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This is a pic I had not seen before, courtesy of Barbara Bouchey and CBC.  It’ll be fun to listen to one of the podcasts.  There is some new information there.

One tidbit is the idea of a traumatizing narcissist.  The concept is real, but it seems to be championed only by the one psychologist Daniel Shaw.  In terms of Raniere Shaw says “His behaviour (sic) seems driven by an insatiable need to constantly prove his own superiority.”

That is the thing about NXIVM and Keith Raniere:  It is all about him.  He leaves his victims, i.e., the people he comes into contact with, traumatized.

Among them Ms. Bouchey is still the star.  Her appearance on 20/20 helped bring that episode to life.  Frank Parlato is still at it too and he mentioned that she would be on the Today show.  Then he followed-up with more–he seems to spend a lot more time with guests and commenters than he used to–from a poster who describes Bouchey as still conflicted.  She is conflicted (or traumatized) and that is why she is so interesting.  On the one-hand she comes off as proud that she was his girlfriend, that she chauffeured him around, and people moved over on the couch to make room for him.  Elsewhere we’ve seen her crying and lamenting the lost $1.2 million and her personal bankruptcies.

Mr. Parlato still spends a ton of time studying the whole thing; in particular, he will dissect every court appearance and legal filing ad nauseam.  Of course he is still fighting his own indictment.  He insists it is bogus, but it will not go away.

The CBC series points out that when Raniere found out about his intelligence gifts at the age of about eight he changed into a real egotist and people-abuser.  As a teen he lived with his divorced, alcoholic mother who died when he was 17.  That’s when he started attending college, racking up debt, and pursuing his goal to change the world.

Later on, after the dramatic collapse of Consumers’ Buyline, he met Nancy Salzman and that cemented his final vision.  Bouchey says he was into Scientology and we all know Salzman was the critical neurolinguistic programming link.  It is not a pretty picture, these people who are 60 years old, don’t have a dime to their name, and the rest of their lives are only about staying out of prison.  (Paul Manafort, age 69, is another.)  Anyway, Ms. Salzman–her daughter indicted too–is now ill or recuperating.  It is not a pretty picture at all.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/manaforts-guilty-plea-exposes-hardball-tactics-he-used-to-thrive-in-washington-swamp/2018/09/14/6113fb4c-b82d-11e8-a2c5-3187f427e253_story.html?utm_term=.87bbd2511a81

President Trump has done a lot of creepy things but this, to me, is the creepiest.  Yanukovych is a very bad guy.

Today I am going to write about qualified immunity.  A lot of people think they deserve qualified immunity.

I will write about it another time.

I need to do a better job of writing about narcissism.  My message didn’t work.

nytimes link

The DAX was doing well before Trump stepped-in.

It is absolutely fascinating how a more inclusive system works.  But the protests have been in the news again.  There’s going to be a global downturn and it could get worse.  Those who are more responsible (i.e., countries and people without huge debt) will obviously be in better shape, and the Germans are usually frugal and responsible.

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https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/politics/2016/01/30/congresswoman-who-grew-up-gas-station/79206952/

Interesting, all those people who won’t speak.

NY Times link.  Interesting woman.  She graduated from BYU and then denounced Mormonism.  She married a man and then said she is bisexual.  She accepts campaign donations from contributors she does not approve of and then gives them to charity.

A little flaky for the Senate?

https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/30/us/michigan-state-coach-kathie-klages-nassar/index.html

Good quotes.  When people who can stop it don’t.

“The dollar plays a huge role in this,” Mr. Paulsen said. The dollar’s gains versus other currencies has deflated returns for Americans investing overseas. (Returns from international stocks to U.S. investors decline when the dollar rises, and rise when the dollar falls). The EAFE index’s 2018 loss of 3.20% was just 2.27% in local currency.

I never understood that.  Your positions are worth less because of the strong dollar.  But, you can buy more of them because of the strong dollar.

http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20180601/FREE/180609992/international-funds-continue-to-disappoint

https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/08/29/were-in-the-longest-bull-market-in-history-what-sh.aspx

http://time.com/money/5241566/vicki-robin-financial-independence-retire-early/

I learned long ago a new blog or web name isn’t the answer.  Perhaps I should ask Keith Raniere as he is the expert at URLs.  “Literary narcissist” is one I can think of.  “Evergreen in Decline” is another.

The great writer Paul Thereaux once wrote “If you write a page a day you eventually have a novel.”  You may do the math and calculate the devotion needed; if I write more parts I will have a book on narcissism.

The latter begs the question, decline from what?

Another, the current name, is Part 5.

I never claimed to be a psychologist, or prophet, or self-help author.  Nor did  I claim to invent fake news or internet scams.  But man, real information and learning, including helping others, is harder to come by than I had thought.

“Confirmation bias” does not mean anything except to those who are confirmed biased.

Part 5 is “You are a narcissist!” is an absurd allegation.  Most of us are.  Almost all of us who are leaders, on a faster track, and are ambitious have narcissistic tendencies.

We could discuss potentially-acceptable examples.  Steve Jobs.  Elon Musk.  They are egotists and narcissists to the max.  Some people they encountered or worked with (i.e., for) admired them; most hate them.

Nonetheless, they are not criminals.

Sometimes people say “eclectic.”  Personally, I do not like the term, but it is narcissistic.

The point here in Part 5 is narcissism is normal if not a tick along-side normal.  Most people are narcissists to some degree.  Achieving people are likely narcissists and extremely driven people are very likely narcissists.

Personally, I call myself confident, even boisterous, but not unsympathetic an not un-empathetic.

The concept is difficult to understand.

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There is a part four and I thank pulchritudinous7 for helping to point it out.

I doubt her ex-husband is really a malignant narcissist.  I think it is a dangerous term to throw around.  But I definitely believe it is something you need to know an awful lot about if you think you are living with one or if you are raising children with one.

Sociopath and psychopath are very strong words to be using too.  It is very hard to define them and harder yet to apply them to individuals.

Now I am writing like M. Scott Peck:  I already wrote that there is ambiguity and perhaps misuse within the maladies and terms for them.  Now I am going to write that there is also truth and science in them.

They are the extreme and they are less clear and recognized.  For me, I could never understand the full cycle, or the extreme, if you will.  Freud described it as the superego.  “The superego is the ethical component of the personality and provides the moral standards by which the ego operates” (a simple definition found online).  I will explain.

This helps to explain people who go overboard, people who cannot understand the repercussions of their actions.  They lack empathy to start with.  They cannot tell, or they do not care, when they hurt someone.  They may be very smart people.  They may even believe they are moral and ethical.  But they do not understand that they hurt other people.

Often they hurt people close to them.  They may reach a point where they hurt everyone (or even kill).  They do not understand how their actions, or the repercussions of their actions (e.g., alcoholism) affect others.

They become dangerous.  You have to be very cautious.  Maybe you even have to stay away.

OMG, I’m going to pull a Trina, hire a legal assistant and sue, sue, sue!

Then I’ll move.

First I’ll get books from the Jefferson County Public Library to help me.  Then I’ll sue Jefferson County in Jefferson County court.