Another benefit of a single payer national health insurance system is that it gets rid of the obscenity of the revolving door between the health insurance industry and the government payer.
There is no revolving door because there is no door.
There is no door because the health insurance companies are put out of their misery.
One public payer. Everybody in. Nobody out.
If we had single payer, we wouldn’t be witnessing the obscenity we witnessed this month.
Take the case of Marilyn Tavenner.
She’s the Obama official who was in charge of the rollout of Obamacare.
She stepped down from her job in February and will become president of America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) — the insurance industry lobbying group representing the likes of Aetna, Anthem, Humana, Kaiser Permanente and many Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies.
Taking her place at the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is former UnitedHealth executive Andy Slavitt.
Don McCanne of Physicians for a National Health Plan (PNHP) says that Karen Ignagni, AHIP’s previous president and CEO, essentially had carte blanche in the White House as Obamacare was being crafted.
“She also was very influential in obtaining the concessions that protected the excess payments to the Medicare Advantage plans, measures which greatly benefit UnitedHealth Group and others,” McCanne says. “It seems more than a coincidence that UnitedHealth Group dropped out of AHIP shortly after the resignation of Karen Ignagni.”
“Without insider information, it is very difficult to determine the degree of control held by each of the players, but there is no question that HHS/CMS, AHIP, and UnitedHealth and the other insurers are all participating in advancing the privatization of Medicare by enhancing the private Medicare Advantage plans with our taxpayer dollars,” McCanne says. “It is particularly disconcerting that this agenda is supported by Congress and the Obama administration.”
“Imagine what those excess funds could do for our traditional Medicare program, especially in reducing out-of-pocket expenses for premiums, deductibles, coinsurance and catastrophic losses,” McCanne says.
“That would be far better than wasting them on the administrative excesses of the private insurers and on the dishonest activities they engage in to increase their profits by measures such as upcoding or gaming risk adjustment.”
Why is there no public outcry?
“It is simply because the Medicare Advantage plans are able to use about one-third of the extra funds to reduce deductibles and coinsurance, making them appear to be superior products, plus there is no need to purchase supplemental Medigap plans,” McCanne says. “Most of the beneficiaries who are satisfied with their private plans would not be inclined to support increased taxpayer funding of the traditional Medicare program since it doesn’t concern them anymore. And efforts to reduce Medicare Advantage funding to the same levels as traditional Medicare are met with loud protests orchestrated by AHIP. Those in the traditional Medicare program usually have supplemental retiree or Medigap plans with which they are satisfied, and thus they are not advocates for change either.”
“It is really difficult to explain to people that what is a good deal for them is a bad deal for all of us together since it perpetuates high costs and extraordinary administrative waste,” McCanne says. “If their programs seem to be working for them, they don’t want change.”
McCanne says that we need to improve the traditional Medicare program so that it is more comprehensive and provides greater value, and then use it to cover everyone.
“Our task is made much more difficult by the powerful forces that support corporate control of our healthcare system,” he says. “After all, they are the ones with the money. And Tavenner and Slavitt will be there as their agents, working inside and outside of the government. And most people won’t care.”
July 22, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Economics, Progressive Hypocrite | Human rights, Obama, United States |
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July 18th 2015 was the first day of this year’s summer camp for the world’s business and political aristocracy and their invited guests. 2,000 to 3,000 men, mostly from the wealthiest global one percent, gather at Bohemian Grove, 70 miles north of San Francisco in California’s Sonoma County—to sit around the campfire and chew the fat—off-the-record—with ex-presidents, corporate leaders and global financiers.
Speakers this year giving “Lakeside Chats” include past Secretary of Defense and the CIA Leon Panetta, Paul Volcker Jr. former Federal Reserve Chairman, retired Admiral Mike Mullen former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, NYU Law Professor Bryan Stevenson, producer Norman Lear, the founder of AOL Steve Case, and Christopher Hill former US Ambassador to Iraq.
The Bohemian Grove summer encampments have become one of the most famous private men’s retreats in the world. Club members and several hundred world-class guests gather annually in the last weeks of July to recreate what has been called “the greatest men’s party on earth.” Spanning three weekends, the outdoors event includes lectures, rituals, theater, camp parties, golf, swimming, skeet shooting, politics, sideline business meetings and feasts of food and alcohol.
One might imagine modern-day aristocrats like Henry Kissinger, the Koch brothers, and Donald Rumsfeld amid a circle of friends sipping cognac and discussing how the “unqualified” masses cannot be trusted to carry out policy, and how elites must set values that can be translated into “standards of authority.”
Private men’s clubs, like the San Francisco Bohemian Club, have historically represented institutionalized race, gender and class inequality. English gentlemen’s clubs emerged during Great Britain’s empire building period as an exclusive place free of troublesome women, under-classes, and non-whites. Copied in the United States, elite private men’s clubs served the same self-celebration purposes as their English counterparts.
The San Francisco Bohemian Club was formed in 1872 as a gathering place for newspaper reporters and men of the arts and literature. By the 1880s local businessmen joined the Club in large numbers, quickly making business elites the dominant group. More than 2,500 men are members today. Most are from California, while several hundred originate from some 35 states and a dozen foreign countries. About one-fifth of the members are either directors of one or more of the Fortune 1000 companies, corporate CEOs, top governmental officials (current and former) and/or members of important policy councils or major foundations. The remaining members are mostly regional business/legal elites with a small mix of academics, military officers, artists, or medical doctors.
Foremost at the Bohemian Grove is an atmosphere of social interaction and networking. You can sit around a campfire with directors of PG&E, or Bank of America. You can shoot skeet with the former secretaries of state and defense, or you can enjoy a sing-along with a Council of Foreign Relations director or a Business Roundtable executive. All of this makes for ample time to develop personal long-lasting connections with powerful influential men.
On the surface, the Bohemian Grove is a private place where global and regional elites meet for fun and enjoyment. Behind the scene, however, the Bohemian Grove is an American version of building insider ties, consensual understandings, and lasting connections in the service of class solidarity. Ties reinforced at the Grove manifest themselves in global trade meetings, party politics, campaign financing, and top-down corporatism.
Peter Phillips is a Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University, and President of Media Freedom Foundation/Project Censored. He wrote his dissertation on the Bohemian Club in 1994.
July 21, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Economics, Supremacism | Bohemian Grove, United States |
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The governmental commission for legislation has approved a bill that if passed would allow Russia to impound property of foreign states, so long as Russian courts rule these countries are infringing the sovereignty of Russian jurisdiction.
According to business daily Kommersant, the government will shortly look into the draft and then it will be submitted to the parliament.
The current draft, developed by the Justice Ministry, would give Russian courts more powers to impound the property of foreign states. Currently such steps are only allowed on condition the government of the country in question agrees. The new rules would cancel this stipulation and introduce another – impounding would only be possible as a reciprocal measure after a court decides that a nation has damaged the economic or other interests of the Russian Federation.
The Justice Ministry said in comments that the main idea behind the bill was to ensure a “jurisdiction balance” between Russia and foreign states. “The number of lawsuits against the Russian Federation is constantly growing and this happens without asking for our agreement for participation in these processes,” ministry sources told Kommersant. Therefore, recognizing the ruling of foreign courts is equal to conceding national sovereignty, they added.
In early July, mass media reported that several European countries, such as Belgium and France had frozen Russian state companies’ assets and curtailed their agencies in these countries. The move was in connection with the June 2014 ruling by the International Court in The Hague that ordered Russia to pay compensation of $39.9 billion, $1.85 billion and $8.2 billion to three companies connected with Yukos. The oil giant was dissolved in 2007 after its top managers and key owners were jailed for tax evasion.
The Russian Foreign Ministry described these steps as blatant violation of international law and promised to contest these decisions. President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with the heads of international news agencies that Russia would challenge the decision to seize its assets. The president added that the country didn’t recognize the ruling of the Hague court, as it doesn’t participate in the European Energy Charter.
Earlier this month, the Russian Constitutional Court decided that no international treaty or convention has precedence over national sovereignty, and decisions by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) should be upheld only when they don’t contradict basic Russian law. The judge who announced the ruling explained that Russia can now refuse to fulfill the obligations imposed by the ECHR rulings, when such a refusal is the only way to prevent the violation of the basic law.
The same judge also told reporters there was a possibility the Constitutional Court would investigate the Yukos case, but only if it is taken to court by the plaintiffs. Besides, the Justice Ministry issued a statement saying all its actions connected with the ECHR’s ruling on the ‘Yukos vs. Russia’ case would be based on the ruling establishing the priority of the Russian Constitution.
These comments apparently concerned the ECHR’s ruling in July 2014 that ordered Russia to pay $2.5 billion in compensation and legal expenses to former Yukos shareholders.
READ MORE:
Constitutional Court rules Russian law above European HR Court decisions
Russia will ‘protect its interests’ in European assets freeze – Putin
July 21, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Economics | European Union, Russia |
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While full-scale fighting has not returned, neither side accepts the status quo or wants to put the conflict aside
It’s rather the negotiated path to peace that has been put aside, particularly by Kiev
Contrary to my expectations — and those of most other observers — the situation in eastern Ukraine has not so far spiraled into renewed war.
The reason for this is the deteriorating financial situation in Ukraine itself.
Despite pressure from the IMF talks between Ukraine and its private creditors remain deadlocked. This has led some of the ratings agencies to predict that Ukraine will fall into formal default this month.
The IMF’s indication that it would maintain its support for Ukraine has simply triggered a demand from the Russians that the next $5 billion tranche of IMF funding Ukraine should be used to repay the $3 billion Ukraine owes Russia, which is due for repayment this year.
It seems that the IMF’s staff is now increasingly leaning to the Russian view that this debt is indeed public debt. If so, then unless the IMF Board is willing to overrule the opinion of its own staff – which would be extremely controversial and might have serious legal consequences, Ukraine might shortly find itself cut off from private lending and in receipt of only limited funding from the IMF.
As for other alternative sources of Western funding, the EU’s commitment to provide Greece with a third 86 billion euro bailout further reduces the funds available for Ukraine.
It is nonetheless likely that it has been the need to bring the negotiations with the IMF and with Ukraine’s private creditors to a successful conclusion that has been the key factor in deterring Ukraine from resuming the offensive in eastern Ukraine. Back in the winter the IMF warned that any program to support Ukraine would fail in case of a renewal of the war, which all but confirmed that the IMF would halt its programme if the war resumed. With Ukraine becoming increasingly dependent on the IMF as alternative sources of external funding are closed off, this has become a major obstacle to a renewal of the war.
None of this however is to be taken to mean that the situation in eastern Ukraine is stable.
As predicted, the Ukrainian government has reneged on the commitments it made in Minsk.
It refuses to negotiate with the leaders of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, whom it continues to call terrorists. It has maintained the economic blockade.
There has been no negotiated law granting special status, no elections held in accordance with such a law and no discussions for a new constitution. On all these questions Kiev has purported to legislate unilaterally, imposing on the Donbass its own conceptions, which continue to reflect its unitary ideology.
Though there has been no general offensive, there is also no peace. Shelling of the Donbass towns continues at various levels of intensity and fighting between the Ukrainian army and militia units repeatedly takes place.
Meanwhile, much as he did before the resumption of the fighting in January this year, Poroshenko has again been bragging about the revival of the Ukrainian army, with claims that the number of Ukrainian troops on the front line has once again been brought up to 60,000 – which was roughly their number at the start of the offensive on 30th June 2014.
These claims, understandably enough, cause great alarm and are scarcely compatible with a sincere desire for peace. They are in fact as likely to be untrue as were the identical claims Poroshenko made before the resumption of the fighting in January. The reported mutiny of an entire Ukrainian tank battalion is almost certain to be a better reflection of the true state of the Ukrainian army than Poroshenko’s boasts.
The current situation is best described therefore not as a frozen conflict but as a frozen war.
A frozen conflict requires some degree of acceptance — however grudging — of the status quo.
In Ukraine that acceptance does not exist – on either side.
In the absence of the negotiations envisaged by the deal done in Minsk the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics exist in limbo – under blockade, facing current shelling, without a proper legal status and without full control of the territory they claim.
The Ukrainian government for its part cannot bring itself to recognize or accept the separate identities of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, but lacks the means to suppress them.
The situation is extremely unstable and very dangerous.
July 21, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Militarism | Ukraine |
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Syrian Prime Minister Wael Halqi has said joining the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) will allow Damascus easier economic and trade cooperation with friendly nations. Russia and Belarus are also discussing a new loan to Syria.
“Negotiations with Russia on joining the Eurasian Union and customs-free zone are being held. We see this as a benefit and strengthening the relations with friendly states, which will facilitate economic and trade cooperation with them,” said Halqi in an interview with RIA Novosti Tuesday.
According to the prime minister, Russia and Syria have signed a number of contracts for the construction of gas processing plants, irrigation facilities and power stations. In 2013, an agreement was signed for Russian companies to develop oil fields on the Syrian coast. The first phase is worth $88 million and will last for five years.
The countries are also discussing the expansion of loans to Damascus.
“Negotiations with Russia and Belarus on the provision of new lines of credit continue. It will help to meet the needs of production, create new opportunities for the development of the internal market and economic process,” said the prime minister.
He expressed the hope that Russia would help the Syrian government “to cope with the brutal attacks, including the unjust economic sanctions imposed by the West.”
Halqi said that credits between Iran and Syria have already been implemented. The two countries have signed and implemented two lines of credit, of which $3.6 billion Tehran has allocated for projects related to oil and $1 billion for the delivery of humanitarian aid, including food, medicines, hospital equipment and components for power plants.
The prime minister said that Syria appreciates all the efforts made by the Russian leadership to maintain the policy and economy of Syria during the years of crisis, and specifically thanked Moscow for donating 100,000 tons of wheat as humanitarian aid to the Syrian people.
READ MORE: Thailand to apply for free trade zone with EEU by 2016 – minister
July 21, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Solidarity and Activism | EEU, Eurasian Economic Union, Iran, Russia, Syria, Thailand |
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“We are under pressure from the Treasury to justify our budget, and commercial espionage is one way of making a direct contribution to the nation’s balance of payments” – Sir Colin McColl, former MI6 Chief
For years public figures have condemned cyber espionage committed against the United States by intruders launching their attacks out of China. These same officials then turn around and justify America’s far-reaching surveillance apparatus in terms of preventing terrorist attacks. Yet classified documents published by WikiLeaks reveal just how empty these talking points are. Specifically, top-secret intercepts prove that economic spying by the United States is pervasive, that not even allies are safe, and that it’s wielded to benefit powerful corporate interests.
At a recent campaign event in New Hampshire Hillary Clinton accused China of “trying to hack into everything that doesn’t move in America.” Clinton’s hyperbole is redolent of similar claims from the American Deep State. For example, who could forget the statement made by former NSA director Keith Alexander that Chinese cyber espionage represents the greatest transfer of wealth in history? Alexander has obviously never heard of quantitative easing (QE) or the self-perpetuating “global war on terror” which has likewise eaten through trillions of dollars. Losses due to cyber espionage are a rounding error compared to the tidal wave of money channeled through QE and the war on terror.
When discussing the NSA’s surveillance programs Keith Alexander boldly asserted that they played a vital role with regard to preventing dozens of terrorist attacks, an argument that fell apart rapidly under scrutiny. Likewise, in the days preceding the passage of the USA Freedom Act of 2015 President Obama advised that bulk phone metadata collection was essential “to keep the American people safe and secure.” Never mind that decision makers have failed to provide any evidence that bulk collection of telephone records has prevented terrorist attacks.
If American political leaders insist on naming and shaming other countries with regard to cyber espionage perhaps it would help if they didn’t sponsor so much of it themselves. And make no mistake, thanks to WikiLeaks the entire world knows that U.S. spies are up to their eyeballs in economic espionage. Against NATO partners like France and Germany, no less. And also against developing countries like Brazil and news outlets like Der Spiegel.
These disclosures confirm what Ed Snowden said in an open letter to Brazil: terrorism is primarily a mechanism to bolster public acquiescence for runaway data collection. The actual focus of intelligence programs center around “economic spying, social control, and diplomatic manipulation.” Who benefits from this sort of activity? The same large multinational corporate interests that have spent billions of dollars to achieve state capture.
Why is the threat posed by China inflated so heavily? The following excerpt from an intelligence briefing might offer some insight. In a conversation with a colleague during the summer of 2011 the EU’s chief negotiator for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Hiddo Houben, described the treaty as an attempt by the United State to antagonize China:
“Houben insisted that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which is a U.S. initiative, appears to be designed to force future negotiations with China. Washington, he pointed out, is negotiating with every nation that borders China, asking for commitments that exceed those countries’ administrative capacities, so as to ‘confront’ Beijing. If, however, the TPP agreement takes 10 years to negotiate, the world–and China–will have changed so much that that country likely will have become disinterested in the process, according to Houben. When that happens, the U.S. will have no alternative but to return to the WTO.”
American business interests are eager to “open markets in Asia” and “provide the United States with unprecedented opportunities for investment.” At least, that’s how Hillary Clinton phrased it back when she was the Secretary of State. China represents a potential competitor and so American political leaders need an enemy that they can demonize so that they can justify massive intelligence budgets and the myriad clandestine operations that they approve. The American Deep State wishes to maintain economic dominance and U.S. spies have been working diligently to this end.
July 20, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Deception, Economics | NSA, TPP, Trans-Pacific Partnership, United States |
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Around 2,000 rallied in the center of the Ukrainian capital on Sunday to protest high housing and public utilities prices, which have skyrocketed 88 percent since last year.
A column of demonstrators marched from the Kiev’s main Khreshchatyk Street to the government headquarters on Grushevskogo Street.
The protest, which was monitored by around 100 police officers, proceeded without incident, Tass reported.
The participants carried Ukrainian flags and banners reading: “No to rising tariffs,” “Increase pensions,” “Where are the reforms?” and “We are dying of hunger.”
The rally’s organizers said they wanted to draw the authorities’ attention to the importance of preserving social guarantees for pensioners and public sector employees.
Utility rates, including water and heating prices, have grown three-fold in Ukraine due to a rise in the price of gas since April 1, 2015.
Electricity prices are being increased in accordance with a five-stage program, due to be completed by March 1, 2017.
In order to comply with the terms of an agreed upon $17.5 billion IMF bailout package, Ukraine has approved amendments to the 2015 budget that will result in drastic pension cuts and the tripling of energy bills.
Some political sentiments were also voiced at the rally, as several signs called for a “Ukrainian government for Ukraine” and urged Kiev’s authorities to “Remove foreigners from the government.”
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko assigned several foreign nationals to key government positions in late 2014, which include American Natalie Jaresko as finance minister, Aleksandr Kvitashvili of Georgia as health minister, and Lithuania’s Aivaras Abromavicius as economy minister.
Last May, former Georgian president, Mikhail Saakashvili, who is wanted in his country for embezzlement, abuse of power, and politically-motivated attacks, became the governor of Ukraine’s Odessa region.
A similar rally in the city of Dnepropetrovsk in central Ukraine was dispersed by a group of masked thugs on Sunday.
Several dozen demonstrators, mainly people of older age, blocked one of the roads in the city.
They carried a big banner demanding the resignation of president Poroshenko and smaller signs, reading “Dnepropetrovsk for fair prices” and “Housing and utility tariffs equal genocide.”
A dashcam video caught the rally being attacked by a group of young men in balaclavas, who threw smoke bombs at the crowd and tore the banners apart.
July 19, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Subjugation - Torture | Austerity, Economy, Human rights, Ukraine |
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The nuclear deal between six world powers and Iran will reset key economic and geopolitical relationships but perhaps not in the way many Western pundits expect. Iran, unshackled from international sanctions, is sure to reach out to U.S. and European companies for goods and technology but may favor Russia most of all because of a budding relationship built on mutual trust and mutual interests.
Iran’s difficult history with the United States – dating back to the CIA coup overthrowing Iran’s elected leader in 1953 through the tensions with Iran’s Islamic Republic and U.S.-instigated economic sanctions – makes Iranian leaders leery of again becoming dependent on Western banks and being vulnerable to U.S. geopolitical designs.
Iran has had troubled relations with Russia historically, too, but has come to see Russia under President Vladimir Putin as something of a regional partner, even if not exactly an ally. Russia pressed for a positive outcome in the nuclear negotiations and supports Iran’s regional resistance to Sunni terror groups, such as Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, especially in Syria. Russia also sees Sunni extremism as a serious threat to its own security.
That collaboration – when combined with worries about the possible renewal of Western sanctions sometime in the future – suggests that Iran will seek to consolidate its marriage of interests nurtured recently with Russia. Both countries have experienced the economic pain that comes from charting independent policies that conflict with U.S. and European demands.
So, with the United Nations Security Council soon expected to lift many international sanctions on Iran, Russian companies will work to not only maintain but to deepen their ties with Iran’s economy. Iran also might look to other BRICS countries, such as China, Brazil and South Africa, as natural allies in standing up against future U.S. pressure and displeasure.
Iran’s suspicions toward the United States and Europe will surely be slow to recede even as Western corporations make an aggressive bid to access Iran’s lucrative markets, from the energy industry to manufacturing to finances. Some $100 billion in investment is needed for Iran’s energy sector alone with other promising opportunities in consumer goods, banks, telecommunication, vehicle manufacturers and more.
The West possesses technology that Iran will need to rebuild its shattered economy, but there is a trust deficit. Iran is sure to remember the past when the West has frozen Iran’s assets, blocked access to spare parts, and confiscated Iranian property through one-sided legal proceedings, some of which even European courts have overturned.
Though Europe might be on somewhat friendlier terms with Iran than the United States, Europe’s close adherence to U.S. foreign policy means Europe can’t offer a long-term strategic relationship to Iran. So, the Islamic Republic likely will buy what it needs in business-to-business transactions with the West but will not forget the years of hostility.
It was Russia and China that worked to blunt Western hawkish demands, which included open threats to bomb Iran and force “regime change.” Russia and China also found ways to ease the sanctions, especially in regards to the arms embargo, while helping Iran fashion an agreement not to develop nuclear weapons.
Days before the final deal was signed, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani met Putin in the sidelines of a BRICS meeting and praised Russia for its role in the negotiations. “I consider it my duty to thank Russia for the efforts it has made in resolving and negotiating the Iranian nuclear program, and for the personal efforts made by Mr. [Foreign Minister Sergey] Lavrov.”
Downsides to a Relationship
But there are economic downsides to this Russian-Iranian diplomatic collaboration. Some Russians note that the reintroduction of Iranian oil onto world markets will depress oil prices and thus hurt a key sector of Russia’s economy, which is already suffering amid a glut of Saudi oil. But that factor was already a given. Putin brushed it aside in seeking the nuclear deal and in recognizing how a resurgent Iran could fit within Russia’s broader strategic calculations.
Putin began turning to Asia after Moscow’s overtures to the West, in his view, were betrayed in Libya, Syria and especially Ukraine. Putin had sought to build a positive relationship with President Barack Obama by working closely on mutual concerns such as Islamic terrorism and Mideast unrest. However, that collaboration was shattered in February 2014 when the United States backed a “regime change” in Russia’s neighbor Ukraine and applied the lash of Western sanctions to Russia when it would not accept the new anti-Russian regime.
Faced with this U.S. and Western hostility, Putin rebalanced Russia’s strategic relationships toward the BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Iran fits neatly into that equation as Putin’s best option to leverage Russia’s interest in the vital Middle East, where it has been losing influence since the end of the Cold War.
In line with Putin’s strategy, Iran and Russia have worked hard to overcome lingering suspicions based on centuries of border tensions, recognizing that they now have more interests pushing them together than pulling them apart.
While Russia generally can’t compete with Western technology, it has advantages in some other commercial and industrial sectors, including nuclear energy, foodstuffs and arms. Last year, the two countries agreed to a package worth billions of dollars in hard cash for Russia involving building up to eight nuclear reactors within five years for power generation purposes. The nuclear deal signed this month only paves the way for those deals to be developed further.
On the agricultural side, Iran is the third biggest buyer of Russian wheat and has sold Russia fruits and vegetables which helped Russia replace European imports that the Kremlin blocked in retaliation for Europe’s economic sanctions over the Ukraine conflict.
Because of the international sanctions against Iran, bilateral trade between Russia and Iran remains modest, only $1.5 billion, a fraction of Russian trade with Israel for example. But Russia and Iran seek a ten-fold increase in bilateral trade this decade and have talked of up to $70 billion in potential investments. Even half of that would be transforming for both countries.
There is also the all-important arms business. Iran needs to update its military, and Russia and China are set to sell more than any other countries. In April, Putin agreed to restart talks to deliver the S-300 anti-aircraft defense system as a prelude no doubt to everything else Iran needs, especially to update its air force which hasn’t been modernized since the revolution in 1979. Some estimates suggest a $15 billion market up for grabs.
And there is another Iranian top priority: security. Iran and Russia signed an intelligence-sharing agreement and their cooperation has intensified, especially in regards to Syria where the two can each fill a need, with Russia providing the military hardware and Iran having military advisers and other assets on the ground.
The nuclear deal also could pave the way for the West to join them in arranging serious negotiations between Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and his more moderate opponents and possibly end or curtail Syria’s bloody civil war. It wouldn’t be surprising to see Russia and Iran together seeking more informal collaboration with the U.S. and Europe in Syria and Iraq against the Sunni radicals of the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda.
Iran’s influence among fellow Shiites and Shiite offshoots in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen could offer Russia more leverage in the Middle East, even if Moscow does not want to pick a fight with Arab countries outside Syria.
Putin also is gingerly approaching stresses in the bilateral relationship with Israel, with which Russia has important business, financial and cultural ties. Many Russian Jews have relocated to Israel, which views Iran as its greatest regional enemy.
Another ‘I’ in BRICS
But the prospect of Iran, in effect, becoming a second “I” in the BRICS acronym is not what many Western economic observers expected. They were looking at the potential boon for European and U.S. businesses and the prospect that Europe, in particular, could weaken Russian-Iranian ties by trading with Iran and by playing off Iran and Russia over energy.
And surely there will be some of both. European companies expect to be in the forefront of a business gold rush to Tehran – and Europe will buy Iran’s oil that, pre-sanctions, filled Europe’s energy needs by some 600,000 barrels a day, mostly to Italy, Greece and Spain.
Iran currently produces less than 3 million barrels of oil per day but could increase that to at least 4 million bpd. And Iran’s gas reserves, the second biggest in the world, could eventually make their way to Europe, reducing the Continent’s dependence on Russian natural gas. While there are many obstacles to an Iran-to-Europe pipeline, there are cheaper alternatives, like shipping liquefied natural gas.
But even if that were to happen, Russia is already looking toward Asia, not Europe, to increase energy exports. So, a gradual reorganization of the market – with Iran’s energy supplies coming back online – will likely have little long-term impact on Russia’s economy.
Whatever the case, Iran’s post-sanctions reality will develop gradually, not just because of the phasing-in of the nuclear deal itself, but because Iran needs to manage popular expectations to avoid potential social disruptions. However, regarding which countries can most gain from the opening of Iran, Russia has the early advantage, especially diplomatically, followed by China.
Europe and the U.S. have quality products to sell but also fences to mend and suspicions to dispel. And while it’s true there is mistrust to overcome between Moscow and Tehran, their current objectives are more in sync. They will not become allies overnight, but the relation will mature as long as both keep their ends of the deals, which in the past has proved difficult.
But there is a strong incentive for Iran and Russia to make their new relationship work. For Russia, it’s about strategic access to the Mediterranean (via Syria) and the ability to retain and even expand its influence in the vital Middle East (by expanding ties to Iran and its regional allies). For Iran, it’s about strengthening its regional position vis a vis its regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Israel.
The West, too, will no doubt benefit from Iran’s economic renaissance. Western business interests, including Americans, lobbied hard in favor of lifting the sanctions. Corporate delegations from the U.S., Canada, France, Germany and other Western nations have already flocked to Iran to prepare for reentering Iran’s markets as soon as sanctions are lifted.
There will be room for all to benefit, even Arab countries like the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Oman. But Russia is the best positioned to gain from Iran’s comeback.
July 19, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Economics | European Union, Russia, Syria, United States |
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That Syriza has made mistakes isn’t in dispute: they themselves have admitted to two main ones.
1) They failed to recognize, despite early warnings from party members such as Costas Lapavistas, that the EU was negotiating in bad faith. The EU’s intention was never to reach an agreement but to destroy Syriza and with it the hope that the victims of the endless bleeding of austerity had any democratic recourse. Furthermore, the negotiations were themselves a tactic in that, as former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis now admits, they prevented him from focussing on the one thing which Syriza could have used in its negotiations: a viable plan to exit the Eurozone in a way which minimized disruption to the economy and maximize the chances that it would return to health in the shortest possible time.
2) We now know from Varoufakis that Syriza had “a small group . . . within the ministry, of about five people” that were planning in secret for a Grexit. This was, as he concedes, not even close to what was required to effect a viable transition to a new currency. Of course, no serious person should have any illusions that a Grexit would be “easy”, even with a massive investment in staff and infrastructure, any more than recovering from a major earthquake, hurricane or bombing of a nation’s major cities by a foreign power. Rather, just as a government is expected to prepare for disasters whether these are acts of god or attacks from hostile foreign powers, Syriza was derelict in failing to plan for what Varoufakis now accepts was “a coup” albeit executed not by “tanks” but by “banks”.
1) The Bankruptcy of “Speaking Truth to Power” Liberalism
Despite Syriza’s self-definition as “the party of the radical left”, much of its leadership and many of its advisers would reject the designation, more accurately being categorized within our political lexicon as liberals. Among these is Varoufakis’s close friend and UT Austin colleague Jamie Galbraith who described himself as “a reasonable and hopeful observer” of Syriza’s initial negotiations with the E.U. Rather than dismiss German Chancellor Angela Merkel as a right wing ideologue Galbraith praised her for “having made some of the mildest comments of any German politician,” and for having “chosen with care” her words on the subject of debt relief which, according to him, she had not rejected.
Galbraith’s report of the negotiations gave further grounds for hope that “the German government, having taken a very tough line through the process, took a step back from that tough line in order to secure a basic framework agreement for going forward.”
As we now know, the softening on the German’s hard line was a liberal chimera. Galbraith now recognizes that “the negotiations were a bit of a farce all along” and has admitted that he should have recognized that Chancellor Merkel was always “completely unreceptive.”
Varoufakis, while famously defining his political orientation as “Marxist” (albeit “erratic”) evidently shared Galbraith’s liberal confidence in the good will of the Eurocrat negotiators. This is apparent in his surprise when his attempts to reason with them were unsatisfactory-to put it mildly. According to his recent interview in the New Statesmen,
“It’s not that (they) didn’t go down well – it’s that there was point blank refusal to engage in economic arguments. Point blank. … You put forward an argument that you’ve really worked on – to make sure it’s logically coherent – and you’re just faced with blank stares. It is as if you haven’t spoken. What you say is independent of what they say. You might as well have sung the Swedish national anthem – you’d have got the same reply. And that’s startling, for somebody who’s used to academic debate. … The other side always engages. Well there was no engagement at all. It was not even annoyance, it was as if one had not spoken.”
What is on display is the disenchantment of liberals who operated on a presumption of good intentions and underlying rationality of elite technocrats. Radicals such as Lapavistas do not. For them, providing “arguments” to the institutional representatives of capital makes no more sense than addressing a hyena with its fangs clamped on one’s jugular. The hyena is acting not according to reason but according to its fundamental nature and so are the capitalist hyenas who were Syriza’s negotiating partners.
It was foolish to negotiate with any other expectation, as both Varoufakis and Galbraith now have effectively conceded.
2) Goldman Sachs DOES care (if you raise chickens)
A second explanation for one of Syriza’s crucial mistakes involves assumptions made by segments of their left, as opposed to (neo-) liberal wing, which includes Varoufakis and others who he refers to as “committed Europeanists.” By that he means that they are committed to the longstanding principle of left internationalism and cosmopolitanism. They also tend to view favorably the comparative advantage accruing to globalized trading networks which provide the economies of scale making possible large efficiencies in production of basic goods and also in making available raw materials at low cost. While their position is reasonable, it also has a negative side in that internationalists tend to denigrate the potential of local, small scale experiments in alternative economic systems of the sort which have been championed by Richard Wolff and Gar Alperowitz among others under the heading of worker self directed enterprises and workplace democracy.
Why this matters is that it is apparent that some form of what Wolff and Alperowitz are proposing will be crucial in the event of a Grexit. Prior to a national currency being re-established, local networks of production and exchange of the sort which globalization has long since eradicated will need to be revived and again made viable. That includes, incidentally, various forms of local food production of the sort denigrated by the verticalist left under the widely circulated meme “Goldman Sachs doesn’t care if you raise chickens.”
In fact, whether Greece will collapse into chaos and starvation will have to do with whether they are able to reduce their reliance on imported goods ramping up local production in all spheres including most crucially in food production-not as a neo-Calvinist moral imperative but to maintain a minimal caloric intake. It is likely that many small scale initiatives will need to be launched and developed to accomplish that, some along the lines the WW II Victory Gardens whose production equalled that of all commercial sources of vegetables during the war years. Of course, Goldman Sachs would like nothing better than for Greek efforts at self-reliance to fail which is to say they hope the Greeks don’t raise chickens-and starve for not having done so: the exact opposite of facile, leftish conventional wisdom.
Conclusion: No War but the Class War
While small, the Victory Gardens were not an insignificant contribution to a nation in a state of war. And, to reiterate the point, the comparison of a state of war to what will be required under a Grexit is entirely appropriate.
For while some of us want to avert our eyes, the left always recognized that the war by the rich against the poor is a war just as much as any other. An economic war does not involve missiles, antipersonnel weapons and M-16s. Its weapons are state enforced privatization schemes, debt swaps and interest rate manipulation. Rather than puncture wounds, severed limbs and the casualties take the form of thousands of unnecessary deaths due to inadequately staffed and supplied hospitals, bacterial infections due to inadequately maintained sewage treatment facilities and collapsing buildings, food poisoning epidemics due to the mass layoffs of inspectors in regulatory agencies. An almost endless list can be compiled itemizing the social collapse resulting from economic warfare carried about by fountain pens rather than guns. Varoufakis has now woken up to the reality that his country has been attacked by an axis of foreign powers, that they are bent on its destruction and have one goal in mind: claiming the spoils of victory, disbursing to their owners in the investor class. It is time the rest of the left joined him there and here-on our feet and ready to fight them, in whatever way we can.
July 19, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Economics | EU, European Union, Greece, Grexit, SYRIZA, Yanis Varoufakis |
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In an insane Machiavellian screed, American-Jewish archaeologist and Zionist propagandist Alex Joffe has suggested that the nascent West-Iran rapprochement in the form of the nuclear deal be used as an opportunity for criminal subversion and sabotage now that Tehran will ostensibly open up its economy to Western business investment.
In a July 14, 2015, column for the Times of Israel titled “The Deal with Iran: How to Make Lemonade out of Lemons,” the Zionist extremist outlines a plethora of ways that Iran can be undermined and destabilized. Joffe called upon “those interested in the two goals of an Iran free of nuclear weapons and free of religious fascism” to heed his words, insisting that the West-Iran nuclear deal is perhaps “a moment of opportunity” to infiltrate and destroy the Persian nation from within.
Joffe explained that the P5+1-Iran nuclear accord recently signed in Vienna would result in Iran “undergo[ing] a kind of opening to the world. Taking advantage of that is now a vital goal for Western intelligence and public diplomacy. It is the art of the making lemonade out of lemons.”
Joffe’s “making lemonade out of lemons” scheme to overthrow the Iranian government entails using business investment prospects as a cover for “Western intelligence agencies to gather information and to subvert the Iranian regime.” He specifically encourages an intense campaign of cyber and psychological warfare:
“One simple method are thumb drives, containing viruses to disrupt computer networks, encryption tools to evade official Iranian surveillance and firewalls, and perhaps even Western music, literature, and movies to subvert repressive traditional values, and classics of Western political thought to inspire Iranian society toward a liberal democratic future. Jazz and rock, blue jeans and samizdat literature played roles in the collapse of communism; their 21st century analogs should be enlisted to help Iranian society reform itself.”
On top of those subterfuges Joffe champions the introduction of “cyberweapons such as Stuxnet into Iran’s strategic computer systems. Stuxnet and its variants were designed to slow and damage computer controlled systems in Iran’s nuclear centrifuges, apparently with success.” He goes on:
“New cyberweapons aimed at Iran’s nuclear program, along with missiles, military radars and aviation, regime communications and record-keeping, and much more, are all likely under development in the West — or should be. Certainly Iran is developing its own cyberweapons, and has virtually unlimited access points to introduce them. But its weapons are aimed Western banks and critical infrastructure, such as electric grids. It is in everyone’s interest that more targeted cyberattacks on the Iranian regime and its weapons systems succeed first.”
“Openness should have a high price for Iran, both real and imagined,” writes the deranged Zionist. He calls for Western (read: Zionist) spies to front as businessmen and stir unrest in the Islamic Republic. “Access to Iran’s people also raises the potential to eventually inspire them to overthrow the repressive theocratic fascist regime,” he ponders with glee. Additionally he advocates stoking up ethnic minorities in Iran such as the “Ahwaz Arab tribes in the southwest, ethnic Baluch and Pashtun in the east, and Azeris and Kurds in the northwest” to revolt against Tehran.
“But putting the regime under stress is an important means to bring about its transformation or demise,” Joffe proclaims, openly inciting for sabotage and crimes within a sovereign state. Increasing alienation between Iranian youth and the Islamic government should be a “paramount strategic goal” for the Zionist-led West, he concludes.
Joffe’s provocative screed seems to mimic a little-known 2009 strategy paper produced by the Brookings Institution (a US-based neocon, pro-Israel think tank) entitled “Which Path to Persia?” That paper, co-authored by former high-level American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) member Martin Indyk, likewise outlined duplicitous strategies for out-and-out regime change in Iran including cyber warfare, terrorism, inciting internal ethnic and religious strife, provoking rebellion among minority groups, a military coup, and overt military invasion. The Brookings neocons weighed the pros and cons of each “option” and even went so far as to call for “goading” Iran into retaliating to US covert operations as a pretext for war.
Copyright 2015 Non-Aligned Media
July 19, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Ahwaz, Alex Joffe, Iran, Israel, Martin Indyk, Stuxnet, United States, Zionism |
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Paris – On July 12, Greece surrendered abjectly and totally. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who had promised to combat the austerity measures that are driving the Greek people to ruin, poverty and suicide, betrayed all his promises, denied the will of the people expressed in the July 5 referendum, and led the Greek parliament to accept an agreement with the nation’s creditors even worse than all those that had already caused the economy to shrink and which further abandoned the last scraps of national sovereignty.
Yes, Greece surrendered unconditionally, as has been thoroughly and eloquently expressed here on CounterPunch and elsewhere. But one crucial question appears not to have been adequately answered. To whom, exactly, did Greece surrender?
A common answer to that question is: Germany. The poor Greeks surrendered to the arrogant Germans. This theme has served to revive anti-German feelings left over from World War II. Frau Merkel is portrayed as the heartless villain. One thing is sure: the animosity between Greece and Germany aroused by this debt catastrophe is proof that the “European dream” of transforming the historic nations of Western Europe into one single brotherly federation, on the model of the United States of America, is a total flop. The sense of belonging to a single nation, with all for one and one for all, simply does not exist between peoples whose languages, traditions and customs are as diverse as those between Finns and Greeks. Adopting a common currency, far from bringing them together, has driven them farther apart.
But was this disaster actually dictated by the wicked Germans?
In reality, very many Germans, from the right-wing Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaüble all the way to the former leader of the left party “Die Linke” Oskar Lafontaine would have preferred a very different solution: Greece’s exit from the Eurozone. Schaüble was thinking of German finances, while Lafontaine was thinking of what would be best for the people of Greece – and of Europe as a whole.
Between those two extremes, a German compromise could have averted the abject surrender of July 12, by organizing Greece’s return to its national currency, the drachma.
Indeed, by the time of the Greek referendum, a majority of European Union creditor governments would have preferred to see Greece leave the Eurozone.
The one government that crowed with victory over the Greek surrender was the French government of François Hollande. In last minute negotiations, France took the position that Greece absolutely must be kept in the Eurozone, in order to “save Europe”. French commentators are jubilant that Hollande “stood up to Merkel” and saved both the sacrosanct “Franco-German couple” and the European Union itself by insisting that Greece stick to the hard currency that is killing it.
So can we conclude that Greece surrendered to France?
Let’s not be ridiculous. The French debt rivals that of Greece, with the difference, of course, that France has a real economy. France owns the largest share of Greek debt after Germany. But nevertheless, France is also eventually threatened by the Eurozone rules that are imposing debt servitude on southern European member states. France is in no position to dictate economic policy to Germany.
And that observation brings us around to the factor that has been overlooked in the case of Greece: the relationship of forces within the “trans-Atlantic community” and its military branch, NATO.
The United States has been relatively discrete during this crisis, but Washington’s will is known. Greece must stay tightly within the European Union, for geopolitical reasons. Just look where Greece is, and what it is: an Orthodox Christian country with traditional good relations with Russia, located on the Mediterranean not so far from “Putin’s Russia”. Greece must not be allowed to drift away. Period.
Another question that has been totally overlooked: is it possible for a NATO member country to shift policy in a way contrary to U.S. interests? Is it free to move toward truly friendly relations with Russia? Greece has seen a military putsch in the not so distant past. The command and control of NATO member countries is closely monitored by the United States military.
Since former President Nicolas Sarkozy reversed General de Gaulle’s strategic move to ensure national independence and returned France to the NATO command, France has indeed aligned itself with Washington to an unprecedented extent. With his brief show of “standing up to Madame Merkel”, François Hollande was in fact carrying out the policy of Victoria Nuland.
The European Union (including Germany) will continue to wrestle with its “Greek problem”, while Greece will continue to be strangled by the European Union.
The European surrender to the United States occurred about seventy years ago. It was welcomed as a liberation, of course, but it has turned into lasting domination. It was simply reconfirmed by the July 12, 2015, Greek surrender. And that surrender has been enforced by an increasingly hegemonic ideology of anti-nationalism, particularly strong in the left, that considers “nationalism” to be the source of all evil, and the European Union the source of all good, since it destroys the sovereignty of nations. This ideology is so dominant on the left that very few leftists dare challenge it – and Syriza was leftist in exactly that way, believing in the virtue of “belonging to the European Union”, whatever the pain and suffering it entails. Thus Syriza did not even prepare for leaving the Eurozone, much less for leaving the European Union.
As a result, only “right-wing” parties dare defend national sovereignty. Or rather, anyone who defends national sovereignty will be labeled “right-wing”. It is too easily forgotten that without national sovereignty, there can be no democracy, no people’s choice. As the Greek disaster obliges more and more Europeans to have serious doubts about EU policy, the mounting desire to reassert national sovereignty faces the obstacle of left-right stereotypes. Much of the European left is finding itself increasingly caught in the contradiction between its anti-nationalist “European dream” and the destruction of democracy by the EU’s financial bureaucracy. The Greek drama is the opening act of a long and confused European conflict.
Diana Johnstone is the author of Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO, and Western Delusions. Her new book, Queen of Chaos: the Misadventures of Hillary Clinton, will be published by CounterPunch in September 2015. She can be reached at diana.johnstone@wanadoo.fr
July 18, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Illegal Occupation | European Union, Greece, NATO |
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The US is prepared to put more pressure on Russia if the conflict in Ukraine escalates, and threatens that “the costs [then] will go up”, according to US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland; she also revealed that the US has spent $150 million on training the Ukrainian military, which it regards as “security assistance”.
“As you know, the sanctions that the international community has put in place – that the US and the EU have in place – are there to change the policy of Russia, to encourage it to fulfill its obligations. We’ve made clear that they will stay in place until Minsk is fully implemented, including an end to the violence, including a return of hostages, a return of the border. But we’ve also made clear that if the violence increases, we’re prepared to put more pressure on Russia,” Nuland said in an interview with the host of “Shuster Live” talk show on 112 Ukraine TV channel.
“Our hope is that we can use this pressure – the increased capability – to see Russia and those that they manage in Donetsk and Lugansk, implement the obligations that they’ve made. If not, the costs will go up,” she said, adding that it will be both economically and militarily.
The politician also revealed that the US has “contributed about $150 million dollars so far to security assistance – to training. We’re training out in Yavoriv.”
Currently over 300 paratroopers from the US army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade have been training the Ukrainian military at the Yavoriv range in the Lviv region since April 20. The declared purpose is “to develop professional skills of the National Guard servicemen.”
US Assistant Secretary of State recently commented on Ukraine’s fulfilment of Minsk agreement, claiming that Kiev’s amendments to its constitution addressing the special status of Donbass “show that Kiev has implemented its side of Minsk II, the second ceasefire agreement in the Donbass conflict”.
The claim was bashed by the chairman of the Russian State Duma’s Foreign Relations Committee as “far from the Minsk Agreements and only close to [President Poroshenko] own political fantasies.”
On July 16, Poroshenko submitted a proposal on constitutional amendments which would address the special status of the Donbass region to the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada.
The draft amendments to Ukraine’s Constitution imply no federalization or special status for the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics known as Donbas, President Poroshenko said on Thursday.
“There is not a single hint of federalization. Ukraine was, is and will remain a unitary state. The draft envisages no special status of Donbas. I am sure that the proposed draft is no way beyond the framework of the Minsk agreements,” Poroshenko said.
According to the draft amendments, “a special law will regulate peculiarities of local self-government” in the districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
However, the Verkhovna Rada is not set to vote for the constitutional amendments submitted by Poroshenko and this draft will be sent to the Constitutional Court, an MP from the Poroshenko Bloc faction said earlier on Thursday.
Constitutional amendments providing more autonomy to the Donetsk and Lugansk regions were stipulated by the February Minsk agreements signed by Kiev and Donbass representatives, along with a ceasefire deal.
July 18, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Economics | Russia, Ukraine, United States |
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