Hillary Clinton keeps saying it : "I am not a candidate for 2012." Meanwhile, 60% of Democratic voters would prefer her over President Obama and an independent committee has been formed to try to corner her into becoming a candidate.
In France, the Prime Minister, François Fillon, is outpolling President Sarkozy for 2012 among conservatives and centrists, by about the same margin as Hillary outpolls Obma in the USA. And guess what? Fillon keeps saying he has great respect for President Sarkozy and will support him if he runs in 2012.
Last night, the American talk show host Jay Leno had former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney as a guest and despite all of Leno's efforts, Romney would not say that he is a Republican candidate for the 2012 US presidential election, even though everybody in America knows he's running.
What has Sarkozy said? Only that he will not serve more than two terms, which is like saying nothing really. Obama's comment usually is along the lines of, "We're too busy with other important matters to worry about 2012."
Who has announced? A French Socialist Party member, Segolene Royal, who ran and was defeated by Sarkozy in 2007. She is given next to zero chance of winning, but she's out ahead of the other 10 or so Socialists who would like to have their party's nod. And, oh yes, the Socialist everyone adores this month, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who is now president of the IMF and outpolling Sarkozy as well, is dodging reporters' questions like they were plague carriers.
Why all the feinting and parrying? It seems to be built into all politicians with big ambitions. They might be afraid of peaking too soon, and losing an otherwise winnable race. Or, they may still be putting together the massive funding and campaign team national elections require these days. Or, maybe they know that they have a chance of winning, and like the coy young lady, are playing hard to get to make people want them more.
More likely, they are waiting for the first shoe to fall. Being the first candidate is like arriving at the Prom before the band starts to play. It automatically makes you suspect, and therefore, the butt of jokes and sly remarks about everything you say or do or wear. No politician wants that.
So, we're probably condemned to another 6 to 12 months of denials and non-answers before we get a look at the 2012 presidential election hopefuls in either France or America.
But, my guess is that when the fog clears, Mr. Sarkozy and Mr. Obama will be out in front and hard to beat, as incumbents always are. So, the pretenders to the French and American thrones better get their money and team whipped into shape, because it's going to be a rough hill to climb.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Thursday, December 2, 2010
The Football World Cup
I have nothing against either
As for 2022,
So,
If that sounds cynical, it is meant to. We have long watched the spectacle of Mr. Blatter, whose FIFA executives have recently been accused of bribe-taking and other corrupt acts, preaching to the world about how it ought to behave and what football means. He's not elected popularly, and he certainly has no humanitarian mandate to save the world. One is tempted to say, thank goodness, because his record to date is mightily unimpressive.
If you doubt that, reflect on the recent Brazilian army attack, including armored vehicles, on drug gangs and hideouts in an effort to clean up one of the world's most dangerous cities,
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Snow Is Falling All Over Europe While Wikileaks Sings
It's snowing just about everywhere in Europe and has been since yesterday. Roads are impassable, autoroutes are closed to truck traffic and most news programs are focused on cleaning up the white stuff, providing shelter for the homeless and giving us pretty photos of villages in the snow. Colmar in the French Alsace region, where there is a famous Christmas Market that's more than 500 years old, had snow the day after it opened and the TV shots looked like a winter fairytale. Even London is covered with snow, something that doesn't happen very often.
Here on Lac Leman it started to snow yesterday about 3 p.m. and it's still snowing 24 hours later. Geneva airport is closed and most schools are not providing bus service. So, children are getting the treat they love - staying home and playing in the snow.
That's not to say that less bucolic things are not also happening.
Interpol has issued an international arrest warrant for the president of Wikileaks. He seems to be in hiding but is busy preparing his next attack on western societies in the form of releases about a large American bank. I watched a Charlie Rose program on Bloomberg last night that had two reporters and a former Clinton security advisor as guest experts. It was surprising that the journalists thought they were performing a public service in summarizing and "putting into context" the diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks. The former Clinton official was more circumspect, saying that no permanent damage had been done but that it would take some time to re-establish the trust other countries had in American diplomacy.
Perhaps the most interesting comment was that the cables, taken as a whole, reflect the fact that America is one of the few countries that says publicly what it says and does privately in diplomatic circles. That is to say, the United States' foreign policy is not one thing for public consumption and another for diplomatic purposes. The obvious opposite was pointed out as the example of Arab states which take a neutral position vis-à-vis terrorism and Iran publicly while supporting the US privately.
I suppose what is now even more clear is that we live in a complex and dangerous world where all states walk a fine line between their own need to survive and their desire for a more sane world order.
Adding to this, as I talked about several blogs ago, is the looming question of nuclear military power in the hands of North Korea and Iran. If the Wikileaks disclosures have done one thing positive, it may be that the world's leaders will now focus even more intently on working together at least semi-publicly to eliminate this doomsday threat that menaces every one of us.
Here on Lac Leman it started to snow yesterday about 3 p.m. and it's still snowing 24 hours later. Geneva airport is closed and most schools are not providing bus service. So, children are getting the treat they love - staying home and playing in the snow.
That's not to say that less bucolic things are not also happening.
Interpol has issued an international arrest warrant for the president of Wikileaks. He seems to be in hiding but is busy preparing his next attack on western societies in the form of releases about a large American bank. I watched a Charlie Rose program on Bloomberg last night that had two reporters and a former Clinton security advisor as guest experts. It was surprising that the journalists thought they were performing a public service in summarizing and "putting into context" the diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks. The former Clinton official was more circumspect, saying that no permanent damage had been done but that it would take some time to re-establish the trust other countries had in American diplomacy.
Perhaps the most interesting comment was that the cables, taken as a whole, reflect the fact that America is one of the few countries that says publicly what it says and does privately in diplomatic circles. That is to say, the United States' foreign policy is not one thing for public consumption and another for diplomatic purposes. The obvious opposite was pointed out as the example of Arab states which take a neutral position vis-à-vis terrorism and Iran publicly while supporting the US privately.
I suppose what is now even more clear is that we live in a complex and dangerous world where all states walk a fine line between their own need to survive and their desire for a more sane world order.
Adding to this, as I talked about several blogs ago, is the looming question of nuclear military power in the hands of North Korea and Iran. If the Wikileaks disclosures have done one thing positive, it may be that the world's leaders will now focus even more intently on working together at least semi-publicly to eliminate this doomsday threat that menaces every one of us.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Saying Something Nice about Germany's Chancellor
I've been pretty hard on Germany and its Chancellor, Angela Merkel, the past few blogs. So, I think it's time to balance the story of the European Union and the Eurozone a little.
Germany had a very strong currency, the Deutsche Mark, before the Euro was created. The DM was in the same league as the then strong US Dollar, the Swiss Franc and the Japanese Yen.
It used its financial and industrial superiority to help the European Union find its way as the Euro was created in 1999. The Eurozone benefitted from Germany's financial market strength and from its determination to keep the European Union going, at a time when many of its member states were considering rejecting the EU's governing document.
It had already partnered with France to bind the wounds caused by World War II and their solidarity made the EU as we know it today, possible. It also made the likelihood of another European war much less likely.
During the same period, in 1990, what was then West Germany agreed to take East Germany back as a fully integrated part of what had been Germany before it was divided during the period after WWII. This "reunification" as it is called by Germans, cost Germany (read that West Germany) billions of DM and Germany is still supporting the former East Germany because its Soviet legacy has made it very difficult to revive its entrepreneurial talents. Today, the unemployment rate in the east of Germany is still approximately double that of the western part of Germany. This effort is still very costly for German taxpayers.
Add to those burdens, the problem of the defaulting Eurozone countries, who either fudged their government accounts in order to meet the fiscal standards needed to get into the Eurozone or lost their way in managing their fiscal house. One can argue that Germany should have done a much better job of due diligence before agreeing to admit Greece or Portugal or Spain or Ireland into the Eurozone, but the euphoria of the new currency that would bind the EU into a real union was an overwhelming temptation for all the countries involved.
Those less-than-honest Eurozone countries have more recently fallen prey to their own fiscal policies and to their banks who, much like the rest of Europe and the USA, bought into the idea that they could buy and sell sliced-up and rebundled pieces of valueless mortgages forever. Granted, their banks were not properly supervised, but neither were the banks in America or the most of Europe.
An exception is France, whose very conservative banking system did not fall so deeply into the same trap and so were not badly hit by the 2008 financial crisis. However, it should be said that France has debt problems for other reasons, namely because it is paying for a social welfare system that is far above its means, and this may yet cause problems unless President Sarkozy can convince French citizens to abandon some of their perks.
Germany could be considered a victim of its success. Success in rebuilding itself after WWII. Success in developing a national conscience that is determined never again to be a cause of war. Success in integrating East Germany into the democratic West after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Success in powering the EU into a commercial prominence built on unity.
Today, it is desperately trying to hold the Eurozone and the European Union together. France is its unfaltering partner in this. And, despite all the negatives and the siren call of some Germans to abandon the EU and the Euro for the comfort of the Deutsche Mark and complete independence, Germany seems determined to win, even at the cost of depleting its treasury in the name of European unity.
Germany had a very strong currency, the Deutsche Mark, before the Euro was created. The DM was in the same league as the then strong US Dollar, the Swiss Franc and the Japanese Yen.
It used its financial and industrial superiority to help the European Union find its way as the Euro was created in 1999. The Eurozone benefitted from Germany's financial market strength and from its determination to keep the European Union going, at a time when many of its member states were considering rejecting the EU's governing document.
It had already partnered with France to bind the wounds caused by World War II and their solidarity made the EU as we know it today, possible. It also made the likelihood of another European war much less likely.
During the same period, in 1990, what was then West Germany agreed to take East Germany back as a fully integrated part of what had been Germany before it was divided during the period after WWII. This "reunification" as it is called by Germans, cost Germany (read that West Germany) billions of DM and Germany is still supporting the former East Germany because its Soviet legacy has made it very difficult to revive its entrepreneurial talents. Today, the unemployment rate in the east of Germany is still approximately double that of the western part of Germany. This effort is still very costly for German taxpayers.
Add to those burdens, the problem of the defaulting Eurozone countries, who either fudged their government accounts in order to meet the fiscal standards needed to get into the Eurozone or lost their way in managing their fiscal house. One can argue that Germany should have done a much better job of due diligence before agreeing to admit Greece or Portugal or Spain or Ireland into the Eurozone, but the euphoria of the new currency that would bind the EU into a real union was an overwhelming temptation for all the countries involved.
Those less-than-honest Eurozone countries have more recently fallen prey to their own fiscal policies and to their banks who, much like the rest of Europe and the USA, bought into the idea that they could buy and sell sliced-up and rebundled pieces of valueless mortgages forever. Granted, their banks were not properly supervised, but neither were the banks in America or the most of Europe.
An exception is France, whose very conservative banking system did not fall so deeply into the same trap and so were not badly hit by the 2008 financial crisis. However, it should be said that France has debt problems for other reasons, namely because it is paying for a social welfare system that is far above its means, and this may yet cause problems unless President Sarkozy can convince French citizens to abandon some of their perks.
Germany could be considered a victim of its success. Success in rebuilding itself after WWII. Success in developing a national conscience that is determined never again to be a cause of war. Success in integrating East Germany into the democratic West after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Success in powering the EU into a commercial prominence built on unity.
Today, it is desperately trying to hold the Eurozone and the European Union together. France is its unfaltering partner in this. And, despite all the negatives and the siren call of some Germans to abandon the EU and the Euro for the comfort of the Deutsche Mark and complete independence, Germany seems determined to win, even at the cost of depleting its treasury in the name of European unity.
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