How much do Russia's shifting opinions on Iranian sanctions have do with them trying to milk more concessions from Obama viz nuclear arms treaties, one of which, START II I believe, needs to be renegotiated by December? I say this because after making it reasonably clear a couple of weeks ago that they probably wouldn't support sanctions on Iran Medvedev, a short week after Obama cancelled European missile defense, has come out and said 'well, maybe we could... I dunno... not impossible I guess...'. I suppose an optimist would say that it's a positive response to a positive gesture and a cynic would say that it's evidence that Putin believes he can play Obama like a fiddle. I of course remain a cynic. What troubles me is that Obama was on again yesterday at the UN with his 'no nukes' agenda and regardless of how wise or delusional one thinks that is by aggressively pushing this agenda and putting the weight of his personality behind it he is in actuality putting himself in a worse negotiating position if Putin has ulterior motives - essentially saying to Putin 'this is very important to me and I'm willing to put my trust in you to make it happen' - as a cynic, that troubles me - just as in his role as cunning Machiavellian oligarch Putin is no doubt cheered by it.

That type of disagreement, otherwise known as "competition," is the beating heart of capitalism. Different enterprises compete with each other by pursuing different strategies. These strategies encompass everything an enterprise does—including how it manages and pays its employees.

At bottom, all the practices of an enterprise are tacit predictions about which procedures will bring the most reward and which ones will avoid excessive risk. Accurate predictions bring profits and survival; mistaken predictions bring losses and bankruptcy. But nobody can know in advance which predictions are right. By allowing different capitalists' fallible predictions to compete, capitalism spreads a society's bets among a variety of different ideas. That, not the pursuit of self-interest, is the secret of capitalism's achievements.

To be sure, capitalists' different ideas are all, in the end, about how to gain profit. That's why incentives matter. But what matters even more are diverse predictions about where profits—and losses—are likely to be found. For this reason, herd behavior is a danger to capitalism, if the herd bets wrong. But herd behavior is imposed on capitalists every time a regulation is enacted—and regulators, being as human as bankers, can be wrong.

Regulations homogenize. The Basel rules imposed on the whole banking system a single idea about what makes for prudent banking. Even when regulations take the form of inducements rather than prohibitions, they skew the risk/reward calculations of all capitalists subject to them. The whole point of regulation is to make those being regulated do what the regulators predict will be beneficial. If the regulators are mistaken, the whole system is at risk.

That was what happened with the G-20's own Basel rules. Now the G-20 has decided to blame the crisis on bank compensation systems, which it proposes to homogenize just as it had previously homogenized bank capital allocation. What has not been explained is why we should trust that the G-20's regulations won't be mistaken once again. Jeffery Friedman, Wall Street Journal.

I don't have much to add to that - gov't is just as culpable for this crisis as business, more so probably - banks took on too much risk based on dubious calculations and questionable motives, but much of this behaviour was incentivized by gov't policy and regulation - but the storyline that has been allowed to emerge, encouraged to emerge is that capitalism is in essence bad and consequently the crisis is all the fault of Wall Street greed which now only gov't - and Michael Moore, apparently - can save us from. It's a case I think where the response to the crisis may prove more baleful than the crisis itself.

"The weakness of state institutions, malign actions of power-brokers, widespread corruption and abuse of power by various officials, and ISAF's own errors, have given Afghans little reason to support their government," McChrystal says

To play devil's advocate [really?] couldn't one also say that because Afghanistan is a tribal society that has little use for government this encourages corruption since politicians do not depend on sanction from a motivated electorate?

The general says his command is "not adequately executing the basics" of counterinsurgency by putting the Afghan people first. "ISAF personnel must be seen as guests of the Afghan people and their government, not an occupying army," he writes. "Key personnel in ISAF must receive training in local languages."

Again, befriend the Afghan people to what end? To enable a system that encourages defeat? We're in Afghanistan because we're an empire, how does it make sense to fight a war there by pretending we're not? Isn't the real lesson here, fight like an empire or don't fight at all? Again, COIN seems to me based on assumptions made in order to force a strategy on a situation - we don't want to fight like an empire, or possibly we simply can't, so let's do COIN - it seems logical but it isn't since it makes the assumption that Afghanistan is amenable to the strategy.

He also says that coalition forces will change their operational culture, in part by spending "as little time as possible in armored vehicles or behind the walls of forward operating bases." Strengthening Afghans' sense of security will require troops to take greater risks, but the coalition "cannot succeed if it is unwilling to share risk, at least equally, with the people."

But isn't this backwards - isn't it rather that the people must be willing to accept the risk of defending their own security? I reread the article Petraeus wrote on the principles of COIN back in 2006 and the first rule he cited was to quote T.E. Lawrence saying in effect let the Arabs do a half assed job themselves rather than we do a much better job for them. We don't have to accept their risks, they have to step up and accept ours.

Overall, McChrystal provides this conclusion about the enemy: "The insurgents control or contest a significant portion of the country, although it is difficult to assess precisely how much due to a lack of ISAF presence. . . . "

In other words saying 'even if we do what I think we should do I have, in the final analysis, no idea if that will solve the problem of Afghanistan'.

So you support a pull back? No, I support holding Obama responsible for making a campaign pledge of re-committing to the Afghan war, the good war as opposed to the bad one in Iraq as he would have it, when he didn't know what the hell he was talking about and then sending 20,000 more troops over there after taking office which he did as far as I'm concerned for appearances sake and so now if we retreat it's really gonna look like a retreat - which means he's probably going to make the worst decision possible ie, try and fake a commitment. I support holding Obama responsible for that.

So you support a retreat? No, I support a rethink of what I consider to be the fantasy of COIN, a strategy adopted I believe by the generals because they feel they have no other viable options. Afghanistan was a problem to which only two solutions applied: go big, like the empire we are, and conquer it, without pity and without remorse; or go small and keep your objectives limited. We're now stuck in the middle, from which there is no escape without suffering severe consequences, and being led by a president who I'm convinced sincerely believes that forcing a public option on health care on the American people is of much more importance than that dirty little war over there.

So you support a retreat? I dunno. Leave me alone.

In the category of 'all the bloody things I don't have a clue about', while doing some reading on the history of nuclear arms policy, given Obama's recent decision to cancel European missile shield and my skepticism re his overtures in general thereof, I find that Paul Nitze, father of the American nuclear deterrence posture, near the end of his life called for the abolition of nuclear weapons. I only mark this since I've ridiculed Obama in the past for calling for the same. I understand an old man warming to death and making an appeal to fantasy - but that only entrenches my opinion - to wit, that such calls place emotion over facts; that abolition would require an infallible method of verification, of which no technology exists that can promise such a thing; the law of unintended consequences - ie, just as we really couldn't predict the dynamics of a world with nuclear weapons, how can we pretend to understand what a world suddenly without them would be like? In other words, would such a world prove more dangerous or less? I mean, any sane person understands the emotion of 'O god, please rid us of this plague' - but in reality? Not so clear.

I continue to maintain that it is not in the nature of humans to give up or abrogate successful weapons technologies, both offensive and defensive - instead they develop new ones that render old ones either irrelevant or less threatening. Ergo, missile defense - I would consider any focus placed on abolition that drew impetus and resources away from missile defense to be an extremely unwise move.

Obama opts out of East European missile defense - does that bother me? Don't think so but possibly. It was supposed to protect against Iran but that was never really a practical solution and what they're proposing instead, a more variegated and extended shield, seems to make more sense, at least from what we know of it - and so in that sense I'm not bothered. Problem is, the East European shield was never about Iran but rather directed towards Russia which is why Moscow was so pissed by it - pulling back from that with the rather weak excuse that they hope this makes Russia more amenable viz Iran's nukes seems to me a gesture fraught with potential complications. So I'm a little hot and cold with this one - I suppose if they'd set it up so it seemed less like capitulation I could get on board - still, if Moscow stiffs them on Iran despite the gesture, which is likely, America will look compromised, no? even assuming the new plans for missile defense are more sensible. They can't possibly think that should Russia refuse to play ball on Iran after such a nice gesture that they will be the ones compromised? I've read some comments that seem to buy into that line of thinking - I think it's crazy - countries act in their own interests, Russia will be a help here only if they see it's to their advantage to be of help, not from contemplating abstract notions of fair play or right and wrong. As far as I'm concerned all countries whose power relies on political systems that are at odds with western styled democracy see an advantage in America being diminished - not destroyed or precipitously undone because they're too important viz economic stability - but certainly diminished. Russia - or should we just say Putin? - will act according to that principle, not out of a sense of owing Obama one or a fear of looking bad in the eyes of progressive democracies.

Still, the real threat from Iran is not a nuclear attack on Europe or over Europe and into the US but rather by offering a nuclear deterrent against Israel and America as well as Saudi Arabia and Egypt to its friends in Iraq, Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah and thereby extending and emboldening its dreams of hegemony in the region. If the new missile defense plan mitigates that influence more effectively then an apparent capitulation to Russia may matter less - but logically, if what I've just described is the case, then they already think Russia is not going help with Iran, Iran is going to develop nukes and Israel will not be interceding in any way - which makes this a smart play? Or a huge gamble? - in the sense that Russia gets to look appeased while Iran's plans are only marginally degraded.

From Jerusalem Post:

"We actually are better able to deal with a changed situation, in which the intelligence assessments are wrong, with the new architecture than we were with the old one," Gates told reporters.

The new assessment asserts Iran is unlikely to have a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile until 2015 to 2020, a US government official familiar with the report told The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the report remains classified...

Fingar, who spearheaded the controversial 2007 national intelligence estimate that disclosed Iran had halted its nuclear weapon design work in 2003, was not privy to the new intelligence. But he said Iran may be working on short-range missiles because they are easier to build than large, long-range missiles, and lessons learned in their development can be applied to larger missiles.

He also said Iran may not be aggressively pursuing an ICBM because it has discerned its most likely adversaries are in the region, so shorter missiles have more immediate utility for offensive attacks or deterrence.

The new Obama plan would deploy systems designed to shoot down short- and medium-range missiles, with construction in phases to begin around 2011. Systems to counter longer-range missiles would be in place around 2020.

This revealing - heard Obama say in a speech the other day that America has both private and public options viz universities and that hasn't ruined the educational system so why can't the same be true for health care? Nice - he's either being an idiot here, and he quite obviously isn't an idiot, or he's trusting the media to be stupid or compliant or both and not question the premise of the statement nor question the veracity of the person making it - more likely scenario.

Yes, Kentucky State and Harvard are both universities offering a variety of post-secondary degrees in multiple disciplines - but that's pretty much where their similarities end. Taking the statement at face value, if Obama is saying that the quality of health care you get will depend on how much you can afford to spend, then fine, I have no problem with that. But of course that's not what he's saying even though that is what he's saying - if the statement was meant to say what it in fact infers the health care debate would be over and Obama would be toast - to liberals, anyway - conservatives and libertarians I imagine would not have a problem with a multi-tiered health care system.

And so he's lying, or, if you prefer, manipulating perceptions by being less than honest - he's feeding off the assumption that quality of care can and will be equalized, that this is the goal, and that both private and public options can compete in this regard - but of course the only way equality can be achieved, in health care as it would be in education, is if the public option, through various procedural machinations, subsumes the private option, bleeds the Harvards dry.

So, there you go, classic Obama - a seemingly obvious and indeed somewhat anodyne statement of ostensible fact delivered with great charm that the press ignores or obediently condones - but in reality is either nonsensical, indicates a rather dramatic change of course in Obama's thinking on health care - or is a lie.

Op-ed in WSJ rolls out statistics to reveal how useless the vaunted stimulus was - even allowing some legitimacy for the old saw 'lies, damned lies, and statistics' it was obvious to anyone not benighted by partisan spin that that stimulus was a political play only faintly infused with a sound economic sensibility - it's shocking how little heat Obama has taken for this, because it wasn't simply an astounding misuse of public funds, it compounded the public's sense that things were out of control and the gov't was focused on the wrong things - in a crisis defined to no small extent by a psychological malaise driven by fear and doubt a stimulus that the public viewed as rushed, tainted by politics and of inflating debt to a seeming unmanageable degree only made things worse.

I do find it odd though that they couldn't figure out what any poor person could have told them - people spend money when they feel secure in their employment, even if it's a shitty job, as long as you feel it's not gonna disappear, you'll spend - if you're worried about paying the rent every month any little windfall you get, like from a gov't stimulus, you're gonna hoard it, not spend it. I guess they don't know this because most of them can't remember the last time they worried about paying the rent - although in the article they note that Milton Friedman understood this dynamic and believed gov't intervention should be all about stimulating business and by consequence long term employment.

I dunno - I know little about business theory, less about economics - but I felt from the get go that that stimulus bill was a load of crap - troubling that the media is so willing to think or outright pretend otherwise - remember during the reprehensible celebration by the press of Obama's first 100 days how the stimulus was lauded and trumpeted as evidence that the administration was firmly in control.

update: WH has released own numbers putatively showing one million jobs created or saved by stimulus - unfortunately most view the idea of 'saved jobs' as not demonstrable and therefore deliberately obfuscatory - in other words lies, damned lies and... WH statistics. [it never occurs to you that you denounce Obama with a blind enthusiasm similar to that with which his benighted supporters applaud him? No, no, absolutely not... a knack for knowing when others are in the wrong would verge on delusional if I wasn't always right, no?...]

"... I want to be clever, I want to have insights, I want to be profound... but in the end I settle on being merely entertaining... both as a way of expressing and concurrently hiding how ridiculously empty those ostensibly more noble ambitions are..."

Didn't I say or suggest that the most disturbing thing about Obama's speech to the little ones was that people who found fault with it, like myself, were being characterized as racists and how such an unreasonable blanket accusation would have the effect of making dissent itself wrong? Hell, this idiocy had so swamped a dispassionate view of things that Howard Stern - Howard Stern for christ sake! - talked about how those who had a problem with Obama must be motivated by race - it's striking how so many of the people who held this point of view had magically deduced that Obama is so without flaw that those who oppose him must be afflicted with racist thinking - suddenly the most naive, illiterate simpletons in the culture were channeling a Thomistic acumen and reasoning out the racism in everything!

And so it is Jimmy Carter - granted, a man with a knack for saying stupid things with startling regularity - but still, an ex-president, that means something - Jimmy Crater has come out and said Joe Wilson must have been motivated by racism when he called out liar during Obama's speech before congress even though the only things we know with absolute certainty are that Wilson did indeed shout out and Obama was indeed being less than honest.

I understand how fools who lean left may be duped into aping [god, is that racist?] mindlessly repeating these talking points - but the more sophisticated ones surely must understand how dangerous it is for a democracy to be headed by an ideologue, backed by a sympathetic legislative majority, who cannot be criticized - they must understand this and so evidently have decided that a liberal agenda, or more accurately the ideas espoused and championed by a liberal elite, are of such great importance that the ends here entirely justify the means.

Which brings me to what really troubles me about how Obamism is developing - I'm impaired by a poor memory and so can't call forth specifics but I'm sure an astute student of history could point out how many times this kind of ideologically driven arrogance has ended in disaster. [one hardly needs a doctoral degree in history to look back at preceding administration whose worst mistakes were driven by ideological arrogance - it's always been my belief that they fucked up the war plan in Iraq because they were obsessed with the politics of it - likewise I've stated that the democrats health care push is all about politics, not creating an efficient, workable system, or, to put it another way, much like Bush and Iraq, they assume certain outcomes because they are so smitten with the political advantages that would result - my worry has always been that the inevitable leftward over reaction contra Bush would prove inimical to the welfare of the empire because of the impetus brought to it by Obama's personal advantages [which I tend to view as shortcomings, not virtues] - reminding one of a boat that is capsized not by the first thrust but by the over zealous reaction against it - which is why I supported Hillary: the contra Bush over reaction was inevitable but because I saw her as a moderate I figured instability could be contained - I saw nothing moderating in Obama, in fact, quite the opposite - but in the true spirit of Obamism that's apparently because I'm a racist - though, on the plus side, going by the same logic, I guess because I supported Hillary that means I'm not a misogynist? There's an ex-girlfriend or two who may be comforted by that news...]

update: on the other hand, as some are with justification pointing out, having Jimmy Carter rally to your side with moralizing idiocy is quite possibly a sure fire way to scare off independents, and no matter how ripe with liberal zeal Obama may be he's going nowhere if independents sour on him.

Rothkopf over at FP has chimed in with my recently made point that while the progressives in America are busy staring at navels to see if their new world order indeed abides there Russia and Iran have taken steps to guarantee that the world as it is now is about to get a whole lot more dangerous - as he puts it, Russia, with its security council veto, has just sanctioned, on the eve of negotiations to forestall such a thing, the largest state sponsor of terrorism becoming a nuclear power. So far Obama's plan to tap into the sweetness and light of his story and broker a new age of peace and understanding amongst the peoples of the world who have for too long toiled in darkness and despair wondering, where O Lord, where is the hope, the change you promised? - so far that plan is working out about as well as any reasonable person would have expected.