Not by unemployment, or by Know Nothing recalcitrance, but by the Governor of Jakarta!
Seems the famous statue “Barry As A Boy With Butterfly” made some Indonesians angry, because our President, although attending elementary school in Jakarta and more popular in the country than he is in America, hasn’t done much for Indonesians so far.
Gorilla says: “Hopefully Barry will stop being a statue and start being a leader!”
Today’s bombings: in Pakistan and in Iraq…
These were aimed at Shiites attending religious festivals, and were presumably detonated by or at the behest of Sunnis.
In Pakistan, Sunnis are the majority, in Iraq, the Shiites hold sway.
These religion-based civil wars appear to be beyond our control, and certainly beyond the control of the local governments.
It’s difficult to square our national security strategy in these regions, which is essentially to keep Islamic terrorists from attacking in the West, with the reality on the ground in places where terrorists live: there aren’t any jobs, village life is more or less medieval, and the populations are easy targets for the ravings and the bombs of religious fanatics.
No amount of soldiers will change the situation, and it’s very unlikely that weak and corrupt governments can do anything more than pursue containment in those regions they tenuously control.
What’s frustrating and depressing about all this is that these problems don’t get discussed by our political leaders.
They seem stuck on either fear (“they’ll be attacking by July!”) or on anger (“we’ll show these ragwearers a thing or two!”).
And they certainly want to do anything to avoid admitting that we don’t have a clue about what’s going on in Iraq, Pakistan, or Afghanistan, or that the threat a few thousand fifth-rate terrorists pose to our way of life is extremely minimal.
We’re not winning anything, we’re not nation building, and we’re not promoting democracy: we’re essentially a marginal player in a religious civil war.
Gorilla says: “It’s their fight, not ours, and so far they want to keep fighting!”
Whoops, despite the confident predictions of Wall Street, employers still aren’t adding jobs, they’re just cutting back less!
Hooray, say our politicians, the unemployment rate is down to 9.7%!
The reason unemployment’s down is because more people are giving up on looking for work.
While employers only cut another 20,000 jobs, the number of people who’ve given up looking is now 400,000 higher than it was a year ago (when unemployment was just over 7%).
More than 8 million jobs have been lost since the recession started in 2007. At best, the woefully inadequate stimulus programs have saved 2-3 million jobs. Do the math.
Conclusion: the economy’s marginally better at the moment than it has been, but not growing sufficiently to make a dent in unemployment. It’s a disaster for the country that no one’s doing anything about.
Gorilla says: “Jobs for the future? It would be nice if we had as many jobs now as we did 10 years ago!”
“The real concern is that the whole recovery is nothing more than poorly-directed government stimulus which has simply had the effect of boosting asset prices”.
This comes from a European market analyst commenting on the plunge in world stock markets.
The feeling is that the economic recovery’s going nowhere and another round of recession may be on the cards. It’s not helped by the very large debts facing Euroland, as Ireland, Spain, Greece, and Portugal look to be in various stages of unsustainability.
Here in America, the stimulus program has been woefully inadequate and half of it has gone to tax cuts, the least effective form of stimulus.
With a $2 trillion output gap and 10% unemployment, our leaders seem to be more concerned with permanent campaigning. Lots of talk and little action don’t appease voters who are fed up with the lack of coherent economic policy.
The housing sector continues to be blighted, as the Treasury Department seems tone deaf to the idea that prices must fall further, and lenders must take haircuts, until supply and demand get back into something like balance.
Meanwhile, the dollar carry trade continues bubbling along, driving up the prices of commodities worldwide. Absent the US, Japan, and Euroland, the Chinese and the Indians can’t bring the whole world out of the slump because their economies aren’t big enough.
Gorilla says: “The bubble’s gone off the boil, but the anger still simmers!”
A missile shield in Romania, an angry bear in Moscow!
It’s difficult to understand the strategy behind US policy. What are we trying to accomplish with missile defense?
On the one hand, missile defense doesn’t work.
On the other hand, the alleged missile attacker is Iran, despite there being no evidence that Tehran wishes to engage in national suicide by lobbing a few bombs at Euroland.
On the foot, the Russians, who remain a far more serious problem for European interests, feel surrounded, thus justifying their very lukewarm approach to American proposed sanctions against Iran.
Gorilla asks: “How are we free with SM-3?”
