Nicolas Sarkozy put things in the most upbeat way. We’re in a new age because the old era didn’t work so good. The French President said the introduction of 35-hour week and retirement at 60 years of age were “serious mistakes”.
Everybody has had to make an effort, everybody has had to make a sacrifice. Look at the situation, look at what happened to the countries that did not take measures, did not make reforms. Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece, Ireland. They were forced to lower salaries and lower pensions at the same time as raising taxes.
I’m asking you today to look at where we’re coming from and what’s been accomplished in the last three years. It’s been a genuine revolution that’s begun. Nothing will be the same as before, all the financial aspects of our life. Today fear has come back, this fear that destroys confidence, that stops investors from investing. The crisis has not finished.
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The problem is that those danged banks loaned government money! Why if only they hadn’t.
All economies became totally under the mechanism of finance, the speculative logic. We’ve seen how it’s affected industry. Also how it’s degraded the value of work. We can no longer go into debt. We cannot create larger and larger debt. Because those that lend to us no longer want to lend to us. Now we have to begin a new economic cycle, a new age.
A new age under the current management.
The situation had put the fear of God — the fear of Marx, the fear of something — into European leaders. The Belgians finally formed a government after 535 days without one to deal with the Eurozone crisis. And it’s over according to Ambrose Evans Pritchard, who writes, “printing money can halt Europe’s crisis”.
President Sarkozy is seeking a new treaty which will give the EU more power to order the economic affairs of the nations on the theory that the problem wasn’t that Brussels could tinker with the individual countries, but that it couldn’t tinker enough. A new era under old management.
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And it’s over according to Ambrose Evans Pritchard, who writes, “printing money can halt Europe’s crisis”.
told ya told ya told ya: Bernankecare to the rescue!
… for as long as it lasts, and nobody but nobody knows how long that will be.
Meanwhile, for your next newsflash, selections from Drudge:
Barbi Twins, Horse Meat, and Obama
Islamists take first Egypt elections
oh, and wait, from Conan last night, two excellent Herman Cain ads (if you can endure the Droid ads that are longer than the sketches):
http://teamcoco.com/video/herman-cain-your-wife
http://teamcoco.com/video/herman-cain-economy
Well if the Fed can save Europe, and by implication the US calls the global shots, then why are the EUcrats all so high and mighty? How can they send their human rights magistrates to arrest and interrogate people when they are nothing more — or so it seems — than toothless bankrupts?
Or is there some special rule which says that it is alright for the EU to take the oil or the money or the credit — whatever it is they want to take — simply because they are morally superior? And where do you get this moral superiority card. They are most of them white, and not markedly poor? How is it then that in a world which is safeguarded by US arms and undergirded by the Fed that “it’s always America’s fault”?
If it really does work that way (“Heads you win, tails I lose”) then this table is rigged.
Here’s what we gotta do. What we do, see, is we have the fed buy up European sovereign debt from U.S. banks. What the fed guys do is they lend the banks dollars using that debt as collateral — only the debts won’t be repaid. Who wants those bonds back?
But there is a catch, see? The banks have to use the money they get to buy more European bonds. Then the fed, they can lend the banks more dollars using those new bonds as collateral. But there is a catch, see? The banks have to use the money they get to buy more European bonds. Then the fed, they can lend the banks more dollars using those new bonds as collateral. But there is a catch, see? The banks have to use the money they get to buy more European bonds. Then the fed, they can lend the banks more dollars using those new bonds as collateral. But there is a catch, see? The banks have to use the money they get to buy more European bonds.
Only thing is, I am not an expert in finance so I don’t know when to stop. Because there is a catch, you see…I know there’s gotta be a catch, a catch in there somewhere.
Oddly enough, perhaps American policy of the past week has been beneficial to Russia. First, lots of explosions happened in Iran and tensions in Syria boosted oil prices. Second, now the Fed has saved German banks from collapse so they can continue to invest in bonds issued by Gazpromneft, paying off Nordstream (the pipe from Russia to Germany), etc. Interesting.
But on the other hand, the injection from Dr. Fed feelgood can only last so long. When it wears off, bad things will happen for EUrope and for Russia’s top trading partners 1-2-3 Germany, France and Italy. The UK I think is a distant fifth, if I’m not mistaken.
The insights Sarkozy is putting forward are completely banal, almost alarmingly so. To conclude, after all this time in financial crisis ‘that we cannot live on debt’ and ‘it turns out that we have to work’ and depict it as a some kind of new insight upon which a ‘new era’ will be founded has got to be straight out of a comedy routine.
This is the president of France speaking, not a three year old child. And for him to utter these phrases with a straight face, as if he were saying something new; as if they were insights which which apparently escaped Barroso and Von Rompuy and all the inmates of that vast bureaucracy in Brussels is like listening in on a conversation in a lunatic asylum.
Uh-huh. This is scary stuff. The sci-fi writers were on to something when they argued that humanity had to escape into outer space to guarantee its survival. If this is global governance, the sooner we get to Mars the better.
Is it the Fed saving Europe, or the ECB convincing themselves they have the charter? I cannot tell. Some of both. I also wonder if the stock market managed to go up 800 points combined on Monday and Wednesday, on a policy change not even announced until Wednesday, and if so (as seems likely) if the Dow surge is money fleeing the Euro, in which case we are getting it on good terms. I’ve seen a number of commentators suggesting that the surge was first just such hot money and second only an ephemeral blip not reflecting the still dismal fundamentals. Which brings me back to your first point.
The French President said the introduction of 35-hour week and retirement at 60 years of age were “serious mistakes”.
Probably both true, especially early retirement based on increased lifespan demographics, but one cannot really tell in the current environment where the structural problems, exporting all manufacturing to China (even if France is generally more protectionist than the US, they have also outsourced most innovation *to* the US!), swamp all other factors, and the second factor being the structural deficits for oil, even in nuke-powered France. And I must assume they have the same utterly intractable medical expense issues as the US and Britain although we seldom hear much about how it goes in France, maybe cheese and wine make them immune after all.
And amongst their other fatal mistakes are Islamic immigration, cutbacks in their military even if not quite as bad as in Britain, and generally not supporting the US much more strongly in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last ten and twenty year. I understand, they still have two world wars to get over, not to mention it’s still too early to judge the success of their 1793 revolution.
boff, Sarkozy is in Campain, and wants to prepeare us for a german Anschluss, like for his father’s former patry, Hungary, that was as a austrian satellit !
#é wretchard
“it’s always America’s fault”
it’s time to forget Bush era, there’s not such a discurse anymore here, I don’t know about the ther european countries, probably more from Germany that attribute the markets attacks to the Anglo-Saxons financial institutions
Since they came home to roost I now have extra chickens. I will trade them for two bottles of Bordeaux each. No sales tax or VAT. (a pox on the tax man, ha.)
Ms. Marie Claude. What is available from your garden? I can also get new crop pecans for a good trade. Superior Virginia Ham too.
Sarkozy says “It’s been a genuine revolution that’s begun. Nothing will be the same as before…” so I am just trying to set up international barter trade…
ta
This is the president of France speaking, not a three year old child. And for him to utter these phrases with a straight face, as if he were saying something new; as if they were insights which apparently escaped Barroso and Von Rompuy and all the inmates of that vast bureaucracy in Brussels…
Actually, Barroso and Von Rompuy and all the inmates of that vast bureaucracy in Brussels probably would have little idea of what Sarkozy was going on about.
Point is, if it’s a matter of when not if EUropean economies collapse, it’s bad news for Russian raw material exports. China would seem to be able to pick up the slack, but what if the Chinese are also covering up massive losses on their books with printed money, just printing slightly less quickly than the Euros, Pounds and Dollars? As much as China trade has exploded in recent years for Russia, it’s still a fraction of the trade with Germany. So either the trade gets assured through straightforward barter as in the 1920s-30s with the likes of Dresdner Kleinwort, Raffeisen and Deutsche Bank not providing the import-export credits, or things get ugly in Russia too. Though again I think Russia is more prepared for an extended period of economic pain than more indebted societies its the oligarchs after all who get levered up and expect the Kremlin to bail them out just like Western banksters expect Washington to, not so much the Russian consumer.
the whole Sarkozy discourse (text)
http://lelab.europe1.fr/t/crise-le-discours-de-sarkozy-passe-au-crible-276
michael hoskins
uh sorry I have no products that grow in my yard, it’s just a play ground for our dogs.
But if you cared to bring me chickens, then you’ll have to come and roast them in my home, and I will open a Bordeaux bottle for the fest
How soon we forget that the Big Five central banks promised to provide billions upon billions in liquidity to the global financial system in November 2007 and October 2008 – the world’s stock markets still tanked, by 53% in the USA.
In 2008 sovereign debt was not an issue in the mark to market valuations of bank capital. The problem is much larger now, by several magnitudes, than it was in 2008 when Bernake pumped trillions into the US banking system. In addition, the US GDP grew by 2-2.5% after the 2008 shock. The EU has almost no GDP growth prospects.
Can the Fed print trillions upon trillions of US Dollars to provide dollar liquidity to the European banking system, which is even larger than the US system? The most left wing Democrat would blanche at that raid on the US Treasury because his prospects of getting reelected by an irate populace would plummet.
Screw the Europeans. The EU population wasn’t objecting to the loss of liberty when they were enjoying the benefits of government profligacy. They already gave up their patrimony for a measly bowl of porridge. Now it’s time to eat it.
The EU elites made a deal with Islamoworld for immigrant workers, and were willing to watch Israel disappear in a conflagration if it meant keeping their sinecures. Screw them for that too.
Translation of Sarkozy’s speech follows.
“Oopsie.”
It must be fun watching these Euro guys play golf. A Mulligan on every hole and I bet their scorecards are masterpieces of creative writing as useful as an Italian tax return. If this was an old movie then the big laugh would be when through a series of mishaps they all end up in bed with their own spouses.
The EU will look very different soon
The North states will become the Wholly German Empire.
Spain and Italy will provide their waiters, gardeners and domestic help.
UK and Ireland will unite and leave the EU and connect with the Anglosphere.
France will look to the newly very rich Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco for trade and labor.
……hdreene’s #3 seems to describe a Ponzi Scheme.
So, I’ve exerpted this (..forgive me, hdg..)out of his context and use it here to create another context…”-I don’t know when to stop.-”
This is the way it works with socialism…..remember Margaret Thatcher’s famous “…using other peoples’ money…”, it does runs out.
Think Musical Chairs with bales of other peoples’ money….or even devalued printed money…remember the Weimar inflation….look it up….it’s my hunch that the wise Chancellor Merkel in Bonn has this in mind.
“This is the president of France speaking, not a three year old child.”
There are (or ought to be) two sides to every conversation. Sarkozy’s audience has been very carefully taught…
Just when you think it can’t get crazier – it does. It’s strange that some fatal diseases make the victim go mad as a malign side effect. Syphilis is one example that comes to mind. Yet pure insanity as displayed by the EUrocrats is not produced as a secondary effect of a primary disease. Apparently primary lunacy has no effect on physical health. There’s an assymetry there that seems, er, crazy.
@ #3. “why are the EUrocrats so high and mighty?” DNA. Yea, back unto the middle ages and beyond!
But, dear Wretchard, of course the table is rigged. It’s always been rigged. The Continental EUrotard elites, the pinguid Barroso, the unctuous van Rompuy, the whole tawdry pack of them, are massive losers. It has ever been so, and we, ces Amerloques dégueulasses, always end up bailing them out. Maybe we just compulsively play the serfs and they naturally play the aristos. It’s a continental thing, shades of Agincourt perhaps (they certainly have retained the same mindset of the French aristos from back in the day, despite the layer of oily Marxism and P.C. gloss!). They did, after all, invent the notions of divine right, entitlement, sanctimony…..it’s a long list, but it all hangs together. Dunno….. But, just as naturally, they resent having to ask the likes of us to haul their sorry, but oh so delicate, posteriors out of the ditch, again. It’s a thankless effort, every time. Some things don’t change.
it’s no surprise sarkozky talks like a 5 year old..he’s about the same size.
20. VBB
are you sure that you aren’t pursuing a mental trip?
Michael Gerson of the Washington Post knows the correct perspective with which to analyze the momentous issues of the day:
This is a perfect example of arguing from a political goal and crafting the economics to suit. Just the EU was a political project first of all and the Euro was designed to achieve its goals, Michael Gerson starts with the imperative to re-elect Barack Obama and create a powerful EU as his point of departure. Why?
He is making the Sabbath for man and not man for the Sabbath. And yet this is how people think. And if so, we are doomed.
Wretchard, like the proverbial naive kid at the naked emperor’s walkabout, I am baffled that in all this talk about “fixing things” nobody among the high-and-mighty says shite about wealth creation. Creating new sources of actual revenue no longer seems to enter the equation. “Why is that?” asks the baffled spectator-boy rhetorically.
Interesting that Wretchard quotes a former Bush speechwriter suggesting Merkel should stop being so obstinate about…what exactly? Printing more money? What the Germans should just shut up and get on board with is not quite explained. But Wretchard understands the Democrat-Republican distinction is rather meaningless when it comes to the Establishment desperately trying to save itself.
Drudge is all ramping up the Evil Empire rhetoric too tonight. Of course, the fact that the West led by the U.S. and NATO since or right about the time Putin started his political career has bombed, invaded, or deployed military advisors to Serbia, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Sudan, Georgia and is trying to overthrow the government of Syria, may have something to do with it. I left Afghanistan out simply because that was done with Putin’s blessing, in fact he was the first world leader to phone Bush on 9/11 and offer overflight and basing rights. Long since forgotten now. There was also the whole business with installing Soros puppet governments in Ukraine and Georgia, and spectacular failure to do so in Central Asia, though it appears the West is almost done with Saakashvili judging by glowing press on his replacement from Kucera and Soros-funded Eurasia Net (funny how the WaPost when crazy over that a few weeks ago, the Post never game a damn about Soros funding the Orange or Rose Revolutions!). Good though, perhaps as in Belarus both the West and Russia have had enough of a useless despot.
As many others have pointed out here, when all economic levers fail, there’s always war, as in the 1930s. This is the sum of all BCers fears, a WWII repeat, ending in the Three Conjectures. It’s been the ongoing theme of this site for years.
Second, the London-Washington-Paris-New York axis elites are going to get slightly crazy when their plan for regime change in Syria along the lines of Libya fails, and fail spectacularly with the Libyan rebels flown in via Turkey get slaughtered in large numbers.
Druze militias from Lebanon will probably join alongside the Syrian army regulars in the endless enemy of my enemy is my friend dance and all the Christians and Sunnis have to do is stay neutral. The Alawites know they can expect to be slaughtered like the black Africans of Libya (even the ones who weren’t mercenaries) if the Qatari and Saudi backed Muslim Brotherhood ‘rebels’ seize power. Assad may start publicly warning Israel that after he’s overthrown it’s the deluge on the Golan Heights.
They won’t show the bodies on Al-Jazeera but for damn sure they’ll be all over Press TV. Unlike Libya the West cannot bribe Russia and China with light sweet crude to go along this time or threaten to cut it off if a new Western elite puppet government takes power.
The Turkish army will not intervene at Sarkozy’s behest simply because Russia can then cut off the gas imports and also announce another huge anti-tank and anti-aircraft arms shipment to Tartus. The Russian Navy will then dare the Anglo-Americans to stop the shipment with blockade, which under all international laws is an act of war. Neither Azerbaijain, nor Iraq, nor Turkmenistan can make good the gas Russia currently exports to Turkey, contrary to Jamestown Foundation fantasies.
The timing will coincide with Putin going into his presidential election in March, so it’s almost perfect from United Russia’s point of view and will distract Russians from the growing grumbling that they were not so much as given much of a choice by their elites. I know, I’ve talked to several people who supported Putin in the past who want to change their vote this time around to Just Russia or some other generally pro-Putin foreign policy but anti-Putin domestically party. You are not supposed to say this, but Western provocations like 08/08/08 (backing the dictator Saakashvili) piss off Russians and distract them from protesting the corruption at home. In that sense, the neocons have totally failed and even strengthened the hand of the siloviki they claim to despise.
Overall the regime change machine has seriously miscalculated this time. And my guess is, they will take it out on the American people, judging by McCain/Graham’s maniacal support for this open-ended and blatantly unconstitutional detention bill.
In conclusion, the elites of the West have simply gone absolutely mad. It is no coincidence that Russia and China are making lots of loud noises about their defenses in an effort to calm the sick warmongers down.
For American and EU elites loss of power is worse than national oblivion, they prefer death to jail or pauperization. In Russia, in contrast, Mikhail Khodorkovsky has probably become a better human being as a result of going to Siberian prison. Now he acknowledges the truth that he was a crony insider and has dropped the nonsense that anyone could have become an oligarch like himself during the 1990s.
In the Russian Orthodox tradition, body suffers but the soul is saved, while in the West, it’s “Better to rule in hell as blind Milton wrote than be a doorkeeper in heaven…” The West is going to go through the fires and pain that Solzhenitsyn warned about in the 1970s but it will reemerge, as will Russia.
“Now we have to begin a new economic cycle, a new age.”
It’s called capitalism.
“The Russian Navy will then dare the Anglo-Americans to stop the shipment with blockade, which under all international laws is an act of war.”
Yes, and So? The Russian Navy has a life span of minuets at best if the try on a real Navy. Russia is a paper Bear. It took them a week to invade Georgia, Which was a postage stamp sized nation with a 12 tank army. Give it a break, nobody fears Russian.
We are polite to Russia. That is because telling a fool that he’s a fool doesn’t make him wise, it makes him mad. Then you are dealing with a mad fool.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/report-russia-delivers-supersonic-cruise-missiles-to-syria-1.399048
Russia has delivered supersonic cruise missiles to Syria, AFP reported on Thursday. A military source told the Interfax news agency, “The Yakhont supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles have been delivered to Syria,” although it was not made clear exactly when the shipment was made. A second Russian official speaking to Interfax said the missiles “will be able to protect Syria’s entire coast against a possible attack from the sea.”
Of course, not all is well back in the Motherland. And I certainly wouldn’t suggest as much, particularly if the Germans don’t need as much Russian gas and the Italians, Greeks and Turks suddenly can’t afford it.
http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111201/wl_nm/us_russia_nationalism
Nationalists say Putin too weak on massive ‘legal’, illegal immigration (Russia is no. 2 in this behind the U.S. since 1992)
26. Viktor (not that Victor)
interesting analyse !
It’s clear that Germany, not bound to the eurozone, otherwise was going towards Russia, as many Stratfor analyses told us. So, it seems then that the sheme are still designed in Washington, and the dollars flood empeched that Germany could go alone, and walk out of the euro
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100621_germany_and_russia_move_closer?utm_source=GWeekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=100622&utm_content=readmore&elq=a1206009e247489591d7468c5418549f
The immediate need is to energize the voters in Sunday’s election in Russia to vote out anyone connected to Putin and his thugs. But getting turnout for a negative campaign is difficult. So let’s encourage the voters of the Captive Nations of Central & Far East Asia to cast write-in votes for SANTA CLAUS!!!
Putin is the muscle behind Bashir “The Babykiller” Assad and his Iranian allies. His recent personal history can be found in the Monitor Report on Land Mines http://tinyurl.com/7nkzg4o page 4. He has been using the infamous “butterfly mines” of Afghanistan notoriety as recently as 2009!
“This year’s report, as in 2007 and 2008, confirms use by only two states: Myanmar and Russia.
So Russians voters
VOTE FOR SANTA CLAUS!!!!!!
If the new East Mediterranean oil and gas fields are developed by Israel and Cyprus then the following happens.
1. The price of energy declines dramatically.
2. Europe ceases falling into dependance on Russia.
3. Turkey loses pipeline rents and power relative to Europe and Israel.
4. Cyprus, meaning Greece, is restored to prosperity and gains power versus Turkey.
5. Iran and the Arabs lose wealth and power.
6. Iranian clients Syria and Hezbollah face bankruptcy and elimination.
7. Lebanon gains a restoration of sovereignty.
8. The US economy and US power will improve under a Republican government.
9. A bankrupt depopulated Russia faces dismemberment under pressure from China.
10. Pakistan will lose subsidies from bankrupt Arabs and India will gain wealth and power.
All else is obfuscation and desperate hand waving by Kremlin/Turkish shills.
31. MachiasPrivateer
Ain’t gonna happen. Remember Stalin’s wisdom that it is not who votes that matters but who counts those votes.
Putin will win because it’s all rigged. Trust me.
Russia had a chance to become a democratic state but Bush the Elder Did NOT seize the moment. Then came Clinton, who never seized anything that wasn’t a butt ugly female. So now Russia is repeating all the mistakes it made as the Soviet Union.
With the same results.
And the good news keeps coming!! From the Wall Street Journal
Pakistan – http://tinyurl.com/7jcv3rd – New details emerging point toward a massive clusterf**k in the recent border incident with lots of blame to go around on both sides. Fix the problems and move on.
Syria- http://tinyurl.com/89w86mr – Opposition leader Burnah Ghalioun supports dissolving ties to Iran and defunding Hezbollah and Hamas (much to the relief of Israel!).
Russia – http://tinyurl.com/7f9etqc -Top election monitor Golos’ leader has “created an online interactive map where Russians (and citizens of Captive Nations – Ed) around the country can read about alleged (??) electoral abuse in their communities and lodge their own complaints. The map now holds more than 4,500 complaints, most of them touching on the Kremin –controlled party, United Russia.”
Iran – http://tinyurl.com/7jz8hcv -Europe takes new steps to isolate Iran – Ahmadinejad is “open to resuming talks” on its nuclear program. “Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei shot down the idea in speeches, saying Iran wouldn’t budge”. No worries Mate! Santa Claus, the 12th Imam, will take care of him when he comes on December 25, 2011! One measly lightning bolt ought to be enough.
P.S. stoicheion – No worries Mate, Santa has elves EVERYWHERE!
Santa Claus is coming to town!
http://youtu.be/95ZyYNxjJQ8
Don Rodrigo @ 24: “I am baffled that in all this talk about “fixing things” nobody among the high-and-mighty says shite about wealth creation.”
Well said! It may be because the main obstacle to the obvious (ONLY?) low-pain way out of the current mess is those same “high-and-mightys”. Since the 1960s, many western countries have been ruled by a Political Class which handed out goodies on the expectation that les bon temps would continue to roule, at the same time as they built a regulatory machine guaranteed to stop les bon temps.
Now one or other has to go. Roll back excessive regulation & watch economic growth explode (eg New Zealand & Ireland in the Good Old Days). Or roll back the benefits promised to an increasingly under-employed citizenry.
The smart choice seems obvious. I guess that’s why the Political Class is ignoring it.
New World same as the old world?
I keep seeing reports of various central banks around the world making announcements about incremental purchases of gold. In some cases it seems that bankers will bad mouth gold out of one side of their mouth and then say,”We need to get some real money into our banking system to protect our phony baloney jobs. Go sneak some gold in.”
South Korea added a dribble of 1 billion dollars worth of gold. The amount is not so interesting as the fact that they did it at all. I’m starting to wonder how many non-central and central banks in Europe are sneaking in some metal during the current, “We are saved” announcements before the next “Oppsie” declaration???
Could Europe end up with a metal backed currency and the US be left with Bernanke toilet paper?
Paranoia, it is what’s for dinner.
This post by Tyler is a tad beyond my financial expertise but it seems to Tyler Durden at least that the Bernank’s first Euro liquidity injection didn’t have the desired effect:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/so-much-bailout-european-funding-situation-worst-march-ecb-deposits-and-emergency-loans-soar
Could this be the beginning of a very painful Oopsie for the Euro?
@24 & 36.
“Wealth Creation”. Careful there. Wealth creation is too broad a scope. Inflation, money changing, mortgage bundling, etc are, in one sense or another ‘Wealth’ creation. It is, in fact, the kind of ‘I am so smart that I can manipulate the system and get rich’ kind of wealth creation favored by the elites; hands don’t get dirty, don’t ya know? (unless you never clean your keyboard).
I think you mean ‘Increases in product and real services’. Invent something and manufacture it, develop a low cost home health care alternative, farm, mine, drill, refine, etc. We used to call it work.
mp @ 34: Pakistan – …
I dunno, the early reports are that these were fixed Pakistani outposts and should have been marked on all maps, that attacks from vicinity of said locations are fairly common, and the anomaly is simply that we shot back, possibly because the call came from Afghan troops rather than our own, though that does not explain why the markings on the maps were ignored. If any of this is true, this new WSJ report is totally garbled.
u @ 38: zerohedge …
I can’t make any sense of his report either, what did he *think* the Fed involvement was for? Interesting factoid is that ECB will lend money to IMF, which will then – lend it back to the ECB but then they can use it for whatever? OMG such creative brilliance! Just what I said, this is their way of implementing Bernankecare for the Euro, though the numbers are WAY TOO SMALL, €270b is about what falls out of Bernanke’s pockets daily when he’s feeding the pigeons in the park.
Actually, that seems significant – the ECB is worried about European *banks*, but do not seem to be even pretending to do anything about the European *economies*, which accounts for the Fed’s much higher expenditures, the Fed does pretend (!) to be concerned for the larger economy, unemployment figures, etc. Hmm.
Now the plan expands. Spread FREEDOM up through the Stans, across the steppes toward Alaska, Manchuria, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the Phillipines, South Vietnam, Tibet, India… Pretty soon you’ve got China encircled.
OT: Switzerland has chosen the Gripen fighter jet manufactured by Sweden’s Saab group to replace the Air Force’s fleet of US-made F5 Tigers…
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics/internal_affairs/Swiss_Air_Force_to_get_Swedish_jets.html?cid=31673198
…The La Liberté newspaper featured a political cartoon showing Maurer struggling with tools, instructions and a tower of IKEA boxes – hinting that the jets might not be the bargain they appear to be. Le Temps ran a similar cartoon.
I think they should have built out the Pilatus PC-21 as a weapons platform with advanced avionics to support the local industry. Switzerland needs “air police”. In the valleys in the alps the PC-21 would be quite effective. Add in AA from all the old WWII silo’s and Switzerland could close air corridors as well as trains and truck transport.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilatus_PC-21
A hopeful article US Manufacturers Close Competitiveness Gap With China
“If the (dollar) continues to depreciate even if only at 5 percent per year, and if you’re having wage inflation of 20 percent or so per year in China, plus you have some increase in freight costs, actually by 2015 – so in only 4 or 5 years – the U.S. and China could actually be on par, in terms of competitiveness,” Naumann added.
ch @ 42: OT: Switzerland has chosen the Gripen fighter jet manufactured by Sweden’s Saab group to replace the Air Force’s fleet of US-made F5 Tigers…
Gripen looks like a good aircraft, anyone have a performance comparison to F-16 and F-35? Doesn’t look very stealthy, though.
Have to love little turboprops like the PC-21, if the cost is super-low and you have a lot of pilots (that you are willing to lose), it would be an interesting exercise to try to build a defense around them … the real defense would be mostly ground-based, of course, … can’t really make a turbo-prop stealthy either, can you? Hmm, never mind.
@Josh, Switzerland is a mountainous neutral country the size of San Bernadino county. Stealth is overkill. Denial of airspace is the main requirement. The left wants to make the Swiss military “UN compatible”. The right wants have a military sufficient to defend the borders, just like Ron Paul wants for the US. Too bad the Swiss know next to nothing about Paul, they still believe that Obama is “the one”.
Confused here as usual, I am trying to determine if we (USA) joined the EU after the Chinese declined the invitation or are we just backstopping the Union(s) as the Dems do here CONUS? If we dont have full membership benefits can we at least get “honorary member” badges for our berets? “Back in the day” making money used to = earning money. Now it seems that making money/wealth creation = printing and (re)distributing money. I recall seeing videos a few years ago about how some artistically inclined teenagers where making some pretty good money using paper, green kool-aid and a microwave. They are likely big wigs at the FED now. Say, I wonder if my congressman has been buying stock in kool-aid?
9. A bankrupt depopulated Russia faces dismemberment under pressure from China.
Because of one oil and gas field in the eastern Med? Leviathian is big, but not that big. Save us from the Russophobic fantasizing, will you? I certainly didn’t say Russia’s poor fleet is any match for the U.S. or NATO. It does not have to be.
The U.S. will not start WWIII for this idiotic, globalist-backed regime change agenda. They simply deliver what they want to Assad, and unless the Saudis offers to step down and let a junta have elections are credible (Assad probably thinks these guarantees are worthless and he’ll end up lynched like Gaddafi) the bloodshed will drag on — mostly the rebels’ and civilians blood caught in the crossfire, of course. The rebels are also quite capable of massacreing people especially Christians and blaming Assad to get sympathy. Al-Jazeera will never report the truth that the Western and Qatari/Saudi backed Islamist thugs are sniping people left and right.
Lebanon also wants a piece of it and will probably get a good chunk after all the lawsuits are settled — perhaps ironically in Houston federal courts since that’s where the drillers for both sides are based, or perhaps in Scandinavia if Statoil gets involved. It’s amusing at any rate to see some purported Scandinavians bashing Gazprom when it’s one of Statoil’s biggest partners and helps make it possible for a hamburger to be $30 in Oslo — just like a couple sushi slices and rice with tea is $80 off Tverskaya ultitsa near the Kremlin!
As I previously wrote, Russia can change the mix to pump more oil and less gas to deal with the shale gas ‘threat’. The problem is in ensuring overall economic stability at a point when its trading partners’ economies, led by Italy with perhaps some severe problems in the French and German banking systems, start to implode. And that oil is still mostly traded in dollars, a currency that is rapidly going down the toilet.
But Dmitry Anatolyevich anticipated this at Davos in 2009 or 2010 when he showed everyone the Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) the new globalist currency to replace all the failed fiats. One fiat to rule them all. Putvedev both know the ruble cannot stand on its own and Russia is still not economically strong enough to introduce a new gold standard, the Western globalists would immediately punish Russia by trying to induce a massive call on the oligarchs’ loans, despite the fact that Goverment Sachs and the other banksters are themselves insolvent and the oligarchs ought to be able to tell them to pound sand if it wasn’t for the generosity of the Fed at the American people’s expense.
Of course the SDR doesn’t actually solve the problem it is still controlled by the IMF, World Bank and other globalists who’ve proven time and again their ultimate hope for Russia is dismemberment along ethnic lines followed by more natural resources extracted at below market prices, as in the 1990s. If they cannot fund radical Muslims to push this break up they might secretly start funding the Russians skinheads. This is the greatest threat to Russia along with the EU collapse in the near future. Compared to it, missile defense which could easily be converted to offense is just a symbolic side show.
The oligarchs’ are Russia’s weakest link and Achilles heel. Their overleveraging and asset stripping was the root cause of the 2008 krizis, which was more severe in job terms but shorter in Russia than in the U.S.
Actually, once you factor in shipping and warehousing costs, along with quality control issues, US manufacturing is already pretty close to cost competitive. Except… well, except for the high and generally unknown cost of regulation. The biggest handicap for US manufacturing competitiveness isn’t the actual cost of labor, it’s the risk premium associated with the thicket of regulation and potential court costs.
It takes years to recoup investment in an industrial facility, and if you build that facility in the US, you have to factor in the odds of a regulatory change that severely impacts the cost of making your product. Or of a lawsuit from some NIMBY group. Or from a disgruntled employee you had to fire. Or maybe a labor union will decide to shake you down. Or maybe the DoJ will. Hard to pick up a factory and move it somewhere else after it’s been built, you’re kind of stuck paying whatever ex post facto costs get dumped on you once it’s built. Easier to liquidate retail inventory, which is the main reason we’ve become a nation of sales clerks selling chinese crap to each other. And where the few actual remaining manufacturing operations are increasingly politicized, forced to operate as patronage providers for pols and unions.
Or, the one-word version of all the above: Gibson.
ch @ 44: Stealth is overkill.
That is not US doctrine, full stealth versus non-stealth is some enormous multiplier, like 20 to 1, like being invisible in the girl’s locker room.
There is that nagging question about whether our stealth technologies are really, truly that stealthy against newest opponents, but when it works, you just can’t afford to be on the other side.
Viktor
I certainly didn’t say Russia’s fleet is any match for the U.S. or NATO. It does not have to be. The U.S. will not start WWIII for this idiotic regime change agenda.
I agree with you in theory, but we’re entering one of those unpredictable periods in history where governments make plenty of stupid decisions. Lots of folks in power are on the verge of being swept out of power, and won’t be thinking entirely clearly, or making the best decisons for the nations they represent. Some other folks probalby think they’re on the verge of cementing their hold on power and will be somewhat drunk with the idea, making the same sort of mistakes.
Not sure about the bankrupt part (even if Russia is bankrupt, who cares, so is everybody else) but I’m curious what your insight is on the population issue. Russia has had a pretty low birth rate for a while now. Population growth is negative, and the age structure is terrible for future prospects (the US has 3 times as many females under the age of 15). Of course, Germany is in even worse shape that way. But Turkey has more men reaching military age annually than Russia. In another generation, Turkey by itself will be able to field a larger army than Russia.
Viktor – Who needs European shale when there is a surplus of North American natural gas? The main Transcanada pipeline from Alberta to the East Coast is losing market share and has spare capacity to burn. Canada has a modern LNG port, Canaport http://tinyurl.com/2dablm3 . So send Alberta gas to Saint John New Brunswick for ocean passage to Europe, a 3,000 NM trip. Shorter voyages mean more trips per month, and more delievered gas f.o.b. Europe.
Josh – How about a Hawker Beechcraft AT-6 for the Swiss? http://tinyurl.com/85zfxq8
46. Viktor (not that Victor)
And that oil is still mostly traded in dollars, a currency that is rapidly going down the toilet.
………….
Abundant oil and natural gas make Russia’s incompetent vampire bureaucracy look good. Even Putin admits he has not much control over them. All countries that are energy exporters have relatively hard currencies.
The biggest turn around tale is Brazil — which during the 1970′s was an oil importer. They went bankrupt and thereafter vowed to become energy independent. They succeeded. Now they have a hard currency.
With massive changes in the US natural gas and, now, oil production brought about by horizontal drilling and fracking–the USA is on track to become an energy exporter within a decade.
This is already having an impact on the US currency because everyone knows that energy independence hardens currency. The principle result is that the US is going to get away with monetizing debt (printing money)for another year on the expectation that in 2013 the republicans will come in and slash spending.
The Europeans will not become energy independent any time soon. As a result, they will have to cut back government spending in such a way as to discredit socialists and communists in the halls of power. Likely this will reflect poorly too on Putin’s party.