Showing posts with label Germany. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Germany. Show all posts

Monday, February 28, 2022

I Am No American Mouthpiece On Ukraine

I am no American stooge. I am not in contact with anybody officially in power in the US. I am on US soil, but that only gives me perspectives that make me no fan of the American political system as it stands today. I think America teeters on the brink of both fascism and apartheid if that is possible, but one misguided hateful fool can turn an applecart upside down, and I will let Robert DeNiro take it from here.



Liberty asks for eternal vigilance. As in, you don't get it in inheritance. You could easily lose it from one generation to the next. And right now, America is busy losing it.

I don't think Ukraine or Russia should learn from the United States. I think the United States should see this as an opportunity to rejuvenate democracy inside America. This is your chance. Take it. Seize the moment. Support Ukraine in every way you can. Support the Russians in their streets. 

There is so much the US and the West and the rest of the world could do. Beam unfettered Internet down satellites all across the former Soviet Union. Get the Russian diaspora hyper-organized. Freeze the Kremlin criminal syndicate's assets everywhere. Organize a truckers' strike in Poland if necessary. 

Anything to get the Russians to come out into the streets in the hundreds of thousands. What Russia needs is a color revolution. There is a point at which Putin gives up. I think that is 500,000 people out in the streets of Moscow refusing to vacate. 

Find him a safe way to get to Belarus. 

America got rid of Trump. Russia's turn to get rid of Putin. 

Russia deserves to become a $5 trillion economy. I think a free trade area encompassing the former Soviet Union would be a great idea. A democratic Russia robustly trading with all its neighbors would make NATO irrelevant. I think Germany will enjoy spending less on defense. 

Russia will continue to be a global power. 









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Wednesday, March 11, 2020

The Most Responsible Head Of State On The Planet

Merkel Expects 60-70 Per Cent of Germans to be Infected With Coronavirus Parliament falls silent as German Chancellor drops shocking number. Angela Merkel says she expects around 60-70 per cent of Germans will be infected with the coronavirus, which equates to about 53 million people. Reportedly, the German Parliament fell completely silent when Merkel stated the number. News outlet Bild reported the German Chancellor’s comments, which echoed numbers forecast by Berlin virologist Christian Drosten, who added that such a total could take 2 years or longer to reach. Given the fact that coronavirus has a mortality rate of around 1 per cent, this could equate to over half a million deaths Germany, which has recorded 1,565 coronavirus cases and two deaths so far
Coronavirus: Up to 70% of Germany could become infected - Merkel
60% to 70% of the German population will be infected by the coronavirus, Merkel says






Now, months after reports of an outbreak began, the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus has infected nearly 100,000 and killed just over 3,300 people around the world — a rapid spread in which some historians see parallels to deadly historical diseases.............. the Spanish flu pandemic that killed tens of millions around the world during the years between 1918 and 1922. ............ We’re about three months into the coronavirus outbreak, whereas the real devastation of the 1918 flu began about six to seven months in, after the virus started to cause deadly, rapidly-developing bacterial infections and pneumonia deep in patients’ lungs................ political leaders — and to a lesser extent the communities they govern — are making the same mistakes they did in the past................ On March 11, 1918, an Army private in Kansas complained about flu-like symptoms. By that afternoon, there were over 100 other sick soldiers. Within five weeks, that number increased ten-fold and 47 soldiers had died................ COVID-19 is following a very different trajectory than the Spanish flu; there’s no global war raging, but there are fast and easier ways for a higher volume of people to travel quickly across the globe, spreading the virus far from where it began.................. isolation and quarantine have worked best if enacted early enough. Limiting exposure to disease is still among the best ways to limit its spread. The challenge was — and remains — the ability to pinpoint infection quickly, and isolate the patient before they spread it to others............. legislation that, in the face of the Spanish flu, let authorities show up and cart people off to isolation hospitals — a policy that he said hit racial minorities, the poor, and anyone else living in overcrowded areas the hardest................... the only reason the pandemic is called the Spanish flu is because Spain, a neutral country, allowed its newspapers to report about the disease.............. The government relied heavily on the Sedition Act to stamp out news about the pandemic lest it embarrass the state or detract from the war effort, according to Smithsonian Magazine. The result was a media ecosystem full of inaccurate information and propaganda telling the public not to worry, all while cities like Philadelphia turned into ghost towns and entire communities were wiped out.................. Now, having learned seemingly nothing from China’s errors, U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly downplayed, and spread false information about, the outbreak.............. the way authorities have controlled the narrative around the outbreak reveals that their priorities are backwards. Instead of putting the concern for human life and citizens’ welfare first, leaders like Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping have focused more on national pride.......... A vaccine won’t be ready for at least a year............... healthcare remains prohibitively expensive to many in the U.S.............. those historical laws that let officials show up and take people into quarantine? Mooney says that by and large, the rich went unaffected.
travel only permitted for work or family emergencies ............ the best thing was for citizens to stay at home, in large part to protect the most fragile members of society. .............. Outside of China, Italy now has the highest number of deaths due to the coronavirus outbreak with 463 — a rise of 97 in just the last 24 hours. There are now over 9,000 confirmed cases, surpassing South Korea ............... a total ban of public gatherings, including all football matches, across the entire country. ............ inmates at 22 Italian prisons rioted on Monday, escaping facilities and kidnapping officers ........... The riots also occurred after Italy’s interior ministry announced severe penalties, three months in prison, for anybody who attempts to flee the lockdown in northern Italy.
A number of airlines are being forced to operate near-empty “ghost flights” after the coronavirus outbreak caused sweeping cancellations and demand for airfare to plummet across the globe. ................ “Passenger demand for air travel has dramatically fallen due to COVID-19 and in some instances we are being forced to fly almost empty planes or lose our valuable slots,” CEO of Virgin Atlantic Shai Weiss told CNBC via email on Tuesday............. major European airports including London Heathrow and Munich are turning into ghost towns with empty check-in counters. ............. the flights are literally just burning jet fuel. ............. the industry could lose more than $113 billion revenue this year alone .

What would happen if the world reacted to climate change like it’s reacting to the coronavirus? What would a fast, coordinated, collective response to climate change look like?
The Extraordinary Decisions Facing Italian Doctors There are now simply too many patients for each one of them to receive adequate care.
Jersey City school district is preparing for potential 3 weeks of closures in wake of coronavirus
Coronavirus Snarls Trans-Pacific Shipping and Ripples Through U.S. Business There are few China-bound vessels and an imbalance in shipping containers, especially the refrigerated ones used for farm products; ‘It’s cutthroat’ ...... The coronavirus epidemic is upending the carefully calibrated logistics of global shipping, as plunging exports from China disrupt the trade of American goods, especially farm products such as fruit and meat destined for Asia.
‘Wildly unprepared’: survey of US nurses highlights coronavirus concerns A northern California nurse criticizes the CDC for delays in testing after she fell ill while caring for a patient with coronavirus
The Worst Outcome If somebody other than Donald Trump were in the White House, the coronavirus crisis would not be unfolding this way...... At every turn, President Trump’s policy regarding coronavirus has unfolded as if guided by one rule: How can I make this crisis worse? ...... The financial markets have plunged into a 2008-style crash, auguring a recession, perhaps a severe one. The Trump administration has had almost two months to think about this crisis. ...... a classic Trump formulation. It seeks to protect America by erecting a wall against the world, without thinking very hard how or whether the wall can work. The disease is already here. The numbers only look low because of our prior failure to provide adequate testing. They will not look low even four days from now. And those infected with the virus can travel from other countries and on other routes.......... There is always something malign in Trump’s incompetence. He has no care or concern for others; he cannot absorb the trouble and suffering of others as real. He monotones his way through words of love and compassion, but those words plainly have no content or meaning for him. The only thing that is real is his squalid vanity. This virus threatens to pierce that vanity, so he denied it as long as he could. What he refuses to acknowledge cannot be real, can it? ....... And even now that he has acknowledged the crisis, he still cannot act, because he does not know what to do. His only goal now is to shove blame onto others. Americans have to face the fact that in the grip of this pandemic, the Oval Office is for all practical purposes as empty as the glazed eyes of the man who spoke from that office tonight.
India suspends most visas to halt coronavirus spread India has 73 confirmed cases of the virus, the health ministry says. This number is expected to grow in coming days, as the results for tests conducted earlier become available........ "It would be near impossible for India to force its citizens into mass quarantine and hospitalise people in numbers like China"..... All schools, colleges and movie theatres in the capital, Delhi, will be shut until 31 March in a bid to help control the spread of the virus ......

"We don't have data to support the theory that the coronavirus won't be as effective in summers"

...... a passenger from Dubai, who was tested at the Mangalore airport and was found to have mild fever, ran away from a government hospital where he was taken for observation.
St. Patrick's Day parades canceled nationally amid coronavirus outbreaks
California governor calls for all public gatherings to be canceled due to coronavirus

‘He’s gonna get us all killed’: sense of unease after Trump coronavirus speech The president began his speech as many leaders do, then reverted to his familiar nationalism and threw in a bit of campaigning ...... He went on to talk of the pathogen as if it was a foreign army or terrorist network. “The virus will not have a chance against us,” he said. “No nation is more prepared or more resilient than the United States.” ...... “The militaristic, nationalistic language of Trump’s speech tonight is striking: a ‘foreign virus,’ keeping out China and Europe.” ..... David Litt, who wrote speeches for Obama, posted: “As a former presidential speechwriter, my careful rhetorical analysis is that he’s gonna get us all killed.”

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Saturday, August 03, 2019

An Intelligent Conversation On Trade

I am not a big fan of Donald Trump. The guy is asinine. But you do deal with the office.

There is a need for an intelligent conversation on trade. Donald Trump is a hammer looking for a nail. He is arguing against sound economic theory. At some level, his moves can be seen as a fascist's fantasy for a Great Depression. Come, Depression, come!

He has beef with China, but he also has beef with India. He has beef with India, but he also has beef with Germany.

The WTO has prevented many wars. Countries that trade seldom go to war. Instead of saying China lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, Donald Trump says China stole hundreds of billions of dollars. Minus China, the US was looking at a Great Depression in 2008. It is good to have some large economies in the world.

Trade talk has to be forward-looking. The pre-WTO world had much strife.

Giving every human being on earth a biometric ID that rests on the Blockchain, and giving everybody access to credit and financial services, in general, is what would be forward-looking. The next generation of trade talks will be about allowing human beings to move from anywhere to anywhere else on earth. That would immediately add trillions of dollars to the global GDP.

Intellectual property laws written in the US Congress can not be imposed upon the world. That truth is no clearer than with medicine. What we need is a world government, a global parliament.


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Friday, August 02, 2019

WTO Reform: A New Round Of Trade Talks Are Necessary



Bilateral will do no good. This is like India and Pakistan going bilateral on Kashmir. No progress has been made in 70 years. If the US and China insist on resolving this on their own, there might be no progress.

This is not about saying the US is right about China, or China has a point. This is about the very mechanism of talks, the very framework. The issues come later.

China might not be a western-style democracy. But Germany is. France is. The UK is. Italy is. India is a democracy. You want all of them at the table.

Infographic: Here’s How the Global GDP Is Divvied Up



The US seems to be 25% of the global economy, but that is very far from 100% or even 51%. The European Union, Japan, India, and China are important players. By now the supply chains in the global economy are so complex, it makes little sense to not give the major trade powers seats at the table. China and the US can not do this alone.

There is economic theory around trade. Much of it supports trade. But then there is the politics of trade. And that can sometimes decouple from the economic theory. If your goal is to fill up the streets of Hong Kong with protesters, maybe the trade war is a good idea. But that does not seem to be the stated goal. The US trade deficit might be more to do with the US dollar's position in the global economy.

A prolonged trade war might cost Donald Trump the 2020 election. He might lose even without it. The polls show him at 42% and trailing Joe Biden in every battleground state. The dude might get impeached. Maybe there is no firewall for him in the US Senate. Maybe it will be Pence versus Harris in 2020. Who knows?

There is political peril for both sides. The Chinese army out in the streets of Hong Kong will seriously undermine the Chinese Communist Party. This is not 1989. You can not cover it up.

The biggest political peril is that the two powers drag the global economy into a major recession, and that gives rise to all sorts of fascists around the world.


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Tuesday, September 25, 2018

Interesting Fallouts From The US China Trade War

The US and China have very different political systems. China was the biggest beneficiary of the collapse of the Soviet Union. It allowed China to let loose the market cat that would catch mice. China today is a peculiar mix of the market and the one party state. In putting "a knife to China's neck," as the Chinese put it, Trump has necessarily questioned that mix which, curiously, allows room for the Chinese to question the role of the US government in the US market. Why are you not better educating your children? Why are you not better retraining your workers?

One line of thinking is after Trump gets his ass whooped during the impending midterm elections, he might start singing a different tune, or that the Walmart shoppers - the hard core Trump base - might revolt, or that Trump might get impeached. That might change the flavor of the trade war, if not outright downgrade it.

Many in the US argue the US government should invest more in education and training, should invest massively more in science and research. It is not "socialist" to invest in science and research. The US government could invest massively in clean energy and artificial intelligence, like the Chinese plan to do. But to be able to do that you will have to cure the dysfunction in Washington DC. Donald Trump has been a Pied Piper who has channeled the rage of the American working class to give himself hefty tax cuts, a transfer of money to the richest Americans borrowed by all Americans, from the Chinese, of all people.

The trade war has gone too far to leave the Chinese mix of the state and the market the way it was. The new mix the Chinese might be forced into would likely hew closer to the market.

But Germany is no one party state, and it runs a huge surplus with the US. The US needs to introspect. Maybe it is a capitalist that is refusing to invest in human capital. Immigration brought America this far. For America to complain about immigration is a country tired of being number one.


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Sunday, January 03, 2016

Greece

A Pain in the Athens
Why Greece Isn't to Blame for the Crisis
despite endless lazy moralizing commentary to the contrary, Greece has very little to do with the crisis that bears its name. To see why, it is best to follow the money—and those who bank it. ....... The roots of the crisis lie far away from Greece; they lie in the architecture of European banking. When the euro came into existence in 1999, not only did the Greeks get to borrow like the Germans, everyone’s banks got to borrow and lend in what was effectively a cheap foreign currency. And with super-low rates, countries clamoring to get into the euro, and a continent-wide credit boom underway, it made sense for national banks to expand private lending as far as the euro could reach. ....... So European banks’ asset footprints (loans and other assets) expanded massively throughout the first decade of the euro, especially into the European periphery. Indeed, according the Bank of International Settlements, by 2010 when the crisis hit, French banks held the equivalent of nearly 465 billion euros in so-called impaired periphery assets, while German banks had 493 billion on their books. Only a small part of those impaired assets were Greek, and here’s the rub: Greece made up two percent of the eurozone in 2010, and Greece’s revised budget deficit that year was 15 percent of the country’s GDP—that’s 0.3 percent of the eurozone’s economy. In other words,

the Greek deficit was a rounding error, not a reason to panic

. ........ In such an over-levered world, if Greece defaulted, those banks would need to sell other similar sovereign assets to cover the losses. But all those sell contracts hitting the market at once would trigger a bank run throughout the bond markets of the eurozone that could wipe out core European banks. .....

something had to be done to stop the rot, and that something was the troika program for Greece, which succeeded in stopping the bond market bank run—keeping the Greeks in and the yields down—at the cost of making a quarter of Greeks unemployed and destroying nearly a third of the country’s GDP

. ...... how has such a small economy managed to generate such a mortal threat to the euro? ...... what the European elites buried deep within their supposed bailouts for Greece. Namely, the bailouts weren’t for Greece at all. They were bailouts-on-the-quiet for Europe’s big banks, and taxpayers in core countries are now being stuck with the bill since the Greeks have refused to pay. .......... The final figure “loaned” to Greece was around 230 billion euro. ...... They raised bonds to bail Greece’s creditors—the banks of France and Germany mainly—via loans to Greece. ..... Of the roughly 230 billion euro disbursed to Greece, it is estimated that only 27 billion went toward keeping the Greek state running. Indeed, by 2013 Greece was running a surplus and did not need such financing. Accordingly, 65 percent of the loans to Greece went straight through Greece to core banks for interest payments, maturing debt, and for domestic bank recapitalization demanded by the lenders. By another accounting, 90 percent of the “loans to Greece” bypassed Greece entirely. ...... bondholders, who got to sell their now LTRO-boosted bonds back to the governments that had just bailed them out .........

the whole shebang “was about protecting German banks, but especially the French banks, from debt write-offs.”

....... If 230 billion euro had been given to Greece, it would have amounted to just under 21,000 euros per person. Given such largess, it would have been impossible to generate a 25 percent unemployment rate among adults, over 50 percent unemployment among youth, a sharp increase in elderly poverty, and a near collapse of the banking system—even with the troika’s austerity package in place. ....... someone in core Europe is going to have to own up to all of the above and admit that their money wasn’t given to lazy Greeks but to already-bailed bankers who, despite a face-value haircut, ended up making a profit on the deal. ....... Germany being a serial defaulter that received debt relief four times in the twentieth century ....... We’ve never understood Greece because we have refused to see the crisis for what it was—a continuation of a series of bailouts for the financial sector that started in 2008 and that rumbles on today.

It’s so much easier to blame the Greeks and then be surprised when they refuse to play along with the script.

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Saturday, December 12, 2015

Trump Inc. Is East China Company

English: TRIPOLI. With leader of the Libyan Re...
English: TRIPOLI. With leader of the Libyan Revolution Muammar Gaddafi. Русский: ТРИПОЛИ. С лидером ливийской революции Муамаром Каддафи. Deutsch: Wladimir Putin mit Muammar al-Gaddafi in Tripolis. Suomi: Vladimir Putin Muammar al-Gaddafin kanssa Tripolissa. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Chinese have bought over 100 million dollars in real estate from Trump Inc. over the years. That is enough money to fund a presidential campaign. And it is all legal too. They are safely registered as business transactions.

100 million dollars is pocket change to the Chinese. They'd not blink to spill a billion dollars if the idea is to take over the White House. They routinely deal in trillions.

The Chinese are building a road to Berlin. But they are not going to stop at Europe. They are going to come all the way to America. 

Guess who is German. 

When the British wanted to take over China, they destroyed a robust country by pushing opium. The Chinese are banking on gambling to steal America's soul. Why do Trump's casinos not go out of business after repeated bankruptcies? Who is bankrolling them? Where is the money coming from? 

The Chinese were neutral on Gaddafi. Guess who hosted Gaddafi when Gaddafi was in town. 

The Chinese already own Wall Street. But they don't own the White House, not yet. 

Trump 2016? 


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Saturday, June 13, 2015

India: A 15% Growth Rate Is Possible

India decadal growth rate map
India decadal growth rate map (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Countries like America and Britain and France and Germany and Japan ended up becoming an awe to China because they grew at something like 5% for decades, for centuries. Not 10%.

China grew at 10% for 30 years. Maybe 25.

If Modi does things right, as I think he will, as I think he is, India should hit 10% in a year or two. And it can stay there for 20-30 years. Maybe longer. But my point is, India could achieve a 15% growth rate. It is possible.

India's Goal: $50 Trillion

Main economic growth rate ki baat kar raha hoon, population growth rate ki nahin. Koi confusion na ho jaye. 


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Saturday, November 26, 2011

The Real Story Behind The European Mess

Flag of the British Indian Ocean TerritoryImage via WikipediaThe market is sending strong signals.

The Europeans did the economic union thing, and they did the single currency thing. But they thought they all could still be all these various sovereign nations.

And the market is saying no to that.

The economic union and the single currency needed to be followed with a political union. The Europeans needed to work on that years ago. Not attempting a political union was a mistake. And the Europeans are paying a price.

And if they are not going to go for the political union the economic union is going to unravel. The single currency could fall apart.

This storm is major.
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