Gawd....

I'm lovin' me my Glenn Beck. Yeah...sometimes he's a little over-the-top, and he certainly has got a Howard Beale vibe going on, but the guy is making scary sense.

So, yeah...I admit it...there's a lot of video here to watch....but do watch it. We're headed into totally uncharted waters.







I owe my h/t to Karl Denninger at market-ticker.org for these three videos. I read him all the time because he scares me worse than Stephen King.

Now let me add my amateur-economist's analysis to a point Beck touches on at 8:15 or so of the last video.

With words to this effect, Beck asks if the other countries in the world aren't going to be in the same sinking boat that we find ourselves in. I think he's exactly right, and underestimates this point. Take a look at yet another video.....



Yes...its al Jazerra....and there is a point to be made there too. But discounting that for the moment, this story illustrates the problem that China faces too.

For the last 30 years, China has been trying to get their peasant Third-World country into the First-World. To do this, they have kept their currency artificially devalued, so as to facilitate the export of the products that they make. What they're most concerned with is jobs...not the products of those jobs. They're quite content to spend money on cities that no one will live in because they need to keep the construction jobs (read: "economic activity") going.

We're not seeing this reported on any of the American (or Western) media because we're beholden to the debt that China holds. al Jazerra, in essence, the media organ of the Arab OPEC states, has a different set of priorities. They can report the Chinese problems in a candor that Western media cannot. However, the OPEC states are not without their own problems. Absent their oil, they have almost no industry. Their people are not far removed from living in the desert, and many are illiterate. They have few skills, and have to import white-collar and blue-collar labor to give them what they now have. They can operate what are in effect, massive welfare states because they are able to poke holes into the ground and pump out the wealth that supports it.

And here's where my fears are headed.....

All wars are economic.

We're broke.

China can't keep inflating their "production bubble".

And since the world runs on oil, the OPEC states will grind to a halt. (Not to mention the crazy-mad religious motivations that they have.).

These three groups all want to keep things going when we can't keep things going. And something's gotta give. Who'll give first?

A Couple O'.....

Updates....

• I asked here if, given the increasing instability in Pakistan, we weren't developing a plan to go in and grab up their nukes. And now the New York Times is questioning the stability of these same Pakistani nukes.
• And most recently, I noted the "Torture" question circling the lefty drain and the "logic" used by Jon Stewart to, among other things, claim that Harry Truman committed a war crime by dropping the atomic bombs on Japan. You really do owe yourself 17 minutes of your day to watch Bill Whittle take this claim apart piece by piece.

Pakistan....

A couple of days ago, I was involved in an email exchange with an internet-friend who has long said that the next big war--and perhaps an apocolyptic war--would begin in Pakistan.

I responded that what is really needed is a plan to go in and grab up their nukes. However, I added that I don't think that Zero has the stones for any such thing. It is not his style in the least. He is too busy spending money that we don't have for programs that we don't need, not to mention his penchant for nationalizing wide swathes of our economy. [I digress.] More to point, SecState Clinton has said that "'we can’t even contemplate' the consequences if the Taliban were permitted to overrun nuclear- armed Pakistan". But, according to one of my favorite milblogs, we had better be contemplating precisely this possibility.

I pointed out in my email that given the risk that a Taliban nuke would give to the world and the West, perhaps a wise military unit would be preparing for just this sort of mission--with or without West Wing approval. And, that brings up a whole new set of unsettling, or "unthinkable" questions.

So, what do I see this morning in a HotAir headline?

"Petraeus: Next Two Weeks Critical to Pakistan's Survival"

"...Petraeus also said wearily that "we've heard it all before" from the Pakistanis and he is looking to see concrete action by the government to destroy the Taliban in the next two weeks before determining the United States' next course of action, which is presently set on propping up the Pakistani government and military with counterinsurgency training and foreign aid...." [my emphasis]

Question: Are we telegraphing/threatening just this sort of move? Is Petraeus reading my mind?

"Pakistan Implodes"

Via Glenn, I see Richard Fernandez of Belmont Club offer...

"...The reason the Pakistani crisis seems to be coming out of the blue is because Washington is preoccupied by so much else. The world is still dangerous; perhaps even more so today than when George W. Bushchimp left office to the delight of so many on the Left. But contrary to expectation, America’s enemies did not stop their depradations upon the ascension of The One...."

Zero is being mocked by the Associated Press. He's in over his head, which is something that we who were his opponents were saying last summer. His approach on foreign policy--that we can just talk our way into a world of peace and happiness--isn't working with those who really, seriously, oppose us. We have elected a man of little substance, and now we're paying the price for that.

Now this is a surprise...

New York Sun: Iran May End Cooperation With Nuclear Investigation.

"...President Ahmadinejad yesterday again vowed that his country would
not "retreat one iota" from pursuing uranium enrichment...."

Another...

...Link worth keeping.

The Very Big War.

Concluding sentences (with my emphasis)...

"...Wars are awful but some wars really are necessary and this war is against an existential threat to the entire world. Since it must be fought, let there be no half measures, let victory be total. Any other result insults the memory of those already killed in this conflict and means that, ultimately, we will face a future nuclear war that will see tens of millions of us die."

A link worth keeping...

Norman Podhoretz: Stopping Iran: Why the Case for Military Action Still Stands (The last two paragraphs make a point I have long made: In Bush today, we are very much watching our next Churchill.)

Oh, yeah...

...Remember that story a couple of months ago that said that Iran's nuclear threat was overstated?

Well...um...

Nevermind.