Mainstream American media – print and televised – has virtually ignored the crisis brewing in the world at this very moment. Oh, occasionally they report a tiny portion of the crisis; the situation in Ukraine or the progress being made in talks between the EU and Greece. Even the best of them – PBS Newshour – doesn’t connect the dots between these seemingly disparate events. But like the world in 1937, there are connections. And it appears it is up to me to explain them to the world. So here goes.

OK, the headlines say there’s progress being made in talks between Greece and the EU because Greece has asked for an extension. There was even commentary about Germany’s reaction to the request. But what the headline doesn’t say is that there’s every potential in the next 7 days for intransigent players to bring down the misbegotten experiment called the EU. Big deal, you say…so what does that mean to me and mine? Like many previous world-changing events, nothing really – in the beginning. But eventually there will be hell to pay for us all. Let’s explore why, by proceeding carefully through the minefield of current events.

First, since we started talking about Greece, let’s discuss that some more. Greece made a proposal to buy some time with a loan extension, and everybody connected breathed a sigh of relief that the can had been kicked down the road. But then Germany comes back and disses the proposal, direspecting the Greeks at a time when Syriza’s members are dismayed at even the extent of the current compromise offered by Alex Tsipras, the head of the party and now the head of national government. So there is every possibility that by next week, no agreement will be reached. Greece is now experiencing a currency drain that has effectively rendered the country bankrupt. Can you blame people for moving their money before the banks collapse? But where are these wealthy Greeks moving their money to? German banks. Think that won’t cause a big dust-up next week? Yeah, I’d say.

Spain has suffered right alongside Greece with austerity cuts. They have made systemic changes, and are in fact on the verge of emerging from these troubled times in better shape than they were when all they had was a housing bubble to sustain – or not – their economy. But politics is a fickle gal. The left wing Spanish party is called Podemos. Podemos in Spanish means “We can”. Gee – I wonder where that came from (Yes we can…remember that slogan?) Podemos is rising in popularity in Spain, likely a byproduct of the same austerity measures that has pushed Greek unemployment to 25%. The austerity demands of the EU in Spain reduced workers pay, which worked for a while but now that Greece is making waves, Spain is concerned that Podemos’ supporters will be looking to get those concessions back. More unrest in the ranks.

It was settled that the EU would finally implement Quantitative Easing – but now Germany has created a faction within the European Central Bank to oppose that as well. Not that that really matters – it’s too little, too late – as is obvious from the rest of this story I’m telling. As previously mentioned, the horse left the barn long ago.

So what’s the impact of all this? The impact is on that other big story featured in the headlines – Putin versus NATO. If you stop and think about it, the majority of those countries currently members of the EU are also members of NATO. If the EU breaks up, what happens to NATO? As previously discussed, I think NATO is already a paper tiger, one being regularly tested by Putin. There’s a piece in today’s NY Times that Russian bombers were ‘escorted’ out of British airspace by scrambled jets. Apparently this hasn’t happened since the end of the cold war. It would appear that Brother P is starting to test NATO in relatively unprovocative ways. But with the economic events coming to a head, it’s likely he’ll increase that provocation, and it will be closer to home. The so-called truce negotiated by Francois and Angela last week never took hold; the eastern Ukrainian rebels are winning more territory, and working on heading further west. This is a direct test of NATO, one clearly organized and supported by Russia.

So as the EU squabbles and then breaks up, Putin will be waiting to invite the old SSR’s back into the fold. They have, throughout history, been pawns in the games of larger states on either side of them – Germany and Russia. They generally side with whoever’s winning. And because of pride, venality and frankly just plain stupidity, right now the game winner is Vladimir Putin.

And what about us? The Treasury Secretary has been on the fringes of helping negotiate with the parties in the EU debt discussions. The US has been completely left out of discussions with Russia, Germany and France over Ukraine. We appear to be so focused on terrorism and ISIS, that we are not even paying much attention to the real crisis in the world. But my guess is that everybody knows who the real contenders are in this war of words, money and guns. The sanctions and drop in oil prices are hurting the Russian economy, and it’s all tied to the US dollar. So the dollar is the cause of the pain being suffered by Russia, and thus the US is the evil-doer according to Putin. But Vlad has always played the long game, and when the time comes, and NATO has been shown to be useless, then he’ll be better prepared to confront us directly. Remember – thanks to G.W. Bush and the Dick, America no longer has standing as the ‘good guys’ to come to anybody’s rescue. And the sad thing is – we know that to be true. Everybody’s on their own.

One last piece – the negotiations with Iran over their nuclearization. The Israelis are leaking information, designed to try to blow up any deal between us and Iran. Iran wants the sanctions lifted because their economy is suffering the same low-oil-price woe as Russia. In the next few months, there either will be a deal or there won’t. If there is, pro-Israel elements in the US – particularly amongst Republicans – will try to blow it up. So getting to a deal is frankly almost secondary in importance. It will never be implemented, and Iran will develop the bomb they’ve wanted for such a long time. Then the Saudis will have one from Pakistan about 30 seconds after Iran announces they’ve got it. And once again, America will be seen as weak and unable to effect meaningful, positive change in the world. Can you think of a better place for nuclear weapons to proliferate than the Middle East? Yeah…OK.

Lord help us when that day arrives. There will be a mad scramble for power, and I wouldn’t rule anything out – including an attack on the ‘homeland’ (God I hate that word) by a consortium of evil-doers, just spoiling to bring us down. Welcome to the world of war, America. What a waste – and what a shame that all this wasn’t stopped in its infancy because of pride, venality and just plain stupidity. Apparently those traits are everywhere these days.

By now you’ve likely heard that some tiny set of consultants that work for the Defense Department did an analysis of Putin – from television footage, no less. Their assessment is that poor little Vlad suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome. Of course, if you’re in the know, you are aware that it isn’t called that anymore. It’s just a place on the ‘autism spectrum’.

Now to my point – as I’ve said before, The Hunt for Red October is my second favorite film of all time. Terms of Endearment is my favorite, but again, I digress. Here’s the thing – there are some fantastic quotes from THFRO that I’ve used before in a video I made at the height of the hostilities in Iraq. But here’s another good one, and one that’s most appropriate for this post:

“The average Russki, son, don’t take a dump without a plan.”

Admiral Painter, talking to Jack Ryan

So if the average Russki has a plan for the simplest of functions, it implies that Putin has a plan. Angela Merkel, the gal he was counting on to help him out with his plans to re-establish the Soviet empire, indicated that Putin had lost touch with reality, and lives in ‘another world’. Well, that is likely true. He lives in a world of his own creation – one where he is the head of a large and powerful empire, feared and admired by all.

Yeah…no.

So which is worse – a power hungry, clever megalomaniac or a demented, lives in his own little autistic world hand-wringer? Neither option is good, and if I had to guess, I’d say autism was more likely the reality of his existence. Let me ‘splain.

Putin does live in the past, but the past wasn’t a great story for him. He has seen the world of the Soviet Union collapse (the worst day ever, according to him). And along with it, life collapsed for he and his family. So he worked his way up through a system that we frankly don’t really understand. And he succeeded – likely beyond his wildest dreams. But he’s still that little kid from Leningrad who had two older brothers who died twenty years before he was born, one during the siege of Leningrad in WW II. So his parents were in their forties when he was born, making the autism theory at least plausible. But if he is autistic, and if Asperger’s is the likely case, that syndrome is marked with fetish-like attention to detail, planning and routine. It’s also marked with a high degree of paranoia. And I maintain that’s what drives him.

So if you buy my description of him, then you can likely figure out what he intends to do. Carefully plan a way to retake the areas surrounding Russia, as a buffer to European incursion and a thumb in the eye of the west. Think about it from his point of view. The Nazis (Germans) killed his older brother and starved his mother. The west took their sweet time about coming to Russia’s rescue, preferring to invade Italy first and then retake France. The Soviets had to save themselves – and they did. Their first instinct was to take land and keep it, to protect themselves from further attack from the west. That succeeded for a long time, and only fell because of the collaboration of Europe and America. Right? Isn’t that what the cold war was? So from that perspective, he’s just putting things back the way they should be, and paying for it with fifteen years of oil revenue, carefully saved after paying off all Russia’s debts and building up its currency. Then what happened? Ukraine blew up, they started looking to collaborate with the west, and all Putin’s instincts likely told him to fight back. Start with Crimea, then take Ukraine. Then the border countries – anything to put land between the evil that is the Eurowest and Russia. That is what makes sense to me.

And what will the U.S. be doing while he’s trying to insulate himself from any possible incursion? We’ll likely be trying to work through the recalcitrant Europeans, rather than get our boots dirty in any skirmishes with the bear. We’re tired of war, and have no use for any kind of unilateral action. So what happens to NATO? It is shown to be the paper tiger it sort of always was. Better to find out sooner than later? Hard to say. But I’ll say this – NATO will be tested soon, and it will be found wanting. It’s gotten fat and lazy over these years with nothing really to do. And when it’s revealed to be useless, what will be there to stop Putin? Nothing. And nobody. So be prepared, Estonia, Latvia, Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. Putin is coming to a town near you, and it won’t be pretty. He’s got nearly a million men under arms, and I’m fairly confident he intends to use them. And in the not-too-distant future. Count on it. You heard it here first.

Syriza won over the weekend. They’re just two votes short of an outright majority in the Greek legislature, but that has not deterred them. They’ve formed an alliance with the right wing party called Independent Greeks to give them a majority. Picture a left wing and right wing party joining together. One of the few things they agree on is that austerity hasn’t worked, and Greece needs to renegotiate its agreements with the EU. At a minimum. And if the EU doesn’t agree – which they have said all along they would not – then Greece will likely vote to leave the EU and return to the drachma. Returning to the drachma means devaluing the currency and defaulting on their debts. Others have done it before and recovered. Some have been serial defaulters. Here we go again with the musical chairs!

On a slightly different front, the EU is currently engaging in QE, as we discussed in the last post. So QE, at the same time as a restive Greece rattles the German’s cage, must be really irritating the boys and girls from Deutschland. Oil price reductions won’t benefit Germany much, and in fact makes their push to solar and wind less cost-effective, compared to oil and gas prices. Germany is reeling, and ready to react. So everything is happening as predicted, and we’re just awaiting the spark. Oh – and combine this with the Swiss Central Bank unpegging the Swiss franc from the Euro. That effectively devalued that currency by 20% in one day. The EU is probably happy about that, in a way. Makes their exports cheaper. But those people that borrowed in Swiss francs now owe more than they did before – 20% more. Picture your mortgage payments increasing by 20%. Ouch.

In the meantime, back in the Middle East, things are getting really interesting between Congress here and Iran’s mullahs there. Congress is threatening additional sanctions if there’s no agreement by June. Iran’s mullahs – never happy with the idea of negotiating away their power base in the Middle East – are happy to see the talks collapse so they can go on spinning those centrifuges until uranium comes out. Then what? With the oil price drop hurting Iran as much as Russia, it’s hard to see that having an atomic weapon helps them very much. As we’ve discussed before, they can’t use it on their immediate enemies without killing themselves – to a large degree. So what’s the game here? When you’re a theocracy, you don’t have to make sense to anybody but the theocrat on the top. And it’s difficult to say what that old man wants. He’s tricky. On a slightly different front, John Boehner invited Bibi Netanyahu to speak to Congress in support of increasing sanctions against Iran. That’ll really cool things off, eh? Not only is it a slap at Obama, it’s a clear sign to the world that the U.S. government is woefully divided. Ouch x 2. So everything is happening as previously predicted, and we’re just awaiting the spark.

Then there’s Ukraine. Whatever peace accord existed before, it’s gone now. A bus was hit by a mortar (and regular arms fire, from the picture); men and materiél are flooding into eastern Ukraine from Russia and both sides are blaming each other. An unsettled, jingoistic Russia is a really dangerous place. The Russian finance minister went to Davos saying that Russia will never ‘give up Putin to the west’, meaning he will have support from the masses. Some pundits think the renewed fighting in eastern Ukraine is in reaction to Obama’s State of the Union speech, describing Russia’s economy as being ‘in tatters’. Maybe so, maybe not. But support from the masses is irrelevant in the oligarchy we call Russia – as it’s been throughout Russian history. This time, when the really rich guys get together, I predict that Putin will quietly be retired to his castle and someone else will take his place – someone interested in making peace with the west. But how long will that take, and how much damage will be done in the meantime? The finance minister says two years – I find it hard to believe they can last that long, with the price of oil at its current level of less than $50/barrel. And in the meantime, could Putin decide to push all his chips in the middle of the table, and attack a NATO country? Possibly. So everything is happening as recently predicted, and we’re just awaiting the spark.

Spark, spark, spark. Where will it ignite, and what will be the result? That is the question. This altogether feels like the 1930’s, leading up to WW II. So maybe these are the 2010’s, leading up to WW III. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised by that at all.

POSTSCRIPT: That last picture came from a Youtube video that says the Federal Reserve is to blame for all the disastrous wars and policy decisions made by America since the early 70’s. It is a classic case of connecting facts with faulty reasoning. I am confident that a world conflagration is in the offing if stupidity continues to be practiced in key parts of the world. But when it occurs, it certainly will not be as a function of anything Janet Yellen or Ben Bernanke or Paul Volcker decided to do when they ran the Fed. That’s Tea Party thinking, and it’s wrong. So don’t believe any of their baloney. Why? Because I said so. And because it’s just stupid. If you want to blame anybody – or trace any dastardly behavior back to any one individual – good luck. It just don’t work that way now. As I’ve written before, we have a severe shortage of really bad guys these days. No Hitlers, Stalins or Kaiser Bills to hold up and hate. But a picture of Janet Yellen as target practice? Oh puhlease. Nope. As alluded to above, a third world war will start with a spark. Like Gavrilo Prinzip ignited to start WW I. Like Hitler ignited when he couldn’t be happy with just Austria, Czechoslovakia and the Sudetenland. He just had to have Poland too. Like the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Like the attack on Ft. Sumter. Like Lexington and Concord. Which spark will do it this time? Time will tell…time will tell.

Hell is truth seen too late

Thomas Hobbes
Leviathan

Let’s talk about things economic this morning. The European Union has finally figured out that they should have done Quantitative Easing about, oh 8 years ago. Now that the horse left the barn, traveled to the neighbor’s garden and ate all the daffodils, then went to the pond and drowned, they’re finally shutting the barn door. Figuratively speaking. Let me ‘splain.

The EU has been caught in what is usually called a “Japanese-style” deflation for the past 8 years. It’s called “Japanese-style” because the Japanese have been in deflation for 20+ years. OK, so is that so bad? Not if you’re old and retired. Because if things get cheaper over time, your social security goes a lot farther than if prices increase. But what if you’re young and looking for a job? Trying to earn enough to have a family? Cheap prices don’t help if you don’t have sufficient income to buy things. So deflation hurts the young. And let’s be frank: the world is at war with workers. If employers can get by with fewer workers, they will. If they can deprive people of benefits, they will. The worker today is truly an oppressed individual. Kind of like during the 1930’s.

Since the world’s demographics have been aging, it kind of makes sense that many countries would find a comfort zone in deflation. But it’s a dangerous thing. Growth is the key phrase here, and deflation means negative growth. Negative growth means unemployment or at the very least, underemployment for the younger generation. Unemployment for the younger generation has historically led to unrest. The most recent examples of this can be found in the Middle East, with the so-called Arab Spring. As previously discussed, the A.S. didn’t work out too well for those young folks. Nothing changed, and a lot of them died trying to send their elders a clear message about the perils of too many young people with nothing to do.

So now the EU is going to buy unlimited quantities of European bonds of all kinds, trying to inject money into a system that has had austerity as its byword for the past 8 years. Will it fix the problem? Likely not, according to Larry Summers, the really smart guy that coined the phrase secular stagnation. Will it hurt? Likely not, but what’s the point of doing it now? Because they never could agree on a tonic for their economic ills before. Now they are faced with increasing unrest and the potential for some nasty governments to get elected. Sunday will be Greece’s election, and the bookie money is on Syriza to win. Syriza is running on a platform of reneging on the debt to the EU. Maybe. Or maybe it’s just politics as usual, pandering to the mob until you get elected, and then finding the middle again. It is a dangerous game that adds fuel to the fire of revolution. And as we know from history, it just takes a spark and then all those simmering ills under the surface boil over and violence ensues. Gonna happen…sooner or later.

So what to do? Ah, that is the question. At this point, each country is just worried about its own. Larry is concerned the Federal Reserve in the U.S. will tighten too soon, posing a threat to the incipient recovery in America. Well, Larry, you’re probably right, but since Janet Yellen, the Chair of the Fed is a smart lady, she will likely try to stave off this notion about raising interest rates. Why is it a bad idea? Because raising interest rates means dollars will flood into the U.S. from other countries. Why? Because countries like Sweden and Switzerland have negative interest rates. Yes, negative. You put a dollar into your savings account, and when you take it out a year later, you get $0.90. Even an 11 year old could figure out that’s not a good idea. So money from overseas will flood into the U.S., strengthening the dollar even more. The dollar is already on an upward trajectory, because of the difficulties in Europe, and in particular Russia’s challenges with depressed oil prices. A stronger dollar hurts exports, because it takes more of the foreign currency to buy those American products. That portion of the U.S. economy, currently growing, will suffer. In other words, it will hurt economic growth. And right now, the U.S. is likely the only country in the world with positive growth. Even China, which often doesn’t share all their economic data, may be experiencing deflation. It’s a highly contagious disease – like the measles currently making the rounds in California.

Here’s what I think: it’s really too late to do much of anything. The world machine has to crank through all this, waiting for the spark that generates a broad conflict. And when that broad conflict occurs, what happens? Governments run deficits to manufacture arms, and economic growth benefits. Lots of people die, but hey: at least the economy gets back on its feet. Isn’t it a pity we aren’t smarter than this?

January is always an interesting month. First – it’s my birth month, so Happy Birthday to me in 9 days. I’ll be 65, so hello Medicare! I bought the best insurance policy there is – a full supplement to Medicare. No copays, no hassle with paying for what Medicare doesn’t. So that’s all good.

Now let’s talk about the rest of the world. What’s the big news there? Well, let’s start with what’s happened to the price of a barrel of oil. Remember a few months ago when it was over $100 per? Now it officially went below $50 yesterday. Picture a 50% reduction in the price of the only commodity you have to sell. Who’s in that boat? Lots of folks, but I’ll name three: Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Russia.

Not much point in talking about the Saudis today. IS is gunnin’ for them, so eventually that’ll be a hot topic. Venezuela will eventually have either a military coup and a right wing government, or eventually just elect a right wing government. They can’t seem to find middle ground. So that leaves the Russian bear. And our favorite guy to hate: Vlad the Impaler.

Vlad is having some difficulties these days. The drop in the price of oil has led to a significant drop in the value of the Russian ruble. In October, it was 35 rubles to the dollar. This morning, it takes 61 rubles to purchase a dollar. Obviously the reason is that the one export Russia possesses – oil – has decreased in value by half. This has put a very large hole in the Russian economy, pushing it into recession. Well, the Russians are a long-suffering people anyway. So what’s the big deal? The big deal is the rise of the oligarchs since Putin’s predecessor times 2, the drunk named Yeltsin.

Russia is now ruled by oligarchs who have a lot more to lose than the average Russian babushka. They own companies that have control of nearly every segment of the Russian economy. But if they’re not Gazprom, the Russian oil company, what’s the big deal? Debt. Lots of debt. And it’s debt denominated in dollars, not rubles. Oh – and one more thing – remember those sanctions, imposed by the EU and the US when Vlad got carried away and snatched Crimea? That means those debt-ridden oligarchs can’t roll over that debt, because sanctions forbid lending to them. They must rely on the Russian government to give them the money to pay the banks they owe money to. But the Russian government needs all its cash to buy rubles, shoring up the value of the currency. And they have to buy rubles with their foreign reserve dollars. At some point, they’re likely to run out. Seems like a very unhealthy situation for everybody in the icy empire, yes? You betcha. So this one’s a wait & watch. Could get interesting.

Then there’s the EU. Greece will have elections on January 25th, and the leading party is called Syriza. They’re neo-Commie and playing chicken with the EU poohbahs, threatening to leave the union if their onerous debt conditions aren’t eased. Who will blink first? We’ll have to wait & watch that one too.

Then there’s the Republicans taking over the government today. They will begrudgingly re-elect Boehner to be their speaker (who’d want that job anyway?) and then move on to try to put forth legislation to get the Keystone pipeline going and kill Obamacare. But it’s standard thinking that they won’t be able to do either. Then what? Internal squabbling, and trying to figure out who they will support to go after the presidency in ’16. Current front runner? As previously predicted by – yes, yours truly, Jeb Bush. Can he win? You betcha. Will Hillary run? I say nay. So what will happen? Ah – too soon to tell.

So the month of January, 2015, is officially dubbed ‘takeover month’. The Greeks will be taken over by Syriza, who will fight to leave the European Union. The Senate will be taken over by the Republicans, who will fight mostly with one another to decide who they want to be before the presidential primaries next year. And Russia will be taken over by fear of the west, whose sanctions combined with the huge drop in oil prices threaten the Putin regime. But I predict a change at the top won’t be in the offing. That would thrust the entire country into chaos. What will be more likely to occur is an attempt at rapproachement with the EU over Ukraine and Crimea. So the EU will be in a tough situation – battling their own members at the same time they’re trying to determine how to deal with their neighbors to the east. Should be really interesting.

The headline from this midmorning version of the NY Times:

U.S. AND CUBA, LONG ESTRANGED, WILL ESTABLISH FULL RELATIONS

Here’s a sentence or two from Matryoshka, my fiction about Cuba and virtual reality:

Cecilia muttered under her breath as she continued to search the web, “isn’t it about time to lift the embargo to Cuba, U.S. government? After all, it’s been fifty four years, and it certainly did not succeed in getting rid of Fidel.”

I think it, and it happens. If only I could apply that to the stock market or the track: I’d be a very wealthy woman.

But I also recall saying in one of these blog posts that I’d hoped Obama would use his last couple of years’ worth of ‘what the hell’ to remove the embargo. If that happens, it will be over Marco Rubio’s dead body. See – there’s lots of advantages to this effort!

It seems most appropriate that the right phrases should come from John McCain, Senator from Arizona, and former torturee at the hands of the North Vietnamese some 50 years ago. This is what he said yesterday, in response to the CIA Torture Report:

“I understand the reasons that governed the decision to resort to these interrogation methods, and I know that those who approved them and those who used them were dedicated to securing justice for the victims of terrorist attacks and to protecting Americans from further harm. … But I dispute wholeheartedly that it was right for them to use these methods, which this report makes clear were neither in the best interests of justice nor our security nor the ideals we have sacrificed so much blood and treasure to defend. We are always Americans, and different, stronger, and better than those who would destroy us.”

While I appreciate him giving those individuals the benefit of the doubt, I’m not sure all of them deserve the credit he bestows on them. Not everyone was dedicated to securing justice for the victims of terrorist attacks. Not all of them were interested in protecting Americans from further harm. Some of them were sadistic, venal cowards who took advantage of a troubled time to take advantage of powerless individuals, many of whom were only guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And a few perpetrators were handsomely rewarded financially – to the tune of $81 million. And an additional $1 million to pay for legal indemnification for their war crimes. War crimes. Say it again: war crimes.

All of the discussion that took place yesterday after the report’s release made me marvel at the capacity of many to rationalize egregiously inappropriate behavior. Did it work? Did it not? What difference does that make? Torture is torture is torture. Torture by any other euphemistic name is torture. When a society practices and condones torture, it is doomed to suffer the same fate someday, when somebody bigger and badder gets hold of them. History proves that repeatedly. Ask John McCain about that.

I want to believe we are a nation of people who do not condone that kind of behavior. As a nation, we should insist that the CIA as an institution be abolished. Yes, I said it: the CIA. Abolished. Eliminated. Done away with. That organization could just as easily go by the name KGB, Gestapo. Stasi, Pinochet regime, or any other organization that harbors individuals that take pleasure in watching others’ humiliation and degradation. We can live without it. And if we can’t, do you want to live in a world where you fear the car arriving in the night to take you somewhere you know from which you will likely not return?

But, you protest, that could never happen. We’re Americans – we’re different, stronger, and better than those who would destroy us. Tell that it the individuals who were repeatedly waterboarded. Tell that to the Iraqis in the Abu Ghraib prison with electrodes on their testicles and a hood over their head, a smirking Lyndie England giving the ‘thumbs up’ to their torture.

None of the facts in the report should be a surprise to anyone. Yet the overwhelming response yesterday was one of denial, justification and nit-picking to find some flaw in the report. That’s a sure indication that America has been brought low by a mass psychosis of rationalization. Living through this, one can begin to understand how the German people could embrace the actions taken by the Nazis prior to WW II. Obviously the scale is different, but maybe it isn’t, if you peg the comparison to, say Germany in 1937. Will we continue on this path? Or will a continued media focus on the actions of our institutions sufficiently disgust Americans that they say, “enough”? I’m not sure.

If Osama Bin Laden weren’t fish food, he’d likely be amazed and pleased with the effects of his and waterboarding-resistant 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed’s terrorist attack. Those two – with the help of the 19 hijackers, 80% of whom were Saudis, changed America from a beacon of opportunity and freedom to a virtual police state. The protests at Berkeley, New York City and Ferguson, Missouri, attest to that fact. It’s not too late to turn back. It all starts with one. Examine your conscience, and add your voice to the fray. Make change for the sake of real freedom: not the jingoistic phrases that led innocent boys to their deaths for some still-undefined reasons in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A lot still has to change, but I say it again: it all starts with one. If you truly believe in the principles for which American stands: one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for ALL, then join me in saying this: the CIA as an organization and an institution has to go.

It appears everybody’s figured out that one of my two pieces of advice were correct in my post-election post. You remember – the one about a new ‘CCC’ – to teach young people skills needed to work on improving the country’s infrastructure? Two eminent economists – Nouriel Rubini and Jeffrey Sachs – have picked up the infrastructure banner. Both are waving it wildly.

Jeffrey says spending money on infrastructure will signal to the private sector that it’s safe to go back in the water – i.e., safe to begin to invest in one’s business again. What he forgot to add is the need for stability and predictability from Congress, the courts and the executive branch. No surprises means more stable economy = business will begin to invest in themselves again.

Rubini’s latest missive says the central bankers of the world have done all they can to stimulate their respective economies. We need to forget the mistakes of the past (Germany and the EU) and move forward, spending money to invest in infrastructure that’s frankly worn out since we haven’t built anything new since the post-war decade or two.

Obviously I agree with both gentlemen, having espoused this philosophy fairly continuously since – well, since I’ve been blogging. But here’s the thing – isn’t there always a thing? The thing is, all our neighbors are beginning to play the beggar-thy-neighbor policies in earnest. Remember what that is? Each country is working hard to keep the value of their currency at lower & lower levels, relative to the almighty American $. This will, in turn, strengthen the dollar. And what happens when the dollar gets stronger, other than our exports get more expensive and therefore we sell less? More money comes to the U.S. from world-wide investors. This feeds money that goes into – what? Real estate and securities. So those prices go up. This is good for the American economy, right? Well, yes, correct – as long as we keep the lid on, and don’t let things get out of control. Like we did with Alan Greenspan at the helm of the Fed from 2001 to 2006, when the bubble economy nearly did us in – done in by people losing their jobs and not being able to maintain their debt load.

But all that said, all that money coming into the US doesn’t really add any jobs. Where do jobs come from these days? New jobs are being created in most of the sectors: retail, health care and the service sector, with a smaller quantity from manufacturing and construction. How can we boost employment in construction and manufacturing? OF COURSE! The government invests in infrastructure improvement.

But do we have the people needed to build roads, fix bridges, upgrade water plants? Probably not. Part of my original thinking was that we must – first and foremost – teach young people the skills they need to contribute to infrastructure improvement. Skills like carpentry, electrical, GIS and CAD skills. Bring back the Vo-Tec school in a big way…connect that education to a guaranteed job, and we’re off to the races. Not the Job Corps that taught outmoded skills because of lack of decent program funding – a new, modern program along the lines of what is happening in the for-profit sector. How about public/private partnerships between Middle & High Schools/Unions and Community College vocational programs? Now that’s a really good idea.

Kids grow up really fast these days – we can’t wait until they’re in the twenties to work with them. We actually should start in middle school, with internships and the like to encourage kids to go in this direction. What’s the alternative? That most hated group since the North Koreans – illegal immigrants. Hordes of ’em. Flooding across our very porous borders. They’ll do the welding, steel erection and laborer work. And they’ll do it for cheap, sending half their pay home to Mexico, Guatamala and other parts foreign. And won’t that just drive the Republicans nutso crazy? You betcha. So the bipartisan thing to do is fund some of these programs NOW, and avoid the labor shortages that surely will accompany the letting of these contracts. It’s really very simple, now isn’t it?

This morning’s Op-Ed from Frank Luntz, my favor Republication (yes, gentle readers, Republican) pollster articulates what I believe is the current situation. Here’s a couple of paragraphs from his piece:

“In many races that went from blue to red, Republican success was hardly because of what the G.O.P. has achieved on Capitol Hill. In fact, if Americans could speak with one collective voice — all 310 million of them — this is what they said Tuesday night: “Washington doesn’t listen, Washington doesn’t lead and Washington doesn’t deliver.” Purple states tossed out their Democratic senators for being too close to Washington and too far from the people who put them there.

The current narrative, that this election was a rejection of President Obama, misses the mark. So does the idea that it was a mandate for an extreme conservative agenda. According to a survey my firm fielded on election night for the political-advocacy organization Each American Dream, it was more important that a candidate “shake up and change the way Washington operates.”

Frank is a very shrewd man, and – contrary to the norm for those with the Y chromosome – he has the capacity to listen. Here’s another cogent paragraph:

“They voted out those who promised to do more in favor of those who said they would do less, but do it better. That’s why the Democratic candidates for governor who condemned their opponents for spending too little on education, transportation and programs for the poor and unemployed still lost. The results were less about the size of government than about making government efficient, effective and accountable. Our election night survey showed that 42 percent chose their Senate candidate because they hated the opponent more. One pre-election poll had over 70 percent willing to throw everyone out and start fresh.”

The majority of Americans would discard everybody and start over – but start over with what? Ah, there’s the rub. What can 70% of us agree needs to change? Frank has some thoughts on that; unfortunately, most of them have been said before but appear to be unattainable. But here’s one I particularly liked:

“…stop blustering and fighting. Americans despair of the pointless posturing, empty promises and bad policies that result. Show that you are more concerned with people than politics. Don’t be afraid to work with your opponents if it means achieving real results. Democrats and Republicans disagree on a lot, but there are also opportunities of real national importance…”

What are opportunities of real national importance? It’s easier to say what they are not. Depriving women of reproductive rights are not opportunities of national importance. Repealing Obamacare or passing new legislation depriving gays of their recently-earned rights are not either. What do I believe are opportunities of national importance? That’s really easy. Here’s my top two, with a sufficient detail to get things started.

DEMOLISH THE CURRENT VETERAN’S ADMINISTRATION ORGANIZATION AND BUILD A COMPLETELY NEW ONE.

I take a cue here from that man whose name I no longer speak, Bean Ball Billy. Back in the day, he realized his Oakland Team was never going to make the playoffs because of all the reasons you know about from watching Moneyball. The VA needs to start over again, with a new perspective, new players (remember the new guy that came from the private sector and was supposed to fix everything? Yeah, well, you don’t even remember his name, right?) We need a sabermetric system for analyzing the veteran’s equivalent of the game of baseball – ensuring EVERY veteran has what he or she needs to survive and thrive. Fund research in TBIs and PTSD with money well spent because you’ve used analysis to figure out the greatest likelihood of ‘getting on base’ with that research. Find every veteran and put them into an effective database. Let each one have a personal representative – hell, I’ll volunteer to help with that. And here’s the big one: MAKE SURE THEY ARE NEVER SENT INTO HARM’S WAY FOR POLITICS, NOT NATIONAL SECURITY. Shame on you, G.W. Bush for succumbing to the Cheney (devil) song of the sirens.

DEVELOP A NEW CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS AND PUT YOUNG PEOPLE AGES 18 TO 22 TO WORK.

Unemployment has gone down in this country because people adjusted to unemployment and dropped off the roles. We have stagnation in that age group, and they aren’t leaving home because they are now used to being useless. Yes, I know, we’re not in as bad a shape as Europe, but that’s not the point – if we do it, maybe they’ll see it succeed and do it too. The CCC built a lot of the facilities at our national parks. Let’s do that again, but on a state level. Teach them drafting and GIS basic skills so they can help develop plans to improve infrastructure: roads, bridges, piers and waterworks. Those that show promise – give them the money to pay for college – don’t LOAN it to them, give them the money to pursue higher education. And for grief’s sake, please don’t ever use the phrase ‘shovel ready’ again. That makes me want to hit you, and you don’t want me to do that, do you?

Remember the mice narrators from Babe, introducing the segment with “A Tragic Day”? That surely fits with yesterday’s election results.

But I take heart – in a weird sort of way – from the fact that the Republicans will not get any more done in the next two years than they have in the past six. The party of “No” is about to become the party of “We tried, but couldn’t because THEY stood in the way”. But 2016 will be another story. They will win the White House, and have unfettered access to legislating and getting their stuff through. And what will their ‘stuff’ look like?

Anti: immigrant/hispanic/female/black/Muslim/poor/rational/anything ‘he’ (Barry O) likes

Pro: prevarication/business/Koch brothers/more prevarication (that means lying)/anything ‘he’ doesn’t like

I think about leaving the country more and more. But where to go? Canada and northern Europe are too cold; central America is too unstable and dangerous. I think – just to confirm everyone’s belief that I’m a pinko commie, I’ll move to Cuba before the embargo is lifted and enjoy the good life that my social security dollars will bring. I wonder if that’s possible? Think I’ll check it out.
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Carol Anne: They’re here.

Tangina: …Carol Anne must help them cross over, and she will only hear her mother’s voice. Now hold on to yourselves… There’s one more thing. A terrible presence is in there with her. So much rage, so much betrayal, I’ve never sensed anything like it. I don’t know what hovers over this house, but it was strong enough to punch a hole into this world and take your daughter away from you. It keeps Carol Anne very close to it and away from the spectral light. It LIES to her, it tells her things only a child could understand. It has been using her to restrain the others. To her, it simply IS another child. To us, it is the BEAST. Now, let’s go get your daughter.