Iceberg: Think tank and more

pg 222

"Every government has its think tanks."

While the term "think tank" with its present sense originated in the 1950s,^{[citation needed]} such organizations date to the 19th century. The Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI) was founded in 1831 in London. The Fabian Society in Britain dates from 1884.
The original Washington think tank, Brookings Institution was founded in Washington, D.C. in 1916 by philanthropist Robert Brookings. It was conceived as a bipartisan "research center modeled on academic institutions and focused on addressing the questions of the federal government."
After 1945, the number of policy institutes increased, as many small new ones were formed to express various issue and policy agendas. Until the 1940s, most think tanks were known only by the name of the institution. During the Second World War, think tanks were often referred to as "brain boxes" after the slang term for skull. The phrase "think tank" in wartime American slang referred to rooms where strategists discussed war planning. Later the term "think tank" was used to refer to organizations that offered military advice—such as, perhaps most notably, the RAND Corporation, founded originally in 1946 as an offshoot of Douglas Aircraft Corporation, and which became an independent corporation in 1948.
For most of the 20th century, independent public policy institutes that performed research and provided advice concerning public policy were found primarily in the United States, with a much smaller number in Canada, the UK and Western Europe. Although think tanks existed in Japan for some time, they generally lacked independence, having close associations with government ministries or corporations. There has been a veritable proliferation of "think tanks" around the world that began during the 1980s as a result of globalization, the end of the Cold War, and the emergence of transnational problems. Two-thirds of all the think tanks that exist today were established after 1970 and more than half were established since 1980.
The effect of globalization on the proliferation of think tanks is most evident in regions such as Africa, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and parts of Southeast Asia, where there was a concerted effort by the international community to assist the creation of independent public policy research organizations. A recent survey performed by the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program underscores the significance of this effort and documents the fact that most of the think tanks in these regions have been established during the last 10 years. Presently there are more than 4,500 of these institutions around the world. Many of the more established think tanks, having been created during the Cold War, are focused on international affairs, security studies, and foreign policy

"They {Latin American Nations] were protected by a wall, a wall built by the United States and called the Monroe Doctrine."

The Monroe Doctrine was a policy of the United States introduced on December 2, 1823. It stated that further efforts by European nations to colonize land or interfere with states in North or South America would be viewed as acts of aggression, requiring U.S. intervention. At the same time, the doctrine noted that the United States would neither interfere with existing European colonies nor meddle in the internal concerns of European countries. The Doctrine was issued at a time when nearly all Latin American colonies of Spain and Portugal had achieved or were at the point of gaining independence from the Portuguese and Spanish Empires; Peru consolidated their independence in 1824, and Bolivia would become independent in 1825, leaving only Cuba and Puerto Rico under Spanish rule. The United States, working in agreement with Britain, wanted to guarantee that no European power would move in.
President James Monroe first stated the doctrine during his seventh annual State of the Union Address to Congress. The term "Monroe Doctrine" itself was coined in 1850.By the end of the nineteenth century, Monroe's declaration was seen as a defining moment in the foreign policy of the United States and one of its longest-standing tenets. It would be invoked by many U.S. statesmen and several U.S. presidents, including Theodore Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Ronald Reagan and many others.
The intent and impact of the Monroe Doctrine persisted with only minor variations for more than a century. Its primary objective was to free the newly independent colonies of Latin America from European intervention and avoid situations which could make the New World a battleground for the Old World powers, so that the U.S.A. could exert its own influence undisturbed. The doctrine asserted that the New World and the Old World were to remain distinctly separate spheres of influence, for they were composed of entirely separate and independent nations However, the policy became deeply resented by Latin American nations for its overt interventionism and perceived imperialism.

"You should have your KGB agents read the Ismailians."
Couldn't find a book called The Ismailians. Below is some info from a website called www.alamut.com

From: http://www.alamut.com/subj/ideologies/alamut/etymolAss.html

In the early 11th century, al-Hassan became the head of the Persian sect of the Ismailians, a rather obscure party of fanatics which gained local power under his guidance. In 1090, al-Hassan and his followers seized the castle of Alamut, in the province of Rudbar, which lies in the mountainous region south of the Caspian Sea. It was from this mountain home that he obtained evil celebrity among the Crusaders as "the old man of the mountains", and spread terror through the Mohammedan world.
In the account given by Marco Polo in "The Adventures [or Travels] of Marco Polo" it is told that "The Old Man kept at his court such boys of twelve years old as seemed to him destined to become courageous men. When the Old Man sent them into the garden in groups of four, ten or twenty, he gave them hashish to drink. They slept for three days, then they were carried sleeping into the garden where he had them awakened.

Iceberg: Recession and more

pg 220

"If I was to fail financially tomorrow, it would cause a recession that would be felt from one end of the United States to the other..."

In economics, a recession is a business cycle contraction, It is a general slowdown in economic activity. Macroeconomic indicators such as GDP(Gross Domestic Product), investment spending, capacity utilization, household income, business profits, and inflation fall, while bankruptcies and the unemployment rate rise.

Recessions generally occur when there is a widespread drop in spending (an adverse demand shock). This may be triggered by various events, such as a financial crisis, an external trade shock, an adverse supply shock or the bursting of an economic bubble. Governments usually respond to recessions by adopting expansionary macroeconomic policies, such as increasing money supply, increasing government spending and decreasing taxation.

Andrew Carnegie built librarie, John D. Rockefeller set up foundations for science and education."

Andrew Carnegie November 25, 1835 – August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century. He was also one of the highest profile philanthropists of his era; his 1889 article proclaiming "The Gospel of Wealth" called on the rich to use their wealth to improve society, and stimulated wave after wave of philanthropy.

Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, and emigrated to the United States with his very poor parents in 1848. Carnegie started as a telegrapher and by the 1860s had investments in railroads, railroad sleeping cars, bridges and oil derricks. He built further wealth as a bond salesman raising money for American enterprise in Europe. He built Pittsburgh's Carnegie Steel Company, which he sold to J.P. Morgan in 1901 for $480 million (the equivalent of approximately $13.5 billion in 2013), creating the U.S. Steel Corporation. Carnegie devoted the remainder of his life to large-scale philanthropy, with special emphasis on local libraries, world peace, education and scientific research. With the fortune he made from business, he built Carnegie Hall, and founded the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Carnegie Institution for Science, Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, Carnegie Hero Fund, Carnegie Mellon University and the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, among others. His life has often been referred to as a true "rags to riches" story.

Among his many philanthropic efforts, the establishment of public libraries throughout the United States, Britain, Canada and other English-speaking countries was especially prominent. In this special driving interest and project of his he was inspired by a visit and tour he made with Mr. Enoch Pratt (1808-1896), formerly of Massachusetts but who made his fortune in Baltimore and ran his various mercantile and financial businesses very thriftily. Pratt in turn had been inspired and helped by his friend and fellow Bay Stater, George Peabody, (1795-1869) who also had made his fortune in the "Monumental City" of Baltimore before moving to New York and London to expand his empire as the richest man in America before the Civil War. Later he too endowed several institutions, schools, libraries and foundations in his home commonwealth, and also in Baltimore with his Peabody Institute in 1857, completed in 1866, with added library wings a decade later and several educational foundations throughout the Old South. Several decades later, Carnegie's visit with Mr. Pratt for several days; resting and dining in his city mansion, then touring, visiting and talking with staff and ordinary citizen patrons of the newly established Enoch Pratt Free Library (1886) impressed the Scotsman deeply and years later he was always heard to proclaim that "Pratt was my guide and inspiration".

The first Carnegie library opened in 1883 in Dunfermline. His method was to build and equip, but only on condition that the local authority matched that by providing the land and a budget for operation and maintenance. To secure local interest, in 1885, he gave $500,000 to Pittsburgh for a public library, and in 1886, he gave $250,000 to Allegheny City for a music hall and library; and $250,000 to Edinburgh for a free library. In total Carnegie funded some 3,000 libraries, located in 47 US states, and also in Canada, the United Kingdom, what is now the Republic of Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, the West Indies, and Fiji. He also donated £50,000 to help set up the University of Birmingham in 1899. In the early 20th Century, a decade after Mr. Pratt's death, when expansion and city revenues grew tight, Carnegie returned the favor and endowed a large sum to permit the building of many Carnegie Libraries in the Enoch Pratt system in Baltimore and enabled EPFL to expand through the next quarter-century to meet the needs of the growing city and supply neighborhood branches for its annexed suburbs.

Carnegie Library at Syracuse University

As Van Slyck (1991) showed, the last years of the 19th century saw acceptance of the idea that free libraries should be available to the American public. But the design of the idealized free library was the subject of prolonged and heated debate. On one hand, the library profession called for designs that supported efficiency in administration and operation; on the other, wealthy philanthropists favored buildings that reinforced the paternalistic metaphor and enhanced civic pride. Between 1886 and 1917, Carnegie reformed both library philanthropy and library design, encouraging a closer correspondence between the two

John D. Rockefeller

From his very first paycheck, Rockefeller tithed ten percent of his earnings to his church. His church was later affiliated with the Northern Baptist Convention, which formed from American Baptists in the North with ties to their historic missions to establish schools and colleges for freedmen in the South after the American Civil War. As Rockefeller's wealth grew, so did his giving, primarily to educational and public health causes, but also for basic science and the arts. He was advised primarily by Frederick Taylor Gates after 1891, and, after 1897, also by his son.

Rockefeller believed in the Efficiency Movement, arguing that: "To help an inefficient, ill-located, unnecessary school is a waste... it is highly probable that enough money has been squandered on unwise educational projects to have built up a national system of higher education adequate to our needs, if the money had been properly directed to that end."

He and his advisers invented the conditional grant, which required the recipient to "root the institution in the affections of as many people as possible who, as contributors, become personally concerned, and thereafter may be counted on to give to the institution their watchful interest and cooperation."

In 1884, Rockefeller provided major funding for a college in Atlanta for African-American women, which became Spelman College (named for Rockefeller's in-laws who were ardent abolitionists before the Civil War).The oldest existing building on Spelman's campus, Rockefeller Hall, is named after him. Rockefeller also gave considerable donations to Denison University and other Baptist colleges.

Rockefeller gave $80 million to the University of Chicago under William Rainey Harper, turning a small Baptist college into a world-class institution by 1900. He also gave a grant to the American Baptist Missionaries foreign mission board, the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society in establishing Central Philippine University, the first Baptist and second American university in Asia, in 1905 in the Philippines.

His General Education Board, founded in 1903, was established to promote education at all levels everywhere in the country. In keeping with the historic missions of the Baptists, it was especially active in supporting black schools in the South. Rockefeller also provided financial support to such established eastern institutions as Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Brown, Bryn Mawr, Wellesley and Vassar. The study had been undertaken by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching; it revolutionized the study of medicine in the United States.

Rockefeller and his son John D. Rockefeller, Jr. in 1915

Despite his personal preference for homeopathy, Rockefeller, on Gates's advice, became one of the first great benefactors of medical science. In 1901, he founded the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York City. It changed its name to Rockefeller University in 1965, after expanding its mission to include graduate education. It claims a connection to 23 Nobel laureates. He founded the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission in 1909, an organization that eventually eradicated the hookworm disease, which had long plagued rural areas of the American South. His General Education Board made a dramatic impact by funding the recommendations of the Flexner Report of 1910.

He created the Rockefeller Foundation in 1913 to continue and expand the scope of the work of the Sanitary Commission, which was closed in 1915. He gave nearly $250 million to the foundation, which focused on public health, medical training, and the arts. It endowed Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, the first of its kind^. It also built the Peking Union Medical College in China into a notable institution. The foundation helped in World War I war relief, and it employed William Lyon Mackenzie King of Canada to study industrial relations. In the 1920s, the Rockefeller Foundation funded a hookworm eradication campaign through the International Health Division. This campaign used a combination of politics and science, along with collaboration between healthcare workers and government officials to accomplish its goals.

Rockefeller's fourth main philanthropy, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Foundation, was created in 1918. Through this, he supported work in the social studies; this was later absorbed into the Rockefeller Foundation. In total Rockefeller donated about $550 million.

"...use my money to assist the Cancer Crusade...."

There seems to be no organization called simply the Cancer Crusade. THere is a Kid's Cancer Crusade and things of that nature.

Iceberg: Stock exchange and more

pg 220

"Hermit Limited is international in scope, but you won't find it on any stock exchange..."

A stock exchange is a form of exchange which provides services for stock brokers and traders to trade stocks, bonds, and other securities. Stock exchanges also provide facilities for issue and redemption of securities and other financial instruments, and capital events including the payment of income and dividends. Securities traded on a stock exchange include stock issued by companies, unit trusts, derivatives, pooled investment products and bonds. Stock exchanges often function as "continuous auction" markets, with buyers and sellers consummating transactions at a central location, such as the floor of the exchange

Securities markets took centuries to develop. The idea of debt dates back to the ancient world, as evidenced for example by ancient Mesopotamian clay tablets recording interest-bearing loans. There is little consensus among scholars as to when corporate stock was first traded. Some see the key event as the Dutch East India Company's founding in 1602, while others point to earlier developments. Economist Ulrike Malmendier of the University of California at Berkeley argues that a share market existed as far back as ancient Rome.
In the Roman Republic, which existed for centuries before the Empire was founded, there were societates publicanorum, organizations of contractors or leaseholders who performed temple-building and other services for the government. One such service was the feeding of geese on the Capitoline Hill as a reward to the birds after their honking warned of a Gallic invasion in 390 B.C. Participants in such organizations had partes or shares, a concept mentioned various times by the statesman and orator Cicero. In one speech, Cicero mentions "shares that had a very high price at the time." Such evidence, in Malmendier's view, suggests the instruments were tradable, with fluctuating values based on an organization's success. The societas declined into obscurity in the time of the emperors, as most of their services were taken over by direct agents of the state.
Tradable bonds as a commonly used type of security were a more recent innovation, spearheaded by the Italian city-states of the late medieval and early Renaissance periods.
In 1171, the authorities of the Republic of Venice, concerned about their war-depleted treasury, drew a forced loan from the citizenry. Such debt, known as prestiti, paid 5 percent interest per year and had an indefinite maturity date. Initially regarded with suspicion, it came to be seen as a valuable investment that could be bought and sold. The bond market had begun....

Whenever the Wall Street Journal listed their one hundred wealthiest men in the world, Kelly's name always stood at the top.

Wall Street is the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long, 0.7 miles (1.1 km) long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, the American financial sector (even if financial firms are not physically located there), or signifying New York-based financial interests.
Wall Street is the home of the New York Stock Exchange, the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies^. Several other major exchanges have or had headquarters in the Wall Street area, including NASDAQ, the New York Mercantile Exchange, the New York Board of Trade, and the former American Stock Exchange. Anchored by Wall Street, New York City is one of the world's principal financial centers


The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper with a special emphasis on business and economic news. It is published six days a week in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corp, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal.
The Journal is the largest newspaper in the United States, by circulation. According to the Alliance for Audited Media, it has a circulation of about 2.4 million copies (including nearly 900,000 digital subscriptions), as of March 2013, compared with USA Today's 1.7 million. Its main rival in the business newspaper sector is the London-based Financial Times, which also publishes several international editions.
The Journal primarily covers American economic and international business topics, and financial news and issues. Its name derives from Wall Street, located in New York City, which is the heart of the financial district; it has been printed continuously since its inception on July 8, 1889, by Charles Dow, Edward Jones, and Charles Bergstresser. The newspaper version has won the Pulitzer Prize thirty-four times including 2007 prizes for its reporting on backdated stock options and the adverse effects of China's booming economy.
In 2011, The Wall Street Journal was ranked No. 1 in BtoB's Media Power 50 for the 12th consecutive year.

Iceberg: Smoking a cigar

pg 217

The cigars were carried into the room within a sterling silver case and presented for everyone's selection.... After the lighting ritual, each man holding his cigar over a candle, warming it to the desired temperature, the servants passed around the Rouche brandy, the heavy, yellow-brown liquid in exotically designed snifter glasses

A cigar is a tightly-rolled bundle of dried and fermented tobacco that is ignited so that its smoke may be drawn into the mouth. Cigar tobacco is grown in significant quantities in Brazil, Cameroon, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Indonesia, Mexico, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Canary Islands (Spain), Italy and the Eastern United States. The origins of cigar smoking are still unknown. In Guatemala, a ceramic pot dating back to the tenth century features a Mayan smoking tobacco leaves tied together with a string.

Although some cigars are cut on both ends, or twirled at both ends, the vast majority come with one straight cut end and one end in a "cap". Most quality handmade cigars, regardless of shape, will have a cap which is one or more small pieces of a wrapper pasted onto one end of the cigar with either a natural tobacco paste or with a mixture of flour and water. The cap end of a cigar must be cut off for the cigar to be smoked properly. It is the rounded end without the tobacco exposed, and this is the end one should always cut. If the cap is cut jaggedly or without care, the end of the cigar will not burn evenly and smokeable tobacco will be lost. Some cigar manufacturers purposely place different types of tobacco from one end to the other to give the cigar smokers a variety of tastes, body and strength from start to finish. Smoking a cigar from the wrong end may result in a bad experience.

The "head" of the cigar is usually the end closest to the cigar band. The opposite end of the cigar is called the "foot". The band identifies the type of the cigar and may be removed or left on. The smoker cuts the cap from the head of the cigar and ignites the foot of the cigar. The smoker draws smoke from the head of the cigar with the mouth and lips, usually not inhaling into the lungs.
When lighting, the cigar should be rotated to achieve an even burn and the air should be slowly drawn with gentle puffs. A flame that may impart its own flavor to the cigar should not be used. The tip of the cigar should minimally touch the flame, the heat of the flame from a butane or torch lighter can burn the tobacco leafs. A match or cedar spill flame is a milder flame to be used.
Cigars can be lit with the use of butane-filled lighters. Butane is colorless, odorless and burns clean with very little, if any, flavor; but are quite hot as a flame source. It is not recommended to use (lighter) fluid-filled lighters and paper matches since they can influence the taste.
A second option is wooden matches, but the smoker must ensure the chemical head of the match has burned away and only the burning wooden section is used to light the cigar. Depending on the manufacturer, the chemical head portion of the matchstick may contain one or more of the following: gelatin, paraffin wax, potassium chlorate, barium chlorate, glue, polyvinyl chlorides, phosphorus trisulfide, and clay. The strike plate to ignite the match may contain one more of the following: glass particles, red phosphorus and glue.
A third and most traditional way to light a cigar is to use a cedar spill. A spill is a splinter or a slender piece of wood or twisted paper, for lighting candles, lamps, campfires or fireplaces, etc. A cedar spill for lighting a cigar is a torn narrow strip of Spanish cedar (ideally) and lit using whatever flame source is handy.
Cigars packaged in boxes or metal tubes may contain a thin wrapping of cedar that may be used to light a cigar, minimizing the problem of lighters or matches affecting the taste. Cedar spills, matches and lighters are all commercially available.

Each brand and type of cigar tastes different. While the wrapper does not entirely determine the flavor of the cigar, darker wrappers tend to produce a sweetness, while lighter wrappers usually have a "drier" taste. Whether a cigar is mild, medium, or full bodied does not correlate with quality. Some words used to describe cigar flavor and texture include; spicy, peppery (red or black), sweet, harsh, burnt, green, earthy, woody, cocoa, chestnut, roasted, aged, nutty, creamy, cedar, oak, chewy, fruity, and leathery.
Cigar smoke, which is not typically inhaled, tastes of tobacco with nuances of other tastes. Many different things affect the scent of cigar smoke: tobacco type, quality of the cigar, added flavors, age and humidity, production method (handmade vs. machine-made) and more.A fine cigar can taste completely different from inhaled cigarette smoke. When smoke is inhaled, as is usual with cigarettes, the tobacco flavor is less noticeable than the sensation from the smoke. Some cigar enthusiasts use a vocabulary similar to that of wine-tasters to describe the overtones and undertones observed while smoking a cigar. Journals are available for recording personal ratings, description of flavors observed, sizes, brands, etc. Cigar tasting is in such respects similar to wine, brandy, whisky, tea, coffee, and beer tasting.
The prevalence of cigar smoking varies depending on location, historical period, and population surveyed, and prevalence estimates vary somewhat depending on the survey method. The U.S. is the top consuming country by far, followed by Germany and the UK; the U.S. and western Europe account for about 75% of cigar sales worldwide. The 2005 U.S. National Health Interview Survey estimated that 2.2% of adults smoke cigars, about the same as smokeless tobacco but far less than the 21% of adults who smoke cigarettes; it also estimated that 4.3% of men but only 0.3% of women smoke cigars.The 2002 U.S. National Survey of Drug Use and Health found that adults with serious psychological distress are significantly more likely to smoke cigars than those without. A 2007 California study found that gay men and bisexual women smoke significantly fewer cigars than the general population of men and women, respectively.Substantial and steady increases in cigar smoking were observed during the 1990s and early 2000s in the U.S. among both adults and adolescents. Data suggest that cigar usage among young adult males increased threefold during the 1990s, a 1999–2000 survey of 31,107 young adult U.S. military recruits found that 12.3% smoked cigars, and a 2003–2004 survey of 4,486 high school students in a Midwestern county found that 18% smoked cigars