Monthly Archives: April 2016

They know the public will either not care or believe anything

Leave a reply

Foreign policy “experts” have their own agenda, and it isn’t keeping America secure.

From Robert Parry:

“In an April 2, 2011 email, Blumenthal informed Clinton that sources close to one of Gaddafi sons reported that Gaddafi’s government had accumulated 143 tons of gold and a similar amount of silver that “was intended to be used to establish a pan-African currency” that would be an alternative to the French franc.

Blumenthal added that “this was one of the factors that influenced President Nicolas Sarkozy’s decision to commit France to the attack on Libya.” Sarkozy also wanted a greater share of Libya’s oil production and to increase French influence in North Africa, Blumenthal wrote.

But few Americans would rally to a war fought to keep North Africa under France’s thumb. So, the winning approach was to demonize Gaddafi with salacious rumors about him giving Viagra to his troops so they could rape more, a ludicrous allegation that was raised by then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, who also claimed that Gaddafi’s snipers were intentionally shooting children.”

Sovereign immunity is criminal insider immunity

Leave a reply

Governments are the only arbiters of the law within their own borders, where they have a monopoly on the use of force, and make deals with other governments so individual citizens of any country can’t sue governments for their actions.  Individual citizens can be sued, corporations can be sued, but governments can’t be sued.

But governments don’t act, the individuals in the governments do, and they often don’t have their citizens’ interests in mind when they act.  They act for the benefit of special interests.  When average people are hurt because of the actions done for the benefit of the few, the few don’t want them to be able to receive compensation, and they certainly don’t want to be held accountable personally.  Otherwise the prisons would be filled with presidents, politicians, bureaucrats, and lobbyists from all over the world.

From The Hill:

“The White House has come out against the legislation, because of what it claims would be dangerous precedent that could erode the legal system of sovereign immunity.

“If we open up the possibility that individuals and the United States can routinely start suing other governments, then we are also opening up the United States to being continually sued by individuals in other countries,” Obama said in an interview with CBS broadcast early Tuesday.”

The message of the forward curve

Leave a reply

From Reuters today:

“In late 2014 and again in late 2015, traders and refiners raced to buy as much crude as possible and put it into storage to profit from a big contango structure in the futures market.

But the strategy depends on the contango remaining wide enough to cover all the costs of financing and storing the physical crude.

As the contango in Brent narrows sharply, strategies which depend on selling Brent futures are becoming unprofitable (Hedge funds bet on tightening oil market despite Doha debacle, Reuters, April 19).

To the extent traders and refiners are financing and storing extra stock with Brent futures, the barrels are likely to be sold if the market remains in a narrow contango or moves deeper into backwardation.”

Foreign policy for whose benefit?

Leave a reply

Are “foreign policy elites” incompetent, or might they have another motive than what is commonly believed?  The foreign policy establishment is made up of individuals who produce no product that anyone in a free market would want to buy, so they must rely on the generosity of benefactors for their livings.  Those benefactors, be they governments or businesses that receive money from governments, have their own agendas, and those agendas have nothing to do with the average American citizen, other than to get into his pockets.

Here we read that “foreign policy elites” have advocated one disaster after another, and don’t want to work with a potential president who has openly criticized the results of their decisions and advocacy.  But if they are so obviously incompetent, then why are they still listened to?

Perhaps the people who pay their salaries don’t view them as incompetent or the results of their ideas as negative.  Some clues from today’s news:

Could money play a role in foreign policy, or is it all based on good old American goodness of intention?

Do “foreign policy elites” in the government view their constituents as the American people, or a small, powerful sliver of the American (and other) people?

Another question comes to mind:  why the obsession with Iran, and the protection of Saudi Arabia, which is a much more dangerous and destabilizing force than Iran could ever dream of being?  How many of the “foreign policy elite” are on the Saudi payroll, and how many are on the Iranian payroll?