Ο νεοναζισμός δεν είναι οι άλλοι

Το κτήνος που περιέχουμε μέσα μας

(Κείμενο του συνθέτη Μάνου Χατζιδάκι για το νεοναζισμό και τον εθνικισμό που έγραψε τον Φεβρουάριο του 1993, λίγους μήνες πριν τον θάνατό του, το οποίο  είχε δημοσιευτεί στο πρόγραμμα αντιναζιστικής συναυλίας που είχε δώσει η Ορχήστρα των Χρωμάτων με έργα Βάιλ, Λίστ και Μπάρτον)

Ο νεοναζισμός, ο φασισμός, ο ρατσισμός και κάθε αντικοινωνικό και αντιανθρώπινο φαινόμενο συμπεριφοράς δεν προέρχεται από ιδεολογία, δεν περιέχει ιδεολογία, δεν συνθέτει ιδεολογία. Είναι η μεγεθυμένη έκφραση-εκδήλωση του κτήνους που περιέχουμε μέσα μας χωρίς εμπόδιο στην ανάπτυξή του, όταν κοινωνικές ή πολιτικές συγκυρίες συντελούν, βοηθούν, ενυσχύουν τη βάρβαρη και αντιανθρώπινη παρουσία του.

Η μόνη αντιβίωση για την καταπολέμηση του κτήνους που περιέχουμε είναι η Παιδεία. Η αληθινή παιδεία και όχι η ανεύθυνη εκπαίδευση και η πληροφορία χωρίς κρίση και χωρίς ανήσυχη αμφισβητούμενη συμπερασματολογία. Αυτή η παιδεία που δεν εφησυχάζει ούτε δημιουργεί αυταρέσκεια στον σπουδάζοντα, αλλά πολλαπλασιάζει τα ερωτήματα και την ανασφάλεια. Όμως μια τέτοια παιδεία δεν ευνοείται από τις πολιτικές παρατάξεις και από όλες τις κυβερνήσεις, διότι κατασκευάζει ελεύθερους και ανυπότακτους πολίτες μη χρήσιμους για το ευτελές παιχνίδι των κομμάτων και της πολιτικής. Κι αποτελεί πολιτική «παράδοση» η πεποίθηση πως τα κτήνη, με κατάλληλη τακτική και αντιμετώπιση, καθοδηγούνται, τιθασεύονται.

Ενώ τα πουλιά… Για τα πουλιά, μόνον οι δολοφόνοι, οι άθλιοι κυνηγοί αρμόζουν, με τις «ευγενικές παντός έθνους παραδόσεις».

Κι είναι φορές που το κτήνος πολλαπλασιαζόμενο κάτω από συγκυρίες και με τη μορφή «λαϊκών αιτημάτων και διεκδικήσεων» σχηματίζει φαινόμενα λοιμώδους νόσου που προσβάλλει μεγάλες ανθρώπινες μάζες και επιβάλλει θανατηφόρες επιδημίες.

Πρόσφατη περίπτωση ο Β΄ Παγκόσμιος Πόλεμος. Μόνο που ο πόλεμος αυτός μας δημιούργησε για ένα διάστημα μιαν αρκετά μεγάλη πλάνη, μιαν ψευδαίσθηση. Πιστέψαμε όλοι μας πως σ’ αυτό τον πόλεμο η Δημοκρατία πολέμησε το φασισμό και τον νίκησε. Σκεφθείτε: η «Δημοκρατία», εμείς με τον Μεταξά κυβερνήτη και σύμμαχο τον Στάλιν, πολεμήσαμε το ναζισμό, σαν ιδεολογία άσχετη από μας τους ίδιους. Και τον… νικήσαμε. Τι ουτοπία και τι θράσος.

Αγνοώντας πως απαλλασσόμενοι από την ευθύνη του κτηνώδους μέρους του εαυτού μας και τοποθετώντας το σε μια άλλη εθνότητα υποταγμένη ολοκληρωτικά σ’ αυτό, δεν νικούσαμε κανένα φασισμό αλλά απλώς μιαν άλλη εθνότητα επικίνδυνη που επιθυμούσε να μας υποτάξει.

Ένας πόλεμος σαν τόσους άλλους από επικίνδυνους ανόητους σε άλλους ανόητους, περιστασιακά ακίνδυνους. Και φυσικά όλα τα περί «Ελευθερίας», «Δημοκρατίας», και «λίκνων πνευματικών και μη», για τις απαίδευτες στήλες των εφημερίδων και τους αφελείς αναγνώστες. Ποτέ δεν θα νικήσει η Ελευθερία, αφού τη στηρίζουν και τη μεταφέρουν άνθρωποι, που εννοούν να μεταβιβάζουν τις δικές τους ευθύνες στους άλλους.

(Κάτι σαν την ηθική των γερόντων χριστιανών. Το καλό και το κακό έξω από μας. Στον Χριστό και τον διάβολο. Κι ένας Θεός που συγχωρεί τις αδυναμίες μας εφόσον κι όταν τον θυμηθούμε μες στην ανευθυνότητα του βίου μας. Επιδιώκοντας πάντα να εξασφαλίσουμε τη μετά θάνατον εξακολουθητική παρουσία μας. Αδυνατώντας να συλλάβουμε την έννοια της απουσίας μας. Το ότι μπορεί να υπάρχει ο κόσμος δίχως εμάς και δίχως τον Καντιώτη τον Φλωρίνης).

Δεν θέλω να επεκταθώ. Φοβάμαι πως δεν έχω τα εφόδια για μια θεωρητική ανάπτυξη, ούτε την κατάλληλη γλώσσα για τις απαιτήσεις του όλου θέματος. Όμως το θέμα με καίει. Και πριν πολλά χρόνια επιχείρησα να το αποσαφηνίσω μέσα μου. Σήμερα ξέρω πως διέβλεπα με την ευαισθησία μου τις εξελίξεις και την επανεμφάνιση του τέρατος. Και δεν εννοούσα να συνηθίσω την ολοένα αυξανόμενη παρουσία του. Πάντα εννοώ να τρομάζω.

Ο νεοναζισμός δεν είναι οι άλλοι. Οι μισητοί δολοφόνοι, που βρίσκουν όμως κατανόηση από τις διωκτικές αρχές λόγω μιας περίεργης αλλά όχι και ανεξήγητης συγγενικής ομοιότητος. Που τους έχουν συνηθίσει οι αρχές και οι κυβερνήσεις σαν μια πολιτική προέκτασή τους ή σαν μια επιτρεπτή αντίθεση, δίχως ιδιαίτερη σημασία που να προκαλεί ανησυχία. (Τελευταία διάβασα πως στην Πάτρα, απέναντι στο αστυνομικό τμήμα άνοιξε τα γραφεία του ένα νεοναζιστικό κόμμα. Καμιά ανησυχία ούτε για τους φασίστες, ούτε για τους αστυνομικούς. Ούτε φυσικά για τους περιοίκους).

Ο εθνικισμός είναι κι αυτός νεοναζισμός. Τα κουρεμένα κεφάλια των στρατιωτών, έστω και παρά τη θέλησή τους, ευνοούν την έξοδο της σκέψης και της κρίσης, ώστε να υποτάσσονται και να γίνονται κατάλληλοι για την αποδοχή διαταγών και κατευθύνσεων προς κάποιο θάνατο. Δικόν τους ή των άλλων.

Η εμπειρία μου διδάσκει πως η αληθινή σκέψη, ο προβληματισμός οφείλει κάπου να σταματά. Δεν συμφέρει. Γι’ αυτό και σταματώ. Ο ερασιτεχνισμός μου στην επικέντρωση κι ανάπτυξη του θέματος κινδυνεύει να γίνει ευάλωτος από τους εχθρούς. Όμως οφείλω να διακηρύξω το πάθος μου για μια πραγματική κι απρόσκοπτη ανθρώπινη ελευθερία.

Ο φασισμός στις μέρες μας φανερώνεται με δυο μορφές. Ή προκλητικός, με το πρόσχημα αντιδράσεως σε πολιτικά ή κοινωνικά γεγονότα που δεν ευνοούν την περίπτωσή τους ή παθητικός μες στον οποίο κυριαρχεί ο φόβος για ό,τι συμβαίνει γύρω μας. Ανοχή και παθητικότητα λοιπόν. Κι έτσι εδραιώνεται η πρόκληση. Με την ανοχή των πολλών. Προτιμότερο αργός και σιωπηλός θάνατος από την αντίδραση του ζωντανού και ευαίσθητου οργανισμού που περιέχουμε.

Το φάντασμα του κτήνους παρουσιάζεται ιδιαιτέρως έντονα στους νέους. Εκεί επιδρά και το marketing. Η επιρροή από τα Μ.Μ.Ε. ενός τρόπου ζωής που ευνοεί το εμπόριο. Κι όπως η εμπορία ναρκωτικών ευνοεί τη διάδοσή τους στους νέους, έτσι και η μουσική, οι ιδέες, ο χορός και όσα σχετίζονται με τον τρόπο ζωής τους έχουν δημιουργήσει βιομηχανία και τεράστια κι αφάνταστα οικονομικά ενδιαφέρονται.

Και μη βρίσκοντας αντίσταση από μια στέρεη παιδεία όλα αυτά δημιουργούν ένα κατάλληλο έδαφος για να ανθίσει ο εγωκεντρισμός η εγωπάθεια, η κενότητα και φυσικά κάθε κτηνώδες ένστιχτο στο εσωτερικό τους. Προσέξτε το χορό τους με τις ομοιόμορφες στρατιωτικές κινήσεις, μακρά από κάθε διάθεση επαφής και επικοινωνίας. Το τραγούδι τους με τις συνθηματικές επαναλαμβανόμενες λέξεις, η απουσία του βιβλίου και της σκέψης από τη συμπεριφορά τους και ο στόχος για μια άνετη σταδιοδρομία κέρδους και εύκολης επιτυχίας.

Βιώνουμε μέρα με τη μέρα περισσότερο το τμήμα του εαυτού μας -που ή φοβάται ή δεν σκέφτεται, επιδιώκοντας όσο γίνεται περισσότερα οφέλη. Ώσπου να βρεθεί ο κατάλληλος «αρχηγός» που θα ηγηθεί αυτό το κατάπτυστο περιεχόμενό μας. Και τότε θα ‘ναι αργά για ν’ αντιδράσουμε.

Ο νεοναζισμός είμαστε εσείς κι εμείς - όπως στη γνωστή παράσταση του Πιραντέλο. Είμαστε εσείς, εμείς και τα παιδιά μας. Δεχόμαστε να ‘μαστε απάνθρωποι μπρος στους φορείς του AIDS, από άγνοια αλλά και τόσο «ανθρώπινοι» και συγκαταβατικοί μπροστά στα ανθρωποειδή ερπετά του φασισμού, πάλι από άγνοια, αλλά κι από φόβο κι από συνήθεια.

Και το Κακό ελλοχεύει χωρίς προφύλαξη, χωρίς ντροπή. Ο νεοναζισμός δεν είναι θεωρία, σκέψη και αναρχία. Είναι μια παράσταση. Εσείς κι εμείς. Και πρωταγωνιστεί ο Θάνατος. 

The Riddle of Schumpeter

Given the destructive consequences of the kind of economic philosophy he favored, Schumpeter is a thinker in need of re-evaluation

By Pedro Schwartz

I have been immersing myself in Joseph A. Schumpeter's History of Economic Analysis. My reason for re-reading this classical work was to find the answer to an enigma: why did Schumpeter call the object of his ambitious work "a history of analysis", when to an unprepared reader it seems to be a straightforward history of economic thought? Whoever looks at the matter covered will find so much more than analysis—page after mesmerizing page on the socio-political background, on the intellectual scenery, on developments in neighboring fields, all adorned with wistful reflections on the vanishing civilization of Europe of which he was such a distinguished product. What did Schumpeter mean by "economic analysis"? With this odd denomination, did he want to signify something important about the whole enterprise of economics? I now think that, in the anti-market atmosphere of the central years of the 20th century, this was the proclamation of contrarian principles rather than the mere affectation of a writer who loved to surprise.

I first studied Schumpeter's History at the behest of the great Lionel Robbins, who had just become my doctoral supervisor. My intention was to write a thesis on John Stuart Mill and I felt I needed to be well versed in economics before approaching Mill's work. Robbins told me to start by reading two books: Alfred Marshall's Principles of Economics1 and Schumpeter's History—two weeks for each, he said. It took me much longer than that! The two books set me on the path to becoming an economist but also left me with an ambivalent attitude to their two authors. Marshall made me impatient with his ploy of banishing difficult theoretical problems to the mathematical appendix, especially his crucial exposition of a general equilibrium model. Not for nothing did Joan Robinson call him "Marshall, the old fox". As to Schumpeter, I did not know what to make of his choice of heroes: François Quesnay extolled for his Tableau économique, Antoine Cournot placed above David Ricardo, Karl Marx presented as a better economist than Mill, Leon Walras portrayed as the giant above all others—and Adam Smith demoted to being a late mercantilist. Also, I was confused by his constant sniping at free trade. On the other hand, the broad canvas on which he painted his story I found beguiling. Let me leave Marshall for another day and concentrate my attention on 'Schumpeter, the seductive sphinx'.

Does the West Believe in Itself?

Man’s search for comfort and security always makes us vulnerable to the totalitarian temptation

By JR Nyquist

Toward the end of his book From Dawn to Decadence [1], Jacques Barzun noted that the popular culture of our time has not “suffered from inertia.” It is mobile and ever-changing, wrote Barzun “in proportion to its predicaments….” It is a culture driven by “paralysis in one domain” and “incompetence in many.” Science and technology have continued to advance while art and literature are suggestive of outright decline. Many observers are reluctant to use the word “decadence” to describe what has been happening to us since the middle of the last century. Such reluctance, said Barzun, is only natural. But if we look at the economic side of culture, considering the sphere of business, production, trade and the market, we will find many worrisome trends. For in the sphere of economics we can track stagnation objectively.

The economy is a part of a larger culture. When cultural decadence appears, economic trouble is not far behind. It is no wonder that the economic growth rates of Europe and America have tended to slow over the last century. Many parallel developments might be cited as partial causes, or corollaries, of economic slowing. Barzun copied out an “anonymous” analyst who held that, “After a time, estimated at a little over a century, the western mind was set upon by a blight: it was boredom.”

Taking up the theme, Diana West has characterized the essential corollary of this boredom in her book The Death of the Grown-Up: How America’s Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization [2]. According to West, 

“The world of sensation engulfs grown-up and child alike. And just as we have erased the boundaries that once defined the domain of traditional childhood, we have also erased the boundaries that once regulated the patterns of average adulthood. Such boundaries – long established according to religious commandments, the law, and related conventions of self-restraint – largely vanished from the courts and the culture by the end of the 1960s.”

A Double-Bind with no exit

The Fed will blow up the economy if it continues money-pumping, but it will choke off the fragile recovery if it cuts back its money-pumping

by Charles Hugh-Smith

The Federal Reserve is in a classic double-bind: as its policies to boost growth bear fruit, interest rates rise, threatening the very recovery the Fed has lavished trillions of dollars of quantitative easing (QE) to generate.

Higher growth naturally leads to higher interest rates, which then choke off growth.

The Fed's goal was a self-sustaining recovery, in which growth reaches "escape velocity," i.e. is strong enough to support higher interest rates.

But the pursuit of that goal via trillions of dollars of asset purchases has inflated asset bubbles in stocks and real estate.The Fed's goal was to push speculative and institutional money into risk assets such as stocks, generating a "wealth effect" that was supposed to spill over into the real economy via higher borrowing and spending.

The pursuit of "the wealth effect" via inflating asset bubbles has created another double-bind: now that markets have become dependent on Fed money and liquidity pumping, the Fed cannot reduce its QE money-pump (currently $1 trillion a year) without tipping the stock market into free-fall.

If the Fed continues its massive monetary easing programs, asset bubbles will only inflate to speculative extremes, to the point where violent bursting becomes a matter not of "if" but of "when." (This is also known as "the music stopping.")

If the Fed cuts back its money-pumping and asset purchases, interest rates will rise, as interest rates will seek a market level that isn't pushed to near-zero by the Fed's financial repression.

Higher rates will choke off tepid Fed-induced growth. We already see home refinancing rates plummeting to 2009 recessionary levels.

So the Fed risks blowing asset bubbles that will devastate the economy if it continues the QE pumping, but it risks killing the tepid recovery if it cuts back its pumping. Darned if you do, darned if you don't.

Put another way: if growth is needed to boost corporate sales and profits, but growth leads to higher interest rates and reduced central-bank suppport of markets, this is a double-bind with no exit.

David Stockman On 2008: "Hank Paulson's Folly: AIG Was Safe Enough to Fail" Part 1

America’s fantastic collective binging on debt, public and private, had no historical precedent

by David Stockman

A decisive tipping point in the evolution of American capitalism and democracy—the triumph of crony capitalism—took place on October 3, 2008. That was the day of the forced march approval on Capitol Hill of the $700 billion TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) bill to bail out Wall Street. This spasm of financial market intervention, including multi-trillion-dollar support lines provided to the big banks and financial companies by the Federal Reserve, was but the latest brick in the foundation of a fundamentally anti-capitalist régime known as “Too Big to Fail” (TBTF). It had been under construction for many decades, but now there was no turning back. The Wall Street bailouts of 2008 shattered what little remained of the old-time fiscal rules.

There was no longer any pretense that the free market should determine winners and losers and that tapping the public treasury requires proof of compelling societal benefit.Not when AAA-rated General Electric had been given $30 billion in taxpayer loans and guarantees to avoid taking modest losses on toxic assets it had foolishly funded with overnight borrowings that suddenly couldn’t be rolled over.

Even more improbably, Goldman Sachs had been handed $10 billion to save itself from alleged extinction. Yet it then swiveled on a dime and generated a $29 billion financial surplus—$16 billion in salary and bonuses on top of $13 billion in net income—for the year that began just three months later.

There is no such thing as a 'free lunch'

The world always proves to be more complex and refractory than the theories of even the best economists

By THEODORE DALRYMPLE

Thus, I could not but smile a little wanly when President Barack Obama said this week that he hoped an increase in the use of generic drugs, together with an expert commission to examine the cost-effectiveness of medical treatments, would make a significant impact on the vast budget deficit of the United States. We in Britain have been there and we have done that, and our health-care costs doubled, perhaps not as a result, but certainly at the same time.

The best that might be said for these measures is that the increase in health-care costs was lower than it might otherwise have been. That is certainly not enough to save a country from a financial apocalypse, or even enough to be a major contribution to its salvation.

In Britain we have been prescribing generics for years; I cannot remember a time when I personally did not. Our National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE, a typically Blairite acronym) has done cost-benefit analyses of drugs and procedures, often very sensibly, for years. But despite its best efforts, our system has been highly inventive in finding other ways of wasting immense quantities of public money.

Transaction Tax: Not Only Dumb, but Illegal As Well

EU Geniuses Decide to Do it Anyway

By Pater Tenebrarum

The European Commission's own legal counsel has just presented a 14 page long legal opinion that explains that the planned financial transaction tax is actually illegal as it "exceededs member states' jurisdiction for taxation under the norms of international customary law".

The EU's legal eagles did not mention that it is economic suicide as well, and that it may well be among the dumbest ideas ever devised by the continental EU's solvency-challenged socialists.

They've been warned by a number of studies that show that without a shred of doubt the economic damage this tax will wreak will by far outweigh the paltry tax revenues it is likely to produce. They should know from the development of the euro-dollar market that there was once a time when a stupid decision by a US government along similar lines resulted in the creation of this giant off-shore market in dollar-denominated financial instruments.

Last but not least they were warned in no uncertain terms by Sweden, which fairly recently introduced such a tax on its own with predictably disastrous results, forcing it to abandon it again post-haste.

Now they are informed it is not only excruciatingly dumb to do this, but it isn't even legal. Their reaction? “We'll do it anyway!” This is of course par for the course for this sorry bunch of bumbling bunglers. The idea behind the tax is allegedly to 'make the banks pay for the damage they have wrought'. The financial crisis has of course been blamed exclusively on the bankers, with both central banks and governments doing their best to look innocent – a task in which they have been greatly helped by the hordes of anti-capitalistic demagogues populating the media.

We certainly wouldn't want to exonerate bankers, many of whom have made what can only be called moronic decisions of monumental proportions, but it should be remembered here that the system that has made it all possible was set up with the full connivance of the body politic. After all, it has realized a long time ago how the practice of fractional reserve banking in conjunction with the cartelization of the banking system and the institution of central banks can be used to fatten the coffers of the State. There can also be little doubt that politicians facing elections every few years care little about the wasting of their nation's capital stock. One could not fail to notice that the main problem, the root cause of the boom-bust sequence, namely credit expansion ex nihilo, has not been deemed worthy of debate.

US plays Monopoly, Russia plays chess

Putin's chessboard encompasses the globe

By Spengler 

Americans see individual pieces of geopolitical real estate in isolation, like hotels on the Monopoly board, while the Russians look at the interaction of all their spheres of interest around the globe. 

Syria is of no real strategic interest to Russia, nor to anyone else for that matter. It is a broken wreck of a country, with an irreparably damaged economy, without the energy, water, or food to maintain long-term economic viability. The multiethnic melange left in place by British and French cartographers after the First World War has broken down irreparably into a war of mutual extermination, whose only result can be depopulation or partition on the Yugoslav model. 

Syria only has importance in so far as its crisis threatens to spill over into surrounding territories which have more strategic importance. As a Petri dish for jihadist movements, it threatens to become the training ground for a new generation of terrorists, serving the same role that Afghanistan did during the 1990s and 2000s. 

As a testing ground for the use of weapons of mass destruction, it provides a diplomatic laboratory to gauge the response of world powers to atrocious actions with comparatively little risk to the participants. It is an incubator of national movements, in which, for example, the newfound freedom of action for the country's 2 million Kurds constitutes a means of destabilizing Turkey and other countries with substantial Kurdish minorities. Most important, as the cockpit of confessional war between Sunnis and Shi'ite, Syria may become the springboard for a larger conflict engulfing Iraq and possibly other states in the region. 

I do not know what Putin wants in Syria. I do not believe that at this point Russia's president knows what he wants in Syria, either. A strong chess player engaging an inferior opponent will create complications without an immediate strategic objective, in order to provoke blunders from the other side and take opportunistic advantage. There are many things that Putin wants. But he wants one big thing above all, namely, the restoration of Russia's great power status. Russia's leading diplomatic role in Syria opens several options to further this goal. 

When Rationality Breaks Down, So Does the Economy

Μadmen appear to be plentiful and enjoy great prestige on every side

By JR Nyquist

Rational Choice Theory tells us that people want good things, and they want them at the lowest price possible. Therefore, economic man is a rational actor. He measures costs against benefits. Of course, men are also irrational actors and capable of willfully misunderstanding their economic interests. And today, like no other time, irrationality is becoming a power in and of itself, dictating to the economy, subverting the very grounds of rational choice by taking choice away from the individual and giving it to government bureaucrats.

Many years ago the Austrian economist, Ludwig von Mises, pointed out that nations were more or less prosperous depending on the degree to which they “put obstacles in the way of the spirit of free enterprise and private initiative.” We look around today, in both Europe and America, and find that the great economic crisis of our time has not been met with sane solutions drawn from careful study, but by an anti-capitalist prejudice that holds grimly onto ideas and methods that have long since been discredited.

In 1956 Mises wrote, 

“The people of the United States are more prosperous than the inhabitants of all other countries because their government embarked later than the governments in other parts of the world upon the policy of obstructing business. Nonetheless many people, and especially intellectuals, passionately loathe capitalism.” 

And now we are living more than half a century later, bearing witness to the triumph of that loathing. America is no longer the prosperous country it once was. Businesses are being obstructed in ways that would have been unimaginable in the 1950s. (See the Free Market America [1] video on The Big Green’s True Colors [2], or peruse the EPA’s blog on Cap and Trade [3], or read regultions.gov [4] from the perspective of a farmer, rancher or fisherman.)

Whatever happened at the end of the Cold War, it was not the defeat of socialism; for a new anti-capitalist formation predicated on environmentalism was already taking shape. Even as the hammer and sickle came down over the Kremlin, the spotted owl was becoming the battle cry of those who were seeking to smash capitalism and market freedom in the Great Northwest. Consider, for example, the evidence presented in Discover the Networks [5], which begins with the statement: “Radical environmentalist and the activist groups with which they are affiliated typically view free-market capitalism as an economic system that is inherently destructive of the natural world.” It therefore goes without saying that the environmentally preferred solution is socialist. (This is ironic, since the socialist countries have always been the greatest polluters of the environment – please see Thomas J. Dilorenzo’s “Why Socialism Causes Pollution.” [6])

Latin America and the Fed Factor

The tide will go out and we will find out who was swimming naked

By Alvaro Vargas Llosa

We recently got a glimpse of what will happen to Latin America once the Federal Reserve stops printing money like crazy. Ben Bernanke’s mere suggestion, back in May, that he might begin to slow the purchase of securities (“tapering,” in financial parlance) was enough to cause $1.5 trillion to evaporate in emerging markets as money was pulled out by investors, stock exchanges took a nosedive, and local currencies lost value. In Latin America, the combined stock exchanges of Mexico, Peru, Chile and Colombia dropped 24 percent; Brazil’s currency lost 18 percent of its value in three months, prompting the central bank to sell U.S. dollars with maniacal intensity.

None of this is surprising. In recent years, the Fed’s policy of artificial money creation has generated, through the lowering of interest rates and the desperate search for yield on the part of investors, a boom in emerging capital markets. This has added to the considerable amount of money invested in regions such as Latin America where the commodities boom, itself partly a result of Fed policy, had already attracted lots of capital. The real possibility that the Fed will start to backtrack in the foreseeable future has had the opposite effect—a flight of capital out of Latin America and back into the U.S., where investors anticipate that interest rates will rise significantly.

C.S. Lewis on Tyranny “for the Good” of Its Victims

Quote of the Week

If we are to be mothered, mother must know best. . . . In every age the men who want us under their thumb, if they have any sense, will put forward the particular pretension which the hopes and fears of that age render most potent. They ‘cash in.’ It has been magic, it has been Christianity. Now it will certainly be science. . . . Let us not be deceived by phrases about ‘Man taking charge of his own destiny.’ All that can really happen is that some men will take charge of the destiny of others. . . . The more completely we are planned the more powerful they will be.

. . . .

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. Their very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.

—                      C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock

Hollande’s Latest Epiphany

Third Industrial Revolution in Planning Stages

The shining example for Hollande's approach to the economy, Jean-Baptiste Colbert. Here shown while presumably bringing fresh instructions to his hapless subjects in the manufacturing business.

By Pater Tenebrarum

France's president Hollande has just meandered off the reservation into wonderland again. Apparently after eyeballing a chart that shows declining industrial employment in France, he decided that the time has come for a 'third industrial revolution' centered in France.

How is this miracle to be accomplished? Simple, the government will throw € 3.5 billion at the idea.

According to an article at EurActiv:  

“French President François Hollande hopes to create 470,000 jobs by injecting €3.5 billion in 34 key industrial sectors, but he will need Europe’s help.

President François Hollande and his firebrand Industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg presented a new investment strategy for 34 industrial sectors on Thursday (12 September).

The French President was following on the footsteps of Charles De Gaulle, who instigated French industrial policy in mid-late 20th century. With France preparing to cut €18 million from its 2014 budget, a €3.5 billion boost to industry may seem surprising. But it is part of a long-term project that the president deems an essential “offensive strategy”, benefiting both unemployment and France’s image.

Sowing the Seeds of the Next Crisis

Regulations Help Transform Capitalism into a Marxian Caricature

by  Pater Tenebrarum

The regulations introduced by Frank-Dodd and other laws elsewhere that are designed to mitigate the risks of the last crash, are increasingly producing new types of risks that will become manifest in the next crash. Naturally, it is completely absurd to believe that one can have five years of massive monetary inflation and at the same time 'reduce financial risks' by means of regulations. As long as fractional reserve banking exists and the banking cartel comprised of the central banks and commercial banks is able to create money and credit  ex nihilo in unlimited amounts, no amount of regulation will be able to forestall the next crisis.

In fact, there are always new regulations introduced in the wake of crises, and they tend to be focused on the features of the crisis that has just passed, a kind of 'closing the barn door after the horse has escaped' approach. Naturally, the shape of the next crisis will be completely different, so that most of these regulations are either useless or actually apt to become one of the causes of, and/or exacerbate the next crisis. For instance, Sarbanes-Oxley was supposed to forestall market crises after the Nasdaq crash by making corporate disclosure more reliable. It sure added a huge layer of bureaucracy to listed corporations and imposed huge costs on the economy, but the stock market crashed again anyway.

Ike’s Warning

Aspiring to Empire

We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.

– Dwight D. Eisenhower’s farewell address to the nation, 1961 

by Bill Bonner

Whoa! Wednesday was another good day for the Dow. It jumped 135 points. Gold, meanwhile, was flat. We caution readers against jumping into US stocks. This trundling buggy could overturn at any moment. Margin debt is well above its peaks before the dot-com crash and the Lehman crisis. And P/Es are so high – 24% above the historical average on a 12-month reported earnings basis – it is almost certain that sellers will fare better than buyers. Moms and pops are back in the market. It’s time for serious investors to bug out.

We leave our “Crash Alert” flag up us a warning.

And we change the subject… 

The Most Dangerous Zombies of All

When President Eisenhower made his parting speech to the nation, many people were puzzled. Eisenhower was a career military man. How could he be so disloyal to his professional class, they wondered? But Ike knew something most people don’t. He understood warmongers. And he knew that armed zombies are the most dangerous zombies of all. We saw Ike in the flesh many years ago, just before he died. We were visiting our father in the Walter Reed military hospital in Washington. We were walking down the corridor with Dad – a World War II veteran – when he suddenly stood up straight and saluted. It had been at least 20 years since he had worn a uniform, but the reflex was still there. When General Eisenhower whisked by us in a wheelchair, Dad stood to attention. 

Now another 40 years have passed. Eisenhower’s warning, ignored and forgotten, has turned into a curse. For reasons of its own – money, power, status – the military-industrial complex pulls us into war after war.

Putin eyes Obama's Iran file

The Obama administration realizes the limits of US military power to intimidate or vanquish Iran

By M K Bhadrakumar 

When Kathleen Trola McFarland, the familiar Fox News national security analyst who served in national security posts in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations and was an aide to Henry Kissinger at the White House, wrote that "Vladimir Putin is the one who really deserves the Nobel Peace Prize", she obviously had the Syrian crisis in mind. 

McFarland wrote on Tuesday, "In one of the most deft diplomatic maneuvers of all time, Russia's President Putin has saved the world from near-certain disaster." 

She went on to narrate how Secretary of State John Kerry's famous gaffe in London took wings and "the off-hand phrase was picked up by Putin, became a Kerry Proposal and ultimately the Obama peace plan..." 

Following up on her train of thought, it is easy to see how by the time this momentous week draws to a close Putin could doubly ensure his claim to a Nobel. 

The point is that a major highlight of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization's annual summit gathering in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, promises to be an event on Friday on its sidelines - the scheduled "bilateral" meeting between Putin and his Iranian counterpart, newly elected Hassan Rouhani. The Putin-Rouhani meeting in Bishkek is a scheduled one, planned well in advance. Both statesmen are vastly experienced in international diplomacy. 

As he winds his way back to his work station in the wooded estate of Novo-Ogaryovo after picking Rouhani's brains, Putin will begin choreographing in the privacy of his thoughts yet another peace plan - Iran. 

This will be Putin's first meeting with the newly elected Iranian president. The Rouhani presidency has aroused worldwide interest as presaging a meaningful US-Iran engagement, and Rouhani has been signaling in many ways Tehran's renewed interest in negotiating with the West - through policy pronouncements, cabinet appointments or sheer diplomatic "body language". Rouhani has pledged that the revival of the Iranian economy is his priority for which he would seek a favorable external environment. 

Kerry-Lavrov Bottom Line: Assad Has Gassed But He Will Not Go

Sometimes playing for time works out

by WALTER RUSSELL MEAD

Americans awoke to the possibility this morning that the US has found a ‘solution’ to the Syria situation. The Times is reporting that the US and Russia have reached an agreement to remove or destroy Syria’s chemical weapons by mid-2014 (the official state department framework document on this agreement is here).

If this deal goes through, two things are clear. First, for now at least, using chemical weapons worked for Assad. The Russia-US deal that the WH wants to spin as a win contains no mention of Assad leaving power, much less facing international justice for a massacre involving chemical weapons. The precedent is now set that, if it has Russia’s support at the UN, a rogue regime can gas its own people and emerge in a stronger diplomatic position. Unless something changes this new status quo, the use of chemical weapons in a civil war is no longer a grave crime against humanity. It is more of a violation, like a speeding ticket. Assad has some points on his license, but he’s still at the wheel of his car.

Second, the deal a weakened Kerry accepted as the best he could get under the circumstances confirms the loss of prestige for Obama in the Middle East— again, for now. Assad must go, said Obama. Assad must not gas, said Obama. Assad has gassed and he will not go. This is big. The White House wants everyone to focus on the prospects for getting Syria’s chemical weapons under control, but this effort to distract attention from a diplomatic climbdown won’t work with the hard eyed realists who calculate power realities in the Middle East — and in Beijing and Pyongyang, for that matter. If the WH had forced a comparably humiliating step down on Putin’s part, the MSM would be full of hosannas and alleluias to the wisdom and greatness of the brilliance of US diplomacy. Andrew Sullivan’s joy would truly know no bounds—evil gay-bashing dictator humiliated by the gay-friendly, now fully evolved Obama.

But this defeat is not irreversible, if US policy is still to get rid of Assad. Whether from internal dissension within the regime, pressure from rebels, or a combination of both, Assad can still go down. That would turn a diplomatic defeat into a real world win. Obama would make his point, and Putin would be left playing air guitar.