Briefs

Iran
Anybody who was paying attention back in 2003 should be experiencing an ominous sense of déjà vu about now.  One big difference is that the news media are a lot less likely to be suckered today than they were last time, so Bolton's regime change plan for Iran shouldn't go over quite as well as the plan for regime change in Iraq did.   Given the suffering US policy has created for the Iranian people, it's hard to imagine how any democratically elected government in Iran could be friendly to the US.

Trade War
Congress is less partisan about Tr*mp's tariffs than it is about most issues, although Republican opponents are not especially vocal about it.  It makes perfect political sense that a Rust Belt Democrat would back the tariffs, but I suspect some other Democratic supporters just want Our President to crash the economy in time for 2020.  The main sticking point in negotiations seems to be US insistence on changes to Chinese law, an embarrassing compromise of Chinese sovereignty.  Such changes hardly seem necessary: Xi is just as likely to ignore Chinese law as Tr*mp is to ignore American law — but a lot less likely to be called on it.

Venezuela
While plenty of Venezuelans – especially the more affluent – would love to dump Maduro, they don't seem to be especially enthusiastic about Guidó either.  It's unclear just what kind of compromise Swedish diplomats hope to facilitate, but it won't be an easy task.  Any deal will have to satisfy two belligerent incompetents: Maduro and Tr*mp.  Guidó doesn't count anymore.

A little bird told me...

So, Our President went to the G-20 and had dinner with Xi Jinping; since they didn't release a joint statement, it's safe to assume there wasn't much of an agreement.  Nevertheless, Tr*mp did some enthusiastic tweeting on his way home from Argentina, and markets rose.

What actually was said at that dinner?  Here's my guess: Tr*mp volunteered to hold off for ninety days on the new tariffs he'd promised, then presented his wish list of what he hoped for in return.  Xi smiled and nodded, but committed to little more than a few soybeans.

So why were Tr*mp's tweets so enthusiastic?  Most likely because he's in the habit of claiming victories he hasn't won — but there could be another explanation.  Barely more than a day later, he sent out his "tariff man" tweet, which sent the major stock indexes crashing down over three percent in one day; and certain predictable stocks lost even more.  If you had shorted some of those shares on Monday, you could have made a lot of money on Tuesday.

Personally, I missed that opportunity, and I suppose you did too — but there might be individuals, LLCs, and/or hedge funds with more "insight" into what Our President might tap out on his phone than your average Wall Street algorithm has.  Previous Presidents took great care to minimize the impact of their statements on financial markets.  It doesn't seem to matter to Tr*mp.

Then again, it might matter to him a great deal.

Well, duh!

I haven't posted lately because I try to avoid belaboring the obvious. but I'll make an exception this time to reassure my readers that I'm still alive:

• Voter suppression works, as demonstrated by Brian Kemp, the new governor of Georgia.  
• "Florida Man" can be a woman, as demonstrated by Brenda C. Snipes, election commissioner of Broward County.   
• Nancy Pelosi will be Speaker again, if only because nobody else is willing to take all that grief; but she's also the only one capable of doing the job at this time.   
• MbS personally ordered the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, but the Tr*mp Administration will find a way to ignore that fact.   
• Fox News and Russia's TASS news agency are locked in a bitter struggle to determine which can be more slanted and misleading.   
• Nobody has any clear idea of how to cope with the ecological catastrophe that is California.   
• Matt Whitaker is an affront to the rule of law, but then so is the rest of the Tr*mp Administration.   
• You can't fight a trade war with China and expect them to maintain sanctions against North Korea at the same time.

Briefs

Kavanaugh
Anybody who ever was a drunken high school boy can have no doubt that He Did It, whether he remembers it or not.  If he does remember, he'll lie about it — but far more disqualifying are the lies he already told during his 2006 confirmation hearings for the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, regarding his service in the Bush administration.  He was an adult by then, and presumably sober.

Trade War
China's threat to respond to the latest Tr*mpian tariff escalations by disrupting US supply chains must be taken very seriously, given that key components of important manufactured products just are not available outside of China.  Even unregenerate supply-siders like Larry Kudlow are able to see that; Our President, though, only will listen to his paleo-mercantilist trade advisor, Peter Navarro.  Can mainstream corporatist Republicans stop them?  Maybe.  Maybe not.

Big Lie
Jaws agape, anybody who has been paying any attention at all over the past forty years stared in amazement as Our President declared that Democrats want to destroy Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.  Will his base believe him?  As Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, "in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods." 

Extortion by Tariff

Remember the Bush steel tariffs of 2002?  (Don't all raise your hands at once!)  They were abandoned after eighteen months, having done more harm than good.

Unlike Tr*mp, Bush genuinely wanted to help the American steel industry.  Tr*mp, along with the usual political pandering, is trying to use traditional Tr*mpian "negotiating" tactics to strong-arm concessions on other fronts from American allies.  Of course, those allies will be familiar with Tr*mp's history of paying his bills — so the tactics are likely to fail.

The administration is not even trying to disguise its attempt to gain advantage in the ongoing NAFTA talks; more threatening, though, are the concessions Tr*mp may hope to extract from major steel exporter South Korea.  President Moon Jae-in has been demonstrating far more independence than his right-wing predecessors; and you can be sure the White House is displeased.  Maintaining the threat of war with North Korea is far more important to America's military contractors than an increase in the price of steel: after all, their increased costs will be paid by the US government and its taxpayers.

Moon's domestic support is based largely on the prospect of rapprochement with the North: hopefully, Moon will hang tough.  North Korea will not give up its nuclear weapons, its hard-won protection against external aggression.  Having provided evidence of his offensive capacity, Kim Jong-un will be willing to stop testing bombs and missiles for a time.  The world's best hope is that the Kim-Tr*mp summit will lead to years of talks — years with no immanent threat of war.

Nobody seems to be talking about the country likely to be hurt most by the new tariffs: Brazil, a major exporter of steel to the US.  Even if there is something the US wants to extort from Brazil, Brazil's government is too tied up in corruption scandals to negotiate effectively.  Of course, a bit of corruption won't stop the Chinese from stepping in to fill any gaps the tariffs leave in the Brazilian economy.

The Tr*mp tariffs may last a little longer than the Bush tariffs, but not long enough to justify opening new steel plants; or even to reopen the older, inefficient plants that still can be made operational.  The steel companies will be content just to raise prices.  Some businesses that use steel, though, may decide it's time to offshore production.

Elsewhere

The Levant
So Erdogan is supporting our Kurdish allies in Iraq, where he's not wanted, while killing them in Syria, where he is wanted?  With friends like that...

Yemen
The role the US is playing in Yemen is not quite the same as the role Russia is playing in Syria, but the parallels are too close to ignore.

Venezuela
Thanks to the drop in oil prices and the incompetence of the Maduro government, the class war in Venezuela is heating up; but the US blew its leverage back while Chavez was alive.

Nigeria
Nobody is sure exactly why Boko Haram released 20 of the kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls.  Meanwhile, President Mohammedu Buhari is having marital problems.

The Philippines
Rodrigo Duterte is a prime example of what you get when you elect an insane populist president.  One wonders if Xi Jinping will manage him any better than Obama can.  Not likely.

The Future of US Foreign Policy

In brief, prospects for ongoing US foreign policy are not encouraging.  The Donald's ineptitude is such that he is certain to defer to "the best generals" in matters of war and peace, and Hillary's stance in the 2008 primaries and as Secretary of State suggest that she will continue her ongoing attempts to prove she has enough "balls" to be "one of the boys."  Bernie Sanders will probably have significant impact on the Democratic platform, but the relationship between a party's platform and what happens when that party wins an election has little if any bearing on what its candidate does when elected to office.

The "War on Terror"
Tr*mp vacillates between isolationism and carpet bombing (along with use of torture and killing the families of terrorists), but his commitment to building the size and strength of the military makes one wonder if "boots on the ground" might be inevitable — the military-industrial complex would like that, since it could restore sales to 2010 levels.  Clinton has been largely silent on her suggestion of a "no-fly zone" in Syria lately, but her history on interventionism is troubling, including her vote for the war in Iraq and endorsement of intervention in Libya.  Neither has any fresh ideas for dealing with the Islamist State as an international threat, even if Obama's efforts to cut into the territory it occupies continue to make progress.

The Middle East
It seems clear that Clinton will maintain US support for the Arab autocracies, despite copious human rights abuses within their territories and Saudi war crimes in Yemen.  She also will be more friendly to Netanyahu's increasingly bellicose and repressive path for Israel than Obama has been, and the Palestinians will be out of luck, no matter what Bernie gets into the Democratic platform.  Tr*mp's support from Sheldon Adelson suggests that he will be even deeper in Netanyahu's pocket than Clinton; and his rejection of the Iran deal and insistence that the Saudi's "pay their own way" would be a recipe for a nuclear armed Middle East.  With regard to Assad, Tr*mp might be too conciliatory, Clinton too bellicose.

Europe
I don't know if anybody has considered problems that might arise from installing missile "defense" systems (against Iran? Yeah, right!) in Eastern European countries moving ever closer to fascism, but that probably can wait for 2020.  Neither US candidate has anything to offer Europe in dealing with its refugee crisis, and neither will use US influence over the IMF in an attempt to soften Europe's devastating austerity regime, albeit neo-liberal (aka neo-conservative) US bankers have a lot more influence than US political leaders.  Clinton certainly understands Europe's problems better than Tr*mp, but she's no less neo-liberal in her thinking than her husband was — and nobody knows what impact Tr*mp's affection for Putin might bring

Asia and the Pacific
The US Chamber of Commerce seems confident that Clinton will change her mind about support for the TPP as soon as she's president, and they're probably right.  Tr*mp seems to think he could negotiate a "better deal," but his confidence in his negotiating skills is just as inflated as his hair.  The Chinese, I suspect, couldn't care less which of them is elected because China's economic and military power is unlikely to be affected.  Tr*mp's fantasies of Japan and South Korea having their own nuclear arms would almost certainly remain fantasies, because not all Republicans are total idiots.

Africa
If Tr*mp can identify more than three African countries on an outline map, I'd be very surprised.  Clinton, at least, is aware of the mess that is African politics and economics, but is unlikely to move beyond Obama's very limited engagement there.  With either of them, Africa will remain on the back burner until something explodes.

Latin America
Haven't you had enough pessimism for one post?  It's certainly been enough for me, so I'll pass over Latin America — where the US has had virtually no policy at all since "our" dictators were overthrown — and save it for another day.  In the meanwhile, though, keep an eye on Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatamala, et al.  Tr*mp's "wall" won't keep the chaos south of the border.

Things fall apart?

China is not well known for its economists, despite having the world's second largest economy.  There are those inclined to blame the Chinese for the current round of economic turmoil, but really, it's a bum rap.  They're just caught up, like the rest of us, in a worldwide, probably inevitable fuckup.

China blooms with new housing complexes in various states of completion, most of which seem likely to crumble into decay before ever being occupied because the Chinese can't afford to buy them.  They were built (and continue to be built, in some areas) to provide employment for those losing jobs in the export industries that were the engine for China's rapid growth over the past few decades.

China's exports have suffered partly because of competitors who can pay even lower wages than Chinese manufacturers, but more because of decreased demand for cheap manufactured goods in the West.  It seems that the consumers of cheap manufactured goods just don't have as much money as they did in the past, and the Westerners with lots of money are too few in number to buy much — even if they were interested in cheap Chinese goods, which they're not.

Still, all that money accumulated in the bankrolls of the few had to go somewhere, and genuinely safe investments (like US bonds) were paying bupkis.  The result was a roughly seven per cent rise in US stock prices — which started to look a lot like bubble territory.  Another result was a rush to buy quite risky dollar denominated debt from developing countries.

Well, in recent days, stocks have lost almost everything they gained in the run-up, and those third-world borrowers look a lot like they're getting ready to default, no longer able to sell raw materials to contracting Chinese industry.  By the way, the main investors in that developing nation debt were mutual funds, so retirees depending on returns from such funds for survival may wish to start shopping for discounted cat food — just watch out for the stuff from China, which may not be especially safe.

I could go into a lot more detail, but you're already bored, so I'll just summarize:  the massive transfer of wealth from workers to oligarchs has fucked up the entire world.

Here's one thing I can say for China, though — Xi is going after the Chinese oligarchs and slapping them down for being the corrupt reptiles they are.  There is no reason to believe that our own oligarchs are any less corrupt or reptilian — but there's nobody in a position to swat them.  Pity.

Is it time for the Dalai Lama to achieve nirvana?

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, has suggested that he might not trouble to be reincarnated at the end of his current life — and the Chinese are pissed.  They say it's blasphemous, no less!

Rarely do I find an article in the New York Times laugh-out-loud funny, but this one really tickled my funny bone.  Not only are the Chinese Communists insisting that the Dalai Lama be reincarnated, they are claiming the right to decide into whose body he reincarnates.  Coming from devout atheists, it's an idea silly enough to be worthy of certain House Republicans.

Yes, the Chinese think they'll have an easier time with the Tibetans if they can control Tibet's spiritual leader, but anybody familiar with their hand selected Panchen Lama's popularity knows they're wasting their time.

If I remember correctly from my anthropology days, Living Buddhas pass through a limited number of reincarnations before they retire into nirvana.  How many were predicted for the Dalai Lama?  I can't remember, but it just might have been fourteen.  Anyway, the Chinese probably would be better off with no Dalai Lama than with another Tibetan Buddhist apparatchik.  Xi should seriously consider just letting Tenzin Gyatso become one with the universe.

Corruption

Russia.  China.  Turkey. Guatamala. Etc.

Everywhere.  Human beings, especially those who acquire any sort of wealth or power, are almost inevitably corrupt.  Probably those without wealth or power have similar inclinations but far less opportunity.  Would I indulge in insider trading if I had the opportunity?

Okay, I'd be sorely tempted, especially if I thought I could get away with it.

The Martoma trial, and the actions against seven other SAC Capital traders, are just one example of corruption right here at home.  The unusual thing about the SAC situation is that a few actual criminal prosecutions are taking place, albeit, so far, Steven A. Cohen himself remains unscathed.  In this country, you just don't go after a multi-billionaire.

On those rare occasions when the SEC goes after a bank or a big shot, it "agrees to" an impressive sounding but essentially negligible fine with no admission of wrongdoing.

Corruption.

"But wait," you say, "here in the USofA, at the very least, our corruption doesn't involve human rights violations."

Yeah, right.  Abu Ghraib.  Guantánamo.  Secret sites all over.

Then there was Brooklyn, for example, during the long Charles Hynes years.  The new DA, Ken Thompson, is working very hard to undo false convictions from the 1980s and 1990s, but a lot of mostly innocent black men still will spend the rest of their lives in prison.

Mark Twain once said that the United States "has the best Congress money can buy."  Uh huh.

I've been too depressed to write a lot lately, but I'll try to get to Russia, China, Turkey, etc. later this month.

More Pigmeat for China

Smithfield Farms, a company whose mediocre kielbasa I have eaten from time to time after grilling with lots of chili-garlic sauce, seems ready to sell itself to Shuanghui International.  Maybe I'm prejudiced, but I have a feeling that Shuanghui treats its workers pretty much the same way Smithfield treats its hogs.  Well, if they're planning to import preprocessed Smithfield products, I guess that might be a step up for the average animal rights index for both Smithfield and Shuanghui, counting humans as the animals we are.

I'm sorry, America, but I just can't do it all.  The closest I've ever been to a Wal-Mart was passing out leaflets in one of their parking lots, but still, I can't figure out how to do the animal rights thing.  If there were local markets in my area where some vendors claimed that their pigs had been scratched behind the ears on a daily basis and encouraged to wallow in mud and got laid on a regular basis, how do I know they're telling me the truth?

Mind you, I like and respect pigs; but, also, I like pork.  Anyway, in keeping with what Obama flacks refer to as the "chained CPI," I already am substituting a lot more pork for beef, meaning my Social Security check must be going a hell of a lot further!  And, no, I will not switch further down to chicken.

As the punchline to the old joke about the hillbilly on trial for bestiality put it, "Chickens?  Yich!"

Shorting Obama

In yesterday's Times, London hedge fund manager Hugh Hendry was quoted as follows: “If there was a way to short Obama, I would."

That got me to thinking — what if there were a way to short sell Obama? The first thing that comes to mind, of course, is a synthetic CDO of sorts. Since you don't actually have own what you're betting on, I'm sure the bright young people at Goldman could come up with something.

An easier way, of course, would be to short any enterprise that might profit from Obama initiatives — wind power facilities come to mind, for example — or just go long on big oil and big banking, since any kind of meaningful energy bill (read carbon tax) is impossible, and the banks will have figured their way around the new financial regulations well before the regulators even are in place.

Hendry, by the way, also predicts that China is "headed for a fall," which presumably would mean the Chinese would pull way back on buying our debt and transfer resources to calming the inevitable social unrest. As regular readers know, I'm not making predictions anymore — except, when I can't help myself, in the most general sense.

Right now, my gut feeling, for both Obama and the United States, is that hard times will be sticking around for quite a while.