Netanyahu's Train Wreck - Israel 2011

Rarely has a political party done as much damage to their country as the present Likud party has done in Israel since its return to power in 2009. Since the USA remains its big benefactor and protector this affects all of us in this country who must pay to support our intransigent ally and to also try to pick up the pieces when things go wrong. Things are certainly going wrong with faster and faster speed.

The return of Likud to the political power in Israel was billed as a return of strong leadership, while the weak policies of Arial Sharon and Ehud Barak that had led to Israel's unilateral pullback from Gaza and attempts to come to terms with the Palestinians were discredited. It was back to the same old strategy of building "settlements" on Palestinian land as fast as they could while smoke screening the political process. Safe in their reliance on their sugar daddy superpower, Israel was secure that it could do anything it wanted. Today we can survey the landscape at what these policies of these have wrought.

Whereas before Israel had strong relations with Turkey and Egypt, sub Rosa support from Saudi Arabia who saw Israel as having similar interest in foiling the Iranian menace and a working relationship with Jordan and other Arab states, today these relationships are in ruins.

In order to maintain a blockade of Gaza and its 1.6 million impoverished inhabitants, Israel maintained a naval, air and land blockade denying them basic building material (much needed after Israeli military activity destroyed much of Gaza) and even food - all in an effort to deny them weapons that could be used against Israel. While Israel has legitimate defense interests, maintaining a stranglehold on these people had become an odious business. The Palestinians resorted to a network of tunnels that were the source of both sustenance for the inhabitants and the conduit for the weapons the Israel so desired to keep out. In the meantime Hamas ran the tunnels and the smuggling activity served to strengthen them!

Into the fray came an international aid flotilla to attempt to break the siege. Instead they were shot up by Israeli commandos with the loss of lives in particular nine Turkish citizens. When Turkey demanded a full apology the US got involved to defusing the issue between its two allies and solution was found. Unfortunately, it was quickly rejected by Bibi and his ultra right wing defense minister. Instead Turkey has been moved from the column of ally to potential enemy and all for the lack of willingness to offer an apology. After all they know they own their ace in the hole - the United States. We can be counted on to bail them out of any eventuality.

Egypt and the Arab spring have topped the other main Arab dictators that were working with Israel are now gone. Now the mood on the street has turned decidedly hostile across the Arab world. Israel has developed a lot of interests in these countries for energy and the like and now they are going up in smoke. The people are not willing to countenance Israel so utterly trampling on fellow Arabs next door.

A glance at the map shows how dramatic this change in fortune has been. Such sweeping change by gross stupidity, inflexibility and arrogance has happened before and Bibi can keep company with the likes of good old Nieville Chamberlain the frequently lambasted British Prime Minister that thought he could buy off Hitler and instead turned all of his potential allies as the world prepared for its biggest storm.

Prior to the outbreak of WWII the British and a week kneed France handed over Czechoslovakia with its million man army, network of frontier defenses and its manufacturing capacity to the Furher all for the mere hope it would buy peace in our time. Instead the move resulted in even the Belgians withdrawing from military relations with the Allied powers. The USSR was even more incensed by the Czech fiasco and by idiotic diplomacy the demonstrated how little Britain could be relied on against the Third Reich. Instead they came to terms with the Furher. Britain, France and isolated Poland stood in a frightful position and would pay the price.

Chamberlain is usually used as a political straw man to show how merely standing militarily in the face of a dictator is always the right thing to do. What often is not brought out is how he dramatically changed the balance of power, turning what should have been key allies into cooperation with Furher or non cooperation with Britain and France.

Perhaps an even bigger loss to Israel is the loss of people that formerly were their greatest admirers, myself included that now have no more stomach to support this increasing right wing, ultra religious and intolerant bunch that have no qualms about doing to others things that have been perpetrated on them for centuries.

Bibi and Avigdor can rest assured that the USA will always come to its rescue. Of course we worry about them more than we worry about ourselves.

Republicans In Wonderland

I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, Sir because I'm not myself you see.

So might the Republicans describe the state of their political party. I used to say the R in Republican stood for Responsibility in contrast to the woolly headed schemes propagated by democrats, Republicans were fiscally sound, pro-business and practical. The debt ceiling debacle clearly shows this is no longer the case. As a former Republican myself the realization that this party was heading south made me head to hills a few years ago. Today, its gotten much worse – just like our 401Ks.

"I--I hardly know, sir, just at present-- at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then."

The transformation is nearly complete - from the party of Lincoln to the party of Jefferson Davis, from the party of sound government finances to the party where deficits don't matter, from the party of reality to the party of religious dogma. The loss of that formidable enemy the Soviet Union left the Republicans drifting about looking for it's raison d'etre. Into the void marched the armies of the evangelicals, the ones that want government out of our lives but to be involved helping spoon feed us their religion. In times gone by a Ronald Reagan could give them the lip service they required, but choose to not implement the programs they desired. Today, they have an iron grip.

"When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

The decidedly hostile attitude to science or even intellectual thought has been one of the striking features of this new Republican party. Global warming is of course denied as a hoax, foisted upon us by a vast conspiracy of ninety five plus percent of the scientists on the planet. Evolution is derided as nonsense and many believe the planet is only 6,000 years old in conformance with biblical prophecy. These people must not visit the Grand Canyon or even the Delaware Water Gap for that matter, or perhaps they just don't think. Mathematics is especially challenging to this group when they look to balance the Federal budget and keep incessantly pointing out small slivers that can be cut while ignoring the staggering size and scope of what is befalling this country.

"Curiouser and curiouser!"

During the early days of the war in Iraq, the State Department experts that had studied the country in detail and were trying to come to grips with running it were fired to be replaced by young Republican zealots that were primarily chosen for their stances on abortion and other litmus tests. Thus, Iraq would become yet another American fiasco. In case after case having a scientific background or a well grounding in history makes one suspect in the Republican party.

" Well! I've often seen a cat without a grin," thought Alice; " but a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing I ever say in my life!"

These people lack historical perspective and cling to the myth of American exceptionalism despite all evidence that we are no longer as exceptional as we have been telling ourselves. Many great empires have come and gone and most of them thought they were pretty exceptional too. Trusting to god for our nation's salvation they help lead us over the cliff.

"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."

As the Republicans have become the party of the south, they more and more resemble the old Republican party which eventually became the Democratic party in the time of Andrew Jackson. This sounds benign until you get to the bottom of all the “states rights” talk, the nullification of federal laws and outright secession that has been running from the mouths of a prick like Texas Governor and aspiring Presidential contender Rick Perry. Plenty of the old imbecility of the old south is evidenced by these people. It seems more and more a replay of the early 19^th century with the lead up to the civil war. Once again the southerners are going to hold the country hostage. Not another President from Texas!

"Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"

Where does this leave the country? Well its standing still watching the world pass us by. Our biggest hope, that the Chinese real estate bubble bursts landing them on their ass. We have a spineless Democratic President but at least he is sane. We have one Republican contender that threatens to do real bad things to Ben Bernanke the Fed Chairman while trying to solve the Texas drought and fiscal problems by holding prayer sessions. We have another one that promises us we will have under $2 gas when she is elected, how this is to be done she never says. I guess we must take it on faith. Perhaps, they will have to look for some volunteers, three virgin boys and girls and three black rams to use as a sacrifice just like they did in the time of Abraham.

Dressing down an American President

Bibi goes over the edge.

Normally the time to deliver strong language to an American President is behind closed doors not in front of TV cameras at an Oval Office reception in the White House, that is unless of course you are Bibi Netanyahu the Israeli Prime Minister, who delivered a blistering lecture right in Obama's face for all to see. How Obama could sit there stoically and take it I do not know. How Republicans can stand up and approve the indiscretions of the Israeli Prime Minister in demeaning the Chief Executive and Commander and Chief of their own county is even more appalling.

This is not the first time the United States has been subjected to obnoxious behavior directed against their President by a visiting foreign politician. In 1793 George Washington had to face down the French Ambassador, Citizen Genet who decided to outfit privateers in American ports to wage warfare against Great Britain which would have most likely drawn the United States into a war for which it was woefully unprepared. When Genet attempted to go over Washington's head to the newspapers and refused orders to cease and desist his efforts, became a scandal and he was disgraced and recalled.

Bibi's indiscretion has far less injurious potential to the United States than the Genet's episode could have been, but it shows how the Israeli tail wags the American dog. Obama had to sit and take it like a man. He knows who is boss. Showing an American President being dressed down does not set a good precedent especially when the video is being seen as a further example of American decline and subservience to Israel.

Republicans of course stand up for Israel first and foremost or should I say they stand for that portion of Israel that is right wing Likud or some far right religious parties that mostly control Israeli politics today. These groups desire to see Israel expand over all the lands of Israel as god decided thousands of years ago. It is no matter that Palestinians have existed there for thousands of years, they should leave and move to Jordan. They should accept their reduced status and lack of a future.

Considering the history of the Jewish people this a curious turn of events after hundreds of years of living in forced ghettos and enduring progroms directed against them. In 1492 not only did Columbus sail the ocean blue, it was also the year Spain expelled all the Jews, 200,000 of them! Martin Luther is praised in western school curriculums for his part in the Reformation, however having failed to convert the Jews he urged that their property be seized, they be afforded no legal protection and shown no mercy or kindness. More recently the Fuhrer took these words to heart forcing them into cattle cars to their final oblivion in the gas chambers.

Today we see Israel acting in much the same way towards the Palestinians. A quick flyover on Google Earth will show the Palestinian reality quite clearly. Compare the adjacent Arab towns to the resort-like Jewish communities they are adjacent to. They are certainly living in walled off ghettos much like Jews did in Europe in the 15th century. Basically, to support the 260,000 Israeli "settlers" in the West Bank the 2,400,000 Palestinians must be tightly controlled lest they demand the basic rights of human beings. In the combined Israel/Palestine the number of Jews and Arabs is almost equal at 5.3 million. The Arabs are multiplying much faster.

With the Israelis great benefactor the United States heading down the road to financial ruin, how perilous are these policies going to be for Israel over the next few decades? Encouraging the Israelis to be intransigent and allowing them to go further out on a limb might not be a good idea - unless of course you are an apocalyptic Christian that hopes the Jews will crush the Arabs and rebuild the Temple which will herald in the return of Jesus Christ.

We just had another doomsday prophecy go up in flames we do not need to base or foreign policy on one.

Good Riddance

All these people have come out to decry our exultation over the death of that poor individual Osama Bin Laden, the man that never had any issues killing women, children and other innocents in his quest for the new Caliphate. The man the would be Caliph or at least one of its principle poo-bahs is dead - double tapped in the head. What a pity he could not suffer like those that continue to suffer from the barbarous deeds perpetrated in the name of this beast. Holy man, yeah two holes in the head.

Like Luca Brasi, Osama now rests with the fishes.

Atheist and True Believer alike we can all say Amen and hasta la vista, baby.

A Winter of Discontent - My Christmas List

While we decorate the Christmas tree or light the Menorah those of us that remain in our homes can be thankful we have this recession survived thus far. Unless you work for Goldman Sachs there is little to be optimistic about. Millions remain out of work with little chance of ever finding work. This year's college graduates can look forward to coming home to their parents house - if they still have one. Something fundamental has to change.

Our politicians have their solutions, a new health care program followed by enacting cap and trade legislation that will increase energy costs for everyone. In this surreal atmosphere we are lectured by Chinese finance ministers that point out that there is no way the world can continue to keep buying US government debt to keep Washington and the USA a going concern.

The political class is much more relaxed and confident that the economy has stabilized and starting a slow and steady recovery. In reality it seems much more like 1937 when in the midst of the Great Depression the economy once again went off a cliff. This double dip had several causes.

First, the growing uncertainty in business and elsewhere about where the government was headed caused business leaders to sit on the sidelines and not invest or grow their business. Washington was giving business leaders lectures and prodding to do their bidding and these business leaders wanted to stay out of harm's way until the dust settled. In one memorable exchange between Eleanor Roosevelt and FDR, the President asked why business leaders failed to make new investments and seemed to lack confidence in the economy. Eleanor's retort: "Because they fear you".

Today business leaders are afraid about a lot of things. How much will it cost to provide health care to its workers under the new plan? What will energy costs be under this new cap and trade plan. Lobbyists will certainly be involved in how the carbon credits are allocated to special favorites. What will be the impact on those less favored by the politicians. Then there is fear of the ballooning government debts. Are interest rates going to spike to pay for all this government activity? Seems safer to just wait it out.

The other big millstone around FDR's neck was caused by his own pride and joy, the brand new Social Security system. The new SS taxes had come to pass and 2% of the wage income was sucked into it but benefits were not yet being paid out. This took 1% of the wages of each employee and 1% from the - well still from the same employee. You can weigh the benefits of Social Security all you want but that was not a propitious moment to enact such legislation.

Today, we are being led to believe that all these people will suddenly be insured and that government by fiat will declare costs to be reduced. How they can make these claims with a straight face, I do not know. The new cap and trade deal will certainly suck more money out of everybody. Meanwhile we are being asked to fund other countries attempts to lessen their greenhouse gas emissions.

It sounds like we are in store for another downward roller coaster ride.

With the air of gloom and doom around us all I want to make out my Christmas wish list.

1. I wish our elected politicians had a clue about economics, finance and human nature. I wish they were not a bunch of narcissistic, windbags who only care to further their own interests and not those of the American people.
2. I wish our President would demonstrate some leadership and less talk while not handing over the task of crafting policies and legislation to hoards of K-street lobbyists and a Congressional leadership that deserves to be committed to a loony farm.
3. I wish our companies were competitive again and could start to hire workers. Even if the we may never attain wage parity with country like China, the unique feature of the American system punishes them by making them primarily responsible for health insurance driving up the costs of their products and encouraging them to move jobs overseas. Our high corporate tax should be recognized for what it is, a job destroyer that also encourages moving operations overseas.
4. I wish the stranglehold the teacher's unions have over education could be broken. That pay for performance and other incentives would attract and hold a better quality of teacher that this current system which rewards nothing but seniority and in fact discourages more qualified people from joining it.
5. I wish the unions would recognize that they are part of team and that the companies they work for can and will go out of business if they are not successful. That providing rewards solely based on seniority is not fair to younger workers, the companies they work nor for the United States. I wish they understood that feather bedding, working slow and hindering output is a sure road to oblivion.
6. I wish corporate executives were not mainly interested in their bonuses and perks and more interested in developing new products and services that people would want to buy. I wish they understood that while off shoring American labor and American technology to China has the allure of raking in immediate profits, in the long term their country and their children will be impoverished by handing over our crown jewels to a foreign country that is intent on shoving America down the stairs.
7. I wish the American people themselves were more interested in the major issues of the day not the trivialities we see in the popular media. I wish they were more intelligent and not as easily lead or distracted by scheming politicians and other charlatans.
   

I guess its time for a good stiff drink for I doubt any of this will come about any time soon.

False Prophets - Krugman 2012

2009 - With the real economy resting firmly on the bottom of the ocean, 10% plus unemployment, non-government jobs a fantasy to behold the reality dawns that we are still stuck in the muck of recession and we are not getting out any time soon - no matter what the stock market does. Into this maelstrom come the prophets with their prescriptions for revival, with the easy solutions for our salvation - just spend more money. With the private sector stressed out, households up to their eyeballs in debt, small business on the ropes and everyone in fear of losing their job these soothsayers suggest the easy way out of our difficulties is for government to borrow more and more and spend more and more and thereby make up for the lack of private sector spending.

Since the economic debacle these neo-Keynesians have returned to center stage and their "high priest" is Paul Krugman a Nobel Prize winner and familiar figure on the Sunday morning talk shows that few Americans bother to watch. To Krugman Obama's stimulus plan was "wrong" because it was dramatically smaller than what was needed to revive the economy. These people believe that government bureaucrats have the expertise and knowledge to run an economy the size of the United States indicating a startling amount of hubris not unlike that exhibited by former President George Bush in the early days of his administration. Yet when you start to examine where the first stimulus went, it was mostly squandered or merely absorbed by local governments. It is no surprise that Washington DC is enjoying boom times.

Krugman believes that since the United States held similar levels of debt at the end of WWII we can certainly handle taking on much more debt now. It must be remembered that, in 1945 the United States possessed about 45% of world manufacturing output, had the most skilled work forces in the word, was self-sufficient in many raw materials and was the creditor for most of the world - much of which lay in ruins. Today, with the United States propped up with over $3 billion a day in foreign lending to support our spendthrift government, indebted to foreigners for trillions of dollars, dependent on foreigners for much of our energy and vital resources including our intellectual capacity and "American know-how" these people remain convinced that we have the capacity to surmount any obstacle.

George Bush and his cronies viewed the world the through WWII shaded glasses also, expecting the Iraqi's to come out and greet us like Paris in 1944 and to ride on with god's blessings to lead the world, never expecting that fundamentally things have changed. The neo-Keynesians are no better, expecting something inherent in the spirit of the American people to lead us out of our difficulty despite all indicators pointing to long term secular decline under a ruinous debt burden.

The big fly in Krugman's thinking is that the great expansion in the government debts must be met every few weeks with another round of Treasury bond auctions as old debt must be recycled and new ones piled on. Buyers for these instruments are becoming harder to find, especially with the Chinese losing their appetite for the American debt and fearing for the safety for their assets that are already denominated in US dollars.

During Obama's recent trip to China, this point was driven home as he was queried at length about his plans for expanding health care in the US and how that would be paid for. The humiliations for this government and its spendthrift people are only going to get worse as attempts are made to borrow more and more. Currently, deficits are expected to remain above $1 Trillion a year as far as the eye can see.

The government is already on a well worn path to ruin. Krugman and his Keynesian friends offer the solution as dramatically spending and borrowing more money. Perhaps, they can inflate yet another bubble and we can all ride this one out for all its worth. In reality we are nearly total bankruptcy and can look forward to a much reduced lifestyle in the future for both us and our children.

This sorry future has befallen many a great empire and it only wishful thinking to think that we Americans are exceptional and can somehow avoid it. I have turned my eye towards Rome and Britain in my former posts. I have taken my old Paul Kennedy book "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" down from its shelf and marveled at how the Spanish and the French serially ruined themselves.

Recently I have read several articles by Niall Ferguson who also approaches this from a historical perspective and also who also draws the many of the same conclusions as I do. I much enjoyed his recent lambasting of Krugman and his plans for spending our way out of the recession. Yes, Krugman must be hopping mad at the last Newsweek piece (here is the link: Empire at Risk ). Krugman can be a prickly character.

One minor flaw with Ferguson's last article is that while he points out that the USA will inevitably be forced to scale back its military commitments, it will probably have to scale back its other vital services as well - including any new health care initiative.

Oh, well I'll bet Krugman would answer "No sweat, we'll borrow more money". Where will Paul be in 2012?

Polish View of Obama's Plans, Yet Another Sellout

Many view the Obama's cancellation of the missile defense shield in the Czech Republic and in Poland with a sense of relief. The Russians have been huffing and puffing and making all sorts of threats to take countermeasures. So in his abrupt reversal Obama is certainly going please a lot of people,especially those with jelly knees. Unfortunately he has given a great many leaders in Eastern Europe another sense of deja vous. Once gain the great powers have made decisions about Poland without her consent despite solemn promises made in the past. The USA the country that much of the world depends on for their own security has cut and run - again.

Poland has been around this block before having been carved up among the Prussians, Russians, Germans and the Austrians on many occasions going back to 1772. Barely a week before the start of WWII the Nazis and the Soviets inked the infamous Ribbentrop-Molotov nonaggression pact. Under its secret protocols Poland would be crushed yet again. After WWII Poland was rendered a Russian vassal state.

The significance of the missile defense shield was insignificant compared to it's symbolic importance. Russian nuclear forces would overwhelm this puny defense system rendering it tactically useless. It did however represent the US commitment to Poland and to Eastern Europe in general. With the Russian bear again acting it's own brutal self interest in its recent attack on the Republic of Georgia and other actions around the periphery of former vassal states, the Poles are right to be worried.

What Russia seeks in fighting against the missile shield is to scale back the presence of the United States in the countries around their periphery, countries they deem to be in their strategic sphere of interest, and by right in their sphere of domination. It does not matter what anyone living in those countries has to say about it. Free from American meddling the Russians can freely use intimidation and blackmail to get their way just like they could in the past. Freezing natural gas supplies is new tool Putin has used against the Ukrainians, but I suppose that is better than the tanks used against Georgia.


This abrupt U-turn is another sign of the declining power of the United States. The United States is ever more dependent on other powers for just about everything, including the basic funding of its day to day operations. The American juggernaut is too expensive to maintain and hence we must seek accommodation wherever possible. As American power continues to wane, other countries can be expected to fill the breech. Russia is only too happy to be one of them, even if its economy is a kleptocratic oligarchy funded and made powerful with its oil wealth.

As Lech Walesa said:"American has always cared only about its own interests, and those of others only serve the US. Now we have another example of this, he said. I can see what kind of policy the Obama administration is pursuing towards this part of Europe. We should reconsider our approach to the United States".

With time as American power continues to evaporate we may find the allies discarded along the way were something we should have held on to instead of giving them up.