Going Global

Not economies in recession, economics; the science that its proponets are calling 'dismal' to the 'uninitiated'. A series of articles published by The Economist has brought the discussion of the death of modern economic theory to blogs and armchairs.

to quote

OF ALL the economic bubbles that have been pricked, few have burst more spectacularly than the reputation of economics itself. A few years ago, the dismal science was being acclaimed as a way of explaining ever more forms of human behaviour, from drug-dealing to sumo-wrestling. Wall Street ransacked the best universities for game theorists and options modellers. And on the public stage, economists were seen as far more trustworthy than politicians. John McCain joked that Alan Greenspan, then chairman of the Federal Reserve, was so indispensable that if he died, the president should “prop him up and put a pair of dark glasses on him.”


In the wake of the biggest economic calamity in 80 years that reputation has taken a beating. In the public mind an arrogant profession has been humbled. Though economists are still at the centre of the policy debate—think of Ben Bernanke or Larry Summers in America or Mervyn King in Britain—their pronouncements are viewed with more scepticism than before. The profession itself is suffering from guilt and rancour. In a recent lecture, Paul Krugman, winner of the Nobel prize in economics in 2008, argued that much of the past 30 years of macroeconomics was “spectacularly useless at best, and positively harmful at worst.” Barry Eichengreen, a prominent American economic historian, says the crisis has “cast into doubt much of what we thought we knew about economics.”

And in defence

In its crudest form—the idea that economics as a whole is discredited—the current backlash has gone far too far. If ignorance allowed investors and politicians to exaggerate the virtues of economics, it now blinds them to its benefits. Economics is less a slavish creed than a prism through which to understand the world. It is a broad canon, stretching from theories to explain how prices are determined to how economies grow. Much of that body of knowledge has no link to the financial crisis and remains as useful as ever.

A broad cannon, a prism to look at the world... Yes well, it's hardly a specific science is it? if there was a problem with economics that led to the current crisis, it was the complete trust in certain branches of economic theory, in complete ignorance of other similarly viable economic barnches of theory.

This 'dismal science' primarily studies human behavior, and there is nothing more complex and unpredictable. Psychology is also a science that studies human behavior; on a much more micro level. And it still can't figure out the complexity of our needs and wants.

Economics relies on certain broad based assumptions to carry out analyses and theorize on a macro level. I.e. on the overall impact to the world from the behavior of its people, and this is a complex task. It's something that is impossible for one person to fully grasp or understand, leading to many different viewpoints, theories, models and schools of thought on how the world works.

Nobody understands how the world works. Nobody knows the full consequences of largescale financial decisions for example. Least of all the economists themselves.

The world messed up. Again. And now it looking for something to blame. They've put the blame already on the banks, rich CEOs, rating agencies, governments and even China. This is just normal human behavior IMO.

Economic Hitmen




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The rioters against the President were met by rioters for the President. There was a shooting  incident, and Chavez was accused of opening fire on the people protesting against him. This was then used to catalyze more opposition against him when several chiefs of the army denounced him on the media (which had taken the lead in painting him black for a long time by then), which subsequently led to the overthrowing of the presidential  palace guard and the taking over of the country with a rich businessman at the helm.

Ultimately as it turned out, the army itself had instigated the shooting and reports that the president had abdicated were falsified (his signature was forged and he was kidnapped). There was a major uproar and hundreds of thousands of people stormed the presidential palace, overwhelmed the army and succeeded in reinstating the president - War on Democracy

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It's interesting to speculate on world affairs based on controversy and what are generally regarded as crackpot conspicay theories by the genral public who live and die by what is seen and heard in the mainstream media, but its more than just idle indulgence. There is more than meets the eye most of the time. The order of power and the lines of command are mere illusions. The world operates on a whole different spectrum from where it pretends to.

It's going to be interesting to see what happens in Iran now. It seems that most candidates are withdrawing their claims while reports from the media increasingly stress on the 'violent' crackdowns of the government. Perhaps an effort at dragging this as far as possible? Protests are still to spread outside of Tehran so we can't really say that the majority is behind the opposition. Until this whole issue clears up and some perspective can be gained, the story of what is really going on in Iran will not be known.

Looks like we'll be soon confronting higher oil prices again. But the paradox is that the prices will remain low as long as the economy is in a slump. The moment it picks up the pace and starts wanting more fuel to power its machine the prices will start flying.

This Economist report quotes analysts as predicting the arising of more 'super cycles' where the usual boom bust commodity cyles are interrupted and longer periods of price increases are seen as developing economies start absorbing and draining resources and thereby initiating prolonged (and potentially destructive) demand cycles.

The main reasons behind the initial price hike have apparently remain unchanged. All the easy-to-access oil fields are in the hands of governments and the Big Oil firms are having to increasingly resort to drilling in nooks and crannies to find more oil. Also a slump in oil prices back in the 80s have limited investment in oil reserves amd therefore most of current sites not new ones.

The Big oil firms claim to be heavily investing in new oil fields and technology although the benefits will only be reaped in a decade or so. Government companies Like Saudi's Aramco and Brazil's Petrobas have invested heavily in more capacity but other governments like Iran and Venzuela are reluctant to do this due to the current low prices in the market.

Countries like Russia and Venezuela are facing serious cash flow problems and are pressurizing private investement and sub-contractors with more taxes and no wages. In Nigeria the fighting around the Niger Delta with forces such as the MEND are creating some serious barriers to development of production

So oil firms have no new oil to speak of and other pressures on goverment firms will prevent them from increasing output. All except for the Saudi's who have about three times the current capacity of production up their sleeves.

McKinsey, the consultants, argue that governments can help overcome this problem with a few simple measures. The more practical of which are increasing lorry load limits to increase fuel efficiency, increasing emmission standards and efficiency standards even more in the long run will undoubtedly help to curb demand.

Other measures that have been carried out in the past include investment in alternate energy sources, but the disastrous impact of bio fuels should have taught us a thing or two about the importance of thinking out such steps in detail. Electric cars are also a good option and it is encouraging to see quite a few global car makers coming out with models.

But all this has taken a back seat to the financial crisis. When the oil prices dropped so drastically everyone stopped thinking of the 'oil problem' in the classic short termist fashion characteristic of world governance. Bigger problems were at hand and opportunities to perhaps lay a foundation for a whole new energy culture were probably too far fetched and unimportant to care about then.

So now as the economy picks up again we may be confronted with bigger problems because now we won't have a sub-prime morgage crisis to pull us away from strangling each other in a scramble for natural resources. Already oil futures markets are indicating a potential rise in prices.

Which brings me to McKinsey's other suggestion; convincing developing economies to remove oil subsidies. This is something that these economies will definitely not agree to. They will argue that subsidies are essential to their growth. Moreover, they will question the fairness of such a request as economies that are 'developed' today got to such a state by the unrestricted consumption of all the resources they could lay their hands on.

China's Oil demand has risen to pre-crisis levels (and unrelated note: their military prowess has arisen to previously unheard of levels), but global demand is still on a downward trend as decline is still apparent from other big world economies. But as long as oil remians a critical resource, the problem faced a few months ago will materialize again, and specultion will drive the prices even higher, with a corresponding increase in other commodity prices worldwide.

Steps need to be taken starting immeditely to make sure that oil is not a  critical resource, but to this end there is also a lot of disincentive for powerful oil economies and lobby groups. There is always money to be made for the oligarchs, and high oil prices are something they will definitely welcome with open arms.

So what has Obama done so far? Where is this 'change' that has been going around apparently for the whole world to see? Only change I see is a darker tone of skin in the white house.

People are still dying in Iraq, casualties have only increased lately including those of US soldiers. Violence has exacerbated in Pakistan, the Taliban has expanded its control. The Gaza Strip and the West Bank are no better. Sure, you may say that the 100;1 ratio of Palestinian to Israeli deaths officially still happened during Bush's last days but Obama was still president elect, and in the name of humanity, he could have said something or raised a protest. Reasonably supposing that he really knew what was going on.

The UN security council was going to pass a motion, simply a statement condemning the Israeli attacks, but even a mere statement against the war crimes being committed by Israel was vetoed by the United States. This was the same United States whose public was caught up in the wave of 'change' and 'Rebranding America' etc. Obama didn’t even raise a finger in protest. Hiding behind his 'presidential elect' status to absolve himself of any responsibility.

His flumbering beginnings in handling the 'Financial Crisis' have proven inadequate to say the least. The much harped about G20 produced nothing less than 'heroic hypocrisy, unreliable sums, weak promises, meaningless language and self-serving commitments other than a very few worthwhile achievements' (read more of Miles Saltiel's report). His 'stimulus' packages have drawn widespread criticism from many economists (big names like Krugman and Stiglitz) as being extremely inappropriate given the current banking system.

It is increasingly looking like the boom-bust cycle will need to run its course until markets make their own recovery and Keynesian style hole digging and re-filling stimulus plans may or may not get us there quicker, but they will not work in the US is pumping its money into largely inefficient and loss making banks.

Also, where is the inquest into what happened in the Bush years? Where is all the war crime and 9/11 conspiracies that need to be investigated? The advent of Obama and his main calling card 'change' served the most effective purposes of brainwashing the world community into forgetting all about the previous years of US rule. It had the effect of making them think that 'hey, here's a new guy, let’s just forget the old guy, let’s change and move on'. But that change itself was insubstantial and mostly made up of clever and emotionally appealing rhetoric. And those of us who expected some actual substance from the man after he gained office will soon be sorely disappointed.

Something i recieved in the mail. I thought i'd share this..highlighted a few phrases that stood out in particular.

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‘Chance of political settlement open’
SHELLEY WALIA

Interview with Noam Chomsky on the situation in West Asia following the Israeli assault on Gaza.

ISRAEL continues to terrorise and bomb at will. West Asia waits for a malicious twist to the already dead road map. A viable Palestinian state now seems to be like something in the distant future. A bloody retribution, a tit-for-tat flare-up; that is all that is left after the terrible Christmas massacre in Gaza. While young children played soccer and families slept in residential neighbourhoods, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) unleashed one of the severest attacks on Gaza in the last month of 2008, this time determined to enforce a military solution to the daily skirmishes on the border, thereby deterring the incorrigible Hamas belligerence.

In truth, it was Israel that first broke the ceasefire on November 1, 2008, and justified its air and ground attacks on Gaza as the final move to end the daily nuisance of missiles from across the border. It is a fact that in spite of the siege of the past two months no missiles were fired by Hamas. Israel has thrown to the wind the rules laid by the Fourth Geneva Convention, of the Nuremberg Principles, of all of the laws of war generated in the 20th century.

The West Asia problem is now the concern of the global community and is no longer singularly within American turf. In the past, the United States had always, without fail, rejected any such international intervention. However, Prof. Noam Chomsky argues, with no provision of an international vigilance force to oversee the implementation of any peace plan, Israel has the option to do what it pleases and has support from the U.S. for its incorrigible stance of “rejectionism”.

Sadly, the United Nations Security Council has been rendered ineffective by the U.S. veto, though more than 150 members in the General Assembly have voted for the Palestinians’ right to self-determination. There is no doubt that without the authorisation of the U.S. government and its support of Israel not a single military attack on Palestine can take place. Israel is a military base and complies with U.S. foreign policy. Military confrontation, control of gas wells on the borders of Gaza, as well as motives of expansionism have been the apparent interests of the two partners. Since the 1973 encroachment into the Egyptian Sinai, any diplomatic resolution to end the impasse between the two nations has been consistently elusive. With the recent destruction of Gaza, the solution has become all the more protean.

Public opinion in Israel calls for giving up land in Palestine in exchange for peace, but the country’s leaders look on. Their convictions as “Christian Zionists” seem to bestow on them the theological right to continue doing what they do despite what happens to a few million Palestinian “terrorists”. In the meantime, the two nations sink neck deep into uncontrolled violence, leaving behind an unsolvable conundrum.

If Washington was sincere and committed to move West Asia towards peace, there should have been some sign of a reprimand to Israel for its recent attack on Gaza. In the light of the recent history of peace initiatives and unrestrained violence, there seems to be only one way out: an international solution on the lines of what took place in East Timor through the pressure exerted by international opinion. One cannot change the nature of the West Asia problem through war or bloodshed, and democracy cannot come on the wings of a bomber.

Then where does the solution lie? While it cannot come from the Right in Israel, the Left remains unelectable. In Palestine, on the other hand, there is no check on militant agitation. Peace can never come from top down; it is the people at the bottom who can put an end to violence and terrorism.

Will the new President in the White House invest his full powers to bring the two antagonists to the table and negotiate for a solution to one of the most serious political issues of our time? Or will he continue to put forward the American propensity to befriend Israel as a priority that would supersede an objectivity that his presidency promises to the world? The Clinton plan of bringing durable peace by returning to the 1967 boundaries, of sharing Jerusalem and permitting Palestinian refugees to return to their homes remains a viable model for President Barack Obama to follow unless he reinvents a road map that will anticipate the end of hostility.

At the end of the day, it will depend on the pro-Israel lobby in the U.S. to persuade the American leadership to either initiate peace or escalate conflict in West Asia. Obama will scarcely be left with a choice against such a formidable force from within his own fortress. The world waits to see whether he succeeds in introducing a comprehensive diplomatic initiative towards Iran along with the prioritising of the Arab-Israeli peacemaking.

In the light of the West Asia “ulcer”, Prof. Shelley Walia asked Prof. Noam Chomsky for his views on this conundrum. Chomsky, as is well known, has probably been the single most important voice in international politics for several decades. His main works, from Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (with Edward S. Herman) to Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance, from Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy to Perilous Powers: The Middle East & U.S. Foreign Policy: Dialogues on Terror, Democracy, War, and Justice (with Gilbert Achcar and Stephen R. Shalom [editor]), along with his daily interventions, have challenged the deceptions of media reportage and of the devious agendas of Western regimes. As Edward Said emphasised some years ago, “Noam Chomsky is one of the most significant challengers of unjust power and delusions; he goes against every assumption about American altruism and humanitarianism.”

Chomsky was kind enough to take time off from his busy schedule and answer a number of questions on the Arab-Israel conflict. His invigorating zeal remains unabated, as is visible from his remarkable consistency of involvement with issues of human rights and peace. Excerpts from the interview:

Coming directly to the reasons for the Israeli attack on Gaza, do you believe that there could be a larger plan at work that has as its planner the U.S. aiming to finally provoke Iran to enter the ongoing conflict?

I doubt it. It would have been highly unlikely for Iran to respond more than verbally to the attack. There is a straightforward reason, I believe. Israel wants to take over the valuable parts of the West Bank and to leave the remnants of Palestinian society barely viable. And it, of course, wants to do so without disruption. It has succeeded, by violence, to suppress resistance within the West Bank. But the other part of occupied Palestine, Gaza, is still not completely under control. For other reasons, Israel has refused to abide by any of the ceasefires that have been reached and intends to maintain the siege that is suffocating Gaza. Invasion was a means to suppress resistance to its ongoing (U.S.-backed) crimes in the occupied territories.

The fertile part of Gaza represents about a third of the Gaza Strip, this being the part Israel has always wanted to retain owing to its economic productivity and sale of produce to Europe. How would you then react to Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza a few years ago? Is it because the maintenance and protection of Israeli settlers was proving rather costly for the Israeli government or because the U.S. nudged [then Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon in that direction, or because Sharon had his own agenda?

The motives do not seem obscure. Gaza has been turned into a disaster area under Israeli military occupation of 38 years. A few thousand Israeli settlers take a substantial part of the scarce land and resources and have to be protected by a large part of the Israeli army. Sane Israeli hawks understand that it makes no sense to continue with these arrangements. The settlers, who were subsidised to establish themselves there, are now being subsidised to settle elsewhere, leaving the population of Gaza to rot in a virtual prison. The few scattered West Bank outposts that are being abandoned are also simply an annoyance for Israel.

The “disengagement plan” is in reality an expansion plan, as was made plain at once. The presentation of the plan was coupled with an announcement of tens of millions of dollars for West Bank settlements and infrastructure development, a further expansion of the programmes designed to ensure that valuable land and resources will be incorporated within Israel, while Palestinians will be left in scarcely viable cantons. The shameful “separation wall” is one particularly ugly feature of these programmes. The actions are gross violations of international law and elementary human rights but can continue as long as they are supported by the reigning superpower. American citizens are the only ones who can put an end to these continuing and very severe crimes.

The operation was a complete scam, a repeat of “Operation National Trauma ’82” as the press called it at the time, carefully orchestrated, a media triumph, intended to convey the message: “Never again must Jews suffer so; the West Bank is ours.”

Would you agree that there is the complicity of [Palestinian President] Mahmoud Abbas with the Palestinian contras who are backed by the U.S. and Israel? He does not have the authority, moral or otherwise, to call together the Palestinian people for anything.

Abbas is in a difficult position, no doubt. He does not want to accept the results of the democratic election that was won by his rival Hamas. With U.S. support, he attempted a military coup in Gaza, but that was beaten back and Hamas took over total control. His forces have been trained and armed by the U.S. and its regional allies, and assigned the task of suppressing any opposition in the West Bank, in particular, opposition to Israeli crimes in Gaza. One result is that he has very little credibility. There may be some chance of a unity government. It is possible that Israel’s decision to violate the ceasefire by invading Gaza on November 4, 2008, was intended to disrupt planned meetings in Cairo to establish a unity government. The pretexts offered were too absurd to merit comment.

How far do you think that the military action of Israel is disproportionate to the ends that it hopes to achieve? Is it legitimate under international law? Israel is crossing every red line of the Fourth Geneva Convention, of the Nuremberg Principles, of all of the laws of war that were developed in the 20th century. It has the backing of the U.S. and thus feels cocksure of its actions.

That depends on what we think it hoped to achieve. The attack did succeed in killing many civilians and destroying villages, institutions, and infrastructure, while also devastating much of the agricultural land and the limited industrial capacity of Gaza. The actions were “proportional” to achieving such ends, which we can only assume were the real ones. Of course, all of this is in gross violation of international law, as is U.S. support for it. In fact, all of this is in direct violation of U.S. law, which bans the use of U.S.-supplied arms apart for “legitimate self-defence”, and it is transparent that Israel’s actions do not fall under that category.

Do you think that there may be some reason for going into the attack on Gaza at a juncture when the Bush administration was leaving office and Barack Obama was to be sworn in on January 20? Was there a feeling that the U.S. government at that point would not react in any negative way? Labour gained 50 per cent more in the elections, mainly because Ehud Barak was the man who was mostly identified with this operation. He was the Minister of Defence, as you know. Or, do you think it is just overreaction?

We know from Israeli sources that the attack was meticulously planned in advance. It would only make sense, from Israel’s point of view, to carry out the attack so that it could do maximal damage but end immediately before Obama’s inauguration, which is what happened. That way Obama could pretend that he could not comment on it, because “there is only one President” (that didn’t prevent him from commenting on many other things, including bitter condemnation of the Mumbai terror and the “hateful ideology” behind it). And since the attack had formally ended immediately before the inauguration, he could maintain his silence after assuming the presidency, thereby continuing Bush’s policies, as he has done on other matters as well.

It was not an attack on Hamas but on the whole structure of the society of Palestinians. Hospitals, universities, mosques were not spared. And if you keep citizens under such a harsh siege there are no options but to retaliate. The only democratic election in West Asia should have been given time to prove itself. Hamas is not guilty. Israel is for breaking the ceasefire and killing civilians. The aim is to see that democracy does not succeed. In spite of the siege of the past two months, no bombs were thrown by Hamas. Any comments?

A recent poll of Muslim opinion found that large majorities “see U.S. support for democracy in Muslim countries as conditional at best. Only very small minorities say ‘the U.S. favours democracy in Muslim countries whether or not the government is cooperative with the U.S.’. The most common response is that the U.S. favours democracy only if the government is cooperative, while nearly as many say that the U.S. simply opposes democracy in the Muslim countries.” I am quoting from the summary by one of the world’s most respected polling agencies. The large majority are surely correct, and the same principle holds elsewhere. As the most strongly pro-government scholarship has conceded, the U.S. has supported democracy if and only if it conforms to strategic and economic objectives. Europe is, of course, the same.

Western intellectuals and their allies elsewhere naturally prefer a different story, but as is often the case, the victims have much clearer insight into reality than the servants of power.

Do you agree that the provocation has come from Israel and not Hamas. It broke the ceasefire two months earlier and is conveniently blaming Hamas. And then it is asking the residents to leave Gaza. How is it possible? Where should they go when there is that crippling blockade in operation? This notion that Israel has a right to defend itself – against whom?

A state has the right of self-defence by force only if it has exhausted peaceful means. In this case, Israel plainly had peaceful means that it refused to pursue: ceasefire, and termination of criminal actions in the occupied territory. Accordingly, it cannot appeal to the right of self-defence.

Do you not think that the result of this kind of provocation will bring about the third Intifada instead of peace and security? Do you think the last chance for negotiations is now destroyed? The Hamas leadership in Damascus is against any ceasefire.

Before the attack, the Israeli government was aware that Hamas, including the Damascus political leadership, was calling for a ceasefire – but a real one, which would end the siege. A siege is an act of war. Israel has always insisted on that. In fact, Israel launched two wars (1956, 1967) in large part on the claim that its access to the outside was partially limited, which is far less than a siege. The possibility of a political settlement remains open. As before, it turns on whether the U.S. will abandon the strong rejectionist policies it has pursued (with Israel), in international isolation, since the mid-1970s.

Would you say that the two-nation theory is now in jeopardy, especially now with the escalation of war? Palestinians will now have to seek refuge in Jordan or Egypt if Israel decides to push them out of the West Bank. Egypt and, to some extent, Jordan have been thrown off balance by the withering criticism they have faced. The alliance of Iran, Syria, Hizbollah and Hamas – the quartet that is fighting against a diplomatic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – is critical of Jordan and Egypt as well of the two-state solution.

I think your description, while conventional, is an error, a reflection of the force of Western propaganda. The facts are quite clear. There has been an overwhelming consensus in support of a two-state settlement since 1976, when the U.S. first vetoed a Security Council resolution to this effect put forth by the Arab states (including Syria, which still supports it). It is now supported by virtually everyone, including Hamas, which has repeatedly and quite publicly called for it. Iran has made clear that it would back the position of the Arab states, which formally support this policy, and call for normalisation of relations with Israel in that context. Hizbollah’s position is that it will not disrupt anything that Palestinians accept. That leaves the U.S. and Israel, the leaders of the rejection front since the 1970s. There has been one break in U.S.-Israeli rejectionism: negotiations in Taba, Egypt, in January 2001, which were coming very close to an agreement when Israel terminated them prematurely.

It is not too late for the two rejectionist states to return to what was almost achieved there, and if the U.S. decided to do so, Israel would surely go along. Unfortunately, Obama has clearly rejected that position. In his first foreign policy declaration, he praised the Arab League position as “constructive” and urged the Arab states to proceed with normalisation of relations with Israel. But he carefully omitted the crucial precondition for normalisation: a two-state settlement. He is an intelligent man and chooses his words carefully. He could hardly have been more explicit in rejecting the international consensus.

What do you think is Egypt’s role in the peace process at this juncture? Its role as the chief negotiator in the Muslim world has been sagging owing to its declining economic situation and escalating poverty.

The Egyptian dictatorship despises Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, which would surely do very well in Egypt if it were permitted to participate in a free election. But even if it tries to be an honest negotiator, Egypt can do nothing as long as the U.S. maintains its rejectionist stance, not only in words but by providing the decisive military, economic and diplomatic support for Israel’s systematic and of course criminal actions to take what it wants in the West Bank. And we should add “ideological support”, such as the absurd propaganda claims about who is blocking a two-state settlement, which are widely believed, thanks to U.S. power.

Evidently, the formulation of the U.S.’ West Asia policy is dependent on the pro-Israel lobby and their Zionist supporters within the government. The brutal military occupation within Palestine has evoked little concern or response from the U.S. government, and its silence, therefore, indicates its complicity with the pro-Israel lobby that controls the U.S. political agenda. Do you agree?

No, I don’t agree. I think that is a very serious misunderstanding of how policy is made. True, lobbies have influence. There are many dramatic cases. Take Cuba. A large majority of Americans have wanted to end the embargo and have normal relations for years, powerful business interests (energy, agribusiness, pharmaceutical, and others), but the political parties won’t touch it because of the Cuban-American vote in Florida and a few other States.

To be sure, there are state interests, and those probably dominate. But the lobby has had a powerful effect. Even a tiny lobby like the Armenian lobby came very close to severely harming U.S. relations with Turkey, a major ally, last year, by getting Congress to (almost) pass an Armenian genocide resolution.

In the case of Israel, it’s convenient for U.S. analysts to blame the Israel lobby for policies they don’t like. That leaves us “clean”, just misled by a lot of bad Jews. There’s some truth to it, as in the case of other lobbies. But it’s much exaggerated.

The debates over the influence of the lobby are typically quite abstract: they have to do with sorting out influences that mostly converge – strategic-economic, lobby. The test is when U.S. government policies and the lobby conflict, as often happens. In that case, invariably, the lobby disappears, knowing better than to confront real power. Just happened last summer, once again, in an important case: the lobby was intent on ramming through Congress a resolution calling for a virtual blockade of Iran, a very high priority for Israel. At first they rounded up congressional support, enough to pass it, until the White House hinted quietly that it was opposed, not wanting to be dragged into a war with Iran. The measure (HR 362) was dropped; the lobby was silent. Not uncommon.

The debates also are paralysing. They have no implications for activism, except one. If the claims are correct, then I’ve been wasting my time for years in talking, writing, organising, activism. I should instead put on a tie and jacket and go to the corporate headquarters of Intel, Microsoft, Lockheed Martin, and a host of other major corporations investing in Israel, and should explain to them, politely, that they are harming their interests by doing so, and should use their political and economic power to put the lobby out of business, as they can do in five minutes. No one adopts that tactic. But why?

Why is Obama quiet? It suits him to speak on economic matters or Iraq, but on Israeli atrocities he has not made a single statement.

Obama made it clear long before that he is a passionate supporter of Israeli policies. In his campaign, he emphasised that he was a co-sponsor of a Senate resolution in 2006 barring any interference with Israel’s criminal aggression in Lebanon. He also called for Jerusalem to be the permanent and undivided capital of Israel, a position so outrageous that his campaign had to claim publicly that his words did not mean what he said. I wrote about this a year ago, in a book published before the elections, simply relying on his formal positions. For some reason, many people prefer illusions about him. But one cannot charge him with concealing his extremist positions.

Do you think Israel has crossed the line of humanity and legality in its recent onslaught on Gaza?

We should describe this as a U.S.-Israeli assault. It surely crosses both lines, but hardly for the first time.

Prof. Shelley Walia is a Fellow and Dean, International Students, at Panjab University, Chandigarh.
He teaches Literary and Cultural Theory at the Department of English.

The death of laissez faire is being proclaimed left right and centre. Government spending and Keynesian economics are coming to the fore and free market ideology is taking a hit.

Keynesian economics is often seen as the middle ground between Marxism and laissez faire as put forward by Adam Smith. The cause of the resurrection of the economy after the Great Depression, British economist John Maynard Keynes  is widely regarded as the biggest influence on modern economic policy and thought, with his mixture of freemarket idealism with government regulation and spending.

But was the current failure in the world economy the direct result of the failure of the free market itself or more specifically the failure of the baking industry? One may argue that the banking industry in itself was de-regulated and that is what caused the crisis in the first place and therefore laissez faire is to blame.

But consider the theories of Milton Friedman, who said that regulating the banks and the money supply alone in a free market economy will provide the adjustment needed to avoid any major pitfalls. In this particular crisis, money supply went out of control and so much artificial wealth was created, essentially a tower of rocks built on a base of clouds, that things had to eventually collapse.

Greed, many say, is the underlying cause of it. Sure, if people weren't greedy they wouldnt have taken those housing loans thay couldnt pay, but what about an industry that wasnt prudent in its lending? how could individuals have anticipated the crash of housing markets and the fall in the values of their homes?

And another thing, capitalism is essentially defined as being the same as a free market economy. But that is in essense, an incorrect assumption. Capitalism has come to be associated with all that is detrimental in human nature; greed, growing gaps in income, opression, poverty etc. But these are characteristics that will undoubtedly prevail in any type of economy be it socialist, royalist or communist because they are the causes of evil; individual greed and a lack of concern for ones fellows.

And that cannot be fixed by any new ideology.

Whoever said that democracy was the fairest way to rule a country i think has been proven wrong again and again and again so many times over that we really need re-look at the whole concept of it and see if we really have stumbled upon the best base for governance known by man.

First of all, look at all the corruption and failures that stem from democratic states. Look at all the people killed under the guises of various little conflicts here and there. Holocausts attract the most attention while other deaths that occur in the mere thousands go un-avenged.

America just got a little more lenient on Cuba. They lifted a few travel restrictions and allowed Cuban - Americans to send more money home. This was opposed by two Cuban American Senators who later 'changed their votes after receiving assurances from the Obama administration that the changes did not amount to a major reversal of the 47-year-old US trade embargo on Cuba.' According to the BBC report

President Obama who is in support of the bill has however said 'that like previous American presidents, he will only consider a full lifting of the embargo once Cuba's communist government makes significant moves such as the holding (of) democratic elections.'

I mean isn't that just characteristic of the United States trying impose is beliefs and influence across the world? Cuba seems to have worked fine as a country so far. And the fact that they are not 'democratic' per se does not seem to have affected the quality of life in Cuba in a detrimental way.

As a matter of fact, the Cuban people as a whole are probably made much better off as a result of the Revolution and equality seems to have improved a great deal.

Anyway, democracy as we know it today is but a mere illusion. People think they have the 'right' and 'power' to vote in any one of their choice but what they do not realize is that that 'choice' is severely restricted and manipulated by huge infrastructures like party systems, rules and regulations for running for office, massive barriers to entry that prevent anyone from running for office etc.

For e.g. even over here in SL. you can’t really run for office unless you have some sort of power/influence etc. So an ordinary Joe or Siripala who wants to be heard and is genuinely convinced that he can help the country and make life better for people will never rise to power because the very people whose help he needs to even dream of an influential position in government will have conflicting interests to him and will want to preserve the status quo (which he may want to rearrange.)

So democracy is an illusion, it is just oppression with another name. And in this day and age, democracy does not really have to be what it is..We can use technology in so many other ways to make it better, if only a bit of interest was shown by those in power. But since obviously that will mean a push towards the decentralization of that same power, they obviously wouldn’t do it. But more on that later.

What really happened? A day after the attacks, speculation is still rife.

The story hit the top of the economist web site today, which followed up with a long account of the incidents and Sri Lanka's gesture of solidarity that ended up in their cricket team getting shot. But then dwindles down into a rather pointless review of religion and the Pakistani cricket team and irrelevant ramblings about Muhammed Yousuf, a 'muslim fundamentalist' whatever that means.

The Economist also goes on to stress on 'Jihadist' attacks by 'Pakistani' militants. I can understand calling them Pakistani militants because they were obviously operating from Pakistan, but Jihadist? No group has taken responsibility yet for the attacks so there is no way of telling for sure if it was a self-proclaimed Jihadist group or not. Dissapointingly presumtuous especially coming from an esteemed source such as the Economist.

We can draw some parallells with the Mumbai attacks here. The attack out of the blue (like thats anything new), first of its kind in many ways, and no group takes responsibility. Instead suspicions are cast, scapegoats are found along with cicumstantial evidence and before you know it BAm! theres all out accusations.

Kinda reminds me of 9/11. Overally though, i think India handled the Mumbai attacks far better than the US handled 9/11. Killing indiscriminately and invading all over the place, UN be damned.

What am i trying to get at here?

im trying to tell you folks to calm down a bit and dont be so quick to judge. The attacks could have been carried out by anyone for any conceivable reason. Pakistan has been the target and location of many meaningless attacks over the past few years. Most gone unclaimed and un accounted for, it has also seemed to be the target of extreme detabilisation post 9/11.

so lets not assume anything.

So now the hullaballoo has died, the issue of Tibet has slipped down the list of international hot spots for the worlds attention to be drawn to. I had many friends on Facebook who even dedicated their status messages to it; talking about Tianamen square branded defiance and the like. The Olympics at one point looked to be slowed to a crawl when protests broke out all over the world against Chinese oppression in Tibet.

The Economist runs a story on Tibet, on how the attention of the world has slipped away from it. On how the Chinese are super miffed that the British have somwhat carelessly (?) accepeted Chinese sovereignity over the region. The Chinese however are still strongly focussed on the region. Security is intense, foreigners are not allowed in, and they still refuse to talk to the Dalai Lama.

And meanwhile, "Hillary Clinton recently stopped in Beijing to beseech China’s co-operation in fixing the world economy and stopping the planet from frying. In the apparent belief that China, oddly, will not pursue such aims out of its own self-interest, she forbore from harping on issues such as human rights and Tibet". In other words, the world's (read; the US) got more important things to worry about, like the economy and the damage to trade, rather than worry about an opressed people right now. Tibet may emerge again whenever any political leverage is needed though. At least its nice to see that Global Warming made the cut.

The Economist story links back to a story published in 1959 when the Dalai Lama (then 15 years old i believe) escaped military China to Indian territory. A myth emerged then that the Lama had conjured up a cloud to hide himself and his supporters from the Chinese air force. The Economist had its own ideas as to what that cloud really was though, and I'm inclined to agree with them.

I came across this interesting debate on the economist. Carried out between Mr. Mark Medish (MM) proposing the notion that American shine is still intact and Prof. Kishore Mahbubani (KM) opposing the notion. There were many interesting points raised with a LOT of interventions by readers which contributed to a very diverse flavor of a discussion.

When it comes to America, i have often been jokingly accused by friends to be anti-American. Which im obviously not. But what i am is an anti-corporate-greed, anti-inequality, anti-suppression and anti-war crime type of bugger. And sadly, during my formative years, America has seemed to me to be a country that leans toward exemplifying most of which i morally stand against.

But first, what is Brand America? MM argues that there are two Americas, not one. One is America the country, the other is America the Idea. The American idea is an idea of freedom, equality, justice and leadership. Which are extremely noble sentiments IMO.

This 'leadership' role though, also in my opinion, seems to have been confused to a certain degree with 'dominance' by the many participants in the debate. Like America needs to be in the forefront of everything in order to preserve its 'brand value'. Which i think is wrong. You don’t have to squash everybody else to be a leader. Taking the lead means guiding everybody else when they cant see. Not hoping that they cant see so that they can be guided. IMO again.

Moving on from that, what was noticeable was the strong rhetoric coming from the proposing side and the equally strong facts coming in from the opposing side. One may thing that facts trump rhetoric any day. But we are talking brand and perception here. People are not only influenced by facts, they are also influenced by sights, sounds, the look of the thing and how they perceive things. Most of which are non-quantifiable.

Also, the Brand that is America, a political/ economic superpower, seems more shaken than ever. And that’s it. It is America's super power status that is in danger here. And I say what the hell? just because you're not a superpower does not mean that you still cant be a great nation right?

On devolution of power (which seems inevitable) a fact also brought up by KM dealt specifically with the 'historical aberration' of 200 years of European domination followed by American domination before which (from year 1 to 1820) the biggest economies in the world were India and China alternatively. And he says that it is only a matter of time before they 'resume their natural place'.

The superiority of America as a 'democracy' seems unanimously agreed upon but its economic superiority? not so much.

It is my opinion that every empire collapses eventually. From the Egyptians to the Romans to the Brits and now, to the Americans. It's like the countries of the world take turns to dominate each other, the decider being nothing other than who comes off on top after the inevitable conflicts/ war.

Check out the debate. I'd love to hear your views.

But who really gives a fuck anymore?

Socialism is dead. It is so dead that even the Russians dont practice it anymore. Its strange to see posters about it on Sri Lankan walls though..

19th - Martin Luther King day. He had a dream! of a free country. Of equality, of black people living in a united America.

20th - First black president comes to power. In the United States! A free and equal America is finally realized and undeniably proven to the rest of the word

21th - Death of Lenin, a kick in the face of the last big 'enemy' of the 'free world'

You are dead. We are alive and stonger than EVER! look out Iran and Islamic Fundamentalism.

Am I too conspiratorial or was it all just a calenderial coincidence?

I’m sure that if the founding fathers could see it, they would be absolutely sickened.

And of course, it isn’t just the event that is the problem – it’s... (read more)

Face it. 2008 was a culmination in a cyclical period of right royal self screw-age that the American business world just went through. Fortune lists the 21 dumbest moments in business in 2008.

Among the dumb stuff highlighted was the Paulson plan, Henry Paulson, Henry Paulson and Henry Paulson. The big 3 'big' automaker's CEOs, jet flights, hybrids also made the list.

The housing bubble, voluntary homeowner rescue plans that called for banks to run a loss (like they weren’t running enough already) to save the housing market kind of made it to the list as well along with

the people who 'displaced' blame at 'speculators' for artificially increasing the price of oil and followed up with blaming 'collapsing demand' for its sudden drop. But i suppose no one really knows wtf happened in the oil markets, really.

The whole Steve Ballmer (Microsoft) and Jerry Yang(Yahoo) thingummy figured heavy on the dumb list. Stevie for escaping by the skin of his nose by overvaluing yahoo and Jerry for missing out on pay day numero uno.

If you've not heard of Bernard L. Madoff then you should be ashamed of calling yourself a part of the great nation that spawned the likes of Sakvithi, cos this guy carried out one of the biggest scams in history. and he did it for decades too. His simple model for tricking the likes of Greenspan? The returns for your older investors are the new investments that come in. Rotation baby, it’s the new twist.

Something that i thought was not dumb at all was the Apple i-phone application. Here you had developers making millions by devising little games and selling em for $10 each to i phone users and one smart sonofagun thinks up a screensaver that is just a giant red ruby swirling on screen, calls it 'I Am Rich' and retails it for $999.99. How smart is that? eight people actually bought it (the i-phone retails for just $200) before Aple pulled it out. But i say why pull it out? i mean what brilliance! If you're rich, own an i-phone and want people to know. This app is for you! Niche marketing much?

Anyways I couldn’t resist giving a coupla slight spoilers but there are more good ones in here. With special appearances by everybody’s favorite two presidential candidates

Go check it out.

Who is a soldier? Is he a fighter in a noble cause? Or is he a villain used by the forces that are to channel his blood lust in the direction of who is perceived to be the enemy? Then should he be noble in his actions or should he be as dastardly in his deeds as his conscience provides provision for and his superiors give him leeway?

Talking about Ajantha Mendis, in a post that directed a fair bit of strong points of view in my direction. I became embroiled in this argument/discussion/casual chat with Mr. David Blacker. Though we started off talking about Ajantha Mendis, as all arguments go, this one ended up at a stalemate where there was a hold off on the meaning of one word and its implications.

The word was 'virtue' as it was used by Nicholas Machiavelli in his Art of War.

My argument was that soldiers, in order for war to be truly effective and not beget terror in any other form, have to be essentially 'good' people, and should not mistake going to war with having an opportunity to unleash suppressed animal instincts on innocents met along the way. To make things clearer I'll highlight a couple of exchanges me and David had. The extracts are from our last two comments.

Me: Virtue after all simply put, refers to good qualities doesn’t it?

DB: Over-simply put, I'm afraid. Good, after all, is a subjective term. But I think it's clear that Machiavelli didn't mean "goodness, honesty" etc. He was talking about strength, ambition, manliness.

Alright, let's assume that Machiavelli did mean these things when he spoke about 'virtue'; but then strength, ambition and manliness does not necessarily detract from being 'good' does it? one does not have to be evil to be strong, ambitious or manly. As a matter of fact, it can be argued that true manliness arises from achieving your ambitions in a way where you extract as little unnecessary discomfort on your fellow human beings. One can argue that it is a weakness and not a strength to trample upon the already downtrodden.

So therefore shouldn't soldiers essentially be good people? Shouldn’t they refrain from raping, pillaging, shooting unarmed civilians and leaving the women and children unharmed?

Perhaps it is the rationale behind the war in the first place that makes soldier behave in certain ways. If motives behind the war in question are contrived to seem good and just whereas there were ulterior motives present (take the Iraqi war for instance) then the soldiers will not be fully convinced as to the justifiability of their actions. The hidden truth will permeate down through the ranks and there will be a certain sense of frustration and greed and ambition that will be directed at achieving that ulterior motive in the level of the soldiers themselves. Translating into deeds that are commonly known as 'crimes of war' but pass unnoticed in most cases due to the confusion. Because essentially the actual motive behind the whole war is essentially in currently defined terms a 'crime'.

Iraq was a crime. There were no WMD's found there. Ever. The whole thing was a fisco. Some say the reason behind it was oil. But it was not a battle between good and evil or whatever you may call it. That much was painfully obvious. Here is where we specifically discussed a soldier's behavior;

Me: I beg to differ David. It is goodness that keeps a soldier from stealing from the dead. It is honesty that keeps him from lying to his superior to save his own neck. It is goodness and virtue in its 'modern meaning' that keeps a soldier from not shooting down an unarmed enemy; it is goodness and 'virtue' that would prevent all the war crimes that go unheeded in Iraq and perhaps, in our own land.

DB: That is true, and the fact that such atrocities occur (and have always occured) is in fact because virtue (in its modern sense) does not exist in the military. Virtue would prevent atrocities, yes, but it would also prevent the ruthlessness needed by military leaders which must sacrifice lives for objectives, ignore civilian suffering, and abandon everything but victory. Virtue, in its modern sense, would prevent an individual from even being a soldier who must kill and maim his fellow human beings in order to achieve a political objective. True virtue would prevent war.

But would virtue or being good and honorable actually reduce the effectiveness of a soldier? Or is soldiering just like anything else we humans do? and do we have a choice to choose whether to be honorable or bloodthirsty while doing it? like in Business, Career, Sport etc. can we always be virtuous and still win wars?

The year draws to an end and there is still so much wrong with the world. It may be a pessimistic outlook but sadly the human race seems to be defined by the crises that befall it. We are naturally cynical towards the good things in life. an uncorrupt government? a war to be won? Equality and universal acceptance? Not all of us would meet these statements with complete optimism. We believe in the weaknesses of the human race. We believe in the age old tome of our lives; 'perfection is impossible', 'nothing is and ever will be perfect' we keep telling ourselves. but are we so far away from perfection as we think? I do not know. But there is hope.

After that somewhat soppy start, let me list out the major crises/ happenings of 2008 that will define the following years as i see them off the top of my head. But pertaining to the cynical nature of the race on Earth, i have referred to any significant event as a 'crisis' so you may think it’s a good thing, but somebody somewhere will suffer because of it, perhaps owing to its imperfect nature.

The War - can it be won? how many of us are really dying in Killinocchi? why are they not allowing reporters in there of everything is going our way? What’s really going on.

The Economy - Both local and global. it shifted the world around. Having worked for a US bank involved specifically in the area of lending to subprime customers, I was privileged to see firsthand what was going on. although I left that place sometime before the crisis hit. Greed and capitalism deregulation and irresponsibility plunged the world into darknessssss...

Nigeria - Here is a country absolutely loaded with oil reserves, wealthy as the wealthiest country in the world potentially, whose people are still suffering without basic living conditions. Corruption has reached astronomical heights and practically all the petrodollars are going into the private coffers of government officials.

What’s sad to see is the international community does not do much about it. They're in cahoots with the government of course; it's all about pillage, plunder and take what you can. The less powerful and helpless the people, the better. Nobody cares about the Nigerian people as long as they can get the oil. They are terrorized. and terror begets terror. Therefore arises the MEND. and they are branded terrorist. Kind of like the

FARC - originally a bunch of helpless Columbian farmers, fighting the industrialization of their forests. The loss of their rivers due to the building of dams. The world tried to run over them and they fought back, and another terrorist group was born.

The Middle East - namely Palestine, I do not know if there have ever been a single race of people so downtrodden and treated unfairly as these. I mean the actually cut off electricity and food supplies to the whole nation because o a political fight. This can only occur when the powerful are so vain and corrupt as the forces that instigated the unfortunate humanitarian crisis in the name of 'democracy'. Ironically, it was in protest of Hamas, who gained rule of the Gaza strip in democratic elections as opposed to their opponents who were more friendly to the West.

Global Warming - It wages on and things seem to be improving really slowly. We are beginning to see a major movement emerge in popular culture in support of the environment. But a part of me is cynical, because there really doesn’t seem t be a significant change happening.

Africa - As opposed to the rest of the world, Africa alone as a continent seem to be going through a lot. Inflation in Zimbabwe is reaching unbelievable levels, one wonders why the economy has not simply crashed apart. Aids is spreading like wildfire, one advice to you i'll give, if you're in Africa, feeling horny, and want to get it on, don't. For the love of sweet life, don't.

Obama - The embodiment of change, an end to Bush who incidentally is probably the worse one man crisis to ever hit the world since Satan himself, Obama seems to embody everything opposite. but his rhetoric draws out the cynic inside, is he really all that? Well, we'll see, but don't expect fire crackers right away.

The Balance of Power - We are finally reaching a point where there are clear signs of the beginnings of decentralization in the world's power base. Russia, Iran and China are in the forefront of the challengers to the US followed by India, Brazil and Sri Lanka (not). But fifty years is a long time to build a power base and the US is still by far the most powerful country on Earth. interesting times ahead.

So thats my list of where the world stands in terms of significant happenings as at the end of 2008. Now I'm curious to hear about yours, and what events of the world impacted your view of this year and the years following immediately afterwards. So unfortunately im gonna tag a few of you thinkers out there to ensure your kind response :D sorry. Indi, Dean, Aufidius, My prerogative, Jack Point, Noorie, LD And the Mathawaada crew you're it.