The actual test Donald Trump repeatedly boasted about on Fox News

The other day, results of cognitive and language tests of Trump voters came to the fore. No surprises there but it became apparent there is some confusion about the test that Donald Trump keeps bragging about on Fox News and in his speeches. 

To put an end to this matter in a clear and precise way, here's the actual test Donald Trump had to do after he had won the presidential election of November 2016. It is an instance of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment test. This test is widely used.

It is highly unlikely Trump did this test because he can only react. He does not concentrate and cannot think. And his narcissism forbids him to put himself in a position where he can be found out. This test will find out. 

Trump must have protested against the test saying something like "I need not do the test, look at me, I have the highest IQ, everybody can see that." What must have happened is that the army general, who was present, 'explained' each question and each item to Trump, thus giving away the answers. 

Money for Tavares excessive, or is it?

 Money for Tavares excessive, or is it?

Carlos Tavares, the CEO of Stellantis said “the EV cost burden is 'beyond the limits' for automakers”, in other words, it is impossible to turn Stellantis into an EV company. And yet the Dare Forward 2030 plan asks him to do so with 75 models (sic) and 5 mln car sales/yr. The sacrifice of his happy life to achieve this will be ‘compensated’ for with €220 million if he succeeds. Tavares already earns more than twice as much as the next legacy car CEO in Europe, Diess, i.e. €19 mln versus €8 mln. CEO Zips of BMW got €5.3 million and Kelanius of Mercedes-Benz had to make-do with €5.9 million.

This situation raised quite a few eyebrows in Paris where excessive CEO payments are severely frowned upon and not a few people want to limit them. Fortunately for Tavares, his paymaster is a Dutch holding company. But the question remains. Why? How come? Here’s the straight yet convoluted answer.

Brexit explained to laymen in 10 seconds flat.

Brexiting. A series on being English. # 15

The fine kettle of fish pictured above tells it all. These people were and are disingenuous about Brexit and themselves.

Brexit was done to keep EU scrutiny of rich folk's personal finances at bay, especially of Arron Banks and Jacob Rees-Mogg. Brexit was sold as "take back control" by Nigel Farage, and he was brilliant at it, I must say. Brexit was spruced up with gut fears of criminal immigrants (exactly according to the playbook Steve Bannon devised for Donald Trump and Cummings). That's all. 

And now both remoaners and brexiteers are talking about daily economics and contend that Brexit is a disaster. Brexit has and had nothing to do with ordinary people or national interests. In the light of the purpose of Brexit, Brexit was and still is a huge success for

The Law of Multiple Causes. The definite tool for understanding and handling chronic problems

  

A problem is a point where several counteracting forces are acting upon at the same time.

A chronic problem is a situation that will not go away, whatever you do. 

Examples of the latter are easily found in health and politics. But they abound everywhere. I bet you can think of perhaps a hundred of them yourself unassisted. That is how common they are.

How to proceed? There is a natural law, an immutable law, which will help analyse and solve your problems. I found it in 2012 and published it then but was remiss not to communicate it on a broader scale

We are talking about The Law of the Multiple Causes.

Brexit is about 'the cut'. Or why complaining about Brexit damage makes no sense to Brexiteers

Brexiting. A series on being English. # 14

If your thoughts about the possible causes of Brexit are becoming too entangled, you can understand it in one simple phrase that includes everything: Brexit is an application of the principle of 'the cut' in English culture. The idea that continentals would be equal or even above English people was too much to bear for the vast majority of the English. That is what caused Brexit and nothing else. 

There are a lot of British blogs and vlogs talking about the economic and political damage of Brexit. They try to prove Brexit was wrong and do that by showing where the pain of Brexit is being felt. This makes no sense because Brexit was not about economics or politics. Which is why the mainstream media are not reporting on Brexit damage and Brexit problems, or, otherwise, simply put the blame on the EU.It could never be the English who are at fault, could it?

The downfall of trade and the virtual disappearance of the farmers and fishing industry, and other industries that may follow, is just collateral damage. The landed gentry may even regard the disappearance of farmers as a bonus: they now will have wider hunting grounds.😄

Why science, and perhaps everything, is flawed.

Are you aware that mathematicians and physicians and economists and political theorist and countless other scientists say that their science is flawed? It is an amazing observation.

The flaw is that they have taken the human element out of it and then, afterwards, say something is wrong or missing. 

In essence, people invent a statement or rule and although this is actually a premise, they call it 'truth'. The next step is that they develop a whole world of on top of it. 

It happens in religion (theïstic or not), mathematics, statistics, music, politics, in the explanation of societies and economics, physics, investing, the list is long . It cannot be understood without

The real Golden Rule

 

The GOLDEN RULE used to be:

Don't do to others what you don't want to be done to yourself.

or its variant: 

Treat others as you would like to be treated yourself.

BUT .....

 

A Nigerian banker once confessed to me:

“Oh, but I do apply the golden rule, too, you know.   

It reads: He who has the gold, makes the rules.”

 

If there are no guns involved, most of business and diplomacy becomes more easily to comprehend.

Amsterdam, May 19, 2021

Charles van der Hoog

philospher of culture

The lost sensation of pearls

 

Life is about experiencing sensations.

Now, look at these paintings. Do you feel enchanted, stunned, enraged, baffled by them? I bet you don't. But these paintings were absolutely sensational when they were made. 

I estimate the tsarina you see left is wearing about half a billion in today's euro's worth of diamonds and pearls. The girl to the right seems caught in the act when she donned the most prized possession of her mistress, a set of pearl earrings. 

Pearls were handed down in families for centuries until they lost their value with the arrival of cultivated pearls in 1907. Before that, pearls were more expensive than diamonds. 

Definite proof of the cultural quirk that resulted in Brexit

 

Brexiting. A series on being English. # 13

Here is a short but definite proof of the element in English culture that, inexorably, led to Brexit. 

The British elite Remainers wanted to stay in the EU on the supposition, if not the conviction, that they could mould (AE: mold) the European Union to their liking. The British elite Leavers wanted to leave the EU because they thought changing it to their liking would prove to be impossible. Both the Remainers and the Brexiteers thought they knew better than the Continentals. It is this commonality of rock-solid belief in British superiority that created Brexit.

It is perfectly illustrated by a speech by David Cameron, Prime Minister of Great Britain from May 11, 2010, to July 13, 2016. Remember that David Cameron called the referendum on Brexit which was held on June 23, 2016.

In his speech on November 14^th, 2011, at the Lord Mayor’s banquet in London, David Cameron said:

Essay: The Impossibility of Truth

What is truth? Is there an absolute truth? Does truth exist at all?
Why are there different words for truth, reality and actuality?

Whatever you consider the truth, it has a frail health. It can be distorted, twisted, hidden and even blown away in any which way.

In the last couple of years, the question of what truth is has become a pressing one. The consequences of different views on 'truths' have led to tectonic changes in the political landscape all across the Western hemisphere. In 2016, both in the USA and in UK propaganda campaigns were conducted that, like any hard-hitting propaganda campaign, were based on base emotions, false promises, fantasies presented as facts, and one-liners presented as policy based on truth. Upon close inspection, most of it, if not all of it, was nonsense. But who has the time and who wants to pay the effort and hours to inspect the utterances of politicians more closely? The news media? They have been cast aside as 'fake news' and now all promote some political agenda or another of the owners. The social media? They offer a degree of negativity and uninformed trolling like nobody has ever seen in the history of Man. The end result was that about half of the electorate believed the propaganda campaigns. It was like flipping a coin and this time the coin fell twice on heads for the trolls.

When so many people believe something, however outrageous it may be, it becomes a foundation of policy, news channels and education. And therefore one must understand the mechanisms behind how such new 'truths' can become actual truths.

Tesla, Rothko and the misinterpretation of "Less is More".

My experience has been that people tend to simplify things to a degree that they cannot be understood or solved any more. Contexts and history are left out because they are not visible to the bodily eye.

Especially in politics we see this happen but it happens in many fields.

Mechanisms of obtaining a real and definitive solution are replaced with one-liners and opinions not germane to the problem, without paying much attention to the particulars of the actual problem at hand.

You can make millions with it, even billions, or become president of the USA with it, but it won't solve anything and only complicates matters further because a false solution has been added to the problem which already was full of confusing elements.

On the competition of nations, #02. The basic factor.

The basic factor that determines the power of a nation is the mental condition of its population.

From this we derive the maxim that the mental condition of a population determines its competitive power.

This is a broad, sweeping statement, yet if not heeded, a nation will fail.

The general conception of understanding the world, as offered by news media and many pundits, is