Kevin's home of interesting stuff: September 2015

Wednesday, 30 September 2015

Following In Ancient Rome's Footsteps: Moral Decay, Rising Wealth Inequality | Zero Hedge

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

If you want to understand why Rome declined, look no further than the moral decay of ruling Elites.

There are many reasons why Imperial Rome declined, but two primary causes that get relatively little attention are moral decay and soaring wealth inequality. The two are of course intimately connected: once the morals of the ruling Elites degrade, what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine, too.

I've previously covered two other key characteristics of an empire in terminal decline: complacency and intellectual sclerosis, what I have termed a failure of imagination.

Michael Grant described these causes of decline in his excellent account The Fall of the Roman Empire, a short book I have been recommending since 2009:

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Surprise, Surprise, Russia Is a World Power Again

This article originally appeared atFox News

Regardless of the outcome of the Putin-Obama meeting to discuss Syria, Ukraine and other matters, one thing is clear –the meeting demonstrates the sudden, even shocking, rise to power of Russia in the last several years.

In a world full of surprises–the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, the weakness in the Chinese economy, the battles within the European Union, the making of the Iran deal, the slide in the American stock market–the greatest surprise of all has been the sudden rebirth of Russian power under Vladimir Putin.

This is amazing given that Russia has withdrawn from Eastern Europe, lost half its population, lacks modern consumer, agricultural and hi-tech sectors and suffered a 50 percent drop in the price of its oil exports. Russia’s economy is smaller than that of England, France or Germany and has not moved towards Western democratic capitalism.

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Putin Slamed Soviet Foreign Policy - Did Anybody Notice?

This article originally appeared atJournalitico

I’m frequently amazed by how much of the media consistently omits Putin’s criticisms of the Soviet Union from its reporting while playing up the notion that it’s his solemn goal to “recreate” it.

Which is why I was happy to see at least some reporting on the comments he made during his UN speech regarding the failures of the Soviet Union and its attempts to forcefully export an ideology.

The best analysis of Putin’s comments on that topic came from The Nation. James Carden writes:

As opposed to Obama’s confident assertions that the nebulous “international community” led, of course, by the United States, can and should bend the arc of history to its will, Putin expressed a humility born of failure.
As Putin told the UN Assembly: “We also remember certain episodes from the history of the Soviet Union. Social experiments for export, attempts to push for changes within other countries based on ideological preferences, often led to tragic consequences and to degradation rather than progress.”

That is only too true. And Putin’s frank admission should (but likely will not) spur American leaders to pose similar questions with regard to our own “social experiments for export.”

Carden makes the case that what the Washington establishment has failed to understand, is that Russia’s recent moves in Syria are much more than some “imperial gamble”.

And he is right; any “analysis” that comes to this conclusion alone is not worth much. Or as he puts it, coming to such a conclusion would be to“grossly misunderstand the Russian president’s motives, to say nothing of the multiple foreign policy dilemmas facing the Russian state”.

The point of Russia’s foray into Syria, much like its foray into the the Ukrainian Donbas, is, given its geography, driven by a desire and a need for stability.

To suggest that this is not a central element of Moscow’s thinking on Syria is simplistic and betrays a complete lack of understanding of the pressures, both foreign and domestic, facing the Kremlin.

With Iraq, Libya and now Syria torn asunder, unraveling under the consequences NATO’s various “humanitarian” interventions, with Yemen on the verge of total collapse, Putin asked world leaders: “Do you realize now what you’ve done?”

That realization cannot come quickly enough.

Oil Production Vital Statistics September 2015 | Energy Matters

With momentous events unfolding on the World stage, the oil market continues to evolve at a glacial pace. Global total liquids production was 96.29 Mbpd in August, down 630,000 bpd from the June peak. But with oversupply running at over 3 Mbpd during the second quarter, there is still a long way to go to rebalance the system. Production in OPEC, Europe, Russia and E Asia is stable with no sign of turning down. In fact, Norway and the UK appear to be skipping annual maintenance this summer and European production is up 420,000 bpd compared with a year ago. The only region showing a marginal production decline is N America where production has fallen 580,000 bpd from the April peak.

I believe the stalemate will be broken in October. The oil price chart is forming a “head and shoulders” pattern, and if the price tests the recent August lows the moment of truth will arrive. Barring major events, it is difficult to imagine the price rising from here, near term. I therefore anticipate the price to break to the low side with significant losses. This is required to restore balance to the system.

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Looks Like Boeing Is Helping the Feds Cover Up the Worst Nuke Disaster in US History | The Daily Sheeple

Via Sputnik:

Aviation giant Boeing Co. is spending money on lobbyists and court cases in an effort to cover up one of the worst nuclear disasters in American history and avoid paying millions to clean up the still-contaminated site.

In 1959, the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) north of Los Angeles leaked more than 300 times the allowable amount of radiation into surrounding neighborhoods, according to an in-depth investigation by NBC4 Southern California. That contamination is now linked to up to a 60% increase in cancer in the area.

After a power surge occurred in one of the nuclear reactors, operators of the facility for weeks deliberately released radiation into the atmosphere to avoid a nuclear detonation similar to Chernobyl.

Boeing’s acquisition of SSFL in 1996 has prevented any proper investigation into current radiation levels at the site and stalled any cleanup efforts, according to the NBC4 investigation.

(read more at Sputnik)

Tuesday, 29 September 2015

Saudi Arabia is worried – and not just about its king

Brian Whitaker writes: Extreme caution has long been the watchword of Saudi monarchs: caution in foreign policy, and caution especially when it comes to internal change. Since 2005, when the king nervously decided it was safe to allow elections for half the members of municipal councils (the other half were to be appointed by the king), it has taken a further 10 years to get around toletting women take part.

Of course, there are good reasons for this caution. Saudis often cite theassassination of King Faisal in 1975 as a warning, linking it to his attempts at reform and especially his introduction of television, which many at the time regarded as encouraging sin.

Large sections of Saudi society, and most notably the influential religious scholars, remain deeply conservative, and this social resistance means the rulers cannot implement change – supposing they actually want to – at anything like the pace needed in a rapidly changing world. To a large extent the rulers’ hands are tied, but this is something the House of Saud has brought upon itself by hitching its political legitimacy to the Wahhabi sect. If it can’t untie that knot, it is ultimately doomed. [Continue reading…]

Low Oil Prices – Why Worry? | Our Finite World

Low Oil Prices – Why Worry?

Posted on September 29, 2015 by Gail Tverberg

Most people believe that low oil prices are good for the United States, since the discretionary income of consumers will rise. There is the added benefit that Peak Oil must be far off in the distance, since “Peak Oilers” talked about high oil prices. Thus, low oil prices are viewed as an all around benefit.

In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The Peak Oil story we have been told is wrong. The collapse in oil production comes from oil prices that aretoo low, not too high. If oil prices or prices of other commodities are too low, production will slow and eventually stop. Growth in the world economy will slow, lowering inflation rates as well as economic growth rates. We encountered this kind of the problem in the 1930s. We seem to be headed in the same direction today. Figure 1, used by Janet Yellen in her September 24 speech, shows a slowing inflation rate for Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE), thanks to lower energy prices, lower relative import prices, and general “slack” in the economy.

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Tomgram: Engelhardt, The Superpower as Victim | TomDispatch

Three Exceptional Facts About America
It’s Safe to Be Paranoid in the U.S.
By Tom Engelhardt

Given the cluttered landscape of the last 14 years, can you even faintly remember the moment when the Berlin Wall came down, the Cold War ended in a stunned silence of shock and triumph in Washington, Eastern Europe was freed, Germany unified, and the Soviet Union vanished from the face of the Earth? At that epochal moment, six centuries of imperial rivalries ended. Only one mighty power was left.

There hadn’t been a moment like it in historical memory: a single “hyperpower” with a military force beyond compare looming over a planet without rivals. Under the circumstances, what couldn’t Washington hope for? The eternal domination of the Middle East and all that oil? A planetary Pax Americana for generations to come? Why not? After all, not even the Romans and the British at the height of their empires had experienced a world quite like this one.

Now, leap a quarter of a century to the present and note the rising tide of paranoia in this country and the litany of predictions of doom and disaster. Consider the extremity of fear and gloom in the party of Ronald “It’s Morning Again in America” Reagan in what are called “debates” among its presidential candidates, and it’s hard not to imagine that we aren't at the precipice of the decline and fall of just about everything. The American Century? So much sawdust on the floor of history.

If, however, you look at the country that its top politicians can now hardly mention without defensively wielding the words “exceptional” or “indispensable,” the truly exceptional thing is this: as a great power, the United States still stands alone on planet Earth and Americans can exhibit all the paranoia they want in remarkable safety and security.

Here, then, are three exceptional facts of our moment.

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Mexican Politician Thinks the Homeless Population Should Be Culled Like Dogs | The Daily Sheeple

If politics can teach us anything, it’s that positions of power tend to attract people who are very different from you and me. Sometimes it’s difficult to tell if they’re just really stupid, really evil, or really crazy. In the case of this Mexican politician, she may be a little bit of all three.

Olga Gutierrez Machorro is a councilor with the government in Tecamachalco, who made some rather creepy comments recently when she spoke to a local newspaper during an event in Central Mexico. She talked about the plight of the growing homeless population, and how the government doesn’t have the resources to help them all. She mentioned that she has allowed some of these people to take shelter in her home, before adding “Yes they’re a little crazy, but they’re harmless. Which is why I think to myself, wouldn’t it be kinder to give them a lethal injection?” The locals were understandably outraged and she has since apologized. However, somehow I doubt that the homeless of Tecamachalco will be showing up at her front door any time soon.

What makes her comments especially disturbing is the fact that she is a councilor with the Vulnerable Groups Commission, a group that is supposed to be caring for the homeless. But that’s not nearly as disturbing as what she revealed after her reprehensible comment. According to Machorro, the culling of the homeless is already happening unofficially. The psychiatric hospital in Tecamachalco routinely deposits their non-aggressive patients in the middle of roadways at night, where they are often killed. How any of these lunatics are in charge of anything, is beyond me.

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"Democracy" - Obama Vs Putin | Zero Hedge

Presented with no comment...

h/t @InsideGame

With Shell's Failure, U.S. Arctic Drilling Is Dead | Zero Hedge

Submitted by Nick Cunningham via OilPrice.com,

Arctic Drilling in the U.S. is dead.

After more than eight years of planning and drilling, costing more than $7 billion, Royal Dutch Shell announced that it is shutting down its plans to drill for oil in the Arctic. The bombshell announcement dooms any chance of offshore oil development in the U.S. Arctic for years.

Shell said that it had completed its exploration well that it was drilling this summer, a well drilled at 6,800 feet of depth called the Burger J. Shell was focusing on the Burger prospect, located off the northwest coast of Alaska in the Chukchi Sea, which it thought could hold a massive volume of oil.

On September 28, the company announced that it had “found indications of oil and gas in the Burger J well, but these are not sufficient to warrant further exploration in the Burger prospect. The well will be sealed and abandoned in accordance with U.S. regulations.”

After the disappointing results, Shell will not try again. “Shell will now cease further exploration activity in offshore Alaska for the foreseeable future.” The company cited both the poor results from its highly touted Burger J well, but also the extraordinarily high costs of Arctic drilling, as well as the “unpredictable federal regulatory environment in offshore Alaska.”

Shell will have to take a big write-down, with charges of at least $3 billion, plus another $1.1 billion in contracts it had with rigs and supplies.

Shell’s Arctic campaign was an utter failure. It spent $7 billion over the better part of a decade, including an initial $2.1 billion just to purchase the leases from the U.S. government back in 2008. The campaign was riddled with mishaps, equipment failures, permit violations, and stiff opposition from environmental groups, including the blockading of their icebreaker in a port in Portland, OR this past summer. The FT reports that Shell executives privately admit that the environmental protests damaged the company’s reputation and had a larger impact than they had anticipated.

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The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity : Congress and the Fed Refuse to Learn From Their Mistakes

The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity : Congress and the Fed Refuse to Learn From Their Mistakes

This month marks the seventh anniversary of the bursting of the housing bubble and the subsequent economic meltdown. The mood in Congress following the meltdown resembled the panicked atmosphere that followed the September 11th attacks. As was the case after September 11th, Congress rushed to pass hastily written legislation that, instead of dealing with the real causes of the crisis, simply gave the government more power.

Just as few understood the role our interventionist foreign policy played in the September 11th attacks, few in Congress understood that the 2008 meltdown was caused by the Federal Reserve and Congress, not by unregulated capitalism. Not surprising to anyone familiar with economic history, the story of the 2008 meltdown starts with the bursting of the Fed-created tech bubble.

Following the collapse of the tech bubble, the Fed began aggressively pumping money into the economy. This money flooded into the housing market, creating the housing bubble. The Bush Administration and the Republican Congress also added fuel to the housing bubble. These so-called “free-market” conservatives expanded federal housing programs in hopes of creating an “ownership society.”

If Congress understood the Austrian theory of the business cycle, it would have allowed the recession that followed the housing bubble’s inevitable collapse to run its course. Recessions are the economy’s way of eliminating the distortions caused by the Federal Reserve. Attempts by Congress and the Fed to end a recession via inflation and government spending will only lead to future, and more severe, economic downturns.

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Obama Deifies American Hegemony -- Paul Craig Roberts - PaulCraigRoberts.org

Paul Craig Roberts

Today is the 70th anniversary of the UN. It is not clear how much good the UN has done. Some UN Blue Hemet peacekeeping operations had limited success. But mainly Washington has used the UN for war, such as the Korean War and Washington’s Cold War against the Soviet Union. In our time Washington had UN tanks sent in against Bosnian Serbs during the period that Washington was dismantling Yugoslavia and Serbia and accusing Serbian leaders, who tried to defend the integrity of their country against Washington’s aggression, of “war crimes.”

The UN supported Washington’s sanctions against Iraq that resulted in the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children. When asked about it, Clinton’s Secretary of State said, with typical American heartlessness, that the deaths of the children were worth it. In 2006 the UN voted sanctions against Iran for exercising its right as a signatory of the non-proliferation treaty to develop atomic energy. Washington claimed without any evidence that Iran was building a nuclear weapon in violation of the non-proliferation treaty, and this lie was accepted by the UN. Washington’s false claim was repudiated by all 16 US intelligence agencies and by the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors on the ground in Iran, but in the face of the factual evidence the US government and its presstitute media pressed the claim to the point that Russia had to intervene and take the matter out of Washington’s warmonger hands. Russia’s intervention to prevent US military attacks on Iran and Syria resulted in the demonization of Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin. “Facts?!, Washington don’t need no stinkin’ facts! We got power!” Today at the UN Obama asserted America’s over-riding power many times: the strongest military in the world, the strongest economy in the world.

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Pope's World and the Real World by Patrick J. Buchanan

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Pope Francis’s four-day visit to the United States was by any measure a personal and political triumph.

The crowds were immense, and coverage of the Holy Father on television and in the print press swamped the state visit of Xi Jinping, the leader of the world’s second-greatest power.

But how enduring, and how relevant, was the pope’s celebration of diversity, multiculturalism, inclusiveness, open borders, and a world of forgiveness, peace, harmony and love is another question.

The day the pope departed Philadelphia, 48 percent of Catalonia, in a record turnout of 78 percent, voted to deliver a parliamentary majority to two parties that advocate seceding from Spain.

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ClubOrlov: American “allies” in Syria: their shameful perform...

ClubOrlov: American “allies” in Syria: their shameful perform...: [The recent American failure to train and equip anti-Assad forces in Syria is not an isolated incident. It is a symptom of a systemic prob...

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Question to Millennials: Why Are You Not Mad as Hell Yet?

Millennials, why are you not angry about ...

Having to pay Social Security when it won't be there for you.
Paying exorbitant taxes for public pension handouts and boomer retirements at age 50 for which you receive negative benefits.
Obamacare for which you overpay to support the obese and the nicotine addicts.
Enormous student debt burdens for which you received little benefit.

I ask this in response to an email I received from Rich Renza who writes ...

The Taliban Just Captured Their First Major City in 14 Years | The Daily Sheeple

The Taliban Just Captured Their First Major City in 14 Years | The Daily Sheeple

It should be abundantly clear now that our military’s mission in Afghanistan is following the same exact path as their mission in Iraq. After we steamrolled through their country, we were met with a prolonged resistance movement that is now slowly retaking lost territory, as our military tries to make its exit without losing face.

While there is still a small US military presence lingering in Afghanistan, we pulled out of that nation in much the same way that we pulled out of Iraq. We managed to suppress the insurgents long enough to claim a victory, and then left behind a wildly corrupt system that could not protect its people from the crazies in their midst (or in the case of Iraq and Syria, the crazies that we trained and funded). Now these people are overrunning the ill-equipped and morally bankrupt forces that we left in charge.

Over the weekend, the Taliban managed to deliver a devastating blow to Afghan state forces by capturing a major city in the northern province of Kunduz. The attack completely overwhelmed security forces, and caused U.N. and Afghan officials to flee the city.

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Monday, 28 September 2015

Why Saudi Ties to 9/11 Mean U.S. Ties to 9/11 | The Daily Sheeple

Media interest in Saudi Arabian connections to the crimes of 9/11 has centered on calls for the release of the 28 missing pages from the Joint Congressional Inquiry’s report.

However, those calls focus on the question of hijacker financing and omit the most interesting links between the 9/11 attacks and Saudi Arabia—links that implicate powerful people in the United States. Here are twenty examples.

When two of the alleged 9/11 hijackers, Khalid Al-Mihdhar and Nawaf Al-Hazmi, came to the U.S. in January 2000, they immediately met with Omar Al-Bayoumi, a suspected Saudi spy and an employee of a Saudi aviation company. Al-Bayoumi, who was the target of FBI investigations in the two years before 9/11, became a good friend to the two 9/11 suspects, setting them up in an apartment and paying their rent.
Al-Mihdhar and Al-Hazmi then moved in with a long-time FBI asset,Abdussattar Shaikh, who was said to be a teacher of the Saudi language. Shaikh allowed them to live in his home for at least seven months, later saying that he thought they were only Saudi students. In an unlikely coincidence, both Al-Bayoumi and Shaikh also knew Hani Hanjour, the alleged pilot of Flight 77. Although Shaikh was reported to be a retired professor at San Diego State University, the university had no records of him. He was then said to be a professor at American Commonwealth University but that turned out to be a phony institution. During the 9/11 investigations, the FBI refused to allow Shaikh to be interviewed or deposed. The FBI also tried to prevent the testimony of Shaikh’s FBI handler, which occurred only secretly at a later date. Despite having a very suspicious background, the FBI gave Shaikh $100,000 and closed his contract.
Journalist Joseph Trento claimed that an unnamed former CIA officer, who worked in Saudi Arabia, told him that Alhazmi and Almihdhar were Saudi spies protected by U.S. authorities.
After being appointed CIA Director in 1997, George Tenet began to cultivate close personal relationships with officials in Saudi Arabia. Tenet grew especially close to Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador to the United States. Bandar and Tenet often met at Bandar’s home near Washington. Tenet did not share information from those meetings with his own CIA officers who were handling Saudi issues at the agency. These facts are among the reasons to suspect thatTenet facilitated the crimes of 9/11.
Bernard Kerik, the New York City police commissioner at the time of 9/11, spent three years working in Saudi Arabia in the 1970s. He then spent another three years in Saudi Arabia in the 1980s as the “chief investigator for the royal family.” It was Kerik who first told the public that explosives were not used at the World Trade Center (WTC) in a news conference. It was also his police department that was said to have discovered a passport that fell from one of the burning towers, providing dubious evidence identifying one of the alleged hijackers.
After 9/11, former FBI director Louis Freeh, whose agency failed to stop Al Qaeda-attributed terrorism from 1993 to 2001, became the personal attorney for Tenet’s dubious cohort, Prince Bandar. Sometimes called “Bandar Bush” for his close relationship to the Bush family, Bandar was the Saudi intelligence director from 2005 to 2015.
The company that designed the security system for the WTC complex, Kroll Associates, had strong connections to Saudi Arabia. For example, Kroll board member Raymond Mabus, now Secretary of the Navy, was the U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia in the 1990s. Control of WTC security speaks to the question of how explosives could have been placed in the three tall buildings that were demolished on 9/11.
All four of the contractors that were involved in implementing Kroll’s security design for the WTC had done significant business in the Saudi kingdom. Stratesec, the company that installed the overall electronic security system at the WTC complex, had also managed security for Dulles airport, where Flight 77 took off, and for United Airlines, which owned two of the three other planes. For many reasons, the company’s managers should be primary suspects in the crimes of 9/11. Stratesec was in partnership with a large Saudi engineering and construction company to develop and conduct business in Saudi Arabia.
Another interesting connection between Stratesec and Saudi Arabia was that, in the years leading up to 9/11, Stratesec held its annual shareholders’ meetings in an office that was leased by Saudi Arabia. This was an office in the Watergate Hotel occupied by the Saudi Embassy (run by Prince Bandar).
The Bush and Bin Laden-financed Carlyle Group owned, through BDM International, the Vinnell Corporation, a mercenary operation that had extensive contracts and trained the Saudi Arabian National Guard. Several of Stratesec’s key employees, including its operating manager Barry McDaniel, came from BDM. In 1995, BDM’s Vinnell was one of the first targets of Al Qaeda, in Saudi Arabia.
One of the two major contractors hired to manage the cleanup of debris at Ground Zero—Bovis Lend Lease—had previously built the Riyadh Olympic stadium in Saudi Arabia.
The other primary cleanup company at Ground Zero—AMEC Construction—had just completed a $258 million refurbishment of Wedge 1 of the Pentagon, which is exactly where Flight 77 was said to impact that building. AMEC had a significant presence in Saudi Arabia for decades, working for the national oil company, Saudi Aramco.
In the 1990s, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), run by Dick Cheney’s protégé Duane Andrews, trained the Saudi Navy and instructed Saudi military personnel at its company headquarters in San Diego. SAIC had a greater impact on counterterrorism programs in the United States than any other non-government entity and it profited greatly from 9/11.
While SAIC was training the Saudi Navy, the Carlyle/BDM subsidiary Vinnell Corporation was training the Saudi Arabian National Guard. Simultaneously, Booz Allen Hamilton was managing the Saudi Marine Corps and running the Saudi Armed Forces Staff College.
Salomon Smith Barney (SSB), the company that occupied all but ten floors of WTC building 7, was taken over by Citigroup in 1998 after Citigroup was taken over by Saudi Prince Alwaleed, in a deal brokered by The Carlyle Group. Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney joined the advisory board for SSB just after Citigroup’s takeover and they only resigned in January 2001 to join the Bush Administration.
The Saudi government was sued by thousands of 9/11 victim’s family members due to the suspicion that Saudi Arabia helped to finance Al Qaeda. The Saudis hired the law firm of Bush Administration insider James Baker to defend them in that lawsuit.
The 9/11 families’ lawsuit against Saudi royals was thrown out on a technicality related to the ability to sue a foreign government and, later, the Obama Administration backed the Saudis during the appeal.
The world’s leading insurance provider, Lloyd’s of London, filed a lawsuit alleging Saudi involvementin the 9/11 attacks. Lloyd’s dropped the lawsuit just days later without explanation.
After 9/11, it became clear that Saudi officials were supporting terrorism. For example, in the case of a would-be “underwear bomber,” it was revealed that the suspect was working for the CIA and Saudi intelligence.
Saudi Prince Bandar has been accused of coordinating an international ring of terrorism in his role as Saudi intelligence chief. From Egypt to Libya, and now in Syria, evidence suggests thatBandar Bush has led a network of terrorists around the globe, with U.S. support.

Therefore it is not surprising that people who hear claims of Saudi involvement in 9/11 wonder why the discussion remains so limited and always avoids the glaring implications those claims should entail.

Now that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia have “reset” their rocky relationship, calls by U.S. leaders to release the “28 pages” may very well die down. Since the new Saudi King came to the U.S. a few weeks ago, the two governments have rediscovered that they are “close allies” and many new deals are in the works. It remains to be seen what cards U.S. and Saudi leaders will play in the ongoing game of terror and deception but discussions of hijacker financing will probably be left behind.

Kevin Ryan blogs at Dig Within.

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RESOURCE CRISIS: Stewards of the earth: a role for humankind

RESOURCE CRISIS: Stewards of the earth: a role for humankind: Image from GreenGrenwich.org This post was inspired by a meeting held last week in Florence on the subject of the Pope's climate...

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Refugees Shop for Best Handouts and Climate; Disgruntled Migrants Decide "Finland's No Good"

Beggars can be choosy. And they are. For example, many refugees whine 'Finland's No Good', because of the cold.

Hundreds of predominantly Iraqi migrants who have travelled through Europe to reach Finland are turning back, saying they don't want to stay in the sparsely-populated country on Europe's northern frontier because it's too cold and boring.

Migrants have in recent weeks been crossing back into Sweden at the Haparanda-Tornio border just an hour's drive south of the Arctic Circle, and Finnish authorities have seen a rise in the number of cancelled asylum applications.

"You can tell the world I hate Finland. It's too cold, there's no tea, no restaurants, no bars, nobody on the streets, only cars," 22-year-old Muhammed told AFP in Tornio, as the mercury struggled to inch above 10 degrees Celsius (50 Fahrenheit) on a recent blustery grey day.

He had already travelled from Tornio to the capital Helsinki almost 750 kilometres (465 miles) south, and then back up to the Tornio border again to return to Sweden.

Another group of around 15 Iraqi refugees waiting at the bus station that Tornio shares with its Swedish twin town Haparanda also said they wanted to go back to southern Sweden.

"Finland is no good," the men echoed each other.

Reader Blair who sent me the link commented: "So, the search continues, by those whose lives were in grave danger, for free services... in a nice climate... with a lively social scene."

Mike "Mish" Shedlock

FOURTH TURNING: CRISIS OF TRUST – PART 3 « The Burning Platform

In Part 1 of this article I discussed the catalyst spark which ignited this Fourth Turning and the seemingly delayed regeneracy. In Part 2 I pondered possible Grey Champion prophet generation leaders who could arise during the regeneracy. In Part 3 I will focus on the economic channel of distress which is likely to be the primary driving force in the next phase of this Crisis.

There are very few people left on this earth who lived through the last Fourth Turning (1929 – 1946). The passing of older generations is a key component in the recurring cycles which propel the world through the seemingly chaotic episodes that paint portraits on the canvas of history. The current alignment of generations is driving this Crisis and will continue to give impetus to the future direction of this Fourth Turning. The alignment during a Fourth Turning is always the same: Old Artists (Silent) die, Prophets (Boomers) enter elderhood, Nomads (Gen X) enter midlife, Heroes (Millennials) enter young adulthood—and a new generation of child Artists (Gen Y) is born. This is an era in which America’s institutional life is torn down and rebuilt from the ground up—always in response to a perceived threat to the nation’s very survival.

For those who understand the theory, there is the potential for impatience and anticipating dire circumstances before the mood of the country turns in response to the 2^nd or 3^rd perilous incident after the initial catalyst. Neil Howe anticipates the climax of this Crisis arriving in the 2022 to 2025 time frame, with the final resolution happening between 2026 and 2029. Any acceleration in these time frames would likely be catastrophic, bloody, and possibly tragic for mankind. As presented by Strauss and Howe, this Crisis will continue to be driven by the core elements of debt, civic decay, and global disorder, with the volcanic eruption traveling along channels of distress and aggravating problems ignored, neglected, or denied for the last thirty years. Let’s examine the channels of distress which will surely sway the direction of this Crisis.

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Tomgram: Greg Grandin, Henry of Arabia | TomDispatch

Why do I always seem to be writing about Henry Kissinger?

I once listened to the man who helped prolong the Vietnam War for half a decade declare that its “tragedy” lay in the fact “that the faith of Americans in each other became destroyed in the process.” I later took to the (web)pages of the New York Times to suggest that perhaps “the pain endured by millions of survivors in Vietnam who lost family, the pain of millions who were wounded, of millions who were killed, of millions driven from their homes into slums and [refugee] camps reeking of squalor” was a greater tragedy.

Then there was that book review for the Daily Beast on the forgotten genocide in Bangladesh. Wouldn’t you know that Kissinger was completely wrapped up in it? He and his boss President Richard Nixon, in fact, conspired to support “Pakistan’s fiercely anti-communist Muslim military ruler in the face of his 1971 mass murder of mostly Hindu Bengalis who were seeking political autonomy and, ultimately, their own independent nation.” Frightening as it may seem, during this episode Nixon proved to be the voice of reason as Kissinger apparently pushed to escalate the conflict into a showdown with the Soviets.

Earlier this year, in the pages of The Nation, I found myself writing yet again about the former national security adviser and secretary of state, this time for his role in Rory Kennedy’s Oscar-nominated documentary, Last Days in Vietnam:

“Kissinger -- architect of the secret, murderous bombing of neighboring Cambodia and top adviser to a president who resigned rather than face impeachment -- is given carte blanche to craft his own self-serving version of history and to champion another former boss, President Ford, as a humanitarian.”

Of course, Kissinger’s name and handiwork also show up in my book on American war crimes in Vietnam, Kill Anything That Moves. And here I am again writing about the man, an activity that’s starting to look almost obsessive, so let me explain. One day in the early 2000s, I found myself on a street in New York City watching as Kissinger was hustled away amid a sea of roiling vitriol. “War criminal,” shouted the protesters. “You’ve got blood on your hands, Henry.” It wasn’t quite clear whose blood they were referring to. It might have been that of Cambodians. Unless it was Vietnamese. Or Laotians. Or Chileans. Or Bangladeshis. Or East Timorese. From one corner of the world to another, Kissinger seems to have had a hand in a remarkable number of untoward acts of state.

And as TomDispatch regular Greg Grandin suggests today, that’s only the beginning of a grim list of nations. Just as the United States was extricating itself from its long debacle in Indochina, Grandin points out, it was embarking on what would become another festering fiasco. If George W. Bush blew a hole through the Greater Middle East, Henry Kissinger lit the fuse. Today, we’re still dealing with the hellacious fallout of Kissinger’s in-office foreign policy machinations and out-of-office wise-man advice as the Greater Middle East hemorrhages lives and refugees.

This revelation and a raft of others figure in Grandin’s latest book, Kissinger’s Shadow: The Long Reach of America’s Most Controversial Statesman, which paints a stunning portrait of that consummate political chameleon and offers answers about how and why the world is so destabilized and why so much of it can be traced, at least in part, to the United States and its senior statesman, Henry the K. Andrew Bacevich calls Grandin’s book a “tour de force” andPublisher’s Weekly says ardent Kissinger foes will be “enthralled,” so pick up a copy after you’re done reading about the CEO emeritus of Debacle, Inc. Nick Turse

Debacle, Inc.
How Henry Kissinger Helped Create Our “Proliferated” World
By Greg Grandin
The only person Henry Kissinger flattered more than President Richard Nixon was Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran. In the early 1970s, the Shah, sitting atop an enormous reserve of increasingly expensive oil and a key figure in Nixon and Kissinger’s move into the Middle East, wanted to be dealt with as a serious person. He expected his country to be treated with the same respect Washington showed other key Cold War allies like West Germany and Great Britain. As Nixon’s national security adviser and, after 1973, secretary of state, Kissinger’s job was to pump up the Shah, to make him feel like he truly was the “king of kings.”

Reading the diplomatic record, it’s hard not to imagine his weariness as he prepared for his sessions with the Shah, considering just what gestures and words would be needed to make it clear that his majesty truly mattered to Washington, that he was valued beyond compare. “Let’s see,” an aide who was helping Kissinger get ready for one such meeting said, “the Shah will want to talk about Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf, the Kurds, and Brezhnev.”

Cont.....

Wednesday, 30 September 2015

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