Monthly Archives: May 2014

Probably not worth it in hindsight

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“In the British military cemetery at Kut on the Tigris River 100 miles south of Baghdad, the tops of the tombstones used to be only just visible as they stuck out of a swamp full of small green frogs. A broken cement cross rose over a reed bed in the middle of the slimy water. Here in the middle of Kut, a poor dusty city built on a bend in the Tigris, are buried 500 British soldiers who died in the siege of the city in 1915-16.

The siege was part of a military campaign against the Turks that is largely forgotten, but should, even by the grim standards of the First World War, be a byword for terrible suffering inflicted on British soldiers by the incompetence, arrogance and ignorance of their commanders. Here and elsewhere in Iraq are buried the remains of some 40,000 British and Indian soldiers killed in 1914-18.”

Leaving Rigged Systems

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With the U.S. government using its influence in the international financial system and the worldwide use of the dollar as weapons, this kind of shift away from this system is likely to increase.  The dollar’s value is supported by, among other things, its use in international energy and illegal drug deals.  Pepe Escobar writes:

“… talking about anxiety in Washington, there’s the fate of the petrodollar to consider, or rather the “thermonuclear” possibility that Moscow and Beijing will agree on payment for the Gazprom-CNPC deal not in petrodollars but in Chinese yuan. One can hardly imagine a more tectonic shift, with Pipelineistan intersecting with a growing Sino-Russian political-economic-energy partnership. Along with it goes the future possibility of a push, led again by China and Russia, toward a new international reserve currency – actually a basket of currencies – that would supersede the dollar (at least in the optimistic dreams of BRICS members).”

Streetwise Professor is not impressed:

Putin travels to China this week, and the big item on the agenda is the supposed signing of a long-awaited gas deal.

“I’ve seen this show many times before, going back to 2004. Much fanfare ahead of the meeting! A deal is signed! But the price is TBD. Meaning there is no real deal. And then the charade occurs again a couple of years later.”

If the Nazis believed it, is it wrong?

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Is art more a descriptor or former of societies?  The Nazis appear to have thought the latter.  Hitler wrote (link):

“If some self-styled artist submits trash for the Munich exhibition, then he is a swindler, in which case he should be put in prison; or he is a madman, in which case he should be in an asylum; or he is a degenerate, in which case he must be sent to a concentration camp to be “reeducated” and taught the dignity of honest labor. In this way I have ensured that the Munich exhibition is avoided like the plague by the inefficient.”

 

Using Government Regulation as a Weapon Against Competitors

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Craig Pirrong exposes the tactics of Warren Buffett and many others throughout history (link):

“First, it’s long been known that some firms in an industry can benefit from the imposition of more stringent safety regulations. Yes, these regulations raise everybody’s costs, but some firms’ costs rise more than others. The less-impacted firms have an incentive to press for the regulations in order to raise their rivals’ costs. This raises market price. The effect on price more than offsets the effect on cost for the less cost-impacted firms.

Which means: always look askance at people like Buffett who are calling for regulation of their industry.”

Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy

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From Chuck Spinney:

“An economically weakened, war weary United States is now careening toward a New Cold War with Russia.  But this time, the march of folly is not accompanied by pretentious calls to bipartisanism or even patriotism.  On the contrary, it is clear to the entire world, if not the American people, that the stampede is being driven by the vitriolic excesses of America’s deeply dysfunctional domestic politics.”

From Robert Parry:

“The American mainstream news media has rarely bought in so thoroughly to a U.S.
government propaganda campaign as it has in taking sides in support of the post-coup
government in Ukraine and against Russia and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Part of this is explained by the longstanding animus toward Russian President Vladimir Putin for
his autocratic style, his shirtless photographs and his government’s opposition to gay rights.
Another part is a hangover from the Cold War when the Russkies were the enemy. In Official
Washington, there is palpable nostalgia for the days of Ronald Reagan’s anticommunist swagger
and “Red Dawn” fantasies.
But another reason for the biased coverage from the U.S. press corps is the recent fusion of the
still-influential neoconservatives with more liberal “responsibility to protect” (R2P) activists who
believe in “humanitarian” military interventions. The modern mainstream U.S. news media is
dominated by these two groups: neocons on the right and R2Pers on the center-left.”