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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 10-Jun-2013
10-Jun-13 World View -- The deafening silence following the Xi/Obama summit

Web Log - June, 2013

10-Jun-13 World View -- The deafening silence following the Xi/Obama summit

George W. Obama

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

The deafening silence following the Xi Jinping / Barack Obama summit
George W. Obama

The deafening silence following the Xi Jinping / Barack Obama summit

President Xi to meet Obama (Global Times)

President Xi to meet Obama (Global Times)

Prior to the two-day meeting of China's president Xi Jinping and U.S. president Barack Obama, both of them bubbled with enthusiasm, and talked about a "new model" of cooperation between China and the U.S. Now that's it's over, a U.S. official has described it as "unique, positive and constructive."

But the only agreement to come out of the meeting was North Korea shouldn't have nuclear weapons. That was it. The silence has been deafening. Let's see if we can guess what happened with respect to the other issues that were supposed to be discussed at this summit:

Cyberwar: U.S. National Security Advisor Tom Donilon said Obama had warned Xi that cyber-crime could be an "inhibitor" in US-China relations, which is really a laughable statement. My guess is that Xi told the following to Obama: "We're going to continue what we're doing, and anyway, you're doing the same thing."

South China Sea: Obama would have told Xi that disputes should be decided by negotiation, or mediated by the United Nations. Xi would have told Obama: "Everything in the South China Sea is indisputably the sovereign territory of China, no matter what the U.N. says, and we will do everything we have to do militarily to preserve our sovereign properties." Xi would also have warned Obama to stop meddling in the region and causing problems.

Human rights: Obama might have raised concerns about Chinese treatment of dissidents, Tibetans and Uighurs. Xi would have said: "These are all internal matters to China, and the United States has no business interfering in them."

Syria: "These are all internal matters to Syria, and the United States has no business interfering in them."

It's well to remember, as I've described in the past, that Xi Jinping has launched a series of "The China Dream" speeches, in which he calls for China to shed its past as a secondary player, and become the world's top military and economic power. He's visited Chinese military bases and told the troops to be ready for war at any time. He's personally taking charge of policy in the East and South China Seas, and has vowed that China will take every step necessary to gain control of these regions, including areas that have been owned by other countries for centuries. China is rapidly preparing for war with India, Vietnam, Philippines, Japan and the U.S., and Xi Jinping is committed to leading the effort.

When President Obama was asked how the meeting was going, he said "Terrific!" The credulous mainstream press thought he was saying that the meeting was going well, but I interpreted his response as being sarcastic. It's possible that President Obama may now realize that his smooth rhetoric will have no effect on anything that China is going to do. BBC and Global Times (Beijing)

George W. Obama

George W. Obama (Huffington Post)

George W. Obama (Huffington Post)

A number of President Barack Obama's supporters on the left are claiming that Obama has morphed into President George W. Bush. The adjoining picture is a blending of the images of Obama and Bush and looks really weird. Nonetheless, this photo was displayed last week on the front page of the left-wing Huffington Post to demonstrate their distress that sometimes Obama isn't the total loony nutcase that the far left wants him to be.

Apparently it wasn't the Benghazi scandal or the IRS scandal or the threats targeting Fox News's James Rosen or the lies and stonewalling and coverups that caused this comparison to be made. That's just as well, because for those, we should have a picture of Richard M. Obama.

Ironically, the revelation that's causing the left to complain about George W. Obama is the revelation about Prism, the secret government programs that collect phone and internet data to help thwart terrorists. That's ironic, because from what I understand the technical details of the operation of Prism to be, and unlike the IRS targeting of Obama's enemies, the American public appears to be protected, and the program provides a powerful and valuable service in protecting America from terrorist attacks. Regarding Prism, the real crime is that it was made public by another left-wing nutcase.

Long-time readers of my web site will not be surprised at all that Obama's terms as president are very much like Bush's third and fourth terms would have been. As I've said many times, I didn't worry too much about the ridiculous claims that Obama said during the 2008 campaign, because I knew it was just fatuous campaign rhetoric. But he didn't abandon those claims after he was elected, and I remember thinking, "Ohmigod, he actually believes all the crap."

But Obama has gotten some painful lessons since then. He would cure global warming, close Guantanamo, become friendly with Iran and North Korea, bring a two-state solution to Palestinians and Israelis, beat the Taliban and al-Qaeda, end the financial crisis, reflate the real estate and stock market bubbles and, of course, provide universal health care. All of these objectives have been total failures, the sole exception being his health care program, which is going to be an economic disaster if it's not heavily modified.

As I've written dozens of times since 2008, it's a basic principle of Generational Dynamics that even in a dictatorship, major policies and events are determined by masses of people, entire generations of people, and not by politicians. What politicians say or do is irrelevant, except insofar as their actions reflect the attitudes of the people that they represent, and so politicians can neither cause nor prevent the great events of history. It's a consequence of that basic principle that whatever was going to happen in the Obama administration is the same thing that would have happened in additional Bush administrations, because it was the result of generational forces.

There's another generational connection to be made in this picture. Why should anyone be surprised that the IRS is full of people who are using the power of the IRS to target political enemies? It's just a few years ago that an entire generation -- Generation-X -- of financial engineers in the banking system created tens of trillions of dollars of fraudulent subprime mortgage-backed securities and sold them as AAA-rated. Then you have the widespread Libor fixing crimes, then energy-fixing crimes, various crimes in the computer industry that I've seen with my own eyes. And you have experts on CNBC every day lie about stock valuations. (As an aside, the S&P 500 Price/Earnings ratio, as reported by Friday's Wall Street Journal is an astronomically high value of 18.38, meaning that stocks are far overpriced.)

So if thousands of financial institutions caused the financial crisis by creating tens of trillions of dollars in fraudulent securities, then of course the IRS is going to perform its own version of fraud and extortion. The same is going to be true at other government agencies. Why would anyone believe anything else?

And what about the bank presidents. Did they know what was going on? How stupid would they have to be not to know that their bank was making millions of dollars selling trillions of dollars in fraudulent securities? Of course they knew what was going on, and of course they've been lying about it.

And what about President Obama. Did he know what was going on at the IRS? How stupid would he have to be not to know that the IRS was targeting his political opponents in the middle of his reelection campaign? Of course he knew what was going on, and of course he's been lying about it.

President Obama's repeated failures have been tremendous learning experiences for him. And this weekend, he's had another learning experience -- his "terrific" meeting with China's president Xi Jinping must surely have opened his eyes to the fact that things are not going to go in the direction he was hoping even a month ago. Bloomberg

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 10-Jun-13 World View -- The deafening silence following the Xi/Obama summit thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (10-Jun-2013) Permanent Link
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The deafening silence following the Xi Jinping / Barack Obama summit

George W. Obama

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10-Jun-13 World View -- The deafening silence following the Xi/Obama summit