Category Archives: Economics

Culture, Economics, Human Right, Middle East Women, Saudi Arabia

Arabian Lingerie: a Royal Decree on Victoria’s Secret………….

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“She said that in the past she often bought the wrong underwear “because I was sensitive about explaining what I wanted to a man.” A royal decree issued by King Abdullah in June last year over the objections of top clerics gave lingerie shop owners six months to get rid of their male employees and staff their stores with women only. The ban on male staff is to be extended to cosmetics shops from July. “This is an order from the king,” Labour Minister Adel Faqih said. “All preparations are under way to fully implement this decision,” he said, adding that more than 7,300 retail outlets would be affected by the ban on male staff, creating job opportunities for more than 40,000 Saudi women. The labour ministry’s original proposal to allow women to work in lingerie stores sparked a storm of protest from the kingdom’s top clerics three years ago. They issued a fatwa, or religious decree, barring women from any such work………..”

With such ponderous weighty life-or-death national issues at stake, no wonder there is no time for such sully frivolous things like elections, eradicating corruption, and reform. Apparently the princes believe in reform from the bottom up (pun intended) and the real test will be if they allow ladies to sell the shmagh alongside Victoria’s Secret stuff. That would be a threshold. (Shmagh is the red and white Saudi head ghutra as opposed to the pure white that most true Gulfies wear or the many-colored that some Iraqis wear) . The motto ought to be: today the liberation of the lingerie, tomorrow the liberation of the shamgh. Would the regulation royal goatee (aka saksooka) come next?
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arabian Peninsula, Economics, Finance, GCC, Gulf states, Jordan, Persian-American Gulf, Saudi Arabia

Saudi Leadership of GCC: Three Major Failures, Three Strikes but not Out, not yet……..

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The GCC summit of the Gulf states this week again proved the failure of the shaky type of leadership the Saudis have tried to impose. This last summit marks three major “projects” that have failed.

  1. The GCC leaders gave the usual lip service to the ‘latest’ Saudi proposal that they should work toward some form of a political union. Gulf Salafis and Saudi media had been calling for a “confederation” since Bahrain joined the Arab revolutions in February. The leaders decided to start discussions and talks about that in the future, which is the usual way to kill any proposal.

  2. With this Saudi suggestion for a confederation dead on arrival (DOA), the leaders turned their attention briefly to killing another earlier strange Saudi proposal. They quickly killed the earlier Saudi proposal to allow Jordan and Morocco to join the GCC. They agreed to allow some form of limited “partnership” for Jordan and Morocco (I hate to say I told you so, but these people don’t listen to me anymore: that is what I predicted here, more than once). The potentates also voted US$ 5 billion in aid for the two countries to ease any disappointment after raising their hopes with the ill-advised Saudi membership proposal that was a product of fear. That will not exactly entertain the notoriously humorless Jordanians but it should keep the scowls moderate. Besides, Bahrain, and probably the UAE, will continue to import security agents and interrogators (know as torturers in less genteel parlance) from Jordan.

  3. Long before all that, before the Arab uprisings, the GCC quietly shelved the unified currency proposal, although they keep pretending they are still working on it.This is something they have been working on for almost three decades. I knew it would fail simply because they had not done the necessary preliminary work for it. And they do not need it: they tried it at the whim of some ignoramus potentate (you know who I mean).

  • That is three strikes for the Saudis, or three downs and short of a first down (three failures in American-ese).
  • Let’s see what other gems of proposals they will come up with next. Maybe the Saudis’ next proposal should be more modest, something within the capabilities of their bureaucrats. I shall post more on this sometime later.

  • I strongly suspect that any Saudi proposal about anything would not succeed unless they throw a lot of money at it.  Even then the money is no guarantee of success. They are trying feat, but I doubt it will succeed. Fear of Saudi domination, close up and right next door, may be stronger than fear of the Iranian mullahs who are far across the Persian-American Gulf and beyond the American navy.


Cheers
mhg


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Economics, Finance, Iran

Iran TEPIX, NYSE, NASDAQ, Blankfine, Cramer, Cain………..

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“The main index of the Tehran Stock Exchange, TEPIX, has soared to a record high, despite the US-led sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic of Iran. The benchmark index gained 240 points to close at an all-time high of 24,356 on Sunday, IRNA reported. The surge was mostly due to Iran’s copper, steel, and petrochemical industries as investors traded shares worth $36.4 million. The Tehran Stock Exchange, founded in 1967, has been one of the world’s best performing stock markets in recent years and ranked as the best bourse index in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East in 2010 in terms of performance of the main index……….” Press TV (Iran)

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprise. The US economy is still in the doghouse, but the NYSE and Nasdaq have soared in recent weeks. Yet clearly trading on the TEPIX is not exactly very deep. At a daily trade of $36.4 million, Lloyd Blankfine can do more trading than that. Hell, Jim Cramer can do more trading than that. Hell, Hermann Cain can trade that much after he sells his book that he ran for president to promote.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Revolutions, Corruption, Economics, Human Right, Iran, Saudi Arabia

Breathtaking Hypocrisy: the UN and Human Rights Violations, the Prince and Kardashian……….

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“Of the 47 members in the Geneva-based Council, 37 countries voted on Friday for a resolution “strongly condemning the continued widespread, systematic and gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms by the Syrian authorities”. Six countries abstained, while four countries- Russia, Cuba, Ecuador and China- voted against the resolution. The text called for the “main bodies” of the UN to consider a UN report, published on Monday, which found that crimes of humanity had been committed and “take appropriate action”. It also established the new post of a special human rights investigator on Syria………”

I know the Syrian regime is repressive and that its security forces have killed many of its people. It deserves a UN human rights investigator. I know that the Iranian regime is repressive although it does not kill its own people as often as Syria. In fact, the repressive Iranian regime does not kill as many Iranians as the Western powers and Israelis do when they kill scientists and blow up installations inside Iran. If these acts occurred anywhere else the same Western powers would consider these incidents terrorist acts and call the UN Security Council to do something, and it would..
I also know that other Middle East regimes, not all but most of them, daily violate human rights, be it of their own citizens or of foreign laborers. I also know that most Middle East countries, especially Arab regime, expropriate, steal, embezzle, and mismanage the public wealth of their countries. They are veritable kleptocracies.
There have been credible reports that the late Saudi crown prince, Sultan bin Abdulaziz, left a personal fortune of over US$ 250 Billion (yep, with a capital . He didn’t exactly get that wealth by starting and re-inventing Apple or Microsoft. Nor was he a Warren Buffett. Nor was he an international celebrity like Kim Kardashian or Newt Gingrich.
Syria and Iran deserve investigation by international human rights groups, preferably non-government groups, unlike the UN which is a totally government group. Then they would appoint only one or two or three HR investigators for the whole Middle East, including Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Egypt, UAE……… et al.
Remember: Libya under Qaddafi was admitted to the UN Hman Rights Council.
Cheers
mhg


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Afghanistan, Economics, Europe

Floating To Loftier EU Afghan Relations: Trade, Aid, War, and Drugs…………

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“The European Union agreed Monday to negotiate a partnership pact with Afghanistan including counter-terrorism, development and fighting drugs, ahead of the departure of NATO combat troops in 2014. EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels gave the European Commission and EU chief diplomat Catherine Ashton a mandate to negotiate a “Cooperation Agreement on Partnership and Development” with the Afghan government. “There is a need to plan for what happens after transition to Afghan security control in 2014 and the continued involvement and support of the European Union for Afghanistan,” said British Foreign Secretary William Hague. NATO-led combat troops are gradually withdrawing from Afghanistan with the aim of handing Afghan security forces full control of the battle against the Taliban in three years. “The international engagement in Afghanistan is evolving from its focus on security and stabilization towards political and economic cooperation,” EU foreign ministers said in a statement. The EU and its 27 member states provide around one billion euros a year in assistance to Afghanistan…………”

Europe and Afghanistan have an even tighter trade relation: that of drugs. Afghanistan is the major source of drugs to Europe. It is smuggled from Pakistan and Afghanistan and through Iran and Turkey, among other routes. Maybe Catherine Ashton and the Taliban Salafi mullahs will get together and smoke the “peace pipe” from the local poppy, singing Kumbaya as they drift toward loftier heights of Euro-Afghan cooperation.
Cheers
mhg


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Economics, Europe, Finance, U.S. Politics

Deutschland, Deutschland, Über Alles: European Economy, American Economy…………

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“The debt crisis sweeping southern Europe and lapping France is cause for alarm in Washington and Beijing, but not it seems for the rank and file of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party. On the contrary, at a meeting of Merkel’s Christian Democrats the mood among delegates ranged from triumphalism over Germany’s economic strength to complacency about the crisis and blind faith in Berlin’s ability to shield Germany from it. Merkel warned on the first day of the congress Monday that Europe faced what could be its “toughest hour since World War Two.” But her message didn’t register with many of those in the hall or with the German media. Much press coverage focused on domestic issues – the minimum wage, childcare and education………… Unemployment has fallen to its lowest levels since German reunification in 1990 and the smaller “Mittelstand” firms that form the backbone of Europe’s largest economy have strong order backlogs.…….”

That “alles” also includes the United States, speaking of economics. While U.S. corporations have rushed during the past two decades to export more jobs than products, German firms have focused on keeping jobs inside Germany. German government policies have helped. The American corporatist right-wing has been making a lot of noise about patriotism, while facilitating the opposite: the weakening of the Middle Class in favor of corporations. Even Dick Cheney’s beloved Halliburton, beneficial of so many American government contracts moved its headquarters to the Persian-American Gulf, to be near the potentates so beloved by the Cheneys, and for patriotic tax purposes.
Remember all the swooning over the “Japanese model”? I was in graduate school in those days and I remember that it immediately preceded the long stagnation of the Japanese economy. Forget the Japanese model, forget the crazy Tea Party model. Go the German model, but that may require some sort of mass lobotomy for the corporate and political leaders. And who is going to perform that? Will Obamacare cover that (Germany, like all other industrial countries except the United States, has a robust public health system)?
Cheers
mhg


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Culture, Economics, France, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy

French Right and American Right: a Never Requited Love…………….

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“Le Pen, who inherited leadership of the party from her father, has worked to shed the Front’s image as a racist fringe movement and move it more toward the mainstream, even as the French government itself tacks toward the right on immigration. All the same, she seems to be slipping in the polls after several weeks where it looked like she had a good shot at making the second round. It will be interesting to see what other U.S. politicians follow Paul’s lead and take the chance to meet with her. Even if GOP candidates might like her stances of immigration and Islam, they probably won’t see eye-to-eye on economics……….”

American right-wingers get excited about some French rightists, thinking they are of the same ideology of “no regulation, cutting taxes, eliminating the government, giving corporations a free reign”.
Yet the most right-wing French politicians often are to the left of the most liberal Democrat in the United States. Even Nicolas Sarkozy, once touted as a right-winger, is to the left of most Democrats in the US Senate in matters of economic policy, social programs, and especially health care. They are usually anti-immigrant and hostile to their Muslim compatriots, but they have no intention of ever gutting the social programs that the French people have come to enjoy, like retirement and an extensive public health program. In France, as in all of Europe and all industrial countries, health care is considered a human right, as it should be in the US as well. That is why American right-wingers usually keep their distance from their “leftist” French namesakes. That is why this courting will never get anywhere: besides it is unpatriotic and unseemly for a right-wing American Teabagger to be seen hobnobbing with someone with a French accent. It is just a ‘so un-American’ thing to do, possibly even anti-American in some quarters.
Cheers
mhg


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Economics, Iran, U.S. Congress, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy

Ahmadinejad on the U.S. Economy, his American Well-Wishers…….

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“Mr. Ahmadinejad also indulged in a bit of triumphalism. He acknowledged that the West’s “crippling” sanctions against Iran had “worked well.” But he added: “Does Iran face more problems or the United States of America?” He referred to the “collapse” of the American financial system and suggested that Iran’s economy is in better shape. He added that the West will be driven by its weakness to “seek a rapprochement with Iran.” Then the interview was over, and Mr. Ahmadinejad zoomed back from bombast to conciliation. He beamed and told me: “We truly like and love the people of the United States.”………….”

Ahmadinejad was gloating on television yesterday. He rattled off statistics, real data, about the U.S. economy that should worry any American. He talked about unemployment, poverty, widening inequality, public debt, prisoner ratios, and other issues. Of course, he did not care to mention how the Iranian economy and the Iranian people have been doing under his regime.
Like I said, the statistics he rattled off should worry most Americans and not just some. Most of the U. S. economic problems have been self-inflicted, especially the past obsession with “deregulation” and gutting oversight, while more of Iran’s problems are foreign-inflicted. Yet I have no doubt that there are Americans also gloating over some of the same statistics (while denying some of them). Ahmadinejad was trying to get back at the U.S. for imposing tough sanctions on his country. On the other hand, some Americans are no doubt seriously hoping for the hard times to continue, but only until after the elections of 2012.
A twist of fate: Mr. Ahmadinejad knows that the health of the Iranian economy is tied to the health of the U.S. economy, sanctions or no sanctions. He did not and he does not wish the American economy any ill, for his own country’s sake. American policy-makers also know that the health of the world economy is tied to the ability of Iran (as well as others) to produce petroleum, that same crude stuff that U.S. politicians rail about in public and want o “boycott’. They also know that a cessation of Iranian exports will cause prices to skyrocket, but probably help a couple of places like Texas and the Gulf of Mexico operations.
Cheers
mhg


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Economics, Finance, IMF, Iran

Iranian Economy: Maserati Mullahs, Porsche Bazaris, IMF Salafis………….

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“Three decades later, under a leadership that promised the masses greater social and economic equality, such ostentatious displays of disparity have become far more commonplace. …… And how the situation in Iran’s capital compares statistically to any other major city may not be as important as the perception it creates, especially in a society whose rulers still govern in the name of the oppressed. “I know people have the right to enjoy their money,” said Hamid, a 32-year-old accountant. “But when there are many who can’t afford bread and basic necessities in this city, seeing a multimillion-dollar car on the street tells you something is very wrong with our economy.” The source of wealth in Iran, and Tehran in particular, raises a lot of eyebrows. “No one knows where it comes from,” says a graduate student of economics……. Last year, Porsche opened a dealership in Tehran’s western suburbs to great fanfare……Porsche’s successful entry into the Iranian market has encouraged other manufacturers to make similar plans. Roughly a year after Porsche began its operations in the Islamic Republic, an Italian business daily revealed that Maserati, Fiat’s high-end brand, aims to open a dealership through a representative in Tehran next year. ………The Shargh report was quoted widely by media outlets representing every side of the Iranian political spectrum, all echoing concerns about the ungodly gap between rich and poor………..”

Unemployment in Iran is officially in double digits, and the true figures are almost certainly higher than official figures. Poverty and inequality are still as important issues as they were in 1979. The mullahs, having defeated their leftist partners of the Revolution, have failed to solve the main economic issues that created the revolution. The Western sanctions are partly responsible (sanctions always hurt ordinary folks and not the elites they are supposed to hurt, and the Western powers know that). It is wise for the regime to remember that the Arab uprisings this past year were mostly not inspired by God, they were inspired by repression, economic hardships, and flagrant economic disparities among people. Iran nowadays is close to having all three pre-requisites for another uprising, the recent IMF accolades notwithstanding.
(The IMF and the other international financial organizations have a kind of tunnel vision: they see only their models, if they are being followed or not. In that sense they are as zealous as any Salafi. They are probably secret Tea Baggers).
Cheers
mhg


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Economics, Iran

Iran: Softcore Criticism vs. Hardcore Criticism of the Regime……..

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““I do not care about statistics. Every day about 2000 letters and messages are received by our office in which many complain about inflation and other problems,” the grand ayatollah told worshippers at prayers marking Eid ul-Fitr in the shrine city of Qom. As a marja taqlid (a Shia cleric regarded as a source of emulation), Makarem Shirazi also referred to cultural issues and said, “If ethical issues are undermined, the system, Islam, and Quran also suffer damages.” Elsewhere in his speech he called on officials to be open to criticism. “There is constructive criticism among these criticisms.” He added it is not correct to say that everything is good and “close our eyes to realities”…………………..”

The grand ayatollah is being gracious, conceding that people have a right to ‘criticize’ mundane things like inflation, the price of bread, gas, etc. That is normal: they do that all over the Middle East. He will probably be a little less gracious if people get to criticize a bit more hardcore issues, like the unemployment that is in double digits and much higher in truth than official data would indicate. After all, without employment people won’t be able to buy these items about whose prices they complain (like bread, gas, etc). I also suspect the cleric will be even much less gracious if people start doing some hardcore criticism, about silly things like freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and elections. He would be especially pissed off if the decide to criticize the raison d’etre for the whole system. That is a definite no-no all over the region.
Cheers
mhg


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