#1
Tipper I notice you follow this stuff. I do also.
I'd like to add "Kaufman says were absolutely,"positively, undeniably,"totally, 100 percent not prepared for another financial crisis.I believe since May they have gotten into the government pension plans. One nasty trick will be to go after all other savings or pension plans. Each fix is so short lived. Things will slowdown for the holidays then if we are lucky after Christmas, maybe after New Years layoffs and other nasty events will likely occur. Obama will be on vacation and the Republicans will attack each other as will the media. Meanwhile the driver is not looking ahead distracted by all the commotion around him, if we even have a driver.
#2
They have already gotten into every savings, checking, 401k, offshore, and every other kind of account you can think of, including cookie jars and mattress, by devaluing your dollars. But that's ok since they did it to everybody, right? Now you are starting to get the idea of how much crap you will put up with before you'll complain.
#3
WSJ today I saw this and it doesn't look good to grow old: "Debt among Americans between the ages of 65 and 74 is growing faster than for any other age group, according to the Federal Reserve. As of 2007, the latest year for which figures are available, the median debt level of that age group was $40,130, up from $27,458 in 2004". I know many seniors help their children and grand children. With this economy and unemployment when the money runs out where do you go. I have helped two families in my household get back on their feet myself. Each stayed about a year. I didn't mind the grand kids. One I helped with divorce and bankruptcy. The other till he got a job and finally a home of his own. Not at the same time. Now that would have been difficult. Then I hope no other issues arise. Be prepared. Things are going to get more difficult.
#2
..except all the players made Germany relatively strong by their own actions which weakened their own positions. This wasn't a grand strategy as much as things falling in place. No more so than the US finding itself a dominate position over the ashes of Europe after another bout of cultural suicide known as WWII.
For Sunday, lotp reviews "The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy"
An excerpt:
To understand how we got to where we are today, with a POTUS dedicated to dismantling the US nuclear arsenal while madmen in Pyongyang and Teheran - or are they mad??? - work to acquire thermonuclear weapons and threaten by their actions to pass tactical nukes to terror groups, it helps to know how close we came - or how close some thought we came - to serious nuclear annihilation during the Cold War.
That's the theme of David Hoffman's 2009 book "The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy". Hoffman, a WaPo investigative reporter, strongly favors disarmament through arms control treaties. But do the remedies favored by either the Left or the Right during the Cold War address the threat we face today?
#1
Thanks for the advance notice. I still shudder when I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis. I was old enough then to have read a bit & have a basic grasp of the stakes at the time.
Republicans are more conservative than at any time since their 1980 dismay about another floundering president. They are more ideologically homogenous than ever in 156 years of competing for the presidency. They anticipated choosing between Mitt Romney, a conservative of convenience, and a conviction politician to his right. The choice, however, could be between Romney and the least conservative candidate, Newt Gingrich. But I liked Newt the two or three times I've heard him speak on U-Tube!
Romney's main objection to contemporary Washington seems to be that he is not administering it. God has 10 commandments, Woodrow Wilson had 14 points, Heinz had 57 varieties, but Romney's economic platform has 59 planks -- 56 more than necessary if you have low taxes, free trade and fewer regulatory burdens. Still, his conservatism-as-managerialism would be a marked improvement upon today's bewildered liberalism. How about "bewildering progressive/socialist/Marxist-liberalism"?
Gingrich, however, embodies the vanity and rapacity that make modern Washington repulsive. And there is his anti-conservative confidence that he has a comprehensive explanation of, and plan to perfect, everything. So he'd make a great conservative dictator, is that what you're saying, George?
Obama is running as Harry Truman did in 1948, against Congress, but Republicans need not supply the real key to Truman's success -- Tom Dewey. Confident that Truman was unelectable, Republicans nominated New York's chilly governor, whose virtues of experience and steadiness were vitiated by one fact: Voters disliked him. Before settling for Romney, conservatives should reconsider two candidates who stumbled early on.
Rick Perry (disclosure: my wife, Mari Will, advises him) has been disappointing in debates. They test nothing pertinent to presidential duties but have become absurdly important. Perry's political assets remain his Texas record and Southwestern zest for disliking Washington and Wall Street simultaneously and equally.
Jon Huntsman ...American professional politician and diplomat. He worked as a White House staff assistant for Ronald Reagan, and he was appointed by George Bush the Elder as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce and later as United States Ambassador to Singapore. He was Deputy U.S. Trade Representative under Bush the Younger. Huntsman has also served as CEO of his family's Huntsman Corporation and was elected Governor of Utah in 2004, winning re-election in 2008 with nearly 78% of the vote. On August 11, 2009, he resigned as governor to accept an appointment as Ambassador to China in the Obama administration.... inexplicably chose to debut as the Republican for people who rather dislike Republicans, but his program is the most conservative. He endorses Paul Ryan's budget and entitlement reforms. (Gingrich denounced Ryan's Medicare reform as "right-wing social engineering.") Huntsman would privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (Gingrich's benefactor). Huntsman would end double taxation on investment by eliminating taxes on capital gains and dividends. (Romney would eliminate them only for people earning less than $200,000, who currently pay just 9.3 percent of them.)
Huntsman's thorough opposition to corporate welfare includes farm subsidies. (Romney has justified them as national security measures -- food security, somehow threatened. Gingrich says opponents of ethanol subsidies are "big-city" people hostile to farmers.) Huntsman considers No Child Left Behind, the semi-nationalization of primary and secondary education, "an unmitigated disaster." (Romney and Gingrich support it. Gingrich has endorsed a national curriculum.) Who IS this Huntsman guy, and where has he been hiding?
Between Ron Paul's isolationism and the faintly variant bellicosities of the other six candidates stands Huntsman's conservative foreign policy, skeptically nuanced about America's need or ability to control many distant developments.
Romney might not be a Dewey. Gingrich might stop being (as Churchill said of John Foster Dulles) a bull who carries his own china shop around with him. But both are too risky to anoint today. A bull who carries his own china shop! I'm going to remember that one!
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/03/2011 08:22 ||
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#1
IMO, the only qualified candidate (successful governor) is Rick Perry. Too bad he's a doer not a talker.
#4
(disclosure: my wife, Mari Will, advises Rick Perry)
That is all you need to know.
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
12/03/2011 12:10 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Who gives a, er, hoot, what George Will thinks? He's a cranky old man who hasn't written a good column in years.
Yes, Gingrich and Romney are both too risky: either could beat Obama in November.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/03/2011 12:53 Comments ||
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#6
Yes, Gingrich and Romney are both too risky: either could beat Obama in November.
That was the first thing I thought when I first saw the headline.
Perry-Gingrich or Gingrich-Perry. Either way it's gotta be better than what we have now.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/03/2011 13:43 Comments ||
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#7
Those dimwits make Obama look like Abe Lincoln...
Posted by: Van Der Graf ||
12/03/2011 14:48 Comments ||
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#8
But both are too risky to anoint today.
Too risky to anoint? We are electing a president not anointing a saint.
There are often times, I find Will bristly, cranky, and full of his own opinions.
Perry has been up and now down. Huntsman, never got up. However, both have had good executive experience. Any of the four would be better than the Vacationer-in-Chief. Will did not mention Bachman or Santorum.
#12
Gingrich was Speaker, I'd think that would count.
Obama's team would have a tricky time I think using a lack of experience as a campaign point seeing how his executive experience had to do with 9 holes and short fairways.
To be fair Obama has formed opinions - police act stupidly by default, he says he bowls like a retard, and most importantly does not feel he has to explain his actions or opinions to the public.
"To understand how we got to where we are today, with a POTUS dedicated to dismantling the US nuclear arsenal while madmen in Pyongyang and Teheran - or are they mad??? - work to acquire thermonuclear weapons and threaten by their actions to pass tactical nukes to terror groups, it helps to know how close we came - or how close some thought we came - to serious nuclear annihilation during the Cold War.
David Hoffman's 2009 book The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy recounts in detail threats the public remained unaware of at the time, and the slow dance towards strategic arms control agreements. Hoffman, a WaPo investigative reporter whose book greeted the newly installed Adminstration, favors disarmament. But do the remedies advanced by either the Left or the Right during the Cold War address the threat we face today?"
[Dawn] THE unprovoked attack on two Pak Army check posts in Salala, Mohmand ... Named for the Mohmand clan of the Sarban Pahstuns, a truculent, quarrelsome lot. In Pakistain, the Mohmands infest their eponymous Agency, metastasizing as far as the plains of Beautiful Downtown Peshawar, Charsadda, and Mardan. Mohmands are also scattered throughout Pakistan in urban areas including Karachi, Lahore, and Quetta. In Afghanistan they are mainly found in Nangarhar and Kunar... Agency by multiple NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... aircraft and ground troops on Nov 26, is likely to prove one of the lowest points in deteriorating US-Pakistain relations.
The incident has occurred at a time when a heated debate is under way in Pakistain regarding the contents of a memo sent to Adm Mike Mullen that many believe was another attempt to limit the role of the Pak military in politics.
There are reports that the attack occurred when the US Special Operation Forces were operating in the vicinity of the posts.
Could it be that this was the first combined operation against Pak forces?
President B.O. has called the attack a tragedy. NATO has offered regrets for the incident and ordered an inquiry. Pakistain in retaliation has stopped the transit of material to the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. Pakistain has also asked for Shamsi airbase, on lease to the US and from where the drones are reportedly operated, to be vacated.At the same time, Pakistain has asked the US not to send any military delegations, and a similar embargo applies to Pak military visits to NATO countries.
The net result is the downgrading of US-Pakistain relations. It can be said that the NATO attack on the Salala post in Mohmand Agency perhaps spells the end of Pakistain's participation as an ally of the US in the war on terror. This will severely limit US/NATO ability to conclude a clean withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Another important aspect related to Afghanistan is Pakistain's decision not to attend the forthcoming Bonn Conference; without Pakistain's participation the Afghan endgame cannot be concluded.
It is possible that the Mohmand incident may force the US to continue its presence in Afghanistan into the foreseeable future.
In short, the NATO attack may turn out to be the costliest mistake yet in the Afghan war. It is speculated by many that Pakistain will consider increasing its deterrence capability after this episode to protect its border posts by providing shoulder-fired ground-to-air missiles to its troops stationed there.
Failure to do so will increase dissatisfaction amongst the Pak troops guarding the border. The provision of missiles will transform the whole calculus of forces deployed on the Durand Line.
Secondly, Pak force commanders will now be less than enthusiastic about cross-border raids. This could lead to further complications. If Taliban attacks increase, NATO will be hard-pressed to protect its mandate. Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's NATO envoy, has said that Russia might suspend the northern supply line that will threaten western operations in Afghanistan.
The NATO position thus appears untenable as the 2014 deadline for withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan draws near. NATO thus may have to brace itself to face new challenges in the days ahead.
One thing is certain -- the NATO establishment in Afghanistan will see more bad turban attacks in the future as Pakistain begins to lose interest in border management.
It is unlikely that Pakistain will conduct independent reprisals against US interests as it has much more to lose. However, a clean conscience makes a soft pillow... it can undertake soft actions by recalling the privileges that have been extended to Isaf/NATO/US forces in the form of provision of supply routes through Pakistain, joint monitoring of borders, exchange of information and closing down of the Shamsi drone base.
Pakistain is also likely to stop joint cooperation with NATO in Afghanistan and the former will be left holding the hammer without an anvil.
Although NATO has expressed regrets, this will not lead to improvement of relations if the current atmosphere of distrust continues to prevail. Some of the steps that could be taken to defuse the situation will include the restitution of losses suffered by bereaved families and the submission of a formal apology.
However, there's more than one way to stuff a chicken... one wonders if this will be done in today's world where the rule of law and equity in behaviour are rarely seen.
Travelling on this path will require a joint inquiry by NATO and Pakistain into the causes of the tragedy.
If the inquiry finds that some officers neglected to follow the protocol applicable to operations on the border, then such officers would need to face court-martial.
One must also not overlook the consequence of an extended war on the people of the affected region. An examination of the situation shows that both in Afghanistan and Pakistain the majority of the affected people are Pakhtuns. In both countries they have been bearing the brunt of conflict over the last three decades. Death, injury, displacement and economic hardship blight their lives.
In fact, some ask whether the war in Afghanistan and in the Pak Pakhtun areas does not fall under the definition of 'genocide' as stated in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG).
The convention notes, among other things, that actions committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part would constitute the crime of genocide.
Some argue that this attack was the first salvo of a new phase in the war in this region and directed against Pakistain. However, if you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning... this projection does not fit into the other time lines that indicate a commitment to withdraw by 2014. One thing is certain that when the fighting ends, the Pakhtuns will be the main beneficiaries of peace.
The writer is chairman of the Regional Institute of Policy Research in Peshawar.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Pakistan is repor refusing to cooperate or participate in US-NATO led investigatuve probe.
As a reminder, besides all other reasons rpior to this event, LT OR PERMANENT CLOSURE OFF THE NATO SUPPLY ROUTES BY PAK + now RUSSIA? = US/US-LED WAR AGZ IRAN TO SAVE AFGHANISTAN AFTER 2014???
#2
Pakistan was in deep sh*t, because even the DC dimwits could no longer ignore Pakistan rulers' duplicity. The incident, whether contrived or real, is haven sent. Now they're an aggrieved party, and they're going to extort a lot of concessions before granting a magnanimous forgiveness.
[Dawn] When patriotism rules the minds, thinking faculties take the backseat. Patriotism, like religion, is a conviction based on a belief system which cannot be reasoned with. It's the biggest, all-pervasive cult that entire nation states are besotted with, some to the point of no redemption -- and there is no distinction between democratic and undemocratic polities whilst succumbing to patriotism. In the US and in India, for instance, patriotism overrides all else; it is a consistent state of mind through which everything else must be seen and judged. In countries like Iran, Syria and North Korea, autocratic regimes fan patriotic sentiment to show to the world how their people are behind government policies.
In Pakistain, patriotism is an organised affair, managed and overseen by state institutions through their beneficiaries, lackeys and the right wing lobby as and when the need arises. We have a long history of patriotism of the negative variety only, which oscillates between anti-India and anti-US/West rhetoric.
There is hardly anything positive about Pak patriotism; it relies mainly on condemnation of the enemy, real or perceived. Once such rhetoric starts it assumes larger than life proportions; everyone everywhere feels obliged to chip in with their own vent of anger until the brinkmen calling the shots decide that tactical results have been achieved. Whilst the fit lasts, nothing can hold back its fury, not even genuine national interest.
The way Pakistain has reacted to the killing of 24 soldiers by NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... air strikes is the most recent case in point, following the Memogate scandal. Granted it's intolerable and unacceptable that our so-called allies should attack our army posts, but while our military is able to take armed assaults on the GHQ and the Mehran Naval Base from home-grown Orcs and similar vermin with some calm, western forces attacking our soldiers is somehow much more outrageous. Similarly, hundreds killed in American drone attacks, mostly terrorists, is more disgraceful than over 20,000 civilian lives lost, including those of women and kiddies, in terrorist attacks on shrines, mosques, schools and in the bazaars. Were those not the sons and daughters of Pakistain, who were killed not in the line of duty defending their country on remote hilltops but whilst going about their daily, innocent routine in our cities? They were not even in the war zone, where bloody accidents can happen.
One is not saying that the latest NATO attack was an accident or a terrible miscalculation on the part of the foreign troops and their Afghan hosts, because if truth be told under these charged up conditions, we don't really know that. The inflexible reaction shown by the ISPR tells us that it has totally rejected such an explanation and called the assault deliberate. The government too has stood firmly behind the armed forces' stand on the issue, and the media just picked up the story and ran with it, with war songs blaring from TV sets and anchors baying for enemy blood. Cable operators have done their bit for the country and taken western news channels off the air. Under whose orders and under what rules and regulations, no one is willing to ask.
Is this a well thought out stance, especially when an inquiry into the air strikes is underway across the border? Even if it is held that the NATO attack was not a mistake but a deliberate move, it has to be asked what was NATO's motive behind attacking Pakistain Army check posts? If the motive was to pit the Pakistain Army against the foreign troops based in Afghanistan and make that an excuse to extend the theatre of war into Pak territory, then the sinister mind that cast the bait must now feel vindicated because we have taken the bait.
NATO supplies have been cut off from Pakistain and the US has been told to vacate the Shamsi air base in Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... , perhaps a fitting response to the provocation, but what is next, you may well ask. Where do we go from here? When nations become angry, they behave like the individuals who run them, and this isn't the best frame of mind in which to rush to conclusions and take action. The past 10 years show us that the hubris displayed by the US in its 'war on terror', whose battle cry is vengeance, is not the way to go, because it has got them nowhere. Is that the destination Pakistain also wants to embark upon?
A saner response would have been to use the Bonn conference to put across Pakistain's point of view much more aggressively to convince the world that Paks have borne the brunt of this war which is going nowhere. A forceful argument based on logic would perhaps still work better than the knee-jerk reaction shown so far. Islamabad should reconsider boycotting the Bonn moot and not opt for diplomatic isolation by being absent from it. Being absent from Bonn can lead to further estrangement from the international community that can spill over to the economic and military domains -- a spectre Paks can ill-afford to grapple with on their own, all alone.
It is time to save Pakistain from international isolation even as we damn NATO and demand retribution for the outrageous attack on our border check posts. The soldiers died in the line of duty in a war zone defending their country, which was their job, and have been duly and rightfully honoured. It would be wrong to conduct foreign policy on their martyrdom.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
The author says that patriotism is a force that drives people in the U.S. I dare say, WWII would not have had the outcome that it did had nationalism and love of country and countrymen not been stirred. Survival is another strong instinct that stirs people to act.
[Al Ahram] Britannia on Wednesday ordered Iran's embassy in London closed after Basij militia members ran amok through its own mission in Tehran, prompting the evacuation of all its diplomats.
Several European nations, including La Belle France, Germany and Italia, recalled their ambassadors in a show of solidarity, and the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... on Thursday declared it would take "appropriate measures" to hit back at what it saw as an attack on the EU as a whole.
"The live TV images of this assault clearly organised by the regime provoked a shock that will weigh for a long time on the already bad relations between Tehran and the Europeans," said one EU ambassador who declined to be identified because of the diplomatic tensions.
The new crisis has erupted as Iran struggles with severe international sanctions already in place over its controversial nuclear programme, which has been condemned by the UN Security Council.
The United States and the European Union this week announced a hardening of their economic and financial measures against Iran, following a November report by the UN nuclear watchdog expressing "serious concerns" about a possible military dimension to the programme, which Tehran has denied.
The sanctions, which are starting to be felt in the oil sector -- which accounts for 80% of foreign revenues for Iran, the second-biggest exporter in the OPEC producers' cartel -- could be extended to its central bank and even see an embargo on oil sales.
Western nations have also exerted pressure over Iran's human rights ...which often include carefully measured allowances of freedom at the convenience of the state... record, since severe repression against dissidents and protesters following the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Short Round Ahmadinejad in 2009.
A UN special rapporteur tasked with looking into the issue has filed a series of critical reports which a furious Tehran has slammed as politically biased.
Iranian support for opposition demonstrations led by its co-religionists among the Shiite majority in Bahrain has also reignited tensions between Tehran and its Sunni-ruled Gulf Arab neighbours -- chief among them Soddy Arabia, which has accused Iran of "meddling".
The parlous relations with Soddy Arabia were worsened in October, when the United States implicated Iranian officials in an alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington -- another accusation Iran denies.
"The degradation of ties with Saudis is long-lasting and could totally wipe out the Iranians' hope of closer relations with the Arab world after the recent regime changes seen in several countries," one Arab diplomat in Tehran said soon after the US plot allegation came to light.
Iran's isolation could also grow if the regime in Syria -- Tehran's main regional ally -- is toppled by the persistent protests there.
The loss of Syria would complicate Iran's access to other allies -- the Hezbullies militia in Leb, and Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, in the Paleostinian territories. It would also diminish Iran's influence in the region, several European and Arab diplomats predicted.
The issue of Syria also has an effect on Iran relations with Turkey, which has taken a firm position in favour of regime change in Damascus ...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world...
Ties with Ankara, which Tehran has made a priority in a bid to get around Western sanctions, have been jeopardised by the recent installation in Turkey of a NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... anti-missile shield which is expressly designed to counter an Iranian threat.
Officials in Iran -- notably within its powerful Revolutionary Guards -- have gone so far as to warn that NATO facilities in Turkey could be attacked, prompting worries in Ankara.
Even relations with Russia and China -- two permanent UN Security Council members that have been resisting Western efforts to totally isolate Iran over its nuclear programme -- are not immune from tensions.
Tehran is unhappy with Moscow for previously voting against Iran in the United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... , for cancelling a sale of anti-aircraft missiles, and for repeated delays in Russia's project to help build Iran's nuclear power plant in Bushehr.
China, which has become Iran's principal trade partner in the vacuum left by the departure of Western firms, has in recent months also been the subject of complaints from Iran for dragging its feet on promises to invest 40 billion dollars in oil and gas projects.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2011 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Mohmand
[Dawn] When patriotism rules the minds, thinking faculties take the backseat. Patriotism, like religion, is a conviction based on a belief system which cannot be reasoned with. It's the biggest, all-pervasive cult that entire nation states are besotted with, some to the point of no redemption -- and there is no distinction between democratic and undemocratic polities whilst succumbing to patriotism. In the US and in India, for instance, patriotism overrides all else; it is a consistent state of mind through which everything else must be seen and judged. In countries like Iran, Syria and 
Mahmoud 
