It appears that with the new Movable Type format it is possible to not "accept comments" and sadly, after this post, I shall put a check on that option. I say sadly, because most of the comments I receive, even harshly critical ones, are  very useful to me as a mirror and I often get new ideas reading them or marshaling my resources to answer their critique.

However there are a few posters who are simply intolerable in both content and form and to receive them into ones space and engage them is degrading.

At first I was amused that "moderate centrism" was being defended using tactics that one associates with Stalinists or skinheads, I suppose I thought there was something Monty Pythonesque about it all, but finally, sullen, hostile, brutality palls.

I don't like to stand on my dignity, but I don't think any of us have to tolerate personal allusions, comments on our private lives or to be insulted or intimidated. Nobody has to tolerate or put up with that. I certainly won't.

I think that the presence of these little cyber-thugs is probably discouraging many beginners, people with valuable things to say that are less case-hardened the myself, from blogging, but the decision to allow the little bullies to continue is not mine, the only possibility open to me is to disable comment in the space that carries my name. "I am David Seaton and I approve of this message"  should apply to anything in a space that carries my name.

I shall miss many of the people who comment on my TPM blog and I imagine they know who they are so I won't single them out... Who knows this might make them future targets for abuse.

From now on, if anyone wants to comment on anything I post here they are welcome to visit my home blog, "David Seaton's News Links" and leave their comments there. The address is:
http://seaton-newslinks.blogspot.com/   This is because Blogspot has a feature that we don't have at TPM yet (or I haven't discovered it yet) that allows me to moderate my space and to filter the comments. I read them, but I am not forced to give them space to insult me or other commentators.

I am allowing comments on this last post because I think the topic might be of general interest to many members of this forum, but I shall not answer of participate in any discussion that follows.

A couple of quotes from two of my heroes, Nouriel Roubini and Tom Engelhardt: The title of Tom Engelhardt's piece is "Don't Let Obama Break Your Heart" and Roubini's title is, "The Dismal Outlook for the US and Global Economy and the Financial Markets".

Obama will inherit and economic and financial mess worse than anything the U.S. has faced in decades: the most severe recession in 50 years; the worst financial and banking crisis since the Great Depression; a ballooning fiscal deficit that may be as high as a trillion dollar in 2009 and 2010; a huge current account deficit; a financial system that is in a severe crisis and where deleveraging is still occurring at a very rapid pace, thus causing a worsening of the credit crunch; a household sector where millions of households are insolvent, into negative equity territory and on the verge of losing their homes; a serious risk of deflation as the slack in goods, labor and commodity markets becomes deeper; the risk that we will end in a deflationary liquidity trap as the Fed is fast approaching the zero-bound constraint for the Fed Funds rate; the risk of a severe debt deflation as the real value of nominal liabilities will rise given price deflation while the value of financial assets is still plunging. Nouriel Roubini

_________________________

On the day that Americans turned out in near record numbers to vote, a record was set halfway around the world. In Afghanistan, a U.S. Air Force strike wiped out about 40 people in a wedding party. This represented at least the sixth wedding party eradicated by American air power in Afghanistan and Iraq since December 2001.(...) So, after January 20th, expect Obama to take possession of George Bush's disastrous Afghan War; and unless he is far more skilled than Alexander the Great, British empire builders, and the Russians, his war, too, will continue to rage without ever becoming a raging success. Finally, President-elect Obama accepted the overall framework of a "Global War on Terror" during his presidential campaign. This "war" lies at the heart of the Bush administration's fantasy world of war that has set all-too-real expanses of the planet aflame. Its dangers were further highlighted this week by the New York Times, which revealed that secret orders in the spring of 2004 gave the U.S. military "new authority to attack the Qaeda terrorist network anywhere in the world, and a more sweeping mandate to conduct operations in countries not at war with the United States."(...) Domestically, it's clear enough that we are about to leave the age of Bush -- in tone and policy -- but what that leave-taking will consist of is still an open question.(...) All you had to do was look at that array of Clinton-era economic types and CEOs behind Obama at his first news conference to think: been there, done that.(...) How about former Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, those kings of 1990s globalization, or even the towering former Fed chief from the first Bush era, Paul Volcker? Didn't that have the look of previews for a political zombie movie, a line-up of the undead?(...) You could scan that gathering and not see a genuine rogue thinker in sight; no off-the-reservation figures who might represent a breath of fresh air and fresh thinking (other than, being hopeful, the president-elect himself). Clemons offers an interesting list of just some obvious names left off stage: "Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz, Jeffrey Sachs, James Galbraith, Leo Hindery, Clyde Prestowitz, Charlene Barshefsky, C. Fred Bergsten, Adam Posen, Robert Kuttner, Robert Samuelson, Alan Murray, William Bonvillian, Doug & Heidi Rediker, Bernard Schwartz, Tom Gallagher, Sheila Bair, Sherle Schwenninger, and Kevin Phillips."(...) What Obama looks to have are custodians and bureaucrats of empire, far more cautious, far more sane, and certainly far more grown-up than the first-term Bush appointees, but not a cast of characters fit for reshaping American policy in a new world of disorder and unraveling economies, not a crew ready to break new ground and cede much old ground on this still American-garrisoned planet of ours. Tom Engelhardt

If I were to make a synthesis of what the two pieces above portend, I would say that progressives have until 2010, barely two years, to make a real difference in the way the world works, because if the economy is as bad as Roubini says it is and if Obama is only going to use warmed over Clintonites to fix it, as Tom Engelhardt says, then the Democrats are going to lose control of Congress in the mid-term elections.

Read more »

Der SPIEGEL: So what can Obama do? Niall Ferguson: He can give a great inauguration speech. SPIEGEL: And what else? Ferguson: Give more great speeches. SPIEGEL: He can't do more? Ferguson: No, because he will have the least latitude of all presidents we can remember. Obama wants to assemble a nonpartisan government, and we will experience a more cautious first 100 days than we did under Bill Clinton. He will be cautious to the point of being boring. This will be precisely his great strength. SPIEGEL: Where does the problem lie? Ferguson: With Hank Paulson. SPIEGEL: What does the current treasury secretary have to do with Obama? Ferguson: Because of his big bailout plan, Paulson has already spent the money for Obama's healthcare reform and for his tax cuts. The money is gone.

__________________________

The national Treasury is an echoing, empty vault; our Russian and Iranian enemies are acting even more wolfishly even as they sense a repudiation of Bush-Cheney; the lines of jobless and evicted are going to lengthen, and I don't think a diet of hope is going to cover it. Nor even a diet of audacity, though can you picture anything less audacious than the gray, safety-first figures who have so far been chosen by Obama to be on his team? Cristopher Hitchens - Slate

_______________________________

A big struggle over control of Barack Obama's foreign policy has already begun with his first White House staff nominees. Many of the people currently advising him, and all of those behind past Bush policies, are going to tell him his administration must choose between "weakness," on the one hand, and "strength" plus "global leadership." The latter means a quest for American hegemony that won't be any more successful under Obama than it has been under Bush, and along the way will destroy his presidency just as it destroyed George Bush's. William Pfaff

A window is opening briefly, people all over the world are impressed that the Americans have elected someone with African blood as their leader and most impressed of all are the Americans themselves. But racism will have actually died out when the novelty has worn off and the skin color of the US president finally becomes invisible and nothing else is seen but his job performance.

This "death of racism" is going to come sooner than many of Obama's well-wishers may feel comfortable with.

Read more »

Those who think that they have just voted to legalize Utopia (and I hardly exaggerate when I say this; have you been reading the moist and trusting comments of our commentariat?) are preparing for a disillusionment that I very much doubt they will blame on themselves. Christopher Hitchens - Slate

There are many who still believe that history is made from the biographies of "great men", when in fact political reality is the product of the interacting forces generated by the natural conflict of interests of the sum total of the world's inhabitants who press against each other individually and collectively in their struggle to obtain some acceptable result... Some groups, notably the wealthy and the powerful press more than others, but the total interaction is infinitely complex and individuals have little effect on its outcome.

Read more »

China said on Sunday it will loosen credit conditions, cut taxes and embark on a massive infrastructure spending program in a wide-ranging effort to offset adverse global economic conditions by boosting domestic demand. This is a shift long advocated by analysts of the Chinese economy and by some within the government. It comes amid indications that economic growth, exports and various industries are slowing. A stimulus package estimated at 4 trillion yuan (about 570 billion U.S. dollars) will be spent over the next two years to finance programs in 10 major areas, such as low-income housing, rural infrastructure, water, electricity, transportation, the environment, technological innovation and rebuilding from several disasters, most notably the May 12 earthquake. The policies include a comprehensive reform in value-added taxes, which would cut industry costs by 120 billion yuan. - Xinhua

Asian markets welcomed news of the stimulus plan. The Japanese Nikkei index rose 5.6 percent in trading early Monday. Stocks in Hong Kong and Shanghai rallied strongly, jumping over 5 percent and lifting share prices that have been depressed for much of the year. (...) The stimulus plan, though driven by domestic concerns, represents a fresh commitment by China to keep from adding to the economic and financial woes of the United States and Europe. It is also likely to cheer foreign investors in China's economy by ensuring that the country remains a source of growth.  New York Times

"He is a very smart fighter; when he's fighting he is thinking all the time. But, all the time he was thinking I was hitting him." Jack Dempsey

While Americans and their western allies were all patting themselves on the back for electing Barack Obama, the Chinese actually took a major step to re-float the world economy. In a sense the Chinese are now holding the key to the US economy.

Sun Tzu must be be proud.

What this means is that in less than a week, it will be to China that world leaders will be looking to when they meet in Washington and not toward the USA. Things need to be done quickly and it would be almost impossible for the US to duplicate the Chinese plan. As the the NYT says:

China's package is not comparable to fiscal stimulus measures that are being discussed in Washington. In China, much of the capital for infrastructure improvements comes not from central and local governments but from state banks and state-owned companies that are encouraged to expand more rapidly. The plan also differs from the $700 billion financial rescue package approved by Congress, which has helped strengthen bank balance sheets but did not directly mandate new lending or support specific investment projects in the United States. China's overall government spending remains relatively low as a percentage of economic output compared with the United States and Europe. Yet Beijing maintains far more control over investment trends than Washington does, so it has greater flexibility to increase investment to counter a sharp downturn.

Maybe it will be the Chinese that bail out GM.

As Master Kung was want to say: "He who raffs rast raffs best."

http://seaton-newslinks.blogspot.com/

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has said that the Obama administration in the United States needs far-reaching 'perestroika' reforms to overcome the financial crisis and restore balance in the world. - Novosti

With this advice, the Russians are obviously trying to destroy the United States.