While watching the games of the US Championship I have open the websites TWIC; ChessBomb; and my favorite, Chessdom. The latter has analysis by the big three, Stockfish, Komodo, & Houdini, the three highest rated “entities” playing the Royal game these days. I like to judge the position myself before looking at the evaluation of the programs. One of the things I like about the Chess arena board displayed on Chessdom is the difference of opinion on some moves by the big three. For example, after Mackenzie Molner played the standard third move, after 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5, Timur Gareev, my pick to win the tournament last year in the contest, which was not held this year, played 3…f5, the Schliemann defense, a favorite of a player from LA (that is Lower Alabama to those of us fortunate enough to be from the South), The Dude. The Legendary Georgia Ironman hung the moniker “Rainbow Warrior” on him, but Tim Bond did not like it. After a soliloquy on the movie “The Big Lebowski” while drinking white russians, I began called him, “The Dude.” The Dude would play 1 Nf3 as his opening move with white, but play wide openings like the Schliemann with black. His theory was that “With white one already has the advantage and must play conservatively to keep it. But with black one must try to wrest the advantage from white by any means necessary.” After 3…f5, Houdini has as best either 4 Qe2 or Bxc6. Komodo would play 4 Nc3; while Stockfish shows 4 d3.
After having decided to not go to the website of the StLCC&SC to listen to the broadcast I decided to check it out Sunday. What I found was an interview of Rex Sinquefield by GM Maurice Ashley. One of the first things I heard was Maurice say something about his politics being different from those of Mr. Sinquefield, who responded with some condescending remark about letting him “educate” Maurice sometime. Then Rex went into a rant about Missouri legislation concerning taxes. He said something about a bill that had been passed and vetoed by the Governor, but the veto had been overridden, something that had not happened since the 1800’s. Who cares? Why was this man talking about tax policy on a chess website? And why the hell does it matter to him? He is a BILLIONAIRE! He pays accountants large sums to find loopholes so he does not half to pay taxes. The tax code is written by sycophants of the super-rich to favor the upper crust. What does it matter to him whether tax rates go up or down? And besides, if taxes go down, how will the bill for endless war be paid? Certainly Rex and his ilk will not pay the freight for US troops who are in almost every country on the face of the earth. I turned it off after hearing Rex, who seemed quite pleased with himself, make a disparaging comment about Ben Finegold being uglier than Jennifer Shahade.
The next day, Monday, I surfed on over to the website again to find the pretty Jennifer had joined Yasser fo that day’s broadcast. Unfortunately, there was yet another problem with the broadcast, just like the previous day, and like last year. For that reason I clicked off and went to the Livestream website (http://new.livestream.com/accounts/3913412/events/2966247). The problem persisted on that site as well. Here are some of the comments from the livestream website:
Is it lagging like crazy with any1 else?- Ole Feiring
terrible stream-Gary Sharkey
it is just lagging a lot-Ralf Schnabel
yeah its awful and ruining the coverage last year was the same-Gary Sharkey
Since Rex Sinquefield is a billionaire it would seem he would be able to afford the best video possible. But who knows why the upper crust do the things they do? With that in mind I set down at my ‘puter to watch a program on the History channel, or to be specific, H2. The program is “America’s Book Of Secrets” and the episode is “The Billionaire Agenda.” It can be watched on TV or on the internet here: (http://www.history.com/shows/americas-book-of-secrets/videos/the-billionaire-agenda?m=51896f6e2acad)
Although I do not know Rex Sinquefield, he is as near to the super rich as I will probably get, being only one of the six degrees of separation made famous by Kevin Bacon, no kin, as far as I know, although when asked I always lie and say he is a distant cousin! I know Tony Rich, the manager of the Chess Club & Scholastic Center of St. Louis, having played him in the Missouri state chess championship in 2002, and having visited the aforementioned chess club with the long name. I could not help but think of Rex while watching the program, and what part he plays in the “agenda” of the filthy rich.
I took notes while watching the program and will share them with you. First, there 492 billionaire Americans, with Oprah being the only so-called by the program “African-American,” among the group. Notice there were none called say, “European-American” for example. 152 reside in China and 111 in Russia. Never before in the history of the world has so much wealth been concentrated in so few hands. The number one man on the list, Bill Gates, makes $17,000 a MINUTE! Walmart CEO Mike Duke makes $11,000 an hour. He’s got workers making $8.00 an hour and before he goes to lunch he’s made more than any one of one million Walmart workers make in an entire year. In 1980 an average CEO made 42 times the pay of an average worker. Today an average CEO makes 350 times the rate of an average worker!
What is a billion anything? One billion is a thousand millions. Compare that to one million being a thousand thousands. One million seconds is about 11 and a half days. One billion seconds is about 31 and a half years! One million pennies stacked on top of each other would make a tower nearly a mile high. One billion pennies stacked on top of each other would make a tower almost 870 miles high. One million ants would weigh a little over six pounds. One billion ants would weight over 3 tons – a little less than the weight of an elephant. One million dollars divided evenly among the U.S. population would mean everyone in the United States would receive about one third of one cent. One billion dollars divided equally among the U.S. population would mean that everyone in the United States would receive about $3.33. If you earn $45,000 a year, it would take 22 years to amass a fortune of one million dollars. If you earn $45,000 a year, it would take 22,000 years to amass a fortune of one billion dollars. It is said that in the not too distant future Bill Gates will become the first trillionaire. One trillion is a thousand billions, or equivalently a million millions. It is a 1 with twelve zeros after it, denoted by 1,000,000,000,000. One trillion seconds is over 31 thousand years. One trillion pennies stacked on top of each other would make a tower about 870,000 miles high – the same distance obtained by going to the moon, back to earth, then to the moon again. One trillion ants would weigh over 3000 tons. One trillion dollars divided evenly among the U.S. population would mean that everyone in the United States would receive a little over $3000.
If you spent $10,000 a day it would take you over 300 years to spend the entire sum. It is no wonder Matthew Erich “Mancow” Muller, a talk radio host said he could not wrap his mind around the concept of a billion dollars. Surely his head will explode when Bill Gates becomes the first human to amass one trillion dollars. “Mancow” said, “The only people they can relate to is other billionaires.” Someone said, “They kind of live in their own universe that’s removed from the rest of us, so they’re not grounded in the economic realities he rest of us are.”
Former chessplayer NM Peter Thiel, who has not played since 2004, is among the group of billionaires. One local NM who knew him while living on the left coast can be heard condemning the man for “not giving back by putting money into chess.” Instead, Peter has invested $1.25 million to the Seasteading Institute, who want to produce floating cities upon which the filthy rich can live while floating around the ocean in order to not have to pay taxes, or have to follow any rules made by nations or states.
In a 5-4 decision on April , 2014, the Supreme Court decided government cannot limit the amount of money donors can give to political candidates, committee’s and parties.
I read about a new sci-fi show last year, “Continuum” and have been watching it. In one of the episodes We The People were demonstrating against a ruling made by the Supremes in which they ruled that corporations were people. The thing about growing old(er) and having read and watched much sci-fi is that one know everything that seemed so much like fiction back then has come to fruition.
In speaking about the huge sums coming into the political arena it was said that no one knows exactly how much money goes to whom because there is no accountability. “It’s all dark money.” that reminded me of the famous interview after 9/11 in which VP Darth Cheney said, “We will have to work on the dark side.”
Then there was this comment, “Billionaires can exert a subtle control over what issues et put on the national agenda. They can choose the issues they care about and make sure they get talked about while others might not.”
“Are the super rich really working together towards a unified, one world agenda?” If so, I would ask Rex the Billionaire if he was chosen to contribute money to chess and if so, why it was he in lieu of NM Peter Thiel, which would seem to make more sense.
It was heard that, “Billionaires are different from us.”
How did Rex Sinquefield become the Daddy Warbucks of chess? From Wikipedia: “In 1981, Sinquefield co-founded Dimensional Fund Advisors, which manages more than $310 billion in assets as of September 30, 2013.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_Sinquefield)
Consider this from the May 8 column, “Now That’s Rich,” by Noble prize winning economist Paul Krugman in the New York Times:
“But that’s not what those hedge fund managers do for a living; they’re in the business of financial speculation, which John Maynard Keynes characterized as “anticipating what average opinion expects the average opinion to be.” Or since they make much of their income from fees, they’re actually in the business of convincing other people that they can anticipate average opinion about average opinion.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/09/opinion/krugman-now-thats-rich.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&_r=0),
Rex did not make anything useful for the human race; he did not invent anything to save lives, or improve conditions on this planet for those less fortunate. He is, basically, what is called in the bible, a “money changer.” Those readers who have read the bible will immediately think of the only time Jesus lost control and threw the money changers out of the temple. If Rex had been in the temple he would surely have been tossed out with them like yesterday’s garbage. So, once again, I ask why is Rex Sinquefield funding chess? What’s in it for him? Coming from a man who is opposed to raising the minimum wage (and why is it that it is always those who have too much who want to limit the take of those who have too little?), and against unions, when the only way We The People have of fighting the upper crust is by organizing, it seems incongruous, to say the least.
The program emphasized the fact that the only thing the upper crust cares about is keeping what they have. I thought of the scene in the movie, “Dr. Zhivago,” when the doctor comes home to find his family mansion has been taken over by We The People, and now there are many families living in the huge house in lieu of just his small family. There is a storm brewing in this country and it don’t take no weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. The Russian intelligence service published recently their prediction of revolution in America. I leave you with these quotes from the great American from the Great State of Virginia, President Thomas Jefferson:
“The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.”
“I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.”
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants .”
Armchair Warrior 