Euro Versus Dollar

PART 1 of why reserve currencies are now fighting to the death. The road that led to Washington's attempt to slow down USA's collapse by collapsing a rival for reserve currency



It appears that the American regime believes that its geopolitical survival through postponement of structural economic collapse depends on collapse of the Euro zone first. This involves making sure that the financial gambling elites around the world prefer the dollar over the euro as the safety reserve investment of choice. Within the global monetarist system that is collapsing on itself (drastically more debt than money in the world), this course of action makes temporary "sense". Although a lot more states within American Union are severely more bankrupt than states in European Union, having E.U. "pop" first would artificially prolong the existence (and therefore looting by Wall Street) of regions like California and U.S. in general.

In the 1990s, Washington was always split between promoting the EU monetary union (thus weakening Russia by absorbing and transforming her neighbors in a neoliberal NATO dominated oligarchical structure) and retarding EU as a project itself (thus maintaining dollar as primary reserve so Washington's money borrowing could continue). United States chose the middle path of trying to weaken EU and Russia through destabilization campaigns to demonstrate the impotence of both. An example was the Anglo led Yugoslavian bombardment and occupation that showed Germany, France, and Russia that the Balkans was now an American backyard. The regional players were too self absorbed to meaningfully deal with such shocking behavior that was not the business of a player thousands of miles away (imagine EU bombing Mongolia for supposed human rights abuses).

Post-Soviet world saw frantic efforts to peddle dollars everywhere, even if it meant creating propped narcostates like Kosovo to do it. As US was busy stripping and cannibalizing the economies of Eastern Europe (and pumping dollars into the region to preemptively compete with the Euro), Germany was an introvert and consolidating its now united territory. Meanwhile Russia was totally focused on inner management of its 1998 controlled national bankruptcy (US, UK, Greece, Spain, etc can take notes on how to say no to financial overseas parasites and then recover).

Just a few years after euros appeared in the hands of Europeans and gave a glimmer of competition to the dollar, Germany was able to shrug off its imperial masters in DC. Berlin now took a proactive role in expanding the Eurozone eastward (thus becoming coequal with France in the continental project), began close bilateral economic cooperation with Moscow, and actually said no to the heavy pressure to participate in the aggression against Iraq in 2003. There was an attempt ("new Europe" vs "old Europe") by Washington to gain a permanent foothold in central Europe but that possibility began to rapidly erode during the international financial crisis (more on dangers of potential power vacuum in the area).

In the last 10 years every course of action in Europe, that was suggested in 1997 by Zbigniew Brzezinski in The Grand Chessboard (in regards to maintaining American imperial base for expansion in Western Europe), was not done or done very poorly. Peddling dollars could only go so far. The fruits of Bush administration's total geopolitical incompetence was recently seen in 2010 with France declaring the same desire to engage in cooperation with Russia as Germany was doing for years. The recent agreement to sell NATO Mistral carriers to Moscow was just a beginning. Recently there has been talk of Russian Federation being able to sell its weapons to NATO countries in exchange for help in Afghanistan. Cooperation in weapons trade and perhaps eventual cooperation in development would further marginalize American influence on the continent (and cut into profits of the only U.S. lobby stronger than the financial one, the military-industrial complex). Major NATO allies taking matters into their own hands, bypassing Washington, and independently managing the continent with Moscow is unacceptable to the pentagon (even though that is desperately needed right now to maintain security).

Such a combination of factors may now create a consensus among US power elites (military and financial) to start pushing for a severe economic collapse in Western Europe. It would have been unthinkable to do this to NATO allies before but desperate times call for desperate measures. For this, Washington has amazingly effective historic weapons at its disposal. Primarily, they are the three major credit rating agencies that are all based in United States and which have always given Cold War NATO allies best triple A ratings while suppressing investment ratings of geopolitical enemies and collapsing entire nations so they can be looted by Washington's allies on Wall Street. More on the absurdity of these organizations here. The mere fact that instruments of the Anglo international financial oligarchy such as IMF, World Bank,  Moody's, and Standard and Poor's are still effective at shaping reality (and psychologically influencing entire governments and mobs of gamblers) is an absurd phenomenon that is on its last legs.

It would be too obvious and blatant for the Washington-Wall Street complex to order credit rating agencies to sink Greece, Spain, Portugal, and others all at once. To maintain an illusion of competence and wage effective informational warfare, the totally discredited (no pun intended) and fraudulent credit agencies need to subject their target countries to a death by a thousand cuts stretched over months. Allies in the corporate media do everything possible to help in the project of building mass perceptions of reality. Although the US and UK have become very skilled at cannibalizing entire societies, the current project is curious in that the legalized organized crime that is the Anglo financial houses is also destroying last life support systems of the very societies that maintain it. That doesn't really matter for organized thieves who deal internationally who in time will try to find new hosts in Brazil, China, or Russia.

Part 2 will focus on pros and cons of both the American and European unions to try to see who will prevail in achieving monetary collapse last.

New Constitutional Convention for United States (ConCon)

Practical Plan to Really Restore United States Economy (by late 2020s): 

Part 1: Road to Constitutional Convention and a proper message to unite factions of the tea party with urban progressives in an alliance of convenience



Situation in United States has deteriorated to a point where we are not looking at a gradual and peaceful slide into Brazil level international status (with similar domestic social conditions) anymore but at a Soviet style nasty imperial disintegration when the next inevitable financial shock occurs.

We've heard many exciting proposals recently such as "abolish the fed", "end corporations as legal entities", "default on the debt", "wipe out the financial parasites and rebuild FDR style", etc. Structurally however, none of those can be accomplished due to oligarchy's aging personal lawyer/butler (supreme court/congress) and their guard dog (the president) being on a tight leash. Needed changes cannot come from the federal center of force unless the situation dangerously deteriorates. It'd be too late then.

As such, a moderately radical (compared to fascist, bolshevik, and secessionist proposals we'll be hearing after the upcoming second dip of the depression) but doable and pragmatic plan needs to begin to be implemented immediately if United States hopes to start a long multi-decade road to recovery. This plan has been distilled from previous long articles such as the ones dealing with unpayable national debt, pinpointing need to prevent braindrain, problems of a sold out senior citizen home that is US congress, and nurturing some industries to compete with China's mercantilist practices.

The plan has to be appealing to a vast majority of the US public across the political spectrum (fringes included) which means utilization of emotional triggers that people had ingrained into their consciousness since childhood. Believe it or not but a 21 year old progressive from Boston and a 70 year old rural man from Alabama both share nearly identical life long propaganda indoctrination by the ruling oligarchy. The trick for realization of a movement towards recovery is mobilization of a broad coalition to displace the ruling regime by flipping regime's own propaganda against them. 

Only a plan that:

a) plays to rural genuinely constitutionalist factions within the tea party movement (those not misdirected or bought off by corporate infiltration of the movement's phony "national leadership")
and  
b) unites them with younger urban unemployed/underemployed via a common, very consistent, and rather simple message

can achieve a breakthrough. Uniting some tea partiers and disenchanted progressives in temporary marriage of convenience against a common foe will be the hardest part. However when anger is up and emotions are running high, such unthinkable political bedfellows become possible if extroverted emotional waves join at a proper time. It has happened numerous times before in other societies.

[Message building]

1) Call for a Constitutional Convention  (34 states needed to have one and 38 needed to ratify)

Now that the federal and most state governments are broke and running budget deficits that require physically unacceptable austerity measures (on top of decades of already declining infrastructure and social services) popular anger can readily be channeled into a ConCon. Americans of all ages have positive associations with this concept from childhood schooling. ConCon can happen through bypassing presidential and congressional power (it is key to isolate the federal center of oligarchic force).

People like South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer are already talking to high level republican state politicians to have a ConCon. For disenchanted progressives, a desire for a ConCon can be the best outlet for their frustration as well. Nobody knows what ConCon will bring and it therefore serves as a point of contact for a diverse spectrum of political factions. The idea can also excite the imaginations of young and old alike due to their association of it with national greatness and renewal after a difficult period. What is more, it is a legal idea that appeals to the majority of people who are psychologically not predisposed to radicalism. The slogan should be "Convention not Revolution". At the same time, the potential of convention is so full of radical restructuring promise that for the more passionate of tea partiers, the slogan can be reworked to be "revolution through convention". Call for ConCon is a protest vote against current national elites, a call for dramatically different direction, AND meaningful legal activism all rolled up in one.

It is key to get regional elites on board by playing to their pathologically narcissistic egos and sense of importance. There is so much negativity now that controlled positive attention/affection can really puff up the psyche of small state legislator. People in every state must divide their state politicians among themselves by passionately asking their favored ones to be a ConCon supporter and "a delegate to the convention" and sharply ridiculing and alienating those who don't support it. State politicians are all former political science/history geeks and many would get a kick from the masses thinking they are worthy to represent them at a historic event of such magnitude. ConCon should be made an issue in upcoming state and local elections as well. If a dedicated minority of state politicians get excited by the idea, they'll drag many of their drinking buddy legislators along for the ride via simple social psychology. Their corporate masters should not immediately have a problem with this since ConCon isn't specific enough.

It is inevitable that activism for Convention will begin fierce polarizing debates about the key constitutional changes that need to be done at the convention itself. This is where, paradoxically, our budding city/country coalition will find additional points of contact through agreement to disagree. They will realize that the federal union needs to be loosened up into a more confederal structure with states and entire regions pursuing their own modes of popular development. Thus the more confederal structure becomes perhaps the first goal of convention. This first goal needs to be stressed because it will reenergize the diverse political spectrum by creating pseudo nationalism and lively brainstorming among regional factions. Mass reactivation of the apathetic and disenchanted young democrats and progressives can even occur if emphasis on possibilities of states rights (for northeastern states) is combined with emotional need for revenge against Obama. 

Additional regional and state elites may now join the call for ConCon since they will realize how dramatically their power will increase within a more confederal America. Unfortunately but perhaps inevitably we can expect some oligarchic corporate interests to begin supporting ConCon with the expectations of profit in the more libertarian post ConCon Southeastern region of US. Opposition to ConCon should be actively painted as federal (based in the hated congress to not alienate pro-Obama ConCon supporters) AND corporate in nature to maintain emotional focus and factional unity in the ConCon coalition.


2) Building mental associations of United States with Soviet Union, time of troubles before the Last Constitutional Convention, and/or rotten oligarchic regimes that have collapsed in the past due to a diverse and peaceful political coalition 

What helps any movement is belief that regime's collapse is inevitable and that the activists are just helping history along. What helps even more is all the recent data showing that this belief is grounded in reality. I have written how all the key structural and social problems that Soviet Union had are being experienced by present oligarchic imperial socioeconomic model in United States. It seems this society reached Soviet level of decay and dysfunction via a seemingly different ideological path (the inflexibility of which inevitably began leading to mistakes on all levels of management).

Since Americans are very educated about Soviet problems and failure, it would be very easy to begin comparisons between the two former superpowers in the minds of the tea party movement. The more they would look, the more similarities they will discover to their horror. This will help movement towards ConCon by providing an aura of inevitability when it comes to ending federal power in its current form.

When it comes to young progressives, such suggestions of comparison (USSR to USA) will prove to be more difficult due to their laughter and derision of tea partiers calling Obama's policies socialist. Some may of course see the blatant similarities but they are not likely to see USA in the same light as the rural ConCon supporters. Thus it seems better in their case to compare United States to post WW2 regimes in Spain and Greece before they were ended by a broad coalition (where liberal college educated youth played a key role). Unfortunately Franco's regime and similar rich man's regimes in Portugal, Brazil, etc are not well known to the US public (due to their rot having a more common capitalistic source with US) and don't provide the same association with inevitable decay and collapse. Therefore, a hodgepodge of societies should be utilized when comparing problems of US to similar problems that other countries had. This will show demoralized progressives that America's problems are not unique, how such things were solved abroad, and how ConCon is the best legal way of bringing about the end of the current regime.

This is it for now and later sections of the recovery plan will deal with the debt situation, military industrial complex, and additional political solutions as truly bipartisan coalition builders.

What is meant by recovery is putting the country on a road back to the level of dynamic ability, social strength, and international role model status that existed at the peak of American power in 1960s (before it was gradually and systematically ground into a large banana republic by a neoliberal oligarchy). When US returns to that level of confidence, government responsiveness, and hope for a better tomorrow then new plans can be implemented that work with the the drastically improved tools at hand.

American Identity Crisis

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The artificial "American" nationality created as an assimilating force is beginning to break down due to inequalities of education within the dominant ethnic coalition.





Many Americans are humorously reluctant to even approach the topic of race and cultural integration. When the French and Swedes (with far lower % of non-whites and immigrants) are actively discussing these issues, the citizenry within Home of the Brave runs for the hills. That's not necessarily an issue of an elephant in the room or fear of seeming offensive. There is a sustained historical reason for every American citizen to suppress his own thoughts on ethnic/racial groups. That reason is state ideology.

Lets briefly review the ideological process that has so far driven national integration in this country.  Ideological "equality" until 2009 has referred to cultural assimilation that expanded beyond Germans and Irish and moved onto all whites as well as select ethnic groups like Jews and Asians. For most of the 20th century, as long as whites remained the vast majority of the total population, neutral terminology like "American" (that didn't refer to any tribal/national origins) could be used to try to consolidate the vast geographic territory into one national fabric. Creation of a neutral national identify to serve as an umbrella nationality for many diverse peoples is standard practice for leaderships of very populous states. In this sense American is no different than the terms Chinese, Soviet, Indian (and these days European).

However, even in very diverse federal states like China or the Russian Federation, there is a ruling ethnic group or a coalition of a few groups that make smaller nationalities cluster around them by the use of force. In China it is the Mandarin speakers and in RF it is of course Russians (with 75% of the population). In US, the native Englishmen have long stopped being numerically dominant in the 19th century (although they remained qualitatively dominant in wealth and education). This pushed them into gradually expanding the ruling coalition by accepting Germans, Irish, Poles, Italians, and so on. Since "English" could not be used for numerical reasons for national identity building the way "German" or "French" is used today, the artificial concept of American had to be bolstered and gradually strengthened.

The power of the artificially constructed nationality rests on the ideology/reality that backs up its promises (how equal are all Europeans in EU, how equal are all Soviets, etc) as well as how much physical power those assimilated into the idea of the umbrella nationality really have. For most of the country's history, there were certain minority populations with whom assimilation was never tried (integration of relatively recently freed slaves and conquered ethnically cleansed natives). This was because it would drain national energies and political capital of elites within ruling ethnic groups and deprive them of divide and conquer tools for new arrivals (gradually offering the umbrella "American" and its promise of equality to some new immigrants like the Germans, Irish and Polish first but not to Italians and Jews until much later). This was not any conspiracy but a natural path of least resistance and an organic way for concept of American to really put down its roots (as opposed to just covering everybody with a term American right away). The gradual and imperial manner of rewarding the title of "American" allowed US leadership a tighter leash than the one Soviets possessed since the term felt and was more real psychologically to those who "earned it" (see the number of Irish and Germans who died in US Civil War, WW1, etc).

In the past few decades a couple of things began to strain the process of national integration that has worked well so far in terms of political stability:

A) Emergence of new culturalism for 20%-25% of the population which is based more on higher education and less on racial/ethnic affiliation.

This first factor was the increasing division amongst assimilated Americans in terms of education and consequently wealth. There was always a large wealth gap between tycoons/descendants of British elites and the rest which was heavily correlated with ethnic lineage. However the GI Bill and mass access to college in second half of the 20th century (particularly by 1960s) really gave a large number of whites of all stripes a way to leap into the power demographic. "Middle Class" as a term actually began to partially stop being an early 1950s cold war propaganda tool to mask and ease class tensions (by putting into peoples minds the idea that wealth is on a continuum with a fatty middle rather than a narrow pyramid with a wide base) and began to become a reality for a number of white Americans.

Higher education put pressure on the previous method of rewarding the title of American. It brought about higher states of consciousness that:

1) Increased perception of physical material national inequality within dominant ruling white coalition on the one hand

2) Brought a new form of knowledge based culturalism as prejudice to increasingly large amount of people within the ruling coalition on the other

Old culturalism (in place for most of the nation's existence) consisted in acceptance to assimilate some select ethnic groups and view them as co-equal Americans while rejecting non-whites and natives as other/excluded/subjects. Until 1950s, vast majority of the population was technically illiterate and racial physical differences made it easy to have rule of thumb for the masses. Lack of higher education for the assimilated really compounded old culturalist prejudices. The old culturalism as a tool of control, although undermining national integration for some ethnic groups, made up for it in the minds of US leadership by accelerating assimilation amongst other groups. For example it was politically easier to betray the interests of blacks at say, 5% of population, to gain an Italian voting block of over 13% and sell this idea to older Anglos/Irish/German majority in a specific area. The divide and conquer routine for electoral politics was of course an organic and natural outgrowth of British rule.

[note: Racism as a concept is a new phenomenon in Britain because classism was so strong there historically. To the elites it never made any difference what color the poor peasants were. It seems the current American oligarchic leadership emulates old Britain in that regard.]

The new culturalism is more individual based and springs from a person's access to information that most lack. Currently its physical manifestation is one of educated whites (20-25% of the population who went to college) migrating to urban areas (reasons for migrations are outlined in Death of Suburbia) and the socioeconomic power increasingly concentrating in their hands. When vast majority of ruling ethnic group's population are undergoing a split between those with basic literacy and those with more advanced tools for political influence, when that manifests into real inequality of opportunity (which always existed but is now underlined by educational background), then the "equality" offered by the idea of being an "American" begins to lose its strength. When a college educated white has more in common culturally with his/her counterpart in France or Australia than with a rural religious white in his own country, then the term American begins to lose its strength as a tool of national integration just like the terms Soviet or Yugoslavian did. Sub-American identities thus begin to gain power as they are at least connected to tribe, blood, and cultural/regional peculiarities. The bonds of a federal national structure and control from above begin to weaken.

B) Demographic shifts due to migration and same as before fertility resulted in greater number of people (proportional to the overall population) who were always excluded.

Non-white Hispanics and blacks combined at 25% of the population ( and burdened in large parts not only by original cultural prejudice but also the newer overlapping culturalism from urban educated). The culturalism against these two groups is rarely manifest by hostile acts or words but by typical and effective way of depriving anything of power, which is excluding and ignoring.

In recent times, racial solidarity and inclusion began to truly occur amongst the equally educated with mostly the cultural inertia of the older first form of culturalism hampering the process. Higher education brings its own cultural soldiarity and identity that can be much stronger than having similar physical likeness. There is little incentive for educated whites to break unity with equally educated non-whites for the political, economic, and cultural benefit of uneducated rural whites. Educated blacks and Hispanics are not numerous enough proportional to their population and too geographically splintered to really form their own communities so there is little option for them but to assimilate into expanding white dominated urban educated class. The most similar people conspire for power.

[note: Poor rural whites, blacks, and Hispanics have a lot more in common than they think and future American populist movements will have to tap into that if they are to be successful. GOP of course blew that chance due to regional and internationalist oligarchic controls over their party.]

Obama's election has shown these emerging rifts and alliances with remarkable clarity. The new updated integration with an educational filter is not confined to ethnic/racial groups and creates enough new inequalities to start to rot American ideology from within. Concepts such as equality of opportunity, rags to riches, free farmer individualism, and self government begin to not work as effectively as state propaganda if country is sufficiently culturally and ethnically splintered and increasingly ruled by one tiny successful multi-ethnic urban faction with PhDs. With rural ghost believing evangelical whites at 25%, blacks and Hispanics each at roughly 13% each, whites at 70% (and dropping due to lower birthrates compared to other groups), those with Bachelor's at roughly 25% (obviously the factions overlap often), we begin to see the serious splits occurring that cannot be rapidly or practically cured with higher education for all (due to these splits preventing effective political national action).

Politics increasingly becomes a matter of what faction will make enough alliances with others to dominate the rest. Obviously that's how it always works but with the national identity of "American" weakening, each election increasingly brings a sense to the loser that the winner is illegitimate and is a cultural interloper. The hysteria of the opposition will increase every time with elites on each side undermining the other in nationally unhealthy ways seen in unstable states.

This has slowly turned United States into an increasingly weak splintered federal state like Brazil or a few other South American countries.

The educated and wealthiest 20% (who are in their own battle with the richest 0.1% internationalist faction) increasingly rule through corporate power from the cities and create blatant cultural exclusion internally. The last American frontier ended in suburbia. Now American people will have to finally face each other and grow up. The country is still spending enormous resources on promoting an ideological agenda around the world with no equal opposition to counter it. The rest of the world is becoming more pragmatic while American society sharpens its ideology (recently demonstrated by rising popularity of libertarian ideas amongst educated whites and amongst defeated republican opposition) and continues to rot from within.

The current process of United States transforming itself from an ideological society into a pragmatic realist society will be gradual and painful.

The rot, so far, is effectively masked by America being an ideological empire and focusing its people on spreading and defending a rigid one dimensional point of view that obviously cant be one size fits all for all societies in the world. Although the process of decline sped up and slowed down at times, discussion and assessment of the situation was muted by how gradual it has been. Societal inability by politicians to address race and ethnic factionalism is a sign of how important the issues are (as if mere utterance of the issues will create social disorder). Soviets were also unable to really discuss the simmering ethnic problems in their midst until too late for similar reasons. Violence is unlikely as American artificial nationality had enough time to partially infiltrate the consciousness of residents living here and as the various American peoples are not specific to certain states.

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What is very likely however is America beginning to mean no more than what Brazil or Argentina means when the price of the military catches up to economic realities. When that occurs and contradictions of state ideology and social reality are exposed to the world (Obama's election has done a lot to slow the process and repair the international image), there will be probably be a painful multi-year period of re-organization from super-power into a normal power. It should all be over by 2020s within our lifetimes. Who knows? If a radical solution is not found to reverse the decline then perhaps we could be a good source of raw materials, religious hardworking immigrants, and weaponry for United States of Europe.

Credit Rating Agencies Are Financial Weapons

World needs new international credit rating mechanism since biggest credit agencies are US based and thus are pressured to distort their reporting on Western nations. 


Also a couple words on Warren Buffet's recent moves




Moody's consideration this week to upgrade the credit rating of Burlington Northern Santa Fe is a wonderful example of why the world needs an international UN supervised credit worthiness system. The reason why BNSF's ratings may go up is because of Warren Buffet's decision to fully invest into a vast railroad network covering 2/3 of United States (stretching from the key region of Texas to China's port middleman of California). As the world's second richest man and one popularly considered to be the best investor, Buffett's moves are always carefully watched and analyzed. Although calling BNSF acquisition a possible boost to Obama's policies is a bit of a stretch, the 79 year old billionaire's purchases usually resonate deeply in the investing world.

Since Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is a key owner of Moody's,  one of his assets is about to rate up the value of another. That would be news if such conflict of interest wasn't so common as to be the norm. What has been less noticed and talked about is Buffett's recent gradual sale of his stocks in Moody's itself. The biggest shareholder in the world's biggest credit rating agency (Moody's has 40% of this market and thus the power to acquisitions cripple entire countries through rating them down and reducing capital investment flow) decided to quietly start decoupling himself from it.

Why?

The era of investigators investigating themselves is coming to an end. Moody's, Standard & Poor's, and Fitch Ratings together control majority of the world's rating market and are all based in United States. No surprise that United States continues to have the best triple A investment rating even though its macroeconomic situation and debt resemble something seen in the third world. USA's current and former satellite nations (although Germany is moving out of its satellite status now that its ever growing public debt is protected by Euro as reserve currency) benefit the most from this political protection. Japan has been famously running a public debt for years that is far above the 60% per GDP that is generally considered the safe limit in public discussion.

We're familiar how downgrades and upgrades by US credit rating agencies have been the matter of life and death for numerous countries in the past 50 years. The quality of life for endless millions of people around the world was dependent on the "expert" analysis of these corporations and the investment money it can bring. This applies to countries that aren't colonies or special friends. Moody's couldn't logically downgrade and weaken Cold War allies regardless of their macroeconomic fundamentals. Although Japan is in the same public debt company as Zimbabwe, nobody is screaming against investing in it. Naturally, the same US gov based restraint prevented the agencies from predicting the financial collapse of 2008.

Powerful countries like China cannot enter the English speaker dominated rating market since a Chinese credit agency would be in the same position when it comes to full analysis. The mere fact that people wouldn't believe a Chinese version of Moody's yet continue to listen to the big 3 in US as if it means anything (at least in regards to rating for countries as a whole) is another demonstration of the faith based nature of economics. An argument can be made that the Western world as a whole suffered decreased economic growth due to the politically motivated self restraint of the agencies whose job is to see what's worth investing in and loaning money to. Proper introspection couldn't be achieved.

It would be ludicrous for the agencies to rate each other's effectiveness or have a US government body do so. Even finding general real numbers behind any country's macroeconomic situation from IMF, World Bank, or CIA World Factbook is impossible since these organizations serve oligarchs and governments in the Western world. If IMF wasn't disproportionately influenced by US it would have prescribed the same bitter treatment to its master as it does for many countries in the world (such as fighting large scale corruption within key economic sectors). We continue to see the ridiculous spectacle of morbidly obese countries telling everybody else to get healthier (which they actually did if one looks at anemic GDP growth in the West compared to the rest of the world).

If capitalism is to remain in the years ahead then there needs to be a very robust international UN controlled credit rating agency. It has to be under UN supervision with transparency and input from all the nations and not just be an act of creation by G20 (recent switch of world's economic control from G9 to G20 just expands the ridiculous notion of a few rich nations deciding global economic policy instead of UN).

It remains to be seen whether Buffett has the intention of fully selling off his share in Moody's (and is just doing it gradually to not cause a stir) or if he still thinks there is utility in this insanely powerful organization. As for his investment into railroads leading to and from California ports bringing Chinese goods, we will soon see if that is a sign of faith in the growth of China or US. Buffet has often said that just like a great company, a great country can survive a period of mismanagement. It may very well be that he is old enough to actually have a bit of a nationalist sentiment but any investment he makes in GE or American infrastructure may be part of a bigger picture. His investment into production of electric cars in China certainly shows he thinks Chinese may beat us in this field (and this country has a lot of natural resources to transport by Warren owned rail to the ships departing for Chinese factories).

Northeast United States is the "Real America"

An exploration of irrational Republican claims on what constitutes "real America" as well as a brief hypothetical thought experiment on how Northeast would be as an independent federal union




A curious thing happened during and after the US election of 2008.

We've heard a native of Alaska (which became the 49th state over 170 years after USA was created) and certifiable moron proclaim that she comes from the "real America" and is running on McCain's ticket to fight for "real Americans". Her speeches to elderly sexually frustrated rural gawkers made it seem as if the urban Northeastern citizenry of United States was somehow an alien patch within the national fabric. Considering that Northeast was not a puppet state under any foreign occupation at the time, it was the equivalent of a minor Scottish politician proclaiming Scotland to be a more real UK than UK itself.

Of course it was strategically necessary for the poorly educated charlatan from country's far periphery, the wide eyed gold digger like Sarah Palin, to use terminology like this. After all, many people in the nation's interior and periphery got left behind economically by the country's slow decline of the past few decades. Politics of resentment do have an underlining psychological basis that is very real, based on real grievances, and uncomfortable if one is to dig into it from a class based perspective.

Now of course we hear rural Midwesterners and Southerners cry about wanting "their country back". Considering that the original heartland and tree trunk of United States (New England) voted out the remnants of the congressional GOP, the real historic authoritative soul of the country has spoken. Who can doubt that (in the hypothetical case of US splitting up) that the bulk of the original 13 states would have the best claim to be the successor state to United States? To use the example of United Kingdom again in this scenario, a politician from Utah, Texas, or Alaska claiming his or her region as the most genuine successor would be like Thomas Jefferson claiming US to be the true successor to UK. We can go all day with analogies but the undeniable point is that Northeastern states is what kept and still keeps the whole 200 year long political project functioning and possible.

In all fairness, a claim could be made that Northeast has become too "Old World" for the periphery's "frontier" sensibilities and it is thus a less "real" America. However this claim easily collapses after a minute of thought about the information in the paragraph above. Since more than half of the population is now urban, even the "frontier" as a factor of national definition has been moved out of the discussion.

So the much newer peripheral settlements and tree branches of USA want political control over the trunk/roots back instead of being ruled by them? The potentially fatal and seemingly insurmountable and permanent gridlock going on in Congress all the time allows us an opportunity to examine such thoughts. Neither the regional theocratic/oligarchic faction (that is the GOP) nor the regional England leaning oligarchic faction (that is New England democrats) appears to be able to defeat each other.

Such counterproductive gridlock (in the face of the worst economic depression since the 1930s) is exactly what happens when the fine points about union size in the federalist papers become obsolete due to the growth in scale of the federal union itself. The country loses ability to eventually reach a meaningful compromise acceptable to both sides (by acceptable I don't mean people resorting to calling politicians Nazis over the hyperdiluted nature of compromises we get currently).

A congress of a smaller federal union (say 10-15 states in regional economic and cultural proximity) would create compromises that do not bring the same level of psychological hate and disappointment in the factions that didn't get the details they wanted. Since people would subjectively get more of what they want in a smaller union, their psychological sense of personal power and control is increased. They are thus "freer" by most ways that freedom is measured and defined.

Let's think for a moment of a hypothetical scenario where the Northeast is its own country (thus keeping closer in political scale and dynamic to what James Madison had in mind). Since Virginia is demographically changing (as the Obama election has shown) yet still has a number of southern leaning theocrats, it may or may not be included. I have already written how Texas as an economic hub is vital for United States to function in its current form and how Texas can potentially get wealthier if it was its own country. But how would Northeast (a region less dependent than Texas on feeding and supplying the rest of the country through commodity and food exports as well as crude ethnic exploitation) fare on its own two legs?

Not surprisingly, rather well with strong potential to be better off than it is now. The oldest, most respected, and best funded Ivy League schools are in the region and so is the concentration of intellectual, financial, and political power elites along with their family clans. That is key to successful nation building since elites decide national direction instead of the average citizenry (especially if the new country preserves the current political system without moving more towards proportional representation). A lot of old money and bloodlines create an entrenched and relatively integrated ruling class that would be able to work well together on national projects. The sheer wealth of Northeastern oligarchs is shown by the fact that as of today, most of Northeast states have higher GDP per capita than the national average. Their hands would not be politically tied on the federal level by fellow oligarchs thousands of miles away in places like Texas, California, Florida. The region would be easier to remold into a shape that resembles the fashionable role model society at the time (for Northeastern rich, that appears to be England as it has been for a long time).

The modern day serfs that the rulers of the new country (which as mentioned above has the most right to continue calling itself United States of America if it chooses) will be working with, are also a lot more secular and educated than their Southern and Western brethren. It follows that the oligarchs' right hand men (president, congress, and supreme court of Northeast United States) can now reduce elites' control by splitting them with increasingly democratic means into a balance between the government and the oligarchy.

NUSA is also smaller in size than potential nearby competitors which allows quicker personal communication between all demographics and further economic integration. Northeast is beginning to resemble Germany in terms of population density and will be the first major region on the continent to put quality control on how the land is organized and developed. Proximity to Europe itself would allow NUSA to enjoy greater investment and cooperation with EU. The president of NUSA would not need to stand on pick up trucks or kiss bibles to get elected. The new smaller legislative branch would be made up of people who work better together due to greater closeness of culture. The federal government overall would be closer to the serfs since it would oversee 50 million people instead of 300 million. It would be in charge of a population the size of Spain not one of 3 Germanies.

As for states outside NUSA, one can only speculate. We can just imagine the absurdity and even potential Iran/Yugoslavia type horror show that the deep south would be if it was to form a federal union (not including Texas that is) of its own. Such a situation would show the real meaning of "wanting my country back".

International Subway Station Comparison

After exploring the state of one subway station in Manhattan, I decided to scout the internets for subway station aesthetics of regions that are not yet considered first world. As various research explains to me, the New York Subway is in its third world state of disrepair and neglect due to the huge amount of people living in poverty and severe budgetary mismanagement/corruption by public officials and elites. So I decided to explore the visuals of subways and metros from the key cities in BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) block of developing nations since they are affected by similar problems to a larger degree.

CHINA SUBWAYS:

Beijing Subway (no this is not a set from a science fiction movie but an ultra sleek subway system that makes you feel that you're in an airport or a spaceport)

Shanghai Metro

Nanjing Metro

Guangzhou Metro

RUSSIA SUBWAYS:


Moscow Metro ( not this is not a modernist museum or some ancient castle but a subway system started in the 1930s)

Saint Petersburg Metro

Kazan Metro (capital of Tatarstan, a Muslim flyover province)

BRAZIL SUBWAYS:

Rio De Janeiro Metro

Sao Paulo Metro

INDIA SUBWAYS:


Delhi Subways

OOOPS!! Turns out that was not some slum in India but actually New York City stations in United States of America. Lets try this again.

INDIA SUBWAYS:


Delhi Metro

Well turns out Mumbai and Bangalore don't have an active metro system just yet but are building it. When it is completed, Bangalore for example, will have metro stations that look something like this according to the conceptual art:

Ah! My mistake again. I mixed up the conceptual art for Bangalore with 1990s designs which envision how Bronx and Queens stations will look like in 2009. The above are actually already built state of the art New York metro stations. Bangalore is in the process of building more third world type stations like these:

Thus concludes our quick tour around the developing world. Turns out that third world is focused too much on self respect, beauty, modernity, quality of life, and being in the 21st century. It'll never catch up with United States if it keeps building for its people and having pride. We need to explain to Chinese, Indians, Russians, and Brazilians that you can't nation build domestically like this. It is too expensive or something or other.

Either that or it is time for B.R.I.C. to become B.R.I.C.A.

P.S. Sweden beats all of them.