$?$?$?$?$?$?$?$?

Sorry to seem a bit stupid, but can anyone explain to me the difference between:

1. bailing out the banks
2. making funds 'available' to banks
3. buying a stake in the banks
4. guaranteeing the loans between banks
5. buying up the bank's 'toxic' assets

Whatever the differences, they seem to have one similarity: they all cost hundreds of billions. And as these packages are announced one by one in breathless sequence, the German chancellor made the astounding statement that 'no bank would ever be allowed to fail !' (wish I'd taken up banking) And don't national parliaments have to approve this sort of thing, rather than being simply announced by presidents in their rose gardens?)

The stock markets race up and down, and the demented trader lemmings jump off the cliffs one day and sprint all the way up it the next. If prices move less than 5%, it is a really boring day.

What of the $700bn US bailout? That (as of today) is apparently of 'secondary' importance. We have a new package of $250 billion announced (is that part of the original 700, new money, or does it hardly matter?) for buying shares in the banks. Doesn't that announcement kind of affect the share price of the banks fairly insanely? What price is being paid for the shares? What is going to be done with the taxpayers' shareholding? Are all the banks' top brass continuing with the same bonuses and perks as before? Are the banks going to be differently run, maybe changing the previous universal policy of treating their customers with total contempt? That is one question easily anwered.

Latest use for cellular technology
Yup, that's right, to win the War on Terror.


The latest idea, put forward by British consultants, and approved by HM Government as having 'some merit' is to distribute cellphones with cameras (I thought for the past 5 years all cellphones had cameras) so that ordinary Afghan peasants could make their own videos as a counter to Taleban propaganda and post them on the web.
Story on the BBC.
Wonder whether it has occurred to the honourable government that
i) not so many Afghan peasants have internet access and blogger accounts and anyway
ii) most Afghan peasants ARE the Taleban.

File this idea under 'needs more work'.

PS my pic (ack to politicalimpressions.com) was image-googled under Afghanistan - if I had searched under Taleban the FBI spyware secretly but certainly installed on my computer would have put me on the Terror list. More of that tomorrow.

that was telling 'em !!

The bail-out is dead. You can tell that from the immediately following scintillating Bushism: "We will continue to move forward with Congress to develop a strategy of moving forward to solve this problem" or words to that effect (couldn't be bothered to copy and paste them.

Savour the unexpected and delicious moment - a rare instance of people power deflating the vested interest politicians.

Seeing, for me, for the first time, some of America's allegedly most senior politicians up close and speaking, it was a matter of disbelief. How could this incoherent rubbish: Pelosi, the speaker, Franks, the chairman of the so-called Finance committee, be the spokespersons and shepherds of the nation? And of course, the great piece of vegetation himself. There were better, more apposite comments from people in Main Street (actually Memphis Tennessee) who were interviewed straight after.

Oh and of course the entire congress will now take two days off for Rosh Hashona. After which, they will return to work to save the Nation.

Again, why the need for a bail-out? Disaster banks are immediately bought out by slightly better organised banks, and the central banks pour tens of billions every day into the market to improve 'liquidity'. That apparently doesn't need an Act of congress. How much more of a bail-out do they want?

5 trillion

(it's easier to say in our local currency N$ or Rand)

So much to say, so little time. The deal, according to the desperate would-be bailers-out, has to be done by this evening American time, so our Asian friends will be reassured when their markets open. That's decision making at about $10m per second.
Is it the end of capitalism as we know it? Is it the biggest act of state socialism in history? Yes to both.

What is that funny sound you can hear around that cemetary in London? Could it be Karl Marx howling in his grave?

Please check out the magnificent summary in today's Sunday Times

but just a couple of genuine queries from me:

1) Aren't the biggest problems already bailed (or bole, what is the past tense?) : e.g. Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac and the $85 billion for AIG? What else is there? Does the $700 B include the 85 for AIG, or was that just incidental petty cash?
2) Why does the Treasury Secretary in America need unfettered dictatorial power (cannot be challenged by the courts, or anybody) as to how he dishes out the money?
3) Speaking of the markets, is there no better way of running them in future than idiots in clown jackets screaming at each other over a cable-cluttered floor, or weird computer programs suddenly deciding to dump huge amounts of stock without any seeming human supervision? Do stock prices have to go up 9% one day, then crash 10% the next day and so on? What will happen if the $700B is approved/not approved?
3) Does this mean that the US will now not have the cash to invade Iran ?

May we live in interesting times (we do already).

Not Winning



In my time zone, watching a presidential debate means staying up till 3am and most of the local TV channels don't have the rights (I thought they'd actually be paid to carry it).
So generally don't bother, as all the sound bites are of course available later and nothing new anyway.
There was the obligatory intro on the economy and the bailout - neither candidate has a clue what to do about it, but that's OK since not many people would want the responsibility of deciding whether and how to spend $700 B. My only thought is that it is terminally bizarre that a bunch of Wall St. bankers succeeded in doing what Bin Laden and the entire Soviet Union failed to do - bring the US economy to its knees.

Anyway, only to comment on the inevitable claim by McCain the no-brain that the war in Iraq is being 'won'. No. Wars in the Middle East are never won, least of all by foreign crusading forces. Sure, despots can be overthrown, armies can be routed, and even insurgencies - temporarily - squashed. But the wars are never won - they simple create a whole new batch of traumatic circumstances and bloody problems for the next generation; or sooner than that.
And as for Afghanistan - yes, 'we' - the US and NATO are doing the right thing, at least in the time we are not bombing wedding parties, and we are reversing actions of the Taleban when they were in power (specifically, reversing the Talebans' success in stopping the poppy trade). We are the good guys and the Taleban are the bad guys. But unfortunately, the Taleban will win because it is their country and not ours. The West (including Russia) has tried to conquer Afghanistan maybe ten time in the last 200 years, each more catastrophically than the last. Read the books.
Specifically, read the legendary (but still remarkably still living) Robert Fisk's Great War for Civilisation. It'll take you a year, so it's good value.

God Keeping His secrets?

Barely a day after being switched on, the large hadron collider suffered a glitch - a contact overheated, a magnet melted (serious when it's supposed to be operating at 2 degrees above absolute zero), and a tonne of coolant - liquid helium, at the surprisingly low price of $5 per litre, spilled. Sort of like when the fan belt broke on my car, on a larger scale.

The trouble, is when you have the world's largest machine, it's not enough to have the world's best physicists in attendance, you need the world's best engineers and mechanics as well, lots of them. I don't think eggheads on their own can manage something as complicated as this.

Environmentally, I'm also slightly worried about the huge use, and wastage of helium. This is the quintessential non-sustainable resource - it is an inert rare gas, impossible to manufacture outside of nuclear fusion reactions, and found only in a few spots on earth as a by-product of million-year radioactive decay. At a rate far greater than fossil fuels, it is being consumed faster than it is made. Its most important use is as the ultimate coolant - but it is used mostly trivially for balloons at children's parties. When the ballons burst, the helium floats out of the atmosphere for ever. Why can't hydrogen be used for this? It is admittedly explosive, but that has the added benefit of blowing some rich kids up.

Anyway, from a small problem, to a day or two's delay, to a stoppage of a month or so - and now the system won't be up until next year. A small voice sounds: what if this huge and expensive machine (very cheap of course compared with the 'bailout') - never works again? Is Higgs (one of the 999 names for God) keeping his secrets well guarded ?

Of particles

and pit-bulls

On Wednesday even Google deferred to the switch-on of the LHC with a nice circular graphic. A stunning achievement, first of all in engineering – the largest machine ever built, and then the unfolding science. Unfortunately, none of the major news media including the BBC employ any journalist with so much as a sixth grade in physics, so we get some rather uninformed populist comment. “$4 billion spent, and if there are no answers, that will be end of this rubbish”. Much God-pumping as well. The idea of front-line fundamental research is that there are no answers, or rather than any ‘answer’ obtained will raise at least two further and more interesting questions. Much scoffing that that the Higg’s won’t show up. Wouldn’t be surprised. Lots of other things will.

Of course there has been some journalistic jealousy from the US side, about this European experiment. Swiss cows grazing around down-at-heel suburban buildings etc. Well, the Americans could have had their own supercollider in Texas in the 1990’s. It was cancelled, ostensibly over expense, although $2bn would be a drop in the ocean compared with defence spending. No, I think the more likely reason was pressure from the creationists.

Which brings us to the Republican candidate for VP, the lady no one had heard of a month ago – the mayor of a 5000 strong town in the territory sold by the Russians in 1867 for a few $$ as being totally useless, and who then, due to the shambolic state of Alaskan politics, somehow captured the Governorship. Anything is possible there, because Alaska is a very freaky as well as very beautiful place. Foreign policy experience, or for that matter ever been out of Alaska? Yes, once to the US mainland to meet J Mc, once to Canada, and er,.. you can see Russia from one of the islands. Yes, this is the sparsely populated Chiotka peninsula, as far from Moscow as what New York is, as someone noted, whose governor, bizarrely, is the Russian oleobillionnaire Ramon Abromovitch, the owner of Chelsea football club. A neighbourly meeting between him and the now household word of Governor Palin would be irresistable. Even more if, after his mandatory stint as Prime Minister is done, President Putin assumes the reins again. The world, as the Putin and Palin show?

A disastrous decision or a masterstroke? Unfortunately the latter. An ignorant and isolationist creationist? An insult to America’s allies? Yes and yes, but these are sure winners in a US election. Because voters want candidates to be one of them – ignorant, isolationist etc etc. Terrifying smugness and self-assurance, behind those Heirich Himmler glasses? Yes. Answers to interviewers' questions on world politics, reminiscent of the 'answers' of a beauty pageant contestant? Of course, because that's what she was. But that's exactly what's needed - the US election (and many others) are beauty pageants. (Pres. Sarcozy?)

As the man on the UK 'First Post' e-papter noted: Ignorant candiates who don't panic have nothing to fear.

Impossible to go from a (very) small town mayor to President in a couple of years? What about Grover Cleveland, who went from mayor of Buffalo to governor of New York state, to President in less than three years, admittedly in 1882. Also, the comparison breaks down since he was a Democrat, pledged to root out small and (large) town corruption. A ridiculous idea? What about the derision when it was first suggested that Ronald Reagan might run for the Presidency?

A brilliant tactical choice – as Palin mania sweeps the country, Obama is already on his was to becoming no more than an interestingfootnote in American history. Poor Barack. He never had much to say anyway, apart from saying anything to anybody depending on the audience. I note that not even the spell checker recognises him now. And despite what it says in public, Middle America, behind the voting curtain, will vent its fury on a black who dared to stand for President. They won’t try again in a hurry. So this is just another instance of the Democrats’ incurable habit of putting up unelectable candidates.

So Palin will be just a heartbeat away from the Presidency – a 72 year old heart beat at that. It would not be surprising if McCain pops his socks sometime before 2012, or at least bows out at the end of his term, leaving the way open for Palin, who will then be President until 2020. Of course she will not be able to find any country on the map, and probably go to war with a country she has not heard of a couple of months previous, but that sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Get used to it.

As the lights dim out

and hopes fade

for the chance of a new Zimbabwe

and as all the wishful thinkers of the past two weeks turn their blogs and word processors to other issues,

we now realise what the Southern Africa 'development' community leaders meant when they called an 'emergency' situation to discuss the Zimbabwe situation. We thought they meant the emergency of ensuring the voice of the Zimbabwean people would be heard, but that was a fatuous misunderstanding. What they meant by an 'emergency' was the emergency of making sure that Mugabe remained in power.

What else would we have expected. African leaders will always rally round, and define themselves, on their lowest common denominator.

CRISIS, WHAT CRISIS ?

a favorite phrase

used by many politicians, by which you know that meltdown is imminent.

This time, uttered by Pres Thabo Mbeki of the Zimbabwean situation. Well, apart from the present electoral impasse, if 150 000% inflation, 80% unemployment and 25% population emigration does not constitute a crisis, what would, in Pres Mbeki's opinion? No wonder he does not worry about a little load shedding back home.

Expected, but infuriatingly, the SADC leaders at their special summit (talking until 5.00 in the morning - wow, they must have been exerting themselves) have come up with the bland statement urging that the presidential election results be declared (after 2 weeks) and that the results be respected. Especially if they are rigged by ZANU-PF of course. Equally unsurprising, there is the announcement from the Zim 'electoral commission' that the results of 23 constituencies will be recounted. All won by the opposition obviously.

Do the honourable group of SADC presidents realise that their summit cost many millions of (real) dollars of their impoverished taxpayers' money - who were expecting them to DO something about the Zimbabwean situation?

It is totally baffling. What spell does Mugabe have over other African, especially SADC leaders? He is the 84 year old leader of a bankrupt self-destroyed country. They, the neighbouring leaders, are no-nonsense and fairly tough politicians - Thabo Mbeki admittedly looks like and is a cretin, and Namibia is an ideological satellite of Zimbabwe - but it is not true, as some apologists say, that the others have insecure, weak democratic credentials. Nearly all have come to power in recent, respectable elections and are in a strong position to do something about the 'black hole' in their midst. Why are they terrified of Mugabe? He was not the only struggler for liberation in Zimbabwe, and the country is not his personal property. But, as the last person to be granted an in-depth interview with him revealed, even that is not the problem. He lives in his own reality bubble where he is convinced that he and the country are one and the same.

Does he hypnotise all the neighbouring leaders like a snake? Or is he, as a radio call-in suggested, like an obstinate stain on your underwear - you can try to wash it off, but it just won't go away ?

Do the other SADC leaders want to deal with the influx of millions of refugees without complaint, just so that Mugabe is placated? Why do they want a huge source of instability in their midst? Why do they want the wishes of the Zimbabwean people to be thwarted, and their desire for change to be blocked by rigged elections ? (it is a measure of how far the actual results went against them, that it has taken ZANU two weeks to figure out how to rig them back.)

Also expected (the tragedy of any situation is its utter predictability) is the dragging out of the land issue again, with dark warnings that white farmers are trying to take over their former properties. How did they all suddenly get back into the country to do that? Of course the reverse is true, in that the remaining 'white' farms are being threatened by the Mug's 20-year old 'war veterans'. Anyway, the former white farmers have been welcomed and set up in neighbouring countries such as Mozambique. Who the **** would now want to go back into Zimbabwe?

Is Mugabe, as the interviewer with him suggested, now plotting a massive revenge against his own people who rejected him - a bloodbath of the opposition to rival the Rwanda genocide?

If so, SADC leadership, who could have easily removed him if they had the courage, will have a very great deal to answer for.

SO WHAT ARE WE TO MAKE

of the Zimbabwe 'results' so far?

Obviously, Mugabe/ZanuPF did not win - if they had done - or a plausible case could be made out that they had, without the announcement being derisory - the results would have been announced very, very quickly. Civilised negotiations taking place ? Deals even being done? Not a chance.

First a grudging release of the parliamentary figures - meant to show a 'photo finish', and that the opposition victory was meagre. But this result does not matter much, since the Zimbabwean parliament these days has little power and in any case can always be suspended.

No, the important, because the personal thing, is the presidential contest. Although Mugabe has almost certainly lost this, it will be announced as a run-off. This will buy time of three weeks (or actually any time the ZANU appointed electoral court will grant). Enough for Mugabe to stage his own Cultural Revolution - the classic strategy Mao used when for once he felt under pressure. Call out the thugs, scream about 'puppets', beat opposition figures to a pulp, and reduce the country to mayhem. As the country is already in a state of ruin, this will not make much difference anyway.

If Mugabe thinks this has done the trick, the re-run will be held for him to win 'unopposed'. If not, a bit more mayhem will be manufactured, or the threat of it, whereupon, on cue, the military will step in, impose martial law, or stage a military coup, call it what you will, and Mugabe will be confirmed as president for the sake of 'national salvation'.

No, you haven't got rid of him yet. And he could live to 104.

Can he do it ?


In a few hours we may know.


The implications are awesome, and the cliche "historic moment" for once is literally true.

Can the ghosts of the slave trade, the Civil War, the lynch mobs, the civil rights movement, be finally laid to rest, by one massive event - the election of a black president?

Will the nightmare of the Bush administration be dispelled, and the international reputation of the US be restored? One simple decision by the American electorate can do it. Nice guys finish second? Not always. Hope like you've never hoped before.

It can't bee, can it?

Mike Huckabee has gained the approval of Iowa Republicans for the US presidential nominations. Yes, I know it was because of the hillbilly evangelicals of this rather isolated state. Yes, of course we know that the proceedings were more reminiscent of an 18th century huckster poll in Egland, rather than a proper election. (A lot of words beginning with H start flowing when Mike comes to mind).

But the awful thought arises, just as the first fear set in with GWB in 2000. It couldn't, could it? Another religionist in the White House, with God telling him what country to attack next? Another self-confessed anti-Darwinist, as Christopher Hitchens has said, all ready to stifle the progress of US science, with astronomers, biologists, cosmologists and geologists fleeing over the border to Canada or Europe, to avoid professing the new orthodoxy that the world was created in 4004 BC, to be taught in all US schools from 2009?

And what about the rest of the world, rolling around in hysterics at the prospect of a President Huckabee, something no comic writer could, prior to a few months ago, possibly have dreamt of? Please no, if the Leader of the free World has any chance of being taken seriously again.