Deficit Balloons Into National Security Threat
February 1st, 2010Via: Wall Street Journal:
The federal budget deficit has long since graduated from nuisance to headache to pressing national concern. Now, however, it has become so large and persistent that it is time to start thinking of it as something else entirely: a national-security threat.
The budget plan released Monday by the Obama administration illustrates why this escalation is warranted. The numbers are mind-numbing: a $1.6 trillion deficit this year, $1.3 trillion next year, $8.5 trillion for the next 10 years combined—and that assumes Congress enacts President Barack Obama’s proposals to start bringing it down, and that the proposals work.
These numbers are often discussed as an economic and domestic problem. But it’s time to start thinking of the ramifications for America’s ability to continue playing its traditional global role.
The U.S. government this year will borrow one of every three dollars it spends, with many of those funds coming from foreign countries. That weakens America’s standing and its freedom to act; strengthens China and other world powers including cash-rich oil producers; puts long-term defense spending at risk; undermines the power of the American system as a model for developing countries; and reduces the aura of power that has been a great intangible asset for presidents for more than a century.
“We’ve reached a point now where there’s an intimate link between our solvency and our national security,” says Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a senior national-security adviser in both the first and second Bush presidencies. “What’s so discouraging is that our domestic politics don’t seem to be up to the challenge. And the whole world is watching.”
Jim Cramer: Illuminati Not That Bad
February 1st, 2010It’s the usual nonsense for the first couple of minutes, but then, “And you know what, the Bavarian Illuminati, the Trilateral Commission, Goldman Sachs and the Queen of England are not all bad.”
Genetically Modified Forest Planned for U.S. Southeast
February 1st, 2010Via: Scientific American:
Genetic engineering is coming to the forests.
While the practice of splicing foreign DNA into food crops has become common in corn and soy, few companies or researchers have dared to apply genetic engineering to plants that provide an essential strut of the U.S. economy, trees.
But that will soon change. Two industry giants, International Paper Co. and MeadWestvaco Corp., are planning to transform plantation forests of the southeastern United States by replacing native pine with genetically engineered eucalyptus, a rapidly growing Australian tree that in its conventional strains now dominates the tropical timber industry.
The companies’ push into genetically modified trees, led by their joint biotech venture, ArborGen LLC, looks to overcome several hurdles for the first time. Most prominently, they are banking on a controversial gene splice that restricts trees’ ability to reproduce, meant to allay fears of bioengineered eucalyptus turning invasive and overtaking native forests.
If such a fertility control technology — which has come under fire in farming for fear seed firms will exploit it — is proven effective, it could open the door to many varieties of wild plants, including weedy grasses, to be genetically engineered for use in energy applications like biomass and next-generation biofuels without fear of invasiveness.
Airstrip Built at Zimbabwe Diamond Field
February 1st, 2010Via: Telegraph:
A secret airstrip is being built in a diamond field illegally seized by the Zimbabwean army 14 months ago which would enable clandestine weapons shipments.
Diplomats and analysts believe that the mile-long runway is intended for arms shipments, probably from China, for which troops loyal to President Robert Mugabe would pay on the spot with gemstones from the Chiadzwa diamond mines.
Aerial pictures show construction work is well under way, with a newly built control tower apparently complete and the runway nearly ready for surfacing.
There are other airfields within a short distance of the mining area, and no obvious need for a runway long enough for transport planes to take off and land even closer to the mines. A Western diplomat said the existence of the runway, out of sight except from the air, was “extremely” worrying.
The images also show what appears to be a tented army camp in the diamond fields, which would be in violation of Zimbabwean court orders and of an undertaking to the Kimberley Process, which was set up to prevent “blood diamonds” from conflict zones entering the global gem trade.
According to human rights groups, hundreds of independent miners were killed when soldiers seized control of the Chiadzwa area in November 2008, since when others have been compelled to work for only a fraction of the value of the diamonds they unearth. Officers use the proceeds from their sale to enhance their meagre pay – a ploy encouraged by Mr Mugabe’s henchmen to help ensure the army’s continued loyalty.
But the construction of the runway suggests that the army has now widened its ambition and wants to use its access to the raw diamonds – whose production is worth an estimated £125 million a month – to obtain goods from abroad, in particular weapons.
Quadrennial Defense Review: Melee Mode, Cyberwar, More Killer Robots, Environmental Catastrophes
February 1st, 2010Via: CNN:
The Pentagon will no longer shape the U.S. military to fight two major conventional wars at once, but rather prepare for numerous conflicts and not all in the same style, according to a draft of a new strategic outlook the Pentagon is announcing on Monday.
The new mantra for military planners will replace the almost 25-year-old combat planning style of fighting and winning two major conventional wars in two different locations in favor of a fighting force that is capable of protecting U.S. interests around the world from a range of threats, from terrorism to cyber attacks.
The change will be addressed in the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, a congressionally mandated document that looks at future threats and the military’s requirements to mitigate them.
“It is no longer appropriate to speak of major regional conflicts as the sole or even primary template for sizing, shaping or evaluating U.S. forces,” according to a draft first obtained by Inside Defense.
The review will come on the same day the Pentagon presents its 2011 budget.
According to Pentagon officials, Defense Secretary Robert Gates will be asking for $708 billion, including funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — $44 billion more the 2010 budget of $664 billion.
The last major review was released in 2006 and the Pentagon’s view of the world has changed dramatically in the four years since.
U.S. Surrounds Iran with “Missile Shield”
February 1st, 2010Via: Guardian:
Tension between the US and Iran heightened dramatically today with the disclosure that Barack Obama is deploying a missile shield to protect American allies in the Gulf from attack by Tehran.
The US is dispatching Patriot defensive missiles to four countries – Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait – and keeping two ships in the Gulf capable of shooting down Iranian missiles. Washington is also helping Saudi Arabia develop a force to protect its oil installations.
American officials said the move is aimed at deterring an attack by Iran and reassuring Gulf states fearful that Tehran might react to sanctions by striking at US allies in the region. Washington is also seeking to discourage Israel from a strike against Iran by demonstrating that the US is prepared to contain any threat.
The deployment comes after Obama’s attempts to emphasise diplomacy over confrontation in dealing with Iran – a contrast to the Bush administration’s approach – have failed to persuade Tehran to open its nuclear installations to international controls. The White House is now trying to engineer agreement for sanctions focused on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, believed to be in charge of the atomic programme.
Washington has not formally announced the deployment of the Patriots and other anti-missile systems, but by leaking it to American newspapers the administration is evidently seeking to alert Tehran to a hardening of its position.
The administration is deploying two Patriot batteries, capable of shooting down incoming missiles, in each of the four Gulf countries. Kuwait already has an older version of the missile, deployed after Iraq’s invasion. Saudi Arabia has long had the missiles, as has Israel.
An unnamed senior administration official told the New York Times: “Our first goal is to deter the Iranians. A second is to reassure the Arab states, so they don’t feel they have to go nuclear themselves. But there is certainly an element of calming the Israelis as well.”
White House to Paint Grim Fiscal Picture
February 1st, 2010For a much more meaningful translation of the story below, see: America’s Impending Master Class Dictatorship:
One stark and sobering way to frame the crisis is this: if the United States government were to nationalize (in other words, steal) every penny of private wealth accumulated by America’s citizens since the nation’s founding 235 years ago, the government would remain totally bankrupt.
According to the Federal Reserve’s most recent report on wealth, America’s private net worth was $53.4 trillion as of September, 2009. But at the same time, America’s debt and unfunded liabilities totaled at least $120,000,000,000,000.00 ($120 trillion), or 225% of the citizens’ net worth. Even if the government expropriated every dollar of private wealth in the nation, it would still have a deficit of $66,600,000,000,000.00 ($66.6 trillion), equal to $214,286.00 for every man, woman and child in America and roughly 500% of GDP. If the government does not directly seize the nation’s private wealth, then it will require $389,610 from each and every citizen to balance the country’s books. State, county and municipal debts and deficits are additional, already elephantine in many states (e.g., California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York) and growing at an alarming rate nationwide. In addition to the federal government, dozens of states are already bankrupt and sinking deeper into the morass every day.
Via: Reuters:
The White House will predict a record budget deficit in the current fiscal year and more big shortfalls for the next decade in its upcoming budget proposal, a congressional source told Reuters on Sunday.
In its budget proposal to be released on Monday, the White House predicts a record $1.6 trillion budget deficit for the fiscal year that ends September 30, the Capitol Hill source said.
According to the estimate, deficits will narrow to $700 billion by fiscal 2013 before gradually rising back to $1.0 trillion by the end of the decade, the source said.
President Barack Obama will seek to strike a balance between reducing the deficit over the long term and stimulating the economy in the short term to ease the pain of double-digit unemployment.
…
The estimate for the current fiscal year is significantly higher than the $1.35 trillion figure forecast by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office last week.
Despite the difference, both estimates indicate that the deficit will continue to hover at a level not seen since World War Two, when measured as a percentage of the economy. Last year the government posted a $1.4 trillion deficit.
Allstate May Shed 20% of Its Agents
February 1st, 2010Long ago, I used Allstate for car insurance because my parents did. After two years of thinking, God damn, this is expensive, I shopped around and found a much better policy for half the cost. I told my new insurance agent how Allstate was screwing me and she wanted to put me on their radio ads that feature people who have been screwed by companies like Allstate. I politely declined. HA.
If you’re using Allstate because you always have, or because your parents do, you would be wise to shop around.
Via: Chicago Tribune:
Allstate Corp. insurance agents are bracing for a shakeup that they say could winnow their ranks by about a fifth.
Bailouts Created More Risk in System
February 1st, 2010Via: AP:
The government’s response to the financial meltdown has made it more likely the United States will face a deeper crisis in the future, an independent watchdog at the Treasury Department warned.
The problems that led to the last crisis have not yet been addressed, and in some cases have grown worse, says Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the trouble asset relief program, or TARP. The quarterly report to Congress was released Sunday.
“Even if TARP saved our financial system from driving off a cliff back in 2008, absent meaningful reform, we are still driving on the same winding mountain road, but this time in a faster car,” Barofsky wrote.
Since Congress passed $700 billion financial bailout, the remaining institutions considered “too big to fail” have grown larger and failed to restrain the lavish pay for their executives, Barofsky wrote. He said the banks still have an incentive to take on risk because they know the government will save them rather than bring down the financial system.
Barofsky also said his office is investigating 77 cases of possible criminal and civil fraud, including crimes of tax evasion, insider trading, mortgage lending and payment collection, false statements and public corruption.
Mexico: 13 Teens, Adults Killed at Party in Juarez
January 31st, 2010Via: Houston Chronicle:
Armed men stormed a party in this violent Mexican border city, killing 13 high school and college students in what witnesses said was an attack prompted by false information.
About two dozen teens and young adults were hospitalized after the late Saturday assault in Ciudad Juarez, a drug cartel-plagued city which is one of the deadliest in the world.
Grieving witnesses and family members told The Associated Press on Sunday they thought the victims, mostly residents of the housing complex where the attack occurred, had no ties to drug traffickers, .
“It must have been a huge mistake,” said Martha Lujan, who lives at the housing complex.
The young adults had gathered to watch a boxing match, Lujan said, when two trucks pulled up loaded with armed men who opened fire.
Ten people were killed at the scene and other three died at local hospitals, Chihuahua State Attorney Patricia Gonzales said.
The bodies of the victims, whose ages ranged from 15 to 20, lay scattered around the house where the attack happened.
A witness to the attacks said he was just outside when the gunfire broke out. Hector, who only gave his first name because he feared retaliation, said the party was an innocuous gathering of friends who must have been targeted incorrectly.
