Am I going to begin this morning by pointing out that the WikiLeaks story suggests that “Iran may have missiles from North Korea”? Nope.
How about pointing to the NY Times piece about how the “South Korean leader warns North against new attack?“ Newsroom floor clipping – interesting in real-time, maybe, but from a look-ahead perspective? No, again.
Since UrbanSurvival is an economics site (ostensibly, anyway) might we mention that Moody’s has already factored-in a misbehaving North Korea to their ratings of the South’s debt? No, no, not that one either.
“You gonna mention the North Koreans are bringing 20,000 expatriates home from places like Russia, like was mentioned in the UK Independent?” I could, but no.
Instead, I’m going to mention that reading up on the Second Gulf of Tonkin Incident might be a worthwhile thing to do about now. From Wikipedia:
“The second Tonkin Gulf incident was originally claimed by the U.S. National Security Agency to have occurred on August 4, 1964, as another sea battle, but instead may have involved the “Tonkin Ghosts”,[6] and no actual NVN Torpedo Boat attacks.
The outcome of these two incidents was the passage by Congress of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which granted President Lyndon B. Johnson the authority to assist any Southeast Asian country whose government was considered to be jeopardized by “communist aggression”. The resolution served as Johnson’s legal justification for deploying U.S. conventional forces and the commencement of open warfare against North Vietnam. “
So, here’s the game plan: World needs wars to keep huge militaries busy, right? And if the militaries are busy, there are plenty of jobs in the defense/death industries, and a good bit of that slops over into what would otherwise be ploughshare kinds of industries.
Since the Israeli’s have not been able to strike up a war with Iran yet, and since there is some discussion in the WikieLeaks diplomatic cables about North Korean-Iran weapons trade, and since we’ve got military exercises with US-South Korean forces going, you see where this leads, I hope. Or, you need a LOT more coffee.
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Now, whether the US will go along with China’s call for immediate/emergency consultations on the Korea situation will, I expect to some measure, be determined by how the Fed/Treasury POMO auction goes this week. If the POMO is ‘good’ (low rates, US markets rally) then my money slides over to the
no upgrade of hostilities on the Korean Peninsula. However, if the POMO this week goes badly, then I slide my money toward the GT-2 outcome.
We’ll just skip the really hard questions, like the one raised on The Examiner last week wondering if the Fed’s POMO is just a way to help fund the exit of lots of insiders, who, if you’ve been following Tyler Durden’s excellent work over at ZeroHedge, seem to be jumping ship faster than hydrophobic rats here lately.
It’s all – 100 percent of it, I tell you – purely coincidence…or nearly so.
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Someone asked me Sunday if this could set up the ‘nuclear war’ that I mentioned in what, 2007 in that History Channel interview I did? I’d mentioned the 2009-2010 timeframe, but may come a bit later. January 7th, 2011 would be an interesting day to circle, if I had to throw a dart blindfolded.
On the other hand, that would mean slowing the rate of the ramp-up of tensions. And we might not see that until….wait….South Korea has just canceled drills…why it’s almost like how in pro basketball, one side or the other will deliberately slow the game to get everyone into position. Sports being ritualized war with a side of of bling and all… Stealth fighters are a fighting man’s bling, you see…
Taking a Leak
If the internet is slow today, there are likely three or four different reasons we could ascribe things to. One would be this is (massively over-hyped) Cyber Monday. We got our Amazon orders all placed on Friday, but isn’t online shopping why people go to work on the Monday after turkey?
Then there’s all those folks in Australia who are still trying to get their money out of the National Australia Bank, which experienced a serious (what’s more serious than no dough?) computer glitch-out last week which continued into Monday (Asia time). No doubt that’s got to account for some of the unusual web traffic. No worries, mate, should be up again tomorrow, or so go reports.
But above both of these is the WikiLeaks release of sensitive/classified US diplomatic cables.
The following video is more on the same.
Dead Euros Coming
Beat Up the Irish Dept.
Ain’t predatory capital fun? Sure the EU is going ahead with its $89-billion bailout, but the way they’re going to do this is by leverage, promises, oh, and so long as we’re at it, let’s beggar any Irish pension fund reserves, too…
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I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be able to keep analyzing the Irish economic situation without putting parental controls on this website. Yes, there’s that much screwing going on. At some point it becomes obvious that defending a currency is like bailing a sieve. What’s the point, again?
At some juncture, reasonable people are going to see this for what it is. When I see stories about how the Germans are saying the Euro must be defended, or the Belgian finance minister says the same, I wonder why they’d say that rather than admit the EU’s in a heap-o-trouble and supergovernment ain’t gonna work?
Where’s my damn ViceGrips? Am you & I the last honest thinkers around? Apparently the word ‘stunned’ is being used by experts, too…
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Long as we’re talking about screwing and such, my friend Gonzalo Lira has a good article on his site today under the heading “If Ireland Doesn’t Take the Bailout...” which then gets us around to the lack of US media attention to the 50-150,000 people who are taking to the streets in Ireland in protest of this.
If you’re thinking “Gee, could the Irish rebel again, only this time against bankers who are only trying to screw them out of a financial future?“ Watch coming events, Sherlock…
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The US markets look set to pop to the upside, 75 or more (?) as the weekly day traders return to the table. Later today, the tables may cool…
Big Government’s March
And in Washington this week, the stampede by the food & security lobbyists will be continuing to ram through the so-called Food Safety Bill. I’d suggest you call your Senators today, I’ll be calling the two from Texas. But, we all know that except for the 20-minutes before an election , non-experts (e.g. those without ready cash and favors or votes to deal) end up on hold talking and maybe talking to an intern…
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I’m not saying this is the first step in collectivization of agriculture, comrade, but while there are some good provisions (like holding foreign foods to US standards) it seems to put more and more paperwork reporting requirements on small farmers who don’t have big legal department like the AgBiz firms and related lobbies enjoy. So what better way to soak up more properties into the AgBiz holdings? Repeat after me: Everything’s a business model.
Solar Cold
Since we had such a long-lasting solar minima recently, the winter this year is going to be unusually cold. Folks in the UK are already reading headlines about how they’ve had the coldest night in 134-years over thar. Really? Try and act surprised.
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Just because there’s a near-perfect correlation (with lag) between solar output and global warming, that doesn’t mean that the climate change true believers are giving up…and yes, higher CO2 levels are a bad thing and all, but…..
When I read headlines like ” Cancun climate change summit:” Consequences of global warming for Britain” I wonder how many of the scientists involved in still trying to sell climate change don’t get out of the lab – or their narrow focus – very often?
Like I said, I’m pro-environment, but with an extra helping of suspicion when right-grabs like carbon credits come along. You did see where Radio Iowa had a good report on how the “Company created to sell carbon credits will shut down“? This follows the announced shutdown of the Chicago Climate Exchange of carbon credit trading come year end.
Cap & trade is ‘on life support’, too. Golly willikers, somehow don’t think I’ll need a Kleenex for that one…
Australia is planning a carbon tax next year.
Answers in the Stars
Say, did you happen to catch the CNBC piece about how “Sunspots predict ‘major crisis’ after 2013; Chartist” says? Might be a good time to be out…I’ve been thinking for a long time that while 2012 may be getting lots of popular press, the idea that sunspots peak after the nominal peak of the solar cycle, the 2013-2014 period may be the period of highest EMP/earth directed solar blasts which could disrupt electronics… or not.
But, in the meantime, a recent Heritage Foundation study says the US remains critically exposed to the threat of man-made electromagnetic pulse attack and is urging the administration to do something about it.
Passings: A Comedy Legend
Comedy great Leslie Nielsen died this weekend – age 84 – down in Florida. Everyone I know in the airline industry thought “Airplane” was brilliant, as were most of his movies. Having spent some airline management time, it was closer to a documentary than not.
The UK Guardian film blog has a good collection of Nielsen video clips here – sure to bring back a lot of memories.
Son of an RCMP Mountie, he will be Shirley missed, by his hometown folks up in Saskatchewan and the rest of the world too.
