Erle Frayne D. Argonza
Good day fellow global citizens!
It’s late afternoon here in the Philippines, daylight is still around though quite faded a bit. The time of the day seems to be delivering the message that there is still some light in the global economy, and that is a feel-good ambience.
Light there may be for the global economy, but that light no longer comes from the Western economies. Definitely no longer from the once mighty ‘economic superpower’ USA that had lost the leadership leverage this decade when it suffered two (2) successive recessions within a short span.
I’ve already treated the matter of declining Western techno-economic power and hegemony over the rest of the globe in many articles. There is hardly any serious, highly-informed analyst in the world today who doesn’t share the same view, a view that Western (Caucasian) social forecasters do likewise hold even as they forewarned the West of the catastrophes that will confront them.
Stock markets across the globe, however, just couldn’t adjust to the new reality soon enough. They still behave like old hush puppies that look up to Wall Street for precedence in setting the trends of local bourses. That renders the local bourses as laughing stock dinosaurs that need to retool quickly, and the quickest that such retooling will be translated into practice, the better will it be for their respective stock trades and financial-monetary markets.
To reminisce a bit, America was the unchallenged global leader after World War II as it contributed 40% to the Gross World Product or GWP. Its European & Japan partners contributed another 20% to GWP, so that empowered the USA & partners’ (OECD) 60% contribution to GWP to exercise hegemony in all regions of the planet.
Today, the economic landscape had entirely changed. The USA’s $13+ Trillion GDP is down 22% of world income, while the entire EU’s $13+ Trillion is another 22%. EU + USA/Canada + Japan put together couldn’t even amount to 50% of Gross World Product, so the old partners may just have to metamorphose out of their old identities and retool quickly. They no longer hold the planet’s collective purse and should desist from bullying other nations with their economic clout that is pathetically a non-clout today.
Herd behavior, of course, is the least that we can make of the behavior of plummeting bourses. “Follow the leader” mindset of cave dwellers is still in, a mindset that is a messy sticking point for retooling purposes.
Why should local bourses refuse to see the new reality and dis-engage from the antiquated herd instinct? After all, stock markets are the exclusive games of the big corporate boys and consummate traders who have been addicted to the casino economy of antiquity. They hardly matter for the real economy sectors, such as those of Asia’s that have effectively built firewalls between the real economy and casino stock markets.
If to serve a bit of relevance to domestic growth at all, local bourses ought to look at the health of their own domestic physical economies and financial-monetary wellness.
Take a look at East Asia. The region has been driving the global economy beyond doubt, its average investments and savings rates are high, gross international reserves are equally high, and the physical economy as a whole has shown the way to high value-added production. Stock markets should better follow the lead of the healthy conditions of their domestic economies rather than look up to an offshore global leader that is now a chimera.
Or, if they can’t resist looking at offshore patterns, then they should look at their very own regional backyards for such models. Regional integration has been the strategy of the day, so why get fixated to a dinosaur fiction (USA as leader) when there are regional economic patterns that can show the lead.
USA’s lead will never ever return, this is a foregone conclusion. And Europe ought to rethink its integration efforts, as the Eurozone is now hotly burning, so Europe better not behave like a global hero that can fill up the vacuum left by the USA. A continent that is perennially flat on its back and is now burning in financial-monetary flames can never fill up such a vacuum.
As already articulated by me in previous articles, the Western markets will decline progressively across time. Consumption from 2007 through 2015 will decline by as much as 30% of their pre-recession levels. In contrast, Asia’s consumption will more than double during the same period, thus rendering Asia the unquestioned driver of the global economy in terms of (a) technological cutting edge, (b) production levels of the real economy, and (c) consumption levels.
In closing, just like the pattern for mega-cities where no one mega-city can be considered a global center today, so is it with national economies. Economic leadership has already been de-centered, global hegemony had been erased, and there can only be inter-dependence between markets as the most viable option. That interdependence should find translations in the bourses and currency markets.
[Philippines, 13 August 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Finalist-PhilBlogAwards 2010
Finalist for society, politics, history blogs
Friday, August 27, 2010
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
RURAL DEVELOPMENT SHOULD BE TOP PRIORITY WORLDWIDE
Erle Frayne D. Argonza
Good evening from the Philippines’ highland suburbs!
For this note I will focus on the thesis that rural development should be pursued by developing countries. The world’s nations have pursued growth that has been badly skewed towards urbanization and commercialization since after World War II, a total effort that has seen many people become poor as a result. Most of the poor folks are in rural hinterlands and fisherfolks.
The Philippines is a classic case in point that has been direly affected by the badly skewed development in favor of urbanization, an endeavor that has been fostered at the expense of rural communities of farmers, fisherfolks, and Indigenous Peoples or IPs. Today, Philippine population is 66% urban and 34% rural, with 2% added to urban population every year.
As urbanization grows, rural poverty likewise grows in my beloved country. Rural to urban poverty ratio here is 2.5:1 and is still moving up. It was 2.1:1 in 1989, and the situation has been deteriorating ever since. 70% of the country’s poor families are rural, with only 30% as urban. Very clearly, between the two, it is rural development that must be pursued with vigor to reverse the poverty situation in the country as a whole.
To demonstrate what I mean by skewed development, consider the following information:
MetroManila or simply Manila, the national capital region (NCR), produces 30% or nearly 1/3 of the nation’s wealth. Yet it supports merely 12% o3 1/8 of the nation’s population.
As of end of 2009, Manila contributed a whopping US $65 Billion to the country’s $186 Billion GDP or gross domestic product. Using UNDP converter index, Manila’s GDP, multiplied by 4, registered an enviable $260 Billion-Purchasing Power Parity or PPP for 2009, rendering it as wealthy as the whole of Vietnam.
Included among the world’s 35 most wealthy and powerful mega-cities—comprising the ‘global nexus’—Manila’s economy remains at 65% services and 35% industries, with nary a food base worth documenting. These economic sectors are the highest in value-added, ensuring high levels of income for all component cities and towns of the mega-city.
Poverty in Manila has been reduced to a manageable 8%, rendering it on an even much better situation than the USA’s whose poverty incidence had climbed from 12% in 2002 to 15% today. Manila has all the resources it needs to solve its own poverty and development problems, which made it drastically reduce poverty since the 1990s.
Therefore, Manila should no longer be subsidized by national government in terms of development projects, from roads to international airports (Los Angeles & US cities are building their own airports without federal or state government support). Yet, as records show, billions of dollars are still being poured by national government to bankroll gigantic projects here, such as lightrail systems, international airport expansion, and flood control.
On top of those national government-initiated projects is Pagcor City, a world-class theme park-cum-gaming complex that is costing U.S. $25 Billion (with private participation). It will employ 250,000 and will house the world’s tallest tower. It is targeted for completion in 2014.
So, as you can see from the Philippine case, whereas the mega-city receives billions of dollars for new projects and urban renewal, the rural areas continue to wallow in appalling states of abject poverty. Lucky enough if a region outside Manila would be appropriated P1 Billion or U.S. $24 Million at any given year from the pork barrels of Congress.
Fisherfolks in my country are particularly the most vulnerable to poverty and deleterious living conditions spawned by it. With poverty incidence at 66%, you could easily see why past 40% of fisherfolks’ children suffer from advanced malnutrition. The situation of over-fishing in the entire country compounds the poverty situation of marginal fisherfolks who can ill afford to equip themselves with state-of-the art fishing gears to compete with commercial fishers.
To say that the Philippines is in a transition phase, and that poverty and malnutrition will disappear it time as the country reaches development ‘maturity’, is pure delusion. Without active intervention to improve the capacities and capabilities of fisherfolks, farmers, and IPs, the problem of poverty will never fade away but will, as a matter of fact, worsen with time.
With so many rural folks wallowing in cesspools of pauperization, we can at best watch more rural insurgencies feast upon the resentment-filled minds of the rural poor. As the Philippine case has shown, past rural insurgencies have ceased only to be replaced by new, bigger, and more ferocious insurgencies.
[Philippines, 11 August 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Good evening from the Philippines’ highland suburbs!
For this note I will focus on the thesis that rural development should be pursued by developing countries. The world’s nations have pursued growth that has been badly skewed towards urbanization and commercialization since after World War II, a total effort that has seen many people become poor as a result. Most of the poor folks are in rural hinterlands and fisherfolks.
The Philippines is a classic case in point that has been direly affected by the badly skewed development in favor of urbanization, an endeavor that has been fostered at the expense of rural communities of farmers, fisherfolks, and Indigenous Peoples or IPs. Today, Philippine population is 66% urban and 34% rural, with 2% added to urban population every year.
As urbanization grows, rural poverty likewise grows in my beloved country. Rural to urban poverty ratio here is 2.5:1 and is still moving up. It was 2.1:1 in 1989, and the situation has been deteriorating ever since. 70% of the country’s poor families are rural, with only 30% as urban. Very clearly, between the two, it is rural development that must be pursued with vigor to reverse the poverty situation in the country as a whole.
To demonstrate what I mean by skewed development, consider the following information:
MetroManila or simply Manila, the national capital region (NCR), produces 30% or nearly 1/3 of the nation’s wealth. Yet it supports merely 12% o3 1/8 of the nation’s population.
As of end of 2009, Manila contributed a whopping US $65 Billion to the country’s $186 Billion GDP or gross domestic product. Using UNDP converter index, Manila’s GDP, multiplied by 4, registered an enviable $260 Billion-Purchasing Power Parity or PPP for 2009, rendering it as wealthy as the whole of Vietnam.
Included among the world’s 35 most wealthy and powerful mega-cities—comprising the ‘global nexus’—Manila’s economy remains at 65% services and 35% industries, with nary a food base worth documenting. These economic sectors are the highest in value-added, ensuring high levels of income for all component cities and towns of the mega-city.
Poverty in Manila has been reduced to a manageable 8%, rendering it on an even much better situation than the USA’s whose poverty incidence had climbed from 12% in 2002 to 15% today. Manila has all the resources it needs to solve its own poverty and development problems, which made it drastically reduce poverty since the 1990s.
Therefore, Manila should no longer be subsidized by national government in terms of development projects, from roads to international airports (Los Angeles & US cities are building their own airports without federal or state government support). Yet, as records show, billions of dollars are still being poured by national government to bankroll gigantic projects here, such as lightrail systems, international airport expansion, and flood control.
On top of those national government-initiated projects is Pagcor City, a world-class theme park-cum-gaming complex that is costing U.S. $25 Billion (with private participation). It will employ 250,000 and will house the world’s tallest tower. It is targeted for completion in 2014.
So, as you can see from the Philippine case, whereas the mega-city receives billions of dollars for new projects and urban renewal, the rural areas continue to wallow in appalling states of abject poverty. Lucky enough if a region outside Manila would be appropriated P1 Billion or U.S. $24 Million at any given year from the pork barrels of Congress.
Fisherfolks in my country are particularly the most vulnerable to poverty and deleterious living conditions spawned by it. With poverty incidence at 66%, you could easily see why past 40% of fisherfolks’ children suffer from advanced malnutrition. The situation of over-fishing in the entire country compounds the poverty situation of marginal fisherfolks who can ill afford to equip themselves with state-of-the art fishing gears to compete with commercial fishers.
To say that the Philippines is in a transition phase, and that poverty and malnutrition will disappear it time as the country reaches development ‘maturity’, is pure delusion. Without active intervention to improve the capacities and capabilities of fisherfolks, farmers, and IPs, the problem of poverty will never fade away but will, as a matter of fact, worsen with time.
With so many rural folks wallowing in cesspools of pauperization, we can at best watch more rural insurgencies feast upon the resentment-filled minds of the rural poor. As the Philippine case has shown, past rural insurgencies have ceased only to be replaced by new, bigger, and more ferocious insurgencies.
[Philippines, 11 August 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
ISRAEL PREPARES TO COMBAT IRAN: SEMITE-PERSIA WAR HASTENS
Erle Frayne D. Argonza
Good evening from the Philippines’ suburban boondocks!
Just a couple of weeks back, this analyst wrote and published briefer articles about the forthcoming war between pan-Semitic Zion-Sunni alliance and Persia (Shiite Iran). Barely had I rested from the theme of racial awakenings and the coming conflict, when news came out that Israel is now preparing to combat Iran head-on.
Just about a couple of days ago, I wind up of news from the internet economic intelligence reports that Israel is indeed preparing for a unilateral military strike on Iran. Accordingly, the United States is not privy to this conflict, even as its hands are heavily tied up in procuring peace between Israel and Palestine (the efforts will pay off eventually as I forecast rightly).
Accordingly, political groups from Israel who represent both Likud and Labor are strongly opposed to the unilateral strike, and are doing what they can to stamp out the planned action. The same anti-war forces have uncovered an agreement between the Israeli premier and the defense establishment to seal the strike plan and commence with war exercises pronto.
Meanwhile, reports had it that former intelligence officials of Israel, who are opposed to the war, have unwind of the Israeli military exercises now going on inside Romania. As to when the exercises will be concluded will be the subject of some more extra information gathering.
As per assessment from the oppositors themselves and from independent analysts, the combat missions will be launched in the months ahead. Let it be stressed again: MONTHS AHEAD and not years ahead of the present juncture.
A war with Iran will surely be an expensive one, and needed to be bankrolled by certain oligarchic forces. We can only surmise, based on near-catastrophic economic events in Europe, that the Anglo-European oligarchy is desperate to recoup from possible losses in the financial-monetary markets precisely by propping up their favorite currencies (dollar, pounds, euros, yen) through a calculated politico-military turbulence in Western Asia.
The bankrollers’ home point to Europe as far as our analysis holds. The same oligarchs are aching to prop up the dollar through derivative market gimmickries that have, as of late, been proving to be dead end solutions to their greed accumulations. Bankrupt with ideas as to how the financial-monetary system they built for centuries can still hold up to the global economic roof, they are now planning to unleash the propping up of oil price via a war.
The oligarchs’ own financial looting agenda incidentally coheres with the Arab sheikhdoms’ agenda of inflating their own oil, local currencies and the dollar for the same purpose, with the addition that the sheikhs mortally dread Shiite Iran. As already articulated by me before, such a dread springs from the ancient unconscious dread of Persia, a dread that is now re-surfacing after almost 2000 years of dormancy.
We won’t be surprised if the sheikhdoms will partly bankroll Israel’s frontal combat missions, with part of the cash registers shouldered by the Rothschild & Soros and financier circles. Not only that, the sheikhdoms may offer the bonus of permitting the use their territories for Israeli flight passes, landing, refueling, even for depository of military ordnance.
The dread of Persia is very extensive, which covers the entire ancient territories of Assyria-Canaan-Hyksos-Hamites-Berbers-Nubians. That’s a whopping 5-6 million square miles of territories populated today by over 500 million people, from Western Asia up to the western tip of North Africa (belt of lands north of the Sahara).
That does not include yet the peoples of the ancient empire of Bharat (India) that have confronted Persia’s might in antiquity. Pakistan, Kashmir, Afghanistan and central Asian states represent those territories and their descendants today.
For sure, those peoples and territories mentioned are now watching the unfolding events very closely. As the military preparations will build up, so will the tensions build up, backed up by negotiations about the alliances to be formed.
It is too early to see the exact membership of alliances from each side. For now, we can only presume that the axes of conflict will be the Zion Israel-Sunni Arab axis on one hand, and the Shiite Iran-Hezbollah-Hamas axis on the other hand. There will be fill-in-the-blanks on either side as the war nears, with horse trading done below the table.
Let’s all better observe the events closely, as this war won’t just be confined between Israel and Iran. Even before Christmas, the shaping war will sicken the world’s diverse bourses from West to East, thus leaving a bad taste to our annual Christmas and year-ender celebrations.
[Philippines, 23 August 2012]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Good evening from the Philippines’ suburban boondocks!
Just a couple of weeks back, this analyst wrote and published briefer articles about the forthcoming war between pan-Semitic Zion-Sunni alliance and Persia (Shiite Iran). Barely had I rested from the theme of racial awakenings and the coming conflict, when news came out that Israel is now preparing to combat Iran head-on.
Just about a couple of days ago, I wind up of news from the internet economic intelligence reports that Israel is indeed preparing for a unilateral military strike on Iran. Accordingly, the United States is not privy to this conflict, even as its hands are heavily tied up in procuring peace between Israel and Palestine (the efforts will pay off eventually as I forecast rightly).
Accordingly, political groups from Israel who represent both Likud and Labor are strongly opposed to the unilateral strike, and are doing what they can to stamp out the planned action. The same anti-war forces have uncovered an agreement between the Israeli premier and the defense establishment to seal the strike plan and commence with war exercises pronto.
Meanwhile, reports had it that former intelligence officials of Israel, who are opposed to the war, have unwind of the Israeli military exercises now going on inside Romania. As to when the exercises will be concluded will be the subject of some more extra information gathering.
As per assessment from the oppositors themselves and from independent analysts, the combat missions will be launched in the months ahead. Let it be stressed again: MONTHS AHEAD and not years ahead of the present juncture.
A war with Iran will surely be an expensive one, and needed to be bankrolled by certain oligarchic forces. We can only surmise, based on near-catastrophic economic events in Europe, that the Anglo-European oligarchy is desperate to recoup from possible losses in the financial-monetary markets precisely by propping up their favorite currencies (dollar, pounds, euros, yen) through a calculated politico-military turbulence in Western Asia.
The bankrollers’ home point to Europe as far as our analysis holds. The same oligarchs are aching to prop up the dollar through derivative market gimmickries that have, as of late, been proving to be dead end solutions to their greed accumulations. Bankrupt with ideas as to how the financial-monetary system they built for centuries can still hold up to the global economic roof, they are now planning to unleash the propping up of oil price via a war.
The oligarchs’ own financial looting agenda incidentally coheres with the Arab sheikhdoms’ agenda of inflating their own oil, local currencies and the dollar for the same purpose, with the addition that the sheikhs mortally dread Shiite Iran. As already articulated by me before, such a dread springs from the ancient unconscious dread of Persia, a dread that is now re-surfacing after almost 2000 years of dormancy.
We won’t be surprised if the sheikhdoms will partly bankroll Israel’s frontal combat missions, with part of the cash registers shouldered by the Rothschild & Soros and financier circles. Not only that, the sheikhdoms may offer the bonus of permitting the use their territories for Israeli flight passes, landing, refueling, even for depository of military ordnance.
The dread of Persia is very extensive, which covers the entire ancient territories of Assyria-Canaan-Hyksos-Hamites-Berbers-Nubians. That’s a whopping 5-6 million square miles of territories populated today by over 500 million people, from Western Asia up to the western tip of North Africa (belt of lands north of the Sahara).
That does not include yet the peoples of the ancient empire of Bharat (India) that have confronted Persia’s might in antiquity. Pakistan, Kashmir, Afghanistan and central Asian states represent those territories and their descendants today.
For sure, those peoples and territories mentioned are now watching the unfolding events very closely. As the military preparations will build up, so will the tensions build up, backed up by negotiations about the alliances to be formed.
It is too early to see the exact membership of alliances from each side. For now, we can only presume that the axes of conflict will be the Zion Israel-Sunni Arab axis on one hand, and the Shiite Iran-Hezbollah-Hamas axis on the other hand. There will be fill-in-the-blanks on either side as the war nears, with horse trading done below the table.
Let’s all better observe the events closely, as this war won’t just be confined between Israel and Iran. Even before Christmas, the shaping war will sicken the world’s diverse bourses from West to East, thus leaving a bad taste to our annual Christmas and year-ender celebrations.
[Philippines, 23 August 2012]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Friday, August 20, 2010
EURO-OLIGARCHS’ SLASH FUNDS AWASH AMID EU’S BANKRUPTCY
Erle Frayne D. Argonza
Good evening from the Philippine suburbs!
I wish Europeans could find sufficient reason to brighten themselves up these days. Maybe the northern Europeans can still find some reason to smile in the light of welfare state graces still flowing to their pockets, while those of southern Europe’s are grilling in the heat of a continent burning in economic firestorm.
Europe is rapidly going down the route of bankruptcy as shown by the panic behavior of its Brussels-based central bank as well as the respective member-states’ own central banks. Whatever the serial bankruptcy could forebode, the Europeans better prepare for the worst scenario.
Economic intelligence updates report that only the IMF and USA are infusing some fresh monies unto the European coffers. The problem is that the IMF is itself running out of funds soon, and so it may decide to probably print money that it just puzzlingly couldn’t securitize enough (does IMF possess gold bullions to back up those monies in case?).
As to the USA providing fresh cash to Europe, we concerned observers are simply befuddled about. The USA was bankrupt even before Obama became president, a fact that amplifies our own confusion about where does the USA source such funds and how will it securitize them in case of its aiding of a burning Europe.
It seems that coteries of Nero officials were designated as chief execs and technocrats in the entire continent plus the UK & Ireland, Neros who fiddled in their palatial roofs while their respective countries burned. I wish the likes of Brown, Merker, Sarkozy, and Barroso could convince me that they are not some Nero clones who collectively did burn their own continent at the behest of the financiers. [Cameron replaced Brown recently, performing a “too late the hero” act.]
Now, just to remind the readers more so the Europeans, around a couple of years back, when the USA was in the midst of its ‘great recession’, the greedy Anglo-European financiers reportedly stashed a staggering $3 Trillions worth of slash funds in the big financial houses of the continent itself. That was then, it’s now 2010 and the slash funds may have grown to at least 33% its original size.
A very suspicious act for sure, as it reveals a highly privileged class that operates outside the ambit of established rules in the continent. Just exactly what are those funds intended for, we can only speculate. The greedy financiers know about a coming turbulence that will engulf the entire trans-Atlantic economies most likely, and they were preparing for the worst scenario.
The worst scenario is now taking shape, the scenario of total bankruptcy and the Eurozone’s economic roof collapsing. The Jurassic bank IMF was already called upon to intervene with emergency measures for central banks to stash hundreds of billions of euros to salve ailing banks, while it imposed austerity measures on heavily affected countries such as Greece.
To say that the financiers are but passive observers of events would be over-stretching naïve posturing bordering torpor. The greedy financiers led by the House of Rothschild and its subordinate subalterns (Soros & cronies) have been orchestrating the events in the continent, even as they were responsible for directing the pliant IMF to enter the scene in order to hasten anarchy and economic collapse.
Europe’s member states could all but wish for some more industries that could be sold to the financiers who wait in the wings for more bankrupt companies to be sold at cheap dirt prices. Europe has already been effectively de-industrialized across the decades via virtual economy policies of deregulation, privatization, and liberalization, so there isn’t much an industry left for such a purpose.
Maybe the last frontier of Europe to generate money is to sell all of its major infrastructures—freeways & roads, bridges, levees, wharves, airports/runways, railways—to the financiers via their agents. Netherlands’ flood control infrastructures, for instance, would surely be cause for salivation by the same greedy moneybags which they can perhaps maneuver to buy at rummage sale.
Concerned Europeans themselves should keep watch over the reports filtering to the OECD and Bank for International Settlements about the country performance of EU’s member states. Panic and desperation, at a given juncture, is sufficient cause to pad data, rendering such central institutions as unreliable and suspect. When an economic house burns, a central bank would casually resort to lying such as our own central bank in the Philippines did during the depression years of ‘84-‘86.
Likewise should the Europeans, more so the working class, better keep track of oligarchic slash funds being stashed surreptitiously in their own backyard. Such funds should be allowed to surface and be applied with transparency rules to know what they are intended for.
[Philippines, 31 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Good evening from the Philippine suburbs!
I wish Europeans could find sufficient reason to brighten themselves up these days. Maybe the northern Europeans can still find some reason to smile in the light of welfare state graces still flowing to their pockets, while those of southern Europe’s are grilling in the heat of a continent burning in economic firestorm.
Europe is rapidly going down the route of bankruptcy as shown by the panic behavior of its Brussels-based central bank as well as the respective member-states’ own central banks. Whatever the serial bankruptcy could forebode, the Europeans better prepare for the worst scenario.
Economic intelligence updates report that only the IMF and USA are infusing some fresh monies unto the European coffers. The problem is that the IMF is itself running out of funds soon, and so it may decide to probably print money that it just puzzlingly couldn’t securitize enough (does IMF possess gold bullions to back up those monies in case?).
As to the USA providing fresh cash to Europe, we concerned observers are simply befuddled about. The USA was bankrupt even before Obama became president, a fact that amplifies our own confusion about where does the USA source such funds and how will it securitize them in case of its aiding of a burning Europe.
It seems that coteries of Nero officials were designated as chief execs and technocrats in the entire continent plus the UK & Ireland, Neros who fiddled in their palatial roofs while their respective countries burned. I wish the likes of Brown, Merker, Sarkozy, and Barroso could convince me that they are not some Nero clones who collectively did burn their own continent at the behest of the financiers. [Cameron replaced Brown recently, performing a “too late the hero” act.]
Now, just to remind the readers more so the Europeans, around a couple of years back, when the USA was in the midst of its ‘great recession’, the greedy Anglo-European financiers reportedly stashed a staggering $3 Trillions worth of slash funds in the big financial houses of the continent itself. That was then, it’s now 2010 and the slash funds may have grown to at least 33% its original size.
A very suspicious act for sure, as it reveals a highly privileged class that operates outside the ambit of established rules in the continent. Just exactly what are those funds intended for, we can only speculate. The greedy financiers know about a coming turbulence that will engulf the entire trans-Atlantic economies most likely, and they were preparing for the worst scenario.
The worst scenario is now taking shape, the scenario of total bankruptcy and the Eurozone’s economic roof collapsing. The Jurassic bank IMF was already called upon to intervene with emergency measures for central banks to stash hundreds of billions of euros to salve ailing banks, while it imposed austerity measures on heavily affected countries such as Greece.
To say that the financiers are but passive observers of events would be over-stretching naïve posturing bordering torpor. The greedy financiers led by the House of Rothschild and its subordinate subalterns (Soros & cronies) have been orchestrating the events in the continent, even as they were responsible for directing the pliant IMF to enter the scene in order to hasten anarchy and economic collapse.
Europe’s member states could all but wish for some more industries that could be sold to the financiers who wait in the wings for more bankrupt companies to be sold at cheap dirt prices. Europe has already been effectively de-industrialized across the decades via virtual economy policies of deregulation, privatization, and liberalization, so there isn’t much an industry left for such a purpose.
Maybe the last frontier of Europe to generate money is to sell all of its major infrastructures—freeways & roads, bridges, levees, wharves, airports/runways, railways—to the financiers via their agents. Netherlands’ flood control infrastructures, for instance, would surely be cause for salivation by the same greedy moneybags which they can perhaps maneuver to buy at rummage sale.
Concerned Europeans themselves should keep watch over the reports filtering to the OECD and Bank for International Settlements about the country performance of EU’s member states. Panic and desperation, at a given juncture, is sufficient cause to pad data, rendering such central institutions as unreliable and suspect. When an economic house burns, a central bank would casually resort to lying such as our own central bank in the Philippines did during the depression years of ‘84-‘86.
Likewise should the Europeans, more so the working class, better keep track of oligarchic slash funds being stashed surreptitiously in their own backyard. Such funds should be allowed to surface and be applied with transparency rules to know what they are intended for.
[Philippines, 31 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Monday, August 16, 2010
SPARTACUS UNVEILED: TROUNCING BONARPIST EUROPE
Erle Frayne D. Argonza
Hail Bonaparte! Hail New Rome! Hail the Empire!
Such slogans could very well be the reverb calls across Europe any one of these coming months. Bonaparte is coming back to Europe, beginning with the consolidation of the union and the implementation of a state ideology based precisely on the centralized institutions that Napoleon Bonaparte seeded during his halcyon days.
New Rome has arisen, with its center at Brussels. Its ‘wings’ are EU and USA (with Canada its client-state), two continents that face each other across the Atlantic like select guardians of the West. As already elaborated by this analyst in couples of articles, Bonapartism in a new form is the emerging state ideology of New Rome that is sometimes referred to as the 4th Reich.
“Bombard the old world to perdition” was the late Emperor’s agenda and directive on his enthused army. The old world today refers to the nation-states, and their destruction would mean the return to the powerful cities plus regions that would altogether bow obeisance to Brussels.
The new twist in Europe today, when it is burning economically upon the burst of bubbles in the de-industrialized south (Greece began it all), is the entry of the Jurassic Bank—the International Monetary Fund—into the Bonapartist game of the oligarchs. A salvation agenda comprising of saving ailing banks and imposing austerity measures on creditor countries is the swagger of the rather thuggish dinosaur, as we observed recently.
When a dinosaur institution is called upon to salve Europe’s problems, it is clear that the ‘handwriting on the wall’ of the old world of European nations has come. With cities and regions demanding return to old days of social privileges (evaporated by austerity measures), more riots are anticipated, thus justifying more draconian gendarme tactics enforced upon angry wage workers and professionals.
If the violent protests will continue and reach ‘critical mass’ in both southern and northern sectors of the union, then the rationale for a continental police state will arise. A New Bonaparte, whoever may this politician be, shall be catapulted phoenix-like to the nadir of totalitarian power, with the support of the union’s central and national parliaments.
As you can see, Bonapartism without a Bonaparte is an oxymoron. The maelstrom in the continent will continue to build up until the condition will be ripe for a totalitarian gendarme state. The maximum agenda of a New Bonaparte would be no less than “bombard the old world” of nations: eradicate them and replace them with pre-configured regions.
Such a move will deter whatever re-actions may come from the citizens to re-strengthen the bargaining positions of their respective nations and go back to the old national currencies. Necessarily, the assets of the national armies will be re-directed to Brussels that will serve as the central command, and the assets will include the nukes of UK and France.
Since the Roman pathos or spirit has been revived anew, with war pursuits (notably versus New Persia) on the menu of hawkish adventurisms, then Europeans can only but hope for the presence of a Mark Anthony who can battle the Emperor from within Brussel’s institutions. Wishful thinking, as in a totalitarian setting all the Mark Anthony wannabes will be either jailed or terminated. Like Mark Anthony of the last days of the Roman republic, dead, caput!
In the absence of a Mark Anthony in the continent, then Europeans can best leverage their strength via a new Spartacus. Let the Spartacists gel as a gigantic movement from the diverse grassroots and working class movements in the continent, and rest assured they can be the ones that can form the resistance.
Europeans better galvanize solidarity the quickest now as an anti-fascist front versus a determined Bonapartist oligarchy & technocracy. There is no better time to revive Spartacus than now. Reviving Spartacus after the Empire and neo-Bonaparte are in place will prove to be counterproductive and defeatist.
I hope that Europeans would wake up fast to recognize the dreaded dragon of Bonapartism rising so rapidly in their backyard. Only they can stop the new fascism from consolidating further and installing a new Emperor Bonaparte.
[Philippines, 30 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Hail Bonaparte! Hail New Rome! Hail the Empire!
Such slogans could very well be the reverb calls across Europe any one of these coming months. Bonaparte is coming back to Europe, beginning with the consolidation of the union and the implementation of a state ideology based precisely on the centralized institutions that Napoleon Bonaparte seeded during his halcyon days.
New Rome has arisen, with its center at Brussels. Its ‘wings’ are EU and USA (with Canada its client-state), two continents that face each other across the Atlantic like select guardians of the West. As already elaborated by this analyst in couples of articles, Bonapartism in a new form is the emerging state ideology of New Rome that is sometimes referred to as the 4th Reich.
“Bombard the old world to perdition” was the late Emperor’s agenda and directive on his enthused army. The old world today refers to the nation-states, and their destruction would mean the return to the powerful cities plus regions that would altogether bow obeisance to Brussels.
The new twist in Europe today, when it is burning economically upon the burst of bubbles in the de-industrialized south (Greece began it all), is the entry of the Jurassic Bank—the International Monetary Fund—into the Bonapartist game of the oligarchs. A salvation agenda comprising of saving ailing banks and imposing austerity measures on creditor countries is the swagger of the rather thuggish dinosaur, as we observed recently.
When a dinosaur institution is called upon to salve Europe’s problems, it is clear that the ‘handwriting on the wall’ of the old world of European nations has come. With cities and regions demanding return to old days of social privileges (evaporated by austerity measures), more riots are anticipated, thus justifying more draconian gendarme tactics enforced upon angry wage workers and professionals.
If the violent protests will continue and reach ‘critical mass’ in both southern and northern sectors of the union, then the rationale for a continental police state will arise. A New Bonaparte, whoever may this politician be, shall be catapulted phoenix-like to the nadir of totalitarian power, with the support of the union’s central and national parliaments.
As you can see, Bonapartism without a Bonaparte is an oxymoron. The maelstrom in the continent will continue to build up until the condition will be ripe for a totalitarian gendarme state. The maximum agenda of a New Bonaparte would be no less than “bombard the old world” of nations: eradicate them and replace them with pre-configured regions.
Such a move will deter whatever re-actions may come from the citizens to re-strengthen the bargaining positions of their respective nations and go back to the old national currencies. Necessarily, the assets of the national armies will be re-directed to Brussels that will serve as the central command, and the assets will include the nukes of UK and France.
Since the Roman pathos or spirit has been revived anew, with war pursuits (notably versus New Persia) on the menu of hawkish adventurisms, then Europeans can only but hope for the presence of a Mark Anthony who can battle the Emperor from within Brussel’s institutions. Wishful thinking, as in a totalitarian setting all the Mark Anthony wannabes will be either jailed or terminated. Like Mark Anthony of the last days of the Roman republic, dead, caput!
In the absence of a Mark Anthony in the continent, then Europeans can best leverage their strength via a new Spartacus. Let the Spartacists gel as a gigantic movement from the diverse grassroots and working class movements in the continent, and rest assured they can be the ones that can form the resistance.
Europeans better galvanize solidarity the quickest now as an anti-fascist front versus a determined Bonapartist oligarchy & technocracy. There is no better time to revive Spartacus than now. Reviving Spartacus after the Empire and neo-Bonaparte are in place will prove to be counterproductive and defeatist.
I hope that Europeans would wake up fast to recognize the dreaded dragon of Bonapartism rising so rapidly in their backyard. Only they can stop the new fascism from consolidating further and installing a new Emperor Bonaparte.
[Philippines, 30 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
PAN-AFRICAN AWARENESS RISES: WILL IT BITE?
Erle Frayne D. Argonza
Magandang gabi mula sa Perlas ng Silangan! Good evening from the Pearl of the Orient!
Pan-Africanism seems to be getting sweeter an idea recently, so I chose to delve on the subject for this article. Pan-Africanism as a pathos (group feel & aware) seeks to unify the diverse ethnicities of the continent from southernmost South Africa to the northern Arab-Berber-Hamite territories, to indicate the contours of the emerging pathos.
Whether this pathos will gel in order to effectively create synergies among Africans of so heterogenous a composition remains to be seen. As a matter of development imperative, I’d encourage such a colossal effort myself, and I hope that the Africans would truly get together to solve their deep-seated social, political and economic malaise.
As far as I see it, the pathos was there from the time of the early pharaohs through the time of Carthage, but declined rapidly during the advent of the Hellenic monarchs of the northeastern region. When Cleopatra ruled Egypt, the fragmentation and decay of that unity was completed. Africa was thereafter subordinated to empires and potentates to its north (Rome and later empires).
For two thousand years such a pathos slept and lay dormant in the antechambers of the African psyche. Western powers arrived, occupied, and declared Africa and its peoples as their chattels, and that latter imperialist act of the West seems to have doomed any effort to revive pan-Africanism via a renaissance movement.
Thereafter, before and after the colonial periods for each of Africa’s regions, each nation waged its own version of nation-building and national renaissance. Sadly, the post-colonial period saw the nation-building efforts degenerate, with many African states cascading catastrophically down ‘failed state’ syndrome.
Africa’s nations were actually creations of the West, and they fail because tribes that were like oil and water just couldn’t get their acts together in the last instance in each nation concerned. They sold their sovereignty to warlordism and Anglo-European oligarchic moneybags. The superficial states just couldn’t hold water much longer, and so we witness fragmentation and balkanization till these days.
It seems that the last salvation for the end of the chaos and fragmentation is pan-Africanism itself. Africans are trying to construct a new center—not geographical but cultural-ideational—that could cement the diverse ethnicities of a chaotically decentered continent.
Pan-Africanism will have to compete though with other revivalist movements. Pan-Arabism, as represented by Ba’ath ideology, used to be a strong contender but is now on the rapid decline. Pan-Islamism is on the rise, though it has its own competing discourses—Sunni and Shiite. There is Christian fundamentalism that the Opus Dei, Jesuits, evangelical and Baptist groups are stirring up in a frontal clash with pan-Islamism.
Such revivalist movements tend to secure a region or select African ethnicities, such as the Arab-Berber-Hamite triad for pan-Arabism. They may get some pieces of the African pie with them, but they are narrow and parochial as they divide the continent and its component ethniticies. Pan-Africanism can therefore supersede all of them, though its maturation is a tenuous endeavor.
A very rough political-cultural ocean this pathos is surely confronting. Getting together hundreds of tribal and ethnic groups, with their own inter-ethnic conflicts raging till these days, is enormously enigmatic a goal to hurdle, with so many gourdian knots to cut.
Africans have no better choice but get together. Poverty, ethnic conflicts, bio-warfare ailments (AIDS & others), balkanization, and the looting of its resources by Western moneybags is leading the continent and its peoples to a cul de sac Hades.
Europe had been re-awakening the long dormant Roman pathos, and that “grandeur that was Rome” is running through the gamut of the European psyche on both sides of the Atlantic. Bonapartism is crystallizing rapidly as the state ideology of the emerging New Rome (EU-USA), its contours now forming though straddling sand dunes. Rome is re-acquiring its old territories as we’re now witnessing.
The subordination of ancient Africa (Egypt-Nubia leading) to Rome is again being revived. Such a revivalism would get expressed as an enchainment of pan-Africa to New Rome’s agenda of conflagration versus a renascent Persia (Shiite Iran). If the conflagration will ensue, pan-Africa’s gains will collapse under the roof.
So the question that we ask now is, will pan-Africa yield to the Anglo-European oligarchs and become canon fodders for the latter’s war versus Persia? Or, will pan-Africa truly unite the vast continent’s diverse ethnic communities and galvanize a sovereign continent that can’t be dragged into the ‘clash of civilizations’ madness of Western moneybags?
[Philippines, 30 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Magandang gabi mula sa Perlas ng Silangan! Good evening from the Pearl of the Orient!
Pan-Africanism seems to be getting sweeter an idea recently, so I chose to delve on the subject for this article. Pan-Africanism as a pathos (group feel & aware) seeks to unify the diverse ethnicities of the continent from southernmost South Africa to the northern Arab-Berber-Hamite territories, to indicate the contours of the emerging pathos.
Whether this pathos will gel in order to effectively create synergies among Africans of so heterogenous a composition remains to be seen. As a matter of development imperative, I’d encourage such a colossal effort myself, and I hope that the Africans would truly get together to solve their deep-seated social, political and economic malaise.
As far as I see it, the pathos was there from the time of the early pharaohs through the time of Carthage, but declined rapidly during the advent of the Hellenic monarchs of the northeastern region. When Cleopatra ruled Egypt, the fragmentation and decay of that unity was completed. Africa was thereafter subordinated to empires and potentates to its north (Rome and later empires).
For two thousand years such a pathos slept and lay dormant in the antechambers of the African psyche. Western powers arrived, occupied, and declared Africa and its peoples as their chattels, and that latter imperialist act of the West seems to have doomed any effort to revive pan-Africanism via a renaissance movement.
Thereafter, before and after the colonial periods for each of Africa’s regions, each nation waged its own version of nation-building and national renaissance. Sadly, the post-colonial period saw the nation-building efforts degenerate, with many African states cascading catastrophically down ‘failed state’ syndrome.
Africa’s nations were actually creations of the West, and they fail because tribes that were like oil and water just couldn’t get their acts together in the last instance in each nation concerned. They sold their sovereignty to warlordism and Anglo-European oligarchic moneybags. The superficial states just couldn’t hold water much longer, and so we witness fragmentation and balkanization till these days.
It seems that the last salvation for the end of the chaos and fragmentation is pan-Africanism itself. Africans are trying to construct a new center—not geographical but cultural-ideational—that could cement the diverse ethnicities of a chaotically decentered continent.
Pan-Africanism will have to compete though with other revivalist movements. Pan-Arabism, as represented by Ba’ath ideology, used to be a strong contender but is now on the rapid decline. Pan-Islamism is on the rise, though it has its own competing discourses—Sunni and Shiite. There is Christian fundamentalism that the Opus Dei, Jesuits, evangelical and Baptist groups are stirring up in a frontal clash with pan-Islamism.
Such revivalist movements tend to secure a region or select African ethnicities, such as the Arab-Berber-Hamite triad for pan-Arabism. They may get some pieces of the African pie with them, but they are narrow and parochial as they divide the continent and its component ethniticies. Pan-Africanism can therefore supersede all of them, though its maturation is a tenuous endeavor.
A very rough political-cultural ocean this pathos is surely confronting. Getting together hundreds of tribal and ethnic groups, with their own inter-ethnic conflicts raging till these days, is enormously enigmatic a goal to hurdle, with so many gourdian knots to cut.
Africans have no better choice but get together. Poverty, ethnic conflicts, bio-warfare ailments (AIDS & others), balkanization, and the looting of its resources by Western moneybags is leading the continent and its peoples to a cul de sac Hades.
Europe had been re-awakening the long dormant Roman pathos, and that “grandeur that was Rome” is running through the gamut of the European psyche on both sides of the Atlantic. Bonapartism is crystallizing rapidly as the state ideology of the emerging New Rome (EU-USA), its contours now forming though straddling sand dunes. Rome is re-acquiring its old territories as we’re now witnessing.
The subordination of ancient Africa (Egypt-Nubia leading) to Rome is again being revived. Such a revivalism would get expressed as an enchainment of pan-Africa to New Rome’s agenda of conflagration versus a renascent Persia (Shiite Iran). If the conflagration will ensue, pan-Africa’s gains will collapse under the roof.
So the question that we ask now is, will pan-Africa yield to the Anglo-European oligarchs and become canon fodders for the latter’s war versus Persia? Or, will pan-Africa truly unite the vast continent’s diverse ethnic communities and galvanize a sovereign continent that can’t be dragged into the ‘clash of civilizations’ madness of Western moneybags?
[Philippines, 30 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Monday, August 09, 2010
CURRENCY: PERSIA’S OVERKILL WEAPON VERSUS NEW ROME (EU-USA)
Erle Frayne D. Argonza
Observers may be wondering about what revived Persia (Shiite empire) possesses that serves as its leverage in a Manichean ‘clash of civilizations’ with revived Rome (EU-USA). Nukes and petrol (Iran cuts down oil pumping levels) are the most easily identifiable at the moment, and those with Jurassic linear thinking are inclined to forecast these possible leverages.
New Rome (EU-USA) itself has been projecting a rather alarmist tone that had overstressed those leverages as the weapons of its revived ancient enemy. In my analysis, this projection is just a cover-up or ‘decoy’ propaganda by new Rome whose technocratic-military-oligarchic elites know too well the real leverage that Iran possesses.
My contention is that currency will be new Persia’s most powerful weapon versus its ancient adversary. Iran’s ayatollahs and partisan ideologues aren’t dumb, they’ve been preparing for this weaponry a long time ago yet (since after Islam’s take-over of Teheran in the early 80s), and they will use this weapon with determined zeal.
The U.S. intelligence community had actually created dollar-manufacturing machines outside the USA to churn out humungous volumes of the currency that will escape the inquisitive eyes of Congress. The dollars are used for covert operations overseas—to buy weaponry, drugs, gold, and stash assets elsewhere beyond Congress’ prying eyes.
Sadly for the USA and New Rome, one such machine—located inside Iran during the regime of the Shah—fell into the hands of Islamic revolutionaries after the overthrow of the Shah. It would be overstretching naïve posturing if one thinks that Shiite Islam won’t use the machine for its purpose: to produce dollars by the mighty lot.
The Western oligarchy had shown its competence at destroying economies via currency attacks. Recall the devastation of the Asian economies when Soros & cronies waged an organized campaign of currency attacks beginning in June 1997. The offshoot was the Asian ‘financial meltdown’ as we called it then.
It isn’t difficult to recognize that Persia will use the same currency attack to take down the economies of its adversaries. New Rome is already teetering on the edge of a deeper economic collapse that could send it down to 3rd world infamy in the short run, a fact that Persia’s experts and strategists are watching so closely with glee.
Persia may decide to rain dollars on the world’s coffers as a pre-emptive attack versus its ancient enemy. Let’s better take this scenario very seriously.
The moment that dollars will flood the global coffers, by which the dollar will become a mere over-the-counter commodity, both the Euro and Yen will go down in value as well. All those financial, monetary, and merchandise commodities that are dependent on the said currencies will come crashing down from economic roofs as well.
Bellicosity towards Persia will prove to be New Rome’s folly, as we will see later. It may prove more worthy for Rome to cajole its ancient enemy via carrots (diplomacy and merchandise leverages) rather than sticks that can only lead to the eventual destruction of the West in a hot war versus Iran (see previous article).
Even East Asia, which is the global growth driver today, will be severely affected by a crash of the dollar via a Persian currency attack. With gargantuan stocks of dollars stashed in their vaults, a badly devalued dollar will suddenly de-stabilize their domestic economy and external trade as well.
It is futile for the Anglo-European-American oligarchy to decide on nuking Iran in order to destroy its dollar-making capabilities. Vaults upon vaults full of the currency are most likely stocked up all over the planet via the agents and friends of Shiite (that includes mafia operators, corrupt state officials, and dirty bankers) from where the currency can be released like relentless rocket attack weapons.
The Manichean ‘war of the worlds’ betwixt ancient enemies Rome and Parthia will prove to be the most catastrophic of all wars. No one power will win this war at all, although Persia will end up having the last laugh as the West gets fragmented and destroyed.
[Philippines, 24 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Observers may be wondering about what revived Persia (Shiite empire) possesses that serves as its leverage in a Manichean ‘clash of civilizations’ with revived Rome (EU-USA). Nukes and petrol (Iran cuts down oil pumping levels) are the most easily identifiable at the moment, and those with Jurassic linear thinking are inclined to forecast these possible leverages.
New Rome (EU-USA) itself has been projecting a rather alarmist tone that had overstressed those leverages as the weapons of its revived ancient enemy. In my analysis, this projection is just a cover-up or ‘decoy’ propaganda by new Rome whose technocratic-military-oligarchic elites know too well the real leverage that Iran possesses.
My contention is that currency will be new Persia’s most powerful weapon versus its ancient adversary. Iran’s ayatollahs and partisan ideologues aren’t dumb, they’ve been preparing for this weaponry a long time ago yet (since after Islam’s take-over of Teheran in the early 80s), and they will use this weapon with determined zeal.
The U.S. intelligence community had actually created dollar-manufacturing machines outside the USA to churn out humungous volumes of the currency that will escape the inquisitive eyes of Congress. The dollars are used for covert operations overseas—to buy weaponry, drugs, gold, and stash assets elsewhere beyond Congress’ prying eyes.
Sadly for the USA and New Rome, one such machine—located inside Iran during the regime of the Shah—fell into the hands of Islamic revolutionaries after the overthrow of the Shah. It would be overstretching naïve posturing if one thinks that Shiite Islam won’t use the machine for its purpose: to produce dollars by the mighty lot.
The Western oligarchy had shown its competence at destroying economies via currency attacks. Recall the devastation of the Asian economies when Soros & cronies waged an organized campaign of currency attacks beginning in June 1997. The offshoot was the Asian ‘financial meltdown’ as we called it then.
It isn’t difficult to recognize that Persia will use the same currency attack to take down the economies of its adversaries. New Rome is already teetering on the edge of a deeper economic collapse that could send it down to 3rd world infamy in the short run, a fact that Persia’s experts and strategists are watching so closely with glee.
Persia may decide to rain dollars on the world’s coffers as a pre-emptive attack versus its ancient enemy. Let’s better take this scenario very seriously.
The moment that dollars will flood the global coffers, by which the dollar will become a mere over-the-counter commodity, both the Euro and Yen will go down in value as well. All those financial, monetary, and merchandise commodities that are dependent on the said currencies will come crashing down from economic roofs as well.
Bellicosity towards Persia will prove to be New Rome’s folly, as we will see later. It may prove more worthy for Rome to cajole its ancient enemy via carrots (diplomacy and merchandise leverages) rather than sticks that can only lead to the eventual destruction of the West in a hot war versus Iran (see previous article).
Even East Asia, which is the global growth driver today, will be severely affected by a crash of the dollar via a Persian currency attack. With gargantuan stocks of dollars stashed in their vaults, a badly devalued dollar will suddenly de-stabilize their domestic economy and external trade as well.
It is futile for the Anglo-European-American oligarchy to decide on nuking Iran in order to destroy its dollar-making capabilities. Vaults upon vaults full of the currency are most likely stocked up all over the planet via the agents and friends of Shiite (that includes mafia operators, corrupt state officials, and dirty bankers) from where the currency can be released like relentless rocket attack weapons.
The Manichean ‘war of the worlds’ betwixt ancient enemies Rome and Parthia will prove to be the most catastrophic of all wars. No one power will win this war at all, although Persia will end up having the last laugh as the West gets fragmented and destroyed.
[Philippines, 24 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Friday, August 06, 2010
PERSIA RE-AWAKENS TO CONFRONT REVIVED ROME (EU-USA)
Erle Frayne D. Argonza
Good day! Magandang araw!
In previous articles I have articulated about ancient racial consciousness that could awaken at some juncture after a long dormancy period. The dormancy could be 2,000 years approximately, which coincides with Arnold Toynbee’s 2,000-year civilizational life.
The revival of ancient Roman consciousness had already been galvanizing, with the European Union and USA (w/ Canada) serving as the two (2) sections of the New Rome. Brussels is the capital of the revived Rome, a fact that is now well established. The revival of Bonapartism, also articulated in previous articles, is also unfolding at this moment, with war policy serving as option to abolish nations.
As such an eventuality is happening, another ancient power, Persia (Romans termed it Parthia) is also re-awakening. To recall history, Persia/Parthia challenged Rome with devastating results, and Rome was never able to conquer the Persians who continued to harass Roman provinces in Asia till the beginnings of Byzantium.
If there is any one power that knows the agenda of Rome (knows it instinctively or unconsciously), it is Rome’s ancient enemy Parthia. Parthia is now rising like a phoenix, and it is preparing to face New Rome in an offensive manner. ‘Offensive’ means confronting an adversary from a position of strength, just to stress the point.
New Rome has already prepared the Semitic coalition (tackled in previous articles) which it will use as a buffer against a marauding New Parthia. Both Sunni (gulf states) and Zion are armed to the teeth and are showing a semblance of an offensive coalition as well, though it remains to be seen whether the coalition will indeed be able to demonstrate muscle in a ‘clash of civilizations’ with revived Parthia.
A forecast Zion-Sunni versus Parthia conflict could indeed take place any time now, with New Rome (probably using American assets) igniting the war at its inception. But on the unconscious level, Zion & Sunni isn’t what Parthia will be staking claims on.
Parthia is after Rome (EU primarily, USA secondarily), and it will use the conflict with Zion & Sunni precisely to scourge the latter so that its scared peoples will migrate westward in massive herds. Waves after waves of Semites (largely Arabs) will move by land, water, and sea to Europe, the most likely new home, to escape Parthia’s wrath.
Berbers, Hamites, Arabs and black Africans will also most likely take sides in such a conflict, even as many of their scared peoples will move northwards to Europe from Africa in massive herds. Whoever the African hordes will be siding with, the result will be the same: tens of millions of its peoples buzzing off northwards to perceived safe havens.
The possible destruction of Iran via conventional means and limited frontier nukes may not necessarily destroy Parthia. Parthia is bigger than Iran, as Shiite allies will join the fray and be home to guerilla assets who can be used to harass the West no end. While the West uses conventional warfare, Parthia will use a combination of conventional and non-conventional strategies (e.g. Hezbollah rocket attacks inside Lebanon, Syria, and maybe even inside Europe).
Destroying and depopulating Iran will prove to be a hallow victory. Because even with Iran gone, at least 150 Millions of Arabs and African hordes will have nestled in Europe who, a short time later, will continue the ‘clash of civilizations’ wars via cultural conflicts and economic over-stretch for a continent that is now rapidly decaying back to 3rd world status.
Cultural decay in the West can be a catastrophic result of the coming clash with Parthia. Just as in ancient times, when “barbarian” hordes took over Roman provinces, Arab and African hordes will be moving up to squeeze themselves in lands they will occupy. Meanwhile, Parthia will be having the last laugh as its ghost will hover over Europe via the migrant hordes.
If New Rome wishes to survive the coming decades, its sane stakeholders should think many times before waging a cataclysmic war versus a revived Parthia. No one power can ever win such a conflict, the only winner being Death & Destruction of a scale heretofore untold.
[Philippines, 24 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Good day! Magandang araw!
In previous articles I have articulated about ancient racial consciousness that could awaken at some juncture after a long dormancy period. The dormancy could be 2,000 years approximately, which coincides with Arnold Toynbee’s 2,000-year civilizational life.
The revival of ancient Roman consciousness had already been galvanizing, with the European Union and USA (w/ Canada) serving as the two (2) sections of the New Rome. Brussels is the capital of the revived Rome, a fact that is now well established. The revival of Bonapartism, also articulated in previous articles, is also unfolding at this moment, with war policy serving as option to abolish nations.
As such an eventuality is happening, another ancient power, Persia (Romans termed it Parthia) is also re-awakening. To recall history, Persia/Parthia challenged Rome with devastating results, and Rome was never able to conquer the Persians who continued to harass Roman provinces in Asia till the beginnings of Byzantium.
If there is any one power that knows the agenda of Rome (knows it instinctively or unconsciously), it is Rome’s ancient enemy Parthia. Parthia is now rising like a phoenix, and it is preparing to face New Rome in an offensive manner. ‘Offensive’ means confronting an adversary from a position of strength, just to stress the point.
New Rome has already prepared the Semitic coalition (tackled in previous articles) which it will use as a buffer against a marauding New Parthia. Both Sunni (gulf states) and Zion are armed to the teeth and are showing a semblance of an offensive coalition as well, though it remains to be seen whether the coalition will indeed be able to demonstrate muscle in a ‘clash of civilizations’ with revived Parthia.
A forecast Zion-Sunni versus Parthia conflict could indeed take place any time now, with New Rome (probably using American assets) igniting the war at its inception. But on the unconscious level, Zion & Sunni isn’t what Parthia will be staking claims on.
Parthia is after Rome (EU primarily, USA secondarily), and it will use the conflict with Zion & Sunni precisely to scourge the latter so that its scared peoples will migrate westward in massive herds. Waves after waves of Semites (largely Arabs) will move by land, water, and sea to Europe, the most likely new home, to escape Parthia’s wrath.
Berbers, Hamites, Arabs and black Africans will also most likely take sides in such a conflict, even as many of their scared peoples will move northwards to Europe from Africa in massive herds. Whoever the African hordes will be siding with, the result will be the same: tens of millions of its peoples buzzing off northwards to perceived safe havens.
The possible destruction of Iran via conventional means and limited frontier nukes may not necessarily destroy Parthia. Parthia is bigger than Iran, as Shiite allies will join the fray and be home to guerilla assets who can be used to harass the West no end. While the West uses conventional warfare, Parthia will use a combination of conventional and non-conventional strategies (e.g. Hezbollah rocket attacks inside Lebanon, Syria, and maybe even inside Europe).
Destroying and depopulating Iran will prove to be a hallow victory. Because even with Iran gone, at least 150 Millions of Arabs and African hordes will have nestled in Europe who, a short time later, will continue the ‘clash of civilizations’ wars via cultural conflicts and economic over-stretch for a continent that is now rapidly decaying back to 3rd world status.
Cultural decay in the West can be a catastrophic result of the coming clash with Parthia. Just as in ancient times, when “barbarian” hordes took over Roman provinces, Arab and African hordes will be moving up to squeeze themselves in lands they will occupy. Meanwhile, Parthia will be having the last laugh as its ghost will hover over Europe via the migrant hordes.
If New Rome wishes to survive the coming decades, its sane stakeholders should think many times before waging a cataclysmic war versus a revived Parthia. No one power can ever win such a conflict, the only winner being Death & Destruction of a scale heretofore untold.
[Philippines, 24 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Wednesday, August 04, 2010
WATER RIOTS IN MANILA: TOO SOON!
water, nature, ecology, environment, climate change, Manila, water wars, war, peace, Erle Argonza, Philippines, technorati, Asia, economics, urban, post-industrial,
Erle Frayne D. Argonza
Good evening from the Philippines!
A water crisis is now looming big in Manila (the entire metropolis), the Philippine’s premier big city. The western side of the big city is particularly badly affected by pilferages and spillages (over 55% lost), thus reducing the volume of water available to around 7 million people more or less.
Such a situation has been causing panic lately on urban residents, a panic that could lead to water riots. The western side of the big city is flatlands, which renders it vulnerable to floods and consequent destruction of water pipelines during calamities. Contrast that to the eastern side that comprises of highlands where watershed areas are nestled.
Just recently, the palace officials in Manila have been pronouncing the mobilization of army troops to help deter possible water riots. This is a new twist in the history of army missions, as the mission is one of police task in an urban setting (most army missions comprise of anti-insurgency tasks in rural hinterlands).
The outbreak of water conflicts right at the heart of Manila appears culled from the futuristic narratives of Isaac Asimov. The sci-fi genius prophesied (right after World War II) that the future will see communities divided between suburban highlands and urban lowlands. The residents of the suburbs, whose living comfort in gated villages is accompanied by robot sentinels, will comprise the upper class, while those of the urban lowlands, who will be exposed to the hovels of pollution, will comprise the lower class.
The urban-suburban divide seems to be gelling so fast in this country today. The water crisis caught palace officials and utilities bureaucrats flatfooted, even as they have been acting in near-hysteria fashion. A water war right in the big city is looming ahead, and there’s nothing in the management textbooks of the officials that can offer them quick solutions to an escalating crisis.
I do recall well that in the late 1990s, when I went back to graduate school to hone my skills in development policy via retooling with state-of-the-art analysis and social technologies, we already forecast the possibility of water wars (during classroom discussions). At that time, certain towns in the Cordilleras (mountain range to the north) began matter-of-factly to quarrel over water source and distribution. And so the challenge for us development workers was to craft mitigation measures that can deter such wars.
As soon as the new millennium began, Singapore and Malaysia did have some diplomatic confrontation regarding the issue of Singapore’s access to water sources found in Malaysia. The water source, so to speak, was getting depleted, thus slowly disabling Singapore from meeting its water needs. Desalination was the strategic solution to the problem, a surefire solution by Singapore’s visionary leaders that averted another conflict between the two polities (the earlier conflict led to Singapore’s separation from the Malaysian federation).
Certain policy experts and development workers are quite prepared for the eventuality of water wars in this 2nd world country, true. But those in the palace and even the legislature just may not have that luck of being exposed to new policy and institutional tools to deal with water-based conflicts.
Certainly too, the local execs and bureaucrats of Manila are unprepared for such a gargantuan crisis and eminent conflict based on water access and distribution. They haven’t retooled, and I know this for a fact based on my interaction with local officials known to me in the big city. They are mired in the old world, a world that is long gone (10 years ago in today’s context of rapid change is too long a time gone).
A water-based Asimovian nightmare is shaping up fast in Manila, and probably in other mega-cities around the world as well, a nightmare that is over-stretching the competencies of Establishment bureaucrats and politicians. The crisis exacerbates the urgency for urban lowland dwellers to leave the flatlands once and for all for the greener and water-rich highland suburbs, which could be the lowlanders’ panic complex response.
As an analyst and development practitioner, I am critical of any decision to use police state tactics to resolve the crisis. Scare tactics won’t let the problem fade away at all. The stakeholders better do their homework well, by getting together to dialogue, think and act. Through good all consensus they can configure what course of action to take that includes desalination of waters off Manila Bay.
Meantime, I am now all the more discouraged from ever residing or working in urban flatlands. Safely niched in Manila’s western highlands and suburban Calabarzon for the longest part of my life, I’d now rather heed the Asimovian option of better living in the suburbs, with or without the robot sentinels in our subdivision villages.
[Philippines, 23 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Erle Frayne D. Argonza
Good evening from the Philippines!
A water crisis is now looming big in Manila (the entire metropolis), the Philippine’s premier big city. The western side of the big city is particularly badly affected by pilferages and spillages (over 55% lost), thus reducing the volume of water available to around 7 million people more or less.
Such a situation has been causing panic lately on urban residents, a panic that could lead to water riots. The western side of the big city is flatlands, which renders it vulnerable to floods and consequent destruction of water pipelines during calamities. Contrast that to the eastern side that comprises of highlands where watershed areas are nestled.
Just recently, the palace officials in Manila have been pronouncing the mobilization of army troops to help deter possible water riots. This is a new twist in the history of army missions, as the mission is one of police task in an urban setting (most army missions comprise of anti-insurgency tasks in rural hinterlands).
The outbreak of water conflicts right at the heart of Manila appears culled from the futuristic narratives of Isaac Asimov. The sci-fi genius prophesied (right after World War II) that the future will see communities divided between suburban highlands and urban lowlands. The residents of the suburbs, whose living comfort in gated villages is accompanied by robot sentinels, will comprise the upper class, while those of the urban lowlands, who will be exposed to the hovels of pollution, will comprise the lower class.
The urban-suburban divide seems to be gelling so fast in this country today. The water crisis caught palace officials and utilities bureaucrats flatfooted, even as they have been acting in near-hysteria fashion. A water war right in the big city is looming ahead, and there’s nothing in the management textbooks of the officials that can offer them quick solutions to an escalating crisis.
I do recall well that in the late 1990s, when I went back to graduate school to hone my skills in development policy via retooling with state-of-the-art analysis and social technologies, we already forecast the possibility of water wars (during classroom discussions). At that time, certain towns in the Cordilleras (mountain range to the north) began matter-of-factly to quarrel over water source and distribution. And so the challenge for us development workers was to craft mitigation measures that can deter such wars.
As soon as the new millennium began, Singapore and Malaysia did have some diplomatic confrontation regarding the issue of Singapore’s access to water sources found in Malaysia. The water source, so to speak, was getting depleted, thus slowly disabling Singapore from meeting its water needs. Desalination was the strategic solution to the problem, a surefire solution by Singapore’s visionary leaders that averted another conflict between the two polities (the earlier conflict led to Singapore’s separation from the Malaysian federation).
Certain policy experts and development workers are quite prepared for the eventuality of water wars in this 2nd world country, true. But those in the palace and even the legislature just may not have that luck of being exposed to new policy and institutional tools to deal with water-based conflicts.
Certainly too, the local execs and bureaucrats of Manila are unprepared for such a gargantuan crisis and eminent conflict based on water access and distribution. They haven’t retooled, and I know this for a fact based on my interaction with local officials known to me in the big city. They are mired in the old world, a world that is long gone (10 years ago in today’s context of rapid change is too long a time gone).
A water-based Asimovian nightmare is shaping up fast in Manila, and probably in other mega-cities around the world as well, a nightmare that is over-stretching the competencies of Establishment bureaucrats and politicians. The crisis exacerbates the urgency for urban lowland dwellers to leave the flatlands once and for all for the greener and water-rich highland suburbs, which could be the lowlanders’ panic complex response.
As an analyst and development practitioner, I am critical of any decision to use police state tactics to resolve the crisis. Scare tactics won’t let the problem fade away at all. The stakeholders better do their homework well, by getting together to dialogue, think and act. Through good all consensus they can configure what course of action to take that includes desalination of waters off Manila Bay.
Meantime, I am now all the more discouraged from ever residing or working in urban flatlands. Safely niched in Manila’s western highlands and suburban Calabarzon for the longest part of my life, I’d now rather heed the Asimovian option of better living in the suburbs, with or without the robot sentinels in our subdivision villages.
[Philippines, 23 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Sunday, August 01, 2010
ZION-SUNNI COALITION: ANCIENT PAN-SEMITISM SURFACING
Erle Frayne D. Argonza
Zion is courting Sunni and vice versa, courtesy of neo-conservative technocrats from Pentagon in tandem with the agents of the Anglo-European oligarchy. The enemy that both camps have to confront—Shiite Persia—is a very determined one and is arming to the teeth to advance its own interest.
Scrape both Zion and Sunni off the surface, and one can easily reveal the ancient Semitic bloodline that runs in both camps. The same Semites who for millennia fought for survival against the might of Persia, are now uniting to face Persia once again in a last war that fits well into the narrative of the last battle between the forces of Ahriman versus those of Ahura Mazda.
Cross over to the Shiite camp and do the same: scrape off Shiite Islam from the surface. Voila! The Persian bloodline is revealed to the observer in a very kindergarten fashion of quiz. Persia is resurfacing, Persian psyche that was long dormant is reviving, and sooner or later the empire that was so hated by its neighbors may come rampaging again to harass and conquer (if it can) the potentates of the ancient empire.
Racial consciousness, an awareness that operates on the collective level, doesn’t seem to die at all. At some juncture in the future, the dormant racial consciousness of a people may re-awaken again. I see this ancient racial consciousness re-awakening in today’s context when the borderline between reason and madness has been effectively erased.
Such is the case of the Semitic peoples, who were bred from the bloodlines of the Levantine Canaanites and the Sumerians. The Canaanites were a colored people while the Sumerians were white or Caucasian. The resulting race was a hybrid psyche that is suited to the rough and tough terrains of the Levant, Arabian peninsula, and North Africa’s sand dunes.
Indubitably, the Semites have competed against each other for millennia, this is beyond question. The future Arabs warred against each other, and so did the future Jews had their own conflicts. Hebrew-Arab conflict likewise brewed and boiled caldrons, conflicts whose embers haven’t ceased to die till now.
For some time, pan-Arabism served as a cementing force with which to unite the warring Arab tribes against an aggressive Zion. Real as the Zion-Arab conflict may seem, that reality can always get erased as soon as the line of polarity shifts.
With the decline of pan-Arabism came the advent of fundamentalist Islam represented by Shiite revivalism, a radical version of Islam that seeks to destroy both Zion and de-fang Western-collaborating Sunni sheikhdoms.
The advent of Shiite revivalism is indubitably the cementing force that is now uniting both Hebrews and Arabs together. No matter how superficial the Zion-Sunni coalition may appear for now, the superficiality will fade once the ferocity of Shiite Persia will be demonstrated with determined zeal in a war versus the coalition.
To this analyst, Zion and Sunni are no strange bedfellows. The genetic-psychical unity that is deeply embedded in the very DNA of all Semites is the decisive factor that will determine who should be friends versus a perceived predatory enemy, and such an enemy is no other than Persia in its new form as Shiite Islam.
No longer pan-Arabism but pan-Semitism is the order of the day. Pan-Semitism in the aegis of globalization is a borderless racial re-awakening. It is interesting to watch the formation of the contours of the emerging coalition as a surfacing of ancient unity and hatred versus a neo-Persian empire in the neighborhood.
[Philippines, 22 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Zion is courting Sunni and vice versa, courtesy of neo-conservative technocrats from Pentagon in tandem with the agents of the Anglo-European oligarchy. The enemy that both camps have to confront—Shiite Persia—is a very determined one and is arming to the teeth to advance its own interest.
Scrape both Zion and Sunni off the surface, and one can easily reveal the ancient Semitic bloodline that runs in both camps. The same Semites who for millennia fought for survival against the might of Persia, are now uniting to face Persia once again in a last war that fits well into the narrative of the last battle between the forces of Ahriman versus those of Ahura Mazda.
Cross over to the Shiite camp and do the same: scrape off Shiite Islam from the surface. Voila! The Persian bloodline is revealed to the observer in a very kindergarten fashion of quiz. Persia is resurfacing, Persian psyche that was long dormant is reviving, and sooner or later the empire that was so hated by its neighbors may come rampaging again to harass and conquer (if it can) the potentates of the ancient empire.
Racial consciousness, an awareness that operates on the collective level, doesn’t seem to die at all. At some juncture in the future, the dormant racial consciousness of a people may re-awaken again. I see this ancient racial consciousness re-awakening in today’s context when the borderline between reason and madness has been effectively erased.
Such is the case of the Semitic peoples, who were bred from the bloodlines of the Levantine Canaanites and the Sumerians. The Canaanites were a colored people while the Sumerians were white or Caucasian. The resulting race was a hybrid psyche that is suited to the rough and tough terrains of the Levant, Arabian peninsula, and North Africa’s sand dunes.
Indubitably, the Semites have competed against each other for millennia, this is beyond question. The future Arabs warred against each other, and so did the future Jews had their own conflicts. Hebrew-Arab conflict likewise brewed and boiled caldrons, conflicts whose embers haven’t ceased to die till now.
For some time, pan-Arabism served as a cementing force with which to unite the warring Arab tribes against an aggressive Zion. Real as the Zion-Arab conflict may seem, that reality can always get erased as soon as the line of polarity shifts.
With the decline of pan-Arabism came the advent of fundamentalist Islam represented by Shiite revivalism, a radical version of Islam that seeks to destroy both Zion and de-fang Western-collaborating Sunni sheikhdoms.
The advent of Shiite revivalism is indubitably the cementing force that is now uniting both Hebrews and Arabs together. No matter how superficial the Zion-Sunni coalition may appear for now, the superficiality will fade once the ferocity of Shiite Persia will be demonstrated with determined zeal in a war versus the coalition.
To this analyst, Zion and Sunni are no strange bedfellows. The genetic-psychical unity that is deeply embedded in the very DNA of all Semites is the decisive factor that will determine who should be friends versus a perceived predatory enemy, and such an enemy is no other than Persia in its new form as Shiite Islam.
No longer pan-Arabism but pan-Semitism is the order of the day. Pan-Semitism in the aegis of globalization is a borderless racial re-awakening. It is interesting to watch the formation of the contours of the emerging coalition as a surfacing of ancient unity and hatred versus a neo-Persian empire in the neighborhood.
[Philippines, 22 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Friday, July 30, 2010
GULF STATES: ENFORCERS OF OLIGARCHIC ‘CLASH OF CIVILIZATION’ MADNESS
Erle Frayne D. Argonza
Magandang gabi! Good evening!
Dusk is the mark of the day as I write this note. I wish to continue writing on the theme of Arab gulf states—whether they’re Asian or not. It seems that the ‘twilight of the gods’ scenario has been engulfing the gulf states altogether, a sort of reprieve prior to Armageddon.
For this piece, I’d focus on the observation that the Arab gulf states are the enforcers of the Anglo-European oligarchy’s ‘clash of civilizations’ madness. There has been so much military build-up in the gulf states lately, proof of a preparation for a larger conflagration. (The expenditure level measures by the hundreds of billions of dollars, with KSA leading the hemorrhage of military hardware buying spree.)
East Asia, as we can see, has been operating on the modality of a ‘dialogue of cultures’ expressed as economic, political, and cultural cooperation. The entire region has been the growth driver of the global economy for some time now, and will perform such an optimizer role in the foreseeable future.
Such a trend, however, does not characterize the gulf states. Already filthy rich with their petrodollars, they nonetheless aren’t progenitors of growth driving for the global economy. They grow for the sake of sustaining their own development gains and prepare themselves for the eventual drying up of the oil wells.
Gulf economies’ billionaire are deeply encumbered to the financier operations of the Anglo-European oligarchs who have been using the former as their dummies and/or junior partners. There is hardly any big commercial and industrial concern in the gulf states today that are not immersed in the investment interests of the likes of George Soros & cronies who represent the Who Is Who in the West.
Arab sheikhs style themselves in fact as Western-honed leaders who are no different from their Western counterparts. The difference lies only in the sheikhs’ profession of Islam, an ultra-conservatism that the West allowed to thrive to render the sheikhdoms as buffer regions versus pan-Arab nationalism or pan-Arabism of the Iraq, Syria, Lybia, and Nasserite Egypt.
Pan-Arabism is now rapidly decaying, and so the polarity game has shifted to Shiite Islam as the key enemy in lieu of the former. The Arab kings and sheikhs are surely having a great time nurturing hatreds versus the ayatollahs of Persia whom they demonize with deep disdain.
Back home, the sheikhdoms have to neutralize their homegrown jihadist movements led by the Al Qaida. While the home enemy grows in size and intensity of terror, tension grows as the sheikhs can’t help on anticipating the attacks by the revolutionary guards of Persia, attacks that may be accompanied by limited nuclear weaponry.
The situation in the gulf region had pushed the sheikhs into a toxic alliance with the Zionists who are the other leg in the beachhead of the Anglo-European oligarchy in regaining control of the entire Western Asia. A loose Zionist-Sunni (gulf states’ ecclesial religion) alliance has been in formation since couples of years back yet, to recall.
In my own analysis, it is now too late to see the possibility of the sheikhs dis-engaging from their active participation in the polarity game of the West’s oligarchy. The sheikhs and Arab billionaires are an organic part of that oligarchy while they feign difference via Sunni wahabism or equivalents. A superficial difference that is, to note.
The clock now ticks for the gulf states, an Armageddon clock that could unleash the forces of destruction in the region. And such a clock will continue to tick, unless a paradigm shift will be initiated by the sheikhs & Arab billionaires which is nauseatingly impossible an eventuality at this moment.
[Philippines, 22 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Magandang gabi! Good evening!
Dusk is the mark of the day as I write this note. I wish to continue writing on the theme of Arab gulf states—whether they’re Asian or not. It seems that the ‘twilight of the gods’ scenario has been engulfing the gulf states altogether, a sort of reprieve prior to Armageddon.
For this piece, I’d focus on the observation that the Arab gulf states are the enforcers of the Anglo-European oligarchy’s ‘clash of civilizations’ madness. There has been so much military build-up in the gulf states lately, proof of a preparation for a larger conflagration. (The expenditure level measures by the hundreds of billions of dollars, with KSA leading the hemorrhage of military hardware buying spree.)
East Asia, as we can see, has been operating on the modality of a ‘dialogue of cultures’ expressed as economic, political, and cultural cooperation. The entire region has been the growth driver of the global economy for some time now, and will perform such an optimizer role in the foreseeable future.
Such a trend, however, does not characterize the gulf states. Already filthy rich with their petrodollars, they nonetheless aren’t progenitors of growth driving for the global economy. They grow for the sake of sustaining their own development gains and prepare themselves for the eventual drying up of the oil wells.
Gulf economies’ billionaire are deeply encumbered to the financier operations of the Anglo-European oligarchs who have been using the former as their dummies and/or junior partners. There is hardly any big commercial and industrial concern in the gulf states today that are not immersed in the investment interests of the likes of George Soros & cronies who represent the Who Is Who in the West.
Arab sheikhs style themselves in fact as Western-honed leaders who are no different from their Western counterparts. The difference lies only in the sheikhs’ profession of Islam, an ultra-conservatism that the West allowed to thrive to render the sheikhdoms as buffer regions versus pan-Arab nationalism or pan-Arabism of the Iraq, Syria, Lybia, and Nasserite Egypt.
Pan-Arabism is now rapidly decaying, and so the polarity game has shifted to Shiite Islam as the key enemy in lieu of the former. The Arab kings and sheikhs are surely having a great time nurturing hatreds versus the ayatollahs of Persia whom they demonize with deep disdain.
Back home, the sheikhdoms have to neutralize their homegrown jihadist movements led by the Al Qaida. While the home enemy grows in size and intensity of terror, tension grows as the sheikhs can’t help on anticipating the attacks by the revolutionary guards of Persia, attacks that may be accompanied by limited nuclear weaponry.
The situation in the gulf region had pushed the sheikhs into a toxic alliance with the Zionists who are the other leg in the beachhead of the Anglo-European oligarchy in regaining control of the entire Western Asia. A loose Zionist-Sunni (gulf states’ ecclesial religion) alliance has been in formation since couples of years back yet, to recall.
In my own analysis, it is now too late to see the possibility of the sheikhs dis-engaging from their active participation in the polarity game of the West’s oligarchy. The sheikhs and Arab billionaires are an organic part of that oligarchy while they feign difference via Sunni wahabism or equivalents. A superficial difference that is, to note.
The clock now ticks for the gulf states, an Armageddon clock that could unleash the forces of destruction in the region. And such a clock will continue to tick, unless a paradigm shift will be initiated by the sheikhs & Arab billionaires which is nauseatingly impossible an eventuality at this moment.
[Philippines, 22 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
ARAB GULF STATES: HOW ASIAN?
Erle Frayne D. Argonza
It’s now past 8 p.m. as I write this piece inside my studio apartment, and my writing is currently accompanied by chill music from Brazil. For this piece let me toss the query: how Asian could the Arab gulf states be?
To begin my reflections, let me share to you a portion of my family history. My mother, a dietician/health professional, decidedly joined the fray of the ‘gulf state fever’ in the early 80s by seeking work in Saudi Arabia’s hospitals. For four (4) years did she work in the kingdom that is so endeared to many overseas Filipinos like her, until she departed for a new destination (USA where she retired).
When she started working there, her purses began to balloon quickly just as Arabia’s oil pumps were gushing out colossal petrodollars like limitless boons from heaven. She gleefully told us of the fat overtime pays she and her staff received, thus enabling her to send us in the Philippines—then a depression-struck ‘sick man of Asia’—quanta of dinars to quaff our thirst for back-up money.
That was the trend, until around 1984 when patterns suddenly changed. Mother began to complain of working overtime with no extra (overtime) compensation, and until 1986 when she quit Arabia for America no more extra boons came via the overtime pay. Something awefully wrong was going on in the gulf states and not just in Saudi Arabia, this was for sure.
The gulf states as a whole comprised a region that was considerably a growth driver of the global economy for a time until approximately the mid-1980s. At that time, it had so much petrodollars stashed in Western banks and investment houses that it needed for its internal growth, but such growth was choked up by fluctuations in the oil demand globally.
Before long, Asia’s ‘dragons’ and ‘tiger economies’ caught up with the gulf states. As the former kept surging upwards, the latter fluctuated between stagnation and paltry growth. India and emerging markets of Asia were recently added to the list of growth drivers of the world, while the gulf states are mired in a rather delusional self-image of growth driver that is more a thing of the past.
The word ‘Asia’ today has become synonymous with ‘growth driver’. But let it be clarified that the gulf states just don’t fit well into this growth category. For sure, their diversification of dynamic sectors from oil to manufacturing, infrastructures and services have paid quite fatly for them but only for them and not for the planet as a whole.
The gulf states are now quite prepared for the eventuality of drying up of its oil reserves. They are likewise in sync with the rise of mega-cities that the dragons, tigers and emerging markets have began snowballing, capped by prestige projects of towering buildings notably the Taipei 101 and Petronas towers, with Burj Dubai leading the way for the former. But the same states’ return to the halcyon days of being a global driver is simply a thing of the past.
Dubai is a case in point of a mega-city that is too over-ambitious in its goal to become the financial center of Asia. It embarked on gigantic projects totaling past the $3 Trillion mark from circa 2005 through 2015, aimed at eventually shoring up its new image as a financial center. As the giant commercial complexes were done, the greater problem was who would be their end-users? Without end-users, no pay-ups for expenses used to fund the projects will accrue to the coffers.
Honestly, I will still need to be convinced that gulf states are truly Asian in their growth propulsion. I see more of the hands of Euro-oligarchs such as George Soros & cronies in building those gigantic projects there, with the Arab investors serving as mere junior partners if not dummies in a growth game with dubious motives.
Gulf states are playing the game of the ‘virtual economy’ or ‘casino economy’ and that is far from being Asian. In contrast, the dragons, tigers and emerging markets are engaged in the ‘real economy’ of manufacturing, infrastructures, agriculture, and transport industries, backed by solid science & technology innovations, rendering them the label of ‘truly’ Asian.
If there is any urgent message I’d send to the said Arab state, it is this one: dis-engage willfully from the encumbrances with Europe’s financier oligarchy, reverse ‘virtual economy’ policies, and move back to the ‘real economy’. With that probably and hopefully the same region will regain its former esteemed image as a growth driver of the global economy, a true Asian region indeed.
[Philippines, 21 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
It’s now past 8 p.m. as I write this piece inside my studio apartment, and my writing is currently accompanied by chill music from Brazil. For this piece let me toss the query: how Asian could the Arab gulf states be?
To begin my reflections, let me share to you a portion of my family history. My mother, a dietician/health professional, decidedly joined the fray of the ‘gulf state fever’ in the early 80s by seeking work in Saudi Arabia’s hospitals. For four (4) years did she work in the kingdom that is so endeared to many overseas Filipinos like her, until she departed for a new destination (USA where she retired).
When she started working there, her purses began to balloon quickly just as Arabia’s oil pumps were gushing out colossal petrodollars like limitless boons from heaven. She gleefully told us of the fat overtime pays she and her staff received, thus enabling her to send us in the Philippines—then a depression-struck ‘sick man of Asia’—quanta of dinars to quaff our thirst for back-up money.
That was the trend, until around 1984 when patterns suddenly changed. Mother began to complain of working overtime with no extra (overtime) compensation, and until 1986 when she quit Arabia for America no more extra boons came via the overtime pay. Something awefully wrong was going on in the gulf states and not just in Saudi Arabia, this was for sure.
The gulf states as a whole comprised a region that was considerably a growth driver of the global economy for a time until approximately the mid-1980s. At that time, it had so much petrodollars stashed in Western banks and investment houses that it needed for its internal growth, but such growth was choked up by fluctuations in the oil demand globally.
Before long, Asia’s ‘dragons’ and ‘tiger economies’ caught up with the gulf states. As the former kept surging upwards, the latter fluctuated between stagnation and paltry growth. India and emerging markets of Asia were recently added to the list of growth drivers of the world, while the gulf states are mired in a rather delusional self-image of growth driver that is more a thing of the past.
The word ‘Asia’ today has become synonymous with ‘growth driver’. But let it be clarified that the gulf states just don’t fit well into this growth category. For sure, their diversification of dynamic sectors from oil to manufacturing, infrastructures and services have paid quite fatly for them but only for them and not for the planet as a whole.
The gulf states are now quite prepared for the eventuality of drying up of its oil reserves. They are likewise in sync with the rise of mega-cities that the dragons, tigers and emerging markets have began snowballing, capped by prestige projects of towering buildings notably the Taipei 101 and Petronas towers, with Burj Dubai leading the way for the former. But the same states’ return to the halcyon days of being a global driver is simply a thing of the past.
Dubai is a case in point of a mega-city that is too over-ambitious in its goal to become the financial center of Asia. It embarked on gigantic projects totaling past the $3 Trillion mark from circa 2005 through 2015, aimed at eventually shoring up its new image as a financial center. As the giant commercial complexes were done, the greater problem was who would be their end-users? Without end-users, no pay-ups for expenses used to fund the projects will accrue to the coffers.
Honestly, I will still need to be convinced that gulf states are truly Asian in their growth propulsion. I see more of the hands of Euro-oligarchs such as George Soros & cronies in building those gigantic projects there, with the Arab investors serving as mere junior partners if not dummies in a growth game with dubious motives.
Gulf states are playing the game of the ‘virtual economy’ or ‘casino economy’ and that is far from being Asian. In contrast, the dragons, tigers and emerging markets are engaged in the ‘real economy’ of manufacturing, infrastructures, agriculture, and transport industries, backed by solid science & technology innovations, rendering them the label of ‘truly’ Asian.
If there is any urgent message I’d send to the said Arab state, it is this one: dis-engage willfully from the encumbrances with Europe’s financier oligarchy, reverse ‘virtual economy’ policies, and move back to the ‘real economy’. With that probably and hopefully the same region will regain its former esteemed image as a growth driver of the global economy, a true Asian region indeed.
[Philippines, 21 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Monday, July 26, 2010
BRAZIL JETTISONS ECONOMICALLY: KUDOS, SUSTAIN & LEAD!
Erle Frayne D. Argonza
Brazil is now clearly leading the growth path of the entire South America, and this is a most welcome news. I am truly impressed by the developments down south that Brazil had led, and so I extend my kudos to the citizens and development stakeholders of Brazil.
Under the able stewardship of the very popular president Lula, the growth policies of the country were strengthened and sustained. The added feature is that, under a socialist regime, Brazil’s social policy had been further stressed and strengthened, with the hopeful gains of growth distributed more equitably to the poor folks of the cities and countrysides.
As we should all realize, South America isn’t exactly following a growth trend akin to East Asia’s. While Asia generally surges upwards, breathing new life to the global economy, that of South America’s could only count on specific countries (not general trend) jettisoning their ways further upwards. Brazil, Argentina, Chile are the most concrete success stories, while Mexico burns in the embers of an anti-drug war (Mexico sputters in its role as a growth driver).
Among all regions down south (America), it seems that the Brazil-Mercosur promises the greatest hope for the continent. It remains to be seen though how far this can be sustained. Contrast this to Asia, where three regions—Northeast Asia (China-Korea), Southeast Asia (ASEAN), and South Asia (India-led)—are acting as a grand chorale that enchants and enthralls the global economy as a whole.
Brazil, as an emerging market, clearly leads the pack in the whole of the continent, and being large enough by itself, it can jettison ahead and be the equivalent of China-India-ASEAN of the south. Its ‘real economy’ is the base of its growth that enables it to veer away from the anarchic and destructive ‘virtual economy’ policies up north (America).
Such an upward surge should move on till the aerospace program of Brazil will clearly be established as solid rock, thus ensuring the country’s entry as a top producer of affordable satellites for diverse end-users. It can go on and establish, in 25 years’ time, active metallurgical R&D in other planets such as Mars and Jupiter that can be alternative sources of metals for our own planet.
Also, Brazil better lead in creating a continental-looping railway that can accelerate development of the other regions, quicken the movement of skilled peoples and information across borders, and magnify continental trade by many folds. Likewise should Brazil lead in cyber-looping the continent with state-of-the-art infotech cables like what the East is now ambitiously embarking on.
Likewise should Brazil lead in massive energy investments, with clean technologies leading the way. Incidentally, biofuels and other clean energies are now surging upwards in the emerging market, with a policy environment in place that qualitatively is as sterling as East Asia’s (the Philippines has one such policy environment now well built up).
On the other hand, Brazil should better go slow in taming the Amazons with massive energy projects that could sadly kill the indigenous cultures that are among the country’s top endowments. Furthermore, in no way should the Amazon jungles’ diverse species be terminated for the sake of producing power, mineral resources, timber, and heavy industries for the country and its trading partners.
The world is watching Brazil mutate into a gigantic pillar of the global economy, we in Asia are surely watching with awe, and such a rise of a giant will ensure that the imperialist power up north will tone down its hegemonic attitudes towards the southern continent in the short run. The USA should better choose the path of cooperation with the south if it desires to remain relevant at all, as its own economy slides down a 3rd world level notwithstanding the continuous ‘virtual economy’ predation of its industries, agriculture, and infrastructures.
Surging upwards under a series of conscienticized and enlightened leaders, Brazil will continue to come on as sweet and enchanting as samba and bossa nova. To celebrate Brazil’s victories, we better chill out with Brazilian music & dance while we relish Brazilian cuisine in a spirit of peace and cooperation worldwide.
[Philippines, 21 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Brazil is now clearly leading the growth path of the entire South America, and this is a most welcome news. I am truly impressed by the developments down south that Brazil had led, and so I extend my kudos to the citizens and development stakeholders of Brazil.
Under the able stewardship of the very popular president Lula, the growth policies of the country were strengthened and sustained. The added feature is that, under a socialist regime, Brazil’s social policy had been further stressed and strengthened, with the hopeful gains of growth distributed more equitably to the poor folks of the cities and countrysides.
As we should all realize, South America isn’t exactly following a growth trend akin to East Asia’s. While Asia generally surges upwards, breathing new life to the global economy, that of South America’s could only count on specific countries (not general trend) jettisoning their ways further upwards. Brazil, Argentina, Chile are the most concrete success stories, while Mexico burns in the embers of an anti-drug war (Mexico sputters in its role as a growth driver).
Among all regions down south (America), it seems that the Brazil-Mercosur promises the greatest hope for the continent. It remains to be seen though how far this can be sustained. Contrast this to Asia, where three regions—Northeast Asia (China-Korea), Southeast Asia (ASEAN), and South Asia (India-led)—are acting as a grand chorale that enchants and enthralls the global economy as a whole.
Brazil, as an emerging market, clearly leads the pack in the whole of the continent, and being large enough by itself, it can jettison ahead and be the equivalent of China-India-ASEAN of the south. Its ‘real economy’ is the base of its growth that enables it to veer away from the anarchic and destructive ‘virtual economy’ policies up north (America).
Such an upward surge should move on till the aerospace program of Brazil will clearly be established as solid rock, thus ensuring the country’s entry as a top producer of affordable satellites for diverse end-users. It can go on and establish, in 25 years’ time, active metallurgical R&D in other planets such as Mars and Jupiter that can be alternative sources of metals for our own planet.
Also, Brazil better lead in creating a continental-looping railway that can accelerate development of the other regions, quicken the movement of skilled peoples and information across borders, and magnify continental trade by many folds. Likewise should Brazil lead in cyber-looping the continent with state-of-the-art infotech cables like what the East is now ambitiously embarking on.
Likewise should Brazil lead in massive energy investments, with clean technologies leading the way. Incidentally, biofuels and other clean energies are now surging upwards in the emerging market, with a policy environment in place that qualitatively is as sterling as East Asia’s (the Philippines has one such policy environment now well built up).
On the other hand, Brazil should better go slow in taming the Amazons with massive energy projects that could sadly kill the indigenous cultures that are among the country’s top endowments. Furthermore, in no way should the Amazon jungles’ diverse species be terminated for the sake of producing power, mineral resources, timber, and heavy industries for the country and its trading partners.
The world is watching Brazil mutate into a gigantic pillar of the global economy, we in Asia are surely watching with awe, and such a rise of a giant will ensure that the imperialist power up north will tone down its hegemonic attitudes towards the southern continent in the short run. The USA should better choose the path of cooperation with the south if it desires to remain relevant at all, as its own economy slides down a 3rd world level notwithstanding the continuous ‘virtual economy’ predation of its industries, agriculture, and infrastructures.
Surging upwards under a series of conscienticized and enlightened leaders, Brazil will continue to come on as sweet and enchanting as samba and bossa nova. To celebrate Brazil’s victories, we better chill out with Brazilian music & dance while we relish Brazilian cuisine in a spirit of peace and cooperation worldwide.
[Philippines, 21 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Friday, July 23, 2010
EUROPE & AMERICA ON DOWNWARD SLIDE TO 3RD WORLD ECONOMIES
Erle Frayne D. Argonza
Magandang gabi! Good evening!
It’s dusk time as I write, and this dusk at a time of intensifying monsoon rains seems to bode images of a grim future for the West at large. The European Union or EU members and the USA, the gigantic pillars of the global economy, are particularly in dire straits as they have entered the zone of flat growth and perpetual recession.
As already tackled by me in diverse articles, the East is surging forward bringing life to the global economy as a whole. In contrast, the West is spiraling downwards, and the strategies their stakeholders are putting into place to arrest the downslide are at best palliative. As the East continues to surge upward, the West continues to stagnate and decay.
After World War II, both Europe and America embarked on massive infrastructures and heated industrialization that saw both economies dominating the global economy’s wealth production. The result of that was an OECD producing 60% of Gross World Product or GWP for some decades (today that’s down to 40% of GWP and will still go down).
That was the situation back then. By the 1990s, the situation had been badly reversed as a result of liberal economic policies instituted in the previous decade (80s). The rise of a ‘virtual economy’ dominated by predatory finance was instrumental in the West’s massive de-industrialization, decay of relatively unattended infrastructures, decline in science & technology research, and neglect of the transport sector (only Japan & Germany were actively pursuing maglev railways).
By the early 1990s yet, certain experts among economists and sociologists in America began echoing alarming notes about the possible downslide of the USA into a 3rd world country should the economic decay, such as that of relatively unattended infrastructures, be allowed to continue till past 2010s.
In the late 1990s, my own circle of political economists in Manila (Sunday Kapihan/Independent Review) saw such a possibility ourselves as we consolidated the data made available to us thanks to the internet. By 1998 all fellows of our circle were convinced of the catastrophic direction that the USA and Europe were plunging themselves into, which could begin with a depression past 2005 and a thirdworldization by 2010s (both have been hit by recession this decade as a matter of fact).
When Katrina struck the USA and when those floods struck Europe just a few years back, and the same free market policies stubbornly remained in place, I knew the downslide would turn out to be irreversible. The fate of New Orleans, with its residents lining up for food akin to a depressed city, revealed an appallingly decayed 3rd world city inside the USA which, to my mind, is but a fractional tip of a gigantic iceberg that are America’s decaying cities on the way to 3rd world infamy.
If, for instance, just about 55% of the top 700 cities of the USA will be so badly decayed by 2015 and be declared as 3rd world or ‘developing cities’, then we know more or less that America had catastrophically seen its worst state. With 97% of U.S. population living in cities (urban), likewise will the whole of the USA be declared as a ‘developing economy’ as early as 2015.
That is, again, if the destructive ‘virtual economy’ policies will not be taken down and reversed sweepingly. As I’ve declared in previous articles before (when Obama was still campaigning for the presidency), America must quickly return to a New Deal-type policy regime: interventionist, with great stress on revivifying infrastructures, revitalizing transport R&D (railways, shipping, etc), upscaling science & technology investments (including rockets), returning heavy industries (revive steel and many dead manufactures), and ensuring agricultural productivity.
Europe is not far behind such near-catastrophic downslide of the USA, just to remind our friends in Europe and the globe. Decisively institute interventionist policies in the continent, regulate the financial-banking sectors (criminalize predatory finance), and revivify social policy that were hallmarks of a once strong and mighty European economy.
And there’s no better time to act then now. Failure to act soon, by stubbornly instituting the palliatives (e.g. bailing out failing big banks, semi-regulating stock exchange), will be the best sure-fire formula to see a rapid thirdworldization of the West.
Before long, some messianic mad leaders in both continents would be drum-beating their being “stubbed behind the back” and generate new Hitlers and Bonapartes in their backyards. Act now, Western peoples, to avoid this eventuality from ever taking place at all.
[Philippines, 21 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Magandang gabi! Good evening!
It’s dusk time as I write, and this dusk at a time of intensifying monsoon rains seems to bode images of a grim future for the West at large. The European Union or EU members and the USA, the gigantic pillars of the global economy, are particularly in dire straits as they have entered the zone of flat growth and perpetual recession.
As already tackled by me in diverse articles, the East is surging forward bringing life to the global economy as a whole. In contrast, the West is spiraling downwards, and the strategies their stakeholders are putting into place to arrest the downslide are at best palliative. As the East continues to surge upward, the West continues to stagnate and decay.
After World War II, both Europe and America embarked on massive infrastructures and heated industrialization that saw both economies dominating the global economy’s wealth production. The result of that was an OECD producing 60% of Gross World Product or GWP for some decades (today that’s down to 40% of GWP and will still go down).
That was the situation back then. By the 1990s, the situation had been badly reversed as a result of liberal economic policies instituted in the previous decade (80s). The rise of a ‘virtual economy’ dominated by predatory finance was instrumental in the West’s massive de-industrialization, decay of relatively unattended infrastructures, decline in science & technology research, and neglect of the transport sector (only Japan & Germany were actively pursuing maglev railways).
By the early 1990s yet, certain experts among economists and sociologists in America began echoing alarming notes about the possible downslide of the USA into a 3rd world country should the economic decay, such as that of relatively unattended infrastructures, be allowed to continue till past 2010s.
In the late 1990s, my own circle of political economists in Manila (Sunday Kapihan/Independent Review) saw such a possibility ourselves as we consolidated the data made available to us thanks to the internet. By 1998 all fellows of our circle were convinced of the catastrophic direction that the USA and Europe were plunging themselves into, which could begin with a depression past 2005 and a thirdworldization by 2010s (both have been hit by recession this decade as a matter of fact).
When Katrina struck the USA and when those floods struck Europe just a few years back, and the same free market policies stubbornly remained in place, I knew the downslide would turn out to be irreversible. The fate of New Orleans, with its residents lining up for food akin to a depressed city, revealed an appallingly decayed 3rd world city inside the USA which, to my mind, is but a fractional tip of a gigantic iceberg that are America’s decaying cities on the way to 3rd world infamy.
If, for instance, just about 55% of the top 700 cities of the USA will be so badly decayed by 2015 and be declared as 3rd world or ‘developing cities’, then we know more or less that America had catastrophically seen its worst state. With 97% of U.S. population living in cities (urban), likewise will the whole of the USA be declared as a ‘developing economy’ as early as 2015.
That is, again, if the destructive ‘virtual economy’ policies will not be taken down and reversed sweepingly. As I’ve declared in previous articles before (when Obama was still campaigning for the presidency), America must quickly return to a New Deal-type policy regime: interventionist, with great stress on revivifying infrastructures, revitalizing transport R&D (railways, shipping, etc), upscaling science & technology investments (including rockets), returning heavy industries (revive steel and many dead manufactures), and ensuring agricultural productivity.
Europe is not far behind such near-catastrophic downslide of the USA, just to remind our friends in Europe and the globe. Decisively institute interventionist policies in the continent, regulate the financial-banking sectors (criminalize predatory finance), and revivify social policy that were hallmarks of a once strong and mighty European economy.
And there’s no better time to act then now. Failure to act soon, by stubbornly instituting the palliatives (e.g. bailing out failing big banks, semi-regulating stock exchange), will be the best sure-fire formula to see a rapid thirdworldization of the West.
Before long, some messianic mad leaders in both continents would be drum-beating their being “stubbed behind the back” and generate new Hitlers and Bonapartes in their backyards. Act now, Western peoples, to avoid this eventuality from ever taking place at all.
[Philippines, 21 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
PUNISH BUSH & NEO-CONS FOR WAR CRIMES!
Erle Frayne D. Argonza
A global Establishment has already galvanized before us, just as the global order had been established by the capitalist oligarchy that constitutes this Establishment. The same Establishment has been defining for us who should be punished for war crimes and who should not, and this is truly bothersome for us global citizens.
The likes of Bush, both father and son, who espoused hawkish policies of war and attrition in the guise of America’s role as global policeman, are indubitably war criminals. Yet they roam the world so freely like the wildest monsters that call the shots in a jungle.
I will never forget the Bush father & son, as the war policies they hatched emboldened the hawkish policies of the army of my own country, an army that is a compliant clone of the Pentagon up North. Not only did the peoples of Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, and countries affected by their war policies suffer miserably, my very own Muslim compatriots and countryside folks suffer from the war policies of the neo-cons clone army here.
With displeasure I regard those actuations of Western liberals who condemn the war crimes of the leaders of Sudan and Serbia but who are blind to the very war crimes of the hawkish leaders of their hegemonic countries. For if they indeed are sincere with condemning such war crimes of their leaders, they should by now be prospering in the cases they file at the International Criminal Court versus such criminals.
One would say, “hey the ICC is funded by Soros & cronies, so how can the ICC ever punish the likes of Bush father & son and crony neo-cons who are their colleagues in the global Establishment?” True indeed, the Establishment funds the ICC, and it may prove futile to file cases against their members.
Be that as it may, why don’t the West’s liberals and New Left advocates push through with the filing of war crimes just the same? Whether they file it at the ICC or in their own home countries, the challenge of the day is for such cases to be filed most urgently.
Monsters that were responsible for the destruction of nations and genocidal deaths to millions of people, such as what the Bush & crony neo-cons have factually committed, shouldn’t be allowed to roam freely around the planet.
Failure to file such cases can be misconstrued by us Eastern observers as an attempt of White liberals and their colored humanoid clones to cover up for their Establishment sponsors. So to speak, an instance of White intellectual prostitutes paid to kowtow to their own kind, or paid dogs of Establishment masters who can rock the boats provided that they don’t touch their masters who feed them lusciously.
The cycle of mass terminations by the likes of Bush & neo-cons have to cease soon enough. And the Establishment war criminals should be made to pay dearly for their crimes. Just exactly when will such a payment of crime happen, if in case it would happen at all?
[Philippines, 13 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
A global Establishment has already galvanized before us, just as the global order had been established by the capitalist oligarchy that constitutes this Establishment. The same Establishment has been defining for us who should be punished for war crimes and who should not, and this is truly bothersome for us global citizens.
The likes of Bush, both father and son, who espoused hawkish policies of war and attrition in the guise of America’s role as global policeman, are indubitably war criminals. Yet they roam the world so freely like the wildest monsters that call the shots in a jungle.
I will never forget the Bush father & son, as the war policies they hatched emboldened the hawkish policies of the army of my own country, an army that is a compliant clone of the Pentagon up North. Not only did the peoples of Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, and countries affected by their war policies suffer miserably, my very own Muslim compatriots and countryside folks suffer from the war policies of the neo-cons clone army here.
With displeasure I regard those actuations of Western liberals who condemn the war crimes of the leaders of Sudan and Serbia but who are blind to the very war crimes of the hawkish leaders of their hegemonic countries. For if they indeed are sincere with condemning such war crimes of their leaders, they should by now be prospering in the cases they file at the International Criminal Court versus such criminals.
One would say, “hey the ICC is funded by Soros & cronies, so how can the ICC ever punish the likes of Bush father & son and crony neo-cons who are their colleagues in the global Establishment?” True indeed, the Establishment funds the ICC, and it may prove futile to file cases against their members.
Be that as it may, why don’t the West’s liberals and New Left advocates push through with the filing of war crimes just the same? Whether they file it at the ICC or in their own home countries, the challenge of the day is for such cases to be filed most urgently.
Monsters that were responsible for the destruction of nations and genocidal deaths to millions of people, such as what the Bush & crony neo-cons have factually committed, shouldn’t be allowed to roam freely around the planet.
Failure to file such cases can be misconstrued by us Eastern observers as an attempt of White liberals and their colored humanoid clones to cover up for their Establishment sponsors. So to speak, an instance of White intellectual prostitutes paid to kowtow to their own kind, or paid dogs of Establishment masters who can rock the boats provided that they don’t touch their masters who feed them lusciously.
The cycle of mass terminations by the likes of Bush & neo-cons have to cease soon enough. And the Establishment war criminals should be made to pay dearly for their crimes. Just exactly when will such a payment of crime happen, if in case it would happen at all?
[Philippines, 13 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Sunday, July 18, 2010
WEST MARKETS SHRINK, ASIANS’ RISE AND OVERTAKE WEST SOON
Erle Frayne D. Argonza
Good evening from the Pearl of the Orient!
The International Monetary Fund or IMF has been quite bullish lately about Asian growth. It had forecast East Asia’s average growth at past 7% for this year, and shares an equally positive growth trend for RP at 5.5%-6%. Just what could be the implications of the growth trends on the global economy and the West?
As Asia expands, the West (Europe, USA, Canada, Japan) contracts. The trend will not change much over the next five (5) years, so let’s see where the East and West are headed for in the foreseeable future.
In early 2008 yet, the economists and financial analysts of the West (or North) were of the opinion that the technological cutting edge of the West was already breached by Asia by the end of 2007 yet. Remember that 2007 was the beginning of a new cycle of recession for the West which began in the USA with the implosion of the realty bubble.
Given that the Western economies are flat on their back growth-wise, and their toxic bubble economies have given them only virtual economy results (read: inflated values not based on real production but on speculation), there is ample reason to forecast that they will be mired in problems of saving their ailing banks, financial-monetary systems, and providing sovereign guarantees to their capitalists at the expense of taxpayers and infusing investments in the physical economy. This is now matter of fact, as we can clearly see.
Western economies have suffered from the ill effects of continuous de-industrialization for decades, of being remiss in their own infrastructures (USA seems to be the worst in infrastructure decay), and deteriorating investments in science & technology. From being a producer economy, Western economy generally has become a parasitical ‘eater economy’ that stands on no clear foundation other than financial quicksand.
In contrast, the Eastern economies have steadily built their strategic industries across the decades, reinforced their infrastructure expenditures and projects, and invested in science & technology. The Eastern economy generally has therefore been role-playing as ‘producer economy’ worth the emulation of other developing economies worldwide.
Result: by 2007, at the downspin year of a recessionary West, the East overtook the West in terms of cutting-edge technologies. To qualify, the technologies we refer to are those life-inducing technologies, not those death & destruction technologies that the West has clear edge till these days.
I still remember what my nationalist colleagues in the Sunday Kapihan that we then held every Sunday at the Sulo Hotel in Manila: the West knows nothing but perfect its Armaments. Dr. Emmanuel Yap, an economist who finished his PhD at Harvard University, was the most vocal about that emphasis on the death & destruction focus of Western innovations.
To continue, the added forecast that I’d share at this moment is this: from the years 2007 through 2015, Western markets will contract by at least 30%. That means their own consuming public will spend less and less across a 9-year stretch, until the consumption pattern will settle down by 2016 or so. Real GDP (gross domestic product) will radically decline during the period, shrinking by as much as 30%-40% contrasted to their 2006 levels (the last of the best years of the West).
In contrast, the Eastern markets will expand by at least 100% during the period. The giants China and India will go farther than that, with China expanding by as much as 200% during the same period. That means the middle income earners in the East will continue to rise by the year and consume more products by the year, even travel more overseas year by year.
Result: China will clearly overtake the shrunken economies of EU and USA by end of 2015. India may follow suit, at around the years 2020-2025. The last would be ASEAN, which will overtake the West by 2025-2030 period.
Once a region overtakes others technology-wise, it will just be a matter of time before the same innovator region will overtake the rest wealth-wise. Technologies—physical technologies, biotechnologies, social technologies, medical technologies—are precisely the cutting edge practices that will enable one region to overtake others across the globe.
The bad news for the West is this: if their own states and markets will fail to solve their ailing problems in infrastructures and reverse de-industrialization, they will pathetically go down as 3rd world or ‘developing economies’ past 2020. No less than their own economists warned of this possibility in the early 1990s yet, and sadly no one paid attention to them in their own backyards. City after city in the USA and EU will immerse in urban decay, becoming 3rd world cities in the process.
My mother just retired from New York where she migrated since the 80s yet. She decided to come home back to the Philippines, and visited the Libis & Cubao areas of Quezon City/Manila suburb pronto upon her arrival. She was so deeply enchanted by the esthetic beauty of the architectures and planning in those mixed land use zones, while she complained of the dilapidated buildings and nauseating smells of cinema theatres in downtown Manhattan.
Those observations are signs of the times indeed. In just a year from now, the Pagcor City will rise in Manila, housing the world’s tallest tower. Burj Dubai, Petronas Twin Towers, and Taipei 101 are already similar hallmarks in other Asian cities, signifying the power shift from East to West.
The message is hereby brought to the West’s peoples: shift back from virtual reality to physical reality, from the virtual economy to the real economy. We Asians will help you along the way, as we’ve already been doing through our colossal treasuries investments, direct foreign investments, and quality Asian expatriates in your backyards that have been saving your collapsing economies from rapid decay.
[Philippines, 13 July 2012]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Good evening from the Pearl of the Orient!
The International Monetary Fund or IMF has been quite bullish lately about Asian growth. It had forecast East Asia’s average growth at past 7% for this year, and shares an equally positive growth trend for RP at 5.5%-6%. Just what could be the implications of the growth trends on the global economy and the West?
As Asia expands, the West (Europe, USA, Canada, Japan) contracts. The trend will not change much over the next five (5) years, so let’s see where the East and West are headed for in the foreseeable future.
In early 2008 yet, the economists and financial analysts of the West (or North) were of the opinion that the technological cutting edge of the West was already breached by Asia by the end of 2007 yet. Remember that 2007 was the beginning of a new cycle of recession for the West which began in the USA with the implosion of the realty bubble.
Given that the Western economies are flat on their back growth-wise, and their toxic bubble economies have given them only virtual economy results (read: inflated values not based on real production but on speculation), there is ample reason to forecast that they will be mired in problems of saving their ailing banks, financial-monetary systems, and providing sovereign guarantees to their capitalists at the expense of taxpayers and infusing investments in the physical economy. This is now matter of fact, as we can clearly see.
Western economies have suffered from the ill effects of continuous de-industrialization for decades, of being remiss in their own infrastructures (USA seems to be the worst in infrastructure decay), and deteriorating investments in science & technology. From being a producer economy, Western economy generally has become a parasitical ‘eater economy’ that stands on no clear foundation other than financial quicksand.
In contrast, the Eastern economies have steadily built their strategic industries across the decades, reinforced their infrastructure expenditures and projects, and invested in science & technology. The Eastern economy generally has therefore been role-playing as ‘producer economy’ worth the emulation of other developing economies worldwide.
Result: by 2007, at the downspin year of a recessionary West, the East overtook the West in terms of cutting-edge technologies. To qualify, the technologies we refer to are those life-inducing technologies, not those death & destruction technologies that the West has clear edge till these days.
I still remember what my nationalist colleagues in the Sunday Kapihan that we then held every Sunday at the Sulo Hotel in Manila: the West knows nothing but perfect its Armaments. Dr. Emmanuel Yap, an economist who finished his PhD at Harvard University, was the most vocal about that emphasis on the death & destruction focus of Western innovations.
To continue, the added forecast that I’d share at this moment is this: from the years 2007 through 2015, Western markets will contract by at least 30%. That means their own consuming public will spend less and less across a 9-year stretch, until the consumption pattern will settle down by 2016 or so. Real GDP (gross domestic product) will radically decline during the period, shrinking by as much as 30%-40% contrasted to their 2006 levels (the last of the best years of the West).
In contrast, the Eastern markets will expand by at least 100% during the period. The giants China and India will go farther than that, with China expanding by as much as 200% during the same period. That means the middle income earners in the East will continue to rise by the year and consume more products by the year, even travel more overseas year by year.
Result: China will clearly overtake the shrunken economies of EU and USA by end of 2015. India may follow suit, at around the years 2020-2025. The last would be ASEAN, which will overtake the West by 2025-2030 period.
Once a region overtakes others technology-wise, it will just be a matter of time before the same innovator region will overtake the rest wealth-wise. Technologies—physical technologies, biotechnologies, social technologies, medical technologies—are precisely the cutting edge practices that will enable one region to overtake others across the globe.
The bad news for the West is this: if their own states and markets will fail to solve their ailing problems in infrastructures and reverse de-industrialization, they will pathetically go down as 3rd world or ‘developing economies’ past 2020. No less than their own economists warned of this possibility in the early 1990s yet, and sadly no one paid attention to them in their own backyards. City after city in the USA and EU will immerse in urban decay, becoming 3rd world cities in the process.
My mother just retired from New York where she migrated since the 80s yet. She decided to come home back to the Philippines, and visited the Libis & Cubao areas of Quezon City/Manila suburb pronto upon her arrival. She was so deeply enchanted by the esthetic beauty of the architectures and planning in those mixed land use zones, while she complained of the dilapidated buildings and nauseating smells of cinema theatres in downtown Manhattan.
Those observations are signs of the times indeed. In just a year from now, the Pagcor City will rise in Manila, housing the world’s tallest tower. Burj Dubai, Petronas Twin Towers, and Taipei 101 are already similar hallmarks in other Asian cities, signifying the power shift from East to West.
The message is hereby brought to the West’s peoples: shift back from virtual reality to physical reality, from the virtual economy to the real economy. We Asians will help you along the way, as we’ve already been doing through our colossal treasuries investments, direct foreign investments, and quality Asian expatriates in your backyards that have been saving your collapsing economies from rapid decay.
[Philippines, 13 July 2012]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Friday, July 16, 2010
APPRECIATING PARK CHUNG HEE
Erle Frayne D. Argonza
Magandang araw! Good day!
For so long now did I harbor an admiration for certain leaders of the South, one of whom is the late Park Chung Hee of South Korea. Among the most admirable of developmentalist Asian leaders, I nurtured wishful thoughts that hopefully we can have the equivalent of Park Chung Hee for many developing economies so as to accelerate the graduation towards prosperity.
His governance style was authoritarian, which I surmise worked well for demonstrating political will in pushing through reform programs and the industrialization of his poor country. I am no dogmatist who contends that democracy is the only true best governance modality, though to my mind this is the most fit for my country the Philippines that has failed in attaining a mature developed economy via the martial law route.
South Korea was so poor as its economy was wrecked by two great wars, World War II and the Korean civil war. Right after the truce with the North, South Korea experienced the additional misfortune of selecting a corrupt leadership under Shingman Rhee which proved costly to the fledgeling nation.
Pushing through first of all with agrarian reform, by enticing the chaebols (big landlords) to divest in land and invest instead in manufacturing concerns, just couldn’t make a headway under that corrupt regime. And so it has to take the iron hands of a developmentalist authoritarian regime, under President Park, to rectify the malady and propel South Korea towards industrialization.
President Park thus enticed the chaebols to establish the strategic or heavy industries of the nation, with the state providing sovereign guarantees to their installation. The caveat was: the state will help the chaebols enable their newly owned industries and accumulate gains, but in no way should they engage in investments outside of Korea.
In an interview before with Dr. Antonio Arrizabal, former science & technology secretary and foremost expert on steel industry in the Philippines, he revealed that Park was forewarned by the Americans not to push through with the heavy industries. The first salvo of retaliatory measure was the American elites was the blockage of financing for the big projects.
Unwavering in his decision to pursue heavy industrialization, including the installation of steel and shipbuilding industries, President Park instead diversified the financing source. He turned to Japan for alternative financing, which the latter acceded to. The rise of Pohang Steel Works (once the world’s biggest steel producer) and Hyundai are clear testaments of the success of the industrialization program under the stewardship of President Park.
Very clearly, Park pursued a nationalist economic development policy regime for his country, using interventionist measures as well as capital controls. As shown by the experiences of other countries that have industrialized, state intervention and capital controls were necessary measures to propel their respective countries to industrial prosperity. Attendant social policies led to the creation of a huge middle class in the same countries, thus ensuring a steady and strong domestic market (consumption) for the manufactured goods of the country.
Park knew his economic lessons very well, and he coupled his vision with the determination and zeal to build a prosperous South Korea and a huge domestic market in the long run. And he was undaunted by external threats by the main imperialist power, the USA, of retaliatory attacks for establishing industries that would later compete with America’s and Western powers’ articles of manufactures.
For his deep patriotism and nationalism, he lost his life eventually. Inside the Korean government was a puppet of the Americans—the very chief of the Korean intelligence body (KCIA)—who snuffed off President Park’s life with a bullet.
I wish that the young Koreans and youth across the world today, who would become leaders in their own countries some day, would re-study the exemplar from Asia in the person of Park Chung Hee. No matter what threats may come from vested interests aimed at retarding the development of their respective country, they should go ahead just the same and stand pat on their wise judgement and decision to pursue highly ambitious yet doable and noble goals for their country.
Be ready to become martyrs for the cause of liberating your own country and people from poverty. For after you’re gone, there will be other patriots who will carry own your cause and bring your sublime vision to fruition.
[Philippines, 10 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Magandang araw! Good day!
For so long now did I harbor an admiration for certain leaders of the South, one of whom is the late Park Chung Hee of South Korea. Among the most admirable of developmentalist Asian leaders, I nurtured wishful thoughts that hopefully we can have the equivalent of Park Chung Hee for many developing economies so as to accelerate the graduation towards prosperity.
His governance style was authoritarian, which I surmise worked well for demonstrating political will in pushing through reform programs and the industrialization of his poor country. I am no dogmatist who contends that democracy is the only true best governance modality, though to my mind this is the most fit for my country the Philippines that has failed in attaining a mature developed economy via the martial law route.
South Korea was so poor as its economy was wrecked by two great wars, World War II and the Korean civil war. Right after the truce with the North, South Korea experienced the additional misfortune of selecting a corrupt leadership under Shingman Rhee which proved costly to the fledgeling nation.
Pushing through first of all with agrarian reform, by enticing the chaebols (big landlords) to divest in land and invest instead in manufacturing concerns, just couldn’t make a headway under that corrupt regime. And so it has to take the iron hands of a developmentalist authoritarian regime, under President Park, to rectify the malady and propel South Korea towards industrialization.
President Park thus enticed the chaebols to establish the strategic or heavy industries of the nation, with the state providing sovereign guarantees to their installation. The caveat was: the state will help the chaebols enable their newly owned industries and accumulate gains, but in no way should they engage in investments outside of Korea.
In an interview before with Dr. Antonio Arrizabal, former science & technology secretary and foremost expert on steel industry in the Philippines, he revealed that Park was forewarned by the Americans not to push through with the heavy industries. The first salvo of retaliatory measure was the American elites was the blockage of financing for the big projects.
Unwavering in his decision to pursue heavy industrialization, including the installation of steel and shipbuilding industries, President Park instead diversified the financing source. He turned to Japan for alternative financing, which the latter acceded to. The rise of Pohang Steel Works (once the world’s biggest steel producer) and Hyundai are clear testaments of the success of the industrialization program under the stewardship of President Park.
Very clearly, Park pursued a nationalist economic development policy regime for his country, using interventionist measures as well as capital controls. As shown by the experiences of other countries that have industrialized, state intervention and capital controls were necessary measures to propel their respective countries to industrial prosperity. Attendant social policies led to the creation of a huge middle class in the same countries, thus ensuring a steady and strong domestic market (consumption) for the manufactured goods of the country.
Park knew his economic lessons very well, and he coupled his vision with the determination and zeal to build a prosperous South Korea and a huge domestic market in the long run. And he was undaunted by external threats by the main imperialist power, the USA, of retaliatory attacks for establishing industries that would later compete with America’s and Western powers’ articles of manufactures.
For his deep patriotism and nationalism, he lost his life eventually. Inside the Korean government was a puppet of the Americans—the very chief of the Korean intelligence body (KCIA)—who snuffed off President Park’s life with a bullet.
I wish that the young Koreans and youth across the world today, who would become leaders in their own countries some day, would re-study the exemplar from Asia in the person of Park Chung Hee. No matter what threats may come from vested interests aimed at retarding the development of their respective country, they should go ahead just the same and stand pat on their wise judgement and decision to pursue highly ambitious yet doable and noble goals for their country.
Be ready to become martyrs for the cause of liberating your own country and people from poverty. For after you’re gone, there will be other patriots who will carry own your cause and bring your sublime vision to fruition.
[Philippines, 10 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
RP’S FOREX RESERVES AT ALL-TIME HIGH
Erle Frayne D. Argonza
Magandang gabi! Good evening!
It’s almost bedtime as I write this piece. I am currently listening to world music as I keep my fingers busy on my laptop, even as I am in a celebratory or positive mood after a nice productive day.
Let me genuflect on the reported all-time high gross international reserves or GIR by our central bank here. The latest figure is $48.8 Billion, which is sufficient to purchase ten (10) months worth of imports or so. The GIR has been largely shored up by upscaling exports and continuing high inflows of overseas remittances.
Such a figure would correct my earlier claim of $45 Billion+ in my previous essays on RP development updates. The errata was unintended, as I do have some memory slips sometimes (my figure is applicable to early 2009 yet).
I do appreciate very well the level of GIR of my beloved Philippines. We have always been financially struggling due to our perennial low forex for over five (5) decades since after our 1946 independence (from the USA’s colonial yoke). GIR levels have since been moving up at the turn of the century and millennium, indicative of a relatively healthy macro-economy that can withstand new recessionary rounds to come.
The country’s GIR is in keeping with the east Asian region’s healthy levels of GIR as a whole. This is good news altogether. Contrast our situation with those of the western countries’ more so the USA whose GIR can buy less than a month worth of imports or so.
The only cautionary note that I can make about the matter is that our GIR is largely made up of US dollars. An unsolicited advice to our monetary authorities is for us to adopt a ‘basket of currencies’ policy for our GIR.
The over-concentration on the dollar will make our monetary situation burn in the short-run should the forecast decline of the dollar take place in the financial markets. East Asia should by now carve out contingency measures to deal with the massive dumping of dollars that can happen in case that financial volatilities will lead to the forecast event.
Just the same, let me toast a glass of wine to my compatriots, both overseas and domestic Pinoys, for the latest feat of GIR ascent.
[Philippines, 09 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Magandang gabi! Good evening!
It’s almost bedtime as I write this piece. I am currently listening to world music as I keep my fingers busy on my laptop, even as I am in a celebratory or positive mood after a nice productive day.
Let me genuflect on the reported all-time high gross international reserves or GIR by our central bank here. The latest figure is $48.8 Billion, which is sufficient to purchase ten (10) months worth of imports or so. The GIR has been largely shored up by upscaling exports and continuing high inflows of overseas remittances.
Such a figure would correct my earlier claim of $45 Billion+ in my previous essays on RP development updates. The errata was unintended, as I do have some memory slips sometimes (my figure is applicable to early 2009 yet).
I do appreciate very well the level of GIR of my beloved Philippines. We have always been financially struggling due to our perennial low forex for over five (5) decades since after our 1946 independence (from the USA’s colonial yoke). GIR levels have since been moving up at the turn of the century and millennium, indicative of a relatively healthy macro-economy that can withstand new recessionary rounds to come.
The country’s GIR is in keeping with the east Asian region’s healthy levels of GIR as a whole. This is good news altogether. Contrast our situation with those of the western countries’ more so the USA whose GIR can buy less than a month worth of imports or so.
The only cautionary note that I can make about the matter is that our GIR is largely made up of US dollars. An unsolicited advice to our monetary authorities is for us to adopt a ‘basket of currencies’ policy for our GIR.
The over-concentration on the dollar will make our monetary situation burn in the short-run should the forecast decline of the dollar take place in the financial markets. East Asia should by now carve out contingency measures to deal with the massive dumping of dollars that can happen in case that financial volatilities will lead to the forecast event.
Just the same, let me toast a glass of wine to my compatriots, both overseas and domestic Pinoys, for the latest feat of GIR ascent.
[Philippines, 09 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Monday, July 12, 2010
WAR RUMBLINGS IN KOREA ARE A DUD!
Erle Frayne D. Argonza
As we get filled electrified with the euphoria of the world soccer games, the Koreans’ dread over a possible war among brothers has been on the uptrend. Let’s just hope that the world cup season has relaxed the rather tense nerves of the Koreans and Japanese as well who rabidly dread Bombs from North Korea.
In case that one isn’t familiar with the realpolitik of the intra-Korean conflict (between Northern and Southern sibling Koreans), the situation has been markedly tense owing to the hawkish attitude of the leaders up North. The hardliners (extremists) have been on the initiative there, owing to the hardline attitude of America towards them during the Bush years.
Getting back the Northern hardliners to relax their warmongering is now a ‘too-late-the-hero’ situation. Not even if America’s leadership had swung from hardliner to moderate after the demise of the Republicans and the neo-conservatives with Obama’s installation to power.
On the other hand, to contend that the North’s hardliners would choose to declare war for mere irrational justification hardly merits our attention. The actuations of the North, no matter if they appear as warmongering (such as the sinking of a South Korean battle ship), is largely intended to gain points in the bargaining tables.
The hardliners wish to gain mileage, and that mileage doesn’t necessarily mean invasion mileage measured in terms of square miles of Japan and South Korea that they can occupy. That’s utter non-sense.
The mileages expected are: (a) media/information points, for being continuously projected in international news; (b) millions of dollars of cash, paid by wealthy neighbors & America for keeping the military machine well oiled and for buying some foods & medicines for poor folks; and, (c) testing the international waters for some possible relaxation of bellicose attitudes by other states (via the UN).
It’s like a North bulldog barked so loud and threatened to bite, with some of its saliva reaching the South and the seas. But the dog won’t bite, rest assured.
The agenda of Korean unification is still the most palatable option for both Koreas, and I’m sure the North’s leaders are ever watchful of cracks in the iron parchment that can yield them greater leverages in the unification efforts. They have the Bomb with them, while the South has the Bread.
Both parties have the leveraging incentives to bargain on a quid pro quo basis, just to stress the point matter-of-factly. It is the external powers that are bent on muddling the political waters and searching for ways for the conflict to escalate, so that the Anglo-European financiers can again gain colossal trillions worth of looted monies in the derivatives and portfolio markets on account of the unstable conditions in the Koreas.
And it seems the Japanese are the ones most vulnerable to the machinations of the Western financier oligarchs. If a North Korea-Japan war will shape up so suddenly, I will not find the event as surprising at all. Such a scenario is what the financier oligarchs wish and no less, blame the Japanese for choosing to be blind to such dirty machinations.
So, fellows on Earth, let’s keep our calm and trust the rational minds in the Koreas to solve their problems through their own efforts. Let’s trust the Koreans they can be civil towards each other till their own unification will materialize.
[Philippines, 05 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
As we get filled electrified with the euphoria of the world soccer games, the Koreans’ dread over a possible war among brothers has been on the uptrend. Let’s just hope that the world cup season has relaxed the rather tense nerves of the Koreans and Japanese as well who rabidly dread Bombs from North Korea.
In case that one isn’t familiar with the realpolitik of the intra-Korean conflict (between Northern and Southern sibling Koreans), the situation has been markedly tense owing to the hawkish attitude of the leaders up North. The hardliners (extremists) have been on the initiative there, owing to the hardline attitude of America towards them during the Bush years.
Getting back the Northern hardliners to relax their warmongering is now a ‘too-late-the-hero’ situation. Not even if America’s leadership had swung from hardliner to moderate after the demise of the Republicans and the neo-conservatives with Obama’s installation to power.
On the other hand, to contend that the North’s hardliners would choose to declare war for mere irrational justification hardly merits our attention. The actuations of the North, no matter if they appear as warmongering (such as the sinking of a South Korean battle ship), is largely intended to gain points in the bargaining tables.
The hardliners wish to gain mileage, and that mileage doesn’t necessarily mean invasion mileage measured in terms of square miles of Japan and South Korea that they can occupy. That’s utter non-sense.
The mileages expected are: (a) media/information points, for being continuously projected in international news; (b) millions of dollars of cash, paid by wealthy neighbors & America for keeping the military machine well oiled and for buying some foods & medicines for poor folks; and, (c) testing the international waters for some possible relaxation of bellicose attitudes by other states (via the UN).
It’s like a North bulldog barked so loud and threatened to bite, with some of its saliva reaching the South and the seas. But the dog won’t bite, rest assured.
The agenda of Korean unification is still the most palatable option for both Koreas, and I’m sure the North’s leaders are ever watchful of cracks in the iron parchment that can yield them greater leverages in the unification efforts. They have the Bomb with them, while the South has the Bread.
Both parties have the leveraging incentives to bargain on a quid pro quo basis, just to stress the point matter-of-factly. It is the external powers that are bent on muddling the political waters and searching for ways for the conflict to escalate, so that the Anglo-European financiers can again gain colossal trillions worth of looted monies in the derivatives and portfolio markets on account of the unstable conditions in the Koreas.
And it seems the Japanese are the ones most vulnerable to the machinations of the Western financier oligarchs. If a North Korea-Japan war will shape up so suddenly, I will not find the event as surprising at all. Such a scenario is what the financier oligarchs wish and no less, blame the Japanese for choosing to be blind to such dirty machinations.
So, fellows on Earth, let’s keep our calm and trust the rational minds in the Koreas to solve their problems through their own efforts. Let’s trust the Koreans they can be civil towards each other till their own unification will materialize.
[Philippines, 05 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Sunday, July 11, 2010
DEVELOPING WORLDS’ WORLD CUP STAKES
Erle Frayne D. Argonza
Happy World Cup Season to everyone!
The entire planet is glued on the world soccer games at this moment, indicating an ever growing sense of one family sort of planet. We may all experience both euphoria and pain while we watch the events, but one thing is sure about the matter: the World Cup is a banner event that can rally our planetary citizens towards peace and cooperation.
That the present world cup season was held in South Africa, a country of the South (it used to be North when it was White-dominated), signals what could be an emerging phenomenon: of world games being held for consecutive times in the South states. Just like the Olympics, there may never be World Cup up North again or later.
I am myself highly appreciative of the holding of the games in South Africa, enchanted as I am with the magnificent architectural designs of the games’ venues. An unsolicited advice would go for the organizers of the games: “let’s have some more games held in South Africa in the future to maximize the use of those marvelous stadium facilities.”
And, I wish that my own country, the Philippines, can catch up on the soccer fever. We seem to be stuck up here with the love for basketball, thanks but no thanks to our colonization by the U.S.A., which explains the older generations’ luke warm attitude towards the World Cup.
I’m happy at least that the youth of my country has been catching up on the World Soccer hysterics. Around my neighborhood area in the suburban boondocks, soccer watchers scream to the highest heavens at wee hours as a cathartic way of appreciating the games.
How about my continent Asia? Where goes my fellow Asians after the games? How far can Asia forge ahead strong teams that can reach the final rounds at least? Of course, the better it is that at least one Asian team that will “bring home the bacon.” We Asians just can’t be let down by sobs and blues over our poor performing teams, can we?
Overall ratings for developing countries remain to be seen yet. Brazil was already badly mauled as of the latest rounds versus the North countries (trounced by the Dutch). But Brazil has consistently shown enormous firepower in soccer, ditto for its neighbor Argentina.
We peoples of the South can proudly say that, no matter how sluggish our development efforts have been, we can at least out-perform the North soccer-wise. Soccer is an instance where we’re able to ‘level the playing field’ and humiliate neo-Nazi skinheads for misplaced White supremacist arrogance.
The World Cup has been an excellent platform for us peoples of the South to regain our damaged self-esteem—damaged by 500 years of Northern imperialism and enslavement—and recoup lost grace. Instead of avenging our impoverishment by declaring a world war versus our Northern ex-enslavers, let us forge stronger World Soccer teams and overpower them in the playing fields.
What say you, fellows of the South? friends from the North?
[Philippines, 05 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Happy World Cup Season to everyone!
The entire planet is glued on the world soccer games at this moment, indicating an ever growing sense of one family sort of planet. We may all experience both euphoria and pain while we watch the events, but one thing is sure about the matter: the World Cup is a banner event that can rally our planetary citizens towards peace and cooperation.
That the present world cup season was held in South Africa, a country of the South (it used to be North when it was White-dominated), signals what could be an emerging phenomenon: of world games being held for consecutive times in the South states. Just like the Olympics, there may never be World Cup up North again or later.
I am myself highly appreciative of the holding of the games in South Africa, enchanted as I am with the magnificent architectural designs of the games’ venues. An unsolicited advice would go for the organizers of the games: “let’s have some more games held in South Africa in the future to maximize the use of those marvelous stadium facilities.”
And, I wish that my own country, the Philippines, can catch up on the soccer fever. We seem to be stuck up here with the love for basketball, thanks but no thanks to our colonization by the U.S.A., which explains the older generations’ luke warm attitude towards the World Cup.
I’m happy at least that the youth of my country has been catching up on the World Soccer hysterics. Around my neighborhood area in the suburban boondocks, soccer watchers scream to the highest heavens at wee hours as a cathartic way of appreciating the games.
How about my continent Asia? Where goes my fellow Asians after the games? How far can Asia forge ahead strong teams that can reach the final rounds at least? Of course, the better it is that at least one Asian team that will “bring home the bacon.” We Asians just can’t be let down by sobs and blues over our poor performing teams, can we?
Overall ratings for developing countries remain to be seen yet. Brazil was already badly mauled as of the latest rounds versus the North countries (trounced by the Dutch). But Brazil has consistently shown enormous firepower in soccer, ditto for its neighbor Argentina.
We peoples of the South can proudly say that, no matter how sluggish our development efforts have been, we can at least out-perform the North soccer-wise. Soccer is an instance where we’re able to ‘level the playing field’ and humiliate neo-Nazi skinheads for misplaced White supremacist arrogance.
The World Cup has been an excellent platform for us peoples of the South to regain our damaged self-esteem—damaged by 500 years of Northern imperialism and enslavement—and recoup lost grace. Instead of avenging our impoverishment by declaring a world war versus our Northern ex-enslavers, let us forge stronger World Soccer teams and overpower them in the playing fields.
What say you, fellows of the South? friends from the North?
[Philippines, 05 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Sunday, July 04, 2010
LUISITA ESTATE, HACIENDAS: ANACHRONISM IN POST-INDUSTRIALIZING PHILIPPINES
Erle Frayne D. Argonza
Magandang araw! Good day!
It’s the 1st of July, the first day of official reporting by the newly elected political leaders of the country led by President Benigno ‘Noynoy’ Aquino III. Riding astride the air of optimism induced by the new leadership, let me say more notes then about my homeland.
Let me shift to landlordism as this phenomenon seems to have remained unscathed by the ‘scorched earth’ flames of modernization and post-industrial growth. Our newly elected president here, ‘Noynoy’ Aquino, is a scion of the oligarchic family of Cojuancos and is an heir to the 11,000-hectare Luisita Estate in Tarlac province.
I still recall that in the late 1990s, as a graduate student of development studies in De La Salle University-Manila, I underwent the course on constitutionalism and development. I tasked myself to review the constitutions of thirty-five (35) countries, with the aim of unearthing and extracting the theme of agrarian reform from them.
To my amazement, most of the countries I researched on, including Taiwan, Korea, and many developing states, clearly emblazoned in their national charter the theme of agrarian reform. The impeccable intention was to declare land reform as a determinative development policy. The landlords should be enticed to divest from their rural estates and channel their new investments to birthing strategic industries.
I did write a paper on the topic, which my professor, Dr. Wilfrido Villacorta (former undersecretary of ASEAN, delegate to the 1986 Constitutional Convention), appreciated very well. The research also enlightened me more about the urgency of decisively implementing agrarian reform in the Philippines that barely made it to the passing mark of successful land reform programs.
Almost a quarter of a century after the new charter was signed and ratified by our citizens, and after the consequent legislation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law, many large feudal estates still abound. They seem to remain untouched by the law, as if they are autonomous mini-states in a nation that is rapidly urbanizing along mixed industrial and service economy growth trajectory.
Let’s take the case of the Luisita estate. In 2006 yet, the Agrarian Reform department decided that a total of 6,453 of Luisita should be apportioned to the farmworkers. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court blocked the implementation of the decision as it issued a Temporary Restraining Order or TRO that stopped the implementation. A TRO should be in effect only for a maximum of 30 days, yet years have elapsed and it is still in place.
Other large estates are similarly situated as Luisita. For instance, there are the Yulo estate in Laguna and the Pedro Roxas estate in Batangas. I still recall that way back in 1998, I was among consultants who helped agrarian reform beneficiaries of a 500-hectare piece of Roxas estate (out of total 30,000 hectares) in their capacity-building and productivity boosting. The same beneficiaries asked me if I knew anybody from the Agoncillo clan that owned a total of 30,000 hectares of estates…
There are more such huge estates to count. And truly, I am overwhelmed by their gargantuan sizes that are enough to build huge mega-cities such as Singapore or Manila. I could almost puke at the mere mention of their names, and puke much more when I learn about their vast sizes and the slave-driving management styles of their owners that have led to appalling living conditions for the farmworkers.
RP’s population was 66% urban and 34% rural as of end of 2009. Urban population is moving up by 2% every year, while rural population is moving down by the same figure. By 2016, the next presidential election year, urban population will already be at least 80% urban and rural population down to 20%. What are haciendas for in an urban Philippines, one may ask.
Furthermore, RP’s labor force is now past 50% service sector and 15% industrial sector, with barely 34% left to fend for our farms and fisheries. Agriculture now contributes to merely 15% of the GDP, while services comprises a whopping 60% or so (the rest is industries). Tourism, which forms past 10% of GDP today, will most likely surpass agriculture as a contributor to national income by 2016.
Now that brings us back to the question: what are feudal estates doing in an urban-to-suburban Philippines with a rapidly post-industrializing economy? Strange anachronism! All we need to do is follow the footsteps of Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and China to realize that such estates must be released from feudal yokes so as to carve out a win-win growth path between the small planters and their former overlords-turned-entrepreneurs.
When I registered my vote for the ratification of the charter in 1986, I already made up my mind to see that all such estates be transformed to high productivity enclaves beginning with their subjection to the reform program. All the landlords should quickly divest from such landholdings and move their investments in industries and services.
I stand pat on that decision, and will be on standby to help out those agrarian beneficiaries who seek professional help for improving their farm production and quality of life. And I welcome a Philippines that will someday move towards the space age, thanks for a willful departure from an anachronistic feudalism of past dark ages.
[Philippines, 01 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
Magandang araw! Good day!
It’s the 1st of July, the first day of official reporting by the newly elected political leaders of the country led by President Benigno ‘Noynoy’ Aquino III. Riding astride the air of optimism induced by the new leadership, let me say more notes then about my homeland.
Let me shift to landlordism as this phenomenon seems to have remained unscathed by the ‘scorched earth’ flames of modernization and post-industrial growth. Our newly elected president here, ‘Noynoy’ Aquino, is a scion of the oligarchic family of Cojuancos and is an heir to the 11,000-hectare Luisita Estate in Tarlac province.
I still recall that in the late 1990s, as a graduate student of development studies in De La Salle University-Manila, I underwent the course on constitutionalism and development. I tasked myself to review the constitutions of thirty-five (35) countries, with the aim of unearthing and extracting the theme of agrarian reform from them.
To my amazement, most of the countries I researched on, including Taiwan, Korea, and many developing states, clearly emblazoned in their national charter the theme of agrarian reform. The impeccable intention was to declare land reform as a determinative development policy. The landlords should be enticed to divest from their rural estates and channel their new investments to birthing strategic industries.
I did write a paper on the topic, which my professor, Dr. Wilfrido Villacorta (former undersecretary of ASEAN, delegate to the 1986 Constitutional Convention), appreciated very well. The research also enlightened me more about the urgency of decisively implementing agrarian reform in the Philippines that barely made it to the passing mark of successful land reform programs.
Almost a quarter of a century after the new charter was signed and ratified by our citizens, and after the consequent legislation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law, many large feudal estates still abound. They seem to remain untouched by the law, as if they are autonomous mini-states in a nation that is rapidly urbanizing along mixed industrial and service economy growth trajectory.
Let’s take the case of the Luisita estate. In 2006 yet, the Agrarian Reform department decided that a total of 6,453 of Luisita should be apportioned to the farmworkers. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court blocked the implementation of the decision as it issued a Temporary Restraining Order or TRO that stopped the implementation. A TRO should be in effect only for a maximum of 30 days, yet years have elapsed and it is still in place.
Other large estates are similarly situated as Luisita. For instance, there are the Yulo estate in Laguna and the Pedro Roxas estate in Batangas. I still recall that way back in 1998, I was among consultants who helped agrarian reform beneficiaries of a 500-hectare piece of Roxas estate (out of total 30,000 hectares) in their capacity-building and productivity boosting. The same beneficiaries asked me if I knew anybody from the Agoncillo clan that owned a total of 30,000 hectares of estates…
There are more such huge estates to count. And truly, I am overwhelmed by their gargantuan sizes that are enough to build huge mega-cities such as Singapore or Manila. I could almost puke at the mere mention of their names, and puke much more when I learn about their vast sizes and the slave-driving management styles of their owners that have led to appalling living conditions for the farmworkers.
RP’s population was 66% urban and 34% rural as of end of 2009. Urban population is moving up by 2% every year, while rural population is moving down by the same figure. By 2016, the next presidential election year, urban population will already be at least 80% urban and rural population down to 20%. What are haciendas for in an urban Philippines, one may ask.
Furthermore, RP’s labor force is now past 50% service sector and 15% industrial sector, with barely 34% left to fend for our farms and fisheries. Agriculture now contributes to merely 15% of the GDP, while services comprises a whopping 60% or so (the rest is industries). Tourism, which forms past 10% of GDP today, will most likely surpass agriculture as a contributor to national income by 2016.
Now that brings us back to the question: what are feudal estates doing in an urban-to-suburban Philippines with a rapidly post-industrializing economy? Strange anachronism! All we need to do is follow the footsteps of Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and China to realize that such estates must be released from feudal yokes so as to carve out a win-win growth path between the small planters and their former overlords-turned-entrepreneurs.
When I registered my vote for the ratification of the charter in 1986, I already made up my mind to see that all such estates be transformed to high productivity enclaves beginning with their subjection to the reform program. All the landlords should quickly divest from such landholdings and move their investments in industries and services.
I stand pat on that decision, and will be on standby to help out those agrarian beneficiaries who seek professional help for improving their farm production and quality of life. And I welcome a Philippines that will someday move towards the space age, thanks for a willful departure from an anachronistic feudalism of past dark ages.
[Philippines, 01 July 2010]
[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]
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