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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 31-Mar-2010
31-Mar-10 News - Putin vows revenge for black widow subway attacks

Web Log - March, 2010

31-Mar-10 News - Putin vows revenge for black widow subway attacks

Greece's financial crisis deepens as new bond sale does poorly

Vladimir Putin says terrorists will be 'dredged from the bottom of the sewers'

A day after suicide bombers killed dozens of subway commuters during rush hour, Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin is quoted by Moscow Times as saying, "We know that they're lying low, but it's now a matter of honor for the law enforcement agencies to dredge them from the bottom of the sewers to the kingdom of God. I'm certain that it will be done."

This reminds readers that Putin once promised to "wipe out Chechen terrorists in the outhouse," referring to Islamist terrorists in the Cacausus.

The Caucasus region has been the site of many genocidal wars of extermination between the Muslim and Orthodox Christian civilizations. The last one of these was in the 1920s.

We've seen some smaller wars in the last 20 years, mainly Russia's war in Chechnya, and Russian's invasion of Georgia in 2008. From the point of Generational Dynamics, a new war engulfing the entire region is overdue. Monday's subway bombings, followed by Putin's extremely angry remarks, are both steps in that direction.

The two female suicide bombers are assumed to be "black widows," a terrorist group of women who say that are getting revenge for the murder of their husbands by the Russian police. The following Al-Jazeera video has some video showing the history of the black widows:

Greece's financial crisis deepens as new bond sale turns out badly

Greece came closer to default on Tuesday, when an auction of 12-year bonds raised only 390 million euros, instead of the hoped-for 1 billion euros, according to Bloomberg. Greece is scrambling to borrow 10.5 billion additional euros by the end of May, in order to meet debt payments on previous bond auctions. After that, Greece will still need to borrow 2 billion euros per month.

The interest rate difference (spread) between German and Greek treasury bonds is becoming larger. Greece now has to pay 3.34% higher interest rates than Germany has to pay to borrow the same money on the same terms.

The plan, as of a couple of weeks ago, was the the European Union would provide some kind of "bailout" or "backstop," in order to give investors confidence that Greece would not default, and thereby keep interest rates down. The Europeans did come up with some screwy plan that said that they would help the Greeks out, but only if Greece were already close to default. It's now increasingly clear that the whole bailout was a farce, and investors aren't falling for it, as interest rates are higher than ever.

Bad news for Greece from the IMF's Dominique Strauss-Kahn

Part of last week's supposed bailout of Greece was that if Greece were ever to be helped out, then most of the money would come from the EU, and the rest would come from the Washington-based International Monetary Fund (IMF), headed by Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn. The terms of the agreement were that the EU, not the IMF, would set the terms of the deal.

Well, it turns out that the Europeans never bothered to check whether that kind of deal was OK with IMF. On Tuesday, Strauss-Kahn said that if any IMF money were involved in a deal to bail out Greece, then the IMF would dictate the terms of assistance. Bloomberg quotes Strauss-Kahn as saying that any assistance would "be an IMF program decided by the IMF as it happens with each and every country. The IMF will define the conditionality, as we do with any country."

A web site reader from France informed me that I should be more aware of internal French politics that are part of the Greek assistance deal. He wrote, "Do you know that Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of IMF, is a socialist, former minister of the economy in France, and the most likely serious opponent to Sarkozy in the coming election for France presidency in the spring of 2012? Back in 2007 the IMF was nearly bankrupt because it was not of any use any more (no more countries to bail out at that time) and Sarkozy managed to send Strauss-Kahn to Washington so that the French would not hear about him any more."

That observation explains why French president Nicolas Sarkozy was so opposed to IMF involvement, even though German chancellor Angela Merkel favored it. Indeed, Bloomberg reports that "Allowing the IMF to provide funds to Greece may also provide a platform for Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the Washington- based lender’s managing director and potential challenger in 2012 elections. Strauss-Kahn, 60, said Feb. 4 for the first time he’d consider cutting short his five-year term to run."

Sarko is, of course, in Washington right now, sucking up to President Obama, especially after his party's huge loss in regional elections two weeks ago. (See "Sarkozy loses big in France's regional elections.") Two glamorous politicians with beautiful wives compete for the international spotlight.

Additional Links

The five centuries old austere message of Calvinism is returning and is being increasingly embraced, especially among young people in Presbyterian, Anglican, and independent evangelical churches, according to the Christian Science Monitor. This is actually part of a general religious revival around the world, in countries in a generational Crisis era, involving different religions. Thus, we see it in Russia, Turkey, Israel and other countries as well.

With the space program winding down, NASA engineers are running out of funding. So federal investigators have given them a boost by hiring them to study the Toyota acceleration problam. I guess Toyota's problems are rocket science after all. Washington Post.

The cause of the explosion that sank a Korean ship last week has still not been determined. One possibility is a mine left over from the Korean War. CS Monitor

A trip by German Chancellor Angela Merkel to Ankara, Turkey, to visit Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan underscored the growing rift between the two countries. Merkel has opposed EU membership for Turkey. Der Spiegel.

Serbia's parliament has passed a landmark resolution offering an apology for the Srebrenica massacre in 1995 - the worst incident of the Bosnian War - without calling it a "genocide." BBC

A judge has ruled that patents on human genes were "improperly granted," because they involved a "law of nature." If his ruling is upheld, it will have far-reaching implications, as about 20% of human genes have been patented. NY Times

In a pre-election televised debate in the UK on Monday, all the candidates poured scorn on bankers for their alleged greed. I wonder if bankers are beginning to figure out how much trouble they're in? Financial Times

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 31-Mar-10 News - Putin vows revenge for black widow subway attacks thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (31-Mar-2010) Permanent Link
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