http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/washington/30labor.html?_r=1&hp

President Bush continues to try and cement into place his right wing utopia where abortion is illegal, where business takes precedence over human life, where harming people is considered normal, in a frantic legislative last breath – 20 or so regulations that Obama will waste precious time undoing.  

Impeachment is less expensive.

On October 4th, DisturbingTrends.org reported

“The horrible truth is that more banks may fail.  Harsher conditions may have meant it all came home to roost in one massive failure, survival by merger, but intervention of the Bush administration may mean more institutions continue to operate in a compromised state, it may therefore take several economic regime changes to fix.  Over-correction could become the economic norm over a longer-period.”

And now, they are taking another 800 billion to bailout those who arranged zero deposit mortgages and are being thrown off the land now by foreclosure.  And buying up the banks.

This president may appear to be a lame duck, but it really looks like theft of taxpayer money depleting the Federal Reserve.  Where is all this cash going?  At best this is a complete farce.  But it looks more sinister, like a planned offloading of American wealth.  Should we predict Bush will go and live in Switzerland with 100billion in the bank without sounding ridiculous?  I sometimes wonder if that is not what is really going down.

It is why impeachment is vital.  Bush is not an idiot.  Ergo, his decisions led to this.  Would it not be correct to say his administration is factually responsible for more damage to the American economy than 10 tax and spend governments put together!

It is the worst management disaster in history.  DisturbingTrends has compared Bush with Nero.  Perhaps history will remember GW Bush as the single most destructive leader in history; as well intentioned as King John and as effective as – well as destructive as as a World War, economically.

DisturbingTrends still predicts that another huge sum = perhaps 1 trillion more will be taken from the American Taxpayer before GW Bush leaves office next year.

This is like selectively looking after the feet of the beast that is trying to cross the fields.  It has rings on its toes but its not strong enough to hold its weight so lumbers about.  If it falls over, the rings on its toes may pay for a doctor, but it really is better if it stays at least mobile as then it can at least find some grass to chew.

Sure it is at least fair to bail out the mortgagees as well as the bankers. But what about people who do not have mortgages but masses of credit card debt.  These people are already giving most of their human asset over to pay down short term debt.  Bush has increased the profitability of banking by adding 1.6 trillion cash into the system.  Bankers walked away will cash in pockets.  Now defaulting mortgages will live to default another day.

Does not really matter.  The reason for the downturn is  not being addressed.

In summary, the past eight years have totally destroyed the free market that was doing quite well but still required intelligent management.  Have they regulated the multiple derivative hedge investments that have magnified the failures many fold.

NZ Herald reports on New Zealand’s fresh prime minister John Key who just won an election and has formed a progressive doubled valved powerhouse with Right Wing and Maori support – a clever prank or a progressive miracle?

It could be an opportunity for Maori to find new identity as a treaty partner (the Treaty of Waitangi was unlike other British colonial constitutions – it was a power sharing agreement, and maybe, just maybe, that is what is evolving now); or, it could become an impossible machine that just consumes energy instead of providing it. It is new ground, politically, but with the highly intelligent Dr Pita Sharples as Minister of Maori Affairs there is hope that genunine political traction in his hands will help transform Aotearoa, New Zealand.

In true business leader fashion, Key’s first act once forming this unusual government is to leave them to it while he meets at APEC with the rest of the worlds’ leaders. And he instantly is trying to get his view heard on centre stage – his voice is on the same side as GW Bush (who wants to meet with Key) – that the world markets need to be stabilized. Alan Garcia – the leader of Peru – and host to the conference has descibed the world market glitch as “growing pains”. Key seeks to increase regulation around times of economic growth. Good idea? We think so.

Meantime, American business leaders have warned that if the 60 trillion dollars worth of derivatives are not “deleveraged” from the market, we are facing “absolute carnage” on the market.

This APEC meeting is the last chance for the world’s leaders to:

a) override the legality of multiple insurance bets on assets not owned by the owner of the contract. By override, I mean cancel, burn, reduce to no value.

b) get honest about world trade, make it an even playing field with unbiased referees.

c) undertake a rewrite of the financial system to reduce the additiction to “growth” as the sole goal of economics. Stop labelling those, who oppose the logic of continual growth, communists.

Downside economics are not like upside. It is the opportunity for Governments to fix the broken veins and arteries so that productivity does has its rewards.

The 60 trillion dollars worth of speculative derivatives are simply of no real value. They do not represent growth of anything but the bank accounts of the henchmen. And the draining of all blood from the unwitting mortgage holders.

Don McGlashen is rightfully pissed off and so he should be. TVNZ chose his song “Anchor Me” to back a “celebration” of the moment of ascension of the National Party to power. McGlashen, a leftie and proud of it is horrified that his song was used in this way. Symbolically, it brands the song as a right wing anthem which is surely is not. This branding – if it is ever used consciously by the National Party should afford a significant payment to Mr McGlashen as it is more than just playing rights at stake here. It is the politically assimilation of a very popular song.

Lay Legal assessment: It may be within terms of copyright, per se, however TVNZ may still be accountable for the political branding it has bestowed on the song, and thus conferred upon the artist. It has to consider this when representing a political change of climate, and its own ability to go beyond a single quotable use and into needing to repeat that branding and thus advance their use of the song from (albeit out of context) illustrative to a new level of meaning, that of a branding. For that – they would need to pay McGlashen the millions such rights to the song is worth.

Counter assessment: TVNZ are acting within the laws of copyright. They have paid to use the song as part of a bulk deal with the record company. This gives them editorial rights on the use of the song, in a neutral sense, so their use is not obstructed by interpretation.

The Guardian reports Lord Bingham’s comments.

“One of Britain’s most authoritative judicial figures last night delivered a blistering attack on the invasion of Iraq, describing it as a serious violation of international law, and accusing Britain and the US of acting like a “world vigilante”.

“Lord Bingham, in his first major speech since retiring as the senior law lord, rejected the then attorney general’s defence of the 2003 invasion as fundamentally flawed.

“Contradicting head-on Lord Goldsmith’s advice that the invasion was lawful, Bingham stated: “It was not plain that Iraq had failed to comply in a manner justifying resort to force and there were no strong factual grounds or hard evidence to show that it had.” Adding his weight to the body of international legal opinion opposed to the invasion, Bingham said that to argue, as the British government had done, that Britain and the US could unilaterally decide that Iraq had broken UN resolutions “passes belief”.

AFP report

There is speculation that Obama will choose Clinton as Secretary of State. I thought it was going to be health. Perhaps it is. Perhaps it is not.

I thought McCain was going to be asked to be Secretary of State. Now that would have been weird.

And Palin? She is going to be the Governor of Alaska!

Brown cloud pollution – smog that drifts away overnight from the crowded car cities of Asia – goes somewhere and accumulates. Theoretically, this perpetual haze filters enough sunlight that a reverse Greenhouse effect cools the air – and poisons everything.

There is a danger that this offset will justify both evils. Two wrongs do not correct each other and if the justification is that it is quite okay to continue murdering our grandchildren – then it would make more sense.

Twenty years ago, there seemed to be some political alignments on both the left and right, being reflected on both sides of the world. These days – the world is more torn across the central divide. As the US ushered in a new era of left wing management and Barack Obama – the first actual human to be president since Abe Lincon perhaps – in that Obama did not come from any sort of privilege – New Zealand has voted in a very right wing government – National (i.e. conservative) is the party that now has the power, ACT is the king maker (although its credentials hang on the reputation of its leader – Rodney Hide – the yellow jacketed WASP – who gained popularity by slimming down, getting his teeth fixed and famously lumbering about on “Dancing with the Stars” – all good fodder for the mindless supermarket aisle press – who’s triumphant return carried the very right wing ACT back to power with Roger Douglas (the Freedman monitarist who out-Thatchered Thatcher) advising on Finance, no doubt – and of course the leadership of National – John Key – a stock broker who worked for Merril Lynch in New York trading currencies – these pointy head “economists” are going to dig NZ out of the looming recession by reducing taxes and slicing Government spending.

The New Deal the US has reinvoked with its democratic decision is historically the correct medicine. Key has spoken about investment in infrastructure – which is “new dealish” and will be very welcome in the difficult months ahead – as unemployment starts to rear an ugly face.

It is the end of NZ’s most successful Prime Minister – Helen Clark is destined for political sainthood in the form of a UN posting? Very likely.

DisturbingTrends welcomes the new National led government, with a hope that this political animal now out in the open will no longer camoflauge its intentions – political honesty is the best way to be reelected.

Prediction: The NZ dollar will again be overvalued and interest rates will rise? Or will it drop as foreign exchange dealers do not agree with the electorate. Bit early to see – but I wonder now if the FTA with the USA is going to be a casualty?

Labour’s television advertising has missed the point. Take for example the television advert with the two Johns, it shows two pictures of John Key and then flashes a labour logo at the end. This is promoting National more than Labour even though Labour is using gutter politics trying to take the monkey out of John Key I believe its not working for them. What I mean is most people that watch television get more visually than an audio stream what they see sits more in the mind more so than what they hear. John Key must be laughing thinking he is getting free advertising at the expense of the Labour party. I think this advert has missed its mark and gives National free exposure at Labours expense poor marks for Labour.

The overwhelming election of Barack Obama to the Office the The President of the United States of America has electrified the world. Congratulations are due to the campaign that was itself an extraordinary one. And with extraordinary dignity John McCain’s delivered his speech to his faithful to signal the end of the campaign and the start of cooperation. During the campaign the gloves were off, anything went – but now America can be once again be United – and enact new policy that has some chance of correcting the imbalances the Bush adminstration created that have so long divided and disappointed Americans. The Bush years will be remembered as tragically aggressive and government perhaps by poor instincts – that decided it was best to “go it alone” (the Iraq war) after destroying it’s opposition (the impeachment of Clinton) and not acting to protect the security of its people (9/11 and the war in Afghanistan).

We do hope against hope that DisturbingTrends.org can relax – the Bush years were a time that required constant logical criticism. We hope that the future of the great nation, the USA is one that benefits all humanity and that the currents of change result in the following:

a) the end of Al Qaeda as a force for mindless violence destroying the lives of many young men and women in a war that really has no point.
b) the end of racism, everywhere
c) the begining of a new deal in economics where value is represented in reality with some speculation, instead of being driven by speculation.
d) enabling people to end poverty
e) an end to the pollution of the Earth as an accepted “normal reality”
f) nations who realize their own well being is partly dependent on the well being of other nations

Of course this is all very optimistic. Having a USA government that works for its people instead of commiting economic war against them – well it may transform the richest country in the world. And it may reach out to other communities as it always has. But it is the end of religious extremism between Pakistan and India, the end of expansionalism and threat from competing philosophies, the end of criminality trumping the authority of government – the end of war – these goals are still way ahead of us. As the human race turns a page in this thing we call history, it is up to each one of us to write on that page the future.

At the start of the run up to the campaign, we predicted that Joe Biden would win. Watching him on the victory stage with President Obama – was both inspiration and relief.

A prediction about the hand over – GW Bush has not finished creating havoc. His popularity will continue to dwindle, but he will make another fantastic mistake, I think it will be another attempted “bail out” manouvere of about 1 – 2 trillion dollars, but it will simply fail.

President Obama, welcome to the world stage.