Isis and Vietnam

My comment to Thomas Friedman's editorial "Isis and Vietnam" is

At least Vietnam had a government in the north that was capable, whether we agreed with it or not. Syria currently doesn't. The most effective counter to ISIS and Assad would be to develop a Sunni Moderate Government in exile based in the Jordanian refugee camps. First order of business is a political unity capable of governing, policing and directing a militia similar to what the Kurds have northern Iraq. Without a well developed moderate ally to come in the vacuum after ISIS and Assad have been degraded is a waste of effort.

Brazil on Stays the Downward Course

As an investor I retain a negative outlook on Brazil because of the re-election of Dilma Rousseff not because she is a Socialist, but because she is a poor steward of Brazil's economy.  Bill Clinton's "Its the Economy Stupid" is worth observing the world over.  You can use your economic machine to fund a social safety net, just keep the machine efficient.  Sweden is Socialist and yet admirable on how they handled their 1990's crisis with a no nonsense elimination of corporations not pulling their weight. The priority is welfare is for its citizens not corporations.  Dilma use of Petrobras to curry political favors rather than of promoting it's efficient exploitation and then taxing it for the benefit of Brazil is symptomatic of her administration and is similar to Mexico's ruinous Pemex's politicization as an example of a poor running national asset.        

Cato on Police Misconduct

The Ongoing Events in Ferguson, Missouri (Tim Lynch)

Kurdish Independence

Oil Gives Kurds a Path to Independence, and Conflict With Baghdad shows the inevitability of the break up of the old lines drawn by England and France after World War I caused by ISIS. Denying Kurdistan in Iraq its oil money can't last for long because Iraq in its current state has no hope of coalescing politically to a unified and motivated unity that can take back, police and govern the regions that ISIS has taken.  Only the Kurds show that capability and deserve our support. Let Kurdistan be the West Germany to the dysfunctional East Germany of Iraq and Syria and make the Berlin airlift into Erbil.

Shareholder's suing themselves

Shareholders, Disarmed by a Delaware Court  as reported and editorialized by Gretchen Morgenson requires an answer and I wished there had been a comment section provided, but there wasn't so I vent here:
I value corporations with management that think of shareholders as their partner and not one to be taken advantage of.  Once I see actions that appear not to be in my interest, I vote with my feet and sell the stock. Never the less I sometimes receive stockholder settlement packets with which I could receive, after hours of study, $3.00 for my efforts. I agree with restricting shareholder suits because it is like suing yourself and not understanding the winners are the law firms collecting the fees.

Connecticut's Governors Race

As a resident of Connecticut I support Democrat Dannel Malloy for two reasons. One is a disgust with Tom Foley's, the Republican opponent, cynical litany of criticism with no clue what so ever about what he would do differently.  That I don't feel like voting to add to Foley's resume of public service; he was appointed by George W. Bush as Ambassador to Ireland, no doubt after making large campaign contributions, and be a part of a vision of a Robber Baron keeping his Crony Capitalists in charge.  Secondly he doesn't get States Rights. As a Libertarian I understand that some government is required, the more local the better. Foley's support of the NRA, lead by the certifiably wacko Wayne LaPierre, is part of the Republican disease of being against everything that the other guy does. That Connecticut implemented a stricter gun control law after the Sandy Hook massacre is reasonable.  A similar law in Montana may not be, but we aren't legislating for them here in Connecticut.  So why even bring up the issue other than to be contrary?

ISIS is Breaking the Lines Drawn by Europeans Post World War I

Turkey to Let Iraqi Kurds Cross to Syria to Fight ISIS shows theTurkish government's internal conflict over its Kurdish regions.  The PKK is a separatist movement within Turkey's border that has the same aspirations as the Kurdistan region of Iraq.  They too have a pesh merga militia and yet are labeled as terrorists.  This move described in today's headline is a short term practical fight fire with fire tactic, but strategically Turkey had better get their arms around the idea allowing the Kurdish people to have a independent state within or without because ISIS is the genie  let out of the lantern breaking the old borderlines apart.

Keeping Faith in Democracy

Watching Marilynne Robinson on Bill Moyer's "Keeping Faith in Democracy" I was amused by her criticism of the current education system's emphasis on producing little automatons suitable for industry versus the free spirited education she enjoyed in her youth that lead her to be a writer.  The biggest difference today is that we have a federal Department of Education dictating standards.  Thank god we still have private schools and home schooling as a growing alternative.

  

FBI Director James Comey

I was impressed with his first interview on Sixty Minutes with Scott Pelley.  Director Comey struck me as intelligent and truthful.  Then the following week he rants about encryption implemented by Apple as a danger to law enforcement's ability to solve urgent cases in the moment.  After reading the following piece regarding his mis-statements of law enforcement solving heinous crimes with the use of smart phone data, I now know he is no better than J Edgar Hoover.

The FBI Director's Evidence Against Encryption is Pathetic 

Economic Well Being Award

While perusing the New York Times today I encountered the following advertisement by the Bay Ridge United Methodist Church:

The Economic Well Being Award

The comparisons are interesting in that contradicts two assumptions:

1)  The government is getting bigger.  It appears that it is not.  There are 1.1 million fewer government workers on the payroll in the latest period, this despite a considerable population increase.

2)  Higher tax rates automatically mean less economic growth.  The first period had a  marginal income tax rate of 70% and the second half that rate yet with poorer result.

I haven't changed my stripes of "More Freedom, Less Government" but detest shouting matches, especially between moronic know nothings.  

Brick by Brick

C.I.A. Study Finds Covert Aid to Rebels Rarely Works is no surprise.  "It's a very mixed history," said Loch K Johnson, a Professor of public and international affairs at the University of Georgia and an intelligence expert. "You need some really good, loyal people on the ground ready to fight."  Currently in the Iraq and Syria counter terrorism conflict the only really good people on the ground ready to fight is the pesh merga of the Kurdish State in Iraq, Kurdistan. This is a political entity that has an honest government providing police and security to a people with a desire for independence.  This type of unity and purpose is what is needed as a moderate force in Syria.

Iraq will break apart.  Kurdistan is where our military aid will eventually go as our assistance in the rest of Iraq fuels the civil war between Shia and Sunni.  As we focus on the Kurds expect them to slowly consolidate westward in northern Iraq into Syria where it will join up with the P.K.K., the Turkish Kurds working for independence in Turkey and who currently are experiencing containment efforts by the Turkish military that will fuel a war of separation from Turkey along the the northern border of Syria.  That is unless Turkey relents and allows a Kurdistan State to develop within the lines as the one in Iraq. It appears that the P.K.K. might have the semblance of an ally with political wherewithal to receive assistance and take back Territory from ISIS and then govern northern Kurdish regions of Syria.

Southern Syria requires a moderate Sunni political entity to develop in Jordan's refugee camps before any thought of of assistance can be contemplated. Think of the years of build up in England before the Normandy invasion, except the costs will be insignificant in comparison to that effort and all other recent ones we have had in the region.              

My problem with Cato's Fiscal Policy Report on Governors

Fiscal Policy Report on Governors

The report makes the comparison between Indiana a low taxing state with a growing economy to Illinois' high tax, high debt burden and so so economic growth as proof that a state's low taxes makes for economic growth.  As a libertarian I understand that money in private hands spends and invests more efficiently than government but obviously lower taxes are not the only requirement for economic growth or how else do you explain high tax and expense states such as California and New York?  California gets a failing mark in this report yet Jerry Brown raised taxes, reduced services and has strong growth and a budget in big (5 Billion big) surplus in comparison Brownback's Kansas which has lower taxes and increasing debt gets an A+.  I expect more intellectual rigor from Cato despite it being a short presentation,  or are we just selling soap here?    

ISIS's drive to Empire is a Weakness

"Slaughter is Feared as ISIS Nears Turkish Border"  is a depressing headline in today's paper but ISIS is biting off more than it can chew when it conquers a people who do not have even a remote affinity for their vision. They will need police power and counter insurgency defenses if they were to over run the Syrian Kurdish town of Kaboni.  They don't have the manpower.  Thanks to ISIS the Kurdish refugees in Turkey just to the north will form the political means to reconquer, police and govern the area despite Turkey's resistance to Kurdish independence.

The Secret Service

The Secret Service was originally started by Abraham Lincoln, ironically on the day he was shot, to deal with counterfeit currency. As is usual for bureaucracies their duties expanded to the protection of the President after McKinley was assassinated in 1901 and for some unknown jockeying of power reason took on the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco in later years as well.  Apparently the AFT was peeled away from the Secret Service recently, why wasn't their original mandate to protect the financial system rationalized away from the as well? Their executive protection mandate is sufficient.  Why spread the Secret Service thin on issues that other agencies are more attuned to and better equipped to handle?    

The Constancy of Embicility

"Ingenuity could hardly have invented a system less advantageous for the government and people who maintained it. The government lost its revenue, the shipping lost much of its freight, the people paid double prices on imports and received half prices for their produce: industry was checked, speculation and fraud stimulated." 1

1 History of the United States 1809-17, Henry Adams, Chapter: Legislative Impotence 1809-1810

What if there is no Iraqi Unity Government?

Dear Mr. President:

So of much of your war against ISIS is dependent on a unity government in Iraq forming an army in which it's soldiers fight for a unified Iraq. What is plan B in the likely case that it doesn't happen?

Comment on Israel - Palestine Impasse

It is not possible to support either side of a conflict lead by those insistent on reaching Armageddon.

Greg from Lyon, France commented on Thomas Friedman's "Order and Disorder, Part 4" with the following comment with which I agree wholeheartedly.

You can eradicate people. You can eradicate buildings and infrastructure. BUT you can never eradicate an injustice. 

Injustices committed by USrael in the Middle East will not be "contained" in the long term and continued attempts to contain will be very expensive of money and blood. A process of injustice recognition and slow, but sure, reconciliation is the only long term solution.

Like a Global Education fund would have stopped ISIS - Not !

Here is my comment to today's Nicholas Kristoff editorial

What ISIS Could Teach the West

If Obama had gotten the 2 billion dollars for a global for education fund it would have had a zero result within a state that is not interested in distributing an economic good efficiently and fairly. Fighting Assad and ISIS requires developing fair governments to replace them. The refugee camps in Jordan and Turkey have the raw material to make fair governing units which can slowly displace extremist with expanding perimeters aided by outside military help while the inside is policed and educated fairly.

Pesh Merga will break into Syria

"Kurds in Iraq's North Make Gains Against ISIS" puts the pesh merga, Kurdistan's militia, right at Iraq's North West border with Syria.  How long will it take before they cross the border to protect their Kurdish cousins in Northern Syria?  How long will it take for Turkish Kurds to organize with their Syrian brothers in refugee camps north of Syria?

Xi Jinping - After your betrayal, good luck with Taiwan

"Told to End Protests, Organizers in Hong Kong vow to Expand Them" which could end badly, especially for any long term plan of unifying China and Taiwan.