John Howard's Next Big Gig?

I was checking out Prof Q's earliest blog posts when I noticed this one from June 24, 2002 (only his fifth blog post ever), about the (ahem) International Democratic Union, to which John Howard had recently been elected President (taking over from William Hague).

It was a fairly big story back then. Bush introduced Howard at a gala White House dinner, with defiant pre-Iraq War language:

We face cold-blooded killers that hate the freedoms we cherish. And with the spread of chemical and biological and nuclear weapons, along with ballistic missile technology, freedom's enemies could attain catastrophic power. And there's no doubt that they would use that power to attack us and to attack the values we uphold.

It is our commitment to freedom and human dignity and the strong belief that each individual matters that sets our enemies against us and draws our friends together in a great coalition of liberty. We will oppose the new totalitarians with all our power. We will hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice.

And we must never hate -- hesitate to speak for what we believe.

Even Clarke and Dawe covered the International Democratic Union story:

JOHN HOWARD: Actually, it's not a union.

I'll have that changed.

It really should be the international democratic enterprise or something.

INTERVIEWER: Right.

What does it do?

JOHN HOWARD: It does whatever America -

INTERVIEWER: Beg your pardon?

JOHN HOWARD: Good question, Brian.

So here's the latest news from the IDU:

IDU Chairman John Howard will chair the next meeting of the IDU Executive, to be held in Sydney on 21 April.

I wonder if Howard will be handing over the reins to a new chairman? And if so, who would want the job? Sarkozy? Rumsfeld? Nelson?

Not A Good Time To Be A Friend Of China

Crikey! takes a closer look at Rudd's links with AustChina:

Rudd’s oft-proclaimed Sinophilia means he must have strong connections with a brutal dictatorship that, as events in Tibet are currently demonstrating, savagely suppresses dissent and imprisons and executes its opponents. China’s role in Darfur has been heavily criticised. And there are also rumours that AustChina has links with the Sudanese military -- categorically denied by an AustChina spokesman this morning. AustChina has denied having any commercial role in Sudan. However, Q-Mac International, a West Australian based firm and an affiliate of AustChina, sold high-frequenecy radios to the Sudanese army in 2003, according to reports from Amnesty International.

This has a way to go yet.

Enough Already With The "War" Metaphors!

The Minister for Resources and Energy, Martin Ferguson, says the challenge of securing global energy supplies is "the new Cold War". I think that is a terrible way to look at the problem. It assumes there are finite energy resources available and no option but war as a means of sharing them out.

Ironically, just a few hours after Ferguson's comments, the ACT Government announced that it is investigating a proposal to build a solar power station in Canberra.

Looking For Someone To Blame?

Roland Arnall was the founder of a "pioneer" US subprime mortgage company called Ameriquest. Bush nominated Arnall as the US Ambassador to the Hague in 2005, but his confirmation was delayed until Ameriquest agreed to a $325 million out-of-court settlement of predatory lending investigations.

Ameriquest went bust last year. Roland Arnall, who started out selling flowers on L.A. street corners, just died with $1.5 billion in the bank.

Maybe Bush should tap into that dirty money next time he wants a rescue package for the Street.

And maybe the next US Ambassador to the Hague should start preparing the dock for a disgraced US President.

How Did It Come To This?

Michael West says the Fed's cred is on the line:

It has about $US800 billion in greenbacks outstanding - against its $US800 billion in treasuries. It is not open to them to print another $US400 billion in greenbacks without seriously letting inflation go. Do that and there is no monetary credibility left. They have no choice but to lend treasuries...

The dilemma runs like this. If the Fed runs out of treasuries, the system is in dire straits. The Fed could print money but inflation would spiral out of control. Another possibility - the one everyone is hoping for - is that we are near the bottom and things recover. Or, as some are mooting, the US Congress could get involved and effectively buy mortgages by issuing more treasuries.

Nelson's Five Point Plan

Behold Teh Vision!

1. Survive the next six months.

2. Survive the next six months.

3. Survive the next six months.

4. Survive the next six months.

5. Survive the next six months.

Bailing Out The Bastards

Brad DeLong asks whether the Bear Sterns executives jumped or were pushed. Josh Marshall suggests it could be a case of "the little-known 'sell your $%&#& company for what we say or it's off to Gitmo' law being invoked".

Paul Krugman offers a solution:

"Looking ahead, we probably need something similar to the Resolution Trust Corporation, which took over bankrupt savings and loan institutions and sold off their assets to reimburse taxpayers."

Err, maybe not:

According to Joseph E. Stiglitz in his book, Towards a New Paradigm in Monetary Economics, page 243, the real reason behind the need of this company was to allow the United States government to subsidize the banking sector in a way that wasn't very transparent and therefore avoid the possible resistance.

It's a pity that media giants like NYT don't have a bit more credibility at a time like this, isn't it?

A Plan To End The War

US bloggers like Atrios and Digby are throwing their weight behind a new plan to end the war in Iraq. The plan addresses two important questions:

1. How do we bring American military engagement in Iraq to a responsible end?

2. How do we prevent a repeat of the mistakes we've made?

Sounds good to me. You can download the full plan PDF here.

Clinton says "we cannot win" Iraq war

No shit:

She said the war has sapped U.S. military and economic strength, damaged U.S. national security, taken the lives of nearly 4,000 Americans and left thousands wounded.

"Our economic security is at stake," she said. "Taking into consideration the long-term costs of replacing equipment and providing medical care for troops and survivors' benefits for their families, the war in Iraq could ultimately cost well over $1 trillion."

But is she saying the USA cannot win because it's costing too much? And would that change if the economy suddenly picked up? Dick Cheney's in Baghdad nailing down them oil deals, ya know...

Media Ignores Winter Soldier Hearings

TPM's Spencer Ackerman was there:

Soldiers and Marines said that they routinely carried "drop weapons" to plant on the bodies of dead Iraqi civilians to cover up accidental deaths. They said that their chains of command encouraged brutality and falsified casualty statistics. They showed video from 2006 showing off-camera Marines firing for a solid minute on the minaret of an Anbar Province mosque, which is, if unprovoked (as the Marine who provided the footage said), a war crime. They talked about how used they felt as bodyguards for unaccountable contractors who used the war to line their pockets.

The Washington Post sent a single reporter, then buried the story in the local "Metro" lifestyles section of the paper.

The New York Times ran nothing. The Los Angeles Times ran nothing. CNN ran nothing. MSNBC ran -- you get the idea....

NB: Rupert Murdoch wants you to know that the USA is a great democracy and we Aussies should try to be more like them. Oh, and Obama has a "year-round suntan".

Hard To Get A Hard-on For Obama

Sometimes I think it would be, you know, kind of neat if Obama took control of the White House. But then I read stories like this and this and realise it is never going to happen.

And even if it does, it won't matter because he is sucking up to The Establishment.

And even if he isn't, they will kill him.

The Barnabyjoyce Party

I can't understand why Nelson won't support it.

Teh Credibility

Would someone please tell Gerard Henderson that fools like himself and Piers Akerman, who are consistently wrong about everything, have no right to dictate what should and should not be newsworthy.

With Great Power Goes Zero Responsibility

The slow motion train wreck on Wall Street continues to unfold:

Ben Bernanke, by definition the most powerful central banker in the world, has looked increasingly powerless in the face of the onslaught being wrought on the US financial system.

He's cut the federal funds rate from 5.25 per cent to 3 per cent in the past few months. He's slashed the discount rate penalty from 0.75 percentage points to 0.25 percentage points. He's pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into the banking system, including $US200 billion midway through last week. And still the carnage continues.

Now there is talk of another massive rate cut tonight, by a full percentage point, and perhaps even buying the dud real estate-based securities that caused the subprime crisis in the first place.

Nice to see the meejah covering this angle:

An argument has erupted as to whether Bernanke should stop right there and let the pain work its way through the market. These cowboys created the problem. Why should they be bailed out? Is it really the central bank's role to make life easy for high-flying financiers who pay themselves handsomely in the good times but rely on the public purse to cover their profligacy?

Hundreds of Bear Stearns employees were paid multi-million-dollar bonuses last year for selling subprime debt, credit card debt and private equity debt. No one has asked them to repay the cash.

The conventional wisdom is that the whole global financial network is so inter-related that it would have been irresponsible to let B.S. collapse. But in fact it was irresponsible to ever let things get to this B.S. stage. So who is going to be held accountable? Why isn't Alan Greenspan in jail yet?

China Plays Hardball

We wouldn't let the Chinese government buy our big mining companies, so now they won't let our big mining companies sell iron ore into the lucrative Chinese daily spot market:

The conflict threatens to escalate into a diplomatic row. BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto are urging Kevin Rudd to intervene when he arrives in Beijing for his first prime ministerial visit next month.

The visit is looming as a stiff test of Mr Rudd's foreign policy finesse. He will also be expected to explain his views on surging Chinese investment in Australia and the bloody conflict in Tibet - while cementing ties with China's leaders.

The real battle here is a money game between Beijing and Big Business:

The boycott appears aimed at stopping BHP and Rio from selling ore on the daily spot market at roughly double the long-term contract price.

Rudd is just a minor player.

Catfight!

Liberal MP George Brandis rips Lord Downer:

"People who served in the previous government, who have indicated their intention to leave the Parliament, one might think perhaps they've had their time. It's not their role now to try and constrain, or stifle new voices who want to reassess the Liberal Party's future."

Brandis is of course the man who called John Howard a lying rodent, then lied about ever having said that. But that's all in the past, and the New Liberals are desperate to talk about the future.

And so they battle on, like boats against the current...

Double Figures! Whoo Hoo!

Feel the Nelsonmentum!

UPDATE: Teh expert analysis from Sham-I-am:

"He might be bumping along the bottom but he’s looking up."

The Definition Of Success

Cheney declares Iraq "a successful endeavour":

Shortly after Cheney spoke, a woman wearing a suicide vest blew herself up in a cafe in the southern holy Shi'ite city of Kerbala, killing 40 people and wounding 71, police and health officials said.

Bombs in Baghdad killed four and wounded 13.

Cheney promised that the USA will stay in Iraq forever. Seventy percent of Iraqis still want the USA to leave.

In a new report titled Carnage and Despair, Amnesty International points out that forty three percent of Iraqis are living on less than $1 a day, there are worms in the drinking water, women and girls live in constant danger of abduction, rape or killing, tens of thousands are still detained without charge or trial, the death penalty is applied haphazardly, there is a lack of food, shelter, water, sanitation, education, healthcare and employment.

Child malnutrition rates have increased from 19 percent during the period from 1991-2003, when international sanctions were imposed on the country under Saddam Hussein, to 28 percent in 2007.

Success, I tells ya...

Media Complicity

Arthur Silber takes apart the New York Times experts' commentary on Iraq:

Behold the wisdom of the ruling class, now increased by benefit of the deaths of more than a million innocent people: the next time the United States wages a war of aggression, the next time the United States violates the Nuremberg Principles, the next time the United States installs a brutally cruel colonial occupation force -- do it efficiently...

Commit your crimes against humanity -- but do it neatly, and without unnecessary fuss and bother. Don't leave guts and pieces of brain splattered across the pavement, or over the sand. Be sure to clean up all the blood stains.

Our government is a government of monsters, advised by "experts" who are monsters.

If the United States should suffer another horrifying attack on a scale equal to or even worse than 9/11, do not wonder why. You know why, but most of you don't want to acknowledge the explanation or face what it means, even now.

Business-Related Expenses

Kevin Rudd explains his Chinese-paid trip to Sudan in 2006:

"If you were shadow foreign minister as long as I was you know there was no travel budget provided through the Parliament. As a consequence, what you did was rely upon private sponsorship. The way of maintaining public accountability on this is to make sure that your pecuniary interest register declares all such sources of sponsored travel."

Surely the real question is why he needed to visit Sudan at all. Did it have anything to do with the Sudanese oil industry, or Chinese arms sales? Or did he need to be up close and personal with all those orphans in Darfur to make sure they were really dying?

I wonder if 0.07% will pick this one up and run with it? You know what they say about running with scissors, Brendan...

Is George W. Bush Jewish?

If so, he obviously doesn't know it. He told reporters back in 1994 that Jews cannot go to Heaven. And if his supposedly "Christian" supporters are also Jewish, they sure don't know it either. But let me explain.

I was thinking about what kind of values system drives violent Islamic terrrsts. Bush doesn't want you to think about that, but of course these radical extremists do have a values system, however warped and irrational it may be. You don't kiss goodbye to your family and then go and blow yourself up just for fun. And we are never going to "defeat" these terrrrsts (or more to the point, reverse the growing incidence of terrorist attacks) if we don't even understand where they are coming from.

Then I got to thinking about Bush's values system. Of course he claims to be a Christian, but despite all the media-friendly rhetoric, there is little evidence of the Christian gospel in any of Dubya's works: lots of killing, not much forgiveness. Bush's values are actually more in line with Old Testament thinking: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and an angry, vengeful God who bestows his blessings on warring tribes. So does that make Bush a Jew?

At the risk of over-simplifying things, the Jewish people did not acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah - in fact, they put him to death for daring to utter such "heresy". The Jewish faith maintains a basis in the Old Testament, whereas Jesus brought a revolutionary New Testament message of love and forgiveness:

"You have heard it said: An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you..."

If we take Bush at his word as a man of the bible, it's pretty clear he has only one Testament in his heart. That arguably makes him Jewish, at least for all intents and purposes.

NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT! Some of Bush's greatest critics are also Jewish. Look at Joshua Micah Marshall or Antony Loewenstein, for example. I'm sure those guys would argue that true Judaism does not condone violence such as Bush has practiced, let alone justifying the demented claims of radical Zionism.

I'm not trying to stigmatize Bush with a "Jewish" label, I'm just trying to rationalize his belief system in a semi-coherent way. For the man to present himself as a Christian is not only an affront to all true Christian believers, but also an affront to basic intelligence.

Mind you, the words "Christian" and "intelligence" do not always sit comfortably together. For example, the guys at biblebelievers.org have put together a long list of Jewish people who support Bush, but their multilingual website also links to an Earthquake monitor! If only God's will were that simple, we might all enjoy the sort of blinkered self-assurance that seemingly sustains Dubya's over-hyped "faith".

Cartoon by Moir.

Be A Real Hero! Boycott The Beijing Olympics!

The president of the Australian Olympic Committee says Australia will not boycott the 2008 Olympics, but a lot of individual athletes are already having second thoughts. John Coates says:

"It is not the role of the IOC to take the lead in addressing such issues as human rights or political matters, which are most appropriately addressed by governments or concerned organisations."

But of course, as we have all seen over many, many years, governments and "concerned organisations" have not been very successful in helping change the daily plight of repressed people in places like Tibet, Burma, Zimbabwe, etc.

If you are an athlete, you can be a real hero by putting the needs of people in places like Tibet and Sudan ahead of your own personal ambitions. Check out the boycott2008games blog for more.

Bankers Are Wankers

Kerrrrrrunch!

The big four banks were all down between 4 and 7 per cent at 1:42pm (AEDT), with Westpac faring worst, down about 7.5 per cent to $21.29.

Wait till Wall Street opens. That'll be fun.

A Poor Choice Of Metaphor

A Geology Professor says South Australia could become the next Saudi Arabia:

"Where we mine it, we convert it into yellow cake, we create the fuel rods, we lease these fuel rods to the major western countries that are wanting to use nuclear power. We take the fuel rods back, we clean them up and we dispose of the waste. That would make South Australia the Saudi Arabia of the energy world. That would give South Australia control of the world's uranium instead of us relying on unstable parts of the world for our petroleum energy."

Of course, Saudi Arabia is a repressive state where oil wealth is jealously guarded by a globe-trotting elite. I wonder what Lord Down thinks of the idea?

Nobody Could Have Predicted The US Economic Meltdown

My Goat Ate the Economy:

Every cocky corporate titan who has been caught in flagrante delicto has been written off by Republicans as an isolated exception. Every ingenious, computer-assisted Ponzi scheme has turned out, Milton Freedman be praised, to be legal. Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling? A couple of bad apples. Pump and dump? In the eye of the beholder. Slice-and-dice derivatives? As patriotic as a flag lapel pin.

Wall Street's "Crisis Of Faith"

Suddenly even "respectable" economists are talking about "the next Great Depression":

A Goldman Sachs trader in New York said: "Everyone is in a total state of shock, aghast at what is happening. No one wants to talk, let alone deal; we're just standing by waiting. Everyone is nervous about what is going to emerge when trading starts tomorrow."

In the UK, Michael Taylor, a senior market strategist at Lombard, the economics consultancy, said on Friday night: "We have all been talking about a 1970s-style crisis but as each day goes by this looks more like the 1930s. No one has any clue as to where this is going to end; it's a self-feeding disaster." Mr Taylor, who had been relatively optimistic, has turned bearish: "It really does look as though the UK is now heading for a recession. The credit-crunch means that even if the Bank of England cuts rates again, the banks are in such a bad way they are unlikely to pass cuts on."

Mr Taylor added that he expects a sharp downturn in the real UK economy as the public and companies stop borrowing. "We have never seen anything like this before. This is new territory for us. Liquidity is being pumped into the system but the banks are not taking any notice. This is all about confidence. The more the central banks do, the more the banks seem to ignore what's going on."

Mr Taylor added that the problems unravelling at Bear Stearns are just the beginning: "There will be more banks and hedge funds heading for collapse."

One of the problems facing the markets is that, despite the Fed's move last week to feed them another $200bn, the banks are still not lending to each other.

"This crisis is one of faith. We are going to see even more problems in the hedge funds as they face margin calls," said Mark O'Sullivan, director of dealing at Currencies Direct in London.

Gordon Brown Announces A Full-Scale Inquiry On Iraq

But not right now:

Mr Brown, however, insists it is not the right time for an immediate investigation as the situation in Iraq remains "fragile" and British troops are still trying to bring stability to the country.

Hey, who won the war anyway?

Harry Kewell Is Off To Celtic?

People.co.uk says it has the "exclusive" news:

Harry Kewell will sign for Celtic at the end of the season after being told by Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez he can go.

The 29-year old Aussie is heading for Glasgow as Liverpool call time on his injury-blighted five-year stay on Merseyside.

A rift between player and club surfaced this week when Kewell was refused permission to join Australia's training camp in Singapore.

I'm not sure about that "rift" angle. Here's what Benitez said just the other day:

"Harry will go with Australia because he is not playing in the team at Liverpool at the moment and I have one or two other options for his position," Benitez explained.

"It is better for him that he goes because sometimes it can be positive for players to play for their national team, especially if they have not been playing many games.

"It is more difficult for Harry to get a contract now, but if he plays well when he comes back, then we can decide at the end of the season."

US Dollar R.I.P.

The panicked US Federal Reserve has just cut rates again. It's also approved JP Morgan's takeover of Bear Stearns, whose Chairman played cards last week while his investment bank went down the tube. World Bank president Robert Zoellick now says there is a risk that the US "may well be heading into recession". No shit, dude?

For rather more informed and reputable analysis of the global financial crisis, I recommend Mike Whitney:

On Friday, Bear Stearns blew up. It was the worst possible news at the worst possible time... The world's most transparent and profitable markets have been transformed into a carnival sideshow managed by hucksters, flim-flam men, and rip off artists. The Bear bailout is yet another glaring example of a system that lacks all credibility and is quickly self-destructing.

More Whitney analysis here:

The dollar has plunged from $.87 on the euro in 2002 to $1.55 on March 12, 2008; losing nearly half its value since Bush took office. And there's no sign of a turnaround...

As the massive cycle of deleveraging continues for the over-extended hedge funds; Triple A assets will be sold for merely pennies on the dollar sending the faltering banking system into a last, lethal swan dive. Good riddance.

I like this quote from John Quiggin's blog:

“Gold is for optimists, I am diversifying into canned goods.”

Libs "Team" Crashes On The Gold Coast

Having a candidate named Jim MacAnally was only one of their problems. The Liberals spent a fortune promoting their "Team" for the Gold Coast Council elections, but their efforts have been a complete waste of money. Local councilors were re-elected in nearly all divisions, and incumbent mayor Ron Clarke looks set to keep his seat, with the Liberals' Tom Tate tying for second place (final results not expected till Friday).

Coming from a region where the Liberals had their best results at a federal level just a few months ago, the result is a comprehensive message to Canberra: keep your party politics out of local elections. We want real people who can deal with real issues.