Some items of interest:
- Privatopia sighting in Detroit. From Time magazine: "Cooper, 29, is a private-security detective, one of many who patrol once prosperous enclaves like Palmer Woods, Boston-Edison and Indian Village. With the city's police force cut more than 25%, private security appears to be one of Detroit's few growth industries. Local precincts are overwhelmed with shootings and other violent crime, leaving companies that supply home protection with long customer waiting lists. "People put a premium on security when unemployment and crime go up," says Larry Dusing, founder of Dusing Security & Surveillance, which has expanded into three neighborhoods.... Members of the Historic Indian Village Association, a local residents' group, share the cost of private security — about $30 per household each month. Association president Doug Way, 42, moved to Detroit with his wife seven years ago and fell in love with Indian Village's 19th century manors, built for the city's emerging industrial barons. Footing the bill for private security is almost like paying an extra tax, he acknowledges, but it's worth the cost." NOTE: At some point, in the not too distant future, security becomes a national service that you pay a subscription for (like health insurance). It will be branded, available in select locations, and include high tech gadgets from panic buttons to video capture devices.
- ROI (return on investment) for Nigeria's MEND. Four years of attacks that disrupted one million barrels a day of production (on average) = ~ 1.4 billion barrels disrupted. Direct costs at an average price of ~$70 a barrel and a $20 extraction cost to Nigerian kleptocrats and their corporate allies = $70 billion. Impact of the loss of 1 m barrels a day on the world, assuming a ~$10 premium due to the loss and ~80m barrels a day of global output = $800 m a day or $1.17 trillion. Loss of global economic output due to the premium = ~.5% of $50 trillion global GDP = $0.75 trillion. Total cost = ~$2 trillion. Cost of attacks = ~$1 m. ROI = 200 million %.
- Targeting the UN. Slowing reconstruction and election monitoring.
- Pakistan. Attacks on government/military personnel continue while ignoring the fact that Pakistani infrastructure is past the breaking point (which makes it easier to disrupt). If the "Taliban's" current level of effort at blood and guts terrorism were redirected against urban infrastructure -- all Pakistani cities would be inoperative, the national economy would be in free fall, and social fragmentation would be inevitable. Unlike blood and guts terrorism, system disruption would minimize backlash/opposition (both at the national and global levels) and likely manufacture a plethora of open source allies rather than foes.