Will Obama raise taxes on the rich?
Would Romney cut spending and balance the budget?
What about the current deficit cliff-hanger that goes into place at the end of the year cutting defense spending?
There wont be tax increases. There won't be any spending cuts. There won't be any implementation of the ridiculous penalty bill now slated to explode at the end of the year. Anything that destroys money
will push the economy off a cliff.
Here is the mechanism:
1) Spending is cut (or taxes raised)
2) Therefore, less money is in the economy
3) Immediate effect: state, federal, local employees are cut
4) Fewer government goods and services are bought
5) Suppliers of goods and services cut back, go broke, lay-off their employees
6) Businesses those employees supported cut back - fewer trips to restaurant, dry cleaner, Home Depot, fewer new cars bought
7) Economy slows, sliding faster
8) Businesses make "insurance cutbacks", cutting way deeper than needed
9) Economy slides into recession/depression
10) Government receipts decline as tax receipts decline, unemployment, welfare, foodstamps increase
11) Deficits stay the same or get bigger
This cycle will continue until spending increases. Spending will increase if 1) the US spends money or or 2) the US goes to war (ie, the US spends money) or 3) magically private spending increases, ie by increasing personal debt...people HAVE to eat, for example...they will spend for that. And there are LOTS of steps after step 11....the rest of the world follows the US down the shitter since we STILL drive the world economy. For fun I will roll it out a little further...
12) US consumption decline causes collapse in oil prices
13) trade gap diminishes as US exports less
14) Exporters to the US such as China and Germany experience slowdown in economic activity
15) Europe further fucked economically by decline in tourism
16) Auto industry on verge of bankruptcy again as car sales plummet
17) Airlines on verge bankruptcy as travel declines
18) Housing industry collapses because no one is buying or building houses
19) Crime increases out of desperation
20) Railroads idle as they were in 2008 with 1000s of freight cars abandoned
21) Ports and freight yards filled with abandoned tankers, ships and freighters as they were in 2008
22) Personal bankruptcies exploding; Chapter 7 bankruptcies explode (only way to get rid of credit card and student loan debt)
23) More malls become ghost towns
24) Commercial loan failures skyrocket. High rise office towers abandoned
25) Foreign purchase of hard US assets skyrockets: China buy GM or IBM or Microsoft
26) Interest rates pushed to zero across the board in desperate attempt to spur loans and spending
27) Laws passed to force banks to lend and then forgive bad loans
28) Homelessness skyrockets, people living in tents all over America
29) Abandoned vehicles litter roadways as no one can afford insurance, excise, registration or gas, even though gas is about 2 dollars a gallon - or less
30) Environmental regulations increasingly relaxed in attempt to spur manufacturing
31) China goes into recession; Germany in recession; Spain defaults; Italy defaults, Europe in turmoil
32) Russia invades or co-erces many former satellites to rejoin resurgent Russian empire.
Is this extreme? Sure it is. This assumes there is no floor to slowed economic activity when government reduces spending. And herein lies the fear -- ask any Republican how the US got out of the Great Depression and he will say, "World War 2 pulled us out of the Depression". Republicans are CONVINCED that the war saved us. How? By "private industry" suddenly creating millions of new jobs to build tanks, planes and guns. That's the fear. If Romney wins the election and the economy goes into a tailspin, the Republicans till be sorely tempted to go to war with Iran -- because to a Republican, War Means Prosperity. On Nov 2, 2008, VP Candidate Sarah Palin said, "We're in a war with Iran, make no mistake, and when we win, we will kick that war up to full speed and end Iran in 100 days."
But Republicans forget the crucial step of war and "private industry" creating millions of jobs -- the Government is the customer and is buying all that stuff. Spending is spending whether its for bombs or for bridges. The difference is, if you spend to build a bridge, you get a bridge. If you spend to build a bomb you get a useless bomb that sits in a warehouse and has to be guarded. Republicans never seem to grasp this concept.
Make no mistake -- spending ISN'T going down. Taxes ARE NOT going up.
And look -- last week tbill yields
hit record lows....everyone is throwing money at us. there is no need to
cut spending dramatically. or raise taxes right now. Republicans claim that cutting spending will free up money for industrial investment, a sound economic principle. But even if that worked -- it would take a minimum of a year to START to show impact. And if Romney also follows through with cutting foodstamps, healthcare, social security, welfare and Section 8, it could be years before any positive impact is seen - years of starving children, homeless elderly and so on. And with foreigners throwing money at us, we don't need to do it right now.
I predicted
the fed would implement QE3 in June, and they were oh so close but didnt.
Bernanke didnt even mention it in July....I doubt he will talk about it in August unless June economic stats are bad. the govt is uneven...housing
prices are the highest they have been since 2008. But earnings are
slipping. Interest rates are at record lows. but no one is borrowing. and
so on. If unemployment starts to go up even a little, then you will see
QE3. They will throw money at the consumer. However you can't do that AND
keep interest rates low forever. We are going to see big inflation from
food prices this fall/winter anyway due to the drought in the midwest
(non-existent global warning anyone?) and I expect a warmer than normal
winter. The entire Greenland ice cover melted in 4 days last month, though to be fair this appears to be a cyclic event.
Politically, all indicators show Obama as strong favorite to win
the election. The RNC and Superpac ads are overwhelming Obama something
like 4 to 1 right now, and its worse in swing states. But if Romney wins
-- the entire government, all 4 branches, will be in the hands of the
Republicans. The US will become like Mexico. It's what they did when Bush
was Pres and they will do it again --- absolute power corrupts absolutely.
And Romney hasn't had an orignal thought in 20 years. He will be a puppet
of the right. And the right wants war with Syria or Iran. War with Syria
is a proxy war with Russia. That's one reason we aren't there now. War with
Iran means the end of the US as a super-power. We will be a 3rd world
nation with a huge army and nothing more, no influence, no power
projection, irrelevant. If Obama wins you get two choices -- more of the
last 4 years -- OR...bold initiatives that will go nowhere AND scathing
rhetoric. A second term President Obama has nothing to lose. He wont have the senate
or congress. But he WILL have the Executive Order that allows him to rule
like a king for 4 years. At least til 2014 Congress wont have the numbers
to impeach him. But he is between a rock and a hard place -- raise taxes
or cut spending and send the economy into depression.
No matter
what, we are going into depression or recession and we are losing power
and influence. For this we can thank Bush. The war with Iraq cost us the
future and propelled China to the world stage. They are the new superpower
and there will be few who are going to pick the US over the Chinese. The
US is nice but China is a brutal enemy with a long memory. The US forgets
its friends on a regular basis. Ask Georgia after Bush swore to the living
Christ he would protect them from the Russians. Yeah. Ok. It was
Czechoslovakia 1968 all over again. This is a constant US pattern. And
don't think I'm just condemning Bush -- Obama threw Mubarak under the bus
as soon as the opportunity presented itself, despite 30 years of trust and
friendship. Mubarak was a brutal despot but so what? He gave us Egypt from
the Russians. We COULD have offered him refuge. But we did what Americans
do -- use people and nations like our toilet paper.
Things are
sliding. It's not because of our debt. On the contrary -- it's because
there is not enough Keynesian activity. And as long as we carry the personal debt
load we carry it will be hard, oh so hard, for us to recover. Obama knew
that it would take something like the internet boom of the 90s for that to
happen, and he tried to spark that by investing in Green Technology, but the Chinese undercut our prices,
the Germans overrode our technology and the Republicans second guessed the
strategy so that hope failed. If we DONT get something like the internet
of the 90s again, then America will be a has-been nation in no time at
all. Not like Greece, but more like England. Reflecting glory of the past,
with flashes of power and brilliance but without the strength to impose
its will unless it fires a gun.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Aurora and Gun Control
All the people from both sides screaming "gun control" or "2nd Amendment" are wrong.
The issue is not about the government taking guns away from us. I don't think that is going to happen.
The issue is basic licensing and rudimentary reporting. Gun people are terrified of a national gun ID. They think it will be used by the government to eventually hunt them down and round up their guns. So be it. No national ID.
But there SHOULD be uniform standards for gun permitting. In Florida it is easier for a convicted felon to get a gun permit than it is for a Black man to register to vote Democrat. I am not even joking..
The different standards for gun ownership are so loose that its crazy. In Arizona all you need is a license. In Mass. you need to go through a complex formula. Gun people are afraid permitting will be so the police can arbitrarily deny the permit.
It would be better if all the states had the same mechanism, one that required fingerprints, training, background check and references. There would be no approve/deny. It would be an automatic yes. But at least there would be some kind of check. It does not have to be monitored by the Federal government, they would just make the standards and hand them to the state. And it would be automatic approval unless there was a red flag.
Statistical analysis of gun sales was made illegal by George W. Bush. For example, it was discovered that something like 70 percent of all the guns used in crimes in NYC came from a single store in Altanta, Georgia. Don't you think this warrants an investigation? The Bush Administration made collection of that data and sharing it illegal. Why? Wouldn't it be helpful to know WHO is supplying the guns? That store in Atlanta is STILL supplying the guns criminals in NYC need. Bush made it impossible to investigate them.
Guns all make a signature when they shoot. Every barrel is unique. It seems only common sense to "fingerprint" the ID of every gun when it is made. Yet that is illegal. Why? Most gun crimes could be solved in minutes if this were done.
Without getting into "Fast and Furious" debate, the issue there is that an 18 year old can make alot of money going into a gun store, buy 50 AK47s and give/sell them to a guy in the parking lot. The only thing to stop him is a check box on a blue form that makes you swear you aren't a strawman buyer. Those forms are never back-checked again and the police have no authority to go to the buyer and say, "show me those 50 guns". There is no teeth to the law. The form means nothing.
It's not the buying and selling of guns that's the issue, although it is something we should discuss -- it is now legal for Americans to own the M134 Mini Gun, that shoots 5000 rounds a minute. Imagine John Holmes showing up at the theater with that strapped to his Jeep. He could have killed everyone in the theater -- shooting through the walls -- in less than a minute. But that's another issue. The issue is how we track guns and use statistics.
Some moron said that people carrying a gun are more trained and prepared than a bad guy with a knife. That is bullshit. The very vast majority of people carrying a gun in their pants or purse have absolutely no conception what they are doing. This can EASILY be proven by comparing the number of guns purchased to the number of people registered for gun training classes. Confronted by a knife wielding criminal, one who is has experience robbing people and carrying a knife, those people will almost never get their gun into action before they've been stabbed 5 times. Unless you practice, unless you train FREQUENTLY, you can't get the gun out of your purse, pull it out from behind your jacket or get it out of your under the waist holster faster than the criminal can stab you. You are going to lose. He does this all the time. You get robbed once. He's ready. You're surprised. And then -- in the event you get your Glock out and start blazing -- what are you going to do if you miss and kill some innocent person behind him? A child? Unlike TV bullets don't evaporate when they miss their target. They go for about a mile unless they hit something. And yet there is no requirement to train to own a gun.
Gun people point to all kinds of ineptness by the police and their ability to catch criminals. Yet when it comes to gun siezure the government is somehow all knowing and all powerful and evil. And the government is inept when it comes to gun crimes -- the NRA has made sure of it by tripping up every rational and reasonable mechanism a law enforcement agency would use to track a killer.
Last year 15 Americans were killed by Arab or Muslim terrorists.
31,500 Americans were killed by guns. And yet we are unable to do anything at all to reduce that number. The NRA and the gun people won't let it happen.
The issue is not about the government taking guns away from us. I don't think that is going to happen.
The issue is basic licensing and rudimentary reporting. Gun people are terrified of a national gun ID. They think it will be used by the government to eventually hunt them down and round up their guns. So be it. No national ID.
But there SHOULD be uniform standards for gun permitting. In Florida it is easier for a convicted felon to get a gun permit than it is for a Black man to register to vote Democrat. I am not even joking..
The different standards for gun ownership are so loose that its crazy. In Arizona all you need is a license. In Mass. you need to go through a complex formula. Gun people are afraid permitting will be so the police can arbitrarily deny the permit.
It would be better if all the states had the same mechanism, one that required fingerprints, training, background check and references. There would be no approve/deny. It would be an automatic yes. But at least there would be some kind of check. It does not have to be monitored by the Federal government, they would just make the standards and hand them to the state. And it would be automatic approval unless there was a red flag.
Statistical analysis of gun sales was made illegal by George W. Bush. For example, it was discovered that something like 70 percent of all the guns used in crimes in NYC came from a single store in Altanta, Georgia. Don't you think this warrants an investigation? The Bush Administration made collection of that data and sharing it illegal. Why? Wouldn't it be helpful to know WHO is supplying the guns? That store in Atlanta is STILL supplying the guns criminals in NYC need. Bush made it impossible to investigate them.
Guns all make a signature when they shoot. Every barrel is unique. It seems only common sense to "fingerprint" the ID of every gun when it is made. Yet that is illegal. Why? Most gun crimes could be solved in minutes if this were done.
Without getting into "Fast and Furious" debate, the issue there is that an 18 year old can make alot of money going into a gun store, buy 50 AK47s and give/sell them to a guy in the parking lot. The only thing to stop him is a check box on a blue form that makes you swear you aren't a strawman buyer. Those forms are never back-checked again and the police have no authority to go to the buyer and say, "show me those 50 guns". There is no teeth to the law. The form means nothing.
It's not the buying and selling of guns that's the issue, although it is something we should discuss -- it is now legal for Americans to own the M134 Mini Gun, that shoots 5000 rounds a minute. Imagine John Holmes showing up at the theater with that strapped to his Jeep. He could have killed everyone in the theater -- shooting through the walls -- in less than a minute. But that's another issue. The issue is how we track guns and use statistics.
Some moron said that people carrying a gun are more trained and prepared than a bad guy with a knife. That is bullshit. The very vast majority of people carrying a gun in their pants or purse have absolutely no conception what they are doing. This can EASILY be proven by comparing the number of guns purchased to the number of people registered for gun training classes. Confronted by a knife wielding criminal, one who is has experience robbing people and carrying a knife, those people will almost never get their gun into action before they've been stabbed 5 times. Unless you practice, unless you train FREQUENTLY, you can't get the gun out of your purse, pull it out from behind your jacket or get it out of your under the waist holster faster than the criminal can stab you. You are going to lose. He does this all the time. You get robbed once. He's ready. You're surprised. And then -- in the event you get your Glock out and start blazing -- what are you going to do if you miss and kill some innocent person behind him? A child? Unlike TV bullets don't evaporate when they miss their target. They go for about a mile unless they hit something. And yet there is no requirement to train to own a gun.
Gun people point to all kinds of ineptness by the police and their ability to catch criminals. Yet when it comes to gun siezure the government is somehow all knowing and all powerful and evil. And the government is inept when it comes to gun crimes -- the NRA has made sure of it by tripping up every rational and reasonable mechanism a law enforcement agency would use to track a killer.
Last year 15 Americans were killed by Arab or Muslim terrorists.
31,500 Americans were killed by guns. And yet we are unable to do anything at all to reduce that number. The NRA and the gun people won't let it happen.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Round Up of Recent Events and Commentary
Whew! It's been awhile since I posted. Let's catch up on things....
Greece
So Greece elected a new government and the Germans are being cajoled into relieving some of the pressure on the Greece gov't to repay debt.
Losers!
Doesn't matter who is in charge in Greece. Greece is GONE. I have said this before and I will say it again: GREECE CANNOT RECOVER. Greece refuses to reform its taxation system and refuses to work to balance its budget. These things MUST happen. Oh and by the way, Greece MUST default. There is NO OTHER OPTION. All of the bailouts and any relief they encompass only serve to delay the inevitable. Greece is going broke. All that is happening now is the EU is blindly kicking the can down the road. Greece MUST and WILL officially default. It is absolutely inevitable. The sooner they do it, the sooner they can recover. It is VERY difficult to get statistics about the Greece budget but recently they bought a new missile frigate from France. WHY? The French love it of course, but why would this money be wasted? If you HAVE to buy a warship, there are plenty of obsolete but still serviceable warships being sold by every first world navy for a fraction of the price of the new warship. But even then, this is just an example of the blindness of the Greek government. Recently, as part of the reform of Greece taxation, the EU demanded the Greeks accept German accountants and technocrats to investigate and report on reforms. The Germans could not believe the level of corruption, mismanagement, nepotism, and so on that they found. They recommended dozens of sensible reforms. The Greeks had them arrested for espionage. There is just too much money to be made by the leaders of Greece for them to allow the tax system to work correctly. Greece is FUCKED. They are not even trying to balance their budget. Without balancing the budget there is no hope of paying off the 150 billion dollars of debt they have accrued. And yet they still want the bailout funds and to stay in the Euro. This is the most insulting and egregious affront to the world by any government since the Russians did whatever they do every week. Insane.
Here is what needs to happen. Greece defaults and says, "sorry we won't be paying back that debt." They leave the Euro. THEN THEY BALANCE THE BUDGET. They have to -- no one will give them a nickel for awhile. The economy will collapse. Perhaps they reform the taxation system even a little. And then -- they NO LONGER HAVE TO MAKE PAYMENTS! It's almost like getting free money. Instead of paying interest and principal, they have that money for servicing the country. Will there be pain?
There will be pain like you can't believe. Skyrocketing unemployment. Starving elderly. Suicides. Hopelessness. PAIN.
But it will pass. Once the shock is over, the government can re-structure within its means. They should slash defense spending such that only soldiers get paid. There would be few, if any ships in the navy that leave the pier. No tanks or maintenance. Soldiers would remain on duty because they need an army and these people would not be in the unemployment lines, but they would be relegated to walking instead of driving in trucks and so on. The air force would be slashed. And so on. There would be lots of public employees laid off. The government would have to focus on the essentials - trash collection, water works, insuring communcations and electricity, courts and jails, road repair. Nothing else matters.
But on the plus side, there would growth again. It would take five years to recover. We've seen this over and over in Latin America. Then once growth starts and they manage the budget, then they can re-apply to be in the Euro again. Perhaps they can even take on debt at reasonable levels. But without going broke there is no way they can grow.
Greece needs to go broke.
Europe
Europe is an awesome example of where the US would be if the Confederacy won the Civil War because Europe is a confederacy. In the American Confederacy, states had more power than the central government. Essentially, each state was like a country, just as Europe is. The government has little power to tax, manage the currency, manage budgets, control environmental damage and so on. Sound familiar? It's Europe. In Europe each country is refusing to give up its sovereignty. Until it does so it can never achieve the greatness of the United States. A strong Federal government is necessary to co-ordinate resources, budgets, and impose its will to impact the greater good. The EU is going to eventually collapse or suffer decades of infighting, band-aids and slow growth until they recognize this. The individual countries/states MUST NOT be allowed to run deficits at a minimum. There must be a capital (presumably its Brussels which is hilarious since Belgium is constantly on the brink of civil war) and a strong European leader. Then they can grow like crazy. Currently the main b beneficiary of a weak Europe is Russia -- and they know it. On a small scale, the current problems show the Germans were right during WW2. On a large scale, the Russians win this war again, on a much larger scale than they did in May, 1945.
Syria
HAHAHA. The Arab Spring turns out to be confusing and messy. Syria was always going to be the tough nut. The Russian proxy state and the last Russian base outside of Russia insured this would be true. The emerging Russian powerhouse is not going to let Syria slip away easily and the US cannot aid Syrian opposition openly without directly opposing Russia. Also, there is no co-ordinated opposition in Syria. Alot of the rebels are Al Qaeda and the US certainly can't help THEM. So it's a tough situation. Israel is totally alarmed because they face serious issues in Egypt for the first time since the Camp David Accords. I have thought for a long time that the answer was always Turkey. The US still has some influence in Turkey (though there is a growing resentment against the US there) and Turkey can and has confronted Syria as a result of the shooting down of a Turkish jet by the jittery Syrians. I thought for sure that this would be the entre Turkey needed to land a solid blow on Syria (on behalf of the Americans) without confronting the Russians. But that brouhaha seems to have settled down. I still have hope this will happen but who knows? Assad is finished but I predict we will see Russian combat troops in action there before this is over. And don't think for a minute that when Assad falls, the rebels will not forget the part the Russians played in this affair. When the Russians leave Syria they will be looking for another foothold in the middle east and they will be making lots of mischief there.
Book Recommendations
I just read a great book called "Why Nations Fail". An extra-ordinary compilation and study of successful and failed nations throughout history it offers a new explanation for why nations rise and fall. It needs to be book ended with Jared Diamond's "Collapse" which is itself a brilliant discourse on the steps all nations follow to their death. Diamond takes into account the devastating impact of religion and how it helped every major empire to fail while James Robinson's "Why Nations Fail" never mentions religion once. In effect, Robinson says that for nations to succeed there must be a strong central government that is controlled by voters; that innovation is allowed by protecting patents; that contracts and patent rights are enforced; that labor has the right to move freely to jobs and careers and that monopolies are punished. In addition there needs to be a concept that no man is above the law and laws need to be generally fair. The problem is that the elite in any society do everything they can to stay in power by weakening the power of labor, citizenry, laws and business. When this happens there is no incentive for original creation and no profit. It benefits a few at the expense of the many, and eventually there is either collapse or violence, inevitably poverty. This should be read by anyone who wants to see how rich people are undermining the US ability to succeed.
Greece
So Greece elected a new government and the Germans are being cajoled into relieving some of the pressure on the Greece gov't to repay debt.
Losers!
Doesn't matter who is in charge in Greece. Greece is GONE. I have said this before and I will say it again: GREECE CANNOT RECOVER. Greece refuses to reform its taxation system and refuses to work to balance its budget. These things MUST happen. Oh and by the way, Greece MUST default. There is NO OTHER OPTION. All of the bailouts and any relief they encompass only serve to delay the inevitable. Greece is going broke. All that is happening now is the EU is blindly kicking the can down the road. Greece MUST and WILL officially default. It is absolutely inevitable. The sooner they do it, the sooner they can recover. It is VERY difficult to get statistics about the Greece budget but recently they bought a new missile frigate from France. WHY? The French love it of course, but why would this money be wasted? If you HAVE to buy a warship, there are plenty of obsolete but still serviceable warships being sold by every first world navy for a fraction of the price of the new warship. But even then, this is just an example of the blindness of the Greek government. Recently, as part of the reform of Greece taxation, the EU demanded the Greeks accept German accountants and technocrats to investigate and report on reforms. The Germans could not believe the level of corruption, mismanagement, nepotism, and so on that they found. They recommended dozens of sensible reforms. The Greeks had them arrested for espionage. There is just too much money to be made by the leaders of Greece for them to allow the tax system to work correctly. Greece is FUCKED. They are not even trying to balance their budget. Without balancing the budget there is no hope of paying off the 150 billion dollars of debt they have accrued. And yet they still want the bailout funds and to stay in the Euro. This is the most insulting and egregious affront to the world by any government since the Russians did whatever they do every week. Insane.
Here is what needs to happen. Greece defaults and says, "sorry we won't be paying back that debt." They leave the Euro. THEN THEY BALANCE THE BUDGET. They have to -- no one will give them a nickel for awhile. The economy will collapse. Perhaps they reform the taxation system even a little. And then -- they NO LONGER HAVE TO MAKE PAYMENTS! It's almost like getting free money. Instead of paying interest and principal, they have that money for servicing the country. Will there be pain?
There will be pain like you can't believe. Skyrocketing unemployment. Starving elderly. Suicides. Hopelessness. PAIN.
But it will pass. Once the shock is over, the government can re-structure within its means. They should slash defense spending such that only soldiers get paid. There would be few, if any ships in the navy that leave the pier. No tanks or maintenance. Soldiers would remain on duty because they need an army and these people would not be in the unemployment lines, but they would be relegated to walking instead of driving in trucks and so on. The air force would be slashed. And so on. There would be lots of public employees laid off. The government would have to focus on the essentials - trash collection, water works, insuring communcations and electricity, courts and jails, road repair. Nothing else matters.
But on the plus side, there would growth again. It would take five years to recover. We've seen this over and over in Latin America. Then once growth starts and they manage the budget, then they can re-apply to be in the Euro again. Perhaps they can even take on debt at reasonable levels. But without going broke there is no way they can grow.
Greece needs to go broke.
Europe
Europe is an awesome example of where the US would be if the Confederacy won the Civil War because Europe is a confederacy. In the American Confederacy, states had more power than the central government. Essentially, each state was like a country, just as Europe is. The government has little power to tax, manage the currency, manage budgets, control environmental damage and so on. Sound familiar? It's Europe. In Europe each country is refusing to give up its sovereignty. Until it does so it can never achieve the greatness of the United States. A strong Federal government is necessary to co-ordinate resources, budgets, and impose its will to impact the greater good. The EU is going to eventually collapse or suffer decades of infighting, band-aids and slow growth until they recognize this. The individual countries/states MUST NOT be allowed to run deficits at a minimum. There must be a capital (presumably its Brussels which is hilarious since Belgium is constantly on the brink of civil war) and a strong European leader. Then they can grow like crazy. Currently the main b beneficiary of a weak Europe is Russia -- and they know it. On a small scale, the current problems show the Germans were right during WW2. On a large scale, the Russians win this war again, on a much larger scale than they did in May, 1945.
Syria
HAHAHA. The Arab Spring turns out to be confusing and messy. Syria was always going to be the tough nut. The Russian proxy state and the last Russian base outside of Russia insured this would be true. The emerging Russian powerhouse is not going to let Syria slip away easily and the US cannot aid Syrian opposition openly without directly opposing Russia. Also, there is no co-ordinated opposition in Syria. Alot of the rebels are Al Qaeda and the US certainly can't help THEM. So it's a tough situation. Israel is totally alarmed because they face serious issues in Egypt for the first time since the Camp David Accords. I have thought for a long time that the answer was always Turkey. The US still has some influence in Turkey (though there is a growing resentment against the US there) and Turkey can and has confronted Syria as a result of the shooting down of a Turkish jet by the jittery Syrians. I thought for sure that this would be the entre Turkey needed to land a solid blow on Syria (on behalf of the Americans) without confronting the Russians. But that brouhaha seems to have settled down. I still have hope this will happen but who knows? Assad is finished but I predict we will see Russian combat troops in action there before this is over. And don't think for a minute that when Assad falls, the rebels will not forget the part the Russians played in this affair. When the Russians leave Syria they will be looking for another foothold in the middle east and they will be making lots of mischief there.
Book Recommendations
I just read a great book called "Why Nations Fail". An extra-ordinary compilation and study of successful and failed nations throughout history it offers a new explanation for why nations rise and fall. It needs to be book ended with Jared Diamond's "Collapse" which is itself a brilliant discourse on the steps all nations follow to their death. Diamond takes into account the devastating impact of religion and how it helped every major empire to fail while James Robinson's "Why Nations Fail" never mentions religion once. In effect, Robinson says that for nations to succeed there must be a strong central government that is controlled by voters; that innovation is allowed by protecting patents; that contracts and patent rights are enforced; that labor has the right to move freely to jobs and careers and that monopolies are punished. In addition there needs to be a concept that no man is above the law and laws need to be generally fair. The problem is that the elite in any society do everything they can to stay in power by weakening the power of labor, citizenry, laws and business. When this happens there is no incentive for original creation and no profit. It benefits a few at the expense of the many, and eventually there is either collapse or violence, inevitably poverty. This should be read by anyone who wants to see how rich people are undermining the US ability to succeed.
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