Regulators R Us

Feds Crank Up Regulations — on Everything

by  William F. Jasper

Get set for the Obama administration’s post-election tsunami of business-killing, job-killing, economy-killing federal regulations. It’s already begun. Take a look at www.regulations.gov, the administration’s regulatory website. The home page informs us that in the last 90 days, the administration has posted 5,934 new regulations.

Yes, our federal bureaucrats have been very diligent. The above-mentioned website informs us of their daily productivity of regulations over the past 90 days:

Today (121)

Last 3 Days (274)

Last 7 Days (371)

Last 15 Days (826)

Last 30 Days (1,915) 

Last 90 Days (5,934)

How will these regulations affect you, your family, your job, business, ranch, or farm? You may not have federal SWAT teams descend upon you, as has happened to dairy farmers and natural food store operators who dared to sell raw milk products not approved by the federal Food & Drug Administration (see here and here) or the hundreds of other Americans subjected to Gestapo-type treatment for running afoul of the volumes of murky and convoluted regulations that fill the 169,301 pages of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) published in the Federal Register. 

The Route to Transformative Growth

How Sub-Saharan Africa Is Evolving Into A Global Economic Powerhouse

Growth in sub-Saharan Africa has accelerated since 2000. And the potential for further growth is enormous given its positive demographics and natural resources.

by David Cowan

The potential for economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is enormous given the continent’s positive demographics and the abundance of natural resources, but historically, infrastructure, political and policy challenges have stood in the way. Without question, there has been a sharp pick up in real GDP growth in the region in the 2000s compared to the previous two decades, when SSA was often seen as a development disaster. This pick-up has led to a marked change in how many investors think about SSA, and has facilitated a switch from decades of Afro-pessimism to the new wave of Afro-optimism.

To give an idea of the potential impact of growth, Citi’s February 2011 long-term growth projection paper, Global Growth Generators: Moving Beyond ‘Emerging Markets’ and ‘BRIC’ , argued that Africa could move from accounting for only 4% of world GDP in 2010 to 7% by 2040 and 12% by 2050. In this new report we examine in much greater depth the prospects for growth in SSA and ask what steps need to be taken to generate truly transformational development that can unlock the potential of the continent's demographic and resources dividend. Critically, to unlock the full potential policymakers must find a path from the current growth model to one which achieves greater global economic integration.

EU Game Changer

Austerity Hits The Core

BY RAUL ILARGI MEIJER

Here's what may be a useful angle to explain to people what is happening in Europe right now, and what's yet to come. It's not about Greece, which shoved another "Deal" through its besieged parliament this week, a deal that itself is also still under siege. It's not about Spain either, which managed to borrow a few billion more, enough to stay alive till Christmas, but sees its bond yields enter the land of ugly (yawn) again.

We all know the stories of the eurozone periphery by now, we've read a thousand chapters. And the core likes it that way, since this keeps us from looking its way. The situation allows for Germany, France and Holland to sit pretty and pretend they're doing fine. They're not.

Some ugly numbers have come out of Germany lately. We’ll get back to that later. More interesting is the report that German Finance Minister Schaeuble has asked a "wise men" committee to draw up a picture of what's really happening with France economically, a picture that should serve as a counterweight to the portrait French President Hollande paints, and which Germany no longer has confidence in.

However, the more poignant sign of what's to come in Europe emanates from Holland.

Thanksgiving, 1789

George Washington's proclamation was not without controversy

By MELANIE KIRKPATRICK

It is hard to imagine America's favorite holiday as a source of political controversy. But that was the case in 1789, the year of our first Thanksgiving as a nation.

The controversy began on Sept. 25 in New York City, then the seat of government. The inaugural session of the first Congress was about to recess when Rep. Elias Boudinot of New Jersey rose to introduce a resolution. He asked the House to create a joint committee with the Senate to "wait upon the President of the United States, to request that he would recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the many signal favors of Almighty God."

The congressman made special reference to the Constitution, which had been ratified by the requisite two-thirds of the states in 1788. A day of public thanksgiving, he believed, would allow Americans to express gratitude to God for the "opportunity peaceably to establish a Constitution of government for their safety and happiness."

Another take on Fethullah Gülen

US law professor has no doubt Gülen trial in Turkey was political

 

By AKIN KARAGÜLLE

James C. Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project and a law professor at the University of Texas, wrote a book titled “Wrestling with Free Speech, Religious Freedom, and Democracy in Turkey: The Political Trials and Times of Fethullah Gülen” on the trial of renowned Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen in Turkey, which ended with his acquittal being upheld by the Supreme Court of Appeals in 2008.

In an indictment he drafted on Aug. 30, 2000, then-Ankara State Security Court (DGM) Chief Prosecutor Nuh Mete Yüksel filed a lawsuit against Gülen with the Ankara 2nd DGM requesting his conviction under Article 7/1 of Counterterrorism Law No. 3713.

Yüksel claimed that Gülen had since 1989 been involved in activities to establish an illegal organization to create a state based on religion by changing the secular state structure. The indictment made no reference whatsoever to any concrete action constituting a crime as spelled out in the Counterterrorism Law. Instead, the charges in the indictment were based on Gülen’s views as expressed in print and visual media as well as his social activities. In other words, his ideas and beliefs constituted the basis for the charges against him. The Ankara 11th High Criminal Court on May 5, 2006, decided to acquit Gülen following the trial due to unsubstantiated claims. An appeal was filed with the 9th Chamber of the Supreme Court of Appeals, which unanimously upheld Gülen’s acquittal by the Ankara 11th High Criminal Court on March 5, 2008. The Office of the Prosecutor at the Supreme Court of Appeals objected to this verdict on April 4, 2008, under Article 308 of the Code on Criminal Procedure (CMK). The chamber, however, dismissed the objection by the office of the prosecutor on June 24, 2008. In this way, the acquittal was approved and finalized.

Is Congress Guilty of the Largest Insider-Trading Scheme Ever?

The most lucrative tip of all time

by  Bob Adelmann

Mathew Martoma, age 38, was arrested at his home in Boca Raton, Florida, early Tuesday morning by the FBI and charged with insider trading. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, whose face appeared on the cover of Time magazine last February as the “man who is busting Wall Street,” was positively joyful in announcing the bust:

The charges unsealed today describe cheating coming and going — specifically, insider trading first on the long side, and then on the short side, on a scale that has no historical precedent.

As a result of the blatant corruption of both the drug research and securities markets alleged, the hedge fund [for whom Martoma worked at the time] made profits and avoided losses of a staggering $276 million, and Martoma himself walked away with a $9 million bonus for his efforts.

UN Demands Obama Smash State Marijuana Legalization

Crossing a line in the sand

by  Alex Newman

In a move likely to further alienate the already unpopular United Nations from the American people, a top official with the global body put his ignorance about the U.S. constitutional system on full display by calling on the Obama administration to lawlessly quash recent marijuana legalization initiatives in Washington State and Colorado. Voters in both states approved the decriminalization of the controversial plant on November 6, nullifying unconstitutional federal statutes and a dubious UN narcotics agreement at the heart of the global “war on drugs.”  

While the international organization obviously has no power to enforce its dictates, UN “International Narcotics Control Board” (INCB) boss Raymond Yans said he hoped disgraced U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder would ignore state laws, the U.S. Constitution, and the will of voters by “challenging” the successful referendums. Similarly, a coalition of former federal “drug warriors,” citing UN agreements, called on Obama to speak out against the legalization measures before they were adopted by the electorate. The administration, meanwhile, has suggested that it would continue to enforce unconstitutional federal statutes in those states despite the nullification measures.

The “invisible” strangers that make our lives better

Giving thanks for the invisible hand, and productivity of the free market, and no turkey czar

by Mark J. Perry

Like in previous years, most of you probably didn’t call your local supermarket ahead of time and order a Thanksgiving turkey this year. Why not?  Because you automatically assumed that a turkey would be there when you showed up, and it probably was there when you showed up “unannounced” at your local grocery store and selected your Thanksgiving bird.

The reason your Thanksgiving turkey was waiting for you without an advance order? Because of the economic concepts of “spontaneous order,” “self-interest,” and the “invisible hand” of the free market.  Turkeys appeared in your local grocery stores primarily because of the “selfishness” and “self-interest” (maybe even greed in some cases) of thousands of turkey farmers, truckers, and supermarket owners who are complete strangers to you and your family.  But all of those strangers throughout the turkey supply chain co-operated on your behalf and were led by an “invisible hand” to make sure your family had a turkey on the table to celebrate Thanksgiving this year.  The “invisible hand” that was responsible for your holiday turkey is just one of millions of everyday examples of the “miracle of the marketplace” where “individually selfish decisions must lead to a collectively efficient outcome,” as economist Steven E. Landsburg observed.

Turkey's Weakest Export

Turkey says it wants to be a model for democracy in the Middle East. But so far its actions lag behind its achievements

BY GAMZE COŞKUN

The Arab Spring has prompted a lot of talk about Turkey's possible role as a model. Turkey's recent economic success and the relative liberality of its institutions have made it a point of reference to many in the Middle East.

Let's leave aside for the moment the issue of whether the Arabs really need a role model, since they're perfectly capable of establishing their own system without copying either Turkey or the West. Being a model is not only about having a well-functioning democratic system but also having the capacity to be able to foster it domestically and internationally and to be able to put rhetoric and aims into action. Does Turkey really offer a useful template for democratic values and institution building?

That Other War

The bloody conflict you didn't read about this week is in Congo, and it threatens to redraw the map of Africa

BY ANJAN SUNDARAM

One of Congo's biggest eastern cities fell to a powerful rebel force on Tuesday, Nov. 20, in a war that may redefine the region but has produced little political action by the United Nations, the United States, and international powers that heavily support neighboring governments -- notably Rwanda, a Western darling and aid recipient -- that are backing the violence, according to U.N. experts. The fighting has displaced nearly 1 million people since the summer, and the battle for the city of Goma marks the latest episode of a long struggle by Rwandan-backed rebels to take control of a piece of the Democratic Republic of the Congo -- a struggle the rebels are now decisively winning. The fighting has also highlighted the ineptitude of the United Nations mission, one of the world's largest and most expensive, charged with keeping Congo's peace.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called Rwandan President Paul Kagame on Saturday "to request that he use his influence on the M23 [rebels] to help calm the situation and restrain M23 from continuing their attack," as the U.N.'s peacekeeping chief put it. And French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius affirmed that the rebellion in Congo was supported by Rwanda, expressing "grave concern." But the violence has only escalated since. The U.N. Security Council called an emergency session over the weekend, but its condemnation of the violence, demanding that the rebels stop advancing on Goma and insisting that outside powers stop funding the M23 rebels, have all simply been ignored. The Security Council announced it would sanction M23 but did not even mention Rwanda, the main power behind the rebellion. And even as the fighting has intensified, the U.N. mission in Congo has been making public pronouncements about new access to drinking water for people in eastern Congo -- producing a surreal image of the war.

Here’s a BBC scandal that should really make you disgusted

If you cannot get even, at least get angry

By James Delingpole

How many of you reading this were abused by Jimmy Savile? Few if any, I would hazard. And while I don’t wish to play down the misery wrought over four or more decades by that loathsome perve, the BBC scandal I’m about to describe has resulted in damage, pain and destruction far more widespread than anything Savile managed.

It may have affected you, for example, if: you’ve had your view ruined and your property value trashed by a wind farm; you’re one of the 2,700 people killed in Britain last year by fuel poverty; you can’t get a job; you've lost your job; you’re skint; your kids can’t sleep because they’re so worried about the pets that are going to be drowned by the carbon monster; you've ever wondered why occasionally — even once would be nice — the BBC doesn't make a programme about ‘climate change’ which isn't relentlessly alarmist.

How Putin Is Turning Russia Into One Big Enron

The Battle for Oil and Power in Russia

By Anders Aslund
In a few quick decisions, President Vladimir Putin has devastated Russia's energy policy. This daring radical change of strategy will primarily hit state revenues. The essence of these policy changes is renationalization, a massive increase in capital expenditure and reduced efficiency.

For years, Gazpromhas carried out too large capital expenditures, 70 percent of which investment analysts euphemistically with call "value detraction," which really means corruption or waste. Now, Putin has decided to drive it to new heights. This month, Gazprom went ahead with its South Stream project, which is supposed to cost $20 billion, but will probably cost twice as much. Its sole purpose is to circumvent Ukraine. For the same reason, Gazprom plans to build two more Nord Stream pipes at a cost of probably $20 billion, but neither is needed. On top of this comes the massive investment program in Yamal. None of this adds any value.

Suddenly, on Oct. 29, Putin decided that Gazprom should develop the giant virgin Chayadinsk field in Yakutia, build a pipeline to Vladivostok and construct an LNG plant there for export to China. Officially, this project is supposed to be completed by 2017 and cost $40 billion, but investment analysts assess it at $65 billion.

Putin's explanation was that Gazprom had lost out on LNG for China. But Chayadinsk gas would cost $15 per million British thermal units, while the price of natural gas in the U.S. is $3 million British thermal units. Thus, this project will probably never become profitable. The Chinese prefer much cheaper Turkmen gas, which already flows to China through a pipeline.

Cows Flee California Seeking a Better Economic Climate

Why are cows voting with their hooves?

By Bill Frezza

It's not just millionaires and billionaires who are fleeing the economic madness in California. Even cows are starting to depart for greener pastures. That's right, 400 bovine refugees shuffled off to Kansas just this month, with more expected to follow as over 100 dairy farms in California close their doors.

It's hard to find a government program as insane as the complex web of price supports, market orders, direct payments, diversion programs, herd reductions, import barriers, export subsidies, and stacked-to-the-rafters cheese warehouses that characterize Uncle Sam's efforts to "rationally manage" the dairy market. If you really want to understand how crony capitalism works to create market conditions only a Soviet commissar could love, take a look at what happens when byzantine federal regulations collide with state interventions.

Around the time of the New Deal, guaranteeing the milk supply joined life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as one of the cardinal responsibilities of government. While this may be ascribed to a desire by politicians to always have enough babies to kiss, some suspect that buying the votes of dairy farmers had something to do with it.

And so, while presidents come and go and Congress regularly passes reform bills to correct distortions caused by prior reforms, dairy programs enjoy the closest thing to perpetual life that a lobbyist could hope for. The main task of these programs is to make sure that market forces will never be allowed to balance supply and demand.

To ensure the public good, the federal government and some states set a minimum legal price on milk. Selling milk for less can actually land you in jail. While this doesn't sound like such a good deal for consumers or innovative producers, it's great for well-connected dairy farmers and the politicians they support.

Artificially high prices impose a tax on anybody who drinks milk or eats cheese and other dairy products. Estimates put the cost to consumers as high as $5 billion a year. But since this tax is hidden, legislators get to enjoy the gratitude of dairy farmers without having to face the wrath of consumers, who remain in the dark about how much they are individually paying.

Merkel’s sovereign remedy

Britain and Germany agree about the EU’s economics – but they’re still headed for an irreconcilable clash

By Christopher Caldwell

‘Europe is speaking German now,’ said Volker Kauder, parliamentary chairman of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrat party, about a year ago. He was urging Britain to back Merkel’s plans for saving Europe’s rickety banks and state budgets. Last week, the Chancellor herself arrived in London to dine with David Cameron and deliver the message in person.

Cameron is in a tricky spot. The summit to determine the EU budget for the next seven years will be held on 22 November. A coalition of opportunistic Labour MPs and dug-in Tory rebels has just passed a non-binding amendment in parliament urging that the government accept nothing less than a cut in real EU spending. Cameron has tried to win himself a bit of wiggle room. ‘If there isn’t a deal that’s good for Britain,’ he has said, ‘there won’t be a deal.’ But Merkel wants to pin him down. ‘One can be happy on an island,’ she said at the European parliament in Brussels before she arrived in London, ‘but in this world they can’t be happy on their own any more.’

For Tories, a productive relationship with Europe’s leaders has always seemed to depend on breaking parliament’s attachment to its ancient sovereignty. If you are being told to throw away the most precious treasure you have, you are either reading the gospels or being played for a fool. Merkel, as it happens, is in a similar fix. She faces her own rebellion in the Bundestag, Germany’s lower house, where Eurosceptic Christian Democrat renegades, two dozen and growing, have deprived her of partisan majorities on votes involving the euro bailout. Few of them object to Europe in principle. It’s just that there have been too many bailout votes, and Germany’s liabilities now stretch into the hundreds of billions. The German high court insists that funds can be appropriated to bail out foreigners only by a vote of the Bundestag. A September poll on the euro in the newspaper Die Welt found two thirds of Germans wish they’d never joined.

Merkel is thus caught in a tug-of-war between German voters and various Eurocrats, bureaucrats and kleptocrats abroad. The voters, just like their British counterparts, want to make sure she doesn’t send any more of their money abroad than is strictly necessary. Their idea of how much is strictly necessary is zero. European officials, on the other hand, are intent on reminding Germany of its debt to history, which they would prefer to collect in cash. Merkel faces an election next September or October against the Socialist Peer Steinbrück, who was her finance minister when Socialists and Christian Democrats governed in a grand coalition. Steinbrück is a protégé of Helmut Schmidt, and is similarly at ease talking and thinking about economic concepts. That Steinbrück agrees with Merkel on most euro matters is both his strength and his weakness. A recent Emnid poll showed Merkel would thrash him, 51-26 (61-18 in the former East Germany), if elections were held today, even though the public trusts Steinbrück more on the economy.

Netanyahu wins a Pyrrhic victory

Middle East is an altogether different region today

By M K Bhadrakumar 

On the face of it, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu scored a perfect hit by launching the assault on Gaza. The score sheet for the weeklong operation codenamed "Operation Pillar of Defense" may seem to stand at 10 out of 10. 

The only drawback is that it is a Pyrrhic victory. One may recall the illusion created by the witches in William Shakespeare's play: "The power of man, for none of woman born / Shall harm Macbeth." But then, the reality isn't far away: "Macbeth shall never vanquished be, until / Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinaine Hill / Shall come against him." 

The illusion is that the Israeli offensive destroyed the headquarters of Hamas and blew apart Ahmed Jabari, the commander of the movement, in a targeted killing, which apparently buries the resistance movement. But the stunning reality is that Israel's "impregnable" Iron Dome is ending up as a myth; it missed more than two-thirds of the Hamas' rockets. Where does it leave Israel but a ground offensive? 

But that option may also turn out to be an illusion, as it turned out during the Israeli operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006, when the elusive militants were also neighborhood groups. The plain reality could be, as the United States President Barack Obama forewarned, "If Israeli troops are in Gaza, they're much more at risk of incurring fatalities or being wounded." 

Indeed, it is becoming clear that the political reality may turn out to be quite daunting. At the end of the day, Israel has done something it has never done before in its history: it has come to the negotiating table suing for peace within three days of launching a military offensive. 

10 out of 10
The paradox is that Netanyahu may also be deemed to have hit the bull's eye. He shrewdly pandered to the calls for Greater Israel in the domestic public opinion by launching the attack on Hamas and may well have improved the prospects of his Likud party, which is in alliance with the ultranationalist Yisrael Beitnu party of Avigdor Lieberman in the upcoming January elections. 

The burdens that Israel should not have to bear

Between colonial guilt and Western Enlightenment, Israel is being slowly strangled

by Brendan O’Neill 

Have you taken the Israel test yet?

‘The Israel Test’, as defined by American author George Gilder in his 2009 book of that name, is where your attitude towards Israel is treated as a barometer of your attitude towards the key political, moral and philosophical issues of our time. As Gilder sees it, Israel has become a ‘crucial battlefield for Capitalism and Freedom’. Those who support modernity, who are enamoured with ‘capitalist creativity’, will surely support Israel, says Gilder, since Israel is a ‘leader of human civilisation, technological progress, and scientific advance’. And those who are hostile towards ‘capitalist creativity’, who are uncomfortable with modernity and its alleged excesses, will probably oppose Israel. These people are more likely to adhere to ‘the rule of leveller egalitarianism… covetous “fairness”… and resentment of achievement’, says Gilder, and therefore see Israel as suspect, dangerous even, because it dares to be ‘free, prosperous, and capitalist’ (1).

In short, one’s entire political personality, one’s philosophical stance on such key matters as freedom and progress, can be measured by one’s attitude towards Israel, a tiny, troubled country in the Middle East. Today, as the international reaction to the rising tensions between Israel and Gaza further confirms, pretty much everyone is taking an Israel test. They may not have heard of this test, or read Gilder’s book, or be taking the test consciously, but increasingly, Western thinkers, politicians and activists define themselves through their attitude towards Israel. They project on to Israel either their desperate desire to save Western Enlightenment values from being trashed (with some seeing Israel as the No.1 defender of those values), or their aching guilt over the values of Western colonialism (with others seeing Israel as the No.1 embodiment of those archaic values), and then cheer or denounce Israel and its local wars accordingly.

Lulled Into Lethargy

Nothing much is going right because nothing much is getting done

“One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see fine pictures, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”  -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

By Mark J. Grant

At the beginning of World War II, the term "shell shock" was banned by the British Army, though the phrase "post concussional syndrome" was used to describe similar traumatic conditions. Pick whichever words you like but lately it seems to me that the world’s investors are in this state of economic reaction; shell shocked. Yes, France is downgraded, no decision about Greece, no truce in Gaza, Spain joining Alice in the rabbit hole, recession in Europe, America fiddling about with no resolution in sight and “ho hum, ho hum pass the cookies if you please.”

“Poetry and Hums aren’t things which you get, they’re things which get you. And all you can do is go where they can find you.”  - Pooh’s Little Instruction Book

The world’s central banks have manufactured the money, we have enough sloshing about to invest it, corporate earnings are down, well, never mind, we have to do something with the stuff so we may as well put it somewhere and it is not the beat that goes on but the throb of the investment world lulled into lethargy by all of the shells that have flown overhead and landed nowhere. It is like the investment world is on Xanax where the sea is perceived as dead calm, regardless of the eight foot swells, or so it appears to us as we sit on the shore but what does it matter anyway. I am reminded of my youth and Mad Magazine, “What Me Worry.”

Republican capacity for self-delusion is truly awesome

Mitt Wasn't All Wrong About 'Gifts'

by Patrick J. Buchanan

"What the president's campaign did was focus on certain members of his base coalition, give them extraordinary financial gifts from the government and then work very aggressively to turn them out to vote, and that strategy worked."

Thus did political analyst Mitt Romney identify the cause of his defeat in a call to disconsolate contributors.

Republicans piled on. "Completely unhelpful," Gov. Bobby Jindal told Wolf Blitzer. We don't advance the "debate by insulting folks."

"A terrible thing to say," Chris Christie told Joe Scarborough. "You can't expect to be the leader of all the people and be divisive."

Oh. Was not Abe Lincoln at least mildly "divisive"? Did not FDR insult Wall Street folks by calling them "money changers in the temple of our civilization"? Was Ronald Reagan a uniter not a divider when he said, "Let the bloodbath begin!" and mocked "welfare queens"?

And Harry Truman, did he not insult and divide – and win?

"I just think it's nuts," Newt Gingrich told ABC's Martha Raddatz of Romney's remark, kicking him again in an Austin TV interview:

"Gov. Romney's analysis ... is insulting and profoundly wrong. ... We didn't lose Asian-Americans because they got any gifts. He did worse with Asian-Americans than he did with Latinos. This is the hardest-working and most successful ethnic group in America, OK, they ain't into gifts."

Now, Newt does have a point.

Confronting the Political Reality of Debt

Lenders and Spenders

Is federal debt really nothing more than money ‘we owe to ourselves’? No. It frays the political fabric, and we are feeling its effects already.

By Arnold Kling

“The debt we create is basically money we owe to ourselves, and the burden it imposes does not involve a real transfer of resources,” Paul Krugman wrote recently in “Debt Is (Mostly) Money We Owe to Ourselves.”

“That’s not to say that high debt can’t cause problems — it certainly can. But these are problems of distribution and incentives, not the burden of debt as is commonly understood.... talking about leaving a burden to our children is especially nonsensical; what we are leaving behind is promises that some of our children will pay money to other children, which is a very different kettle of fish,” he added.

If this little lullaby (“the debt is something we owe to ourselves”) helps you sleep, then you may be in for a rude awakening. Government debt frays the political fabric, and we are feeling its effects already.

Think of a simple economy, where the only product is corn. There is no foreign sector, and there are no financial claims more complicated than IOUs.

There are two types of people in our economy: Lenders and Spenders. Sammy Spender and Lois Lender each grow two bushels of corn per year. However, Sammy wants to eat three bushels this year. There are three ways that this can happen.

Private loan: In a purely private transaction, Sammy borrows one bushel of corn from Lois this year and pays her back one bushel of corn next year.

One-time redistribution: The government redistributes corn by taxing one bushel of corn away from Lois and giving it to Sammy.

Government borrowing: The government borrows one bushel of corn from Lois this year and gives it to Sammy. It then pays Lois back out of taxes next year.

Gaza and Energy Geopolitics

War in Gaza = War Over Natural Gas?

By George Washington

We extensively documented that the wars in the Middle East and North Africa are largely about oil and gas.  (Update: Iran has just started building its gas pipeline to Syria.)

As Professor Michel Chossudovsky noted in 2009, gas may be a central reason for the war over Gaza as well:

This is a war of conquest. Discovered in 2000, there are extensive gas reserves off the Gaza coastline.

British Gas (BG Group) and its partner, the Athens based Consolidated Contractors International Company (CCC) owned by Lebanon’s Sabbagh and Koury families, were granted oil and gas exploration rights in a 25 year agreement signed in November 1999 with the Palestinian Authority.

The rights to the offshore gas field are respectively British Gas (60 percent); Consolidated Contractors (CCC) (30 percent); and the Investment Fund of the Palestinian Authority (10 percent). (Haaretz, October 21, 2007).

The PA-BG-CCC agreement includes field development and the construction of a gas pipeline.(Middle East Economic Digest, Jan 5, 2001).

The BG licence covers the entire Gazan offshore marine area, which is contiguous to several Israeli offshore gas facilities. (See Map below). It should be noted that 60 percent of the gas reserves along the Gaza-Israel coastline belong to Palestine.

The BG Group drilled two wells in 2000: Gaza Marine-1 and Gaza Marine-2. Reserves are estimated by British Gas to be of the order of 1.4 trillion cubic feet, valued at approximately 4 billion dollars. These are the figures made public by British Gas. The size of Palestine’s gas reserves could be much larger.

New balance of terror in the Middle East

Arrogance and delusion ?

By Kaveh L Afrasiabi 

In the week-long war between Israel and the Palestinians, slowly but surely signs have emerged of a new "balance of terror" reflecting Hamas's enhanced ability to strike back at Israel via the Iran-made long range Fajr-5 rocket. 

Compared with the previous war in 2009, when Hamas relied on the shorter range and more inaccurate rockets that rattled southern Israel before a ceasefire went into effect, this time we are witnessing a "more disciplined" and sophisticated Hamas missile brigade that reportedly has some 15,000 military personnel operating through a network of tunnels.

It comes as little surprise then that Hamas has set its own conditions for a truce despite the deadly waves of Israeli air bombardment that have resulted in the death or injury of hundreds of civilians in the densely populated Gaza, described by professor Noam Chomsky on his recent Gaza visit [1] as the world's largest open-prison. Its inhabitants live in increasingly horrible and uninhabitable conditions as the direct result of Israeli collective punishment of the population ruled by Hamas, which now wants the lifting of the Israeli blockade of the area as a term of truce.

How Hamas Won the War

It doesn’t really matter if Israel wins the battle

Young Palestinians punishing a traitor 

BY AARON DAVID MILLER

Cruel Middle East ironies abound. And here's a doozy for you.

Why is it that Hamas -- purveyor of terror, launcher of Iranian-supplied rockets, and source of "death to the Jews" tropes -- is getting more attention, traction, legitimacy and support than the "good" Palestinian, the reasonable and grandfatherly Mahmoud Abbas, who has foresworn violence in favor of negotiations? Since the crisis began, President Obama seems to have talked to every other Middle Eastern leader except Abbas.

The Israeli operation against Hamas may yet take a large bite out of the Palestinian Islamist organization in Gaza, but the "Hamas trumps Abbas" dynamic has been underway for some time now and is likely to continue. I'd offer four reasons why.

Feckless Fatah

Abbas's party is in disarray. The Islamists' victory in the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections, its takeover of Gaza in 2007, Fatah's own sense of political drift, and the absence of a credible peace process created an opening for Hamas -- the religious manifestation of Palestinian nationalism. Had Yasir Arafat still been alive, Hamas would never have come as far as it has.

Arafat's death left a huge leadership vacuum in a political culture where persona, not institutions, figures prominently. Abbas had electoral legitimacy but he lacked the authority, street cred, and elan of the historical struggle. And in a Palestinian national movement without direction and strategy, it didn't take much to create an alternative to a tired, divided, corrupt, and ineffective Fatah.

Europe Is Now Sinking Fast

"Do I feel lucky?" Well, do ya?

by Alasdair Macleod
With the Eurozone having being displaced from the financial headlines by the American presidential election, you might have briefly thought that its problems had gone away. They haven’t.

It’s just that the public is expected to absorb one major story at a time. And now that the presidential election is done and dusted, Europe is rapidly returning to the headlines. This is not desired by the powers-that-be, who desperately need us to believe things will get better with a little patience.

Behind the scenes, in order to prevent a systemic crisis, the authorities (through the European Central Bank) have been hard at work keeping a lid on interest rates for Spain and Italy, which act as everyone’s market bellweather. Their strategy focuses on the hope that high bond yields are just a lack of 'animal spirits' – and if only they can be reignited!

Time is working against all countries in the Eurozone because the good are being dragged down by the bad.

You don’t have to be an economic genius to understand that the perpetual uncertainty over the Eurozone’s future has led to a widespread freeze on industrial investment and development. Industrial production is collapsing at an accelerating rate, falling 7% year-on-year in Spain and Greece, 4.8% in Italy, and 2.1% in France. The downtrends for industrial production are readily apparent in the chart below:

The businesses that are doing well (and there are some) are those businesses with strong balance sheets and solid export order books for non-Eurozone markets; unfortunately, they are concentrated in countries like Germany, Holland, Finland, and Austria. They are not located where they can contribute to economic progress in Spain, Italy, Greece, or France, and so they are not adding to the tax revenue desperately sought by those governments.