Not only is Canada one of our oldest allies, whose soldiers have done some of the heavy fighting in Afghanistan, but aren’t they America’s biggest supplier of oil? So why piss on them? Especially since, like majority Americans, Canadians were swept up by the siren song of “Hope” and “Change”. Well….“change” is certainly what they are getting:

Canada’s six NHL teams are scrambling to find alternative travel arrangements south of the border after the U.S. Department of Transportation banned Air Canada’s charter fleet from flying between U.S. cities.

In a furious exchange with the Obama administration over the mid-August ruling, Canada has launched its own investigation and will soon close its skies to U.S. sports team charters in retaliation, warns Transport Minister John Baird.

The sticking point is an eight-year-old exemption that had allowed sports and celebrity charters to make several pit stops in American cities. Under existing open skies agreements, regular Canadian airline flights can only visit one U.S. city before returning.

NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly warns the charter ban will create a complicated “patchwork” of travel that could “wreck havoc” with the oncoming hockey schedule, including early league games in Europe, as teams scramble to book flights under the new rules.

“It’s potentially a very significant impact,” Mr. Daly said Friday. “It’s crazy and very destabilizing to our business. We’re operating on a long-standing interpretation and for it to change overnight on the eve of our season is creating a huge problem for us.”

Air Canada executive vice president Duncan Dee predicted the ruling will create “chaos” for teams shuttling across the border. “It’s extremely messy for both American and Canadian teams,” he said. It was a unilateral action imposed without consultation or Air Canada being able to defend itself. It’s obvious the U.S. Department of Transportation doesn’t watch hockey.”

Does Team Obama simply enjoy pissing off our allies? Or is he exacting revenge upon hockey moms? I wonder if this would have happened if it were Hugo’s Venezuela sharing our northern border with us.

China has asked rather politely, that the U.S. maintain its creditworthiness. No kidding? That plea was less a wish that the U.S. not skip town on its debt (devalue the dollar dramatically), than it was a declaration of a deep desire for a return to excessive U.S. borrowing. When the U.S. borrowed, it bought. When it bought, China prospered. This is rather basic, however, what is not so evident, or obvious to many pundits and experts, it seems, is the fact that China became inebriated through the glory days of consumerism. China now suffers the consequences of its acquiescence to a surety that the intoxicating euphoria enjoyed around the globe for a generation, would never end.

China understood that to become America’s principal provider of goods, it had to manufacture less expensively than anyone else. China excelled at squeezing productivity out of its labor force. It rapidly implemented a sweeping expansion of the necessary infrastructure to manufacture products faster, better (sometimes), and cheaper (always). New plants sprouted at an unprecedented rate. China’s expansion of its machine was based on an enormous assumption – the rate of growth it was enjoying through exports would continue unabated. It is now shutting down plants faster than it opened them. The capacity that was preparing for demand twenty years out, is now shutting down, and the Chinese are not about to ramp up their own consumption to energize reopening of the plants. While China has become a major manufacturer, the majority of its manufacturing is for, and on behalf of foreigners, selling established brands. China’s authoritarian “system” has made the creation and recognition of its own brands, all but impossible.

American consumers are not returning to the binge behavior of the past twenty years, although their ambivalence on trade with Asia persists. As for China, it focused on creating trade surpluses, and it adroitly squeezed its workers, but it did not prepare them, or its industries for broad based consumption. It has not created a self-sustaining, stable economic environment. China will dip into its coffers to stimulate internal employment, spending on infrastructure, or investing in what it knows best – export industries. Endeavoring to attract foreign investments, China will claim improvements in efficiencies, forensics, accountability and accounting practices of its indigenous infrastructure. The claims are beyond its ability to deliver. Until such critical elements as property rights, or a welfare breadbasket are implemented through appropriate taxation, Chinese consumers will be more prone to save, as they must individually concern themselves with how to pay for tomorrow’s meals.

Any cash China spends outside will go to acquiring natural resource producers for pennies on the dollar in the present climate, and countries, including Canada will be happy to sell out. This will do absolutely nothing for the long-term health of the North American economy.

There are currently foreign reserves of around $7.5 trillion held around the world with particular concentration of dollars held in East Asia, where since the late 1990s there was perceived need to protect against currency speculations, and a tendency, no, make that urgency, to feed (finance) the American engine driving China’s growth. We should note that the size of China’s reserve accumulations have, in the past couple of years, attracted the very speculation they sought to themselves protect from, which has further accelerated the bloating imbalance. The size of China’s dollar reserves forces a tentative, even precarious, equanimity between the U.S. and China, but it is a potent equilibrium nonetheless. It will be a long road traveled before China finds sustainable balance in savings, consumption, exports, and internally stimulated (broad based) investment. It will also be a long wait before we witness demonstrations of international responsibility emerging out of China. Until then, China will continue to flex its new-found influence to push for such things as an independent currency a few degrees removed from the dollar.

The world’s economic history has been fueled by leaps from one bubble to the next, but the current recession may have a long wait for the next bubble of consequence that will yank the world out of the doldrums. Whatever its form, it is not likely to come out of the less than transparent, state owned, and controlled economy of communist China. China has created a massive middle class in a single generation, but it has yet to empower it. China will not soon be supplanting Americans, or Europeans, in the mall line-ups yearning for China-made-American-invented-branded-and-engineered products. American consumers are unconsciously pushing back the clock on that empowerment of the Chinese middle class through their dramatic behavior modification of the past year. Like it or not, global economic stability will for the foreseeable future depend on the West, and very particularly on America.

Crossposted from The Pacific Gate Post

Dear Mr. Obama

We are the heads of a few of your largest constituents, including Dow, GE and DuPont. This letter represents our sentiments in wishing to express our gratitude for your and Ms. Pelosi’s efforts on our behalf. We thank you, our shareholders thank you, and certainly all of us look forward to contributing to your Presidential Library, once you leave office, if we did not sufficiently contribute already prior to the election.

We can appreciate that neither yourself nor your dear friends in Congress have had time to read the new Bill that opens: “A BILL – To create clean energy jobs, achieve energy independence, reduce global warming pollution and transition to a clean energy economy.” This Bill is very, very, very long and boring. It is also very complex. We conceived it and structured it in such way that the fewer the readers, the less editing would take place. We therefore anticipate that its passage will be swift. The sooner that train leaves the station, the more impossible its progress will be to reverse. It would also not be advantageous if the irrationality, and fear surrounding humanity’s hand in the process of global warming were to subside. Now, is an opportune time to strike.

Attaching the name “Cap and Trade” to this whole business has been a stroke of genius. No one really understands what it all means, and the media believes everything you tell them, so keep plugging it, and keep promoting the “reduction in CO2” stuff. That works really well in LA. Have you seen the air out there? Terrible. Terrible, or “turbull” as Charles Barkley would say. We are all thrilled that you have successfully reconstructed the original intent of CO2 reduction, into an energy consumption reduction program. We knew you could do it.

The impact on consumption reduction will, in our view, be minimal, and fortunately, that is not our objective. We wish you much luck in managing this monster, and in building an administration capable of verifying such things as the veracity of corporately claimed offsets. This Bill is so complex that it will provide endless possibilities for abuse and excesses, and we can smell the fraud stinking up the air already. As you know, a transparent system such as a simple graduated carbon tax, paralleled with targeted caps on emissions, would not have been as financially beneficial for us. Not even close.

We are well aware that most of our smaller brethren in the business will get put out to pasture as a result of their inability to move off-shore quickly enough, or by the fact that they will not be able to afford the carbon pollution permits. We, on the other hand, already have unregulated facilities around the world to which we can reallocate resources at a moment’s notice. Our competitors will also not have our advantage of receiving significant Cap and Trade credits based on our being able to provide all necessary products supporting this bill, from solar panels to wind mills in the sky. Our smaller competitors will also be unable to sustain the sheer costs of managing the government’s bureaucratic intrusion into their affairs, as it deploys armies of newly hired climate science experts to distribute and oversee capping and trading of carbon dioxide emissions.

We anticipate much higher costs in the manufacture of many alternate energy sources, such as solar energy absorption cells, and this will impact the expansion of solar cell farms, but well, we have no choice.

The Bill will be very effective in rendering the cost of any carbon-based energy unaffordable through overwhelming taxation. That should help you refill the government coffers somewhat, although the hole you are digging for American taxpayers is becoming rather considerable. Households across the country will bear the brunt of the costs, through higher product prices and a heavier tax burden, but most people seem very accepting of a “price” for reducing climate change. Even if most don’t believe that they impact climate, they still feel that the air needs cleaning. We are unsure, however, how taxpayers will feel about being mandated into financing the adoption of efficient technologies overseas. They will probably not be thrilled with paying to prevent the clear-cutting of the Amazon, for example, at a time when many households are barely paying their food bills. We, on the other hand, will not be affected, whatever reactions surface on that front, although a couple of us feel bad for our buddies running operations like aluminum, or steel mills. They are in for some tough times.

We note that some of our other friends on Wall Street are very preoccupied, as we write this letter, coming up with new and extremely creative financial tools which they expect to launch upon the Bill’s passing. Those boys have amazing ways of getting in on any game with the potential of throwing off billions in cash. They look forward to a whole new set of opportunities opening up for them, replacing the ones eclipsed by the recent devastating financial compression. Listening to some of them, one might conclude that they have been holding séances with Jeffrey Skilling of Enron fame.

We are anxious to be in receipt of our free Trade Allowances, but most of all, we are excited with the anticipation of enjoying astronomical growth for many years. In passing, we should thank you for having allowed, and fuelled with cash, firms like Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley to become even bigger, and more powerful than they were before the financial down-turn. This action set a tremendous precedent we look forward to duplicating in our industries. If you thought “too big to fail” applied to these giants before the crash, wait until you see how big a few of us get in the next five years.

We have one last request if we can be so bold. Could you repeat as often as possible to the Nation that this Bill will not cost over $3,000 per household each year, and that much like the national objective of being carbon neutral, so too the cost will be, … “neutral.” Explain to America that it is just a methodology for keeping track of excessive energy consumers, and polluters. Perfect, don’t you think? They’ll all buy it. The media will promote that theme for you.

We will continue to postulate assertively on the need for battling global warming, and look forward to your persistent oratory on getting this momentous Bill passed into law.

Sincerely.
Your Friendly Benefactors

Crossposted from The Pacific Gate Post

62 million Americans now have absolutely no voice in the way our country is being governed. No say in the quadrupling of our debt or in the onerous taxes being piled on top of record unemployment. They have no say in the pending trillion dollar health care ‘reform’ or the more costly ‘cap and trade’ legislation steadily making its way through Congress.

With Democrats firmly in control of the White House and the House of Representatives, and most likely the Senate, the left has found no need for bipartisanship. After all, ‘Obama won.’ Case closed.

Should any pesky Republican complain, the voice goes unheard – kinda like a tree falling in a forest. Did it really fall if no one heard it? The right is reduced to pondering questions like these as the left continues implementing radical change at breakneck speed. Changes that affect every segment of our society and every single American. Changes that are being implemented without the requisite ‘national conversation’. Why hold a conversation?

The left is in control and there is no need to consult with the people they were elected to govern. The politicians and the experts know best. And should the GOP try to halt this tsunami of ‘change’, a quick change of the filibuster rule to 51 instead of 60 is put in place. That’ll teach em.

Under the guise of fighting the non-crisis of global warming, the EPA has declared the very air we breathe to be dangerous. Not to worry. Uncle Sam will save us. Here comes cap and trade. It will only cost $3,100 extra in energy costs per family.

Under the guise of universal health care, our government is preparing to take over app. 17% of our economy by nationalizing health care. Not to worry, they are consulting with the policymakers in Canada responsible for the sterling healthcare in that country. The very same government health care that forces Canadians to come to the US to get their medical needs taken care of. 

Under the guise of saving the economy, the feds have taken over banks, insurance companies and car companies, prompting even thug dictator Chavez to joke, “Hey, Obama has just nationalized nothing more and nothing less than General Motors. Comrade Obama! Fidel, careful or we are going to end up to his right.”  

Under the guise of saving us from those nasty capitalists, Obama has appointed a new Pay Czar to make sure no-one is paid more than the politicians deem they are worth. At least those who are unfortunate to work for companies that have received bailout funds. And in one case, the formerly sovereign state of South Carolina has actually been forced to take bailout funds, and accept all the strings that come with it.

Consent of the governed is being ignored as the Obama administration hijacks ever more power to the federal government, in direct contravention of the 10th amendment and the Constitution. And 62 million Americans can do nothing except marvel at the audacity.

The left is rejoicing at finally being able to implement utopia here on earth. A utopian vision that has consistently failed whenever it has been foisted upon a populace, either through charisma or brute force. But never mind. Obama’s utopia will work, experts assure us.

The experts who now hold us hostage are first and foremost, political beings, having been appointed ‘czars’ on the basis of political connections as opposed to merit. They are thoroughly steeped in theory and liberal orthodoxy and severely lacking in real world experience.

These unelected czars (15 at last count) now have control of our tax dollars and the regulatory bureaucracy that enables them to enforce their whims. Whims which are based more on political expediency than the rule of law. They will never be held accountable when their theories are tested and fail. And fail they must, as history has taught the 62 million people who didn’t vote for Obama.

As we speak, the left, with the willing compliance of an adoring media, are kowtowing to our enemies while demonizing and penalizing capitalists, the very wealth creators whose money now allows the government to implement an agenda anti ethical to the American way of life.

The Obama administration, under the guise of tolerance, inclusion, multiculturalism, empathy and concern for the disenfranchised, are destroying jobs though regulation and taxation. A total of 2.19 million jobs have been lost since Obama became President. (The news that Wal-Mart will be adding 22,000 jobs this year is ignored, as they did it without unions or government help.)

The Democrats are enacting legislation that makes it impossible for America to become energy independent, while at the same time, partnering with Arab countries to help them develop nuclear energy.

Our ‘leaders’ are burdening America with an unsustainable level of debt while at the same time, continuing to send our tax dollars ($106 Billion) to the IMF to bail out the world. And sending $200 million more to Pakistan to help out with their refugees.

The Left, with Obama as its messiah, believing that all cultures and countries should be equal, are systematically reducing America to third world status. A level playing field at last. Whew.

Meanwhile, the 62 million people who didn’t vote for Obama wait in vain for their own elected representatives to stand up and say STOP. Alas, aside from a handful of Republicans like Sarah Palin, Mark Sanford, Jim DeMint, Rick Perry and Dick Cheney, the silence from the Republicans is deafening.

62 million Americans are watching America squander its greatness on the altar of catchy, unproven, politically correct notions. And this American is wondering if the destructive policies that are being foisted upon us without our consent and without debate, are being enacted through stupidity or design.

In response to the Federal Reserve’s report of an increasingly gloomy economic forecast, with an expectation for higher unemployment and a steeper drop in economic activity, our public servants in Congress introduced the Paid Vacation Act, requiring companies with more than 100 employees to offer a week of paid vacation for both full-time and part-time employees after they’ve put in a year on the job.

In a boon to deadbeats, President Obama on Friday signed new credit card legislation and warned the American people to be fiscally responsible, saying “Some get in over their heads by not using their heads,” he said. “I want to be clear: We do not excuse or condone folks who’ve acted irresponsibly.”

This stern warning came a full four days after it was reported that the US had set yet another record, entering into deficit spending in April, for the first time in 26 years. Oh, and the deficit will quadruple next year, and it now appears that America’s triple-A credit rating is at risk.

Exhibiting a firm grasp of the obvious, President Obama on Saturday boldly told Americans what 50% of Americans already know: “We’re running out of money”.

This lack of money didn’t keep Obama from proposing last week that the US contribute $100 billion, of the money we don’t have, to help the IMF with global bailouts. And on Friday evening of a holiday weekend, it was leaked that the government had ‘loaned’ an additional $4 billion of our tax dollars (making a grand total of $19.4 billion) to the soon to be bankrupt General Motors.

Also ignoring this lack of money, our  public servants were hard at work  trying to figure out how to bail out minority owned media. They’re also crafting a hugely expensive overhaul of health care system. The Senate proposed raising the federal excise tax on beer by 145% to pay for it.  Uncle Sam also would snatch an additional $7 on a case of wine — a staggering increase of 233%. And that’s just the start.  

In case ‘we the people’ object, Obama’s latest budget proposal includes plans to double the budget of the IRS, to make sure all Americans invest their fair share. 

As America moves ever closer to economic suicide, the House last week advanced ‘cap and trade’ legislation, imposing the first nationwide limits on the pollution blamed for the, as yet unproven, theory of global warming.

Thankfully for Democrats, only 24% of Americans understand what cap and trade is. Probably even fewer understand that this legislation, called the largest tax increase in history, will cost the average family app. $3,100 more per year in energy costs, according to the Heritage Foundation. 

Cap and Trade is being rushed through Congress, despite a new report showing that levels of numerous gases linked with air pollution, like carbon monoxide, have fallen off since 2001 and air quality in the U.S. has improved significantly over the last decade. Translation: The greenhouse gases Congress is in such a rush to regulate are at their lowest level in 19 years.

In a rare bit of under reported good news that could help ease our dependence on foreign oil, Louisiana struck gold with a massive natural-gas discovery – estimated at some 200 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. That’s the equivalent of 33 billion barrels of oil, or 18 years’ worth of current U.S. oil production.

House Democrats yawned, and continued crafting a bill described as a “sweeping” reform of federal drilling rules, effectively reducing incentives for oil companies to take advantage of our own ample energy resources. The House also voted down amendments designed to encourage nuclear power.

As Democrats in the House continued to focus on reducing America’s supply of any energy that isn’t ‘green’, President Obama approved plans for the U.S. to help the United Arab Emirates become the first Arab nation with a nuclear power industry. I kid you not.

Speaking of our number one public servant, last week President Obama reassured an anxious nation that upholding our values will shield us from terror. Whew. Unfortunately, a couple days after this statement, an IED exploded outside a Starbucks in downtown Manhattan. This, just after the FBI apprehended a group of four Muslim bad boys who were allegedly planning on blowing up other portions of New York.

These ex-convicts apparently adopted their fanatical Islamic leanings while incarcerated in U.S. jails. The very jails President Obama seems determined to call home to the really hardened bad boy terrorists currently residing in Camp Gitmo. But hey, Obama is fulfilling his pledge of transparency. Once these Gitmo guys set foot on US soil, they get lots of rights, and should they go to trial, terrorists the world over will reap the transparent benefits of any discovery.

Our Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, was also hard at work on America’s behalf last week, proudly announcing the intention to give gay American diplomats the same benefits their heterosexual counterparts enjoy. Meanwhile, Iran has just moved 6 warships into international waters and North Korea has put the world on alert by performing another nuclear test.

In other assorted work product last week, our Democrat elected officials shot down a GOP inquiry into Speaker Pelosi’s very public ‘mis-statement’ about the CIA. With fellow Dems covering her backside, Speaker Pelosi, on Sunday high tailed it to Shanghai, on the taxpayer’s dime. Far away from all those pesky reporters who just aren’t supposed to ask her questions she can’t answer.

Oh, and House Democrats on Tuesday stopped a Republican plan to force a campaign finance inquiry that likely would have investigated several influential Democrats. It was the eighth time since late February that the Republican move was halted.

This is what our public servants accomplished on our behalf last week. The only remaining question is: What are ‘we the people’ going to do about it?

Crossposted from Right Bias

There’s been no shortage of news that other world governments have no intention of following the Obama/Pelosi/Reid heist of taxpayer dollars. On March 11th, NPR reported on the impending clash of economic policies in the upcoming G20 meeting.

The Obama administration has set out on what could be an economic policy collision course with some of its closest allies. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is heading to a weekend meeting of Group of 20 finance ministers and central bank governors with this message: The United States thinks other governments should be spending more on economic stimulus programs.

The message may not go down well with European leaders, however, many of whom have different ideas about what needs to be done to get the world economy back on track.

The Treasury Department announced Wednesday that Geithner will urge the G-20 governments to implement stimulus-spending programs worth at least 2 percent of their gross domestic products this year and next.

At that time, the only country with significant capital – China – was willing to spend that much. And much of that may have to do with how intrinsically woven their economic success is with the US economy.

But the Europeans are finding such language “not to our liking”.

Many Europeans say a U.S. failure to oversee and regulate its financial system more carefully was the factor that led to the global economic crisis, and they now bristle at being told what policies their governments should follow.

“Basically policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic are proceeding on their own domestic agendas,” says Daniel Gros, director of the Center for European Policy Studies in Brussels. “Neither takes much notice of what the other is doing, and the agendas are different.”

Two days later, IBD also reports on the firm “no” to spending. And one of the reasons may just be they’ve already traveled the Euro-socialist road, and are more than well aware of it’s economic drawbacks.

On Friday, the EU resisted pressure — from the pork-happy U.S. — to pump more cash into its recession-hit economies. It had already shoveled out a $270 billion stimulus package of its own, and came up with a $67 billion bailout fund for Eastern Europe. With all that done, the EU wanted to end it.

“You can’t think you can solve everything with taxpayers’ money. Stimulus packages are already in place and taking us through this challenging time,” said Fredrik Reinfeldt, the prime minister of, brace yourself, Sweden.

“There is no alternative to globalization as a motor for growth and employment, thus fostering prosperity worldwide,” wrote German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende in Der Spiegel on March 19, arguing against spending for its own sake.

~~~

After more than 100 years of socialism, starting with German Iron Chancellor Otto von Bismarck’s 1883 move to install the basis for Europe’s social welfare state, which was rapidly imitated by other states and led to a heavy hand of government through the Continental economies, most of Europe has a pretty good idea what socialism is, where it leads and what its limits are.

While not keen on killing such a central part of their culture, they’re also not blind to its ill effects. These include high unemployment, lack of job mobility, failure to foster business startups, talent flight, hyperinflation and generally slow economic growth.

All of that comes from the kind of government spending that exceeds the productive capacity of a private sector to finance it. It’s the very stuff Democrats, still steeped in 1940s nostalgia, are gunning for as they spend beyond what they can imagine.

On the same day, Time magazine also spread the message of “enough!” from the EU countries. Most notably a Brussels think tank economist who, in essence, said Obama’s charm is not reason enough to follow the US off an economic cliff. And they are also quick to point out that sweeping global regulations/reform are hard to find consensus on, and to enforce.

President Barack Obama this week urged the world’s top economies to adopt aggressive, America-sized spending programs. “It’s very important to make sure that other countries are moving in the same direction, because the global economy is all tied together,” he said.

But on the other side of the Atlantic, European Union governments have spurned entreaties to let funds flow into their staggering economies. “Europe has done what it needed to do,” says Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who is also chairman of the 16-member euro zone, adding that the U.S.’s appeals “were not to our liking.”

The issue is expected to dominate next month’s London summit of leaders from the G-20 group of top economies. “I do not have high expectations for London,” says Nicolas Véron, a scholar at the Brussels-based economic think tank Bruegel. “Not everyone will follow the U.S. just because of Obama. Global solidarity solutions are fiendishly difficult both to decide and to enforce. There is a growing realization that regional or national responses are preferable wherever possible.”

None of this has stopped Obama and Geithner’s concerted attempts to increase the major players in the desired lemming herd…. to no avail.

By two days ago, the EU foreign policy blog was reporting of the “almost audible tone of defensiveness”, chafing at US criticism.

Europe has been feeling pressure, most especially from the US administration, to contribute in a bigger way to global efforts at recovery through economic stimulus. So far, according to the International Labour Organisation, who have been tracking stimulus expenditure, 30 countries have announced stimulus plans which amount to 3.16% of global GDP (detailed word doc with figures here). The major plans include China’s €586 billion and the $700 billion Obama Stimulus plan (and 2 previous Bush plans which together add to almost a trillion dollars). As an aside, the whole debate on whether stimulus will actually work is considered by the Presdent of my alma mater, DCU here.

In contrast, the headline Stilulus Plan that was agreed at the European Council last Thursday was only €5 billion, leading to the below cartoon [by Martin Turner] in the Irish Times which reflects a perception that the EU is not pulling its weight in reviving the Global economy.

The US is pressurising Europe to increase spending nonetheless and as I blogged before Obama sent this message with the Irish Prime-Minister from St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in the White House last Tuesday. Also last Tuesday Paul Krugman, an American economist and Nobel laurate was in Brussels expressing his concerns about the low levels of expenditure of the European (and the US) stimulus plans. Guenter Verheugen, the Enterprise and Industry Commissioner in the EU responded to Krugman’s statement, saying that “We think it is a little bit too early to judge whether the stimulus packages which we have produced are working or not.”

“too early to judge”… let’s not muddy the waters with logic, right? Europe is taking the spend a little, and wait and see road – the opposite tangent of the Obama approach to throwing out tons of taxpayer cash as quickly as possible, and see what happens later.

The EU blogger says the union appears to be satisified with the member-states response to the economic woes.

Europe also appears to have a different view of how Europe can contribute to recovery. The European stimulus funds are targeted to generate “new investments, boost demand, create jobs and help the EU move to a low-carbon economy”. The “global” aspect of this is the pledge to give €75 billion more to supplement the IMF’s funds contingent on reciprocation from the US/China.

During the summit, leaders expressed satisfaction with how Member-States had used spending plans to ameliorate the worst parts of the Global recession. Chancellor Merkel said in the German Parliament last Thursday that her nation “was doing more than most to support the world economy through higher spending and lower taxes”. She ended the summit by saying that “A competition to outdo each other with promises will not calm the situation” – Europe certainly looks like it will not be attempting to raise the stakes anytime soon.

This leaves Obama as the loan… er…. *lone* master of spending by a government with an economy of consequential size. And that must be a very lonely limb indeed.

This *also* leaves the TOTUS extremely vunerable to impending criticism…. (like they haven’t been doing that all along???) So what’s the community-organizer-in-chief strategy now? Same ol’ Alinsky tactics… reaching out to the global masses to unite against the enemy… non-cooperative leaders.

Thus Obama’s penned himself an op-ed for foreign release. Apparently he thinks he can “stimulate” the masses into prodding their governments into a change of heart.

You can read the text of his op-ed at the above link, but I’ll just provide some excerpts here. For the most part, it’s filled with the usual “must act” doom and gloom with which we American’s are already too familiar.

But I can’t help but notice Obama, in his arrogance, is setting up the governments who do not increase their spending as the reason the US economy may fail to respond…. stating that altho the nations have done some spending, the G20 stimulus efforts must remain “robust and sustained until demand is restored”.

Our leadership is grounded in a simple premise: We will act boldly to lift the American economy out of crisis and reform our regulatory structure, and these actions will be strengthened by complementary action abroad. Through our example, the United States can promote a global recovery and build confidence around the world; and if the London Summit helps galvanize collective action, we can forge a secure recovery, and future crises can be averted.

Our efforts must begin with swift action to stimulate growth. Already, the United States has passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act — the most dramatic effort to jump-start job creation and lay a foundation for growth in a generation.

Other members of the G-20 have pursued fiscal stimulus as well, and these efforts should be robust and sustained until demand is restored. As we go forward, we should embrace a collective commitment to encourage open trade and investment, while resisting the protectionism that would deepen this crisis.

Second, we must restore the credit that businesses and consumers depend upon. At home, we are working aggressively to stabilize our financial system. This includes an honest assessment of the balance sheets of our major banks, and will lead directly to lending that can help Americans purchase goods, stay in their homes and grow their businesses.

This must continue to be amplified by the actions of our G-20 partners. Together, we can embrace a common framework that insists upon transparency, accountability and a focus on restoring the flow of credit that is the lifeblood of a growing global economy. And the G-20, together with multilateral institutions, can provide trade finance to help lift up exports and create jobs.

Third, we have an economic, security and moral obligation to extend a hand to countries and people who face the greatest risk. If we turn our backs on them, the suffering caused by this crisis will be enlarged, and our own recovery will be delayed because markets for our goods will shrink further and more American jobs will be lost.

More setting the stage for the future blame game in the event of failure?

Only coordinated international action can prevent the irresponsible risk-taking that caused this crisis. That is why I am committed to seizing this opportunity to advance comprehensive reforms of our regulatory and supervisory framework.

~~~

This G-20 meeting provides a forum for a new kind of global economic cooperation. Now is the time to work together to restore the sustained growth that can only come from open and stable markets that harness innovation, support entrepreneurship and advance opportunity.

The nations of the world have a stake in one another. The United States is ready to join a global effort on behalf of new jobs and sustainable growth. Together, we can learn the lessons of this crisis, and forge a prosperity that is enduring and secure for the 21st century.

These Chicago’esque Alinsky scare tactics may work well in Obama’s America on the vacant eyed O’faithful. But I doubt they will do much overseas.

Obama and Geithner have plead with, and cajoled the world leaders to no avail. Now, in a more desperate attempt, they turn the Obama charm offense on to international citizens… all with the not-so-veiled threat that non-cooperation for their governments can be the reason for failure.

Always looking for a scapegoat, this one. How’s that for “political courage”?

Obama’s op-ed appears in the following foreign media:

Other misc media: in South Africa (Sunday Times), Australia (Syndey Morning Herald and The Australian) and the United States (Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and the Baltimore Sun).

Terrific round up of data on the Obama plan to flush the US economy completely down the toilet. With an illustrious group of 537 (so far) bipartisan economists throwing their support to McCain and his tax plan, the word is eeking out to some of the MSM that all is not well in Obama-topia.

Economists for McCain is not affiliated, nor donors to the McCain campaign… despite what their name implies. What their name *does* imply is that after evaluation of both plans, 375 of them have put their names to condemning the Obama tax proposals.

Their official statement on Obama’s tax plan warn of a high risk of throwing the economy into a deep recession.

It was exactly such misguided tax hikes and protectionism, enacted when the U.S. economy was weak in the early 1930s, that greatly increased the severity of the Great Depression.

Also of great concern is Obama’s increasingly protectionist stance on foreign trade agreements such as NAFTA, GATT and the pending CAFTA.

Exports from the United States to other countries create jobs for Americans. Imports make goods available to Americans at lower prices and are a particular benefit to families and individuals with low incomes. International trade is also a powerful source of strength in a weak economy. In the second quarter of this year, for example, increased international trade did far more to stimulate the U.S. economy than the federal government’s “stimulus” package.

They chastise Obama and the DNCs entertainment of yet another stimulus package which would, of course, do nothing to grow the economy. From the increased taxes on oil to the dividends, labor income, investments, income and payroll, there was little these economists could praise.

We are equally concerned with his proposals to increase tax rates on labor income and investment. His dividend and capital gains tax increases would reduce investment and cut into the savings of millions of Americans. His proposals to increase income and payroll tax rates would discourage the formation and expansion of small businesses and reduce employment and take-home pay, as would his mandates on firms to provide expensive health insurance.

After hearing such economic criticism of his proposals, Barack Obama has apparently suggested to some people that he might postpone his tax increases, perhaps to 2010. But it is a mistake to think that postponing such tax increases would prevent their harmful effect on the economy today. The prospect of such tax rate increases in 2010 is already a drag on the economy. Businesses considering whether to hire workers today and expand their operations have time horizons longer than a year or two, so the prospect of higher taxes starting in 2009 or 2010 reduces hiring and investment in 2008.

In sum, Barack Obama’s economic proposals are wrong for the American economy. They defy both economic reason and economic experience.

You know the world might *finally* be waking up to adding two and two when CBS starts questioning Obama’s “fuzzy math”.

Obama has already proposed a new stimulus package of $188 billion over two years. His tax cuts will cost $85 billion a year. His “army of new teachers”: $18 billion; Renewable energy: $15 billion. CBS News and various independent experts estimate Obama’s total first year spending could exceed $280 billion.

~~~

“I’ve offered spending cuts above and beyond their cost,” he has said.

The fact is the savings Obama has identified do not cover his spending. According to a CBS News estimate, he’s around $90 billion short. The Obama campaign disputes this, saying everything including the stimulus is paid for over 10 years. But other analysts say – even presuming Obama saves money in Iraq and chops the federal budget as promised – he falls short.

Remember my previous post on the Obama tax plan? Like where is he going to find that $4.3 trillion he’s proposing thru 2019? Even CBSs Wyatt Andrews is having a hard time finding some economists not on the Obama gravy train to justify the numbers.

Fact: The tax cuts he promises, which are mostly refundable tax credits (code for cash back), will cost $60 billion just in year one, according the National Taxpayers Union, though the Obama campaign’s own estimates in July put that figure at $130 billion.

Fact: His new promise to give businesses a $3,000 tax credit for each new job created will cost $40 billion. But economists say this credit is far more likely to benefit companies already planning to expand and will likely not be enough to help companies create new jobs or forestall layoffs.

Fact: Obama’s claim he will lower health care premiums by $2,500 is: 1.) guesswork, which is 2.) based on health care savings that might, in a perfect world, happen over 10 years – a fact Obama neatly glosses over.

Then, of course, comes the math challenged Obama faithful who believe if we just leave Iraq, all the cash will flow into the coffers for a democratic socialist Euro-America.

Fact: Obama, when referring to savings he can make by leaving Iraq ($90 billion, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates), has spent these savings several times over, across several different promises depending on the crowd he’s addressing.

~~~

If he closes every loophole as promised, saves every dime from Iraq, raises taxes on the rich and trims the federal budget as he’s promised to do “line by line,” he still doesn’t pay for his list. If he’s elected, the first fact hitting his desk will be the figure projecting how much less of a budget he has to work with – thanks to the recession. He gave us a very compelling vision with his ad buy tonight. What he did not give us was any hint of the cold reality he’s facing or a sense of how he might prioritize his promises if voters trust him with the White House.

Whether Obama is so inept as to not function well with so many zeros, or he’s merely misrepresenting… no, make that lying thru his teeth… about his tax plan, there is a slow tide of realization that something ain’t right in Obama and Michelle’s financial “camelot”.

So it comes as no surprise that Obama is drawing up plans to lower expectations for his presumed presidency.

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obamas senior advisers have drawn up plans to lower expectations for his presidency if he wins next weeks election, amid concerns that many of his supporters are harbouring unrealistic hopes of what he can achieve.

The sudden financial crisis and the prospect of a deep and painful recession have increased the urgency inside the Obama team to bring people down to earth, after a campaign in which his soaring rhetoric and promises of hope and change are now confronted with the reality of a stricken economy.

The Times quoted a senior adviser as saying that the first few weeks of the transition, immediately after the election, were critical, so theres not a vast mood swing from exhilaration and euphoria to despair.

We have a word for this in the financial world…. it’s called “buyer remorse”. Frankly, it’s better to kill the deal altogether than suffer from that malady. Especially in the case of a POTUS, determined to steer the US into a socialist economy not dissimilar from the failures in Europe.

In any event, true or not, it seems abundantly clear that diplomacy has failed with Iran. Senator Obama says he’d talk to Iran, that more sanctions would work (as if even possible given Russian and China’s near lovefest w Iran). Well, if the good Senator really believed that, then he’d have already opened backdoor talks himself, or quietly met w an Iranian ambassador at a friendly, neutral embassy.

Iran is making nuclear bombs
Diplomacy has failed
If this report is true, then there are nukes near the Straits of Hormuz-ready to be used against 25% of the world’s oil shipping, against hundreds of thousands of Americans in the area, or to be put on a ship and sent to a target city.

Sober up people. America’s at war. Do we need a warrior or a lawyer? Do we need a man who can’t fit his the long list of resume accomplishments into a single book, or a man who has zero national accomplishments on his resume, and barely 100 y/n votes in his entire lifetime? You decide which wil deter Iran. Meanwhile, the bombs are near the ships, and they’re already in the shadows.

Israel Insider exclusively reports that a seismic event this weekend in southern Iran may in fact have been a massive underground nuclear bomb test. According to the USGS, the tremor measuring 5.0 on the Richter scale took place Saturday night, October 25 just before midnight Iran time, with its epicenter at 26.70°N, 55.02°E, just north of the strategic straits of Hormuz, opposite Abu Dhabi.
Zoomable map source: Google Maps.

The claim that the tremor was in fact a nuclear test came from an Iranian nuclear scientist who claims to be working in uranium enrichment for the project. A report published by Israel Insider on Friday, October 24 included a captionless map that portrayed the area of the seismic event that occurred the following night, based on location information previously provided by the Iranian source.

Israel Insider’s source reports that the test is in fact the second in a series. A 4.8 Richter scale event occurred on October 21 with an epicenter (26.70N, 54.96E) within 5 km (3 miles) of the October 25 tremor

link

UPDATE
North Korea’s nuclear tests were actually announced just before they happened so as to prevent any military response. However, they were conducted in October of 2006 (just before a US election at a time of maximum American political instability), and they were confirmed by seismic data. They were also conducted relatively close to the coastline.

Whether the reports about Iran are true or not…the UN’s IAEA claims that Iran might already have a nuke. They at least have hundreds of ballistic missiles that could devastate any city in the Middle East, and they have enough radioactive matl to make those warheads dirty.

There is a very real threat from Iran-according to Senator Obama (who has also said there is no threat from Iran; duplicitous as usual). In a matter of hours, we’ll know how America will deal with them.

The biggest ever sale of oil assets will take place today, when the Iraqi government puts 40bn barrels of recoverable reserves up for offer in London.

BP, Shell and ExxonMobil are all expected to attend a meeting at the Park Lane Hotel in Mayfair with the Iraqi oil minister, Hussein al-Shahristani.

Access is being given to eight fields, representing about 40% of the Middle Eastern nation’s reserves, at a time when the country remains under occupation by US and British forces.

Oil companies will find their reputations at risk from the actions of their Iraqi counterparties, such as joint venture partners, suppliers and agents. They will also have to contend with oil smuggling and the possibility that the ruling alliance could collapse, Matthee said.

He said that if the conspiracy theory that western oil companies egged on US and British governments to invade Iraq were true, the plan could backfire on them and benefit rivals in Asia instead. “It is possible the American army has provided the economic stability that will encourage Malaysian, Chinese and other Asian companies to become involved,” he said.

link

Yes, oil was one of the reasons for the invasion of Iraq, but it wasn’t the only one.
*****
Primary reason:
* to prevent a Nexus of Evil situation
* to prevent UBL from setting up headquarters in Iraq as Saddam had annually and bi-annually requested for 5 yrs. UBL had turned down each offer based on the idea that he was safer in Afghanistan, but driven from Afghanistan in 2001/2…the possibility of UBL moving AQ HQ to Iraq was much more likely and easily a worst case scenario for the war on terror (see also 911 Comm report and SIC 911 report and SIC Iraq investigation report for details OR multiple RR threads on “AQ’s ties to Iraq per _____”)

Secondary reason:
* to remove/resolve the hundreds unresolved WMD issues (any one of which could kill thousands in the hands of an Iraqi trained terrorist-like Abu Musab Al Zarqawi
* to get the hundreds of AQ terrorist who fled Afghanistan to Iraq
* to end Iraqi support for terrorists in general

Tertiary reasons:
* to create a battlefield against terrorists made of America’s choosing-not the terrorists preference (UBL’s preference was Afghanistan, the Graveyard of Empires where he felt he had already destroyed one superpower)
* to create a bastion of democracy in the middle of a region plagued by tyranny and oppression…things that spawn terrorism
* to drain the swamp of terrorists in the region; ie, to draw terrorists into a fight against the US military and not the Springfield, Ohio police Department
* to offer the Iraqi people a chance at restoring their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness-rights that some Americans believe are endowed to all men by the creator
* to end the 4000-5000 Iraqis per month who were dying because of UN sanctions per the UN’s claims
* to prevent Saddam from continuing to terrorize the Iraqi people and his neighbors (all but one of which he had attacked)
* to support a legitimate govt in Iraq.
* to position US forces in a more threatening/deterring position to Iran, Syria, etc.
* With Al Queda’s #1 and #2 leaders pinned in Waziristan/Pakistan, as a means of going after the Al Queda’s #3 man, Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, who had already attempted to kill hundreds of thousands in London, Rome, Paris, and Jordan using chemical and biological weapons via training he had been given from Saddam
* To end the funding of Palestinian terrorists by Saddam and thus help deter bi-weekly suicide bus bombings that had completely derailed the peace process
* to prevent the funding of Al Queda by Iraq through the mega-corrupt UN Oil-for-Food program
* to shift American oil dependence (and funding) from terrorist-breeding-ground of Saudi Arabia to a Democratic and representative govt in Iraq
and so on…

On August 21, the pirates seized the Iranian bulk carrier, carrying 42,500 tons of minerals and industrial products.

“The ship Dianat was released on Friday morning after even weeks of negotiations with Somali pirates and all 29 members of the crew are safe,” Said public relations office of the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Line (IRISL).

The ship is sailing towards international waters, IRISL added.

link

NATO officials said the seven frigates from a group that were to have taken part in an exercise in the Suez Canal region would arrive off the Somali coast within two weeks in response to a request from the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP).

The decision to send the ships was taken at a meeting of defence ministers from the 26 NATO member states in Budapest, NATO spokesman James Appathurai said.

“Piracy is a serious problem for shipping in that area. It is also an immediate threat to the lives of the people in Somalia,” he said. “Substantially more than 40 percent of the population depend on the food aid being delivered by ship.”

The European Union has agreed to start planning for a joint naval force that could be ready for deployment by the end of the year.

link

A tense standoff has developed in waters off Somalia over an Iranian merchant ship laden with a mysterious cargo that was hijacked by pirates. Somali pirates suffered skin burns, lost hair and fell gravely ill “within days” of boarding the MV Iran Deyanat. Some of them died.

Andrew Mwangura, the director of the East African Seafarers’ Assistance Programme, told the Sunday Times: “We don’t know exactly how many, but the information that I am getting is that some of them had died. There is something very wrong about that ship.” The vessel’s declared cargo consists of “minerals” and “industrial products”. But officials involved in negotiations over the ship are convinced that it was sailing for Eritrea to deliver small arms and chemical weapons to Somalia’s Islamist rebels.

link

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — There have been four failed pirate attacks in the last 24 hours off the lawless Somali coast despite the presence of six American warships guarding a hijacked ship full of weapons, a U.S. navy spokeswoman said Saturday.

Navy Commander Jane Campbell, from the 5th Fleet in Bahrain, says three attacks were averted because crew members escaped at high speed.

Another attack was foiled because the pirates were badly prepared: The ladder they had brought to climb onto the ship was too short.

The Navy says that three of the attacks were in the heavily patrolled corridor within the Gulf of Aden. The location of another was not precisely known but was somewhere off the Somali coast.

Last week’s attack on a Ukrainian ship laden with 33 Soviet-designed tanks and weapons has focused international attention on piracy in Somalia. American officials have expressed fears the weapons onboard the MV Faina could fall into the hands of Somalia’s al-Qaida-linked Islamic insurgency.

Eight European countries have offered to help form an anti-piracy force. On Friday, Russia called for greater efforts to protect the Gulf of Aden waters, one of the world’s most important shipping lanes. There have been nearly 70 pirate attacks this year already and some 26 ships successfully hijacked

link

An international armada was preparing to head towards the Somali coast yesterday as the stand-off with pirates holding a Ukrainian ship to ransom threatened to escalate.

Amid warnings that an effective blockade by the pirates could spark a famine in the Horn of Africa, European Union defence ministers meeting in Paris agreed to set up a naval taskforce to tackle the threat.

Two Royal Navy frigates, HMS Chatham and HMS Lancaster, are already in the region and could join the proposed fleet.

The pirates who seized the Ukrainian cargo ship MV Faina were in defiant mood yesterday, vowing to fight if there was an attempt to rescue the crew of 20. They also said that they were only prepared to hand over the cargo of tanks and weapons in return for a ransom of £11 million.

“Anyone who tries to attack us or deceive us will face bad repercussions,” Sugule Ali, a spokesman for the pirates, told the Associated Press in a satellite telephone interview. The vessel is surrounded by half a dozen American warships but no moves have been made to board it.

link

The U.S. naval officers leading the anti-piracy efforts in the Gulf of Aden has warned shipping companies to take additional precautions, because the fifteen warships in the Gulf cannot possibly protect all the merchant ships passing through the area.

The key problem is that no one wants to go ashore and take on the Somali warlords responsible for the surge in piracy. No wonder, as the natural state of Somalia, over the last few centuries, has been violent anarchy. This would be bloody, mainly for the Somalis, and no nation wants to get accused of war crimes and brutality by the media.

The availability of speedboats, satellite radio and GPS have made it possible to conduct piracy deep into the Straits of Aden (a major choke point for international shipping). Many nations are sending warships to try and control the pirates at sea, without going ashore. This, and forcing ships to transit the area at high speed, or in convoys, will be expensive, but this is believed to be ultimately able to keep losses down and prevent insurance rates for ships from skyrocketing.

Russia, however, is sending a warship to join in the anti-piracy effort. The Russian frigate, however, will be acting alone, not as part as Task Force 150 (the international naval and air force patrolling the Gulf). The Russian ship is coming from the Baltic, so it won’t arrive until early October. Everyone is curious to see how the Russians will deal with the pirates. The Russians often go Old School in cases like this.

My thought is that the Russians are sending their Navy so as to ensure/protect their illegal arms shipments. QUESTION: Why doesn’t the UN stop the shipments that are in violation of the UN? Hmmm, perhaps-like Sen Obama suggested re the Russian invasion of Georgia-someone should take that to the UNSC and demand a resolution.

link