Meanwhile in Europe...

All European Governments are bailing out their auto industries.
The auto crisis has everything to do with the current administration disastrous energy policy and Iraq war and little to do with GM or Ford models. GM and Ford are very successful in Europe.
German auto workers are all unionized (3,6 million members!) Unions not only help set up wages, but have mandatory seats on the board and all auto companies MUST have a workers'council that decides on policy.
The average worker's salary at Porsche's, Opel (GM) or VW is 1,600$ a week for a 35 hr week. Workers are paid a 13th month at Christmas. Like all German citizens, they are entilted to 6 weeks paid vacation and enjoy 100% medical coverage courtesy of their Universal Medical Insurance scheme. Their children go to college free of charge and like any German kid, can also attend free training classes in the Industry.

US auto workers would be competitive if their companies were not burdened by an insane healthcare system that enriches the few and puts the US at the bottom of OECD countries ranking.

The posse of Southern Senators who want to score against the UAW at the expense of the country are the same people who have given huge subsidies to foreign manufacturers in their states. they have chosen Japan and Korea over their own country. Shame on them.

Separated at birth?

In true Grinch fashion, Senator Mc Connell is giving lumps of coal to Detroit workers. Not satisfied with having ruined the nation with their ideology since Reagan, Congressional republicans are hell bent on destroying what is left of it, the hard working blue collar middle class. It is ok to bail out reckless bankers who gambled our savings, but if the workers' Unions do not commit hara-kiri, our Confederate rump Republicans would rather let the whole manufacturing sector of America go down the tubes. Lets get rid of the only group to defend the working class and their working conditions. It does not hurt that Japanese automakers are located in Tennessee either!

There are 3 parallel downward curves starting in 1981: Union membership, education levels and the US ranking by WHO. Not a coincidence.
Henry Ford knew a thing or two when he decided to pay his workers enough so they could afford a Model T.
But in a last salvo, a band of republican dinosaurs is unabashedly trying to hurt the working man and his unions to win a last one for the Gipper.
Bravo Mitch the Grinch. Remember Scrooge and look out for a few ghosts.

From Silicon Valley to Africa

Last week, I added a few miles to my account. For the cognoscenti, I flew to the following airports between Nov. 30 and Dec.11. : TPA-JFK-LGA-DCA-IAD-OAK-IAD-DAK-IAD.
The first week was dedicated to compare the French way of raising funds to the new `Venture Philanthropy`` in the US. A new way to raise funds for the neediest. In France and in the US, we are faced with Public authorities who can no longer finance basic needs in terms of health and education. The logical end of a long running policy of No New Taxes.
This week, I was in Africa, where the world was discussing its successes in fighting TB and malaria. For AIDS, the record is not quite as good. Overall, the situation in Africa is not good, with a steady deterioration aggravated by the financial crisis.
The contrast in one week between the Stanford campus and the streets of Dakar was sobering. It is true, if you it is like riding a bike. If you stop pedalling you will fall. They have started to fall.

G 20 meeting.

The 20 most powerful countries in the world met this week end to propose solutions to the crisis. I was lucky enough to play a minor role in this gathering. I was the proverbial fly on the wall , first at the evening dinner , and then at the conference. Washington was enveloped in a pink mist that evening, that gave a melancholy impression, quite in tune with the moment. Greed broke the back of a world economy, which, until now, roared from record to record. The Europeans are determined to severely restrict greed and make the presence of Big Brother felt at every transactions. The US are trying to resist, But real power, is in the hands of leaders who have acquired our wealth through our own sins: China, the Gulf Emirates, Saudi Arabia etc. We could not have picked less democratic regimes. Alas, He who pays the piper calls the tune.
Are we ready to have to receive our marching orders in Chinese characters?

President-elect Obama.

I was lucky enough to be at "Election plaza" in New York City when they announced that Barack Obama had clinched the election. I was engulfed in a very emotional crowd. People of all colors and origins embraced each other and there was not a dry eye. I felt at that time that this country contains a vital energy that does not exist anywhere else. It thrives on challenges, and, whereas our European allies love to write America's obituary on a regular basis, it is precisely at its hour of deepest crisis that it is reborn, a cross between the mythical Phoenix and "Groundhog day". If there is one country that will get out from under in this catastrophic economic era, it is the US.
Thank God the Bush era is over. One of Obama's hardest tasks will be to re-connect with our allies and other countries. But as long as the previous administration enjoys impunity, the rest of the world might not be convinced the page has turned

In the meantime, back at the barn.......

Although it may be early to write the History chapter related to the George Bush presidency, it is now time to ask Reagan's famous question: "Are you better off than 8 years ago?"
The answer borders on the cruel...Both wars are faltering. After thousands of death and trillions of wasted dollars, we are paying off the enemy in Irak and about to hand over power to the Talibans in Afghanistan. The economy is in a free fall. Our car companies about to disappear. Detroit will be just as abandonned as New Orleans. The loss of two major cities and part of New York. I won't mention the Constitution nor America's status abroad.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the aerth, the Chinese are doing well, thank you. Oh, they slowed down to "only 9% annual growth. But they build more Chryslers and Buicks than the US. Their "taikonauts" had a successful spacewalk, a rehearsal before their planned moonwalk. And, their leaders just met the leaders of 27 European and 20 Asian countries, to decide what to do with their wayward American friends. No American was invited.

Lessons from the bank crisis.

Who would have thought that a Republican Administration would have nationalized US banks? After the absolute shambles caused by the buying of politicians in order to get rid of regulations, our Masters of the Universe have to eat humble pie. Hank Paulson himself told his counterparts that it was "humbling" to represent the US at this time.
This worldwide disaster is one more scalp on GWB's belt. You did a heck of a job Bushie!
The French, the Europeans and the US treasury all had their solution, which means that nothing would work. After long discussions, for which I was the proverbial "fly on the wall", our leaders promptly adopted Gordon Brown's solution, the radical takeover of most large private banks.
This is not socialism, it is merely a shot in the arm to repair a virus sown by greed and a political system gone wild. The constant campaign US politicians are caught in , force them to raise funds 24/7. Lobbyists use it to exchange funds for easier rules. The result is a worldwide recessiom an increase in world poverty (+ 100 million people in only 1 month), the wiping out of our savings, retirement funds and housing stock, and one more grudge the World will bear against the US.

We are lucky Globalization worked in the guise of the IMF annual meetings.
I, was lucky enough to be present at these meetings and witness some of these discussions.
There is a direct link between Reganomics {dubbed voodoo economics by Bush pere), Enron, the Newt Gingrich revolution, the ruthless culture wars of the christian right, the organized plunder of the State by the likes of Abramof, the disregard for the Constitution by the neocons, and the catastrophic wars of preemption : hubris, lack of any sense of reality, greed, power craze, and a profound lack of respect for their fellow human beings. All this is linked.
It will take the effort of the entire world and generations of US citizens to repair the damage caused by this handful of political thugs.
"Ill gotten gains never last"!
How different the world would be today if the 2000 election had been free of fraud!

Capitalism

As Churchill used to say about Democracy, Capitalism is the least bad of all the systems we have tried so far. true, like Democracy, it seems that the Chinese version is more popular in today's world than its US counterpart. But just like the US version of Democracy, the Bush version of capitalism has left the world in shambles. It all started under Ronald Reagan. A pleasant fool, who understood absolutely nothing about economics (I witnessed that first hand during the Williamsburg G7 summit in 83), he was persuaded by rich friends to deregulate beyond reason and privatize everything that moved. He gave us the 1987 crash, millions of unemployed and the beginning of the end of the auto-industry.
Enters Georges W. Bush. On his watch, the financial industry pushed lobbying to new heights, paid generous sums to Republicans and blew up the last dams, the last safeguards and the last brakes of the running freight train of unfettered capitalism. Alas, John Stuart Mills, the father of capitalism, makes sure that the "invisible hand of the market is operating within bounds, with accountability and guidance from Congress.
The schemes devised by feckless financiers, in order to capture ever higher bonuses from their shareholders, were so opaque and arcane, that nobody, not even themselves could understand them. Besides a dereliction of duty from bought congressmen, and inept Administration officials, it must be said that the remnants of a regulating industry was way behind the curve, so dizzying was the inventive mind of our scheming heroes.
Greed, ineptness, and gullibility gelled to give us a horrible and dangerous mess.
Gone are all hopes of creating a single payer universal health care system. It will take generations to repay the trillions of dollars needed to plug the leaks (borrowed from which new master of the World?), and capitalism and the US way of Life have suffered yet another terrible blow.

Africa

I just come back from Ghana, after a visit to China and Europe.
China is still vibrating from the Olympics. many in the West have dwelt on human rights and Internet ban, on Tibet and arrests of dissenters. And yet, one has to admire the vitality and the progress accomplished by the Chinese since the revolution. Besides, we westerners will not engage the Chinese if we start by making them lose face. The incidents with the OLYMPIC flame only gathered the Chinese around their flag.
In Africa, I was attending a conference on "Aid Efficiency" .50 years after independence,Africans still live a precarious life, with 1 dollar and 25 cts a day. The bottom billion lives below subsistence level, still.
China's presence on the continent is impressive . They are building infrastructure, supplying manpower, and impressing African leaders with their brand of authoritarian cum prosperity regimes.
With the terrible reputation of the US and the lethargy of Europe, democracy is no longer the way of the future for Africans.

Impunity

The page is about to be turned. GWB has already checked out and is thinking about Crawford. The American public is not interested in the past and knows that impeachments are messy.And yet. As long as there is no accountability for the infractions to the Constitution, human rights violations, violation of the UN Charter, war crimes,and other crimes and misdemeanor committed by the Bush administration, World Public Opinion will not follow the United States.
To wit: Most Europeans accept Russia's invasion of Georgia as morally equivalent to the invasion of Iraq.What is good for the goose is good for the gander. As long as the US has not faced its recent past, it will have no real voice to defend human rights.

It is a real weakness for the US, but, worse, it is a fatal flaw for the world community or at least the West (what Americans keep calling the Free World"). The Putins of the world know full well that there is nobody out there that can shame them.

Shame on all those who, for ideological reasons, want to sweep this sad chapter in US history, under the carpet.

Obama and the Europeans

Just as the US media have mistaken the very protectionist Mr. Sarkozy for aan all out US sympathizer, I am afraid the European public is vastly mistaken about Mr. Obama. The 200,000 spectators from all over Europe who cheered B.O. around the Victory Column in Berlin (a monument honoring Bismarck and the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine), stopped swooning when the US candidate asked them for more commitment to the war in Afghanistan.
Barack Obama is a great hero for the European left which sees in him a mix of Malcolm X and Jack Kennedy.Their adulation is in direct relation with their hatred of the hapless George W. Bush. I was amzed to see marginalized arab and black kids of French immigrant ghettoes sign petitions in favor of Obama. They too have illusions about the phenom.
The immense wave of hope and admiration raised by B.O.on the Old Continent shows that there is still great admiration and expectations about America. The recent disaffection was almost entirely due to the war in Iraq and the likes of Rumsfeld, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo etc. An Obama administration could actually regain credit rather quickly.

But Obama is not the Messiah the young Islamists of the Paris suburbs have been expecting, neither is he the gutless pacifist most Europeans have become. An Obama Administration would expect Europe to send more of its youth to the front, and will certainly nt put America's interest behind that of the rest of the Globe.

What the Vulcans wrought.

Who still remembers 2003, when the then Masters of the Universe, the so-called Vulcans, thumbed their nose at the World, invaded an independent nation, snubbed the UN and declared the Geneva Convention quaint. Their counterpart geniuses, other heirs of St Ronald Reagan practiced their art in the economy. They gave us Enron, New Orleans, the subprime crisis, Fannie Mae, and a 4.40$ a gallon gas.We can discuss the total destruction of American values and reputation abroad, the gigantic debt and the huge power given to Iran later. But as a result of the "go-it-alone", exceptionalist, no-regulation, trickle down world of the Neocons, we now have to ride Smart cars instead of Hummers and drink Stella instead of Bud. The Emiratis have bought the Chrysler building.City Bank, United, Delta, Wachovia Fannie Mae and countless other pillars of US capitalism are going belly up.
Good Bye Clydesdales, Hello Belgian horse!

JULY 4TH

This is my first July 4th as an American.
I have had the usual firework, music and backyard grill. The Constitution is still going strong after 232 years. in spite of the Patriot Act, TIA, Guantanamo, and other frontal attacks it has righted itself . A survey tells us that over 90% of the population feels patriotic. Patriotism, according to Dr. Johnson, is the last refuge of the scoundrel. One thing is to be proud of one's country and quite another to be for "my country right or wrong". As a recent citizen and as a world traveler, I think that, if the USA are a great country, many people around the world think the same about their own country. The worst side of patriotism is the blind acquiescence of the worst excesses in the name of love of country. On the contrary, the true patriot never hesitates to criticize his government whenever it errs, or worse, violates its own Constitution.

See you in November

After a prolonged tragedy, the Democratic campaign ends in a farce. The "Hillary quit" camp has won. All the weak sisters have jumped ship. Oprah Winfrey's latest wonder,Barack Obama has been anointed by the DNC last Saturday at the Marriott in DC. 30 delegates have wiped out the vote of 600,000 Michigan voters in a coup reminiscent of Florida in 2000. The last vestige of a shred of a figment of American democracy has finally fallen.
The hate the country has for the Clintons blinded the media and the party elders to the point of picking a young upstart with nothing to offer but "Hope" and "change" (the oldest political trick in the world), rather than a seasoned politician with a solid progressive program.
Hillary "lost" with a majority of the votes (Hello Al Gore!).
Come January 2009, on president McCain's inauguration day, I will not watch the media trying to explain what happened.
For some incredible reason, the Democratic party deprived itself of a great candidate to bank on an illusion.
I am waiting for really solid arguments not to vote for John McCain.

Mobutu Sese Seko

I have had the dubious honor of meeting President Mobutu Sese Seko Wa penza....etc. I also met Presidents Eyadema, Houphouet Boigny, Mengistu, Omar Bongo, etc. I must admit I had to shake their hands (But , hey, I also had to shake GWB's).
I have generally not been impressed by the administrations of the above mentionned rulers.
Whether Mugabe, (I also had the misfortune of meeting him), or thabo M'Beki, Paul Biya, or the current elected dictator of Kenya, Sankara or Sekou Toure, none of my African acquaintances impressed me with their skills.
Great speakers, they all insisted on Hope and Reconciliation . They were all victims of Bwana, the mean Toubab.
I am voting for Hillary.

The losing machine

The French say they have the stupidest Right in the world. I believe the US have the stupidest Left. Before the campaign started, Hillary Clinton was the anointed candidate, far superior to all her rivals, true and tried, with an ironclad platform, and coming after the worst president the republic had ever seen.

The media, Tim Russert, George Stephanopoulos, The washington Post, Broder, Robinson, etc.., the very same journalists and pundits to whom we owe both the two disastrous GWB terms and the war in Iraq , thank you very much, decided to spice up the race.
In part to settle an old account with Bill Clinton, whom they never managed to destroy, and to jack up their numbers, encouraged a young upstart, Barack Obama to challenge Hillary.
Obama, untried and untested, launched his campaign with a visit to Oprah, a true measure of the seriousness of his candidacy. After all she already gave us Dr. Phil!
Today, every Hillary win is minimized, every Obama loss is forgiven, and any Hillary hanger-on is painted as a racist for good measure.
What about the 98% black voters who vote Obama? Not the race card?
Is the glass ceiling harder to break than the race barrier?
Instead of having an unbeatable candidate facing John Mc Cain, the stupid left now has two weakened candidates. One weakened by the Press (Quit Hillary, Quit!), the other weakened because he will lose the white vote, the female vote, the catholic vote,the hispanic vote and the blue collar vote and perhaps my vote come November.
If Obama is the Democratic candidate, many Hillary backers will either abstain or, worse, vote Republican.
Obama could have waited for his turn, he could even have been a great vice-president.
But no, the pundits had to take their revenge on the Clintons. That will show her!
We will all end up with a 3rd GWB term.
thank you Oprah!
Thank you Chris!
What part of the Clinton legacy was so hard to swallow? Peace or prosperity?
The dummest Left in the world.

Images

I just came back from the UN in New York, where I attended the UN Forum on indigenous rights. Indigenous nations from all over the world came up with the first UN Declaration on Indigenous Rights. Topics such as the effect of Climate change on the SIDS, the preservation of Indigenous languages, or the promotion of land titles for First nations were hotly debated.
It was a nice complement to the week before , where I was in Tokyo, attending a meeting of the G 8 Education group in charge of implementing the 2nd Millenium Goal, Education for all.
One is struck, when hearing these debates, how much more fundamental these conversations are, than the latest sound bite about Rev. Jim Wright or Bosnian sniper fire from last Century. (I happen to know that Rev. Wright speaks for all blacks and gives a very good description of their state of mind. And why would not blacks think like that?) What troubles me is that Obama was not strong enough to champion the cause of all the blacks who voted for them. Instead, when came the time to own up to it, he played the part of St Peter when the rooster sang three times... Disappointing, but not surprising for a candidate who never had to face a tough question until now.
I was still mulling the interview I had the other day with Jeremy Rifkin on the dichotomy between Efficiency and Affectivity, when I met a living Hero, Bronislaw Geremek, founder of Solidarnosc. Humble, learned, a historian who made history, a patriot who was jailed by traitor to his country, you know greatness when you hear him.
The Olympic flame riots have really riled the Chinese and their government has skillfully used the videos around the world to rally the population around the image of country about to lose face. Face is the singlest most important currency in the Middle Kingdom, and all the pro-Tibet do-gooders have not realized they were walking right into the trap!

Tintin in Tibet

The recent riots in Tibet have thrown a shadow over the Beijing Olympic games.
Ever since its de facto annexation by China in 1960, Tibet has been a thorn in the side of the Middle Kingdom.
The Mongols were the first to throw Tibetans and han Chinese together in the IX Century AD. Ever since Tibet has been the object of wars and unrest. The Dalai lama, spiritual leader of Tibet, lives in exile in India.
It is probable that activist Tibetans saw a golden opportunity to rattle their cage when the entire world is about to shine a light on China at the occasion of the Olympic games. Some have asked to boycott the games. I think it is a mistake.
Chinese people are very sensitive to FACE. By making the authorities lose face, the would be boycoters would only harden their stance. Besides, the Chinese population would surely side with their government.

There is probably a long way to go to accomodate both communities. But diplomacy, integration, regionalization in an age of globalization, and, perhaps federalism, might be better suited to solve the problem than criticism.

Greed

Our era is marked by a surfeit of news. But paradoxically, we know less than our grand parents learned from their gazette. Amid the clutter of information, how are we to sort out the grain fron the chaff? Beyonce's wedding, the olympic torch, Obama's slip... We sort of missed the return of hunger in the World.
Institutional investors no longer want to park their money in a tattered US dollar.Investing in real estate turned out to be a bad deal, just as rotten as investing in dot coms. So the world traders are now betting on commodities. This explains partly why oil is going through the roof, as well as gold, steel, coal paper etc. Unfortunately, these financial blood hounds have also decided to speculate on foodstuff. The price of grain, rice, meat, and other staples is on a fast ascending spiral.
This has hit poor countries badly. When you are on 1 or 2 dollars a day, the doubling or tripling of the price of rice is the difference between life and death. People have started rioting all over the world.

Since Ronald Reagan, regulations and rules enforcement has been sacrificed on the altar of greed. We are now reaping its bitter crop.