The Dearing Dialogue

Here we are, another blog.  Like a piece of clothing that excites the hell out of you when you buy it, you wear it once and it seemingly loses about 90% of its value.  Well, blogs can only be that way if there not kept up-to-date.  This one will provide me a bit more independence than the others have and so here we go.  Enjoy, I know I will!

It looks like he is throwing his hat in the ring of the Malawian presidency one more time.  How will he fair?  That depends if he can rally the support of both the public and his own party members.  Presently as UDF (United Democratic Front) party chairman, he is being defied by his own allies. 

See:  UDF MPs defy Muluzis Instructions

He has a close group of powerful colleagues that may be able to provide the support he needs to lynchpin his way into a successful campaign.  Key to his success are members of parliament.  If they rally behind him, it will be for their own survival.   Muluzi is likely to play the dirty game of ethnic politics in order to rally groups towards his favor.  Hopefully its stays relatively clean, given the growing division caused by years of rough and tumble politics and a glut of self-interested politicians. 

President Bingu wa Mutharika on the other hand has the support of international organizations and governments.  These are likely to aid him in a re-election campaign.  If he’s smart, he’ll stay out of the ethnic game and carry on with his ministry against corruption.  His hands will likely get dirty looking for mud to sling on Muluzi, but that shouldn’t be too hard to find given Muluzi’s tainted years in office.

Why sub-prime mortgages may have impact on the whole economy

Exactly how far could this cotagion go?  I suspect it has alot to do with expectations.  Right now, the public can not stop talking about the sub-prime mortage fiasco, which I think should have been picked apart a long time ago.  This “adjustment” is long overdue.  Maybe society is just coming to that realization and going overboard, however, the Fed is remaining extremely calm.  Tomorrow will tell us a lot on just how calm they are.  If they raise interest rates, its likely to fight inflation and likely to create even a greater and quicker demise to borrowers and lenders in the sub-prime market.  This can have a ripple effect over the next few months on consumer spending in the economy.  Given the fact that much of the spending over the last 5 years has been fueled by home equity loans, a rise in interest rates will likely curtail the behavior of home owners to spend - thus shrinking the prime mover of our economy, asset allocation. 

The Global Urban Real Estate Boom

With the end of ARMs, Interest Only Loans, and other conveniant gimmicks thought up by unregulated mortgage brokers, borrowers will be forced to put down anywhere from 5 - 20% on loans for new homes.  But how many in our debt-laden economy are going to be able to come up with 20k or 40k on a 400k home?  The inevitable conclusion is a decline in home prices.

Now the other option for Chairman Bernanke is to lower interest rates in order to spur consumer spending.  But that will tank the US dollar and only make a bad, inevitable conclusion, much worse.

It’s gonna be a wild ride down!

Evraz, the coal mining company in Russia that just suffered a disaster of 106 deaths and is facing criminal charges of negligence, is taking over Oregon Steel Mills in Oregon and Colorado.  It’s been cleared by US regulators according to the Russia Journal

Evraz was also penalized for water pollution, poisoning the drinking water of the City of Novokuznetsk in Russia. 

Do we really want this company doing business here?

One area of the current global war on terror I’m finding intriguing is a rather unfamiliar but controversial idea of exploiting culture in order to achieve desired results.  This is not necessarily something new.  In fact, unconvential and even conventional wars have in some way used culture as a “weapon”.  The best modern example of this is the Abu Ghraib method of torture where inmates were subjected to sexual activities they found unacceptable in their Islamic culture.  This was used as a means to coerce inmates to give in to interrogation by breaking their will to resist.  An article I recently read: Anthropology in the Military  provided a brief history on culture as a weapon and argued for a more active involvment of anthropologists in the service of the state.  Of course, this runs contrary to the anthropologists moral creed against using the culture of another people.  Such an action by your typical academic anthropologist would not only break the bond of trust between the studied culture and the academic, but also prevent future academics from regaining the trust of other cultures.  One can see the dilemma for both researcher and state operative.  While the lack of cultural understanding has certainly prevented the US from gaining lasting political compromises, the exploitation of it could equally undermine such political gains.  A balance is needed.

This year the US military may have found a way to bypass the anthropologist dilemma by creating its own source of cultural intelligence gatherers, otherwise known as Human Terrain Teams (HTT).  They are 5 man teams whose mission will consist of collecting cultural, ethnographic data on specific geographical regions in the Middle East.  What will be done with this data presents an important question.  Another look at the Human Terrain System

Corruption is nothing to be surprised about.  Whether it is corporate or political elites in the West, Russian oligarchs in the East, or third-world dictators in the South - matters very little.  But Paul Wolfowitz holds the position of President of the World Bank, an institution that governs the economic and some would say, social policies of the developing world.  If any country, such as Malawi, wants a loan, certain conditionalities are typically placed on that country in order to secure the funds.  That may incluce instituting stronger goveranance laws within the country’s poltiical economic establishment, or opening up business to outside corporate interests, or floating a currency to hostile market forces.  The stigma placed on the developing world after the fall of colonialism and the rise of dictatorships and their ensuing wave of corruption is something one is constantly reminded of when pondering why a country has not developed.  We are quick to blame corruption amongst the ruling elite and a protected civil service class.  While true, it can not be outweighed over the obvious corruption reigning in from the developed world, that is well practiced at pillfering all it can from the developing world. 

Paul Wolfowitz holds a position that must stand for integrity.  Giving salary raises to girlfriends or spouses is something we typically condemn in Africa.  If the developing world is too believe in the ideology of the World Bank, namely a free market, it must see justice carried out.  Paul Wolfowitz must resign while he can, otherwise I believe it is just and acceptable to terminate him immediately.

In credit to the World Bank’s development committee, they released a statement condeming Wolfowitz and calling for immediate action:

“We have to ensure that the bank can effectively carry out its mandate and maintain its credibility and reputation as well as the motivation of its staff. The current situation is of great concern to all of us.”

See more at: The Guardian

This tragedy at Virginia Tech is being corrupted by the mastermind murderer himself, Mr. Cho, who was smart enough to realize how easily the media could be bought.  His face has been splashed on every commercial news outlet throughout the day, giving him effectively the monument he so desired.  The media does not seem to care what impact this will have on other copycat kids who are ready to pop.  What’s worse, NPR’s Marketplace reported the sale of advertisement on internet space was up significantly for search items such as “Virginia Tech shooting”.  Yes, there is opportunity in tragedy, but that is just downright spineless.

It’s good to see Mr. Bush preassuring Sudan in light of the recent NY Times article on weapons shipments to the Darfur region.  The al-Bashir regime has been sending shipments of arms under the cover of a fake UN airplane (painted over) to fuel the genocide in Darfur.  Hopefully these are not vain warnings.  But what is really needed is not only US leadership, but a UN peacekeeping force, led by NATO or a European nation willing to take responsibilty.  If it was so easy to build a coalition against Iraq, it should be much easier to do so with Sudan, especially given the moral justifications.

So says Senator Harry Reid, as quoted by the NY Times.  I agree with him.  Of course, it was lost years ago when we failed to take account of thousands of years of history and culture.  It is not an indictment on our servicemen and women who spill blood everyday, rather one on the incompent administration in Washington.  Dwelling on this matter is of little consequence.  What will come about with a collapsed state of Iraq?  That is more important. 

• A clash of cultures.  Shia and Sunnis will battle it out in the streets.  It does not help that both sides are funded by outside sources.  The Sunnis by America, Saudia Arabia, and Pakistan.  The Shia by Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah in Lebanon.  Iraq is thus a proxy war, much like Vietnam was between the Americans and Soviets.
• The inevitable rise of an Islamic state.  No matter which side wins out the bloodfest, an Islamic state will materialize.  That is what any democratic vote would bring today or any long-fought battle.  With Shiia representing the majority (60%) in Iraq, and making up the vast majority in Iran - the dawning of a Shiia empire has already shown its light.
• The Fall of Saudi Arabia.  The Saudi regime has called for the war in Iraq since the 90s since it provides their Wahhabi extremists an outlet.  The regime is corrupt to the bone and every Saudi outside the regime knows it and despises it.  A Shiia Iraq will likely bring strength to the Shiia minority in Saudi Arabia.  All of those weapons the Saud family purchases from Boeing for its personal protection would not likely stop an all out rebellion. 
• Worldwide Recession.  Robert Baer in the first chapter of Sleeping with the Devil  paints a picture of a virtual plug to the oil spigots if the Al Jubayl oil field were taken out.  A rebellion in Saudi Arabia would send oil prices through the roof and cut-off supplies to world markets in a way that would send us into one of the deepest recessions we’d ever see.  The US economy thrives due to a constant and steady flow of Saudi crude.  If that were suddenly stopped due to instability in Saudi Arabia, I can only imagine what would happen.

Of course all of this could have been prevented if Americans actually paid more attention and were more active in the administration of their government.  Instead we were governed by fear, and like sheep, led over the cliff.