Hi Jay,
Re: In the mad dash to revert to local politics, as all politics are local, I fear America will dispense with international leadership goals, objectives, aims, and such,
I sincerely hope so. America's erstwhile "leadership" has resulted in 25 years of murderous chaos in Afghanistan, starting with an entirely cynical taunting of the Soviets in the mid 1970's. Zbigniew Brzezinski is so corrupted by his greed and grasping that he simply fails to comprehend how utterly immoral he is:
BRZEZINSKI OUTED: Imperialism's quiet player from the Carter team is written up in a couple of intriguing items here:
fair.org
Amazing and brutal honesty about our gamesmanship in Afghanistan from 1978 on, Le Nouvel Observateur interview:
LNO: When the Soviets justified their intervention (in 1979) by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?
BRZEZINSKI: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.…
LNO: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
BRZEZINSKI: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war? <Continues.....>
208.187.163.46
"On August 1, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline Company (BTC Co.) was founded to construct and operate the long awaited pipeline that will bring oil from the Caspian oil fields of Azerbaijan to the Mediterranean Sea." Brzezinski is on the Board of Directors.....
*********************
Re: In such an eventuality, as all business is global and all finance is international,
Nonsense, a small percentage of almost every nation's GDP is based on foreign trade, with a very few exceptions like Hong Kong, Singapore and other anomalous trade centers. You've been drinking the corporate schemers "globalization is good" Kool-Aid. Globalization offers relatively few benefits to the vast bulk of humanity. It's a system that is designed by amoral corporations for their own narrow and small-minded interests. The result of globalization is devastation to local communities, such as has been dramatically and humorously described by Michael Moore, talking about the abandonment of Flint, Michigan by General Motors.
With the corporatists seeing the U.S. as a dump for the world's manufacturing output, the U.S. is hollowed out, communities can't afford to pay their local taxes to keep up with infrastructure needs, debt grows and corporatists can not only enslave huge new pools of labor in China and other low wage locales, but also enslaves OECD citizens to debt burdens. It's a swell racket. But it is anathema to civil society and community health. Globalization is wrong-headed because its goals are too narrow for the bulk of humanity and is causing a cascading parade of unintended and unfortunate consequences.
*************************
Re: Perhaps I need to buy more gold,
Can I interest you in some Bre-X shares? Excellent prospects. Guaranteed!
You would do better with N. American Nat Gas (NA-NG)futures:
Message 17980291
This is an interesting development, if one happens to be following rig rates, Hubbert's Peak theorization in NA-NG,
and weather speculation. We're going to have a crisis in NG. The only unanswered question is..... "when?"
There's no shortage of Au, and with the central banks inventory situation, there's scant evidence that any shortage could possibly develop. Better to speculate on the pinch-points of an economy, eh?
Cheerio! Ray |
