Showing posts with label united states. Show all posts
Showing posts with label united states. Show all posts

Monday, October 23, 2017

China Sees Opportunity

For as long as I can remember, in every economics class of the latter 20th century and early 21st, we have been taught that the United States is the industrial leading behemoth that cannot be surpassed because of its sheer fiscal might. Every currency exchange in the world still compares its local currency to the US Dollar and the United States is still the target for every worldwide consumer innovation, as it is the largest most lucrative market in the world today.

But times are changing. Let's step back and understand the passing of the torch that saw the United States rise as the worldwide economic leader. People who don't study or pay attention to history, may not realize that by the turn of the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, Great Britain was the world leader in most major industrial and financial measurements. However, by this time the British Empire grew beyond its means. With its empire stretching across the globe and the financial stresses inflicted by various conflicts, that standing became very tenuous. The beginning of the end was the beginning of World War I, where Britain extended itself further fiscally, and just could not keep up with the rising growing economy of the United States.

Despite going through the Great Depression, the United States kept growing in every phase of its economy. The final straw that unseeded Britain from the top spot was the havoc World War II inflicted upon its people, infrastructure, and finances. Soon their colonies, once the cornerstones of their financial income, began to break away as independent sovereign nations. Then their industries began to be nationalized. Finally, their national budget proportionally became a shadow of its former self. This made the economy grow at a snail's pace and even contract at times.

The United States had none of these problems. The younger nation was buoyed by the end of the Civil War. The United States saw its greatest leaps in industrialization and natural resource discoveries push the growth margin higher than ever during the "gilded age", leading up to the start of the 20th century. By the time of the roaring 20s, the country was now an economic contender on the world stage. But because neither of the world wars saw any extensive damage to the United States infrastructure, there was no pause and no rebuilding cost. This freed up the United States to invest in its growth further and leap past its European competitors with a seemingly insurmountable advantage into first place.

It is a spot which we, as a nation, have not relinquished since. However, our supremacy on the world stage has diminished over time. Since the late 20th century, the United States government has continuously mismanaged its budget to the tune of a financially devastating fiscal deficit. As the GDP and per capita income increased, so did the manufacturing costs. As a result, we have transformed our economy into a service, credit, and consumer economy. All the while shipping our blue collar manufacturing jobs overseas. With that transition we have also given the technical expertise and the income, which was previously kept in house, to nations we never saw as our competitors, let alone our equals.

But this is exactly where China finds itself today. Having absorbed decades of manufacturing and assembly handover from Western nations, China has acquired both the infrastructure and the technical knowledge base necessary to compete on the world stage as equals. Furthermore, Chinese government has acquired sufficient sovereign debt of every Western nation, including the United States, to be able to have political and economic leverage it previously dreamed of.

But now, having accumulated sufficient wealth, China is transitioning. It finds itself at the exact same inflection point that the United States found itself in the late 19th and early 20th century, when it was breathing down Great Britain's neck. Except now it is China ready to overtake the United States as the leading economy in the world. Chinese government is well poised for the role, with a bank roll of foreign debt and a national cash surplus that now seems more attractive to global investors than ever before.

As the conflicts of the world swirl around, the safest place for foreign cash is still the United States, as it is being recognized for its past fiscal dependability. But the winds are changing, and the Asian powerhouse that is China sees opportunity in this crisis. Up until now, they have been able to manipulate its currency and keep the value of the Yuan down to keep its manufacturing infrastructure viable on the world stage, and its Yuan-denominated sovereign debt purchases high in value. But their per capita incomes and currency value is growing beyond these controls. Soon enough, China will find itself in transition to a consumer economy. And that's exactly when the United States will be faced with a similar fate that Great Britain faced in the 20th century.

What do you think? Will China become a major consumer economy within the next decade? Will foreign investors see it as the new capital safety market? Will the US Dollar Standard crumble within the next decade? Please Leave your thoughts below in the comments section.

Saturday, March 8, 2014

Crisis via Modern Warfare - Broadcast Media and the Interne


Let me be Captain Obvious for a moment - It is all about the money. It is not about giving you the true unbiased information about events foreign and domestic. It is about how profitable each minute of airtime can be for the parent corporation. 

It doesn't surprise me anymore, but the manner in which the mainstream media conducts its news broadcasts and disseminates irresponsibly bias information is anything but newsworthy. It is, in fact, more commerce-oriented rather than being genuinely informative. The way CBS, NBC, FOX, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, and countless others stay on the air is by keeping their commercial time slots full and profitable. In order to do so, these corporations need to attract advertising interest through high viewer ratings. Since market research shows that the attention span of an average American has dipped to an all time low, the broadcasting companies need to find ways to "spice up" their news and make them more entertaining. As a result, what the average viewer receives on a nightly basis from these so-called news sources is a regurgitated version of the truth that has been skewed, dramatized, and fragmented enough between commercials to keep you on the edge of your seat to prop up the networks' viewer ratings. In effect, it becomes this entertainment with the pretense of being the news.

In this example, we will use the current events in Ukraine to reveal the mainstream media's malfeasance. Due to this perversion of the news broadcast, it has become an inadvertent instigator of heightened tensions worldwide through misinformation and horrific omissions of the general public. In order to get viewer ratings, a broadcasting corporation will use inflammatory titles and edgy rhetoric like 'Invasion' and 'Cold War', instead of reality-bearing labels like 'Unrest', 'A New Day in Ukraine', 'Tensions on the Rise', and 'Russian Response'. Why would a broadcasting company use the fear-inducing and instigating labels? In order to raise its viewer ratings, of course. An average American viewer will dismiss a basic newsworthy label, because it's simply not sexy enough. However, pitch them a conflict-inducing story line on a world scale, and you have a viewer for the next half hour. What these labels do, however, is form a predisposition in the viewers' minds that sets them up for a news story that is anything but objective. 

Outside of rephrasing and omitting facts, these news corporations fail to do basic fact-checking that is the staple of a good news reporter. One fact that almost every news corporation have gotten woefully wrong is stating that the current Ukrainian government is legitimate. While it is certainly true that the protesters overthrew the previous Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, the protests themselves were all peaceful through December until the radical factions arrived at the scene. The radical far right-wing parties that brought violence with them, and subsequently instigated a response after over a month of burning and killing security forces. It is these radical factions that "inspired" the Ukrainian Parliament to abandon Viktor Yanukovych and vote him out, just after the president's February 21st agreement with Western representatives to transition to a new unity government that would provide equal representation for all Ukrainians. The reason being, is that a unity government that represents all Ukrainians would be completely against the far right wing parties Right Sector and Svoboda (Freedom), who brought violence to the protests. These parties want an "ethnically clean" Ukraine and regard the Holocaust as a "bright period" in history. Many in these parties are proud descendants of the militant Ukrainian freedom fighters who volunteered into the Nazi Wehrmacht during World War II and committed bloody atrocities for eight years after the end of the war. Therefore, the presidential agreement of February 21st was completely against their stated interest. 

Even before the change of government, the United States and European Union were at a tug of war as to who gets to control the spoils of an imminent government change in Ukraine. In a leaked phone call between a US diplomat Victoria Nuland and a US ambassador in Ukraine, they were clearly discussing how the United States is working to "assist" a government change, cherry-picking Yanukovych's successor, and saying f**k the European Union with respect to the Ukraine's future. Yet this segment got only a brief mention in the Western mainstream media, as it would not bring the desired volume of viewers and might actually turn viewers away with disgust at politicians altogether. http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/feb/07/eu-us-diplomat-victoria-nuland-phonecall-leaked-video

The current interim government of Ukraine has initially made two promises after an armed takeover - Russian language would no longer play a prominent role in Ukraine (changing the existing law that dictated both Ukrainian and Russian would be supported equally) and that the people responsible for the Independence Square sniper fire (that killed nearly a hundred protesters and security forces combined) will be brought to justice. Neither of these promises came to fruition. The interim government backed off the Russian language reform and is no longer interested in investigating the culprits behind sniper fire. 

Here is where the Russian media churned up its propaganda machine - going as far as saying that the Russian language will be banned in Ukraine and anyone speaking Russian will be subjected to criminal persecution. Completely false, but reported by the Russian media. Which makes Russian media... just like any other bias mainstream media. 

The Western media, beating the drum of doing the right thing and spreading democracy, just stepped over the initiative to bring those responsible for the Independence Square massacre to justice. But, surprise surprise, in the age of information we are able to obtain evidence that suggests the Ukrainian right-wing factions are responsible for the sniper fire that killed the security forces and protesters alike. This, of course, would explain why the interim government is no longer interested in the investigation which would bring the guilty parties to justice. In a phone call between EU Foreign Affairs Chief and Estonian Foreign Minister, it was disclosed that there is a growing understanding that the people responsible for the Independence Square sniper fire (which killed nearly a hundred protesters and security forces) were the leading right-wing parties that sought armed escalation and confrontation - and that these are the same parties that stand behind the current interim government. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhY02at4v4U Once again, the Western media stepped over this information, and never reported it again - because it's not good ratings. 

Here is a video of the shootings http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5dc_1393953567

If I was still in Ukraine, I would be very fearful of far right wing parties like the Right Sector and Svoboda(Freedom). They represent the extremists who brought the violence to Independence Square and may have been the direct culprits behind the sniper fire that caused the massacre of February 20th. Their representatives Dmytro Yarosh (Right Sector) and Oleh Tyahnybok (Svoboda) are sure to run in the upcoming Ukrainian elections. And they should be feared, as their extremist views could easily divide Ukraine without any external intervention if these individuals gain any significant elected posts.

Now for the the leading political figures in Russia, EU and US. And this is the kind of analysis you will never get from the mainstream media. Let me state it again - it is all about the money. Neither Barack Obama, Angela Merkel, nor Vladimir Putin can give a damn about the people of Ukraine. When they see Ukraine from a geopolitical perspective, this is what they see -

United States and European Union's perspective:
1) Another nation to conform to the Euro currency and prevent European Union's disintegration.
2) Increased Defense Budget for European Union and the United States due to fear.
3) Access to natural resources available within the Ukraine,
4) Access to Ukrainian territory for the purpose of stationing NATO forces at the Russian border.

Russian perspective:
1) Secure Ukrainian Natural Gas and Oil fields, as well as the supporting pipelines.
2) Keep Russia's only warm water sea port and the home of the Black Sea Fleet (Crimea). 
3) Increased Russian Defense Budget to protect Russian interests in the area.
4) Have a neutral government in Ukraine that is cooperative with Russia.
5) Keep the NATO forces at the edge of the Ukrainian border, not the Russian border. 

Vladimir Putin is not interested in invading Ukraine, but he does want to create the fear of invasion, to create enough instability in Ukraine that will influence the upcoming election. The threat of Crimea's secession, is only designed to create instability - he won't actually go through with it because the plan is not economically feasible from a Russian fiscal perspective. 

Despite denials by all Russian officials, and legal correctness, for all intents and purposes the troops on the ground in Crimea are of Russian origin. Let me explain, these are forces that were trained an equipped by the Russian Federation, and subsequently disavowed so that Russia may legally deny that they are Russian forces.

United States and European Union are largely incapacitated, because of their dependence on Russian natural gas and oil. Therefore, any punitive measures, would hurt both parties. 

In order to resolve this conflict, Ukraine must be united as a whole and defend its own interests, independent of all foreign influence. But that is not going to happen, until countries to the East and West of it stop regarding it as a juicy steak on their plate.
 



Saturday, January 28, 2012

The Fall (Part II) - Military Race against whom???

In last week's post we began looking at the fall of the Socialist empire and the major factors that forced its demise. In Part I, we covered the Patriot Act, SOPA and NDAA, as well as how each parallels the government control principles of a Police state. While today's news were all about the Internet blackout and the SOPA/PIPA backlash from the public, today's post will focus on The Fall Part II that will cover our country's out of control military spending.

When the economy imploded in the Soviet Union, one of the major factors which led the demise was the consistent foolish desire by the Socialist world leader to "Keep Up with Uncle Sam" in terms of military might. The CIA saw an opportunity in this desire and consistently fed it, in order to drive their ideological opponent out of business. To compound the problem, Soviet Union's incursion into Afghanistan lasted for over nine years and bled the once formidable Socialist adversary completely dry. What the Politburo discovered, when it was way too late to stop the collapse, is that you cannot expect to cover the increasing costs of military spending without growing the country's gross domestic product. But the money to pay for all of this had to come from somewhere... and it did. It came at the cost of a declining living standards of Soviet citizens, as the government fleeced its population of their earnings in order to pay for the military indulgences.

Which all brings us to today, where the United States has no formidable military rival in the world and still outspends the closest military power eleven times over. Let me repeat that, the United States of America spends eleven times more than the second highest military spender in the world. Last year, our country spent over seven hundred billion ($700B) on military during one of the worst ongoing recessions in the country's history. Incidentally, we also had the largest increase in military spending than anyone else in the world. And while our national economy isn't growing, our military spending continues to increase.

To be fair, some of the spending increases are attributed to ongoing operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan. Nobody will contest that the incursion into Afghanistan after 9/11/2001 was justified as retribution against terrorist-sponsoring Taliban nation. Neither will there be issues justifying the incursion into Iraq in March of 2003 to destroy a terrorist-harboring regime. However, the length of stay in these regions has been extensive. Nevertheless, the public has yet to question our government's intentions when it came to military spending correlation to our economy.

The public may already know that active military operations cost money. The Army employs over 1,100,000 Americans in active and reserve military personnel directly within the branch. You need to pay for arming, clothing, feeding and transporting military personnel. Intelligence, logistics, armored vehicles and other related equipment costs a lot of money - and you can't get it on sale at Walmart. The taxpayers pay the full price and sometimes an inflated price due to the existence of only one supplier in many cases. What most people do not realize is how far-reaching the war machine is into our economy. Manufacture of small arms, tanks, fighter jets, reconnaissance planes, helicopters, drones, refueling vehicles, artillery, optics, satellites and more are all taken care of by private companies. The engineering and medical staff required in the field are a part of the military, but the equipment they require are also supplied and maintained by privately held companies.

Part of the arsenal in our military is the highly mobile Navy that can deliver a military presence anywhere in the world. All of its vessels are enormously expensive to build and maintain, as well as instruct personnel on how to operate them. In the disclosed vast arsenal of our Navy there are 12 Aircraft Carriers, 29 Amphibious Vessels, 109 Surface Vessels and 71 Submarines. To keep this fleet afloat year in and year out costs the American Taxpayer a fortune.

The United States Air Force provides incredible first strike capability in the American arsenal. In addition, it can prevent the need for ground operations and subsequently avoid American casualties. In its services are 5,573 aircraft, including 2,132 fighters. It employs more than 550,000 Americans directly, has 32 satellites and 450 Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. However, the wealth of equipment we have is redundant with a significant part of existing projects for future aircraft unnecessary and wasteful. The Comanche helicopter and F-22 Raptor fighter were incredibly expensive and unnecessary projects that cost the taxpayers a lot of money, cancelled due to high cost of the programs and in the end were never needed on the field of battle. 

The United States also maintains an incredibly large military presence at home and overseas. We have Army, Navy and Air Force bases all over the world in every continent except for Antarctica. We have bases in Afghanistan, Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cuba, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Greenland, Guam, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Netherlands, Portugal, Qatar, Singapore, South Korea, Spain and Turkey. And these are the installations that the United States has made public - it doesn't account for others that are utilized by various intelligence services. While not as expensive as an active military operation, the same exact costs apply to personnel and equipment. Furthermore, the majority of installations in Europe serve no real purpose, as they are Cold War relics that survived our transition from the days of the arms race, where we successfully pushed the Soviet Union to expend its military to the breaking point.

In the end, the United States military machine is very costly to the American taxpayer. In addition, the war machines and bases the United States maintains around the world are a bleeding wound to the American taxpayer. Furthermore, taxpayer funds are also spent heavily on the wide array of private companies that supply the United States military. As a result, the indirect and direct military expenses are beyond reason. Furthermore, they provide a reduction in unemployment figures as more people are employed directly and indirectly through the military each year - this allows the government to mask true unemployment figures. Moreover, they provide related private sector economic growth which is fueled by government spending and represents false growth and false hope in our economy.

Lastly, and to my initial point, against whom are we conducting this arms race? We no longer have a Soviet Union to strangle with our spending. On the contrary, we are suffocating ourselves with every additional budget increase that is earmarked for the military. Our Cold War rival was pushed to the brink with the arms race we engineered. Let's not fall victim to our own strategy.