixty-two years, among fading photos of the authors, politicians, actors and directors he knew in the "Movement." 

Ostrovsky is convinced that the economic crisis and the new administration of President Obama provide an opportunity to change the world. He urges his neighbors to participate in "bourgeois" politics. "Marx said that capital is reckless to the health and length of life of the laborer unless under compulsion from society," he says. "I warn them not to let the bosses pit them against each other the way the studios did to us."  He fishes a bent Marlboro out of a crumpled box..."The old ones smile behind their hands, but the young ones hear me. They will carry the torch."

Ostrovsky may be the last surviving founder of the Screenwriter's Guild. No one knows...

"In the movie business sentiment is reserved for the successful," he says. "Lawson, Cole and Ornitz were the stars because they wrote the major features. I was just a laborer in the vineyards. I licked the envelopes and ran the mimeograph..."

Blacklisted in 1953 for his refusal to testify about his Communist affiliations he has stayed faithful to the Marxist view of history. 

"Marx predicted that the capitalists would be the agents of their own destruction," he says with a triumphant gleam. "Now the financiers are pleading for the nationalization of the banks and major industries as the only way to save their personal wealth. The parasite is begging the host to keep it alive." 

Born in Harlem in New York City in 1907, Ostrovsky was raised in an orthodox Communist family. His father was a founder of the Fur and Leather Worker's Union. His mother was a leader of a historic 1909 strike against the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, which won union representation for seamstresses. 

"When I was nine years old a little boy named Serge was brought home to play with me," Ostrovsky says. "He was very serious and said his father was going to make a big revolution in Russia and chase out the Czar. I laughed at him, but my mother pulled my ear until I cried and said his father was Trotsky, a great man.. 

"That serious little boy became an engineer and returned to help rebuild Russia," Ostrovsky says. "He was arrested and shot during Stalin's purges of the '30's."

On September 16, 1920, a horse cart loaded with 100 pounds of dynamite and 500 pounds of cast-iron slugs exploded across from the J.P. Morgan headquarters on Wall St., killing 30.   

In the crackdown on Communists and Anarchists that followed Ostrovsky's parents were deported to Russia and he was sent to live with an aunt in Coney Island.

"My parents became political commissars in charge of collecting grain from collective farms," Ostrovsky says. "During the Great Famine of the 1933, they were killed by a mob of starving Ukrainians."

Ostrovsky grew up to become a loyal member of the Communist Party. 

"We believed in the words of Nicola Sacco that every human life is connected to every other life through threads that you cannot see," he said. "We fought for the rights of the workers against the bosses and their gangster goons," he said. "For the martyrs who were framed by the corrupt judicial servants of the exploiters."

In 1931, Ostrovsky rode the rails to Scottsboro, Alabama to support the defense of a group of black teenagers who were accused of gang raping two white women.

"When everyone else abandoned them the Communist party came to their defense," Ostrovsky says. 

During the 1932 presidential campaign he traveled to Los Angeles with the Communist candidate William Z. Foster. They were arrested on charges of "criminal syndicalism."

"I tell the young people that Obama is not the first black man to run in a presidential election," he says. "In 1932, the Communist Party nominated James W. Ford as Foster's running mate. The Party came in fourth with 102,000 votes that year."

When they were released, Ostrovsky was instructed by cultural Commissar V.J. Jerome to stay in Hollywood. "Movies were seen as a tremendous vehicle for propaganda," he says. " A comrade got me a job writing comedy shorts for Vitagraph. My job was to try to portray the class struggle, the nobility of the workers and the essential shallowness of the bourgeoisie."

Ostrovsky remembers the short unit as the purest expression of collective unity. 

"Writers, actors, directors, technicians all worked together in solidarity," he says. "We were the proletarians of the studio system and were united against a common enemy--the bosses."

His proudest achievement was a short in which a young Glenda Farrell, playing a shopgirl, is promised a promotion by her lecherous boss, Guy Kibbee, but fights him off and returns to her poor but honest carpenter boyfriend, Dick Foran.  

"We were positive that the Depression would raise the collective consciousness of the working class and lead to world revolution," Ostrovsky says. "But FDR and his band of left meliorists kept the people in check."

The Party viewed the Spanish Civil War  as a proxy battle between the Soviet Union and the Fascist powers.. Ostrovsky was working on a serial in which the hero had to capture a dangerous secret weapon. The Cultural Commissar instructed him to make all his villains Germans or Italians.  But Warner Brothers wanted to sell movies abroad and was loath to offend such good customers. 

"We compromised and made our villains American neo-fascist plutocrats," Ostrovsky says. "My bad guys were modeled on Henry Ford and John D. Rockefeller. Our subliminal message reached millions of kids in Saturday matinees..."

During the war he worked in an Army Air Corps film unit commanded by Lieutenant Ronald Reagan. "We made morale boosting films for the troops," he says. "I managed to slip in some pro-Soviet messages...Ronnie never caught on."

After the war Ostrovsky says "the bourgeois democracies were confronted by the sudden emergence of the Revolution, spreading from Eastern Europe and Asia toward the  West." 

"The reaction set in," Osotrovsky says. "Communists were demonized. At the same time a suffocating blanket of prosperous conformity settled over the land." 

Ostrovsky refused to testify against his comrades and was blacklisted. "The famous writers, the Hollywood Ten, all worked under pseudonyms," he says. "But the B-writers were finished."

In the late '50's he was given a few pseudonymous scripts on the TV series Robin Hood. "I enjoyed writing stories about a defender of the oppressed. But the series didn't last." 

After that, Ostrovsky never worked again. His fourth wife supported him with her earnings as an official of the Los Angeles teacher's union. Now he lives on her small pension and Social Security. He admits he despaired of ever seeing the Revolution. "In the '60's they stifled collective action with drugs and false philosophies of self-realization," he says. "For the last twenty years they deadened the oppressed with easy credit. Now it's over." He turns with grim satisfaction  to the photos of Paul Robeson, Jules Dassin, Dalton Trumbo, Zero Mostel and The Weavers. "Our time has come.."

After a restorative gulp of vodka Ostrovsky grips his walker and pushes open his screen door. In the courtyard some kids are kicking around a soccer ball. Closing his eyes and harking back to a time when he addressed public meetings Ostrovsky calls to them with sudden strength.

"You must grab the moment," he shouts. "Capital has exhausted the consumer market it created. In a last gasp it commodified itself. It created a world wide market in which capital was the only product. But now the house of cards has collapsed. Capital is like an animal, gnawing at its limbs to extricate itself from a trap that it set for others...

"Obama's humane democracy will change the economic relations between people. It will open the door for a socialism of equality and eventually for a classless society...."

Steadying himself with one hand, Ostrovsky raises his fist.

"I believe in the ultimate victory of the Fourth International," he cries

The kids stop their game and applaud.

"Bravo Art," they shout. "Ole..."

CLARENCE CENTER, N.Y. Feb. 18...On a gloomy Thursday afternoon (Feb. 12) a random sampling of Americans boarded Continental Connection Flight 3407 departing Newark Airport  en route to Buffalo. 

Psychologist Mervyn Fliegel calls them "the givers."

On that same day another group in D.C., New York, Dallas,Miami, Chicago and Hollywood, were desperately  phoning, emailing and texting their lawyers, agents, flacks, trainers, astrologists, aromatherapists--anyone who could help them salvage their public lives. 

Fliegel, research director of PUNS (Psychologists United for a New Society)  calls this group "the takers."

Several hours later the "givers" were lying dead in the burning wreckage of flight 3407.

The "takers" were still single-mindedly trying to burnish their tarnished images.

"It's an American irony that you can take a random sample aboard a commuter plane and find people with more talent, character, courage and dedication than you'll  find in the centers of political, financial and artistic leadership, " Fliegel says. 

In his new book Who We Give Our Power To And Why  Fliegel tries to answer the question of why ordinary people are morally, ethically and often intellectually superior to those they choose to run their lives. He calls this "American schizophrenia" and uses the event of February 12 as a textbook example.

Among the ordinary Americans who were flying to Buffalo on that day were:

A much decorated Marine (Silver Star, two Bronze Stars), who had survived two helicopter crashes in Vietnam.

A human rights crusader who had tirelessly worked to expose the genocide in Rwanda.

A woman whose husband had been killed on 9/11and had since become a leader of victims' advocates groups.

A young hockey player who had been the first female ever to play on a men's  team.

Two jazz musicians, good friends, who were on their way to perform with Chuck Mangione's band.

"These people were social altruists," Fliegel said. "Whether it be human rights, terror victims, hockey or jazz they  had sacrificed money, career and family life in the service of a cause greater than themselves."

Among the stars, leaders and role models who were spinning their way out of trouble as they had each done so often in their lives, were:

An ex-president trying to salvage a "legacy" out of the wreckage of his administration.

Another ex-president going insane with thwarted exhibitionism.

A Treasury Secretary who had cheated on his taxes and had been brutally criticized for his financial rescue plan.

A Secretary of State whose husband is collecting millions of dollars in lecture and lobbyist fees from countries with whom she will be negotiating. 

A prominent politician who had been forced to withdraw from his cabinet post because of $110,000  in undeclared income.

Still another who had withdrawn from a cabinet nomination because of an FBI Investigation into illegal fundraising.

A baseball star, accused of lying about steroid use, who was trying to buy his way back into the public's good graces with crocodile apologies and a $3.2 million gift to a college baseball program.

A Governor impeached for solicitation of bribery.

A newly appointed Senator under investigation for perjury.

Various disgraced economists and financiers, who had lied, embezzled and misrepresented trillions out of the public coffers.

Movie stars, athletes, celebrities who had abused substances and each other...

"These are the sociopathic elite," Fliegel says. "People who have risen to dominance in every area of American life. Their only cause  is themselves and they pursue it relentlessly without regard for truth or scruple."

Fliegel says that these radically different personalities share one character trait. "They are addicted to risk. They tempt fate like reckless drivers, breaking rules, lying, intriguing, even committing criminal acts. The fear of discovery and punishment is an almost sexual thrill for them."

Again he asks: "Why do we give these people power over our lives?"

Fliegel says the American obsession with "world-wide celebrity, astronomical wealth and record-breaking achievement" is so demanding that only liars, cheats and connivers can hope to succeed.

"Those who aspire to success soon learn that it cannot be achieved by skill and application alone," he says. "They become cynical about the system they are subverting, contemptuous of the people they are manipulating."

The true problems begin when the sociopathic elite gain power, Fliegel says.

"The thrill is gone," he says. "They become bored with the every day tasks of this power. They have no respect for the process, only for the prizes. They become inattentive, unfocused. They make terrible mistakes...

"Many are misled...Millions die...Tens of millions are ruined..."

Fliegel says the American political system has to be restructured so that the altruists, people like the passengers aboard that tragic flight, can assume leadership roles.

"We need to put the careful drivers behind the wheel again," he says.

BROOKLYN, N.Y. , Feb 13...The economic crisis is being prolonged by faulty terminology that distorts perceptions, dampens expectations and crushes optimism, an analyst charged today.

"Our nomenclature is counter-productive," said Efraim Durg, founder and CEO of NeuroBrands, a marketing consultancy.  "We say one thing, but the listener reacts in a totally different way." 

Durg released a study that he claimed proved that the words used by policy makers often produce the opposite effect of what was intended.

The study was done with an "eclectic" group of volunteers--executives with the Carlyle Group, inmates on Death Row at Angola Prison and residents of the Hebrew Home For the Aged. The participants were wired with electrodes attached to the pleasure and pain centers of the brain. Words and phrases were flashed on a screen in front of them and simultaneously spoken in their earpieces by a soothing female voice. Their neural responses were recorded.

The first phrase was the acronym TARP, former Treasury Secretary Paulsen's bailout plan. 

"The word has a harsh sound and connotation," Durg said. "The elderly people associate tarps with the gurney covers thrown over the recently deceased,"  Durg said. "Prisoners said police sometimes covered informers with tarps when transporting them from one unit to another Carlyle executives said they used tarps to protect their vintage sports cars from the elements and  the prying eyes of reporters and government investigators. All agreed that TARP meant cover up and they had negative reactions." 

Next, the participants were shown the term "toxic assets." They reacted with revulsion. 

"The Government tried to encourage banks and private investors to buy these  assets" Durg said. "But our participants said they wouldn't buy anything with the word toxic on the label and the banks haven't touched them."

Durg suggested a simpler label like "A Real Steal"

"Then, we could change the acronym to STARS for Secret Treasure A Real Steal." In this celebrity-obsessed culture people would believe that a program called STARS could save the economy."

Legislators on both sides of the aisle have been railing about bills that "are loaded with pork," but when Durg showed that phrase to his subjects the response was positive.

"The inmates said they had ordered pork for their last meal. The Carlyle execs said the phrase made them think of the Charcuterie platters they used to get at their favorite bistro before Obama took their expense accounts away. The aged Hebrews registered ambivalent reactions, but all agreed that something loaded with pork was probably a good thing."

"If you want these bills to die you need a stronger term," Durg said. "Something like: 'This bill is loaded with putrefying cadavers,' Or 'with conniving lobbyists.' Then, you could have Senators ringingly refuse to support legislation that was 'laden with putrefying cadavers and conniving lobbyists.' No politician would vote for that."

Treasury Secretary Geithner wants to work with private equity investors who specialize in bad debt. These people have been referred to a "vultures" who circle over a dying company and swoop down when its work force has been depleted and its debts buried in bankruptcy. 

Durg's subjects recoiled from the term. "You can't be saved by a vulture," an aged Hebrew said. "You're already dead." A Carlyle exec complained: "Why are the rich always vultures while the poor are crippled sparrows?" Durg feels the billionaire investors Geithner is trying so hard to woo will stay away. 

"Nobody wants to be thought of as an ugly, squawking bird picking at carrion," he said. "If we want to involve these investors we should change the description. Something like 'public-spirited philanthropists.'"

Durg said a total rephrasing was needed to draw private equity into the market. Something like: "Public-spirited philanthropists flocked to the STARS program investing a trillions in "real steals."

He smiled proudly. "That'll jumpstart the economy for sure."

The Daily Event reports from the Davos Conference.

ACTIVIST INVADES PLUTOCRATS'
POVERTY PSYCHODRAMA

Robert Polet, Gucci Group CEO, an AK 47 to his head, pleaded for help.

"Please, please help me find my children," he cried as soldiers pinned him to the muddy floor of a refugee camp.

In a moment of high psychodrama, pampered executives learned what it's like to be one of the 32.9 million displaced persons who live in squalid, brutalized conditions around the world.

The simulation, presented by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in coordination with the Crossroads Foundation and the Global Risk Forum, a Davos non-profit, was meant to heighten executive sensitivity to the problems of the oppressed. Polet, who was called Mustafa in the play, flinched as an actress stepped on a make-believe land mine and was stretchered away, gushing stage blood.

"What a humbling experience to feel so defenseless," Polet told the Wall St. Journal and agreed enthusiastically when UN High Commissioner Antonio Guterres said that the lesson of the exercise was: "We should have the same level of determination in saving lives as saving banks."

But then someone in the audience shouted:

"This is the height of hypocrisy!"

Suddenly, the stage was invaded by a young woman leading a group of South Asian children.

"This man is responsible for the poverty and oppression of thousands of workers," she shouted.

The woman identified herself as Leah Schikdkraut, Labor Rights specialist with the Anarcho-Feminist Coalition.

"As the head of Unilever, this man employed 25,000 child laborers, ages 6 to 11, in the cotton seed operations of his Indian branch, Hindustan Lever," she shouted. "Hindustan Lever factories in Nepal, Mumbai and Pakistan were targeted for unfair labor practices and false police charges against workers."

Guards tried to evict her, but she waved an official invitation in their faces. "Polet now heads a company which hides its Made in China and India labels in the folds of its thousand dollar garments," she shouted. As Davos officials debated what to do she swung an Yves St. Laurent sweater, with embroidery by Lesage over her head.

"The rhinestones are falling off, " a designer screamed in anguish.

"This sweater cost $23,155," Schildkraut shouted. "Do you know how many displaced people we could feed...?"

Schildkraut was quickly surrounded by Swiss Guards. Brandishing a bottle of wine she held them at bay.

"After attending a three course gourmet dinner to discuss world hunger, these men will go to a Classic Claret wine tasting hosted by Jancis Robinson, wine columnist for the Financial Times," she said.

"Be careful for God's sake, that's a Latour 1952," a sommelier pleaded.

"Do you know how much medicine we could purchase with the price of this bottle?" Schildkraut shouted.

Outside, reporters asked Schildkraut how she had managed to wangle an invite to this exclusive session. She reddened and hesitated for a moment.

"I sold myself as a sex slave to Eliot Shpritzer, a real estate mogul from New York," she said. "The price was his invitation."

" I, too, wanted to know what it's like to be exploited and degraded..."

IT'S THE US AGAINST THE WORLD

Executives played the "blame game" at Davos and the US was the loser.

Chinese Premier Wen Jia Bao blamed China's sudden slowdown on US's "macroeconomic failures and "underregulated economy." He threatened to stop buying US T-bills, but was then seen offstage with his head in his hands, moaning: "what am I going to do with all that money?"

Russian President Putin blamed social unrest, the price of oil, the dispute with the Ukraine and the watery borscht on the US. He then raised eyebrows when he blamed an anti-government demonstration in Vladivostock on "Communist agitators."

Finally, the Americans had enough. When asked how American bankers could be so "stupid," Morgan Stanley Asia Chairman Stephen Roach fired back: "How could the regulators have been so stupid? How could the borrowers have been so stupid? How could everyone have been so stupid?"

Outside, the dispute continued.

"You were stupid to give mortgages to people who couldn't pay," a Chinese official shouted.

"You were stupid to buy the mortgage securities of the people who couldn't pay," an American banker replied.

"You were stupid to sell insurance on the mortgage securities of people who couldn't pay," a Swiss broker accused.

"You were stupid to trade swaps on the insurance on mortgage securities of people who couldn't pay," the American parried.

"You hit a mulligan into a sand trap," a Japanese CFA snorted.

"You served toxic blowfish testicles and seven people died," the American shot back. "How stupid is that?"

TURKS SAY MODERATOR
WAS "ARMENIAN AGITATOR"

Feb. 2...Turkish sources today accused Washington Post columnist David Ignatius of being an "Armenian agitator" who deliberately snubbed and humiliated Prime Minister Erdogan at a debate on the Middle East last week.

Ignatius, an Armenian-American, has written of the world's failure to acknowledge the massacre of a million Armenians by the Turkish Army in 1915. Sources claimed he had been planted on the panel to humiliate Erdogan. That it was all part of a plot to get Jewish legislators to vote for a Congressional resolution condemning the genocidal attacks

The debate began with four participants--Erdogan, Israeli President Shimon Peres, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and Arab League Secretary Amr Moussa-- ritually repeating familiar positions.

There were yawns. Heads bobbed in and out of wakefulness as:

Erdogan spoke of a "humanitarian crisis" and expressed annoyance that Israeli Prime Minister Olmert had been in Turkey four days before the Israeli invasion of Gaza and had given no indication of what was to come.

Moon asked for $613 billion and said the Israeli attack was "disproportionate."

Moussa said the Israelis were enforcing a "military occupation" and demanded a peace agreement by the end of 2009.

Peres protested that Israel "did not want to shoot anybody," and asked "why did they fire rockets? What did they want?" Then concluded by saying it was all Iran's fault.

At that point a Pakistani delegate's stomach grumbled so loudly that several Indian IT executives thought there was a terror attack and caused a panic. Ignatius, responding to urgent messages in his earphones, said the debate had gone overtime and that the audience was "anxious to go to dinner." But Erdogan grabbed his sleeve and demanded a chance to rebut. He accused Peres of speaking loudly to hide a "guilty conscience." Apologetically, Ignatius cut off Erdogan in mid-tirade. Claiming that people were "late for dinner", he closed the session. Erdogan invoked the Sixth Commandment (Thou Shall Not Kill) and left the stage to enthusiastic applause and a fraternal handshake from Moussa, vowing never to return to Davos "because you didn't let me speak."

Event host Klaus Schwab mounted the podium and thanked the participants as the audience stampeded to the buffet.

Later, sources confirmed that the diplomatic and military cooperation between Turkey and Israel would continue. Turkey was set to receive a shipment of Israeli- made UAV's and modernized tanks to be used in its ongoing war against Kurdish nationalists.

Ignatius would not comment, but a spokesperson for the Washington Post said he had been instructed to end the debate when Deutsche Bank analyst Horst von Grepps fainted from hunger and had to be given a glucose IV.