Perhaps the AP forgot a zero.
Writes John Rosenthal. But AP isn’t at issue here. Even when it comes to Iran, a nation they’re actually turning into a regional power, Germans seem willing appeasing anyone, anywhere, to peddle their wares. Even to the point of stammering their way around aggression and Holocaust denial.Last month, Uwe Westphal of the German public radio Hessischer Rundfunk spoke with Helene Rang, the managing director of the Near and Middle East Association of German enterprises. (German audio is available here). The Honorary Chair of Ms. Rang’s organization is none other than former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.
Stammering away, our intrepid peddler resorted to the catch-all voo-doo fetish, the only thing that actually functions in most EU states: that somehow the US is bad for sales.
Ms. Rang was adamant that Germany should not let itself be “bound” by any new sanctions vis-à-vis Iran: “such that we as Germans would, in the end, be in a position of having to wait again, perhaps respecting sanctions, while other countries quickly and efficiently have already begun deals or have prepared deals in a way that we Germans have not yet done.”Ms. Rang then beat a hasty retreat from the political front, in order to resume her economic argument, again raising the specter of Germany losing Iranian market share to other countries: notably, America. Even under the Bush administration, she pointed out, American trade with Iran increased dramatically. This appears to be an allusion to a highly publicized Associated Press report from last July, which claimed that US exports to Iran increased more than tenfold between 2001 and 2007, reaching some $146 million in 2007 (or €115 million at current exchange rates). The American goods were exported under special licenses issued for companies wanting to do business with countries under US sanctions. Note that even at the cited volume of American exports for 2007, German exports to Iran would still represent a volume some 35 times greater. Moreover, as the AP article itself makes clear, the American goods consisted of consumer items like cigarettes and bras or agricultural commodities like “bull semen.” Unlike Germany’s high-tech industrial exports, this is hardly the sort of stuff that could have military significance.
This is why a large part of Europe is not prepared to take any kind of meaningful role in strategic affairs – which is to say, the real actions and roles. Not the roles and issues that only exist because their governments demand to be a part of. They then can look like they’re on the forefront of something like “climate change” or what to do with old cell-phone chargers. Issues that are custom made for wild evasions, giant bureaucracies, and interlocking themselves artificially between the whole of humanity and something they must have to conform to some new more such as recycling or transgendered rights. Anything, so long as it doesn’t really matter. For example, the rare occasion that freedom from oppression or freedom of worship are discussed, they are quickly abandoned as too controversial or demanding too much risk to do anything about. Highly marketable ‘cultural sensitivity?’ Well. Now that’s different.
Behind the Façades in France: What expats and the mainstream media (French and American alike) fail to notice (or fail to tell you) about French attitudes, principles, values, and official positions…
Monday, February 23, 2009
Shamba-ranga-bing-bang
"Doing something" the governmental version
A new row over bankers' pay is looming after Northern Rock said that it would pay bonuses to junior and senior management despite making a loss of £1.4bn last year.Governments rail against the "greed culture" of bonuses paid to "financial fat-cats" -however- Governments "do something" for their very own state-owned banks and pay bonuses to management, et al. Markets certainly do enjoy the mixed-messages of "doing something" governmental-style.
The state-owned bank said today that around 400 junior managers may qualify for a bonus equal to 10% of their salary. These staff are in line for the payout because Northern Rock hit its target of repaying much of its government loan last year. The bonuses will be paid as loan notes, not cash, deferred until 2010.
Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?
US mortgages, curious perspectives
The curious perspectives result from the very same old hands and old thinkers being baffled by the visceral reaction of most Americans to this latest bailout programme. The nettle which is not being grasped by the fossilised among us seem to be quite clear:
- There are approximately 70 million owner-occupied households in the US. The announced bailout programme will "assist" 9 million owner-occupied households. This means that over 60 million US owner-occupied households will not be "assisted".
Ahh, but these non-assisted 60 million owner-occupied households will be assisted, our old hands and old thinkers would say, by home prices being stabilised by lowering foreclosures. Win-win all around. This argument fails utterly as there is a much bigger picture out there for the 60 million:
- Retirement and 401(k) plans have been decimated (wealth of the individual, down)
- Taxes will currently and/or eventually rise in order to pay for all the bailout goodies being churned out of DC (wealth of the individual, down)
- Housing values have already been cut or slashed, stabilising will do so at a much lower value (wealth of the individual, down)
- Jobs are shaky and/or being lost at a record pace (income - and future wealth - of the individual, down)
Each of the above are impacting most households in the US, all push the wealth/income of large numbers of individuals lower, taxes being the only "rising" indicator. It is this larger picture and context which the old hands and old thinkers are failing to grasp in terms of the reax of the US citizenry nobly embodied by the likes of CNBC's Rick Santelli.
As it relates to the 9 million households helped under the mortgage bailout, why should the other 60 million households suffering economic reversal as well be on the hook for this very small group?
This post assumes politics is playing no part in any of these bailout programme - yes, a real flaw in the thinking. All other perspectives welcome.
Do as we don't
European leaders on Sunday outlined sweeping proposals to regulate financial markets and hedge funds and clamp down on tax havens as they sought a common position to combat the global economic crisis.Statements were issued, memos exchanged an no doubt powerpoints were viewed. One interesting bit:
The participants also agreed that banks should create additional buffers of capital in prosperous times so they are better prepared when the economic environment deteriorates.This sounds oddly familiar. Hmmmm, yes it sounds remarkably like the rules underpinning the Euro which bind the very same European governments themselves to fiscal stability by creating additional buffers of capital in prosperous times so they are better prepared when the economic environment deteriorates.
It Must be a Matter of Style and Élan
How is it that Europe Inc’s drunken sailor spending bears so little mention?Europe Inc. Old World companies, from cement makers to chemical producers, went on a borrowing spree over the past decade that left them deep in the red. Corporate debt in the euro zone stands at more than $11 trillion, equaling some 95% of the region's annual output. U.S. corporate debt, by contrast, is about 50% of the economy.
Much as the dozen Euro-feeder funds that enabled Bernie Madoff to launder his ill-gotten gains into the opaque wilderness of unregulated Eurasian finance seem to bear going unmentioned, so it seems does what the leaders of those European industries, the ones so often called social-market oriented and concerned with the population in contrast to the “cavalier” yanks and their lack of government command and control over the economy. Pfft! Don’t say that! It doesn’t fit the image!
Just as with subprime mortgages in the U.S., risky corporate loans were repackaged and sold to investors. Now hundreds of billions of dollars in payments are coming due as sales slump in the global economic crisis. In better times companies might have gone to their bankers to refinance. No more. Bank lending to euro zone companies plunged 40% last fall as credit tightened.The shock waves could ripple through global markets. S&P estimates that over the next two years, 150 European companies could default on a total of $65 billion in loans. In recent years, "there was a flood of cheap debt, lower and lower terms," says Jon Moulton, head of London private equity group Alchemy Partners, "and with less and less due diligence."
Just try hiding THAT weenie, or the inane lectures about “cowboy capitalism” from those who know so little about the world that they can’t tell the difference between failure and fraud.
Almost, but not quite
Police are preparing for a "summer of rage" as victims of the economic downturn take to the streets to demonstrate against financial institutions, the Guardian has learned.Interesting concept. The article goes on to detail the possible public disorder scenarios being gamed out by the police in the UK. The article also notes other riots/demonstrations which have taken place across Europe since the economic conundrum kicked into gear last year.
If the reporting is correct the police may be right in theory but wrong in practice. The riots/demonstrations to-date in Europe have been directed at government and the governmental failure to properly* address the economic situation. If/when the "summer of rage" pops off it will be directed at government and the collective failure of leadership across the board.
Governmental officaldom has yet to figure out it is they who are to be held accountable.
*"properly" does not equate to using the populace as a never-ending cash ATM.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Did France Really Abolish Slavery in the 19th Century?
Did France really abolish slavery before the mid-nineteenth century? asks Nelly Schmidt in her new book. Le Monde reviewer Jérôme Gautheret states that Bien entendu, il n'est pas ici question de nier l'évidence de l'abolition. Il s'agit plutôt d'en nuancer les effets dans les colonies. Car si on peut abolir la peine de mort en un jour, la mise à bas du système esclavagiste, elle, est un travail de plus longue haleine.Or, tout en mettant un terme à ce régime en 1848, Paris a fait le choix de conforter la classe des planteurs. Le souvenir de la révolution de Saint-Domingue, qui mena à l'indépendance d'Haïti (1804), était encore bien présent : il s'agissait de garder la main sur les colonies en renforçant l'emprise des planteurs et en encadrant la liberté, nouvellement acquise, des esclaves. Le travail forcé, associé au recours à une main-d'oeuvre étrangère "sous contrat" succéda à l'esclavage. L'instruction publique, dans la zone, resta indigente. A la fin du XIXe siècle, le taux de scolarisation des enfants de 6 à 10 ans était de 14 % seulement...
Dans le même temps, on réaffirma le choix de la monoculture sucrière à l'heure où... le marché français n'avait plus besoin de sucre. Les Antilles, jadis prospères, s'enfoncèrent bientôt dans le sous-développement.
A cela s'ajouta, dès le jour de l'abolition, une injonction à l'oubli du passé, "politiquement organisée" à travers les appels unanimes à la réconciliation et le culte de Schoelcher. Privée d'expression publique, la mémoire de l'esclavage se perpétua de façon souterraine. Sans doute est-ce pour cela qu'elle remonte à la surface, depuis un demi-siècle, avec tant de violence.
Vision Located, Fuzzy
Things don’t seem to be going well for the ultimate anglo-saxon patter.
Germans learn foreign languages while foreigners shun GermanReason found.
“Our song title is ‘Miss Kiss Kiss Bang,’That spot on your eye, that foggy feeling, all of it has been brought on by that continental scourge of vapidity called Eurovision. Oxymoron, really.
What the promoters of the tongue really need is a catchy tag line, as opposed to that “francophonie or impalement! Take your pick!” paranoiac rhetoric that they use next door. They need something like “Learn German: it’s a strange proclivity.”
This post does not exist
After watching wholesale lots of the Bush administration's most important e-mails go mysteriously missing, Congress is trying to legislate against any further damage to history. The secrecy-obsessed White House is, of course, threatening a veto — one more effort to deny Americans their rightful access to the truth about how their leaders govern or misgovern.One rather doubts this latest twist will actually be acknowledged quite so fulsomely by that very same paper of record:
The Obama administration, siding with former President George W. Bush, is trying to kill a lawsuit that seeks to recover what could be millions of missing White House e-mails.Someone alert Minitrue.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
We’re On a Road to Nowhere
In an effort to be singularly bilateral and neither sovereign or multilateral, the European directors of the Galileo geo-location satellite array made a quick and dirty deal with the Chinese government to offset a small percentage of their cost. Low and behold, they have been double crossed.
[ ... ]
Meanwhile, also to the consternation of the Americans, the euroweenies were doing a separate deal with the Chinese, bringing them on board as "development partners" for Galileo, with the very real risk that they would exploit the technology for military purposes.The odds are out there that if they have a data protocol and an overlapping frequency problem, there will be times in the day that the “smart” Galileo system will be catatonic, even in Europe when a Chinese or Russian geo-location satellite is passing overhead in low earth orbit. In setting up their system, Chinese representatives have informally resolved with the US potential problems with co-ordination of frequencies. Recognising the status of GPS as a "legacy" system with a prior claim to its frequencies, China is prepared to respect the status quo and not interfere.
That quick buck came at a high price, papito. The ambulance using “smart” technology to get to the side of the highway barrier that your wreck is on, or looking for the police officer in distress will be operating at cost to a Chinese state corporation, and at the pleasure of their often Machiavellian leadership.
Not so with the euroweenies, however, where compatibility issues between Compass and Galileo most definitely have not been resolved. With China's schedule now edging ahead on the launch stakes, the inscrutable ones are taking the view that it has equal rights to pick its operating frequencies as do the Euros.
The result is that Compass could end up interfering with Galileo's high accuracy Public Regulated Service (PRS) signals. This is the part of the system which will be available on subscription and will also be used for military purposes - not that it's a military system, of course. But, with the Chinese system up and running, PRS will be pretty much useless for military purposes unless China allows access to the frequencies.
Not content with this, the Chinese are also seeking to build into their system some "product differentiators" - enhanced capabilities and unique signals and/or services – which will give them a competitive advantage over Galileo and GPS. With their eyes on the lucrative Asian applications market, that will leave the poor old Euros decidedly in the cold.The ultimate joke – if your sense of humour takes you that way – is highlighted by Dinerman. The Galileo system was originally intended by Jacques Chirac to prevent Europe from becoming the "technological vassal" of the Americans. With the frequency conflict, it has now produced a situation where the EU is going to be subservient to the Chinese.
- The hat tip goes to Pat “the persuader” Patterson who notes “Maybe they can use it to navigate to the beach”. Rock on, Pat.
Alert the media....
A glitch in satellite sensors caused scientists to underestimate the extent of Arctic sea ice by 500,000 square kilometers (193,000 square miles), a California- size area, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said.A free life-time subscription to NP for the first reader which spots an article citing the new information above as evidence pointing to more global warming not less.
The error, due to a problem called "sensor drift," began in early January and caused a slowly growing underestimation of sea ice extent until mid-February. That's when "puzzled readers" alerted the NSIDC about data showing ice-covered areas as stretches of open ocean, the Boulder, Colorado-based group said on its Web site.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Fealty praised
THE GOVERNMENT has implemented 99 per cent of EU directives within the required timeframe, according to a new report by the European Commission.
The commission's internal market scoreboard shows just 15 EU directives, or 0.9 per cent of all directives, had not been transposed into national law on schedule. This is slightly below the 1 per cent EU average and represents the best score achieved by Ireland since the creation of the scoreboard.
"I am extremely pleased that we have secured our best score to date," said Dick Roche, Minister for European Affairs. "Our EU membership provides guaranteed access to the single market of almost 500 million people, across the 27 member states of the EU."
Did you know you are better off now than two years ago?
Proponents of the term consider the costs of prizing material wealth vastly outweigh the benefits. They claim those who become wealthy will find the economic success leaving them unfulfilled and hungry for more wealth. The condition is considered particularly acute amongst those with inherited wealth, who are often said to experience guilt, lack of purpose and dissolute behavior, as well as obsession with holding on to the wealth.Now that economies are crashing, jobs are being axed and taxes are set to sky-rocket (all of which leaves the individual poorer) we should all be much much much more happier now, right?
Not only happier, healthier too:
Selfish capitalism causes mental illness by spawning materialism, or, as I put it, the affluenza virus - placing a high value on money, possessions, appearances (social and physical) and fame. English-speaking nations are more infected with the virus than mainland western European ones. Studies in many nations prove that people who strongly subscribe to virus values are at significantly greater risk of depression, anxiety, substance abuse and personality disorder.So, what is all the fuss about crashing economies? We are all being cured, don't you feel better now?
Follow the logic? Selfish capitalism infects populations with affluenza; it fosters mental illness; English-speaking nations are more selfish capitalist - ergo, more prone to illness.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
I'm But a Mortal, Alone in My Corner
Les deux compères de la Chanson du Dimanche présentent Seul dans mon coin, une chanson sur Barack O (merci à Tatiana)…René des cendres de Babylone
Dernier prophète de l’Occident
Jure sur la Bible de Lincoln !
Et gare à ta gueule si tu nous mens !
Laissez-moi, vous devez
Vous tromper de personne
Car enfin
Je ne suis qu’un humain
Seul dans mon coin
Je me sens bien
Je ne sais pas pourquoi
C’est comme ça
C’est comme ça
Aaaaah, Aaaaah, Aaaaaaaaah
Si vous voulez je peux danser la valse
Le charleston ou bien même le tango
Vous obtenir une belle dédicace
De mon ami qui boit du Nespresso
Miracle dans la baie de l’Hudson !
Et dans la baie de Guantanamo !
De Philadelphie à Washington
Exhibe tes divins pectoraux !
Laissez-moi, vous devez
Vous tromper de personne
Car enfin
Je ne suis qu’un humain
Seul dans mon coin
Je me sens bien
Je ne sais pas pourquoi
C’est comme ça
C’est comme ça
Aaaaah, Aaaaah, Aaaaaaaaah
Barack O. m’a dit que la Terre est en danger !
Barack O. m’a dit attention ne pas gaspilller !
Barack O. m’a dit « mets toi sur un pied » !
Barack O. m’a dit que oui on pouvait !
Segolo m’a dit qu’elle avait tout dit à Barack O.
Et Martine Au. m’a dit la même chose que l’an dernier
Elle va contre attaquer Aïe aïe aïe ça va chauffer
Et je me suis endormi, le marchand de sable est passé
Governmental Zeitgeist Continued
“billig will ich”
Expect shortly the pulsing eyeballs and shifting blood vessels on the foreheads of the European left to decry how armed bands are roaming the streets forcing people to eat McDo. Right next to imagining how “those people” are Anglo-Saxons, that’ll be the next best thing.
Dateline Deutscheland:You know how people eat when they’re under stress sometimes? Well I guess that’s what’s going on here. Financial crisis hin oder her (here or there), McDonald’s, of all non-people, is planning to create another 2000 jobs in Germany this year.
Just when you though the average German couldn’t trade down any more, they manage to.
Other conspiracies by the evil lord Bush Obama: KFC is being barbarously thrust on Britons.KFC to create 9,000 jobs in UK expansion drive
Resist! Stiff upper lip, lads!
Info-Malbouffe Now Being Served on i>télé
Nuance schmuace! What’s 8000 miles between fellow travelers? To be truthful, there has been unrest in both island groups, but for the “Metropolitains,” I’m not sure that the distinction would matter. What matters is that while the concept of raging against the machine, or in this case, the water wheel might give old lefties a rare woody at their age, one of their rioting proletarian heroes blew away a union activist with a shotgun, and they can’t dope through the subtleties. One report goes that he was mistaken for a plain-clothes cop, but what seems far more likely is that as a “syndicaliste” the activist is supporting the lack of competitive anything that throttles France, but strangles the dependencies of the Outre-Mer. What we’re talking about here are virtual monopolies on consumer needs imposed by an association of their producers or middle-men through support pricing and price-fixing. “The Syndicate” is as apt a name as can be found, and it costs the consumer dearly, even more so the less you earn.
Le Parisien reported:
A man was shot dead near Pointe-à-Pitre, on Tuesday night. The victim, aged about fifty, was a organizer for the CGTG, a branch of the CGT union. He was returning from a meeting of the LKP, a class-action lawsuit against exploitation (LKP organization) when his vehicle came under fire. This activist was traveling with a friend in the town of Henri IV, a significant area of the district Chanzy at Pointe-à-Pitre. “This was not a stray bullet," said Pointe a Pitre Attorney Jean-Michel Priest. “The vehicle was targeted by three shots.”Of course there is some stock discourse to bring out, that of calling the action of the police “racist”:
Shots were fired, according to the magistrate with "a handgun or a 12 caliber pump-action hunting rifle" with round used for hunting wild boar. One of the bullets has seriously affected the trade unionist, Jacques Bino. A murder investigation has been opened.
Firefighters immediately notified by the person who accompanied the man, took almost three hours to reach the scene, having come under fire from young people who were in the blockade. Police reinforcements sent to the scene met with stone throwing and and shots fired”, said Nathalie Segaunes, special correspondent for the Parisien - Aujourd'hui en France. Three police and three policemen were slightly injured. Rescue and police could only record the death of the victim. Several arrests were made in the wake.
Faced with this upsurge in violence, Elie Domotique, the leader of the lawsuit against exploitation "(LKP), leading the general strike that paralyzed the island and its economic activity since January 20, has launched an appeal for calm "in the evening. "Do not put your life in danger, do not put the lives of others in danger," he explained. "Do not respond to provocation," he said to the young, calling at the same time the prefect of police withdraw. In the morning on RTL, residents accused the police for conducting "racist" actions in facing the demonstrators. It was said that Guadeloupe is “treated with contempt".So what this really boils down to is an economic riot against leftist dirigisme, but don’t ask the talking heads to elaborate on that, because it will devolve into a dissertation on gun control – right after the Parisian intelligentsia look up just what a pump-action shotgun is.
The situation had degenerated from the previous night. On Monday morning the LKP militants had set many blockades and the police intervened. Then in the evening and night gangs of youths had opposed the forces of order. Shops and businesses belonging to the group béke the descendants of white Martiniquan settler Bernard Hayot (GBH), including a Renault dealership, an auto repair shop fast, a tire store and a hypermarket Carrefour, had been looted.[Ed.: mainland France].But then again a riot is a riot. Those activist sons of the pioneers, as well as what’s left of the 68ers are nonetheless hoping that the violence will infect European France as a means of taking power, just when the economy is at a stage when they are most likely to destroy it further with their theories, blackmail over it’s final destruction, and spirit of universal economic nationalization.
LKP's claims include complaints at the cost of living in the French West Indies where almost everything is imported, while the unemployment rate is the highest in the EU and GDP per capita less than twice that of the metropolis
I'm But a Mortal, Alone in My Corner
Les deux compères de la Chanson du Dimanche présentent Seul dans mon coin, une chanson sur Barack O (merci à Tatiana)…René des cendres de Babylone
Dernier prophète de l’Occident
Jure sur la Bible de Lincoln !
Et gare à ta gueule si tu nous mens !
Laissez-moi, vous devez
Vous tromper de personne
Car enfin
Je ne suis qu’un humain
Seul dans mon coin
Je me sens bien
Je ne sais pas pourquoi
C’est comme ça
C’est comme ça
Aaaaah, Aaaaah, Aaaaaaaaah
Si vous voulez je peux danser la valse
Le charleston ou bien même le tango
Vous obtenir une belle dédicace
De mon ami qui boit du Nespresso
Miracle dans la baie de l’Hudson !
Et dans la baie de Guantanamo !
De Philadelphie à Washington
Exhibe tes divins pectoraux !
Laissez-moi, vous devez
Vous tromper de personne
Car enfin
Je ne suis qu’un humain
Seul dans mon coin
Je me sens bien
Je ne sais pas pourquoi
C’est comme ça
C’est comme ça
Aaaaah, Aaaaah, Aaaaaaaaah
Barack O. m’a dit que la Terre est en danger !
Barack O. m’a dit attention ne pas gaspilller !
Barack O. m’a dit « mets toi sur un pied » !
Barack O. m’a dit que oui on pouvait !
Segolo m’a dit qu’elle avait tout dit à Barack O.
Et Martine Au. m’a dit la même chose que l’an dernier
Elle va contre attaquer Aïe aïe aïe ça va chauffer
Et je me suis endormi, le marchand de sable est passé
Scary Monsters
The global crackdown envisaged by Brown follows the Guardian's special series, the Tax Gap, which highlighted the ways a range of Britain's biggest companies have employed secretive tax arrangements to reduce their liability. HM Revenue & Customs estimates that the size of the tax gap, which has seen companies shift ownership of brands to offshore tax havens, could be anything between £3.7bn and £13bn.Big scary monster numbers which various governments can no doubt spend far better than you the individual. What happens when our old friend perspective makes an appearance? World GDP is estimated to be around 60 trillion USD in 2008. The G20 represents around 90% of world GDP, so around 54 trillion out of the aforementioned 60. Great, wonderful, how exciting. So, what does the mentioned £100bn "lost" taxes (145bn USD) actually mean in reality? .003%. That would be three-tenths of one percent of the total G20 GDP in 2008.
The other members of the G7 - plus the 13 other slightly less affluent members who make up the G20 - lose similar amounts. This means that the world's main industrialised countries could be losing in excess of £100bn in tax revenues a year.
Of course this meaningless percentage which is "lost" (to who actually?) is not the reason for the socialist crowd to ride the tax-avoidance train. There are undoubtedly personal reasons for some hard-left individuals: hatred of those more successful, seeking "research" funding for their own "think" tanks, etc. However, the centralising tenet for most of the tax-avoidance is bad (yet oddly not illegal) crowd is the greater expansion of the state and government to control more and more the individual. Harmonisation of tax rules (negating comparitive advantages) among countries and increasing taxes levied (negating the individual evermore) are the true end games of this very sordid group of social-justice-fetishists.
More control over the individual, more funding for the state, more goodies to pass out to the properly aggrieved and approved.
For those keeping score in the UK, the high figure (£13bn) quoted in the original article represents .007% of total UK GDP in 2008. That would be seven-tenths of one percent. Put another way, the £13bn represents around 7.5 out of 365 days of total UK government spending. If the "lost" taxes are actually closer to the £3.7bn number, well ....... you get the picture (2.2 out of 365 days).
Quite the fuss over such a microscopic slice of the financial pie. Especially as none of this is illegal, in fact quite the opposite. As some would undoubtedly say, Gosh....
Update: Right on cue, lest you think this whole tempest in a teapot about tax avoidance is all about do-gooderism and individuals paying their "fair" share:
The practice would have to be that strict conditions would also need to be imposed on the recipient state. In the case of Ireland the 12.5% tax rate would have to go. Beggars can’t be choosers.Considering the source one assumes the Irish rate of tax would have to go .... up.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
As Obama Is Compared to Lincoln, JFK, and FDR at the France 24 Studios During the 2009 Presidential Inauguration, Erik Svane Voices Some Skepticism
Erik Svane Voices Skepticism During Obama's TV Inauguration
envoyé par Hasteriks
As France 24's Natacha Butler and Robert Parsons cover the inauguration ceremonies in Washington, DC (from the station's Paris headquarters on January 20, 2009), Stephen Sawyer, Professor of History at the American University of Paris, joins them in comparing Barack Obama to Abraham Lincoln, John F Kennedy, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. A skeptical Erik Svane replies that he wonders if they aren't being too optimistic… Table of Contents (for quick reference):
- 00:05 Natacha Butler, France 24 host
- 00:30 Stephen Sawyer, American University of Paris
- 02:25 Robert Parsons, France 24 correspondent
- 04:44 Erik Svane, representing Republicans Abroad
- 08:10 Stephen Sawyer, AUP
Any time that a French president is faced with popular pressure, his response consists in hurling a stream of invective at the Anglo-Saxons
Any and every time that a French president is faced with popular pressurewrites Denis MacShane in Le Monde,
his response consists in hurling a stream of invective, as a form of reflex, at the Anglo-Saxons.
Russia Has Entered the PR Era
What with the Georgian war and the Ukrainian gas crisis, writes Piotr Smolar in Le Monde, Russia has, with the help of veteran West European journalists, entered the era of public relations…
Locale, Page A20
Even as it pulls back from harsh interrogations and other sharply debated aspects of George W. Bush's "war on terrorism," the Obama administration is quietly signaling continued support for other major elements of its predecessor's approach to fighting Al Qaeda.
In little-noticed confirmation testimony recently, Obama nominees endorsed continuing the C.I.A.'s program of transferring prisoners to other countries without legal rights, and indefinitely detaining terrorism suspects without trials even if they were arrested far from a war zone.
The administration has also embraced the Bush legal team's arguments that a lawsuit by former C.I.A. detainees should be shut down based on the "state secrets" doctrine. It has also left the door open to resuming military commission trials.
And earlier this month, after a British court cited pressure by the United States in declining to release information about the alleged torture of a detainee in American custody, the Obama administration issued a statement thanking the British government "for its continued commitment to protect sensitive national security information."
These and other signs suggest that the administration's changes may turn out to be less sweeping than many had hoped or feared — prompting growing worry among civil liberties groups and a sense of vindication among supporters of Bush-era policies.
"I despair" writes a leftist; "Barack Obama seems to be no wiser or smarter than George W. Bush"
I despair.Another believer in leftist fairy tales, George Fink of Southbank, Australia, laments that "President Barack Obama seems to be no wiser or smarter than George W. Bush" and, within one month of his chosen one's assuming the mantle of the White House, is already looking to… the next presidential election!
President Barack Obama seems to be no wiser or smarter than George W. Bush. What on earth is the aim of this seemingly mad exercise?More troops in Afghanistan will not lead to the capture of Osama bin Laden; they will just kill more innocent Afghan people. The U.S. has no hope of subjugating the Afghans. The British and Russians failed — and so will the Americans. Perhaps it will be left to the next president to withdraw bloodied and dispirited U.S. troops in 2013.
Another interesting letter on the same page, by Paul Isaac, concerns the plight of Iraq's Assyrian Christians…
Hat in Hand
And foot in mouth.
As for Mannheim, the outliers of the are American bases are closing here and there anyway, and they won’t much miss many of the locals’ indulgence in hating Americans, even if they‘re more likely to know them than most Germans.
Speaking on Friday after their return from Washington, the mayors said it would be not be easy to reverse a four-year decision by the US to close bases in the Rhine-Neckar region but added that there was no final word on the debate.
“The door isn’t closed yet,” said Peter Kurz, mayor of Mannheim.anti-Americanism in and of itself does not bother me at all IF it is an opinion derived from empirical facts. But so much of what I see in German media about America is factually inaccurate - from whatever motivation - that I want to probe any anti-American rationale before I consider it worthy of dialogue - or even agreeing with it. For example, a German woman I 'met' here who is married to an American in the Navy lives here in Virginia. She sent me a translation from her hometown newspaper in Mannheim that talked about American 'concentration camps for children'.
Too bad, so sad, “lord mayors”. I guess you’ll miss those American 'concentration camps for children' after all.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
A closer union to what exactly?
From the WSJ:
The financial crisis may have a silver lining for backers of European integration: It is spurring the Irish to support a European Union treaty that they vetoed only last year.Spiegel shows (in an excellent article) what exactly the Irish voters are queing up for more of:
A reason for the shift, analysts say, is that Ireland's voters can see what happened to another island nation, Iceland, which suffered a currency collapse and effective bankruptcy as a result of the financial crisis.
It wasn't until December that EU heads of state and government had promised the industry "regulatory incentives" for broadband expansion. The companies now accuse the European Commission of thwarting such efforts. René Obermann, CEO of Deutsche Telekom, said heatedly: "It cannot be that the German government is setting up a major program for telecommunications infrastructure while Brussels thwarts it at the same time."So, what exactly is it you the Irish voter are seeking? What exactly will a "Yes" vote offer in terms of "solutions"? As the artiste formerly known as Elaib would no doubt ask, "What is the point of joining a sinking ship?"
Unfortunately, though, it can. In fact, much of what is currently coming from the EU leadership is contradictory. Some things make sense and some are counterproductive, but inconsistency is everywhere. Breathlessness has become a stand-in for leadership.
Barack Obama's Greatest Heroics: Taking on, and Emasculating, the American Eagle
Two Le Monde cartoons, from the same date a couple of days after the 2009 inauguration, show Barack Obama taking on the American eagle — in a heroic fashion, needless to say.As the eagle holds one poor innocent Iraqi in its breast and another in its talons (and as — a shoe-wearing — George W. Bush leaves the White House, saying "Mission accomplished"), Plantu has Barack Obama prying open the jail bars (the stripes from the American flag) to free a prisoner with a typically-looking innocent face.
In Serguei's nihilistic daily on page two, a naked man (L'Homme Nu) with no attachments walks the world, waxing philosophically day after day on various pseudo-philosophical matters. On this date, he asks a question to the day's special guest star:- Will you manage to rein it in, Barack?
- I have brought a coach
The White House and Congress don't worry because the people have been socially engineered to accept and defend our being their diaper pails
The White House and Congress are nothing short of a pissoir, and that which flows freely from same is being thrown in our faces by thembellows Mychal Massie.
They don't worry because the people, in sufficient enough numbers, have been socially engineered to accept and defend our being their diaper pails.
However, for those who are as repulsed by said treatment as I am, I say it is time to unite and bring down the walls of entitlement and Epicureanism of this modern-day Sodom called government. It is time for us to channel our outrage in constructive ways to deconstruct a government that has long ceased to represent our best interests.
To one Very Special European, It Doesn’t Matter if NATO Matters
But then again, aren’t they all just so special? All their leaders and bright lights of the political and social class exemplary in their carriage and leadership? Worthy of admiration and all that? Isn’t that what one is supposed to say to get them to momentarily stop fidgeting in their chairs and behave like adults?
In large part to the European modern sensibility, any and all organizational mechanisms is about nothing more than every other one: a talking shop for a subsidized class of minions, and an opportunity for political types to grandstand pointlessly and at the expense of the reason the organization even exists.French president Nicolas Sarkozy has threatened to boycott the April NATO summit celebrating the 60th anniversary of the organisation, unless he is allowed to choose where he sits at the conference table.
Never mind the history of child-like drama France has put NATO through in the past, the Elysee insists on looking like it’s most involved member. It isn’t – not by any stretch of the imagination.
The president appears not to want to follow the established rules whereby seating is arranged by alphabetical order. Instead, he has insisted he should be seated next to NATO secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, according to a report in German Spiegel Online.
Under a compromise deal, Mr Sarkozy would sit on Mr de Hoop Scheffer's right whenever TV cameras are in the room, while German chancellor Angela Merkel would sit to the left of the NATO chief.
Once the doors are closed to outsiders, however, the 26 leaders would switch chairs and be seated according to alphabetical order.In addition, the French leader's gaps in English mean he cannot participate in "small talk" with his non-French speaking counterparts during high-level meetings, and cannot freely give interviews to CNN or other English speaking media, unlike his wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy or his predecessor Jacques Chirac.
It needs to be noted that Chirac’s English was laughable, and something he displayed dramatic silliness over, rather than just admit that the basic protocol of how ones uses a translator is held to.
Am I being too harsh when I say that the modern European sensibility wants everything to look and behave like the same type of talking shop as every other one that they dominate? Hardly. Even a think-tank dwelling almost entirely on NATO thinks it should be dwelling on global warming as dozens of others already do.
In case you’ve forgotten at this point, NATO is a mutual defense pact. If the Europeans didn’t in the past have a propensity to involve the rest of the world in their wars with one another, it wouldn’t have ever been necessary. On the other hand, if they could form a serious partnership of genuine mutual interest with one another half a century after the creation of the EU, they wouldn’t need it either and a simple, multilateral partnership where they actually did something for themselves would do.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Were Those Fired in “Self-defense” Too?
Malmö, Sweden – at a march in solidarity with Israelis, they bottle-rockets fired at them to cheers in an obvious homage to the Gazan who lob rocket-propelled artillery across the border to hit Israeli homes.
Of course those fair-minded European peacables called all too many things a peace protest. It’s the new code word for any kind of intolerance-based violence that leftists take quiet, passive-aggressive pleasure in.
You remember Malmö, don’t you? It’s the town where last month a synagogue was firebombed in solidarity with the peace movement, and where a public Christmas tree was set alight in solidarity with the peace movement. How much “peace” can one city take? Radical Unitarians are suspected as being behind each incident.
Rumors, conspiracy theories, group-think... Europe is again a battlefield of racism and bigotry with willing hosts from without and within.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Head for the Parental Rights website to sign the petition against the UN's Convention on the Rights of the Child (thanks to Stephen Baskerville who was recently interviewed on the Dennis Prager show).La formation médicale française est élitiste, violente et antiscientifique, ainsi que culpabilisante et humiliante pour les étudiants
Medical training in France is élitist and anti-scientific, writes Martin Winckler in Le Monde (quoting Marie Agostini's 10-part documentary, L'Ecole de médecine, among other sources), as well as violent, guilt-inducing, and humiliating for students. (Meanwhile Jean-Pierre Balligand and Martin Malvy mention the recent accidents that make Frenchmen believe that the health system is getting worse, while inducing the big institutions to put the blame on the presence of small hospitals…)
Those favoring a national health care system in America will be happy to learn that 1) professors in France teach lessons that are obsolete, that 2) they teach their students to scorn generalized medicine (in favor of specialization), that 3) rather than favoring potential "high-value healers", the system (which he says seems to date from the 19th century) rewards those who are most ready to submit to authority, and that 4) any criticism of the "hospital-university caste" is "condemned to silence — which (the absence of criticism) goes far, in turn, to explain why so many in America, élites and citizens, are enamored by Europe's "flawless" (or close to flawless) health care system, about which they have heard so few bugs. Le recrutement des étudiants en médecine ne repose pas sur les aptitudes à soigner — qui peuvent être identifiées —, mais sur des critères de sélection datant du XIXe siècle. Par sa forme, son contenu et le traitement qu'il impose aux étudiant(e)s, le concours de première année est contraire à l'éthique et à la raison. Il élimine, de fait, des soignants potentiels de grande valeur et favorise les étudiants les plus susceptibles de se soumettre à l'autorité.
Wanting to put his theories into application, Martin Winckler, the author of La Maladie de Sachs, decided to open his own, private school of teaching, in order to circumvent the "institutions' archaic and reactionary framework". But that proved harder than (or as hard as) he imagined. He will start his school this month — in Montreal…
An imperfect weekend quiz
A) Venezuela
B) European Union
If you were asked to name the governmental body kicking out duly elected representaives as a way to preserve "public order", would you answer:
A) Venezuela
B) United Kingdom
Of course there is another choice in both examples:
C) All of the above
Any true differences above -or- just a subtle matter of style?
Friday, February 13, 2009
Current Crises and Scandals: Haven't We Heard About Them Before, Abe Lincoln?
A careful reading of Abraham Lincoln's speeches seems to bring up pertinent comments on or about: the subprime crisis, the stimulus, the arguments for reforming (and ditching) the Constitution, the Democrats' double standards, the caricature made of the Republican Party and its members (such as Sarah Palin) contrasted with the heroic image bestowed upon the Democrats' standard-bearers (such as Barack Obama), and the élites of the East Coast, the Ivy League universities, and Hollywood.
Doesn't Abraham Lincoln's Speech in the Illinois Legislature on the State Bank (January 11, 1837) sound somewhat like the subprime mess and the stimulus? It is an old maxim and a very sound one, that he that dances should always pay the fiddler. Now, sir, in the present case, if any gentlemen, whose money is a burden to them, choose to lead off a dance, I am decidedly opposed to the people's money being used to pay the fiddler …Doesn't Abraham Lincoln's June 20, 1848, Speech on Internal Improvements (first para below) and his February 13, 1848, letter to a Josephus Hewett (second para) sound like he is talking to those who wish to ditch or at least reform the Constitution and the Electoral College?
These capitalists generally generally act harmoniously, and in concert, to fleece the people, and now, that they have got into a quarrel with themselves, we are called upon to appropriate the people's money to settle the quarrel.
… I make the assertion boldly, and without fear of contradiction, that no man, who does not hold an office, or does not aspire to one, has ever found any fault of the Bank. … No, Sir, it it the politician who is the first to sound the alarm, (which, by the way, is a false one.) It is he, who, by these unholy means, is endeavoring to blow up a storm that he may ride upon and direct. It is he, and he alone, that here proposes to spend thousands of the people's public treasure…
I now wish to submit a few remarks on the general proposition of amending the constitution. As a general rule, I think, we would much better let it alone. No slight occasion should tempt us to touch it. Better not take the first step, which may lead to a habit of altering it. Better, rather, habituate ourselves to think of it, as unalterable. It can scarcely be made better than it is. New provisions, would introduce new difficulties, and thus create, and increase appetite for still further change. No sir, let it stand as it is. New hands have never touched it. The men who made it, have done their work, and have passed away. Who shall improve, on what they did?Doesn't Abraham Lincoln's 1854 Fragments on Government sound like he is (re)asserting what true Americans stand for — belief in the individual and the common man?
I was once of your opinion … that presidential electors should be dispensed with; but a more thorough knowledge of the causes that first introduced them, has made me doubt. Those causes were briefly these. The convention that framed the constitution had this difficulty: the small states wished to so frame the government as that they might be equal to the large ones regardless of the inequality of the population; the large ones insisted on equality in proportion to population. They compromised it, by basing the House of Representatives on population, and the Senate on states regardless of population; and the executive on both principles, by electors in each state, equal in numbers to her senators and representatives. Now, throw away the machinery of electors, and the compromise is broken up, and the whole yielded to the principle of large states. … Have you reflected on these things?
Most governments have been based, practically, on the denial of equal rights of men … ours began, by affirming those rights. They said, some men are too ignorant, and vicious, to share in government. Possibly so, said we; and, by your system, you would always keep them ignorant, and vicious. We proposed to give all a chance; and we expected the weak to grow stronger, the ignorant, wiser; and all better, and happier, together.Moreover, with regards to Washington politicos trying to submit every part of society (and their allegedly ignorant, vicious members) to government control:
This is a world of compensations, and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves.Doesn't Abraham Lincoln's Speech on the Sub-Treasury at Springfield (December 26, 1839) sound somewhat like he is refuting what the holier-than-thou Democrats insist is the difference between themselves and the greedy, flawed, treacherous members of the demonized opposition party?
Mr. Lamborn [a prominent Democrat] insists that the difference between the Van Buren party [the Democrats], and the Whigs [to a certain extent, the forerunners of the Republicans] is, that although, the former sometimes err in practice, they are always correct in principle — whereas the latter are wrong in principle — and the better to impress this proposition, he uses a figurative expression in these words: "The Democrats are vulnerable in the heel, but they are sound in the head and the heart."Doesn't Abraham Lincoln's demonstration of the Democrats' double standards in the 1852 election between his party's Millard Fillmore and the Democrats' Franklin Pierce remind you somewhat of the clueless-Palin-vs.-dream-candidate-Obama double standards during the campaign?The first branch of the figure, that the Democrats are vulnerable in the heel, I admit is not merely figuratively, but literally true. Who that looks but for a moment at their Swartwouts, their Prices, their Harringtons, and their hundreds of others [who have also handled the nation's purses in, uh, less than an honest way], scampering away with the public money to Texas [then an independent republic], to Europe, and to every spot of the earth where a villain may hope to find refuge from justice, can at all doubt that they are most distressingly affected in their heels with a species of "running itch."
It seems that this malady of the heels, operates on these sound-headed and honest-hearted creatures, very much like the cork-leg, in the comic song, did on its owner: which, when he had once got started on it, the more he tried to stop it, the more it would run away. At the hazard of wearing this point thread bare, I will related an anecdote, which seems too strikingly in point to be omitted.
A witty Irish soldier, who was always boasting of his bravery, when no danger was near, but who invariably retreated without orders at the first charge of an engagement, being asked by his Captain why he did so, replied: "Captain, I have as brave a heart as Julius Caesar ever had; but some how or other, whenever danger approaches, my cowardly legs will run away with it." So with Mr. Lamborn's party. They take the public money into their hand for the most laudable purpose, that wise heads and honest hearts can dictate; but before they can possibly get it out again their rascally "vulnerable heels" will run away with them.
Seriously: this proposition of Mr. Lamborn is nothing more or less, than a request that his party may be tried by their professions instead of their practices. Perhaps no position that the party assumes is more liable to, or more deserving of exposure, than this very modest request.
O ho! Judge [Douglas]; it is you, is it, that thinks a man [or a woman] should furnish proof of superiority of statesmanship, before he [or she] is looked to as a candidate for the first office? Do please show us those proofs in the case of your "gallant and honest man, Frank Pierce." Do please name a single one that you consider such. What good thing, or even part of a good thing has the country ever enjoyed, which originated with him? What evil thing has been averted by him? Compare his proofs of statesmanship with those of Mr. Fillmore, up to the times respectively when their names were first connected with presidential elections.Doesn't Abraham Lincoln's "few words" defending maligned Republicans and conservative principles "to the Southern people" during his Cooper Union speech of February 27, 1860, sound like he is speaking about principled Republicans to today's Democrats, élite Easterners, university professors (and students), Hollywood bigwigs, and other self-declared liberals and progressives?
You consider yourselves a reasonable and a just people; and I consider that in the general qualities of reason and justice you are not inferior to any other people. Still, when you speak of us Republicans, you do so only to denounce us a reptiles, or, at the best, as no better than outlaws. You will grant a hearing to pirates or murderers, but nothing like it to "Black Republicans." In all your contentions with one another, each of you deems an unconditional condemnation of "Black Republicanism" as the first thing to be attended to. Indeed, such condemnation of us seems to be an indispensable prerequisite — license, so to speak — among you to be admitted or permitted to speak at all. Now, can you, or not, be prevailed upon to pause and to consider whether this is quite just to us, or even to yourselves? Bring forward your charges and specifications, and then be patient long enough to hear us deny or justify.And — mournfully — this from Abraham Lincoln January 27, 1838, Address Before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield:
At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
Gun Control à la Française
While Le Monde's Luc Bronner explains how well gun control works in the capital, Antoine Albertini uses the case of Pierre-Marie Santucci to explain how well gun control works in Corsica as well.
Europeans Clawing Their Way Back Into the Womb
Ah, Europe, where it’s always the 19th century. Barcepundit major José M. Guardia sees these inspired minds in love with global courts, governance, and brute authority reaching for their usual comfort food:SHAMEFUL: A poll commissioned by the ADL shows that 33% of Europeans blame the Jews for the financial meltdown. A mind-boggling 74% Spaniards think so; another 2/3 of Spaniards think that Jews are more loyal to Israel than to their home countries.
And to think that the smart, stupid, and even occasionally normative people of the continent are lecturing others about ethnic strife and prejudices. Never mind all that, a third of them are looking for a stetl to find themselves a Tevye or an Uncle Vanya type to behead.
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The bank heist at the European Parliament in Brussels on Thursday scooped €50,000, with police still looking for the robber on Friday.
It’s a building that you practically need to get a rectal exam to walk into, but keep that to yourselves if you know any lonely Bruxellois, what with this being the cusp of Valentine’s day and all.
"The bank services have said it was about €50,000," a parliament official told EUobserver. "The police haven't caught him. Our security services are looking at all the camera images and are in contact with the police."
Still, I’m hopeful that some artfulness is found in the fact that a brave, romantic “pistolero” can bring some joy to someone’s life.The attack occurred at around 4pm local time at a branch of the ING bank inside the parliament's Paul Henri Spaak (PHS) building in the heart of the European quarter.
Gee, that’s nice.
"The man showed a gun, or something that like looked like a gun, the staff were afraid so they gave him the cash in the drawer and he escaped," European Parliament head spokesman Jaume Duch told this website.
Nobody was hurt, he added.
The bag used in the robbery was quickly recovered, another official said.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
The kids in the hall
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid played a little high-stakes chicken with each other at the tail end of Wednesday’s shotgun stimulus talks.* with apologies to teenagers for the unfair comparison
It’s not clear who won – or who blinked.
According to a half dozen Congressional aides and members, Reid went before the cameras Wednesday to announce a stimulus deal before Pelosi had agreed on all the details of school construction financing.
“It’s ruffled feathers, big time,” said a House Democrat speaking on condition of anonymity. “The speaker went through the roof.”
Added one House Democratic aide: “He tried to roll her and she knew it.”
A few minutes after Reid announced the deal, Senate Appropriations Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) convened a public meeting of the House-Senate conference committee.
It was supposed to be a glorified photo op. But there were no House Democrats in the room – and Inouye hastily announced the meeting would be scrapped pending a Pelosi “briefing” of members on the details.
The problem, according to people familiar with the situation, was that Pelosi hadn’t completely signed off on the Senate’s approach to restoring some of the $21 billion in school construction funding. House Democrats are pushing to have school-repair funding listed as a recurring expense; Senate Republicans want such an allocation to be a one-time-only deal.
The approach adopted by the Senate still infuriates many members of her caucus, and Pelosi had yet to fully make her case to dissenters, a source told Politico.
The result: Pelosi summoned Reid to her office – her turf – to hash out unspecified modifications to the package prior to a 5:15 re-convening of the conference committee.
This is a gag, right?
Q: What are some of the tax breaks in the bill?
A: It includes Obama's signature "Making Work Pay" tax credit for 95 percent of workers, though negotiators agreed to trim the credit to $400 a year instead of $500 — or $800 for married couples, cut from Obama's original proposal of $1,000. It would begin showing up in most workers' paychecks in June as an extra $13 a week in take-home pay, falling to about $8 a week next January.
Lincoln Bicentennial Honors Lt Col Allen West
writes Atlas (that would be her starting the applause — or at least letting out her trademark whoop — at 06:25, 01:35, 05:33, and 07:03, if I ain't mistaken…) about a black man who understands the 16th president far better than the 44th one does…Lt. Col. Allen West was the keynote speaker on the occasion of The Lincoln Bicentennial Dinner … the official Bicentennial event of New York, endorsed by the US Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission (ALBC) to celebrate the 200th birthday of one of our greatest presidents
The EC's competition authorities acted against Microsoft but refuse to undertake similar anti-monopoly proceedings against Russia's Gazprom
Between President Barack Obama and Europe these days, it's all been about — with forbearance from Rodgers and Hammerstein — raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittenswrites John Vinocur.
But how does "energy security" squeeze into the clingy lyrics that padded the very willful mood of trans-Atlantic reconciliation last weekend at the Munich Security Conference?
After all, the Americans representing the new administration at the annual meeting of defense officials and experts wanted to be liked. And the Europeans, convinced that the Bush administration had mocked and belittled them for eight years, were waiting to be soothed.Although Europe got no comfy all's clear, the possible hectoring from Washington — on more troops for Afghanistan or greater European defense spending — was turned way down.
Still, and unmistakably, an ambitious new refrain is being fit into all the sweet song.
Using the tag-phrase "energy security," Vice President Joseph Biden Jr. and James Jones, a former NATO commander in Europe whom Obama named as his national security adviser, made clear that the administration would place emphasis on rolling back its allies' dependency on Russian-controlled natural gas and oil.
…At this stage, the administration could probably count on real support on the theme from Britain and Sweden. That's in addition to EU and NATO members in eastern Europe, who are completely dependent on Russia as an energy source and say their sovereignty is threatened by Moscow's determination to use its grip as a political lever.
The Czechs talk about all countries needing two separate energy sources and the means of supply to achieve genuinely secure circumstances.
But the Czech foreign minister, Karel Schwarzenberg, whose country holds the EU's revolving presidency till July, sounded a little doubtful about the perspective of change. He told me: "There are special interests in Europe, and it will take some time to get them on board."
Some Americans are skeptical too.
They refer to the attitude of the European Commission, whose competition authorities have acted against Microsoft but refuse to undertake similar anti-monopoly proceedings against Gazprom, the Russian energy concern, which supplies two-thirds of European gas.
…The Czechs talk about all countries needing two separate energy sources and the means of supply to achieve genuinely secure circumstances.
But the Czech foreign minister, Karel Schwarzenberg, whose country holds the EU's revolving presidency till July, sounded a little doubtful about the perspective of change. He told me: "There are special interests in Europe, and it will take some time to get them on board."
Some Americans are skeptical too.
They refer to the attitude of the European Commission, whose competition authorities have acted against Microsoft but refuse to undertake similar anti-monopoly proceedings against Gazprom, the Russian energy concern, which supplies two-thirds of European gas.
…So much love, plus an outstretched helping hand! And so fast.
For Europeans supposing otherwise, the next lines in this part of the Obama administration's songbook fall something short of the glow and feel of bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens.
The provisions that look like caricatures of Democratic drunken-sailor spending
Mr. Obama’s errors on the helter-skelter stimulus package were also self-induced. He should put down those Lincoln books and order “Dave” from Netflix.You ain't gonna believe who wrote this.
Mr. Obama should have taken a red pencil to the $819 billion stimulus bill and slashed all the provisions that looked like caricatures of Democratic drunken-sailor spending.
Another Empty-Headed Movie From La Baf
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Rubber crutch award
Those keeping abreast of issues will no doubt be already aware of the Guardian's fortnight series regarding the "tax gap" facing the UK. This "tax gap" is defined as businesses and corporations having the audacity to use legally defined and approved deductions, allowances and exemptions to minimise their tax bills.Those aware will also know that the Guardian's parent company has made generous use of the very same tax "avoidance" legalities to reduce their very own tax bills. Naturally the Guardian's use of these legally defined and approved deductions, allowances and exemptions to minimise their own tax bill is perfectly normal and innocent by their own reckoning. Other businesses and corporations using the very same are painted as tax schemers/avoiders/evaders/etc. The same old lefty story, do as we say - not as we do.
Which brings us to one of NP's favourite hard-left hand-wringing pressure group of do-gooders, Tax Research UK (TR-UK). Today, TR-UK gets all touchy-feely-emotive about a new campaign:
Introducing the Tax Tick:Now, TR-UK is often cited in the Guardian and one of its members (only member?), Richard Murphy, often contributes various "bigger government is good, more taxes are needed" type of screeds to Comment is Free. Since the Guardian is a proven participant (positively so) in the so-called "tax gap" by using offshore vehicles to facilitate business transactions, one can only deduce that TR-UK is calling for people not to buy the Guardian and for the British government to withdraw their very lucrative placement of governmental classifieds in the Guardian.
A speculative idea that would enable the man in the street to support companies that don’t use tax avoidance schemes, by choosing to buy products displaying a "TaxTicked" logo.
I've no idea if it will work.
But right now I'm sure there are a lot of people who really do dislike those who abuse our tax system.
It would of course help if our government stopped using them. People like our major banks and all the large firms of accountants plus all the major lawyers would fail immediately.
Wouldn't it be good if the government made compliance with this process a condition for securing state contracts?
There you have it, Guardian contributor calls for the people to stop buying the paper and the UK government to stop contracting with the paper as well. One rubber crutch award to the emotive non-thinkers at TR-UK, no doubt a serial future awardee as well.