Generational Dynamics World View - Printable Version +- Generational Theory Forum: The Fourth Turning Forum: A message board discussing generations and the Strauss Howe generational theory (http://generational-theory.com/forum) +-- Forum: Fourth Turning Forums (http://generational-theory.com/forum/forum-1.html) +--- Forum: Theories Of History (http://generational-theory.com/forum/forum-7.html) +--- Thread: Generational Dynamics World View (/thread-51.html) Pages:
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6-Apr-18 World View -- Ukraine seizes Russian ship in Sea of Azov in retaliation for - John J. Xenakis - 04-05-2018 *** 6-Apr-18 World View -- Ukraine seizes Russian ship in Sea of Azov in retaliation for Kerch Strait blockade This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
**** **** Russia builds bridge over Kerch Strait to Crimea, blocking commercial traffic to Ukraine **** The Kerch Strait is in the lower right corner, as the tiny strait that separates Crimea and Russia at their closest points, and also separates the Sea of Azov in the north from the Black Sea in the south. Ever since Russia invaded and illegally annexed Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula in 2014, Russia has had the problem of shipping goods between Russia and Crimea. Russia has taken control of Luhansk and Donetsk in far eastern Ukraine, as well as Crimea itself, but the region along southern Ukraine through the Mariupol and Bardyansk seaports is still under control of Ukraine's government in Kiev. For a while, the international community was wondering whether the Russian invaders would continue their invasion through those seaports, in order to connect a land route from Russia to Crimea, and giving them complete control of the Sea of Azov. For whatever reason, possibly because Russia's president Vladimir Putin feared that such a drastic move might provoke military action from the European Union, no such invasion occurred. Apparently the Russians considered several possible solutions, with the obvious choices being a tunnel under or a bridge over the Kerch Strait. The Kerch Strait is shown in the above map in the lower right corner, as the tiny strait that separates Crimea and Russia at their closest points, and also separates the Sea of Azov in the north from the Black Sea in the south. In May 2015, Russia began constructing an 11.8 mile bridge across the Kerch Strait, said to be the longest bridge in Europe once it's completed. The project will cost an enormous $5 billion, and there are concerns that the strait is not sufficiently geologically stable enough to support the bridge safely. Nonetheless, construction has gone ahead, and the plan is for the bridge to be open to car traffic this year, and open to railroad traffic in 2019. The construction of the bridge has already had a severe effect on Ukraine's economy. Russia has several times closed the Kerch Strait to maritime traffic, trapping commercial vessels docked in Mariupol and Berdyansk seaports. During 2017, freight traffic was reduced 43% and transshipments shrank by 30%, totally $54 million in 2017. The losses are expected to be significantly higher in 2018. Jamestown (22-Feb) and Russia Today (3-Mar) and Guardian (London, 31-Aug-2017) and Völkerrechtsblog (10-Jan) **** **** Ukraine threatens seizure of ships in Sea of Azov travelling to and from Crimea **** The bridge over Kerch Strait (Russia Today) On March 26, Ukraine's border service in the Sea of Azov seized the fishing vessel Nord, on charges of violating Ukraine's territorial waters. The Russians claim the ship was in international waters. The Ukrainians claim it illegally entered Ukrainian waters when it docked in Crimea without Ukrainian permission. On Wednesday, April 4, Ukraine's Border Service spokesman Oleg Slobodyan commented on the detention of Russia's Nord vessel, and said that Ukraine will detain all the ships travelling to and out of Crimea without Kiev’s consent, Slobodyan said: <QUOTE>"Ukraine’s position is unequivocal, it considers Crimea to be an occupied part of its territory so law enforcement agencies will promptly respond to violations committed by those travelling in and out of Crimea."<END QUOTE> So the situation is this:
There is potentially a major confrontation brewing here, especially if Ukraine goes through with its new threat of seizing all ships docking in Crimea. So far, this confrontation has been going on relatively quietly, but it could change into a full-blown crisis at any time. Unian (Ukraine) and Sputnik (Russia) and Tass (Russia) and EurAsia Daily (Russia) Related Articles
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Russia, Ukraine, Crimea, Luhansk, Donetsk, Mariupol, Bardyansk, Sea of Azov, Kerch Strait, Black Sea, Nord fishing vessel, Oleg Slobodyan Permanent web link to this article Receive daily World View columns by e-mail Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal John J. Xenakis 100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A Cambridge, MA 02142 Phone: 617-864-0010 E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Mikebert - 04-06-2018 Question for John X. Back in 2003-4 you forecast a Dow of 4000 or less by the end of 2004. I argued that the market likely had already bottomed in 2002 at 7286 on the Dow and was buyable (https://safehaven.com/article/84/how-low-can-we-go--what-several-valuation-methods-have-to-say). The concept on which your prediction was based as historical mean-reversion to a single digit P/E according to the Shiller method (now called CAPE) Here is a chart of CAPE values ( http://www.multpl.com/shiller-pe/ ). CAPE got to 15 on the 2008 financial crisis, and is now 31. In our discussions, I said you were right that CAPE would return to single digit values, but it would be around 2020. I am now where you were in 2003-2004 making a ridiculously bearish forecast that the Dow is going to go to 8000 or so. Do you still follow the market, or have you given up? 7-Apr-18 World View -- Gaza Palestinians burn tires to hide protests from Israel's ar - John J. Xenakis - 04-06-2018 *** 7-Apr-18 World View -- Gaza Palestinians burn tires to hide protests from Israel's army This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
**** **** Gaza Palestinians burn tires to hide protests from Israel's army **** A Gaza protester wears a tire on his head with an onion (to protect himself from tear gas) dangling from it (al-Jazeera) In the Muslim world, protests usually occur on Fridays, when worshippers pour out of mosques after Friday prayers. On Friday, March 30, Land Day protests in Gaza led to numerous violent clashes with Israel's army, when Gaza protesters threatened to break through the border fence with Israel. The first used teargas to stop the protesters, then live gunfire. 16 Palestinians were killed, and 1,400 wounded. On Friday, April 6, the number of protests appeared to be considerably reduced, although the protesters used new tactics. Protesters burned tires creating massive conflagrations at five different points along the border. The purpose of burning the tires was to create black, thick smoke that would make it impossible for Israel's army to see where the protesters were attempting to break through the border fence. The army used water cannons to put out the fires, and giant fans to disperse smoke. Live gunfire was also used to stop the protesters, with the result that seven Palestinians were shot dead and over 200 more were wounded. The only good news about this situation is that these numbers were sharply lower than last week. Although Hamas, the governing authority in Gaza, is encouraging protests on a continuing basis, the protests are all relatively minor except for the final one: The major event will occur on May 15, Naqba Day (Catastrophe Day), commemorating the creation of Israel in 1948. YNet News (Israel) and Reuters and Al Jazeera **** **** Hamas and Fatah/PLO criticized for contradictory strategies **** Hamas, the governing authority in Gaza, has come under increasing criticism for the policies it's pursuing in Gaza. Even Arab analysts on television have criticized Hamas for having no apparent strategy at all except to encourage protesters, including women and children, to attempt to break through the border wall and risk getting shot and killed, with no advantage to them, to the Palestinians or to Hamas for the bloodshed. The Hamas government in Gaza has an entirely different strategy than the Palestinian Authority (PA) - Fatah - Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) government in the West Bank, led by Mahmoud Abbas. Hamas's strategy is the elimination of Israel, and so the Gaza protests are being pursued with the intention of leading to an armed conflict that Israel would lose. By contrast, Abbas's strategy is full recognition of the state of Palestine existing side-by-side with Israel, and is pursuing peaceful protests in order to gain international support for Palestine. The problem for the Palestinians is that they can't make any progress at all unless Hamas and Fatah have a joint strategy. Negotiations for a Hamas-Fatah unity government that began after the 67 day Israel-Gaza war in 2014 have failed completely, largely because Hamas and Fatah have completely different intentions about destroying Israel versus living with Israel. The 27th conference of the Arab Parliament Federation met on Friday in Jeddah and stated the usual policies -- support for an independent state of Palestine with its capital in Jerusalem, and condemnation of Israeli attacks on Palestinian people and their land, sanctuaries and properties. They also demanded that the international community put pressure on Israel to stops its crimes in Palestine. But all of that is completely meaningless, because those policies are subordinate to the major policy: unifying the Arab position toward major issues — the Palestinian cause and combating terror. And there is no unity on the Arab position. What's the "Palestinian cause," when the Palestinians don't even know what it means. What does "combating terror" mean when Hamas is internationally considered to be a terror organization, calling for the destruction of Israel. And then of course there's the issue of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president. Abbas is 82 years old, was born in 1935, and lived through World War II and the bloody wars between Jews and Arabs that followed the 1948 partitioning of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel. Having lived though that horrific war, Abbas has been a major force in maintaining a semblance of peace between the Palestinians and Israelis. From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, the reason that Abbas and Fatah are far more moderate than Hamas is because Abbas lived through the horrors if the Arab-Jewish war of 1948, and does not want to see it happen again. Younger leaders, in both Gaza and the West Bank, would have no such inhibitions. I believe that Abbas himself understands this, and that's why he hasn't stepped down even though he's been in declining health. But his death or retirement would bring new, younger leadership into power, and that could well mean a new, massive, bloody war between Jews and Arabs. Generational Dynamics predicts that the approaching Clash of Civilizations world war will pit China, Pakistan and the Sunni Muslim countries against the US, India, Russia and Iran. In the Mideast, Generational Dynamics predicts a full-scale Mideast war, pitting Jews against Arabs, Sunnis against Shias, and various ethnic groups against each other. Al Monitor (13-Mar) and Arab News and AFP and i24 News (Israel) Related Articles:
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Israel, Gaza, Hamas, Naqba, Catastrophe, West Bank, Palestinian Authority, PA, - Fatah, Palestinian Liberation Organization, PLO, Mahmoud Abbas, Arab Parliament Federation Permanent web link to this article Receive daily World View columns by e-mail Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal John J. Xenakis 100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A Cambridge, MA 02142 Phone: 617-864-0010 E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 04-07-2018 (04-06-2018, 02:22 PM)Mikebert Wrote: > Question for John X. Back in 2003-4 you forecast a Dow of 4000 or Well, in 2004 you said that I've set things up so that I could never be wrong, since if a financial crisis didn't occur, then I could always say that it was still coming. I responded that as long as public debt keeps increasingly exponentially, then the financial crisis was coming, but if public debt starts to fall to normal levels, then you could definitely say that I'm wrong when that happens. I added that such reductions in public debt could never happen. The Generational Dynamics methodology produces analyses and trend predictions that have been 100% correct, but the problem is that the timing of the endpoint of the trend cannot be predicted. The analogy I sometimes use is the phrase "the straw that breaks the camel's back." If you keep piling straw onto the camel's back, then you can predict, with 100% accuracy, that there will be a straw that breaks the camel's back, though you can't predict which straw, or when it will occur. But the generational predictions are more complex than simply saying "if you keep piling straw, the camel's back will break." The generational prediction also says: "You will keep piling straw on the camel's back." This is a very strong prediction, because it says that the trend will continue, and that the predicted endpoint (breaking the camel's back) will be reached with 100% certainty, because you can't do anything to stop it. To emphasize this, the prediction is that you'll keep piling straw on the camel's back until you break the camel's back. In a generational sense, you have no choice. You cannot stop piling on straw. Therefore you will break the camel's back with certainty. So my 2004 prediction was not just that a global financial crisis would occur, and that P/E ratios would fall to single digits. It was also that the trends leading to those endpoints would continue, even if I couldn't predict when the endpoints would occur. It's true that I expected those endpoints to be reached in the 2007-8 timeframe, but I watched in utter astonishment as the Fed and other central banks flooded the world's financial system with tens of trillions of dollars in printed money. And then hedge funds have leveraged that money into hundreds of trillions or even quadrillions of dollars of money with nothing to back it. That isn't "public debt" in the sense that I meant it in 2004, but it's certainly in the same spirit and of the same kind that I was thinking about. So not only have I not "given up," but I consider my 2004 prediction still to be 100% correct. If I included in my 2004 prediction something about timing (something that I was still sometimes sloppy about in those days), then I shouldn't have done that, because those kinds of timing predictions cannot be made in the Generational Dynamics methodology. But the trend prediction was correct, the prediction that public debt would keep increasing was correct, and that therefore it will end up in a financial panic and crash is still correct. However, if you have a methodology that in 2004 came up with a 2020 date for the P/E ratio to fall to single digits, then I'll have to admit that you've certainly been extremely accurate with the timing, and I congratulate you on that. In my World View columns, I only write about financial issues when I have something new to add. For example, I could write today that "The S&P 500 P/E ratio is 25.04, as of Friday morning. This is astronomically higher than the historical average of 14, indicating that the stock market is in a huge bubble, and is headed for a major financial crisis." But I've written things like that several times in the past, and there's no point in just repeating it. I haven't updated my own P/E ratio chart since August 2015: As this shows, the P/E ratio has been far above the historical average since 1990, and so by the Law of Mean Reversion it will fall well below the average. And because it's been so far above the average for so long, it will probably fall well below the historic lows of 5-6, and stay there for a long time, in order to restore the historical average to 14. Since you're really into analyzing timings, you may be interested in what Higgenbotham has been posting in the Financial Topics thread of the Generational Dynamics forum for several years. Higgenbotham has been shorting the market for years, using various charting techniques to predict when the crash will occur. He's lost money at various times and made money at others. I keep telling him that amazed I am at what he does and how he must have a stomach made of steel to do it, since I sometimes feel sick to my stomach just reading what he's doing. At any rate, he seems to have made about $500 in a few hours overnight on Thursday. http://gdxforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2&start=15780#p38865 I look upon this with total awe. If I even tried anything like this, I'd end up in the hospital with total nervous breakdown. So I don't know if you're in the market yourself, or if you're a short-seller, but if you have any insights into market timing, Higgenbotham would probably be interested in hearing them. By the way, I've also been posting my own speculation recently. The market has peaked on January 26 of this year, and since then has been following the same kind of wild swings as when the market peaked on September 3, 1929. ** DJIA Historical Page ** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ww2010.i.djia.htm The earnings period is going to start in earnest this week. The expectations are an astronomical earnings increase. If those astronomical expectations are not met, that could be the trigger for a panic and a crash. One theory is that the October 28, 1929, panic occurred because earnings were below expectations. If we want to guess at when there might be a panic this year, it would be just as far into the earnings period, so it would be on April 28, 2018. If we follow the 1929 pattern, then there would be a massive panic, followed by a rapid near recovery. After that, the market would keep falling, and reach bottom somewhere around 2020, which is what you predicted in 2004. However, it would fall far below 8000. Probably around 1000. Anyway, I post these kinds of semi-wild speculations in the forum, but I rarely include them in my World View articles. RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Cynic Hero '86 - 04-07-2018 The problem with your financial predictions isn't that the predictions was wrong, in fact it was correct. It is the fact that the predicted Financial Crash has already occurred. You Predicted a Crash Caused by Speculative lending and other economic malpractice in 2003/2004 and the predicted crash Did in fact Occur, in 2008. The Problem with a Crash "worse than 1929" at this points is that Nobody is Investing in the stock Market that much in 2018. There is No Mass speculation like in 1929, because nobody other than established investors trusts the stock market with their money. The Current stock market as some have pointed out, is largely decoupled from the "real" economy at this point. If The stock Market reflected real numbers it would still be at 2010 levels. RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 04-07-2018 (04-07-2018, 02:44 PM)Cynic Hero 86 Wrote: > The problem with your financial predictions isn't that the Investment Company Institute Wrote:> As of December 31, 2017, 401(k) plans held an estimated $5.3 https://www.ici.org/policy/retirement/plan/401k/faqs_401k 401(k) Plan Assets Billions of dollars, end-of-period, selected periods 8-Apr-18 World View -- US will sell submarine technology to Taiwan, as Japan launches - John J. Xenakis - 04-07-2018 *** 8-Apr-18 World View -- US will sell submarine technology to Taiwan, as Japan launches first marine brigade since end of WW II This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
**** **** Trump administration approves selling submarine technology to Taiwan **** Taiwan's president Tsai Ing-wen on a Dutch-built submarine last year. (AP) In a further challenge to China, the Trump administration has approved a marketing license that will allow US manufacturers to sell submarine technology to Taiwan. For years, Taiwan has tried to acquire submarines from other countries, but China has repeatedly used pressure and threats on those countries to prevent the sales. Taiwan purchased two submarines from the Netherlands in the 1980s, but China has successfully blocked other sales since then. In 2012, Taiwan began a program to build its own diesel submarines, but that program still required the purchase of submarine technology from other countries. Early in 2017, US manufacturers expressed an interest in working on the project with Taiwan, but needed approval in the form of a "marketing license" from the US State Department. That license was finally issued this week. The decision also means that the U.S. will be able to provide Taiwan with so-called “red” parts, or technology which the island is unable to produce itself, including torpedoes and missiles. Taiwan News and Reuters and Jamestown (30-Mar-2012) and Focus Taiwan (31-May-2017) Related Articles:
**** **** Japan launches first marine brigade since the end of World War II **** In a ceremony on Saturday, Japan launched the Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade (ARDB), its first marine brigade since the end of World War II. In a speech, Tomohiro Yamamoto, vice defense minister, said: <QUOTE>"Given the increasingly difficult defense and security situation surrounding Japan, defense of our islands has become a critical mandate."<END QUOTE> Yamamoto is thought to be referring to the Senkaku Islands, which are threatened by China, and where China makes its usual unsupported claims of "indisputable sovereignty." The brigade is the latest component of a growing marine force that includes helicopter carriers, amphibious ships, Osprey tilt-rotor troop carriers and amphibious assault vehicles, meant to deter China as it pushes for easier access to the Western Pacific The ARDB is controversial, since it appears to go beyond the Article self-defense clause of Japan's postwar "pacifist" constitution, which forbids any military action except for "self-defense" on Japanese soil. However, military provocations by China and North Korea have been changing public opinion in Japan to make elimination of the self-defense clause more publicly acceptable. In 2015, prime minister Shinzo Abe was able to get parliament to reinterpret the self-defense clause to mean "collective self-defense," which means that military action would be permitted anywhere in the world when an ally (such as the United States) is attacked. That means that the ARDB can be used even in overseas military actions, provided that the US or any other Japanese ally is under attack. Kyodo News and Reuters and Russia Today Related Articles: [*] Japan will shoot down N. Korean missiles via 'collective self-defense' (13-Aug-2017) [*] Japan's largest warship will train with US Navy in the South China Sea (14-Mar-2017) [*] Japan debates 'collective self-defense' to protect America and Japan (05-May-2014) [*] China reacts harshly to Japan's plans for 'collective self-defense' (18-Jul-2015) [*] Japan's troops in South Sudan become first test of new 'collective self-defense' policy (19-Nov-2016) [/list] KEYS: Generational Dynamics, China, Taiwan, Netherlands, Japan, Shinzo Abe, Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade, ARDB, Tomohiro Yamamoto, Senkaku Islands, collective self-defense Permanent web link to this article Receive daily World View columns by e-mail Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal John J. Xenakis 100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A Cambridge, MA 02142 Phone: 617-864-0010 E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe 9-Apr-18 World View -- Trump threatens 'big price to pay' after Assad's chemical wea - John J. Xenakis - 04-08-2018 *** 9-Apr-18 World View -- Trump threatens 'big price to pay' after Assad's chemical weapons attack in Syria This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
**** **** New chemical weapon attack in Syria kills 48, hospitalizes hundreds **** Medical workers treat toddlers following chlorine gas attack in Douma, Syria, on Sunday (AP) At least 48 people were killed in a chemical weapons attack on Saturday on the town of Douma in in eastern Ghouta, believed by international officials to have been perpetrated by Syria's president Bashar al-Assad. In addition to those killed, at least 500 more people brought into overwhelmed medical centers and hospitals. Videos recorded by rescue workers known as the White Helmets, show a number of men, women and children lying lifeless, many with foam at their mouths. The chemical weapon in the attack was chlorine, which is particularly used by al-Assad to attack and kill women and children. Chlorine is repeatedly used by al-Assad because it is heavier than air. Therefore it seeps into basements where women and children are likely to be hiding from al-Assad's missiles and barrel bombs. Once the chlorine seeps into the basements where women and children are hiding, the women and children are forced out into the open, where al-Assad's missiles and barrel bombs can slaughter them en masse. The foaming at the mouth by victims suggests that Sarin gas was also used. Syrian state media accused "terrorist" media of fabricating reports about a chemical attack. Russia's foreign ministry said reports of a chemical attack by Syrian forces on Douma had been "planted" in order to create a pretext for a possible military intervention in Syria: <QUOTE>"The purpose of these mendacious conjectures, which are without any basis, is to shield the terrorists and the irreconcilable radical opposition, which rejects a political settlement, while at the same time trying to justify possible external use of force."<END QUOTE> So we're going through the usual song and dance of listening to Russian officials make these laughable statements, as if the rest of us are stupid enough to believe them. Russian officials have lied so many times about almost every subject, so anything that Russia says has no credibility, and is as worthless as garbage. And we can expect the usual flood of Russian internet trolls repeating the same nonsense supplied by their trollmasters. During the past 15 months, since Donald Trump took office, there Bashar al-Assad has launched at least eight chemical weapons attacks, including one Sarin gas nerve agent attack on April 4 of last year. BBC and AP and CNN and USA Today **** **** Trump threatens 'big price to pay' after Assad's chemical weapons attack in Syria **** President Donald Trump called Bashar al-Assad an "animal" in a series of tweets on Sunday, and appeared to commit the US to retaliating to Sunday's attack, not only against Syria but possibly also at Russia. In 2012, President Barack Obama announced a "red line" that threatened an American military retaliation if Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons on his own people. The US military even sent troops to Jordan to take action against the use of chemical weapons. However, when Bashar al-Assad used Sarin gas on his own people in 2013, Obama backed down from his threat, signaling to al-Assad that he could continue to use chemical weapons with impunity. And he has done that, with eight verified uses of chlorine gas and Sarin gas in the last 15 months alone. A year ago, Donald Trump responded to al-Assad's Sarin gas attack with a surprise cruise missile attack on al-Assad's airports, wiping out part of his air force. However, that did nothing to stop al-Assad from continuing to use chemical weapons on women and children, or to stop Russia from supporting his use of chemical weapons on women and children. Sunday's chemical weapons attack drew a very angry twitter response from president Trump: <QUOTE>"Many dead, including women and children, in mindless CHEMICAL attack in Syria. Area of atrocity is in lockdown and encircled by Syrian Army, making it completely inaccessible to outside world. President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price... ....to pay. Open area immediately for medical help and verification. Another humanitarian disaster for no reason whatsoever. SICK! If President Obama had crossed his stated Red Line In The Sand, the Syrian disaster would have ended long ago! Animal Assad would have been history!"<END QUOTE> Trump appears to be setting a new red line, and is blaming Russia's president Vladimir Putin for the first time, as well as referring to "Animal Assad." If Trump shows weakness after issuing these tweets, then his negotiating position in North Korea will be very weak. The US has also called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Monday. The most likely response, if any, is a missile attack similar to the one launched last year. However, some analysts are suggesting that Russia should be sanctioned directly by withdrawing the highly prestigious international World Cup Football (soccer) competition sponsored by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) from Moscow, where it's scheduled to begin on June 14. Some people are suggesting that Vladimir Putin should not be permitted to glory in sponsoring the FIFA World Cup just two months after sponsoring the use of chemical weapons by war criminal Bashar al-Assad. CNN and NBC News and Guardian (London) **** **** Syria reports that it's under missile attack, 'likely' by the US **** As this article is being written on Sunday evening (ET), Syria's state media is reporting that Syria's T4 airbase (Tayfur airport) near the city of Homs is under missile attack, with resulting casualties, in a "likely attack by the United States." Reports say that 12 people have been killed, and that eight missiles were shot down by Syrian air defenses. Senior US officials are not denying that a missile attack is taking place, but are denying that the US is responsible. Assuming that it's not the US launching missiles, then it suggests that another country in the American-led coalition is launching the missile attack. Governments from both Britain and France on Sunday both joined in America's strong condemnation of al-Assad's use of chlorine gas on his own people, including women and children. Both countries have also issued strong condemnations of Russia for the March 4 poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, using a Russia-developed nerve agent Novichok, in Salisbury, Britain. Trump and France's president Emmanuel Macron issued a "strong joint response" to al-Assad. So it's possible that either Britain or France is launching the attack. It's also possible that Israel is launching the attack. BBC Related Articles
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Syria, Eastern Ghouta, Douma, Bashar al-Assad, Russia, Sarin gas, chlorine gas, Donald Trump, Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin, World Cup, Fédération Internationale de Football Association, FIFA, Tayfur airport, T4 airbase, Homs, Britain, France Permanent web link to this article Receive daily World View columns by e-mail Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal John J. Xenakis 100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A Cambridge, MA 02142 Phone: 617-864-0010 E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe RE: Generational Dynamics World View - pbrower2a - 04-09-2018 (04-07-2018, 02:44 PM)Cynic Hero Wrote: The problem with your (John Xenakis) financial predictions isn't that the predictions was wrong, in fact it was correct. It is the fact that the predicted Financial Crash has already occurred. You Predicted a Crash Caused by Speculative lending and other economic malpractice in 2003/2004 and the predicted crash Did in fact Occur, in 2008. The Problem with a Crash "worse than 1929" at this points is that Nobody is Investing in the stock Market that much in 2018. There is No Mass speculation like in 1929, because nobody other than established investors trusts the stock market with their money. The Current stock market as some have pointed out, is largely decoupled from the "real" economy at this point. If The stock Market reflected real numbers it would still be at 2010 levels. I have an explanation. It is the level of saving that allows people to snap up bargains in a falling market and stop the hemorrhaging of the valuation of the stock market. Savings are cash available for anything from paying off debt to consumer spending (on luxuries) to buying up assets, or starting small businesses when those are reasonable. Near-zero interest rates made high price-earnings ratios tolerable. Dividend income bigger than bank interest? You would almost be a fool not to invest if you got some windfall. But you need such a windfall or already have the assets. The super-rich generally do not cut participate in cut-throat competition to reduce their own rates of return. High stock market prices depend upon people not so rich investing in equities because investment in equities is at times more attractive than is putting money into a savings account or buying life insurance. Figure that the young adults who have middle-class incomes are typically deeply in debt for student loans, paying exorbitant rent to live where the jobs that pay anything adequate are, and are deep in debt for the needs of commuting. They are socking money away, all right -- to landlords and creditors. Should there be another market crash, there might not be people snapping up the bargains in a collapsing market and putting a stop to the collapse. It is the not-so-smart money that props up a stock market as things get shaky. The financier Bernard Baruch once said that once a cabbie asked him how to invest in the stock market (in 1929) he chose to bail on the securities market and go to cash while he could do so. Incomes were not keeping pace with paper profits, and paper profits are the first to disappear. RE: 9-Apr-18 World View -- Trump threatens 'big price to pay' after Assad's chemical wea - Cynic Hero '86 - 04-09-2018 (04-08-2018, 10:26 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: *** 9-Apr-18 World View -- Trump threatens 'big price to pay' after Assad's chemical weapons attack in Syria More Human rights Tyranny, Assad is Syria's legitimate sovereign government. The west Has no right to overthrow his regime Just because he restores order using methods that a disapproved of under western international etiquette. Syria is not part of the west, it's part of the Middle east where the rules are different. Boomers must accept the existence of other belief systems, instead of only regarding globalism as legitimate. RE: 9-Apr-18 World View -- Trump threatens 'big price to pay' after Assad's chemical wea - Warren Dew - 04-09-2018 (04-09-2018, 10:15 AM)Cynic Hero Wrote:(04-08-2018, 10:26 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: *** 9-Apr-18 World View -- Trump threatens 'big price to pay' after Assad's chemical weapons attack in Syria The US has geopolitical interests in the mideast. If Assad kicks the Iranians out of Syria and formally cedes the Golan to Israel, we can give Assad more leeway. I'm not holding my breath. 10-Apr-18 World View -- Viktor Orbán's Fidesz party victory in Hungary signals strong - John J. Xenakis - 04-09-2018 *** 10-Apr-18 World View -- Viktor Orbán's Fidesz party victory in Hungary signals strong European move to the right This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
**** **** Viktor Orbán's Fidesz anti-migrant party wins overwhelming victory in Hungary **** Anti-immigrant leaders in Europe: Hungary's Viktor Orbán ® with Poland's premier Mateusz Morawiecki at the most recent EU summit (consilium.europa.eu) On Sunday, Hungary's right-wing, anti-immigrant, and anti-EU, Fidesz party won an overwhelming political victory on a high turnout, giving Viktor Orbán his third consecutive term as prime minister of Hungary. With almost all the votes counted, Fidesz has won 134 seats in the 199 seat parliament, giving Fidesz a two-thirds "super-majority." With this super-majority, Orbán will be able to modify Hungary's constitution to give himself additional powers, possibly dictatorial powers, and to make sure that he will be reelected for many years to come. In celebrating his victory, Orbán said: <QUOTE>"There is a big battle behind us. We have won. Today Hungary had a decisive victory. We have the chance to defend Hungary."<END QUOTE> By "defend Hungary," Orbán meant defend it from migrants. Poland is congratulating Orbán on his victory. Poland’s deputy foreign minister and envoy to the European Union, Konrad Szymanski said: <QUOTE>"It’s a confirmation of Central Europe’s emancipation policy. Emancipation not directed at fighting anybody but at making Central Europe visible as a very constructive European and European Union partner."<END QUOTE> By "emancipation," Szymanski is not talking about freeing some slaves. He's talking about emancipating Poland from the policies of Brussels, particularly policies about resettling migrants that arrive in Greece or Italy. Poland's nationalist government shares Orbán's view that Muslim migrants threaten Europe's "Christian" heritage. In 2015, the EU adopted a migrant quota system last year that was supposed to relocate 160,000 refugees from Greece and Italy to other EU countries. The plan fell apart because few countries were willing to accept their quotas, and several countries, led by Hungary and Poland, refused to resettle any refugees at all. In the end, only about 30,000 refugees were ever resettled under this plan. Some observers have accused Orbán of using anti-semitic "dog whistle' remarks during the campaign. They point to Orbán's frequent use in campaign ads of the Hungarian Jewish billionaire George Soros as the symbol of foreign influence in Hungary. In March, Orbán said: <QUOTE>"We are fighting an enemy that is different from us. Not open but hiding; not straightforward but crafty; not honest but base; does not believe in working but speculates with money; does not have its own homeland but feels it owns the whole world."<END QUOTE> Many observers believe that these remarks were anti-semitic, intended to target Soros as a Jew. Reuters and Forward and BBC **** **** Europe as a whole moves steadily to the right **** Orbán's Fidesz party won an overwhelming victory with a 134 seat super-majority in the 199 seat parliament. In second place was the Jobbik Party, with 25 seats. Jobbik is considered to be even farther right than Fidesz, though in recent years the party leaders have tried to move the party towards the center, and to shed its anti-semitic and xenophobic image. In third place, with 20 seats, was the center-left Socialist party. The significance of this situation is that in Hungary, the two major parties are both on the right, and the center left in Europe is in collapse. EuroIntelligence summarized the situation as follows: <QUOTE>"The slide of the social democratic party from its peak of power in 2006 is both a long-term trend in Hungary and a broader trend in the EU as a whole. Hungary is now one of a long list of countries where the two main parties are both on the right, because the collapsing social democrats have not been replaced by a party on the left but one on the right. Poland and the Netherlands are firmly in that list. Whether to include France and Italy depends on where one puts Macron's En Marche and the Five Star Movement, but asked about the right-wing economic policies of his government Édouard Philippe quipped "what did you expect?" Spain and Austria - and even Germany - seem to be moving in the same direction. In many of these cases - Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Hungary, Austria - the party replacing the social democrats could be classed as far-right. This doesn't look like a Europe where Orbán should feel particularly uncomfortable."<END QUOTE> Hungary-based Péter Krekó of Capital Institute agrees, saying that Orbán is providing support to populist tendencies in western Europe: "The populist right wing in western Europe deems Orbán as a hero, he represents an alternative model for Europe. He is the 'anti-Merkel' and that makes him popular with many." However, Luxembourg's Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn says that won a clear election victory because of a "tumor" of scaremongering: "Today it is Hungary and Poland, tomorrow others in eastern and central Europe, even a big founding country of the EU, could develop a taste for undermining values and scaremongering." From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, the atrocities that occur in one generational crisis war appear again in similar forms decades later in the next generational crisis war, as the survivors of the last war die off. With Europe's shift to the right, we're beginning to see the revival of the xenophobia that brought about World War II, such as xenophobic attitudes towards Jews, Muslims and Roma Gypsies. As the next world war approaches, we'll see a return to the genocide, ethnic cleansing and war crimes that occurred in World War II, and which we're already seeing to some extent in the Mideast. EuroIntelligence and EU Observer and Budapest Business Journal and AP Related Articles
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Hungary, Viktor Orbán, Fidesz, Poland, Mateusz Morawiecki, Konrad Szymanski, Greece, Italy, George Soros, Jobbik, Socialist, Péter Krekó, Capital Institute, Luxembourg, Jean Asselborn Permanent web link to this article Receive daily World View columns by e-mail Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal John J. Xenakis 100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A Cambridge, MA 02142 Phone: 617-864-0010 E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe 11-Apr-18 World View -- Major multi-national military operation planned for Syria aft - John J. Xenakis - 04-10-2018 *** 11-Apr-18 World View -- Major multi-national military operation planned for Syria after Sarin gas use This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
**** **** Fake news: Newsweek says Mattis denied any evidence that Assad used Sarin gas **** Children being medically treated in Douma Syria after chemical weapons attack (AP) I've had trolls referring to a February Newsweek article that says that US Secretary of Defense James Mattis claims that there is "no evidence" that Syria's president Bashar al-Assad had ever used Sarin gas. This is totally fake news, as suggested by the fact that the Newsweek article did not give a link to the transcript of the press briefing where Mattis supposedly made this remark, which they could easily have done. I actually went to the trouble to track down the transcript -- which incidentally wasn't hard at all, and took about 30 seconds, which is another indication that the Newsweek article was a full-fledged hoax. We have to assume that Ian Wilkie, the author of the article, is one of Russia's army of paid internet trolls, and moonlights for Newsweek. Mattis was giving a press conference and answering questions thrown at him by reporters. The press conference covered various subjects, including Ukraine and Afghanistan, and the questions about Syria are scattered throughout the transcript. Here are some excerpts: <QUOTE>"We think that they did not carry out what they said they would do back when -- in the previous administration, when they were caught using it. Obviously they didn't, cause they used it again during our administration."<END QUOTE> According to Mattis, what they said they were going to do in 2013, when they were caught using Sarin gas, was to destroy all their stocks of chemical weapons, but obviously they didn't do that, since they've used chemical weapons repeatedly, and used Sarin gas again during the Trump administration (on April 4, 2017). Mattis continued answering questions about chemical weapons attacks in 2018. He said that chlorine gas has been used recently, and he's looking for evidence whether Sarin gas has also been used recently: <QUOTE>"And that gives us a lot of reason to suspect them. And now we have other reports from the battlefield from people who claim it's been used. We do not have evidence of it [Sarin gas]. But we're not refuting them; we're looking for evidence of it. Since clearly we are using -- we are dealing with the Assad regime that has used denial and deceit to hide their outlaw actions, okay? ... Well, there's certainly groups that say they've used it. And so they think there's a likelihood, so we're looking for the evidence. ... I think [chlorine gas weapons have] been used repeatedly. And that's, as you know, a somewhat separate category, which is why I broke out the sarin as another. ... No, I have not got the evidence, not specifically [that Sarin gas is being used]. I don't have the evidence. What I'm saying is that other -- that groups on the ground, NGOs, fighters on the ground have said that sarin has been used. So we are looking for evidence. I don't have evidence, credible or uncredible.<END QUOTE> That press conference occurred in February, and apparently no recent evidence of Sarin gas was found, until Sunday. By the way, check out the beginning of the transcript, where Mattis mocks the NY Times for fake news, saying that the reporter interviewing him apparently wasn't even listening to him. <QUOTE>"I salute whatever you write. You have the right to write anything. I thought it was especially humorous that we didn't realize we were still on the -- on the video teleconference, since one of the people on the screen was talking with us at the same time. I guess we were talking to ourselves and imagining the person on the screen. Yeah, I got a kick out of it, frankly."<END QUOTE> Later in the transcript, he says, "See, right now, we're at a point where ISIS is on the ropes. It’s obvious -- you know -- for all the questions and challenges I had in this room over the last year, I think now it's pretty much undeniable that they're in trouble. ... So we want to get back to finishing off ISIS." Newsweek (8-Feb) and Bellingcat (9-Feb) and U.S. Dept. of Defense (2-Feb) **** **** Haley announces major change in policy regarding Russia and Security Council **** On April 6 of last year, president Donald Trump ordered cruise missile attacks on the Shayrat Airbase in Syria, from which Bashar al-Assad had launched Sarin gas attacks on civilians on April 4. Trump had been moved to action after seeing pictures small children struggling to breathe, gasping for breath, and choking to death. The cruise missile attack was meant to be a warning to al-Assad not to use Sarin gas again. Now there have been new pictures of choking children, following al-Assad's latest Sarin gas attack on civilians on Sunday, and Trump is furious again. This time, Trump went farther, blaming not only al-Assad, but also his backers in Russia and Iran: <QUOTE>"Very concerned, when a thing like that can happen, this is about humanity. We're talking about humanity. And it can't be allowed to happen. So we'll be looking at that barbaric act and studying what's going on. If it's Russia, if it's Syria, if it's Iran, if it's all of them together, we'll figure it out and we'll know the answers quite soon."<END QUOTE> At the United Nations Security Council on Monday, US ambassador Nikki Haley went a lot farther in the administration condemnation of Syria, Iran and Russia: <QUOTE>"I could hold up pictures of babies, lying dead next to their mothers. Brothers and sisters. Toddlers and infants still in diapers. All lying together, dead. Their skin is the ashen blue that is now tragically familiar from chemical weapons scenes. Their eyes are open and lifeless. White foam bubbles from their mouths and noses. Pictures of dead Syrians who are not soldiers. People who are not armed. People who are the very definition of innocent and non-threatening – women and children hiding in basements from a renewed assault by Bashar Al-Assad. Families that were hiding underground to escape Assad’s conventional bombs and artillery. ... I could hold up pictures of survivors. Children with burning eyes, choking for breath. I could hold up pictures of first responders washing the chemicals off of the victims. Putting respirators on the children. First responders walking through room after room of families lying motionless, with babies still in the arms of their mothers and fathers. I could show pictures of a hospital attacked by the chemical weapons. I could show pictures of hospitals struck by barrel bombs following the chemical attack. Ambulances and rescue vehicles have been repeatedly attacked, maximizing the number of dead civilians. Civil defense centers have been attacked in order to paralyze the medical response – to increase the suffering of the survivors. Who does this? Only a monster does this. Only a monster targets civilians and then ensures that there are no ambulances to transfer the wounded. No hospitals to save their lives. No doctors or medicine to ease their pain. I could hold up pictures of all of this killing and suffering for the Council to see, but what would be the point? The monster who was responsible for these attacks has no conscience, not even to even be shocked by pictures of dead children. The Russian regime, whose hands are all covered in the blood of Syrian children, cannot be ashamed by pictures of its victims. We’ve tried that before. We must not overlook Russia and Iran’s roles in enabling the Assad regime’s murderous destruction. Russia and Iran have military advisers at Assad’s airfields and operations centers. Russian officials are on the ground helping direct the regime’s “starve and surrender” campaign, and Iranian allied forces do much of the dirty work. When the Syrian military pummels civilians, they rely on the military hardware given by Russia. Russia could stop this senseless slaughter if it wanted. But it stands with the Assad regime and supports without any hesitation. What’s the point of trying to shame such people? After all, no civilized government would have anything to do with Assad’s murderous regime. Pictures of dead children mean little to governments like Russia who expend their own resources to prop up Assad."<END QUOTE> That was all by way of introduction to the following significant and explicit United States policy change: <QUOTE>"Russia’s obstructionism will not continue to hold us hostage when we are confronted with an attack like this one. The United States is determined to see that the monster who dropped chemical weapons on the Syrian people held to account. ... We are on the edge of a dangerous precipice. The great evil of chemical weapons use that once unified the world in opposition, is on the verge of becoming the new normal. The international community must not let this happen. We are beyond showing pictures of dead babies. We are beyond appeals to conscience. We have reached the moment when the world must see justice done. History will record this as the moment when the Security Council either discharged its duty or demonstrated its utter and complete failure to protect the people of Syria. Either way, the United States will respond."<END QUOTE> The reason that this is significant is because it makes clear that the U.S. will no longer be bound by Russia's vetoes in the Security Council. As I've been writing numerous times since 2011, Russia adopted a policy of using the UNSC to control US and Nato foreign policy by demanding that any military decision be approved by the UNSC, where Russia could veto it. At the same time, Russia could invade Ukraine, invade and annex Crimea, and perform other international crimes, and go ahead with them without bothering to get UNSC approval. Not only would Russia control US and Nato foreign policy, Nato countries would turn against each other in confusion over how to respond. So when Nikki Haley says, "Either way, the United States will respond," she's declaring the end of the policy of allowing Russia's veto to control U.S. policy. She's saying to Russia: veto the resolution or not, as you wish, but we're going ahead with a military operation. CNBC and U.S. State Dept. **** **** Major multi-national military operation planned for Syria after Sarin gas use **** As I'm writing this on Tuesday evening (ET), there are reports that a military attack may be imminent. Britain, France and Qatar are openly supporting the Trump administration's plans for a military operation in Syria. The military attack will have to be significant and massive, since last year's "warning" attack had no effect. Some analysts are suggesting that the military operation might be led by France, rather than by the U.S. If true, it would be a further humiliation for Vladimir Putin, who has been using the UNSC to turn the Nato countries against each other. This display of unity by France, Britain, Qatar and the U.S. would be a united front against Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin. AP **** **** Russia's Andrey Klimov: Sarin gas attack is just a Hollywood movie **** Every time one of these situations occurs, Russia unleashes its army of paid trolls to make laughable claims and spread disinformation. One of the best of these troll storms occurred after Russians in East Ukraine shot down the Malaysian Airlines MH17 passenger plane with a Russian-made Buk missile, bragged about it in a tweet, then pulled down the tweet. Russian media and trolls went into full-on troll mode, making one ridiculous claim after another: Russian commander Strelkov's tweet had never occurred; the US had shot down MH17 to embarrass Russia; the airplane was struck by a meteor; no living people were aboard the plane as it flew on autopilot from Amsterdam, where it had been pre-loaded with "rotting corpses." So now we have a new troll storm. Andrey Klimov, a Senator in the Russia's Duma, was interviewed on the BBC, and I transcribed excerpts of the interview. Klimov's main point is that the Sarin gas attack never happened, but was staged as a Hollywood movie: <QUOTE>"It looks like an artificial performance, like a kind of movie, to make that provocation visible. But I can't say for sure that it may be any real occasion of chemical weapons in this area. It looks like a provocation. It looks like a Hollywood movie. [Referring to the images of choking children, and children having to be hosed down with water.] You're just repeating somebody's rumors. I'm speaking about facts, because there are no real facts on the ground. But we'd like to find those who produced such kinds of fake news, because those people are interested in keeping such kind of confrontation in the world. And we'd like to find that bastard, to show to the world that they're a bastard."<END QUOTE> Well Andrey, you have control of Damascus and Douma, so don't just complain, start searching for the bastard. We'd all like to know who he or she is. Klimov also reacted to Trump's threat of a military operation in Syria: <QUOTE>"They have no right to do that in any case, because no kind of power granted on the part of the United Nations. Nobody asked them from Damascus to do that. It's a kind of invasion. It's a kind of occupation. It cannot be acceptable in today's world. It is out of any kind of international law. Nobody appointed them as international policeman, or international judge, or international prosecutor. They're going to do it themselves, and that cannot be acceptable at all."<END QUOTE> This is a laughable invocation of international law from the Russians, who ignore international law, but it's precisely the policy that Russia has been following since 2011. Russia breaks international law recklessly, never asking the UN Security Council for approval, but then demands that the West get approval for anything from the UNSC, where Russia can veto it. This is Russia's policy that Nikki Haley specifically rejected on Monday. It's gotten to the point where these Russian officials and trolls are just plain pathetic, because nobody believes their rantings any more. Vladimir Putin really needs to come up with a new policy. Related Articles
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, James Mattis, Newsweek, Ian Wilkie, Russia, Syria, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Iran, Douma, Shayrat Airbase, Nikki Haley, Britain, France, Qatar, Andrey Klimov, Malaysian Airlines MH17 Permanent web link to this article Receive daily World View columns by e-mail Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal John J. Xenakis 100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A Cambridge, MA 02142 Phone: 617-864-0010 E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe 12-Apr-18 World View -- The world awaits Trump's promised retaliation for al-Assad's - John J. Xenakis - 04-11-2018 *** 12-Apr-18 World View -- The world awaits Trump's promised retaliation for al-Assad's chemical weapons attack This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
**** **** The world awaits Trump's promised retaliation for al-Assad's chemical weapons attack **** Survivor of Saturday's chemical weapons attack in Douma, Syria (Getty) President Donald Trump on Sunday had promised retaliation within 24-48 hours for the use of chemical weapons by Syria's president Bashar al-Assad on Saturday on civilians, including women and children. However, by Wednesday evening, no retaliation has occurred, and the world is watching and waiting. But the rhetoric between Russia and the US has heated up a great deal. Alexander Zasypkin, Russia's ambassador to Lebanon, said on Wednesday: <QUOTE>"if there is a US missile attack, we - in line with both Putin and Russia's chief of staff's remarks - will shoot down US rockets and even the sources that launched the missiles."<END QUOTE> Zasypkin was alluding to a previous Russian threat to shoot down not only American missiles, but also the warplanes and battleships that launches them. This only served to goad president Trump, who tweeted this: <QUOTE>"Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and "smart!" You shouldn't be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it!"<END QUOTE> However, Trump was more conciliatory in a later tweet: <QUOTE>"Our relationship with Russia is worse now than it has ever been, and that includes the Cold War. There is no reason for this. Russia needs us to help with their economy, something that would be very easy to do, and we need all nations to work together. Stop the arms race?"<END QUOTE> Long time readers are aware that Generational Dynamics predicts that the Mideast is headed for a major regional war, pitting Jews against Arabs, Sunnis against Shias, and various ethnic groups against each other. Saturday's chemical weapons attack by al-Assad has caused a chain reaction that has raised tensions in the Mideast to the next level higher than they'd been before Saturday. Here's a summary:
Perhaps even more remarkable is that the political divide in the West, including the United States, is getting more hostile, and not just along party lines. It's increasingly hostile to hear American analysts and journalists side with Russia trolls in claiming that there's "no proof" that Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons or Sarin gas, in the face of conclusions reached by America, British, French, German and other governments. Russia has lied repeatedly about Ukraine, Crimea, Syria, and other things, and for an American analyst to side with Russian trolls against multiple Western governments is truly a remarkable development. And as I reported yesterday, this has even extended to the point where Newsweek magazine is publishing easily debunkable fake news US Secretary of Defense is claiming that no evidence exists that al-Assad ever used Sarin gas. So let me try to make this clear. Since the Syrian war began, I've written 359 analytical articles with "Syria" in the title, and hundreds more where Syria was discussed, but not in the title. These articles are all available on my web site for anyone to check. I have an archive of almost 100,000 articles that I've copied and pasted in the last 15 years. Over 3,000 of those articles have "Syria" in the title, and probably tens of thousands more discuss the Syria war. These articles are from all political biases and from all media sources and all countries available on the internet. I typically study 10-20 of these articles in detail for each article that I write. My point is this: 99.9% of the time, I know a lot more than you do. And I'm telling you that there's no doubt that Bashar al-Assad has used Sarin gas several times on innocent civilians, and has used chlorine gas, phosphorous and ammonia many, many times on innocent civilians. There is no question about this. But the fact that some Americans are calling officials in both the Barack Obama and Donald Trump administrators liars, and are saying that paid Russian trolls are telling the truth, is truly a remarkable development. Al-Jazeera and CNN and Reuters Related Articles:
**** **** Israel braces for attack from Iran in retaliation for Sunday's airstrike **** On Sunday, president Donald Trump threatened a "big price to pay" after the chemical weapons attack by Syria's president Bashar al-Assad on Douma on Saturday. As I was writing an article about this and on Sunday evening, Syria's state media reported a missile attack on Syria's T4 airbase (Tayfur airport) near Homs. US officials denied having anything to do with the attack, so it was thought that some other country, perhaps Britain, France or Israel, might have been fulfilling Trump's "big price to pay" threat. Well, news reports since then have indicated that the missile strike on T4 airbase had nothing to do with Trump's threat, except possibly to influence the timing. According to Iranian media, the attack was from Israeli warplanes. If it was an Israeli airstrike, then the target was an Iranian drone base. Israel has repeatedly expressed its red lines when it comes to Syria:
Israel neither confirmed nor denied the airstrike, but Israel's Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman made these comments: <QUOTE>"I want to say one thing with absolute certainty. We will not allow the Iranians to base themselves in Syria, no matter what the price. We have no other choice. To agree to the Iranians basing themselves in Syria is like agreeing to Iran putting a noose around our neck."<END QUOTE> Iran's media is reporting that four Iranians were killed by the Israeli airstrikes. Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Seyed Ali Khamenei, said: <QUOTE>"The Israeli regime's aggression against Syria is a breach of this country's national sovereignty and territorial integrity and runs counter to all international regulations and principles."<END QUOTE> Velayati added, "Definitely, this crime (by Israel) will not remain without a response." Israeli forces have gone onto high alert, and Israeli media are talking about a "proxy war between Iran and Israel" taking place on Syrian soil: <QUOTE>"Beyond the confrontation between Russia and the United States, the main story in the northern arena is the direct confrontation between Israel and Iran on Syrian soil. There is no more shadow war or contest through agents. The confrontation between Israel and Iran, it seems, is turning into a limited direct military confrontation. It is impossible to ignore the fact that within two months, in at least two known incidents, Iranian fighters and officers were killed by an action attributed to the Israeli Air Force. It seems that in light of the continued Iranian consolidation in Syria, Israel has decided to remove the gloves. After the day of battle two months ago, when the Iranian UAV was intercepted and an Israeli fighter plane was shot down, quite a few things happened underneath the surface, despite the apparent media silence."<END QUOTE> Former prime minister and defense minister Ehud Barak said, “When on a given day, the chance for [active military conflict with Iran] are about one percent, now it is about 10%." CNN and Tasnim News (Iran) and Jerusalem Post and Times of Israel Related Articles
**** **** Turkey to open a new border crossing to Syria's Afrin **** Turkey on Wednesday announced plans to open a new border crossing from Turkey to the Syrian city of Afrin. The purpose of the border crossing is to speed up delivery of humanitarian aid to the city, and help build infrastructure in the region. However, the border crossing will also strengthen Turkey's link to Afrin, which is opposed by Russia, Iran and Syria. Turkey's military Operation Olive Branch took place over several months, with the objective of regaining control of Syria's border city of Afrin from the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG). The YPG is linked to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which is considered by the US and Europe as a terrorist organization, and has conducted numerous terrorist attacks within Turkey over a thirty year period. Now that the operation has been completely, apparently successfully, Russia, Iran and Syria would all like the Turkish forces to withdraw back into Turkey. Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday: <QUOTE>"[Turkish] President [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan has never said that Turkey wants to occupy Afrin. We always proceed from the fact that the easiest way to normalize the situation in Afrin now that Turkish representatives say that the main goals they set there have been achieved would be to return the territory under the control of the Syrian government."<END QUOTE> However, Erdogan rejected Lavrov's remarks: <QUOTE>"We know very well who we’ll hand Afrin to. First, let’s talk about handing over areas controlled by other countries in Syria to Syria. When the time comes, we will give Afrin to the people of Afrin personally, but the timing of this is up to us, we will determine it, not Mr. Lavrov."<END QUOTE> Turkey, Russia and Iran have had a three-way alliance of convenience for several months, creating "de-escalation zones" in Syria. However, neither the Syrian regime nor any of the Syrian rebel groups doing the actual fighting were party to the agreements. Whatever the value of that alliance, it appears to be losing whatever little effectiveness it had, and increasingly is fraying, as all the participants in the Syrian war are looking forward to grabbing their respective pieces of Syria. Anadolu (Turkey) and Sputnik (Russia) and Reuters Related Articles:
**** **** Yemen war escalates as Iran-backed Houthis launch missiles at Saudi targets **** The Houthi rebels in Yemen declared this to be the "year of ballistic missiles," after firing a ballistic missiles on Wednesday at targets in Saudi Arabia's capital city Riyadh, and also at oil storage facilities belonging to the Saudi oil company Aramco. The missiles either missed their targets or were shot down by Saudi air defenses, but a successful strike on an oil storage facility could do a great deal of damage. Last week, Houthi rebels caused minor damage to a Saudi oil tanker in the Red Sea on Tuesday. The oil tanker was able to continue on its way, escorted by a Saudi coalition warship. The Houthis are using ballistic missiles and armed drones that could only have been supplied by Iran. Saudi threatened "a heavy price" for the Houthis, and for those who are equipping the Houthis. Al Jazeera and Reuters and Arab News and Deutsche Welle (3-Apr) Related Articles:
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Syria, Bashar al-Assad, Donald Trump, Russia, Alexander Zasypkin, Sergei Lavrov, Israel, Iran, T4 airbase, Tayfur airport, Avigdor Liberman, Ehud Barak, Ali Akbar Velayati, Seyed Ali Khamenei, Turkey, Afrin, Operation Olive Branch, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, People's Protection Units, YPG, Kurdistan Workers' Party, PKK, Yemen, Houthis, Saudi Arabia, Aramco Permanent web link to this article Receive daily World View columns by e-mail Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal John J. Xenakis 100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A Cambridge, MA 02142 Phone: 617-864-0010 E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Mikebert - 04-12-2018 You know John, you have posted detailed analyzes every day for years. This makes you an historian of the recent past with deep knowledge of the last 15 years. Think of it this way, a historian may spend years working on a monograph about the detailed events of a 15 year period in the 14th century, for example (I've read some). Such works come from reading scads of accounts of the period, which is exactly what you have done. If you were projected into the future 200 years you could write dozens of monographs about the early 21st century based on the your collected observations in real time. What I am getting at is you have all this material. Do you have a synthesis? I am not talking about GD. GD is your own construction, like those of my own. They provide insight. But others have studied these things before you. Do you engage with them in your intellectual work? Here is the reason. Your GD model is different. It appears to work by an mechanism that is dissimilar from those of other cycles. But it is of inconvenient length--around 70 years. I cannot relate it to any data set that I know about. Have you developed more compact ways to represent your thesis? Many thousands of pages of text isn't useful data because it requires enormous work to deal with. This work would most effectively be done by you. I don't usually check out this section very often, but when I do it's mostly presentation of what is going on now. There doesn't seem to be a separate theory section. So what is the objective you are trying to achieve? 13-Apr-18 World View -- Japan finds 'semi-infinite supply' of rare earth minerals in - John J. Xenakis - 04-12-2018 *** 13-Apr-18 World View -- Japan finds 'semi-infinite supply' of rare earth minerals in its territorial waters This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
**** **** Japan finds 'semi-infinite supply' of rare earth minerals in its territorial waters **** Researchers have found rare earth minerals just 2-4 meters below the seabed, at a depth of almost four miles. (Telegraph) In January 2013, a deep-sea research vessel from Japan obtained seven samples of mud collected two to four meters below the seafloor at 5,600 to 5,800 meters in depth, near Japan's Minami-Tori-shima Island, also known as Marcus Island, within Japan's exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Analyzing the mud revealed that it contained extreme concentrations of rare earth minerals. Continued research since then has led to an announcement that the region contains more than 16 million tons of rare earth minerals. These elements are needed to build high-tech products ranging from mobile phones to electric vehicles. This find is being described as a "semi-infinity" supply of rare earth minerals, enough to supply all of Japan's needs for well over a century. However, getting at the resources will be an issue, since they're almost four miles underwater. Japan Times and Fortune and Nikkei Asian Review **** **** Japan's rare earths discovery represents a defeat for China **** China's theft of intellectual property from other nations is a subject much in the news these days, and China's near-monopoly on rare earth minerals has been a mechanism for exactly that kind of theft. As I've said frequently in the past, people who "there won't be a war because it's bad for business" are wrong. In fact the opposite is true, since trade becomes just another weapon of war. In 2009, there was a brief clash between China and Japan in the East China Sea, and China decided to punish Japan and get revenge by ending shipments to Japan of rare earth minerals. This was a significant blow for Japanese manufacturing, since Japan needed these minerals for manufacture of their high tech products, and Japan was dependent on being supplied by China. This became a major foreign policy for China. As Yasuhiro Kato from Tokyo University has pointed out, "Their real intention is to force foreign companies to locate plant in China. They're saying `if you want our rare earth metals, you must build your factory here, and we can then steal your technology." In 2012, China stepped up the revenge against Japan. The Beijing government encouraged the Chinese people to demonstrate and protest against Japanese businesses in China. The government urged protesters not to use violence, but that part of the message was clearly ignored, as protesters torched a Panasonic factory and Toyota dealership, looted and ransacked Japanese department stores and supermarkets in several cities. It became clear to the Japanese that they would need to find an alternate supply of rare earth minerals, and that's what motivated the deep-sea research project that made the initial discovery in 2013, leading to the "semi-infinite" supply of rare earths announced this week. The new supply of rare earths has to be described as a defeat for China, because once Japan is successfully in mining this new supply, the China will be unable to use rare earths as a weapon of war. The Diplomat (29-Aug-2017) and Telegraph (London, 24-Mar-2013) Related Articles
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Japan, China, rare earth minerals, Minami-Tori-shima Island, Marcus Island Permanent web link to this article Receive daily World View columns by e-mail Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal John J. Xenakis 100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A Cambridge, MA 02142 Phone: 617-864-0010 E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Warren Dew - 04-13-2018 Shades of manganese nodules. China didn't have a monopoly on rare earths, anyway. They just had a monopoly on rare earth extraction, because they can do it cheaper than other countries. RE: Generational Dynamics World View - John J. Xenakis - 04-13-2018 (04-12-2018, 07:25 PM)Mikebert Wrote: > You know John, you have posted detailed analyzes every day for I've tried writing books, but after writing them, nobody gives a shit, and I have zero motivation to try again. If someone wants to pay me to write a book, I'll do it. If someone else wants to write a book, I'll be happy to help out and be supportive. But I'm not going to even try to do anything like that again unless someone else has plenty of skin in the game. Being Sisyphus gets real old. 14-Apr-18 World View -- DR Congo boycotts its own international humanitarian conferen - John J. Xenakis - 04-13-2018 *** 14-Apr-18 World View -- DR Congo boycotts its own international humanitarian conference for DR Congo This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
**** **** UN says DR Congo humanitarian crisis at highest emergency level **** A refugee Congolese woman and children (dpa) Jan Egeland, the former head of the UN's emergency humanitarian relief office, was shocked by the catastrophic and growing humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and how the international community is ignoring the DRC crisis: <QUOTE>"This is up there with Yemen and Syria in terms of number of people in desperate need. I was not prepared of for the scale of the suffering, frankly. Since the Congolese are not coming to the Mediterranean, since the Congolese are not part of a Russian-US or Saudi-Iran battle, they are being ignored really."<END QUOTE> According to the United Nations, 13 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, 4.5 million people are displaced from their homes, more than 7 million face severe food insecurity, and two million children at risk of starvation. In the past, I've written about the bloody wars in the southwestern Kasai region, where the armies and militias reporting to the government of president Joseph Kabila are committing genocide; about the bloody tribal wars in northeastern Kivu region, causing massive refugee flows into Uganda; about the massive corruption of Joseph Kabila, skimming billions of dollars out of the treasury and providing it to his family and cronies; and of his repeated stunts of refusing to hold elections, so that he can't be replaced as president. As we reported in February, another a humanitarian disaster of "extraordinary proportions" emerged in Tanganyika province in southeastern DRC. For several years, there have been bloody clashes between two ethnic groups, the Luba, a Bantu ethnic group, and the Twa, a Pygmy ethnic group. The violence surged in January of this year with the entrance of the president Kabila's Congolese armed forces. The increasing violence is destabilizing the entire region. As we reported in December, the genocide by Kabila's army has resulted in 3.9 million people forced to flee their homes to escape the violence. Hundreds of thousands have fled to Zambia, Angola and other neighboring countries as refugees, creating a humanitarian disaster in those countries. Since the beginning of the year, 70,000 Congolese in eastern DRC have fled across the border into Uganda. 40,000 Congolese refugees have been settled into a single refugee camp, the Kyangwali refugee camp, in Uganda on the border in DRC. The Kyangwali camp is overcrowded and running out of space. Because of a lack of humanitarian aid, not everyone is being fed. There's also shortage of clean water, with each person receiving just 8 liters per day, while the average person requires 20 liters. The result has been the spread of cholera, with 1,000 cases of cholera already identified. BBC and Al-Jazeera Related Articles
**** **** DR Congo boycotts its own international humanitarian conference for DR Congo **** The United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM) sponsored a humanitarian conference for Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), meeting on Friday in Geneva. The purpose of the conference was to raise funds for humanitarian aid to DRC. The conference drew $530 million in pledges, less than 1/3 of the estimated $1.7 billion needed. Refugee official Jan Egeland said, "We are disappointed that too few countries sent a real message of hope to the millions of Congolese children, women and men in desperate need of assistance." Even more startling is that one of the countries that boycotted the humanitarian conference was DR Congo itself. According to Zenon Mukongo Nga, DRC's ambassador to the United Nations, DRC officials are furious about the description of DRC as a failed state. In particular, they dispute the the UN estimate that 13 million people need humanitarian aid, and they say that only 200,000 people are internally displaced. <QUOTE>"The level of humanitarian situation was raised to 'level three', the worst of all the levels in the world, meaning exactly that DR Congo has been compared to the countries where there is chaos, where the state has collapsed, where there is nothing working so far. And this drove people mad . " We have our own figures which should be confronted with UN figures because, sometimes people are just sitting in their offices in Geneva, in New York, and they just get reports from each people who are on the ground. Sometimes they don't go really on the ground. We have people everywhere and the figures we have are the real ones."<END QUOTE> Although no real explanation for the DRC boycott of their own humanitarian conference has been provided, it appears to be another cynical action by president Joseph Kabila, one of the bloodiest and most corrupt leaders in the world. Kabila was to have stepped down as president in December 2016. However, he refused to allow elections to go forward, and without elections he could not step down. Since then, he's made no preparations for elections, and he's used violence, torture and jailings to suppress protests, as he continues to stay in office illegal. At first he promised to hold elections in December 2017, but it was clear that those elections would never be held, as he refused to make any preparations for them. Now he's promising elections in December 2018, and the international community has threatened to cut off aid if the elections are not held. At the same time, Kabila and his family own, either partially or wholly, more than 80 companies and businesses in the country and abroad. He and his children own more than 71,000 hectares (175,444 acres) of farmland. His family owns diamond mines, a part of the country's largest mobile phone network, companies that mine mineral deposits, gold and limestone, a luxury hotel, stakes in an airline, a share of the country's banks, and a fast-food franchise. So there is literally no possibility that Kabila will ever agree to step down, since if he does then his family's entire corrupt empire will be put into danger, and many members of his family could be jailed on charges of corruption. Humanitarian aid does not go to the government. It's given to NGOs that provide food, water, medicine and humanitarian services to actual people. And Kabila couldn't care less for the needs of ordinary Congolese people. DRC officials have indicated that what particularly infuriates them about the characterization of a "humanitarian disaster" in DRC is that such a characterization discourages investors. And money from investors goes to government officials, where it will pass into the bank accounts of Kabila and his family. Bloomberg and UN Human Rights Council (UNHCR) and Deutsche Welle and Relief Web Related Articles
**** **** U.S., France, Britain launch Syria attack in retaliation for al-Assad's use of chemical weapons **** Early Saturday morning in Damascus, Syria, surface to air missiles light up the sky (AP) As I am writing this article on Friday evening (ET), the United States, France and Britain launched coordinated missile strikes on three targets in Syria, two in Damascus, one near Homs, all related to manufacture and storage of chemical weapons. The following are some preliminary notes on the announcements. President Trump announced that the attacks will continue "until the Syrian regime stops using chemical weapons." However, Secretary of Defense James Mattis said that the operation was completed, once the three targets were hit. If both of these statements are true, it would have to mean there will be additional operations if the regime continues using chemical weapons. There will be debates in Congress whether Trump had the authority to order these strikes without Congressional approval. Some people are arguing that UN Security Council approval would also be needed, but as we've been writing lately, the Russians have been using the UNSC to control US foreign policy by requiring all operations to be approved by the UNSC, where Russia has veto power, while Russia goes ahead with any operations it wants, such as invading and annexing Crimea, without seeking UNSC approval. Earlier this week, US ambassador Nikki Haley announced that, in effect, the US would conduct an operation with or without UNSC and Russian approval. Russia did not attempt to strike down the incoming missiles, suggesting that Russia might be tacitly approving of the missile strikes. Mattis said that Russia was not notified in advance, but that a standard phone call was made over the joint US-Russia deconfliction phone line. However, Syrian media claims that its air defenses shot down some missiles. After Trump has set a firm "red line" about chemical weapons, Trump had no choice but to go through with a strike on Syrian targets. Friday's strike was an essential message to the North Koreans as the planned summit meeting between Trump and Kim Jong-un approach. If Trump had backed down from a missile strike, then America would have had no credibility whatsoever in the summit meeting. Last year's missile strike did not deter al-Assad from continuing to use chemical weapons, and the latest strike may be equally ineffective. Even if al-Assad stops using chemical weapons, the message to al-Assad is that the only things the west cares about are chemical weapons and ISIS. Al-Assad is free to use barrel bombs and any conventional weapons that he wants on women and children. In fact, al-Assad is expected to move on to his next massive, genocidal target, Idlib province, with one million displaced people. NBC News and Washington Post Related Articles:
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, Jan Egeland, Joseph Kabila, Uganda, Kyangwali refugee camp, International Organization for Migration, IOM, Zenon Mukongo Nga, France, Britain, Syria, Damascus, Homs, James Mattis, Nikki Haley Permanent web link to this article Receive daily World View columns by e-mail Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal John J. Xenakis 100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A Cambridge, MA 02142 Phone: 617-864-0010 E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe RE: Generational Dynamics World View - Cynic Hero '86 - 04-14-2018 Its obvious that Boomer Ideologues Like JohnX, Pbrower, and Eric would only be satisfied if Assad is dead or in a prison cell, what's with Boomers and their Irrational Hostility to any outcome in Syria where Assad remains in power? |