Roger Cohen in Hard MidEast Truths, opines on the Palestine-israel problem that: "If there are not two states, there will be one state, and very soon there will be more Palestinian Arabs in it than Jews."
In other words, Cohen says that the present Jewish supremacist strategy leads to the extinction of Israel.
Cohen calls onto Obama to rise to the occasion. But...
Considering that Obama cannot see the simplest thing, such as the present big banking sector having nothing to do with the free market, it is dubious he can do anything useful about Israel and Palestine. His Cairo discourse, much admired, was pure demagogy with no concrete content anywhere, whatsoever.
Many are happy about the creeping annexation. Many do not see the hatred, and it is a truth that a lot starts in religious texts.
The USA was not a force behind the creation of Israel. All it probably sees about the area is oil, oil, oil, and the strategy of dividing to conquer, to get ever more oil. The 250,000 troops on the ground put there by Bush and Obama are clear enough a symbol.
Ultimately the only pacific way out is to extend a variant of the European construction, a Mediterranean Union, to the entire region (as Sarkozy initially proposed). This dialogue worked well in Europe, there is no reason it would not work as well around the Mediterranean. A target for conceptual destruction ought to be superstitions and their associated racisms (clearly, for example, some part of the Qur'an are as offensive against the Jews as possible; even the Nazis in their worst state did not talk about the people they hated the most in such an absurdly violent fashion.)
Indeed the last time the Mediterranean area was united was under the Roman empire. It is the rise of superstition, even well before, centuries before the invention of Islam, that originated the present problems (by leading for example to the destruction of the gigantic Jewish temple in Jerusalem and then spreading aggressive heresies of Judaism, namely Christianism and Islamism).
If we want peace, we need to go back to some somewhat similar situation to that which existed under Rome (but with more national freedom, as exists in the European Union.) So the Mediterranean Union is the solution. Anything else is a waste of time, and should lead to an orgy of destruction, especially when some youth understand better the game of the USA.
Patrice Ayme
Friday, February 12, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Banks As Government
The clueless Obama just claimed that bankers' bonuses are no more shocking than athletes' incomes. According to him, it would be against the free market to be against said bonuses.
But of course bankers are getting all their money from the government. Banks are not about the "free market". They are about the mechanism to create money that can be used in the market, and all over the economy. "Private" banks have recently been endowed with a prerogative governments kept for themselves for millennia. Apparently Obama does not know any of this.
A way to support banks has been by giving them hundreds of billions through TARP (which I mockingly called at the time: Transfering Assets To Rich People).
Another way has been to buy mortgages using taxpayer money to keep interest on mortgages low. This is not innocent as it looks. In connection with the FHA back-up of most new real estate loans, it is mostly a government run subprime program to the benefit of bankers and real estate flippers. What is the interest for the bankers and their White House? In light of a FEW transactions to flippers (or to the banks themselves!), it allows bankers and White House to claim houses are really worth a lot, therefore principals should not be lowered (a cornerstone of the friendly-to-bankers policy).
Another way to help banks is for the government to give them money at basically zero interest, and then allow them to re-invest the same money with the same government, at 3.5% interest.
More fundamentally, the main support to the banks has been the FRACTIONAL RESERVE SYSTEM. It allows private, unelected, unsupervised individuals called the bankers, to create the money society uses. Moreover, it is created under the form of debt. Thus it tends to increase and put the vast majority of People into two categories: those without money, completely out of society, a sort of underclass, and those who are over-indebted.
The Fractional Reserve System [FRS] makes bankers enormously powerful, because it makes them in control of most of the money (under a reserve requirement of 10% they control about 4/5 of it all; it can come arbitrarily close to 100% as the reserve requirement is allowed to go down to zero).
Rothschild actually explained, more than two centuries ago, that the FRS made bankers into the people who controlled nations.
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
But of course bankers are getting all their money from the government. Banks are not about the "free market". They are about the mechanism to create money that can be used in the market, and all over the economy. "Private" banks have recently been endowed with a prerogative governments kept for themselves for millennia. Apparently Obama does not know any of this.
A way to support banks has been by giving them hundreds of billions through TARP (which I mockingly called at the time: Transfering Assets To Rich People).
Another way has been to buy mortgages using taxpayer money to keep interest on mortgages low. This is not innocent as it looks. In connection with the FHA back-up of most new real estate loans, it is mostly a government run subprime program to the benefit of bankers and real estate flippers. What is the interest for the bankers and their White House? In light of a FEW transactions to flippers (or to the banks themselves!), it allows bankers and White House to claim houses are really worth a lot, therefore principals should not be lowered (a cornerstone of the friendly-to-bankers policy).
Another way to help banks is for the government to give them money at basically zero interest, and then allow them to re-invest the same money with the same government, at 3.5% interest.
More fundamentally, the main support to the banks has been the FRACTIONAL RESERVE SYSTEM. It allows private, unelected, unsupervised individuals called the bankers, to create the money society uses. Moreover, it is created under the form of debt. Thus it tends to increase and put the vast majority of People into two categories: those without money, completely out of society, a sort of underclass, and those who are over-indebted.
The Fractional Reserve System [FRS] makes bankers enormously powerful, because it makes them in control of most of the money (under a reserve requirement of 10% they control about 4/5 of it all; it can come arbitrarily close to 100% as the reserve requirement is allowed to go down to zero).
Rothschild actually explained, more than two centuries ago, that the FRS made bankers into the people who controlled nations.
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Sunday, February 7, 2010
AMERICA IS NOT YET GONE
... BUT, WITHOUT A CHANGE OF MOOD, IT'S ON ITS WAY...
Paul Krugman in America Is Not Yet Lost makes an excellent depiction of the dismal situation of the USA, comparing it to Poland in the 18C.
"The way the Senate works is no longer consistent with a functioning government, and senators should change the rules to end obstructionism."
Constitutional stasis in the USA contrasts with the hyper dynamic constitutional process in Europe. Now, of course, Europe is changing constitutions globally and nationally, and regionally because of European construction. But also the diffuse feeling was left among Europeans, after the war against fascism (1870-1945), that it was most important (namely nothing more important) to have the best constitution imaginable. Even if it meant tinkering with it all the time.
That is one of the reasons for the Euro: to prevent competitive devaluation, a cause of war (for example Germany destroyed its own currency in the 1920s rather than to help repairing North West France that it had just deliberately destroyed, all the way down to telephone poles). True, such a concept as a unique currency brings, in turn, problems, but those can be, in turn, solved, modulo more constitutional tweaking.
In the USA the parliamentary system is broken, in part because the Senate (not really a democratic representation since a Senator in Wyoming represents 200,000 people and one in California, 19 millions!) damages the work of the national assembly (\"Congress\").
In a country such as France, the Senate plays a distinct role from the National Assembly, and both get together with the president in constitutional changes (the so called \"Congres\").
The USA is not yet lost, true, but far gone, already. Only a mighty neurohormonal and cultural reflection will get it out of its plutocratic stupor. And that is hard to do, after decades of cool.
PA
Paul Krugman in America Is Not Yet Lost makes an excellent depiction of the dismal situation of the USA, comparing it to Poland in the 18C.
"The way the Senate works is no longer consistent with a functioning government, and senators should change the rules to end obstructionism."
Constitutional stasis in the USA contrasts with the hyper dynamic constitutional process in Europe. Now, of course, Europe is changing constitutions globally and nationally, and regionally because of European construction. But also the diffuse feeling was left among Europeans, after the war against fascism (1870-1945), that it was most important (namely nothing more important) to have the best constitution imaginable. Even if it meant tinkering with it all the time.
That is one of the reasons for the Euro: to prevent competitive devaluation, a cause of war (for example Germany destroyed its own currency in the 1920s rather than to help repairing North West France that it had just deliberately destroyed, all the way down to telephone poles). True, such a concept as a unique currency brings, in turn, problems, but those can be, in turn, solved, modulo more constitutional tweaking.
In the USA the parliamentary system is broken, in part because the Senate (not really a democratic representation since a Senator in Wyoming represents 200,000 people and one in California, 19 millions!) damages the work of the national assembly (\"Congress\").
In a country such as France, the Senate plays a distinct role from the National Assembly, and both get together with the president in constitutional changes (the so called \"Congres\").
The USA is not yet lost, true, but far gone, already. Only a mighty neurohormonal and cultural reflection will get it out of its plutocratic stupor. And that is hard to do, after decades of cool.
PA
Monday, January 18, 2010
AS COOL AS DEAD IN THE WATER ?
Krugman, finally following the drift in my various blogs makes a direct attack on Mr. Obama's mentality. So did "The Economist". As Krugman puts it gently:
"President Obama’s troubles result from misjudgments: the stimulus was too small; banking policy wasn’t tough enough; and he didn’t shelter himself from criticism."
Well, here is my add-on, and i have plenty of reasons, some even personal, to not be that gentle, although I stay within the best of my rational consideration:
Obama is persuaded that cool is cool, and that it is all what a man has to do with his brain to excel: do what you are told, and look cool. Cool is the way. But Obama knows physics not. When you want to change things, you don't wait, cool as a glacier, for the great melting of the minds. Heat is motion. If you want to move, you have to get hot.
Obama came in, he admired Reagan (an actor who got the plutocratic demolition of the USA on the way), and hired Larry Summers (Reagan's internal affairs economic adviser, and the main DESTROYER OF ROOSEVELT's financial SAFEGARDS, as Treasury Secretary earlier, under Clinton). Obama was elected, it turned out, to pursue Larry Summers' America: for thirty years going, and still collapsing. Then Obama talked as if all he had to do was to persuade the elders of the republican party: dreaming of his father. How touching.
So, Godspeed America (as the actor Reagan would say). Even the pro-plutocratic magazine "The Economist" wants Obama to put fighting gloves on (Jan 14, cover). But, before putting the gloves on, maybe Obama should warm his brain enough to find who to beat up, and that his first enemies are in his own cabinet. As it is, Obama is surrounded by cool plutocrats whose only real ambition is to fill up their pockets some more, in tomorrow's even cooler plutocracy, so they make it all it can be.
PA
"President Obama’s troubles result from misjudgments: the stimulus was too small; banking policy wasn’t tough enough; and he didn’t shelter himself from criticism."
Well, here is my add-on, and i have plenty of reasons, some even personal, to not be that gentle, although I stay within the best of my rational consideration:
Obama is persuaded that cool is cool, and that it is all what a man has to do with his brain to excel: do what you are told, and look cool. Cool is the way. But Obama knows physics not. When you want to change things, you don't wait, cool as a glacier, for the great melting of the minds. Heat is motion. If you want to move, you have to get hot.
Obama came in, he admired Reagan (an actor who got the plutocratic demolition of the USA on the way), and hired Larry Summers (Reagan's internal affairs economic adviser, and the main DESTROYER OF ROOSEVELT's financial SAFEGARDS, as Treasury Secretary earlier, under Clinton). Obama was elected, it turned out, to pursue Larry Summers' America: for thirty years going, and still collapsing. Then Obama talked as if all he had to do was to persuade the elders of the republican party: dreaming of his father. How touching.
So, Godspeed America (as the actor Reagan would say). Even the pro-plutocratic magazine "The Economist" wants Obama to put fighting gloves on (Jan 14, cover). But, before putting the gloves on, maybe Obama should warm his brain enough to find who to beat up, and that his first enemies are in his own cabinet. As it is, Obama is surrounded by cool plutocrats whose only real ambition is to fill up their pockets some more, in tomorrow's even cooler plutocracy, so they make it all it can be.
PA
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Give A Secular Iran Its Nuclear Umbrella
Secularism is the religion of the age ("age", as a period of 120 years, is what "seculum" means). It can tolerate superstition, or many, but just that way: as tolerance.
What we have instead in Iran is a superstition masquerading as a republic. But the public ought to be free to think about whatever, in whichever way, and conduct its life accordingly, after democratic debate, whereas the superstition orders them to believe in its arbitrary credo. Moreover, that arbitrary credo is so incredibly primitive, so tribal, obscurantist, sexist and anti-intellectual that it makes the European Middle Ages seem more enlightened in many ways. Thus, there can be no compromise. The Qur'an, which contains some horribly fascist orders, has to release its grip on the Iranian public.
Once this is done, or on its way, France, and, or the USA, or, better, both together, should formally guarantee the secular Iranian republic its security, with a formal defense treaty, including the nuclear weapons umbrella.
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
What we have instead in Iran is a superstition masquerading as a republic. But the public ought to be free to think about whatever, in whichever way, and conduct its life accordingly, after democratic debate, whereas the superstition orders them to believe in its arbitrary credo. Moreover, that arbitrary credo is so incredibly primitive, so tribal, obscurantist, sexist and anti-intellectual that it makes the European Middle Ages seem more enlightened in many ways. Thus, there can be no compromise. The Qur'an, which contains some horribly fascist orders, has to release its grip on the Iranian public.
Once this is done, or on its way, France, and, or the USA, or, better, both together, should formally guarantee the secular Iranian republic its security, with a formal defense treaty, including the nuclear weapons umbrella.
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Profit madness...
Statements such as “For one, the private economy invests each dollar of earnings more efficiently than the government spends the taxes collected. have to be put in context[”http://learningfromdogs.com/2009/12/29/government-spending-and-hamburgers]. Always.
Say the “private enterprise” is a casino in Las Vegas. So is it “more efficient” to put up another massive tower in Vegas than to give money to researchers at NIH looking for a cure for cancer or aging? Is it more efficient to send Vegas money to some tax heaven, than to have the Federal government pay some private enterprise to make thousands of millimetric bodyscanners, and pay for more efficient intelligence services?
I am very far from a statist fanatic. The US gov should not have saved General Motors, for example. It should be sold to Renault (if the later is still interested by devouring it).
But, ultimately, in a democracy, it’s the government that calls the shots, not the rich. In the later case, when the Rich calls the shots, all the shots, it’s called a PLUTOCRACY. And, in the fullness of time, it does not work as well. History, and theory, show.
PA
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Say the “private enterprise” is a casino in Las Vegas. So is it “more efficient” to put up another massive tower in Vegas than to give money to researchers at NIH looking for a cure for cancer or aging? Is it more efficient to send Vegas money to some tax heaven, than to have the Federal government pay some private enterprise to make thousands of millimetric bodyscanners, and pay for more efficient intelligence services?
I am very far from a statist fanatic. The US gov should not have saved General Motors, for example. It should be sold to Renault (if the later is still interested by devouring it).
But, ultimately, in a democracy, it’s the government that calls the shots, not the rich. In the later case, when the Rich calls the shots, all the shots, it’s called a PLUTOCRACY. And, in the fullness of time, it does not work as well. History, and theory, show.
PA
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
GOLD MAN SACKS AND SAYS: CLAP AND TREAD.
(Similar but larger essay on Wordpress to come soon)
GOLD MAN SAYS: CLAP AND TREAD. OFF WITH ITS HEAD!
Obama's USA, right now, intends to reduce emissions only with a "Cap and Trade" system. "Cap and Trade" was used, supposedly successfully, in the USA, to reduce acid rain. However, Europe controlled its acid problem without "Cap and Trade". Regulations can work better. After all, there are just regulations for toys, cars, house appliances and medical drugs. One does not do "Cap and Trade" with carcinogens. why to do it with something even more dangerous?
Oh, we shall cap the number of slaves to one million, and then trade them? No, we shall not. Why? Because trading slaves is bad, that's why. This is what happened in Europe: too many free pollution permits were given, well, for free. That was embarrassing. Europe was saved by its enormous pre-existing energy taxes and regulations.
Then "Cap and Trade" has been used in the European Union for 5 years, for CO2 reductions, and it has been hard to implement. Many a European company turned it into an outrageous subsidy (sometimes through elaborated misrepresentation of their previous emissions). "Cap and Trade", in Europe, is a second order effect on the reduction of CO2 production, the main effect being regulations, and taxes on fuel, energy, and now carbon (in France for the later).
The great advantage of "Cap and Trade", for the USA, is that it is a subsidy to the usual suspects, led, of course, by Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs, also known as "Government Sachs", is the true government of the USA, motivated not by what the American rabble wants, but by the profit motive. "Cap and Trade" will make Gold Man richer, so Gold Man is all for it, so it will happen. What should progressives do? Well, denounce loudly but support meekly, because a bit of progress is better than none.
SELLING OUT:
But then here comes Paul Krugman. Among many raging American "conservatives" Krugman has an extreme leftist reputation, but many of the policies he has advocated recently, or opinions he has presented, the elected leaders of the European right would reject with horror as intolerably right wing. An example is the zero interest rate policy, a lamentable give away to banks. Krugman supports it, in spite of its disastrous effects on the saving rate, American seniors, the dollar, stable currency rates, and the unfair cheapening of the USA.
So now Krugman has turned into a herald for Goldman Sachs (See the annex below on Gold Man Sacks and Cap & Trade). In Unhelpful Hansen
James Hansen is a great climate scientist. He was the first to warn about the climate crisis; I take what he says about coal, in particular, very seriously.
Unfortunately, while I defer to him on all matters climate, today’s op-ed article suggests that he really hasn’t made any effort to understand the economics of emissions control. And that’s not a small matter, because he’s now engaged in a misguided crusade against cap and trade, which is — let’s face it — the only form of action against greenhouse gas emissions we have any chance of taking before catastrophe becomes inevitable.
With all due respect, you are making an Americano-American reasoning here. Hansen is right, you are not. "We have no chance of getting a carbon tax for the foreseeable future", you say. Who is "we"? WE, all of use, have just one planet, one biosphere, and the USA, or more exactly the American oligarchs and plutocrats and their factories in China are polluting it to death.
The average American produces 24 tons of CO2 per person, the average French produces 6 tons. The French don't live four times better, but close. It's directly related. When all you do is waste, all you get is hate.
The rest of the world has implemented plenty of various taxes, for example on gasoline, etc. Even China has augmented enormously its gasoline tax in the last 18 months. Moreover, China has made its own increasingly stringent European laws on carbon emissions (although an electric car in China will emit 231 grams of CO2 per kilometer, whereas it would emit only 21 grams in France; American cars emit, in the average 333 grams, and the latest european regulation are for 120 grams…)
France, not content with its formidable taxes on energy, is introducing a carbon tax, on top of them, January 1, 2010, in 3 weeks. If the USA will not listen to reason, it goes without saying that carbon taxation on imports could be used as a way to demolish the industry of the USA, or whatever is left of it, after the Obama administration has subsidized it to death (this is an allusion to the 70 billion dollars injected by Obama in thoroughly inept General Motors… Ah, long gone are the days when an astute GM and a Jew hating Ford worked for Hitler, producing most of some of the types of vehicles Hitler's armed forces used, while naïve American GIs battled them on the ground… Where is the subtlety of old gone? Wall Street's world control is slipping, dissipating as carbon smoke in thin air…)
Europe introduced colossal taxes on energy long ago. Even Norway, which produces more oil per person than Saudi Arabia, has colossal energy taxes. In many European countries the price of gas is close to ten dollars a gallon (although oil is intrinsically cheaper there, being closer to cheap production centers).
Europe had "Cap and Trade" for years. It was a formidable subsidy for polluters. The carbon market is based in Paris. Even then, the French regulators were unable to prevent various misuses of the system. In the USA, Goldman Sachs will be in charge. Great. You will get the usual "Clap and Tread". Everybody applauding Gold Man Sacks treading on the people.
Praying at the feet of Goldman Sachs does not help. The rest of the world is increasingly fed up with the American attitude. I will expand my complaint on my site.
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
GOLD MAN SAYS: CLAP AND TREAD. OFF WITH ITS HEAD!
Obama's USA, right now, intends to reduce emissions only with a "Cap and Trade" system. "Cap and Trade" was used, supposedly successfully, in the USA, to reduce acid rain. However, Europe controlled its acid problem without "Cap and Trade". Regulations can work better. After all, there are just regulations for toys, cars, house appliances and medical drugs. One does not do "Cap and Trade" with carcinogens. why to do it with something even more dangerous?
Oh, we shall cap the number of slaves to one million, and then trade them? No, we shall not. Why? Because trading slaves is bad, that's why. This is what happened in Europe: too many free pollution permits were given, well, for free. That was embarrassing. Europe was saved by its enormous pre-existing energy taxes and regulations.
Then "Cap and Trade" has been used in the European Union for 5 years, for CO2 reductions, and it has been hard to implement. Many a European company turned it into an outrageous subsidy (sometimes through elaborated misrepresentation of their previous emissions). "Cap and Trade", in Europe, is a second order effect on the reduction of CO2 production, the main effect being regulations, and taxes on fuel, energy, and now carbon (in France for the later).
The great advantage of "Cap and Trade", for the USA, is that it is a subsidy to the usual suspects, led, of course, by Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs, also known as "Government Sachs", is the true government of the USA, motivated not by what the American rabble wants, but by the profit motive. "Cap and Trade" will make Gold Man richer, so Gold Man is all for it, so it will happen. What should progressives do? Well, denounce loudly but support meekly, because a bit of progress is better than none.
SELLING OUT:
But then here comes Paul Krugman. Among many raging American "conservatives" Krugman has an extreme leftist reputation, but many of the policies he has advocated recently, or opinions he has presented, the elected leaders of the European right would reject with horror as intolerably right wing. An example is the zero interest rate policy, a lamentable give away to banks. Krugman supports it, in spite of its disastrous effects on the saving rate, American seniors, the dollar, stable currency rates, and the unfair cheapening of the USA.
So now Krugman has turned into a herald for Goldman Sachs (See the annex below on Gold Man Sacks and Cap & Trade). In Unhelpful Hansen
James Hansen is a great climate scientist. He was the first to warn about the climate crisis; I take what he says about coal, in particular, very seriously.
Unfortunately, while I defer to him on all matters climate, today’s op-ed article suggests that he really hasn’t made any effort to understand the economics of emissions control. And that’s not a small matter, because he’s now engaged in a misguided crusade against cap and trade, which is — let’s face it — the only form of action against greenhouse gas emissions we have any chance of taking before catastrophe becomes inevitable.
With all due respect, you are making an Americano-American reasoning here. Hansen is right, you are not. "We have no chance of getting a carbon tax for the foreseeable future", you say. Who is "we"? WE, all of use, have just one planet, one biosphere, and the USA, or more exactly the American oligarchs and plutocrats and their factories in China are polluting it to death.
The average American produces 24 tons of CO2 per person, the average French produces 6 tons. The French don't live four times better, but close. It's directly related. When all you do is waste, all you get is hate.
The rest of the world has implemented plenty of various taxes, for example on gasoline, etc. Even China has augmented enormously its gasoline tax in the last 18 months. Moreover, China has made its own increasingly stringent European laws on carbon emissions (although an electric car in China will emit 231 grams of CO2 per kilometer, whereas it would emit only 21 grams in France; American cars emit, in the average 333 grams, and the latest european regulation are for 120 grams…)
France, not content with its formidable taxes on energy, is introducing a carbon tax, on top of them, January 1, 2010, in 3 weeks. If the USA will not listen to reason, it goes without saying that carbon taxation on imports could be used as a way to demolish the industry of the USA, or whatever is left of it, after the Obama administration has subsidized it to death (this is an allusion to the 70 billion dollars injected by Obama in thoroughly inept General Motors… Ah, long gone are the days when an astute GM and a Jew hating Ford worked for Hitler, producing most of some of the types of vehicles Hitler's armed forces used, while naïve American GIs battled them on the ground… Where is the subtlety of old gone? Wall Street's world control is slipping, dissipating as carbon smoke in thin air…)
Europe introduced colossal taxes on energy long ago. Even Norway, which produces more oil per person than Saudi Arabia, has colossal energy taxes. In many European countries the price of gas is close to ten dollars a gallon (although oil is intrinsically cheaper there, being closer to cheap production centers).
Europe had "Cap and Trade" for years. It was a formidable subsidy for polluters. The carbon market is based in Paris. Even then, the French regulators were unable to prevent various misuses of the system. In the USA, Goldman Sachs will be in charge. Great. You will get the usual "Clap and Tread". Everybody applauding Gold Man Sacks treading on the people.
Praying at the feet of Goldman Sachs does not help. The rest of the world is increasingly fed up with the American attitude. I will expand my complaint on my site.
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
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