8-Aug-11 World View -- Threats to Syria grow from all sides

[John]

8-Aug-11 World View -- Threats to Syria grow from all sides

Desperate European Central Bank fires a bazooka

** 8-Aug-11 World View -- Threats to Syria grow from all sides
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi ... 08#e110808


Contents:
### World View -- Threats to Syria grow from all sides
"Syrian armored forces move on to flatten Deir Ezzor"
"Syria replies harshly to threat from Turkey"
"Arab League breaks silence and condemns violence in Syria"
"Saudi King Abdullah recalls the Saudi ambassador to Syria"
"Desperate European Central Bank fires a bazooka"
"It's that '1937 feeling' all over again"
"US Postal Service comes closer to bankruptcy"
"Workers in Dubai are not exempt from work or fasting during Ramadan"
"Residents of Dubai skyscraper have to fast longer during Ramadan"
"Avigdor Lieberman warns that Palestinians want 'bloodshed'"

Keys:
Generational Dynamics, Syria, Bashar al-Assad, Ahmed Davutoglu,
Turkey, Arab league, King Abdullah, Saudi Arabia, ECB,
Jean-Claude Trichet, Postal Service, Burj Khalifa, Dubai,
Israel, Avigdor Lieberman

[OLD1953]

Apparently the fear of other governments in the region has moved from "Syrian troubles may spread if we speak up" to "we will have trouble if we don't speak up". How much of that is sincere and how much is "hurry up and kill enough to get them to go home so we don't see it on the news every night" I don't know.

There is a lot of frustration among educated Arabs over things like "I'm too high up to end the fast yet". This has evolved to the point where the educated will pick out a few of the traditional restrictions to keep, avoiding liquor or pork or loose women or whatever, and ignore the rest. And that is the wellspring of the culture clash the Arab world is trying very hard to suppress. They can't live without locally trained technicians, scientists, engineers and so forth (though some states certainly have made an effort) but the religious underpinning of the governments can't live with them either.

While it's possible the world could go sane and fix the worldwide financial mess, I seriously doubt that will happen short of war. The next election in the US will be interesting, to say the least. I predict that whoever paints a clear vision of a desirable future for the US will win. Obama's greatest failing is that he has not portrayed a clear vision of where he wants America to go and what he wants it to be.

The bankruptcy of the Post Office was and is inevitable, discussion of pensions, cost cutting, etc., is irrelevant to the simple fact that Post Office revenues are heavily dependant on direct mail advertising, and that is being replaced by electronic advertising, which can be both cheaper and more effective - unless of course you are an ad hater like me, who simply blocks most of the web ad sites from displaying on your browser. Bliss! Some web pages are complete blanks on my brower, they are nothing but ads, and missing that doesn't bother me at all! Ads delivered by a web site itself will still show up, but the sneak popunders and so forth usually come up as blanks or just a dot. And I almost never get malware attacks.

Israel is simply preparing for all out war. So is Palestine. Turkey intends to make it difficult for the US to intervene, and that's another problem, will the US see Turkey leave NATO simply to offer Israel token support in the UN during a war? Certainly anyone can see the world breaking down all around us.

[vincecate]

After having refused to do so for months, and having said that he would never do so, ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet announced on Sunday evening that the ECB would begin buying bonds from Italy and Spain, in a massive exercise in quantitative easing. In helping to bailout Greece, Ireland and Portugal, the ECB has previously purchased about €74 billion of assets from those countries. But doing the same for Spain and Italy will cost at several billion euros, possibly more than €1 trillion. So this is truly a move of complete desperation, and one that can't succeed. Bloomberg and Reuters

Generally it seems deflationist expect central banks to follow the law and hyperinflationist expect them to print money like crazy. This is breaking rules and treaties governing the ECB. They are not allowed to monetize government debt and they are not allowed to buy anything but the most secure debt. Add a point for the hyperinflationist.

Gold is up to $1712 as I write this. More and more people are worried about paper money. A trend I think will continue till paper money fails.

I think it is naive to expect the Fed to follow rules when things get really serious in the US. If the government needs money, the Fed will make some for them.

[vincecate]

While it's possible the world could go sane and fix the worldwide financial mess, I seriously doubt that will happen short of war. The next election in the US will be interesting, to say the least. I predict that whoever paints a clear vision of a desirable future for the US will win.

The debt limit was the one chance to move things closer to sane and it failed. Now there is no chance of fixing things before the election. This is a long enough time that things may fall apart before the election. I think hyperinflation could start before the election.