Obama’s not entirely new Middle East direction

So, Senator Mitchell was duly despatched by the new President to the Middle East. He sorted out the Northern Ireland troubles, so he is given credit for a magic touch when it comes to these things. But in N. Ireland he spoke to both warring factions, In Palestine he will only speak to one. And not the one involved in the fighting.

The Path to Peace in Gaza?

Here are some excerpts of what I wrote during the last few days of the 13 day attack by Israel on Gaza. It’s a basic summary of news reports, official figures, analysis, and my own opinions. I support both the State of Israel and Palestinian Statehood, but this recent conflict shows up one side to have lost rather more humanity than the other.

Saving the American Auto Industry

US car makers are in the news right now as just the latest in a line of beggars knocking on Washington’s door. They’re asking for $37 billion in support from cheap finance because, as GM’s Rick Waggoner puts it, “We made mistakes, and because circumstances beyond our control pushed us to the brink,” referring to the global economic downturn.”

Except for one thing. As I wrote in 2007, Ford has been making losses for years and the others haven’t done so well either. While they didn’t change their strategies, newcomers have set up shop in the US and grown and grown and grown – profitably.

The actions of the US car giants so reminds me of the 1960s in Britain, when the British motorcycle industry sank from world leader to bankrupt nothingness in a decade, and the British car industry was Nationalised to the point of rewarding failure with survival while punishing companies who were successful by not allowing weak competition to disappear.

The current US proposals for bail out are very uniquely US focussed. ”It’s got to be US projects – it would by and large favour, on balance, US companies.“ General Motor’s Fritz Henderson was reported as saying. Conveniently, there is a clause excluding support for US plants that have been built during the last 20 years. That means very little money for newcomers such as Honda, Toyota and VW who all make cars in the US in volume.

US workers working in those factories will not be protected, it seems. Except, for the most part, they don’t need to be.

There are problems for the US over this policy though. First off, there are the issues of illegal state support that will no doubt at some point be raised at the WTO. The US was the first to complain on behalf of Boeing that Airbus was receiving illegal money.

There is an even more serious issue hiding in the shadows here though. If the deal goes through and is seen by outsiders as discriminating against foreign investors, the attractiveness of the US as a place for inward capital flows will diminish – and with a double deficit in both government spending and trade the US Dollar relies on inward capital flows to support the greenback.

While the Dollar has been lifted of late by Barack Obama’s recent election victory and world woes, it is still based on weak fundamentals. I do think Obama will do a good job for the US here though, so perhaps the US will once again build the kind of budget surplus that accumulated under Bill Clinton’s Democrat Administrations.

As for the car industry, I can’t help thinking they still really don’t get it. I think it was GM who was talking of using the money from Uncle Sam to launch some 22 new models of greener vehicles.  Twenty two new models?! No wonder they can’t make a profit, they have too many models, too many brands.

They really need a clean out. But will they get one? Not if their political influence has anything to do with it. What they want is the bail out, not the clean out.

Bad Timing at the Bank of England

Today the Bank of England reduced interest rates by 1.5%. I have no problem with that – I said to friends a month ago that October’s 0.5% cut should have been 2%, and I know I wasn’t the only finance professional saying that.

Are McLaren trying too hard?

I am worried that McLaren, in throwing everything into winning the Championship this year, have over-improved their car to the point of making it faster, but undriveable. Hamilton described the newly improved car as “blindingly quick” around the Interlagos circuit in Brazil – but he only managed 4th fastest in Qualifying. That indicates a loss of driveability he cannot afford right now.

McLaren trying too hard sounds right too – perhaps Ron is thinking of retiring and the team want this to be his swansong? And after all the hassle with the FIA and last year’s shenanigans, who can blame him if he did want to retire? Personally I hope he stays on, but it also wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t.

So, what will happen in the race? I suspect Massa will win, because he has to. Hamilton will not make 5th place because he’s just not familiar with a) the new car setup and b) driving not to finish first. Whatever happens, I suspect Lewis will finish in a better position the less time his Dad talks to him on the grid. I don’t know what he says in these moments, but at those races where Anthony Hamilton has spent much time at the last minute with Lewis, Lewis has completely overcooked things and made mistakes all over the place.

The question will be, who will cause Lewis problems on the track? We know all about the racist elements in the sport but thankfully only one of those will be driving. The unbalanced stewards will perhaps make some more silly decisions favouring Ferrari, and Raikkonen will perhaps show people that he really is faster than Massa.

Of course, rain may change all that. There is a good chance of rain during the race, and who knows what will happen then?

Make-believe Maverick, John McCain

Wow. I always thought he was better than this, but clearly John McCain is a different person altogether – a flip-flopper, a mysogenistic, womanising opportunist who will say whatever he thinks will push his cause (himself) forward the farthest. The article has many quotes from people who worked with him, trained with him, flew with him and were POWs with him. Even his friends were critical. Bad tempered, foul mouthed, self-serving were phrases that often came up in relation to him.

Just when the US needs everyone to pull together, Republican Partisanship prefers mud slinging

To anyone who’s been off-planet for the last year, the world is experiencing some turmoil at the moment. financial markets are in chaos, politicians are in panic. Houses, jobs, and savings are being lost. Just when people need to pull together, the failed and failing Republicans enter attack mode, slinging mud, spreading untruths, misinformation, and fear. They offer nothing positive.

McCain looks more and more desperate as he diverts from his previously credible persona into just another weak charactered Republican Attack Dog, looking like he is fearful of losing and greedy for nothing but power and perhaps willing to try fight dirty to ensure he gets it. In the process he is not only nailing his colours to the Bush mast, he is allowing his reputation to be tarnished by the same methods and people responsible for ruining that of President Bush.

I noticed this change just after he had trounced all the more right wing Republican nominees in the race to become the GOP candidate. He won not because he was like them, but because he was different to them. But as soon as the Republican conference was over, his strategy took on a turn for the worse: divisive, negative, aggressive, patronising, weak. Clearly, their money and influence got to him. Fear-mongering took over, as fear can do with weaker personalities.

Then there’s the McCain money scandal in the savings and loan business from the 1980s where his lack of sound judgement as one of the “Keating 5” was made official. Sarah Palin’s many gaffes and her character attacks on anyone who has been taught by or met a certain Illinois Professor over the last 21 years again point to his erratic judgement. He picked her, or at least agreed to have her as his running mate. I can’t help feeling he was manouevred into that one though. Still, he does have a weakness for a pretty face, doesn’t he?

Yet again McCain’s judgement came into question.

Then there’s this sudden morphing from decent guy into greedy millionaire so obsessed with making up for his past mistakes or disclosures in his time in the military that he is willing to sacrifice everything else for it, even at risk to the health of his country.

You no doubt remember his assertion in the First Presidential debate that in order to pay for the recently passed $700bn financial relief package he would cut spending on everything else. But not the military. That would be sacrosanct.

Well, sometimes leadership is not about keeping the things you love, it’s about giving some of them up.

Increasingly, it is clear that McCain and Palin are two one-track ponies: McCain = Military, Palin = Alaska. Isn’t the US a little bit more complex than that?

I’ll close with something less serious though……seen first on The Eclectic One.

Biden 51% – 36% Palin (Poll)

So who won? Well, certainly the moderator lost. Very lightweight performance from her. But the debate wasn’t about her. It was about Palin and Biden.

Sarah Palin did a lot beter than expected, but did she do well enough? I don’t think so. She’d been well coached, but mostly talked about energy. To my mind she showed that the McCain-Palin ticket is McCain (defence) Palin (energy). Full stop. Period. Neither of them seem to know anything about the economy, and as someone once said, “it’s the economy, stupid!”

On the other hand, Biden actually moved the Obama-Biden ticket forward. He advanced the message, he was positive, he got the policy message across. He looked Presidential, she did not. I could really see Biden replacing Obama, but if Palin replaced McCain I’d have to wear brown trousers. I mean Biden answered the questions, and well. He was warm, charming, friendly, effective, knowledgable, funny and even got in a nice joke about the Bridge to Nowhere. According to the CNN response ticker he got a higher vote from women voters than did Palin. Seems Palin is only good with men because she turns on the sex button which doesn’t work with women.

There were a lot of questions Governor Palin didn’t have an answer for. So, she either waffled on – and boy, can she talk, talk, talk (about nothing) – or she fell back on Alaskan oil. Meanwhile, Biden didn’t make any mistakes, he answered the questions, he won on Healthcare, Iraq, beating Al Qaeda, the economy, regulation of Wall Street, tying McCain to Bush and Cheney. He did a good job for his boss.

Palin did well for herself, but didn’t really add anything to McCain’s campaign message. At least she didn’t dry up this time, perhaps why 84% of watchers thought she did better than expected, and 64% thought Biden, who was expected to win anyway, did better than expected.

I’ve been trying to work out who “won” and so I’ve been trying to remember the main points each made. For the life of me, I can only think of one issue that Palin talked about really: energy from Alaska. Biden however got a load of stuff into my brain: he explained the healthcare plan of McCain succinctly and even when Palin said something about it, Biden’s previous words on the subject rang in my ears to point out how wrong she was; he explained the problem with the Iraq strategy of McCain and Bush, tying McCain not to Bush over this issue, but even more damagingly to Dick Cheney who he described as “the most dangerous Vice President”. The response group loved that. And he really nailed McCain to Bush’s economic mess.

At the end of the day, that’s what people vote on: do they feel better now or not? With Bush sponsored high oil prices, Bush sponsored foreign wars in the wrong places, and Bush sponsored deregulation of Wall Street, people are looking for something different, someone reliable. And John McCain, sorry, you and Palin aren’t it.

Maybe Congressmen are so rich they don’t need a rescue package

A friend of mine who is into these things spent some time researching the wealth of America’s national politicians. The poorest was a multi-millionaire.

We all know that John McCain is so rich that he owns so many houses he actually didn’t know how many he had when asked. And these aren’t small houses either – after all he’s reputed to be worth $100 million. But maybe my friend’s findings might shock you.

Are they so rich they actually don’t mind if there is no credit in the system? They clearly don’t need to borrow any money. They may even have forgotten the kinds of things borrowed money can be used for. You know, buying a car when your old one finally breaks, tiding your small business through a bad patch or investing in better equipment for growth, allowing your kids to go to College, spreading out the ups and downs of uneven spending throughout the year, and so on.

I guess a Congressman pays cash for everything. Thing is, hardly anybody else in America or Britain does. America is so in love with debt that the whole country borrows more and more each year from predominantly Communist China and fundamentalist Saudi Arabia, home of all of the 911 bombers plus a few other places. The Republican Administration is just as bad, running a record budget deficit of mammoth proportions.

Why? Well, one suspects the NeoCon Bush government was more intent on looking after the financial interests of their millionaire friends than they were in keeping debt levels down. In fact, they welcomed rising consumer debt because this allowed consumers to continue living in a dreamworld where they were surrounded by goodies, gadgets and glitz at a time when their economy was in fact becoming weaker and weaker. This illusion of wealth is what is deflating right now. Assets we thought were worth a lot, are falling rapidly in value – because of the credit crunch, the inability to obtain credit to oil the wheels of the world economy.

Of course we want to punish these guys who earned millions as they enabled illusion to grow upon illusion. Of course it is wrong that people are paid $50 million a year for working no harder than a struggling single parent or large family breadwinner does.

But this rescue package is not designed to give those people more money, it’s designed to allow us to not lose anymore.

Those congressmen and women who voted against the package should be kicked out of office right now, because they are clearly too rich to empathise or care for ordinary people. They seem too stupid to work out the problem, too selfish to think of others before themselves, too greedy to think of giving up politics, and too gutless to do what’s right, rather than just what will get them elected.

Keep the ones that see sense, and throw out those who were against the bill. November’s election isn’t that far away…

The Conservatives Fiddle while the world burns

George Osborn, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, spoke today at the Tory Party Conference. Falsely.

He said a lot of things that on closer study are weasel words that do not mean what they lead you to believe you think they mean, and which you want them to mean. In other words, it was a carefully crafted PR speech fitting the role of the leader of a large PR company. Oh, that’s what David Cameron really is, was and always will be, isn’t it?

He specifically warned people that if they paid large dividends instead of rebuilding their capital base, those people would suffer. This was followed by a comment about not allowing taxes paid by lower end taxpayers to be used for the benefit of those earning millionaire bonuses. But that means they will do practically nothing at all! Let me explain.

The people who the average man in the street feel most badly about are the city traders getting multi-million pound bonuses each year. The problem is, these traders are employees, or partners (most stockbroking firms have been partnerships not Limited Companies. And if they are companies, each bonus earner is a small part in the whole so gets salary plus bonus. Salaries and bonuses are taken out of a company’s accounts before the dividends, so by making the bonuses big enough you can minimise the dividends to avoid any Tory inspired wrist slapping. Result? Tories can claim to be hitting the people most voters now want to be hit, but without actually having anything more than a feather duster to do it with.

Then there’s the matter of party funding. David Cameron has been attacking Labour for some time about being funded by the Unions and cozying up to big business, while at the same time they themselves have raised £50 million in 30 months. Well, nothing wrong with that you think. But just look how they’ve been doing it. Two examples.

First off, the Leader’s Group. This is an exclusive club that costs £50,000 a year to join but which gives you the right to evenings with David Cameron – special privileges for the privileged. If you can’t afford the fee, well, you can’t influence his thinking. 

Secondly, expatriate Lord Ashcroft and the £4 million donation that became £3 million for the Tories. According to a recent Channel 4 documentary, “Cameron’s Money Men” Ashcroft is not on the voters roll, is therefore not eligible to vote, and by law cannot contribute to a UK political party. So how did the Tories receive his money? A chain of companies starting with one in Belize where he is allegedly tax resident and has considerable interests with the last link in the chain being a company in Southampton. Not only is this not allowed, it may even be criminal, according to one of the experts on the Channel 4 program.

The Tories then used £2 million of his donation to fund publicity campaigns in key marginals across the country. Although there is a limit to how much money political parties can spend on an election campaign once one has been called, there is no limit to how much can be spent in the crucially influential two years preceding an election.

Channel 4 programs do not have the reputation for accuracy that perhaps the BBC might offer (remember The Great Global Warming Swindle?) but they did have some pretty well placed people making comments.