Generational Dynamics World View

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 30-Oct-17 World View -- India begins shipping wheat to Afghanistan through Iran's Chabahar port

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• India begins shipping wheat to Afghanistan through Iran's Chabahar port
  
• In retaliation, Afghanistan bans entry of Pakistan trucks
  
• Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA) - conduit of smuggling
  

****
**** India begins shipping wheat to Afghanistan through Iran's Chabahar port
****


Map displaying the trade routes related to the Chabahar and Gwadar ports. Purple lines show China's trade routes through Gwadar, while red lines show India's planned trade routes through Chabahar. (Defence.pk)

A long-awaited "historic" first occurred on Sunday, when India shipped
its first consignment of wheat to Afghanistan through Iran's Chabahar
port. The shipment travels by sea from Mumbai, India, to Chabahar,
and then overland through Iran to Afghanistan.

The agreement for India to invest $500 million to increase the size of
the Chabahar port was signed in Tehran in May of last year, in a
signing ceremony attended by the leaders of Iran, Afghanistan and
India. Sunday's shipment was more symbolic than otherwise, since the
port will take at least another year to be fully functional.

The shortest overland route from India to Afghanistan is, of course,
through Pakistan, but in December 2015 Pakistan decreed that Indian
trucks would no longer be permitted to travel overland to Afghanistan.
Pakistan required India to follow a complex route shipping goods by
sea to Karachi, where they would be loaded onto Pakistani trucks for
overland delivery to Afghanistan.

The Chabahar is also being developed in competition to Pakistan's
Gwadar port, which is receiving heavy investment from China as part of
the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The purple lines in the
map above show China's traditional trade routes across the sea, using
China's "String of Pearls" port facilities (purple stars), while the
red lines show the trade routes being planned using Iran's Chabahar
port.

India and Pakistan, of course, have very poor relations. India is
very concerned about China's heavy investment in Pakistan in the CPEC
program. In return, Pakistan is very concerned about the fact that
India is also investing heavily in Afghanistan's infrastructure,
building on the relationship between Afghanistan and India at
Pakistan's expense.

As regular readers are aware, Generational Dynamics predicts that in
the approaching Clash of Civilizations world war, the "axis" of China,
Pakistan and the Sunni Muslim countries will be pitted against the
"allies," the US, India, Russia and Iran. Pakistan Today and Pajhwok (Afghanistan) and The Hindu and Livemint (India, 10-Dec-2015)


****
**** In retaliation, Afghanistan bans entry of Pakistan trucks
****

Much of the competition between the Chabahar and Gwadar ports is
related to strategic military planning in anticipation of the coming
war between India and Pakistan, but a lot of it also has the more
prosaic objective of providing jobs for truck drivers.

Pakistan's December 2015 decree forbidding Indian trucks from
traveling overland through Pakistan to Afghanistan had the effect of
causing Indian truck drivers to lose jobs and Pakistani truck drivers
to gain jobs, since shipments from India had to come through
Pakistan's Karachi port, and there loaded onto Pakistani trucks for
overland delivery into Afghanistan.

In addition, in recent years, Afghanistan trucks have not been
allowed to enter Pakistan, although at one time they were
permitted to carry goods overland to either the port of Karachi
or to the border with India.

On Sunday, Afghanistan's president Ashraf Ghani issued a
decree forbidding Pakistani trucks from entering Afghanistan.
According to Afghanistan's transport ministry:

<QUOTE>"The Afghanistan and Pakistan Trade Agreement (APTA)
has expired. Before this Pakistan did now allow Afghan trucks to
enter its territory. So we do the same and after this, Pakistani
trucks will be unloaded at borders and Afghan trucks will carry
the goods to Hairatan and Shir Khan ports."<END QUOTE>

Afghanistan trucking company execs were delighted. One said, "By this
move lots of people will get job opportunities and the transit
companies will also get work." Another said, "Pakistani trucks go to
every part of our country, but our trucks are not allowed to enter
Pakistan. We want the government to do the same to Pakistan."

Apparently anticipating this decree, Pakistan has recently tried to
head it off by offering to negotiate with India on the terms of a new
transport deal. However, India turned down the offer, according to an
Indian government official who said, "It wasn’t a real offer, as far
as India sees it." Tolo News (Afghanistan) and The Hindu

****
**** Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA) - conduit of smuggling
****

The Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA) was
originally signed in 1950, and has undergone numerous changes over the
years. The original purpose was to permit land-locked Afghanistan to
import goods through Pakistan's Karachi port, without the Pakistan
authorities charging customs duties on the goods, since they simply
passed through Pakistan. The agreement also allowed Afghanistan
trucks to travel overland to India, though that is no longer
permitted.

India has asked to be included as part of the APTTA agreement, and to
allow its trucks to deliver goods to Afghanistan through Pakistan.
Pakistan has refused for several reasons, two of which have already
been given: for strategic military reasons, and to prevent Indian
truck drivers from taking jobs from Pakistani truck drivers.

However, there's a third reason, having to do with smuggling
and corruption.

There's evidence that something like 50% of the goods currently
being imported under APTTA -- such as cotton goods from China,
or vegetable fats and oils from Indonesia and Malaysia -- never
reach Afghanistan. Instead, corrupt Customs Officials permit
them to be unloaded within Pakistan for sale there, evading
customs duties.

These foreign goods flood into Pakistan in competition with locally
produced goods, and the losses in customs duties from smuggling was
estimated to be $35 billion from 2001-2009.

One figure estimates that APTTA accounts for 75% of an estimated $5
billion worth of smuggled goods entering Pakistan. Some other figures
estimate that around 40% of transit goods do not cross the Pak-Afghan
border, or they re-enter into Pakistan from Afghanistan. China
envisions its trade to increase by more $1 trillion over a
decade. Even a small percentage of that volume of trade smuggling into
Pakistan would be crippling to its economy. Business Recorder (Pakistan) and Business Recorder

Related Articles

• Iran-India sign 'historic' Chabahar port deal to counter Pakistan-China (25-May-2016)
  
  
• China launches 'One Belt One Road', raising objections and violent protests (14-May-2017)
  
  
• Massive China-Pakistan CPEC energy project said to end energy crisis 'soon' (23-Mar-2017)
  
  
• Azerbaijan becomes the hub of the Caspian Trade Corridor, part of the new Silk Road (21-Jan-2016)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, India, Iran, Pakistan, China, Chabahar, Gwadar,
Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, Karachi, Caspian Corridor, New Silk Road,
China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, CPEC,
Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement, APTTA

Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
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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

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 31-Oct-17 World View -- A 'powderkeg' as Australia closes refugee camp and refugees refuse to leave

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• A 'powderkeg' as Australia closes refugee camp and refugees refuse to leave
  
• Australia and Papua New Guinea unable to agree on the future of the refugees
  

****
**** A 'powderkeg' as Australia closes refugee camp and refugees refuse to leave
****


Protesters in Australia's PNG Manus Island refugee center (AAP)

About 600 male refugees inside a refugee center on Manus Island in
Papua New Guinea (PNG) are barricading themselves inside, refusing the
leave as Australia and PNG attempt to shut down the center on Tuesday.

The men are refusing to relocate to other to other more residential
facilities in PNG, saying that they fear violence by the locals.

Starting in 2013, Australia's prime minister Kevin Rudd announced that
any asylum seeker who arrives by boat without a visa will have "no
chance" of being resettled there as a refugee. Australia
intercepted refugees who tried to reach the country by boat and sent
them to offshore refugee centers. Under an agreement with the
respective countries, men have been sent to Manus Island in PNG, while
men, women and children have been sent to refugee centers on Nauru.

From the point of view of meeting its objective, the policy has been
successful. While there had previously been tens of thousands of
"boat people" per year arriving in Australia, that number has been
reduced to almost none, because refugees know that they will be
transferred to one of the offshore detention centers.

However, the policy has been extremely controversial, and has been
opposed by humanitarian organizations, who claim that the refugee
centers in PNG and Nauru are filthy and unsafe, with numerous stories
of beatings, torture and sexual abuse.

Australia's refugee policy was thrown into chaos in May of last year,
when the PNG Supreme Court ruled that PNG's Manus Island refugee
center was inhumane, and had to be shut down. After months of
finger-pointing between PNG and Australia, the Manus Island refugee
center is officially closed as of Tuesday, November 1.

However, the refugees have barricaded themselves into the center and
are refusing to leave. In order to force them to leave, food, water,
electricity and sanitation will no longer be provided to the center
after Tuesday. At some point, police try to forcibly remove them.

This situation is being described as a "powder keg." All along, there
has been sporadic violence between the refugees in the center and
between the refugees and locals. According to some reports, handsome
young male refugees from the center and attractive young girls from
the neighborhoods have formed secret relationships, with violence
breaking out when the girls' families discover what's going on.

So now refugees are being asked to relocate to refugee centers in
residential neighborhoods, and are refusing to leave because a number
of PNG locals have threatened violence against anyone moving into
their neighborhoods. Reuters and Sydney Morning Herald and Post Courier (PNG) and Radio New Zealand

****
**** Australia and Papua New Guinea unable to agree on the future of the refugees
****

When the PNG Supreme Court issued its ruling last year, Australia
issued a statement saying that PNG was responsible for the health and
welfare of the refugees after they leave the refugee center. On
Saturday, PNG's government issued a statement saying Australia was
completely responsible. Humanitarian groups are demanding that the
refugees all be relocated to Australia, something that's opposed by
Australian government officials, who fear that such a move would
trigger a new flood of boat people arriving in Australia.

As usual, money is a large part of the motivating factor here. In
May, the Australian government confirmed that it had spent A$4.89
billion (US$3.83 billion) on its Nauru and PNG Manus operations since
2012. Thus, the refugee centers have been a valuable source of income
to the two countries involved, and they don't wish to lose it.
So few people in PNG's government are suggesting that the refugees
simply be shipped back to Australia.

Under Australia's agreement with PNG, Australia is financially
responsible for food, services and healthcare. These financial
obligations will continue, even if the refugee center is closed,
however the contractors providing the services will be under
contract to PNG rather than to Australia. Estimates are that
Australia will pay $150-$250 million per year.

In a statement Saturday by PNG's immigration minister:

<QUOTE>"It is PNG’s position that as long as there is one
individual from this arrangement that remains in PNG, Australia
will continue to provide financial and other support to PNG to
manage the persons transferred under the arrangement until the
last person leaves or is independently resettled in PNG.

PNG has offered refugees the option of resettlement but will not
force refugees who do not wish to settle in the country ... they
remain the responsibility of Australia."<END QUOTE>

As of the date of closing of the camp, there is no agreement on what
will happen to the refugees. Some may be granted refugee status and
remain, others will be refused and will be deported back to their home
countries. Some will be transferred to other refugee centers
on PNG, and others will be transferred to Nauru.

Some may be transferred to third countries. In November of last year,
President Barack Obama and Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull
signed an agreement to allow 1,250 refugees being held in the offshore
detention centers to be resettled in the United States. President
Donald Trump reluctantly agreed to honor the deal, but so far only 54
refugees have been transferred to the United States.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, the rapid worldwide
growth in the number of refugees and displaced persons is one of the
main factors leading to the next major wars in the world. The Crisis
Group estimated a year ago that there were 65 million such people,
mostly from war regions in Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, and South
Sudan. Sydney Morning Herald and Crisis Group and Asian Age and Guardian (London)

Related Articles

• Australia to send 'boat people' to Papua New Guinea (21-Jul-2013)
  
  
• Australia will pay $100K each to asylum seekers in Manus Island immigration camp (15-Jun-2017)
  
  
• Papua New Guinea Supreme Court bombshell throws Australia's refugee policy into chaos (30-Apr-2016)
  
  
• Hundreds of Australian migrants to be resettled in the United States (11-Nov-2016)
  
  
• Trump will honor Australia refugee deal, despite calling it 'worst deal ever' (06-Feb-2017)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Australia, Papua New Guinea, PNG, Manus Island,
Nauru island, Kevin Rudd, Malcolm Turnbull,
Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, South Sudan

Permanent web link to this article
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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

[Cynic Hero '86]

Man, the Boomers are going to be regarded as the idiots par-excellence by the history books when they are gone. The very definition of "fool" might have a picture of a fat globalist boomer who deluded themselves into thinking that peace and free-trade were somehow natural states of man.

[John J. Xenakis]

(10-29-2017, 12:20 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: > It does not, however, make China socialist. Socialism is an
> economic system, and what's relevant is GDP and similar economic
> measures, not political repression.

I completely disagree. There's no such thing as socialism or
capitalism in the economic sense you claim. They're purely abstract
concepts. Neither China nor the US is pure socialist or capitalist,
because those concepts don't exist and can't exist. And there's
nothing in the definition of abstract socialism that even mentions
GDP. Injecting GDP is meaningless, and has nothing to do with
socialism anyway.

Going beyond the abstract to real life, controlling a business versus
owning it is a distinction without a difference. The real life
meanings of socialism and capitalism have to do with government control
vs freedom.

The whole point of Capitalism is that a person running a business can
make decisions based on his objectives and his view of the
marketplace. If his objective is simply profit, or if it's to use his
business to help minorities or Christians or poor people in
underdeveloped countries, or if it's to build a real estate empire, he
can do that in a capitalist society, and either succeed or fail on his
own abilities.

But if the government controls what he does, and forces him to make
business decisions based on government politics or ideology, then it's
effectively a Socialist economy, irrespective of the details of who
owns it.

This gets back to what I wrote in my article:

Quote:> I was in school in the 1950s-60s, I was repeatedly told that the
> difference between Communism and Nazism was that in Communism the
> government owned all the businesses (which was "good"), while in
> Nazism it was still a capitalist system (which was "bad"), but the
> government still controlled everything. That's exactly the
> economic system that China has today. It's pure National
> Socialism (Nazism).

So China and Nazi Germany share National Socialism, and to say that
China is a capitalistic society, while America is a Socialist country
just shows how moronic the political discourse has become.

(10-29-2017, 12:20 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: > China is basically a capitalist dictatorship, not a socialist
> dictatorship.

The term "capitalist dictatorship" is an oxymoron, because capitalism
implies freedom to make business decisions. If you want a term to use
that's not an abstract fantasy or oxymoron, then use Hitler's term
National Socialism since that now has a well-known historical
definition.

[John J. Xenakis]

(10-29-2017, 02:24 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: > I interpret Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" as a return
> to most of the norms of the 1920s -- no welfare state, no concern
> for the environment except for profits that can be extracted from
> it, much higher inequality of income, weak-to-nonexistent unions,
> ess reliance upon education, bosses fully in control of employees,
> and no welfare state. He can't shrink the military, and he would
> not dare bring back Jim Crow. Obviously he can't undo the
> technological improvements from then.

The thing that I really love about Trump's tweets is that they drive
people like you absolutely crazy, and make it clear that you still
don't have a clue why you lost the election. Part of leadership is
learning how to identify and disarm your enemies, and Trump does that
very effectively with his tweets, because you guys can't talk about
anything else.

The phrase "Make America great again" is not about a return to the
1920s, and the end of the welfare state or ignoring the environment.
I haven't heard anyone even suggest those things, which shows how
completely moronic and laughable your statement is.

The phrase "Make America great again" is actually about recovering
from the disasters of the Obama administration.

The most obvious example is Obamacare. Obamacare was a financial
disaster. I knew that from day one, and I wrote about it in 2009. It
was perfectly obvious to anyone who cared that Obamacare was going to
end in financial disaster. Obama lied about it every time he opened
his mouth -- keep your doctor, keep you insurance plan, and everything
else he said about it. He lied every time he opened his mouth.

In fact, everything that I predicted in 2009 would happen has
happened. I was pretty much 100% right about Obamacare from the
beginning. On the other hand, everything that Obama said about
Obamacare has turned out to be a lie, which was obvious to me.

So it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone the enormous contempt I have
for Obama when I was 100% right and for 8 years I've had to watch him
openly lie and put the entire American economy at risk to satisfy his
own ego, for something that was provably a financial disaster from the
beginning.

And so Trump's "Make america great again" applied to Obamacare
is to fix this financial disaster to try to limit the damage.
That's real leadership.

Then there's foreign policy. Obama's foreign policy never made any
sense to me. He had no clue what's going on in the world on the day
he took office, and still had no clue on the day he left. The worst
was his whole "red line" farce about wmd's in Syria, which was an
enormous disaster for America because it showed how weak we were under
Obama. Trump's missile attack on Syria earlier this year did a lot to
reverse Obama's disaster.

Then there's John Kerry. I still just can't get over this. John
Kerry said in 1971 that American soldiers were worse than Nazis, and
he confirmed his 1971 remarks in 2006, around the same time that he
said that all American soldiers were stupid. I just can't get over
Obama's appointing this jackass as secretary of state, a thumb in the
eye to every American soldier, and showing enormous disrespect to the
military. This is another sign of Obama's contempt for America and
America's values, and putting the country at risk. This is
unforgivable.

And then we had to watch as Kerry lurched from one foreign policy
disaster to the next. To say that Kerry is a jackass gives him too
much credit.

Once again, Trump showed real leadership by appointing Rex Tillerson
as secretary of state, who is working to undo the disasters of the
Obama foreign policy. This is what he means by making America great
again, not your idiotic interpretation of ending the welfare state.

Then there's Obama's use of tsunamis of regulations to cripple the
economy. Trump has shown real leadership by reversing many of those
regulations. The irony here is that people call Trump a dictator when
it's clearly the opposite -- by reversing the regulations he's making
the country freer. It's Obama who was pushing the country to
dictatorship by his tsunami of regulations, and it's Trump pushing the
country away from dictatorship by ending the regulations.

Finally, there was Obama's contempt for the law and the Constitution.
You talk about dictatorships, but Obama's contempt for the
constitution is the real danger to America's democracy.

Obama was openly contemptuous about religious freedom, gun ownership,
and free speech when it didn't agree with him. But Obama went way
beyond that.

Obama used the IRS to target Republican organizations, he started a
criminal investigation targeting a Fox reporter, he misappropriated
billions of dollars to give to his cronies to prop up Obamacare and
other programs through sweetheart deals with contributors, he invited
violent groups like BLM to the White House, he refused to bring
criminal charges against banks that caused the financial crisis, but
instead took billions of dollars in donations from the money that the
banks gained from illegal activities in the financial crisis, and so
forth.

Conservatives have more fully documented Obama's almost unending
criminal activities and threats to America and American values:

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/...residency/

http://thefederalist.com/2017/01/19/10-w...residency/

These are really serious threats to America's democracy, and Trump is
showing real leadership with "Make America Great Again" by reversing
Obama's disasters.

Democrats are hoping to use Mueller as a weapon to kill Trump. If
they succeed, then hopefully Price will continue to reverse the Obama
disasters and work to make America great again.

Anyway, have you read today's tweets? I'm sure you'll find something
to scream about.

[rds]

(10-31-2017, 10:57 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote:

(10-29-2017, 02:24 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: >   I interpret Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" as a return
>   to most of the norms of the 1920s -- no welfare state, no concern
>   for the environment except for profits that can be extracted from
>   it, much higher inequality of income, weak-to-nonexistent unions,
>   ess reliance upon education, bosses fully in control of employees,
>   and no welfare state. He can't shrink the military, and he would
>   not dare bring back Jim Crow. Obviously he can't undo the
>   technological improvements from then.

The thing that I really love about Trump's tweets is that they drive
people like you absolutely crazy, and make it clear that you still
don't have a clue why you lost the election.  Part of leadership is
learning how to identify and disarm your enemies, and Trump does that
very effectively with his tweets, because you guys can't talk about
anything else.

The phrase "Make America great again" is not about a return to the
1920s, and the end of the welfare state or ignoring the environment.
I haven't heard anyone even suggest those things, which shows how
completely moronic and laughable your statement is.

..... Omitted ....

Anyway, have you read today's tweets?  I'm sure you'll find something
to scream about.

I'm very disappointed by that rant, I always thought you had some sense.  Quoting Brietbart really? Really?  I read your site daily, and you have excellent observations in your daily columns.  You argued against the resident Fascist at length, at the old forum, and now on this one.  I even agree (and have always agreed) that a Generational War is coming.  I've read and thoughts about a sneak attack by the Chinese would be a great opening move.

But, now with this response dragging out all of the old boring tropes, and outright propaganda if the current political climate has gotten to you too.

Shaking my head and sad.

[John J. Xenakis]

(10-31-2017, 03:35 PM)rds Wrote: > I'm very disappointed by that rant, I always thought you had some
> sense. Quoting Brietbart really? Really? I read your site daily,
> and you have excellent observations in your daily columns. You
> argued against the resident Fascist at length, at the old forum,
> and now on this one. I even agree (and have always agreed) that a
> Generational War is coming. I've read and thoughts about a sneak
> attack by the Chinese would be a great opening move.

> But, now with this response dragging out all of the old boring
> tropes, and outright propaganda if the current political climate
> has gotten to you too.

> Shaking my head and sad.

I'm confused. Breitbart is a conservative web site (as I said in my
posting), but are you really claiming that it's any worse than the NY
Times or NBC News? The article that I referenced seems to be pretty
well sourced, so it's probably even more reliable than the NY Times or
NBC News.

By the way, you are aware that I've been cross-posting on Breitbart
since 2010, aren't you? And you are aware that I'm personally
acquainted with Breitbart editor Steve Bannon, and I've worked with
him on a couple of projects in the past, aren't you?

You'd better stop reading my articles, and just stick to Huffington
Post.

Speaking for myself, I read and reference all media sites, all around
the world as needed -- left-wing, right-wing, and everything in
between. If what you're saying is that you read only left-wing web
sites and shun right-wing web sites, then you're going to be ignorant
of a great deal of what's going on in the world. You need to be a lot
more open-minded, for your own good. That's obviously true anyway, if
you think the things documented in those articles are just "old boring
tropes." I can assure you that you don't have a clue what's going on.

Shaking my head, and sad.

[rds]

(10-31-2017, 05:27 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote:

(10-31-2017, 03:35 PM)rds Wrote: >   I'm very disappointed by that rant, I always thought you had some
>   sense.  Quoting Brietbart really? Really?  I read your site daily,
>   and you have excellent observations in your daily columns.  You
>   argued against the resident Fascist at length, at the old forum,
>   and now on this one. I even agree (and have always agreed) that a
>   Generational War is coming.  I've read and thoughts about a sneak
>   attack by the Chinese would be a great opening move.

>   But, now with this response dragging out all of the old boring
>   tropes, and outright propaganda if the current political climate
>   has gotten to you too.

>   Shaking my head and sad.

I'm confused.  Breitbart is a conservative web site (as I said in my
posting), but are you really claiming that it's any worse than the NY
Times or NBC News?  The article that I referenced seems to be pretty
well sourced, so it's probably even more reliable than the NY Times or
NBC News.

By the way, you are aware that I've been cross-posting on Breitbart
since 2010, aren't you?  And you are aware that I'm personally
acquainted with Breitbart editor Steve Bannon, and I've worked with
him on a couple of projects in the past, aren't you?

You'd better stop reading my articles, and just stick to Huffington
Post.

Speaking for myself, I read and reference all media sites, all around
the world as needed -- left-wing, right-wing, and everything in
between.  If what you're saying is that you read only left-wing web
sites and shun right-wing web sites, then you're going to be ignorant
of a great deal of what's going on in the world.  You need to be a lot
more open-minded, for your own good.  That's obviously true anyway, if
you think the things documented in those articles are just "old boring
tropes."  I can assure you that you don't have a clue what's going on.

Shaking my head, and sad.

I didn't know you were cross-posting on Brietbart, not that I care.  I also didn't know that you had personally worked with Bannon.  I have to ask, did you introduce Bannon to the idea of the turnings?  Bannon would seem to be doing more to give them a black eye than anyone else alive.  

As for credibility, yes I trust the NYT, Wapo and NBC a lot more than Brietbart.  It's not that I love them all that much, but I don't have to wonder if there is even an iota of truth in any particular article.  But more power to you if you trust them as a source.  It'll be pretty funny to find out that Hillary and Bush really are both lizard people.  I would like to regularly monitor a conservative news site, but they're pretty hard to find (for me at least) on the free web.  I use to read the Economist and WSJ, but times have changed and my current finances preclude subscriptions at the moment.  As for HuffPo, yes I use them for headlines, very much the same way I use to use Drudge.  I forget what got me ticked at Drudge, but I threw in the towel on his babble.

As for having a clue, I'm not convinced anyone has a clue about anything.  There are multiple possible outcomes of this turning.  Your prediction of the generational war coming is a likely scenario.  If it happens, I'll congratulate you if I'm around, but I'm pretty sure I'll be a radio active cinder in the first volley.

[pbrower2a]

(10-31-2017, 10:57 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote:

(10-29-2017, 02:24 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: >   I interpret Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" as a return
>   to most of the norms of the 1920s -- no welfare state, no concern
>   for the environment except for profits that can be extracted from
>   it, much higher inequality of income, weak-to-nonexistent unions,
>   ess reliance upon education, bosses fully in control of employees,
>   and no welfare state. He can't shrink the military, and he would
>   not dare bring back Jim Crow. Obviously he can't undo the
>   technological improvements from then.

The thing that I really love about Trump's tweets is that they drive
people like you absolutely crazy, and make it clear that you still
don't have a clue why you lost the election.  Part of leadership is
learning how to identify and disarm your enemies, and Trump does that
very effectively with his tweets, because you guys can't talk about
anything else.

OK, Hillary Clinton did not run a good election. She went after votes that she did not get or that were less important than votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin (or Florida) that really would have made a difference.

Donald Trump is the first demagogue to win the nomination of one of the two main political parties. Except for Dwight Eisenhower, all Presidents from Cleveland on have some record of service in elected or appointed office (this includes the Cabinet), so we all have some record of the politician's conduct as a political leader. With Trump we got a pig in the poke. Indeed we really got a pig. We got someone who has no idea of how the political process really works.

At least with Eisenhower we had a clear image of his personality. Exhibiting a chilly rationalism, caution, respect for institutions and legal precedent, and a willingness to cut deals with usual opponents, he would be a fine President. That sounds much likie another recent President. Maybe not in the league of Washington, Lincoln, or FDR, but well fitting the time. If I compare Obama to anyone it is Eisenhower even if Obama shot his way through public office quickly, was a little younger, and had no military service.  I can show you an overlay of Eisenhower and Obama elections whence I conclude that Eisenhower and Obama appealed to much the same political culture as shown by the states. Partisan affiliations can change in states, but their political cultures rarely change except for demographics.

Quote:The phrase "Make America great again" is not about a return to the
1920s, and the end of the welfare state or ignoring the environment.
I haven't heard anyone even suggest those things, which shows how
completely moronic and laughable your statement is.

Donald Trump is a Marxist stereotype of a capitalist. For good reason, Marxists use that stereotype -- a rapacious hedonist devoid of conscience -- as their strawman argument against capitalism. That, to the surprise of nobody, is the worst sort of capitalist. Donald Trump is not an innovator. He's basically a rent-collector. He is not out to expand a market; he is out to get more out of the market in which he is by grabbing more income from tenants. Railroad magnates at least made transportation available to settlers in the thinly-settled West and replaced draft horses with more efficient transportation between cities. John D. Rockefeller II was as much an innovator in discovering fuels for household and commercial use as he was in distributing those fuels. Henry Ford may have been a piece of work, but at least he made automobiles available to the proletariat. Don't forget the charitable institutions that Andrew Carnegie (lots of libraries, many extant) and Howard Hughes (medical research) established through their bequests. I have no idea what Warren Buffett intends to establish with his gigantic fortune, but it will likely be something that we will want to keep in the privat4e sector.


As a demagogue, Donald Trump created or adopted a vapid and ambiguous slogan that he could use to mean whatever he wanted it to mean while convincing other that it means something very different. He has sold out his voters to the rapacious hedonists like him as plutocrats and to the executive elite.

Quote:The phrase "Make America great again" is actually about recovering
from the disasters of the Obama administration.

No -- it is about refuting the idea that an erudite non-white fellow could be President, something that grated on white people especially in the Mountain and Deep South, and of the rise of non-white, non-Christian people into the middle class as America let its industrial base erode. It's about celebrating the "low-information voter" who has been the supporter of demagogues from Vladimir Lenin to Adolf Hitler to Hugo Chavez and sticking it to the egghead who prefers counterpoint to country music.

The erosion of America's industrial base began long before Obama, and accelerated under Dubya as he pushed a bubble economy based on people buying houses that they couldn't really afford. As Friedrich Hayek suggests, it is the capital-devouring bubble that does the damage and the financial panic (as in 1929 or 2008) that shows when people realize that the bubble won't sustain itself.

Donald Trump, who surprisingly got catcalls from Corporate America during his campaign, since kissed up to those elites at the expense of everyone else. That's one way to disappoint the masses, if not those who own and manage the assets.

Quote:The most obvious example is Obamacare.  Obamacare was a financial
disaster.  I knew that from day one, and I wrote about it in 2009.  It
was perfectly obvious to anyone who cared that Obamacare was going to
end in financial disaster.  Obama lied about it every time he opened
his mouth -- keep your doctor, keep you insurance plan, and everything
else he said about it.  He lied every time he opened his mouth.

With any major reform comes unintended consequences. We cannot assume that the unintended consequences are all bad. Social Security, for example, cut heavily into the sale of whole-life insurance policies. IRA accounts have made possible a great inflation in the cost of nursing homes that the politicians have given blank checks with our signatures upon them. Expansion of opportunities for college education in the early 1960s made possible the counterculture of the late 1960s . That's not only true of political change; it is also true of technologies. Automobiles made possible such prolific bank robbers as John Dillinger and the Barrow-Parker gang, and television has become a wonderful tool for numbing the minds of multitudes.

For the worst sorts of unintended consequences, simply stick to the preservation of rotten institutions and practices.

Quote:In fact, everything that I predicted in 2009 would happen has
happened.  I was pretty much 100% right about Obamacare from the
beginning.  On the other hand, everything that Obama said about
Obamacare has turned out to be a lie, which was obvious to me.

But other countries have national healthcare. Of course their systems are responsible to elected officials who have budgets to meet. Germany has physicians paid far less than American physicians -- but German physicians got their education from the start of undergraduate school through medical school at practically no cost

Quote:So it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone the enormous contempt I have
for Obama when I was 100% right and for 8 years I've had to watch him
openly lie and put the entire American economy at risk to satisfy his
own ego, for something that was provably a financial disaster from the
beginning.

OK, here's your disaster. From the spring of 2009, this has been a good time to be an investor.




It isn't simply inflation driving up stock prices and dividends:

Quote:And so Trump's "Make america great again" applied to Obamacare
is to fix this financial disaster to try to limit the damage.
That's real leadership.

With President Trump trying to repudiate everything that Obama does, it is only a matter of time before we have another nasty economic downturn. I have no idea what sort of solution Donald Trump would have.  Oh -- burn more coal? Open the spigots on effluents? Burning more coal will get us the global warming that the President says is a hoax. More pollution means quick profits but great human and environmental costs that cost us heavily in side effects (lead cuts into intellectual ability and creates behavioral problems and creates crime waves) and future remediation.

Quote:Then there's foreign policy.  Obama's foreign policy never made any
sense to me.  He had no clue what's going on in the world on the day
he took office, and still had no clue on the day he left.  The worst
was his whole "red line" farce about wmd's in Syria, which was an
enormous disaster for America because it showed how weak we were under
Obama.  Trump's missile attack on Syria earlier this year did a lot to
reverse Obama's disaster.

As shown by the dictator of North Korea loosing missiles to incinerate numerous Japanese and South Korean cities while Obama was President, the continuing survival of Osama bin Laden, and the acceleration of the frequency of terrorist attacks upon America and its allies. Whoops! Obama doesn't incite anti-Americanism. Pardon the Star Trek reference, but he likes to serve his revenge cold.

Quote:Then there's John Kerry.  I still just can't get over this.  John
Kerry said in 1971 that American soldiers were worse than Nazis, and
he confirmed his 1971 remarks in 2006, around the same time that he
said that all American soldiers were stupid.  I just can't get over
Obama's appointing this jackass as secretary of state, a thumb in the
eye to every American soldier, and showing enormous disrespect to the
military.  This is another sign of Obama's contempt for America and
America's values, and putting the country at risk.  This is
unforgivable.

And then we had to watch as Kerry lurched from one foreign policy
disaster to the next.  To say that Kerry is a jackass gives him too
much credit.

Even I concede that John Kerry wasn't up to the job.

Quote:Once again, Trump showed real leadership by appointing Rex Tillerson
as secretary of state, who is working to undo the disasters of the
Obama foreign policy.  This is what he means by making America great
again, not your idiotic interpretation of ending the welfare state.

An unconventional choice. Someone connected to the fossil fuel business and with no record of diplomatic, military, or elective service? We shall see. Tillerson often has his spats with the President.

Quote:Then there's Obama's use of tsunamis of regulations to cripple the
economy.  Trump has shown real leadership by reversing many of those
regulations.  The irony here is that people call Trump a dictator when
it's clearly the opposite -- by reversing the regulations he's making
the country freer.  It's Obama who was pushing the country to
dictatorship by his tsunami of regulations, and it's Trump pushing the
country away from dictatorship by ending the regulations.

No, he's simply doing what the most rapacious plutocrats want him to do.

Quote:Finally, there was Obama's contempt for the law and the Constitution.
You talk about dictatorships, but Obama's contempt for the
constitution is the real danger to America's democracy.

Obama was openly contemptuous about religious freedom, gun ownership,
and free speech when it didn't agree with him.  But Obama went way
beyond that.

I saw none of that under Obama. Tell me all about his Great Gun Grab, as I must have missed it. If anything it is President Trump who is squelching science when it runs afoul of his economic agenda.

Quote:Obama used the IRS to target Republican organizations, he started a
criminal investigation targeting a Fox reporter, he misappropriated
billions of dollars to give to his cronies to prop up Obamacare and
other programs through sweetheart deals with contributors, he invited
violent groups like BLM to the White House, he refused to bring
criminal charges against banks that caused the financial crisis, but
instead took billions of dollars in donations from the money that the
banks gained from illegal activities in the financial crisis, and so
forth.

Obama is no friend of legal misconduct. Black Lives Matter  has an agenda, but that is for police to be less trigger-happy around black people than they are around whites. Protesters at one Black Lives Matter event ended up shielding cops from a shooter at one protest at Dallas.

Pull a gun on a cop and you will end up dead. There are no protests about that.

Quote:Conservatives have more fully documented Obama's almost unending
criminal activities and threats to America and American values:

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/...residency/

http://thefederalist.com/2017/01/19/10-w...residency/

There have been no Obama officials indicted for any law-breaking. There would be plenty of opportunities for indictments and convictions if there were any wrongdoing suitable for prosecution. If a judicial system with plenty of Obama appointees is making things tough for bad actors under Donald Trump... do the crime, do the time.

In view of the indictment and house arrest of Paul Manafort, we can all see that President Trump has much more tolerance of shady associates than did Obama. Your problem with Obama is that you dislike him and his position on the political spectrum. I would have big trouble with a Trump-like Democrat as President if he were similarly corrupt and capricious. If I want drama, I'll grab a video or go to the theater, thank you.

Quote:These are really serious threats to America's democracy, and Trump is
showing real leadership with "Make America Great Again" by reversing
Obama's disasters.

He is setting up America for real disasters, as by baiting Kim Jong-Un. Kim Jong-un can of course act up in the worst way possible without being baited, but I see it this way: I'm not throwing stones over a fence where a couple of Rottweilers lurk. I want those Rottweilers to have no reason to vault, knock down, burrow under, climb over, or break through a fence to knock me down (which is basically a fall) and inflict some nasty lacerations from its teeth and claws.

This is a severe fault of character.

Quote:Democrats are hoping to use Mueller as a weapon to kill Trump.  If
they succeed, then hopefully Price will continue to reverse the Obama
disasters and work to make America great again.

Price? I thought you meant Mike Pence, an unabashed reactionary who wants a return to the 1920s.

Quote:Anyway, have you read today's tweets?  I'm sure you'll find something
to scream about.

I have learned to avoid the President's impulsive tweets. Aren't you sick of all that "Crooked Hillary" nonsense?

[Cynic Hero '86]

Yawn, two moronic boomers sparring over the smoking ruins of a national order their generation had destroyed. Boomers have nothing to say about their spectacular failure regarding refugees once again seen with the terror attack in New York. Also since someone mentioned it, Regarding a China vs America war; a war of attrition favors the CHINESE side, It would be the US who would favor a Blitz strategy in such a war because such a war plays our strength while we still have a technological advantage in such a war, it is the Chinese who would seek to turn a war into a long war of attrition because that allows china to play on its own strengths which are it's industrial capacity and manpower reserves.

[pbrower2a]

(Another post brought here, adapted some)

When all is said and done, I think that the Obama and Eisenhower Presidencies are going to look like good analogues. Both Presidents are chilly rationalists. Both respected legal precedents more than they trust legislation and the transitory will of the people in states. Both are practically scandal-free administrations. Both started with a troublesome war that both found their way out of. Neither did much to 'grow' the strength of their Parties in either House of Congress. In the 2008 election, Barack Obama won only one state that Eisenhower lost in either 1952 or 1956 (North Carolina); in 2012 he did not win any state that Dwight Eisenhower ever lost. This is amazing in view of the partisan identities of the two Presidents.

It may be premature, but I expect historians to hold Eisenhower and Obama similar in quality.

Despite the great differences in curriculae vitae, Eisenhower and Obama seem to have something very much in common: both are members of Reactive generations. 60-ish Reactives (George Washington, John Adams, Grover Cleveland, Harry Truman, and Dwight Eisenhower) may be the best sorts of leaders that Reactive leaders can be: cautious, mellow, respectful of precedent, and more trusting in legality than in the contemporary passion. Even if Barack Obama is one of the youngest Presidents ever elected and won't reach or surpass 60 as President ) he seems to have acted like someone in his sixties.

(The worst Reactive leaders are amoral, angry, cynical, bigoted leaders with an agenda of seeking revenge against real and imagined personal enemies -- like Adolf Hitler and Mao Zedong, puppets of tyrannical leaders such as Vidkun Quisling and Mátyás Rákosi, and such brutal functionaries of tyrants as Andrei Vishinsky and  Lavrenti Beria). I could also add Timothy McVeigh, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and the two worthless sons of Saddam Hussein as illustrations of the sorts of people that one would least want as leaders. 

The definitive moderate Republican may have been Dwight Eisenhower, and I have heard plenty of Democrats praise the Eisenhower Presidency. He went along with Supreme Court rulings that outlawed segregationist practices, stayed clear of the McCarthy bandwagon, and let McCarthy implode.


 
gray -- did not vote in 1952 or 1956
white -- Eisenhower twice, Obama twice
deep blue -- Republican all four elections
light blue -- Republican all but 2008 (I assume that greater Omaha went for Ike twice)
light green -- Eisenhower once, Stevenson once, Obama never
dark green -- Stevenson twice, Obama never
pink -- Stevenson twice, Obama once

No state voted Democratic all four times, so no state is in deep red.

(This site uses the very old red for Democrats and blue for Republicans... I do not make waves about that in that website).

To be sure, one would expect any winning President to win almost entirely states that FDR won in 1936 (all then voting except Vermont and Maine), that Nixon won in 1972 (all but Massachusetts), or Reagan won in 1980 (all but Minnesota).  But the overlay between Obama and Eisenhower fits far better includes all four such states that FDR, Nixon, and Reagan won in nearly-complete wins of the entire USA. As another coincidence, Eisenhower was the first Republican to win Virginia since 1928 (24 years) and Obama was the first Democrat to win the Old Dominion since 1964 (44 years) -- and both won the state twice.   


Now, Carter vs. Obama:

If anyone has any doubt that the Presidential Election of 1976 is ancient history for all practical purposes:

Carter 1976, Obama 2008/2012    



Carter 1976, Obama twice  red
Carter 1976, Obama once pink
Carter 1976, Obama never yellow
Ford 1976, Obama twice white
Ford 1976, Obama once light blue
Ford 1976, Obama never blue

....As you can see, Carter lost a raft of states (among them California, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, Connecticut, Vermont, and Maine) that Democratic nominees for President have not lost after 1988, and some states (Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and New Mexico) that Democrats have not LOST in Presidential wins. On the other side, Carter was the last Democrat to win Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, or Texas.  Democratic nominees for President are likely to get mostly states in white for the next couple of decades.


.........................

Although partisan identities of the states may change, political cultures within the states are unlikely to change over time except through changes of demography. In general, Eisenhower lost the least-educated states, as did Obama. Both Obama and Eisenhower did well among people with at least a college degree. Obama did badly with white people with less than a college degree, as (it would seem) did Eisenhower. I am going to guess that Eisenhower did better among blacks than did any subsequent Republican President -- even Nixon in 1972 and Reagan in 1984.

I would guess that the constituencies that Eisenhower got that Obama did not get were

(1) plutocrats and executives
(2) people in the ranching business
(3) Mormons

and the constituencies in which Eisenhower did not fare as well with as Obama were

(1) blacks
(2) Mexican-Americans

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 1-Nov-17 World View -- Chinese geologists warn of looming nuclear disaster from North Korean tests

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• China and South Korea reach an agreement on THAAD missile defense system
  
• Chinese geologists warn of looming nuclear disaster from North Korean tests
  

****
**** China and South Korea reach an agreement on THAAD missile defense system
****


Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha in National Assembly announces that South Korea would not pursue additional THAAD anti-missile deployments (The Hankyoreh)

In a surprise announcement, China agreed to remove the harsh economic
sanctions that it had imposed on South Korea in anger over South
Korea's deployment of America's advanced Terminal High Altitude Area
Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system.

In July of last year, South Korea's President Park Geun-hye announced
her decision to deploy the THAAD system on South Korean soil. This
was specifically a reaction to ballistic missile and nuclear threats
from North Korea, but it infuriated China because THAAD's powerful
radar could also give early warning to the United States of a
pre-emptive missile attack by China on the United States.

Early this year, news broke that the Lotte Group, a South Korean
multinational conglomerate, had agreed to a land swap that would allow
THAAD to be deployed on a piece of land previously owned by the
company. The enraged Chinese imposed harsh economic sanctions,
particularly targeting Lotte Department Stores in China and South
Korea with a boycott.

The economic sanctions have been devastating for South Korea's
economy, banning South Korean goods for sale in China, banning South
Korean pop stars and entertainers, and banning travel agencies from
selling packaged tours to South Korea.

Despite the sanctions, the first THAAD deployments began in March,
with two launchers.

South Korea's new president Moon Jae-in took office in May, after an
election campaign promising to end THAAD deployment, and to develop
closer ties with North Korea. But North Korea repudiated Moon's
overture, conducting a new series of ballistic missile tests. As a
result, Moon abruptly reversed policy and approved the deployment of
four more THAAD launchers.

So it was unexpected that South Korea and China issued a statement on
Tuesday that "The two sides attach great importance to the Korea-China
relationship," and that they would establish normal relations as
quickly as possible.

According to China's Foreign Ministry at a press conference on
Tuesday:

<QUOTE>"China's position on the THAAD issue has been clear
and consistent, which remains unchanged. We have noted that the
ROK stated publicly that the ROK [Republic of Korea - South Korea]
will not join the US anti-missile system, develop the ROK-US-Japan
security cooperation into a tripartite military alliance or make
additional deployment of the THAAD system, and the current THAAD
deployment in the ROK will not undermine China's strategic
security interests. We hope that the ROK will match word to deed
and follow through on these remarks to properly handle the
relevant issue.

Properly handing the THAAD issue and removing the obstacles to
China-ROK relations are the shared aspiration of the two countries
and conform to the common interests of the two sides, we hope the
two sides can jointly work to bring the bilateral relations back
to the track of normal development."<END QUOTE>

I find this to be a very strange statement, because the wording
implies low expectations that the détente between the two countries
will succeed. The statement does not explicitly say that China is
lifting its economic sanctions, and it only expresses hope that South
Korea will not develop a closer military alliance with the United
States -- in particular that no more THAAD launchers will be deployed.

There was one more Q&A at the press conference that I found strange:

<QUOTE>"Q: China said several times that the people-to-people
and cultural exchange calls for public support. As the ROK and
China reached agreement, what change does China expect to see in
public opinion?

A: As we all can see, for some time, the feelings and relations
between the Chinese and ROK people have been affected by the THAAD
issue. We hope that the two sides can properly handle the THAAD
issue and bring the normal exchange and cooperation in various
fields back to the track of normal development. We believe this is
of positive significance to the change of public opinion in the
two countries."<END QUOTE>

The answer implies that bad feelings and relations between the peoples
of China and South Korea were caused by the THAAD issue. From the
point of view of Generational Dynamics, the most likely explanation is
that bad feelings and relations between the Chinese and South Koreans
have been growing for some time, and that the THAAD was just a trigger
for open hostility. This view is supported by e-mail exchanges that
I've had with readers in the past indicating that there is extreme
hostility between Chinese and South Koreans. It seems unlikely that
Tuesday's agreement to improve relations is going to do much to change
these bad feelings and relations in the future. Business Insider and China's Foreign Ministry and The Hankyoreh (Seoul) and Global Times (Beijing)

Related Articles

• South Korea approves new THAAD deployment after North Korean missile test (30-Jul-2017)
  
  
• Ancient tensions flare between China and North Korea (08-May-2017)
  
  
• China promises retaliation over surprise deployment of THAAD in South Korea (08-Mar-2017)
  
  
• China's fury grows over South Korea's plan to deploy THAAD anti-missile system (10-Aug-2016)
  

****
**** Chinese geologists warn of looming nuclear disaster from North Korean tests
****

There have been reports that 200 North Korean workers were killed in a
series of tunnel collapses on October 10 at the main North Korean
nuclear testing site at Mount Mantap. These reports come from a
single unverified North Korean report, and are doubted by some
analysts.

However, what is apparently certain is that senior Chinese nuclear
scientists and geologists are saying that any further nuclear bomb
tests could risk a huge nuclear disaster that would affect both North
Korea and China.

The problem is that Mount Mantap, where North Korea has conducted five
underground nuclear tests, is now in danger of collapsing completely,
releasing huge amounts of radiation and nuclear debris that would
affect large parts of northeastern China.

The warnings have been delivered directly to North Korean scientists
by nuclear scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of
Geology and Geophysics. They warned North Korea that further nuclear
tests could blow the top off Mount Mantap and spark a potential
catastrophic collapse at the nuclear testing site, resulting in
radiation releases and other forms of contamination. The warnings
were summarized by an unnamed researcher at Peking University:

<QUOTE>"China cannot sit and wait until the site
implodes. Our instruments can detect nuclear fallout when it
arrives, but it will be too late by then. There will be public
panic and anger at the government for not taking action.

Maybe the North Koreans themselves have realized that the site
cannot take another blow. If they still want to do it, they have
to do it somewhere else."<END QUOTE>

The Chinese geologists delivered the warnings to the North Koreans on
September 20. Two days later, on September 22, North Korean Foreign
Minister Ri Yong-ho at the United Nations said:

<QUOTE>"It could be the most powerful detonation of an H-bomb
in the Pacific. We have no idea about what actions could be taken
as it will be ordered by leader Kim Jong-un."<END QUOTE>

This would, of course, be equally disastrous, as the explosion could
affect any aircraft or sea vessels in the area, and the radiation
could be carried by the winds to any country bordering the Pacific.
News Corp Australia and South China Morning Post and Chosun (Seoul)

Related Articles

• US sends three aircraft carrier strike groups to waters around North Korea (27-Oct-2017)
  
  
• North Korea crisis: Would the United States sacrifice Los Angeles for Seoul? (18-Oct-2017)
  
  
• Japan will shoot down N. Korean missiles via 'collective self-defense' (13-Aug-2017)
  
  
• North Korean missile strikes sea close to Japan, threatening radar base (04-Aug-2016)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, China, North Korea, South Korea,
Kang Kyung-wha, Park Geun-hye, Lotte Group, Moon Jae-in,
Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, THAAD,
Mount Mantap, Peking University, Ri Yong-ho,
Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Geology and Geophysics

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John J. Xenakis
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[Warren Dew]

Xi needed to be seen taking strong action against THAAD before the 5 year communist party meeting. Now he has consolidated power and can relax the sanctions. That is a signal to North Korea to stop their nuclear program, as is of course the warning about fallout.

I doubt North Korea is paying attention, though.

[Warren Dew]

(10-31-2017, 10:51 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote:

(10-29-2017, 12:20 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: >   It does not, however, make China socialist. Socialism is an
>   economic system, and what's relevant is GDP and similar economic
>   measures, not political repression.

I completely disagree.  There's no such thing as socialism or
capitalism in the economic sense you claim.

Since socialism and capitalism are purely economic concepts, you might as well quit using the words, then.

Quote:Going beyond the abstract to real life, controlling a business versus
owning it is a distinction without a difference.  The real life
meanings of socialism and capitalism have to do with government control
vs freedom.

The whole point of Capitalism is that a person running a business can
make decisions based on his objectives and his view of the
marketplace.  If his objective is simply profit, or if it's to use his
business to help minorities or Christians or poor people in
underdeveloped countries, or if it's to build a real estate empire, he
can do that in a capitalist society, and either succeed or fail on his
own abilities.

To the contrary, the point of capitalism is economic efficiency through competition.  In principal this rules out any motive except profit, since the success of capitalism depends on the fact that inefficient, unprofitable businesses must fail.

The freedom of capitalism is that, within this profit motive, one is free to optimize one's business to the greatest degree possible free of governmental interference - which China largely allows - and also, freedom to spend the profits as one desires, including helping minorities or Christians or poor people in underdeveloped countries.  But that's a matter of what one does with the money after it's personal money, not about running businesses.

Quote:So China and Nazi Germany share National Socialism, and to say that
China is a capitalistic society, while America is a Socialist country
just shows how moronic the political discourse has become.

Stripping out the economic terms, since you think economics is irrelevant, you're just saying China and Germany are both nationalist.  That's true, but under Trump, the US is also nationalist - and that's a good thing, not a bad thing.  You're just citing "Nazi Germany" for emotional effect, making a content free nondistinction.

Quote:

(10-29-2017, 12:20 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: >   China is basically a capitalist dictatorship, not a socialist
>   dictatorship.

The term "capitalist dictatorship" is an oxymoron, because capitalism
implies freedom to make business decisions.  If you want a term to use
that's not an abstract fantasy or oxymoron, then use Hitler's term
National Socialism since that now has a well-known historical
definition.

As amply explained, China is more capitalist than the US in the economic sense of the word "capitalist", which is the only sense of the word.

But stripping out the economic terms, since you object to economics, we're left with my statement that China is a basically a dictatorship.  hat it does share with Nazi Germany and not with the US.  But it's stupid to say that makes it "identical" with Nazi Germany - even if you think the Soviet Union was also "identical" to Nazi Germany since it was also a dictatorship - since the economic system is fundamentally different.

Spot on regarding your responses to pbrower2a and rds, though.

[John J. Xenakis]

(10-31-2017, 06:33 PM)rds Wrote: > I didn't know you were cross-posting on Breitbart, not that I
> care. I also didn't know that you had personally worked with
> Bannon. I have to ask, did you introduce Bannon to the idea of
> the turnings? Bannon would seem to be doing more to give them a
> black eye than anyone else alive.

No, it was the other way around. He became familiar with the Fourth
Turning and was personally acquainted with Neil Howe, and then came to
Generational Dynamics when he was working on the movie Generation
Zero.

I've written many times this year that Steve Bannon is an expert on
world and military history, and is also an expert on Generational
Dynamics. Donald Trump's foreign policy has been generally consistent
with Generational Dynamics, which undoubtedly comes from Steve Bannon.
I believe that America's survival in the coming world war depends on
understanding what's going on in the world, and Trump's understanding
of Generational Dynamics analyses through Bannon is a major benefit to
the United States and the world.

** 9-Feb-17 World View -- Mainstream media frets over Steve Bannon, the Fourth Turning, and Donald Trump
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e170209

** 21-Jan-17 World View -- President Trump's inauguration speech links today's America to the 1930s
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e170121

** 7-Jul-17 World View -- Donald Trump's speech in Warsaw Poland evokes the Clash of Civilizations
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e170707

** 30-Sep-17 World View -- Steve Bannon and Henry Kissinger form project to sound alarm on China
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e170930

(10-31-2017, 06:33 PM)rds Wrote: > As for credibility, yes I trust the NYT, Wapo and NBC a lot more
> than Brietbart. It's not that I love them all that much, but I
> don't have to wonder if there is even an iota of truth in any
> particular article. But more power to you if you trust them as a
> source. It'll be pretty funny to find out that Hillary and Bush
> really are both lizard people. I would like to regularly monitor
> a conservative news site, but they're pretty hard to find (for me
> at least) on the free web. I use to read the Economist and WSJ,
> but times have changed and my current finances preclude
> subscriptions at the moment. As for HuffPo, yes I use them for
> headlines, very much the same way I use to use Drudge. I forget
> what got me ticked at Drudge, but I threw in the towel on his
> babble.

You should read the Breitbart National Security page.

http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/

The Big Government and Big Journalism pages are mostly fatuous
political stuff, but the National Security is really very good -- and
of course that's where my articles are posted. The National
Security page has some political stuff but relatively little, and
instead covers world events pretty well.

(10-31-2017, 06:33 PM)rds Wrote: > As for having a clue, I'm not convinced anyone has a clue about
> anything. There are multiple possible outcomes of this turning.
> Your prediction of the generational war coming is a likely
> scenario. If it happens, I'll congratulate you if I'm around, but
> I'm pretty sure I'll be a radio active cinder in the first
> volley.

I have a clue.

[Cynic Hero '86]

North Korea will not disarm. They would have to be eliminated by force. Boomers refuse to allow a preemptive strike because of their selfishness. Throughout their collective lives, Whenever there was a critical Juncture; the boomers have always chose the present over the future. It is this choosing of the present is why the younger generations hate them.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 2-Nov-17 World View -- Israel and Saudi Arabia prepare for war with Hezbollah, as Syria war winds down

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Israel and Hezbollah prepare for war with each other
  
• Saudi Arabian minister calls for 'toppling Hezbollah'
  

****
**** Israel and Hezbollah prepare for war with each other
****


Hezbollah supporters chant slogans and gesture on al-Quds day in southern Lebanon on June 23 (Reuters)

With the rise of hopes, delusional or not, that the war in Syria will
settle down within a few months, all the players are now looking ahead
to the wars to follow.

Hezbollah, Iran's puppet Shia militia organization in Lebanon, was
originally formed in 1985 to launch war with Israel, and still has no
other objective other than war with Israel. War with Israel is its
only reason for existing.

Israel and Hezbollah last had a war in 2006. That war was a disaster
for both sides, and also a disaster for Lebanon, much of whose
infrastructure was destroyed. Since then, Hezbollah has made it
known that it's preparing for a much more effective war with
Israel, although this plan has been delayed by the war in Syria.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah spoke on nationwide
television in Lebanon October 1, to mark Ashura, the holiest
day in the Shia Muslim calendar, and used the occasion to once
again threaten to destroy Israel, and to warn that Israel would
be devastated by war:

<QUOTE>"I call on anyone who came to occupied Palestine to
leave it and return to the lands you came from, so you will not be
the fuel for any war waged by your foolish government.

[Israel's prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and his government do
not know how the war will end if they start one, and they do not
have an accurate picture of what to expect should they embark on
the folly of war."<END QUOTE>

Israeli defense officials believe that Hezbollah has an of between
100,000 and 150,000 missiles and a fighting force of 50,000 soldiers,
10,000 of which are already positioned in southern Syria, ready for
war with Israel.

An extensive report released last month by the High Level Military
Group, a think tank made up of retired generals and defense officials
from the United States, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy,
Spain, Colombia, India, and Australia, agrees with the Israeli
military assessment of Hezbollah, and also agrees with Nasrallah
of the effect of war on Israelis:

<QUOTE>"Policymakers expressed concerns about how prepared
the Israeli public is for the level of devastation that would be
wrought in a major military clash with Hezbollah.

Younger Israelis are less familiar with the threat of direct
attack than older generations, and Israel’s success in
neutralizing less sophisticated rockets fired from Gaza may have
led to inflated expectations of its capacity to intercept the
volume of rockets likely to be fired by Hezbollah."<END QUOTE>

In a war, Hezbollah would be launching about 1,000 missiles per
day at Israeli targets, although without guidance systems the
missiles could only be launched in the direction of the desired
target.

But in the last few months, reports have emerged that Iran is
constructing manufacturing facilities in Lebanon for volume
manufacturing of precision-guided missiles. These missiles could be
launched from anywhere in Lebanon, and could be programmed to strike
any target in Israel with accuracy. In the past, Iran tried to
transport convoys of these missiles overland from Iran to Lebanon, but
Israel has been very successful with airstrikes in Syria or Iraq to
destroy the convoys before they could reach Lebanon.

The manufacture of these precision-guided missiles within Lebanon is
thought be "crossing a red line" for Israel. Israel would probably
launch a preemptive strike on the production facilities in Lebanon,
which would be a significant escalation on the relation between
Lebanon and Israel since the end of the 2006 war. Hezbollah could
then launch a retaliatory strike on Israel, risking tit-for-tat
escalation that would lead to full-scale war.

Some analysts are advising Israel to strike right away, before
Hezbollah has a chance to fully arm. That option is certainly being
debated, but whether it will be adopted remains to be seen. Times of Israel (26-Oct) and National Interest and Times of Israel (1-Oct) and High Level Military Group (PDF) and Israel Hayom (1-Sep)

Related Articles

• Hezbollah's Nasrallah makes delusional speech about 'foreign fighters' attacking Israel (26-Jun-2017)
  
  
• Lebanon's Hezbollah leads the fight in Syria battle (26-May-2013)
  
  
• Israel preparing for 'very violent' war with Hezbollah (07-Sep-2014)
  
  
• How Israel panicked in pursuing the summer Lebanon war with Hizbollah (23-Dec-2006)
  
  
• Israeli government in crisis after report on war with Hezbollah (04-May-2007)
  

****
**** Saudi Arabian minister calls for 'toppling Hezbollah'
****

Saudi Arabia's Minister of Gulf Affairs, Thamer Al-Sabhan, said on
Monday that Hezbollah should be toppled:

<QUOTE>"[Saudi Arabia] is determined to stand resolute
against Hezbollah, the satanic militia working to recruit and
train outlaws in the party’s strongholds in Lebanon.

Hezbollah is declaring war on Saudi Arabia with the Iranian
weapons. ...

Those who believe that my tweets are a personal stance are
delusional and they will see what will happen in the coming days

I addressed my tweet to the government because the Party of Satan
[Hezbollah] is represented in it and it is a terrorist party. The
issue is not about toppling the government but rather that
Hezbollah should be toppled.

The coming developments will definitely be
astonishing."<END QUOTE>

Saudi Arabia has accused Hezbollah of supplying rockets and other
weapons to the Houthis, Saudi Arabia's enemy in the war in Yemen.

However, one pro-Hezbollah report mocked al-Sabhan by saying,
"Al-Sabhan obsessively tweets about Hezbollah and continues to make
promises about destroying the Lebanese group." Arab News and
Naharnet (Lebanon) and Al Masdar News (Damascus)

Related Articles

• Report: Israel and Saudi Arabia are allying against Iran and Hezbollah (28-May-2016)
  
  
• Arab League brands Lebanon's Hezbollah a terrorist organization (12-Mar-2016)
  
  
• Saudis to Hezbollah: Yemen is none of your business (16-Apr-2015)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Israel, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia,
Lebanon, Hezbollah, Iran, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah,
High Level Military Group, Thamer Al-Sabhan, Yemen

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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

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 3-Nov-17 World View -- Violence in Nigeria grows over clashes between herders and farmers

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Violence in Nigeria grows over clashes between herders and farmers
  
• Oklahoma! - The farmer and the cowboy should be friends
  

****
**** Violence in Nigeria grows over clashes between herders and farmers
****


Fulani herders in Nigeria (royaltimes.net)

I've written many times that many ethnic wars are based on fundamental
clashes between farmer tribes and herder tribes. in country after
country, there a classic and recurring battle between herders and
farmers, I've described in Central African Republic, Rwanda, Burundi,
Kenya, Sudan, South Sudan, and even America in the 1800s. The farmers
accuse the herders of letting the cattle eat their crops, while the
herders accuse the farmers of planting on land that's meant for
grazing. If the farmers put up fences, then the herders knock them
down.

In Nigeria, it's estimated that 2,500 people were killed and move than
62,000 people lost their homes in 2016 in just four provinces, Kaduna,
Plateau, Nasarawa and Benue states. The federal government lost $13.7
billion in revenue as a result of these conflicts. According to
former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar: "There is a
breakdown of communal trust, conflict resolution mechanisms and these
conflicts have become deadly," and "the current situation is
threatening the fragile peace in the nation."

A report last month from the International Crisis Group describes how
the clashes have been getting more widespread and violent, and are
becoming sectarian, as the herders are mostly Faluni Muslims from
northern Nigeria, and the farmers are most Christians from southern
Nigeria:

<QUOTE>"Violent conflicts between nomadic herders from
northern Nigeria and sedentary agrarian communities in the central
and southern zones have escalated in recent years and are
spreading southward, threatening the country’s security and
stability. With an estimated death toll of approximately 2,500
people in 2016, these clashes are becoming as potentially
dangerous as the Boko Haram insurgency in the north east. ...

Familiar problems – relating to land and water use, obstruction of
traditional migration routes, livestock theft and crop damage –
tend to trigger these disputes. But their roots run
deeper. Drought and desertification have degraded pastures, dried
up many natural water sources across Nigeria’s far-northern
Sahelian belt and forced large numbers of herders to migrate south
in search of grassland and water for their herds. Insecurity in
many northern states (a consequence of the Boko Haram insurgency
in the north east and of less-well-reported rural banditry and
cattle rustling in the north-west and north-central zones) also
prompts increasing numbers of herdsmen to migrate south. The
growth of human settlements, expansion of public infrastructure
and acquisition of land by large-scale farmers and other private
commercial interests, have deprived herders of grazing reserves
designated by the post-independence government of the former
Northern region (now split into nineteen states). ...

The spread of conflict into southern states is aggravating already
fragile relations among the country’s major regional, ethnic and
religious groups. The south’s majority Christian communities
resent the influx of predominantly Muslim herders, portrayed in
some narratives as an “Islamisation force”. Herders are mostly
Fulani, lending an ethnic dimension to strife. Insofar as the
Fulani spread across many West and Central African countries, any
major confrontation between them and other Nigerian groups could
have regional repercussions, drawing in fighters from neighboring
countries."<END QUOTE>

The Fulani herders are now sometimes equated to terror groups like
Boko Haram as a consequence of their attacks on farmers. The Fulani
herders are also playing a big part in the generational crisis civil
war in Central African Republic, as we've described in the past.

Nigeria's president, Muhammadu Buhari, is a Fulani and owns large
herds of cattle. He has been accused of complicity about the Fulani
attacks on farmers.

In order to protect farmers, Benue State, which is in Nigeria's middle
belt separating the north from the south, passed an "Anti-Grazing Law.
The law was passed in May, but only came into effect on Wednesday.
The law prohibits open grazing of cattle, and requires herders to
maintain their herds of cattle on ranches. The law is being
accompanied by a training program to teach herders modern methods of
ranching.

However, the new law is somewhat laughable, as there's no way that it
will stop Fulani herder attacks on farmers. On Thursday, an attack by
suspected Fulani herdsmen on a village in Benue State resulted in one
death and many others missing. Daily Trust (Abuja)
and International Crisis Group and Vanguard (Nigeria) and The Nation (Nigeria) and Daily Post (Nigeria)

Related Articles

• UN Secretary-General in Central African Republic begs for more funding (26-Oct-2017)
  
  
• Kenya's herders attack well-known conservationist, stoking tribal tensions (24-Apr-2017)
  
  
• Ban Ki Moon blames Darfur genocide on global warming (19-Jun-2007)
  

****
**** Oklahoma! - The farmer and the cowboy should be friends
****

Violent clashes between farmers and herders are not unique to Africa.
They occur in any country that has a growing population and has both
farmers and herders. In particular, there were many bloody battles
between farmers and herders in 1800s and early 1900s America.

In 1941, those battles were still fresh in the lives of many alive at
that time, and they were a sub-plot of the great Rodgers and
Hammerstein Broadway musical Oklahoma!.

One of the most festive song and dance production numbers in the show
was "The farmer and the cowboy should be friends."

The number is instructive to today's audience's because it provides
hints of just how bitter the fight was between farmers and cowboys.
The play takes place around 1900, just as Oklahoma was becoming a
state. The lyrics begin:

<QUOTE>"Oh, the farmer and the cowboy should be friends,
Oh, the farmer and the cowboy should be friends.
One man likes to push a plough,
The other likes to chase a cow,
But that's no reason why they cain't be friends.

Territory folks should stick together,
Territory folks should all be pals.
Cowboys dance with farmer's daughters,
Farmers dance with the ranchers' gals."<END QUOTE>

However, as the music and dancing continue, the farmers and
cowboys start sniping at each other:

<QUOTE>"Eller:
The farmer should be sociable with the cowboy
If he rides by and ask for food and water
Don't treat him like a louse
Make him welcome in your house

Ike:
But be sure that you locked up your wife and daughters"<END QUOTE>

The ensuing mass brawl is fully choreographed, as farmers and cowboys
take swings at each other in time to the music.

If you'd like to enjoy five minutes of music and fun, then check out
the Youtube video of the number from the 1955 film. YouTube


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, Fulani,
herders, farmers, Kaduna, Plateau, Nasarawa, Benue,
General Abdulsalami Abubakar, Central African Republic,
Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Sudan, South Sudan,
Rodgers and Hammerstein, Oklahoma!

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John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
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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

[pbrower2a]

It is hardly surprising that cattlemen and shepherds don't get along. Cattle leave some vegetation behind to grow again. Sheep grazw so close to the ground that they leave behind ... bare ground. Sheep can turn short grassland into desert.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 4-Nov-17 World View -- Socialist Venezuela may or may not have declared bankruptcy on Thursday

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Socialist Venezuela may or may not have declared bankruptcy on Thursday
  
• Socialist Venezuela may have reached the end of its economic road
  

****
**** Socialist Venezuela may or may not have declared bankruptcy on Thursday
****


During his televised speech on Thursday, Maduro grabs an empanada (a rich pastry) from his desk drawer when he thinks the cameras are off, while most of his people are starving (Caracas Chronicle)

In a nationally televised speech on Thursday, Venezuela's Socialist
president Nicolás Maduro Moros announced that Venezuela would be
"refinancing and restructuring" and "reformatting" its debt:

<QUOTE>"I decree a refinancing and restructuring of external
debt and all Venezuelan payments. We’re going to a complete
reformatting. To find an equilibrium, and to cover the necessities
of the country, the investments of the country. ...

We have to pay the amount of US$1.121 billion from the Pdvsa 2017
bonus and we have the money to fulfill this obligation," the head
of state announced, adding that the government also has resources
to continue providing necessities to Venezuelans.

We have the money for this payment, and we also have the money for
raw materials, medicines and food. ...

I am naming a special presidential commission led by Vice
President Tareck El Aissami to begin refinancing and restructuring
all of Venezuela’s external debt and (begin) the fight against the
financial persecution of our country."<END QUOTE>

As various articles have pointed out, this announcement by Maduro
didn't make sense, and was contradictory. Refinancing and
restructuring are two different things. Refinancing implies an
orderly market transaction, while restructuring implies a default and
bankruptcy. Nobody knows what "reformatting" is.

Some analysts are suggesting that Maduro is in so far over his head
that he doesn't know what he's talking about.

The "special presidential commission" will be led by Vice President
Tareck El Aissami, who is under sanctions by the US Treasury
Department for protecting drug lords and overseeing a network
exporting thousands of kilograms of cocaine. El Aissami announced
that his government will hold a bondholders meeting on November 13 to
reaffirm Venezuela's commitment to paying off its debts.

Maduro says that Venezuela would make a $1.1 billion payment that's
due now. That payment was made, and if it hadn't been, then Venezuela
would be in default, but it still makes no sense to make a payment
just before refinancing or restructuring.

Finally, Maduro says that even with this payment, the country has the
money for raw materials, medicines and food. Actually it doesn't.
Maduro has been starving the people and the hospitals for years, and
that isn't going to change.

Venezuela got into this situation by faithfully following Socialist
principles. When oil prices were high, Maduro's predecessor Hugo
Chávez used the overflowing treasury and even borrowed more money to
buy votes with enormously expensive social programs. When oil prices
crashed in 2014, Maduro paid off debts by incurring huge new debts.
Telesur Tv and Reuters and Bloomberg and Washington Post and DealBreaker

****
**** Socialist Venezuela may have reached the end of its economic road
****

All told, there’s $143 billion in foreign debt owed by the government
and state entities. Maduro would like to borrow more money, to incur
even larger debts to make payments on current debts, but is unable to
do so since August 28, when US president Donald Trump imposed
sanctions that prevent further borrowing.

The International Monetary Fund said last month it expects inflation
in Venezuela to reach 2,350% in 2018, up from about 500% in 2017.
This has made Venezuela's currency, the bolivar, almost completely
worthless.

Because Venezuela's bonds have been high risk for some time, they've
been paying very high yields (interest rates) - almost 10 times as
higher than those of neighboring Colombia. Investors have purchased
these bonds hoping for big returns. Big institutional investors in
the United States include T Rowe Price, Ashmore Investment Management,
BlackRock Investment Management, and Goldman Sachs.

Because of US sanctions, Maduro can't borrow any more money from
Western companies "Today, if Venezuela wants to go out to the world to
refinance one of these bonds we have to pay, it can’t. It’s prohibited
by the global financial dictatorship of the North American empire."

Maduro could borrow more from China and Russia, which are not covered
by US sanctions. However, Venezuela already owes $37.2 billion to
both countries, and both countries are said to be demanding economic
reforms.

Venezuela is sitting on the largest oil reserves in the world, but oil
production under the Socialist government has fallen almost 3% this
year. The disastrous Socialist economy is in disarray, and its
refineries run at less than 50% of the available capacity, because the
oil companies are being run by Maduro's Socialist cronies, not by
people who actually know how to run an oil company. In the past,
Venezuela has borrowed money from Russia and China via an oil-for-loan
agreement, but oil production has been falling because of the
incompetence of Maduro's Socialist cronies.

In the 1980s, the Soviet Union took on the task of supplying money to
Socialist Cuba. Now Russia has to decide whether to take on the task
of supplying money to Socialist Venezuela, which has three times the
population, at a time when Russia's own economy is in despair.

So Maduro has three choices.

First, he can convince Russia to bail him out again, and continue
bailing him out forever into the future.

Second, he can simply stop paying, and go into default. In this case,
his creditors will go after the country's foreign assets, including
Citgo and tankers that dock at foreign ports.

And third, he can try to convince Western investors, along with the
IMF, to bail him out. They would only agree to this if Maduro agreed
to massive economic reforms, and probably Maduro himself would have to
step down.

Recent history tells us that Russia will bail him out at least one
more time, but even Russia may be losing patience. With Tareck El
Aissami's meeting with bondholders scheduled for November 13, we may
have an answer soon.
Reuters and Bloomberg and Economist

Related articles:

• Russia considers taking on a huge financial burden - Venezuela (05-Oct-2017)
  
  
• With Trump's sanctions in place, Venezuela expected to go bankrupt soon (21-Sep-2017)
  
  
• Venezuela's economic crisis is hitting Cuba hard (06-Aug-2016)
  
  
• Venezuela's mestizo president Hugo Chávez dies of cancer (06-Mar-2013)
  
  
• Hugo Chávez dismantled Venezuela's businesses on purpose to create Socialist Paradise (29-May-2016)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro Moros, Hugo Chávez,
Petróleos de Venezuela S.A., PDVSA, Tareck El Aissami,
Russia, China, International Monetary Fund, IMF, Colombia,
T Rowe Price, Ashmore Investment Management,
BlackRock Investment Management, Goldman Sachs, Citgo

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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