Vuvuzela

I think vuvuzelas' take the prize as the most irritating innovation, think noise, of the current World Cup.
I suspect there will be a parallel in a Toronto suburb this weekend. The vuvuzela will be Obama's [no doubt erudite] plea for the G8 and G20 to continue stimulating their economies rather than concentrating on getting their fiscal houses in order.

I think this is a lost cause; Germany and the GB have their minds made up and will focus on cost reduction and in the main debt reduction; China, Canada, Brazil, India and Australia didn't suffer as others did and are unlikely to push stimulus programs. Some one, no doubt, will suggest that Europe sell Greece or has already been suggested Greece should sell some of it's islands to middle east oil billionaires.

China having emerged from the crisis in good shape and better spirits will be unlikely to cooperate on anything of real import ... after all they just volunteered to "free" the yuan exchange rate[at least at the 3rd decimal place] but not enough to please anyone other than themselves.

As with Germany, the other major economies of the EU will concentrate on the fiscal issues [or in the case of France give them lip service] so Obama will be singing solo. It's unclear whether additional stimuli makes sense vs the fiscal restraints that others are pursuing.

What is clear is that once again the West will look to the US to be the west's engine of growth despite the reality that we cannot afford it.

Dysfunctional

So Macchrystal is out and Petreus is taking over. It's a sad end to a ~ 30 year military career but necessary to maintain the semblance of civilian control of the military. The comments made to Rolling Stone by the general and his staff were out of order. Having said that, it is also clear that there is dysfunctional relationship among the diplomats, the politicians and the military relative to Afghanistan.

The VP tells new media that "lots of troops" will be leaving next July, Sec Def says it isn't decided yet, the ambassador leaks cables that denigrate Karzai and his administration, Karzai fires 2 senior aides who are close to the Americans. Holbrooke has difficult relationships with everybody and on and on. Obama says he wants unity and on and on. He'd better do more than talk, he'd better bang some heads together. Actually he would be better off firing the ambassador and Holbrooke. But I do not think he will do any more than he has already.

Petreus is probably better equipped to handle the BS this dysfunctional organization creates; he manages upward. Macchrystal is more of an operating manager; he manages downward. He was ill equipped to handle the BS. Probably just too direct.

One wonders if Petreus' price to play was some additional sense of flexibility on Obama's July 2011 withdrawal plans?

Crossing the Rubicon?

Has General Macchrystal crossed his Rubicon with his [and his staffs' comments to Rolling Stone? It may not be as traumatic or as direct as Mac Arthur's defiance of Harry Truman but he has crossed the line on the military's acquiescence to civilian authority and not for the first time.
So Obama has another decision to make.

What makes it doubly difficult is that the General's comments illuminate the apparent dysfunctional relationship that exists and has existed between/among inter alia the US diplomatic leadership, the Afghan leadership and the military leadership.

Whatever Obama does, I trust he will not dither.

But don't hit them too hard

When I was in school I worked weekends as a bartender/waiter at a young peoples watering hole called The Rathskeller [not very original I know]. The owners were nervous about the occasional fight that broke out late at night; their solution was to tell their staff to break up the fights in a unique way...if necessary the staff was to get physical including ... "to hit them but don't hit them hard". I always thought this was a silly idea; it was unlikely to happen in the heat of the moment. I hasten to add that, at 6 foot and 170 pounds I was the baby of the staff and unlikely to do much damage if I hit anybody which I didn't.

The current rules of engagement in Afghanistan with their emphasis on avoiding civilian casualties unfortunately reminds me of the owners admonition. This is a worthwhile objective but can result in greater casualties to our troops. I think force protection must be the primary goal in any such situation.

Children's Hour... redux

It may very well be that BP was negligent in it's management of the drilling of the gulf well... lots of smoke so probably some fire also. There is a little solace for some in that it is abundantly clear the administration and its regulator were also negligible as well as incompetent to wit the shoddy oversight. Congress was its usual bumptious, over the top during the recent hearings.

The losers in all this is we the people. Cleaning up the environmental mess may for the most part be done with BP money. But securing needed regulatory reform and professional upgrading of staff so that regulations are executed and regulators actually perform will subject us to seemingly unending political BS.

In the end, capitalism will be the big loser. There is far too much vitriol in this affair [e.g. the unceasing references to British Petroleum]. The company's conviction before arraignment much less trial by congress must be making business nervous.

No, I don't think Obama is a socialist but he doesn't remotely understand business nor does he try. This and his poor management [the ongoing paralysis by analysis, the belief that the government is the answer and mediocre people selection] are significant weaknesses.

Children's Hour... continued

Well my worse fears about the televised congressional sub committee hearings have come to pass. BP's non-English mother tongued non-executive chairman gets castigated for using the term " small people" to mean the ordinary citizen... horrors! Haywood is excoriated for saying BP is undecided as to which one or more of several technical areas [which he enumerated] caused the rupture and explosion 60 days after the event. This is from a government still investigating 2 year old financial crisis events. Its the usual theater.

BP finally put an American in charge of the spill investigation/response leaving Haywood to run the business, that's long overdue. How Waxman, Stupack etc could reasonably expected the BP CEO to be conversant contemporaneously with e mails between technical types many levels down the organization and more ludicrously to have personally intervened in the decision making on the well ignoring the organization structure is not rational.

It is yet unclear how the concerns voiced by technical personnel were settled [or dismissed] by on site operations management and the well completed in the mode it was. That is what is important in this event. Were valid technical concerns ignored by the relevant operating management, if so why? This is the key to determining whether negligence, recklessness etc was involved.

Great noise was made about the boiler plate response plans by all the major drillers being "almost identical" "xeroxed" etc. including references to dead experts and walruses. Lost in the furor was the Exxon Mobil CEO's statement that much of the form and content of the response plan were proscribed by MM Services. Various technical appendices include whatever specifics these plans contain. I am familiar with governments' dictating the content of submissions in essence relegating the individual company response to "filling in the blanks".

In the end, the pitchfork carrying politicians, local citizenry and hallowed 4th estate won the day. The industry looks cavalier, its executives insensitive and uninformed. BP looks the villain without all the pertitent facts being known. Maybe they are the villain, time will tell.