and so it begins

[sisyphusshrugged]

looks as if Our Fearless Leader isn't the only one who got a boost in the hubris Tuesday

Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi sought to calm anger on Friday over his description of states that opposed the U.S.-led war to oust Saddam Hussein as "spectators."

But several EU leaders said his comment, on a visit to Rome on Thursday, was unhelpful ahead of a first meeting at which the 25-nation bloc is due to offer him a modest aid package as it seeks a fresh start after bitter divisions over Iraq.

"What I said is that history is history, past is past. We need to start operations, to start a new chapter and look to the future. We definitely want to forge a positive alliance with Europe," Allawi told reporters after a breakfast meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Brussels.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder called Allawi's comment "a slip of the tongue" and said he would remind the prime minister of Germany's contribution in training Iraqi police and military in the United Arab Emirates and in offering to write off a substantial amount of Iraqi debt.

Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, one of the European critics of the war, told reporters: "I don't like the expression 'spectator states' at all. I don't understand it, and if I do understand it right, I don't like it at all."

French President Jacques Chirac, the most outspoken opponent of the Iraq invasion, skipped the meeting with Allawi to fly to the United Arab Emirates but insisted it was no snub.

"There is no problem naturally with the Iraqi authorities," Chirac told a news conference, adding he had invited Iraqi President Ghazi Yawar to Paris and he had accepted.

France canceled a planned visit by Yawar in September after two French journalists were taken hostage in Iraq.

However, diplomats said Chirac's early exit was a clear snub and disclosed that France had managed to get a phrase explicitly welcoming Allawi deleted from the draft summit statement.

Comments

[drownedinink.livejournal.com]

However, diplomats said Chirac's early exit was a clear snub and disclosed that France had managed to get a phrase explicitly welcoming Allawi deleted from the draft summit statement.

I do love it when nations act bitchy.

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

See, what's absolutely marvelous about this is that the bitchiest one of all is Blair. Gee whiz, Europe is in denial? England is furious, and Blair is going to pay for it. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, our homegrown evangelical conservatives, who have been able to shield themselves from the consequences of their actions by (by and large) sticking to screwing with domestic affairs, are all full of themselves and shouting abuse at the people who... yes... hold all our paper.

So Mr. Bush is going to keep going the way he's going, which we can't sustain now, and the rest of the world is going to stop being patient.

Actually, I'm working on a post about this...

[snuh.livejournal.com]

Remember this - Tricky Dicky was six months into Watergate with a "secret plan" to end the Vietnam War when he won a landslide re-election.

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

I think it would be nice if some of our punditry would wake the fuck up.

I have never seen anything like the way these people lap up "conventional wisdom" narratives.

[snuh.livejournal.com]

Having Kerry win would've been the easy way out, but now the people that have lived through even greater odds need to remind those that either forgot or weren't around that this was just a battle, not the whole enchilada.

They're fooling some of the people all of the time, but not everyone.

Like Markos Moulitsas said - we have to do a better job educating instead of cursing the darkness.

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

I can sympathize with cursing the darkness. What pisses me off is the low chatter of avuncular voices explaining about the dragon that ate the sun and how darkness is the new zeitgeist and how if we just run around and smash some lightbulbs as a sign of good faith maybe the sun will come back.

[snuh.livejournal.com]

I'm seeing a fair amount joining the *cause* - membership at LJ liberal communities and other online venues has slowly started to climb since the election, for example. I'd truly expected otherwise and I'm gladdened by the surprise, It's starting to look as if the left is finally seriously galvanizing.

But the mainstream/Old Media has some serious soul-searching to do, they let the American people down in a major way.

But one thing for sure, it's time for a new direction and some serious retooling for the DNC. And not everything that occurred was bad, a lot of positives came out of it.

My biggest regret was not realizing that Howard Dean had *it* and failing to get behind him in a real way when it counted.

[(Anonymous)]

This is a rough transcript of Global Business from BBC (they don't do transcripts or archives):
(BBC) Peter Day: Global Business
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/global_business.shtml

Laura Tyson: US economy slow recovery. Jobless recovery.

Budget Deficit: Caused by government spending going forward. Medicare, social security must be reduced.

Day: If the Americans spend more money than they raise in taxes, they have a budget deficit. Japanese have been buying American bonds in huge amounts. The Japanese are supporting the budget deficit.

Japanese bank (Isuro International): It works both ways, if US falters, then Japan falters because US will not buy as many imports.

Beatty: There was so much investment in the last cycle that the productivity rate in the US is very high and employers don't need to hire additional workers.

Twin deficits: the budget deficit and the trade deficit. The American government's deficit (budget deficit) and the American economy's deficit (trade deficit, the deficit of all Americans put together relative to the rest of the world).

The budget deficit is government spending on defense, homeland security, etc, as well as entitlement programs such as social security and medicare which is not offset by revenue (taxes). If this were the only deficit things could get corrected by raising taxes and/or cutting spending. Both deficits are about the same size.

But this is not the only deficit. The trade deficit is what Americans are buying relative to the rest of the world. We are funding our spending not only by borrowing from Americans but also by borrowing from foreign investors.

Laura Tyson: The trade deficit is caused not just by the United States. We have an interdependent global economy. The rest of the world has been benefiting by having the United States consume at a very rapid rate. Asia got out of their downturn by having the US buy a lot from them.
America spends and the rest of the world lends.

Day: So Americans need the world to buy its debt and the world needs America to buy its things. It is clear that America's problems can easily become the world's problems.

Beatty: What we need is for someone else to pick up the consuming. That would solve the world's problem quite easily. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much sign of that happening. The only way, if no other country picks up on the spending is to have a very big fall of the dollar, which would be destabilizing. Very big movements in the exchange rate have unintended consequences.

Day: The american currency is also a reserve currency. Oil, for example, is bought in dollars.

Neil Furgesson: The reason other countries have been willing to buy the debt is that they do not want to see the dollar slide. The asians are mortally afraid of a fall in the dollar because the american market has been a crucial market for their exports. Americans live beyond their means and the asian countries lend them the money to do so. There is a point beyond which this cannot continue. Another problem is that the returns on american assets is lousy and sometimes negative. At some point the dollar will slide precipitously (as much as 20%) and we are only counting the months until that occurs.

Day: So a run on the dollar will cause a major economic upset, a change in the global economy.

Fergusson: This happened in the 1980's under Reagan when the US had large twin deficits because of Reagan's spending on arms.

[(Anonymous)]

Continued BBC program:
Japan: If we have a significant run on the dollar then we could have an economic catastrophe with asians refusing to buy treasury bonds and americans unable to buy (or having to buy at a very much higher rate, asian products.

Peterson: The federal budget deficit is becoming dangerously out of whack. We must dramatically increase our net national savings. Two ways: get rid of the deficit and increase savings. The US must import less, spend less and save more. The rest of the world must do just the opposite, they must import more, spend more.

Up until now the other economies have been willing to support US economy because it allowed them to build up their economic base and create jobs.

We are coming upon the perfect storm: rapidly aging populations which will require their governments to spend on their health/retirement, etc.

Japan: rapidly aging population with dramatic increases in spending. The US is not alone in this. Bad management of economies all over the world will blow up in the next ten years.

Fanner (International Herald Tribune): There have to be cuts (Republicans) or tax increases (Democrats). No matter who gets in and no matter how much they say they don't want to do it whoever is elected is going to have to do both.

Day: Outside america the twin deficits are seen as very big problems but inside America they seem to be seen as something that can be put off again.

Fanner: The budget deficit has been addressed but I don't think the average american thinks about the current account deficit (trade deficit).

Day: Countries aren't indiviuals, they can't go bankrupt can they?

Fergusson: Argentina and Russia went bankrupt twice in the last 100 years. It seems inplausible but the US could go bankrupt. More likely the next president (Bush or Kerry) will have to cut social security and medicare or raise taxes quite significantly.