In chess, zugzwang is when a player has no good moves. Anything he does will weaken his position. However, since it is his turn, he must move. Therefore, he is forced to weaken his position. This is America’s current situation in Afghanistan. Should the U.S. continue fighting a long and costly war or withdraw? Last […]
I’m back. Just in time to go away again for the holiday weekend. Take a moment to re-read the Declaration of Independence, why don’t you? All men are created equal. They are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Good stuff. But even better is Jeremy Bentham’s […]
Mr. President, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t have General Petraeus come in and save your Afghan policy at the same time as you have been associated with MoveOn.org, which called him “General Betray Us” on the pages of the New York Times in 2007. I don’t want to be the guy always criticizing […]
Just wanted to add a few more thoughts to my earlier blog on General McChrystal before I head out for my daily tasks. Stratfor put out an excellent article on the situation but I disagree with some of the points made. In the article, Stratfor indicated the Rolling Stone article portrayed “McChrystal and his inner […]
Today is my birthday and having just returned home after spending two weeks away dealing with a family emergency, I had hoped to spend a quiet day contemplating personal goals for the next year and ending the day overeating with friends at one of my favorite restaurants. The best laid plans…I kept turning on the […]
Insubordination by top military officers to civilian authority is unacceptable in America. As presidential biographer Robert Dallek argued in today’s NYTimes, McChrystal’s defiance of his civilian masters may warrant dismissal. However, there is another important issue here: how hubris on the campaign trail can lead to sub-par policy choices. President Obama’s decision early in his administration […]
As international attention focuses on resolving issues on the Korean peninsula, trouble is brewing in a different Asian arena. The South China Sea is one of the world’s busiest shipping routes, an extremely productive fishing area, and is reported to contain vast deposits of oil and natural gas. The Sea is bordered by Brunei, China, […]
An excellent New York Times article yesterday discussed how democratic politics and bureaucracy in India prevent the elimination of infrastructure bottlenecks, especially in transportation. The article focused on India’s railway system, where freight rates are expensive, travel times excessive, and traffic volumes inadequate to the task of fostering strong economic growth…of the pace we see in China. […]
An excellent issue brief from the Arms Control Association points out that a ban on major weapon deliveries, hardly mentioned if at all in most press coverage, is one of the most significant provisions of the sanctions the UN Security Council imposed on Iran last week. Resolution 1929 directs all states to “prevent the direct […]
I have long said in my China posts that China does not have a lot of options right now besides buying US treasuries. The AP article below describes how China has increased its purchases of US debt in recent months. If you are going to hold your currency undervalued in order to run massive current account […]
As noted in an earlier post, inflation is a sensitive issue in India. In addition to worrying about over-heating, today a preoccupation in many Emerging Market Economies (e.g. China and Brazil), Indian politicians are concerned that when food prices rise, millions may starve. JPMorgan below analyzes the latest inflation report, including double-digit price hikes in the food category. Moreover, with only modest capital expansion going on […]
In an earlier post, I discussed a theory I developed that democratic countries with divided, often coalition, governments generally produce weaker public finances than countries where two dominant parties alternate in power. India is the posterchild for the former, with government debt at about 80% of GDP, very high for an emerging market economy. In order to […]
Rai al-Shaab (Opinion of the People), a Sudanese newspaper run by opposition leader Hassan al-Turabi, published an article earlier this month describing a secret weapons factory run by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Sudanese soil. Sudanese officials have since arrested and tortured al-Turabi and several of his staff members and shut down the […]
My PC suffered a massive failure last week keeping me from the blogging scene. Currently traveling but wanted to pass on some thoughts on President Obama’s nomination of retired Air Force General James Clapper as the new Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and the latest round on UN sanctions against Iran. I first became aware […]
Henrique Meirelles, Brazil’s central bank president, helped save President Lula’s hide back in 2003 when the bond markets priced Brazilian sovereign bonds at default levels. He was a key pillar of Lula’s credible economic team, which convinced markets that the firebrand leftist was not going to spoil Lula’s predecessor’s hard work crushing pernicious hyperinflation. Lula had the […]