Cohen's "consulting fees"

This is getting more interesting by the day.

Avenatti's summary of transactions on dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2l7qztjakjpqcdl/Executive%20Summary.pdf?dl=0

NYT:

Financial records reviewed by The New York Times show that Mr. Cohen, President Trump’s personal lawyer and longtime fixer, used the shell company, Essential Consultants L.L.C., for an array of business activities that went far beyond what was publicly known. Transactions adding up to at least $4.4 million flowed through Essential Consultants starting shortly before Mr. Trump was elected president and continuing to this January, the records show.

Among the previously unreported transactions were payments last year of about $500,000 from Columbus Nova, an investment firm in New York whose biggest client is a company controlled by Viktor Vekselberg, the Russian oligarch. A lawyer for Columbus Nova, in a statement on Tuesday, described the money as a consulting fee that had nothing to do with Mr. Vekselberg.

Other transactions described in the financial records include hundreds of thousands of dollars Mr. Cohen received from Fortune 500 companies with business before the Trump administration, as well as smaller amounts he paid for luxury expenses like a Mercedes-Benz and private club dues.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/us/politics/michael-cohen-shell-company-payments.html

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Developmental psychologists estimate that infants achieve an adult level of understanding of all basic physics by eight months.

Even children classify living things as such on the basis that they derive from other living things,24 and artifacts on the basis that they are designed for a particular function.

Color matters first for a child or a monkey looking at food, but shape counts first in a tool.

We humans overdetect agency, since it is safer to mistake a twig for a snake than vice versa. And we will interpret something as story if we can.

...explicit spontaneous reference to goals lags behind implicit skills: it does not develop until five years.

By age nine, children seek explanation in terms of cause and goal. By late adolescence, they look for coherence beyond the local episode.

...both children and adults recall events in chronological order even if they have been told them out of order and instructed to recall the information as presented.

--- quoted from B.Boyd, On the origins of stories.

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Watch on YouTube

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This is a big deal for the region. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44036178

Welcome to the banana republic of the United States

To win the elections, the president's personal lawyer (Cohen) was paying hush money to porn stars, so that they kept quiet about the then candidate's affairs. After the elections, the lawyer was selling information on his boss to gullible foreign corporate clients. And by the way, the president's election campaign chair (Manafort) was selling his information and influence to another group of moneyed foreign crooks.

I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that the Iran deal got canned because some oil executives found a way to whisper in the president's ear through one of his fraudster confidants.

On the subject of corruption by design: A typical Law and Economics course covers the structure of laws that are susceptible to corrupt influences. When we see government rules that allow for "negotiable" outcomes, multiple exceptions, arbitrary decision-making and selective enforcement, we should expect fraud. Like bacteria in nutritional agar, crooks grow around bad laws. So far, the trade rules and tariffs set up by this administration carry the hallmarks of such bad laws. They invite corruption and fraud.

Checkpoint Inhibitors

This a good way to explain a scientific concept in terms of social interactions.

Watch on YouTube

По поводу 200-летнего юбилея

Нет сейчас политэкономической теории, которая бы давала возможность обсуждать проблемы трамповаты. При Марксе они были рабочим классом, и их интересы хоть как-то могли учитываться. А после захирения индустриальной модели и особенно после Великой Рецессии даже Стив Бэннон не смог ничего придумать лучше, чем популистскую игру в национализм с нулевой суммой. В долгой перспективе игра проигрышная, потому что ни зарплат, ни пенсий, ни медицины, как было прежде, она не дает. Может, это и не нужно. Может, важнее где-то взять принципы самоуважения для большой категории людей, вытесняемых из старой ниши глобализацией и автоматизацией.

upd. the second amendment offers a relatively inexpensive path to self-respect.