Top 10 Events of 2010

 There can never be a definitive list of the ten biggest events of a year, especially one as mad(dening) and as filled with newsmaking events as this year. Nor is this list meant to in any way diminish any of the other big events of the year that are not mentioned. Below are ten of those events that I believed shaped 2010, some of which will resonate for years to come:

1.  Wikileaks cables: Because they scared the hell out of those that have too much sinister power behind the scenes and too much leverage over our lives. Because we all have a right to know what is going on. Because state secrecy is not absolute, nor should it ever be. Because the too-powerful Establishment needs to be jolted sometimes
2. Global warming/ climate change/ deforestation/ biodiversity loss, etc: Because these issues will not go away, nor should they as long as the eco-carnage continues. Because many love to speak 'sustainability' in breathless tones, but don't have a blinking clue of what it actually means. Because we're humans and remain lousy stewards of this planet 
3. Chilean miners: Because all 33 Chilean miners stuck underground made it up alive after more than 60 days. Because this event made me wish with all my heart that total strangers would be alive and well. Because amongst all the doom and gloom in these scary and sinister times, wonderful miracles still do happen.
4. International financial terrorism: Because it showed, time and time again, what blood-sucking scheisters international finance and banking can be. Because it proved just how speculative the world capital economy has become, and how speculators are at war against savers and governments. Because it showed that most top bankers and banks are not geniuses but a bunch of lying, conniving vampires who are sucking nations (and us) dry  
5. Eurozone crisis, Greece & Ireland: Because it showed us just how dangerous this little thing called 'soverign debt' can actually be when hijacked by international banking terrorism. Because it shows what big bullies the likes of Germany, France and the IMF actually are. Because it shows how uncompromising, unfair (to poorer EU countries) and doomed the Euro project actually is. Because the citizens of Greece and Ireland deserved better 
6. Iceland - the financial meltdown and volcano: Because Iceland and its citizens had the bravery to be bankrupt rather than be indentured slaves to international financial terrorists. Because Icelandic citizens voted against being hostage to the monstrous risk-taking of a few bankers. Because the Icelandic volcanic ash was the sweetest and most ironic gift that Iceland could send to disrupt one of its chief hostage-takers, the UK   
7. Ascendancy of China: Because the decline of the American Empire is happening faster than we thought. Because China is definitely on the ascendancy on the world stage, and that's not a good thing either. Because the West has only itself to blame for destroying its own industries and selling itself out like a whore to the cheap labour, cheap (and badly made) products and human rights abuses of China
8. Haiti earthquake: Because this was the one nation on Earth that did not deserve, nor cope with, such a devastating natural disaster. Because it showed (along with many other events this year) that Mother Nature can be one blindly vindictive, nasty lady. Because subsequent events proved that Haiti really needs to get its act together, once and for all. 
9. Gulf of Mexico oil spill: Because this proved, yet again and for the umpteenth time, that our addiction to oil is not sustainable. Because this proved, yet again and for the umpteenth time, that offshore oil drilling is ludicrous in its environmental and social risks. Because this proved, yet again and for the umpteenth time, that multinational oil companies are amongst the biggest lying, greenwashing environmental pillagers on the planet. 
10. Ascendancy of alternative media: Because most traditional media has been asleep at the wheel (or worse) for far too long. Because the 'news' is more subjective than ever (wasn't it always?), and the alternative media is doing it so much better. Because the Internet, for all its pitfalls and inherent dangers, remains a powerful tool for necessary change

RANT: (Bad) Luck of the Irish

My rant for today is a follow-on from earlier my rants on the financial crises that have afflicted Iceland and Greece of late. Now it's the turn of Ireland.

The Irish, it would seem from the actions of their government, are not that lucky after all.

Last Tuesday, March 30th, was known as 'Bailout Tuesday' in Ireland. Yet again, the Irish government saw fit to bail out the five biggest banks in that country from their 'financial predicaments', i.e. mountains of bad, bad, bad debt. So, once again, taxpayers in a country are having to bail out the bad (read: greedy and reckless) actions of private financial institutions with public (taxpayer) money. Actions that have basically sunk the Irish economy.

So, yet again, the poor and the middle classes are having to bail out the (stinking) rich. Whoever said that robber capitalism wasn't alive and well?

And to what tune is this bailout? Well, no less than an estimated 81 BILLION EUROS is what the Irish government is expected to buy back in bad debt via its own artificially created 'bad bank' known as the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA - or "VietNAMA" as Max Keiser hilariously referred to it on his most recent show!).

That is a hell of a lot of money in public expenditure that was not exactly budgeted for. Especially when one considers that Ireland's total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was 167 billion euros in 2008. So, in effect, the Irish government is buying bad debt created by banks that is worth nearly one-half of the country's entire GDP! Where's a friendly leprechaun when you need one?

Even the man who set up NAMA, Peter Bacon, has likened the actual debt of the bank in biggest trouble, Anglo Irish Bank, to that of "an Irish Chernobyl". Such is the amount of as yet undeclared debt that some of these banks are still hiding for now. Very reassuring indeed.

As was stated in an editorial in the Irish newspaper, the Limerick Post, "No matter what spin the government ministers attempt to put on NAMA and its decision to prop up Anglo Irish Bank, the Irish economy is in tatters...Well in excess of 20 billion Euros is to be pipelined into Anglo, a bank that contributed more than its share in bringing down the Irish economy...This is the very bank that loaned monopoly money to developers, builders and speculators, with no questions asked. The very people facilitated, and the bank's hierarchy, will, unlike the ordinary Joe Soap, see little impact on their personal lives."

The Limerick Post article concludes, "How much more can the public take?"

How much indeed. Quite a lot it would seem, given that the Irish government is set to prop up these banks (yet again) using public money...and no one seems set to stop them doing just that.

Is this a system of capitalism even worth preserving? Is this robber capitalism, masquerading as 'the free market", really what the Irish and most of us in the world must be content with?

Max Keiser has made the statement that, with this latest bank bail-out, the Irish people are for all intents and purposes currently being "occupied" by investment bankers and financial robber barons. Their economy and their political system has been hijacked by the very economic terrorists who got them into this entire mess in the first place. It is indeed an occupation by a hostile force. And because of it Ireland is in the toilet, demoralized, defeated for now. Kaput, essentially.

One can only hope that the Irish will see fit to eventually overhaul their entire banking system and the financial-political Mafia that is currently strangling their economy.

There has been talk of a 'Revolution Sunday' looming in Sunday. Who knows. But change is definitely needed in Ireland. Without that, it is doubtful if their luck will turn around any time soon.

Do you get my point?

RANT: Cuidado Portugal y España, Careful Ireland

My rant for today is essentially three words: Portugal, Ireland, Spain.

It's very simple - if the European Union saw fit to literally throw Greece to the proverbial wolves (i.e. the detestable IMF), then what is stopping it happening to these three countries?

The cartoon here by the brilliant Brazilian Latuff says it all...

The plates to be broken here are those of Portugal, Spain and Italy. However, although Italy was cited as being 'in trouble' a few weeks back, to my understanding it really is Ireland that is the actual 'I' in 'PIGS'...at least for now.

'PIGS' is the frankly disgusting acronym given to these four Eurozone countries, all in apparent trouble with their so-called 'sovereign debt'. Greece was in the worst trouble, hence it being sold down the river last week. But the public coffers in Portugal look pretty bad too, as is the case for Ireland. And Spain, the fourth biggest economy in the Eurozone, is said to be in very bad shape too.

So, will the EU allow three more countries to go the way of Greece? Certainly, Portugal and Ireland look quite expendable, for want of a better word. Portugal never seemed to ride very well on the EU bandwagon (must be that 'Club Med-southern European thing', methinks). But it's quite ironic that Ireland is in the 'PIGS club' given that it was a shining beacon of free market, neo-liberal economics until just recently. Ireland was the place to be in the EU, a true 'success story' it seemed - especially for those in IT, direct marketing, business or anyone with a bit of cash or an entrepreneurial streak.

How the tables have turned. Now Ireland is just another basket case. Hmmmm, yet another strike for neo-liberal Friedmanite economics.

And what of Spain? Can the EU really afford to let a country of that size and importance falter and possibly even be in danger of defaulting on its debt obligations? What then? And what will be of the Euro?

How much longer can this madness go on? Are Germany and France going to snub these countries too? Will the IMF simply become the de facto bank for the Eurozone?

For now, I am very worried for these three countries - not to mention all of the European Union.

I am half-Portuguese, a heritage of which I am proud, and I lived in Lisbon for a few years, a city in which I finished my schooling and which I visited every opportunity I had during my university vacations, it being a city I love and know so well. I do not want to see that beautiful country thrown to the dogs.

When will this European club ever finally come together and be united and there for all its members?

After all, is the second word in the letters 'EU' not union? Where is the union in this band of misfits?

Do you get my point?

RANT: The Scam that is 'Sovereign Debt'

'Sovereign debt.' The latest chapter in the mess that is the ongoing financial and economic crisis hitting most of the Western world, and many other countries aside. In short, sovereign debt is supposedly what a country's treasury (i.e. government coffers) has in terms of debt.

And, oh boy, are many countries now on the verge of sovereign debt default, i.e. the inability to pay national debt, whether it to be foreign creditors, pay for social programs at home, raise sufficient capital through treasury bonds issuance, etc. The effect on local economies, not to mention the global economy, if countries start to default on their own national debt, could be quite catastrophic.

Greece is first up.

Greece is on the verge of defaulting on its debt payments. The European Union is freaking out. The Eurozone is freaking out. I mean, countries in Europe don't default on their payments, do they? That's something the likes of Brazil and Argentina and Nigeria did back in the 1980s. Not an EU and euro-based country. Right? Well...no. Greece is on the verge of default. That is fact.

The Greek Prime Minister, George Papandreou, has blamed his country's economic crisis on international speculators (i.e. the likes of Goldman Sachs and their fellow blood-sucking brethren in the international financial world) with their buying up of Greek treasury bonds and, now, dumping of them. Some pooh-pooh that notion (always international financiers or Wall Street apologists, by the way), but don't get analysts like my man, Max Keiser, started on that notion. For him, and many others, the imminent collapse of Greece is entirely the fault of international speculators that are playing havoc with entire national economies.

I, for one, totally believe what Papandreou accuses Wall Street of doing to Greece.

And there are others too who may almost be on the verge of national debt default...

Spain





Ireland





Italy - beautiful land of my ancestors...





Portugal - the other land of my ancestors and a beautiful country I know so well...what a shame...




And don't let's forget about a country that has already defaulted on it's so-called 'debt'...

Yes, Iceland




The land of geysers and volcanoes, the fabled Blue Lagoon, green energy - and, now, the highest debt per capita load on the planet...

Poor Iceland. A canary in the coalmine of what is fundamentally sick - nay, perverted and twisted - about the current global uber-capitalist model.

Sovereign debt is a scam because how can national treasuries be in control of their economies when they are at the mercy of international financial and currency speculators? There's nothing sovereign about this debt any more, hence the total and utter scam thereof.

It's a farce and just the latest chapter, writ HUGE, that demonstrates just how fundamentally flawed, corrupt and outrageously amoral the current neo-liberal, profit-at-all-costs, unregulated financial markets a la Milton Friedman and the Chicago Boys that is world capitalism. It's sick to the core. Adam Smith and Maynard Keynes must be turning in their graves with just how sick the system has become.

Yet, national governments in Europe must also take the blame (not to mention that of the United States, now in debt to the tune of 14 TRILLION dollars, although that endless warmongering is hardly cheap, now is it?). This is what you get when you bail out banks and financial institutions that were reckless and perverse in how they played the stock markets and economies of the world.

Using public money (i.e. the money of citizens) to bail out, to the tune of billions and billions of dollars and euros, the very crooks and scheisters that got us into the mess, was not only madness, but MORALLY BANKRUPT of all those politicians who allowed this to happen. You bloody bastards, all of you.

So what would I like to see? I would like to see the likes of Greece, Spain, Portgal and Ireland DEFAULT on their so-called sovereign debts. And, better still, give the IMF the biggest middle finger ever seen in financial history by saying 'NO! We will not take your loans!' Because these countries should know these IMF 'loans' will come laden with Friedmanite and Chicagoesque preconditions to 'liberalize' economies, slash public spending, 'open up markets even more', and all the other Friedmanite bullshit that got us into this horrific and amoral mess in the first place.

But, of course, I have better chances of seeing pink elephants having a full-scale Grand Prix in the sky than I do of those countries having the courage and the foresight to do just that.

THIS is the perfect time for a complete review and even overhaul of capitalism as we know it. It has never been more perfect - or more needed. I'm certainly not advocating communism or any other 'ism' for that matter. What I am advocating is that we stop this madness where 0.01% of the richest people in the richest economies can hold entire countries to ransom. And, in the process, destroy the very fabric and social and human rights within those countries. I don't want to see European countries like Greece, Ireland and Spain collapse or relegated to economic basketcase status. I'm funny that way.

Stop this obsession with Friedmanite uber-capitalism and the 'Stock Market is King' economic mentality, like some demented mantra. It is NOT working.

Enough is enough. Basta!

Do you get my point?