Market Forces Generate Prosperity

Obama Plays the Rich Pay Tax Card amidst the Poorness of his Stewardship

2012-02-19T02:48:00.000-08:00

By Con George-Kotzabasis—February 18, 2012

In his State of the Union address President Obama has abandoned the “hope and change” of his past presidential campaign and replaced it with “equality and fairness” for his future one. How is he going to accomplish the noble values of equality and fairness, by changing the tax code that would severely tax the incomes of the rich; by organizing watchdog agencies that would round-up Wall Street miscreants; by sending the seals to capture Chinese DVD pirates; and by compelling students to stay in high school until the age of 18? The former community organizer-enforcer that threatened bankers in his Chicago days with law suits if they were unwilling to provide loans to non-creditworthy borrowers, is now to enforce the rich to put their pound of flesh on the tax scale weighing at least 30% of their income, according to the “Warren Buffett Rule.” It is by such measures that the physically sprightly moving president will bring with Mercurial speed to the door of every ordinary American the goodies of “equality and fairness.”

Obama cannot run on his record—he barely mentioned in his Union address Obamacare and the stimulus, his major but questionable legislative achievements-but only on a re-run of new false promises. Equality and fairness cannot be achieved by minor legislative measures that he proposes but only by major ones, such as tax reform and entitlement reform, the core measures that would spawn the seeds for the growing of those noble values. The first generates social equity plus economic efficiency, and the second generates social justice plus debt reduction. It is by economic efficiency and debt reduction that the vital spirits of capitalist entrepreneurship will be incentivized and in turn set in motion the productive process that will increase the wealth of society and by spreading it to a greater number of people will reduce inequality and unfairness among Americans.

The taxing of the rich will bring negligible revenue for Obama to accomplish his grandiose scheme of equality and fairness. On the contrary it will sterilize the vital spirits of entrepreneurs and stifle capital investment, especially in conditions of recession, hence retarding economic growth, and indeed, deepening the slump, as Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels said in his rebuttal of Obama’s State of the Union address. Therefore Obama’s proposal to tax the rich is another seductive but false promise, like his past promises, by which he is attempting once again to mislead and delude Americans that by taxing those who earn more than a million and by ‘barking’ against Wall Street greed he will create a socially fairer America.

Another central feature of his Union address was the praising of the armed forces for their solidarity and discipline, with which they achieve their great missions, and using them as a template to be adopted and imitated by all Americans, so they too can accomplish their aims in their pursuance of building a more prosperous and equal America. It is good to see the anti-war Obama extolling the virtues of the military and making them a model for the United States. But he overlooks the fact that the virtues of war are not applicable to, and are not, the virtues of civil peace. The qualities of solidarity and discipline are a prerequisite in war for defeating an enemy; but are an obstruction in search of knowledge that enhances techno-scientific economic development. Copernicus and Galileo had to break the disciplinarian regimen of the Catholic Church to make their breakthrough to their great scientific discovery. Great minds and their discoveries do not flourish in the restricted practices of solidarity and discipline but in the spiritual freedom that has no constraints.

One can hardly think that Obama is ignorant or unaware of this distinction. Therefore one must deduce that the admiration of Obama for the military virtues is only a post sop to the warriors of Iraq and Afghanistan, whom before he became president and in the initial stages of his presidency, consider them to be inept and useless in their fight against Islamic terror, and whom he would replace with his soft power policy and highfalutin diplomacy which completely failed to entice either al Qaeda or the Taliban, as well as the regime of terrorist sponsoring Iran, to come to the negotiating table. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The respect of President Obama for the military is shown in his latest proposal of cutting the army by 100,000; by the delayed production of helicopters and stealth jets; and by the elimination of one-tenth of the Air Force’s tactical fighter squadrons. And the savings of these cuts in a budget of over a trillion dollars will be for this year 4.5 billion dollars. It is by such tricks that Obama proposes to reduce the budget spending of the government while at the same time truly reducing the hard power of America that is the sine qua non in its security and stability, and, indeed, of the rest of the world in our very dangerous times. As for being praised for killing bin Laden what else could he do, once he was informed by the CIA that a highly placed al Qaeda subject was living in the compound with the possibility that this subject might be bin Laden himself, other than sending the seals to kill him? The American electorate would have never forgiven him if, having this knowledge, he had done nothing.

Obama failed in his stewardship as president, due to his wont to imitate the social democratic policies of Europe—Obamacare was his top example—internally to improve the economy and reduce markedly unemployment, and externally in his foreign policy to effectively constrain the rogue states of N. Korea and Iran from continuing their belligerent threats toward the U.S. and the rest of the West, and in particular preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. The latest proposal by Iran to participate in negotiations to discuss its nuclear programme is a ruse on its part with the purpose to check Israel from attacking its nuclear facilities and thus saving its nuclear bomb that is rocked in its cradle. And the Americans according to the statement of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have accepted with alacrity this Iranian proposal without any preconditions. Thus the Iranians have rolled out the Persian carpet of diplomatic deception and subterfuge for the Obama Administration to walk on. Further, Obama in his attempt to “reset the button” with Russia has been effectively aborted, as exemplified by his inability to persuade the latter either in the case of Libya or Syria not to use its veto in the Security Council. It is for the purpose of covering all the above failures that Obama plays the rich pay tax card amidst the poorness of his stewardship, and in his goal to win a second term by cunningly deceiving Americans once again.

I rest on my oars: your turn now…

Is the European Central Bank the Shy Bride of Lender of Last Resort?

2012-02-07T17:59:00.000-08:00

By Con George-Kotzabasis—December 1, 2011

It goes without saying, that merely a new European treaty, as proposed by Chancellor Merkel and President Sarkozy, no matter how strong its teeth, will not resolve the crisis. But the solving of the crisis might lie in a fecund combination of new rules to be observed strictly, and new bold economic measures, including the ECB as lender of last resort. And Mario Draghi’s hesitation might only be a ruse. His guise of being the shy bride of decisive intervention might only be a pretension, and he may surprisingly shock everybody by sprightly stepping boldly and marrying the groom of lender of last resort. This unexpected nimble move from shyness to boldness will be a powerful incentive to rally the markets behind the Eurozone. And one might not dismiss lightly that “magic” and a Deus ex machina might have a role in this tragic play.

P.S. Since the above was written, Mario Draghi lowered the discount rate of the ECB to 1% and distributed to European banks nearly 500 billion euros to lend to their customers. This is equivalent of using the instrument of lender of last resort by the ECB although doing this by roundabout means and not in a formal manner. And apparently this bold and imaginative initiative of the ECB has stabilized the European markets.

Attack on 9/11 Existential Threat to Western Civilization

2012-01-26T00:58:00.000-08:00

The following piece was written on November 2003 and it is republished here for the readers of this new blog.

By Con George Kotzabasis

September 11 has placed open societies and their democratic freedoms at the crossroads of victory or subjugation. No intellectualist quibbling or obfuscation can cover and evade this historic fact. Fanatic Muslim terrorists pose a threat to civilized societies of biblical proportions, especially if they acquire weapons of mass destruction through rogue states.

Yet the liberal intelligentsia in its necrophilous stance attempts to shift the blame from the terrorist perpetrators to their victims. In their mind's eyes, September 11 was the comeuppance of America for the ills the latter had "rained" upon the oppressed of the world by spreading its rapacious eagle's wings over the globe in its pursuit of dominance and empire. Thus the terrorist’s threat is subordinated and replaced by the liberal invention of its own "evil empire". Turning logic on its head, fanatic terrorism becomes less dangerous and is transformed into a "lesser evil". In an ironic twist, the threat posed by terrorists against the West, is turned into the threat of the "Lone Avenger". But that the latter might ride through the canyons of America, in his pursuit of punishing evil, not with six caliber pistols in his holsters but with nuclear weapons, is of no concern to them. Hence, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are all liberals. Foreordaining the destruction of Western societies by a fanatic horde of religious barbarians.

People, who have studied history in the sublime pages of Thucydides, Gibbon, Hobbes, Machiavelli, Meinecke, and Huntington, can only rally one answer to this great threat. Fight it to the death with no quarter given to it. History has transparently shown, that the greatest atrocities against mankind were committed by religious fundamentalists, and by all omniscient purist ideologues. Examples are the religious wars of 17th Century Europe, which decimated almost two thirds of its population, and the Nazi and Communist ideologies that massacred millions in the 20th Century in their pursuit to breathe life, like God, to their misplaced and displaced utopias. Muslim fundamentalist inspired terror, is also set in among these dangerous misplaced utopias. But it is even more dangerous, in that its proponents and its fanatically blind activists unshakably believe are guided by the invisible hand of Allah and that they are His instruments.

This is the reason why all diplomatic overtures in this war against terrorism and its state sponsors, are doomed to failure. It is just impossible to negotiate any set of compromises of give and take, which is the substance of diplomacy, with these Muslim fundamentalists. It would just be as futile an attempt, as it would be to argue against God.

My first paper, 'Unveiling the War against Terror' presages precisely the above. The Bush Administration would not enter into this course of diplomatic failure and it would not be lured by the United Nations' siren songs. While it was wise of the Administration to forge a notable coalition against terrorism, the latter would not be indispensable in its fight against terror. The same paper predicts the unconventionality of the war against terror, i.e., the primary role Special Forces would play in this war - and the splendid performance of the Australian SAS Forces in Afghanistan and especially in Iraq, exemplified this role - as well as the defeat of the Taliban and al Qaeda, in contrast to the conventional wisdom of most media commentators, who asserted that the American forces would not win and would be bogged down in Afghanistan, just like the Soviet forces. It was also prescient in its finding that strategically it would be a pre-emptive war, hence, anticipating the Pentagon's new strategy against terror and against rogue states. (This paper was sent to the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in November 2001 ).

The second paper titled 'U.S. Unilateralism only Alternative to Multilateral Weakness', responds to The Open Letter of the former Governor General Bill Hayden, and of three former prime ministers, Fraiser, Whitlam, and Hawke, and condemns their un-historic and populist stand against America's impending war in Iraq. Their 'un-heroic cunctation', to quote John Maynard Keynes, is another monument of folly build with the debris of Munich. To await for the more and more evanescent imprimatur for the war in Iraq by the UN Security Council, would have been the ultimate inanity. The paper also predicts, that the 'missing star in this constellation of darkness' (the signers of The Open Letter), Paul Keating, would also take an anti-American stand, which soon afterwards he did, but as is his wont as primo uomo, he would give his performance as a "soloist".

The third paper titled, 'How to Legitimize the Interim Government in Iraq’ ... is a strategic proposal and was sent for this purpose to both President Bush and vice-President Cheney in late August 2003. As is shown by subsequent events, the Americans put on a fast track the formation of both the Interim Government in Iraq, as well as the arming of the Iraqis, two of the suggestions that I had made in this paper. I am confident, that my third suggestion, which is the axis of my proposal in this paper, the master plan, i.e., the Iraqi people should be given the equity of the nation's oil wealth, will also be adopted. And the Interim Government of Iraq at its formation in July 2004, will make this historic pronouncement to its people, and by doing so will confer 'unassailable legitimacy' to itself.

All the other papers emphasize that the war against global terror is a two front war, that is, one also has to fight the rogue states if one is serious in defeating this terrorist menace. As these rogue states have the potential of becoming the suppliers of weapons of mass destruction to terrorists. Moreover, one of them predicts that the defeat of one rogue state, in this case Iraq, will have domino effects upon all other rogue states. And the dominoes have already started falling, as the recent capitulation of Libya has shown.

'The war against global terror and its state sponsors is an existential war, a war of survival, and cannot be fought on humane grounds'. All wars brutalize their combatants and under their immense pressures 'can break the strongest of wills, the best of disciplines'. The war against global terror and its state sponsors magnifies this brutality. Its combatants are fighting, and are threatened by a shadowy enemy and cannot distinguish easily friend from foe. In Iraq, American soldiers are giving candy to Iraqi children, but as soon as they turn their backs to them, the latter are throwing stones at the soldiers in place of thanks. It is due to the heavy pressures of terrorist warfare that the American soldiers' discipline is buckling and, while regrettable and even deplorable, one can see and understand the torture of prisoners in Iraq and in Afghanistan as one result of this. It should also not be forgotten that most of the prisoners were and are terrorists who could provide vital information to their American interrogators about their networks that could save thousands of lives, as well as lead to the defeat of terrorists in the field of battle. 'In such a setting, the torture of prisoners is the tragic price of such a war that statesmanship must pay'.

The papers are not written in the suave language of diplomats nor in the smoothing words of the gentile classes. In times of war, a writer has to mobilize his words, as a general has to mobilize his troops for battle, forcefully. They are written for the purpose of rallying people behind their governments, as a call to arms. They are also written to provoke people to search for the truth and debunk all those who claim to possess it. And last but not least, to salvage the truth of the war from the politically designated distortions and fabrications of its liberal and leftist critics, that has been so characteristic of much Western thinking and so ubiquitous throughout most of the media since 9/11.

P.S. The above text is the Introduction of my book “Unveiling The War Against Terror: Fight Right War or Lose The Right To Exist”, that was published in May 2004, and which is available at Readings Bookshops at Hawthorn and Port Melbourne, in Melbourne.

Arianna Huffington's Aristophanean Wit against the War

2012-01-12T17:44:00.000-08:00

I'm republishing the following piece for the browsers of this new website.

A retort: By Con George-Kotzabasis to:

Bush and the Truthiness Taliban By Arianna Huffington

Huffington Post-February 27, 2006

Arianna, coming long ago from an ancient philosophical stock, always presents her arguments with cogency and “tinsel town” wit. But whilst her Aristophanean wit has the power to lift even a great philosopher, the basket - laid Socrates into the clouds, she is no Athena, and lacks wisdom to bring the great philosopher down to earth from her politically idealistic clouds. . She argues that the Bush administration “sold us the invasion of Iraq” with false claims and half-truths, which she satirizes as “truthiness”, and she jeeringly says that the “’Saddam unleashed mushroom clouds’ could be the logo for the truthiness society”, i.e., the Bush administration. But after the lethal attacks on New York and Washington, the Bush administration, or any administration, would hardly need to sell the war to Americans by sleek and crafty Madison Avenue techniques, as a majority of Americans would have bought the war, and did, at any price.

The fact is, that Bush invaded Iraq not because Saddam had a link to the 9/11 attack but because of the high probability of his link with a future 9/11, that would have been more devastating than the first one. No responsible and insightful political leadership could disregard and discount this probability of a connection between terrorists and rogue states in the near future, and do nothing about it. The war in Iraq had as its primary aim the prevention of this ominous coupling of suicidal fanatic terrorists with rogue states, the latter being willing and able to furnish the former with the lethal weapons that would mortally endanger America and the rest of the West. Only someone who was living in a state of pathological complacency and moral and intellectual indifference, enjoying the stupefying and ephemeral glittering comforts of ones narrow and egotistical existence could have mocked and lampooned the above “truthick” threat as “truthiness”. In times of danger, it’s utter foolishness to indulge in the rambling diversions of witty political satire or in gloomy broodings instead of taking firm action.

Moreover, to bring in Halliburton’s corporate shenanigans, which for many Americans is justifiably an emotional issue, is to bring into the debate of the war the American public “roaring like an oak on fire”, to quote Aristophanes, when more than ever, in face of some US strategic errors, cool deliberation is needed. Especially when, the question as to whether the US should stay the course in Iraq or should cut and run, must be answered by the public and its leaders from the Congress and the House, soberly and wisely. Probing to the highest possible degree whether a premature withdrawal from Iraq would bring in its wake dire and catastrophic consequences for the people of Iraq and of the region in general, and whether it would also embolden the terrorists to perpetrate even more deadly attacks against the US and the West in general. With such high stakes in place, Arianna’s insinuation that corporate greed is a major cause of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq is ethically and intellectually irresponsible. It’s also, historically and economically benighted. In all economic systems of demand and supply economic units prosper. In war when the demand reaches astronomical heights only the biggest and the most possibly efficient corporations can supply these huge demands. And by the irreversible laws of economics they are the biggest beneficiaries. But does this economic reality in any way impugn a just war? If I’m allowed to remind Arianna, Themistocles (I’m using this historical event as an illustration not as a comparison in respect to the personal merits of Bush or Cheney to those of the great Athenian), the victor of Xerxes invasion of Greece that saved the latter from despotism and slavery, was subsequently accused of peculation and was banished from Athens. Did this accusation in any way diminish Themistocles’s illustrious standing as one of the greatest generals of his era of whom Thucydides so admirably had written about?

It maybe, that all the above examples are for Arianna seeds sown in a barren intellectual soil and she will never reap their invaluable lessons. It seems she is more concerned in vying with comedian Stephen Colbert - whom she calls the “godfather of truthiness” – for the first prize of truthiness, and it’s more likely than not that she will win the Dionysian Oscar for truthiness in this contest of wits.

I rest on my oars: your turn now...

An Exchange Between Kotzabasis and Professor Varoufakis on the Merits and Demerits of Capitalism

2011-12-26T23:55:00.000-08:00

The following exchange between me and Professor of Economics Yanis Varoufakis at Athens University took place on his blog

http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/ about the capitalist system under the post:

Ending 2011with a fable for our times-December 24, 2011

December 24, 2011 at 03:14 #

Kotzabasis says,

Is Amartya Sen’s absolute prosperity and relative inequality of the capitalist system vulgarly to be replaced by Yanis Varoufakis’s “despicable inequality?”

Professor Varoufakis distorts and defames the whole history of the dynamism of entrepreneurial capitalist wealth that shot up the standard of living of the masses to “Himalayan” heights. To claim that capitalist “wealth …needs poverty to flourish,” is just an ornamental academic trapping empty of history and fugitive from serious thought. Capitalism, like everything else in life, was never meant to be “stable” but a process of Schumpeterian “creative destruction.” But this can only be understood and accepted by realists and not by heroic ideologues, like Professor Varoufakis.

Professor Varoufakis says,

December 24, 2011 at 15:32 #

It is always good to encounter intransigent Panglossian views in the post-2008 world. There is something touching about undying faith, even when of the toxic variety.

December 25, 2011 at 01:48 #

Kotzabasis says,

Professor Varoufakis

Are capitalist entrepreneurial creativity, wealth, and prosperity based on “intransigent” “Panglossian” naivety? And is the history of capitalism to be truncated and concentrated naively and un- imaginatively between 2008 and 2011 for you to make your uninspiring and toxic argument?

Professor Varoufakis says,

December 25, 2011 at 11:56 #

No, capitalism’s wonders have nothing to do with Panglossian naïveté. But your determination to portray it as the best of all possible systems exudes it. As for my assessment of capitalism, and your claim that I truncate the latter’s history to a period around 2008, feel free to judge it. But only after you acquaint yourself with it. (For had you read it, eg either of my last two books, you would have realized that I truncate nothing. And that I go to great lengths to analyse capitalism’s contradictions, something that entails a celebration of its achievements as well as an exposition of its failures.) Till you are prepared to become acquainted with what I am really saying, before you attack it, I shall treat you as no more than a minor Panglossian.

Kotzabasis says,

December 26, 2011 at 02:46 #

Professor Varoufakis

Thank you for your advice how to overcome my “minor Panglossian” status. But unfortunately for me I’m bound to retain it, as your crass defamation of capitalism in your POST, hardly incentivized me, to use a term of your “little man” John Howard, to read your books and be acquainted with your thoughts. And indeed, my preference is to be “treated… as a minor Panglossian” than go through the treat to major on your ‘Pandistortions’ and jaundiced strictures on capitalism.

But to come to the gist of the matter in hand, my riposte to you was not to either of your two books, which, as I imply above I have not read. My reply was specifically to your post where you wistfully and wrongfully write, “Should we dare to hope of a new era in which WEALTH NO LONGER NEEDS POVERTY TO FLOURISH,” and of the illusion that “capitalism can be stable” and where you vulgarly and gracelessly contend that capitalism creates “DESPICABLE INEQUALITY,” and in your reply to my first post where you refer to the “post-2008 world.” It might well be that these ‘populist flourishes’ had not meant to be of any intellectual seriousness and their only aim was na deleazei ( to allure) and enthuse the ignorant to rush and become volunteer workers to your construction of your ‘matchsticks’ good society, as a replacement to the infernal deeds of capitalist society. But could one do this at the cost of one’s intellectual integrity?

And it is most surprising that the Gargantuan, indeed, Cyclopean efforts that you have put in your Modest Proposal(MP)—although one must note that Cyclopean efforts without a Ulysses are fated to be wasted efforts—have the aim to save Europe, a system that according to you produces genetically “despicable inequality.” Fortunately, however, for those condemned to this despicable inequality, but unfortunately for you, Andreas Koutras’s fatal Jovian bolts demolished to ashes the MP, from which no contriving number of revisions to it will give rise to a Phoenix solution that will salvage the European Union from its peril.

Lastly, to state that “to analyse capitalism’s contradictions… entails a celebration of its achievements as well as an exposition of its failures,” is to state the obvious.

Professor Varoufakis says,

December 27, 2011 at 04:33 #

Impressed by your dedication to keep knocking down my (according to you) already demolished, and perpetually ridiculous, arguments, as well as by the amount of time you dedicate to a blog (mine) which you consider unworthy, I shall continue to post your comments. Carry on Sir!

Kotzabasis says,

Professor Varoufakis

With your Kazantzakian character I could never imagine that you would not post my comments.

The Periclean Dimensions of Antonis Samaras as the Future Prime Minister of Greece

2011-12-10T23:54:00.000-08:00

By Con George-Kotzabasis—December 10, 2011

We have forced every sea and land to be the highway of our daring. Pericles

In the present storm-laden dark sky of Greece, a glittering new star has made its appearance which like a beacon of the sky is attempting to navigate the battered ship of Greece into calmer waters and save it from shipwreck. This new star is the leader of the Opposition of the New Democracy Party, Antonis Samaras, who since he has become its leader two years ago, has displayed unprecedented qualities of leadership and economic and political insight and daring, in this critical economic situation that Greece traverses, that only a statesman of Periclean dimensions could exhibit.

The criticism of Samaras from early on as leader of the Opposition of the Papandreou government, which he has depicted as amateurish and inept, has been totally justified. His early warnings that the policies of the socialist government of Papandreou were wrong and the torrent of taxes that the latter rained upon the middle classes would be disastrous for the economy. In October 2009, when Papandreou began his premiership, public debt was 298 billion euros, 125% of GDP. Today it has reached the whopping amount of 360 billion euros, 165% of GDP. Gross National Product in 2009 was 238 billion and presently has shrunk to 218 billion. According to OECD estimates it will decrease even more by 6% in the near future and unemployment will increase to 18.55%, affecting tragically younger people.

Further, Samaras predicted that the first EU Memorandum that imposed draconian austerity measures on Greece would neither decrease the budget nor would it put the economy on a track of recovery. As an economist he cogently argued that in conditions of deep recession austerity measures would exacerbate the economic crisis not dampen it. He was severely criticized and reprimanded when the New Democracy Party voted in parliament against the extreme austerity measures. Moreover, he had the moral strength and political insight not to be tempted to fall to the seductive calls of Papandreou to participate in a unity government to deal with the national crisis. Samaras gave as his strong reasons that since the PASOK Government was refusing to change its economic policies, that followed the blueprint formulated in the European Memorandum without attempting to modify it in certain crucial parts that could deter the further weakening of the economy, and which had failed the country, he, and his party, would not take part in a coalition government merely for the purpose of being an “accomplice” to these flagrantly wrong policies.

Samaras made a series of proposals that he encapsulated in his “Restart of Greece” by which the country could avoid the shoals that would cause its economic sinking. Last May in his Zappeio II Proposal the Leader of the Opposition presented a number of policies that could put Greece on the road of economic recovery and its corollary, the ability to pay off its debts. His restart programme would necessitate a “shock treatment” but with positive results. (a) A severe cut in public spending and on pensions, only above the level 700 euros. (b) A reduction of taxes on household income and businesses and a decrease in VAT in all sectors of the economy particularly in tourism which is pivotal to the Greek economy. (c) The abolition of all means test for the acquisition of a house and on capital repatriation so to inject money in the financial system. (d) The legalization of all buildings constructed without permits-there are more than a million-which will bring substantial increases in state revenue. (e) The state is to pay off all its debts to private individuals thus increasing market liquidity. And banks to commit to the real economy 20% to 30% of the guarantees they receive. This will further increase liquidity in the market and be an incentive to stop capital flight. (f) The state must not make any cuts to the Public Investment Programme with its high multiplier effect that is a powerful instrument to combat recession. (g) The acceleration of denationalization of public owned entities, which the Papandreou government was slow to implement, and the stimulation of the development of property which is the economic engine of the country. All these relief measures will increase state revenue and the Restart programme will balance the budget within just over three years, and start paying off Greece’s debt.

This daring Restart programme is not an abstraction and Samaras is quite aware that to concretize it he has to convince the lenders of Greece, i.e. the EU, of the urgent necessity of making changes to the present economic policies that clearly have failed, if the goals of the Memorandum of 26^th of October, to which he is irrevocably committed, are to be achieved. This task of convincing Greece’s European partners of a change in tack has been eased, as High German officials admit now that the initial programme was wrong.

Finally, Samaras warns (not exactly in the following words) that this contagion that is threatening to engulf the European continent is not only economic and political but also social, and could lead to an explosion of European Spring protests that could not be contained and could transform radically the political landscape of the continent by the reappearance of the infernal star of the swastika in the political constellation of Europe.

But History has shown repeatedly nations at moments of great dangers, produce great and illustrious leaders that saves them at the eleventh hour from destruction and obliteration. From Themistocles to Charles Martel to Winston Churchill, the invasions of barbarians and dictators were defeated by the sagacity, imagination, and moral strength of exceptional leadership. Antonis Samaras from his words and deeds without any doubt belongs to this lineage of leadership. Greece facing the abyss of economic bankruptcy, poverty, and mob rule with the dangers that are historically inherent in such combination, i.e. the resurgence of fascism, has a unique leader in Antonis Samaras that could prevent this stupendous threat from consummating which would consign the country into the doleful state of penury and into the captivity of dictatorial regimes.

The Fallibility of Technocrats no Reason to Debunk them

2011-12-01T16:38:00.000-08:00

By Con George-Kotzabasis

“We work in the dark—we do what we can—we give what we have.” Henry James

Science has been built on a “mountain” of errors. No correct policy has arisen—like Athena out of Zeus’ head—from an immaculate conception but from a compilation of corrected mistakes. The task of a wise, imaginative, and intrepid technocrat is not to despair before mistakes, like professor Yanis Varoufakis, and be pessimistic about the future, but to overcome them. This is the task and challenge of both Mario Monti and Lucas Papademos as premiers of Italy and Greece respectively, whom both professor Varoufakis disparages, as well as, in the case of Greece, of the statesman, Antonis Samaras. But obviously, it is not the task that can be consummated by professor Varoufakis. Although one must admit that in his Modest Proposal, with Jonathan Swift's title, co-authored with Stuart Holland, surprisingly, he takes a positive and optimistic view how to resolve the European crisis.

How to Overcome the Impasse of the Written Pledge Demanded by the EU from Greece's Major Politicians

2011-11-23T18:48:00.000-08:00

By Con George-Kotzabasis—November 23, 20011

The following proposal was sent to the leader of the Greek Opposition Antonis Samaras on 11-23-2011.

Dear Mr Samaras,

The following proposal might overcome the impasse of the signed guarantee without Greece losing its dignity and amour propre

The German politicians, like the Minister of Finance Wolfgang Schauble, who illogically and doltishly insist and persist in their demand that the leader of the Greek Opposition, Antonis Samaras, sign the Memorandum of the 26^th of October as a condition of releasing the sixth packet of financial assistance to Greece, can be likened as an intellectually unguided German torpedo that sunk the Lusitania of Greek dignity and respect that are embodied in the democratic constitution and parliamentary institutions of the country. It was to the latter institutions and to the interim transitory government led by Lucas Papademos that the leader of the Opposition had made an explicit, unequivocal, and unconditional commitment to accept and implement (Subject to some modifications in regard to its implementation.) all the obligations emanating from the Memorandum. Therefore one is nonplussed with this EU demand for a written pledge by the leaders of the three major parties when all of them accepted all the conditions of the Memorandum unequivocally and unconditionally in Parliament and by giving their vote of confidence to the Interim Government of Lucas Papademos who was to initiate the implementation of the decisions of the 26^th of October.

Surely the Germans are not so stupid, or they could be, as to disregard this essential and irremovable commitment the major parties made to the conditions of the Memorandum and demand in its place a formalistic signature. One therefore cannot avoid the suspicion that there might be a hidden agenda behind this ostensibly doltish demand, i.e. the “Sarajevo assassination” of Greece by the Germans, its ousting from the Eurozone by forcing Greece to default and to depart from the European Union. The leader of the Opposition must eschew from falling into this trap, if indeed, such a trap is set in the wings by the leaders of the European Union. But the “assassination of Greece” from the Eurozone could trigger an internecine economic war in Europe that could not be contained, as the sires of such a sinister plan might have hoped, and would lead both to the destruction of the euro and the European Union. Thus it is incumbent on Antonis Samaras’ statesmanship to be not only the saviour of Greece but also the saviour of Europe. This could be accomplished by the following stratagem. The leader of the Opposition giving a written guarantee of the acceptance of all the conditions of the Memorandum as demanded by the troika, but not sending it to the leaders of the European Union but sending it to the Greek Prime Minister, Lucas Papademos. And the latter will convey to the European leaders the consummation of the signed guarantee by the major parties that the former demanded as the sine qua non for the release of the sixth instalment. Hence, the consignment of the written guarantee within the precincts of the Papademos Government will shun any genuflection on the part of Greece toward Europe that would stigmatize and slur the dignity and amour propre of Greece.

Radical Liberals Condemn and Disparage Technocrats

2011-11-15T23:05:00.000-08:00

The following exchange took place between an American radical liberal and me on the appointment of the two technocrats Mario Monti and Lucas Papademos as prime ministers of Italy and Greece.

Bruce Wilder says,

You seem to have lost the essential premise: the “looming economic catastrophe” is largely the creation of the technocrats, and “all the misery that implies” has been embraced by the technocrats with all the enthusiasm an 18th century physician had for purgatives and bleeding.

Con George-Kotzabasis says,

Bruce Wilder, your “essential premise” walks on crutches. In a physical crisis in which you might lose your leg you don’t stop from going to a surgeon just because there are bad surgeons about. To label all surgeons (technocrats) as incompetent and refuse to go under their knife is to lose your leg. That is why your argument, factually and intellectually, waddles on crutches.

Bruce Wilder says, 11.13.11 at 6:09 pm

Con George-Kotzabasis @ 105

If your life was threatened by a growing cancer, affecting your lungs or your kidneys, and you went to a surgeon, and the surgeon said, “To save your cancer, I recommend amputation of your leg,” I would hope you would run from the room, with your legs still intact.

These particular neo-liberal technocrats are just these sorts of mad incompetents, prescribing senseless maiming in place of a treatment plan. There are, apparently, no politicians available, to stand up and veto the insanity, “brave” and “charismatic” or otherwise.

The corruption and incompetence of the politicians—indeed, the whole polity—in Greece and Italy—played nearly as critical a part in the epidemiology of crisis as the neoliberal technocrats. It is worth remembering that the popular support for the European project has often rested on the hope of improving the quality of governance and institutions. For all the grousing over the minutiae of Brussels and the trivia of Strasbourg, the hope of European Union was always to promote high-minded, principled liberal institutions as a prophylaxis against authoritarianism and populist corruption. This was, I suspect, always a very big part of the appeal of the euro: German monetary policy for the South, an internationally respected currency immune to runaway inflations, etc. The Italians, as I recall, embraced the euro ahead of every other country; they were overjoyed to be rid of the lira, the joke currency of Europe, so inflated in value that coins were impractical—phone booths required a special token and street vendors gave candies in place of change. The euro is very popular in Greece as well, and I suspect that that popularity, as much as the fecklessness of politicians, is a factor in preventing Greece from taking the obvious step of unilaterally embracing default in abandonment of the euro. (Purely from a technocratic point-of-view, the equivalent of a competent surgeon would be a technocrat doing the preparations in secret, which would make a unilateral return to the drachma feasible. That’s the “right” thing to do for Greece, from a “technical” standpoint and from the standpoint of protecting Greece from the “amputation” of privatisation and a prolonged deflation. An efficient calculating machine would have been crystal clear from the outset that, on the numbers alone, Greek default was inevitable; delay could only prolong and intensify the suffering.)

The Big Picture, here, may well be that economic and institutional centralization has found its limits, at least for the moment. Certainly, the neoliberal architectural principles employed over the last 25 years are a bust. Are we so stupid that neofascism must follow? Many would say that authoritarianism was always an implied part of the neoliberal agenda.

110

Con George-Kotzabasis 11.14.11 at 2:10 am

Bruce Wilder
In serious discussion it is wise to enter it carrying a sieve in one’s hands to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Your crystal clear “efficient calculating machine” that would implement your proposal of default, would be no other than a wise, brave, imaginative, and humane TECHNOCRAT. So what exactly you have against technocrats? They are OK if they adopt your plan and only transported to Hades in toto for their mortal sins, if they don’t! Default was and is always an option. The distinguished economist Deepak Lal and exponent of the Austrian School of economics, long ago suggested such a schema. Lucas Papademos and Mario Monti both presumably have this option in their arsenal to be used as a last resort if everything else fails. But before they use this ‘nuclear’ option, they must try, and be given the right by all objective analysts and commentators, to resolve this economic crisis by ‘conventional’ means that could avoid a default which would open a big hole in their countries GDP and throw their people into pauperization for decades to come.

111

Bruce Wilder says, 11.14.11 at 2:37 am

Instead of “support the troops”, we are now asked to support the neo-liberal technocrats.

Con George-Kotzabasis, are we to take no account of the part the technocrats played in “designing” the euro? Are we to take no account of the failure of the ECB to carry out bank supervision or to regulate derivatives? It is a little late in the progress of neoliberal disaster capitalism to be attributing good faith, let alone expertise, to these bozos.

In Greece Political Midgets on a High Wire Act

2011-11-04T05:11:00.000-07:00

By Con George-Kotzabasis—November 02, 2011-11-02

Political midgets, a la Papandreou, have chosen to take the risk of the high wire act by this proposal of the referendum. Hoping that the people will vote for the lesser of two evils, i.e., accepting the debt deal as formulated in Brussels last week and rejecting default and departure from the euro zone. At a time when strong leadership is a prerequisite for diminishing the crisis that Greece is facing, Papandreou abdicates his own and passes it to the people through this future referendum. It’s as if the polloi had somehow a better knowledge and understanding of the critical dimensions of the economic situation and could provide a better solution to the crisis than the expertise of the economically and politically savvy.

Once again politicians, who are more concerned of holding power than of the future of their own country, are ready to prostrate themselves before and pay homage to the idol of the Demos. Papandreou facing in Parliament a no-confidence vote and the ousting of his government promptly announced a referendum that would decide the future of the country, hoping that this would allay the anger and opposition of the people against the austerity measures, imposed by the EU, and at the same time put an end to the disarray within his own government that itself stems from the revolt of the people. It’s clever politicking to avoid defeat and save for him the prime ministership. But he is doing this at the expense of the future well being of the country, as it would take years for Greece to recover from the shock of a default if the electorate voted for it, which is highly likely. This is no less than the revisiting of the ‘sinful’ genius of his pere who himself was the preeminent progenitor of the economic ills that Greece is presently plagued with. The fils merely continues , like father like son, the ‘sins’ of his sire in a more acute form and projects them into the future.

World Bank president, Robert Zoellick said that “if voters reject the plan, it’s going to be a mess.” Economists claim that the immediate effects of a default would probably be a 20 percent to 30 percent drop in domestic demand and a fall of 5 to 10 percent of domestic product. Evangelos Venizelos, the Finance Minister, and his deputy broke ranks and opposed the referendum, saying it would jeopardize Greek membership in the euro zone. Ilias Nicolakopoulos, professor of political science and close to the governing socialist party, stated that a “referendum would put the country in danger of blowing everything up.” In contrast, Henry Ergas writing in The Australian, on November 3, 2011, “Greek Vote a Banana Republic Moment,” praises Papandreou for having the “balls” to propose the referendum, and compares him to the gutsy warning of Paul Keating’s “Banana Republic.” He says, that “to call a referendum on the austerity program is hardly irrational. But he adds the caveat, “true, it is a gamble, and a risky one.” Nonetheless, “the best hope of what comes next must lie in securing a genuine popular mandate.”

Regrettably, however, Papandreou’s proposal of a referendum does not rise from his “balls” but from his impotence. Unable to lead and convince the country, as a weak leader, to accept the inevitable “scenario, Greece must face a lengthy period of austerity and structural reform,” Papandreou passes this leadership to the impassioned people to decide whether to accept or not this scenario. Professor Ergas’ quote of Sophocles, “truth is always the strongest argument,” though generally accurate, is misplaced in the context of a long corrupt electorate that the fiscal profligacy of past governments accustomed it to indulge in ‘free suntans’ in sunny Greece. In such circumstances, the only truth that this pampered electorate will accept is the continuation of these free suntans at public expense. And that is why they will vote NO to austerity measures and thus turn the referendum into an ogre for the future economy of Greece.

Fortunately the proposed referendum like the balloon it was fizzled out within twenty four hours. Under external and internal pressure Papandreou reneged his proposal and withdrew it. Tonight (November 4, 2011), he places his fate on the lap of the god, parliament, on a confidence vote. Even if he survives by the smallest margin his prime ministership is foreclosed.

Will America Rise from its "Comatose" State?

2011-10-26T22:32:00.000-07:00

I’m republishing the following post, that was written on October 3, 2008, for the readers of this blog.
By Con George-Kotzabasis

A reply to a very clever American Open Salon

The Global Credit Crunch and the Crisis of Legitimacy-September 30, 2008

By RCMoya612

RCMoya, after your excellent and resplendent analysis I feel, if I captiously quibble about few points, like a bat squeaking in the dark. First, inequality might have “continued its forward march” but I would argue that it did so on a higher level of general economic prosperity in America following the up till now unassailable historical paradigm of capitalism and free markets that has made the poor ‘richer’ in relative terms, as the distinguished economist Amartya Sen has contended.

Secondly, America’s “hectoring and ignoring” has its counterpart in Europe and in other continents whose countries were strong allies of the US during the Cold War but with the collapse of the Soviet Union have reappropriated their independence both geopolitically and culturally and expressing this in their own hectoring and ignoring against America, thus continuing the irreversible law of the political and cultural competition of nation-states.

Thirdly, I would argue that as long as America continues to be the centripetal force attracting the “best and the brightest” to its shores and not stifling the Schumpeterian spirit of entrepreneurship and “creative destruction”, it will be able to rise again even from the ashes of a comatose state and will continue to be in the foreseeable future the paramount power in world affairs.

And fourthly, the rejection by Congress of the funding plan that would have a better chance than none to prevent the economy from collapsing was inevitable in the present political climate where reason cannot compete with populist emotionalism and when a swirl of weak politicians, like Nancy Pelosi, and, indeed, Barak Obama, are its ‘slaves’. Only by cleaning out these wimp politicians from positions of power will the political narrative reassert its strength and legitimacy.

The Danger of Political Tyros Handling War Strategy

2011-10-19T04:09:00.000-07:00

I'm republishing this short piece for the readers of this blog.

A short reply by Con George-Kotzabasis on:

Clinton’s Statement on Kyl-Lieberman Resolution

Like the two eminent commentators of the New York Times Paul Krugman and Frank Rich, respectable in their own professions as an economist and art critic respectably, and a bevy of politicians like Nancy Pelosi and John Reid, not so respectable because of their populist stunt, all of them being novices par excellence in the affairs of war who have attempted to pass judgment on the war in Iraq and cashier its victory despite evidence to the contrary, we now have another “tired less” tyro joining them in war strategy, the scholar and blogger Steven Clemons of the Washington Note. The latter indirectly rebukes Senator Clinton for her support and vote of the Kyl Lieberman resolution that designates the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization, fearing that this will allow Bush to manipulate this resolution and use it to attack Iran.

He calls therefore on Senator Clinton to exercise “leadership in passing an explicit Senate resolution forbidding Bush from taking action against Iran without clear advice and consent from Congress”. But such action is not a declaration of war against Iran needing the authorization of Congress. It’s a strategic force de frappe on the part of the US against Iran in which the elements of secrecy and surprise are pivotal and decisive in the success of such an attack. Therefore Clemons’ call is strategically oxymoronic.

The Diplomatic Peregrinations in the Holy Land of a Lacklustre Strategist

2011-10-05T02:49:00.000-07:00

By Con George-Kotzabasis

The “lion” appointed by President Obama to the office of Secretary of Defence Leon Panetta, who purportedly is defending America and the West from deadly foes, in his latest visit to the Middle East is advising Israel, from his Olympian heights, ‘to take risks for peace.’ This advice, however, is redundant, superfluous, and otiose and Prime Minister Netanyahu has every reason to reject and oppugn such crass “displaced” advice. Israel had already taken risks in the past with no benefit accruing to it, least of all peace. It had withdrawn from Gaza and re-settled its citizens within the borders of Israel with the result that Gaza was taken over by the terrorist organization Hamas and Israel had to defend itself from a rain of rockets fired by the militants of Hamas; and it had likewise withdrawn from South Lebanon only for the latter to be taken over by the other blade of the terrorist scissors Hesbollah, that also started firing rockets against Israel forcing the latter to invade South Lebanon to protect its citizens from being killed. Israel had taken all these risks for peace. But what did it get in return, a deluge of rockets. What other risks Secretary Panetta has in mind for Israel that would bring the up till now eluding peace to the Middle East? For the Israelis to wait until Hamas and Hesbollah load the tips of their rockets with nuclear devices supplied in the near future by Iran? And what precautions and preventive measures the U.S. is taking to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons?

The answer to these questions lies in the further advice that the Secretary of Defence is giving to Israel. He tells it not to take “lone” action against Iran in its threat to develop nuclear weapons. Preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear arsenal, he says, is the responsibility of major nations taking concerted diplomatic action. But this is a “Looney” policy that the Secretary is recommending to the Israelis. It has been tried so many times in the past and it has failed resoundingly. The Islamist regime is not going to change course in its determination to possess nuclear weapons by a truckload of diplomatic carrots but only by an “armada” of bristling porcupines that will pierce its thick skin. Diplomacy can succeed with the Iranian regime only if it is accompanied by the explicit threat of arms.

Leon Panetta has the sinews of a lamb disguised under the skin of a lion. His peregrinating debut in the Holy Land and his attempt to bring, as the “envoy” of the also weak President Obama, Palestinians and Israelis to the negotiating table will prove to be an abject failure, like all the previous efforts of his predecessor Senator Mitchell, also appointed by Obama. As we have predicted, the Obama presidency is a circus of underperforming political tyros, both in the international and domestic arena and more and more Americans are realizing this and are becoming disenchanted with Obama’s performance. The “sprightly colt”, who won the race to the White House with overwhelming support only two and a half years ago, is presently underwhelmed and is conceding to be the underdog in the 2012 elections. (See Obama’s interview with George Stefanopoulos on the ABC.)

Letter Sent to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld

2011-09-26T20:25:00.000-07:00

I'm republishing this letter for the readers of this new blog.

July 13 2004
Donald H. Rumsfeld Secretary of Defence
1000 Defence Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301-1000

Dear Mr Secretary,

The enclosed document has been sent by e-mail both to the President and vice-President, as well as to the American Embassy in Australia, in late August 2003. For obvious reasons, it has not been sent to any of the media outlets for publication. Now however, it will be publicised in a book of mine titled, 'Unveiling The War Against Terror' and its subtitle, 'Fight Right War Or Lose The Right To Exist' in the middle of next August in Melbourne.

As you can see, the axiom of my proposal is that the Iraqi people should be the major equity holders in the profits of oil. In my humble opinion, this will engender three strategic outcomes favourable to your position. A. It will confer unassailable legitimacy to the Interim Government in Iraq. B. It will lead to the total isolation of the terrorist insurgents, and hence facilitate their complete defeat, which will have devastating effects on the global terrorists. And C., it will provide a historical paradigm to all the countries, and their peoples, in the Middle East and Africa which are endowed with resources of oil, to imitate the Iraqi Government.

Furthermore, it will implant the democratic ethos among their peoples, as the latter will witness that it was a democratic government in Iraq which has made its people the major owners of its primary wealth.
Hence, with one strategic fell swoop you will augment your chances of achieving your strategic goals in the region, as well as expediting the defeat of global terror.

For sure, there are some risks involved in this paradigm, especially for Saudi Arabia, as it may lead to the destabilization of the current regime there due to the political turmoil it could generate, and the exploitation of the latter by Muslim fundamentalists. But the U.S. government could take the necessary and preventive measures for all kinds of inimical eventualities foreseeable that could emanate from the implementation of this democratic paradigm.

Yours respectfully,

Con George-Kotzabasis

Will Greece Leave the Eurozone?

2011-09-16T18:09:00.000-07:00

By Con George-Kotzabasis

In any crisis of serious proportions consensus between the major political parties is the sine qua non for its resolution. This certainly applies presently in Greece. But the dimensions of the crisis are so Gulliverian that only a titanic struggle of will and resolution by its politicians, guided by wisdom, will at least diminish the scale of the crisis. Regrettably, however, there is a dearth of politicians in Greece of the status of Gulliver and an abundance of Lilliputians. Therefore, a different consensus is materializing among eminent economists, that Greece perforce will have to traverse a different course than that imposed by the ECB and IMF.

Deepak Lal, a former president of the Mont Pelerine Society and a prominent exponent of the Austrian school of economics, predicts a Greek default and an exit from the Euro. To avoid a Greek debt default that would lead to a Eurozone banking crisis, a stabilization program has been imposed on Greece by the ECB and IMF. But unlike other similar stabilization programs, Lal argues, two vital elements are missing: a large devaluation and a restructuring of the country’s debt. “The former is precluded by the fixed exchange rate of the Euro, the latter by the external holdings of Greek sovereign debt by European banks.” The alternative program therefore is to impose a large internal devaluation instigating a precipitous fall in domestic wages and prices through a massive deflation. It is impossible however to believe that Greek politics will allow the country to follow such a course, especially when Greece is likely to be left with a debt-GDP ratio of 150%. Hence, Deepak Lal predicts that a Greek default and an exit from the Euro is the most likely path that Greece will follow.

High Court's Decision:Triumph of Legal Activism at the Cost of Australia

2011-09-05T00:00:00.000-07:00

By Con George-Kotzabasis

Lawyers spend a great deal of their time shovelling smoke. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

The High Court’s decision that the Gillard Government’s deportation of asylum seekers to Malaysia is unlawful is a devastating blow to Labour’s immigration policy and a lethal hit on Australian border protection. It’s ostensibly clear that a majority of the honourable justices of the court are not immune to the deadly pestilential virus of legal activism whose source has been a number of admirable but impractical human rights enactments by the United Nations which can only be implemented by the abrogation of the national sovereignty of nations. But in the context of judicial activism the immigration policy of Labour would stand its trial before judges who already had the sentence of death in their pockets. The majority of the justices argued that Malaysia not being a signatory of the UN Convention to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol is not legally obliged to protect refugees and therefore is not a suitable country to deport refugees. Moreover, according to refugee advocate Julian Burnside, QC, the justices reminded the government that “Australia is signatory to a number of human rights conventions” and is legally bound to abide by them. However, “Commonwealth Solicitor–General Stephen Gageler argued that the government could lawfully declare Malaysia a safe third country even though it had no domestic nor international legal obligations to protect asylum seekers.” But while lawyers may ‘shovel smoke’ at each other on this issue, the repercussions of the High Court’s decision on immigration policy and border protection are of a serious nature and may cause great harm to Australia.

Zabiullah Ahmadi, an Afghan who lives in Kuala Lumpur, predicts than “within weeks there will be lots of boats...many people have been waiting to see this decision.” Hence, the High Court’s decision will encourage asylum seekers to risk their lives in unseaworthy boats with the hope of reaching the shores of Australia which to many of them, in the context of this decision, has become the refugees nirvana. Another refugee observer, Abdul Rahma, a leader of the Rohingga Community in Malaysia, said, the “Australia-Malaysia deal has been a useful bulwark to stop the tide of asylum seekers risking their lives travelling to Australia. Now they would return to the boats.” With the great probability therefore of an increase in boat smuggling and the attached physical and psychological risks that asylum seekers will have to take, the judges of the High Court have unwittingly, and must I add, foolishly, become accessories before the fact of this great danger to the lives of refugees on board of unseaworthy vessels. Furthermore, the honourable justices by ‘signing on’ the UN Convention on refugees, they have written off the long term interests of Australia in regard to its immigration policy that is of such paramount importance to its future balanced demographic mix. A mix that will not threaten its Western based values and the harmony of its democratic society as it has on many European countries due to an unwise and completely flawed immigration policy that so acrimoniously and precariously has divided the indigenous population and immigrants, as exemplified by the massacre in Norway and the riots in the cities of Britain.

But one must be reminded that the decision of the High Court is a direct outcome of the foolish dismantling by the former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of the successful “Pacific Solution” of Howard’s government that in fact had stopped the refugee boats coming to the shores of Australia. And the serially incompetent and politically effete Julia Gillard who succeeded him to the Lodge had to pick up this can of worms, i.e., this confused new Labour policy that was kicked by Rudd to his successor with his ousting from the Lodge.

In the context of the decision of the High Court the Gillard government has no alternative other than to change by legislation the immigration laws. And it is good to see that in this task to protect the borders of Australia, the Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has stated that the Liberal/National Coalition would support such legislation if the Government would consider Nauru as an offshore refugee centre. It is imperative that this offshore solution must not be replaced by the cretinous stupid proposal of the Greens and their sundry ‘paramours’ of human rights lawyers and refugee advocates that asylum seekers should be held in onshore centres such as on Christmas Island. Such a short sighted harebrained proposal would lead to a stampede of smuggler’s boats hitting the shores of Australia and would be an incentive for ruffians of all kinds to continue entering in greater numbers such a lucrative business.

Finally, the High Court’s decision is a portentous illustration of what is in store for nations who injudiciously and facilely sign international conventions without considering the serious and injurious repercussions such covenants could have on national sovereignty. No wise political leadership would be ‘outsourcing’ the sovereignty of one’s nation.

Defection of Gaddafi's Foreign Minister Presages the Collapse of the Regime

2011-08-22T03:12:00.000-07:00

The following short piece that was written on April 1, 2011, predicted the present collapse of the Gaddafi regime.

NATO in Libya Fraught with Peril April 01, 2011

By Sean Kay The Washington Note

A short reply by Con George-Kotzabasis

Sean Kay’s NATO in Libya Fraught with Peril, is politically inept and has already been overcome by events. As we had predicted, the end result of a decisive military intervention by Western powers would be to bring the collapse of the Gaddafi regime. Now the degringolade of the regime is imminent. This is clearly foreshadowed by the defection of foreign minister Moussa Koussa, a close collaborator of Gaddafi and a former director of Libyan Intelligence to boot, that sets the example for other high officials of the regime to follow.

Who would be a better qualified person than a former director of Intelligence to read correctly the vibes and disposition of the Libyan people toward the regime, and more importantly, the latter’s inability to suppress the bouleversement against it, and hence induce Mr. Koussa, for these reasons, to abandon the doomed sinking ship of Gaddafi?

Which Record is Worse Market Failure or State Failure?

2011-08-06T00:35:00.000-07:00

By Con George-Kotzabasis

Those who so lackadaisically, ignorantly, and one-sidedly, like the liberal ‘questions’, dismiss the efficiency and effectiveness of the “free market” that since its origins and rise has increased by leaps and bounds the standard of living of the masses, according to the Indian economist Amartya Sen, should consider the following: if someone objectively and impartially contrasted historically “market failure” with “state failure” the latter would outweigh the former by tons. A recent egregious example of state failure is President Obama’s spending of a trillion dollars to create jobs. Not to mention the historical example of the failure of the Soviet Union, with its inherently command dirigiste policies, which economists of the stature of Ludwig von Mises had predicted all along.

Technology Despite its Discontents Opens the Door to Prosperity

2011-07-25T19:02:00.000-07:00

By Con George-Kotzabasis

You place important questions in your post. Indeed, technology is an important, if not the most important, “driving force” to globalization, and whilst it unites the world on an economic and a scientific level it simultaneously sunders it on a geopolitical level as a result of the different strategic interests of the major players on the global chessboard.

Globalization however is no longer a choice as it has become virtually an elemental force and those who resist it are bound to suffer its inevitable tragic consequences. Also, whilst many governments that are aware of the problems posed by globalization will “work together”, as I adumbrated above, some will not. But those that will cooperate and deliver political stability and economic prosperity will have the majority of the world’s peoples on their side.

I like your opening with caterpillars and butterflies which concisely illustrates the evolutionary development of all things, and in whose development “creativity” plays the primary role.

Obama Doctrine of Leading from Behind Leads to the Destruction of America's Preponderance

2011-07-16T01:12:00.000-07:00

History teaches that weakness is provocative. Time and again weakness has invited adventures which strength might well have deterred. Donald Rumsfeld

By Con George-Kotzabasis—July 10, 2011

One of Obama’s advisers described oxymoronically the actions of the president in Libya as “leading from behind.” At a historic moment for the people of North Africa and the Middle East when the winds of change are sweeping away a caste of authoritarian regimes, the USA under President Obama, has chosen not to be the avant-garde promoter and backer of this change but its rearguard.

Not since Rome was saved by the cackling of the geese from a barbaric invasion has there been a great event happening as an outcome of a humdrum ‘insignificant’ action. But in Tunisia, in February 2011, a street vendor would save the Arab peoples from the rapacious and brutal clutches of a conglomeration of despotic leaders. In such graphic terms historians write about the fates of people: the catalysts of great events are often the most ordinary of people; and the abortionists and ‘stiflers’ of great events are often those who have power but who are too timorous and abhor to use it due to their Lilliputian leadership. Hence, we see the ‘abortionist’ Obama contra Bouazizi, the Tunisian street vendor who by self-immolating himself in protest against the officials of a corrupt regime sparked the Arab revolt. President Obama as the leader of the most powerful nation of the world that is engaged in war with a mortal enemy, as Commander-in-Chief, instead of decisively helping and making sure that the Arab revolt against their oppressors succeeds, timidly decides, on so called pragmatic grounds, not to commit the necessary resources for such strategic, grandiose, and humane goal.

Furthermore, Obama’s strategic shift to “remove 10,000 of our troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year, and we will bring home a total of 33,000 troops by next summer,” irrespective of conditions on the ground, which was his previous position, and not heeding and rejecting all his military commanders, from Admiral Mike Mullen to General David Petraeus, who cautioned him that an unconditional withdrawal from the country could imperil all the advantages that the Coalition had won over the Taliban with last year’s military surge, and indeed, could increase the danger to the remaining U.S. and allied forces and hence augment the number of casualties among them. President Obama, however, who presumably is deeply concerned about American lives lost in the war, totally disregarded this pre-cautionary and prudent advice coming from his top commanders and stuck doggedly to his schedule of withdrawal, which proved as some commentators said, his pulling out the troops had more to do with his prospects of being re-elected as president in 2012 than with the strategic and security interests of the United States. The sage commentator of the Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer poses the question: so why the choice of the end of summer 2012. The budget savings are trivial but the increased risk of mission failure in Afghanistan is great. The obvious answer is that domestic political considerations motivated President Obama to adopt this profoundly flawed strategy that will embolden its fanatic enemies to open new fields of battles against the U.S., and indeed attack it once again directly. Thus President Obama by disengaging from his implacable and irreconcilable foe externally he will be ‘inviting’ this sinister and deadly enemy to attack America internally.

Afghanistan Remains Pivotal In The War Against Global Terror

The commanders on the ground aimed to consolidating the gains in southern Afghanistan and begin the major operations to secure the east, as their campaign plan had envisioned. With the announced ill-conceived withdrawal that will now be impossible. Moreover, as the outgoing Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen has warned, Obama’s decision will increase the risks to the troops and increase the chance that the mission will not succeed.

The Ivy League law professor, combined with the simplistic tasks of community organizer, who by the mere hateful animus a majority of Americans had against the Bush administration, and by association against Republicans, was pushed into the White House without anyone being genuinely concerned to scrutinize his political astuteness, mettle, experience , and ability to become the Commander-in- Chief in these most dangerous of times, does not comprehend the high stakes involved in a pre-mature withdrawal of U.S. forces from the battlefield of Afghanistan. He is incapable of seeing or unwilling to face the stark reality that America perforce after 9/11 put the flower of its youth in the frontlines of Afghanistan and Iraq for the purpose of defeating a dangerous and irreconcilable enemy, who would continuously threaten the security and well being of Americans until the day when he was totally disabled and beaten. Does the President seriously contemplate that by withdrawing his troops from Afghanistan, pulling them out of harm’s way, as he puts it, he will not be harming inevitably the vital geopolitical interests of the United States and the security and economic interests of its own people? Does he sincerely believe that by the cessation of U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan against the Taliban and the ‘compound’ of Islamist fanatics that are concentrated in the Pak/Afghan region, he will not confronting them again in the near future in the same areas or in other Muslim countries, and indeed, within the heartland of America itself, and that like King Canute he will stop the tidal wave of fanatic terrorism from advancing to the shores of America, especially when the withdrawal will be seen by the combatants of Islam as a decisive defeat, like the Soviet’s, of the American Satan? Does he not understand the Rumsfeldian principle that “weakness is provocative?”

No serious political thinker sees the war against Islamist extremists as a mistake or as an exercise of American expansion and domination. On the contrary, it is seen as a rational and urgent pre-emptive defensive response to the greatest threat that Western civilization will be facing in the twentieth-first century with the possible coupling of terrorists with rogue states armed with weapons of mass destruction. And by its nature, this will be a long war that cannot be shortened by Obamanesque makeshift political contrivances that will satisfy the polloi, and by attitudinal changes toward this fanatical implacable foe. The war can only be shortened, as was shown in Iraq, only when the enemy realizes that he is confronting an unflappable determined opponent who demonstrates his willingness to use his firepower relentlessly and remorselessly against him. It is by instilling the terror of annihilation into the hearts and minds of the terrorists that one can decisively subdue them.

The politically diffident and strategically un-savvy and poll-driven Obama is incapable of carrying on his politically rickety feet the heavy weight of statesmanship on his shoulders and thus protect America and the civilized world from the future ravages that the Islamist witches are concocting against the ‘infidels’. His rearguard presidency of “leading from behind,” saps the political oak of America of all its strength and makes it defenseless against the winds that are stirred up by Allah’s holy warriors. Obama’s unwillingness to engage the Gorgon of terror and its sponsors whenever and wherever it raises its head and cut it off, makes his presidency alien to the greatest danger the world is facing while at the same time enervates America’s preponderance in world affairs. Only the removal of this totally inept and weak president will once again strengthen the United States against this infernal foe who threatens civilized life on a universal scale; only a new president with the daring and vitality of a Perseus to cut off the Gorgon’s head will rescue the ‘unbelievers’ from being decapitated by the scimitar of fanatic Islam.

I rest on my oars:your turn now...

Euthanasia of the Presidency under Obama

2011-07-08T22:11:00.000-07:00

By Con George-Kotzabasis

President Obama is placing the vibrant presidency of the most powerful nation in the world in the hands of the practitioners of euthanasia as if America were in the agony of its death throes. Cynical about America’s global political and military power; cynical about its ability to win the war against its deadly and irreconcilable enemy; cynical about its peoples’ steadfastness and determination to wage war against the fanatical hordes of Islam that threaten America’s heartland; cynical of its European allies’ resolution--under indomitable and sagacious US leadership--to fight the same war; and cynical of the capacity of the best professionally trained armed forces in the world, i.e., the American, to defeat an impromptu organized group of terrorists, who bereft of cool strategic nous in comparison to its ‘infidel’ opponents, are impulsively fighting the Great Satan and all the other little Satans of the West with the fanatical cry of Allahu Akbar, President Obama has chosen, due to this inveterate cynicism and to his guileful and odious politics as we shall see further down, most imprudently strategically and politically and sans amour propre to retreat from the battlefield, with macabre geopolitical consequences for America’s prestige as a superpower, and take cover behind a no longer fortress America.

As we predicted early in 2009, during the long gestation of the president’s ‘new strategy’ for Afghanistan which under the pretence of giving serious consideration to the request of his senior commander in Afghanistan General McChrystal to increase the troops by 40,000, he dithered his decision not however for the purpose of how to win the war but for the purpose of weighing the political costs that would accrue to him if he had accepted the advice of his general. And when finally he made his decision, he increased the troops by 30,000 while handing to his National Security team a memo setting the strict terms that this increase included the July 2011 start date for a US troop withdrawal. Hence, Obama as Commander-in-Chief, whilst his brave soldiers and astute generals were spilling their blood in the rugged terrain of Afghanistan fighting the Taliban with the aim of defeating them, all he was thinking about were the political costs that would bear upon him as a result of his apparent greater involvement in the unpopular war. So Obama’s ‘serious’ and long deliberations before he made his decision had nothing to do with a new strategy, emanating from his status as Commander-in-Chief, to defeat the Taliban but had everything to do with his status as political shyster who was only concerned about his polls.

The increase of troops by 30,000 was strategically meaningless as it had not the aim of defeating the enemy since it merely served Obama’s political rationale of not seeming to be weak on war while at the same time placating the anti-war crowd by announcing the withdrawal of all US forces from Afghanistan. What strategist of any substance would increase his forces in the field of battle only to withdraw them without inflicting upon his enemy a mortal blow? And what kind of leader would place an increased number of his soldiers in danger and continue a war that he thinks is unwinnable when his main purpose was to withdraw them from such war, why would he have increased them in the first place if he was planning to withdraw them if not for his concealed ill-design to dupe the American people, to present himself as both a war president and a peaceful one? In reality of course, Obama is neither of these but a political Shylock who demands his pound of flesh from his troops fighting in Afghanistan in order to play his despicable politics at home so he can placate both those Americans who support the war and those who are against it.

From Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Charles Martel, to Napoleon all strategies had a clear and unique goal, to defeat the foe. Only President Obama, who as the most repulsive of political manipulators is wantonly sacrificing the interests of the nation to his own narrow political interests, is disgracefully and timorously traducing this irreversible principle of war and turning himself into a cartoonist mockery as Commander-in-Chief of a great nation.

Afghanistan during Obama’s political campaign was a “war of necessity” that was neglected by President Bush and a war that must be won. But according to Bob Woodward’s new book titled Obama’s Wars, this is no longer so. Obama is quoted as saying, “This needs to be a plan about how we are going to handed it off and get out of Afghanistan.” And the outcome of the policy review and its long deliberations was the offspring of “political considerations,” according to a State Department official. Obama himself reportedly said to Senator Lindsey Graham, “I can’t lose the whole Democratic Party” on the issue of Afghanistan. General Petraeus felt so affronted by White House demands for an exit strategy at all costs that he told his aids, “They are f...king with the wrong guy.” Another senior general said that the announcement of the withdrawal by President Obama, gave “sustenance to the Taliban.” Moreover, the policy review has engendered serious divisions within the Joint Chiefs of Staff, National Security Council, and the Defense Department and between American and Afghan officials. Jim Jones, the National Security adviser, calls the ‘bosom’ advisers of Obama, David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel variously as the “mafia” the “campaign set” and the “politburo.” And General Petraeus has dubbed Axelrod as the spin artist in residence, and I would add the spin-master who can win elections and lose wars.

These revelations of Bob Woodward are toxic to Obama’s presidency and threaten to unleash a spate of resignations of top echelons of the Administration. In short, the presidency at this critical moment of national security and war is in a state of disarray. And no matter how he is going to re-arrange the musical chairs of his sinking presidency after losing the better performers, the future ones that will occupy them will be the worst performers that he could get. No one of sterling qualities, of the best and the brightest, will have an inkling to join an intellectually, politically, morally, and strategically bankrupt administration and be branded everlastingly with such an ignominiously failed presidency. Obama by debasing the political currency of a great nation will become the victim of Gresham’s Law. The bad and base currency of circulating officials that will bid for the positions of the Administration will drive the good and golden currency of officials out of circulation for these posts. Hence Obama’s future administration will be filled by political parvenus, professional opportunists, and Cagliostro like political impostors and all ‘playing their tunes’ under the conductors of spin. Such an outcome will seriously undermine America’s prestige and éclat as a superpower. It will momentously endanger the vital interests of the nation and its security by enticing its mortal enemies to attack it, as they see that the rudder of America in the rough seas of the world is in the hands of an incompetent and weak president. The question is whether Americans will allow this to happen and whether they will have the intelligence and courage to use all means to stop it and put an end to Obama’s Directorate of social democracy and to stop at the eleventh hour the euthanasia of the presidency.

I rest on my oars: Your turn now

Homegrown Terror Copycats Baghdad

2011-07-03T00:44:00.000-07:00

By Con George-Kotzabasis

The latest attempts in London, Glasgow, and New York by home grown terrorists to strike innocent civilians and kill them in their hundreds that failed only because of the clumsiness of the terrorists, despite their godly-inspired guidance, are a dress rehearsal of the mise en scene that home-grown terror is staging for the cities of Western civilization. The car bombs of Baghdad that are being such successful deadly instruments in killing hundreds of civilians at a time, are now being imported into the shopping and leisure malls of the West by the western Muslim ensconced terrorists. This will be the greatest danger that city commuters will be facing in the very near future by the suicidal fanatics who while burning alive will still call “Allah, Allah”, during the execution of their murderous deeds.

The use of car bombs is not only effective in inflicting widespread carnage, but is also economically cheaper and most of all harder to detect. And because of the greater difficulties that terrorists are encountering in hijacking aircraft as a result of the greater security in airports, they will opt therefore for the car bombs and bomb belts that are by far more elusive in being identified as such, and hence, “leapfrog” this greater security that has been set up by governments in Western countries.

It’s therefore for the above three reasons, that we will be seeing home grown terror bringing the meme of Baghdad on western streets and spreading death and havoc in the metropolises of Europe, America, and Australasia.

Mount Globalization or be its Prey

2011-06-10T03:55:00.000-07:00

The following paper was written and published on September 2001. It's republished here for the readers of this new blog.

By Con George-Kotzabasis

A tiger is stalking the world the tiger of globalization. Nations and peoples who, gazelle-like, are frightened and take flight before the huge ferocious “life-threatening” leaps and bounds of this tiger, are to be mauled and be eaten, as no swift flight can make them escape from the lightning speed with which globalization pursues its quarry.

For this will be the fate of nations and peoples who chose to be the prey instead of being the “hunter” of globalization. To be the hunter however, does not imply that one has to slay the “beast” of globalization. Instead, it implies that like a consummate broncobuster, one has to mount the tiger and adapt to its fast and sinewy movements while at the same time “taming” it.

This is the only way that countries can save themselves from the threatening onslaught of globalization. More importantly still, to be among its winners. But it’s fundamentally important to be prudent winners, that is, the winner does not take all. No clever country or wise person would desire to be an absolute winner. Only gamblers would crave to be so. But the wins of a casino are ephemeral wins, and soon and inevitably are followed by loses. Hence, if the winners of globalization wish and aspire to keep and to augment their gains, it’s necessary that they look after and take care of the losers of globalization. As the latter can only be politically sustained and continue to succeed and be beneficial to mankind if it’s a “caring globalization”, if its heart is the “make –up” of its robust mien. If not, it will face the freezing winds of a backlash of a ‘winter of discontent’, of all the countries and peoples who are fearful of its storming of the globe. Its losers therefore will be diffident and distrustful of the touted benefits that could accrue to them, and hence reluctant to admit the Lexus into the groves of their olive trees, to paraphrase Thomas Friedman, of the New York Times.

The currently unstoppable revolution in technology, finance, and information, has made all nations vulnerable to the waves of global competition. Only those nations that swim on the crests of these waves will survive and be the winners in this relentless struggle. This implies moreover, that no nation can economically survive in isolation even if it possesses unique and an abundance of natural resources. Nor can it appeal to the bungled remedies of the past, such as the provision of subsidies to defunct industries. Nor can it depend on the invention of new populist nostrums, such as “fair trade” proposed by the dinosaur delegates in a Labor Party Conference in Hobart. On the contrary, only through the process of creative reconstruction in the economic, industrial, commercial, and social structures of a country, is the "waydrome" to success. In this context, to talk about fair trade is to live in dodo fairyland. Indeed, it’s like asking Olympian super athletes, like Cathy Freeman, to be fair to their lesser competitors.

How to Deal with the Challenge of Globalzation

Thomas Friedman in his book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, argues, that ‘the revolution in technology, finance, and information did three things. It lowered the barriers of entry into almost any business, and it rapidly increased competition and the speed by which a product moves from being an innovation to being a commodity.’ Technology expands production to global dimensions, ‘knitting the world together.’ Finance with the collapse of regulated exchange rates, penetrates all the profitable niches of the world in its avaricious dynamic drive for profit. No raising of granite protective walls or the setting up of any barriers can prevent the ‘ “Electronic Herd’s” ‘ power to move its capital on world markets. Furthermore, information technology ‘brings home to everyone how ahead or behind they are in contrast to other countries.’ This provides a cue and spurs people to invest in countries where lucrative profits can be made by ‘investing through the internet on a global scale.’ Hence, the world is no longer carried on the back of the slow moving Atlas, but on the back of the swift electron-moving Microchip. In such a world all kind of barriers have the strength of a plastic balloon. But even if it were possible to erect impenetrable barriers, the countries that did so would bring upon themselves “the day after”, the consequences of “nuclear” economic and social devastation. That is, the result for these countries would be to throw themselves into the abyss of poverty and squalor, and hence unwittingly deprive their people the opportunity to become wealthier by being on the trajectory of globalization.

It’s by accepting the challenges of globalization with imagination and boldness that countries and their peoples will not only be strengthening their intellectual and moral fiber that will position them on the launching pad of globalization, but will also be transporting them to the land of cornucopia, to material and spiritual abundance. It’s imperative therefore, that political leaders deliberately and consciously decide to prepare their people to enter into this benign circle of feedback. That is, the intellectual and moral strength and knowledge of their people will maximize the benefits accruing from globalization and minimize its disadvantages. And the successes of actively being engaged with the cutting-edge of the globe will in turn further enhance this intellectual and moral vigor and knowledge of their people. In such a brave new world, one has to tell people to ‘remove their belongings’, to use a phrase of Vladimir Nabokov, of moaning. There is no room for resentment and gripe against countries and peoples who succeed. Success itself will be redistributed and will not remain in the same hands. Everyone will have the opportunity, endowed with grit, chutzpah, and entrepreneurial flair, to succeed.

For the first time in human history, globalization has the potential to bring in its wake the “democratization of success”. No scion of elites will be able to capture its benefits and lock them up ever safely and ever after in their vaults. The microchip is sovereign. Hence the corridors of wealth will be accessible to all who have the knowledge and ambition to use it. And if Shakespearian sovereigns could trade their kingdoms for a horse, business scions, like James Packer, will have to trade their wealth and power for a microchip.
Globalization also has the potential to usher in the empowerment of all classes and creeds. Ironically, capitalist globalization might realize Marx’s dream- the fulfillment of the individual who performs his practical affairs during the day, fishes in the evening, and writes and “practices” poetry during the night. And to cap it all, the Communist Manifesto’s slogan, “workers of the world unite”, could be accomplished by globalization. The only difference being that the unity of workers will not arise out of enmity against capitalist entrepreneurs, but out of the benign desire to emulate the achievements of the latter, as every worker with the required training and knowledge will have the ability of doing so.

How to Raise all Boats and Canoes in this inundation of globalization

We need however to be critically aware of the downside of globalization and treat its blemishes effectively. It’s a truism that not all people will benefit from globalization. There will be losers! In all civilizations there have been winners and losers. The human race cannot jump over the shadow of this accursed fact. Either as a result of individual propensities or lack of resilience and ability to adapt to the new, and strenuous circumstances of globalization, many people will fall behind and will be disadvantaged. But because of globalization’s vast production of wealth, it has the capacity to compensate the losers, and indeed, to pull them out of their disadvantaged position. In this task governments will play a decisive role.

First, they will have to deal with the backlash that arises from people who are struck with the dire effects of globalization. While globalization shortens the distances of the world and makes it accessible to many people and improves economically their well-being, at the same time it lengthens the rusty chain of un-economic and defunct industries in many developed and developing countries. Many workers, therefore, who for years worked in these industries, are thrown out of them and find themselves unemployed and unemployable. The direct beneficiaries of globalization therefore, not only have a moral responsibility, but also a vested interest, to take care of the disenfranchised from the advantages of globalization, if the latter are to be prevented from being converted into modern Luddites, and start smashing the machine of globalization, by means of war, terrorism, and computer hacking.

Secondly, to head off and pacify this backlash, governments will have to prise open new thinking horizons, and to transform this resentment into support for globalization. Since inequality among human beings, as well as of other primates, is nature’s regime, governments must contrive clever policies to redress and reverse this order of inequality and bring some sort of balance in this inequity of nature. In the “clever” country, prosperity does not have to be equated with “equality”. People do not have to be equal in certain natural endowments with those who generate wealth and prosperity, to share the fruits of this prosperity. The process of globalization begets such huge wealth that it would not be difficult for governments to impose the burden upon, and indeed persuade, its producers, that it’s to their own interest to share part of this wealth with the disadvantaged of globalization. Especially, when this divestment of wealth will not diminish the capital investment funds of the former, as we will show below.

Thirdly, governments will redistribute this part of wealth by the following international multilateral policy mechanism, by imposing a levy or surtax on the profits of all “globetrotting” corporations, financial institutions, and foreign currency speculators. Once, these funds of the levy are collected by governments, they will be transmitted to an international body set up by these governments. Let us name this body the International Globalization Fund (IGF). The central task of this entity will be (a) to identify those nations and peoples whose livelihood has been affected negatively by globalization, and (b) to subsidize the buying of shares in multinational corporations and world financial institutions, by these nations and peoples. In the case of some people who might not have any financial savings of their own, the IGF will provide them with special securities or bonds, thus enabling them, despite their lack of savings, to be shareholders in this international economy. Moreover, such a policy will not engender any disincentives to private enterprise. As the funds accruing from the levy will not be spend by governments in fuzzy, boondoggle industrial plans or in subsidizing defunct industries, at the expense of the private sector. The build up of a “hydraulic pipe” between the international economy and the disadvantaged of this economy, will allow the funds that are transmitted to the latter in the form of subsidies and securities by the IGF, to be sluiced back through this pipe to the multinational corporations in the form of equity capital. Hence, the investment funds of these entrepreneurial entities will not be diminished.

Thus, the eyes of all, not only of those who gain directly from their engagement with globalization, will be focused on the screens of the computers. Even people who lack knowledge and adeptness to use the modern technology will enter and be denizens of this brave new world of the internet, as equity holders. Sharing the wealth that is spawned by the Midas microchip touch of globalization. The magic flying carpet of globalization will have everyone aboard.

It depends on the creative thinking, imagination and Thatcherite will and determination of governments whether globalization will be politically and economically sustainable. And whether by riding it, the fruits of its wealth will also be distributed to all those nations and peoples whose livelihoods are going to be lost in this process of ‘creative destruction’. Whether the opening of the floodgates of globalization will raise all boats and canoes in this global inundation of its waters.

HIC RHODUS HIC SALTA

The article was written on September 17, 2001, and was first published in the English supplement of Neos Kosmos on the same date