CapitalistImperialistPig

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When GWB took office, the dollar was worth about 1.20 Euros. It's now down to about 0.70. http://www.marketwatch.com/tools/quotes/intchart.asp?symb=C_EUR&time=20&freq=1&comp=&compidx=aaaaa%7E0&compind=&uf=0&ma=&maval=&lf=1&lf2=&lf3=&type=2&size=1&txtstyle=&style=&submitted=true&intflavor=basic&origurl=%2Ftools%2Fquotes%2Fintchart.asp

China and the US are the power couple of the modern economics, but there are some clouds on the marital horizon. Michael Pettis, filling in on Brad Setser's Blog takes a look at the immediate future of this co-dependent relationship: It is hard to overestimate the importance to China's near-term and longer-term prospects of the 17th Plenum in two weeks. These meetings, held every five years, are the main events of China’s political cycles and it is during these meetings that the big promotions to senior positions within the Party and, juiciest of all, membership in the Standing Committee of the Politburo are made. The Standing Committee consists of the nine men (previously seven, and there are not completely credible rumors that it may be reduced to seven again – the decision has everything to do with factional fighting) who are the ultimate source of power in China today, and is headed by President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. Although the deliberations are secr...

Seymour Hersh, writing in The New Yorker , has an update on Bush-Cheney plans for attack on Iran. There is a slow motion feel of inevitability about the whole thing, like watching the approach of a comet that will destroy the planet, looking on helplessly as this great disaster unfolds. Having utterly failed in Iraq, and having clearly strengthened both Iran and terrorism in the process, Bush and Cheney want only to dig faster and deeper. A snippet: At a White House meeting with Cheney this summer, according to a former senior intelligence official, it was agreed that, if limited strikes on Iran were carried out, the Administration could fend off criticism by arguing that they were a defensive action to save soldiers in Iraq. If Democrats objected, the Administration could say, “Bill Clinton did the same thing; he conducted limited strikes in Afghanistan, the Sudan, and in Baghdad to protect American lives.” The former intelligence official added, “There is a desperate effort by Che...

A good story need a some thoroughly despicable villains. Somebody like Bellatrix Lestrange who takes real delight from evil and cruelty. George Bush hardly seems to fit the bill - he is evil, all right, but in such an addled and dimwitted way that it's hard to get any real satisfaction from our contempt. Bill Kristol, though, shows some real promise. He looks the part with those vestiges of preppy good looks and that slithery smile. Steve Benen of TPM catches him in form on Fox News: "[W]henever I hear anything described as a heartless assault on our children, I tend to think it's a good idea. I'm happy that the President's willing to do something bad for the kids."

OK, I'm not talking about the string theory scalar here, but about the forces pushing up prices in the US. Daniel Gross says that its already here, but the Fed just won't admit it. Imagine that a cardiologist told you that aside from the irregular heartbeat, the stratospheric cholesterol count, and a little blockage in your aorta, your core heart functions are just fine. That's precisely what the government's cardiologist—Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve—has just done. The central bank is supposed to make sure the economy grows fast enough to create jobs and make everybody richer, but not so fast that it produces inflation, which makes everybody poorer. "Readings on core inflation have improved modestly this year," the Federal Open Market Committee said in justifying its 50-basis-point interest-rate cut last month, while conceding that "some inflation risks remain." Catch that bit about "core inflation"? That's Fedspeak fo...

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has written a memoir, and if this story by Robert Barnes, Michael A. Fletcher and Kevin Merida in the Washington Post is fair, he seems every bit the spiritually crippled bundle of resentments I have always imagined. His character was shaped by his grandfather, a harsh and unbending man who hardly seems to deserve the devotion Thomas gives him: Thomas writes of the hard lessons doled out by his grandfather, Myers Anderson, who raised him after his father abandoned the family and his mother was unable to care for her boys in Pin Point, Ga. "In every way that counts, I am my grandfather's son," Thomas writes, hence the title of the memoir. Thomas's depiction of his grandfather is of a man unsparingly tough. Anderson wouldn't let him play on sports teams or join the Cub Scouts. When Thomas informed the family that he was dropping out of the seminary, against the wishes of his grandfather, he learned, to his surprise, that Anders...