The US Treasury scolded Germany's economic policies and growth model with a barrage of seemingly well-crafted but empty soundbites that smack of some quasi-political, talking-head segment content-generator. The response of the German minister of finance of “incomprehensible” seemed more than apt, as the EU economic powerhouse suddenly found itself elevated above China and Japan as the usual prime targets of America's lecturing, pummeled with flowery-phrases the strongly criticised their apparent reliance on exports rather than concentrate on increasing domestic consumption.
Some how, this shift is supposed to help the rest of the Euro Zone pull out of its malaise, but I believe that Germany already is tapping its surpluses and success—albeit maybe not to the right degree—by helping to finance the burdens many European debtor nations have been saddled with, thanks in part to the tantalising, easy credit of US policies. One could argue that Germany's windfall comes at the expense of partner nations, but it seems to me that the complaint, considering the source—a former exporter that has out-sourced and off-shored most of that talent in favour of trying to oversee trade, that this forum is becoming more of an overture to malingerers (the EU having already been burnt by a flirtation in earnest with collapse and devolution), to adopt dissolute debt, which already shy to such schemes the EU is strongly against. Euros are awarded an effete and scholarly regard, unlike the dollar, and can neither be created nor destroyed by the constituency. Compounded with the unresolved conflicts over espionage and its creative justifications, it seems the US should not venture further.
Thursday 31 October 2013
pot to kettle or once bitten
Wednesday 30 October 2013
vulgate or under lock and key
There are reports circulating that American intelligence services monitored and profiled the Pope during the highly secretive and sequestered Conclave, in order to assess the candidate's views on human rights and international relations and postures on US financial interests and overall direction of leadership.
orient express
This week saw the inaugural train-ride under the waters of the Marmara Sea at the Straits of the Bosporus, linking the European and Asian parts of Istanbul with submerged tube line.
This ambitious project, engineered with the assistance of Norwegian and Japanese planners, has taken a decade to complete and opens several years behind schedule—due almost exclusively, however, to preservation efforts to safely retrieve the trove of artefacts, ancient finds from Roman, Byzantine and earlier eras, including shipwrecks and the sunken ancient harbour of the city. There have been other means of bridging the continents since, including the poor nymph Io, a victim of one of Zeus' many liaisons, who he turned into a cow in order to hide her from his jealous wife. Hera, however, saw through this deception and condemned the shamed nymph to wonder the earth, tormented by a relentless gadfly that prodded her onwards, never resting.
Io came to Asia at these narrows, whose name signifies her crossing, like Oxford (oder Oschenfurt)--that is where a cow could ford the waters, and eventually met another unfortunate, Prometheus, punished for giving mankind the gifts of foresight and fire. The tortured god told Io to travel to Egypt where she regained her human form. The city, straddling both worlds, continued to represent a limit and a point of transition—more recently, a grand hall of a former railway station on Istanbul's modern harbour stands as the remains of the end-station of the fabled Orient Express, beginning in Paris. To travel further east, passengers would disembark here and take ferries to board trains of the Ottoman railways across the straits.
Monday 28 October 2013
eagle's nest
The relative silence by the American media regarding its native intelligence agencies and their forays abroad is deafening. There are bits of domestic coverage that are mostly of an apologetic nature—other Anglophone outlets are understandably taciturn as well—but nothing of a hard-hitting or challenging nature from very pedestrian news sources.
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