Generational Dynamics World View

[John J. Xenakis]

(04-17-2017, 09:19 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: > Thank you. So if it comes to military action, we should expect
> North Korea to escalate rapidly to their limits.

> Does it make a difference that they are ruled by, essentially, a
> millenial, rather than their equivalent of a boomer or an X?
>

Generally speaking, I don't believe that the politicians have much
control over what happens during a generational crisis war. A crisis
war is almost totally emotional, controlled much more by mobs than by
reason. So the age of the leader shouldn't make any difference.

[Cynic Hero '86]

(04-17-2017, 11:51 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote:

(04-17-2017, 09:46 AM)Cynic Hero Wrote: >   The only viable candidate for the Korean Crisis War is the Korean
>   war. During WW2 there was no fighting whatsoever on Korean
>   soil. When Japan Surrendered, the Japanese military authorities
>   handed over administration to the US and USSR without any
>   fighting. Not to mention there were numerous massacres between
>   communist and non-communists in the two years between independence
>   and the start of the war. Most atrocities during the war were
>   carried out by North Koreans and South Koreans against each other.
>  

One major problem with that claim is that if the Korean war had been a
generational crisis war, then it would not have ended in an armistice,
but would have been fought to a victory by one side or the other.
Ending in an armistice is typical first turning behavior, not fourth
turning behavior.

The Anglo-Spanish war, the Thirty years War and Spanish succession wars ended with all an armistice. The Napoleonic wars ended with treaties except in the Last war in which napoleon was finally defeated. The only Major international war in the past several centuries in which the peace was imposed entirely by one victorious side without any input from the defeated was WW2, although Germany after WW1 in 1919 signed the final peace only after being given an ultimatum of basically "sign or else". In the Korean war the armistice was basically imposed on the Koreans by the US, China and USSR. A big reason why the US supported the South Korean reformers in the early 1980s is because of strong concerns that if the South Koreans were given more military capabilities than what they needed to defend themselves, they would have marched into the North. Which was a major mistake in my opinion as South Korea would have been much more militarily capable and we wouldn't have troops constantly stationed there as deterrence against the North.

[John J. Xenakis]

(04-17-2017, 11:56 AM)Cynic Hero 86 Wrote: > The Anglo-Spanish war, the Thirty years War and Spanish succession
> wars ended with all an armistice. The Napoleonic wars ended with
> treaties except in the Last war in which napoleon was finally
> defeated. The only Major international war in the past several
> centuries in which the peace was imposed entirely by one
> victorious side without any input from the defeated was WW2,
> although Germany after WW1 in 1919 signed the final peace only
> after being given an ultimatum of basically "sign or else". In the
> Korean war the armistice was basically imposed on the Koreans by
> the US, China and USSR. A big reason why the US supported the
> South Korean reformers in the early 1980s is because of strong
> concerns that if the South Koreans were given more military
> capabilities than what they needed to defend themselves, they
> would have marched into the North. Which was a major mistake in my
> opinion as South Korea would have been much more militarily
> capable and we wouldn't have troops constantly stationed there as
> deterrence against the North.

But you have to have a crisis war climax before the armistice. There
was no crisis war climax in the Korean war, to my knowledge. If
a war reaches a truce or armistice without a crisis war climax,
then it was not a crisis war.

A crisis war climax is an explosive, genocidal event that's so
horrible that it brings the war to an end, and is remembered for
decades or even centuries. It's the climax that ends the fourth
turning Crisis era, and begins the first turning Recovery era.

So for example, the War of the Spanish Succession was settled by the
1714 Treaty of Utrecht, but the genocidal 1709 Battle of Malplaquet
was the climax. I know this because I spent dozens of hours studying
the War of the Spanish Succession in 2004 before I finally figured
out what was going on.

The major problem with your list is that what you are identifying as
wars are really groups of wars. For example, WW II was not a single
war. You had multiple wars, with different climaxes. The European
war climax was the firebombing of Dresden and the fall of Berlin. The
Pacific war climax was the nuking of Japan and surrender. But you
also had the China war, which climaxed in 1949, and the Mideast
war that also climaxed in 1949. In India, the Partition war
climaxed in 1948, but there was a separate war in eastern India
that didn't climax until 1971.

When you do a generational analysis of any war, then you have to study
the history of each country separately. In a large country, like
India, there may be multiple timelines, multiple crisis wars, and
multiple climaxes in different regions.

So if you want to claim that the 1950s Korea war was a crisis war for
Korea, then you're going to have to identify a crisis war climax. But
everything I've read about the Korea war is that it ended in a
stalemate. I'm not aware of any event that can be called a climax.
Or, to put it another way, the Korean War crisis is yet to come.

http://www.history.com/topics/korean-war

[Ragnarök_62]

(04-17-2017, 11:40 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(04-15-2017, 01:57 PM)Cynic Hero Wrote: Also John X on an entirely different subject. Many Americans oppose immigration and outsourcing because it lowers the manufacturing base of the country and the influx of immigrants means higher unemployment for Americans because many businesses out of greed; refuse to hire American workers.

You are sitting up at the Northern border and have zero idea what is really going on with immigration. Or, as the case may be, what is not going on.

What I never understand is why some of the biggest blow hards regarding immigration are white people who live in places where immigration, even during the 1990s peak, had almost zero impact.

All the rust belt brownfields have zero to do with immigration. The main reasons for all the closures were lack of investment required to compete globally  and automation. It's not like a bunch of wetbacks are going to come in and run a steel mill.

Nonetheless, all the angry white rust belters were whipped into a frenzy by Trump's anti-immigrant schtick. Ironically, here in an area which has been up close and personal with both legal and illegal immigration for decades, we voted by the millions for Clinton including even a man of the Right like me. Trump was too much of a clown to get my vote.

Here's a link I posted in another thread. It deserves a spot here.

https://thefederalist.com/2015/12/08/how...ald-trump/

Oh yeah, check the date.  Quite prescient.

Said link hits home.  I despise the new time religion of PC and all of its catechisms. I do of course oppose ILLEGAL immigration. We're a nation of laws, not a population sponge for the rest of the world. Legal immigration with the idea that global warming's gonna put a huge hurt on the US land's carrying capacity in now and on into the far,far future.  All public policy needs to have a reality check wrt nice new *geologic era we created. The Republicans are no better since that party has no idea which geologic era we're really in. So, again, it's a pox on both parties.


"Angry white racebaiters" :  Uh, no everyone's race baiting somewhere or another. BLM's calling for reparations which is just ridiculous for example.  OK, it's lame because the vast majority of "Anglos", "white people", or what the fuck, let's use "Euro-Americans" had nothing to do with a slavery . Let's  make another hyphenated racial group just like all of the others. I'll toss in for good measure, "genders".  There's only 2 genders as per science.
If you have a Y chromosome, you are a male, else, female.  That can be covered with basic biology of if you're a hacker like me, a simple if/else/ statement.

(If person.y-chromosome == true ) {
person.sex = "male";
}
else {
person.sex = "female";
}

The future's gonna be a wild ride since humans are the 2nd organism that's managed to influence the flow of geologic ages since those cyanobacteria.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxygenation_Event

http://www.nature.com/news/anthropocene-...ge-1.17085

[Cynic Hero '86]

India already had a major war in 1947-48 the partition massacres effected all regions where Hindus and Muslims lived together in both western and eastern India. The 1971 war was an entirely separate war that was fought for entirely separate reasons from what happened in 1948. The notion that wars only occur in crisis eras is an ideological delusion needed to justify globalist world government as is the notion that after this next 4T the entire world would be under the same saeculum.

Also the US military is superior in capability to both Russia and China and US strength is stronger relative to the rest of the world militarily than it is economically. If a Russian or Chinese force conducts a first-strike against the US nuclear forces they would have take out the submarines and silos. There are 14 active nuclear subs, 12 of them are outside of port at any given time. If a Russian or Chinese strategist decides to go around the warning time by smuggling emplaced nukes into the ports and detonating them, that would only destroy the two subs that are at port. Just 1 sub is needed to cripple Russian capabilities in a counter-strike, 2 subs for the same effect on China.

John X likes denying concrete facts so as a final factoid just to refute him again, the US achieved a budget surplus in the late 1990s and had a budget surplus in 2000-2001 until Bush decided to fight the war on terror after 9/11 without actual spending increases like the war bonds of WW2.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 18-Apr-17 World View -- Worries grow that India is 'losing Kashmir,' as violence increases

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Video of Kashmir man tied to jeep further inflames anti-India violence
  
• Signs grow in media that Indians are beginning worry about Kashmir
  

****
**** Video of Kashmir man tied to jeep further inflames anti-India violence
****


Indian security forces tie Kashmiri man to jeep to discourage rock throwing by separatists

Although the violence in India-governed Kashmir has settled down a bit
since the large surge that accompanied the elections on April 9, there
is still simmering below the surface a great deal of anger - certainly
on the part of the Muslims, and almost as much on the part of the
Indian security forces.

The picture above is a frame from a video that went viral. It shows a
Kashmiri man that the security forces tied to the front of a jeep as
it travels down the street. The reason given for tying the man to the
jeep was to discourage Kashmiris from throwing stones at the jeep. In
the video, a warning can be heard saying that stone pelters will meet
the same fate (being tied to a jeep).

The entire video can be seen at this Twitter address.

There are many videos from Kashmir being posted these days, mostly by
separatists who want to portray alleged violence by security forces.

However, security forces have also been posting videos. One from
polling day on April 9 shows security officers being pelted by stone
throwers, and then a young man whacks a security office over the head,
causing his helmet to come off and roll down the street. The young
men change "Go India, go back."

This entire video can be seen at this Twitter address.

As I wrote earlier this month,

from the point of view of Generational Dynamics, Kashmir is replaying
previous generations of violence according to a fairly standard
template.

India's previous two generational crisis wars were India's 1857
Rebellion, which pitted Hindu nationalists against British colonists,
and the 1947 Partition War, one of the bloodiest wars of the 20th
century, pitting Hindus versus Muslims, following the partitioning of
the Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan.

Now, as the survivors of the 1947 Partition War have almost all died
off, leaving behind younger generations with no fear of repeating past
disasters, Kashmir is showing signs of repeated the violence of 1857
and 1947.

Stone-throwing incidents started to become frequent after July 8 of
last year, when Burhan Wani, the leader of the Kashmir separatist
group Hizbul Mujahideen, was killed by Indian police fire. There was
a big surge in violence that continued almost daily until Winter.
Security forces responded harshly with pellet guns, with the result
that 1,000 people lost their vision in one eye and five were blinded.
Thousands of youths have been arrested.

Now Winter is over. It's still only April. Summer doesn't even begin
until June 21, and then there are three more months until the Fall.
The most likely scenario is that violence is going to continue
throughout the summer. At some point, the violence is going to spiral
into full-scale rebellion, just as happened in 1857 and 1947. As the
saying goes, history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. Mumbai Times and Deccan Chronicle and DNA India

Related Articles

• India-Pakistan clash threatened as Kashmir violence surges again (01-Apr-2017)
  
  
• India and Pakistan in vitriolic accusations at the UN over Kashmir and Balochistan (18-Sep-2016)
  
  
• Police clashes in India-governed Kashmir kill 36 and leave thousands injured (14-Jul-2016)
  

****
**** Signs grow in media that Indians are beginning worry about Kashmir
****

My impression, after writing about the Kashmir issue off and on for
years, that Indians are in a state of almost total denial about what's
happening in Kashmir. In fact, just a couple of months ago I spoke to
an acquaintance who had been born in Kashmir and lived there as a
child. I asked him what he thought about the growing violence in
Kashmir. He said that it was nothing - it had happened before in the
1990s, and would die down again. Of course he didn't understand that
in the 1990s there were still plenty of survivors of the 1947 war
still around who made sure that it did die down.

Based on my readings of India's media, I'm seeing something different,
signs that Indians are becoming aware of how dangerous Kashmir is
becoming, and that things might get a great deal worse.

P Chidambaram, a member of the Congress party, which is the opposition
to the current government of Narendra Modi, said:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"My position on Kashmir is well known. I have been
> writing, speaking that we are losing Kashmir. ... The path that
> the government of Jammu and Kashmir and the central (Indian)
> government have taken is a perilous path. This path will not lead
> to any kind of peace or any kind of engagement with the
> people. ...
>
> The answer is not using the Army, the armed forces and the police
> force. The answer is not a muscular Kashmir policy. The answer is
> to engage with all stakeholders."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

An editorial in the Hindustan Times acknowledges Chidambaram's
statement, and says: "The Narendra Modi government wants a new
approach and has settled on a policy that combines harsh crackdowns on
agitating youth and initiatives that undermine mainstream parties."

According to the article, New Delhi politicians are still in a state
of continued denial:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"The Valley is seething – the deaths of teenagers and
> the presence of those blinded by pellet guns are a constant spur
> to maintain political purity and distance from India and those
> working for its institutions.
>
> Ordinarily, this would alarm Delhi as there’s a palpable loss of
> control and India’s image abroad at stake. But the Centre appears
> unperturbed and is maintaining its aggressive line. There has been
> no real regret about civilian casualties; instead home minister
> Rajnath Singh has ominously suggested that India “will see a
> transformed Kashmir in a year. No matter how the change occurs,
> one thing is certain, that there will be a change in Kashmir in a
> year’s time.” He also said those pelting stones “will have to face
> the consequences.” In February, army chief Bipin Rawat warned
> youth in Kashmir saying “those who obstruct our operations during
> encounters and are not supportive will be treated as overground
> workers of terrorists. They may survive today but we will get
> them tomorrow. Our relentless operations will
> continue."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

These quotes from New Delhi officials are totally delusional and will
lead to disaster. However, they show how strong the sense of
nationalism still prevails over common sense.

And editorial in Indian Express says the following:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"It is an unmistakable sign of the corrosion of Indian
> democracy that an odd combination of illusions and nauseating
> bravado is being spun in Delhi around the grim political situation
> in Kashmir. Every element of Indian policy in Kashmir lies in
> tatters. And yet, instead of asking forthright questions, our
> denial goes deeper. Kashmir now seems to be going from a deep and
> violent conflict to a state where there seems to be a death wish
> all around: Security forces with no means to restore order other
> than by inflicting death, Indian nationalism now more interested
> in showing machismo than solving real problems, increasingly
> radicalized militancy with almost a touch of apocalyptic disregard
> for life, foreign powers fishing in troubled waters, scores of
> young men and children even, who are making a statement that
> courting death seems a better option than what they regard as
> suffocating oppression. They are all feeding off each
> other."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

This article drew a number of angry, nationalistic comments. Here's a
sample:

• "It's an article which has no direction of giving
  information and remains meaningless. It has been penned down
  without looking at the right of India over Kashmir and trauma
  suffered by our forces also. Writer should be thankful that due to
  our democratic set up he has been able to write up such
  meaningless meme at large. Had not been our forces that
  disciplined the writer must have been enjoying kahwa with his
  fellow ones in or heaven. Nobody has got the right to tarnish
  social, democratic set up of union of India. the writer Instead
  should incessantly thank god that he has been born in India and
  taken care by one of the most disciplined and valorous armed
  forces, rather lamenting on issue created by suck ups like
  himself. May God give him brains and balls to digest the truth.
  Kashmir was, is and shall always be ours."
  
  
• "Is islamic terrorism not the root cause of Kashmir issue?
  Indian Govt's policy is? These pressti will not help real Indian
  cause ever."
  
  
• "The writer criticized the government for not being successful
  in so many words but otherwise has not offered any insights of
  what, why or how. In effect, he simply repeated 'you failed' to
  the government some number of times - but has not pointed to
  anything possibly done wrong. Neither has he covered what could
  be behind the militants' hostile position. It only confirms that
  about Kashmir, no one knows including the militants what the
  issues are and as far India is concerned, they would be ed if they
  did anything, ed if they did not again without understanding"
  
  
• "Nope, he ain't gullible. As a matter of fact, people like
  [the author] make their living out of treachery and propaganda
  against the nation. Period."

What's different from the past, as far as I can tell, is that there's
a debate emerging between the nationalistic view that "Kashmir is
ours, and separatists should be treated harshly," versus "Nothing is
working, and we should try something desperate like "engaging with all
stakeholders."

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, no solution exists to
the growing violence in Kashmir, and the same kind of violence will be
repeated as occurred in 1857 and 1947. At some point, possibly this
summer, something violent will occur to force Indians out of their
state of denial, and into a state of panic. At that point, cooler
heads may or may not prevail. Kashmir Media Service and Hindustan Times and Indian Express

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, India, Pakistan, Kashmir,
Burhan Wani, Hizbul Mujahideen, P Chidambaram,
Narendra Modi, Rajnath Singh, Bipin Rawat

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John J. Xenakis
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E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
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[Ragnarök_62]

(04-17-2017, 06:58 PM)Cynic Hero Wrote: India already had a major war in 1947-48 the partition massacres effected all regions where Hindus and Muslims lived together in both western and eastern India. The 1971 war was an entirely separate war that was fought for entirely separate reasons from what happened in 1948. The notion that wars only occur in crisis eras is an ideological delusion needed to justify globalist world government as is the notion that after this next 4T the entire world would be under the same saeculum.

Also the US military is superior in capability to both Russia and China and US strength is stronger relative to the rest of the world militarily than it is economically. If a Russian or Chinese force conducts a first-strike against the US nuclear forces they would have take out the submarines and silos. There are 14 active nuclear subs, 12 of them are outside of port at any given time. If a Russian or Chinese strategist decides to go around the warning time by smuggling emplaced nukes  into the ports and detonating them, that would only destroy the two subs that are at port. Just 1 sub is needed to cripple Russian capabilities in a counter-strike, 2 subs for the same effect on China.

John X likes denying concrete facts so as a final factoid just to refute him again, the US achieved a budget surplus in the late 1990s and had a budget surplus in 2000-2001 until Bush decided to fight the war on terror after 9/11 without actual spending increases like the war bonds of WW2.

1.  OK, I'll be 55 next month. I have no skin in this game. So... Cynic, are YOU willing to be drafted to fight the 1st nuclear war?  Tell us, OK? I play Hold'em, no limit. So, are you willing to commit all of your chips on 1 hand? Let me know, OK? I've done this a  lot of times. Yeah $200.00 stacks, on 1 single hand of 2 cards. Let's say I have a hand I'm OK with playing for stacks with.  I know my 2 cards and have an idea of what YOU HAVE.  If I shove "ALL IN", what are you going to do? It's an "ALL IN MOMENT". So... are you gonna call or just fold up? I'm sick of stupid pussies with all bluster and nothin' else.  Call me, or fold up and tuck your tail behind your sorry ass. Got it?

2. War Bonds:   OK, big guy, buy those damn war bonds.  Besides, bring' 'em to the poker table. I'll be more than glad to swap those for poker chips, ... cause I'll most likely win those chips off of you, regardless.

3. Russia/China.   : No need to fight when you're rockin' right, man.

[John J. Xenakis]

(04-17-2017, 06:58 PM)Cynic Hero 86 Wrote: > John X likes denying concrete facts so as a final factoid just to
> refute him again, the US achieved a budget surplus in the late
> 1990s and had a budget surplus in 2000-2001 until Bush decided to
> fight the war on terror after 9/11 without actual spending
> increases like the war bonds of WW2.

It always amazes that you've been in this forum for over ten
years, but you still have no clue what the difference is
between a crisis war and a non-crisis war.

However, I'd like to focus on the above comment. On its face it's
ridiculous, because spending on the Iraq war didn't begin until 2003,
but the deficit began worsening in 2000, which was the last year of
the Clinton administration.

Here's a graph that I posted two years ago:



https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/gr..._id=205626

• Look at the blue line. That's government expenditures. Notice
  that it doesn't go up in 2003. So you're wrong about the Iraq war
  increasing the deficit. Expenditures went up at a steady rate from
  1980 to 2012, and only leveled off with Sequestration.
  
  
• Look at the red line. That's government income. It crashes in
  2000, because of the Nasdaq crash in the last year of the Clinton
  administration, and again in 2008, because of the financial crisis.
  
  
• Now look at the green line. It's the numeric difference between
  the blue line and the red line. The deficit surges in 2000 and
  2008 because of the Nasdaq crash and the financial crisis,
  respectively. The Iraq war is irrelevant.

** 2-Feb-15 World View -- Washington joins the world in explosive spending splurge
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e150202

So it's not the evil Boomers who ignore the facts; it's certain idiot
Gen-Xers, who live in a world of total fantasy, and who need to be
educated about the factoids.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 19-Apr-17 World View -- UN says lengthy Mosul operation leading to major humanitarian disaster

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• UN says lengthy Mosul operation leading to major humanitarian disaster
  
• ISIS using both mustard gas and chlorine gas attacks in Mosul
  
• Iraq says that ISIS and al-Qaeda are in talks to join forces
  

****
**** UN says lengthy Mosul operation leading to major humanitarian disaster
****


Woman fleeing Mosul carries her child in one hand and a bag of belongings in the other (CNN)

It's now been six months since October 17, 2016, the beginning of the
military operation to recapture Iraq's second largest city, Mosul,
from the so-called Islamic State (IS or ISIS or ISIL or Daesh).
Iraq's army is leading the offensive, with support from the United
States with a mix of Special Operations Forces, intelligence and close
air support.

But frustrations are growing because progress has been slow. The
portion of Mosul on the east side of the Tigris river has already been
recaptured, but the dense population, the narrow streets of western
Mosul, and the advance preparation of the ISIS fighters combine to
slow the operation down to a crawl.

ISIS has booby-trapped streets and buildings with IED bombs, and
attacks with suicide motorbike attacks, and sniper and mortar fire.
If ISIS fighters are using a particular building as a base or for
storage of weapons, local residents are forced to live in the building
as human shields, so that it cannot be bombed by American warplanes.

According to the United Nations, the scale of civilians fleeing Mosul
is "staggering," and relief efforts have been stretched to the
"operational limits." According to a Lise Grande, the UN's
Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"Our worst case scenario when the fighting started was
> that up to one million civilians may flee Mosul. Already, more
> than 493,000 people have left, leaving almost everything behind,”
> Lise Grande, the Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, said in a news
> release issued by the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian
> Affairs (OCHA).
>
> “The sheer volume of civilians still fleeing Mosul city is
> staggering. ... We are doing everything we can but this has been a
> long battle and the assault on the old city hasn't
> started."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

The UN claims that since fighting began in October, they've provided
some 1.9 million people with food, water, shelter, emergency kits,
medical support and psycho-social services.

The UN emphasizes that all parties to the conflict are obliged, under
International Humanitarian Law, to do everything possible to protect
civilians, ensure they have the assistance they need, and limit damage
to civilian infrastructure. Haha. United Nations
and Reuters and Al Jazeera

Related Articles

• Iraq begins battle to recapture Mosul from ISIS (17-Oct-2016)
  
  
• Iraq halts Mosul operation after US coalition airstrikes kill hundreds of civilians (26-Mar-2017)
  
  
• Concerns grow over chaos in Iraq after ISIS is defeated in Mosul (22-Mar-2017)
  

****
**** ISIS using both mustard gas and chlorine gas attacks in Mosul
****

On Friday of last week, ISIS fired a rocket loaded with chlorine at a
neighborhood in western Mosul, injuring seven soldiers, according to
Iraqi military sources.

On Sunday, 25 Iraqi soldiers in a unit with US and Australian advisers
suffered breathing problems after being hit by a mustard gas attack.

Gas masks are being distributed to Iraqi forces, in case of future gas
attacks. AP and CBS News

****
**** Iraq says that ISIS and al-Qaeda are in talks to join forces
****

According to Iraq's vice president Ayad Allawi, ISIS and al-Qaeda are
talking about forming an alliance, once ISIS is defeated in Mosul:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"The discussion has started now. There are
> discussions and dialogue between messengers representing Baghdadi
> and representing Zawahiri."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Allawi was referring to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and al-Qaeda
head Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Although an alliance between ISIS and al-Qaeda might seem like a
jihadist's dream come true, the two organizations are like oil and
water.

The al-Qaeda linked organization in the region is Jabhat al-Nusra
(al-Nusra Front) which renamed itself Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (JFS) when
it cut its ties to al-Qaeda. It did so in order to join forces with
Ahrar al-Sham, a "moderate" anti-Assad group that did not want to have
any links to jihadist organizations, either al-Qaeda or ISIS.
Nominally, JFS is no longer linked to al-Qaeda, although some analysts
believe that the links still exist.

ISIS was formed from about 50,000 jihadist fighters from 86 countries
that came to Syria to fight al-Assad. These foreigners were not
welcomed by the Syrian fighters, either the "moderate" fighters or the
al-Nusra Front fighters, and so al-Nusra and ISIS began fighting each
other.

For years, al-Assad and ISIS have been effectively allied. That's
because ISIS was interested in gaining territory, and that was at the
expense of the militias of Syrian citizens. So al-Assad and ISIS both
were targeting the Syrian opposition to the government.

Now that ISIS is close to defeat in Mosul, Iraq, and is being attacked
by a military operation in its stronghold Raqqa, in Syria, it's not
surprising that the two thuggish organizations are talking to each
other. In today's bizarro world where it seems that anything can
happen, maybe they can find a way to form some kind of working
relationship. But what's far more likely is that when ISIS is
defeated it will split up, and its members will return to their home
countries and, in some cases, perform terrorist acts there. Reuters and Newsweek and Fox News

Related Articles

• Syria's Al-Nusra splits with al-Qaeda, becoming Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (29-Jul-2016)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Iraq, Mosul,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh,
Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, JFS, Front for the Conquest of Syria,
Lise Grande, United Nations, al-Qaeda, Syria, Bashar al-Assad,
Ayad Allawi, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Ayman al-Zawahiri,
Ahrar al-Sham

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Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 20-Apr-17 World View -- EU officials increasingly fear a Marine Le Pen upset victory in France's elections

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• EU officials increasingly fear a Marine Le Pen upset victory in France's elections
  
• Marine Le Pen fights accusations of anti-Semitism
  
• The threat to the 'European project'
  

****
**** EU officials increasingly fear a Marine Le Pen upset victory in France's elections
****


Far-right politicians: Marine Le Pen of France, and Brexit champion Nigel Farage of Britain (AFP)

Marine Le Pen, leader of France's far-right Front National party is
still considered to be a very long shot to become the next president
of France, but it's no longer considered an impossibility, mainly
because of three factors: the unexpected passage of the Brexit
referendum in Britain last year, the unexpected election of Donald
Trump in the US last year, and a trend of rising nationalistic,
xenophobic political parties in countries across Europe in recent
years.

The first round of the presidential elections will be held on Sunday,
April 23. There are 11 candidates, so it's almost impossible for
anyone to win by getting over 50% of the vote. The top two candidates
will then take part in a runoff election on May 7, to determine the
final winner. President François Hollande, a Socialist, has had
abysmal popularity ratings, and so has chosen not to run for a second
term, a decision unprecedented in modern times.

The polls put the top four candidates at around 20% each. Emmanuel
Macron is the youngest, a 39-year-old former investment banker, and
former economy minister under Hollande. He's considered to be the
favorite among the mainstream "globalist" European politicians.

The early favorite was Republican François Fillon, but his support has
crashed because of a scandal where he allegedly arranged for his wife
to receive a large salary for a job that required little or no work.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon is the far-left candidate, a kind of political
mirror image of Marine Le Pen, though not entirely. Le Pen is
anti-immigration, while Mélenchon is pro-immigration, but the two
candidates do agree on one important issue: Neither of them likes the
euro currency.

Although Le Pen could flame out in the first round, it's widely
expected that she will be one of the two leading candidates.
Mainstream politicians are hoping a second round matching Le Pen with
Macron. In that case, it's expected that Macron pick up voters from
the candidates that have dropped out, while Le Pen's core group of
supporters would stay the same, with the result that Macron would
defeat Le Pen by a wide margin.

The scenario that most fear is that in the first round on Sunday, the
two winners would be the two extremes, the far-right Le Pen and the
far-left Mélenchon. This would be considered a disaster for the
eurozone, as either one would like to return to the original French
franc currency.

After last year's unexpected Brexit and Trump victories, there's a
great deal of anxiety among European politicians who fear that
anything could happened. BBC and Market Pulse and Foreign Policy and Euro News and Daily Signal

****
**** Marine Le Pen fights accusations of anti-Semitism
****

Marine Le Pen is the current leader of the Front National party, which
had a strong history of anti-Semitism under its previous leader and
founder, Marine Le Pen's father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, a Holocaust
denier.

At some point, she came to the conclusion that she and the Front
National party could not become successful without completely breaking
its anti-Semitic past. She did so by breaking with her father, and
banning him from the party. She has not repeated any of her father's
anti-Semitic remarks, and has even condemned them. But in interviews,
she's always asked about Jewish issues, and her answers are always
heavily scrutinized by a mainstream press that is as consumed with
hostility to her as with Donald Trump.

One of the most controversial examples occurred in a recent interview
where she insisted that France was not responsible for a July 1942
atrocity known as "Vel d'Hiv," where French officials rounded up
13,000 Jews and turned them over to the Nazis to be deported to
Auschwitz. She had scramble to explain that the "real" French
government at that time was in exile, while the perpetrators of the
atrocity were the puppet government in Paris under Nazi control.

In fact, Le Pen has appealed to Jewish voters by saying that she's
best support of Jews because she's so strongly opposed to Muslim
immigrants, essentially using one form of xenophobia to claim that
she's innocent of another form of xenophobia. It's quite a remarkable
argument.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, there are two
important things to be noted here, things that I've written about many
times.

First, nationalism and xenophobia do not come ftom the politicians.
They come from the people. If Marine Le Pen had not stepped forward
to represent anti-Muslim and possibly anti-Semitic voters, then
someone else would have done so, because the people were demanding it.

What a politician can do is represent nationalistic and xenophobic
voters, but then do everything possible to ameliorate the worst abuses
of those attitudes. As I've noted in the past, Donald Trump has
backed off from his early remarks Mexicans and Muslims, and appears to
have adopted a course that takes into account the anxieties of his
supporters, while preventing any abuses from taking place. Theresa
May in Britain is similarly trying to chart a course that accommodates
Brexit supporters, while avoiding total disaster for Britain's
economy.

The second important point is that nationalism and xenophobia are
growing around the world. Whether it's Chinese vs Japanese, Chinese
vs Vietnamese, Buddhists vs Rohingyas in Myanmar, Hindus vs Muslims in
Kashmir, or Sunnis vs Shias in the Mideast, nationalism and xenophobia
have been growing around the world, in one country after another.
This is what always happens in a generational Crisis era, and it
always leads to major wars or world wars. The Local (France) and Books and Ideas and Atlantic and News Max

****
**** The threat to the 'European project'
****

The phrase "European Project" refers to the efforts, begun in the
1950s, to take steps to prevent another massive war in Europe.

It's hard today to remember the mood of the public in those days.
Here's what Hannah Arendt wrote in her 1950 book, The Origins of
Totalitarianism:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"Two world wars in one generation, separated by an
> uninterrupted chain of local wars and revolutions, followed by no
> peace treaty for the vanquished and no respite for the victor,
> have ended in the anticipation of a third World War between the
> two remaining world powers [America and the Soviet Union]. This
> moment of anticipation is like the calm that settles after all
> hopes have died. We no longer hope for an eventual restoration of
> the old world order with all its traditions, or for the
> reintegration of the masses of five continents who have been
> thrown into a chaos produced by the violence of wars and
> revolutions and the growing decay of all that has still been
> spared. Under the most diverse conditions and disparate
> circumstances, we watch the development of the same phenomena --
> homelessness on an unprecedented scale, rootlessness to an
> unprecedented depth.
>
> Never has our future been more unpredictable, never have we
> depended so much on political forces that cannot be trusted to
> follow the rules of common sense and self-interest -- forces that
> look like sheer insanity, if judged by the standards of other
> centuries. It is as though mankind had divided itself between
> those who believe in human omnipotence (who think that everything
> is possible if one knows how to organize masses for it) and those
> for whom powerlessness has become the major experience of their
> lives."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

The purpose of the European Project was to prove that mankind was not
completely powerless after all. If Europe could set up a new world
order that would prevent the "sheer insanity" of another world war,
then the European Project would succeed. This lead to the Treaty of
Rome in 1957, and eventually to the formation of the European Union.

What we see today is huge centrifugal forces pulling the European
Project apart.

Whether it's the Brexit referendum in Britain, Marine Le Pen in
France, the "True Finns" in Finland, the Alternative for Germany (AfD)
in Germany, the Golden Dawn party in Greece, the Jobbik party in
Hungary, or any of the nationalistic movements in other European
countries, what's become clear is that people, particularly young
people, have no fear or concerns about the lessons learned in World
War II. This is what Generational Dynamics tells us always happens.

In the last century, there were two world wars that destroyed Europe.
The first World War was also devastating for Russia and the Mideast,
while the second World War was also devastating for Japan and the
Pacific. However, there were other massive wars in the last century,
in Asia, in Africa, in the Americas. These wars of the last century
are not well remembered by Americans, since Americans were not as
heavily involved, but they're well remembered by the people of the
countries that fought in them.

And that's just the last century. If you look at the earlier
centuries -- the 1800s, the 1700s, the 1600s, the 1500s, and so forth
-- there were also massive wars in Asia, Europe, the Mideast, Africa
and the Americas in those centuries as well. No century has ever
escaped this.

The point is that these huge, massive wars have not yet begun to occur
in this century, and so people, especially young people, have come to
believe that they never will. And yet, there's absolutely no hope of
avoiding them. Anyone can see that the world has become increasingly
unstable in the last 10 or 15 years, and that countries around the
world have become increasingly nationalistic and xenophobic. It's
like the world is a pressure cooker, ready to explode.

France enjoyed "La Belle Époque" starting in 1871, with advances in
the arts rather than wars. That was the "Old World Order" that Hannah
Arendt was talking about in the quote above. And yet, World War I
exploded in 1914 completely without warning, when a high school
student decided to shoot an Archduke of another country.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, Hannah Arendt was
right -- that powerlessness is the major experience of our lives.
Politicians are powerless to stop the flow of generations, as young,
foolish generations displace older, traumatized, experienced
generations, and repeat all the mistakes of the past, once again, over
and over. BBC and Washington Post and AFP

Related Articles

• Angela Merkel tries to unify a fractured Europe on its 50th birthday (25-Mar-2007)
  
  
• The global rise of xenophobia (22-Aug-2010)
  
  
• European leaders debate how the European Union can survive after Brexit (02-Mar-2017)
  
  
• Britain's Tony Blair calls for the people 'to rise up' and reverse Brexit (18-Feb-2017)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, France, Marine Le Pen, Front National,
François Hollande, Emmanuel Macron, François Fillon, Jean-Luc Mélenchon,
Jean-Marie Le Pen, Donald Trump, Britain, Brexit, Theresa May,
Vel d'Hiv, Auschwitz, Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism,
European Project, La Belle Époque

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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]

(04-18-2017, 08:22 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote:

(04-17-2017, 06:58 PM)Cynic Hero Wrote: >   John X likes denying concrete facts so as a final factoid just to
>   refute him again, the US achieved a budget surplus in the late
>   1990s and had a budget surplus in 2000-2001 until Bush decided to
>   fight the war on terror after 9/11 without actual spending
>   increases like the war bonds of WW2.  

It always amazes that you've been in this forum for over ten
years, but you still have no clue what the difference is
between a crisis war and a non-crisis war.

However, I'd like to focus on the above comment.  On its face it's
ridiculous, because spending on the Iraq war didn't begin until 2003,
but the deficit began worsening in 2000, which was the last year of
the Clinton administration.

Here's a graph that I posted two years ago:



https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/gr..._id=205626

• Look at the blue line.  That's government expenditures.  Notice
  that it doesn't go up in 2003.  So you're wrong about the Iraq war
  increasing the deficit.  Expenditures went up at a steady rate from
  1980 to 2012, and only leveled off with Sequestration.
  
  
• Look at the red line.  That's government income.  It crashes in
  2000, because of the Nasdaq crash in the last year of the Clinton
  administration, and again in 2008, because of the financial crisis.
  
  
• Now look at the green line.  It's the numeric difference between
  the blue line and the red line.  The deficit surges in 2000 and
  2008 because of the Nasdaq crash and the financial crisis,
  respectively.  The Iraq war is irrelevant.
  

** 2-Feb-15 World View -- Washington joins the world in explosive spending splurge
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/x...tm#e150202

So it's not the evil Boomers who ignore the facts; it's certain idiot
Gen-Xers, who live in a world of total fantasy, and who need to be
educated about the factoids.

LOL, Here John X is outright denying that a Budget surplus surplus existed from the late 1990s until 9/11. It was the refusal to fund the war effort with actual spending that caused the return of the deficit. This began immediately after 9/11, 18 months prior to the start of the Iraq war. Also regarding Iraq the political class' delusion that Iraqis valued western "freedom" just like Americans do, insured that  we would get bogged down in nation-building and made the insurgency inevitable (had the former Baathists been allowed to keep their posts and allowed to continue administering local government, there wouldn't have been an insurgency). Without that delusion we would have entered Iraq with 500,000 troops rather than the 200,000 that ended up being committed.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 21-Apr-17 World View -- Cameroon's president finally caves in, restores internet to English speakers

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Cameroon's president finally caves in, restores internet to English speakers
  
• With violence in Venezuela's streets continuing, Maduro confiscates GM factories
  

****
**** Cameroon's president finally caves in, restores internet to English speakers
****


During protests earlier this year, Anglophone protesters used catapult against police in Bamenda, Cameroon (RFI)

Cameroon's president Paul Biya on Thursday finally gave in after 93
days and restored internet access to the "Southern Cameroons," the
region of Cameroon populated by English-speaking or Anglophone people.

Biya shut down the internet to Anglophones in November of last year,
following clashes between English-speaking (Anglophone) protesters and
police. The protests were over discrimination and marginalization of
the Anglophones by the French-speaking (Francophone) majority.

The protests were initially led by Anglophone lawyers in the city of
Bamenda to protest that the legal and court systems are biased toward
Francophones, with many laws passed without even being translated into
English. That demonstration was dispersed by security forces using
tear gas.

Two weeks later, the demonstrators were joined by Anglophone teachers
who were protesting that the government was deploying Francophone
teachers teach the French language in Anglophone regions. The
government decided was appointing French-speaking teachers and judges
who barely understand English to Anglophone schools and courts.

Thousands of Anglophone Cameroonians brought coffins to the
demonstrations, proclaiming that they were ready to die and be burned
in their coffins. The demonstrations turned violent when security
forces fired tear gas and live bullets to disperse the demonstrators.
At least six protesters were shot dead and hundreds others arrested by
security forces.

With teachers and lawyers on strike, shutting down the internet was
apparently Biya's method of bringing the Anglophones to heel.

However, shutting down the internet has been disastrous for Cameroon's
economy. It was particularly disastrous for businesses in the
Southern Cameroons, which had no internet access, and so could not
conduct business. But individuals were hurt as well, since they
couldn't pay bills or make online purchases.

Shutting down the internet was a really dumb thing to do, but
Cameroon's economy has lost some $3.1 million because of the internet
blackout, according to the French NGO, Internet sans Frontières
(Internet without Borders). Furthermore, with the schools shut
because of the teachers' strike, Cameroon was threatened with an aid
cutoff from UNESCO.

Biya's ending the internet block will not solve the underlying
tensions between Anglophones and Francophones, which date back to
colonial times when there was a British Cameroon and a French
Cameroon. The two colonies were pasted together in what was supposed
to be a federal system where the Anglophone and Francophone regions
were equal. But, Paul Biya came to power in 1982 and, as usual in
African countries, Biya has turned into a dictator. He had hoped that
shutting down the internet would make everyone happy and peaceful
again, but instead it impoverished and infuriated many people,
especially Anglophones. Cameroon Concord and Africa News and Anadolu (31-Mar)

Related Articles

• Brief generational history of Cameroon (15-Feb-2017)
  
  
• Cameroon: One person killed in English-speaking vs French-speaking civil unrest (23-Nov-2016)
  

****
**** With violence in Venezuela's streets continuing, Maduro confiscates GM factories
****

Venezuela continued to be a showcase for the disastrous outcome of
every Socialist government in history, as violence in the streets of
Venezuela continued on Thursday, leading protesters to clashes with
security forces who used tear gas, beatings and other violence.

The protesters are demanding that president Nicolás Maduro hold
elections so that he can be replaced, but like almost every Socialist
leader in history, Maduro prefers to have the streets filled with
rivers of blood than give up power.

As the economy continues to crash because of his Socialist policies,
Maduro is forced to adopt increasingly desperate measures. Last
month, he ordered the arrest of bakers because there wasn't enough
break available.

Previously, Maduro ordered the jailing of factory owners, but on
Thursday, Maduro's Socialist government seized a General Motors plant
in Valencia. GM sales have been down in Venezuela because the
Socialist government requires that they be paid for in near-worthless
bolivar currency, rather than dollars. GM says that it will fight the
seizure in Venezuelan courts, but since Maduro controls the courts, GM
is unlikely to succeed.

Venezuela's Socialist government has nationalized a number of US
companies, or otherwise forced them out of business. Other companies
that have cut back or ceased doing business in Venezuela include
Kimberly-Clark, Exxon Mobil, Ford Motor Company, Clorox Co. and
Bridgestone Americas. It has been a policy of Socialist Venezuela to
destroy as much of economy as possible, in order to be able to
nationalize businesses. As the old Socialist saying goes, you have to
crack a few eggs to make an omelet.

As violence increases in the streets, fears are growing that Maduro
will call out the army for a full-scale assault on the protesters.
However, some reports indicate that there's a growing split within the
army, with many soldiers reluctant to attack ordinary Venezuelan
citizens including, in some cases, their own family members. Detroit Free Press and Miami Herald and AP

Related Articles

• Venezuela's Socialist government arrests bakers because of bread shortage (20-Mar-2017)
  
  
• Venezuela's economic crisis is hitting Cuba hard (06-Aug-2016)
  
  
• Hugo Chávez dismantled Venezuela's businesses on purpose to create Socialist Paradise (29-May-2016)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Cameroon, Paul Biya, Francophones,
Anglophones, Southern Cameroons,
Internet sans Frontières, Internet without Borders,
Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, General Motors

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John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
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Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe

[John J. Xenakis]

(04-20-2017, 04:15 PM)Cynic Hero 86 Wrote: > LOL, Here John X is outright denying that a Budget surplus surplus
> existed from the late 1990s until 9/11. It was the refusal to fund
> the war effort with actual spending that caused the return of the
> deficit. This began immediately after 9/11, 18 months prior to the
> start of the Iraq war. Also regarding Iraq the political class'
> delusion that Iraqis valued western "freedom" just like Americans
> do, insured that we would get bogged down in nation-building and
> made the insurgency inevitable (had the former Baathists been
> allowed to keep their posts and allowed to continue administering
> local government, there wouldn't have been an insurgency). Without
> that delusion we would have entered Iraq with 500,000 troops
> rather than the 200,000 that ended up being committed.

You really are an idiot.

First, the graph that I posted is from the St. Louis Fed, not
something that I made up. This is in contrast to the fake facts that
you make up all the time in your weird rants.

Second, the graph that I posted shows a surplus from 1998 to 2001.
Apparently you're unable to read a graph. If you knew how to read a
graph, then you would know that not only did I not deny that there was
a surplus, but in fact the graph I posted clearly depicts a surplus.

You shouldn't be commenting on anything with a number if you can't
read a graph. Just stick to subjects you learned in your sociology
and women's studies courses.

Third, what's even more confusing to you is that I wasn't talking
about the size of the deficit. I was talking the change in the size
of the deficit. Specifically, I was showing you that the deficit
started surging in the year 2000. There was still a surplus in 2000,
but the size of that surplus was plummetting (which means the same
thing as saying that the size of the deficit was surging).

So do you understand that concept? There was a surplus in 2000, but
it started FALLING in 2000, because of the Nasdaq crash and the
recession. The Iraq war had nothing to do with it.

I realize that all this math is taxing for you. If you have any
friends that know how to read a graph, perhaps you can ask them to
explain it to you.

Finally, once again, if you look at the blue line on that graph, which
shows government outlays, you'll see that it didn't bulge in 2003.
The reason for that is that the Bush administration did not incur
additional expenses for the Iraq war, which would have implied
something like a draft. Instead, they reassigned existing resources
on other projects to the Iraq war, thus keeping costs level.

[Cynic Hero '86]

(04-20-2017, 09:57 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote:

(04-20-2017, 04:15 PM)Cynic Hero Wrote: >   LOL, Here John X is outright denying that a Budget surplus surplus
>   existed from the late 1990s until 9/11. It was the refusal to fund
>   the war effort with actual spending that caused the return of the
>   deficit. This began immediately after 9/11, 18 months prior to the
>   start of the Iraq war. Also regarding Iraq the political class'
>   delusion that Iraqis valued western "freedom" just like Americans
>   do, insured that we would get bogged down in nation-building and
>   made the insurgency inevitable (had the former Baathists been
>   allowed to keep their posts and allowed to continue administering
>   local government, there wouldn't have been an insurgency). Without
>   that delusion we would have entered Iraq with 500,000 troops
>   rather than the 200,000 that ended up being committed.

You really are an idiot.

First, the graph that I posted is from the St. Louis Fed, not
something that I made up.  This is in contrast to the fake facts that
you make up all the time in your weird rants.

Second, the graph that I posted shows a surplus from 1998 to 2001.
Apparently you're unable to read a graph.  If you knew how to read a
graph, then you would know that not only did I not deny that there was
a surplus, but in fact the graph I posted clearly depicts a surplus.

You shouldn't be commenting on anything with a number if you can't
read a graph.  Just stick to subjects you learned in your sociology
and women's studies courses.

Third, what's even more confusing to you is that I wasn't talking
about the size of the deficit.  I was talking the change in the size
of the deficit.  Specifically, I was showing you that the deficit
started surging in the year 2000.  There was still a surplus in 2000,
but the size of that surplus was plummetting (which means the same
thing as saying that the size of the deficit was surging).

So do you understand that concept?  There was a surplus in 2000, but
it started FALLING in 2000, because of the Nasdaq crash and the
recession.  The Iraq war had nothing to do with it.

I realize that all this math is taxing for you.  If you have any
friends that know how to read a graph, perhaps you can ask them to
explain it to you.

Finally, once again, if you look at the blue line on that graph, which
shows government outlays, you'll see that it didn't bulge in 2003.
The reason for that is that the Bush administration did not incur
additional expenses for the Iraq war, which would have implied
something like a draft.  Instead, they reassigned existing resources
on other projects to the Iraq war, thus keeping costs level.

The Global war on terror started on 9/11 well before the Iraq war. The changes in defense spending began immediately after the attacks so the fact that we went into Iraq would not have changed the fundamental direction of the spending. The mistake that Bush made was trying to borrow money to spend due to the neocon ideology that "hard money" spending is considered evil and the route to tyranny? The above spending policy created the deficit and those decisions were made shortly after 9/11.

[Warren Dew]

(04-20-2017, 09:57 PM)John J. Xenakis responding to Cynic Hero Wrote: First, the graph that I posted is from the St. Louis Fed, not
something that I made up.  This is in contrast to the fake facts that
you make up all the time in your weird rants.

Second, the graph that I posted shows a surplus from 1998 to 2001.
Apparently you're unable to read a graph.  If you knew how to read a
graph, then you would know that not only did I not deny that there was
a surplus, but in fact the graph I posted clearly depicts a surplus.

Third, what's even more confusing to you is that I wasn't talking
about the size of the deficit.  I was talking the change in the size
of the deficit.  Specifically, I was showing you that the deficit
started surging in the year 2000.  There was still a surplus in 2000,
but the size of that surplus was plummetting (which means the same
thing as saying that the size of the deficit was surging).

So do you understand that concept?  There was a surplus in 2000, but
it started FALLING in 2000, because of the Nasdaq crash and the
recession.  The Iraq war had nothing to do with it.

Finally, once again, if you look at the blue line on that graph, which
shows government outlays, you'll see that it didn't bulge in 2003.
The reason for that is that the Bush administration did not incur
additional expenses for the Iraq war, which would have implied
something like a draft.  Instead, they reassigned existing resources
on other projects to the Iraq war, thus keeping costs level.

Generally correct.  Some of the additional expenses for the Iraq War, unlike Afghanistan, required a supplementary appropriation, so there was a small increase in spending - small by federal budget standards, anyway - and if you look carefully, there is an appropriately sized uptick in 2003.  However, it's tiny compared to the size of the revenue plunge starting  in 2000, supporting your underlying point that it was the business cycle that drove the surplus or deficit.

[John J. Xenakis]

(04-20-2017, 09:57 PM)John J. Xenakis responding to Cynic Hero Wrote: > First, the graph that I posted is from the St. Louis Fed, not
> something that I made up. This is in contrast to the fake facts
> that you make up all the time in your weird rants.

> Second, the graph that I posted shows a surplus from 1998 to 2001.
> Apparently you're unable to read a graph. If you knew how to read
> a graph, then you would know that not only did I not deny that
> there was a surplus, but in fact the graph I posted clearly
> depicts a surplus.

> Third, what's even more confusing to you is that I wasn't talking
> about the size of the deficit. I was talking the change in the
> size of the deficit. Specifically, I was showing you that the
> deficit started surging in the year 2000. There was still a
> surplus in 2000, but the size of that surplus was plummetting
> (which means the same thing as saying that the size of the deficit
> was surging).

> So do you understand that concept? There was a surplus in 2000,
> but it started FALLING in 2000, because of the Nasdaq crash and
> the recession. The Iraq war had nothing to do with it.

> Finally, once again, if you look at the blue line on that graph,
> which shows government outlays, you'll see that it didn't bulge in
> 2003. The reason for that is that the Bush administration did not
> incur additional expenses for the Iraq war, which would have
> implied something like a draft. Instead, they reassigned existing
> resources on other projects to the Iraq war, thus keeping costs
> level.

(04-21-2017, 11:05 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: > Generally correct. Some of the additional expenses for the Iraq
> War, unlike Afghanistan, required a supplementary appropriation,
> so there was a small increase in spending - small by federal
> budget standards, anyway - and if you look carefully, there is an
> appropriately sized uptick in 2003. However, it's tiny compared
> to the size of the revenue plunge starting in 2000, supporting
> your underlying point that it was the business cycle that drove
> the surplus or deficit.

Thanks for the information.

There's one other problem with that graph. If the surplus is really
positive in 2000, as the green line shows, then the red line should be
above the blue line in the years 2000.

The reason that it isn't is because the federal government borrows
from the Social Security Trust Fund and other trust funds, and counts
those borrowings as income, which is total crap, but what else do we
expect from the federal government?

I'd like to add a line to that graph that depicts the amount borrowed
from trust funds, so that the green line will truly be a value
computed from all three of the other lines. I can't find this on the
St. Louis Fed site. Do you have any insight into this problem?

Incidentally, here's are links to a couple of pages that explain some
of this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...03291.html

http://www.craigsteiner.us/articles/16



https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/gr..._id=205626

[Warren Dew]

(04-21-2017, 06:55 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: There's one other problem with that graph.  If the surplus is really
positive in 2000, as the green line shows, then the red line should be
above the blue line in the years 2000.

The reason that it isn't is because the federal government borrows
from the Social Security Trust Fund and other trust funds, and counts
those borrowings as income, which is total crap, but what else do we
expect from the federal government?

I'd like to add a line to that graph that depicts the amount borrowed
from trust funds, so that the green line will truly be a value
computed from all three of the other lines.  I can't find this on the
St. Louis Fed site.  Do you have any insight into this problem?

I'm not sure whether it's the borrowing that would make the lines add up, or the Social Security tax revenue, which also appears to be missing from that graph.  I don't have more insight into the St. Louis Fed on this issue, but I have found the usgovernmentspending.com site to be useful.

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 22-Apr-17 World View -- Kashmiri students at two Indian colleges harassed and beaten

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Kashmiri students at two Indian colleges harassed and beaten
  
• Indians seek solutions and blame intervention from Pakistan and China
  

****
**** Kashmiri students at two Indian colleges harassed and beaten
****


Kashmiri students at Rajasthan University (Kashmir Monitor)

It seems that hardly a day goes by without the situation in
Indian-governed Kashmir becoming worse than the day before.

Students studying in colleges in India far from Kashmir are being
harassed and beaten by perpetrators described a "nationalist Hindus."

At Rajasthan University, six Muslim Kashmiri students were called
"terrorists" and assaulted by locals. According to one:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"Six of us were assaulted in three separate attacks
> that took place at the same time in the market. The attacks seemed
> coordinated. They hurled abuses, called us terrorists and said we
> throw stones at the army. They told us to go back to Kashmir and
> threatened that they won’t let us study here."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

The words "said we throw stones at the army" refers to the worsening
situation in Kashmir, where separatists are throwing stones at police
and army personnel, and security forces are shooting Kashmiris with
pellet guns, sometimes blinding them.

At another college, Rawal Institute of Technology, female Kashmiri
students are being harassed and threatened. According to one student,
"The boys used abusive language today and followed Kashmiri girls
which led to clashes between Kashmir boys and offenders."

I've written enough of these stories about Kashmir to know how
emotional the responses to this article will be. Some people will put
the blame entirely on the Muslims, or at least on the Kashmiri
separatists, and other people will put the blame entirely on the
Hindus, or at least on the government security forces.

But I'm just reporting an ongoing situation that gets worse almost
every day, and is almost certainly going to lead to war.

India's Home Affairs Minister Rajnath Singh issued a directive saying
that the Kashmiris were part of India's "family," and that:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"The Kashmiri youth also contribute in the progress of
> India. Action should be taken by the states against those who
> target them."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Many Indians blame the "Islamization" of Kashmir by Pakistan. On the
other hand, Pakistan's Foreign Office spokesman Nafees Zakaria said:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"Indian occupation forces have launched an all-out war
> on Kashmiri students. They have attacked women’s education
> institutions as well. A dozen colleges have been attacked,
> injuring thousands of students – both boys and
> girls."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Whatever the truth is, it's clear that the situation in Kashmir has
worsened significantly in the last year, and even worsened
significantly in the last couple of weeks. Kashmir Monitor and Kashmir Observer and Express Tribune (Pakistan)

Related Articles

• Worries grow that India is 'losing Kashmir,' as violence increases (18-Apr-2017)
  
  
• India-Pakistan clash threatened as Kashmir violence surges again (01-Apr-2017)
  
  
• The debate in Pakistan: Good terrorists vs Bad terrorists (09-Aug-2016)
  

****
**** Indians seek solutions and blame intervention from Pakistan and China
****

As I've written many times, the situation in Kashmir is on a trend
line that's spiraling into full-scale war. From the point of view of
Generational Dynamics, Kashmir is replaying previous generations of
violence according to a fairly standard template.

India's previous two generational crisis wars were India's 1857
Rebellion, which pitted Hindu nationalists against British colonists,
and the 1947 Partition War, one of the bloodiest wars of the 20th
century, pitting Hindus versus Muslims, following the partitioning of
the Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan. Now, as the
survivors of the 1947 Partition War have almost all died off, leaving
behind younger generations with no fear of repeating past disasters,
Kashmir is showing signs of repeating the violence of 1857 and 1947.

Indians accuse Pakistan of encouraging the Kashmir violence, and even
supporting it with money and weapons. There's little doubt that the
accusations are true. After all, Pakistan's Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI) organization has funded terrorist groups that have
attacked targets in both India and Pakistan.

And now an opinion writer is blaming China:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"While the Chinese claim to have been miffed over the
> Dalai Lama’s visit to Tawang and Arunachal Pradesh, and have now
> given Chinese names to places in that state to buttress their
> territorial claims, the reality is that the dragon is keen to have
> the status quo changed in Jammu & Kashmir too. Reason: large parts
> of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir are critical to its new
> China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), including land access to
> Gwadar port in Balochistan.
>
> Without the covert Chinese go-ahead to Pakistani aims in J&K, it
> is doubtful if an economically and politically isolated country
> would have dared change the game in Kashmir Valley. Here’s what’s
> new in this round of bloodletting in the Valley. ...
>
> China may not be overtly keen to promote Pakistan-based jihadis
> who may well end up becoming a headache in its own Xinjiang
> province, where the Muslim Uighurs are restive. But one thing is
> certain: it appears to have decided to prop up the Pakistani deep
> state, both to further its own economic interests, and as a way of
> containing India.
>
> Chinese pressure on Pakistan to declare Gilgit-Baltistan as its
> fifth province is key to legalizing its highway to Gwadar, which
> passes through this area. China has decided that a strong Pakistan
> is in its interests – and this has negative consequences for
> India, especially in terms of Pakistan’s Kashmir
> policy."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

It's very likely that this accusation is true as well. After all,
China is building artificial islands in the South China Sea, and
using its vast military power to threaten regions belonging to
Vietnam, the Philippines, Japan and India. So China wouldn't
hesitate to subvert Kashmir for its own imagined benefit.

The problem is that while these accusations are true, they make no
difference. Pakistan, and probably China, have been subverting
Kashmir for years, but it had only a transient effect until the last
year. What's changed is that the younger generations, with little
fear of a new war, are driving the violence. The growing violence in
Kashmir is leading to all-out war, and it won't be stopped.

One Indian editorial writer is claiming that the problems in Kashmir
can be solved, and that there are three solutions:

• Deport the Muslim separatists from Kashmir Valley.
  
• Be tough with stone-pelting mobs, but use non-lethal force.
  
• Keep existing promises on distributing funds for flood relief,
  investing in the Valley and rehabilitating Pandits.

Of course these "solutions" are completely delusional, though it's
good to have them listed. I do wonder if these solutions might have
been effective if they had been adopted wholeheartedly starting in the
1970s. At any rate, it's way too late now.

Furthermore, with Kashmiri students being harassed and beaten in
colleges far away from Kashmir, we're seeing the Kashmir violence
begin to spread to other parts of India. This is a new development,
and it portends more and more violence this summer.

As I've been writing for years, Generational Dynamics predicts that in
the approaching Clash of Civilizations world war, and that China,
Pakistan and the Sunni Muslim countries will be pitted against the US,
India, Russia and Iran. Times of India and BBC and Daily O (India)

Related Articles

• Dalai Lama to visit region of northeast India claimed by China (03-Apr-2017)
  
  
• Massive China-Pakistan CPEC energy project said to end energy crisis 'soon' (23-Mar-2017)
  
  
• China extends its military buildup with Pakistan (27-Apr-2015)
  
  
• India's Narendra Modi threatens to divert water from Pakistan to India's farmers (03-Dec-2016)
  
  
• Generational history of cow protection in India and Hinduism (07-Aug-2016)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, India, Kashmir, Rajasthan University,
Rawal Institute of Technology, Rajnath Singh,
Pakistan, Nafees Zakaria, China

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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

[John J. Xenakis]

*** 23-Apr-17 World View -- Scientists worldwide hold an international March for Money on 'Earth Day'

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Scientists worldwide hold an international March for Money on 'Earth Day'
  
• Climate change -- a self-correcting problem
  
• Climate change predictions
  
• Rural America and Working Class America
  

****
**** Scientists worldwide hold an international March for Money on 'Earth Day'
****


Thanks to fracking, the US carbon emission problem is taking care of itself, with energy carbon emissions down by 25% since 2007. (AEI)

Hundreds of thousands of scientists in 600 cities around the world
held "March for Science" marches to make largely incoherent demands
for more money for pretty much anything. The universal complaint was
Donald Trump and climate change, but Obamacare and various science
projects were also mentioned.

In other countries, there were other complaints. In Canada,
scientists to complain to Liberal leader Justin Trudeau for cutting
back on funding for science projects. According to Lori Burrows,
professor and senior scientist, McMaster University:

> [indent]<QUOTE>"Despite the [Justin] Trudeau government's promise of
> sunnier ways for science, we are still waiting for those rays to
> break through the storm clouds."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

So I gather from professor Burrows that Justin Trudeau must be as bad
as Donald Trump. Tsk, tsk.

Media coverage was as ridiculous as ever. Here's what I heard from
Robert Young, professor of coastal geology at Western Carolina
University (my transcription):

> [indent]<QUOTE>"I don't think the people who need to meet a scientist
> will be at this march nor will those people be experiencing the
> media coverage of the march. The problem that we have, at least
> in the United States, is that we all get our information and our
> news from different sources these days. So the folks living in
> rural America and working class America, that we would be like to
> reach in a march for science, and the folks we would like to
> explain how important science is, they're not gonna be watching
> the news outlets that will be covering the march in a favorable
> way. They're not gonna watch National Public Radio, or the BBC,
> or read the New York Times or the Washington Post or the Guardian.
>
> They're going to get their information and their coverage from Fox
> News and from conservative blogosphere. And those outlets will
> cover the march in a completely different way in a negative
> connotation."<END QUOTE>[/indent]

Really? The problem is that "rural America and working class America"
doesn't listen to left-wing media sources -- NPR, BBC, NYT, WaPost and
the Guardian?? That's why these people are marching? This is so
idiotic that it's hard to stop laughing. If there are any students at
Western Carolina University reading this, please inform Prof. Robert
Young that father does not always know best and that he sounds like an
idiot.

The real problem is people in the mainstream media and in colleges
believe every bit of nonsense that they hear on NPR, etc., and think
that everything else is "fake news." So let's talk about climate
change, and talk about some "facts." CBS and Canadian Broadcasting and Deutsche Welle

Related Articles

• African nations furious over possible collapse of climate change agreement (17-Nov-2016)
  

****
**** Climate change -- a self-correcting problem
****

The climate scientists don't like to talk about this, but climate
change has been self-correcting.

Since 2007, the US has reduced CO2 emissions by about 25%, mainly due
to fracking, according to data released by the Energy Information
Administration (EIA). That's how technological innovation always
works. When a problem occurs, somebody figures out a way to make
money out of solving it, and the problem gets solved. This needs no
help from the government, as shown by the Solyndra disaster.

Everyone is criticizing president Trump for backing out of the Paris
climate change agreement. Why? If we're already dramatically
reducing carbon emissions, why should America even care about the
Paris agreement? The answer, of course, is about money. No one
seriously believes that any of the huge climate change proposals will
actually do anything to reduce carbon emissions. The climate
scientists want America to pay ever more money into their projects.
Like Saturday's "March for Science," everything is about political
power and money.

Fracking has not yet brought about carbon emissions in other
countries, but we can feel certain that new technologies will come
along that will solve the problem in every country, as it has in the
United States, and that government will have nothing to do with it.
AEI and Energy Information Administration

****
**** Climate change predictions
****

So-called scientists talk endlessly that "climate change is caused by
human activity." OK, so let's grant that. Climate change is caused
by human activity. Those are the "facts" that scientists claim have
been proven.

Next we hear that the earth's temperature will rise 2 degrees by 2100.
That's not a "proven scientific fact." That's an unproven prediction,
and it's a political prediction at that. There is no science that
proves this figure. The figure is based on straight-line
extrapolations of recent trends, which cannot be proven or even
justified.

As developer of Generational Dynamics, one could say that I'm in the
"prediction business." My web site has almost 4,000 articles since
2003, containing hundreds of Generational Dynamics predictions, all of
which are coming true or are trending true. None has been shown to be
wrong. All these articles and predictions are still available on my
web site to anyone wanting to prove me wrong -- and several people
have tried and failed. So I'm one of the best experts around on
predictions.

That's not true for climate change and environment predictions.
History is flooded with hundreds of them from "respected" scientists,
many of which have turned out wrong and even spectacularly wrong.

My favorite was the prediction that I read in far left-wing magazine
Ramparts Magazine in 1970. The prediction was that the oceans were
becoming so polluted that by 1980 the world's oceans would be covered
by a layer of algae. It didn't happen.

One of the most respected, endorsed by as many scientists in 1972 as
endorse climate change today, was the "Limits to Growth" by the Club
of Rome. The report said that the world would grind to a halt because
of pollution within a few decades. Some time later, it turned out
that their predictions had a flaw based on their computer program
written in Fortran. Anyway, their predictions haven't come true.

And of course in the 1970s, the problem was going to be "global
cooling." Within twenty years, it had turned into "global warming."

There are hundreds of documented environmental and climate change
predictions by respected scientists that have turned out to be wrong.
How stupid do you have to be to believe more climate change
predictions when so many in the past have been spectacularly wrong?

So yes, climate change really is a hoax, even if you assume that all
the science that proves that human activity is true. All the
predictions that come after that are not science -- they're guesses,
based on unjustifiable extrapolations.

As I said, I'm an expert on making predictions, so I can tell you some
places where the climate change scientists are making faulty
assumptions.

First, they're assuming that there will be no world wars. There have
been world wards every century for millennia, and this century will be
no different. As I've written in the past, I expect a world war in
the next ten years or so. Nuclear weapons will be used. Lots of
factories and power infrastructure will be destroyed.

How will that affect climate change? The climate scientists are
afraid to talk about that subject, so I'll take a guess. If a lot of
infrastructure is destroyed, then I would guess that carbon emissions
will fall dramatically. Of course, climate scientists don't want to
talk about that.

Second, climate scientists are completely ignoring technological
developments. We already discussed how fracking has reduced US carbon
emissions by 25%, something the climate scientists would rather eat
mud than ever talk about.

Well, we can see all kinds of technological developments on the
horizon that may well have application to carbon emissions and climate
change. For example, biotechnology might produce an organism that
eats carbon dioxide the way a tree does. Or we may develop space
capsules that can deliver millions of tons of carbon dioxide into
space. Or computerized robots may be able to clean things up that
humans can't.

How will these technological developments affect that 2 degree
temperature prediction? Well climate scientists don't know, and I
don't know, but history has shown that some solution will emerge.

There's an almost exact historical parallel to the climate change
problem that climate scientists hate to even think about. Think of
all the cars in New York City, and imagine if those cars were all
horses. That's the problem that all big cities had in the 1890s. A
horse produces between 7 and 15 kilos of manure daily. In New York in
1900, the population of 100,000 horses produced nearly 1,200 metric
tons of horse manure per day, which all had to be swept up and
disposed of. In addition, each horse produces nearly a liter of urine
per day, which also ended up on the streets. Also, many horses died
each day, and their corpses had to be removed.

There was a big international urban planning conference in New York
City in 1898. The major topic that dominated the conference was not
housing, land use, economic development or infrastructure. It was
horse manure. The participants left in disgust.

The crisis was resolved quickly with new technology: the automobile.
By 1912 there were more cars than horses on the road in New York City.
By 1920, the problem had all but disappeared, with no government
intervention.

The same thing will happen with the climate change problem. The Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894

Related Articles

• 175 countries sign farcical climate change agreement (23-Apr-2016)
  
  
• Artificial Intelligence and Climate Change (29-Dec-2015)
  
  
• Horse manure and climate change (23-Sep-2014)
  
  
• UN Climate Change conference appears to be ending in farce (14-Dec-2007)
  

****
**** Rural America and Working Class America
****

Let's circle back to the real problem in America today, that people
like Prof. Robert Young of Western Carolina University are totally
contemptuous of "rural America and working class America." People
like Young -- and there are plenty of them -- are completely
delusional.

The funny thing is that the working class people can sense what's
going on, because they have to do real work for a living. When you
have climate scientists marching through Washington DC demanding money
and claiming that they know what they earth's temperature will be in
2100, when they can't accurately predict the temperature two weeks
from now, these worker class people know intuitively that they're
being mocked.

Even after all these months, people like Young -- and there are plenty
of them -- don't have the vaguest clue how Donald Trump was elected
president. It's really quite amazing that Young could say anything as
stupid as what's quoted above, but that's how people at NPR, BBC, NYT,
WaPost and the Guardian, and that's also how most college professors
think these days.

The funny thing is, as I reported above, scientists in Canada are just
as angry at the ultra-liberal Justin Trudeau as American scientists
are at Donald Trump. If Justin Trudeau doesn't think Canada should
spend money on climate change, then why should Donald Trump think that
America should do so? In the end, climate scientists don't really
care about climate change at all. All they care about is how much
money they can get from taxpayers. And since it's the "working class"
people who supply all that tax money, they should be more respectful
of these people, and far less contemptuous.

Related Articles

• UN Climate Change conference reaches a compromise agreement (16-Dec-2007)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Earth Day, March for Science,
Canada, Justin Trudeau, Lori Burrows, McMaster University,
Western Carolina University, Robert Young,
Energy Information Administration, EIA,
Club of Rome, Limits to Growth

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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

[Warren Dew]

(04-22-2017, 09:29 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: One of the most respected, endorsed by as many scientists in 1972 as
endorse climate change today, was the "Limits to Growth" by the Club
of Rome.  The report said that the world would grind to a halt because
of pollution within a few decades.  Some time later, it turned out
that their predictions had a flaw based on their computer program
written in Fortran.  Anyway, their predictions haven't come true.

I remember that well, though I didn't read it until 1981.  Their problem wasn't Fortran, it was that their models didn't take into account any negative feedback loops; obviously with exponential growth, finite resources, and no changes in efficiency, the resources get used up sooner rather than later.

I didn't have a computer at the time, so I duplicated their results with a simplified model using pen and paper.  I then added some equations to model pollution control and efficiency improvements as resources dwindled, and the problem went away - as it indeed did in the decades since.  An unexpected result of my model was that there would eventually be a backlash against environmentalism, but that part is coming true too.