17-May-10 News -- Markets open Monday amid high tension - 17-May-2010 - Generational Dynamics

As I'm writing this on Sunday evening, the Dow Industrials futures are down 50 points, Asian markets are down over 2%, and the NY Times web site has just posted an article titled, "Fears Intensify That Euro Crisis Could Snowball."

As we wrote in the news summary two days ago, there are a lot of signs right now that a panic is coming soon. (See "15-May-10 News -- European financial instability returns.") Perhaps the panic will fizzle, but readers should watch the markets very closely in the next few days. The global financial system is extremely dysfunctional.

Palestinian / Israeli 'proximity talks' resume for a 'final agreement'

George Mitchell, the Obama administration's envoy to the Mideast, is returning this week to resume serving as mediator between the Palestinians and Israelis in "proximity talks" -- negotiations that take place indirectly (through Mitchell), rather than face to face.

There's an increasing feeling of tension in the Mideast that these talks are the last ones that will be held. Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat is quoted by Ynet news on Sunday as saying:

"We, as Palestinians, decided to give Mitchell, [Secretary of State Hillary] Clinton and Obama a chance.

I talk with Mitchell about the core issues," he continued. "If [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu wants to talk to the mirror, he can. If he wants to talk about (soccer teams) Hapoel Tel Aviv and Maccabi Haifa, he can. It's nothing to do with me. I talk with Mitchell.

We will not agree to a military presence in the Jordan Valley, we will not agree to (Israeli) control of water, we will not agree to settlements there or Israeli industry there. Not for the sake of security. We agree to have a third party investigate the issue.

There's no need for negotiations. There is a need for an agreement. All the alternatives are on the table. This is the moment of truth. We are all experiencing birth pangs. We need leaders ready to make sacrifices. My options are two states according to the 67 borders, with territory exchanges and security arrangements. If you've come to the conclusions that you can't offer this because you don't have anyone to rely on – I'm not afraid. ...

[Regarding the Netanyahu government] You tie up my hands and feet and throw me into the sea. Then you tell me I don't know how to swim. That's how the Israeli government behaves today.

I negotiate with you because in my opinion, most Jews and Arabs want an agreement, and the alternative, the conflict, is too hard. ...

In my generation, this can be achieved through negotiation. Don't miss the opportunity… The negotiations are over. The time has come to decide. Not interim decisions, not future decisions, not past decisions. A final agreement."

Just reading that list of demands, you know that none of them are going to happen. Israel will not return to pre-1967 borders and will not give up control of water. And the Israelis have reaffirmed in the last few days that they will not stop building Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The Israeli people will not agree to these concessions.

Nor will Hamas nor the Palestinians of the Gaza strip agree to any concessions. As I've pointed out many times, the average age of an inhabitant of Gaza is 16, meaning that Gaza is populated by children with guns and missiles, children who consider people like Saeb Erekat and George Mitchell to be irrelevant old fogies.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, nothing has changed since what I first wrote in 2003, when President Bush launched his major peace plan. (See "Mideast Roadmap - Will it bring peace?") This was my first major international prediction, based on the Generational Dynamics methodology, and it's been correct so far. Since then, there have been three wars in the Mideast: Israelis vs Hizbollah in Lebanon in 2006, Palestinian Fatah vs Hamas in Gaza in 2008, and Israelis vs Hamas in Gaza in January, 2009.

Generational Dynamics predicts that there will be a major new Mideast war re-fighting the 1948-49 war between Jews and Arabs that followed the partitioning of Palestine, and the creation of the state of Israel. There will be no peace agreement.

Thus, it will be very interesting to watch these new "proximity talks" to see what will happen. George Mitchell will be hoping to come up with some magic formula that everyone will agree to. What will happen if the talks don't succeed? Will everyone just go home and promise to try again next year? Or will there be a new Mideast war in 2010, possibly as early as this summer? We'll be watching closely.

CNN's Fareed Zakaria admits to bubbles and to al-Qaeda in Iraq

I like Fareed Zakaria's show on CNN because of his guests. On Sunday, for example, he interviewed Greek PM George Papandreou in one segement, and had a panel that included Larry Summers and IMF director Dominique Strauss-Kahn in another segment.

The main thing that startled me about Sunday's show was when he described the bombing of the U.N. headquarters building in Baghdad in 2003 this way, according to CNN's transcript: "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of al Qaeda in Iraq, had ordered an attack on the U.N. headquarters..."

I like to keep track of these people who seem to have experienced epiphanies, and change their mind about thing. Zakaria has a very grating way of being ostentatiously super-positive about things, while exhibiting his toothy smile. In this show, for example, he began by saying, "A big week. Hamid Karzai was received in style in Washington, finally. Europe got its act together and rescued Greece and stock markets worldwide rose in relief." I'm not sure that he lived through the same week that I did, but that's another matter.

Zakaria had been predicting a civil war in Iraq for years, and he never seemed to get it right. In that article, I referred to him and other mainstream journalists as "learning impaired," because they never seemed to learn. In those days, it was anathema among mainstream journalists to utter the words "al-Qaeda in Iraq," because to do so would be to admit that, well, al-Qaeda was in Iraq, and that what was going on wasn't a civil war caused by the evil Bush administration.

Long-time readers of this web site know that I also wrote about the attack on U.N. headquarters, in the article "Terrorist suicide bombings in Iraq may backfire against terrorists." This article is personally interesting to me because it was the second major international prediction that I made as I was developing Generational Dynamics, and as I read that article today, the predictions look pretty good. (See the article "Brookings Institution does a full reversal on Iraq war." The first major international prediction was that the Mideast Roadmap to Peace would fail.)

Mainstream bloggers and journalists like Zakaria allow their reporting to be controlled by their ideology. More generally, Zakaria and other mainstream journalists and bloggers just make up and report any "facts" they like to support their ideologies. Zakaria didn't like Bush, so he chose to be pessimistic about Bush's policies; Zakaria loves Obama, so he chooses to be optimistic about Obama's policies. As Groucho Marx once said, "Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them - well I have others."

I've been reading and hearing so much about bubbles these days, and I wrote a lot about the real estate and credit bubbles between 2004 and 2007, when mainstream financial analysts denied they existed.

So, once again, I'm pointing out that mainstream journalists and analysts were consistently wrong in the past. By contrast, I do not make up facts. I apply the Generational Dynamics forecasting methodology relentlessly, and report to you the forecasts and predictions, whether I like them or not. As far as I know, there is no web site or analyst or journalist in the world with anything remotely close to the predictive success of this web site, for the last 8 years. Assuming that's true (and I believe it is), then this is the only web site in the world that will tell you what's really going on in the world. That was true in the past, and it's still true today.

I've actually passed a major milestone this year: Starting in January, I've been posting daily news summaries. I couldn't possibly have accomplished that in the past, because I hadn't yet developed enough generational theory, and because there were a lot of countries that I hadn't analyzed. But gradually over the years I've developed a kind of "inventory" of information about histories and generational timelines of dozens of countries, and I'm able to provide generational interpretations of various international events fairly quickly, without having to do too much additional research. I only wish I had more time to organize all the information in the "inventory" into some kind of database, which would be incredibly valuable for either governmental or commercial purposes. Well, maybe some day.

I started doing these daily news summarizes almost as a whim. I was sitting at my computer on January 6, and, almost without thinking, my fingers took control and typed, "Dear Reader, I'm going to try this for a while and see if it works for me. Ideally I'll produce a news summary every day, but that's probably unrealistic. I'll try to do it as often as possible."

Somewhat to my surprise, I've actually done this every day for over four months now (with one day's exception when I was out of town). It's been exhausting, but it's also been fun. I never cease to be astonished about how accurate the generational methodology is turning out to be. And I'm telling you again, Dear Reader, these predictions don't come from me; they come from the methodology. So, when I say that there won't be a civil war in Thailand, even though most of the mainstream media is saying the country is close to civil war, then you can take that to the bank.

Additional links

On Saturday, Palestinians commemorated the creation of the state of Israel with Al-Naqba, or "Catastrophe Day." VOA

With tensions high because of the Cheonan warship sinking, there was a brief naval confrontation on Saturday night in South Korean warters between North Korean patrol boats and South Korean naval ships. Taipai Times

Bangkok, Thailand, entered a fourth day of gunfire and explosions that have killed 30 civilians, as the army attempts to disperse the "Red Shirt" protestors. AP

Generational Dynamics Web Log for 17-May-2010
17-May-10 News -- Markets open Monday amid high tension

Tensions are high as markets open on Monday

Palestinian / Israeli 'proximity talks' resume for a 'final agreement'

CNN's Fareed Zakaria admits to bubbles and to al-Qaeda in Iraq

Additional links

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 17-May-2010 17-May-10 News -- Markets open Monday amid high tension

Tensions are high as markets open on Monday

Palestinian / Israeli 'proximity talks' resume for a 'final agreement'

CNN's Fareed Zakaria admits to bubbles and to al-Qaeda in Iraq

Additional links

Web Log Pages

Generational Dynamics Web Log for 17-May-2010
17-May-10 News -- Markets open Monday amid high tension