Category: Europe

European Parliament Just Sent a Big “F%$# You” to the US State Security Apparatus

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The European Parliament has voted to invite NSA Leaker Edward Snowden to testify:

The European parliament has voted to formally invite Edward Snowden to give testimony on NSA spying, despite opposition from conservative MEPs. If the US whistleblower provides answers to the questions compiled by parliamentarians in time, a hearing via video link could take place in early January.

It had looked on Wednesday as if European conservatives were trying to kick the hearing into the long grass. The European People’s party (EPP), the alliance of centre-right parties, had raised a number of concerns about inviting Snowden for a hearing, noting that it could endanger the transatlantic trade agreement with the US.

But on Thursday morning, the leaders of the main political groupings in the European parliament voted to invite Snowden. In the coming weeks, questions will be compiled and then forwarded to the former NSA contractor’s lawyer, with roughly two questions coming from each political group.

Labour MEP Claude Moraes, the lead rapporteur for the European parliament inquiry on the mass surveillance of EU citizens, welcomed the outcome of the vote and promised that questioning would be “rigorous and fair”.

This is a huge diss to both the United States and its poodles in the UK.

I think that Bush damaged the stand of the United States in the world, because much of the world, particularly in Europe, realized that the country was being run by disingenuous belligerent nut-jobs.

What Obama further diminished the standing of the US because, as he has embraced and extended Bush era policies, that Bush was not an outlier, but rather very much in line with the consensus in Washington, DC.

It’s that moment when saying, “If only the Czar knew,” for years, you realize that the Czar does know, and has always know.

H/t Ole Texan.

Austerity for Greeks, Welfare for the Germans

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Following elections, because Angela Merkel’s traditional partner, the FDP was shut out of the Bundestag, she had to form a coalition government with her traditional opposition, the SDP.

As a part of the coalition agreement she has agreed to create a minimum wage of €8.50 and a partial lowering of the retiring age to 63:

It was a “Six-Eye Negotiation” – in German, an “Unter Sechs Augen Gespraech”. Three leaders, and so three pairs of eyes, sat down together in the small hours in a private room and haggled amongst themselves, eyeball to eyeball.

 In the 185-page agreement which resulted, the Social Democrats (SPD) came away with a minimum wage of 8.50 euros (£7.10) an hour, uniformly applied across the country. The counter-argument had been that insisting on the minimum wage in the old East Germany would dent the region’s ability to attract work.

 The SPD’s chief negotiator Sigmar Gabriel also got a lowering of the retirement age and some extra public spending. That may be welcomed by those outside Germany, who have argued that the country is “beggaring its neighbours” by not increasing German spending to match the country’s amazing excess of exports over imports.

 The SPD also secured the introduction of a minimum percentage of women on German company boards.

 For her part, Chancellor Merkel got an acceptance from the SPD that its election demand of higher taxes on the rich would not happen. She also emphasised that the new government would continue to balance its budgets – there will be no move away from the belief that spending is tied to revenue.

I think that there is a fair amount consequences, some intended, and some not, to this.

First, a minimum wage of €8.50 will raise the wages of 17% of the workforce, with much of the effect in the service industry.

When one considers the impact on wages of people whose wages are just above the new minimum wage (probably about €10.00) it means that something like ¼ of the workforce will see a raise from this, which, in the long run may have negative political consequences for Merkel’s CDU.

On the other side of the political consequences, the SDP’s capitulation on higher taxes of the wealthy may play to the advantage of the left wing Die Linke, which is really the standard bearer of the democratic Socialism now eschewed by the “3rd Way” movement of the SDP in recent years.

One of the artifacts of German taxation is that it is fairly regressive, and wages of the bottom 90% have decreased in recent years:

According to a DIW study published last year, wages fell in real terms for all but the top 10 percent of earners in Germany between 2005 and 2010. This had a particularly acute effect on those earning the least. “As a rule, the lowest earners spend the highest portion of their income,” study co-author Karl Brenke explains.

Low-wage workers also end up spending a much higher proportion of their income on mandatory health insurance, as any income above €46,000 in annual salary is not subject to premium payments. Thus, while a senior engineer earning €150,000 a year is only required to pay 6.6 percent of his total income in social security contributions, a laborer who makes only a tenth as much ends up paying 20.7 percent.Low-wage workers also end up spending a much higher proportion of their income on mandatory health insurance, as any income above €46,000 in annual salary is not subject to premium payments. Thus, while a senior engineer earning €150,000 a year is only required to pay 6.6 percent of his total income in social security contributions, a laborer who makes only a tenth as much ends up paying 20.7 percent.

The collapse of the FDP was in part a reaction to this reality, as it is the most Thatcherite of the major parties.

Note also that this coalition agreement is exactly the opposite of the normal prescription to debt crises in the Euro zone: reductions in spending, increases in retirement age, and reductions in the minimum wage.

The next country to receive a demand of austerity from IMF and the Euro zone troika will likely highlight the inherent hypocrisy of such a demand.

Bye Bye Silvio

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Berlusconi has been expelled from the Italian parliament following his conviction for tax fraud:

The Italian Senate has voted to expel ex-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi from parliament with immediate effect over his conviction for tax fraud.

Berlusconi, who has dominated politics for 20 years, could now face arrest over other criminal cases as he has lost his immunity from prosecution.

He told supporters in Rome it was a “day of mourning” for democracy.

Ahead of the vote, he vowed to remain in politics to lead his Forza Italia in a “fight for the good of Italy”.

A defiant Berlusconi told supporters gathered outside his Rome residence that “no political leader has suffered a persecution such as I have lived through”.

He said: “It is a bitter day, a day of mourning.”

Central to Berlusconi’s success has always been his near monopoly on commercial TV in Italy, particularly when juxtaposed with his control of the state TV networks after he was first elected.

What the need to do now is to pass regulations preventing this ghastly intersection of monopoly media ownership and electoral politics from recurring.

The French Call for Germany to Leave the Eurozone

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It’s not the French government, but it is as close as it can get without a governmental imprimatur:

Suddenly, there’s the next solution. This one is attractively presented with graphs and in simple economic terms that even a politician might understand. It’s seemingly well-reasoned and has no visible partisanship attached to it. And it came from one of the largest megabanks in France, Groupe BPCE, that hardly anyone knows.

It was established in 2009 through a government bailout and a near-simultaneous merger between the Caisse Nationale des Caisses d’Épargne and the Banque Fédérale des Banques Populaires. These vast cooperative bank networks continue to exist with their separate brands. And that’s what consumers see. BPCE has €1.15 trillion in assets and owns about 20% of the retail banking market. It’s huge.

And now, its asset management and investment banking subsidiary, Natixis, released a zinger of a study designed to influence policy. It’s titled, “On a purely macroeconomic basis, Germany should leave the Eurozone.”

Germany should get out of the way so that the remaining countries can devalue in a big way what would remain of the euro. France, Italy, Spain, Greece, etc. have always done that, one way or the other, before the euro took that nifty tool of sudden money destruction away from them. It would be the ideal solution for France.

After conceding that there may be non-economic reasons to form a monetary union, the report lays out five reasons why Germany needs to exit. But it offers an alternate solution: if Germany wants to stay, it needs to pay.

  1. Asymmetries in the economic cycles.
  2. Weakening economic ties between Germany and the rest of the Eurozone.
  3. Structural asymmetries.
  4. Different needs in exchange rates.
  5. Incapacity in the rest of the Eurozone to impose “internal devaluation.”

Read the rest.

Bummer

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Here are the historical US numbers through the years

The proposed regulations on CEO pay were defeated by referendum:

Swiss voters rejected a proposal to limit executives’ pay to 12 times that of junior employees yesterday, a measure that would have gone further than any other developed nation.

 The measure was opposed by 65 percent of voters, the government in Bern said yesterday. Polls, including one by consulting firm gfs.bern, had signaled that outcome as probable. Voter turnout was 53 percent, the highest in three years.

 “It’s a big relief,” Valentin Vogt, president of the Swiss Employers’ Association, said in an interview on Swiss national television SRF. “It’s a signal that it’s not up to the state to have a say in pay.”

 Switzerland is the home to at least five of Europe’s 20 best-paid chief executive officers. Opposition to excessive pay has stiffened among the traditionally pro-business Swiss following the government bailout of UBS AG (UBSN), Switzerland’s biggest bank, in 2008 and a plan — later scrapped — by Novartis AG (NOVN) to pay outgoing Chairman Daniel Vasella as much as $78 million.

 In March, Swiss voters approved the so-called fat-cat initiative that gave company shareholders a binding vote on managers’ pay and blocked golden handshakes and severance packages.

The problem here is that you need to get a foot in the door.

If they you had made it 100x, or 500x, it probably have won, but 12x seems to be too restrictive, even to a rabid liberal like me.

After all, depending on how you count, the ratio of the average worker to a CEO was between 18.3-20.1:1, so the ratio to lowest paid was probably in the range of 40:1. 

Note that the $78 million parachute divided by 100 is still more than $¾ million, so the most extreme examples would be shut down, and we would stop seeing the CEO dick swinging over obscene pay packages.

Why the Saab Gripen is different From the JSF

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We don’t care, we don’t have to…we’re the phone company.

While the customers of the F-35 are being shut out of its software, and are unable to integrate their own weapons systems, Saab is using its willingness to incorporate outside systems to make the platform more attractive:

A focus on realistic requirements has helped Swedish industry and government teams integrate weapons on the Gripen faster and at lower cost than similar efforts elsewhere, Saab says.

 Two new weapons for the Gripen, the Raytheon GBU-49 Enhanced Paveway II laser-plus-GPS bomb and Diehl Iris-T infrared air-to-air missile (AAM), were successfully integrated in 2006-09, according to Gideon Singer, technical director for Gripen exports, and Lisa Abom, head of the Saab project office for engineering and weapons. Flight testing of the Thales Digital Joint Reconnaissance Pod for South Africa’s Gripens was completed in 2011 in “less than eight months,” they say.

 The Gripen was also selected as the test platform for the MBDA Meteor AAM. The first production firing took place this summer and qualification firings for full integration of the Gripen will be complete in 2014. Sweden will be the first air force to field the new missile, with the Gripen MS 20 package in 2015. That upgrade will also include the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb.

………

 Saab devotes 14% of integration costs to planning and coordination, Singer and Albom told the Defense IQ International Fighter Conference here this month. One lesson is to “reach early agreement,” they said. This means defining and clearly interpreting requirements, limitations and the approach to testing. “You need to avoid terms like ‘full envelope,’” Singer remarked. “If you ask, the operational pilot will often say that he doesn’t need to go supersonic with three tanks and all these bombs.”

The JSF is such a huge program that they don’t care, much like Ma Bell in the 1960s.

Lockheed, and the Pentagon, see the closed nature as a source of profit (for Lockheed), and as a way to preserve the industrial base and to freeze out foreign competition (for both), and as such, it will be an upgrade nightmare, even for the so-called “partners” in the program.

The Echos the Rise of Fascism in the 1920s and 1930s is Chilling

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We are seeing increased violence between anarchists and neo-Nazis in Greece:

The decline of the Greek economy has had polarizing effects on the nation’s political system—and tensions are running high.

Now police in Greece are on high alert after a new anarchist group claimed responsibility for killing two members of Golden Dawn, a thuggish neo-Nazi group that has both terrorized immigrants on city streets and surged to become Greece’s third most popular political party.

The anarchist faction, calling itself the Militant People’s Revolutionary Forces, wrote in an 18-page proclamation given to local news agencies that the attack was revenge for the fatal stabbing of anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fissas. The Golden Dawn members were shot to death outside of a party office in Athens earlier this month.

Tit-for-tat killings has led to worries more violence could follow—and the anarchists are armed. On Nov. 16, police discovered a weapon cache containing assault rifles, hand grenades and ammunition buried in a forest north of Athens, according to Jane’s Intelligence Weekly. And if weapons buried in undiscovered caches are not used against Golden Dawn, they could be turned on the police.

………

The attacks on Golden Dawn by left-wing radicals is also not without its sympathizers. Many believe that anarchists who are willing to use violence are the only effective means of defending immigrants and liberals against fascist attacks.

The anarchists’ have also received sympathy due to suspicions that Golden Dawn is colluding with some police officers—undermining the security forces’ credibility. In their manifesto, the Militant People’s Revolution Force referred to the police as the “armed dogs of the regime.”

In the interwar years, we saw similar clashes between Communists and Fascists.

Then we saw the economy crushed by bloody minded support of the gold standard, with the Bundesbank being the most emphatic in its support, and now we have the Euro and austerity with the Bundesbank being the most emphatic in its support..

My brother is right.  Europe will be at war of some sort again in my lifetime.

The Rest of Europe Begins to Realize that Germany, and Not Greece, is the Problem in the Euro Zone

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When Romano Prodi, generally known as “Mr. Euro,” says that, “Germany won’t sell another Mercedes in Europe,” it is clear that Europe’s “Very Serious People” are beginning to understand than Germany’s policy demands are fundamentally inimical to the continuing existence of the Euro Zone, and perhaps the whole EU:

The plot is thickening fast in Italy. Romano Prodi – Mr Euro himself – is calling for a Latin Front to rise up against Germany and force through a reflation policy before the whole experiment of monetary union spins out of control.

 “France, Italy, and Spain should together pound their fists on the table, but they are not doing so because they delude themselves that they can go it alone,” he told Quotidiano Nazionale

 Should Germany persist in imposing its contractionary ruin on Europe – “should the euro break apart, with one exchange rate in the North and one in the South”, as he puts it – Germany itself will reap as it has sown. “Their exchange rate will double and they will not sell a single Mercedes in Europe. German industrialists know this but all they manage to secure are slight changes, not enough to end the crisis.”

 Professor Prodi is the prime minister who prepared Italy for EMU in the 1990s, and then presided over the launch of the euro as European Commission chief.………

I would note that the German belief in their own inherent virtue and it’s destiny to dominate its neighbors has a very bad history.

Buh Bye Silvio

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A special committee of the Italian Senate has voted to eject Silvio Berulusconi:

A special panel of the Italian Senate on Friday voted to strip Silvio Berlusconi of his current seat, a humiliating blow for a man who has dominated Italy for the past two decades but whose political career is now very much in jeopardy.

The expulsion vote against Mr. Berlusconi, based on his recent tax fraud conviction, was his second setback of the week, after his failed attempt to bring down the country’s fragile coalition government. The full Senate will probably decide by the end of the month whether to expel Mr. Berlusconi, though a vote against him is now considered very likely.

Mr. Berlusconi, 77, a former prime minister and billionaire media mogul, who once wielded power with a swagger, had fought for weeks to prevent the expulsion vote. Many analysts say his effort to topple the government was partly intended to interrupt or delay the proceedings against him in the Senate. But a mutiny of his center-right supporters forced him to make a public reversal and support the government in a parliamentary confidence vote.

The underlying problem is that Berlusconi controls pretty much all the private TV stations in Italy, and he used this media domination to prosecute his electoral success.

Greece ……… Is ……… F%$#ed

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The leaders of the Greek Fascist Golden Dawn Partywere formally charged with assault and murder:

Nikolaos Michaloliakos, the extremists’ enigmatic leader, was said to be in his pyjamas when police surrounded his home and knocked at the door. Like his second-in-command, Christos Pappas, who subsequently surrendered, and the four MPs who were hauled before a public prosecutor on Tuesday, he stands accused of murder, money-laundering, blackmail and illegal possession of arms.

But they were almost immediately kicked loose on bail:

Three senior lawmakers from Greece’s far-right Golden Dawn were freed on Wednesday pending trial on criminal charges, an unexpected setback to the government’s efforts to clamp down on a party it has labelled a neo-Nazi criminal gang.

The decision to free the men after an 18-hour court session raises questions about the solidity of the state’s case against Golden Dawn after one of its sympathisers stabbed to death an anti-fascism rapper.

Party spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris and fellow lawmakers Ilias Panagiotaros and Nikos Michos stormed out of the court to cheers of “bravo” from supporters. They kicked and shoved journalists out of the way before hailing a taxi.

“We will not back down!” Michos shouted. “You can only stop us with bullets. Even from the grave, we will rise up – know this well!”

The parallels between a certain beer hall putsch of a failed painter are rather alarming.

The Euro looks to be doing the same job of stabilizing Europe during a depression as the mindless fixation on the gold standard of the German central bank did in the 1930s.

Tell me You Don’t See Echos of Wiemar Germany Here………

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Greece, of course, though I would argue that it was a foreseeable consequence of policies foisted on them by the Germans.

We have seen an explosive growth of the Fascist Golden Dawn party, with the tacit approval of the more mainstream Greek political parties, because they see them as providing a counterweight to the growth of the SYRIZA party, and because it allowed them to cast the Socialist SYRIZA, which is a real threat to the corruption of the Greek elites and to the interests of the banksters.

Basically, Golden Dawn allows them to play the, “Both sides of the same coin,” game.

They aren’t of course.

SYRIZA doesn’t engage in systematic violence against people that they do not like, and they haven’t made a concerted effort to infiltrate the Greek state security apparatus to obtain approval for their campaign of intimidation and violence.

Golden Dawn has done all of this in spades, and now, following the murder of anti-Fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas by a Golden Dawn member, the Greek government is trying to put the Genie back into the bottle, and ban the Golden Dawn party:

The Greek government has hinted that it will seek to ban Golden Dawn after the far-right party was linked to the murder of a leading leftwing musician in Athens.

 As violence erupted on the streets and demonstrators protested after the fatal stabbing of Pavlos Fyssas, a prominent anti-fascist, the public order minister, Nikos Dendias, cancelled a trip abroad saying the government would table emergency legislation that would seek to outlaw the group.

 ………

 Earlier in the day, police raided Golden Dawn offices across the country, with media reporting running street battles outside branches in Crete, Thessaloniki and Patras.

 Voted into the Greek parliament for the first time last June, the neo-fascist Golden Dawn has been widely accused of employing violence to further its ratings in the polls.

 The socialist Pasok party, the junior member of Antonis Samaras’s two-party coalition, [The ruling coalition, not SYRIZA] has campaigned openly for it to be banned, saying it should be considered a criminal gang.

 ………

 Eyewitnesses said the singer was stabbed several times by a man who suddenly appeared in a car after being phoned by members of the mob. The attack bore all the hallmarks of a premeditated assault, they said.

Unfortunately, it may be too late, because it looks like Golden Dawn has already infiltrated the Greek state security apparatus:

The killing of Mr. Fyssas has spurred the government to begin a risky crackdown on Golden Dawn, opening its first investigation into whether the police forces are infiltrated by sympathizers or members of the group, one of the most violent rightist organizations in Europe.

On Tuesday, officers raided three police stations on the outskirts of Athens. The sweep came a day after the government replaced seven senior police officials — including the chiefs of special forces, internal security, organized crime and the explosives unit — to ensure the investigation would take place with “absolute objectivity.” In addition, two top members of the Greek police force resigned abruptly Monday, citing “personal reasons.”

Such steps have the potential for volatile repercussions in a country where the security forces have had links to far-right organizations at various points since the end of World War II. They are likely to test the determination of the government and the public to turn back the influence of Golden Dawn, which has climbed steadily in opinion polls in the past year and has 18 of its members in Parliament.

………

The public outcry after the killing of Mr. Fyssas, who used the stage name Killah P, placed greater pressure on Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, a member of the right-leaning New Democracy party, to investigate a police force he has repeatedly defended, despite a cascade of reports drawing links between the police and Golden Dawn.

Human rights groups say the police have for the most part looked the other way as Golden Dawn has systematically terrorized immigrants. These aggressive acts, sometimes captured on video by Golden Dawn members and posted on the Internet, involve roving groups crushing market stands run by immigrants, riding in gangs on motorbikes armed with clubs and shields bearing swastika-like symbols and beating immigrants with wooden poles draped in the Greek flag.

Nikos Demertzis, a professor of political sociology at the University of Athens, said allegations of police collusion with the far right were not surprising. “Generally there is a tradition in Greece that the far-right organizations have certain links with the police — this is a historic, recurring theme,” Mr. Demertzis said.

They are Fascists, and they have a large amount of influence over the police during a period of social disorder.

It might already be too late to fix this.  History is littered with who thought that they could control extremists (on both right and left) and end up being devoured by the monster that they have created.

Krugman Nails It

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In accordance with Euro Zone requirements, France is taking steps to reduce its deficit.

The people who most strongly argue for “expansionary austerity”*, are criticizing Frances steps, and Paul Krugman rightly takes them to task:

Simon Wren-Lewis looks at France, and finds that it is engaging in a lot of fiscal austerity — far more than makes sense given the macroeconomic situation. He notes, however, that France has eliminated its structural primary deficit mainly by raising taxes rather than by cutting spending.

And Olli Rehn — who should be praising the French for their fiscal responsibility, their willingness to defy textbook macroeconomics in favor of the austerity gospel — is furious, declaring that fiscal restraint must come through spending cuts.

………

But the larger point here, surely, is that Rehn has let the mask slip. It’s not about fiscal responsibility; it never was. It was always about using hyperbole about the dangers of debt to dismantle the welfare state. How dare the French take the alleged worries about the deficit literally, while declining to remake their society along neoliberal lines?

It should be noted that Robert Mundell, known as the “Father of the Euro”, is also a big figure in supply side economics (aka Raganomics).

The Euro’s academic and intellectual roots are dominated by people who have the dismantling of the social safety net as one of their important goals.

It is therefore no surprise that they are prosecuting their agenda by using austerity as a tool to do this, but the people who have to live in the Euro are their victims.

*Much like sparkle ponies that sh%$ M&Ms, expansionary austerity does not exist.

Your Syria War Drums Update

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First we have to note that British PM David Cameron just lost a parliamentary vote to authorize action, so we would have to do this without our poodle:

Invoking the specter of the Iraq war, British lawmakers on Thursday rejected military action in Syria, dealing a stunning blow to Prime Minister David Cameron and effectively ruling Washington’s staunchest military ally out of any U.S.-led strike.

 After a marathon eight-hour debate, Cameron lost a vote that was initially seen as a symbolic motion setting up a final vote in the days ahead authorizing force against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime for allegedly using chemical weapons. But the surprise loss of even the weaker piece of legislation — by a vote of 285 to 272, including a group of rebels from Cameron’s Conservative Party in opposition — appeared to cost the United States its centerpiece ally in a still-forming coalition. The rejection additionally signaled what analysts called the biggest rupture in the U.S.-British “special relationship” since the 1982 Falklands war.

 Technically, Cameron could still authorize military strikes over the objection of Parliament, but top government officials — including the prime minister himself — indicated that was not an option following Thursday’s defeat.

While a revolt of his own party doomed the vote, it appears that most of Cameron’s vitriol was directed at opposition leader Ed Miliband:

A Downing Street spokesperson said the letter to the cabinet secretary was “completely over the top”. The spokesperson said: “Labour’s reaction is completely over the top. The No 10 press people were asked if the lack of an international response could give succour to the regime and they agreed with that. They did not mention Ed Miliband by name.”

 Miliband was already angry after a government source used expletives overnight to criticise Miliband. A government source told the Times on Wednesday night: “No 10 and the Foreign Office think Miliband is a f%$#ing c%$# and a copper-bottomed sh%$.“

(emphasis, and “%$#” mine)

As an aside, I really appreciate the honesty of British politics over the dishonest civility of the our political tradition.

BTW, it now appears that sources in the administration are walking back from their initial claims that they have ironclad proof against the Assad regime:

The intelligence linking Syrian President Bashar Assad or his inner circle to an alleged chemical weapons attack that killed at least 100 people is no “slam dunk,” with questions remaining about who actually controls some of Syria’s chemical weapons stores and doubts about whether Assad himself ordered the strike, U.S. intelligence officials say.

 President Barack Obama declared unequivocally Wednesday that the Syrian government was responsible, while laying the groundwork for an expected U.S. military strike.

 “We have concluded that the Syrian government in fact carried these out,” Obama said in an interview with “NewsHour” on PBS. “And if that’s so, then there need to be international consequences.”

 However, multiple U.S. officials used the phrase “not a slam dunk” to describe the intelligence picture — a reference to then-CIA Director George Tenet’s insistence in 2002 that U.S. intelligence showing Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was a “slam dunk” — intelligence that turned out to be wrong.

This might explain why the Obama administration has been trying to shut down the UN investigation of the attack, they are afraid that, after their unequivocal public statements, they will be shown up as fools:

After initially insisting that Syria give United Nations investigators unimpeded access to the site of an alleged nerve gas attack, the administration of President Barack Obama reversed its position on Sunday and tried unsuccessfully to get the U.N. to call off its investigation.

 The administration’s reversal, which came within hours of the deal reached between Syria and the U.N., was reported by the Wall Street Journal Monday and effectively confirmed by a State Department spokesperson later that day.

 In his press appearance Monday, Secretary of State John Kerry, who intervened with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to call off the investigation, dismissed the U.N. investigation as coming too late to obtain valid evidence on the attack that Syrian opposition sources claimed killed as many 1,300 people.

 The sudden reversal and overt hostility toward the U.N. investigation, which coincides with indications that the administration is planning a major military strike against Syria in the coming days, suggests that the administration sees the U.N. as hindering its plans for an attack.

 Kerry asserted Monday that he had warned Syrian Foreign Minister Moallem last Thursday that Syria had to give the U.N. team immediate access to the site and stop the shelling there, which he said was “systematically destroying evidence”. He called the Syria-U.N. deal to allow investigators unrestricted access “too late to be credible”.

 After the deal was announced on Sunday, however, Kerry pushed Ban in a phone call to call off the investigation completely.

BTW, the idea that it is “too late” to collect evidence is complete crap.

There should be evidence for months. Sarin decays quickly, but the decay products should remain in the environment for weeks, if not months, depending on the quality of its manufacture.

FWIW, even though Kerry could not get the inspectors stopped, they are ending their mission a day early, probably because they were told that if the didn’t, they would be in the path of cruise missile strikes.

BTW, even the state department admits that, even if the Syrian military initiated the attack, it may have been outside of the normal chain of command:

With the United States barreling toward a strike on Syria, U.S. officials say they are completely certain that Bashar al-Assad’s government is responsible for last week’s chemical weapons attack. They just don’t know who in the Syrian government is to blame.

 On Wednesday, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf admitted as much. “The commander-in-chief of any military is ultimately responsible for decisions made under their leadership, even if … he’s not the one that pushes the button or said, ‘Go,’ on this,” Harf said. “I don’t know what the facts are here. I’m just, broadly speaking, saying that he is responsible for the actions of his regime. I’m not intimately familiar with the command and control structure of the Syrian military. I’m just not. But again, he is responsible ultimately for the decisions that are made.”

 On Tuesday, The Cable reported that U.S. officials are basing their assessment that the Assad regime bears responsibility for the strike largely on an intercepted phone call between a panicked Ministry of Defense official and a commander of a Syrian chemical weapons unit. But that intelligence does not resolve the question of who in the government ordered the strike or what kind of command and control structures are in place for the use of such weapons. “It’s unclear where control lies,” one U.S. intelligence official told The Cable Tuesday. “Is there just some sort of general blessing to use these things? Or are there explicit orders for each attack?”

BTW, THIS should scare the hell out of everyone.

Using chemical weapons is pretty bad, but losing control of your chemical weapons stockpile is terrifying.

I agree with Saleh Muslim, who is head of the primary Kurdish party in Syria, when he said, “The regime in Syria … has chemical weapons, but they wouldn’t use them around Damascus, 5 km from the (U.N.) committee which is investigating chemical weapons. Of course they are not so stupid as to do so.”

It Looks Like the Wheels are Coming off Our Little Syrian Adventure in Britain

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David Cameron was all ready go and bomb stuff, but he suffered a push-back from the opposition, and a revolt from within his own party:

Prime Minister David Cameron was forced on Wednesday to push back his plans for an imminent military strike against Syria in a humiliating climb-down for Britain’s leader after coming under fierce domestic and international pressure.

Just a day after recalling Britain’s parliament to vote on how to respond to Syria’s suspected use of chemical weapons, Cameron was ambushed when the opposition Labour party said it wanted greater parliamentary scrutiny and rebel lawmakers in his own ruling Conservative party said they would oppose him.

Earlier on Wednesday, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had sought more time for inspectors to complete their work, Russia had said it was premature to table a U.N. resolution, and the Labour party had made it clear it wanted clear proof that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons.

Cameron’s failure to execute his original plan of action could hamper efforts by the United States to deliver a swift cruise missile strike against Syria as early as this week, potentially harming London’s alliance with Washington.

Inspired by the legacy of public mistrust left behind by former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s contested decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003, Labour leader Ed Miliband and some rebel Conservatives used the prospect of a government defeat in parliament to force Cameron to delay action.

After hours of impromptu negotiations between Cameron’s political managers and the opposition, his office agreed that the United Nations Security Council should see findings from chemical weapons inspectors before it responded militarily.

“The United Nations Security Council must have the opportunity immediately to consider that briefing (from inspectors) and … every effort should be made to secure a Security Council Resolution backing military action before any such action is taken,” a British government motion to be debated in parliament on Thursday said.

Britain had previously declined to say it would wait for a U.N. report before launching military action.

The United States has lost its poodle, for a while, at least.

It’s Jobless Thursday

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Initial unemployment claims rose by 5,000 to 333,000, though the less volatile 4-week moving average fell to the lowest number in almost 6 years.

Continuing claims rose slightly.

It’s not a bad report, particularly when compared to Greece, where the May unemployment number was revised upward to 27.6%:

Greece’s jobless rate hit a new record high of 27.6 percent in May, official national data showed on Thursday as the country staggers under austerity linked to its international bailout.

Record joblessness is a nightmare for Greece’s two-party coalition government as it scrambles to hit fiscal targets and show there is light at the end of the tunnel after years of unpopular tax rises and cuts to wages and pensions.

Unemployment rose to 27.6 percent from an upwardly revised 27.0 percent reading in April, according to data from statistics service ELSTAT and was more than twice the average rate in the euro zone which stood at 12.1 percent in June.

This is grim, and the two mainstream parties have absolutely failed to do anything to fix this, and it is highly unlikely that they can do what it takes, given that step one is to stand up to German politicians spinning morality tales.

That leaves us with the left leaning SYRIZA party, or the the Fascist, nativist, and racist Golden Dawn party (see the party symbol on the right).

If history is true to form, the 1930s, it’s going to be the Fascists who win this, and given that we are already seeing Fascism lite in Hungary, this has very unpleasant historical echos.

Silvio is Going to Jail

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Italy’s highest court has affirmed his jail sentence:

Italy’s highest court has upheld a prison sentence given to former PM Silvio Berlusconi for tax evasion.

The court also ordered a further judicial review on whether he should be banned from holding public office.

In an emotional video statement, Berlusconi denounced the decision as “based on nothing, and which deprives me of my freedom and political rights”.

The sentence cannot be appealed against further but Berlusconi, 76, is unlikely to go to jail because of his age.

The ruling by Rome’s Court of Cassation came after a three-day hearing. Berlusconi was not in court.

The former prime minister was sentenced to four years in prison at the conclusion of the trial in October last year, though this was automatically reduced to a year under a 2006 pardon law.

Berlusconi is likely to serve house arrest or carry out community service.

Hopefully, this spells the end of his political career.

Now go and break up his television monopoly.

I Don’t Give a Crap

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It has been reported that Britain’s biggest welfare family is expecting their first child.

Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, is reportedly in labo(u)r.

To quote George Washington, “Let there be no Kings.”

Americans should not be following this news with baited breath.

I can’t wait to hear what Vonners, my (small R) republican British friend has to day about this.

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More Evidence of German Self-Mythologizing

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A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that the recent stories about the Germans being poorer than the rest of Europe, and how it was largely bullsh%$?

Well, it appears that it was even more bogus than I had previously thought. You see the difference in household wealth is almost entirely due to difference in household sizes:

Media hype had been generated by the ranking of the countries’ median household wealth results, especially by the fact that:

• Germany was in last place with €51,400.

• Italy and Spain were significantly above France with wealth equal to €173,500 and €182,700 respectively, compared to the French households’ €115,800.

The mean household wealth averages paint a very different picture to current narratives about the relatively wealth of nations in the Eurozone. The relative dispersion in the estimates is much smaller: the German household mean is €195,200, while for France, Italy and Spain it is €233,400, €275,200 and €291,400 respectively. Moreover, Germany climbs six places in the wealth ranking.

As already noted by De Grauwe and Ji (2013), Germany’s position at the bottom of the median ranking is simply due to its large wealth inequality compared with the others. This is confirmed by observing that the concentration of wealth, measured by a Gini index of 0.76, is much higher in Germany, while for France, Italy and Spain the estimate is smaller (0.68, 0.61 and 0.58 respectively).

Household Size Matters

This analysis does not take account of household composition in the various countries. The distribution of household wealth across countries is affected by differences in the demographic characteristics of households (age, education, household size):

• In northern countries, households are generally small, often composed of a single member.

• In the south it is not unusual to find many people, even from different generations (grandparents, parents and children), living together.

The splitting up of household members produces a sort of partition of wealth among the households they generate, as happens when young members exit the household to form a new family.

 A simple way to sterilise for household size is to consider per capita averages:

• The per capita wealth figure for Italy and Spain is €108,700, slightly higher than for France (€104,100) and Germany (€95,500).

BTW, do you know one of the reasons that there are more multigenerational households in the Mediterranean Euro nations?

Because the generous social welfare system in Germany allows for generations not to live together. (Things like high quality government subsidized elder care and strong pensions).

Oskar Lafontaine Realizes the Error of His Ways

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The former German Finance Minister, who shepherded the implementation of Euro, has now declared that has declared that it is a truly bad idea:

“The economic situation is worsening from month to month, and unemployment has reached a level that puts democratic structures ever more in doubt,” he said.

 “The Germans have not yet realised that southern Europe, including France, will be forced by their current misery to fight back against German hegemony sooner or later,” he said, blaming much of the crisis on Germany’s wage squeeze to gain export share.

 Mr Lafontaine said on the parliamentary website of Germany’s Left Party that Chancellor Angela Merkel will “awake from her self-righteous slumber” once the countries in trouble unite to force a change in crisis policy at Germany’s expense.

………

 Mr Lafontaine said he backed EMU but no longer believes it is sustainable. “Hopes that the creation of the euro would force rational economic behaviour on all sides were in vain,” he said, adding that the policy of forcing Spain, Portugal, and Greece to carry out internal devaluations was a “catastrophe”.

 Mr Lafontaine was labelled “Europe’s Most Dangerous Man” by The Sun after he called for a “united Europe” and the “end of the nation state” in 1998. The euro was launched on January 1 1999, with bank notes following three years later. He later left the Social Democrats to found the Left Party.

You will note that his critique is not the standard political wisdom in Germany, which turns economics into a nativist morality play about the respective national virtues of different nations.

Seriously, we know what happens Germans base their policies on a vision of their own superior national virtue, there are still people who remember the last time, and it is not pretty.