An economics, investment, trading and policy blog with a focus on Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). We seek the truth, avoid the mainstream and are virulently anti-neoliberalism.
Crikey, we've got to stop the neoliberals. It's time for a basic income and better immigration controls.
I'm on the left, but I'm dead against mass immigration. It's only because the ruling class are churning up the world, extracting as much wealth as possible which is causing all this upheaval. Like the way deep sea fishing boats dreg the ocean floor destroying the whole ecosystem there to maximize profits, so people in third world countries feel forced to emigrate and leave their friends and families behind because they have no life worth living in their own countries due to the western capitalist system that is forced upon them.
It's a little simpler than that. We bomb their homes, farms, towns, and cities. A recent landmark study by doctors' reported we've killed 4 million people with our regime change wars. (I remember when Rumsfeld banned the Pentagon from reporting civilian deaths starting in 2006, so no one knows.) http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/unworthy-victims-western-wars-have-killed-four-million-muslims-1990-39149394
Phil Giraldi wrote an impassioned piece about the consequences of it for The American Conservative last September, which everyone fucking ignores. http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/a-refugee-crisis-made-in-america/
It has nothing to do with the "western capitalist system that is forced upon them." Zero.
Bombs are huge part of the American version of the western capitalist system MRW. Saying it has nothing to do is a little naive. Lots of the most profitable companies in the world are those that deal in weapons systems, military accessories, high tech gadgets for killing, fighter jets blah blah blah
Going to get it whether you like it or not, close borders and get more illegal immigration (shudder to think about the public health issues there). Climate change is going to produce that. Honestly the shut borders stuff and everything will be ok is so naive.
Greg, it's also a little naive to think I don't know that. ;-))
HOWEVER. "weapons systems, military accessories, high tech gadgets for killing, fighter jets" didn't get invented in 2001 or 1990, so they've been around a while.
It's what the USG decided--decides--to do with them; moreover, what the people went--go--along with. Now, I was never a Clinton lover, but during the 1990s, everyone got their panties in a knot over Clinton's peccadilloes. But when Madeleine Albright said on TV that the deaths and birth defects of 500,000 Iraqi children caused by the oil and medical supplies sanctions was "worth it," and that comment to Colin Powell "What's the point of having this superb military that you're always talking about if we can't use it?" no one in this country screamed like they did about Clinton's dick.
Look at the consequences of what we've done: ISIS. And 4 million Iraqis and 3 million Syrians have been displaced. They're roaming around Europe looking for a place to land. Their teenage sons have been enraged at the destruction and destitution of their families, breeding a generation of revenge that will visit in the future.
I'm with Neil on the ordinary wants and needs of ordinary people. They want their kids to grow up, go to school, get married, have a regular life. That's the same the world over, no matter what your religion. Fanatics? Yeah, they exist, but that's a minor minor issue compared to what the majority of people want for their kin.
We've never had war on our soil. We have no fucking idea what it does to people. (The Russians do.) Can you imagine what would happen in this country if Mexico and Canada were weapons behemoths that bombed this country, destroyed our food crops, ruined our electrical grid, and killed our kids because they didn't like our president or thought we were hiding terrorists they didn't like? You wanna' talk about a radicalized populace. Our people would be worse than what the menacing Iraqis/Taliban/Pakis/Syrians are now.
I'm getting too old to make political or class warfare arguments justifying stupid catastrophic decisions. We went to war in Iraq for Israel: Netanyahu even showed up before a congressional committee in 2002 to beg for it (youtube it), Podhoretz begged for it as well in the pages of Commentary, and former NSC member Philip Zelikow specifically said so in September 2002 when he was running the Miller Center at the Univ. of Virginia. Then these asshole Israelis stirred the pot promoting war in Syria and Iran. They're still at it. But it's taboo to talk about it. Look what happened to Petraeus when he warned Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mullen that Israel Is jeopardizing US Security Interests. Had to backpeddle, stand on his head, and say mea culpa three times.
The uber-money in the world goes where the action is. But the action has to come first.
Not since the civil war... maybe that's the problem. It's easy to kill others and destroy their nations when there are no consequences for it, all in name of whatever boggus stupid geopolitical idea.
The problem is that elites perceive the world as a zero-sum problem, so they generate those sort of outcomes. That will happen with or without capitalism. Lust of power and nihilism (specially not believing in your own people) does that.
The GWOT has been going on for 15 years the refugee thing didnt start until the oil price started to collapse...
Those second rate nations over there cannot function economically unless they are extracting YUGE amounts of monopoly rent from the west in EUR and USD terms...
What's Venezuela's problem? No war there... no toilet paper either at $30 oil...
The left is against rent unless of course it is being extracted from the west then rent is just fine and dandy.
The IMF and the World Bank have imposed neoliberalism capitalism on the Third World which greatly favours the Western ruling elites.
Broadly, there are two types of capitalism. One type of the Mom and Pops hard working family run businesses, and this model can include the medium and large businesses too.
The ruling elite use the first type of capitalism as propaganda and cover the their own type of faux capitalism which is really about looting everyone else, back handers, corruption, and lining their own pickets. No work required.
Please are you saying that the additional 4 MILLION bbls per day the US is producing and the probably addl 1M bbl/day of oil being produced in Canada just "evolved from nothing"???
NO WORK WAS REQUIRED?????
All those people out there freezing their assess off and busting their knuckles are not working?????
OK I get it, we are supposed to IGNORE work and production rates and manifest prices and other forms of REALITY HELLLLOOOOO ... and instead blame fantasy concepts like "neo-liberlism!" as the source of all of our problems...
You will never get anywhere blaming a figure of speech for some sort of bad outcome...
You won't take argument from me that those nations are dysfunctional w/o high oil prices (something that has little to do with the neglectable shale oil production) but this has nothing to do with Syria or the refugees. None of those nations produce refugees unlike Syria which oil production is neglectable and is not a main source of income for the country. What you won't read though, either, is a look at the ongoing displacement inside Syria due to droughts and other ecological problems and the derived economic problems ... This is going to get worse as the century progresses.
Permanent low oil prices (they won't last, for a comprenhensive list of the reasons: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Oil-Prices/10-Reasons-why-Sub-30-Oil-Is-A-Major-Problem.html the problem is we are fading the oil era for the better or for the worst and this will mean increased price volatility from highs to lows during extended period of time) will agravate the situation in the MENA and increase turmoil even more probably, but they were not the cause of Syrian problem.
The refugee crisis has been going for years as the war intensified and ISIS occupied the power vacuum, is just that here in the West we are only feeling it now: Lebanon, Turkey and other countries in the region have absorbed MILLIONS of refugees in the last 5 years. MILLIONS (Lebanon has the equivalent of 1/4 of it's population in refugees).
Nah, we wouldn't allow them to sell their oil after Operation Desert Storm except through for the UN Oil-For-Food program that Maurice Strong (Mr. Climate Change of UNEP fame) siphoned off for his son, or something, by using the Koreans. About a million bucks. Strong hightailed it to Beijing (where his mother had been remembered as a beloved missionary) to hide out. He had become persona non grata at the UN, and Canada didn't want him back, so he had his tail between his legs. "Congressional report calls for investigation of Maurice Strong's role in Oil-for-Food scandal" http://canadafreepress.com/2005/cover120905.htm
Believe it or not, Matt, pre-1980, Iraq had some of the best educated doctors in the world. Rich Frenchmen would go there to have procedures done. Don't forget that the entire Western medical diagnostic manual, or Pharmacopeia (whatever it's called) was created by Islamic Science in 900 and 1,000 AD. They started it. They were doing eye surgery in 800 AD with techniques we still use. Our operating tools, scalpel etc, the ones used at say Cedar-Sinai today, were invented by Islamic Science then, and haven't changed.
So back then the world was secretly using petroleum and it wasnt first discovered in Titusville, PA in the 1800s?
So in 1,000 AD the west was already driving cars so Iraq was AOK as they could sell the oil to the west and then they could somehow do eye surgery as they could sell the oil?
So with the sanctions, then they couldnt sell the oil so hence no more eye surgery?
So eye surgery is dependent on oil use?
Oil use goes up, so does eye surgery? Directly proportional?
Eye surgery in Iraq is a function of oil revenues in a FOREIGN currency?
Matt one of the reason the flee towards Europe is because the other regional nations have zero tolerance for emigrants. Zero. I'm well aware of this first hand experience in north Africa (treatment is similar to what started happening in Hungary and east Europe now).
Syrian refugees started years ago, is not a recent phenomenon, but the surrounding countries which took refugees (not all) are collapsed, people has then started going to Europe. This war has been going for years (including when oil was above $80), is not new, only a few hundred thousand have gone to Europe and is the apocalypse, other countries have absorbed millions already during 5 years of conflict. Libya is, again, an other power vacuum that was created by France and USA, holly molly who would have though it would turn exactly like it has gone in east Syrian and North Iraq with the crazes taking over...
I'm not saying that our policy is good though, but let's be real about the causes of this particular crisis. However it's not like high commodity prices are much better: the Arab Spring was the result of high commodity prices and general rises in prices of food which created again more chaos.
No one is willing to say because they are scared to use th M(althus) word, but the main problem of MENA is fucking overpopulation, period. You can't have 80 million people living in a desert like in Egypt. The population of those countries has exploded in the last decades and yes partially thanks to oil incomes, but not only.
And let's not pretend the West is infallible, USA and Europe depend a 100% on imports from the rest of the world, wo which would collapse in weeks. It goes both ways.
So yeah, maybe globalization, free trade and 'neoliberalism' are part of the problem?
Matt, you have too many beers during the game? ;-) I was writing in response to your "Second rate Iraq doesnt know how to make band-aids over there???? Penicillin????" comment. Albright wouldn't let through medical supplies. Babies were being born with spinal bifuda so bad they were freaks of nature. Ditto the damage done by depleted uranium. Not to mention the intentional starvation.
How hard is it to make band-aids? Take a piece of tape and apply a patch of gauze to it...
Tongue depressors: same as popsicle sticks...
Syringes: Made out of plastic (FROM OIL!)
So we impose "sanctions" ie leave them alone.... and that doesnt work... THEN we lift sanctions and its a "neo-liberal conspiracy!!!!" and that doenst work?
What DOES work over there? Ripping us off for oil so they dont have to work and can jerk off into hot tubs all day?
"What if I looked it up and their ag output actually increased per capita over the period in question?" What can I say, the kids died. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbIX1CP9qr4
Bandaids and tongue depressors for birth defects? We bombed their medical labs. National Institutes of Health: "children born with two heads, no head, a single eye in their foreheads or missing limbs." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3492088/ Although these articles are about the last 15 years. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-center-for-constitutional-rights/iraqi-birth-defects-cover_b_4046442.html
Majority of the 500,000 kids died of malnutrition. UN, 2000.
"What if I looked it up and their ag output actually increased per capita over the period in question?"
Look it up, the Middle East (and parts of NA) has suffered drops in output in the last decade and more so in the last five years. Food price index in Syria has risen sixfold since 2008. Arab Spring in Egypt had very strong correlation with food price raises.
Believe what you want, the data is there, look it up.
Superb articles by Neil Wilson, Random. Yes, the same thing happened in my company. They had no apprentices or trainees for years and I thought they would have to put the wages up one day to attract staff. But when they needed more skilled labour they just got them from Eastern Europe instead, already trained. I think of all the apprentices they could have had, local lads (and girls), who would have loved skilled jobs.
But before I go, though, all the Eastern Europeans I worked with were very lovely people, and so were the Africans. In fact, I made really good friends with a Nigerian guy. One day we got talking more deeply about things and then I discovered that we shared the same politics. That was a fantastic feeling -connection. He was the only intellectual there where i worked. He said to me on another occasion that this neoliberal system won't last, the world will revolt against it.
All that you said in your response to me is true and it does not at all alter anything I said in my response. You are the one who said;
"It has nothing to do with the "western capitalist system that is forced upon them." Zero."
As you pointed out the western capitalist system has been militarist for some time, there is not one with out the other. Virtually all our international policies are conducted at the end of a bayonet. Anyone we bring into our circle of influence or trust must be comfortable with that reality and must, when asked, use their own people in support of our wars.
"The GWOT has been going on for 15 years the refugee thing didnt start until the oil price started to collapse..."
Im not sure about that Matt. People have been trying to escape war torn and poorly governed societies for many years. Yes we are in a cycle where it is ratcheting up, thanks in large part to the wests efforts around the globe and a commodity bubble pop, but thats like saying homelessness and poverty weren't a problem till the 2008 crash.
25 comments:
Crikey, we've got to stop the neoliberals. It's time for a basic income and better immigration controls.
I'm on the left, but I'm dead against mass immigration. It's only because the ruling class are churning up the world, extracting as much wealth as possible which is causing all this upheaval. Like the way deep sea fishing boats dreg the ocean floor destroying the whole ecosystem there to maximize profits, so people in third world countries feel forced to emigrate and leave their friends and families behind because they have no life worth living in their own countries due to the western capitalist system that is forced upon them.
nivekvb, you may be interested in these ideas:
http://www.3spoken.co.uk/2014/06/how-immigration-affects-uk-economy.html
http://www.3spoken.co.uk/2014/10/how-labour-can-solve-immigration.html
Have a read and tell me what you think.
It's a little simpler than that. We bomb their homes, farms, towns, and cities. A recent landmark study by doctors' reported we've killed 4 million people with our regime change wars. (I remember when Rumsfeld banned the Pentagon from reporting civilian deaths starting in 2006, so no one knows.)
http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/unworthy-victims-western-wars-have-killed-four-million-muslims-1990-39149394
Phil Giraldi wrote an impassioned piece about the consequences of it for The American Conservative last September, which everyone fucking ignores.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/a-refugee-crisis-made-in-america/
It has nothing to do with the "western capitalist system that is forced upon them." Zero.
Bombs are huge part of the American version of the western capitalist system MRW. Saying it has nothing to do is a little naive.
Lots of the most profitable companies in the world are those that deal in weapons systems, military accessories, high tech gadgets for killing, fighter jets blah blah blah
"Dead against mass immigration"
Going to get it whether you like it or not, close borders and get more illegal immigration (shudder to think about the public health issues there). Climate change is going to produce that. Honestly the shut borders stuff and everything will be ok is so naive.
Greg, it's also a little naive to think I don't know that. ;-))
HOWEVER. "weapons systems, military accessories, high tech gadgets for killing, fighter jets" didn't get invented in 2001 or 1990, so they've been around a while.
It's what the USG decided--decides--to do with them; moreover, what the people went--go--along with. Now, I was never a Clinton lover, but during the 1990s, everyone got their panties in a knot over Clinton's peccadilloes. But when Madeleine Albright said on TV that the deaths and birth defects of 500,000 Iraqi children caused by the oil and medical supplies sanctions was "worth it," and that comment to Colin Powell "What's the point of having this superb military that you're always talking about if we can't use it?" no one in this country screamed like they did about Clinton's dick.
Look at the consequences of what we've done: ISIS. And 4 million Iraqis and 3 million Syrians have been displaced. They're roaming around Europe looking for a place to land. Their teenage sons have been enraged at the destruction and destitution of their families, breeding a generation of revenge that will visit in the future.
I'm with Neil on the ordinary wants and needs of ordinary people. They want their kids to grow up, go to school, get married, have a regular life. That's the same the world over, no matter what your religion. Fanatics? Yeah, they exist, but that's a minor minor issue compared to what the majority of people want for their kin.
We've never had war on our soil. We have no fucking idea what it does to people. (The Russians do.) Can you imagine what would happen in this country if Mexico and Canada were weapons behemoths that bombed this country, destroyed our food crops, ruined our electrical grid, and killed our kids because they didn't like our president or thought we were hiding terrorists they didn't like? You wanna' talk about a radicalized populace. Our people would be worse than what the menacing Iraqis/Taliban/Pakis/Syrians are now.
I'm getting too old to make political or class warfare arguments justifying stupid catastrophic decisions. We went to war in Iraq for Israel: Netanyahu even showed up before a congressional committee in 2002 to beg for it (youtube it), Podhoretz begged for it as well in the pages of Commentary, and former NSC member Philip Zelikow specifically said so in September 2002 when he was running the Miller Center at the Univ. of Virginia. Then these asshole Israelis stirred the pot promoting war in Syria and Iran. They're still at it. But it's taboo to talk about it. Look what happened to Petraeus when he warned Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mullen that Israel Is jeopardizing US Security Interests. Had to backpeddle, stand on his head, and say mea culpa three times.
The uber-money in the world goes where the action is. But the action has to come first.
"We've never had war on our soil"
Not since the civil war... maybe that's the problem. It's easy to kill others and destroy their nations when there are no consequences for it, all in name of whatever boggus stupid geopolitical idea.
The problem is that elites perceive the world as a zero-sum problem, so they generate those sort of outcomes. That will happen with or without capitalism. Lust of power and nihilism (specially not believing in your own people) does that.
The GWOT has been going on for 15 years the refugee thing didnt start until the oil price started to collapse...
Those second rate nations over there cannot function economically unless they are extracting YUGE amounts of monopoly rent from the west in EUR and USD terms...
What's Venezuela's problem? No war there... no toilet paper either at $30 oil...
The left is against rent unless of course it is being extracted from the west then rent is just fine and dandy.
The IMF and the World Bank have imposed neoliberalism capitalism on the Third World which greatly favours the Western ruling elites.
Broadly, there are two types of capitalism. One type of the Mom and Pops hard working family run businesses, and this model can include the medium and large businesses too.
The ruling elite use the first type of capitalism as propaganda and cover the their own type of faux capitalism which is really about looting everyone else, back handers, corruption, and lining their own pickets. No work required.
It causes conflict in me because I am a true liberal.
"No work required."
Please are you saying that the additional 4 MILLION bbls per day the US is producing and the probably addl 1M bbl/day of oil being produced in Canada just "evolved from nothing"???
NO WORK WAS REQUIRED?????
All those people out there freezing their assess off and busting their knuckles are not working?????
OK I get it, we are supposed to IGNORE work and production rates and manifest prices and other forms of REALITY HELLLLOOOOO ... and instead blame fantasy concepts like "neo-liberlism!" as the source of all of our problems...
You will never get anywhere blaming a figure of speech for some sort of bad outcome...
"the deaths and birth defects of 500,000 Iraqi children caused by the oil and medical supplies sanctions"
What do people drink oil now???
They didnt have enough oil to drink so they died of thirst????
Second rate Iraq doesnt know how to make band-aids over there????
Penicillin???? Its Open Source been around since 1928: C9H11N2O4S
You won't take argument from me that those nations are dysfunctional w/o high oil prices (something that has little to do with the neglectable shale oil production) but this has nothing to do with Syria or the refugees. None of those nations produce refugees unlike Syria which oil production is neglectable and is not a main source of income for the country. What you won't read though, either, is a look at the ongoing displacement inside Syria due to droughts and other ecological problems and the derived economic problems ... This is going to get worse as the century progresses.
Permanent low oil prices (they won't last, for a comprenhensive list of the reasons: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Oil-Prices/10-Reasons-why-Sub-30-Oil-Is-A-Major-Problem.html the problem is we are fading the oil era for the better or for the worst and this will mean increased price volatility from highs to lows during extended period of time) will agravate the situation in the MENA and increase turmoil even more probably, but they were not the cause of Syrian problem.
The refugee crisis has been going for years as the war intensified and ISIS occupied the power vacuum, is just that here in the West we are only feeling it now: Lebanon, Turkey and other countries in the region have absorbed MILLIONS of refugees in the last 5 years. MILLIONS (Lebanon has the equivalent of 1/4 of it's population in refugees).
No bodies of babies washing up on beaches until oil collapsed...
We are not in Libya militarily right now what is the problem there we left?
Libya should be a utopia according to the left as we are not even there AT ALL....
What about Venezuela? No toilet paper... neo-liberal conspiracy?!?!!?
Why dont the refugees just head over to Libya we are not there????
No hot tubs to jerk off into or swimming pools to defecate into over in Libya?
http://www.europeanguardian.com/81-uncategorised/immigration/698-zwickau-germany-refugees-masturbate-and-defecate-in-public-pool
@Matt ;-)
"What do people drink oil now???
Nah, we wouldn't allow them to sell their oil after Operation Desert Storm except through for the UN Oil-For-Food program that Maurice Strong (Mr. Climate Change of UNEP fame) siphoned off for his son, or something, by using the Koreans. About a million bucks. Strong hightailed it to Beijing (where his mother had been remembered as a beloved missionary) to hide out. He had become persona non grata at the UN, and Canada didn't want him back, so he had his tail between his legs.
"Congressional report calls for investigation of Maurice Strong's role in Oil-for-Food scandal"
http://canadafreepress.com/2005/cover120905.htm
Believe it or not, Matt, pre-1980, Iraq had some of the best educated doctors in the world. Rich Frenchmen would go there to have procedures done. Don't forget that the entire Western medical diagnostic manual, or Pharmacopeia (whatever it's called) was created by Islamic Science in 900 and 1,000 AD. They started it. They were doing eye surgery in 800 AD with techniques we still use. Our operating tools, scalpel etc, the ones used at say Cedar-Sinai today, were invented by Islamic Science then, and haven't changed.
So back then the world was secretly using petroleum and it wasnt first discovered in Titusville, PA in the 1800s?
So in 1,000 AD the west was already driving cars so Iraq was AOK as they could sell the oil to the west and then they could somehow do eye surgery as they could sell the oil?
So with the sanctions, then they couldnt sell the oil so hence no more eye surgery?
So eye surgery is dependent on oil use?
Oil use goes up, so does eye surgery? Directly proportional?
Eye surgery in Iraq is a function of oil revenues in a FOREIGN currency?
Matt one of the reason the flee towards Europe is because the other regional nations have zero tolerance for emigrants. Zero. I'm well aware of this first hand experience in north Africa (treatment is similar to what started happening in Hungary and east Europe now).
Syrian refugees started years ago, is not a recent phenomenon, but the surrounding countries which took refugees (not all) are collapsed, people has then started going to Europe. This war has been going for years (including when oil was above $80), is not new, only a few hundred thousand have gone to Europe and is the apocalypse, other countries have absorbed millions already during 5 years of conflict. Libya is, again, an other power vacuum that was created by France and USA, holly molly who would have though it would turn exactly like it has gone in east Syrian and North Iraq with the crazes taking over...
I'm not saying that our policy is good though, but let's be real about the causes of this particular crisis. However it's not like high commodity prices are much better: the Arab Spring was the result of high commodity prices and general rises in prices of food which created again more chaos.
No one is willing to say because they are scared to use th M(althus) word, but the main problem of MENA is fucking overpopulation, period. You can't have 80 million people living in a desert like in Egypt. The population of those countries has exploded in the last decades and yes partially thanks to oil incomes, but not only.
And let's not pretend the West is infallible, USA and Europe depend a 100% on imports from the rest of the world, wo which would collapse in weeks. It goes both ways.
So yeah, maybe globalization, free trade and 'neoliberalism' are part of the problem?
Matt, you have too many beers during the game? ;-) I was writing in response to your "Second rate Iraq doesnt know how to make band-aids over there???? Penicillin????" comment. Albright wouldn't let through medical supplies. Babies were being born with spinal bifuda so bad they were freaks of nature. Ditto the damage done by depleted uranium. Not to mention the intentional starvation.
Ok now we are to be made to believe they have no soil and water over there?????
Is it not called "the fertile crescent" ?
"International starvation"
What if I looked it up and their ag output actually increased per capita over the period in question?
"Albright wouldn't let through medical supplies."
How hard is it to make band-aids? Take a piece of tape and apply a patch of gauze to it...
Tongue depressors: same as popsicle sticks...
Syringes: Made out of plastic (FROM OIL!)
So we impose "sanctions" ie leave them alone.... and that doesnt work... THEN we lift sanctions and its a "neo-liberal conspiracy!!!!" and that doenst work?
What DOES work over there? Ripping us off for oil so they dont have to work and can jerk off into hot tubs all day?
"What if I looked it up and their ag output actually increased per capita over the period in question?"
What can I say, the kids died. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbIX1CP9qr4
Bandaids and tongue depressors for birth defects? We bombed their medical labs.
National Institutes of Health: "children born with two heads, no head, a single eye in their foreheads or missing limbs." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3492088/ Although these articles are about the last 15 years.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-center-for-constitutional-rights/iraqi-birth-defects-cover_b_4046442.html
Majority of the 500,000 kids died of malnutrition. UN, 2000.
"What if I looked it up and their ag output actually increased per capita over the period in question?"
Look it up, the Middle East (and parts of NA) has suffered drops in output in the last decade and more so in the last five years. Food price index in Syria has risen sixfold since 2008. Arab Spring in Egypt had very strong correlation with food price raises.
Believe what you want, the data is there, look it up.
Superb articles by Neil Wilson, Random. Yes, the same thing happened in my company. They had no apprentices or trainees for years and I thought they would have to put the wages up one day to attract staff. But when they needed more skilled labour they just got them from Eastern Europe instead, already trained. I think of all the apprentices they could have had, local lads (and girls), who would have loved skilled jobs.
But before I go, though, all the Eastern Europeans I worked with were very lovely people, and so were the Africans. In fact, I made really good friends with a Nigerian guy. One day we got talking more deeply about things and then I discovered that we shared the same politics. That was a fantastic feeling -connection. He was the only intellectual there where i worked. He said to me on another occasion that this neoliberal system won't last, the world will revolt against it.
@MRW
All that you said in your response to me is true and it does not at all alter anything I said in my response. You are the one who said;
"It has nothing to do with the "western capitalist system that is forced upon them." Zero."
As you pointed out the western capitalist system has been militarist for some time, there is not one with out the other. Virtually all our international policies are conducted at the end of a bayonet. Anyone we bring into our circle of influence or trust must be comfortable with that reality and must, when asked, use their own people in support of our wars.
"The GWOT has been going on for 15 years the refugee thing didnt start until the oil price started to collapse..."
Im not sure about that Matt. People have been trying to escape war torn and poorly governed societies for many years. Yes we are in a cycle where it is ratcheting up, thanks in large part to the wests efforts around the globe and a commodity bubble pop, but thats like saying homelessness and poverty weren't a problem till the 2008 crash.
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