It has been suggested that Obama is angling for regime change — in Israel. He seems convinced that Netanyahu is somehow outside the mainstream Israeli political spectrum and that he will either buckle or his government will crack if enough pressure is applied in the form of ultimatums over settlements. Thus the way can be paved for an Israeli government more amenable to U.S. dictates. This approach is, of course, badly mistaken.
This report clarifies:
MK Otniel Schneller (Kadima) lashed out Monday against the U.S. demand for a settlement freeze, labeling it “extortion” and warning it could set back Israeli readiness for peace.
In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, Schneller assailed Obama administration officials as holding beliefs shaped by “far-Left opinions outside of the Israeli consensus.”
[. . .]
In his letter to Barak, Schneller argued that “in no case can one agree to freezing natural growth — not even temporarily. Beyond the ideological question (the right of people to give birth, to raise children) and beyond the humanitarian questions (preschools, clinics), the believability of Israel’s government will be tested. There is no legal or public ability to carry out a complete freeze and there is no chance to prevent all building. America’s temporary freeze will cause us to pay a moral price and we will be found untrustworthy opposite the Americans.”
Schneller said there was no legal basis for the government to stop private construction that had already been contracted, or to prevent building by those who already had made down payments, unless “we enforce the government’s will in an illegal and anti-democratic manner. The American pressure endangers Israeli democracy. Human rights and the power of democracy are not dependent upon the interest of a particular nation.”
Instead, Schneller said, the American call to freeze all Jewish building in the West Bank were “unifying the Israeli public against the American demands.”
I suspect Schneller’s sentiments are widely held.
Perhaps Obama has been ill-served by his advisers or perhaps he has disregarded the counsel of those who argued that bullying Israel on settlements was a fruitless exercise. In any event, Obama should remember that when you decide to meddle in another democratic country’s affairs or try to influence public opinion to oppose elected leaders, it is best to know what you’re doing first.
In this case, Obama has done a remarkable job of solidifying Netanyahu’s position, giving false hope to the Palestinians (and therefore encouraging their intransigence), and creating the worst breach in U.S.-Israel relations in a generation. And in this case, he can’t blame his frayed relations with Israel on George W. Bush.
“Systemic risk” isn’t that what Las Vegas is all about?
“There simply isn’t enough capital in the world to reserve against such a “meta-systemic” configuration of risk, especially when market liquidity disappears, as it reliably does in times of crisis.”
Thank God that Contentions has a financial commentator who understands the infrastructurial problem of this financial crisis. We have a “meta-systemic” crisis that has evolved into a worldwide insolvancy problem,NOT A CREDIT CRISIS. It will take a completly different strategy to deal with insolvancy. I hope we can be proactive rather than retroactive.
A great.although unknown, economic genius writes using myth and drawings to educate her readers.
“Monsters that can eat wealth and drive people to suicide live in this cave, too. Here is the Derivatives Beast, for example. Human financial geniuses conspired to create this creature. It, in turn, is now eating all the paper wealth on earth. Unable to rescue vast paper wealth from being destroyed after rousing both the goddess of Depression and her son, the Derivatives Beast, the bankers and financiers are now going stark, raving mad.”
B. Franks is the perfect example of why no Government or Party should ever be too big to fail.
Repeal the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, and that will take care of 99% of the “systemic risk.” Even today, lenders are being afforded no relief from the Clinton-style enforcement of the CRA, which has given ACORN the right to shake them down for $ billions.
What? Lenders? Relief? I want relief for lenders?
Write this date down. This is the date on which you were warned that if — as is likely — Congress goes forward to regulate away “systemic risk,” without ceasing to force lenders to make high-risk (there’s that word again) loans, lending prices — interest rates — will simply go up and up. Someone will have to carry the cost of those high-risk loans to the lenders, and if you, the creditworthy, borrow for any reason, it will be YOU. This is all so that the uncreditworthy don’t have to pay higher interest rates than you do.
And of course, if the feds then decide to cap lending rates on your behalf (don’t put it past them to keep shredding the Constitution; this is Obama Time), you won’t be able to get credit at all.
Everyone remember those fun late-Carter years, with the high interest rates and high inflation? With the unemployment rate added in, we called it the “misery index.” It’s brooding over us like a flock of vultures, waiting for Barney Frank to set the sole of his shoe on the US economy, one more time.
A Trillion Two last week from Bernanke,a Trillion today from Geithner,I hope you all understand that we are in the waning days of the all paper world currency system.
Oh, some totally new, as yet uncreated agency, I should think. Government’s main goal these days apparently is to make itself bigger. More is more.
Given insolvancy (and let us not forget infrastructurial), should we not have proective, retroective, Berneinke, etc.? If rustyjalopy (aka NOWHEELS) knows the Eng. lang. so well, how much can we really trust its teachings abt econ, specifically finance?
#8,
I’m here to learn.