U.S. Politics

[OutByEaster?]

2 hours ago, blandy said:

Is there anywhere in the middle east where the fall of the leadership, or the struggles to overthrow the leadership has made things better?

I think the key bit of the question is better for who? 

Better for the people that live there? Nope, it's been unremittingly bleak for the region with little reliable social structure for most people and abject poverty and war for many.  On the other hand, a few people who've helped make the decisions have made a lot of money and there's been excellent shareholder value for some, so...erm..y'know..swings and roundabouts.

 

 

 

 

[Awol]

2 hours ago, blandy said:

Is there anywhere in the middle east where the fall of the leadership, or the struggles to overthrow the leadership has made things better?

Arguably in Tunisia it has, despite efforts from the aforementioned dictatorships to destabilize the country. 

In the remainder the efforts of external players to prevent democratic movements gaining traction has succeeded. That's the core of what I'm suggesting the strategy is, drowm the revolutions in blood and consequently cow the civil populations to prevent change.

It may just succeed in the short term but simultaneously reinforces the underlying fundamentals that drive the revolutions in the first place, ready for Arab Spring 2.0. That is likely to be an even nastier business.

As an aside what complicates things even further is the splits within the Arab and Muslim world that lead different countries to back different radical groups as they try to maximize influence.

That broadly breaks down (but not always) as Qatar and Turkey backing Muslim Brotherhood related militias and ISIS, while Saudi, Kuwait and UAE back a mixture of secular authoritarians and jihadists - although Kuwaiti nationals are alleged to have given significant support to ISIS.

Iran mainly supports Shia militias but will also help Sunni terror groups like Hamas where it serves their agenda. They are actually building a regional non state force taking in Shia fighters from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Their links to the Zayidi Shia (40% of the population) in Yemen have strengthened since the coalition invasion, but are still marginal compared to the levels of support for bad actors coming from the Gulf.

[MakemineVanilla]

23 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

Blair-Bush-Obama-Thatcher.

Sorry, which was the left wing government?

 

When you are standing at the north pole every direction is south. 

 

 

 

[blandy]

2 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

I think the key bit of the question is better for who? 

Better for the people that live there? Nope, it's been unremittingly bleak

Exactly. The genie long ago came out of the bottle, and can't be put back in.

Whether you (anyone) looks at the West and / or Russia as avaricious forces of capitalist or soviet style malevolence, or as nations trying, despite all their flaws, trying to make things better/less bad, none of it has "worked". 

[blandy]

3 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said:

When you are standing at the north pole every direction is south. 

No it isn't

There's up, as well - to infinity and beyond.

[OutByEaster?]

58 minutes ago, blandy said:

nations trying, despite all their flaws, trying to make things better/less bad.

I quite like nations, because I think they do, despite all of their flaws, try to make things better/less bad. I think sadly they've become secondary to the markets in deciding the future of the planet - and the market doesn't give a fig for better/less bad.

 

[OutByEaster?]

1 hour ago, MakemineVanilla said:

When you are standing at the north pole every direction is south. 

There's this slightly odd thing about at the moment of leaders that are 'cool' somehow seeming to be left wing, Blair liked Oasis, Obama played basketball and listened to jazz - they can't be instruments of the corporate right then eh? Canada is currently going through the same, where the odious Mr Trudeau looks 'cool' and is about as orthodoxly right wing neoliberal as you can be. 

 

 

[blandy]

4 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

I quite like nations, because I think they do, despite all of their flaws, try to make things better/less bad. I think sadly they've become secondary to the markets in deciding the future of the planet - and the market doesn't give a fig for better/less bad.

I don't mean to be picky, but for the sake of continuing discussion, while your sentiment can't be argued with (it is your sentiment to do with as you wish) the details described are (IMO) incorrect in both parts.

Nations. If by nations, you mean governments - the collection of humans charged with ruling a country, then there are as many examples, if not more, of these individuals making things worse through ideology, greed, avarice, religious nonsense, contempt and all the rest as there are of these collections of humans making things better. Whether you take Africa, the middle east, Russia, China, USA, UK, North Korea, Burma....there are "nations" all over, and of all kinds of different Capitalist/Socialist/Whatever outlook that make things worse.

Equally, if by "Markets" you actually mean Companies, there are zillions of examples of these making things better, overall. Much of the improvement in people's prospects and quality of life has come about through advances in medicine, education, technology, communications, transport, eneregy generation, water treatment...etc and so forth that have come about through the efforts and involvement of "markets".

For the sake of balance, I'm not arguing that nations are bad and markets are good. I'm saying that IMO, the simplification of nations are inherently trying to do good and sometimes fail and "markets" inherently bad and uninterested in good is actually not how things really are. Markets/Business will almost always try to do good if it can make them money, for a start. They'll do good if their founders and owners have a bellief in something good (renewable energy, medicine) Governments (nations) will almost often be tempted to, or will do "bad" if it'll keep them in power, and/or if it'll give them an advantage over a neighbour or "enemy".

 

[OutByEaster?]

I think there's a difference between companies and markets - companies make stuff, they're inhabited by people and people have emotional reactions to things - markets don't care, markets are just numbers and the world manipulated for the benefit of those numbers. Governments can be good or bad, nations by extension, companies too; because people are. Markets are indifferent by design. 

As an example, I'd kind of suggest pensions - pensions are inherently a good idea, people save during their working lives, often supported by companies in order to provide for their retirement and ensure they have adequate provision for life after work. People thinking, companies helping, society benefitting.

Markets take all that pension money and invest it - it's a lot of money - and there's guidance for that investment - the guidance says that if you manage a pension fund you have a legal responsibility to get the best possible return on that investment as is possible for the pensioner.

Unfortunately this means that if someone comes to you and says I can turn that dollar into two dollars, but it means that bad things happen - you say yes or you go to prison.

Markets turned this into a situation where pension money provided by companies was used to buy, control, asset strip and close those companies. In the 80's the US was full of people contributing to pension schemes that would put them out of work.

Markets don't care - they don't care about the pensioner, they don't care about the company, they don't care about environment, they don't care about the long term future, they don't care about society - they are inherently an indifferent model, they aren't a model for societal control like religion was or politics is, they exist only for the benefit of markets and as a way to run a planet they're insane unless subject to strict controls. Their desire is for the removal of all controls, and since the 80's they've been working more and more to that Friedman-esque point - and now we're running our societies for the benefit of a system that doesn't care about our societies. 

I think there's a tipping point at which everything begins to serve something that doesn't serve anything at all and I think we've passed it. I've become increasingly cynical and fatalistic about it and I know I'm not far off being a tinfoil hatted, corner dwelling, mooha, but it's hard to find much in the way of positives as we get nearer and nearer to the Koch brothers idea of America and by extension the world.

It feels like we're standing at the North pole being told South doesn't exist.

 

[blandy]

53 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

I think there's a difference between companies and markets - companies make stuff, they're inhabited by people and people have emotional reactions to things - markets don't care, markets are just numbers and the world manipulated for the benefit of those numbers. ...Markets are indifferent by design. 

As an example, I'd kind of suggest pensions - pensions are inherently a good idea, people save during their working lives, often supported by companies in order to provide for their retirement and ensure they have adequate provision for life after work. People thinking, companies helping, society benefitting.

Markets take all that pension money and invest it...Unfortunately this means that if someone comes to you and says I can turn that dollar into two dollars, but it means that bad things happen - you say yes or you go to prison.

Markets turned this into a situation where pension money provided by companies was used to buy, control, asset strip and close those companies. In the 80's the US was full of people contributing to pension schemes that would put them out of work.

Markets don't care...

Thanks for indulging me.

But, um, that's not accurate though, is it? "Companies make Stuff" - some do. Many don't.

Pensions. "Markets don't take all those pension contributions and invest them - Companies do. Companies like Standard Life, or Scottish Widows, or Prudential. Companies invest that money in other companies stocks and shares, or in Gold, or Wine or just in interest bearing accounts with other financial institutions.

Markets are (for want of a better word) just empty buildings, or places, or facilities. Market traders are farmers with Pigs or Marrows to sell, or Employees of Banks with stocks to sell or buy, or of Supermarkets or Mining Companies or etc.

Market traders in finance, working for Deutsche Bank or HSBC or whoever - they are in essence parasitic and they have at times been manipulative, fraudulent and all the rest. Equally, most aren't. And as you say our pensions which are are inherently a good idea are managed by these people. There are Ethical funds, ethical Banks, ethicval companies to invest in. You can choose, I can choose. So again, I'd argue that even in the USA and the US polticial and financial arena (as well as the West generally) it's not "Gov't good(ish), Markets/Companies bad.

Markets and business etc. need to be well regulated to prevent the things you rightly mention and it's probably (definitely) true that the balance between the citizen and the institutions is out of kilter, meaning harm gets done that shouldn't be done. While the Gov't (Trump) is rolling back law on environment, Companies, [and Markets] are still investing in Solar and Wind and so on, for example.

[OutByEaster?]

32 minutes ago, blandy said:

Thanks for indulging me.

I suspect that's the other way around!

Ta.

 

[MakemineVanilla]

2 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

There's this slightly odd thing about at the moment of leaders that are 'cool' somehow seeming to be left wing, Blair liked Oasis, Obama played basketball and listened to jazz - they can't be instruments of the corporate right then eh? Canada is currently going through the same, where the odious Mr Trudeau looks 'cool' and is about as orthodoxly right wing neoliberal as you can be. 

 

 

That is the point I was trying to make.

Mark Blyth the economist is often heard to say that Clinton finished the house which Bush built, and I think the same accusation could be levelled at Blair with regard to Thatcher.

As a political strategy, it would seem that if you hang out with Springsteen and Bono, and establish yourself as the cool guy, you have enough leeway to institute a lot of structural reforms which favour big capital, as long as at the same time you spend in areas of concern with the voters.

Of course when the business cycle ends, that is when the electorate find out the reality of their predicament.

[blandy]

5 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

I suspect that's the other way around!

 

Both ways, then  and I suppose I should have added, to be fairer, that Markets in stuff like Derivatives, together with things like the existence of Hedge funds and that bloke who made a fortune from the ERM and those Libor manipulators tend to give weight to support your viewpoint.

Anyway, US bolitics. Trump. Naughty man done bad thing (again).

[blandy]

9 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said:

As a political strategy, it would seem that if you hang out with Springsteen and Bono, and establish yourself as the cool guy, you have enough leeway to institute a lot of structural reforms which favour big capital, as long as at the same time you spend in areas of concern with the voters.

Of course when the business cycle ends, that is when the electorate find out the reality of their predicament.

Doesn't work like that, though, does it. It was Reagan and Thatcher that really set the ball rolling with "deregulation" of the markets and banking and finance. I accept Bill Clinton followed on with that, less so Blair. The real insitigators were, though, the uncool (though popular with many) RR and MT. And by the  time the whole thing went pear shaped they were long gone and pretty much don't get the blame levelled at them they should have done.

The people who suffered the most in terms of political reputation had little to do with the cause of it. Such is the nature of Politics.

ps Bono's not cool.

[StefanAVFC]

Breathe in

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Breathe out

I'm laughing because it's so ridiculous.

Quote

Less than a month after it was announced that first daughter Ivanka Trump was getting an unpaid job in her father’s White House, her brother Eric is now speculating that she may have influenced President Donald Trump into abandoning his longheld opposition to attacking Syria and the Bashar Assad regime.

“Ivanka is a mother of three kids and she has influence. I’m sure she said ‘listen, this is horrible stuff.’ My father will act in times like that,” Eric Trump told The Telegraph.

He added, “And by the way, he was anti doing anything with Syria two years ago. Then a leader gasses their own people, women and children, at some point America is the global leader and the world’s superpower has to come forward and act and they did with a lot of support of our allies and I think that’s a great thing.”

Notably, however — and in keeping with Eric Trump’s recent habit of accidentally stating truths that embarrass the rest of his family — he also used the interview as an opportunity to insist that there was nothing to see about his father’s well documented connections to the regime of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

“If there was anything that Syria did, it was to validate the fact that there is no Russia tie,” Trump told The Telegraph. This argument ignores the fact that Trump warned Russia before conducting his airstrikes on Syria,

Trump also said that he wasn’t worried about Putin’s threats of military retaliation over America’s attacks on Syria, claiming that the president “is not a guy who gets intimidated. I can tell you he is tough and he won’t be pushed around. The cards will shake out the way they do but he’s tough.”

 

[HanoiVillan]

“Ivanka is a mother of three kids and she has influence. I’m sure she said ‘listen, this is horrible stuff.’

--------------------------------------

So what is this "speaking as a mother" then? Is that a euphemism for "talking out of my arse"? "Suspending rational thought for a moment"? 

Bill Bailey, Part Troll

[StefanAVFC]

Not the Onion

video

 

Edited April 11, 2017 by StefanAVFC

[chrisp65]

identity of Spicer speach writer revealed

[jon_c]

Spicer : "Hilter didn't gas his own people like Assad did."

I can't even.

I take it he thinks being Jewish meant you couldn't be German.

[El Zen]

Sounded to me as if he was about to say 'Hitler didn't drop [chemical weapons] on innocent people' before he, to his credit I suppose, realized what an unfortunate choice of words that would have been. 

He's no CJ Cregg...