World Politics

[blutto]

....well isn't this special....

Australia scrubbed from UN climate change report after government intervention


Every reference to Australia was scrubbed from the final version of a major UN report on climate change after the Australian government intervened, objecting that the information could harm tourism.

Guardian Australia can reveal the report “World Heritage and Tourism in a Changing Climate”, which Unesco jointly published with the United Nations environment program and the Union of Concerned Scientists on Friday, initially had a key chapter on the Great Barrier Reef, as well as small sections on Kakadu and the Tasmanian forests.

But when the Australian Department of Environment saw a draft of the report, it objected, and every mention of Australia was removed by Unesco. Will Steffen, one of the scientific reviewers of the axed section on the reef, said Australia’s move was reminiscent of “the old Soviet Union”.

No sections about any other country were removed from the report. The removals left Australia as the only inhabited continent on the planet with no mentions.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/27/australia-scrubbed-from-un-climate-change-report-after-government-intervention

." "Come to our beautiful Great Barrier Reef! What's that, it's bleached and dying? Why, of course not, it's a World Heritage Site, and there's nothing in the reports about that, is there? It must be your eyes. Hand over your money anyway

Cheers

 

[blutto]

Re:

Turkey is ****.Enough said.Jail sentences will be coming left and right.Erdogan and his police will probably kill innocent people and give jail sentences to the parliamentarians after the last laws in our country.The Islamists have the majority and our country is ****.

....so what do you see as a solution that has a reasonable chance of succeeding in making things more better....?.....

Cheers

 

[CheckMyPecs]

Re:

Turkey is ****.Enough said.Jail sentences will be coming left and right.Erdogan and his police will probably kill innocent people and give jail sentences to the parliamentarians after the last laws in our country.The Islamists have the majority and our country is ****.

Are you Turkish?

 

[python]

vlad has just completed his 2-day official visit to greece (the press conference ended 5 mins ago)

greece the eu memebr. the nato member. the same greece that was forced to its knees by the eu and imf demands a year ago and that tried to play - unsuccessfully - the russian card before it was forced to completely give up to all conditions. curiously, this visit coincided with another imf credit (or not) to the stumbling greek economy....
the 2 day visit by itself was quite rare.

did greece try again paying the russian card ? if so, why did russia agree to be played ?

i have my thoughts, it is multidimensional i think, but the anti-sultanate, anti-american, anti-eu motives ain't the last and the least methinks. plus - both mr. tsipras and vlad hinted thickly at the new natural gas route after the bulgarian and turkish gazprom variants had been thwarted.

interesting !

 

[Starstruck]

Ed March has been riding his Honda c90 around the world and his favorite country at this point is ....Iran.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2LEgowbzSc

Politics suck...the people on the other hand...

 

[CheckMyPecs]

Russian Airstrike Kills 23 in Syria — Reports

A Russian airstrike left at least 23 people dead in the rebel-controlled Idlib province in Syria, the BBC Russian Service reported Tuesday, citing the London-based Syrian Human Rights Watchdog.

The airstrike is considered to be the largest since the signing of a cease-fire agreement in February.

One of the shells allegedly hit a hospital, killing seven children, watchdog head Rami Abdulrakhman claimed, and said the number of fatalities could rise.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russian-airstrike-kills-23-in-syria--reports/571103.html

Putin bringing "peace" to the Middle East.

 

[Brullnux]

The death of neoliberalism is nigh, apparently.

You hear it when the Bank of England’s Mark Carney sounds the alarm about “a low-growth, low-inflation, low-interest-rate equilibrium”. Or when the Bank of International Settlements, the central bank’s central bank, warns that “the global economy seems unable to return to sustainable and balanced growth”. And you saw it most clearly last Thursday from the IMF.

What makes the fund’s intervention so remarkable is not what is being said – but who is saying it and just how bluntly. In the IMF’s flagship publication, three of its top economists have written an essay titled “Neoliberalism: Oversold?”.

The very headline delivers a jolt. For so long mainstream economists and policymakers have denied the very existence of such a thing as neoliberalism, dismissing it as an insult invented by gap-toothed malcontents who understand neither economics nor capitalism. Now here comes the IMF, describing how a “neoliberal agenda” has spread across the globe in the past 30 years. What they mean is that more and more states have remade their social and political institutions into pale copies of the market. Two British examples, suggests Will Davies – author of the Limits of Neoliberalism – would be the NHS and universities “where classrooms are being transformed into supermarkets”. In this way, the public sector is replaced by private companies, and democracy is supplanted by mere competition.

It continues for a while. Interesting opinion piece from on the whole a very good journalist.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/31/witnessing-death-neoliberalism-imf-economists

Rhub, Merckx over to you

 

[blutto]

Re:

The death of neoliberalism is nigh, apparently.

You hear it when the Bank of England’s Mark Carney sounds the alarm about “a low-growth, low-inflation, low-interest-rate equilibrium”. Or when the Bank of International Settlements, the central bank’s central bank, warns that “the global economy seems unable to return to sustainable and balanced growth”. And you saw it most clearly last Thursday from the IMF.

What makes the fund’s intervention so remarkable is not what is being said – but who is saying it and just how bluntly. In the IMF’s flagship publication, three of its top economists have written an essay titled “Neoliberalism: Oversold?”.

The very headline delivers a jolt. For so long mainstream economists and policymakers have denied the very existence of such a thing as neoliberalism, dismissing it as an insult invented by gap-toothed malcontents who understand neither economics nor capitalism. Now here comes the IMF, describing how a “neoliberal agenda” has spread across the globe in the past 30 years. What they mean is that more and more states have remade their social and political institutions into pale copies of the market. Two British examples, suggests Will Davies – author of the Limits of Neoliberalism – would be the NHS and universities “where classrooms are being transformed into supermarkets”. In this way, the public sector is replaced by private companies, and democracy is supplanted by mere competition.

It continues for a while. Interesting opinion piece from on the whole a very good journalist.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/31/witnessing-death-neoliberalism-imf-economists

Rhub, Merckx over to you

...sorry not Rhub or Merckx but yeah seems about time that economists start acting in an objective manner, and not like the paid for cheering section they have been for the last several decades....the fact they have ignored all evidence contrary to their official paid for views is an embarrassment which will stick with that profession for a long time...read until absolutely and totally proven otherwise they are hacks that can't be trusted to write instructions for the correct use of toilet paper...they have been the "official " cover for an economic system that will in very short order destroy our civilization and murder billions of people in the process...

Cheers

 

[Brullnux]

Sorry blutto, it's just that normally it's rhub or merckx that write page long essays on this kind of stuff

I agree 100% with what you've said, btw

 

[aphronesis]

Re: Re:

The death of neoliberalism is nigh, apparently.

You hear it when the Bank of England’s Mark Carney sounds the alarm about “a low-growth, low-inflation, low-interest-rate equilibrium”. Or when the Bank of International Settlements, the central bank’s central bank, warns that “the global economy seems unable to return to sustainable and balanced growth”. And you saw it most clearly last Thursday from the IMF.

What makes the fund’s intervention so remarkable is not what is being said – but who is saying it and just how bluntly. In the IMF’s flagship publication, three of its top economists have written an essay titled “Neoliberalism: Oversold?”.

The very headline delivers a jolt. For so long mainstream economists and policymakers have denied the very existence of such a thing as neoliberalism, dismissing it as an insult invented by gap-toothed malcontents who understand neither economics nor capitalism. Now here comes the IMF, describing how a “neoliberal agenda” has spread across the globe in the past 30 years. What they mean is that more and more states have remade their social and political institutions into pale copies of the market. Two British examples, suggests Will Davies – author of the Limits of Neoliberalism – would be the NHS and universities “where classrooms are being transformed into supermarkets”. In this way, the public sector is replaced by private companies, and democracy is supplanted by mere competition.

It continues for a while. Interesting opinion piece from on the whole a very good journalist.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/31/witnessing-death-neoliberalism-imf-economists

Rhub, Merckx over to you

...sorry not Rhub or Merckx but yeah seems about time that economists start acting in an objective manner, and not like the paid for cheering section they have been for the last several decades....the fact they have ignored all evidence contrary to their official paid for views is an embarrassment which will stick with that profession for a long time...read until absolutely and totally proven otherwise they are hacks that can't be trusted to write instructions for the correct use of toilet paper...they have been the "official " cover for an economic system that will in very short order destroy our civilization and murder billions of people in the process...

Cheers

Oh, economics isn't just a positivist science? Good news. You know that once such a term hits the mainstream there will be low-key, giddy and docile lull of mainstream acceptance before the worse formation begins taking on visible contours.

 

[blutto]

Re:

Sorry blutto, it's just that normally it's rhub or merckx that write page long essays on this kind of stuff

I agree 100% with what you've said, btw

...was going to cover that with some humour but something tugged hard at my available time....and also forgot to say that was a good article...nice to see Carney making some good use of his new higher pulpit....

Cheers

 

[Starstruck]

Steve Keen, Yanis Varoufakis and others have been laying bare the fables/foibles of economics in gory detail for a while now.

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." by whomever.

"Science progresses one funeral at a time." -- Max Planck

...though economics will probably always be the art of power and greed, not a science.

 

[aphronesis]

Among scores of others.

Sciences can't be arts in the service/pursuit of power?

 

[Starstruck]

They certainly are. When you begin with assumptions about people being rational and infinite growth...

The art of persuasion rules (backed up by big guns). Forget positivism.

 

[aphronesis]

Positivism was a veneer of legitimation, objectivity and prestige used to smuggle the fictions.

Look at how behaviorism took on that project mid 20c and went to work.

 

[blutto]

Re: Re:

The death of neoliberalism is nigh, apparently.

You hear it when the Bank of England’s Mark Carney sounds the alarm about “a low-growth, low-inflation, low-interest-rate equilibrium”. Or when the Bank of International Settlements, the central bank’s central bank, warns that “the global economy seems unable to return to sustainable and balanced growth”. And you saw it most clearly last Thursday from the IMF.

What makes the fund’s intervention so remarkable is not what is being said – but who is saying it and just how bluntly. In the IMF’s flagship publication, three of its top economists have written an essay titled “Neoliberalism: Oversold?”.

The very headline delivers a jolt. For so long mainstream economists and policymakers have denied the very existence of such a thing as neoliberalism, dismissing it as an insult invented by gap-toothed malcontents who understand neither economics nor capitalism. Now here comes the IMF, describing how a “neoliberal agenda” has spread across the globe in the past 30 years. What they mean is that more and more states have remade their social and political institutions into pale copies of the market. Two British examples, suggests Will Davies – author of the Limits of Neoliberalism – would be the NHS and universities “where classrooms are being transformed into supermarkets”. In this way, the public sector is replaced by private companies, and democracy is supplanted by mere competition.

It continues for a while. Interesting opinion piece from on the whole a very good journalist.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/31/witnessing-death-neoliberalism-imf-economists

Rhub, Merckx over to you

...sorry not Rhub or Merckx but yeah seems about time that economists start acting in an objective manner, and not like the paid for cheering section they have been for the last several decades....the fact they have ignored all evidence contrary to their official paid for views is an embarrassment which will stick with that profession for a long time...read until absolutely and totally proven otherwise they are hacks that can't be trusted to write instructions for the correct use of toilet paper...they have been the "official " cover for an economic system that will in very short order destroy our civilization and murder billions of people in the process...

Cheers

Oh, economics isn't just a positivist science? Good news. You know that once such a term hits the mainstream there will be low-key, giddy and docile lull of mainstream acceptance before the worse formation begins taking on visible contours.

...now I may get this wrong because it has been a while since I've dredged in these waters.....but....every time I hear or see the term positivistic science I think of the dude that who sorta kinda invented positivism, Comte ...anyways I believe he thought the ultimate science ' the one that had the potential to subsume all knowledge, was sociology , yup forking sociology...which I always thought was real funny...but then I thought cultural history was the ultimate science ( because it addresses both the answer and the question and is thus better equipped to answer that age old problem 9x5=42 ) , so there ...

...and economics as a science ?....if that is a science then so is astrology ( and don't laugh but astrology probably has a better track record over the last few decades)...

Cheers

 

[Starstruck]

Re:

Positivism was a veneer of legitimation, objectivity and prestige used to smuggle the fictions.

Look at how behaviorism took on that project mid 20c and went to work.

The high priests with the white coats went to work. Life is so much more fun when one realizes we're story telling apes.

 

[Starstruck]

Re: Re:

Positivism was a veneer of legitimation, objectivity and prestige used to smuggle the fictions.

Look at how behaviorism took on that project mid 20c and went to work.

The high priests with the white coats went to work. Life is so much more fun when one realizes we're story telling apes.

btw, that's where the morality/ethics thing becomes paramount too. the golden rule should suffice for seed stock but some self reflection is required obviously.

it's all a fiction so why shouldn't i manipulate and screw over other people to get what i (think) i want...hmmm

there's no shortage of monsters running around.

 

[rhubroma]

The méthode scientifique overlooks the fact that human society isn't rational. Now applied to economic analysis, the authoritative alchemy of financial magi reminds us that the flock is still led by a dominant priesthood. And this clergy continues to rule with impunity.

 

[python]

i hope that erdogan big head explode today as the german lawmakers pass the armenian genocide bill.

not only contemporary gemans have thoroughly documented the turkish crimes, they do know a thing or 2 about genocides...

i've long supported germany becoming more assertive. hopefully, ignoring the ottoman threats will be another baby step in the right direction.

 

[blutto]

German Bundestag passes resolution calling Ottoman-era Armenian killings 'genocide'

Source: Deutsche Welle

Germany's Bundestag passed a resolution qualifying the Ottoman Era Armenian killings 'genocide'. The lower house of parliament voted almost unanimously, with one vote against the motion and one abstention. House speaker Norbert Lammert spoke of a "remarkable majority."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and the leader of the Socialdemocrats Sigmar Gabriel failed to attend the vote on account of other appointments. Critics have said, however, that they deliberately attempted to dodge a difficult vote.

The Turkish parliament, known as the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, issued a statement in cooperation with Turkey's Commission for Foreign Affairs criticizing the draft resolution: "We strongly condemn and reject this unlawful motion brought before the Bundestag, for which historical truths relating to the events of 1915 were deliberately distorted."

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said ahead of the resolution that it could damage "diplomatic, economic, business, political and military ties" between the two countries.

Read more: http://www.dw.com/en/german-bundestag-passes-resolution-calling-ottoman-era-armenian-killings-genocide/a-19299936

...to the bolded...one can only hope.....in my humble opinion Turkey in its present state and with its current leadership should be treated as a pariah state and not one who seems to have been accorded a place at the table....

Cheers

 

[movingtarget]

USA Wants to Lock Up North Korean Money Laundering

https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/us-moves-lock-north-korea-041426335.html

 

[python]

major props to the german mps for the caragious decision ! amazingly, for the current fractured bundestag the passage was almost unanimous !

the bill also criticized the german empire for not stopping the killings.

i am curious how bad will be the turkish blow back ? doubt they will cancel the refugee deal. if they do, it will be another erdogan stupidity. vlad is also majorly happy...

 

[Starstruck]

Re:

The méthode scientifique overlooks the fact that human society isn't rational. Now applied to economic analysis, the authoritative alchemy of financial magi reminds us that the flock is still led by a dominant priesthood. And this clergy continues to rule with impunity.

...isn't so clear cut either.

it's a world of make believe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGm8fLuzR20

 

[fatandfast]

Re:

The méthode scientifique overlooks the fact that human society isn't rational. Now applied economic analysis, the authoritative alchemy of financial magi reminds us that the flock is still led by a dominant priesthood. And this clergy continues to rule with impunity.[/qu

No matter how it's stated it's pretty much the same thing.... learn from your mistakes, history repeats itself, ect.
Germany getting props for almost anything needs to be balanced with it's history. Slamming Turkey for acting foolishly as it runs away from secularism is partly Germany's fault. Germany was always the loudest voice in the room never agreeing on Turkey's inclusion in the European Union.
Turkey tested over and over with bizzare proposals to support Bush and Britton in the invasion of Iraq. I will admit that there were not a lot of options. Turkey now doing the West a service beyond payment by absorbing a disproportionate number of those fleeing the mess even while it's Donald Trump says dumber and dumber things.
As the world waits for the next banking crisis, UK bankers and business folks warning of the huge risk and losses if the UK pulls away from the union. Australia overexposed even more than the US was before it's housing bubble burst and the good old USA back to business as usual with big bloated banks that walk all over laws and lawmakers to make staggering profits despite a flat economy, zero percent interest to them and fines paid for violations in practice. We may be learning but not too fast.
First things first. Don't let Turkey be so,so isolated. When it's government stomps on media and journalists let it be held to a Western standard. When it's leadership stands up and makes religious mandates not to use birth control, let him also say it to Western peers. When the leader of Turkey says women are less than men let him feel female heat from a big union of angry vagina bearers not the intimidated female population of just one country.
If the US's bastard stepchild is Saudi Arabia I hope that the EU will take Turkey and include it instead of have all these Frenemy type of relationships that can blow up in an instant.