++General Eric Shinseki resigned today to avoid being a distraction to the VA scandal. Naturally,President Obama is being criticized for waiting too long. He waited for the IG Report, which showed a systemic problem.
++The chapter on Benghazi in Hillary Clinton's memoir has appeared in Politico. I would't bet on Hillary becoming a wilted flower on the issue.
++Doug Brooks today wrote an op-ed challenging President Obama's West Point speech saying that "under reach" can result in catastrophe. He quotes approvingly a new article by Bob Kagan.
++Charles Krauthammer weighs in at the Imperial Post to argue against Obama's speech.
++Fareed Zakaria writes that Obama's attitude toward the world is what America needs right now.
++After his tirade against Edward Snowden, Secretary of State Kerry snorts at Dick Cheney's recent attacks on the President as of no use to Kerry for all the wreckage the Administration had to clean up after Cheney left.
++So far this week, President Obama has set the language to which people must respond and they aren't responding well.
Showing posts with label Fareed Zakaria. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fareed Zakaria. Show all posts
Friday, May 30, 2014
Monday, August 2, 2010
Taxes, Deficits and The Imperial Economy
First note of the day--the CBO priced the McColm Social Security Plan and it will take us fully funded into 2083 or roughly covering my own and my son's retirement. And that's without any cuts in benefits or raising the retirement age. So the phony debate really has to do with phasing the program out, not strenghtening it.
This past weekend we saw Republican congresscritters double down on extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest. This in the face of a virtual avalanche of data showing they are the major reason for our massive deficits. The previous argument has been that these cuts would stimulate the economy and generate increased government revenues. The jury is in on not generating government revenues but in the last few days many people have written op-eds showing that after the tax cuts were enacted, job creation was roughly the same as before. However, the Republicans could pull a rabbit out of the hat if they argued that President Obama's ability to create by this December more jobs in his short-term of office than George W in eight years because of the existing tax structure. They already have written off the stimulus package as ineffective as John Boehner said he doesn't need to hear from economists about the stimulus to know it failed.
Reading David Stockman's op-ed yesterday about old-time Republican values, you begin to understand the term "conservative" as it shows up in Gallup polls. The 40% of the public that identifies as conservative related to values of fiscal prudence, etc. As a blogger noted yesterday, Republicans are not conservative, they are radical. And the present bunch are extremely radical.
The Financial Times (July 30) printed an article by Edward Luce "The Crisis of Middle Class America". Luce draws a picture of several middle-class Americans, who basically are fully employed but admit they exist two paychecks from the gutter. Before the Great Recession, there had been a personal recession ordinary Americans have been suffering for years. Dubbed "median wage stagnation", the annual incomes of the bottom 90% of American families have been essentially flat since 1973--having risen by only 10 percent in real terms over the last 37 years. This means that most Americans have been treading water for more than a generation. Over the same period the incomes of the top 1 percent have tripled. In 1973, chief executives were on the average paid 26 times the median income. Now the multiple is above 300.
Economists believe this is a structural problem and the trend is getting stronger. In the last expansion, which started in January 2002 and ended in December 2007, the median US household income dropped by $2,000--the first time where Americans were worse off at the end of a cycle than at the start. Worse than the long era of stagnating incomes is declining income mobility. It should be no surprise that a majority of Americans tell pollsters that they expect their children to be worse off than they are.
Edward Luce interviewed Michael Spence, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, whom the World Bank has commissioned to lead a four-year study into the future of global growth. Spence believes the Great Stagnation is a profound crisis of identity for America. Spence says the problem was cushioned and partially hidden by the availability of cheap debt. Now that easy money has turned into heavy debt and the cushion is gone.
To be pessimistic about the future is so new for Americans, he says. He says that,"When people lose the sense of optimism, things tend to get more volatile. The future I most fear for America is Latin American: a grossly unequal society that is prone to wild swings from populism to orthodoxy, which makes sensible government increasingly hard to imagine."
Paul Krugman is fascinating to watch--especially the last few weeks--as he has pondered the gibberish coming out of Washington on the economy. This is a Nobel prize winner confronted with the world of political stupidity and even his reactions are getting volatile. Yesterday, he wrote an op-ed "Defining Prosperity Down", where he claims the governing elite just doesn't care--that a once-unthinkable level of economic distress is in the process of becoming the new normal. He is not talking about a stagnation of wages but an acceptance of high unemployment as structural. Governing elites, rather than take responsibility for job creation, are accepting high unemployment as a permanent part of the economic landscape. As he wrotes, they will condemn large numbers of Americans to long-term joblessness. He sees Congress sitting on its hands not only refusing to spend anything to create jobs but unwilling even to mitigate the suffering of the jobless.
As Krugman notes, structural unemployment becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as long-term unemployed lose their skills and their connections with the work force, they become unemployable.
He shoots at the hyper concern about deficits and debt, noting that investors have been eagerly buying U.S. debt , driving interest rates to historic laws. He blasts those wanting to extend the tax cuts for the rich no matter what the amount of red ink they create. He then blasts the FED because it has a two-fold purpose--full employment and price stability. He says that the FED actually has a couple of tools left but they refuse to use them because they argue now that business is uncertain about future regulations. Krugman points out that this is completely at odds with all actual evidence. He foresees the FED actually tolerating deflation.
Robert Kuttner in "The Appeal of Austerity is Fading--Where is Obama?" points out that the deficit hawks, who look alike like the chicken hawks, have hogged all the microphones but that the consensus among them is breaking apart. He points to the defections of budget guru Robert Greenstein, who has had a longstanding concern about the unsustainably large deficits, and Yale economist Robert Shiller, who have taken to criticising Erskine Bowles, the chair of Obama's own commission on budget reform, that the federal budget should be balanced at about 21 percent of GDP, roughly the postwar average. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) has just released a paper written by Paul Van de Water, which points out that with an aging population and heavy defense costs, government has to spend more than the 21% Bowles and the Heritage Foundation argue.
Fareed Zakaria in today Washington Post delivers a strong op-ed "To deal with the deficit, let the tax cuts expire". He argues that the "Bush tax cuts" passed in 2001 and 2003 remain the single largest cause of America's structural deficit. According to the CBO, nearly half the cost of all legislation enacted from 2001 to 2007 can be attributed to the tax cuts. The CBO estimates that creating tax credits for jobs--like in the small business loan bill Republicans are stopping--would create four to six times as many jobs as tax cuts. Zakaria argues that all of the Bush tax cuts are unaffordable. He points out that the United States has one of the smallest governments among all the world's rich countries, yet we refuse to pay for it.
Democrats fear the old Republican refrain about them tax and spending. As one colleague of mine at IRI used to say, "we just spend." The Republicans seem commited to building the shanty town on the Hill. With the exception of Arthur Laffer, every Republican economist has defected from their current political position of maintaining these tax cuts. Catastrophic is what libertarian Alan Greenspan says and Paul Volcker defected to Obama years ago. So it comes down to ideology alone and that's what I want to explore in further posts.
Over the last week, we saw the Washington Post explore in a three-part series Secret America, the $1.2 trillion-a-year military/ terrorist/ intelligence complex which has no accountability, no oversight and no known effectiveness. Over $500 billion of this complex goes to private corporations, who were aligned with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Then we have seen a series of analyses by economists that American corporations are no longer involved in job creation but are simply hoarders of cash. And I've argued that there are whole subcultures virtually immune to the economic downturn. What strikes me is that anyone seriously trying to come to grips with the economic crisis in America neglects to factor in the notion that maybe the requirements of our economic system are not what we assume. We need to review the economics of empire to get a greater grip on understanding the conundrum we face. Empires are notorious for only bringing home the bacon for an elite class. Remember Britain's imperial greatness came at the same time as Charles Dickens' novels.
This past weekend we saw Republican congresscritters double down on extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest. This in the face of a virtual avalanche of data showing they are the major reason for our massive deficits. The previous argument has been that these cuts would stimulate the economy and generate increased government revenues. The jury is in on not generating government revenues but in the last few days many people have written op-eds showing that after the tax cuts were enacted, job creation was roughly the same as before. However, the Republicans could pull a rabbit out of the hat if they argued that President Obama's ability to create by this December more jobs in his short-term of office than George W in eight years because of the existing tax structure. They already have written off the stimulus package as ineffective as John Boehner said he doesn't need to hear from economists about the stimulus to know it failed.
Reading David Stockman's op-ed yesterday about old-time Republican values, you begin to understand the term "conservative" as it shows up in Gallup polls. The 40% of the public that identifies as conservative related to values of fiscal prudence, etc. As a blogger noted yesterday, Republicans are not conservative, they are radical. And the present bunch are extremely radical.
The Financial Times (July 30) printed an article by Edward Luce "The Crisis of Middle Class America". Luce draws a picture of several middle-class Americans, who basically are fully employed but admit they exist two paychecks from the gutter. Before the Great Recession, there had been a personal recession ordinary Americans have been suffering for years. Dubbed "median wage stagnation", the annual incomes of the bottom 90% of American families have been essentially flat since 1973--having risen by only 10 percent in real terms over the last 37 years. This means that most Americans have been treading water for more than a generation. Over the same period the incomes of the top 1 percent have tripled. In 1973, chief executives were on the average paid 26 times the median income. Now the multiple is above 300.
Economists believe this is a structural problem and the trend is getting stronger. In the last expansion, which started in January 2002 and ended in December 2007, the median US household income dropped by $2,000--the first time where Americans were worse off at the end of a cycle than at the start. Worse than the long era of stagnating incomes is declining income mobility. It should be no surprise that a majority of Americans tell pollsters that they expect their children to be worse off than they are.
Edward Luce interviewed Michael Spence, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, whom the World Bank has commissioned to lead a four-year study into the future of global growth. Spence believes the Great Stagnation is a profound crisis of identity for America. Spence says the problem was cushioned and partially hidden by the availability of cheap debt. Now that easy money has turned into heavy debt and the cushion is gone.
To be pessimistic about the future is so new for Americans, he says. He says that,"When people lose the sense of optimism, things tend to get more volatile. The future I most fear for America is Latin American: a grossly unequal society that is prone to wild swings from populism to orthodoxy, which makes sensible government increasingly hard to imagine."
Paul Krugman is fascinating to watch--especially the last few weeks--as he has pondered the gibberish coming out of Washington on the economy. This is a Nobel prize winner confronted with the world of political stupidity and even his reactions are getting volatile. Yesterday, he wrote an op-ed "Defining Prosperity Down", where he claims the governing elite just doesn't care--that a once-unthinkable level of economic distress is in the process of becoming the new normal. He is not talking about a stagnation of wages but an acceptance of high unemployment as structural. Governing elites, rather than take responsibility for job creation, are accepting high unemployment as a permanent part of the economic landscape. As he wrotes, they will condemn large numbers of Americans to long-term joblessness. He sees Congress sitting on its hands not only refusing to spend anything to create jobs but unwilling even to mitigate the suffering of the jobless.
As Krugman notes, structural unemployment becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as long-term unemployed lose their skills and their connections with the work force, they become unemployable.
He shoots at the hyper concern about deficits and debt, noting that investors have been eagerly buying U.S. debt , driving interest rates to historic laws. He blasts those wanting to extend the tax cuts for the rich no matter what the amount of red ink they create. He then blasts the FED because it has a two-fold purpose--full employment and price stability. He says that the FED actually has a couple of tools left but they refuse to use them because they argue now that business is uncertain about future regulations. Krugman points out that this is completely at odds with all actual evidence. He foresees the FED actually tolerating deflation.
Robert Kuttner in "The Appeal of Austerity is Fading--Where is Obama?" points out that the deficit hawks, who look alike like the chicken hawks, have hogged all the microphones but that the consensus among them is breaking apart. He points to the defections of budget guru Robert Greenstein, who has had a longstanding concern about the unsustainably large deficits, and Yale economist Robert Shiller, who have taken to criticising Erskine Bowles, the chair of Obama's own commission on budget reform, that the federal budget should be balanced at about 21 percent of GDP, roughly the postwar average. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) has just released a paper written by Paul Van de Water, which points out that with an aging population and heavy defense costs, government has to spend more than the 21% Bowles and the Heritage Foundation argue.
Fareed Zakaria in today Washington Post delivers a strong op-ed "To deal with the deficit, let the tax cuts expire". He argues that the "Bush tax cuts" passed in 2001 and 2003 remain the single largest cause of America's structural deficit. According to the CBO, nearly half the cost of all legislation enacted from 2001 to 2007 can be attributed to the tax cuts. The CBO estimates that creating tax credits for jobs--like in the small business loan bill Republicans are stopping--would create four to six times as many jobs as tax cuts. Zakaria argues that all of the Bush tax cuts are unaffordable. He points out that the United States has one of the smallest governments among all the world's rich countries, yet we refuse to pay for it.
Democrats fear the old Republican refrain about them tax and spending. As one colleague of mine at IRI used to say, "we just spend." The Republicans seem commited to building the shanty town on the Hill. With the exception of Arthur Laffer, every Republican economist has defected from their current political position of maintaining these tax cuts. Catastrophic is what libertarian Alan Greenspan says and Paul Volcker defected to Obama years ago. So it comes down to ideology alone and that's what I want to explore in further posts.
Over the last week, we saw the Washington Post explore in a three-part series Secret America, the $1.2 trillion-a-year military/ terrorist/ intelligence complex which has no accountability, no oversight and no known effectiveness. Over $500 billion of this complex goes to private corporations, who were aligned with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Then we have seen a series of analyses by economists that American corporations are no longer involved in job creation but are simply hoarders of cash. And I've argued that there are whole subcultures virtually immune to the economic downturn. What strikes me is that anyone seriously trying to come to grips with the economic crisis in America neglects to factor in the notion that maybe the requirements of our economic system are not what we assume. We need to review the economics of empire to get a greater grip on understanding the conundrum we face. Empires are notorious for only bringing home the bacon for an elite class. Remember Britain's imperial greatness came at the same time as Charles Dickens' novels.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Iced Harrar at the Last Manatee Cafe
The hits keep coming. Tan Man Boehner claims his miscues with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review were really part of the strategy to win back the House. I'm sure he didn't figure on fellow Republicans accusing him of being a lazy drunk and recalling his days partying at The Tunnel in Manhattan during the Republican Convention. I think he underestimates the fact that Cantor will pull a coup de grace on him if the GOP regains the House. For some reason, Boehner actually thinks it's a great idea to pick a fight with President Obama like...say, Newt Gingrich stopping the Government during Clinton.
Miichael is the man of Steele. After calling Afghanistan "Obama's War" and saying we shouldn't be there, little Billy Kristol called for his resignation and even Liz Cheney. Having Liz Cheney call for someone's resignation is like Paris Hilton or Lindsey Lohan making a political statement. President Obama's favorite Republican, Lindsey Graham criticized Steele statement and John McCain openly asked Steele to consider whether he was up to leading. He's staying because Republicans can't afford mayhem four months out from the election.
Sharon Angle, the teajihadist candidate in Nevada, has sent Harry Byrd a "cease and desist" letter demanding he not refer to her past political positions because they are insane.
Meg Whitman has gone over the $100 million mark in the California election and Jerry Brown hasn't spent anything. But Democrats are worrying about Brown, who still leads by 3-4 points, because he is not mobilizing the party yet. They worry that Whitman will continue to up the ante and blow by Brown in the end. Boxer still leads Fiorina. That's generally good news because Boxer always polls lower than her eventual tally.
PPP has a poll out today that shows the Jack Conway-Rand Paul race as dead even. That's great news for Conway because over 40% of the voters don't have a clue as to who he is.
PPP has another poll that shows Elaine Marshall only 6 behind Burr in the Senate race. That's good news for her. Republicans are still wondering what Burr does for a living. Marshall is banging him for filibustering the jobs and unemployment bill. This seems to be working. Wisconsin's Senator Feingold appears to be in a tight race against teajihadist Tim Johnson, a mega-millionaire. He's running ads touting his support from right-wing Republican groups, claiming he is a fiscal conservative.
The Democratic Party seems to have adopted Nate Silver's regressive logarithms in projecting the political races this year. At this stage, they claim they will hold the House by only 6 seats and will only lose 4 in the Senate. Republicans aim to pick up considerably more Governor's seats. Why I don't discount this projection is that Mark Plotkin has reached a very similar conclusion about the House with the Democrats holding it by eight. Charlie Cook still says a Republican hurricane is coming.
No surprise, Gallup has a poll of teabaggers that showed 79% were Republicans and they represented the extremes of the party if anyone else is left.
26% of Americans can't name the country from whom we gained our independence. That's roughly the same percentage as those who have favorable opinions of George W. Bush and Sarah Palin.
Prophetess Janet Porter has been continuing the Religious Right's refrain that the BP oil disaster is the judgment of God on Obama's abandonment of Israel. I guess God is touchy. But no matter, Bibi and President Obama sat down today and said everything is hunky-dory between the United States and Israel. Pundits said that this was vital for the Democrats' chances in the mid-terms because Republicans have been making hay on Obama dissing Israel, our most dependable ally in the Middle East. Bibi has slightly adjusted the Gaza embargo and is prosecuting 3 soldiers for gunning down Palestinians.
Prior to this meeting, AIPAC flooded the town with visiting Israeli military experts, who had meetings with everyone relevant to the issues at hand. One of the themes was to trash Turkey, Israel's longest standing ally in the Middle East.
Dominionist churches are seeking financial damages from BP for loss of revenues. The Assemblies of God, Sarah Palin's church, claims their collection plates are hurting because of the devastation to local Gulf families.
Eric Holder is finally suing the state of Arizona to prevent its immigration law going into effect by the end of this month. The federal government is asking for an injunction to stop it. John McCain fighting for his life in the primary there, said that he thinks all illegals should be deported to where they came from. This from the champion of immigration reform. Jeb Bush, on the other hand, weighed in with an op-ed for immigration reform, pointing out what solid citizens Latinos became. Other bloggers have noted that the United States really has never wanted to do anything about our porous borders because illegal immigrants are the source of cheaper labor for our businesses and agriculture.
Fareed Zakaria gave a devastating critique of our Afghanistan policy. He singled out Leon Panetta's opinion that there are only 50-100 Al Qaeda members left in the country. General Petraeus testified there were maybe double digits with another 300+ in Pakistan. Zakaria mentioned that over $1 billion a year is leaving the country as far as we know from their own customs declarations. So, why are we fighting a major war there?
No problem. There exists a new synergy of terrorist groups ,which have formed a "fusion" that represents a greater threat to the United States than even Al Qaeda during 9-11. I just get the feeling that we are creating an endless feedback of terrorist threats the longer we stay.
Jolting Joe Biden travelled to Iraq to say everything is on track for us to leave in August, even though they are still at a stalemate over forming a new government.
Mitt Romney appeared today to write an op-ed piece in the Washington Post condemning the New Start Treaty. While it was detailed to demonstrate his alleged knowledge, it was wildly wrong on a number of points, particularly about missile defense systems and the treaty's applicability to the situations in Iran and North Korea. Mitt is only visiting the territory of his Heritage Foundation speech where he called for an increase in the Defense Budget, which only equals the defense spending of all the entire earth combined. Mitt argued we were threatened by military buildups in China, Russia and conflict in the Middle East. The reason the Chinese budget was lower was because they don't have to pay their soldiers much. Of course, it really doesn't matter that we are in a Depression and that somehow the Republicans have become deficit hawks to stop Democratic social programs.
A point about Chinese military spending. While the G-20 believe that China can carry the global economy, it's growing clearer that they deeply fear the prospects of instability. Their military and their policies on internet censorship show there is more concern there than meets the eye. Last year, the country experienced several thousand mass rallies protesting all sorts of issues. Currently, we have been learning about labor strikes in plants of overseas companies.
Finally, China Mieville's Kraken is out and is fantastic both literally and metaphorically. London is beseiged by an "epidemic of eschatologies" and the special branch of their police that have to deal with cults must find whether the end-time is really occurring. To flush all the dissident Gods out, they stage a simultaneous apocalypse for two competing sects. Each has their apocalypse on the same date. This spells trouble. They don't want to be upstaged. We are treated to Chaos Nazis, Jesus Buddhists, who are actually a quite violent syncretistic religion, and worshippers of a Giant Squid. One of the investigators is a fundamentalist Christian who has lost his faith because of evolution. The worshippers of the Great Flood play a key role in persuading the Sea to intervene for justice. As always, Mieville creates a fantastic London as he did in City and City.
Miichael is the man of Steele. After calling Afghanistan "Obama's War" and saying we shouldn't be there, little Billy Kristol called for his resignation and even Liz Cheney. Having Liz Cheney call for someone's resignation is like Paris Hilton or Lindsey Lohan making a political statement. President Obama's favorite Republican, Lindsey Graham criticized Steele statement and John McCain openly asked Steele to consider whether he was up to leading. He's staying because Republicans can't afford mayhem four months out from the election.
Sharon Angle, the teajihadist candidate in Nevada, has sent Harry Byrd a "cease and desist" letter demanding he not refer to her past political positions because they are insane.
Meg Whitman has gone over the $100 million mark in the California election and Jerry Brown hasn't spent anything. But Democrats are worrying about Brown, who still leads by 3-4 points, because he is not mobilizing the party yet. They worry that Whitman will continue to up the ante and blow by Brown in the end. Boxer still leads Fiorina. That's generally good news because Boxer always polls lower than her eventual tally.
PPP has a poll out today that shows the Jack Conway-Rand Paul race as dead even. That's great news for Conway because over 40% of the voters don't have a clue as to who he is.
PPP has another poll that shows Elaine Marshall only 6 behind Burr in the Senate race. That's good news for her. Republicans are still wondering what Burr does for a living. Marshall is banging him for filibustering the jobs and unemployment bill. This seems to be working. Wisconsin's Senator Feingold appears to be in a tight race against teajihadist Tim Johnson, a mega-millionaire. He's running ads touting his support from right-wing Republican groups, claiming he is a fiscal conservative.
The Democratic Party seems to have adopted Nate Silver's regressive logarithms in projecting the political races this year. At this stage, they claim they will hold the House by only 6 seats and will only lose 4 in the Senate. Republicans aim to pick up considerably more Governor's seats. Why I don't discount this projection is that Mark Plotkin has reached a very similar conclusion about the House with the Democrats holding it by eight. Charlie Cook still says a Republican hurricane is coming.
No surprise, Gallup has a poll of teabaggers that showed 79% were Republicans and they represented the extremes of the party if anyone else is left.
26% of Americans can't name the country from whom we gained our independence. That's roughly the same percentage as those who have favorable opinions of George W. Bush and Sarah Palin.
Prophetess Janet Porter has been continuing the Religious Right's refrain that the BP oil disaster is the judgment of God on Obama's abandonment of Israel. I guess God is touchy. But no matter, Bibi and President Obama sat down today and said everything is hunky-dory between the United States and Israel. Pundits said that this was vital for the Democrats' chances in the mid-terms because Republicans have been making hay on Obama dissing Israel, our most dependable ally in the Middle East. Bibi has slightly adjusted the Gaza embargo and is prosecuting 3 soldiers for gunning down Palestinians.
Prior to this meeting, AIPAC flooded the town with visiting Israeli military experts, who had meetings with everyone relevant to the issues at hand. One of the themes was to trash Turkey, Israel's longest standing ally in the Middle East.
Dominionist churches are seeking financial damages from BP for loss of revenues. The Assemblies of God, Sarah Palin's church, claims their collection plates are hurting because of the devastation to local Gulf families.
Eric Holder is finally suing the state of Arizona to prevent its immigration law going into effect by the end of this month. The federal government is asking for an injunction to stop it. John McCain fighting for his life in the primary there, said that he thinks all illegals should be deported to where they came from. This from the champion of immigration reform. Jeb Bush, on the other hand, weighed in with an op-ed for immigration reform, pointing out what solid citizens Latinos became. Other bloggers have noted that the United States really has never wanted to do anything about our porous borders because illegal immigrants are the source of cheaper labor for our businesses and agriculture.
Fareed Zakaria gave a devastating critique of our Afghanistan policy. He singled out Leon Panetta's opinion that there are only 50-100 Al Qaeda members left in the country. General Petraeus testified there were maybe double digits with another 300+ in Pakistan. Zakaria mentioned that over $1 billion a year is leaving the country as far as we know from their own customs declarations. So, why are we fighting a major war there?
No problem. There exists a new synergy of terrorist groups ,which have formed a "fusion" that represents a greater threat to the United States than even Al Qaeda during 9-11. I just get the feeling that we are creating an endless feedback of terrorist threats the longer we stay.
Jolting Joe Biden travelled to Iraq to say everything is on track for us to leave in August, even though they are still at a stalemate over forming a new government.
Mitt Romney appeared today to write an op-ed piece in the Washington Post condemning the New Start Treaty. While it was detailed to demonstrate his alleged knowledge, it was wildly wrong on a number of points, particularly about missile defense systems and the treaty's applicability to the situations in Iran and North Korea. Mitt is only visiting the territory of his Heritage Foundation speech where he called for an increase in the Defense Budget, which only equals the defense spending of all the entire earth combined. Mitt argued we were threatened by military buildups in China, Russia and conflict in the Middle East. The reason the Chinese budget was lower was because they don't have to pay their soldiers much. Of course, it really doesn't matter that we are in a Depression and that somehow the Republicans have become deficit hawks to stop Democratic social programs.
A point about Chinese military spending. While the G-20 believe that China can carry the global economy, it's growing clearer that they deeply fear the prospects of instability. Their military and their policies on internet censorship show there is more concern there than meets the eye. Last year, the country experienced several thousand mass rallies protesting all sorts of issues. Currently, we have been learning about labor strikes in plants of overseas companies.
Finally, China Mieville's Kraken is out and is fantastic both literally and metaphorically. London is beseiged by an "epidemic of eschatologies" and the special branch of their police that have to deal with cults must find whether the end-time is really occurring. To flush all the dissident Gods out, they stage a simultaneous apocalypse for two competing sects. Each has their apocalypse on the same date. This spells trouble. They don't want to be upstaged. We are treated to Chaos Nazis, Jesus Buddhists, who are actually a quite violent syncretistic religion, and worshippers of a Giant Squid. One of the investigators is a fundamentalist Christian who has lost his faith because of evolution. The worshippers of the Great Flood play a key role in persuading the Sea to intervene for justice. As always, Mieville creates a fantastic London as he did in City and City.
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