The real problem with Iran is history

When History is Lost We Are Truly Blind

By Aaron Hesse

What is missing from the narrative surrounding Iran and its nuclear program is a discussion of history and identity that might help to clarify why the US-Iranian relationship is so dangerous today. 

Why does Iran want or need a nuclear program in the first place? Is it to threaten the US or its allies, to end Western influence in the Middle East, to support terrorist activities, or to project Iranian power and export the revolution? Or is it much deeper than that? 

Iran's history is ancient. Names like Cyrus the Great, Xerxes, and Darius leap from the pages, as immortal figures integral to the formulation of Iranian national identity that link today with the glory and resplendence of its past. 

The E.U., Neofeudalism and the Neocolonial-Financialization Model

An intrinsically unstable private-capital/State arrangement 

By Charles Hugh Smith

Forget "austerity"and political theater--the only way to truly comprehend the Eurozone is to understand the Neocolonial-Financialization Model, as that's the key dynamic of the Eurozone.

In the old model of Colonialism, the colonizing power conquered or co-opted the Power Elites of the region, and proceeded to exploit the new colony's resources and labor to enrich the "center," i.e. the home empire.

In Neocolonialism, the forces of financialization (debt and leverage controlled by State-approved banking cartels) are used to indenture the local Elites and populace to the banking center: the peripheral "colonials" borrow money to buy the finished goods sold by the "core," doubly enriching the center with 1) interest and the transactional "skim" of financializing assets such as real estate, and 2) the profits made selling goods to the debtors.

Rise of the Tiger Nation

"Perils" of Immigration

Asian-Americans are now the country's best-educated, highest-earning and fastest-growing racial group. 

By LEE SIEGEL

Last March, an interviewer archly asked President Barack Obama whether he was aware that he had been "surpassed" by basketball phenomenon Jeremy Lin "as the most famous Harvard graduate." The question was misformulated. If there was any surpassing going on, it was that Mr. Lin had become, briefly, more famous than Mr. Obama as the country's most exemplary figure from a hitherto marginalized minority.

Asian-Americans are now the country's best-educated, highest-earning and fastest-growing racial group. They share with American Jews both the distinction and the occasional burden of immigrant success. WSJ's Stu Woo talks to author Lee Siegel.

German Lawmakers Shift Toward Extending Greek Aid

It is only a matter of time

By MARY M. LANE

Passing a more-generous bailout for Greece through Germany's parliament could prove easier than expected for Chancellor Angela Merkel, after most of her coalition appeared willing on Friday to give Greece more time and financing to repair its economy.

Senior lawmakers in Ms. Merkel's conservative-led coalition signaled that the chancellor would likely face limited resistance in parliament against an expanded aid package for Greece, belying fears that Germany's legislature would balk at a third bailout deal for Athens since 2010.

The shift in the mood in the Bundestag, Germany's lower house of parliament, makes it more likely the euro zone will agree to release urgently needed aid for Greece in November, while easing the onerous timetable of Greece's austerity program.

The EPA’s Planned Destruction of the U.S. Economy

The Killing of US Economy

by Alan Caruba

If there was no other reason to defeat President Obama in November, it would be the planned destruction of what is left of the U.S. economy by the Environmental Protection Agency.

In “A Look Ahead to EPA Regulations for 2012” the minority staff (Republican) of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works has issued a chilling review of a massive rise in the costs of living for all Americans, massive layoffs in all sectors of the economy, and the destruction of the nation’s energy and manufacturing sectors.

The report provides a nightmarish look at the regulations that EPA plans to initiate, having put them under cover prior to Election Day in order to hide President Obama’s agenda of attacking the energy sector and businesses large and small.

Here’s a list of the regulations:

Drunkenness as therapy and social service

Dead Drunk for Tuppence

by Theodore Dalrymple

Britain is the only country known to me in which drunkenness is an ideology: that is to say in which people believe in an abstract way that, in getting drunk, they are doing good to themselves and performing an almost philanthropic service. The mass public drunkenness that appals foreigners when they come to our shores is actually thought by young drunks to be a form individual therapy and social prophylaxis rolled into one. 

I have spoken to quite a lot of these young drunks both when they are inebriated and when they are sober. Their argument goes as follows:

   Every person has things inside him that need outward expression. If not expressed, these things will turn inward cause a kind of emotional septicaemia. People with emotional septicaemia become miserable, ineffective and anti-social. Unfortunately there are many inhibitions of the things that need outward expression. Drunkenness removes these inhibitions.Therefore drunkenness is healthy to the individual and prevents the baleful social consequences of emotional septicaemia.

Light Entertainment

Child abuse and the British public

By Andrew O’Hagan

On 23 May 1949, Lionel Gamlin, producer of the Light Programme’s Hello Children, wrote to Enid Blyton to ask whether she would be willing to be interviewed about the best holiday she could remember. ‘Dear Mr Gamlin,’ Blyton wrote the next day. ‘Thank you for your nice letter. It all sounds very interesting but I ought to warn you of something you obviously don’t know, but which has been well known in the literary and publishing world for some time – I and my stories are completely banned by the BBC as far as children are concerned.’

From Room 432 at Broadcasting House, Gamlin later received a memo addressed to him by Derek McCulloch, the producer and presenter of Children’s Hour. McCulloch was known to every child growing up between the mid-1930s and 1950 as ‘Uncle Mac’ and was as famous to them as anyone could be. The memo was marked ‘Enid Blyton Stories’ and, in red, ‘strictly confidential and urgent’. ‘I will be grateful,’ McCulloch wrote, ‘if you would first discuss with me should you be considering the inclusion of material by the above author. I am most anxious that no conflicts in policy shall get loose, not only to our embarrassment, but to yours also.’ Gamlin was a company man and he clearly got the point. ‘In spite of the desire voiced by some of the children who wrote,’ Gamlin replied, ‘I have no intention of using any material by the above author, as I think I mentioned to you after I had first approached her without knowing your policy in the matter. Have no fear, there will be No Orchids for Miss B. at any time.’ The BBC brass didn’t like Blyton’s work – ‘there is rather a lot of the Pinky-winky-Doodle-doodle Dum-dum type of name’ – and Gamlin, glad to have a job, didn’t hesitate to overrule what children wanted in order to please Room 432.

Putin Is the New Global Shah of Oil

A dark Energy Future For Europe

by Marin Katusa

Exxon Mobil is no longer the world's number-one oil producer. As of yesterday, that title belongs to Putin Oil Corp – oh, whoops. I mean the title belongs to Rosneft, Russia's state-controlled oil company.

Rosneft is buying TNK-BP, which is a vertically integrated oil company co-owned by British oil firm BP and a group of Russian billionaires known as AAR. One of the top-ten privately owned oil producers in the world, in 2010 TNK-BP churned out 1.74 million barrels of oil equivalent per day from its assets in Russia and Ukraine and processed almost half that amount through its refineries.

With TNK-BP in its hands, Rosneft will be in charge of more than 4 million barrels of oil production a day. And who is in charge of Rosneft? None other than Vladimir Putin, Russia's resource-full president.

TNK-BP has been an economic dream, producing many billions in dividend payments for its owners – but it has been a relations nightmare. The partners have fought repeatedly. In 2008 Russian authorities arrested two British TNK-BP managers amid a dispute over strategy that forced then-CEO Bob Dudley (who now heads BP) to flee Russia – and that is just one of many partnership scandals.

Argentinians still crying for Argentina

Pesos Go Underground as Dollar Ban Backfires

By Katia Porzecanski 

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s foreign-exchange controls are driving pesos underground.

A quarter of Argentines are keeping their pesos at home, up from 19 percent a year ago, according to a survey conducted in September by theCatholic University of Argentina and TNS Gallup. The increase reflects how people are shifting money out of banks to trade dollars in a cash-dominated black market where the cost of the U.S. currency has surged 35 percent this year, according to Buenos Aires-based research company EconViews.

The migration of cash out of the financial system is stripping banks of funding and undermining Fernandez’s efforts to hold down interest rates and bolster an economic rebound. The 30-day deposit rate has jumped 1.8 percentage points in the past four months to 14.8125 percent. A three-day decline of 0.8 percentage point that pared the increase in the benchmark rate will prove short-lived as annual inflation of 24 percent drives more Argentines to move money into the underground economy, said Eric Ritondale, an economist at Econviews.

French Are Freaking Out After Rumored Plan To Attack Their Sacred Cow

Other People's money have run out already

By Wolf Richter
References to the financial crisis are piling up in France’s economic data. The latest was housing.

The total amount that banks granted for mortgages plummeted by 30.5% so far this year from the same period in 2011—despite the low rates. For all of 2012, an estimated €115 billion in mortgages will be granted, versus €162 billion in 2011.

“We have never before seen a drop of this magnitude at this speed,” said Michel Mouillart, author of the study. What took two years during the crisis of 2008-2009, he said, is now happening in one year.

The government has been flailing about to counter economic trends that started while Nicolas Sarkozy was still president. And one of the most bandied-about catchwords these days is “competitiveness”—entailing among others the cherished and untouchable 35-hour workweek, equally untouchable wages, and sky-high employer-paid payroll taxes and social security charges. An explosive mix.

Another State Down the Drain

Illinois Debt Takes Toll, Study Finds

By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH

For years, Illinois has racked up billions in public debt to plug budget holes, pay overdue bills, and put money into its mismanaged pension funds. And for the people who live there, this has resulted in decrepit commuter trains and buses, thousands of unsound bridges, 200 hazardous dams and one of the most inequitable public school systems in America.

Those are the conclusions of a new examination of Illinois’ finances by the State Budget Crisis Task Force, which was released Wednesday.

The group, led by the former Federal Reserve chairman, Paul A. Volcker, and the former New York lieutenant governor, Richard Ravitch, recommended an overhaul of Illinois’ budgeting practices, to make it harder to kite money from year to year and raid special-purpose funds. It also warned that tax increases may be in store.

Coming Attractions

Hark! The Herald Angels Aren't Singing

 “No matter where you stand, no matter how far or how fast you flee, when it hits the fan, as much as possible will be propelled in your direction, and you will not possess a towel large enough to wipe all of it off.”    -The Wizard

 By Mark J. Grant

You thought it was tough; it is going to get tougher. You thought that Europe would not affect America and that we lived in some sort of bubble over here; think again. You thought that the liquidity provided by the world’s major central banks would carry us across the divide and intact; keep dreaming. We are at the cross roads, at break point, where solvency is no longer overcome by liquidity because the politics is dysfunctional and because after you get to “unlimited” and “uncapped” there is nowhere further to go. We have arrived at that long dreaded moment where decisions will have to be made, will be forced to be made by the economic plights of Greece, Spain and Portugal that can no longer be shunned or twisted perversely under the banner of “More Europe” as Nationalism and self-preservation take root on the Continent and the effects of the austerity measures in Europe slows down and stops the economies in various nations which then impacts the earnings of American companies in a significant manner. Put succinctly; European austerity has arrived in the United States.

Who Is Fethullah Gülen?

Controversial Muslim preacher and “inspirer” of the largest charter school network in America

By Claire Berlinski

With the American economy in shambles, Europe imploding, and the Middle East in chaos, convincing Americans that they should pay attention to a Turkish preacher named Fethullah Gülen is an exceedingly hard sell. Many Americans have never heard of him, and if they have, he sounds like the least of their worries. According to his website, he is an “authoritative mainstream Turkish Muslim scholar, thinker, author, poet, opinion leader and educational activist who supports interfaith and intercultural dialogue, science, democracy and spirituality and opposes violence and turning religion into a political ideology.” The website adds that “by some estimates, several hundred educational organizations such as K–12 schools, universities, and language schools have been established around the world inspired by Fethullah Gülen.” The site notes, too, that Gülen was “the first Muslim scholar to publicly condemn the attacks of 9/11.” It also celebrates his modesty.

A Non-Divine European Comedy

Sovereign Self-Interest Versus European Hegemony

“Markets can remain irrational longer than we can remain solvent… “

By Blain's Morning Porridge
There were moments yesterday when it felt we stood at the edge of the abyss preparing to take a giant leap forwards. The morning’s fears were palatable –the lack of market direction and escalating concerns setting us up for a tumultuous slide. By the afternoon everything rosy again! Despite miserable German confidence numbers the feared sell-off has not developed. Fear is still there tho! Fed keeping long term rates low should not be a surprise. In Europe, we’re watching how the news flow develops.
Spain – more of the same. Will they, wont they take the OMT bailout? Rumours this morning say a limited Euro 60 bln is being discussed for the banks and regions, but who knows. Spain has completed 2012 funding – so what’s the rush or the need asks the Spain DMO? Perhaps Spain signing up for reasons of “prudency” could provide the market with the kind of leg up it needs to rejuvenate the rally?

Credit Crunch in Europe

Eurozone Lending Sinking Fast; Money Supply Contracts

by Mike "Mish" Shedlock

A collapse in demand for credit is underway in Europe. Bank lending is down sharply and the decline has "surprised the experts".

I wasn't surprised in the least, but nonetheless, please consider Lending in the euro zone is declining fast, courtesy of Google translate (slightly modified by Mish) from Die Welt.

In the crisis-hit euro zone, fears rise of a credit crunch. The sharp decline in bank loans to companies surprised even the experts.

The sum of bank loans to companies and households in the euro zone shrank more than expected in September. Bank lending in comparison to the same month last year shrank by 0.8 percent, said the European Central Bank (ECB). Analysts had expected a decline of only 0.6 percent.

Bailout : Too Big to Jail

Neil Barofsky on “Incestuous Orgy” Between Washington and Wall Street 

It was Bill Moyers who used the expression “incestuous orgy” in this interview with former head of SIGTARP Neil Barofsky to describe the relationship between major financial firms and the Federal government. That beats the anodyne “revolving door” all day and I hope becomes part of the lexicon for describing the capture of Washington by Wall Street.

Barofsky describes not only his experience at SIGTARP in fighting with the Paulson and Geithner Treasuries to oversee the bailout program, but also his reasons for thinking a financial crisis is inevitable

Two videos distill the meaning of a campaign, and a presidency.

The Incredible Shrinking President

By Mark Steyn

‘We’re going to have that person arrested and prosecuted that did the video,” said Hillary Clinton. No, not the person who made the video saying that voting for Barack Obama is like losing your virginity to a really cool guy. I’ll get to that in a moment. But Secretary Clinton was talking about the fellow who made the supposedly Islamophobic video that supposedly set off the sacking of the Benghazi consulate. And, indeed, she did “have that person arrested.” By happy coincidence, his bail hearing has been set for three days after the election, by which time he will have served his purpose. These two videos — the Islamophobic one and the Obamosexual one — bookend the remarkable but wholly deserved collapse of the president’s reelection campaign.

You’ll recall that a near-month-long attempt to blame an obscure YouTube video for the murder of four Americans and the destruction of U.S. sovereign territory climaxed in the vice-presidential debate with Joe Biden’s bald assertion that the administration had been going on the best intelligence it had at the time. By then, it had been confirmed that there never had been any protest against the video, and that the Obama line that Benghazi had been a spontaneous movie review that just got a little out of hand was utterly false. The only remaining question was whether the administration had knowingly lied or was merely innocently stupid. The innocent-stupidity line became harder to maintain this week after Fox News obtained State Department e-mails revealing that shortly after 4 p.m. Eastern, less than a half hour after the assault in Benghazi began, the White House situation room knew the exact nature of it.

When North Korea Collapses

Unification or Protectorate ?

By Robert Kaplan & Rodger Baker
As we have pointed out previously, in the principal divided-country scenarios of the second half of the 20th century -- North and South Vietnam, East and West Germany, North and South Yemen -- reunification was thought of for decades as only a remote possibility, before it suddenly occurred in a tumultuous, fast-moving fashion, in a way few of the experts had predicted, making a mockery of so many policy papers written on the subject. The current division of the Korean Peninsula should be seen in this light. Not only is the collapse of the regime in the northern half of the peninsula possible, but if and when it does occur, the process might be quicker than many suspect.

In a century of seamless digital communications that are remaking world politics, the survival of such a hermetic regime as North Korea, built on information control, certainly appears problematic. Behind the weird artificiality of the regime itself lies something quite ancient: The very concept of a leader in his mid- or late-20s, with no experience, made a four-star general and hailed as the "brilliant comrade" harks back to bizarre descriptions of ceremonial politics associated with the deep past. How much longer can such a situation go on?

Pro-Life Means Anti-Drone

If life is sacred, how can we justify the random killing of innocent children?

By JACK HUNTER

My pro-life position is simple: Life is sacred. Life is so sacred that for it to be taken there must be an extremely good reason—and there are few good reasons. Convenience is certainly not a good reason. This innate sanctity of human life is something virtually all civilized people recognize despite one’s politics. Even those who identify as pro-choice are only comfortable with abortion to the degree that they can downplay or dismiss the humanity of the subject at hand.

Barack Obama has never claimed to be pro-life. As the Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney writes: “President Obama has killed hundreds of civilians, including women and children, in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia through a drone war aimed at exterminating the suspected terrorists on his unprecedented and ever-expanding ‘kill list.’”

Greek debt to badly miss target -euro zone official

More direct funding for Greece from euro zone member states looks inevitable

By Jan Strupczewski
Greek debt will be above the target of 120 percent of GDP in 2020, a preliminary report by the IMF showed on Thursday, and Athens will need more reforms before emergency credit from international lenders can start flowing again.
Excerpts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) report were presented to the Eurogroup Working Group (EWG) - junior finance ministers and treasury officials who prepare meetings of euro zone finance ministers.
"It is clear that Greece is off track and there is no chance they will cut the debt to 120 percent of GDP in 2020 as envisaged. It will be rather 136 percent, and this would be under a positive scenario of a primary budget surplus, a return to economic growth, and privatisation," a euro zone official, who insisted on anonymity, said.
"New prior actions will be needed, on top of the existing 89," the official said, referring to a list of already agreed reforms that need to be in place before any new tranches of euro zone and IMF emergency loans to Greece can be paid.
Apart from the debt projections, representatives of the IMF, the European Commission and the European Central Bank - known as the troika - have been calculating how much more money Athens will need if it is given until 2016 rather than 2014 to reach a primary surplus of 4.5 percent, as agreed in February.
A primary surplus or deficit is the budget balance before the government services its debt. In Greece's case, it would mean government tax revenues exceeding spending, meaning Athens is beginning to get on top of its budget-deficit problems.