Foreign Aid as Crony Tool

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From ForeignPolicyJournal.com

“El Salvador is a recent example of corporate domination in U.S. foreign aid. The United States will withhold the Millennium Challenge Compact aid deal, approximately $277 million in aid, unless El Salvador purchases genetically-modified seeds from biotech giant, Monsanto. The Millennium Challenge Corporation is “a U.S. foreign aid agency that was created by the U.S. Congress in January 2004,” according to Sustainable Pulse, and serves as a conduit for foreign aid funds. MCC’s unethical aid conditions would force El Salvador to purchase controversial seeds from the American biotech corporation instead of purchasing non-GMO seeds from the country’s local farmers – an action that would have negative effects on El Salvador’s agricultural industry in addition to presenting serious health and environmental risks.”

What is a Caliph?

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“Basically, one’s status as a caliph is dependent on the acceptance of that status by some group of Muslims. This follows the general pattern of religio/political formation through consensual agreement.in Islamic and Arab culture. This applies in; ideas, law, government, etc.

The declaration of the caliphate of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (Caliph Ibrahim) is a declaration of war against each and every existing Arab and Muslim government because in the presence of a supposed caliph all their governments must be viewed as illegitimate usurpations of the caliph’s divinely given religious and political authority.”

From Sic Semper Tyrannis

Why did ISIS and al Qaeda split?

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Who’s going to give baya to whom?

ISIS favors cleansing the Sunni population through violence, as well as fighting non-Sunnis, while al-Qaeda prefers to treat local populations less harshly, slowly ramping up their strict interpretation of sharia after consolidating gains.

In depth explanation of the split between the seemingly consanguine groups, from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy:

 The War Between ISIS and al-Qaeda for Supremacy of the Global Jihadist Movement

 

Apparent Inconsistencies in US Foreign Policy

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The unanswered question:  why is Iran so important to US foreign policy?

http://original.antiwar.com/Ted_Snider/2014/06/25/taking-out-our-friends-so-we-can-install-our-enemies-what/

“In an astonishing shift of geopolitical realities, America finds itself, literally, at war with itself. Though Syria and Iraq are consistently presented as two separate stories – the one in Syria as a hopeful rebellion; the one in Iraq as a terrorist uprising – the protagonist of the first story is the same character as the one cast as the antagonist in the second.”

Probably not worth it in hindsight

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link

“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.”