HOW TO PUNISH RUSSIA FOR MALAYSIAN FLIGHT 17

while the forensics have just begun, while being hindered by both the separatists and the russians, it seems clear that Russia is responsible in a significant way. while it is clear that no one is going to intervene militarily in a direct way; there is another way

298 people were killed. their lives had value. Russia and any person or affiliate should be sued in every court on the planet; including UN related courts. look what a couple of hedge funds did to Argentina in the courts. and that was over a few bonds. here we have murder. and just to make it interesting, one of those killed was a top HIV researcher. why not a class action law suit on behalf of all current and future AIDS patients for damages?

time to act against Putin

WHAT ISRAEL SHOULD SAY AND DO ABOUT THE PALESTINIAN YOUTH THAT WAS KILLED

the death and likely murder of a Palestinian youth in Jerusalem is both horrific and unacceptable.  it follows the equally horrific and unacceptable kidnapping and murder of three Israeli youths. personal, vigilante justice is not justice; it is murder. Israel is committed to finding those responsible for killing the three Israelis and the state of Israel will mete out justice. equally,  we are committed to finding out what happened to the Palestinian youth and who is responsible and bringing those responsible to justice, whether they be Israeli or otherwise.

our hearts go out to the families of all.

COLLEGE INTOLERANCE; ISLAM AND HYPOCRISY

Brandeis uninvited Ayaan Hirsi Ali from receiving an honorary degree recently. the reason given was she had said some mean things about Islam. one phrase was "a destructive, nihilistic cult of death". another talked about being at war or going to war with Islam.

a few thoughts. first, this woman has a Wikipedia page and tons of press. she does happen to be a refugee from Somalia and is a former PM in the Dutch parliament. not shabby credentials. but anything she said in the past was in the public record so those geniuses at Brandeis could have read such and maybe not invited her in the first place. it is bad form to invite and then rescind.

but going further. i am not sure she was far off; at least about the nihilistic cult of death part. not much after this affair there are two major events that juxtapose nicely

in Pakistan, i woman was stoned to death in from of a court house by her family for marry a man that she loved instead of going into an arranged marriage to her cousin. to make it even more perverse, her husband had killed his prior wife 6 years ago so as to be free to marry Farzana Parveen. how sick is that

then in Sudan, Meriam Yehva Ibrahim was sentenced to death for being Christian. death. for claiming to be something other than Muslim as her father was muslim and that apparently defines her under Sharia law

so the sensitive, little liberals at Brandeis chased away a champion of women's rights while the Islam she denounces stoned one woman and sentenced another to death. do the women of Brandeis have any idea what their lives would be like under Sharia law?

very disheartening

DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME: CAN WE AGREE ON ONE THING?

I awoke this morning at 530am; or really 630am now that we have "sprung forward". it was pitch black. i normally get up between 600am and 630am. the days have been getting longer such that there is some light at 630. i was encouraged. not pitch black.

whats the point?

i now have to change a zillion clocks.

there is a lot of literature on the subject. Wikipedia is decent. but ask yourself this seeming commonsense question

when the days are naturally getting longer, why make them even longer and later

when days are naturally getting shorter, why make them even shorter and earlier?

OBAMA threatens. PUTIN invades

As per my last post, Obama , the EU and the Ukraine should have let yanukovich leave in peace and picked up the phone and told him that their interests in Crimea were safe

They didn't

Then, he of the red line in Syria proposes a new line in Ukraine and warned Putin not to invade, Putin laughed and is now invading

Nobel Peace Prize?

AFTER SOCHI; WILL PUTIN'S TANKS ROLL IN?

after spending $50 Billion dollars of the governments and a bunch of oligarch's money on an ok Olympics, the last thing Putin wanted was for Ukraine to distract from his headlines. but the best laid plans...

he after all had a lot to do with it. the western narrative of east vs. west is too facile; it is undoubtedly more complicated. Ukraine was in fact headed toward a relationship with the EU and i cant prove it but it sure seems likely that at the last minute,Putin showed up
with both threats and inducements ($15B) and Yanukovich abruptly  pulled   out of the EU deal into a Russian deal. the was likely the precipitating event but there were other issues such as the appropriation of power by Yanukovich by forcing a change in the constitution and corruption.

i actually don't think this was a US manipulation. i don't think we have the skills or the balls to pull it off. i think the Ukrainians actually wanted their country back. Putin has dreams of a greater russia, like Islamist's have dreams of reestablishing the Caliphate and even israel has some who believe in a greater israel. beware any one with dreams of a "greater" anything. tears and bloodshed will follow

anyhow, back to the title. Putin invaded Georgia on trumped up pretexts. why not in Ukraine? if you look at a map Ukraine is important. it is between Poland and Russia, the former used to be under the thumb of the USSR but escaped and is now attached to the EU. Ukraine has both energy and agricultural assets and is strategic. if they "lose" Ukraine, greater russia is less great.

now i dont know what happened to the talk about a tri-tripartite arrangement where an independent Ukraine trades with both the east and the west?                                                                                                        
it will be interesting. if putin goes in, no one will stop him. certainly not the US who wouldn't even supply a no fly zone or act in any way in Syria after a very red line was crossed when Assad used chemical weapons on civilians. and neither will the EU. so it will come down to does he want the bad pr?

pretty said state of affairs

lets hope for the best

THE NEW UNEMPLOYMENT

there is a lot of conversation about income inequality, net worth inequality, unemployment, the 1%.

i think it is important to try to distinguish between symptoms and causes.

there is significant income and net worth inequality. there is some ratio between high and low; i dont think anyone knows or agrees what that is, beyond which there are real social fabric and just plain social fairness issues. however, i dont think the 1% or for that matter the top 10% are evil people as a group. they have no idea what it is like for the bottom 25% and could use something akin to A Christmas Carol where Scrooge is visited by Marley's ghost and when faced with the horror of how the lower classes live, has an epiphany.

but lets go to causes. there have been an aggregation of trends over the last 20 years that have decimated the middle class, manufacturing, and employment that at this point is structural and likely to get worse. these trends or factors in no coherent order include

globalization of trade and manufacturing and labor arbitrage. in the face of ever increasing wages and inflexible work rules mostly driven my labor unions in manufacturing industries like auto, steel etc. jobs migrated to China, southeast asia, mexico, etc. in some cases entire steel mills where disassembled and shipped to asia and reassembled there. labor in america had built a Maginot Line. well we know how that worked out. services also migrated out of the US. BPO or business process outsourcing is the industry where when you call your credit card company about a fraud issue it gets answered in India. when faced with 25/hr versus 5/hr jobs will migrate in a global economy. the global labor force has gone up by 1-2 Billion workers in the last 20 years. this cant but have a big impact on employment and wages in the US. by the way, i am not blaming unions for the mess we are in; though i could. what i am saying is they brought a knife to a gun fight. or like Custer at the Little Big Horn, they were out of sych with global forces and ultimately made it worse for american industry and themselves.

technology. has been a blessing and a curse. almost any citizen can buy a smart phone today that is more powerful than the biggest mainframe of decades ago. technology has led to amazing productivity that has effected everyones life; both at the top and the bottom.  however, technology also displaces traditional jobs. when it does, what will these people do, where will they go, how will they find new jobs, what should society do to help them. is giving them unlimited unemployment insurance the answer? this is bothersome as it seems to not have incentives to find new work. we need incentives for such but also programs to help them. this trend of technology destroying jobs will not stop. it is likely to get worse. we seem to be getting to a point where there is a disconnect between value and wealth creation and labor such that a small % of society creates most of the value, as GDP thinks of value and accrues most of the wealth. these are not inherently evil people, though some are selfish jerks. what do we do when a society creates enough wealth for everyone but many are left out to an extent that is just not acceptable or safe?

every month we see statistics on job creation, unemployment, etc. but as we all should know mere unemployment numbers are misleading because they dont count people who have just given up and as not statistically counted as looking for work. so the real unemployment rate is much higher and many of these people dont have a clue to get on the new train. this is a problem that cant be ignored.

everyone is saying the Fed needs to do more. but the Fed has been around for a long time and for most of that time it had a single mandate, price stability. only recently was it given a twin mandate of employment. the Fed in the face of an epochal financial crash has done amazing work but there are limits to monetary policy and risks to indefinite Quantitative Easing, QE. i believe those limits have been reached and the risks quite real. whether LIBOR is .58% or 1.58% at this point wont make a difference in whether a particular company hires or doesnt hire an incremental employee. they will hire that person when they need them; based on increased demand. what might help is consistency of policies; tax, fiscal, regulatory, etc. making an investment in business is a long term commitment; whether making capital investment or human investment. the current uncertainty, with  a trend to every more hard to navigate regulations makes business cautious.  the recent left agenda of increasing the minimum wage is unlikely to help either. it may help people with jobs but it will hinder job creation

we are in a new world. using the old tools the old way is not likely to work. we need to educate our children and our workers. we need to incent job creation; not from manipulating interest rates but creating an environment where risk has a chance of reward. we need to figure out how to help the structurally unemployed get back into the work force. we need to be open to some radical exploration also without going down the road of Argentina and Venezuela. society wont work if Google and Facebook have all the money.

the new reality involves a global world, a global market for goods and services, a global labor pool. traditional leverage has been lost. if rates are too high in Detroit jobs will move to Alabama or Vietnam. Technology is our friend and our enemy. Fixing education might be the most important thing we can do.

the Fed cant save us. we must save ourselves