Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Iran's Nuclear Program in Rollback

So, two decades ago when I was the (first-ever)  political-military advisor in the State Department's Bureau of South Asian Affairs, we set a broad strategy for our approach to nuclear proliferation in India and Pakistan: we would seek the two countries' agreement to cap, then roll-back, and finally, hopefully, eliminate the nuclear weapons on the subcontinent.

That has not gone so well.

On the other hand, noted nuclear proliferation expert Joe Cirincione has just said, in The Atlantic, that Iran is rolling back its stock of medium enriched uranium. Not just capped. Rolled back. And Tehran appears open to rejiggering its plutonium plant to render it far less capable of producing enough weapons-grade material, as well.

Diplomacy works - if you can get the politicians to simply quit pandering.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/04/the-iranian-nuclear-deal-is-working/361066/

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Risking One's Life in Interesting Ways - Part One of ???

So, shortly after arriving in Jamaica in August 1984, as the US Embassy's political officer, I was invited to attend the annual meeting of the youth wing of the ruling political party (PNP). I said, great, sounds like fun, but I don't have a car (yet), and it's all the way across Kingston. 
"No problem - we'll pick you up and bring you back." Yeah, ok.

Guy shows up more than little after the arranged time that Sunday afternoon. (My introduction to "Soon come.") My contact isn't with him, but he does have a note from her. Ok. Off we go. In a well-used Lada. But contrary to the standard jokes, this guy can really get the Lada moving. Speed limit is generally about 30 MPH in Kingston, but glancing over, the speedometer reads 50, 60 - and looking outside it feels like we're world champion rally car racing.

We get to the elementary school just a little late (as if it mattered), but intact (which mattered a lot, at least to me).

After that ride, the rest of the tour was a lot less scary.  Sure, audible gun shots, the Cuban ambassador being pistol-whipped and carjacked on the road just 400 yards west of my house - but I never rode in another Lada.

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

The Taxman Cometh

(Some) Key changes in Federal taxation and spending:


  • In 1912, the US spent just over 1% of GDP on defense (13% of Federal spending); now, 4.6% (22% of Federal spending). 
  • In 1950, corporate income taxes were 26% of revenue; now, 7%. 
  • Excise and especially estate taxes were 20% of revenue in 1950; now, excise taxes are 3% and estate taxes just 0.7%.
  • If you spend more money on defense, and let the rich lower their tax burden - well, the money has to come from somewhere.

Thus, We The People get to open our wallets.

No, wider.

Monday, April 14, 2014

Poor Math Skills in the Media

So, there's a Daily Kos story ("Americans increasingly rejecting the stock market, cuts Wall Street profits") wherein the author asserts that a significant drop in NYSE trading volume ("lowest in 15 years") is due to "mom-and-pop investors" leaving the market.  Hmm. Let's see, using just his data.

Peak NYSE trading volume, in 2006: about 1,900 million trades a day. Now? About 700 million a day. Then a graph with 65% of Americans invested in stocks in 2007, and now 52%.  So the author wants us to believe an exit of 18% of the number of investors is responsible for a 63% drop in the number of trades? That could only be if the "mom-and-pop" investors were trading at MUCH higher rates than the "big" investors. Indeed, if the DK author is right, the "mom-and-pop" investors would have had to been trading at THREE times the rate of big investors. 



More likely, then, is the 2012 Reuters story that asserted, "Gone are the days when Nasdaq was NYSE's only competition. There are now 13 U.S. exchanges and at least 50 alternative trading venues." http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/06/us-nyseeuronext-results-idUSBRE8A50AF20121106

As even Fox Business points out, another factor is the Volcker Rule, which curbed internal hedge funds in the brokerage firms.

Overall, the lower volatility is likely a good thing for the investors who've stayed. A train through the mountains rather than a roller-coaster.






Friday, April 11, 2014

Weapons Elimination in the Former Yugoslavia: Part One: Bosnia

Private weapons ownership was severely constrained in Bosnia and Herzegovina after the war, and the NATO-led peacekeeping force, SFOR, had a major role in securing and eliminating the now-excess weapons. As I was briefed c. 2001 by the British contingent, the Royal Army had struck on a highly effective approach to gathering weapons: they would ask the housewives about unwanted arms, when their menfolk weren't around. The Brits would pick up the weapons and the women, when asked where their gun had gone, would say NATO grabbed it, and isn't amazing how good their intel is?

Best example was one day a British patrol stopped by an isolated farmhouse in the north of the Republika Srpska. The housewife was home, her husband and her brothers and brothers-in-law off working and/or drinking. She asked the troops to come out to the barn, where hubby had kept a couple of weapons from his "time with the boys." The soldiers thought, "nothing unusual; probably the normal couple of rifles, maybe a grenade or mine or two."  They walk in after her, and she points to a pile of hay, on top of a large tarp. Once they clear the covering aside, there it stands in all its glory: a T-55 tank. In running condition. Ok, the patrol thinks, THAT's certainly not allowed under the peace accords!

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Crimea is Not Montenegro, Kosovo etc. 

Ignoring the members of the He-Man Women-Hater's Club and their adoration of Putin's manliness (looking at you, Fox News and Stephen Seagal):


Crimea is Definitely Not Montenegro

In 2003, Serbia and Montenegro agreed to form a State Union to replace the increasingly moribund Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. That agreement (Article 60) specified that after three years, either republic could hold a referendum on independence. Montenegro, after careful planning and with widespread participation in the vote, voted for independence on May 21, 2006. Serbia was among the first states to recognize Montenegro's independence, acknowledging that the vote (closely monitored by the OSCE and other democratic states) was legitimate and in accordance with the 2002 agreement.

There is no agreement between Ukraine and Crimea, or Ukraine and Russia, that permits an independence referendum. The vote last month in Crimea has no more legal force than the online  poll in Venice that "also" declared "independence" (from Italy).

Crimea is Not Even Kosovo

Serbia, citing historical claims dating before 1389, annexed Serbia in 1912, after the First Balkan War against the Ottoman Empire.  The International Commission established by the Carnegie Endowment in 1914 said the heavy death toll among Albanian civilians in Kosovo was deliberate, resulting from Serb policy.  Oppression of the Kosovar Albanians continued, with thousands killed and tens of thousands forced out even before World War 2. Kosovo's autonomy, finally granted in 1974, was unilaterally revoked in 1989 by Slobodan Milosevic, the first abortive step towards a Greater Serbia and the Balkan Wars of 1990s.  Kosovo's 1990 declaration of independence was largely ignored, and Milosevic, believing himself to have a free hand in Kosovo after the 1995 Dayton Agreement, began to again crack down on Albanian separatism, leading to a flare up of armed conflict by 1997. In 1999, after (heavy-handed) efforts to impose a diplomatic solution failed, NATO intervened, with a race between NATO air strikes on Serbian armed resistance, and Serbian efforts to ethnically cleanse the region.

Kosovo is currently recognized as an independent state by 107 of 193 UN states, and as an autonomous self-governing region by Serbia.

Crimea was not best by government oppression directed by Ukrainian policy, and Russia rejected efforts by the international community to investigate, mediate and ameliorate such human right conflicts as may have existed.

Nor is Crimea Like Skane, East Prussia, etc.

Across the globe, there are many regions that used to be part of another state, much as Crimea was part of Russia before 1954.  E.g., Germany and East Prussia, Denmark and Skane (southern Sweden), Sweden and Finland, U.S. and New Mexico, U.S. and the Virgin Islands. In no way does international law recognize a right by the former owner state to reclaim its former territory, particularly if the state uses or threatens the use of force - as Russia did.

Long Time No Post



So, McCutcheon v. FEC further opens the flood gates to money in election campaigns, squelching the voices of ordinary voters in favor of the exceptionally rich.


The problem, as I see it, is that judges and justices employ shorthand in their thinking, e.g., money=speech,", "corporations=people," the shorthand gets embedded, and then the courts forget that this was, originally, just an analogy.

Beyond that, what I have seen of Roberts' opinion makes no sense. How can government NOT have an interest in precluding the purchase of access to decision-makers? Justice Breyer's dissent is spot on: "It is an interest in maintaining the integrity of our public governmental institutions. Where enough money calls the tune the general public will not be heard."

I saw a lot of government corruption in my past career, much of it grounded in people buying special access to politicians. This decision just facilitates that.


I want all the big money out. It corrupts, plain and simple.