Mish: Instead of having dinner with those that caused the problem and have no idea how to fix it, the powers that be should have instead sat down with the top 20 economic bloggers as to what to do. We have been warning about these problems for years.
Volcker, for his part, says the current crisis has its roots in the lack of restraint inherent in the highly leveraged system that evolved, one in which winners were rewarded exorbitantly but the inverse didn't seem to hold.
"The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war."
-- Ernest Hemingway, Esquire magazine, September 1935
"Price stability is something which is essential for the poorest and the most vulnerable of our citizens. They cannot protect themselves against inflation. It is extremely important that we understand that moderation today is necessary if we want to deliver price stability in the medium term."
- European Central Bank president Jean-Claude Trichet, April 2008
Is it really about Nuclear Power ?
I doubt it.
First of all, it is none of our business if Iran becomes nuclear-capable. If you disagree with this, then you have conceptual differences not just with me within this post, but with whole concept of freedom starting from founding fathers and until today. To say that we will decide who should and who should not have a sword, while we having it and using it, along with many others, is imperial in nature, and if you support that idea, you need to focus your time on how to build a Forth Reich, because that's the ideology that would have no conflicts with controlling Iran.
Secondly, how is it our business if Iran strikes Israel or even wipes it out? How is that anti-American? Was our wiping-out of Iraq anti-Chinese then? Leave Israeli problems to Israel.
Thirdly, all of the so called "publicly available" statements of Ahmedinejad for annihilation of Israel, are simply propagandae. They were taken out of context. Usually, Iran leader would mention Israeli's treats to invade or bomb Iran, to which he then replies that if such is to happen, then Iran would retaliate. Bandwagon mass-media simply cut out only the parts where Iran promises to retaliate and distributes those out of context sentences around the world. Notice how we never see any mentioning of Israeli's treats to Iran, to which it is responding. So, if we were to look at this message exchange independently, who is the real provocateur here? It obviously is not Iran!
Fourthly, why is it we pretend Iran is different form Israel to the worse? Israel has nuclear weapons, why shouldn't Iran?
Fifthly, as a freedom loving American, would you disagree if I say that having nuclear weapons secures the nation in question from an invasion threat? Would we have invaded Iraq if they had nuclear weapons? Would Soviet Union invade Afghanistan if Afghanis had nuclear weapons? And if you were a nation leader, would you not pursue nuclear capabilities, would you just choose to stay a toothless whore like some others that it isn't polite to mention?
Answer to making a virtue of necessity
Haven't you gotten it by now? When all the bullets are used up our secretary of inflation will turn to no one other than our commander in thief, who will order a temporary freeze on all trading while they come up with a larger more massive bailout plan to buy up all of the toxic debt that's still floating around. In the end, Bush will walk away, leaving the mess to an incoming president and ben will take a position with JP Morgan. And who loses? You and me, of course - unless you're the CEO of a large investment bank. As for a war with Iran? Won't happen -we don't have leaders on the horizon with the stomach for it nor do we have a military strong enough or equipped well enough to wage another war. They will simply learn to live with a nuclear Iran the same way they have with N. Korea, Pakistan, etc.
dpscll
Looming war with Iran
I doubt there will be a war with Iran anytime soon.
The reason I doubt that is that Iran already has converted it's energy sales to other than dollar currencies. That is it. The train has left the station. The Elvis has left the building. The toothpaste is out of the tube.
The war on Iran should have been executed while Iran was building it's bourse.
The only other reason to invade it now is to raise the price of oil for everybody in the world, by removing Iran supply from the market and increasing the instability premiums so that the demand for dollars may increase. This worked amazingly well in the past, but now, as more and more countries start to sell their oil for anything but dollars, the effect of war shortage upon oil price will not be as beneficial to US dollar as before, because the total price premium for energy will have to be split between different currencies. Although, invading a country that sells it's oil for euros or yens will remove the demand for euro and yen from world exchanges and raise it for dollars, since un-invaded dollar-trading countries will be more crowded by oil buyers - but this would only work if Iran was the first and only country to do so.
You also have to consider that if half of us population knows that Iraq invasion was only to stop selling of oil for gold and euros by Saddam, then we can assume that almost everyone in the world know that too by now. G will find it increasingly hard to peddle the terrorism story these days.
And so I hope that new president will be sharp enough to realize that with so diminished booty returns, this invasion will bring more costs than profits.