Category: Europe

Well, At Least they Know that They Can’t Find their Ass with Both Hands

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There are only two reasons for the US Army’s Missile Defense Chief to want to give this to the Navy:

The chief of the Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command would prefer the Navy assume oversight and execution of the budding mission to base SM-3 Block IB ballistic missile killers ashore in Europe for protection against an Iranian attack. “Today, we have a number of priorities that we have trouble meeting outside of missile defense,” Lt. Gen. Kevin Campbell says, including providing weapons for the wars abroad. The Pentagon plans to field in Europe the Block IB interceptors designed for use on Aegis ships by 2015, and later the longer-range Block IIAs. The Army has 10 years’ experience in operating land-based missile defense architectures abroad through the Patriot PAC-3 and now the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) system, but Campbell says his command is strapped for resources.

The first is that they think that the system will fail, though the Navy’s Standard Missile has had a much better record in test than the Army’s systems, and the second is that he legitimately believes that the Army would screw this up to the degree that it would harm his career.

Me, I go with the 2nd hypothesis.

It’s actually a good thing. The first step to getting out of a hole that you have dug yourself in is to realize that you are in a hole.

Italian Conviction of CIA Kidnappers Means Nothing

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The fact that Judge Oscar Magi convicted 23 Americans in absentia for kidnapping Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr really has very little meaning, even with sentences of up to 8 year in prison.

It sounds significant, until you realize that the senior Italian officials who were in on this were acquitted by reason of state security:

Charges were also dropped against five Italians, including the former head of the Sismi military intelligence service, Nicolo Pollari, because evidence against them violated state secrecy rules.

So the senior people in the Italian state security apparatus, the ones who could say no, get off Scott free.

Some lower level operatives, however, got hung out to dry for following orders:

However, the judge sentenced two more junior Sismi agents to three years in prison as accomplices, indicating Italian authorities were aware of the abduction.

How is “Lynndie England” spelled in Italian?

EU Approves Lisbon Treaty

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This is a major streamlining of the EU’s governance practices:

The treaty aims to give the European Union a bigger role internationally by creating a full-time presidential post with a two-and-a-half-year term and setting up a more powerful foreign policy chief supported by a network of diplomats around the world. It will put in place a new voting system that reflects countries’ population size, while reducing the opportunities for individual countries to block a proposal. It also gives more power to the directly elected European Parliament.

So, they have it.

Now they need to show what they are going to do with it.

Dutch Report: F-35 Numbers to be Cut

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A Dutch report is saying that the total number of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters to be produced may be half of estimates, largely because of changes in warfare (UAVs) and cost escalation.

This is particularly significant for the Dutch, because one of the selling points for the aircraft to the RNAF is that the cost of their purchases will largely be offset by the revenue that Dutch companies will derive from sales of aircraft to other countries.

If the numbers go down, the price goes up, and the ratio of revenue takes a decided turn for the worse:

Rising costs, changing threats and rival aircraft — manned and unmanned — could cut nearly in half the number of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters that ultimately are built, a Dutch defense analyst said in a report to the Dutch parliament. And if fewer planes are built, the price for each, already $100 million or more, will undoubtedly increase, analyst Johan Boeder warned.

A “likely estimate” is that 2,500 F-35s eventually will be built, Boeder wrote in a report delivered to Dutch lawmakers in September. The Netherlands, one of nine countries financing the development of the F-35, was expected to buy 85 planes, but maycut that to 57, Boeder said.

I think the idea that the aircraft will cost less than $100 million at current procurement numbers is delusional, and if the numbers go down, the price goes up.

To procure a meaningful aircraft, you must with start with purchase and life-cycle costs as a primary requirement, and work back from there.

Economics Update

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Click for full size


Chicago Fed Index Chart Pr0n H/t Calculated Risk


Your Moment of Zen

We have some dueling indices today, with the ATA Truck Tonnage Index falling, and the Chicago Fed reporting that its Midwest Manufacturing Index rose in September to levels approaching where they were prior to the recession.

Overseas, we have the Bank of Israel leaving its benchmark rate at .75%, German consumer confidence falling, and the South Korean economy growing at its fastest pace in 7 years, so it’s more mixed signals.

We are seeing an increased risk appetite among investors, which has driven treasuries lower, and pushed their yields up, though a statement by an official in the Chinese central bank that China should diversify its currency holdings, may have been a factor too.

In real estate, home prices in California fell by 7.3% from a year ago, largely on increased foreclosure sales.

In energy, oil fell again, and the dollar rose from this year’s lows, which would indicate a reduction in risk appetite, which is kind of counter to the results with the US treasuries above.

Finally, watch the video, it’s funny, in an, “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry,” way, and one note to the non-Brits, “Freddy” is Sir Fred Goodwin of the £ multimillion pension.

MEADS CDR Set for 2010

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Note 4 Separable Canisters


Defense Pamphlet Pr0n

Over a decade ago, I did some very preliminary work with the Medium-Extended Air Defense System (MEADS). Nothing major, just taking PAC-3 munition boxes and slapping them together in a way that the “4 pack” could be made separable.

At the time, I figured that nothing would come of it, because it was a joint program with significant foreign involvement, which looking at history, seems to be the kiss of death for weapons’ systems.

There just ain’t enough pork in a joint venture for either the Pentagon or Congress.

Well, it appears that I may (emphasis on the may) have been wrong, because there is a scheduled Critical Design Review scheduled for next year.

Then again, I may have been right:

Brig. Gen. Genaro Dellarocco, the U.S. Army’s program executive officer for missiles and space, says the service is frustrated that Washington is paying 58% of the cost of the program, but only has equal say with Germany and Italy on management matters. Germany contributes 25% of the funding with Italy handling the remaining 17%.

Paul Schneider, former deputy secretary at the Homeland Security Dept., conducted a review of the program and possible alternate management structures. Options included increasing U.S. control over the program, but industry sources suggest that option was discarded.

It does look like the transmit-and-receive modules for the radar (German) is on track, as the PAC-3 MSE (Missile Segment Enhancement, basically a bigger and longer range dual pulse motor) will be the interceptor, for now at least.

Denmark Defers Fighter Choice

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Denmark is now deferring by a decision at least a year on its choice for a new fighter to replace its F16 fleet.

The decision will be some point in 2010, at the earliest.

Technicality, it is a competition between the F-35, F/A-18 E/F, and the Gripen, but until now, it has generally been assumed that the JSF had the inside track.

I think that any delay in orders will work against the JSF, as it is patently clear that the cost of the aircraft will continue to escalate, making selection of the F-35 that much more difficult.

Also, it appears that they are talking about downsizing their fighter fleet from 48 to somewhere in the 25-35 range.

Here is the original article and the Google translation.

Barack Obama, Objectively Pro Genital Mutilation Since 2009

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Britain’s high court has ruled that all evidence of Binyam Mohamed by the CIA and its proxies will be reviewed in open court, despite the protestations of Foreign Secretary David Miliband to keep this matter hush hush.

As I noted earlier, one of the tortures was to have his genitals sliced with a scalpel and irritating liquids loured in the wounds.

This is what the British government, at the urging of the US government were trying to make “go away”.

Rather predictably, the Obama administration has condemned the decision by the court to reveal crimes against humanity:

Meanwhile, US State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said: “We are not pleased”, adding that Washington kept such information confidential “to protect our own citizens”.

Anyone who did this, or allowed it to be done, is a criminal, and should be tried and imprisoned, not protected.

It should also be noted that the Obama administration has threatened to withhold intelligence from the British if the details of their torture get out.

Economics Update

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Well, if you are a small business that relies on CIT for your credit, you have a problem, because the company’s CEO is resigning as a likely prelude to bankruptcy.

There are over a million small and medium sized businesses that rely on CIT for their credit.

Additionally, the meltdown among the monoliners continues apace, with Fitch downgrading Assured Guaranty from AA+ to AA, which, given the fact that their business is basically renting out their credit rating, they are pretty close to “toast” status.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond, investor confidence in Germany has fallen for the first time in 3 months, down to 56 September’s 57.7 and well below the forecast of 58.8.

Meanwhile, we are seeing increased demand for Treasuries because foreign investors think that they have become cheap with the falling dollar, and investors are expecting a rebound in the dollar when the Federal Reserve finally does tighten monetary policy.

It appears that this optimism also pushed the price of oil to $74.15/bbl.

Swiss to Hold Referendum on Banning Arms Export

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For people who don’t follow history, the idea that the Swiss would ban arms exports seems to have little significance, but this is wrong, both historically today.

Swiss neutrality was a product of the fact that their main export from the 15th century or so was Swiss Mercenaries, the finest pikemen in Christendom, and so one of the motivations for neutrality was the ability to sell their services without regard to any alliances at home.

These days, of course, the Swiss are still in the war business:

  • MOWAG, whose Pirinah 8X8 AFV being the basis of both the Marine Corps LAV and the Army’s Stryker.
  • Oerlikon Contraves and its light cannon.
  • Wenger S.A. and Victorinox A.G., producers of the “Swiss Army Knife” (shown)

Though the last one would likely not be covered by such a ban.

In any case, it goes to Swiss voters on November 30, and is a part of an overall campaign by GSoA (Group for a Switzerland Without an Army) to demilitarize the nation.

And People Pile on Berlusconi

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With Members of the European Parliament calling for sanctions against Italy over media consolidation in Italy:

Mr Berlusconi owns three commercial broadcasters, has indirect control over three public channels and owns a series of magazines, newspapers and radio stations as well as the country’s largest publishing house. His advertising firm controls much of the advertising sales in Italy, allowing his reach to extend to media beyond his direct control.

The MEPs say this has created a climate of media intimidation where journalists are fired for stepping out of line while others self-censor to hold onto their jobs. Key posts in the media are based on an individual being sufficiently deferential to the current administration, critics allege.

It would be nice if some action comes from this.

As bad as the MSM is in the United States, the idea of a political candidate controlling all the TV and cable outlets in a country is a scary thing.

The vote, which passed 268 – 284, is merely to start an inquiry, but it’s a good thing.

I think that what is going on with Berlusconi here is very similar to what was done with Pablo Escobar: You peel away at layers of protection, and eventually, pretty much all at once, the house of cards collapses, and you take the crook down.

Court Strikes Down Berlusconi Immunity Law

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This is good news, and a the ruling by Italian Constitutional Court is a victory for the rule of law:

In 2003, Mr. Berlusconi first attempted to erect a legal shield for top officials including the sitting prime minister, the president and the heads of the lower and upper houses of Parliament, during their term in office. The law was swiftly struck down by the Constitutional Court, which argued that the law unfairly placed officials above the law. The new immunity law was introduced in the spring of 2008, but prosecutors quickly filed an appeal to the Constitutional Court.

And it has now been similarly been ruled unconstitutional.

This law was all about keeping Berlusconi out of jail, and the courts correctly ruled that it was an affront to justice.

Perhaps Obama and Holder should consider looking at the reasoning of the

My Thoughts on German Election

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So, Merkel will now govern with the Free Democrats, and not in a grand coalition with the SDP.

The reason that this is happening is very simple: The SDP is not running against the CDU, it’s running against the Left Party.

So you have proclamations that there will not be a coalition with the LP under any, because….because…I’m really not sure why, except, perhaps because the SDP sees the LP as drawing in disaffected SDP members, and they see the loss of power within the party as more troubling than the lose of power in the whole country.

Fundamentally, the success of the LP is because the 3rd Way endorsed by Clinton, Blair, and to a somewhat lesser extent, Gerhard Schröder, which supported “Anglo-Saxon” hyper-capitalism, and has failed in its goals to create increased living standards.

The people with the idea that the perhaps a party with founded with the idea that government should take a role in improving a society, like Oskar Lafontaine, now co chair of the LP have been disaffected and dis-empowered, so it’s no wonder that they are looking for somewhere else to go.

There is also the whole, “world wide financial meltdown,” thing which has tarnished the 3rd way’s concept of unfettered competition, which means that the LP is, you know, do the degree that that actually have a philosophy, as, “The Left hasn’t yet adopted its own party program“.

The decline of the SDP, in a bizarre way, mirrors the decline of the Labor Party in Israel, which stopped representing “Labor”, and became the party of, “We’re not as batsh%$ insane as Likud,” and so dropped to a pathetic 4th place in Israeli elections as a result of the “Thatcherite but not as batsh%$ insane as Likud,” Kadima party.

Carbon Tax Update

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Well, it’s beginning to look like France will impose its own carbon tax €17 ($24.90) per ton of CO2.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to move France toward greater reductions in carbon emissions, but it is also a reflection of just how big a failure that Europe’s cap and trade regime has been, with the creation of false offsets overseas, construction of hydroelectric plants without transmission lines in China, and paying farmers not to grow food.

In addition to that, there is the detail that the markets simply do not work, creating a “pollution fire sale,”* which makes this system a joke.

In any case, I ran the numbers,† and got about $0.2212/gallon, which in the scheme of things is not a huge chunk of change, particularly in France, where the price of a gallon of gas is about $6.00 including tax, but it is likely to make coal powered electricity much less competitive, particularly if the tax goes up over time.

France is emulating Finland and Sweden, who implemented carbon taxes over a decade ago, and got reductions in emissions, as opposed to the EU cap and trade, which hasn’t ever worked.

On a related note, both Caterpillar and Federal Express are lobbying for a carbon tax instead of a cap and trade too.

They mention a number of reasons, not the least of which is the giveaways to big coal, but the big reason is buried a few paragraphs down here:

A predictable, graduated tax would have an impact on the role of the military overseas, improve the environment and be good for the economy, [FedEx CEO] Smith argued.

(emphasis mine)

Simply put, they don’t want to live in a world where the cost of carbon credits will fluctuate day to day because of the machinations of that great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity,‡ Goldman Sachs.

FedEx and Caterpillar, and pretty much everyone but the coal burning utilities can live with a carbon tax, it effects them all equally.

If you make carbon permits a trade able market commodity, and suddenly you have where the difference between survival and bankruptcy are choices in an opaque and volatile market.

You end up diverting enormous resources from upgrading equipment and doing research on more efficient ways to do things, and drive it into the blood funnel of the vampire squid.

*Original author’s pun, not mine.
†I assume that the tax is actually per tonne (metric ton), so that is 1000 kg of CO2, which is 273 kg of carbon. This means that the actual tax for a kg of carbon is about €0.0623 per kilo of carbon.

A good approximation of the formula for gasoline is C8H18 (It’s actually a witches brew of different hydrocarbons), and the weight of a liter of gasoline 0.76, so the weight of carbon in a liter is about 0.64 kg.

This gives a tax of about €0.03989/liter, or about $0.2212/gallon
‡Alas, I cannot claim credit for this bon mot, it was coined by the great Matt Taibbi, in his article on the massive criminal conspiracy investment firm, The Great American Bubble Machine.

It’s a Start

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One of the well known facts out there is that defamation law in the UK is positively insane and tilted in favor of the plaintiff that the phrase”Libel Tourism,” has been coined.

It places the burden on the defendant to prove that the statement is true, and in the case of web publications, every web page served is treated as a separate publication for the determination of damages.

Well, as one of the few growth industries in the UK, what with investment banking in the toilet, and the fact that this is a useful way for politicians to browbeat the press, there has been little, if any, movement to change these laws.

That being said, it looks like someone has gotten a bit of a clue, and decided that each hit on a web page is like each newspaper delivered, so , but it now appears that some common sense in terms of the internet, where the government is proposing to change the law so that each web page hit is not another incident of defamation:

The Government proposes changing the law so that a ‘single publication’ rule applies. “A possible alternative to the multiple publication rule would be to adopt a single publication rule,” said the consultation. “This would mean that instead of the limitation period running from the time of each publication of the defamatory material, it would run from the date of the first publication, even if copies of the material continued to be made and re-published years later.”

“A single publication rule would provide clarity and prevent the possibility of open-ended liability. It would also remove some of the potential obstacles presented to defendants by the multiple publication rule, such as the possibility of having to mount a defence against an old claim,” it said.

BTW, if you want to know just how f$#@ed up British defamation law is, note the precedent cited in the article, “

The Times newspaper took a case to the European Court of Human Rights arguing that the multiple publication rule was so onerous a burden for newspapers in the internet age that it had a ‘chilling effect’ on their right to free speech, as guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights, which the Court enforces.

The Court, though, ruled that a precedent from the 19th century involving a servant of the Duke of Brunswick looking up an article in a library forming the basis of a defamation suit meant that UK law did not breach the Times‘s rights.

Looking up an article in the library is defamation? This is truly whack.

Economics Update

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If This Doesn’t Make You Feel Like a Chump, then You are forgetting the “Ownership Economy” Hype
H/t Calculated Risk

Well, it’s Thursday, and that means that it’s new jobless claims day.

We are actually in a place where we can see the seasonally adjusted statistics have meaning, because we are past the auto plant shutdown in the dog days of Summer that actually happened in the spring.

Initial claims were 545,000, down 12,000 from last week’s upwardly revised 557,000, a drop of 12,000, but remember that if we compare initial numbers to initial numbers, we were at 550,000 last week, so the drop is only 5,000, not 12,000…..Anyone see a pattern?

The 4 week moving average, which is a less noisy metric, fell from 8,750 to 563,000, but note that anything at 400K or above is still bad news territory.

Continuing claims rose by 129K to 6.2 million, and that does not account for people who are exhausting their benefits.

As CR notes (link on graph pr0n) the fed has reported that household net worth has fallen $12.2 trillion, or about $40,000.00 for every man woman and child in the United States.

Of course the financial journalist are reporting that household net worth is up for the first time since Q3 of 2007, but this is almost entirely the recent bump in stock prices, which primarily benefits the top decile.

Still, we are seeing good news, with housing starts and the Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index both showing improvement.

Of course, part of this has to do with the fact that mortgage rates are way down, because the Federal Reserve is buying mortgage backed securities like they are going out of style, in order to keep those rates low.

I would also note that there just are not that many consumers out there. The UK again being a case in point. Yesterday, I mentioned that their unemployment had spiked, and today we discover that their retail sales fell 0.2%, as opposed to the forecast increase of o.1%.

People without jobs cannot buy stuff.

That’s why the Bank of Japan decided to keep its benchmark rate at essentially 0%, actually 0.1%, but that’s a f%$#ing rounding error.

In energy, oil fell slightly, to 72.47/bbl.

In currency, the dollar took a hit today, falling against both the Euro and yen, and the Canadian dollar rose to an 11 month high.

Sanity Hits Missile Defense Plans

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Click Pictures for full size images
Tehran to DC


Masshad to Washington, DC


Masshad to San Francisco


Masshad to Rome


Masshad to Madrid


Masshad to Istambul


Masshad to Athens


Masshad to Chicago

Obama has canceled plans for missile defense installations in Poland and the Czech Republic. Basically, they determined that the threat is not there, and the Russians find it provocative, so they are dropping it.

The Russian response is positive, if somewhat muted, probably because they have been aware that the signals that Obama has sent on this issue for some time, and do now want to stir the pot.

Notably, they mention cost a number of times in their official statement.

I think that this is a combination of a number of things:

  • Recognition that there were no real benefits to the system beyond playing to the right wing in Eastern Europe, and to upset the Russians, because it was thought that a hostile Russia would play well for Republicans in domestic politics.
  • The fact that there are technologies that allow for non-permanent installations to serve the same purpose, most notably THAAD and a potentially larger derivative, and various flavor of interceptors based on the Navy Standard, which won’t have the effect of leaving Turkey, Italy and Spain, as shown in my analysis from earlier this year.

In the case of a diplomatic crisis, you can have a THAAD or a ground based Standard interceptor battery in place in less than 72 hours in northeast Europe, and have an Aegis destroyer off deployed near Cyprus, or possibly in the Black sea, in order to protect the southern tier of NATO in less time than that.

This is a remarkably sensible and sane decision, and it appears that SecDef Gates is fully behind this, so I expect Republicans to start screaming “Munich
if they haven’t already.

I think that we will see more support from the Russians on a number of issues as a result.

I Bet They Didn’t Expect the Spanish Inquisition

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Two investigating judges in Spain who are investigating the torture of Spanish citizens by the United States are demanding more details regarding the Department of Justice investigation.

What is going on here is that the Spanish Judges would be obligated to drop their criminal investigation of if the DoJ was engaging in a credible investigation of Gonzales, Bybee, John, Addington, Feith, and Haynes:

Under Spanish law, the opening of a criminal investigation covering the same matters by the United States would probably lead to the termination or suspension of a case in Spain grounded on universal jurisdiction. However, the Spanish authorities tentatively concluded that suspension of their cases was not warranted at this point because Holder had placed so many limitations on Durham’s work and because it does not appear that Durham is being asked to examine the cases involving the Spanish subjects who were held at Guantanamo.

(emphasis mine)

You see, the problem here is that the Obama administration is just too busy kowtowing to Glenn Beck’s smallest and most delusional whim.

Here is a hint for Barack Obama and His Stupid Minions™: Americans are not that into ideology, but they hate wimps.