Monthly Archives: February 2015

The Cairo Fiasco and the Bonfire of Liberal values

The Iraq war, the Libyan campaign, and the covert operations in Syria, were all pursued against ruthless tyrannical régimes. Nothing there went to plan, did it? But, hand-wringing aside, they are justified by the apparatchiks in Washington and Brussels on the basis that they were bringing liberal democracy to the Middle-East. Getting rid of the dictators: bringing “negative liberty”, pace Isaiah Berlin. The endless war by the mightiest army on the planet against one of the admittedly larger tribes of traditional Afghanistan goes on, and we are regaled with documentaries of a few women taking off their veils and going about activities they couldn’t have engaged in before the US invasion, whilst the entire fabric of Afghan society breaks down, and the population sinks into drug addiction.

read on at

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/26/the-cairo-fiasco-and-the-bonfire-of-liberal-values/

 

Yet again Japan’s performance confirms that QE is mere short-term bubble making

Japan has reported another quarter of sputtering economic performance.  Notwithstanding the small rebound reported for Q4 based on highly implausible export deflators, real GDP is barely higher than it was in December 2012 before Abenomics launched its truly crazy money printing spree—–a wave of QE so massive that it is actually draining the Japanese government bond market of any and all securities available for sale.

And yet, the Abe government and Kubota, its shaman at the BOJ, do not hesitate to threaten even more financial insanity—even as the obvious failure of current policies is over and over again reported month after month. What was is Einstein said about insanity?

japan-gdp-constant-prices

The US finally releases a 1987 report on Israel’s Nuclear Weapons

This declassified 1987 report indicates that from the 1980s on the US was well-informed about Israel’s hidden nuclear programme, which is evidently a carbon copy of the US programme. See report:

http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/02/12/nuc%20report.pdf

What timing by Obama! We know that Israel smuggled nuclear technology (triggers, known as krytrons) out of the US, highjacked a ship on the high seas loaded with uranium ore, deceived US inspectors, and much more, all the while lying about its true intentions. This begs the question how Netanyahu expects to face Congress in his forthcoming controversial visit in March, especially it is widely known that Israel provided the IAEA with false documents about Iran’s nuclear program. On this see:

http://www.iranreview.org/content/Documents/Israel-Provided-IAEA-with-Fake-Documents-on-Iran-s-Nuclear-Program.htm

 

 

 

 

 

AIPAC behind new US/EU trade legislation designed to thwart BDS

A new bipartisan bill engineered by AIPAC was introduced in Congress yesterday that ties the rejection of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel to future U.S. trade agreements with the European Union. H.R.825, The Israel Trade and Commercial Enhancement Act (pdf) was sponsored by Congressmen Peter Roskam (R-IL) and Juan Vargas (D-CA) and the Israel lobby has been behind the scenes pushing it for months. Read more  on Mondoweiss at
http://mondoweiss.net/2015/02/behind-legislation-designed?utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=77a0bb2706-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b86bace129-77a0bb2706-398517849

The Beginning of the End for Sisi: a Fantasist Rumbled

The Winds of Change in Egypt.

What a difference a day can make! The media onslaught in Egypt to bring about a popular mandate on the 6th February for a new round of slaughter, given the course of events since the military coup 18 months ago,had us all very anxious for our friends and relatives. But let us start the story from the beginning. Read on at:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/09/the-winds-of-change-in-egypt/

Capitalism died a long time ago

We will all pay for this.

One could argue that capitalism died around 1913 when the US Fed was founded, but a more sober appraisal could be that the period 1913-1971 was a transition period towards the centralised state finance capitalism we have today.

China’s rise in the past 35 years has been a copy of the West’s state finance capitalism, and its  success to date is proof of the fact that you don’t need a free economy and society to build a Ponzi scheme such as ours.

Since just before the crisis in 2007, China’s GDP has doubled, expanding by $5 trillion in 7 years. A graph below shows that it took a $21 trillion expansion of debt to accomplish this: so China’s Ponzi created $4 of debt for every $1 of additional GDP.

China's debt

The orgy of construction fueled by that debt, much of which is in non-revenue public facilities  or straight-out owned by local government, now weighs heavily on the Chinese economy – the only economy that has been propping up world activity since 2007.

Capitalism in our great-grandfather’s day would have it that debt was managed by myriad businesses, enterprises and small banks that would fail if they made the wrong investment. Now we have situation where centralised state finance capitalism is, through ZIRP, completely distorting markets across the board. We will all pay for this.